1.2.0 Improvements to New User Experience

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Chris wrote:

<...> If people can learn how to play more easily, then the pool of people that you'll eventually be able to play end-game content with will continue to grow and grow.

This is at best wishful thinking.

Sounds good, but when the game relies on a pyramid economy to play end game, you are always going to be left with the top of the pyramid with no bottom or middle which cannot sustain.

The players come, they go for many reasons, improving on some of the reasons is all good, but the main, inevitable reason will still exist.

There isn't an infinite amount of 'bottom and middle' players out there, Chris, they are not expendable and infinitely replaceable.

Sort out the pyramid economy, currency sink end game and playground of the rich crafting.

For people like me, the hook was realising the build/customisation potential of this game.

When I first played an open beta weekend in 2011, I didn't have an understanding of this. Early, unsupported spells are pretty meh (I think Spark was one projectile :O )

It was this Kripp video that helped me understand what it's all about. He gets the negatives out of the way first up. Then when he goes into the positives, he really gets excited about it. The enthusiasm was contagious.

I suggest that in the Classes section on this website you create some super basic build video guides. By basic, I mean really basic. Trees that are 40-45 points, a run through Normal. They don't need to be the foundation for a mapping build, just something to help people grasp the potential of this game.

An example might be a Fire Witch. You can explain in the video that there are passives to benefit fire spells, explain why you chose a certain pathway (did it have good access to life, mana regen, cast speed?). The edit can show how at the start things were simple, but they got more interesting as you progressed. And goals. The videos should explain how the build has goals it is working towards.

Thank you for the information, good insight!

[EDIT]

Adding strongboxes might address the point I mention below, I play Invasion

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I want to add something maybe more general to the learning curve discussion you mentioned.

When I start my first character in a new league and thus start with an empty stash, I know that my character will be weak at the start.

It is not a secret that one of the most important things in GGG on order to be successful is to collect your leveling gear.

Now I think one of the problems and that is also related to this learning curve but, in my opinion also has to do with the effort/reward discussion, is that you progression in general comes "too little, too late".

What I mean by this is this:
Imagine you have your first character in a league and you run into a virtual difficulty wall.

You need a lot more life and resistances but don't have a lot currency. Now almost all the players will use their orbs to buy an item with specific stats. Or they trade valuable items they found but will not use to get those orbs first.

The problem with this is that players start selling the leveling gear they found too. My character is now in A2 cruel and now I need to have a lot of life and resistances. I basically need to replace all my gear and because not much is dropping that I can specifically use, I started selling my low level uniques.

For example my Wonderlusts, which are great for new characters. But I still need more, so I will probably sell my Sadeema's Touch too.

And that is what I mean with too little, too late. In my experience, the point where you are able to start collecting leveling gear with you first character is end game.

In end game the loot is rewarding enough to profit from trading while being able to keep stuff for yourself too, assuming I'm not being a crazy expensive item like a Soultaker (which I would love to have anyway)

So note that this is only a problem with new character. So yes, I think you need to find a way to make the start less frustrating. Like a chest, similar to the ones in certain races would be great so that you can start with a couple of good items. But on the other hand something like that will probably be abused.

I totally agree on your thoughts here, Chris & GGG.

When new players have received the first message "Hold Alt to show items on the ground" they are left alone.

In my opinion, I think that their first skill gem, their first support gem, trigger gem, first level up (from level 1 to 2) should have a tutorial message to it.

There could even be an option for experienced players to turn off tutorial messages.

I really agree that development time should be put into this.

I just got a new friend playing path of exile. It took him 30-40 levels to really feel the depths of the game! :-)

By the way. I really think that you should improve the death messages on softcore and hardcore. In softcore on cruel and merciless, you should get the information that you're losing experience and in hardcore leagues, people should get a headsup when they're being moved to standard.

The thing that confused me the most in the start and still annoys me, is that you can't see the progression of your gems when they level up e.g. how the gem gets better.

Atm. You have to find the correct gem in your gear, hover over the gem that's ready to level up, remember the stats, click the level up notification's + sign, then compare the new stats with the ones you remembered.

That's just BAD. Especially if you're new and maybe don't even know what leveling up a gem should do.



The satisfaction of leveling up a skill is seeing how much more powerful you just got, so MAKE IT EASY to see what you get for leveling up your skill :D

EDIT:

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NgjnMaster wrote:

By the way. I really think that you should improve the death messages on softcore and hardcore. In softcore on cruel and merciless, you should get the information that you're losing experience and in hardcore leagues, people should get a headsup when they're being moved to standard.

Agreed. Also, I think there's something inherrently wrong with the way HC death is handled.

I play mostly SC, but also HC. I normally play solo and with dead HC chars just transfering to SC, I could just have been playing in SC from the get-go, because there's no real penalty other that another stash.

That means that HC essentially don't make sense for me. There's no death anyway. So why start a hardcore in the first place?

I know, I know: I would have reached a certain level/act and not dying.

It's just that the feeling of accomplishment is really diminished when you can just go playing with the character after death, and you don't even get to keep the "achievement" of having a char that reached this or that level on your pinned characters on the account sheet :(


I don't know what to do about my "HC goes to SC" problem as it's a core function of the game.

Maybe there could be an extra button beside the HC one that said "Don't transfer on death" which would let you keep your character in the HC league as "dead".


As mentioned the death of a HC character should be improved. Atm. you don't really notice anything's happened.

I would suggest that the game would return you to character selection upon pressing an "ok" button on a new "You're dead -screen from when you died.

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GoBBLeS666 wrote:

The thing that confused me the most in the start and still annoys me, is that you can't see the progression of your gems when they level up e.g. how the gem gets better.

Atm. You have to find the correct gem in your gear, hover over the gem that's ready to level up, remember the stats, click the level up notification's + sign, then compare the new stats with the ones you remembered.

That's just BAD. Especially if you're new and maybe don't even know what leveling up a gem should do.



The satisfaction of leveling up a skill is seeing how much more powerful you just got, so MAKE IT EASY to see what you get for leveling up your skill :D

just extending the preview pane already available when hovering the + sign should do the trick

currently you can see the 'required level' and i think mana cost (not sure) but why not simply show entire gem? or something like

Requires 31 level (34)
Mana cost 10 (12)
Deals 46% increased physical damage (52% increased physical damage) or even
Deals 46% (52%) increased physical damage

just list new values immediately next to old ones and job's done

I would support the above, for new players it is hard to compare in general. Especially later in the game where many factor are influencing numbers.

Though this is something more general and goes beyond just leveling gems,

The secret vendor recipes need to go, just reveal them already. I still meet people who have played for a while but still don't know the chaos recipe. They are annoyed that they have no currency but know nothing of vendor recipes. That needs to change IMHO.

Forget in game tutorials, just write a frigging manual. Overall that is easier I feel, and requires really no programming, so in theory should be faster too create and easier to update.

Yeah I agree, there should be a user friendly interface that exposes all the recipes to players.

I just discovered the chaos recipe by listening to yesterday's podcast

Something that might be worth doing is an exilipedia that can be accessed through game menu's which explains game mechanics for new players. A lot of new players wont be as into this as i was and spend their time on the wiki learning things as they play they just want to play. Having it in game means its quick and easy for them to do it. Think of the civipedia in civilisation games and you get what i mean here.

It'd be a lot of work to do but it could be done over the course of a year, like 1 article a week just on the basics and such and can be added to over time. In fact you could ask permissions from the wiki guys or ask people to make threads to contribute to it.

The community would then essentially write it for you, youd just have to check it was accurate and build the interface, then just paste it in - easy.