Give us teaching npcs, let cities retrofit old unused portions of the city, or build new sections if there are no such locations.
But can they please, please, please be scary mobs? The harassment of npc loyal killing is already bad enough. Make them immortal so that novices are never left hanging. Or at least give them quasi boss status
The way things are right now, I don't think that a university would end up working well enough to justify the resources.
I think it's going to run into a problem with lesson gain, honestly, in that I think that new players will have likely outgrown the need for a university by the time they have learned enough of their class skills to actually benefit from a university. I mean, at low levels, what are you going to teach them about their profession? At the 'newbie' stage they have sub Gifted/Gifted/Gifted skills and none of their actual class mechanics; they're really just different flavours of "attack mobile" without much mechanical differentiation. At tri-trans, a Berserker and a Summoner are completely different. At newbie levels the difference is that one bashes with a shield slam and the other bashes with fire. There's not enough available to them to justify a university. What will the courses be? "Attack mobile" and "ACTIVATE TANKING DEFENSE"? A university is ridiculous overkill.
If you want to vastly improve the new player experience the best way to do it would be with an early boost of lessons so that they can actually get to their interesting skills earlier. My ideal progression would actually be near single trans with no purchases by ~L75 or so, because most professions now have absolutely zero viability before at least one-trans and you can't actually learn how your profession works until you reach that point. Hell, for a lot of classes you can expand that to two-trans. Don't have Lacerate and Bloodfreeze? Good luck as Outrider. By the time you learn enough of your profession skills to actually use your profession you're past the point of 90% lesson return. This can make for a spectacularly awful new player experience.
If you want to fix the novice experience, that's the kind of thing you should be looking at. A university will solve absolutely nothing aside from the "Where can I learn this profession?" question.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
You raise good points, Khizan. There is a purpose though to universities, and that is namely immersion. One of the things that is sorely lacking is the continuity between introductory quests to level 90 - Aspect; your solution addresses the mechanics of the chosen profession, a well-crafted university has the potential to solve the problem of character continuity.
Obviously, there is one other very important reason universities are an awesome idea:
This is getting close. It involves making changes to the intro and the client because we have to put in a way to select your city in the process. I am shooting to have it done before the weekend, but it may wait until Monday. I would hate to blow up things too much.
Does the mob have to be a Dean, or can we reskin it into something else?
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Does the mob have to be a Dean, or can we reskin it into something else?
Each city and council can submit an ORGREQUEST to change their Deans. However, we do have a HELP DEANS to help novices/newbies, so keep that in mind.
Are we also able to rewrite their profession 'blurbs' that the dean talks about? Some of the information in our circle is out of date in relation to what the professions do, and it would be a nice chance to add a bit of flavor text in.
We don't have a freaking university or even a school, why do we have a Dean?
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Comments
The way things are right now, I don't think that a university would end up working well enough to justify the resources.
I think it's going to run into a problem with lesson gain, honestly, in that I think that new players will have likely outgrown the need for a university by the time they have learned enough of their class skills to actually benefit from a university. I mean, at low levels, what are you going to teach them about their profession? At the 'newbie' stage they have sub Gifted/Gifted/Gifted skills and none of their actual class mechanics; they're really just different flavours of "attack mobile" without much mechanical differentiation. At tri-trans, a Berserker and a Summoner are completely different. At newbie levels the difference is that one bashes with a shield slam and the other bashes with fire. There's not enough available to them to justify a university. What will the courses be? "Attack mobile" and "ACTIVATE TANKING DEFENSE"? A university is ridiculous overkill.
If you want to vastly improve the new player experience the best way to do it would be with an early boost of lessons so that they can actually get to their interesting skills earlier. My ideal progression would actually be near single trans with no purchases by ~L75 or so, because most professions now have absolutely zero viability before at least one-trans and you can't actually learn how your profession works until you reach that point. Hell, for a lot of classes you can expand that to two-trans. Don't have Lacerate and Bloodfreeze? Good luck as Outrider. By the time you learn enough of your profession skills to actually use your profession you're past the point of 90% lesson return. This can make for a spectacularly awful new player experience.
If you want to fix the novice experience, that's the kind of thing you should be looking at. A university will solve absolutely nothing aside from the "Where can I learn this profession?" question.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧