51 Reply by T J

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Re: beginner experience - grind or no grind?

So ,here's another newbie opinion (me) :
1. The game even in current stage of development can and will catch much attention from new players. I love the features and opportunities. Similarity with Eve is all wellcome here.
2. Grinding is bad - there are alot of grinding MMORPGS already. The only way you may enjoy it - if it's a part of much bigger effort. So here comes my opinion:

Let's stick to the storyline - you are an agent on a hostile planet - you MUST have ORDERS. So new player, entering a game must have a priority long-term orders. For example - examine the natives and build up an economy of his own. The trick is that orders are exactly reflecting players own desires. They not enforce player, but promote, teach and award him.
Some examples:
*Long term order: learn alien technology
  *1st mission - research 2 military (weapon and ammo) and 2 industrial (mining tool, mining charge) topics in knowledgebase.
The player is free in ways to achieve this - he can buy, he can grind, he can ignore.
  *1st mission - get a sample of an alien assault bot
  *1st mission - get a sample of an advanced weapon or weapon booster
  *2nd mission - start a production
and so on

Re: beginner experience - grind or no grind?

Nick Fury wrote:

Basically just a quick rehash of what jack said above. we already have factional drones in that use the arkhe model why not add the factional arkhe as a usable bot.
Bonus's to racial weapons that let you ease into using them over the firearms. The racial armor resists to accustom you to them. and maybe some slightly better fitting abilities. keep it at only 2 guns but with a better racial weapons bonus it would do slightly better. the normal 5% compared to the arkhes 2% for firearms. This gives you a lowercase entry into racial specific robots without the straight jump to the light bot. Could even reward it at the end of a longer chain of tutorial missions or something.

One argument that I have against it is that it's already easy/cheap enough to get into a light mech, you don't really need an intermediate step there.  If you give out a factional Arkhe, maybe you can do it at the end of a (more involved) tutorial instead of making the player buy it . That would also help the fact tha there really isn't a 'hook' to grab players in the early going. Allowing them to do an interesting quest for a bot upgrade might help that along too.

Re: beginner experience - grind or no grind?

I agree with the OP first of all. Here are some thoughts and some things I would like to add myself.

First thing I heard is they are some post that says people have too much NIC (cash) in the first couple of days of gameplay. That might be true but I don't think everyone will have that possibility (thats if the dev don't change the current balance lol).  In anycase what hurts NIC/hour is the amount of items I have in my cargo since I got a combat robot (told this in an older post before). That said I believe I should get more NIC per hour in my opinion. Here is why :

- I want to PvP. pvp requires lots of NIC, it sucks NIC like a wife with your credit card on your payday... hehe.
- for PvE people, better equipment and at the end, better robots. Thus they could do more difficult missions alone or in small groups.

Here is the  beginner experience should be to my eyes: (Remember since I've already told this in an older post, its not my first time playing mmo's)

1. less griding. destroying the same robot with stupid AI over and over is not fun...its work. I play this game to have fun.

2. No story for the missions...nothing. I got a title, the objective and thats it. I don't feel immersion from this game at all. Even from the intro story. This is a big factor to me since I do read the stories and the text...yup I'm that kind of guy.

3. the missions and robots and all that is NPC (enemy and what I can shoot) are not dynamic... I know where are X robot, its all static...well from what I know right now and from a new player perspective, thats another point for fail here. Seriously, why would a faction or enemy stick around the same area for ages being destroyed LOL.

4. The land is beautiful really but its plains, plains plains, ohh a tree..plains plains..oh a mountain. mhhhh, is it that really empty. How about some type of dungeon (arena, area..well you imagine damn it) with lots of different landscape ..I don't know like a huge building that goes underground and in that underground you get into a kind of city which has lots of hallways, huge doors, lots of different heights and stuff. And you don't necessary know whats on the next corner...well might be a stupid idea but I would sure love to go there to discover whats in there thats for sure.

5. I think I've said this before but give more type of items in missions. ammo is good but thats just insulting me. I haven't done all missions but for the ones I've made, its only 20 ammo. Its not even enough for me to load my weapon...a single weapon LOL. Also, sure theres enough missions but from what I've seen myself in my assignment list, there doesn't seem to be enough at my level which I would love to have. so more missions, more versatility in missons.


In all, All i've been doing in my first day is farming a bit to get the hang of killing robots, then doing missions. Damn mission reward sucks...back to farming...seriously..its boring this way. I hate grinding. I rather play wow if I want to grind...

PS: you never have enough missions IMO.

Re: beginner experience - grind or no grind?

Please keep in mind that the bordom is giving money it's value. If money is to easy ppl start using SoJs or any other item that is small and got a fairly low drop chance.

Making earning money fun is the last you want to do in a player driven economy that is using an exchange like market place. (I would like market places over exchanges tho. Market places mean marketeers that can be robbed.)

Ohh, and you want to make insured bots unrefinable (as a lasting effect) or the ratio between refining and insurance payout will be the lower margin for mineral prices.

Re: beginner experience - grind or no grind?

The problem here is the same problem with new players in Steve. As a new player you get this urge to constantly move up to bigger and bigger hull/bot classes to get more guns, mods and DPS. But then, as with Steve, you run into a brick wall of performance and it is most felt in PvP when you get owned over and over by people in seemingly "less" capable stuff running mods you have no hope of using. In Steve after playing for four years of 0.0 PvP I rolled a new toon and this time I purposely remained in frigates and advanced my fitting, defensive and weapon skills all to high levels. The result was no matter what frigate I stepped into it was uber in comparision to everyone else. I then moved up into larger ships and all those skills went with me making anything I flew rather potent.

You can not think in terms of weeks with Perpetuum but rather months and years. You fail in larger bot classes because you are in to much of a hurry to advance to them. Close beta is prolly not going to run for to much longer so us new guys should just focus on having the toughest light/assault bots out there and not be crazy about getting into a heavy mech.

I have been playing about a week, with rerolling of a new toon as well, and I am in a Yagel using 2 ACs and 2 EM guns. I plan on being in that bot for some time while I build my skills.

Fighter pilots don't go from soloing in a Cessena to a high performance fighter in a week and the same applies to Perpetuum. You are understandably getting bored because there simply isn't a lot of "content" yet in the game. But, this is a closed beta and you here for testing purposes so lets grind some red crosses into the "tiles". smile

My 2 cents...as with everything your mileage may vary.

No one ever defended anything successfully. You sons of b@#*hes are going to attack, attack and attack some more!

Re: beginner experience - grind or no grind?

Excellent post Stainless.

Re: beginner experience - grind or no grind?

Just started a couple of days ago and I agree with some things posted, and not others.

Myself I would always like to see more bots/guns/pew-pew and the like, but before any of that can happen we need to let the dev's finish filling out what we have now, or we will end up with a STO scenario where lots of people start, say "This kinda sucks"  and quit.  Allowing the devs to finish bonusing the bots we have now will go farther than having them put eleventy thousand 'steps' between the different bot classes. 

Now, and apparently many others, I also play steve and love that game, and it's precicely the equipping and time based learning that I am drawn to with this game.  Missions/grinding/mining will always be a part of any game, and as with steve(and was mentioned before)  it's always the loots that you make you real cash with.  Adding bounties to NPC's would probably help a lot with some peoples ammo to reward ratio.

In regards to the EP rate, I too would like to see that rate increased, but as I'm sure a lot of you have said or are aware of, too fast will turn this game into crap with a bunch of idiots running around in crap they shouldn't be in, thus ruining the game for others, and giving the ADD kids a month of fun, then off to the next shiny thing. 

Personally I think this game has a great deal of potential, but has the same if not more pitfalls that any sandbox style game has, the most major of which, in my opinion, is keeping the new and more experienced players engaged in actually interesting activities, and as with steve you'll have those people that just want to mine, but need to pay players to protect them, who will be attacked by raiders, which will start a corporate war, which will need supplies etc etc. 

My main point being sure voice your ideas here as the dev's want, but please don't start flame wars here, wait till the official game forums open and hate each other there, keep this place for improving the game.

Oh, BTW, agreeing with another post, current graphics will kill this game, and plz allow me to resize the chatbox.

Re: beginner experience - grind or no grind?

Just going over what you typed Shattered, tell me if I miss the mark.

Bounties added to bots? Isn't that similar to how kernels reimburse bot hunters currently?

Ep rate increased? Really matters more in first month than it does in the next 5 from what I hear. Think you get it though.

Missing activities. Well, ask anyone who played eve that plays this and no longer plays eve... we're missing something. Lets try to find it and put it in PPO.

Graphics overhaul on the way. (I think). Also, remember Castor in eve, phew bad graphics! 

I hear they're working on font sizes for chat.

<Kwitch> I tried to RE Epriton. The game lol'd @ me.
<Siddy> i hope your brains go enouhght processing poweres to realise the problem
<Moot> I bet you the forum mods have your portrait on the dart board.

Re: beginner experience - grind or no grind?

I desperately want to contribute but I have no idea what the thread is about :-(

Re: beginner experience - grind or no grind?

Kwitch wrote:

Just going over what you typed Shattered, tell me if I miss the mark.

Bounties added to bots? Isn't that similar to how kernels reimburse bot hunters currently?

Ep rate increased? Really matters more in first month than it does in the next 5 from what I hear. Think you get it though.

Missing activities. Well, ask anyone who played eve that plays this and no longer plays eve... we're missing something. Lets try to find it and put it in PPO.

Graphics overhaul on the way. (I think). Also, remember Castor in eve, phew bad graphics! 

I hear they're working on font sizes for chat.

I may have misunderstood the point of the kernels then, I assumed it was simply loot like anything else or some of the more 'specialized' drops in other games. 

EP rate I'm fine with it now, just like everyone else in the beta I want to see as much as humanly possible while doing this.

Font sizes would be nice, I just mean the amount of screen the chat window takes up though, not the size of the lettering.

I was hoping, almost assuming the graphics would be better for release, but want for sure.

But yeah, i see your point overall, including activities, although I have not experienced pvp in this game yet, I am eager to try that as well

Last edited by Shattersparkz (2010-06-28 20:07:19)

Re: beginner experience - grind or no grind?

(somehow managed to reply to the wrong thread. whoops)

Also managed somehow not to edit my farked up post, and rather type a new one.  I should get some sleep -.-

Last edited by Kwitch (2010-06-28 20:30:23)

<Kwitch> I tried to RE Epriton. The game lol'd @ me.
<Siddy> i hope your brains go enouhght processing poweres to realise the problem
<Moot> I bet you the forum mods have your portrait on the dart board.

Re: beginner experience - grind or no grind?

Shattersparkz wrote:

I have not experienced pvp in this game yet, I am eager to try that as well

Your max range is 1000m to see enemies. Expect to be shot at for your entire life bar if you're in anything less than a mech at that range within 1-2 seconds of entering someone's 1000m killzone. Unless you somehow get close to them somewhat ever marginally, then expect them to run away out of your sight and go hide somewhere to snipe at you again.

sniping is too prevalent, but fotm is fotm for a reason.

<Kwitch> I tried to RE Epriton. The game lol'd @ me.
<Siddy> i hope your brains go enouhght processing poweres to realise the problem
<Moot> I bet you the forum mods have your portrait on the dart board.

Re: beginner experience - grind or no grind?

datamax wrote:

I would like to raise a few issues with the current "new player experience"

Assuming that most new players are going to start with combat, and until agent missions are introduced that might have an additional reward. A player will have to collect drone kernels and loot to refine/sell to gain access to the next tier bot.

Curently. the time required for a player to transition from their introduction machine to something a little better is prohibitive. To capture the interest and try to give the new player the feeling of progress and ownership, and a greater reason to come back, they shoould be able to see a visible progression within 2-4 hours.

A few ways i believe this could be approached to reduce the current grind time .

1) TUTORIAL - a series of tasks that introduce and involve the pilot in various aspects of the game. kill some npc to recover a license copy. scan and mine some ore, harvest some plants. do 1 level of research. and build one unit of XXX bot . which is the players reward for completing the tasks.

2) TRANSITION - add 1-XX new robots that are a transition between starter and light . prices at around 200-300k NIC. possible based on 1 per race, with 1 less turret slot and 50% of the bonus that a light would give.

3) ITEM BALANCE - possible increase the drop rate of kernels from the standard "drone" . care would have to be taken to ensure the NIC/hour ratio is maintained so that higher level players dont gain from farming these. possible increase the ammo drop rate/ammount by 10-20%

I agree that the new player experience needs some work.  I started the game a few days ago and it seems like I have two options for making money.  Kill an infinite number of drones or mine... and mining looks like more of a grind than drone genocide...

I agree with your transition ideas but think they should also take steps to make the crafting system more open to entry level players.  Perhaps make a tutorial experience that will grant them a few kernels, teach them a new design and have them build something worthwhile as a reward for going through the tutorial?

Last edited by Aegis (2010-07-07 20:58:22)

Re: beginner experience - grind or no grind?

The one issue that I had was thinking that the Machine Guns on my Arkhe were somehow an indicator that said projectile weapon was what my race was meant to use.  I would suggest that each race starts with a slightly modified Arkhe with a small racial bonus and the racial weapon type as the main weapon.  Then have a machine gun in your station storage so you can equip one, if you so chose.

Just a suggestion.