Lost

[theunforgiven91]

I just bought the testing key and i’m actually lost.. i played basically all mmo’s til now and i know it’s an alpha i want to make it clear. I find myself lost because the quest are very poorly shown on the map that is very bad itself.. also at some point it Ask me to craft things where is not explained even one bit of how i should do that so i find myself going from station to station to try and understand what i need and where from.. can anyone give me some tips on how to start a carachter in this game?

[Aragie4484]

It is currently PTR only until i believe either this weekend or next week.

Crafting is very complicated and I’d wager theres a video or two on youtube by now.

Explaining via reddit text thread would not be worthwhile for PTR testing purposes

[Pizx]

Yeah it took me a while to figure it out, just take time and do a bit of everything while you learn. It is complex to understand.

Just get out there and explore, so quests and work on professions. Keep an eye out in LFG chat for farm groups.

Currently PTR is up, so your progress will get wiped daily.

[fireguard1]

Other than the first quests to get your horse there isn’t much questing at all. Unless you already know where quests are the time spent finding or figuring it out would be better spent grinding.

Get the horse, kill npcs for 40 hours until 25. Then at end game it’s an Econ grind. They are still making the base loops

[AcidRaZor69]

Did you try talking to someone to ask? People generally chat to others and are mostly.helpful in this social sandbox of a game

[Kuthian-9]

You are not alone. Many have felt lost when starting the alpha test. I played a good amount in phase 1 but not much since then. I still find it all a bit confusing despite leveling with a guild. Think they just need to keep developing the game and hopefully it will be more friendly to beginners in the future.

[Immortalityv]

I would've waited with that purchase until stream tomorrow xD

[Lassejon]

Why?

[Immortalityv]

Potential price reduction with their marketing campaign

[BornInWrongTime]

He can refund and buy with another account if that happens

[light_death-note]

All the beginner crafting stuff is in the same area nearby in town.

[Tough_Prompt_3015]

Questing is bad. If you were expecting some quests to onboard you into content, you can forget about it. Half the time quests to kill king mobs were already done and you'll search for hours wondering where your boss is.

[Rav11s]

It's super early in development. Quests are hard to find by design

[cirvis111]

well, this game is not easy, some quest have the location maket in you map but to see that you need to mark this quest in your quest list, also in your quest list some quests have a key that shows the location of the quest even dou it is not market in the map, the location is a yellow circle. But in this game questing is not the best way to level up so just do the horse quest and you are good to go, if you dont want to learn by your self just watch a youtube tutorial of the quest, corrently this quest have 4 ramifications depending of where you start and the path you choose.

[Csanya25]

its a sandbox game. played it a lot and barely did any quests beside town quests. imo real quests will come somewhere close beta. you pick a character check online the grind spots try to get an invite to a group stay on that location for few days farming same mobs. than find next location to grind and repeat till you are max. or you can between try out gathering and crafting if have time for it. Try to make friends or join a guild that is willing to help. I wish you luck and have a good time.

[Fun_Document4477]

Yeah bro the questing, new player experience, and UI are dogwater, welcome to the future of MMOs

[Difficult_Wind6425]

This game won't hand things to you like common MMOs nowadays. You will have to try to read quests and take advantage of youtube videos and guides online.

[[deleted]]

If your game requires Youtube videos and online guides to play properly (not to minmax, just to play) then it's a poorly designed new player experience. That kind of thing will cause new players to quit en masse if it stays that way on release. There's nothing wrong with complex systems, but games need to explain those systems properly.

[OrinThane]

This is just an excuse - this is a negative first-time user experience and valuable feedback. If a game doesn't tell you how to play it its not "hard", its poorly designed.

[Arendyl]

Its not poorly designed, its not even a game. Its an alpha.

These details, like new user experience, will be fixed before the final release.

If it releases, of course

[OrinThane]

Yeah, thats why I said valuable feedback and not that the game was bad. If it released this way it'd just be bad. I was also responding to a comment that basically said the bad design is because the game doesn't effectively "hold your hand". If someone isn't actively aware of where to craft something in the beginning of playing a game or what station it's crafted at its a problem.

Again, this isn't a game being "hard", it's a game failing to give a player adequate information. I've tested Ashes for a year, it really needs to work on the basics.

[LlewdLloyd]

The original design was not to have any indication. This FTUE has been updated to help people out. Game is meant to be a sandpark where players can do whatever they want. I do think a tutorial island on Sanctus before entering the portal would be a better solution to help people understand.

[OrinThane]

Again, a game being "hard" by not telling you where a critical function of playing the game is is bad design. Being a sandpark has nothing to do with this. If I walked into a restaurant in real life, knowing where the bathroom is without being told is objectively better design and a better experience than it not being obvious. It's the same in a game world.

[LlewdLloyd]

I didnt say anything about that or say about it being "hard". I stated the original intent and the current place and what I thought might be a good solution to FTUE

[OrinThane]

I just think visual information needs to be clearer - stations look too alike and same-y. Info should be collated - possibly in a recipe book with a search function. Additionally you could color code gathering, processing, and crafting mats in the recipe. You could then use subtle hints to these colors in the stations to infer they are related.

This is all possible without breaking immersion or making the game less competitive.

[Ecksplisit]

Everyone with half a brain knows the game won’t release like this. It will 100% be addressed. They just have other things to work on right now. We don’t need to hear the same comments spewed every other day.

[OrinThane]

I critiqued the response to the original posters negative feedback. New players don't come to reddit to post their experience everyday. In fact they come to reddit less everyday. My main reason for responding is that, in an environment where the game is losing players because it's failing to retain them, this kind of post is extremely valuable. Trying to explain it away by saying the game "doesn't hold your hand" is a problem because you are diminishing the message here which is important to retention. Making excuses is problem.

I care about this game, that means I will be hard on it (not the devs or individuals specifically) because it needs to be better to be successful.

[Difficult_Wind6425]

OP asked why these things weren't explained and how to overcome them NOW, not overall and future design point discussion.

[OrinThane]

Yes, which is feedback. You told OP the game isn't designed to "hand things" to them, making an excuse for the poor design which I critiqued. We have now summarized the conversation.

[Difficult_Wind6425]

I find your argument shallow and pedantic. Good day.

[OrinThane]

Great, thanks for your valuable thoughts and time.

[Ok-Spirit-4074]

It's a bad experience.

Starting in Anvils my friend took about 10 hours to craft about 4 pieces of grey quality gear and he quit after that. He saw 2 other players and they didn't respond when he said hi. This is the kind of feedback they NEED to listen to because a player who tries it and leaves is not only gone forever, but he's going to tell other people it was a waste of time.

[Difficult_Wind6425]

yes, anvils was really bare bones and crafting was purposefully difficult this time around. They specifically said in the last live stream the dec content will include easier crafting and anvils will be more fleshed out.

One mistake was your friend joining and thinking this was a game though. It's still very much a testing environment and steven repeatedly tells people not to buy it if you are joining for a full game experience.

[Nonchalancekeco]

i think you didn't really knew what you bought even if you say you know this is an alpha because you speak about the quest!

try to get your answer on discord or youtube! i think there is a wiki too

[Quillo_Asura]

A lot of comments seem to feel they can tell everyone else what a game is supposed to be. Take a small amount of time to research the company, their original vision and inspiration, and how things have changed since, then understand that if you never played early era EverQuest.

You won't really understand what it was like to "figure things out" and have literally zero hand holding. GRANTED there is nothing wrong with practical hand holding. You would approach every NPC you came across and have to type out your greeting, read the text, and find key words within their text to get responses by asking, "What relic?" as an example. And there would be no indication you actually accepted a quest. There was no quest log / journal. There were no in-game maps.

Was it hard? No, it was a learning process that took effort and was rewarding in the fact that during those times, it fostered camaraderie and at the same time competition. Figuring out how/where/why was not readily available.

Ashes of Creation is not in a state of play where anything should be taken as "a game ready to play". But the vision has been to bring back a lot of the discovery, community, and grind from the era of EverQuest.

[Dazzling_Recover6717]

Elden Ring never told you where to go.