New players still in the dark

#0 - March 5, 2010, 3:30 p.m.

Is Blizzard really happy with how in the dark new players to WoW are?

I'm talking specifically about the way stats like defense, hit, armor pen, parry, spirit and a host of other in game stats are not explained to players.

Even though some of these, like defense, will be going away the problem will still exist.

The problem is that nowhere in game does Blizzard tell us what, for instance, the hit cap is. Hell, Blizzard doesn't even tell us that there is a hit cap. Nowhere inside the game World of Warcraft are you informed about how stats such as hit function. Having to go to a third-party website like wowwikki in order to learn how your stats work is poor game design.

Odds are, most of found out about how hit cap or defense cap (or any stat similar) works by doing it wrong and then getting told off by someone who knew better than us. I have seen people quit WoW because of how unfun that experience can be.

This fact of WoW has really been driven home to me lately. I recently convinced a large group of my RL friends to start playing WoW with me. They started their first, brand new characters, leveled to 80 and we started to play together. A few instances in I found out that these guys had no idea how much hit they needed (they didn't even know there was a point where it stopped being useful), they didn't know that haste is almost useless for hunters (our hunter thought it sounded good and had been gemming for it), and same was true for defense (our new tank didn't even know there was a defense cap).

I taught these guys what I know, sent them to the right websites, and now they're all on the right track after a small change to their playstyle. But how were any of them supposed to know that they were doing it wrong? WoW never gave them the hint.

A simple solution would be to create an in-game manual that could be accessed via a UI button. This could explain the way things like hit rating work and even tell you what the cap is (especially important if the amount of hit needed will change each tier). This way players could understand how to play at level 80 without having to wait until they're discovered as a noob or going to sites like wowwikki (where information can sometimes be out of date.)

Nethaera

#18 - March 5, 2010, 5:23 p.m.

We've always held to the premise that the game should be easy to learn and difficult to master. And the intention is that when you start the game, you have all of the information you need to get on the road to that mastery. As you've probably seen, to that end we've changed some of the starting player experience to be a bit more clear and directed as well have updated the in-game tooltips and tutorial. (If you haven't tried leveling a new character in a while, try it and turn on the tutorial.)

You'll also be able to take a look at the new Stat Changes post that we released for information on what we're working toward for Cataclysm. We want stats to mean something, but we also want it to be understandable at the same time.

We're doing what we can to continue to make the in-game experience better for everyone while still giving the challenges that many are looking for.

More advanced players who dig into the higher level stat finessing aren't likely to fit into the definition of "new player" by the time they get up into the end-game experience so getting into the higher-end theorycrafting etc, on our end gets into dangerous territory. We want players to experience the game as intended, but we don't want to dictate to anyone how to play all at the same time. This is a balancing act on a high-wire, with a bear on a unicycle while juggling an apple, banana, and a small coconut while a fiddler dances on the other end. (No swallows were involved in transporting said coconut.)

We have many more things that we would like to do both in game and out of game to help players get into the game from the start and make the entire experience from there to end-game the type of experience we all want to have as gamers too.