Health and Growth of Lusternia

Reah

I've been in Lusternia for approximately a month and a half.  In that time, I've acquired (Approx. 90 levels), thousands of lessons, an honors quest line, and city rank 4.  I've won at least 1 spar in the arena in which both combatants are fighting, and I've learned how to craft some combinations in Telekinesis.  With this under my belt, I still know nearly nothing.

In my experiences with Iron Realms, (Just shy of 11 years), Lusternia has been some of the most fun I’ve ever had.  It is also the most challenging.  There are people available to answer questions; but oftentimes the answer is not known or the person is busy.  This is not always the case and the questions do get answered, but that leaves a burning question.

Where can I go to get answers?

·         Help Files

--These are the primary go-to for any novice.  These files are sometimes outdated, and sometimes irrelevant.  This is not to fault other players.  I get it- no one wants to sit and write help files all day.  This is terrible, though!  The help files are what we’re told to read sometimes are irrelevant.

--Help files also have the tendency to be walls of text.  They’re written by experienced players, often in a way to sound more intelligent than it needs to be.

--Help files do exist- but there is a different problem: Timing.  The questions [answered by the help files] don’t occur until after a situation has escalated.  Asking for information about revolts in the middle of a revolt is very counterintuitive.  As a novice, I want to participate and learn.

>Recommendation

--Keep in mind that novices are the breath of life for Lusternia (and any game).  Without the novices, things will (probably) get stale.  Ultimately, KEEP IT SIMPLE.  Let the novices learn at their own rate.  There is no reason why a single help file should need 6-7 reads just to comprehend.  Break it up, and make it tiered.  As the player gets advanced through rankings, more information should be presented to them.  Even an advanced Geography concept would be amazing for so many players!  With the advent of mapping tools, I know almost nothing about the world, but I know specific places.  I know how to get to some, and I don’t know how to get to others.  This can be troublesome when you don’t know how to LEAVE somewhere (astral, anyone?)

·         Combat

--Combat is a huge part of the game.  For a novice, it’s incredibly daunting to try and stage combat in a non-arena format.  These combat events are almost always group based.  This can be a great thing or a terrible thing.  In most cases for a novice, it’s terrible.   I suppose novices shouldn’t attend these events, but then where is the learning occurring?

>Recommendation

--Combat should be taught through iterance.  No, you shouldn’t force everyone to participate in combat, but those who express interest should be assisted.  I don’t mean you should sit them down and write out how to fight- but  there should be encouragement and instruction in the right direction.


Bottom Line:

This is not complaining.  This is not griping.  This is a documented effort of my experiences thus far in Lusternia.

<There is more information to be added (typed)- just wanted to get a discussion going>

Karlach

The biggest gripe with novices in Lusternia combat is more often than not they're simply cannon fodder. When they can get swatted aside in 1-2 rounds of balance from a single player, be stuck with a prayer timer and then go back to face the same over and over again.

Personally I find the wargames mechanic very underused for training, instead it's mostly used by combatants and even then it's metagamed because people want to play with certain people to stack the OP combinations, but organisations, and their allies/associates should be encouraged to set dates that newbies can plan ahead for to turn up and spend time practising in a combat situation, spending time afterwards going over what went right, what went wrong and what can be changed.

Yes it's work, yes it's effort on behalf of those teaching, but when you consider what the payoff is, having people that know how to fight, rather than just being ineffective cannon fodder and a poor representation of your actual strength in numbers, it's impossible to say that it's not worth it.


Firmly agree on outdated HELP files, both player written and game based, some people are better than others at these but there are a fair number that are outdated.

Also learning needs to be fun, from the other discussion on this people were talking about how HELP DOMOTH is a giant wall of text that assaults your eyes and leaves you wishing for blindness, and then someone from Hallifax noted how they have a play that explains it. This is the kind of thing that needs to come across, guides need to be entertaining in some way, step by step explanations and simplicity, assume the person knows nothing. They will skip the bits they do know and pick up on the bits they don't.\

Sure some people will say "I learned stuff myself just by playing the game and didn't get any help" good for you, I did too, but there were times it was utterly frustrating trying to figure out how to achieve things others were doing with ease. The fact someone showed you something once but didn't take the time to explain how they actually did it in a step by step basis, is worthless.

It's like taking novices on their geography and using your orgbix/cubix/sealbix/torus to move around rather than following the guide and explaining it to them, they can't replicate what you just did, what good is it to them?

Lerad

In order to make learning fun for newbies, (not just novices) we need to make a culture of in-game teaching that is not just helpfiles.

Unfortunately, the IRE tradition has always been helpfiles. Since the start of Achaea, archivists have traditionally always enjoyed more popularity as an occupation than teachers in IRE. That is not to say it's a bad thing - really well maintained helpfiles are sometimes all that is needed. Just take a look at the repeated calls for open documentation and information that envoys and combatants have been begging since forever. I personally know of buddies who played IRE games with me who compared the rich and vibrant combat complexity here with a more linear one elsewhere and say they preferred the other one just because of the extensive documentation of all combat formulae, mechanical interactions, spell effects, lists etc etc that the other has. Complexity in combat is awesome, but complexity and confusion are different things, and should not be conflated. (Yay alliteration)

One thing that Lusternia, and IRE in general, sorely lacks is the teaching of teachers. We have plenty of volunteers, but not all of them know what to do, or how best to do it. We also have handfuls of prodigious teachers, who can seamlessly combine RP with the information dumping of basic mechanics and game manipulation. What we need is a player driven initiative to coach, groom and maintain a self-perpetuating ecosystem of newbie teaching, where the usage of emotes, says, even metaphors and euphemisms to convert OOC and mechanical information into interesting ideas in game are preserved and passed down. If we can do that, we can greatly improve the experience of new players even despite having sometimes-outdated helpfiles. Whether or not we have the population and the critical mass of people who are willing to put in the thankless hours of effort trying to do this to succeed is questionable, however.

Reah

Morkarion said:

The biggest gripe with novices in Lusternia combat is more often than not they're simply cannon fodder. When they can get swatted aside in 1-2 rounds of balance from a single player, be stuck with a prayer timer and then go back to face the same over and over again.

Personally I find the wargames mechanic very underused for training, instead it's mostly used by combatants and even then it's metagamed because people want to play with certain people to stack the OP combinations, but organisations, and their allies/associates should be encouraged to set dates that newbies can plan ahead for to turn up and spend time practising in a combat situation, spending time afterwards going over what went right, what went wrong and what can be changed.

Yes it's work, yes it's effort on behalf of those teaching, but when you consider what the payoff is, having people that know how to fight, rather than just being ineffective cannon fodder and a poor representation of your actual strength in numbers, it's impossible to say that it's not worth it.

I think one of the huge shortfalls comes from the lack of playerbase in many of the guilds.  I am fortunate to have @Glevich,@Tridemon, and @Neos available to ask questions of.  They don't always know the answer but it's a lot more than being stuck with the help files.

I often hear that Demesnes are super powerful.. but I still don't know HOW they're powerful.  I really can't SEE it yet (mostly because I die too fast to notice!)

Lerad said:

In order to make learning fun for newbies, (not just novices) we need to make a culture of in-game teaching that is not just helpfiles.

Unfortunately, the IRE tradition has always been helpfiles. Since the start of Achaea, archivists have traditionally always enjoyed more popularity as an occupation than teachers in IRE. That is not to say it's a bad thing - really well maintained helpfiles are sometimes all that is needed. Just take a look at the repeated calls for open documentation and information that envoys and combatants have been begging since forever. I personally know of buddies who played IRE games with me who compared the rich and vibrant combat complexity here with a more linear one elsewhere and say they preferred the other one just because of the extensive documentation of all combat formulae, mechanical interactions, spell effects, lists etc etc that the other has. Complexity in combat is awesome, but complexity and confusion are different things, and should not be conflated. (Yay alliteration)

One thing that Lusternia, and IRE in general, sorely lacks is the teaching of teachers. We have plenty of volunteers, but not all of them know what to do, or how best to do it. We also have handfuls of prodigious teachers, who can seamlessly combine RP with the information dumping of basic mechanics and game manipulation. What we need is a player driven initiative to coach, groom and maintain a self-perpetuating ecosystem of newbie teaching, where the usage of emotes, says, even metaphors and euphemisms to convert OOC and mechanical information into interesting ideas in game are preserved and passed down. If we can do that, we can greatly improve the experience of new players even despite having sometimes-outdated helpfiles. Whether or not we have the population and the critical mass of people who are willing to put in the thankless hours of effort trying to do this to succeed is questionable, however.

I'm not sure if much can be done on this front, unfortunately.  No one wants to sit and write help files for weeks just to help novices.  That's a second job (and for some, even a second or third!) and it's supposed to be a game.  The problem with that is no one NEW can have fun.

Help files, in my opinion, shouldn't be written IC'ly.  I've always said this in any IRE game i've played.  KEEP IT SIMPLE.  If you want to have an IC'ly written helpfile- put it in a book in the library.  This is a huge undertaking and would never happen- but it surely would help novices get the grasp of the game a lot earlier.


I think a lot of scrolls should be made a required before the novice gets out of novicehood.
Example:
-Revolts
-Domoths
-City RULES
-Hunting
-Group combat?

Everiine

But then we reach the problem of throwing way too much information at newbies at once. Nobody wants to spend the first 3 or 4 hours of their game experience reading help files.

Reah

Everiine said:

But then we reach the problem of throwing way too much information at newbies at once. Nobody wants to spend the first 3 or 4 hours of their game experience reading help files.

As I still believe, information should be presented in stages.

Neos

I wish we could organize help files like Aetolia/MKO, wherein there are folders and also a basic index guild leaders can setup when people do (c|o|g|whatever)help instead of listing every single help file, and people can just do (*)help realindex for every help file. Better streamlines help files imo, making sure they see what they need off the bat and other files can be referenced(or even linked, like Aetolia) in the relevant help files.

Karlach

I'd like to see more education being practical and not theory. As Everiine says, spending 3-4 hours reading stuff is going to put people off, learning stuff through application and experience is far more fun for someone, and you get an idea of your capabilities.

Tarkenton

Neos said:

I wish we could organize help files like Aetolia/MKO, wherein there are folders and also a basic index guild leaders can setup when people do (c|o|g|whatever)help instead of listing every single help file, and people can just do (*)help realindex for every help file. Better streamlines help files imo, making sure they see what they need off the bat and other files can be referenced(or even linked, like Aetolia) in the relevant help files.

So, like the regular help files then.  I always thought it was odd that they weren't like that in the first place.  As for practical vs reading, I think a lot of it depends on the person.  I know that I like reading the instruction manuals for just about everything, then attacking whatever it is I'm attempting to do with that basic knowledge in hand.  But I recognize that there's a good possibility I'm an anomaly in that regard.  Something like semi-weekly org or cross-org wargames may be a good way to introduce the lower leveled/new folks to the larger scale combat.  Have the older folks calling targets and the like, possibly being the targets, and send the newbie hordes after them.  Hold referendums/general signups to settle on a good time to do things, and go from there.

Kio

Tarkenton said:

Neos said:

I wish we could organize help files like Aetolia/MKO, wherein there are folders and also a basic index guild leaders can setup when people do (c|o|g|whatever)help instead of listing every single help file, and people can just do (*)help realindex for every help file. Better streamlines help files imo, making sure they see what they need off the bat and other files can be referenced(or even linked, like Aetolia) in the relevant help files.

So, like the regular help files then.  I always thought it was odd that they weren't like that in the first place.  As for practical vs reading, I think a lot of it depends on the person.  I know that I like reading the instruction manuals for just about everything, then attacking whatever it is I'm attempting to do with that basic knowledge in hand.  But I recognize that there's a good possibility I'm an anomaly in that regard.  Something like semi-weekly org or cross-org wargames may be a good way to introduce the lower leveled/new folks to the larger scale combat.  Have the older folks calling targets and the like, possibly being the targets, and send the newbie hordes after them.  Hold referendums/general signups to settle on a good time to do things, and go from there.

Glom does this, or at least was doing this.  Things got busy, though.

You can expect it to pick up again very, very soon.

*hunches over his plans for world domination*

edit: quotes are still hard

Reah

@Kio- the thing is.. it shouldn't matter who does it first.  Everyone SHOULD do something like this.  The sad part is- no one really WANTS to do it because its exhausting.

Kio

Reah said:

@Kio- the thing is.. it shouldn't matter who does it first.  Everyone SHOULD do something like this.  The sad part is- no one really WANTS to do it because its exhausting.

Uhhh.  That was in direct reply to Tarkenton, not to the thread in general.

That said, no one was saying anything about someone doing it first.  It was something that multiple people were a part of, but schedules get jumbled, people decide to go to other orgs, etc.

Also, there are lots of people that want to do these things.  However, for every person who wants to do these things, there's a novice that doesn't care or thinks they won't have a good time so they don't speak up.  Like I mentioned previously, there are also other factors going into it.  For example, I was working with a group of four novices.  Two of them are in an opposite time-zone, so getting them together was difficult at times.  One of them went dormant, another (who we presume is an alt anyway) org-hopped, and the other two are flourishing (and I can't tell them enough how proud of them I am).

You can't just go throwing the burden on the older players.  I'm not saying I expect newbies to spring to life at every twist and turn, trying to empower their org.  I do, however, expect them to be attentive and take the chances they are offered, whether it's a chance to RP or to learn combat.

It's not really fair for people to say we need more teachers when there aren't enough students who want to learn.

Mariel

Morkarion said:

I'd like to see more education being practical and not theory. As Everiine says, spending 3-4 hours reading stuff is going to put people off, learning stuff through application and experience is far more fun for someone, and you get an idea of your capabilities.

When I teach novices about combat, I take 'em to the arena for what Mariel calls "combat drills." I teach them about parrying, how warrior affliction works, how the seperate specializations go, etc. I also let 'em wail on me to test their abilities; I remember being frustrated as a newbie for having all these cool-sounding abilities and not really getting to use them.

Daraius

Speaking as someone who loves newbies... I help as many as I can, when they let me, and try to pepper RP and lore in with mechanics. But when half the newbies are alts and half go dormant after a week, it just gets really discouraging and exhausting trying to make an impression (even a small one) on everyone that steps through the portal. 

EDIT: I should note I'm limited in how helpful I can be, anyhow, being a guildless non-com.

Hiriako

Helping newbies is fairly frustrating due to the sheer volume of alts that ignore. It's hard at times to discern whether someone's a novice that cannot understand how to reply, or whether they're an alt that simply will not.

That being said, we need new players. The new intro is a step in the right direction on correcting how novices are trained. It dumps them right into the active aspect of the game, which is appealing more often than not. But even so, there is the occasional newbie that has felt pressured by being told to do so many things right out of the portal. They have complained about not wanting to be funneled into quest after quest.

Basically, what I think we need to examine as a playerbase is the way that we introduce players to new concepts. Look at the new intro, see what it covers, and move from there. Teach them about villages, about questing, about organizational RP. A bit at a time.

What I'd really like to do is have a general channel for GAs that could be considered OOC in similar fashion to Envoys, where they can discuss training and how each guild is succeeding or failing. That's where we can start, be it a channel IC or just something here on the forums. But let's get this discussion going, as the health of our game (addiction) depends on it. 

My thoughts: Introduce a basic level of lore right off the bat, as well as allowing them to work through the intro. After the intro, encourage them to explore the world. Make sure they know that they will die, be it to a player or the environment, but that death is no real setback. Give a list of things they should examine.

For example:

Villages: What is a village, why does it matter, how does it affect things?

This can lead into a discussion of power and commodities. How does each of these things affect the world? Power can teach about skills, comms about trades. 

That's one topic. We can all come up with more, and if we can start doing something akin to that, I think it could do much for the way newbies are taught. After all, exploration's still a big part of the game. Sorry you died to the giant snowcat in the valley, but here's what goes on there.

Reah

I'm not sure how farfetched it would actually be.. but would it be possible to develop sparring partners?

That'd be huge for combat development/training at least on that front.

Tarkenton

Define Reah?  Not quite sure what you mean.

Rivius

Like AI?

Kalnid

Actually, I think a completely defensive training dummy would be pretty neat. It takes afflictions like a person, deepwounds, whatever, and has a basic curing system. Add in a way to check its vitals and toggle vitals/curing, and you've got what self-testing with masochism does now without it being, y'know, masochism.

Karlach

There is a training dummy you can test hit rates on, but no recording as to wounds/damage.

Rivius

You mean AFK people? They usually tell me in messages when they're back.

Marcella

It's in the ur'Guard guildhall.

Karlach

Rivius said:

You mean AFK people? They usually tell me in messages when they're back.

That works too but I'm on about an actual targeting dummy.

Reah

Tarkenton said:

Define Reah?  Not quite sure what you mean.

I'd like to imagine something on the grounds of complete combat AI.. Would be a huge leap forward in combat training.

Malayn

Does this look like Lithmeria to you?

Just kidding, we can PROBABLY do that after the overhaul. The amount of control over skills and affs they will have is HUGE compared to what we have now.

If combat is simplified we can prolly have AI's, though keep in mind how long those could take to make, since unlike lith we can actually lock people down (our curing is monstrous).

Still no details released of the system, I will post a wish list at some point.

Rivius

AI's pretty tough stuff though. I wouldn't count too hard on it. Especially one for Lusternia, which is incredibly complex.

Shachar

Kalnid said:

Actually, I think a completely defensive training dummy would be pretty neat. It takes afflictions like a person, deepwounds, whatever, and has a basic curing system. Add in a way to check its vitals and toggle vitals/curing, and you've got what self-testing with masochism does now without it being, y'know, masochism.

Oooooh, so that's what that button does. Just yesterday I was going over my abilities wondering about the practical application of masochism.

...nope I'm not the brightest star in the sky.

Hiriako

Testing on yourself is still questionable at the best of times.