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The Secret World: New Player Experience Improvements & Issue 11
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Funcom's Joel Bylos has published the latest Game Director's Letter on The Secret World site. Bylos goes into some detail about what the team has been working on over the past month, most notably the new player experience overhaul and Issue 11.
The new player experience has been undergoing radical alterations since the team began working on it. Once deployed, players going through the earliest stages of the game (i.e. pre-Tokyo) can expect:
a reduction in the amount of time needed to kill monsters
a downscaling of monsters to suit the zone in which they reside
that this is not a 'sell out to filthy casuals' but more like climbing a hill via stairs or a ramp. As Bylos writes, "they still reach the same height but one of them is less abrupt along the way."
more meaningful quest rewards with a better mix of items
story missions will offer rare rewards
the game's first epic will be awarded on full completion of the Transylvania story line
tutorial pages have been updated
Players will now be able to fast travel via the world / zone map interface to any anima location at a cost. Several UI improvements have also been made.
Lastly, Issue 11 receives a bit of attention and the news that players will learn more about the Orochi Group and that this issue will bring the Tokyo story line to an end.
But in addition, we wanted to convey the sheer size of the Orochi tower. A building like this deserves some attention and the eight different companies that makes up the Orochi tower each deserve their fair share of screen time. But how to do it? We can’t simply force you to visit every floor of the tower on your way to the top.
Instead we chose to draw upon some of our favorite rogue-like mechanics and your progress through the building will be randomized. This means that there are 512 unique ways in which you will experience your journey from the bottom to the top of Orochi tower.
Read the full letter on The Secret World site.
Comments
Sounds cool. When it will go live, I plan to start a new character from scratch, maybe within the Lawbreakers?
(I admit lately I was more into LotRO, but I do miss some quality TSW time...)
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
It's a start but with few exceptions I never found the content up to the end of Trans to be a big deal. It's the content after that which was created for people who had spent many months grinding nightmare dungeons that is inconsistent in difficulty with huge jumps from issue to issue.
Scenario's need the most attention IMO, or more specifically the whole way players get augments and access to Tokyo need to be reworked. Right now it's a end game activity requiring end game gear that's stuck about 3/4 of the way though the single player story line.
Few people will disagree with you, actually. Most people agree it's pretty awful and easily the worst part of the MMO.
Same. The combat is so awful. I've watched videos of higher level content and literally saw people doing the exact same thing I was doing at a lower level. 1111111111111211111111*mobdies*. Riveting.
Was so hoping for there to be a point about an animation overhaul...
It's such a shame, the game's beautiful and immersive as long as nobody's moving. For a game with such a focus on atmosphere the lack of smooth and natural animations is just a massive loss.
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
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Yeap, I actually looked into coming back to TSW, but then I remembered how boring and clunky the combat was. The animations and sound assets don't help either. I don't understand why such a crucial feature (you spent a lot of your gametime in combat) got neglected so badly
i play one of the most impressive combats systems out there (WS) and I actually like TSW combat system- it suits the genre style.
lets talk about horrible combat system like Rifts in pvp thats a mess!!!! =but tstill love the game.
I may dust off my latest Templar who's been sitting in Kingsmouth for the last 8 months or so.
I think he's still lounging on Norma's lawn. It's a miracle she hasn't shot him yet. Then again, maybe she did and the bees put him back together. Go Bees!
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
They could do with having a sale on older issues once or twice a year . I know people that have got through the original content that was bundled in with the version of the game they brought have maybe brought one issue thought it was too expensive (given there are several they have to buy to catch up ) and pretty much given up or play casually .
Its a bit shame really because its such a great game . The reason I am playing DCU now is because after completing the original game I managed to pick up a load of DLCs at 75 percent off and now I buy the new DLCs when they come out at full price .
I'm glad they're finally starting to do something about the war of attrition combat, particularly in the open zones.
I do wish they'd allow us to replay the original main story, even if without the item rewards. I'd like to go through the missions back to back to get a more serial feel to what seemed like a great story.
Yes, they are listening! Lowering TTK and making it more about the quests, yay!!! Now I'll come back like I said I would when they started to address this glaring issue with the game.
Now I'm torn because ESO, Wildstar and GW2 are all making fantastic and awesome changes addressing their issues and I only have so much time to play these games in a day, good thing there isn't a subscription barrier for most of them.
Hate most of the melee animations as well. In addition to the mobs being too slow to kill. With this change, I might go back and make a pistol / gun character with some magic thrown in. Anything that looks somewhat natural since the "over the top" skills have bad animations. I could totally see myself treating this as a sort of third person shooter MMO set in the real world provided things actually die quick enough from magic imbued guns and I don't have to put in three hundred shots to deal with it.
So I see this sentiment come up in most TSW threads. I get that it's a thing, but it's also something I just don't really get. Sure there's some builds I've made that are literally hitting the 1 key 6 times followed by hitting 2 then 3 and just repeating that. Then I have some slightly more complex builds but even they don't approach the "complexity" of some other games combat rotations.
I put that in quotes because for most MMOs out there at the moment, it really is just a key-pres rotation that you repeat ad nauseam until the enemy's defeated. My blaster in CoH used to be 1, 2, 1, 3 (or simply 1, 2, 3 if I had haste). I have a pretty standard rotation for my ele in GW2 (f4, 2, f1, 2, 3, f2, 2, f3, 2, repeat. It's probably not ideal but it works), a standard rotation for my jedi sage in SWTOR (it's been a bit so I forget) though that one does have a smidge of randomness with some of the procs, they're all better than my dark spec runemaster from DAoC (hit 1 a lot. hit 2 if I needed an AoE).
I suppose it's just a personal quirk where I don't find an increase in button pressing complexity (on a keyboard) to be commensurate with an increase in difficulty or fun. It's still doing the same thing, hitting a set sequence of buttons over and over until the enemy falls over. That's not to say because I don't get it that I'm right and other people are wrong. I'm just saying it's a complaint I've never been able to quite understand (unlike, say the animation complaint some people have).
This. It's why I quit and have a hard time getting back.
If they need to address one issue, it would be the transition from Transylvania into Tokyo and the whole ordeal with scenarios.
I don't mind the changes they do here, as a lot of trash mobs always did have too much health, making it tedious at times. So always a positive if they finally fix this, even if it's two years late.
But they really need to look into the whole Tokyo thing. It's a huge stone wall for any new player coming out of Transylvania or anyone else for that matter (me included) that hasn't been grinding nightmare dungeons for one to two years.
As a fan of TSW I think these comments hit the nail on the head. Repetitive dungeons/missions get really old really quick. The story aspect of the game is superb and I have yet to find an MMO that has the high standards of quality in the overall atmosphere (though I personally find Egypt a bore).
It has always been my contention that the main reason TSW did not see the numbers I thought its high production values deserved was that it was not casual friendly. With these changes I believe I will check it out again.
Actually this is the only thing I'm worrying about, with the new player experience. Don't get me wrong, I'm not shouting "Damn you for making it easier for the filthy casuals" as the letter says
I do think the changes are cool. But sometimes even the coolest ideas could result odd consequences...
Last month when Joel first mentioned NPE I started a new character and played through Kingsmouth with a newcomer's eyes. (ok, not entirely, you can't forget everything you know of the game, obviously...) It was fun, probably I wrote about it here as well in one of the posts. The very first thought was, the information the game is giving, is simply not enough. It is designed that way, the game favors personal learning, there's the in-game browser for a reason - still, making better tutorials is maybe the very best move of the whole NPE. (for example, the whole intro section is now saying "test them all and then choose your weapon", while the game is all about building decks onto two weapons... I'm glad to hear they will change this part in the intro.)
QoL changes are also great, the fast travel (seems they managed to getting close the code of the games together, AoC is getting the same fast travel tweak with the next update
), the improved maps, the faction phone calls and notification system - all welcomed.
And then, there are the changes which - while also welcomed and very useful - might result a broken nose at the brickwall in Tokyo... -Improved starter decks, cool (though I just played, and the current starter decks are fine). -Better loot drops, who doesnt like better drops?
-Culling Ak'abs, awesome - hate those pcp-ed moths and their swarms 
Downgrading monster levels, and also making them fall faster... probably cool, it will be faster and easier to getting through the zones and the missions.
But if everything is awesome (c), what's the problem? Well, new folks will have upgraded (and perhaps more effective) starter decks at hand. They will meet less challenge from the mobs, and they will have better gear for the task -> a much easier gameplay. Which gives much less urge to experiment with decks, the synergies, and the need for swapping decks according to the situation. Heck, they won't even need a full deck, if most mobs will die from a simple rotation of 5 builders and 1 finisher, they won't need to use the rest of the abilities on the bar... we can see in other games what happens after turning a game easier, but there's more in TSW's case, and we're back to Tokyo, which won't be affected by NPE.
Currently Tokyo is a pretty huge bump on the difficulty for new(er) players, without decent amount of Nightmare background after the story completion. I can see post-NPE players when after their fairly easy ride they're arriving to Tokyo - and it's not a nice sight. Ok, it's a fun one, but not nice at all
As someone posted on the forums (with a pinch of sarcasm), nowadays many folks leaving the game when reaching Blue Mountains, because the difficulty jumps up a notch, but after NPE a lot more folks will leave after reaching Tokyo because the bump will seem much higher to them, than the current one from Savage Coast to Blue Mountain.
edit: the sarcasm part is that after NPE and the easy first 3 zones FC will sell more from Issue 5, 6 and 7, since folks won't leave right after Savage Coast, and more likely they will need new stories within those easy zones
So, overall I think all the planned changes are cool. But I also think they should find out something for the transition from the base game to Tokyo... After NPE the new players will have a smoother experience all the way, maybe even too smooth and convenient. Facerolling content is not always a good thing to offer...
Off-topic, but also mentioned in the letter, Cabal Pride. "Cabal Pride is a cabal recruitment event for your cabal to participate in, or for you as a member of the TSW Community to come along to and find a new cabal to call home." http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?t=83667
Shannon, are you planning something for the Lawbreakers? A march with mmorpg.com t-shirts and trench coats maybe?
I'd like to know the same. The animations were always a little wonky, IMHO, but with shortened TTK on mobs that'd be less of an issue.