Helping someone get started

WARNING - I have a LOT of questions !

I have a friend who's never played this type of game or an FPS before.

He's starting out with Nightfall (long story) tomorrow morning.

What I was wondering is how can I help him level up quickly but not so fast he doesn't learn how to play.

I was thinking meet him in Karmadan as soon as he gets there.

I'm not rich but I could give him a couple platinum to get started.

Should I give him a max weapon for his stats and give him enough cash to buy the 25 armour and some ruins? Then just upgrade his weapon for him when ever he meets req's? I have plenty of purples with diff reqs. Can I just take him with my party to the docks for 1 K or Sunspear Sanctuary and buy him 5K armour?

I thought I'd just show him where to get all his quests from and then follow him as back up. Should I let him try to kill everything and only engage a target if he's in trouble?

If I use a lvl20 character will I just be wasting my time since I won't get any XP for my kills? Would I be better off following him with a level 6 character?

I'm still a newbie myself, having been playing less than a month. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I still don't quite understand who qualifies for what missions. I've been invited on ones I haven't reached yet, but when I try to take a lowere level player with me somewhere it says they don't meet the mission reqs.

BTW -> I have access to a TS server so that should make communication easy.

Its always best to try and let a new player learn a bit on thier own. This game is great fun to explore and you don't want to take that away from him.

Its a good idea to follow him as backup, if you take your lvl 20 things may seam to easy for him and he won't learn as fast. Take a new char or one just a little higher lvl than him.

To take him to docks requires a quest you may have already completed so you won't be able to do so. Its really best for a person just starting to learn the ropes with low armor so they apreciate max armor later on. You can help out a great deal by pointing out armor collectors and helping to farm the required items for them.

You can only map to a city where your entire party has already been there. As for mission in Nightfall you must have the required primary quest completed inorder to do the mission and for some you require certain Heros to be in your party.

Check out Wiki for a list of missions and the quests that lead to them.

Have Fun!!!

IMO, Let your friend go out on their own.

If they require the help, suggest certain things (A starter build for dunkoro or for your friend with the skills at kamadan trainer, for instance. Explain why the skills chosen are good). Then once they've tried with the suggestion if they're still having issues go along to help them.

If you go along, then explain what it is that needs to be done, ie:
* We need to go to X and kill Y
* Go over to X
* Point out that's where Y is. Suggest things like pulling / rushing in / etc, where appropriate.

find out what your friend is stuck with and look at the wiki page for a quick refresher if you've forgotten.

Give him what he needs for starter armor in Kamadan and that's about it, imo. Point out where NPCs are and things like that. Explain about dye and runes and how to get runes off armor, things like that.

I've rushed a friend through the game before, and they really didn't grasp it all. So now when new friends join I make myself available for any questions / build help and the like and explain why certain things are good, and why certain things suck. Telling them to run X, Y and Z doesn't help them. Telling them they'll be fighting a lot of melee so bring some weakness is more useful than saying "bring X skill! it's godly!" they'll end up using it on casters and wondering why they still hit for nearly the same amount.

In my opinion some of the most important things to help a new player with are things like which keys to push to see all foes, or all friends, or all NPC's. How to name a pet, what some of the terminology means. I agree that if you are going to help through quests and missions that you should do so with a character similar in level to his. It doesnt really help him to become a better player if you kill everything before he does more than 10 damage to your opponents. Similarly he'll never learn to play tactically if his only experience is that nothing ever hurts him (because he had a level 20 monk along from 1st level on). Last of all....let him figure as much of it all out as possible as long as he doesnt get frustrated or stuck. Half of the fun is the discovery process. If he asks answer, otherwise let him enjoy the learning process. As regards to equipment...Help him out some but not to the point where he never understands the value of a perfect item. The purples you mentioned would be nice.

Great, thanks for the help.

I have a low level Dervish I could use.

I'll let him do the fighting and just tour guide til he catches up.

Something to add- You can fight with him as a lower level character or a higher level- he'll still get the same amount of XP and drops/gold. The only difference would be that if you used a lvl 20 the team as a whole would be more powerful.

Ashen makes a good point..if you're going to raise a newbie,

-teach him basic controls (especially minimap+quest log ones)
-teach him how to call/ping (used for henchies)
-tell him how the compass works (ping, draw, dots, etc)
-if he's a physical class, teach him the tools of his trade (i.e. why a flatbow sucks without RTW)
-tell him to stay the hell away from sup runes (and that the biggest danger to newbies is degen)
-check his bar+his heros, make sure his team has decent damage potential. you're not going to always be there for them, after all. Sometimes they get a bit thickheaded in this part.
-tell him how to save money for armor (id and salvage purple+golds only, pick up everything, etc)
you might have to help him price check stuff, especially inscriptions, because obviously some of the unconditional ones (like 20% reduct blind insc is definately worth more than merch price)
-if he's asking 'why the hell is this part so hard', analyze the enemy for him :P

i usually tell the kids i help that i'd normally help them only in endgame areas or missions, not for regular quest stuff.

advice is one thing, but the most important thing to helping someone get started is plenty of cold hard cash newbies don't pay for themselves most of the time, hmm?

Let him play the game like normal. Why do you need to help him out so much? Its not like its hard to get good.

Plowing a brand new player through a brand new game: He won't understand anything.

/agree

be your own judge at this, maximize his game experience.

what i like to do to help out new players, is make a new monk simultaneous and just guide them through basics. from lvl 10-20, just let them do it on their own and help them 'pimp' their char after that

Two people I played with in another game got Prophesies a week ago. Because of past afiliations, they joined my guild. I made a character of the same profession as theirs, and we did all the quests. I explained things as we went. After 3 or 4 hours, they were ready to try it on their own.

If you want to help, IMO, this would be one good way. I don't reccommend the handouts of armor or weapons, until they understand their skills some. They will feel better about themselves letting them get their own max armor. Make sure they know to use salvage & ID kits too.


Edit: Make sure to explain their aggro circle.

So true, imho you should let them run the game as a newbie, and only help out when they are really stuck, let him/her find out about skills etc. and which ones work best for them, be there as a source for pm'ing if they get confused, just my 2 cents, I may get change

Ps. Tell them about Henchies, my first char i was unaware you could have em for an embarrassingly long time lol

I recently started myself, and can say these are exactly the questions you have as a new player, along with a few regarding IDing and salvaging things etc.

My own opinion would be to let your friend find his own way a bit. Stumbling around is half the fun in the beginning

Start a new character and play through with him.

I've only been playing 3 weeks I need help with most of that stuff !

It worked out well.

I followed him with a lvl6 Dervish.

The only things I gave him were a White sword , one scroll of Advent insight and one termite leg.


Thanks for all the great suggestions.

No.


The only way to get good at this game is to learn how to play it, if you want to help create a new character yourself and level with him, answer his questions, give him tips, tell him what to keep and what to sell but dont give him things right away let him make his own way, otherwise he will just end up another clueless noob who thinks he knows how to play but really has no idea - which isnt fair on him as he'll get slated for it :P