Neocron is an oldie and for the most part it's not going to capture the attention of the average MMO player but I believe there are some things that could help improve the first time players experience (and likewise improve the experience for all players).
- Early Combat
Issue 1: Early combat is slow and tedious, where the 'optimal' means of leveling a character is essentially attacking enemies that should be far too powerful for you to handle (Aggressors), this leads to you spamming your starter weapon for a ridiculous amount of time that is more of a grind than actual enjoyable gameplay. This occurs even with mobs that are more on your level (such as the stuff at MC5).
Solution: The HP of low level mobs should be reduced, it shouldn't take an entire magazine of pistol ammo to kill a cave crawler, combat should be fast paced and lethal like high level PVP is. Similarly the XP gained from low level mobs should be increased so you don't have to immediately rush to the Aggressor sewers after leaving MC5
Issue 2: 'Bad' store bought weapons is something that's needed in order to give a real job for constructors, however the CST change has left low level constructors to essentially be a waste of time and it's always better to find a maxed out one.
Solution: If a player needs a weapon built, a constructor the same level as him should be able to build a high quality weapon for him. Right now at best they could make a 'good' or 'cool' weapon with zero slots. The quality should be based on mostly the construction skill but have a Intelligence level softcap so a 0/20 constructor can't craft an outstanding rare or anything like that but wouldn't have any issues with a TL20-30 one.
Addendum: This might be stretching it a bit but I think that up to a certain tech level store bought weapons should be at a 'cool' or better quality to allow people to ease into the game more and to slowly understand the concept that you need to get things built, instead of immediately forcing it on them after they leave MC5.- Mr. Jones
Issue 1: Friends of mine that started playing the game have quit during the Mr Jones quests because the majority of them are incredibly samey errand runs where you go back and forth between your apartment and a starter mission location or whatever. This is irritating and makes the quests take much longer than they should
Solution 1: Remove and redo the Mr. Jones quests, new players start with the Mr. Jones item at MC5, switch it back to the old way once they've been redone to be more interesting and varied and less of a chore to play. Making it feel like less of an errand run would be a plus. They should introduce people to the game proper and give them an understanding of game mechanics not bore them to death.
Solution 2: Modify the current quests, however instead of having to return to your apartment to speak to Jones directly have him message you directly after you complete the objective so you immediately move onto the next part of the quest. This keeps the game play fluid
Issue 2: Some of the quest rewards are much better than others
Solution: Rather than nerf the quad/PE stealth tool etc, buff the other items or replace them with something better. Particularly useless rewards (in my opinion) are:
- All of the soldier quest rewards
- Hackers TL90 hacking tool that doesn't do anything a TL30 one can't do
- The Assassin's sniper rifle seemed incredibly glitchy last time I used one (when Reakktor was still around mind you)
- The fact you can't blueprint the droners reward makes it trivial at best.
I think the Melee reward isn't particularly good either but that goes with the rest of M-C
This is an incomplete list so far but to sum up a few that aren't in the list yet:
Low-Mid levelling areas need to be improved (right now the best one is MB bunker but there should be more and Outzone should be probably the best place for levelling a character but right now it's slow due to the low XP)
No low level combat vehicles (and everything that isn't a Rhino is pretty atrocious since 2.2)
Some of these solutions might be dumb so let me hear it if you think so, but I think all the issues are legit ones as they're stuff that i've picked up playing with new players and it's usually the same complaints everytime