Noobing Along in MMOs - Too Easy Can Make It Hard

The real issue is that the game throws you all over the place, speeds you through everything, and never teaches you a damn thing.

While the Grumpy Elf is talking about WoW here, I find it applies just as much to Forsaken World. Levelling has become so fast at low levels, and even faster with 'mentor' stuff that PWE has put in. With 'mentor' stuff, highbies are rewarded for running lowbies through instances and stuff. If you're a real newbie, and if you take advantage of all the mentor things available - you'll probably have real trouble learning to play your class properly and effectively.

This is exacerbated by the fact that most highbies don't actually WANT to mentor. They just want to get their rewards at the end. This is based on the newbies feeling like what they've asked for has been accomplished - and it usually works. The instance gets run, the goals get finished, the newbies get gear. But do the mentors TEACH? Rarely, from what I've seen. Nor do the newbies expect actual imparting of knowledge vs imparting of quest completion and gear. This is no way to learn.

And so, both parties go on their way 'satisfied', but I'd say the real newbies are hardly ever well-served.

FW's instances are decently challenging as far as Dance-Dance-Revolution games go *if attempted at the proper level, with that level of gearing*. They remind me a lot of vanilla WoW, without anything quite as innovative as Dire Maul Coffer Runs. However, mentoring just turns the whole instance setup upside down, since as a newbies, you're basically just standing to the side looking pretty while the high levels gank everything.

If you're a high level and for some reason you've never done this content at the level of er... level and gear it was designed for, you, too - have never learned the skills and the lessons taught in the content.

And some of these skills you're expected to know later on, in level cap dungeons.

It's a vicious cycle. O.o

That being said, the whole mentor thing is wonderful for more experienced players who just want to level alts fast for whatever reason...

For these players, the learning curve is much easier if you've already played one talent tree of a class, no matter how different the talent trees (possible exception, switching from DPS to healing). But if you're totally new to the game... Oh dear.