Are there any plans to boost the game?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Jorhoto, Jul 2, 2018.

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  1. Lord Tachys al`Fahn

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    Something to note: try looking up "Shroud", "shroud" or even "Shroud of the Avatar" on steam. I've had about a 33% success rate in getting a result.
     
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  2. Steevodeevo

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    I bet the SOTA player demographic has an exceptionally high proportion of mom's and dad's who have to entertain kids, take them to the beach and go on holiday from work at pretty set times :)
    seems to be replaced with the 50% off summer Steam deal.
     
  3. Hornpipe

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    That's true. That's why I don't rely on steam for absolute numbers, but for trends. Even if the Steam community is relatively small compared to the Shroud community as a whole, having 150 concurrent players out of 1500 (and honestly, I think the global concurrent players are rather 5 times the steam users) is already a good base to watch for trends.

    When Steamcharts are going down for two months now (and not just a little), and when Portalarium had to fire some employee in order to keep the balance positive, it's hard to defend the fact that the game is attractive enough, except of course if you think that Steam players are part of a particular species. Also, note that most other MMOs don't have those difficulties.

    The real question is why ? What is wrong and what can be corrected ? Unfortunately, it seems like we can't really have an open discussion on this. Most of those who still play the game do not see any problem to correct (or they say that there are problems to be corrected, but will refuse every change because *insert thousands of excuses here*). Even those who think that the game is unhealthy as it is do not agree on the way to fix it. The developers, although listening, are overburdened or unwilling to discuss.

    And everyone here is repeating the same things, again and again...
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2018
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  4. Nikko

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    Very well thought out. I can't argue with you here.
     
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  5. Woodchuck

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    Yes, it's a famous river in Egypt. Sorry couldn't resist :D
     
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  6. Lord Tachys al`Fahn

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    Unless something prevents it... why not both???
     
  7. Pounce

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    As i see it Sota is a fine game but there are some things that did not really help (part of this is a matter of taste I just list the problems i have with it, I did no
    research what other people think so it is just me and the 20 years i played so faar mmo)

    Overworld map, it rips me out of the game, immersion is shot, it is an design that is kinda antique, but it squashes the immersion, and we do have many games around that manage to work multi cells so there is no "border" to the map you are on.
    I know, Sotas technical resosurces are limited so i would have settled for maps tat go into other maps, but not on an overworld, think EQ1.
    The problem is we do not have no breathtaking vistas, the only one i could really think about is Birght bone pass, that offers an hint of travelling up and high pass and fight past some rotting skelletons to reach another place, maybe hilt pass to some degree, but theese two are the only places where one does not feels "walled in".
    The way it is the game lacks to impress the feeling of exploring and whole world (or continent), the overworld map makes it small.

    Teleporting is too easy, I would suggest one sythem where you can be summoned by an groupleader into a group and then pop back to where you where leaving the group, that would allow grouping if it happens on the other side of the world, but otherwise teleporting to places should be someway ackward and involving, maybe costly, but as is it takes away the sense of distance, you can go like places in seconds all over the world in seconds.

    While Sota is an fine game going public with the way the Quest journal is buggy was not so an good idea, it is THE weakness in an game that was always advertised as THE content game, involving quests and such. Well half the time i have to read spoilers to figure out how to overcome the bug that keeps me from solving the quest, or look up if i am just to dumb or if there is an bug, I can not have the trust needed to gnaw on an riddle for days because .. could be as well bug.

    That will piss off probably some people that i mention it but is IMPORTANT..
    The descision to have Black sun managing the Baltic states, that kinda has cost Sota like 90% of the players there.
    Think about it if the USA was served by an company located in CUBA (and that comparison lacks because Cuba did not lately occupy an strip of land belonging to the USA.
    Half the baltic states are like an inch away from open warfare with Russia folks. Like five sconds away from firing shots at each other.
    Who was the .... I have no words for it,,, person who thought it an bright idea to have an russian company serve the baltic states?
    That was such an blunder of epic proportions i still can not wrap my mind around what the idea behind it was.
    Totally and absolute ... really, does anyone anymore in the USA listen to world news for like five minutes every two years?
    Sorry to be blunt about that but it was an blunder of epic proportions.

    I played Sota for like 6 month real hard, it was fun, but what it lacks is the things that make it an longterm thing, the tools to make social interactin fun, an UI that works great (freely positioning of windows and elements, buff symbols one can read and such.
    Reasons for people to meet by chance (no not about the party instances) but in towns, mechanics that make people interact like in the olde days when people fetched water from the well, stuff that allows to meet by chance.

    The whack a mole fighting sythem, any systhem where skills appear by chance makes tactical gameplay go right out of the window. combos such a thing of chance one does not need to really bother (well if i could move the skill board to the middle of the screen i could still have some oversight and still look for possible combos but as it is .. meh.

    I mean, the drawing cards systhem is not totally outlandiush but needs some real bright ideas to make fun (an allow more tactical gameplay) and then ADD TACTICAL GAMEPLAY!

    Right now it is "shoot mages, shoot ranged enemies, take care of melee enemies. Oh and a few mobs you should not use certain skills or focus boosted skills.

    How about some who are totally immune to melee/magic or some you can only attack with silver swords who totally suck for normal enemies damage wise.

    Better use blunt on skeletons, but slime ihurts by the slicy weapons most, more than three stats (endurance, health and so on) the whole character sythem is reduced in the modern style to three stats.

    Skill systhem, raising most skills does not really mean much beside making a few buffs last longer or a few points damage.. I mean think back, magic missles the sucky starter spell can be devastating in D&D wit some TLC in higher levels! THAT IS FUN!

    On the one hand Sota is very complex, on the other side then pretty basic again, but not always in ways that makes sense (like to much rng in crafting, i mean yes, no rng would be very bad, but rng should play an role that you risk much if you want much, but skill should count much in basic things, but that is not the case.

    Loot, that needs some rethinking, but i do not really feel annoyed there, as it is it works, just could be worth to really overthink there (I know complicated due to economy and so on)

    The game is basically fine, but a few design desicions where not thought through proper, and the Black Sun idea was not really really good thought through...like totally not.

    And well, i am not playing much right now not because Sota is an bad game but there is nothing right now that really makes me feel fanatic about playing it (maybe in winter again as soon temp drops below 20C)

    And that is another issue, tactical gameplay comes a little to short,
     
  8. Mykll

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    There was? I thought the free trial was never on Steam.
     
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  9. Lord Tachys al`Fahn

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    If it wasn't on steam, my apologies... I know there was one, but my facts on what platform provided it may be skewed.
     
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  10. Jorhoto

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    Note the Steam private policy started on April this year, so previous data from Steamcharts/spy was more accurate before April.

    In any case you have much more sources like the mentioned twitch.
    https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/ARK
    https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/The Elder Scrolls Online
    https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Black Desert Online
    https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues

    Currently the game is liked by a few hundred players (most of them I would say bakers who invested a lot on it and aren't willing for major changes). But the question the dev team should be doing is: where are all those thousands of players who baked the project? What should I do to make them to return to the game?
     
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  11. Mykll

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    Oh ok. I wish they would do the free trial on Steam as well.
     
  12. Barugon

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    Nah, they're just gonna let it flounder.
     
  13. Stundorn

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    All fine! really !
    but the thing is a significantly amount of initial backers, how many where it, i even dont know exactly, but i'm sure someone here can research it and then compare it to the players playing the game.
    I just say, that to attract more people they may reconsider some decisions about the points i made.
    I think they can turn it around btw but i also think if they dont turn around and change some basic settings what in the first line effect economy, pve groupplay, pvp challenge then they will maybe miss new and old players.
    Just because i think many people would like that more.
    Oh and not to forget there would also still be the complee other direction and focus on SP Game!
    Maybe also something worth to reconsider.
     
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  14. marthos

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    Bunch of random thoughts here:

    1) The game's population is the oldest I've ever seen in a game. I see very few kids or teenagers running around, and everyone in my guild has kids and/or works a full time job (most in IT). I'd estimate the median age is 30+. I believe that the summer slump will impact this demographic more significantly - us older folks just simply have less free time in the summer than a high schooler or college age person.

    2) Related to the above - this game doesn't seem to appeal to younger gamers. This is a problem.

    3) Steam numbers are a small subset of the population. It's good to get a trend, but it does suffer from small sample size. It would be nice to know what % of the players are using Steam vs the client, I'm curious what the actual peak numbers are in the game and the number of unique players that log in each day. I've heard 30%, but that's from an old post and with all the problems of the Steam client (my wife finally ditched it after having to reinstall from scratch again) and the free trial which directs you to the regular client, my hunch is that percentage has dropped significantly.

    4) The game's hardware specs are prohibitive. Again with the older population, it's tougher to justify buying a new computer to play a video game vs taking your family on a little vacation. I have coworkers and relatives that want to play the game, but simply cannot and are waiting in hopes the game gets optimized enough to play on their computers.

    65comments, 10 shares, 32 views. I fired up Facebook right now and I see an ad for Vikings War of Clans (never heard of it) that has an actual animation in it. It has 200k views. Below that is an ad for EVE Online with a 3 minute long video, 341k views / 428 shares / 350 comments. The SotA ads had absolutely no reach, no information, and thus no impact.

    6) On the plus side...#6 means that there are a lot of gamers out there that they haven't reached yet. Most gamers don't know about this game yet. Reach out to them once the game is polished, systems tightened up, and new user experience enhanced.
     
  15. MrBlight

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    Just to clarify due to arguing going on before..
    Cerus confirmed steam to be roughly 30% of the population.
    Even if you argue the launchrr is bettrr since them and say 1/10 have switched or trial accounts have adjusted and say steam reps 20%... it gives thr low population general evidence.
     
  16. Vladamir Begemot

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    And so many features are never even seen by someone who hasn't gotten past the combat/questing part of the game and made it to the community/event/home ownership/economy side.

    Quest: Go play a game of chess.
    Quest: Get a room at an Inn.
    Quest: Learn 100 recipes. (With a handy "book of discoverable recipes" to keep it from breaking the players wallet)
    Quest: Buy/sell something on a PV
    Quest: Go to the Release Party! Or some event of the week. Like the welcome quest, but with 400XP awarded if you go to Diamond Fields during the crafting event. Etc.
    Quest: Play an instrument
    Quest: Try taming a bunny
    Quest: Raise some plants (agriculture)
    Quest: Go fishing (I think that one got removed in Outskirts didn't it?)
    Quest: Perform an emote
    Quest: Eat some food!
    Quest: Put away your weapon, seriously people play for hours and days without realizing they need to do this even though there is some "helpful" help text at the very beginning (when they are too overloaded to retain it)


    None of these have to be something they want to keep doing necissarily, but if they are at least informed that the stuff exists that will be helpful to get new players to understand the giant scope of the game.
     
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  17. Sir_Hemlock

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    Damn right.
     
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  18. Vladamir Begemot

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    How does one start getting tracked again?
     
  19. DeadnGone

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    Steam only represents a small portion of the players. Most already know this unless people are just trolling the low population arguments again. Most players use the non-Steam version which has already been stated by the devs.. but why not up the ante and actually display how many players are logged in SotA? Maybe list daily login's, etc, unless this argument is wanted to be continually perpetuated. End the argument for the communities and have transparency. Keeping it unknown certainly has not been helping up to this point.
     
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  20. Derium

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    I know Steam is a smaller % of the players logged in and that's fine. but Port knows a lot of us are looking at the Steam numbers, they should let us also look at their numbers they have.

    To me it's just concerning to see the steam numbers keep dropping. Even if it's a fraction of the players.

    But take a look at something like EVE online, there's 2,500 logged in with steam right now but a total of 20,000 in game. that's about 10% that use steam, BUT! Steam charts mimic the logged in population, when steam charts dip, total population also dips. So the numbers might not represent total logged in, but it does help us see the overall trend, which is down. Down is all that matters to me, because down is bad considering the game just "launched"

    https://steamcharts.com/app/8500
    http://eve-offline.net/?server=tranquility
     
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