Changes to help new players stick

[Cheesy]

Recently was talking with guildmates about changes that may help new players stick around long enough to really get into BoH.

This is some of the stuff I think would help. Feel free to add your own suggestions or critiques but please don't suggest new content, new t22 gear, new pvp season or fixing pvp at higher ends as that's not the point of this post.


1. Making public raids functional: With rare exception public raids above maybe he squire level are useless however newer toons need raids in soldier and kv that are not run as often these days. One suggestion would be that public raids are completed by unknown hero when time runs out and players get bronze payouts. Still less than doing it with a guild but if no one is on you can get the valor you need. (Credit flar)

2. Explaining gems: I personally like the BoH system of leveling up your might but the game does a bad job of explaining it. Simple fix is quest that teaches you how gems work like the series that teaches you how to craft and enchant. Just change the one where majerios makes you spend 2000 silver to be buy a gem and then have majerios explain the different equipment multipliers, the fact gems stay even if you upgrade equipment, etc


3. Getting new toons connected: For starters having all toons pick a username would be nice. You don't need to even use a real email currently so just change that to pick a username


4. Get them in a guild: The best part of this game is the people and the best way to learn it is from others helping. Guilds also give bonuses etc but I've met tons of lower level toons who have been in other games and hate the idea of guilds without trying them here or knowing what they are missing.
This too could be facilitated by a quest that is simply one of the "listen to me" quests and explains guild bonuses etc and encourages joining a guild


5. Open up chat lines: allow guilds to offer option for players to be an honorary member and be in their chat regardless of which toon they are on (say if you have one toon in a big guild and another in a small guild).

6. No more guilds running squire: If public raids are fixed guilds should not be able to run squire raids. This is mostly because I personally think squire valor is fairly useless and the "squire" guilds that raid nonstop are more than likely doing a disservice to young toons who would be better off questing to hit soldier might. If a person really wanted squire valor then the public raids will work.

7. Changes to current guilds: that being said if someone goes to find a guild there are currently double the number of guilds than active players. Too many when there's maybe 100-150 active. This is the most controversial thing I'm suggesting (I think) but consider a sort of inactive guild purge. Say down to only guilds that raided in last 3 months or even down to 100ish total guilds. The decision on which to keep and how to inactivate old ones could be discussed separately but getting more people into fewer guilds would be helpful to keep them engaged. On a related note making the requirement to start a guild be level 35 and more costly (say 100 gs) should help as well. Also when they increased number of toons per player spots per guild stayed at 100. Could increase spots per guild to 120

Ok so what about my parking guild you ask? Easy fix would be a global parking guild open to any toon with level 5 loyalty so they keep that bonus 8 energy even if you don't want to be in a raiding guild.

[Kîlldozer]

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[Illy_the_Red]

Without wishing to derail the thread even further, the WereChef is a pretty damn good event actually. There are probably people out their that didn't see the Lucky event as it used to be, or the first time they ran a pirate event.

The chef event is not terrible simply because it isn't a raid. It and Valentine both use that format and both work. Other events use a spawn or raid format and they work too. There aren't any events now that are in desperate need of work in terms of how they are played.

+1 to original post, mostly. Don't get why you'd want to stop guilds running squire raids though. That's how you start off and can build the most might the quickest.

[Cheesy]

First off Illy yes the event has been great for my newest toons.

My theory on squire raids (and I'm open to the fact I can be wrong) is that firstly squire valor is fairly useless. If you want to most efficiently grow a toon it is best not to raid at all until you have gotten like half way through fellmarsh (get to those first few t4s) and just focus on questing and pvp. Once you've done that you don't need squire valor as you've gotten better than t6 gear from quests.

Aside from that I think it may help some new guilds but generally hurts them. I've seen plenty of new guild that do the whole 8+ squire valor raids a day just to be top squire valor raiding guilds. How do you do this? Have higher level toons that don't need it run raids constantly but also all the lowest level toons that as I said already would probably be better off questing will waste energy on the squire level raids. That said they also will quickly no longer need them based on might alone (takes like 6 hours or less to hit kraken might). Ends up just burning everyone out.

Lastly this sort of ties in with decreasing guilds and making new ones slightly tougher to open so that new toons are exposed to veterans and mid level toons more easily and encouraged to grow instead of stick to squire valor.

All in all I know I probably hate squire raids more than anyone else but this is my reasoning whether right or wrong.

[Illy_the_Red]

First off Illy yes the event has been great for my newest toons.

My theory on squire raids (and I'm open to the fact I can be wrong) is that firstly squire valor is fairly useless. If you want to most efficiently grow a toon it is best not to raid at all until you have gotten like half way through fellmarsh (get to those first few t4s) and just focus on questing and pvp. Once you've done that you don't need squire valor as you've gotten better than t6 gear from quests.

Aside from that I think it may help some new guilds but generally hurts them. I've seen plenty of new guild that do the whole 8+ squire valor raids a day just to be top squire valor raiding guilds. How do you do this? Have higher level toons that don't need it run raids constantly but also all the lowest level toons that as I said already would probably be better off questing will waste energy on the squire level raids. That said they also will quickly no longer need them based on might alone (takes like 6 hours or less to hit kraken might). Ends up just burning everyone out.

Lastly this sort of ties in with decreasing guilds and making new ones slightly tougher to open so that new toons are exposed to veterans and mid level toons more easily and encouraged to grow instead of stick to squire valor.

All in all I know I probably hate squire raids more than anyone else but this is my reasoning whether right or wrong.

For some, it's ages before they unlock Fellmarsh so it's not a great idea to me to not raid until then.

Squire valour is good for your initial mighting up, the raids are there to get you very quickly to your T6 gear and enable a good supply of T2 gems. This boosts your might quickly because Squire valour costs are cheap compared to other valour types. Mighting up is not all about the minimums for raids either, it's about getting the gems so your attacks have punch so you can not only move on to higher raids, you can be effective in them.

I've seen many people complain about not doing enough damage during events, not finding certain parts of the vile realm easy, and generally struggling with their builds. Usually this is because of a combination of not raiding enough, early enough (and not having decent gear and gems), over-levelling their toons for their might (eg lvl 37+ when you are 10-13k) and overall poor gem layout.

[Cheesy]

Agree to disagree on that one.

Last new toon I started took 2 days of questing despite sleep and work etc to get to ~4K might and be in fellmarsh. No gs purchased.

It does take a long time to open it if you spend a lot of time raiding. By the time you are at fellmarsh you have a lot of free gear from questing that is t6 or higher and pvp is easy to get t8 gear (t8 weapon is easy in two days).


You are totally right about a lot of people getting too leveled without enough might frequently due to needing work on gems at mid levels and enchants at at 35 ish level. I think a lot of people also forget hero tokens at mid levels but less sure of this. Besides if you hit vile realm and are struggling you are a "new player that stuck" and that's a whole separate issue.

[Illy_the_Red]

Agree to disagree on that one.

Last new toon I started took 2 days of questing despite sleep and work etc to get to ~4K might and be in fellmarsh. No gs purchased.

It does take a long time to open it if you spend a lot of time raiding. By the time you are at fellmarsh you have a lot of free gear from questing that is t6 or higher and pvp is easy to get t8 gear (t8 weapon is easy in two days).


You are totally right about a lot of people getting too leveled without enough might frequently due to needing work on gems at mid levels and enchants at at 35 ish level. I think a lot of people also forget hero tokens at mid levels but less sure of this. Besides if you hit vile realm and are struggling you are a "new player that stuck" and that's a whole separate issue.

Having taken 8 toons through that, and almost exclusively quested with my main in its early days...it takes longer than that. Even with sleep and work. The whole point of Squire is to provide an easy way to might up and get gems. If you quest during that time you might have some gear from quests...but you'll be getting weapons and certain gear with silver.

Nobody should be discouraged from raiding squire. By using it you can very rapidly not only increase your might but actually have a toon that has some punch. I've seen way too many that don't have optimal gems and have either quest gear, pvp gear, or a mixture, and those toons sucked. Seen loads of them sitting in raids (including event ones) with pvp gear, low-tier weapons and a mixture of blue resist gems and health...

Pvp gear should be disregarded unless you really intend to do it a lot. Event gear is better anyway.

[Derp_looks_like_a_Lady]

My main issue with Were-Chef is that the dungeons spawn at times that don't coincide with my schedule. I'm always finishing lunch and here he comes or going on break to see that he just left. It's very frustrating!!

[MorganHorses]

I wish the event schedule were more flexible. I'd like to see a minimum cooldown, but not a set-time cooldown.
For example, when I've been out of the event window for more than the minimum cooldown, I've love to start the event window immediately.
Detailed example:
I have set breaks and lunches on a 10-hour shift. I'll often miss ALL EVENT WINDOWS all day. I'd love to start each toon in the event and finish up the dungeon for each one on my next break. Then, on my following break, about 5 hours later, start the event again. Shampoo, rinse, repeat.

[Cheesy]

I wish the event schedule were more flexible. I'd like to see a minimum cooldown, but not a set-time cooldown.
For example, when I've been out of the event window for more than the minimum cooldown, I've love to start the event window immediately.
Detailed example:
I have set breaks and lunches on a 10-hour shift. I'll often miss ALL EVENT WINDOWS all day. I'd love to start each toon in the event and finish up the dungeon for each one on my next break. Then, on my following break, about 5 hours later, start the event again. Shampoo, rinse, repeat.

This is a great idea Morgan. It would also help a lot of newer toons too.