One Month In: The "PG Noob Experience" Streamer's Long-Winded, Comprehensive Feedback
Hey folks - so one month ago today, six guys started playing PG who've played a lot of games together, and may or may not have had their hands in some game development work at one point or another in their lives. We kept a pretty good running dialogue between us about what we were seeing, what we liked, and what we didn't - and this guy, at least, streamed a decent chunk of that experience. (Check the sig if you're bored enough to want to watch.)
So I wanted to get a few stipulations out at the start to save everyone some trouble:
Stuff to be Said Upfront
Stipulation: The game is in Alpha!
Yes, I'm well-aware the game isn't done. Having said that, I have no way to know what aspects of the game are, in the dev's mind, more or less finished, so I have to treat the entire thing as though it was at least "near done" in order to have a basis for discussion.
Stipulation:You obviously hate the game, just uninstall.
Quite the opposite, in fact - but as I often tell my students, no one ever got better by being told how wonderful they are. I LOVE THIS GAME. So I'm going to spend a lot of this post talking about the problems I see, because I want it to get better. Spending all your time saying how wonderful someone/something is only ensures it never grows. Criticism, on the other hand, fosters development.
Stipulation: It's not like that at "X Advanced Stage of the Game."
I'm sure you're exactly right. I can only comment on what I see, though, and a player will definitely have made up their mind about playing this game by 30 days or 197 hours in game. So I'll go with what I know.
Stipulation: We talk about this problem all the time in the forum - you haven't added anything new!
My friends and I deliberately stayed off the forum entirely while in our first month; in my case, this was to avoid bias pollution, and to simulate what most game players do - sadly, a low percentage actually come to the forums.
Stipulation: "If people just ask in chat they can find out the answers they need."
That's usually true, but not always - and relying on players to explain basic game mechanics is risky. Players aren't reliable and misinformation abounds. Basic game concept questions asked in chat also rapidly get annoying and so must be supplied elsewhere.
Stipulation: Holy crap this is a long post!
Yep. If you're going to do something, do it right. Take it in doses. Stay hydrated.
Let's begin.
The Newbie Experience
On "Hand Holding" vs. "This Isn't WoW"
So it's obvious from the outset that this game isn't seeking to dethrone WoW and isn't intended as a "mass-market" MMO and that's fine. At the same time, though, devs gotta eat, and people like having other people to game with - usually in their MMOs, at least. So there needs to be a balance between "tough it out" and "now step forward, now turn right, now breathe..."
In some places, PG really needs some clarity that is clearly visible to new players:
Class Distinction - other than the obvious visual differences, what's different about Archery vs. Fire Magic? What's the distinctive trait in Knife Fighting that distinguishes it from Swords? Why would anyone WANT to be a pig, cow, or spider? You don't have to break down all the mechanics to explain "DoT class" vs "Armor Pierce class" vs. "Burst Class" vs. "Support Class" and so on. Giving players some basic direction here helps players with early goals, and thus keeps them going. We had a guy who lost interest early simply because he didn't know where he wanted to go with his character.
Class Permanence - The game does a good job of letting you know Druid, Lycan, and Priest have permanent consequences. Two of those three in particular are advanced enough that players should have heard the news about what happens when you go that road. Animal classes, on the other hand, are under-informed. "Think before you drink" is a good first warning that hey - this is real. You should ask in chat. So I did, and people said, "NPCs will react differently and some might not like you." Okay, fair enough - but remember what I said about "Players aren't reliable information for basic concepts?" This was a big case of that. No one spelled out for me that I'd lose access to my bank vault (where, even more frustratingly, I had ancient bronze coins) when I "went bacon" for the first time - and no one told me that I'd lose access to a LOT of game content when I did so. That got really frustrating in a hurry. Now I had an Unpig potion when I chugged the first quite deliberately, but not everyone is going to be that prudent - and players will really, really not like being blocked from what their friends are doing. This is turning into an "Animal" point, though, which I'll talk more in-depth on later. I guess the bottom line is this: it's not enough to simply say, "this is permanent, dude" without giving either an indication or a link to what that permanence means - especially since the severity of the permanence is so varied. Permanent priest? Meh. (For now.) Permanent spider? Brother, buckle up for harder times.
Class Dispersion - At this point, it feels like there's a bit of a bottleneck in terms of class selection. If you want to tank for a group, you pretty much have to run shield, since it has the only AoE taunt. There's plenty of "tough melee/offtank" choices (and I love that Cow is one of them) but in terms of "I pull aggro for the group" things seem pretty linear. That's kind of problematic, because in a group situation you really NEED an AoE taunt - so many ranged classes have AoE damage abilities that you have mobs running helter-skelter. There's a little more variety at the other end with healers, but that's somewhat less of an issue since personal panic buttons abound. Our "Sword/Mentalist" tank - who was effective largely because he was the highest level, early on - is now being routinely outrun by many others in terms of aggro-holding, simply because he didn't pick the "correct answer" tanking class. It's true that there are other classes with taunt additives and taunt modifiers, but no one running psychology is going to keep aggro off a fire magic (at least here in newbie-to-mid-level-land) blaster for long. Now one might reasonably argue "maybe the fire mage should hold back a little early," and that's a fair concern, except for what I'm about to talk about in the next section....
Combat Mechanics
So I wasn't sure I believed this, and to make sure, I ran some pretty vigorous tests. Running Pig Priest, in a full group of six people with four additional pet entities, I had the guys engage with a mob, and then threw five buffs across three buttons along with two additional group heals (one that also affected power.) For those keeping track at home, that's a total of a nice even fifty buff triggers and twenty entity heals. They then rapidly smashed the mob, and we did an autopsy.
Total aggro I had generated: 0.04%.
We repeated the test a few times, and my aggro varied between 0.02% and 0.05%.
That's very problematic.
Currently, no heal or buff action creates aggro/taunt generation - only damage dealing. I'm assuming this is a "because they haven't implemented it yet" issue, but in case it's not, I have to touch on why this would be problematic:
a) This makes the support role safe to the point of being almost boring. I routinely am the only member of my group that escapes alive on a failed fight. They haven't said anything, but I have to imagine this causes some resentment.
b) This makes combat much too simplistic. All the tank has to do is outrace the damage dealers in taunt and they're gold. Now that's not necessarily an easy thing to do, but it makes a tank's job one-dimensional.
c) This makes power-leveling - which I'd argue is a common, unavoidable, but unsanitary practice in any game - far too easy. The power-target doesn't even need to hit the mob in question - throw a buff and a heal, and you're gold! (This one may be judged acceptable, and if so, I'll move on.)
d) The "rage" mechanic in this game is a great addition and makes combat more interesting, but without the inclusion of a mature taunt/aggro system, the unique Rage mechanic will be overshadowed in the eyes of veteran MMO players who will sneer at the fact that a healer can, at this point, basically be run by a very simple bot or even just a timed macro series.
I cannot overemphasize that last point. A dedicated support healer in this game is absolutely bottable at the moment - particularly with the existence of group heals and "Always heal whoever is lowest" buttons, which in any other situation are a neat mechanic and a fresh take on things.
Support players must be threatened.
There are other minor quibbles I might find with the combat model - although in all honesty, nothing comes to mind at the moment - but they'd be very heavily overshadowed by this. So I'll move on to what happens after you kill a thing, because that's the fun part to many players:
Of Loot and Inventory
So I suspect I'm going to make a lot of people take pretty strong sides about my post one way or another here, since inventory management is a pretty thorny issue in most games. I'm also going to go on the assumption - I genuinely don't know - that PG does not plan to go microtransaction at some point and have inventory space as a coinable commodity. Those issues create an entirely different discussion, but I've heard nothing to suggest they're accurate here.
I'm just going to throw this out and then explain:
Inventory space for new players in the early game is very, very problematic and caused one member of our group to actually quit playing until we came up with a solution.
So PG's NPC economy uses a really interesting take on the system which I like, but it definitely has an impact on things. Every NPC likes different stuff and buys different stuff - and so the importance of picking up everything you can is that much greater in the early stages. Normally, a noob picks up everything to sell because cash. NOW, we pick up everything because cash AND faction. (Having to decide between those two is often a tough decision, by the way, and that's a very good thing. Mad props to the devs.) But tight inventory slots make that even more difficult to grind through (and you'll note this is the first time I use the word grind) and can really frustrate new players. Our guy that we lost for awhile specifically said,
"I left because I got tired of playing "Inventory Management" with the NPCs and not actually playing PG."
That illuminates three pretty big problems that need solving, in my opinion.
a) NPCs need to explicitly state what they do and don't buy in some fashion. Players trying to remember and guess when they're noobs and struggling with another dozen concepts is not good. It might also help to tell players WHY the NPC is refusing to give you full price in the tooltip. "Warning! Velkort is not giving you the full value of 9,000 because (reason)!"
b) The UI needs to reflect when NPCs refresh their money - and that making them like you more causes that refresh sooner and larger - in a much more explicit way. The concept is out there, but sitting on a loading screen and under a mouseover tooltip isn't going to get it done. NPCs running out of money is an unusual game mechanic; it's a good one, but it needs clarification BECAUSE it is an unusual game mechanic. I know a friend who quit before I even started playing because he believed veteran players were cleaning out the NPCs of gold before he got a shot at them. That's an easy misconception to make right now.
c) Here we go with another controversial one: new player inventories need to be larger. Not huge, not gargantuan, but larger. I like that the game forces you to, as you advance, decide "Do I want to upgrade this gear or have these pockets on my current gear." Why not make newbie armor drops on Anagog "pocket rich" to make that decision happen right away? Then your newbies aren't struggling with what-do-I-pick-up-which-NPC-was-that-Velkort-guy-again/which-NPC-did-I-want-to-please while they're stumbling around killing deer. As they level up and improve gear, the pockets disappear until they can invest seriously in real, non-newbie gear... or they can keep the pockets on Anagog Isle Newbie Gear and face greater difficulty in combat. That's a tough choice - and as these devs clearly already know, tough choices make good games.
That brings me to the other inventory-and-loot issue, and this one is probably the single ugliest wart on an otherwise nicely developing game: Loot drops.
Now in most cases, I like PG's loot - I like that mods which exist on gear drops can significantly impact skills and even shape builds. That's a really slick addition and props to the devs for that. One aspect of that system, though, is that drops which are high value - upgrades to YOUR build- are a bit more rare and thus extra-special and extra-high-value. I can't tell you how many times I've yawned at Ring of Fire drops when running a Fire spec - but that's fine, that's part of what the loot system does, and that's okay, because someone cheers at seeing those. Here's what's very not okay, and sadly, this is a true story:
Last night, for the first time, the "PG Noob Experience" group stormed Borghild. It was ugly. Our necromancer got to raise plenty of skeletons without leaving the zone, if you know what I mean. We made progress, though, and eventually killed the yellow ghost dude whose name escapes me. Pretty cool. Took more than one try and when we dropped him, we were very pleased with ourselves. That telltale "ping!" sound went off (which is another amazing detail in this game, props to the devs) and we all rushed to see our shiny loot. I, the resident Pig Priest, popped mine open and saw that telltale golden glow. I was thrilled. Then I moused over:
Golden Spider Harness of Screw You, Pig
Pig 45
Spider 30
Priest 45
Various Really Cool Stats
....what in the hell? I get that not every drop should be perfectly suited for you because trade, economies, and MMO. Totally onboard with that. Boss loot, though, that drops specialized for you should not be absolutely impossible for your spec to ever wear. It literally had PIG ability buffs on a SPIDER harness. Not only would I have to level up Spider to 30 in order to wear it, I'd have to BE a spider to wear it - which means I'd never be able to use the PIG abilities on it.
I literally stopped and stared (you can even see it on the stream from last night, no lie, go check out my archive) at this thing for a good thirty seconds, trying to reread and understand how I was misinterpreting this, because there's just no way...is there? Does this really say that? As my groupmates were cheering their loot and our accomplishment, I was staring at a big fat helping of "Piss Off."
So again, I understand that this potentially is a "trade it and make some cash" situation, but:
a) It should definitely not happen on boss drops. People don't fight bosses to go to a merchant. (At least not the first time.)
b) The item should be physically possible to be useful, and not self-contradictory.
Spider Harness of Piggy Goodness isn't the only example of this I've seen - I've seen a few "Necro-Priest" combo items that are also contradictory and problematic.
If you're going to have a wide-ranging set of loot possibilities - and it's a good trick this game has captured well - then we absolutely can't have "failed drops." Drops that flat out "don't work" or are wildly inappropriate to the player who pulls them are a lot less tolerable in a game where such variety exists. Having it on random mob drops is one thing - but rewarding someone with a rubber chicken after a boss fight is really, really going to grind some people's gears.
I'd go so far as to say this is one of my biggest problems with the game to date. (Hey, we all have our own grievances.) Regardless, it will certainly send some players on an undesirable emotional rollercoaster.
Of Old-Style Games in a Modern World
Travel in PG
Going to guess this is another topic people debate about. As a player leveling up, it's a bit of an issue. I've seen people go rocketing by, so I knew from the first that extreme movement solutions existed - but they're gated pretty tightly. I've found out about a few through careful observation and wiki-combing, but here's the thing: I get that PG is trying to hearken back to a pre-WoW era of MMO, and I *fully* support that. At the same time, in 2018, if you're trying to hearken back to the era of the 1950 muscle car, there are certain creature comforts you're still going to need in that modern era "throwback" automobile. That (fictional) 2018 Corvette Sting Ray Classic is still going to need modern air conditioning, probably a satellite radio cleverly hid in the dash, and maybe even some bluetooth connections quietly slipped under that gargantuan ashtray.
PG needs to acknowledge that times have changed. I'm not saying go with Guildwars-scale "I only have to walk three steps everywhere I go" but again, as a mid-level player, the trip from Sunvale to Kur (or the other way around) kind of sucks. Last night we found ourselves settling on Borghild not because we wanted to go there, but because we didn't want to the travel time associated with another location. Or, in simpler terms:
We chose our content entirely based on travel time.
That's a bad sign. It means that getting to content is more determinant than the content itself. Now this is a tough thing to balance and I recognize that, and I also recognize that at the end game, travel appears to basically not be a problem.
People will either quit the game or not before they reach endgame. The endgame is not a viable barometer for travel metrics - or at least, cannot be the ONLY barometer.
I'd argue that some travel thresholds need to be lowered, or some "once per 8 hours" methods need to be implemented. The unstable portal to Serbule is a good idea, once per eight hours. One to Hogan's keep might also be a good idea. Eltibule is a LONG zone, and it's a transit point for a lot of midlevel players.
My concern is this: a low-to-midlevel player who logs on in a location a long way from where his friends are, and where they want to run a dungeon, is looking at a ten, maybe fifteen minute travel time, and that's assuming they don't have to unload in Serbule first. That's not counting "form up" or "group synch" type stuff. Fifteen minute rally time is a lot longer than the industry standard right now - and that's a timeframe where content is not being engaged with in any meaningful form. No bueno at all. Newer players aren't going to want to grind teleportation to get that extra link location - amethyst costs are real. (I'm not even close to it myself.) The only game that gets away with making logistics a form of game content is Eve Online, and I'm still in therapy from my time there, thanks.
NPC Atmopshere: Serbule's Sexpot Saturation - Now don't get me wrong. Just because I'm an educator by trade doesn't mean I can't appreciate a good bawdy joke. The problem here is that the vast majority of the bawdy humor I've run into in this game is entirely in Serbule. Eltibule Keep's big event is the Gretchen Salas racism show (yes, I know Yvette and the storm, but that's nothing compared to Rita and Blanche) and the Kur town is downright puritanical. (Maybe it's the priest NPC, who knows.) Sunvale's animals mention it obliquely, but the fairies are pretty up-and-up. The issue here is that Serbule portrays the game in a way that the rest of the game doesn't support nearly so strongly. When a reviewer comes around to check the game out, he's going to assume Serbule is a fair example of the PG world - and it's not. Some people will avoid the game, and others check it out, based on an expectation of constant raunchy humor. Both will be wrong. Believe it or not, it will keep some people away - I've had one person express such on my stream. Please note that I'm not saying "SIN!" and "STOP!" What I am saying is - make up the mind one way or another and stick with it. Right now PG is that girl who talks dirty and has slippery hands on the first date and gets much chillier later on. Everyone's got a name for that, but I don't think I've ever characterized an MMO that way. If that's intended, okay, fine - I'm not the devs. If it's not a deliberate design decision... maybe there needs to BE a deliberate design decision one way or the other.
Either way, Rita and Blanche have given me some insights I really never knew I needed or wanted in life. I may never look at Legolas the same way again.
Player Atmosphere: This is a place that - for now - PG really shines. Much respect to the Guides; they make a clear, conspicuous effort to keep order and atmosphere. For the most part, it works. It was a full six days into the game before I saw my first stupid argument - and six days of MMO play before you see ANY stupidity in the main chat channel is something on the order of "Dancing Rainbow Unicorn" levels of rarity. The frequency of stupidity in that channel remains very impressively low, and I've definitely seen direct Guide action on the problem more than once. There are definitely "time gaps" where stupidity can creep in, but volunteers never staff 24 hours a day. PG does well here.
Dev/Staff Atmosphere: Another strong point. I haven't seen a single "Weekend Event" repeat itself - granted, there were only four so far - but if there's a wide variety here, then that's a great thing. The events Rummencola has triggered up at Hogan's Keep have been great (in fact, one of my group won a "bat raffle" there last weekend) and brings the community together in some respect. (Although I'd still love to know what causes the dance party synch events to happen.) The only caution I'd have here is that if these events are going to be a recurrent theme of the game - and it would be great if they were - it will eventually become something that some players love and come to expect. Which means that missing or failing to continue them.... you get the idea. Again, it's a design decision either way - but I'd argue it needs to be another deliberate decision, and not one of accidental momentum in the rear view mirror.
Holy Crap He's Wrapping Up - Miscellaneous Commentary
Animal Classes and Animal Inconvenience - Right now being an animal is fun but, as a bottom line, not worth it for a new player to the game who isn't deliberately looking for a hard time. That's a little problematic because being an animal as a viable class is one of the biggest unique points to this game. No one says "LFG tank, must be Cow" or "LFG Healer/Support, must be Pig." The animals aren't "OP" on their own - but they're saddled (no pun intended) with a pretty large number of disadvantages strictly for a cosmetic novelty. (Seriously. There's like one guy in Eltibule Keep who will talk to me.) Animal Town isn't going to be known to new players - even when I'd heard of it, I couldn't get there for awhile - and point-for-point, there's nowhere near as many NPCs there as you lose gamewide. Now game balance doesn't have to be a mathematically perfect, but there should be some degree of parity and/or a reason for places where there is a lack of parity. (The Hulon storage thing is particularly onerous.) Right now, one of PG's best selling points is a frustrating disadvantage with little upside. Not good.
Player-to-Player Economy - Personally, I like the shops. Obviously there are going to be issues of scale here some day. I'm sure the devs have a plan to deal with that, but as that is implemented, those handy-dandy golems are definitely going to need some upgrades. Whether to include price on the report is tricky since that creates a quasi-AH situation (which they're obviously trying to avoid) but it's not a question to be ignored. More importantly, at some point we really need an in-game mail system for quick trades. Creature comforts and the modern MMO era are real here. Even Minecraft has mods for mail these days, people. C'mon now.
The Giving of Gifts - It's really cool that the default action on the storage interface is "click and it transfers." For the love of carpal tunnel syndrome, do the same thing with the gift-giving menu. Dragging and dropping mushrooms onto Jack is reaaaaaallly onerous. Two clicks is at least LESS onerous. Every NPC in the game could be made a little less grindy-hassle with that one small change.
The Loadout Headaches Are Real - So I'm a Pig Priest, and most times I alternate between "Solo Bacon" and "Party Bacon" loadouts. Any time I update a piece of gear though (y'know, when it's NOT a frickin' Spider Harness.....) I have to delete the old loadout, then resave the new layout, and retype the name. An "Update Loadout" button would be awfully nice, y'know? Maybe with a confirmation box if need be to prevent accidental overwrites? Loadouts are boss. The number of types I've retyped "Party Bacon" though, is a lot less boss.
Amazing Cloth Armor So about my third or fourth day in the game while I was streaming, Morbes got sick of watching me struggle with my inventory woes and did something he said "Would change my life." He was right - he gave me a pair of Amazing Cloth Pants and an Amazing Cloth Shirt, both with 20 pockets. A month later, I'm still wearing them. That's not good. First, it goes back to the noob inventory problem; slot desperation drives a man to do terrible things. Second, the 125 armor value on them is highly competitive with most of the things I'm still finding at this stage. High armor value gear in the early game far outweighs small mod bonuses, and getting this stuff on day three has literally caused me to not even bother looking at chest and leg drops half the time. It pains me to say this, but there really needs to be some kind of restriction on this "category" of gear. It's a "right answer" for new players, and given the number of people I see wearing it, it remains a right answer for a very long time. Right answers are the bane of good gameplay - you want tough choices, not easy ones. I should never be able to get the best armor and the best inventory for my level in the same piece. The "no restrictions fat armor value" sets really need a hard look-over.
Incidentally, that story up above is part of why my group now refers to Morbes as "the PFG" for Pink Fairy Godmother. He loves that nickname. Just saying. You should use it too!
Words of Power is a really cool mechanism that needs fleshing out and further development. This, too, is a unique feature of the game, but
a) you don't NEED them, and the benefits are highly varied, so newer players will tend to avoid them
b) other players can snipe your word if you don't use it right away (and apparently they cycle fairly often, because I have a friend who's got a half-dozen words he has bookmarked, and he just cycles through them rapidly when he wants to go somewhere, which seems awfully cheesy)
c) the explanation for how they work is a little lacking - two members of my group literally don't understand them.
So - like animal classes - some deliberate design decisions and attention could be lavished on this MMO-unique quality here in PG.
Closing Thoughts
If you actually slagged through all this reading, I salute you. Out of my community of gamers, a fair number have tried it, and most - but not all - have stayed. I've tried to chronicle their thoughts (and why the leavers left) here. We're trying to bring the ones who left back and attract more, because we think this is an outstanding game and we'd love to see its development finished and its community bloom. All the critique offered above was offered with positive intentions and honest, carefully considered thought. Obviously, some people will object to some parts and others will call "noob perspective" on other parts, but in closing, I'd encourage you to remember that it's not salty, crusted endgame veterans who make games grow: it's newer players who tell their friends.
The "Noob Perspective" is awfully important - and going forward, PG's can be made quite a bit better.
Much respect to all who took the time to read this and look forward to feedback and discussion. (And now I'll actually get to start reading these forums. Woot!)
FP
