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Following on from this thread here: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2610 and the general discussion in NCG recently
Even if my recollection is rose-tinted af I still liked the intro The Pit gave for B3. Existing in Cordillera as a new player is just so daunting - the size, choices and scope is initially mind blowing let alone the wandering Lich making a mess of you in the library.
I remember the thing that kept me hooked in Nexus War was finding the All Your Souls safe house (not stronghold) and being supported in a small, helpful, relatively safe environment. I didnt join the faction for a few weeks and the wider Nexus opened to me. I doubt I would have stuck with it had that not happened and I dont think placing people in Strongholds alone is sufficient in the wider context of the Nexus.
The Port Hope opening to this breath was a blast and I think showed the fun of the nexus with people everywhere, emotes and chat, trading, easy orientation and easy spawns in a small controlled space. In terms of maintaining interest for new players I do think an initial scaled down small experience that strokes egos, rewards messing about and isnt punishing would be a good idea. Maybe for up to level 6 or 7 until they are deposited into Cordelia with a faction and have a skill tree under their belt and some grounding in the world. You could also give people an early exit if they feel they are ready for the world that starts at level 3-4 for the more capable players. You could also let people choose a path of Good, Evil and Unaligned that ensures their faction placement is congruent with their chars role playing.
I think the key to making such a place viable is to buff its framed weaknesses in the thread above and inflate the positives as best as possible. It would need twerking of course to balance it just right to be a reasonable learning-curve that isnt boring/non-engaging or OP / incongruent with the actual Nexus experience.
For example:
- A small bespoke pocket space (say 10x10) with all the resource buildings and variety the Nexus has to offer. Have it be a small village (like Port Hope) with mixture of experiences like a few water squares, a mountain, a mixture of buildings and outdoor squares. Maybe a two-way portal that jumps you ~5 squares away to give that controlled experience. The size of the space could flex with its player count so when there are fewer new players running around it drops to 7x7 etc.
- Fill the place with low/non-lethal pets. Give them ~5% attack or make them fire nerfs. Give them low MP / high AP so that whilst they can move around loads if they find someone to attack they will despawn before they actually kill someone. Or let them stop if a player drops below ~20 health. Maybe have a "higher level pet" that only targets +level 5-6 players and does abit more damage and provides increased risk
- pets that are healable (spawn with half health etc). Make some of them appear as mock-real players that have a bunch of stock emotes they spit out instead of just "pets" as we know them
- Toss a few experienced / helpful players a free char slot to only reside in that pocket space and walk around being a bunch of mentors, gifters (and targets). Im not going to name-names but I bet there is a tonne of players who would be happy to just run around and be accessible to new players on an alt. Maybe let a few of them be T2 demons, angels, transcendent so new players can see what they can become etc and let them blast out the occasional skill like a glyph spell or healing aura, or a low-damage EM. Obviously such players need to be vetted and limit their chars so they really are just guides (e.g no combat ability).
- Sprinkle in a bunch of respawning collectables (weapons, chunks of steel, books, faks) for easier discovery and skill usage
- Lower the cost of skill usage - to make it accessible such as 2 ap crafts, 2 ap harvests, depowering - 2 ap
- Buff search tables and let people find things easily and not much junk but generally fun things to play with.
- hints - everywhere that are skill / building specific
- Insert the odd accuracy buff unknown to the player. For example, every 10th swing the accuracy jumps from 35% to 75% until a hit connects then back to 35%
- High AP initially, I think this is already the case(?) but if not, start with 250ap and perhaps your max drops by ~20ap every level until you reach the norm
- On death maybe have a hint pop up in relation to where you died such as "You have respawned. You died in the hospital 3 squares North. There is a library 3 squares West" to help orientation or give them the option to spawn at a particular place
- Have auto-hints trigger when someone does a inefficient action or a learning event occurs- "You are searching at the night. Searching for things in the day light is much easier", "Oh no! Your weapon is broken! You can find a new <insert weapon here> in <building>", "Oh no! The powers gone out! You can try you hand at engineering to see if you can restore the power" etc
- You could even let them try out skills (like an easier buy back) before they "pick their path" and properly select their skills at level 6-7. This could be via easy skill purchase/exchange or gaining certain skills in certain locations or having certain items "You pick up a sword, try your hand at melee combat for the next 50ap", "You picked up a Portable Tool Kit and have been granted the Engineering ability. Go turn on those lights! for the next 50ap"
- Have a small section (say a 2x2 square have demonic, angelic, transcendent buildings to give a flavour for the larger world. Maybe place an inaccessible empty Stronghold to foreshadow the world outside
- Let their first spawn into Cord be a complete skill/MO wipe and allow them to choose their first 60-70cp with the knowledge they have learnt up to that point
- To introduce the faction play aspect that is at the core of the game you could start the players off in factions Red Team / Blue Team etc headed up by an experienced player alt with some components of faction/stronghold warfare seriously scaled down to be accessible - such as instead of a Stronghold have a Club House with no ward, a foot locker and a flag people can walk in and take for xp mimicking the wider world
You could also just have an offshoot neighbourhood of Cordillera like Port Hope that has a barrier T2/3s cannot pass through, but mortals can and when a mortal dies it allows them to spawn either anywhere or in that offshoot neighbourhood so they at least have a grounding space they know that is relatively safer than the wider Nexus.
