Suggestion: New Realm / Redo on tutorial (in General)

In the other thread a couple strong key points made that new users had a hard time getting through the tutorial due to a couple of things:

- Massive amount of character customization
- "Trap" weapons and armor that are a waste of money to upgrade

Bonus' and N*B aside, I think the first overhaul that wouldn't be coding intensive would be a total redo of how new players interact with the game.

In here I will contain a few suggestions that I think would work very well for CB, and change very little in terms of gameplay. This is a little long, and very loose suggestions, so have an open mind :)

First Suggestion: New Realm - Proving grounds

All new characters would be created in this realm. This realm would be completely separate from regular gameplay, much like tourney characters. Players in this realm cannot access auctions or the blacksmith and have there own specialized store.

Contained in their store are all the subpar weapons and armors we have now, for much reduced rates. They would also be advertised as sub par 'junk' that would barely provide any protection to new players. The 'shop keep' npc would say things along the lines of "har har har have fun with this junk." Or "hope you are only going up against a light breeze." You get the idea. Give players the impression they really want to dump this gear as soon as possible.

Players must spend 2 weeks in Proving Grounds before they can 'graduate.' They do not receive any type of bonus to cash or BA.

Interface Changes Required
- Create new realm
- create separate store and block access to auctions/blacksmith
- create text upon entering store and when making purchases to create the impression of shop keep npc.

Second Suggestion: Choose your class/team lay out

Before a character can even be made in proving grounds, a class must be chosen. Something like Tank, Mage, Archer, Enchanter. Once a class is chosen they will have a limitation on what they can train. For example, a tank can not train magic missile or guardian angel and a mage can not train strength or archery.

There should also be some kind of light story associated with this;

There is a massive arena where teams from all over the world battle it out thousands of times a day. The rules are simple: Wealthy individuals hire up to 4 minions to fight for them. They train them however they like, and unleash them against other teams in gladiator style arena combat. The team left standing is declared the victor.

It is now your turn to decide how you will train your team in Carnage Blender. There are many paths that lead to wealth, power and fortune before, the choice is yours to make.

Something like that. I'm sure some one could do much better.

'Train' and 'equip' would be changed to 'Camp.' Inside your camp, you could tell your minions how they should train, and equip them with various weapons and armors. In the training section, there would be a section on how your trainers can only spend so much time with your team, having more minions to train will result in them being weaker then just one minion, but have the advantage of being able to diversify.

Interface Changes Required
- Create class selection
- disable certain spells/skills form other classes
- combine 'equip' and 'train' into 'camp'
- misc. text added to game

Suggestion 3: Create a sense of leveling up

Players should feel they are working towards something. Have certain spells unlock at certain mpr goals in proving grounds. By the time they are done proving grounds everything would be unlocked. Make it so players are extremely limited in choice when they first get started.

Interface Changes Required
- Lock spells/skills until certain mpr goals

Suggestion 4: Graduating from proving grounds

After 2 weeks players that have met a certain predetermined mpr requirement will be able to leave Proving Grounds. This should be something jazzy though. I was thinking something along the lines of a special battle you click on that isn't really a battle. It looks like one, but is really just set text with your minion names put in. The battle is a no win, and the team gets slaughtered by some npc team around some higher mpr. After the dust clears the players find a tattoo of their choice and are done with proving grounds. They get some kind of text like;

You couldn't believe your eyes as your minions were ruthlessly butchered in the arena. This was the furthest spectacle from a fair fight you had ever seen. The opponents magic was powerful, their weapons even more so. The battle was over in mere seconds.

As you dragged your minions bruised and bloody body(bodies) out of the arena you noticed something had been burned into them. Upon further research you learn it is a (tattoo of their choice).

To further humiliate you, the victors started dancing and spitting at you, the whole arena was roaring with laughter. This only served to make one thing clear; through hard work and determination you would enact your revenge.

Rough I know. But you get the idea. Proving grounds is now done, and this is when the NUB kicks in. First goal of the NUB: Defeat npc that shamed you. By the time the player achieves that goal they should have a decent strat and a decent understanding of game mechanics. Players not at the required mpr would have to spend more time inproving grounds until they trigger the special battle.

Interface Changes Required
- Create npc battle
- create npc team to eventually defeat
- allow player to select tattoo of their choice
- transfer character to 1st realm
- misc. text

All very rough suggestions but I think they would be very helpful in giving new players a sense of direction and understanding in those first critical couple of weeks. CB doesn't need a story, but some explanation certainly wouldn't hurt I think.

+5

Best idea I have heard around here in quite awhile.

very good idea as it will avoid having players leave because they realize they screwed up thier only lifetime NUB.

+5.1
a few notes:
1) If we put SO much emphasis on not buying or at least relying on 'junk' stuff, then it will be questioned by new players (and old players alike) Why have it of its truly worthless?

2) I really like the idea of requiring new chars to abide by preset build designs. We could push that even further by recommending where to dump XP in an efficient manor with proving ground only pre-determined training sets. We could even force characters to abide by them during this two week period.

3) It should be emphasized as that the proving ground is purely a guiding tool to show you a/the 'proper' way of building a team as well as training and equipping. We could note why some of the biggest mistakes (i.e. DD+WPN) Do not work, and lastly, that once they are done with the proving grounds, that they are free to do anything they want and are not confined by conventional character designs/other PG constraints.

4) Rather than time dependent, I think access to the outside realms should be limited by MPR. Maybe something like this: At 20k MPR you are allowed to try and fight this 'boss' character. He could have a MPR of say, 40k MPR. Should you fail, or simply don't want to fight, you may progress in power till say, 75k MPR, at which point you are unable to gain XP/MPR. That way, If you take longer to get things done, nothing bad happens, while someone running a NCB can tank it on a way or so to get it out of the way.

A little unrelated, but I have also felt that rewards for key, or any tutorial tasks being finished should include XP. In the grand scheme of things, an extra 1-5k XP here and there will not hurt anyone. It sure seems like a lot when each battle is giving you 25 or so and then here comes 5000. May just give that little boost newbs need to see their character actually *do* something.

Realm: Hobbiton

Like most city building games having things like a weeks new player grace period from being attacked.

Give new players in CB a week or two's grace before geting stuck into the game proper.

Also give them the option of keeping thier hobbiton character and not having to make a new one. What's a week or two of growth before the NUB kicks in?


Exactly.

Jon's only answer to me (years ago) about why we still have Tulwars, was that as a Vet I'd lost the feeling of growth and accomplishment of moving up the weapon Ranks. In counter I replied that no new player moved up the weapon Ranks, and probably never has. Not since the Kat, the entry level semi-rare, is so cheap (And at the start of CB2 has a tiny Black Market cost).

Does *any* player actually start off with a Whip/Dagger, then move up the weapons ranks, feeling a sense of worth when they get to equip a Halbard ot Two-Handed Axe? Or go straight to renting/buying the Rare of choice?


We already have NPC teams, or the potential for them. I'd be happy to help an admin set up a specific Target Goal NPC new players have to defeat. We wouldn't even ever need to train it. Keeping it a stable challenge for everyone would be best.

I'd really like a decision tree tutorial followed by a two week tournament style entree into the NUB, or whatever bonus we have in the future...

When I started, I dumped about 20k into base junk and such for my full team and immediately upgraded to top tier items when I had enough money.

If we had a few thousand more players, the idea of slowly scaling up items *might* work. As it stands now, its just too easy to get a hold of the rare stuff. The most expensive item in the weapons shop is >30k. Has anyone ever played a RPG where you can buy everything the weapon shop has to offer within the first hour of playing? If it took a week worth of slaughtering with that tulwar to get your hands on a battle axe, then the axe might feel like its worth it.

What if...
...we had sand box mode.

This could potentially be part of the proving grounds, follow me on this one.

You start your char in the proving grounds. You battle your way through the first two weeks learning the in's and out's as well as the do's and dont's of combat and character design. Now you want to try out this awesome strategy that you thought of. How cool would it be, how useful would it be for a new player to be able to test a character in a sandbox mode with say, base of everything as well as 1-10m XP for each of their characters. They would be able to test-battle against real teams with no effect on the attacked team to check and test potential team effectiveness without risking time or money.

You could always join the Current Tournament with a [test] charcater.

But we've suggested a permenant Tournament just for this, it's now a case of whether CB can run two Tournaments side by side. And I'm not sure that's possible atm. :(

I experienced that feeling of growth and accomplishment some months ago whenever Slayer held his Zombie tournaments, where our weaponry was restricted until we moved up tiers. That was FUN.

But there's absolutely no way for that to happen outside of tournament restrictions. Nobody wants to cripple their team. Who chooses to fight from a wheelchair when they could be rollin' in a tank?