The game is tough because of skewed feedback by dozens of bored level 21 players and unreliable feedback from GM's that don't even play the game fairly (4 out of 5 that i've seen had 999% DR or whatever, the 1 that didn't was bombed in NCR and much lulz were had)
This game is not noob friendly and the people who play it are not noob friendly. To be successful you have to play 2 - 4 hours a day with several character builds supporting one another. If you don't do this you better get used to being called a little bitch, fag, pussy or any other variation of the theme and repeatedly killed (i got called 'kurwa' today by a nice polak PKer). Items are meaningless, when you start out you won't get to keep any, when you get to level 21 you will complain about having too many (but you won't give them away) the important thing to remember is to never carry them with you.. anywhere.
Hopefully the next update will bring:
1)Tutorial at start (unskippable to discourage alts)
2)Guarded and thief free starting areas, <level 6 only
3)Leveled wastelander encounter lists (you will not be able to encounter another wastelander more then 5 levels above or below your level)
4)Glitch free karma system, no more guards killing for no reason, no karma loss for shooting thieves
5)PKers and unprotected people marked ie "you see NewbieHelper (Newbie Killer) (Unprotected) (Thief)"
6)Choice of turnbased or realtime for every encounter (not just the ones outdoorsman catches)
7)Guards in shops should shoot thieves, why the hell does buster let people steal money from his customers?
8)Guarded HQ mine (guarded by BoS) in a very far away location, maybe by the glow.
9)Keep broken armor on player death (no more bluesuits running around)
It's a beta. So bare with it. Or don't.
Can't say anything about the first part, so I won't.
It's a hard game to start with, especially if you start as a loner. To me that's not something that makes it noob unfriendly, it just makes it hard to get started.
Although many people aren't noob friendly, there are many people both in the game and here on the forums who help out new players by giving them advice or items.
You don't need several character builds to support eachother. 1 fighter/crafter build is enough to manage. Sure you'll be killed from time to time and you will kill from time to time. As for the name calling, I can only guess some people are either childish and/or abuse the anonimity of the internet. You might do it too. Grow over it, afterall it's only words.
1. Make it optional, not mandatory.
2. No. These places can't be found in the wasteland, better live with it.
3. Sure, why not expand it to not being able to encounter groups etc? Or simply add god-mode.
4. Agreed. Killing or wounding guards or other players for no reason at all should result in a repuation drop. The reputation drop should be highter for killing/wounding guards than for normal players. You should be able to kill unprotected players without a reputation drop.
5. Unprotected thieves could be marked, but that should only be visible for people with awareness. You can mark PK yourself. If the system doe sit, that would mean most players will be marked as such. Good luck creating a system that can identify deliberate pk, accidental pk, pk out of self defense, etc.
6. We have configuration settings for that. You can choose there.
7. Agreed. It's bad for their business, so they should shoot thieves on the spot when they try to steal. Perhaps a reputation system per town for traders would be useful here.
8. No. It would flud the gameworld with hq minerals and ores. All you need is a taxi friend with a brahmin to get tons of hq material.
9. No. You die, you lose everything.
Perhaps a kind of safety deposit box system at FLC could be an option.
As long as you're level 1-3 and don't have a tent, you can use it to store items.
Off course such a thing costs money, lets say 100 caps just like opening an account, requires a bank account at that FLC and is very limited in the amount and weight of items that can be stored. Lets say to the equivalent of 15 brahmin hides.
The moment you build a tent or reach level 4 the safety deposit box is canceled and any items in it are transfered to the FLC guy.