Feedback regarding trainers, from the new guy.

[Grish]

First off, I want to say I do understand the logic behind spreading the trainers out. It should spark a bit of exploration, and something to break the tedious grind of leveling. Now, these by themselves are all good and well, but I have some issues with the system, maybe not the entire system but with bits and pieces of it.

(keep in mind this is from a new players point of view)

The first problem is especially playing a priest right now, the amount of skills and spells to train is overwhelming. Several zones I can not find, and some of the ones I do find, the trainer is hidden so well it would take a considerable amount of time and effort to find.

Now I am reaching tier 3, and soon to be tier 4 and not only have the skills/spells I need to train piled up (i am level 38 tier 3 and havent trained a single tier 3 spell) but now less and less information is being given i.e only name or dimension). This is going beyond the point of fun.

My idea of exploration isnt to be told my trainer is in prehistoric (which i hate) then being required to go to each and every single zone and either typing where <mobname> or needing to explore each and every zone looking for the trainer.

This is not a threat, but the way I feel... if at the end of tier 4 I feel exhausted just from finding trainers its likely I will just stay a 3 remorted priest forever, or just simply quit playing. I dont mind being forced to explore, but not knowing where to go or even the slightest for ALL skills and spells is a bit insane. I could understand if a few skills were elite and limited information was available, but come on... this is killing the game for an active player with limited (but growing) knowledge of the game.

I just feel it wont matter if i have 3 remorts or 40, finding these trainers all the time is not going to be even the least bit stimulating or enjoyable.

My suggestions to make the system more friendly would be:
List trainer name and zone for both tier 1 and 2, for tier 3 list only the zone, and the same for tier 4 except maybe a few exceptions list only the dimension or mobs name.

I mean in the end whats the difference, the power players can quickly run to the zones, or have log files of what npcs aer where, or even have immortals who might have mortals who have an unfair advantage. Just point being if you feel by tier 2 a player should explore the elven forest for a trainer whats the difference if you put a drow necromancer, or a drow necromancer - elven forest. You will be saving a lot of heart ache for inexperienced player by at least giving us a dartboard to throw darts at.

Can you imagine how long it will take me to find all my tier 3 trainers? Is that really the goal? I mean, if I got to level 50 - Tier 3 priest I bet I could spend over a week of 4-5 hours a day trying not only to find the zones, but the location of the trainers. I dont think that sounds like fun for anyone.

I feel strongly if you want to push the exploration issue, force the hand, but at least give us some more information!!!!

-Grish

[Virisin]

Priests already get far to many spells, you probably only need less than 10 on the whole list to be an efficient priest. I know when I was priest I probly only ever used a max of 5 spells.. The fact that you can't find trainers for all your priest spells is more to do with the fact that priest has like 3 pages of spells, twice as many as the other caster classes. If you find the spells you need, then you can carry on exploring at your own rate, finding trainers as you explore. Rather than going out of your way to find a trainer for something like clone, which is only helpful if you're a PKer anyway.

[Grish]

I do agree, but again im a new and I havent tested the spells, for example I havent tested holy shout, chain lightning, earthquake soulsmash or lightning bolt because i dont want to hunt trainers. I dont have sense life, remove curse, sanctuary or heal, staple spells to me, again because trainer hunting is not fun. I would give more effort if I even had a clue to some of the prehistoric ones, but as I said, I hate that zone so just saying prehistoric suddenly makes killing mobs with out dated spells sounded funner than trainer hunting.

Chances are, I will get to the end of tier 3 and make one stomping around trying to find some trainers, find what I can and move on. It just isn't logical for me to try to go through 120 some odd zones or whatever hunting for trainers, it would be at least a little more efficient if i had some idea of what zone. Exploring a zone with a goal in mind is one thing, but needing to check all the zones in an entire dimension is a little difficult for a new player, and frustrating when you cant find zones in a closed lip society. Take the tower of Ta for example, I need to get there for a trainer, when I ask where the dwarven tunnels are (the map room says secret door there) its sealed lip, nobody will give any sort of hint or clue.

t3 and t4 are just have information withheld needlessly. So for me, I will have to do this t3/t4 stuff 16 times before I am a GM, once seems like plenty but 16 times? Or do I have to run spreadsheets and more paper documents to try to keep track of all this stuff just so I can play.

Who knows, maybe it will get better with time for me, but right now its leaving a pretty sour taste.

[Kvetch]

Clone's only useful for PKers?  Dang it, now you tell me. I worked so hard at training that up and now it's useless.  Dang you, Viri.  Dang you to.. umm.. someplace you wouldn't like. 

Kvetchy

[Leonardo]

Trying to feel in Grish's situation I can understand him, feeling like a newbie trying to train my skills and having so much trouble to do it would kind of exhaust me.

Like Virisin says, he'd just train 10 skills to do the Priest remort and pass over, like I'd also do, probably even fewer skills. But then again, we already know the skills, we had the time to try and use them. A newbie may like to test them all too. He want's to see how Clone works, he'd like to walk with some of himself in his group for the fun of it, he might want the skill even if it's not useful; just to fulfill his curiosity. Someone spent time thinking, developping, creating and fixing those skills; might appreciate that someone uses them even if they are not the powerfull ones, not powerfull doesn't mean not good. You can build effective tactics with your skills and spells.

I strongly believe that every skill must have specified at least the zone where to find it, the dimension is a too vague information. For newbie is unuseful information, we don't have 5 zones per dimension, a dimension like Prehistoric is very vast, can really become a nightmare for a newbie to train his skills.

I believe that the Zone name is already a good challenge. If you wish to add difficulty to gather the skill, can consider to build little quests for the skills but please specify the zone name of where the skill can be found.

[Robert]

Ok heres my point of view on Grish post, he is right, if i ware a newb i wouldnt find anything and sincerily i wouldn't even look for them as Virisin said you only need 10 of them to go on with the class, ok saying i am a new how do i know whitch i need and which i don't in the help file of the skill/spell it doesnt say hey you can train this only if you want, or dont train it it sucks you dont need it, and if its true that you need only 10 to go by then remove the others cause how he putted it it means the other skills/spells are not useful. I say its a bit hard maybe even for old players too now you say i need encircle that is a tier 4 skill, the help file tells me Medieval  that will mean to check out every zone in the medieval dimension, it's that fun? i think not, and thats for an old player, tell a new one to find the trainer for encircle and i think he will be hard to find because its a verry good skill and its esential in a fight or in PK. After some time they will get bored to hunt down trainers and will just not use it, or how Grish said they will stop playing.
Thats my 50 cent and no i am not bitching just my point of view.
Robbye

[Grish]

Well, him saying you only need 10 is a bit far fetched to, because as of right now I use at least that many buffs when I grind xp. They may have to many, and many many that are garbage but to compare a priest and a thief is hardley fair. t4 thief has how many skills to train? Here I will show you:


Tier: 4 - Lev: 10 - Skill or Spell: 'encircle'
Tier: 4 - Lev: 17 - Skill or Spell: 'grapple'
Tier: 4 - Lev: 26 - Skill or Spell: 'martial arts'
Tier: 4 - Lev: 29 - Skill or Spell: 'bladedance'


3 pretty important skills

Ok, here is t4 priest

Tier: 4 - Lev:  3 - Skill or Spell: 'group heal'
Tier: 4 - Lev:  9 - Skill or Spell: 'curse'
Tier: 4 - Lev: 12 - Skill or Spell: 'mind ice'
Tier: 4 - Lev: 15 - Skill or Spell: 'electric blast'
Tier: 4 - Lev: 16 - Skill or Spell: 'ice shield'
Tier: 4 - Lev: 20 - Skill or Spell: 'control weather'
Tier: 4 - Lev: 32 - Skill or Spell: 'demonshreak'
Tier: 4 - Lev: 50 - Skill or Spell: 'mana blast'


I dont know about you, but those look pretty useful to me without even pulling up the help file. And as Leonardo said its not just not wanting to get them because they are good, I enjoy getting the skills and spells and actually learning to play with them. I dont have the luxury of being a GM and already have playtested this stuff. If the spells are garbage then they should be removed, and not left in to give priests and or mages or gypsies or whoever skills that are junk just for the sake of making us waste time trying to find them.

Just remember, I may be the first to voice my opinion, but how many new people that come behind me are going to feel the same way, but not feel like speaking us, or even staying long enough to have an opinion to share the first time they cant find out how to train a skill.

My guess is there are reasons most games dont do it like this, and even the ones that insist on splitting them dont spread the skills so far and few. Either way, I am just trying to get some feedback out there since all the GMs and people that have been here since before the changes prolly wont mind much since geographicly they know how to navigate the mud.

[Kvetch]

Either way, I am just trying to get some feedback out there since all the GMs and people that have been here since before the changes prolly wont mind much since geographicly they know how to navigate the mud.

Umm.. right.  Let's just say that right now I'm glad I'm IMM and not mortal.  This reminds me a lot of the zone flags that hardly anyone is trying to find.  I love other games that you play that  you have to search out so and so in such and such town but this isn't that sort of game.  Having to track down a trainer both makes sense (in an RP/IC way) and is very time consuming even when you're given most of the information.  I guess I would suggest that if you want to try out the skills/spells, you should try one of our gladiators - provided we still have them somewhere.

Kvetchy

[Leonardo]

I guess I would suggest that if you want to try out the skills/spells, you should try one of our gladiators - provided we still have them somewhere.

Kvetchy

Are you serious? I mean does your reply really have any sense at all? What do you mean, that newbies should forget about their chars and use Gladiators to test skills?

First, Gladiators are not made to test skills and spells - you should focus on your char for that, I mean what's the point on having a char then, let's just all use the Gladiators.

Second, how many newbies do know that the Gladiators do even exist.

And Third, skills are a char personalization, I choose this race, these stats, this class, these skills and I train them and practice them and enjoy using them, on my char. This is the nice part of having a personal character to play.

You should give better hints for the skills to be trained and forget about having newbies switch to Gladiator chars to test skills and see what they'd like to train. They should be able to train whatever they please and enjoy it.

PS: Grish, your Thief vs Priest class skills compare doesn't make sense either, you forgot the precursor skills. I can't train encircle without backstab and melee as example, so it adds up for the Thief and even for the Priest.

Forget about the many skills you must have to do the remort as soon as possible, you should remort to Priest and enjoy the class and train all the skills you wish to explore and not just race to GM through it.

[Grish]

Well precursor skills in this instance dont really make the argument either, since backstab can be trained by about 10 different people, and melee can be trained by many easy to find trainers (i found at least 2 or 3 melee trainers today).

It was just simply saying after playing a thief, t4 has 3 bread and butter skills, vs several for a priest. But yeah, you are hitting a good argument for me, as I am enjoying this character, I shouldnt have to only get the best 10 and move on. I may play differently than others and find certain spells deemed useless to actually have some merit. And tbh, I am enjoying this enough, if I actually stick around long enough to GM I might enjoy being a priest GM.

On a side note, ppl should review the thread located below about skill/spell distribution, quite a few people left feedback regarding this issue of trainer placement, and not overdoing it. Also several people, including immortals said at the very least the zone/dimension should be included.

I mean, why does there have to be 50 trainers, and not just a few very specific npcs which could be class masters, and then a few rarer specialist npcs.

I guess as much as i try to understand the point, the more I think about it the less it makes sense. Who are you trying to get to explore? The players who sit idle all day? or the gms and elder players who have captured 70-80 zone flags, or is this supposed to target new players? No matter how you dice it, this global of a change to this severity doesnt make a lot of sense. It would have made more sense to dice the skills and spells up, list the zone/dimension, but split them up so over the course of going from level 1 to GM you would have had to hit every current zone in the game (or close to it).

/rant

[Virisin]

Trainers arn't like quests, you can ask people to help show you where the trainers are. And I don't care what LH says, but if you want to test skills/spells, use a gladiator. If you ever see me on, feel free to ask me to help you find a trainer, I'll do my best.

The feedback is good, and we might end up adding more to the helpfiles, depending on how things go.

[Fizban]

I guess I would suggest that if you want to try out the skills/spells, you should try one of our gladiators - provided we still have them somewhere.

Kvetchy

I'm pretty sure she is indeed serious. In fact I agree with her, if you are wanting to know which skills/spells you need to find ask a player that is more experienced, or play a gladiator and test out the skills to see which you like the best.

[erwin]

My 2 cents.

As a new player two years back, I only explored some parts of the mud, before settling down, grinded out some xp, GMed, and then started exploring the zones. Of course, if this was implemented back then, I guess I would go hunting them out.

But..maybe we can help players who ask questions like "Where is this trainer", by giving them more specific hints, like general area (NW medieval), or perhaps zone (Pirate Ship). Can promote player interaction as well.

Because well...quests are one thing, I'm okay with exploring / hunting through certain zones solving quests without asking other people because well, I have my class skills to rely on. Finding certain trainers could be difficult.

I'd say: Give more hints to players who want to know where the trainers are, unless the trainer is part of a questmob, then just give the rough location, as well as add in at character creation that caster type classes are for the more experienced mudders.

[Molly]

I am actually positive to posting a list of most the trainers with their zone and Dimension for all skills and spells on both the Webpage and the Forum. Others may be against it, but I don't think we should hold back on the information, with a few exceptions. However, for some of the most powerful skills and spells, I still think that it's a good idea to make finding their Trainers a bit of a Quest in itself.

The idea behind the Trainer change is not really to have the new players rambling around aimlessly, just looking for mobs with a [T] in their name. The idea is that you'll have to leave Recall and travel to the place where they are located, which also hopefully would mean that you learn something on route, due to the travelling and exploring.

We have a very large and rich world. It's really sad that so many players never experience more than a very limited part of it, since they only grind-level in a few zones, or just decide in advance that they 'hate' a Dimension. How can you hate something that you haven't even seen?

[Virisin]

Yeah, originally I didn't want a list posted, but I have semi-changed my mind. I don't think ALL the information should be given out, but I can understand giving out at least a mob name for all skills/spells, and maybe a zone for most aswel.