Suggestions and feedback on fairy newbie experience

[Tagamogi]

So... this is rather old feedback. My fairy was created on March 27, 2020 and I've been sitting on my comments pretty much since then. My apologies if anything major has changed since the time I actually played.

To hopefully keep this somewhat useful, I'll start with some suggestions that would make me a happier fairy:

- Allow us to drop the racial quests, e.g. "A New Life". This is really the big one for me - fairies are supposed to be an advanced race, so allow the players to make advanced choices and decline quests. I'd be fine if I got a big warning about missing out on valuable game lore by dropping the quest. I'd be fine if the quest list was implemented as a "Stuff to Do" item instead of a quest. Just, pretty please, let me get it out of my quest log.

- Save tutorial type messages somewhere where they can be reviewed later by the player. I'm fairly sure I got info on using fae stuff at some point but I have no memory of what it was and no in-game way of finding it again.

- Maybe have more equipment drops or more gear quest rewards in the fairy newbie area. Better food would also have been welcome.

- For special racial abilities in combat skills, maybe allow fairies to use either the racial or the non-racial version of the ability? I'm torn on this one since it makes sense to me to have the races be different and have fairies use a different Slice than humans or elves. On the other hand, it doesn't feel very fun to be stuck with the Slicing Ice variant when what I really want to use instead is the plain old Slice.

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On to feedback about my experience in the fairy starting area. The tl;dr on this is that I did not have a good time which is obviously highly subjective, so I'm trying to break it down into particular stuff that bothered me (which may of course not apply to other players):

- Combat was too hard for me. This one is probably largely my fault since I couldn't make up my mind what combat skills I wanted to use and opened the two fairy gear chests while using different skill combos, so at any time, half the gear I had was completely useless.

My /age info says my fairy killed 49 mobs and died 17 times. That sounds about right. I may have killed a couple pigs in Serbule and died once or twice after leaving the fae lands but dying for every two or three mobs I killed in the initial area sounds spot-on. I hit the max death timer cooldown multiple times, and ended up doing the fairy area in segments of maybe 10 minutes a day, both to reduce the death cooldown and to try to reduce my overall frustation with the zone.

I had the newbie area largely to myself which contributed to a lot of adds. I could barely kill a single mob, and an add was deadly. One time, there was another player there slaughtering things which helped me a lot since I could actually move places without being attacked by something every couple steps.

While my gear problem was mostly self-inflicted, I wonder if maybe the fairy starter gear is a bit too weak. A full set of blues sounds good but the ability boosters ended up being all over the place. If my fairy had leveled to 30 normally, I would have had a few items that are better than blue, and I would definitely have collected items that complemented each other and the abilities that I wanted to use. Even a green is better than a blue that doesn't actually boost any abilities I find useful.

The starter food was likewise disappointing - I'd definitely be using better food by level 30 normally. I would have loved something with a higher power regen to maybe allow me to fly over the mob zone and land when I'd found a mob/item I needed.

I suspect that using animal handling might have helped a lot and the fairy area did seem to try to steer me in that direction. However, I'd just done pretty extensive ah playing on two other characters, and ah was the one skill I was positive I didn't want to use on my fairy at that time.

- I don't like chore lists. Achievement lists in other games usually drive me crazy because I read them as a long chore list of tedious stuff that must be done. The fairy meta quests that consist of a list of "talk to a and do x, talk to b and do y, talk to c and .... " have the same effect on me.

I guess part of it is that it doesn't really feel like progression or discovery. If I just do a quest, and then get a followup quest, it feels like I'm progressing in a story line of some kind. If I get a list of quests to do, it feels like a mechanical exercise in ticking off the boxes, so I can complete the list and be done with the chores.

Eh, just a personal quirk I suppose. P:G's "Stuff to Do" doesn't have this discouraging effect on me for whatever reason, maybe because it feels to me like it's just helpful hints on what to do if I'm stuck rather than a prescription of what I must be doing. I usually end up doing the Stuff to Do list at some point but it doesn't feel forced or urgent.

- I was stuck. Normally, if I reach high levels of frustration and/or boredom, I'd move on and do something else, and then maybe come back later. My fairy couldn't - I had to do these quests first before I could try anything else. ( I did have a friend offer to port me out of the newbie area and seriously considered it. I ultimately declined since if I died, I'd just be in the same situation again, so it made more sense to try to complete quests until I found the exit.)

- The quests were boring. I don't generally mind kill x and collect y type of quests, but in combination with the above they were really grating. I couldn't drop the quests or move on to something else if I got bored, I had to do them, and I had to spend a lot of time doing them since I died a lot. And there was really no story reward for all of this.

I did enjoy the bee hive quests since it felt they had some story and purpose behind them.

Zone layout didn't help on this - it was get quest, go into small boring area, kill one type of mob. Get fresh quest, go back to same area, kill more stuff. Where stuff included mobs I'd just killed on the previous quest since there was no way to avoid them. If I'd just been able to get all the quests at once,I would have been done with this so much faster. Obviously, there's a reason not to give out all the quests at once, but sending me back to the same area over and over just made me feel like it was all mindless makework and I wasn't making any progress.

- I hated the quest rewards. I enjoy leveling skills and particularly like the lower skill levels since getting a ding there is quick and easy. Having the game take that away from me and force me to start a skill at level 30 is pretty much the ultimate anti-reward for me.

Also, well, I needed better gear, and I wasn't getting any.

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Going into outright whine for a bit:

So, overall my fairy experience felt like I was just logging on to get my face smacked in, and grind my way through minor progress in the hopes of eventually getting done with this area. I cringed every time I completed a quest and had the game give me yet another magic skill level up that I really didn't want. Eventually, I did complete enough quests and was told about the portal to Sun Vale, and then promptly escaped to Serbule to finally do the stuff I wanted to do. Except now:

I'm afraid of doing anything on my fairy since I might die and get sent back to hell/fairyland. I'm dimly aware that there's stuff that might allow me to anchor to someplace else, but my impression is that it involves doing quests in the fae realm.

I don't want to go back to the fae realm. On any character. Probably not "ever" but ... not yet. Definitely not yet.

I have a fae energy bar and no idea what to do with it. I might have gotten game info on it at some point but ignored it because everything required far more than the 1 point of fae energy I normally had. (Yes, I know there's a Wiki and I love it. I just don't care enough about fairies currently to go read.)

I still have a quest chore list for Sun Vale stuck in the top position of my quest log and I cannot get rid of it which now makes Sun Vale a no-go zone for me since I might accidentally do one of the quests. My overall feeling is that I will "Talk to Squidlips to learn fishing" over my cold dead body and, really, not even then. Anything that the game wants to force me that badly to do can't possibly be any fun. Plus, I already know how to fish: I pick up a crab from the beach, easy.

I'm kind of bummed because I was looking forward to playing a new character and the fairy seems like she would be a lot of fun. ( I love the backwards flying animation.) I tried to revive my fairy interest by making her a nice set of twink gear and picking a nice safe skill like knife that I'm comfortable with, only to discover that my possibly favorite knife ability, Slice, got replaced by some useless version requiring a consumable. The fairy version might well be objectively better but I'm just not a consumable user - with some limited exceptions, I'm always afraid of running out and because of that end up never using my consumables at all.

So, I'm whiny and frustrated about the whole fairy thing, and every time I was thinking about playing P:G in the last year, I ended up going into a long rant about fairies to myself instead. With this essay off my chest, maybe I can finally get over it and do some actual playing. ( Not saying faires made me quit PG - I was ready for a break.I'm just feeling a bit stuck now thinking about getting back into it since I'm in this mental loop of "alts are fun!" vs "don't touch the fairy!!" )

I really liked the Anagoge newbie experience: It felt wide open, with intriguing puzzles, and the game let me do whatever I wanted. If I could figure out the target dummy - great, I got to feel clever and got a reward. If I couldn't - whatever, lots of other things to do. In contrast, the "advanced" fairy newbie experience felt far more constrained, with far more handholding and shoehorning me into doing things in a particular order and way.

[Bloodnock]

You can learn the normal slice from the knife fighting trainer in gazluk FYI.

The fae starting area's monster aggro range does feel too high. I didnt have as much of a problem because I used mentalism/AH and that is much stronger than knife fighting for soloing a couple of mobs at a time but I can understand why that is frustrating.

[INXS]

The Fae area seems a bit hard at first the problem is the gear, yes you start at lv 30 in a bunch of skills but the gear you get is not what you would have if you started a humanoid in anagoge and went through your growth to lv 30.
What i would like is the beehives to have more distinctive name, i find it a pain to pick up a bunch of quests for soul anchor and i don't know which beehive the completed one/s belong to.
The writing on " Rez and Shine" needs to be changed, it says won't raise fae energy over 50 but DOESN'T say if it's over 50 it brings it down to 50! It's such a drawback to have that happen, i used one for the +40 max health and watched my magic basically half.
The topaz gems changed to use to get Fairy magic, any reason why most gear don't have fairy magic on them?

[ShieldBreaker]

What i would like is the beehives to have more distinctive name, i find it a pain to pick up a bunch of quests for soul anchor and i don't know which beehive the completed one/s belong to....

I second this point, some way to make it easier to find the right hive would be nice. I've had one of these quest done for months, and never stumble upon the right hive, with my bee, to complete it.

[Nepe]

@INXS
I can understand the frustration with the beehives, though I've utilized map pins to great effect with these. It was honestly kind of fun to explore and find all the different hives to see what quests they offered.

@Tagamogi
As a fairy main created from day 1 of the fairy release, I'm sorry to hear you had such an unpleasant experience. I feel there are probably a few things that might have had an impact on your experience. Let's take a look!

Allow us to drop the racial quests... fairies are supposed to be an advanced race, so allow the players to make advanced choices and decline quests

You start off with 'let's rush to the good stuff!' and then immediately follow with

Save tutorial type messages somewhere where they can be reviewed later by the player. I'm fairly sure I got info on using fae stuff at some point but I have no memory of what it was and no in-game way of finding it again.

Which is like saying 'wait, what was I supposed to do again?' This is a bit of a contradiction as you would prevent the 2nd problem by properly addressing the 1st.

I can totally relate to not wanting your quest book bogged down with frivolous quests, but many of these quests are placed for fairies to rediscover their most powerful abilities! And you are absolutely right, fairies are an advanced race, and having the choice to do the quest is totally up to you. But realize that doing this is intentionally handicapping yourself, meaning you're forced to take all the penalties of a fairy while choosing not to take advantage of the benefits. Of course, you're going to have a bad time!

Combat was too hard for me

I will admit the starting gear of a fairy is pretty gimped. But if your solution to a problem isn't working out, it might be better to rethink your solution. Fairies are designed with harsh penalties towards dying, it completely reshapes gameplay from every other race. No longer can you just run and gun your way through challenges, the risk of death must be accounted for ahead of time with your choice of skills and equipment. The game must now be played in a calculated and tactical way to ensure success and the game developers have brilliantly given you tools to mitigate this problem.


For instance:
Animal Handling
I realize you talk about having leveled animal handling twice before, but that doesn't make it any less capable of preventing you from dying. Why put yourself in danger when a pet can do a magnificent job in your place! Not only that but fairies start with not one but two of the hardest-hitting pets in the game!

Have you ever played one of those old school games where you get an extra life and are able to continue playing after dying? Well, Animal Handling mimics this same wondrous effect perfectly. When one pet gets overwhelmed, it can be dismissed (preferably before KO) and another summoned in its place. BOOM redo!
This amazing trick will dramatically extend your fairy's livelihood.

Flight
Fairies start with an innate ability to swiftly fly at +8 movement at the cost of power, the drain increases at a rapid rate the longer you are in combat. Now, this is certainly less helpful at lower levels with 100ish power, but can still be used cleverly to save your wings. In a losing fight against a mob and see a wall or cliff you can jump over? Boom instant reset. Combining the AH technique with your fairies increased mobility and you will find yourself rarely dying.

Now I realize winning a fight is ideal, but not dying is the real prize here. Fairies are kind of like a hardcore mode all on their own and should be played with a similar mindset. Else you will expend much time traveling from the Fae Realm.

Ice Magic
Another skill that can be greatly utilized is a fairy's ability to naturally learn ice magic. Ice magic is crazy powerful when paired with the right skills and respective mods. It can be nearly as defensive as staff or shield, but due to the dependence of the right mods and equipment will likely be more utilized late game.


A few other considerations
Combat being too hard is actually a benefit as it hones your skill as a fairy to prepare you for much more difficult times outside the starting Fairy zone. Also, I realize that you were really hoping for knife fighting to be your thing, but it may have been better to focus on building up your fairy first in a skill that would maximize survivability. PG is a game that rewards consistent effort, and many times goals must be pushed back in favor of learning accompanying skills so that your main goals can be well supported and therefore well-executed.

Another note on the gear being a problem, this is only a surface-level problem largely for new players that rush to get the fae quest unlocked. This quest starts in a level 50 dungeon that is commonly run as the casino daily, which any player who leveled up to 50 normally would likely know about. Not assuming that you don't know this btw, just stating it logically. So it follows that people who are skilled enough to get a casino daily together to unlock the fae quest naturally, rather than carried through, will also know to use this same system to level and gear up their fairies. Fairies will likely be using level 30 skills, very similar to the level of casino dailies, which will be dropping purple and yellow quality gear for the skills they are interested in. The gear issue quickly dissolves almost immediately simply by playing the character and hitting the level requirements for the gear can be attained quickly by consistently running dailies. Hell, you don't even need to be on the quest and you can run it as many times as you'd like.

Some of the other issues you point out largely seem to be caused by your lack of interest in exploring the fairy zone and an uncompromising rigidness of wanting to play a particular way, all other methods be damned. Project Gorgon is after all a game that rewards patience and effort. It's not that you are unable to play a knife-wielding fairy, just that fairies are inherently vulnerable and therefore not well suited to do that kind of task right out the gate. You could, for instance, have played a knife-wielding fairy with a badass bee pet to hold aggro while you both burst a target down. It might have been rocky at first, and sure you'd probably die a few times, but it would have eventually been quite sustainable. But the message I got from you is, 'Im tired of AH, I don't want to bother learning any fairy stuff, I want to play a melee-focused class as a super vulnerable race' and then wonder why you're having such a hard time playing a fairy.


For instance, you comment:

I have a fae energy bar and no idea what to do with it. I might have gotten game info on it at some point but ignored it because everything required far more than the 1 point of fae energy I normally had. (Yes, I know there's a Wiki and I love it. I just don't care enough about fairies currently to go read.)

I realize that this is probably being stated as not having enough fae energy from dying too quickly to build it up, therefore you would have lost interest out of frustration.
But, this is pretty much admitting that fairy is not for you. That you could do something to improve the situation but are choosing not to. Sounds like a great experience waiting to happen.


Another comment:

I still have a quest chore list for Sun Vale stuck in the top position of my quest log and I cannot get rid of it which now makes Sun Vale a no-go zone for me since I might accidentally do one of the quests. My overall feeling is that I will "Talk to Squidlips to learn fishing" over my cold dead body and, really, not even then. Anything that the game wants to force me that badly to do can't possibly be any fun. Plus, I already know how to fish: I pick up a crab from the beach, easy.

These quests were super simple to complete oftentimes completed merely by talking to the designated NPC. They give fairies a sort of 'catch up' mechanic to learn skills up to around 30ish after a short quest chain, similar to what a level 30 player would typically have. I imagine they were meant to be available to the player to take some of the grind out of starting a new character. (even though leveling to 30 takes very little time)

Overall, this could have been a really cool experience if you had let it. But you seemed reluctant to play any other way than how you would play a normal race. Many of the issues involved have solutions that you are simply unwilling to even entertain or could be solved if you spent adequate time understanding the mechanical advantages the fae race offers. It honestly sounds like the fairy race is just not for you; and while that is perfectly fine, I can't help but feel a bit disheartened with your write-up. The picture you've painted is a rushed misinterpretation of the fairy perspective.

The fairy race is such a cool feature to PG that completely changes the way the game is played. It boasts huge tactical advantages with storage, fae magic, and on-demand flight alone. I absolutely love my fae and would encourage anyone to embrace the challenge. I feel that fairies add great value to Project Gorgon and I'm super excited to see what the future advanced races have in store.

[Celerity]

I think Nepe is too harsh but I see where he's coming from. Fairy is an advanced race so it's supposed to have more complicated mechanics and be a harder experience overall. Clearly that experience just isn't right for you Tagamogi. I do want to address some of your points though.

Allow us to drop the racial quests, e.g. "A New Life".

I normally like flexibility so I agree with this, I think it should be moved to stuff to do as you suggested, instead of the option to abandon though. Obviously, necessary quests to get out of the fae realm need to be actual quests which can't be dropped though. Personally when I started as a fairy this quest wasn't in the game and I would have loved to have it, since I initally missed quite a few of the starting bonuses that fairies get and actually just went into the games JSON to find them all. An in game way of displaying it is good but having it as a locked in quest might be too much. I disagree that just having the quest in your quest log forces you to do anything though.

Save tutorial type messages somewhere where they can be reviewed later by the player.

This is a great idea. Use the wiki for now but an in game way for it should be in the game.

Maybe have more equipment drops or more gear quest rewards in the fairy newbie area. Better food would also have been welcome

Probably a good idea to make the tutorial area a bit more lenient with stuff like equipment. I personally thought the chests giving gear was fine already but I can see the problem if you screwed up your skills or wanted to change which ones you were using. Personally I would have just deleted the character and restarted at that point though.

For special racial abilities in combat skills, maybe allow fairies to use either the racial or the non-racial version of the ability?

This seems like a really bad idea to me that just makes fairies objectively better to play than the other races. I really think it is far better design for the races to have actual differences and not have one that is a gimped version of the other, or all the same either.

Combat was too hard for me.

Probably because you messed up getting your equipment but also sounds like you picked the 2 weakest skills available. I tried out animal handling and I think the bee could solo the tutorial area mobs with 0 mods right from the get go. I ended up going with Ice magic/fairy magic myself and had 0 issues. I think I could take on 2 mobs at once no problem. So it's probably more of a problem that knife fighting is too weak, rather than the mobs were too hard. 3 out of the 4 skills you start at 30 with are perfectly fine with the content. Knife fighting has received a buff relatively recently though.

I was stuck.

Yeah it's kind of annoying, but it's to ensure that you actually do the tutorial so you don't complain later that you don't understand the mechanics.

The quests were boring.

I had a similar experience but I didn't find them too long so I didn't mind.

I hated the quest rewards.

I would guess majority opinion is the opposite. Personally I liked not having to do the base levels of some skills again and thought it was a great quality of life since fairy is designed specifically to be an alt.

[Nepe]

Nice feedback on your points Celerity. I apologize if my message came off as harsh Tagamogi. That was not my intention.