M
MalaWolf
"The results of our multivariate study of over 45,000 players show that the usefulness of tutorials depends greatly on game complexity."
"In Foldit, the most complex and least conventional game we studied, tutorials increased play time by as much as 29% and player progress by as much as 75%." - Extracts from The Impact of Tutorials on Games of Varying Complexity by E Anderson et al.
It can be argued that Lost Soul is Herocraft's tutorial, get players used to skills, leveling and the difficulty of mobs on the server.
However, Lost Soul is not easy, in-fact it's probably the hardest form of leveling on the server. This is contrary to most games where the first levels, or start of the game is the easiest and as you go up it gets harder. While this may not be possible with the current set-up we should at least make lost soul easier, so we aren't met with this...
We all recognize there is a problem with players leaving the server and after discussing it with a few people, there are three real options/suggestions that I want to bring forward for the staff team to consider.
Option 1; Remove Lost Soul
People can get straight into the classes that interest them, leveling might still be hard at first, but nowhere near as difficult because specced classes are better, have more health, deal more damage and have skills that can be used offensively and defensively. A drawback to this suggestion is that some players will be indecisive and prefer to pick a class later, or they will accidentally pick a class they do not like because they are not experienced with the server. However we have had something similar on previous maps with little to no complaints. (Back when we had rouge, warrior, caster and healer as the default classes.)
Option 2; Make Lost Soul Better
There are many options you could take here. My suggestion would be to give it a bunch of passive skills that only effect pve elements of the game, such as a passive damage bonus against mobs, or a passive damage reduction against them. This would allow new players to be safer, and less likely to rage after a mob one shots them. If you wanted players to really bring an overall view on the server for new players allow lost soul to scale exponentially so that a level 20 lost soul is equivalent to a level 40-50 of a specced class, allowing them to be somewhat decent at pvp. (This is my suggestion and is probably unpopular)
Option 3; Make Mobs Weaker
The main reason why people hate lost soul, is because they die to mobs really quickly, it's impossible to take on groups and you have to really manage your health and only attack when you can escape easily. This is to complicated for new players and a lot can go wrong causing people to leave the server. Herocraft is the only server where mobs are really hard, so why not tone their power town, allowing people to kill more and level up quickly. If veteran players really want a challenge, add mythic mobs and bosses, not punish lost souls because we as veterans want a challenge.
Cheers
"In Foldit, the most complex and least conventional game we studied, tutorials increased play time by as much as 29% and player progress by as much as 75%." - Extracts from The Impact of Tutorials on Games of Varying Complexity by E Anderson et al.
It can be argued that Lost Soul is Herocraft's tutorial, get players used to skills, leveling and the difficulty of mobs on the server.
However, Lost Soul is not easy, in-fact it's probably the hardest form of leveling on the server. This is contrary to most games where the first levels, or start of the game is the easiest and as you go up it gets harder. While this may not be possible with the current set-up we should at least make lost soul easier, so we aren't met with this...
We all recognize there is a problem with players leaving the server and after discussing it with a few people, there are three real options/suggestions that I want to bring forward for the staff team to consider.
Option 1; Remove Lost Soul
People can get straight into the classes that interest them, leveling might still be hard at first, but nowhere near as difficult because specced classes are better, have more health, deal more damage and have skills that can be used offensively and defensively. A drawback to this suggestion is that some players will be indecisive and prefer to pick a class later, or they will accidentally pick a class they do not like because they are not experienced with the server. However we have had something similar on previous maps with little to no complaints. (Back when we had rouge, warrior, caster and healer as the default classes.)
Option 2; Make Lost Soul Better
There are many options you could take here. My suggestion would be to give it a bunch of passive skills that only effect pve elements of the game, such as a passive damage bonus against mobs, or a passive damage reduction against them. This would allow new players to be safer, and less likely to rage after a mob one shots them. If you wanted players to really bring an overall view on the server for new players allow lost soul to scale exponentially so that a level 20 lost soul is equivalent to a level 40-50 of a specced class, allowing them to be somewhat decent at pvp. (This is my suggestion and is probably unpopular)
Option 3; Make Mobs Weaker
The main reason why people hate lost soul, is because they die to mobs really quickly, it's impossible to take on groups and you have to really manage your health and only attack when you can escape easily. This is to complicated for new players and a lot can go wrong causing people to leave the server. Herocraft is the only server where mobs are really hard, so why not tone their power town, allowing people to kill more and level up quickly. If veteran players really want a challenge, add mythic mobs and bosses, not punish lost souls because we as veterans want a challenge.
Cheers
