Tylara duChelm
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Posted - 2009.10.22 06:09:00 -
[1]
As a newbie myself. . .
#1) A better in game explanation of signal radius and speed and how it relates to damage.
#2) A better in game explanation of projectile size and how it relates to damage.
#3) Discussion/explanation of heat and thermodynamics.
#4) A mission where the player has to be part of a bigger fleet. Say a scripted battle with a couple BS on each side, and the player is along as support/tackle. Demonstrate that playing a role is just as useful as raw DPS. Honestly this would be a good whole new line to create, since I could easily see 10 missions demonstrating the various roles that can be played in base frigates. The three above requests could be rolled into this line as well.
#5) The newbie experience shouldn't end with the end of the tutorial. You can blitz through all three tutorials in a day, and still be just as green as when you started, really.
And most important, and what has ruined my fun the most:
#0) An explanation and demonstration of the >>Faction<< standings, and making it clear that running ANY storyline mission incurs a negative faction hit on the enemy factions. Further, when someone finishes the tutorial they shouldn't have too much of a negative standing with anyone. . . it serves to limit the game. If I wanted to join a pirate faction, certain avenues were closed to me after the tutorial, simply due to killing the NPCs there.
And even more important:
#00) A mechanic to repair negative faction standing, and in fact a revamping of the whole faction/corp standing system. As things stand currently you need to meta-game the system to remain neutral if you are an active player. Even relatively innocuous FedMart missions will throw you against Caldari or Amarr on occasion, and as a newbie you generally don't know enough to not take the missions. So if you are new, and simply following what the game tells you to do, you can go KOS to two of the primary factions in under a month. This is EXTREMELY negative "new player experience." (I was close to KOS at the end of my 21 day trial.)
I have a couple suggestions for the above. One would be a slight revamp, where a player-corp could "Declare war" on an empire faction, and do as many missions for the opposing faction's militia or navy as they want. They're KOS for the factions they're at war with, but once they're done with their war, the corporation negotiates a treaty (Possibly involving reperations missions) and the players (And PC corp's) standing is plunked back to -2.0. Naturally there'd have to be a cool-down timer for this sort of war dec, say 30 or 60 days.
Alternately you could make ship kills count against CORPORATE standing, not FACTION. Currently running a level 4 navy mission against Amarr or Caldari can drop my standings with them a whole point. . . but does NOTHING to improve my gallente standing. This is nuts, since I am just repelling an invasion fleet. (No one punishes an AA gunner who is shooting down aircraft bombing his home) So mission kills count against the navy corp faction. Also, certain storyline gains shouldn't hit enemy faction at all. If I'm turning in criminal dogtags to a data-center agent, why should my Amarr faction standing drop? The whole system is biased towards negative standings in a way that FORCES people to play the meta-game, and can screw people that simply follow natural quest lines.
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