I'm not exactly a "new" player, but with how the devs completely revamped the earlier parts of the game, I might as well be.
As some of you may have seen, I started a threat called "A New Project" in which I started a completely new character from scratch with no outside help, just like any truly new player would.
And I would have to say....
To be honest... how exactly is a new player supposed to ever get started in the game?
You start out on Spirit Isle with pretty much no equipment whatsoever. This is OK because Spirit Isle mobs are weak and you pretty much have to attack something much stronger than you to actually die.
Then after Level 4-ish, they shove you off to New Trismus. You can get a letter of credit to get a few pieces of Refurbished (read: almost worthless) gear, and a couple spells depending on your school (I did a Cleric).
If you took up a craft, you probably got a couple basic formulas to start with.
Herein lies the problem:
1). You need gear, but you can't get gear.
2). You want to craft gear, but you can't without the formulas.
For example, a Cleric starting out is standing in New Trismus wearing Refurbished Ringmail (except for the Refurb Scale Chestguard they started you with in Spirit Isle) and either a refurb wooded club or a refurb bronze mace.
That's it. Oh, and a refurb shield too that is barely worth even equipping.
The very first Cleric quest sends you after treants (Really? Treants?) and they are not very easy at all. I had a Bronze Warhammer that I got extremely lucky to find on the Consigner and even with that, these treants took forever to kill because of their healing ability which I had no real counters for given I'm only Lv7 (I even did the Trials of the Gifted quest too).
If you should finish that quest, then they send you after skeletons near the ruined homestead. These guys hurt when the best you've got is Refurb Ringmail. I was able to do it, but it was painful as my only healing spell barely kept up with the damage they were doing. Luckily I also found a Minor Health spell on the Consigner, but that was the only one up at the time.
After that, I saw a quest for Red Tusks.... which is utterly impossible right now. He kills you in <10 seconds before you can even take half of his life off. And that's with the best weapon I'm allowed to use right now.
Then, it is the quest to get the ring off of the gatherers at the beach. These guys also hurt pretty bad and when you've only got two ranged attacks (both on long cooldown), this quest I found to be mildly annoying too.
At this point I was going "Man I need some freaking gear."
Checked the Consigner, found a couple wristguards. And....nothing else. Just the wristguards.
So, why not craft and make my own gear? Sounds sensible, right?
Oh wait... If you want to make armor or weapons... you have to go clear to freaking Dalimond which means running past aggressive mobs in the teens.
Really?
Yeah, yeah, grinding up Imperial Tokens was annoying, but it was better than having to run to Dalimond on Foot and.....wait, what's this? The ONLY weapon form they sell is the Lv1 mace? Really? You're supposed to use a Lv1 mace until something drops a form for a better mace or Level 20 whichever comes first?
And Armor... you can buy Ringmail forms. Uh, my Cleric is supposed to be wearing Scalemail, not Ringmail. And from what I was looking at, doesn't look like you can buy Large shield forms, either.
"So go farm some forms!"
I killed 20+ pygmies on the beach..... 0 forms.
Killed 10+ skeletons near the homestead..... 0 forms.
With absolutely crappy gear, mind you.
So yeah.... why exactly did you devs think it was a good idea to absolutely kill the new player experience outright? I can understand jumping through hoops for, say, jman forms, but beginner forms? Really?
Why not just make us all punch enemies to death while wearing cloth while we're at it?
Like I said -- I hate to say this, but the old system was better. At least you could actually get a character started, even though the Token farming was annoying... you still had access to the forms you needed without having to trek through hostile territory with mobs much higher level than you mere hours into starting the game (not that a new player would ever know to do this anyways)...