Beginner Unfriendliness?

[Retrobot]

I started playing Project Gorgon after a search for some MMO/RPGs that weren't pay-to-win or pay-to-play, which I could play on my free time, lead me to a thread recommending Project Gorgon with a warning that it was a bit grindy, which I didn't mind. I downloaded it and read up on some other threads which also alluded to the fact that it took a lot of grinding. Once on the tutorial island, I went through it pretty fast and was already given the option to leave by the man in the light-house. I thought I was leaving a bit under-leveled, and went to grind out to a comfortable level around 15 or so sword and 11-13 unarmed and could solo the big-headed skeleton boss there. After giving him the coordinates I landed in Serbule and went to test the mob difficulty to die to a tiger that was right where new players coming to serbule spawned. I thought that was a bit weird but I respawned in the town and started on the beginner quests I was given. One told me to chip off a piece of a crystal, which spawned a deer that wasn't too hard to kill but still kicked my ass for something that was in the starter quest. I killed enough to finish the quest, but thought I was a bit underleveled so I farmed the deer to kill them until I could be comfortable fighting them, around 20. This was because anything besides the deer killed me if more than one of them grouped up, then I went to do the other quest given to me. This quest, the starter one, sent me into a dungeon with brain bugs every ten steps, which I could only kill, at level 25 sword and endurance 16, one at a time with a full break in between, with the best food I could get without training cooking too much. The other quest underneath the crystal lead me to a dungeon with slimes I couldn't even kill without dying. I decided that I couldn't do either of the starter questions with my main skill maxed to half, at least without bumping up the level cap. So I tried some other skills like bard and fire magic, which brought something else to my attention. At the starter levels of a new skill, the only reasonably kill-able mobs, apart from those at the tutorial island, gave only 20xp and they were few and far between and took ages to respawn. At this point, I thought I had screwed up somewhere down the line and went to what I had been told was a very helpful, closely-knit community which had drawn me to the game in the first place. The only responses I got to the mere idea of beginner unfriendliness was one dude telling me how much xp he had to get and that I was a bitch, and an overwhelming amount of the same response of the game "not holding your hand." I feel like I want to make this game work and that it would be a great time-spender if I ever got behind it but I feel like its not geared towards beginners at all and is oddly difficult for certain stages of the game. Am I doing it wrong and needed to do something different to make the experience better? Is this random jump in mob difficulty from the tutorial island to wanting to do anything in serbule noticed by any other beginner players? Did I just run into a bad egg or is this community just a closely-knit Dark-Souls-esque elitist club? Let me know, it'd be great to get some information.

TL;DR: grinded tutorial island but got my ass handed anywhere else in serbule, couldn't do any quests, leveling is boring slow, wondering if i did something wrong or has anyone else noticed the bullshit jump in mob difficulty.

[BetaNotus]

I think you may have encountered a bad egg, most people receive a friendlier welcome. When you first start a new skill, it can prove challenging for some to raise the first few levels. Some people choose to return to Anagoge (island), while others focus on fighting the pigs, rats, and spiders around Serbule. The Tigers and Mantis could be considered the strongest normal monsters in the zone, depending on the skills used.

You were able to solo the big-headed skeleton, so I would advise checking out the Serbule Crypt. It's a dungeon where mobs range in level, and some people choose to level up past the late 20s there. (Personally I would advise going elsewhere before that point). If you use another already leveled skill (even under 15) to get another skill started, it should go a bit smoother than starting out in Serbule or Serbule Hills with two level 1 skills. For the most part, I'd consider quests more "long-term" than one might expect. Sure, a few of the "Kill 10 x" can be completed, but a few of the Serbule NPCs ask for tasks to be completed that may require almost a full set of level 30 gear and quite a bit of exploration.

[ShieldBreaker]

Hi welcome to Project:Gorgon. :)

Sorry I can't relate to the beginner question, I've been around too long and last time I did newbie content on an fresh character I found it easy. But the game is always changing month to month so things might need adjusting now, not sure. The Community for the most part is really good, other players usually beat me to giving advice or help in game. If someone said something insulting, you will find the Abuse report as a radio button on the Feedback form under the ! icon on the top of the right hand menu bar.

Under the Red Crystal and Brain Bug Cave are pretty tough stuff. You having to limit yourself to one kill at a time even outside those dungeouns, doesn't sound wrong. Focusing on those quests might be a little problematic, there is a lot of other stuff that in my mind come before them. The Crypt, The Sewer, maybe a bit of Under the Hand, At least the first Chest in Myconian Cave, also probably a large extent of the separate Zone Serbule Hills. Slime is a tough monster with it's Extreme Health Regeneration, it has some attacks it is weak against but until you have damage high enough to overcome their regeneration they are a problem.

It is difficult to give perfect advice, content changes, not sure what kind of gear your are running with, are you trying to solo group content, things like that. Hope you find the rhythm of the game, and a bunch of friendly mentors.

[Khaylara]

Definitely you ran into an odd person, most people are friendly.

To your points

-the grindy comments-i find this game to be less grindy than any other MMO I've played, in the sense that I'm not forced to grind, I could spend all my time in town playing music or growing veggies:)


-about newbie unfriendliness, it's as Shield said a tad hard for me to relate because I'm an older player. Every time I make a new char to test an update I already have the knowledge to pass the first stages without any issue. I have a tiny bit of advice here though-the favor quests are not regular quests like in other games, their purpose is more to guide you towards aspects of the game that you might otherwise miss (in other words you don't "have" to do them but by doing them the rewards and skills you might lvl in the process could be very useful). The same goes for favor items/gifts. I would focus less on combat and more on "life skills" or however you wanna call them: gardening, cooking, skinning, butchering and pathology (especially pathology because that would help you identify what mobs you can kill with your combat skills).

P:G is actually more beginner friendly these days but the apparent "unfriendliness" is there to familiarize a new player with the pace/atmosphere of the game, you're ment to stumble and fall and stub a toe every time you run into something new. Mobs in a newbie area are not necessary newbie level and there are dungeons on the beginner map that can't be tackled at lvl 20 at all. It's part of the charm of this game. I hope you get to enjoy the quirkiness and I hope you don't run into any more asshats:)

[Tagamogi]

Bah, everyone else posts faster than I do. I'm going to totally ignore BetaNotus and ShieldBreaker and Khayalara and whoever else is posting right now, and do my own post... So:

Welcome to the game!

My own newbie experience was nearly two years ago now, so it's a bit hard to remember, and some things have changed since then. (In particular, I think the tiger that killed you when you first landed in Serbule is probably a new pathing problem from when the mob density in Serbule was increased. The game is alpha...) I hit an "I can't kill anything" point myself, too, although mine was bit different - I was doing sword/psychology and convinced that I sucked at all combat because I couldn't scratch those stupid mantises. So, I spent a month doing nothing but non-combat work orders... I eventually wandered into Eltibule by accident and was thrilled to find out that I could actually kill stuff there.

Anyway, here is some stuff I can think of that may ( or may not, sorry ) help you:

- Food is the best buff you can give yourself. You said you are eating, so that's good, but it's definitely worth leveling both cooking and gourmand. Also, be aware that there are both meals and snacks, and you can have one of each, stacking their buffs. ( I think both milk and flatbread are easy low-level snacks, but you definitely want the highest level food you can get if you are having problems killing things. )

- Make sure you are using your combat refresh ability whenever its cooldown is up. You probably are, but just in case: Every skill has one ability that will return power/health/armor to you when you use it. For example, for Sword, that's sword slash.

- Marna is your friend. Make sure you learn both first aid and armor patching from her, and use them during combat. I believe Marna will also teach you a poison resistance potion recipe for completing a quest. This potion comes in handy in a number of places.

- Level anatomy to learn about mob resistances and damage types. Some mobs that you find hard to kill may just be particularly resistant to your main damage ability. (Of course, you do have to kill a few of them in order to learn about their resistances, so there is that...) Other mobs that hurt you a lot may be doing primarily a certain damage type that can be mitigated with potions or specific gear.

- Better gear helps a lot. My favorite spot to get gear at lower levels is the Serbule Crypt. The spider clumps there can be rather rough for beginning players, but I think you should be able to make it to the first loot chest near the entrance, in particular if there is anyone else in the vicinity who is also killing the spiders. Other than loot chests, it seems to me that humanoid mobs have a higher chance of dropping gear than animals (someone please correct me if I'm wrong), so if your choice is between killing skeletons or killing spiders, skeletons may lead to better loot.

- For xp levels 10+, it may be worthwhile to wander into the Serbule Hills zone and see if you spot any mobs with a crown over their head to get a kill quest for a bit of bonus xp. Serbule Hills also has a pretty nice mob density, imo.

- For xp levels 1-5, there's usually a clump of friendly pigs east/southeast of Serbule town that love to give you pork shoulders for bacon and sausages. You can also try venturing into the sewers near there - if there is nobody else around and you bury the rats to make them respawn faster, the sewers are pretty nice xp and also have a nice mushroom spawn rate.

- If you have a higher level skill that is compatible with the skill you are trying to level, you can also use that to kill higher level mobs. E.g. if you have level 20 sword and want to level your level 2 mentalism, you just have to use a single mentalism ability during the fight to get mentalism xp, and you can use your more damaging sword abilities for the rest of the fight.

- Combat skills generally have some abilities you gain just from leveling up and some other abilities that are obtained from trainers or special scrolls. If a combat skill seems underpowered to you, it may just be that you are missing a good ability. Of course, getting that ability could be another problem... Generally, I'd suggest just picking a combat skill that seems fun to you, and then possibly looking at the Wiki to check for missing abilities if you seem to be getting a lot of gear with modifiers for abilities that you just don't have.

- It's not a linear game. If you get stuck in one area, move on to something else. If the tigers in Serbule give you problems, try the wolves... If you get tired of Serbule, try Serbule Hills, or even Eltibule.

- You don't have to complete quests. They give you something to do, sure, but remember that generally your xp and loot come from going out into the world and doing stuff, not from completing quests. If you can't complete a particular quest today, there's always tomorrow, next week, next month... There is no limit to the number of active quests you can have, so just pick up everything and then do stuff when it's convenient/possible.

I hope that helps a bit. If not, well, post again... :)

( Edit: Now that I think about it - if you went into the crystal cave, you've definitely been to the crypt before. It's quite worthwhile spending a bit more time there and exploring a bit more if you haven't yet. And yes, if you are 25 sword (and what else?) and want to stick with that rather than leveling an new skill, move on to another zone and worry about the crystal cave later. I like all of Eltibule a lot and while I haven't done much in the revised Serbule Hills yet, it has goblins and goblins are always fun to kill... )

( Edit2: In general feedback, if a dev reads that far, I also thought the crystal cave was a bit unbalanced. I initially got horribly killed by the slimes, and then avoided it for another 20-30 levels because I wasn't thinking at all about resistances. By the time I finally made it back, fighting the boss there was a bit of a disappointment because she seemed so simple. )

[Crissa]

This sounds exactly like the story of another guy who spent a day on Global ranting that he was too weak with his Fire 10 to take down sick tigers and refused to use any other abilities or try anything else in the game. Under the crystal and brain bug cave? Those are the first group dungeons, too.

[Tagamogi]

Crissa - Given that the OP went out and obtained the bard skill, it looks to me like they are quite willing to try different stuff. Speaking as someone who still hasn't gotten bard, I'm fairly impressed with that degree of resourcefulness. :D

I think technically Dark Chapel is the first group dungeon (there was a Citan post somewhere I swear), but it certainly helps to group up in other places too, so that's actually good advice. Neither the crystal cave nor the brain bug cave are that popular, but asking in general chat may turn up someone else interested. And there seems to be always someone wanting to do the crypt...

[Retrobot]

BetaNotus Thanks for the advice, I've been around the crypt but the skeletons usually kick my ass on the way through. I've found a way to jump over the fence and get in. I'll try and level there a bit. It's definitely a new experience for me not following quests in an mmorpg. I just assumed they were something to start doing. I appreciate the response.

[Retrobot]

Tagamogi

Thanks for the welcome, here on the forums is a lot friendlier than what I've met in-game, but I haven't played during active time very much.

I've read elsewhere that it's really good to level up gourmand and cooking for those buffs but I never really thought investing was too important until maybe later in the game. I've been eating honey ham and crab meat which are the only recipes I've bought, but I'll definitely invest more time, thanks.

I have been using my combat refresh, but it doesn't seem all that effective vs the stuff I've fought so far, but it could be be cause of the food issue or the under-leveled issue. I don't think this is an issue I'm really having, but thanks anyways.

I ventured into the Serbule Hills zone, thats where I got the bard skill, but didn't see any monsters with crowns. I'll have to head back and check. I've seen a lot of people mention sewers but have yet to come across any sewers around. I'll go have a look on the wiki to see if I can't find it. Between that and the Crypt, I think I'll have some nice leveling spots.

I've noticed that, about sharing levels. It reminds me of the Pokemon games. You could always start off the battle with your weakest Pokemon before switching to your strongest and the weakest would get the battle xp. It hasn't been too useful since I'm trying to balance sword and fire magic, which both take up the primary slot, and is probably terribly inefficient anyways.

I haven't had too much difficulty with combat skills, mainly because fire is all through the recipes, at least that I'm aware of, and I haven't seen any sword trainers but this could be why my sword is a bit weak at its current level. I'll have a look on the wiki.

Like I've said one of my other responses, the freedom of this game is new to me, so I'm still trying to wrap my head around the non-linear aspects of this game. I'll try out Eltibule, I've seen the portal but have never been. That feels like it could offer something new.


Yeah, the other posts have said that quests aren't something you have to do, and again, its kind of weird to wrap my head around that, but I'll go out and adventure and just try to have a bit more fun with the game in general.

This has been loads of help, thanks a ton.

[Retrobot]

Crissa

If these other very lovely people hadn't responded, I'd say you would've very much confirmed the whole "closely-knit Dark-Souls-esque elitist club" point.

[Retrobot]

Khaylara

Yeah, I've seen posts about it, but it just hasn't been the case in my experience, however I always have been playing in less active hours.

Well yeah, if you spend your time playing music and growing veggies, you'd be leveling up your performance and gardening skills, I think, which is fine but I meant grindy as in leveling up your combat stats, which takes some grinding to do, or so I've been told.


Yeah, I can see how it'd be hard to understand if you were a veteran player. It's just a new experience entirely for me, especially with how quests are mandatory and not just focusing on one/two stats at a time. But thanks for the advice, I'll definitely check out some life skills. I've already leveled up a bit in pathology.

Yeah, I'm used to more easy-going mmorpgs that tell you at least a general direct to go, and I'll just have to get used to game and take those speed bumps and learn from them. Yeah, not really sure who pissed in that dudes cereal, but I'm sure it was only a small part of the friendly community I'll hopefully uncover.

[Crissa]

The sewer is really well hidden in the bottom of the bay to the north-east of Serbule town.

Really, we need some flags on the tougher skills to level like Fire and Bard that tell people explicitly they're going to hit brick walls if they've not leveled other side skills. I have fifteen levels of Fire and I've never touched the stuff ^-^

Under the crystal is a terrible dungeon. If you have the poison damage resistance potion - which comes from a parallel quest - you totally own the place. Otherwise the slugs wipe the floor with you. It totally is a group dungeon because of that; you can't tank it without a key, and you can't generally kill Maronesa with level 15 damage solo. I escort people through there all the time. A level 40 easily can get killed by the uber-stacking poison if they're not paying attention.

Although, my online time is terribly short to begin with ^-^


Retrobot

Sorry I popped off at you, that was unfair.

PPS: The combat refresh action isn't that it's efficient - it's that it regens your power and armor while being really cheap. It's basically PG's version of auto-attack.

...Maybe what we need isn't a recruiting board but a scheduling board where people can say when they'll be on to do various dungeons...

Tagamogi

It was, originally, but the quest line sorta takes you to under the crystal and brain-bug first, before you can solo them; and there's no boss in the Chapel you can take down with level 10s but you could take down Maronesa with a group of them... So if that's Citan's intent, it's not what we ended up with!

[Tagamogi]

Retrobot

Cooking & gourmand are definitely the best non-combat skills to have (and, by extension, gardening to grow vegetables for cooking). One word of warning here: There are a lot of cooking recipes, and when I first started playing, I managed to bankrupt myself by buying every cooking recipe I could. I'm not sure how much that is an issue these days, but it may be wise to focus initially on recipes that are easy to make or that are good NPC gifts or that you can use to fill a work order for cash. Of course, if money isn't an issue, buy all recipes. :)

The crown kill quests will appear randomly in both Serbule Hills and Eltibule. I've been pretty lucky with them recently, but it's definitely possible to go for a while without seeing one. They are more of an xp bonus than an absolute necessity, but still pretty nice.

Crissa is entirely correct on both the combat refresh and the sewers - you'll want to look for a glowy blue portal under the water. Note that the sewers are pretty low level though, and you are unlikely to find the rats much of a challenge at 20. I still enjoy them at level 5ish though.

I'm trying to wrap my mind around leveling both sword and fire magic at the same time, and mostly coming up with lots and lots of weapon switching which doesn't sound very pleasant. I don't want to tell you that you are playing "wrong", but I think you may have more fun if you drop either sword or fire magic for the time being, and instead pick up a second skill that you can actually use in combat at the same time as your primary skill. The compatibility chart at http://wiki.projectgorgon.com/wiki/Skill_Compatibility_Chart may help. (Note that while unarmed is technically compatible with all skills, having a mainhand or offhand weapon equipped will disable certain unarmed abilities.)
(Now that I think about it, being a sword-wielding fire mage would be pretty cool. Sigh. Just not really possible in the game at this time. There are some enhancements planned for the future - I know knives also being offhand has been talked about, so maybe there will be the ability to use both sword and fire magic at the same time eventually.)

Sword has a trainer in Serbule. It also has a second trainer who is very well hidden. Some of the trainer abilities are also available as scrolls - if you check Hulon's and Velkort's Used tabs, you may get lucky and find an ability scroll you can use.

For fire, the nice thing is that the recipes should allow you to learn all the important abilities. The not-so-nice thing is that obtaining the ingredients for recipes can become very difficult for the higher level recipes. For example, I'd consider saltpeter to be easily obtainable at level 40, but you actually need it for level 25 fire magic research... You may be able to get some from other players, though.

Yes, it can be a challenge to get used to navigating without quests pointing the way all the time. Each zone has areas of varying difficulty, and that difficulty may depend on which combat skills you are currently using. So, don't be afraid to poke your head into odd zones and places - the worst that will happen is that you will get killed and you then get to spend a few levels planning your revenge on the mob who killed you. Revenge is very, very sweet, though.

Anyway, welcome again to the game!


Crissa - yeah, I was being overly picky. I'm still a bit fuzzy on the group dungeon concept - I think it involves being primarily populated by elites as opposed to regular mobs. It definitely helps to group up even if a dungeon isn't formally defined as a group dungeon.

[poulter]

Sad to hear that you experience engaging with another player wasn't very positive. You will find that most of the community are very helpful, but try to avoid spoiling a new player's fun by sharing knowledge openly as the game is about exploration i.e. hand-holding is OK, spoon feeding is avoided. That said, ask as many questions as you need to (in the help channel by preference) & if you get cursed by a boss, there are usually people willing to help you remove it afterwards- so give it a go :)

Some points:
Different mobs have different resistances & a damage type that really hurts one mob, can be ineffective on another type i.e. use the 'wrong' damage type on a specific mob type & you get to die
e.g. the starter island boss can be defeated solo with level 6 to 8 skills if you know the game mechanics & 'technique'

Within the same zone, you will get 'easy' mobs you can solo, and some, you can't even damage (i.e. you need to avoid them until you level /gear up). Unlike some games, PG doesn't hold you hand in this respect - which makes exploration much more fun.

Coloured gear and the skills you use with it (on your bars) make a huge difference to your damage output. Suggest you ask a veteran about what to look for. how to match gear & skills in game.

[takatoka]

OP, does it feel like a better community now? after some sour-mouthed jerk un-welcomed you, these feedback comments should make that taste go away :)
it's an amazingly good game community, and i would get into an established guild (or a growing one that promotes group play) as soon as possible. aside from the wonderful guild credits, there's help, advice, grouping, mentoring (very widely used), help with crafting materials, and (the best part) all those fabulous hand-me-downs that will make you seem awesome.
and don't forget that Wiki is your friend. and you can access the game's wiki site right from inside the game (how cool is that)

and don't forget that death is a skill in this game.

i haven't been active for a little while (damn DOS II) but i know i can come in anytime and carry on from where i was..

"come for the game... stay for the people"

[Crissa]

Citan decided you can punch while holding a sword (or as a cow) so Unarmed is much better than it was. Some of the throws might still have limits on them, but none of the basic combo attacks do any longer.

Which, since equipment bonuses and combos often don't overlap, make it kinda less optimal than it ought to be? Anyhow. It's certainly something to consider.

-Crissa

[Mijja]

OP, does it feel like a better community now? after some sour-mouthed jerk un-welcomed you, these feedback comments should make that taste go away :)

I saw at least a slice of the participation of OP in the global chat, i don't know if it was the actual "bad" experience described or if he was already in a defensive state but people were actually trying to help him genuinely for what i've saw, even if he answered with some tint of frustration (as this original post perspires). Be careful about just one ringbell.

To OP : i started not so long before you and i could have different adaptation mecanisms / better luck about people i met, so i cant relate to your bad experience (also saw so much people helped by others through chat !)... keep it up, figuring out things is really rewarding in this game ! Just turns out you followed quests /explored places thinking the game couldnt possibly give you content you cant realize yet, but it can actually happen... try another place, ask out ! There's a lot of things i couldn't do at the start and avoided them trying to find out other ways to progress until i can overcome those difficulties. Global chat is always here to help (if knowledgeable people are available, that is), the /forum and /wiki commands are handy too.

Also don't forget the fact that the point of this whole game (putting aside the "game in Alpha-state" argument which is valid but also makes your topic interesting towards improving the game) is having fun discovering new things so it can happen that some people are reluctant to spoil too much things when helping you, and in those cases you can have vague directions to help you out while still limiting the spoilers (my bet is that very thing is the base of your "bad egg" experience because of a misunderstanding).

[Malice00]

Retrobot, sorry for your troubles starting out. As you have witnessed first hand some people are very cruel. I guess it is in part due to immature jerks having anonymity. My tales are similar and yet different to yours. I sure died a lot, got curse a bunch, quit a couple of times. Then I asked for help and 4 people came to help against the forgotten Golem. That of course was after some people mocked me. Oh well this game is a microcosm of real world people. But all in all I like this game. It took me 40 levels at two major skills to realize that I needed to get favor with NPC's. I don't use Wikiapedia, I just muddle through the world and learn by trial and error. That is the real quest. Leveling is fun but if it was a cake walk would anyone stay long term...maybe because then it becomes about the trivial "look at me" attitude "I am higher level than you". Really, think about it, it is cyber mud and not reality. In my opinion, game time is a release from the everyday grind of life. End game is not too finish maxed out, it is the new unexplored road traveled everyday.

Lastly, yesterday, I finally joined a guild after 10 months refusing offers. Why, the people I was playing with asked for nothing, and offered friendship.

Contact me in game, I have a high level tank I play. But I do have two relatively new avatars I can play with you on. Seek me out, I am known as Joaquin.