Hrm. To revisit difficulty versus challenge, I've been thinking about the crystals system. I think it's a semi-challenging system: there's complexities, but nothing horribly illogical, and once you know the rules it's very straight-forward. There's an element of challenge in picking out the best crystals for your needs at the moment, and you can swap them around all you want-- so new situations can always present chances for tweaking. Actually getting your crystals falls under difficulty, since there's no way to out-"skill" the RNG. Regardless, I feel that the crystal system is pretty good: it works better the more experienced and knowledgeable you are.
The problem, and where I think the trouble lies for newbies, is that there is no fast and easy way to explain the rules. You can summarize it ok in a paragraph, but to explain it in enough detail to avoid confusing newbies or making them shriek in outrage 15 minutes later when they discover something you skipped/glossed over/didn't mention all the minutiae of... you have to Wall O' Text them. And I like how complex the system is, I really do, but every single newbie either has to laboriously trial-and-error their way through it (and there will be lots of trials and error) or else ask to simply be told how it works-- and get thunked over the head with Frith-Rae's Big Book.
Which, I think, would be ok, but this is a single relatively minor system/mechanic. You don't get Wall O' Texted about crystals and have no more questions for the day. You still need to learn about techniques, about how gear works, about how the sweet baby Drulkar fighting things works-- hint: first 20 hours of combat are probably going to be confused flailing-- how the heck you level your crafts, why you'd bother, and hey, what are these training point things, and speaking of how much do I like any of these statstics I'm increasing, and could someone please explain how defenses work because I tried to read the sticky about it but one level 100 dragon later I still have no idea beyond "stack wards and resists at the same time, surely at least one of them will apply."
And arguably, I know what I'm doing. I don't pretend I'm an expert and given how this game is paced I don't EXPECT to be an expert. It's ok if I'm still learning new things a year from now. But a lot of games these days try to put the challenge into going from playing at 90% to playing at 100%-- not learning the first 90% in the first place, the way this game does. Asking new players who weren't raised in EverCrack-style MMOs (motto: "Stockholm Syndrome is what we aim for!") to spend so long just trying to learn what they're doing at all seems like a losing proposition to me.
That, and I'm starting to wonder if having to babysit people for a week lest they get frustrated by apparently doing everything wrong isn't leading to a horrible cycle of dependency. If you get through the first 14-day trial of the game by having to have your hand held the entire way-- because everything is new, and confusing, and comparatively punishing of your ignorance, and there's all these helpful oldies who are willing to carefully guide you-- it doesn't make a newbie feel like a contributing member, or someone who can stand on their own. I remember coming back to the game about a year back, and despite having a pretty solid grasp of how everything worked (at least for a fresh character) I spent my first 7-8 months very, very distressed by how powerless I felt, especially in the face of all the towering ancients of the server. People were willing to help me at pretty much every turn, and I sincerely appreciated it, but I was so frustrated by how many things I even wanted to ask for help for in the first place. And it wasn't just that I needed help for everything fancier than the latest series of adventure grind quests, it was that there was nothing I could do to repay them. Coin's basically worthless, although with the loot revamp I have my fingers crossed that no longer will hatchlings try to offer me their paltry life's savings (which amount to the coin I make for sneezing near a pawnbroker) in exchange for some trivial amount of work on my part that revolutionizes the game for them. Construction work is something the oldest oldies will happily accept-- if they don't need it, I bet they have friends who do-- but if you're in a position to offer construction materials, you're probably not living in desperate powerlessness. Tech comps? Like coin, if a lowbie has it, an oldie probably has a hundred times as much rotting in storage.
I think the tipping point where I finally felt like a contributing member of the community instead of another hatchling-shaped parasite was when I finished buying the tech comps I wanted for my "final" adventuring scales. They included a number of harder-to-get materials that I really didn't want to go try to get-- so I asked around and poked the people I knew and found comp hunters who had it or could get it and would be happy to relieve me of some of my excess coin for the privilege. The bill wasn't huge, but it was substantial enough that it didn't feel like a token pat on the head. It was the first time I felt like I could actually repay someone for what they done, instead of having to nebulously promise "when I'm bigger, someday" or that I'd pay it forward. Finally, I wasn't scurrying among the ankles of giants, I was walking among them! Granted, not exactly at the same level-- the rampaging uberpeds and twenty-lair ancients are still way more awesome at this game than I am by most conventional measures. But it was liberating to deal with them roughly as equals, as opposed to begging for handouts.
And this is all coming from a player who is irrationally independent, in long-term love with the game, and sufficiently terrified of being a pimple of the community's butt to at least give try to stand on my own, even when I think that I'll mess up, or fall short of doing it perfectly, or blah blah blah. What about all the new players who show up completely unprepared for this much challenge, or are naturally clingy? What if they don't come here in love enough with the game to stick with it, despite the learning curve and the small size and all the little bugs?
Ok, ok, in case you can't bear to read all of that (I don't blame you!):
- I think the initial learning curve might be a bit steep, although I certainly like how deep the game is over all.
- I wonder if making the oldies act as such superheroes for fresh players might be undermining their willingness to later stand on their own two feet.
...I think I'm done for now (for all our sakes).