Recently I introduced AO to a couple of friends and while they were very enthusiastic about the game’s freedom of action, customization, world-building and player interaction, they weren’t impressed by the story and genuinely found troublesome having to go through the story to unlock the abilities.
Do you think that abilities such as awakenings should be unlocked based on levels alone like them?
i don’t understand what you’re saying, awakenings are already level-locked at 119, so if you’re under level 119, you can’t get the 1st awakening, unless that’s not what you meant.
You also have to complete the story to a certain point to get awakenings.
I think it’s fine, I see the story as easy XP on the way to unlocking bosses and spawning in Sameria, but I think having awakenings be a standalone quest chain would be better - hit a certain level, you get a quest to go do the meditations and participate in the Bronze Sea Mount Othrys Cliff Scaling Invitational. It could still be an essential part of the story to go get an awakening, though I imagine setting that up to handle would be some work, needing to handle varying quest completions at that step of the story.
wouldnt really make any sense to get awakenings early given that its a specific story event that unlocks it for you (poseidon’s soul or whatever).
yeah if your friends don’t like the story ao might not be the game for them