Old New Old Tutorial (observations)

DoofusMax

On the whole, the return to the old Soul-Shriven tutorial works well, but I'll throw out a few pain points which bear looking at.

1. This is an RNG thing, but I was very thorough about looting anything which could be looted and did not pick up a single piece of foot armor. I was able to unlock Light, Medium, and Heavy armor skills through frequent gear-swaps, but being stuck in sandals is so Jimmy Buffet (minus the pull-tab).
2. I started a new Arcanist and was expecting the staff and daggers thanks to the patch notes. I picked up all three types of destro staff, a couple of two-handers, and an axe/shield from enemies, but no resto staff or bow, although I got a bow as a reward after completing the tuturial.
3. On a similar note, and in spite of "leave no container unlooted," I only picked up three lockpicks throughout the whole tutorial. I had one for the initial lockpicking tutorial (5 minutes is way plenty of time, btw), which promptly broke on the first chest I came across, so I had to backtrack to take care of that chest once I found another lockpick. Perhaps consider pre-placing a small stack of lockpicks just before that tutorial door? Being able to pick up a couple or three dozen during the Gates tutorial was overkill, but five or six for the tutorial's couple or three chests would be nice.
4. Lyris has some dialogue around the time you hit the bridge up to the Sentinel, but it was almost inaudible. No idea whether what she had to say was important to the tutorial or not, but I'm guessing it was something about going ahead and she'll guard the rear.
5. There were a few on-screen tutorial messages which did not stay on-screen long enough to read.

The major pain point of the Gates tutorial (inventory overload) seems to be non-existent with Soul-Shriven. I had less than 40 items in inventory upon completion and mostly only left behind the prepared food items (Roast Pork, and that kind of thing). I might have picked up a couple of ingredients, but having to ditch stuff because there was too much lootable junk does not appear to be an issue.

Kelinmiriel

I went through it also. Didn't pick up much, but I did get two pieces of foot armor, so you definitely had an RNG thing going on there.

I started playing in May 2017. Have been through every tutorial the game has offered, and of all of them, I like Balfiera Island the least. Combat instruction was good, and I'm glad that the combat instruction has been drastically improved in the new Wailing Prison. It took me a very long time to learn about breaking free, interrupting, roll dodging - and when and where to do each. (People who came into this from other MMOs probably didn't have this learning curve, but I didn't have that background.)

One of my biggest issues with Balfiera, though, was the portals at the end. They were terribly confusing to new players. Even after the recent change that limited new players to going to their starter islands, the stories had been written to continue from the Wailing Prison. The player character was supposed to have been killed by Manninmarco, had their soul removed, gone to Coldharbour, met Lyris and The Prophet, and then washed up on a beach somewhere, where they were rescued by someone. There are various dialogues throughout many storylines that refer to this beginning. So if it didn't happen - it doesn't make sense.

For a character that chose a different portal, there's a whirlwind movie that goes by so fast it doesn't really give a clear idea of what's going on - not like the old tutorials did in those chapters. (Which are still in the game, so why can't we access them?) And if you had any regrets, or just wanted to come back and make a different choice at a later time, or even re-watch that really fast movie - you couldn't ever return. Balfiera was closed off. No way back.

So I'm very happy to have The Wailing Prison restored, with improved combat instruction.

One request, though - this is definitely the best tutorial for new players, but for experienced players, many of us would love to be able to access the chapter tutorials. They were beautiful stories unto themselves, and they are still in the game, so why not allow us to use them? It's particularly sad that newer players have not had the chance to even see some of them at all.

noblecron

Idm mind the new tutorial that's old/original. I would love it though if we could visit old prologue areas please . Would be nice.