Okay, this is two points I want to bring up in this thread. They aren't exactly the same problem, but there are some overlaps. Leveling a completely new character. I want to start it off that I didn't start exactly at 1 on this account. I did do a little on my stepmom's account from 1 (I was the only player on it and deleted it off there after), but when I got my own switch, I was able to benefit from the free CR100 advancement. So I'm starting from there, but I did experience up to level 30 on it. The positive: Up to 30, it actually was rather enjoyable. A few things were lost, but have been since the early changes before PS4 launch. The free event versions of the new/current DLCs. The rewards on this has become much more accessible for everyone. Initially they had that box for legendary members, but the rewards in that were mediocre at best and really didn't warrant the more money to get it open. Now we have a lot of options to help get you current and really, a good means of enticing players to buy into the game. Gear cost as you go up is consistent and you can know how many marks you will need to achieve to get the piece that will help you go up. The addition of gear that attunes to your CR in all content. You have a choice of a flat item level piece or it. This was a very PLEASANT surprise. (Same can be said about the gear out of the vault.) The negative (there is unfortunately a few more than positive here): I got lost on what was available to me when I got into the monthly content. Where do I go to get the vendor gear was not easily made ready to know. There are no pop up journal entry to let me know where I should go to do something. I'm glad that was brought back in later content, but at this time I was confused. Artifacts are just not accessible for new players. No no, not what you are thinking. I'm talking about earning marks for the catalyst to break through. This kind of concept was a problem with mainframes and "mostly" fixed after the 3rd mark unification we had. What you need to buy the catalysts are better suited to work towards your gear and styles to obtain feats to try and do the 1:1 CR:SP ratio the devs have. And contrary to what people on the forums plead, you don't need your artifacts to high levels to complete content. Or even need them at all right away. So you end up with tons of nth metal and nothing to put them in. Since a new artifact costs 25 marks and it costs 14 marks to just get it to level 20. Relevancy of tiers. Wait, no keep reading. It's not what you think and I've changed my mind of relevancy after reading that thread that was up and experiencing it while leveling. I think the relevancy should be tier based, similar to how it was back in the classic game. If you are still within the tier bracket, you should be able to get rewards for that bracket to help you along the quest. This problem became well known to me once I hit the monthly content. You would hit a cr bracket and suddenly only able to do less, but then you reached another and you could do more?!?! This goes back to the lost part I mentioned above too. Balance of content. Risk vs Reward. This still is an issue. Some things are really well done. Balanced great. If I was a new player, I would struggle but still succeed. (Since I'm a vet, I know how to beat most content.) Things like Patrol Catastrophe and the New Genesis duos are balanced really well and love them greatly, but things like Hal Needs Help and the Flash Museum are still way over tuned for the rewards you get from it. If I wasn't carried by a 300+ tank in Flash Museum, would have hit a hard wall. (He even died at the Claw fight, which I think could be something to do with a new player still learning.) This kind of balance can go back to the relevancy of tiers, something should be done to normalize the progression or just blanket one tier to balance within itself once a new tier happens. Messaging of pointers in quests. I know, the big red arrow above your head was a little much, now we have a little orange cube that can be missed. There's got to be a middle ground here that will help. A way to promote players to want to shoot for skill points. There just isn't a want for this or they don't want to because the feats are largely unobtainable. I'm trying my best on my new account, but there is a limitation to what I can do solo. And believe it or not, a lot of the ones that were granted with the character advancement were ones that were very easy to do. (Like exploration and solo feats.) What were left were group content or massive counter feats that there is no way anyone will want to do starting so late into the game's life. The Switch. This one is a little different than above, and I'll just point out a two things that I observed. Low Population - Yeah, you knew this would be the first thing I mentioned. This make the game very much difficult to want to keep paying for when a vast majority of the content requires group members to run with. When no one is queuing or even LFGing, it's just you standing around in the HQ waiting/hoping for something to pop. I spent 1.5 hours yesterday just to do one LPvP 1v1 match. (I won, sorry dude from One Pieced [they branched to switch I see], I tied you up every time and I think I made you mad.) It took 3+ hours to get into the event raid, which I think had to do with loot locks. No one wants to replay it after reset. The servers need to merge for crossplay, plain and simple. Merging US with EU wont fix it, especially if the US servers are so low. No one will want to put money into the game they can't play. Loading times. I don't know if it's because I use the Lite version of the switch, but things load very slowly. Like the it feels like LSOD, but eventually it does, then rendering enemies. It took 2 minutes to load Murk after zoning when there was finally people to fight the bounties. I'm reminded of the PS3's loading time, so I'm thinking its the limitation of the resources in the switch. BTW-Devs, thank you for letting us not have to download all the videos. This should go with every other platform. Space is wasted on videos no one really goes back to watch.
I have been queued for over 30 minutes on the Switch, right this very moment, waiting for somebody else to queue up for Stabilizers. Stabilizers. It takes 90 seconds and only needs one other player. The Switch does not have one other player during the past half hour who needs to run the Stabilizer event. This is gamebreakingly low population. Not to mention, I have never seen a group killing the World Bosses and I never get raids to pop. Nintendo Switch is a server filled with echoes and tumbleweeds.
It just popped. I had hoped that posting it here might encourage somebody to log into their Switch, fearing that they might miss out on a rare chance to have a 2nd player online at the same time.
It's also worth pointing out that, as a returning player who left before time capsules were a thing, a new (or in my case returning player) doesn't even know what the stabilizers are for, or why they should do it, or that it exists. Maybe I'm mis-remembering since there was so much new stuff flying at me, but coming back, I don't recall any tut of any kind that messages its existence etc. Obv this will compound the problem Brit is referencing on a low pop platform. Even a popup would be helpful, but considering how important they are to the game right now, a full on tut of some kind explaining them is really needed.
Hmm, messaging is needed for the stabilizer, but it is in the same queue tab as the WW DLC. So at least it has that going for it. I would hope someone would look at the Events tab and be like, what's this stabilizer thing?
Oh, I know. But just putting it in the list of stuff in the On Duty tab is not nearly enough. The game needs to tell people what that is, and explain that it's unique from the other stuff in there and explain the nature of its importance.
Yeah, no doubt. It would go with the I got lost part I mentioned earlier. There are some things that just aren't said.
To the people complaining about the low population on the Switch... did you not notice all the Xbox players complaining about the same thing? Did you think that a 10 year old game on a platform at the end of a console cycle would somehow have this magic population?
Yes. No. Not sure why you are responding this way. We all know that it didn't have enough support to keep the player base, but we are trying to get the devs to understand. I don't know if they are making any money with xbox and switch players or if they are only profiting from USPC/PS and the other two are just running on that. If you use the PC client, you can see the switch servers are low.
