A few suggestions from a new player perspective

Hey GamezBD team,

Just a little bit about myself, I started playing official BDO since it was launched, and stopped playing about a year ago because I was burnt out. A friend introduced me to this server a week ago, so I tried it and have been liking it so far.

One of the main reasons that I enjoy this server is that it takes away some of the major chores from official. For example, to make money while AFK in official requires a lot of prep work, such as gaining CP, connecting nodes, setting up empire. Those are fun for some people, but would definitely overwhelm any new players. I would like to give a few suggestions that would further remove the chores and make this game more enjoyable. Judging from the current state of the game, seems like there cannot be a change that requires a lot of re-coding, so my suggestions are based off of changes that we already have, hopefully they will be easier to implement if you ever decide to do so.

1. Sell Low Tier Female Horses
Tunneling all AFK income generation into horse training is definitely a welcome change to me. Bugged dumb horses aside, there is really no easier way to make AFK money to just put some horses on running and wake up with fully level'd horses to sell. Works extremely well for the working class people like myself.
The main problem with this is that one has to start with horses to breed, and there is no way to obtain a female horse other than taming one by yourself. And let's be real, not only the taming mini game is not the most enjoyable key-smashing in the world, the bug that allows horses to go underground or into the rocks makes taming even more frustrating. Oh, I also didn't get a female horse until the 6th try, and my friend got one after more than 10 tries. Why don't we help the new players out and sell/give T2 female horses? This shouldn't disrupt the economy.

2. Quest Gear for New Players
The 10x Exp Rate accelerated the leveling process without giving the new players the tools to fight the mobs that are at their levels. I was struggling at around lvl30 just trying to land some hits on mobs for the level. I was able to move on by buying some armor and equipment from the market place after selling some black stones for money, but I think I have a better solution. Why don't we give the new players the equipment set that you can get from quest? These should last them at least until around the Sausans levels, where they can start farming for upgrades. This shouldn't be game breaking because these items are obtainable from quests anyway. For those who like the accomplishment of finishing quests, there are a lot more quests for that. For those who don't like to do quests, this will take away some chore for sure.
http/bddatabase.net/us/item/11281
http://bddatabase.net/us/item/10989/
http://bddatabase.net/us/item/10991/
http://bddatabase.net/us/item/10992/
http://bddatabase.net/us/item/11522/

3. Samples
I was skeptical about buying the premium at first, but I don't think I will play without one from now on. Why don't you give something like a 3 days sample for the things you sell at web store, like the T9 Horse and Hedgehog that collect shards? I am sure a lot of people couldn't go back once they tried those lol.

 

1: The rate for these female horses would have to, in some way, scale... or be blocked from later purchases by those with certain training levels. Namely because it can and will be abused by those with multiple stables. Having to tame the females, if you don't manage to breed one, is one of the ways to stall the steady income from being almost botlike in efficiency.

2: Absolutely agreed. For the new player it is a quite rough transition, as that exact problem happened to me... I was level 50 with no gear, and as I was new to BDO itself (never played retail) I had no idea how to GET decent gear either. This is basically a risk free addition, because players already leveled have no need of the gear on alts anyway, and already skip the main questline for the most part.

3: A Premium Pack would likely be more viable than individual items. Call it a reward for Awakening (can do via flagging and in game mail.). It would keep it streamlined, and come across more as a reward than a sample. That makes new players even happier, because everyone likes getting presents. Any Pets or Mounts would have to be set so they can not be sold, traded, bred, or tiered with pearl shop purchases, however, or this will be abused. Even if the intial gifts have time limits, without having their flags locked down this could go sideways quickly.*

*EDIT: However, if possible, it could be set so that these temporary rewards could be turned Permanent by using cash... at a lower cost than purchasing it from the cash shop any other time. This makes purchases feel more urgent, and they get a bargain for "acting now."

 

I do enjoy nicely thought up suggestions however I did not have the Gear problem I think mainly due to the fact that I had played the game before and by picking up "trash loot" for silver I very quickly got the amount of in-game money needed to purchase whatever green gear I needed from the Market Place, however I also realize that it did take an effort and was not as easy as I might make it sound so it might be a great idea to introduce some minimum gear sets (without any bonuses) and instead of making the "For a Sharper Weapon" (http://bddatabase.net/us/quest/259/1/) and "Many a Pickle Makes a Mickle" (http://bddatabase.net/us/quest/324/1/) a quest line that Only starts with your Basteer weapon in hand we could make it part of the level 50 achievement package before the Black Spirit tells you to go to Altinova while your Character is still in Calpheon as well as increasing the number of Black Stones the Quest line awards instead of just awarding 1 Black Stone per quest as it is now it should reward the players with the correct amount of Black Stones as indicated by the BDO-database.

 

The only issue I see (also a trash looter and marketplace browser lol) is that the game expects you to have been enchanting your gear along the way... most people do not realize how much, especially if new to BDO. This is what I meant by having "No Gear." I was shocked to discover many others who had never played retail... in my mind I was thinking a soft set of bound blue.

 

Well I followed my own Guide "For New Players" and although I have yet to edit it in more detail regarding gear upgrading I did get a bunch of blue bound gear in the southern part of Calpheon and Northern Trent which I immediately rode to Velia with for my other Characters, I suppose I should add that to my guide as well and that might be just the thing to boost first time players experience of this server as well

*ps did I remember to say "as well"

 

Indeed lol. In my case I had seen a copy/pasted version of Lineage 2's PVP system, and expected a Lineage 2 gear expansion system as well. Turns out it was more like Jade Dynasty in the gear requirements. Most of the gear I wound up with was simply more green gear of no true power difference.

Where to fine decent blue gear along the way would indeed be a good guide addition, as many skip over aspects of the main story as it ceases to be relevant once they hit 56, so many quests are missed even on the sidelines.

 

Well I just updated my guide hopefully it now deals a bit better with the first section about gearing
By the way sorry to the Original Poster that this hs nothing to do with your thread.

 

The issue with giving those items away is it makes having those quests pointless. There is a perfectly reasonable blue armor and accessory set from Catfish/Mansha/Rhotums/TreeSpirits thats easy to aquire if you do the main quest which also gives you an armor and weapon set viable for the areas.

If new players skip the main quest which is basically a tutorial then they should accept that they'll have to work harder than others to gain that starting gear.


On the topic of selling female horses, unless its been patched horse spawns are static rather than random. There is a source of T3 F 3/0/1 horses on the grassy area above Epheria Valley; west of the stable.

 

I believe that both suggestions are for the new players, not so much for others. Hence the recommendation that near all of it be flagged only for certain levels. New players don't have the foundational information the rest of us now have... for example - all the main questline gives you is inventory expansions, basically, and many new people get told this... while not being told what else to do.

 

I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me or not, the main quest doesn't just give inventory expansions and people that say that haven't done it. For a new player it provides; a tutorial to most of the games systems, viable armor and weapons, blackstones, skill points, a huge source of CP, coins, introduces areas of the map a new player wouldn't know about yet.

The issue with capping store bought female horses to a certain level is a new player already gets a horse early from quests or the stable (T1 male horse costs 15k silver). After getting that horse to level 10-30 they'll have skilled 1 training+ which is like 3 training tiers.

How would you decide what's a 'certain level' for a new player when they're the ones that make mistakes due to not knowing things.

I just don't think capping things for lowbies is feasible without some way to really let them know about these things early. (without quests as the main/side quests explain things fairly well)

 

Alright perhaps an ingame notice that makes all players aware of the GamezBD forum would provide an easy way to make even the most "newbie" players informed about the game as well as this server and community?

 

Wow, I am surprised my suggestions have sparked so much discussion!

My suggestions are based on the idea of "taking away chores and emphasis the fun". Some people may not agree with me, but I believe this is mostly what a private server is about: it takes away some of the boring and repetitive tasks from the official server to emphasize the fun elements of the game. Hence the 10x exp rates, drop rates, etc. Honestly, if one's main objective is to enjoy every part of the game, do every single quest, private server is inferior to official due to many limitations. I don't think completely brand new BDO players are what this server aim to cater anyway. No offense to completely new players, but I honestly don't see how these changes will impact their experience for the game in any negative way.

The horse breeding business in this server really just require you to catch one single female horse in your entire time in this server...maybe two if you are unlucky on the breeds. Once you start breeding, you get higher tier horses for further breeding and you will never need to go back to low tier horses. Being able to buy a T1 or T2 female horse really just save you some frustration on the mini game and maybe a few hours of time. If the horses don't go into stones or underground when being tamed, then this shouldn't be as big of a frustration.

With how accelerated this game is due to the 10x exp, anything mob less than lvl40 is like those beetles you kill when you first start the game - they are meaningless, their drops don't worth anything. Yet you find yourself not being able to kill those meaningless creatures because you are already lvl26 from killing the imps at the beginning of the game and the gear that the quests reward you are only enough for you to kill more imps. This server does not have the same starting point as the official server, it is 10x faster and therefore 10x further ahead. The set that I recommended is really just Reblath in disguise. They give you enough base stat so you can start farming for upgrades, and that is really where the game starts.

The webshop items sample is really just my excuse to try a T9 for a few days XD

 

One major issue you will find on private servers, is that most assume their hard work on retail versions should apply as well. It's a hard habit to break lol. Hence why many new players will argue how things SHOULD work, despite it merely not being the case... thus I agree with you on these things. I have spent years on private servers, ignoring retail for a long time in many games.

You have people like me, concerning the Horses, that CAN NOT do the minigame. Due to an injury to my neck, I cannot both use my mouse, and spam my space bar. Your suggestion is a good one, as I had to have guild mates help with the first few females I needed.

Concerning the Web shop idea... it is an economically valid way of getting people to donate, incidentally, and costs the server nothing.

 

Yea, the taming mini game is the stupidest thing in the game just trying to destroy your space bar. I just hope I will never have to do it again. On the other hand, I actually like the fishing mini game lol