Make starter islands more obvious?

Pallmor

So I'm new to MMO's (not new to ES, I've played every one since Morrowind). And I am absolutely lost in this game. I think it assumes that everyone who plays it is an MMO vet or something. It just sort of throws you to the wolves with no real guidance. Almost nothing here works like it did in Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind.

So I'm fresh off the boat (or out of the prison, in this case). And I start doing what I always do in an ES game (I set out exploring). Immediately started getting killed, repeatedly, by EVERYTHING. Getting crushed left and right, impossible to explore, can barely complete any missions, have no fricking clue how anything works, etc. And I still can't make any sense of crafting in this game.

Then today I find out that there is a "starter island" that I was SUPPOSED to go to. Only the game never gave me any guidance to do this. I got the mission to ask about so-and-so at the harbor, but I just assumed that this was either the main storyline mission (which I don't want to pursue at this time) or just another side mission. And so I set off to explore instead (you know like in EVERY OTHER ES GAME).

Would it be too much to ask that a character start our on the starter island automatically, so that newbs like me don't get our butts handed to us the first time we try to venture outside a city? I wasted two days in the game and was on the verge of giving it up, figuring that it was my fault that my level 4 character was having problems fighting level 8+ enemies. I've never played a ES game before where every little zone is designed for specific levels and you can't venture a step outside of this unspoken fence without getting the bejesus kicked out of you. Even Morrowind wasn't this tough at the early levels.

vyndral13preub18_ESO

Agreed. During testing when you got off the boat you were on the starter island. I don't mind the change because i like starting a sizable town. But you are correct, they did a horrible job of directing people to it. Yes there is a quest to go there but if you don't know it leads to the starter area no one would leave what most would assume is the starter area to go somewhere else.

columbineb14_ESO

Until late in beta, as the person above said, you started at the starter islands after Wailing Prison. I felt, then and now, that changing it was a bad idea. I'm not expecting them to change it back (because they don't admit when they've made mistakes), but something a lot more obvious would be a good idea, not just a gentle hint from the Prophet and an NPC to talk to that new players can't find.

Of course, right now the starter islands are unplayable due to botting so it may be a moot point.

Starlifter88

From what I understand vocal vet/L33t MMO players complained about having to begin at starter islands. They wanted to do the Skyrim thing and just run off in some direction. I only knew to look for and go to the starter islands because of online beta play videos.

On crafting - near (beside) each crafting table in the beginning city there is a book that explains how to start. You do not have to go to the island to get that. The islands are worth it if for no other reason than to pick up the skyshards.

tangorn

columbineb14_ESO wrote: »

Of course, right now the starter islands are unplayable due to botting so it may be a moot point.

Really? Just got 4 alts through DC starter island and one through EP starter island over the past weekend, and comparing to when I passed them in mid-April my first time they are less infested... Gathered enough resources to get all crafts to lvl3 on all five....

Pallmor

And the starter islands aren't even mentioned in the official New Player Guide. It actually encourages you to go explore! Lol, yeah, if you're a glutton for punishment who loves being asked where he wants to resurrect at.

columbineb14_ESO

tangorn wrote: »

columbineb14_ESO wrote: »

Of course, right now the starter islands are unplayable due to botting so it may be a moot point.

Really? Just got 4 alts through DC starter island and one through EP starter island over the past weekend, and comparing to when I passed them in mid-April my first time they are less infested... Gathered enough resources to get all crafts to lvl3 on all five....

Perhaps I just got unlucky then. I started a new char last week on Bleakrock just long enough to see if it was as bad as people were saying, and it was even worse than that. Haven't been back to check again.

However, this is off-topic for the thread and I apologize for the derailing.

Rosveen

Pallmor wrote: »

Would it be too much to ask that a character start our on the starter island automatically

Oh, the irony.

I thought they were extremely obvious, the Prophet mentions them and you're directed there again by an NPC close by - in DC it's literally right outside the door. But I talked to a new player in Glenumbra a while ago, helped him with a few things and as it turns out, he went out exploring and completely missed the starter islands. So I'm beginning to think that they're so obvious to me only because I played the beta and knew about them. But really, what more can they do? Short of sending us to the islands fresh out of Coldharbor, like it was in the beta.

tangorn

Most likely for you it was because you played beta, for me because I have read a review before buying the game where the guy complained about messed up main quest because of not landing on a starter island, but for most people that dove right in they are not so obvious...

Maybe pop a menu at the toon that directs you to the island that offers you a choice to end up there, or even make it in the prophet dialog, or at the point of porting from coldharbor. Select mainland or islands...

Pallmor

Rosveen wrote: »

I thought they were extremely obvious, the Prophet mentions them and you're directed there again by an NPC close by

No, the prophet just says something like "You can look into the people who found you floating in the ocean, if you like" and the NPC just tells you where to find the boat that brought you there. I never got any indication that this would lead me to any special starter area.

If the vets were complaining, why not just give players the option to leave the starter area at any time (with a warning), rather than throwing us clueless newbs into a zone we were clearly not supposed to be in right off the bat?

Pallmor

tangorn wrote: »

Maybe pop a menu at the toon that directs you to the island that offers you a choice to end up there

That would have worked. A simple "Would you like to begin on the starter island or go right to the mainland? Click Y/N" would have worked better than some vague bit of dialog from the Prophet and an NPC who could easily be missed or ignored.

Ella_Mental

On my first character I had no idea that I was supposed to do the island questing zone first either. I didn't even KNOW about it until my boyfriend told me about it. When I got to the first city after escaping Coldharbour, I naturally started picking up every quest that I saw.
Starting off in Daggerfall (Covenant alliance), I had a large list of quests by the time I was finished exploring the city and buildings and NO WAY to know that the one quest in the whole list that led to the island was the one I was supposed to complete first.

Obviously, we don't HAVE TO start off on the island. However, seeing as how it was intended that we do so........shouldn't we either start there or be OBVIOUSLY led to that location?

ArRashid

They changed it to this way because people in betas were whining about having to do starting islands and that they don't have freedom to go wherever..

Now people are whining because they start in a city instead of an island...

There's a lesson to be learned here.. no matter what devs do, people always whine about it not being changed, then whine about it being changed, then whine about wanting back the original, then whining they don't want it changed again......................to the end of time.


Also, they literally CAN'T make the starting island quest more obvious.... it's THE FIRST THING YOU SEE WHEN YOU WALK OUT OF THE ROOM YOU SPAWN IN. A giant ! in your face. You can't possibly miss it, unless you don't even look around and rather chase the first player you see running past you..

Sarenia

ArRashid wrote: »

They changed it to this way because people in betas were whining about having to do starting islands and that they don't have freedom to go wherever..

Now people are whining because they start in a city instead of an island...

There's a lesson to be learned here..

Yes, there is. That if one refers to every expressed preference as "whining" one is bound to forego solutions in lieu of cynical quips.

In other news, I can see how new players could miss the starter island. The world isn't regimented into Black and White, we can utilize shades of Gray. In this case, simply making the starter island painfully obvious to all new players would address the issue at hand, without compromising the current design.

jircris11

sadly when they had you start on the island people complained, so they changed it.

Shaun98ca2

ArRashid wrote: »

They changed it to this way because people in betas were whining about having to do starting islands and that they don't have freedom to go wherever..

Now people are whining because they start in a city instead of an island...

There's a lesson to be learned here.. no matter what devs do, people always whine about it not being changed, then whine about it being changed, then whine about wanting back the original, then whining they don't want it changed again......................to the end of time.


Also, they literally CAN'T make the starting island quest more obvious.... it's THE FIRST THING YOU SEE WHEN YOU WALK OUT OF THE ROOM YOU SPAWN IN. A giant ! in your face. You can't possibly miss it, unless you don't even look around and rather chase the first player you see running past you..

ACTUALLY, what they SHOULD have done was START you on the starter island like they intended to and simply give everybody that wanted off the island the choice to leave as soon as possible NOT the other way around.

But ZOS has been known to make some very weird stupid decisions along designing this game.

The escape from cold harbor used to allow you to choose ANY weapon type in the game to start off with and then we finally got to the way it is now. The issue was people NOT liking their starting weapon with no choice for change.

The correct solution would have been your character TRADING their current weapon for a different one as weapons were "limited".

Everybody should have started on starter island and been giving the option to leave asap...NOT The other way around.

Rosveen

Shaun98ca2 wrote: »

ArRashid wrote: »

They changed it to this way because people in betas were whining about having to do starting islands and that they don't have freedom to go wherever..

Now people are whining because they start in a city instead of an island...

There's a lesson to be learned here.. no matter what devs do, people always whine about it not being changed, then whine about it being changed, then whine about wanting back the original, then whining they don't want it changed again......................to the end of time.


Also, they literally CAN'T make the starting island quest more obvious.... it's THE FIRST THING YOU SEE WHEN YOU WALK OUT OF THE ROOM YOU SPAWN IN. A giant ! in your face. You can't possibly miss it, unless you don't even look around and rather chase the first player you see running past you..

The escape from cold harbor used to allow you to choose ANY weapon type in the game to start off with and then we finally got to the way it is now. The issue was people NOT liking their starting weapon with no choice for change.

And the answer is... even more people not liking their starter weapon because what they wanted isn't available at all.

KerinKor

Pallmor wrote: »

Then today I find out that there is a "starter island" that I was SUPPOSED to go to. Only the game never gave me any guidance to do this.

The game gave you a very strong hint what to do.

1) When you talk to the Prophet in the house you find yourself in after exiting Coldharbour, one of the dialog options open to you is to ask him what to do. He tells you how you were found and suggests you seek out your saviour.

2) RIGHT OUTSIDE the house, the first quest giver you'll see with the "I HAVE A QUEST FOR YOU" icon above their head is the quest giver you need.

I have to say this is entirely generic RPG stuff, if you've played Morrowind et. al. you've seen it all before, not sure how you missed this quest giver given the tutorial had already taught you what the 'shell' icon over an NPC is.

KerinKor

Shaun98ca2 wrote: »

ArRashid wrote: »

They changed it to this way because people in betas were whining about having to do starting islands and that they don't have freedom to go wherever..

Now people are whining because they start in a city instead of an island...

There's a lesson to be learned here.. no matter what devs do, people always whine about it not being changed, then whine about it being changed, then whine about wanting back the original, then whining they don't want it changed again......................to the end of time.


Also, they literally CAN'T make the starting island quest more obvious.... it's THE FIRST THING YOU SEE WHEN YOU WALK OUT OF THE ROOM YOU SPAWN IN. A giant ! in your face. You can't possibly miss it, unless you don't even look around and rather chase the first player you see running past you..

ACTUALLY, what they SHOULD have done was START you on the starter island like they intended to and simply give everybody that wanted off the island the choice to leave as soon as possible NOT the other way around.

ACTUALLY, what they SHOULD have done was leave it as it was before they pandered to the complaints, nerfed Coldharbour and skipped the starter areas.

The reason they should have stuck to their guns was largely due to the fact they had to hastily re-balance the second-stage zones (as they were) and put in a load of filler level 4-6 stuff to cater for those not going to the island.

It was a late change pandering to the I want it and I want it NOW generation who complained it was taking too long to get the first city in the 'real' word. Not the first dumb-down but one of the dumbest.

METALPUNKS

ZOS cannot win with this one lol. If you really sit and listen to the dialogue you would know that there are starter islands. It's very clear. Also mmo's tend to be very confusing at first. Many of them have horrible guides. An mmo typically doesn't do well with explaining things, eso does fine. That said I do get your concern here and I do think maybe they should add a notification that pops ups explaining your can go back.

KerinKor

METALPUNKS wrote: »

ZOS cannot win with this one lol. If you really sit and listen to the dialogue you would know that there are starter islands. It's very clear. Also mmo's tend to be very confusing at first. Many of them have horrible guides. An mmo typically doesn't do well with explaining things, eso does fine. That said I do get your concern here and I do think maybe they should add a notification that pops ups explaining your can go back.

Sorry no, anyone who supposedly played several RPGs (of any series) really can't argue the game is flawed for their missing the pretty obvious. Forget it's an MMO, this has nothing at all to do with being an MMO and everything to do with being a generic RPG as far as questing goes.

You get lead by the hand as it is, getting told to go from one quest hub to the next and eventually when to go to the next zone. This is no different, a blatantly obvious quest giver tells you where to go .. that's what thempark MMOs do, and in that respect ESO is even easier than say Morrowind because I don't recall you being told what to do once you'd left the Customs House.

Feimerdre

Guys. Really. The starter island is just a help. It is in no way neccessary but for 1 skillpoint (there is 3 skyshards on it). you will be perfectly okay doing the main questline with level 3-4 even if mobs are level 3-5 and as far as I remember they arent much higher. Its even the other way round: if you leave starter island with level 7 you will find most quests much too easy as mobs in there are like level 3-5.
If by any means a level 4 or 5 crab will give you a hard time as level 3, then, well, I guess you could blame the devs. Or maybe not ;-)

Pallmor

KerinKor wrote: »

[quote="Pallmor;99176"I have to say this is entirely generic RPG stuff, if you've played Morrowind et. al. you've seen it all before, not sure how you missed this quest giver given the tutorial had already taught you what the 'shell' icon over an NPC is.

Well, I've been playing CRPG's since the Bard's Tale/Pool of Radiance days and I missed it. Yeah, I got the quest in my log, right next to a ton of others. And there was no indication that this one was meant to take me to a special starter area. I just assumed that it was either the main story line quest (which I'm not really that interested in pursing at first) or just another side-mission.

Crazy me, I assumed the starter area was the area where I *STARTED*.

Pallmor

METALPUNKS wrote: »

If you really sit and listen to the dialogue you would know that there are starter islands.

NO, IT'S NOT. Neither the Prophet nor the old guy outside the inn make any mention about being taken to any special beginner area. They just give you a "You were found at sea. Want to know more about this? Well, head to the docks." vague quest.

I understand that Zenimax changed it to this under pressure from the MMO vets. But they went about it the wrong way. In the thread above, there were already two different solutions mentioned that would have both pleased the vets and not confused the newbs. Anyone could have come up with these (and probably several other better alternatives) with about five minutes of thought.

mutharex

Well, I agree, they should put it back as it was before, during beta. This is one of many examples of why listening to a loud vocal minority can really screw with your game (the whole weapons rack/table is another example lol)

mutharex

KerinKor wrote: »

METALPUNKS wrote: »

ZOS cannot win with this one lol. If you really sit and listen to the dialogue you would know that there are starter islands. It's very clear. Also mmo's tend to be very confusing at first. Many of them have horrible guides. An mmo typically doesn't do well with explaining things, eso does fine. That said I do get your concern here and I do think maybe they should add a notification that pops ups explaining your can go back.

Sorry no, anyone who supposedly played several RPGs (of any series) really can't argue the game is flawed for their missing the pretty obvious. Forget it's an MMO, this has nothing at all to do with being an MMO and everything to do with being a generic RPG as far as questing goes.

You get lead by the hand as it is, getting told to go from one quest hub to the next and eventually when to go to the next zone. This is no different, a blatantly obvious quest giver tells you where to go .. that's what thempark MMOs do, and in that respect ESO is even easier than say Morrowind because I don't recall you being told what to do once you'd left the Customs House.

If you play ESO that way, you are missing on quite a bit of content. Quest hubs?

/scratchinghead

Merlin13KAGL

Pallmor wrote: »

So I'm new to MMO's (not new to ES, I've played every one since Morrowind). And I am absolutely lost in this game. I think it assumes that everyone who plays it is an MMO vet or something. It just sort of throws you to the wolves with no real guidance. Almost nothing here works like it did in Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind.

So I'm fresh off the boat (or out of the prison, in this case). And I start doing what I always do in an ES game (I set out exploring). Immediately started getting killed, repeatedly, by EVERYTHING. Getting crushed left and right, impossible to explore, can barely complete any missions, have no fricking clue how anything works, etc. And I still can't make any sense of crafting in this game.

@Pallmor, in my personal history, that's kinda how Elder Scrolls games usually do it...some of the frustration, but also some of the intrigue of it...

If you find yourself getting your butt kicked on a particular quest, pull up your journal and check the recommended levels...Talk to someone on the dock should have been one of them...

As a general rule, if it sounds dangerous (Go wipe out the bandits), it probably is...if it sounds less so (Go talk to this person), it also likely is.

Explore is a big part of it...some things are not as crystal as they could be...that's where we come in... Use the chat, don't be afraid to ask ?'s directly, no matter how ridiculous you think it is...

Someone will usually answer you or even walk you along... Everyone had a certain amount of figuring out along the way and certain things we would have liked to have had more clarity on when we started... Most are happy to share that knowledge at no cost, as well as gear, cash, or goods, in some cases.

If it doesn't come naturally, it's perfectly ok...and don't let it get to the point of frustration. Ask for help...most of the time, 'Pro's' will be happy to oblige.

They placed NPC's and clues in places as an intent to kind of steer you towards the get-used-things-area... The starter islands are optional, but worth it in their own regard and full of resources...

Don't be afraid to chat a "HELP!" (the more specific the better) and don't be afraid to give a "What am I doing wrong..." (Just like you have here!)

I would have paid an extra $1 for a 5 page basic manual (printed, not pdf) that has come with the standalones...makes for a nice reference and is prettier than my notebook scribbles any day.

In game, give a shout should you need assistance...direct or question related.

Most will be glad to help.

FrauPerchta

Call me crazy but seems to me you should enter the world on the starter island once you either finish or skip the tutorial

AbraCadabra

Maybe they should had it so if you do the tutorial the first time you go to the island, when you skip it you go to the first zone after the island. That would make sense. Was even suggested during the closed beta, but it cramped to many people's style as they couldn't go explore as they liked.

Dekkameron

To be fair, it's still the first quest you get. Most peeps would gravitate to it once they have done anything more immediate.

vyndral13preub18_ESO

A tutorial hint would make sense. At least then you could get a pop up. And it is funny to me for those saying, it is obvious to any one who has played RPGs since the game leads you from quest hub to quest hub.

I walk out of a room into a quest hub. Why would I follow the quest leading away from the hub I am in? Any one who has been playing RPGs for any length of time knows this is surely the quest that leads to the next, hub. since I am in fact standing in a quest hub. When I finish all the quest in this hub and nearby I will move on. You can say the game leads you from quest hub to quest hub all you want, but that is the very reason this fails. Anyone with super leet RPG experience knows you finish all the quest at a hub before you, boat, fly, teleport anywhere.