While I appreciate that the affected quests are still a part of the game, I think you should mind a bit better that you're talking to the 13% who did make it through the tutorial - that's some pretty stiff language for something 83% of the existing community disapproves of. In addition, moving the data from the main tutorial to side quests axes the story, and the story is the main concern for this game. The point of the game is that it's a biblical analogy story for children.
I get where you're coming from, trying to make the game more profitable and welcoming for new players, but what drew me into this game and kept me playing was the story, Mech, not any sort of social opportunities. I didn't even really want to get into the community until the game's difficulty forced me to look things up and then to make a topic to ask a bunch of questions.
I think you need a bit more of a balance there on the intro in introducing the story. If I just went on what my new double accounts received, I would barely know who the Great Engineer and Scarlet Man were and have no idea why I should even care about them. The same goes for Irving and Selina - that section Jacoby talked about is what got me invested in them as characters. That's why it's there. The Bombardier fight invested me in protecting the weaker Selina, in particular. If I hadn't been playing this game already for 5 years, after your stripped "tutorial", I would have quit. It's not just a tutorial - it's a story introduction - and it should be treated as such.
If it needs to be made more clear that it's a story intro and the gamer consortium views it as a tutorial, clarify that it is a story intro and that the Irving and Selina thing is part of the story.
Many of the changes in this update irk me for precisely the same reason, Mech. If I were a brand new player right now, I would be more worried about my stats and leveling up because of how hard the fights are, not eager to play through the story to find out what happens next. All of the profession stuff and the super-hard auto fights are a distraction from the story aspect. @Anakin_Steamwalker, do you have anything to say about this?
Meanwhile, I'm concerned about the difficulty of fighting goats down in the Flying L. I'll leave the floor open to @Jessie_Dearsnap to complain more extensively, but the difficulty has increased to the point that Level 13/12 players are getting beaten by Stragglers who have 75 health points. 13 is the natural level where the player gets the quest to beat the Billy Goats at the end of the L's below decks. It's hard, but not that hard.
Most players have easily beaten Stragglers in the past, and I'm getting beaten by Stragglers at level 12 with the game's best weapons. That is way too hard. A kid is going to get discouraged playing that and abandon the game entirely. @Sigmund_Coppermuddle
