Necro newb friendly?

[Madigan]

I toyed around with playing some of the new classes for the first time recently. Rolled a necro up to lvl 10, excited to try it's bread and butter lvl 10 ability.. summon undead. So off I go looking for the spellbook only to find out it pops randomly on a valk mob that cons "Are you MAD?" (still cons you need alot of luck to a 20/20).

So I found it on the eq page on a few other mobs - tried the first 2 on my nearly 3x40 and am unable to solo these mobs past 60%.

What is the purpose of this? I am constantly trying to find ways to make Sloth more newbie friendly and I can tell you that requiring an avatar to solo a lvl 10 core ability spellbook or 3 20's on valk to cycle a mob is just not feasible for 2016 slothmud.

I can't help but think this is an oversight. I've asked in gossip and I get "they want to force you to group" in return... while I agree with the idea what we should group when possible, a lvl 10 core ability spellbook being completely unobtainable by a new player to the mud is unacceptable, right?

We have really got to start rethinking things like this in my opinion... i want to see the who list as populated as it was 15 years ago.

Blix

[Ertai]

Hello.

As for consider: it works pretty unclear on low levels. Say, quest succubus in JB temple under FoC was always "you are MAD" for all my newbie characters and cased no troubles to kill even before 20th. As for these acolytes or whatever (who pop this book), I don't really remember if i killed them, but I think that you should try. Other mobs-popers of cause aren't soloable for newbie necro. But this book is REALLY often. Newbie necro shouldn't be lazy: check libraries and get this silly book in day or two.

We argued with my friend several monthes ago about mage vs cleric (particulary about soloing book mobs). Cleric is much harder: all useful mage books are available at actual level. As for necro, he's like cleric or mebbe harder in books poping. Say, wall of flesh is the most useful spell for high Valker or so, but there is no possibility to pop it. BUT these books are quiet often at island docks or natives village.

It's private cases of your topic. But you're right in your conclusion: Sloth 4 is NOT a newbie friendly MUD. The most problem I see: the playerbase is simmilary small but it is still group oriented. Some times you want to make group and see 4-5 players in who list. For example I'll want to make Kladenetz sword at 6*40. But I understand that I need 12 whole evenings (8cps * 1,5 to cover empty days) at Lyme (rare place for groups ATM) EQ (doubly rare) groups (yeah, groups, 5-6 players or so). In fact I may estimate this project in 2-3 monthes of everyday game. For one item... It's also a private example but I think I said what I wanted.

And most of changes are made ingame are also group oriented. Why they don't understand: MUD format is totally unpopular and will NOT be popular. Never. It's an entertainment for those who played in 90th or early 00th (like me and 99% of other actual Sloth players). We don't have that much spare time like we had 15 years ago, when we were students / schollars / whatever. I like Sloth. Sometimes I feel myself really happy when I play this game. But alas, I don't have possibility to play several hours every day. So I encountered with the fact of lack of progress. This problem gives me less motivation to play, my progress stops, I enter rarely just for events etc. Sad.

Hmm, I began to write about necro spellbooks and stoped with "global" problems. Heh, let it be.

~Ertai~

[Madigan]

Hello.
I don't really remember if i killed them, but I think that you should try. Other mobs-popers of cause aren't soloable for newbie necro. But this book is REALLY often. Newbie necro shouldn't be lazy: check libraries and get this silly book in day or two.

Surely you don't think I didn't attempt to kill the guy before making this post? I even found a rare 20/20 still on valk and asked him to rock the adept and it was no cakewalk for him. PS - "I shouldn't be lazy"... this is the point I make.Most avatars don't see this as a problem... and assume one is LAZY for not cycling their own books. The point I am making is that a newbie w/o avatar alts CANNOT solo this book.

It's private cases of your topic. But you're right in your conclusion: Sloth 4 is NOT a newbie friendly MUD.

I understand the current meta is probably more based on the population of SLoth 10 years ago... meta's in games change weekly or monthly on MMOs - I just think we should have some serious thoughts to how we refocus on the lack of population and grouping actually affects players trying to advance in 2016 as well as how newbie friendly we actually are. The new newbie college is a good step.. but even the college is not as intuitive as I'd expect it to be. I spent alot of time there, but I've brought 2 new mudders to sloth in the past few months and I couldn't get them to stay and enjoy the college long enough to get anything much out of it.

[Firebrand420]

There's no point to exploring a new class if you can't reasonably hope to learn your prime skills/spells at or near the level the game says you can use them. If I were brand new to Sloth and found that my prime skill/spellbooks were unavailable to me due to being unable to get help to get the books, I would lose interest in playing here. I have been here 20 years and know where all the resources are to find something: website, friends, gossip channel, google...but new folks aren't used to the way we play and DEFINITELY don't know our website, how the eqlist works, where the books and eq load, none of that stuff we take for granted. For those players coming from other muds that are still your basic Wa/Ma/Th/Cl options, it discourages them from exploring the Ba/Mo/Ne/Dr classes if they're expected to "play your bard like a cleric until <x> level and you get your <y> skill/spell. then your character is going to be a lot of fun". Why can't it be fun NOW?

[*teker*]

I'm not sure which mobs you were looking at for this book but I saw a lvl 20 kill the adept in VK quite easily today and the book should pop there. I found it much harder to get a couple of other (less-vital) low level spellbooks - mass invis and archery.

Can a low level necro make that kill without summon undead? I don't know - it probably depends on what other classes you've got. I started writing a guide for cleric in the wiki to give new players an idea as to how to play. I completely missed the power of supplication when I first started and had I been told earlier how it worked, I would have leveled much faster. The game would probably benefit from other class guides that include things like how to get important spellbooks relevant to each class. Who knows if new players would actually read it but it would atleast be something to refer them to.

I'd be interested to know what changes people think need to be made to make the game more newbie friendly. Or single-player friendly for that matter.

[Teron]

Teker, a valk mob that pops a 10ne sb should be soloable by a 10lev necro, not by a 20wa/10ne.

While I guess a 10lev ne should do the quest in the attic to get animate dead, it's not an obvious choice. Not every player goes to the attics and animate dead sbs are hard to get (it doesn't load on valk and 2 of 3 the mobs that do, are in aggros areas).

So, if you want to make this newbie friendly, how about:
- put a hint for the the animate dead quest in the Newbatia town (a 2 step quest, if you want)
- make the adept killable with by a 10ne with a claw (the weakest animate)
- increase the poprate on adept: it sucks. and for a newbie sb that necros need, it sucks to cycle a mob.

Also, do realize that in the first place, the new player has to realize that it is adept that pops the sb. I'm not entirely sure all 10nes go to kill the adept immediately. Maybe do smth about it.

[Madigan]

Also, do realize that in the first place, the new player has to realize that it is adept that pops the sb. I'm not entirely sure all 10nes go to kill the adept immediately. Maybe do smth about it.

Great point. I'll be honest, I thought the adept was a guild npc... it took me quite a while to realize this was actually the adept the eq page was telling me popped that book. The 'You are MAD' con that did not help in my making that connection either I guess.

[Madigan]

I'm not sure which mobs you were looking at for this book but I saw a lvl 20 kill the adept in VK quite easily today and the book should pop there.

as a 40/40/36 I unsuccessfully tried cycling a young necromancer - Tower of Nexialism [SS], a revenant lesser noble - Temple of Luna [BH] and an undead guard - Ravenloft in Barovia [SS].

I'd be interested to know what changes people think need to be made to make the game more newbie friendly. Or single-player friendly for that matter.

I think successful MMOs and RPGs do this best by basically making prime level progression a bit more "on the rails" teaching the use of the classes core abilities. It seems like a bit of an afterthought in it's current rendition but I attribute that to basically scaling of classes for end game balence/roles/abilities and just sort of backwards retrofitting them down to lower levels as opposed to really looking at how they might progress from lvl 1 to 9x40.

A good example besides the supplication example you already used,might be the apply poison ability for thieves and shapeshifting in general for druids. I could expound on this further, but I think you get the idea.I think maybe the answer is a prime class quest line that basically walks the player through the prime abilities through lvl 20 or higher. This would also do a better job of introducing new players to the questing system. I for one, believe, that the quest system is underutilized and feels a bit like an afterthought. Triple stab quest at lvl 40 was such a shock to me ... but it would be much more expected had I been questing to learn abilities sooner.

I brought a buddy of mine over to sloth recently who hadn't mudded in 20 years. He played a druid for 10 levels as a warrior basically because when he tried shapeshifting he was scared off by the 1/10 health pool of the sparrow. I talked him into trying sparrow then bat forms and he found that it was MUCH easier to solo... but there is no real way for him to learn that... again, I think a prime ability quest line would have solved that.

Thinking out loud there... but possibly you get your core abilities by completed the quests rather than hunting spellbooks?

I still just don't understand what the initial thought was in the placement of the lvl 10 necro skill spellbooks (that truly is core to the classes progression) on such unobtainable mobs with poor poor pop rates to boot.

PS - I would be interested in working to implement a change like this if it were to be met with approval.

[*teker*]

Thinking out loud there... but possibly you get your core abilities by completed the quests rather than hunting spellbooks?

I like the idea. I could see it two ways - either the guildmasters give quests where the books will be found or they give the books as a reward. We've started internal discussions as to how to improve the quest system in general so I think we'll be able to improve that area of the game as a whole. I should start another thread for that topic. Maybe the guildmasters could be improved to answer class related player questions or suggest areas for exploration based on missing skills and/or levels.

[Hermoon]

Regards new players having difficulty acquiring newbie spellbooks - this has been my experience with several classes. At times you need to acquire a skill/spell in order to play effectively, but it is sometimes virtually impossible for a lowbie to kill the relevant mobs or enter the areas where the mobs are located. Raising the subject on the newbie channel elicits a response of disbelief from established players.

I like the idea of having key spellbooks available as quest rewards. I enjoy quests, but I've not encountered many newbie quests that display sophistication, an interesting storyline or puzzles - some newbie quests appear to be 'broken'. I also like the idea of using quests as 'teaching vehicles' to introduce useful skills/spells. A year later and the good ideas raised here have not been implemented...