#Firsthand: The New Player Experience

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silent quest
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Following on from my previous post, I was curious about getting some first-hand experience with how new players feel about the early game, so I actually got one of my weekend gaming friends to give it a shot yesterday. The results were interesting, to say the least.

For context, the friend in question is just your ordinary casual gamer. They enjoy games and play regularly, but they don’t spend all their free time playing games. So they don’t have thousands of hours of gaming experience and they’re not particularly good. They can control their character, but can’t do precision platforming. They can fight monsters using simple controls, but are easily overwhelmed when there are more than just a couple abilities. And they can solve puzzles as well as any intelligent adult, but they don’t see the world through an advanced gamer’s eyes. In this case, they were also virtually brand new to the genre as well. They’ve played action combat games, but not to the extent of Dark Souls or Monster Hunter, which Vindictus is generally in the same stream as.

To put it simply, they were completely overwhelmed by Vindictus. And it has somewhat changed my perspective on Nexon’s early game scaling. You know those players you sometimes see (especially in AA) who just spam normal attacks and are wearing random pieces of low level armor? My friend was basically the same. They were not trolling. They just honestly don’t understand how to play the game. Even with my (hopefully) beginner-friendly advice, they were really having trouble.

...continued in multiple comments.

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My friend chose to play Lynn, and experimented with both glaive and battleshade. Not the easiest beginner class, but not brutally hard either, and it’s better to play something they actually think is cool. Initially, they were exclusively using normal attacks. Once I explained how normal and smash attacks worked, they started trying to use smashes. However, since they were complete beginners at reading boss attacks, they would constantly panic dodge, even with no incoming enemy attack, so in practice they never really landed any smashes. They also seemed to be having trouble with click timings. I don’t mean for special stuff like enhancing attacks. Rather, they would use LLLR, then just fail to input the final R, for example. Perhaps they weren’t mashing clicks but rather inputting every click individually, and were waiting too long to click again. In general, they just didn’t seem to have any grasp on the ‘rhythm’ of clicking, whether it was mash clicking or individual clicking.

As a beginner to the genre, they of course had no concept of setting up combos. They were really just trying to wait until it looked safe, then go in and attack, starting from the first normal. Especially as Lynn, this resulted in virtually no damage output. They’d typically land about three normal attacks and then either have to dodge or just panic dodge regardless. At this rate, it took them about 2-6 minutes to kill the bosses in Chapter 1. They also almost died and had to use potions on the Gnoll and Kobold chieftains.

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Some of you may be tempted to write my friend off and say “Well, Vindictus is designed for a certain market, and your friend ain’t it.” But remember, all of us, whether we admit it or not, were once in the same place. Nobody starts out already knowing how to play Vindictus. Nor Souls-like hack & slash in general. Nor even games in general. Once upon a time, we all struggled to even move a character with WASD. And that’s why so many of us remember the “good old days” of Vindictus. Back when we ourselves were as new to the game as the Giant Polar Bear. And that’s why we got our butts kicked by him. And now many of those players make up the core veteran player base of Vindictus, having spent years and years learning to play the game. So, what my friend (and other new players) need at the moment is simple. They need practice. More specifically, they need practice at a level that does not overwhelm them. And they need to be able to take it one fight at a time.

Think about how you feel when you take on a new raid. You don’t know the boss patterns. You get hit a lot, and you eat dirt a lot, until you learn the move set and start feeling comfortable. That is what new players must feel with every single boss. And they don’t even have the benefit of already knowing how to play their character, so it’s a double-whammy. And yet, to progress through the story means that every single boss they encounter is new. They never have a chance to just “train” on a single boss. Or rather, they are never prompted to. Back when the GPB was the endgame, people had a lot of time to just farm and practice with the bosses. They had to. Because the only way to level up was to spam the same boss until you leveled up and could then spam the next boss. And then even once you hit max level, you’d just farm those same battles for loot until the next update. And we’ve been gradually doing the same thing update by update ever since, learning each new encounter as it’s released.

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But again, new players don’t get to do this. New players have to slog through countless new encounters, with no time to get acquainted with the gradual increase in the difficulty of boss movesets. My friend needs to be able to just fight the Gnoll Chieftain a bunch of times until they start to feel like they understand the game. And they need to feel like they’re not alone doing that, and also need to feel rewarded. Because it’s going to take them a long time to get to a skill level where they feel comfortable moving onto the next area, and literally thousands of hours before they are good enough to take on endgame raids.

I think the key to this is to bring veterans and new players together. This can be achieved by giving veterans a reason to engage with old battles, perhaps by means of a battle roulette so that veterans get paired with new players who need assistance. Many games have such systems. The roulette typically rewards endgame players with endgame-relevant rewards and becomes a daily routine. However, battle scaling also needs to be changed so that new players actually feel that they can contribute to the fight. They can’t learn if they can’t even attack the boss before it’s dead.

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I believe that, at this point, actual player levels are irrelevant. The game no longer needs to be linear, except insofar as the content treadmill exists. And perhaps also the story. I posted about this in more detail a few months ago, but all content could effectively function the same as Lv. 105 raids, with Lv. 110 and Lv. 115-scaled difficulty modes as well. A Lv. 1 player fighting the Gnoll Chieftain would effectively play as a Lv. 105, fighting a Lv. 105 Gnoll Chieftain and getting Lv. 105 drops, with the number of evil cores scaling with the battle difficulty in terms of movesets, rather than being static. Departure limits can apply to the mode, rather than each individual battle. In this way, all players could engage with old content on equal terms, new players would feel they can actually contribute and be rewarded, while veterans would also see some rewards. Combined with the aforementioned battle roulette system, veterans would be particularly eager to do their daily roulette(s) for loot.

As far as difficulty goes, I think for new players it’s less about the damage and more about the movesets. Although facing a Lv. 105 raid-scaled Gnoll Chieftain would most certainly result in my friend’s death, that death is something they actually start to learn to avoid. A certain level of risk is an important component in the learning experience because it shows the player the importance of avoiding enemy attacks and makes them really focus on learning how to do that. They will die, but they will also have a group of friendly veterans fighting alongside them, happy to revive them and offer advice. And, gradually, they will start to feel comfortable with the fight.

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As for the current state of the early game, I think that level of difficulty would function well as a “Story Mode” that new players can complete solo, like there used to be back before RISE. Even flailing around with some poorly aimed normal attacks, my friend was able to clear the bosses. I would suggest, however, that all fights with multiple bosses be reduced to a single boss, at least in such a Story Mode. My friend had a lot of trouble with Awakening - Armor of Darkness, because they were suddenly faced with a horde of bosses when they were already struggling to fight one-on-one. They still won, because of course the bosses do no real damage. However, it was an anti-fun experience. They had no hope of dodging the mob of bosses while striking back. They just mashed buttons regardless of boss attacks until they won.

So, that’s what I got from my first-hand experience with a new, casual player. These are the kinds of players we need to get hooked on learning to play the game, so let’s make it happen, eh?

~Nocturnia~

ivory dune
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imo your idea of scaling all "dead content" to the minimum raid level (currently 105) is excellent

from a gamedev standpoint, devs won't have to do any complicated stat recalculations for each character (not only atk and def, the attack speed/balance/critical/additional damage/atk surplus stats have to be considered as well), related to each and every bosses' individual level, which would indeed save a metric ton of time

all the devs have to do is to add the "dead content" to some sort of list which controls their levels (and provide some basic level scaling if needed), and adjust that list in a way that makes all bosses' level = desired level

so, for the next level update, all they have to do is to literally adjust 1 single variable, and make some minor tweaks too

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from a newbie standpoint, they won't have to re-adapt their combat style once reaching raid levels (as the current situation is now), and they will also be able to immediately experience the normal raids if they wish so

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with this said, some measures have to be taken to prevent player fragmentation, so the devs don't discard the idea, since devs so far want to prevent player fragmentation at all costs

silent quest
# ivory dune with this said, some measures have to be taken to prevent player fragmentation, ...

That's what the roulettes are for, and why so many games do them. In Final Fantasy XIV, for example, all veterans simply queue into the same few roulettes, and are then matched with a mixture of other roulette-running veterans and also new players. But the battle that is selected is not random. It's based on what the new player is trying to run. The system looks at the state of the queue for individual battles and then fills slots using the roulette queue. Translated into Vindictus terms, if a new player opens a boat for, say, Taking Initiative, then people who join the "roulette" would get assigned to that open Taking Initiative boat.

It's only random for the veterans joining from the roulette.

ivory dune
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ohh that's awesome!
apart from the roulette, I think that there should be an alert system like in quick battle
I dunno if this should be optional or not, however

silent quest
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🤔 I find myself wondering what a good reward from the roulette would be. And also about departure limits.

Personally, if all content was scaled to at least 105, with possible 110 and 115 versions, I would like to see the drops preserved, including valuable drops. That is to say, the Gnoll Chieftain could conceivably drop enchants worth tens of millions. However, the number of evil cores would be significantly lower to offset that.

The roulette reward could be two-fold. First of all, it could negate the evil core reduction; if cleared as your daily roulette run, the Gnoll Chieftain would drop as many cores as usual Lv. 105 raids. However, that alone isn't enough incentive, since veterans would have no reason to run the roulette over just farming 105 raids (which effectively have no departure limits due to alts). Perhaps the roulette could add additional endgame drops to its drop table, such as superior elixirs? Are those still valuable? I haven't played regularly in a while. Alternatively, I suppose it could drop double cores or something.

Then there's the matter of departure limits. In games with a large player base, like Final Fantasy XIV, the roulettes only offer their rewards once a day. However, so many players run them at all times of day that it never really stops working to fill new players' queues. Vindictus, on the other hand, doesn't ha e that luxury. The roulettes only work as intended at certain times of day. I wonder if maybe it could reset multiple times per day? Say, thrice daily, at 8-hour increments? That would let players around the world keep the roulette functioning more regularly.

Another alternative to the roulette could be some sort of repeatable missions that ask the player to slay particular monsters. RuneScape does this with its Slayer skill, keeping a great deal of older content relevant. It would also be a somewhat interesting way for Vindictus to "bring back' old boss uniques like Red Gnoll Leather, though only as quest items.

ivory dune
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I'll leave this here in case it's a good idea, please consider the below brainstorming

perhaps the system should be more tailored to players who don't have enough stats to fight the very latest raids/endgame content (or veterans who wish to gear alts too)

you would give average-stat players more content to play in, which would favor player retention, since the average player would have more places to play in, and the daily grind would be less dull, however, this has to be done with care to prevent player fragmentation

an idea would be to revamp special battles, so instead of being places to farm bracelets, they should be focused in the average-stat player instead. logically, the bracelets should be put back in niflheim raids as it should have always been, after all, niflheim raids used to be endgame raids years ago (maybe they should be endgame raids again gthink)

another thing to consider is the influx of new players

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and another one is how do you make a summary of 13 years of content for newcomers

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they will want to play the other raids that everyone plays, but the difficulty of those raids is defo not beginner-friendly, and with each passing season, the difficulty increases, so future newcomers would have to face even more difficulties

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what should be done is to separate the story from the raids, and make newbies to start from selected raids so they can get used to the game mechanics

say picked raids, like the chieftain or the polar bear for simple raids, then more complicated ones like blood lord, then say ingkells or elchulus, then some s2-4 raids, raids with anti-range mechanics like claire, and so on, the idea is not that the handpicked raids are tied to the story, but instead, these raids should be diverse enough because these ones will teach players about the different game mechanics, and different battle situations

ivory dune
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...oddly we got an event for new players which is honestly very good
so tyty nexon 😊

sweet kraken
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Unfortunately, having a new player jump to level 105 is a terrible idea for them to learn the game, regardless of if actual content starts at 105

ivory dune
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yeah, I agree with the sudden jump pot, though considering the current state of things, I'd argue that the jump pot would be slightly better than playing the whole story up to raid levels, since newbies may get bored and leave, as it has been happening

maybe handpicked raids as a tutorial mode before reaching raid levels would be a good solution

the rest of the welcome content, however, is indeed good, since there's a perma outfit with legendary-tier stats, and not to mention free hair and inner

sweet kraken
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Maybe lvl 100 would be better

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So there is still some dungeons to run?

ivory dune
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yeah it's a good idea

sweet kraken
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Or it’s only ex raids from lvl 100

ivory dune
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like 5 levels before the raid levels

sweet kraken
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I mean the whole leveling system needs a revamp relevant to the actual meaningful gameplay so kinda moot what lvl they start at

ivory dune
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that's right, though that would take considerable dev time, so as a momentary fix, starting 5 levels before raid leveis as you suggested should do

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ngl I liked your idea

atomic abyss
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Also, by skipping the entire story, you have no investment in the NPC characters.

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The story is very important because it gives an underlying sense of meaning to the missions that the player is doing.

silent quest
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It's not that much harder to just scale everything to 105 than it is to make a jump potion. Although, getting the support systems in place to make sure new players aren't alone there would take a lot longer.

I agree with Fernando, though. The jump potion is a terrible idea for new players, and it was probably designed more by marketing associates than knowledgeable game devs. It is even more likely to make new players quit than the current early game is. There's is not even the slightest chance to learn anything, including about armor repair (which my friend still doesn't know exists because we never got to a point where I had to tell them) and, as Fernando also says, the story is important because it lends weight to the missions. New players will be fighting all these random characters as bosses and have no idea why.

This week, I've mostly been playing Risk of Rain 2. I'm new to the game and even for an experienced action gamer like me, it's been a humbling new player experience. I have repeatedly died to the first few "bosses" and even to mobs at times. I'm finally starting to recognize some attacks, but it really can't be understated how difficult it is to learn this stuff. There's a difference between seeing that the boss is doing an attack and actually recognizing, in an instant, which attack that is, where it's going to strike, and formulating a plan to avoid it. The bosses only have, like, two simple attacks. But even though I've seen them a few times, I haven't made those connections in my brain yet and so I don't respond properly and get hit a lot. And the bosses can basically one-shot me, so, yeah, I keep dying.

My friend is surely the same way with even such an "easy" boss as the Gnoll Chieftain. I mean, his attacks are super obvious, but my friend hasn't made those connections yet, so even though they see the attack, they don't really understand it.

And the Vindictus devs are now throwing new players like that at endgame raids. It's madness 🙄.

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Oh, not to mention that even after leveling up the old-fashioned way, new players still don't know about QB v.s. non-QB. I was playing Vindictus a bit last weekend and encountered a new player waiting alone in a non-QB boat, surely thinking that the game was dead until I hopped in and told them that 99% of players only check QB.

That's as much on the players as the devs, though. People need to get off their high horses and actually join non-QB. The QB core isn't even guaranteed anyways. The least-geared player often loses out.

silent quest
# sweet kraken Maybe lvl 100 would be better

Dungeons only go up to 95. In any case, 95 would be better than 100 or 105, but I think the bosses would be too hard. It would kind of be trial by fire. More determined new players could handle it. Especially if they have experience with these kinds of games. True beginners would be lost, though. Some of those bosses are really hard and their move sets are often fairly unintuitive. I still die to them sometimes because I haven't spent years learning them the way I have with the truly old stuff.

wispy birch
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So Im a new player myself on recommendation of a friend, but I have experience in hack and slash games (Dynasty Warriors and Sengoku Basara especially) along with MMOs like GW2, FFXIV and such. So far a level 48 Dan-ah and level 10 Achel. So far I've found it not overly complicated to learn, a quick video guide on dan ah very quickly taught me the flow of the character with usage of active skills filled with SP from the other moves to fill MP etc.
Currently I've been debating on which character to use the jump potion on, im considering using it on achel and level my dan ah normally. I used the exclusive costume on achel as my dan ah i have a fierce business suit i pulled on my 1 black friday groovy crystal lol

smoky flare
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I just ran a Neam using a random alt, party was full of clearly jumped alts, worst experience of my life, only reason the run didn't fail is that I didn't get hit by neyt's 6 hit ohko combo (he did it 4 times...), I can't imagine how fast an actual new player would quit after using the jump pot

smoky flare
atomic abyss
# wispy birch So Im a new player myself on recommendation of a friend, but I have experience i...

The thing to be careful about is that if you level your character normally, by doing the story, then you will get approximately 20 million gold, plus additional materials from the drops. If you use the potion then you'll be losing out on the gold & the other drops.
The potion is really only recommended if you're finding it tedious to do the story & the dungeons & you want to get to the level 105 Raids as fast as possible.

ivory dune
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@atomic abyss about the lv 105 pot, I agreed with what Azzura's idea of making players start with a level that's a little lower than mainstream raids

about the story, I think I'll have to disagree with you, sometimes, story itself becomes a hindrance, and you actually gain investment on a character on purely usage, it happened with mine, I have 1 of each, and the only story I really know it's my main's (kai), I know more or less well some of the other's, and I admitely know barely anything about charon, letty and latiya's, yet I care about all my toons, even charon, letty and latiya, and I know I'm not the only one who is in this situation

this may be cheesy and also corny, but you can even get disappointed in a char you invested time on, because of a story/backstory/friend story/boat interactions/etc that you didn't like bc of value dis-alignment (or any other story-driven reason), for example, vella, who generally abuses grimden's -and lann's?- good will, or eira, who looks at most with scorn, if you play this game with the lore in mind, if your values don't align with vella or eira's, you would never touch these characters, but what if you like them both's playstyles anyway? you just ignore their (canonical) stories and play with them as if nothing, that's what I did, and now I enjoy playing both, as with the rest of my toons
edited for clarity and apologies beforehand

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@smoky flare about endgame raids, I think not only reds, but niflheim, should be moved to the highest available level, and maybe put some stat restrictions, so unprepared players don't fight these raids

after all, these raids were made for the most experienced players

silent quest
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I'd still really prefer to see them actually make the early game relevant. But starting from 95 works as a quick fix. Though, it would make the early game even more pointlessly easy for those who want to play the story.

I'd love to see Niflheim actually do damage again and maybe have the no res rule back as well. On the other hand, they currently function as very forgiving bosses that new players can fight to actually feel like they're fighting a boss while not dying constantly. They're also much, much easier than current endgame bosses, with the possible exception of BLR. I think they'd make for a great sort of "Redeemers Lite," though. Punishing rules, but without hyper-complex move sets like Redeemers have. Their "1HKO" is also just a lite version, since it brings the player to 1 HP.

Which, these days, is not really impactful. The days of potion-drinking being an art are long gone. I say that with some regret. I rather preferred the old style, to be honest. Especially since it wasn't as if you couldn't use potions "instantly." You could use them while moving, but they healed far less. Nowadays, raids rely a lot on 1HKO to be at all punishing, because once the player gets a basic grasp on how to dodge the moves, they'll almost never die to anything else. I can just spam potions on cooldown if I have to. Especially if you're preemptively using potions to top up your HP instead of waiting until you're low, there's very little risk. I think the old style was more impactful insofar as it made players, especially new players, feel the pressure to actually avoid attacks.

smoky flare
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thing is regular raids are not supposed to be hard the way they are now, you get infinite res and healing so you shouldn't struggle, you're not supposed to fail daily activities

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redeemers/stds are the risky ones, redeemers to a lesser extent since they're very old

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hell redeemers would be what regular redeemers used to be right now and I'm sure most pugs wouldn't be able to clear any of them unless they get one or two giga carries