The best review ever written

Discussion in 'New Player Experience Feedback' started by Geoff Speldrong, Dec 18, 2018.

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  1. Brian4

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    @Geoff Speldrong Hey Geoff. Your Title is just fine grabbed my attention immediately. What a wonderful review It's nice to see constructive criticism. And Yes the Development Team is what keeps me logging in every day and I love the game. You ever need help doing anything let me know.
    Boo Ladedada
     
  2. Gorthyn

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    Once not so long ago I would have taken the time to reply in detail to a post such is this, but no longer. I totally disagree with such an assessment and what people's expectations of this game should be.

    Suffice to say that, continuing your nautical theme, I fear those still aboard the good ship "SOTA" should be concerned about oncoming icebergs on the horizon thanks to some major navigational errors by the dev team....
     
  3. Greyfox

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    OP I give you a 9/10 on your SOTA review. Well written, thoughtful, properly formatted, correct spelling and grammar, insightful, and fair. Lets hope the Developers take notice.

    Thanks and welcome aboard. This ship needs a LOT of work, but she once did the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs.
     
  4. craftymethod

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    Icebergs are no concern to a slow and steady moving ship.
     
  5. Daxxe Diggler

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    @Geoff Speldrong - While I cannot agree that was "The best review ever written", it certainly was a really good one! :p

    I believe you have a fairly good insight of SOTA after only playing a short time, and I'm positive the Devs will appreciate your feedback and use it to help them make the game better. That's the one thing that I can attest to with this Dev crew... they do listen to and consider all feedback, whether it be good or bad. But, more importantly, they make improvements based upon the most common complaints as best they can.

    That said, I think you only had a small taste of what this game has to offer and if you stick around long enough to experience it in totality, you will learn that there is much more to it than a UT group. In fact, I wholeheartedly agree with the entire post by @Jason_M! Yes, that place is great XP, but it can get boring and monotonous very quickly. I think Jason's reference to it being like a drug addiction is spot on.

    If you are looking for some good challenging dungeon-like experiences that will take a well organized party to succeed, then I will suggest you make your way on the Overworld map to the area of Central Brittany, and take the fast travel boat over to Hidden Vale. This is a small island continent (actually the original starting area of the game) that has a wide range of adventure scenes and dungeons.

    Once you land in Hidden Vale, you will be standing next to Kingsport. From there you can explore the island to find some challenging content:

    - First off, you can go directly south to Mysterious Swamp. This is a newly revamped scene and upgraded to Tier 10+. There are high level creatures scattered around the marsh that are pretty tough on their own, but then there is also a Kobold base that is very challenging... so bring a well organized group!

    - Another option is to go west from Kingsport area to the opposite edge of Hidden Vale, then go north to Ruined Keep. This is another Tier 10+ scene that is littered with Trolls of varying degrees of difficulty (including the "Boss" mob of the scene - Gorok Mansmasher) as well as a bunch of Satyr Warlocks, Marksmen, and Champions mixed in. It's a very challenging and exciting scene to hunt in with a good group.

    - Another option is going directly west of Mysterious Swamp to the town of Braemar. Once inside, find the graveyard and there is a dungeon portal (a glowing orb near the mausoleum) that is a "challenge dungeon" called Chillblain's Compendium of Pain and Suffering. This one starts out with easy rooms that progressively get harder and harder for the party as you complete each one. The next room doesn't open until you finish the one before, so you can't just run to the end. This one is a lot of fun (especially the last couple rooms) and there are some treasure chests with decent loot along the way.

    - The last one I'll recommend is directly south of Braemar in the scene of Ravensmoor. Now, this scene itself is a Tier 8+ scene, with some tough undead mobs near the entrance and on the way toward the shores. And, at the shores, there is a Troll boss named Torc D'awl the Unbroken on an island. He's a pretty tough fight for groups of level 70ish players, and a nice solo fight for level 80+ players with good skills. But... the main reason I'm sending you to Ravensmoor is the dungeon called Ruins of Ravensmoor. The entrance is a skull looking rock along the shoreline. This is a really nice Tier 10+ dungeon, full of undead that culminates in a boss Liche named Ras'al'horag that requires you to solve a puzzle to access his part of the dungeon! He's pretty tough and with the room filled with other undead archers and mages, it's a lot of fun. Plus, there is a quest that starts with the NPC in the entrance parlor where you need to collect stuff and then kill a different (hidden) liche in the dungeon. This one is really fun and will keep you on your toes for sure.

    So, if it's the dungeon crawl feel that you are missing in SOTA, I recommend you visit this area and try all of these scenes out. I guarantee you will not be disappointed! :D
     
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  6. Tiki Pirate

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    Don't confuse "slow and steady" with floundering in the wind and being driven by the current.

    No worries, they have had Nord styled life boats in the add-on store a long time.

    If "Realeased" is open to interpretation, I've got a bridge to sell you. The toll booths are installed, a few of the piers have been placed, and most of the steel is just waiting to be installed by a team of three dedicated workers that have been busy working on their second bridge!
     
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  7. Lord Tachys al`Fahn

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    Supplementing this: It is the "open" interpretation (being used at Port) that has had them scrambling backwards in reversing so many long-standing design decisions to try and attract and keep players.

    You can't re-write an expectation that a particular term produces by simply declaring it means something else, as Port has done. Decades of titles being published has produced a very particular meaning for the term "released", and no amount of wishing will change what people expect from a game that has been declared as such.
     
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  8. Sean Silverfoot

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    Hey can you guys NOT hijack this thread! If you want to comment on what was written by OP fine. Rehashing the same old arguments does nothing.
     
  9. Alleine Dragonfyre

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    Luckily, most people don't want auction houses because being a crafter or merchant is no fun if all you do all day is undercut the guy that last listed their item on the AH. Talk about an economy killer.
     
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  10. craftymethod

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    Player quests and player dungeons will have a golden age soon, we should almost be suggesting some of those to reviewers to check out.

    Maybe even quest hubs that present and display various side quests!
     
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  11. craftymethod

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    In game hubs also, i know there are a couple online versions!
     
  12. Vladamir Begemot

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    Just got a chance to skim the headlines, I'll re-read later, but I think you're probably on point on most things.

    Unfortunately I didn't see anything about the meat of the game in your review, you've made the same mistake most professional reviewers do, which is to assume that the combat/loot/crafting cycle is what it's all about.

    That means you've missed about 90% of the game. Try to get to some parties. Hook up with some fisherpeople. Check out the RP events if you're into it. Get some property and establish a base, start building your empire.

    Gotta run but thanks for taking the time to write that! I'll read it more closely soon.
     
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  13. Rook Strife

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    Going to have to disagree. Ut is the best way to go for a new player.

    You are far better outlevelling everything first and then going back to enjoy the real features of this game.



    If you look at what they have planned in the next few releases, it sure doesn't seem like it.


    This is probably the best advice.

    Combat, questing, most of the standard stuff you find in MMO's, you're not going to find it in this game at the present.

    It's all the other areas like housing, player made content, events, unique features, etc where this game sets itself apart.


    Why they don't get all the basic MMO crap up to acceptable quality I don't know :-/
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2018
  14. Vladamir Begemot

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    Ok I'm back. Rather than just nodding in agreement, I'll just expound on a couple of things you may find interesting or are perhaps not totally up to speed on yet.

    And again, I highly recommend the game beyond the game.

    We're all waiting for this. Chris has talked about it several times. Fingers cross they really open it up to us, as well as making everything moveable and hopefully resizable.

    Just go for it now. You'll want to blacksmith, level up a bit first by making some wall candles, braziers, etc and go sell those on the public vendor.

    It won't be that much worse than something experienced people would make, and you get the XP for your effort.You can't mess it up much more than the rest of us do, we've all go failure after failure on some pieces.

    It sounds like you've passed me in Adventuring in a week. You can do similar for crafting, not that fast though. Craft deco items once with each material type (pine board & maple board for instance) to get as many of the "1st time crafting bonus" as you can. THEN go bang out some armor with a really large XP pool.

    Economy: You'll be participating one way or the other. If you're downing bosses, you'll be selling artifacts. If you want to know more about existing in the economy from nothing check out my journey to home ownership with an alt. I also have a guide on Steam. You can make things and prosper, but you have to be very careful with your moves.

    Anyway, great write up. Welcome aboard. I tagged you in a post you just inspired, watch for that in your alerts.
     
  15. BelGarian3

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    Outstanding review. I myself am a mid-level player at AL 90 . So I know how you feel about character advancement and XP gains . I have noticed that the devs of SotA are very aware of player feedback so I would try to get your thoughts on SotA to people like Darkstarr and Atos. Thanks again for your time and effort. Feel free to friend me in game . BelGraian Rivanking.
     
  16. Gorthyn

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    Am sure the band will continue to play on right until the point when the stern finally goes under...
     
  17. oplek

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    Is 90 "mid level" now? I guess that's what I get for not farming UT 24/7
     
  18. craftymethod

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    "Finally"? that has an air of desperation. We are here for constructive criticism, perhaps leave forced analogies at the door.

    unfollowing thread, I came for OP's feedback, not poor jokes from land lubbers impressing themselves with jokes while standing on the shore.
     
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  19. Jason_M

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    I felt mid-level when I was AL70. Back then I was sure that Crag Foothills was high-end content, Ravensmoor was end-game content, and the Ruined Keep was some bananas dungeon made to challenge the masochists.

    I think both the times (proliferation of 10+ scenes) and perspective (Crag ain't so bad) are changing as we play. The definition if middle and high range level is evolving as we play. Assuming the powers that be are taking the same care as they had taken prior to release concerning balancing the level of content, then these are exciting times!

    Not to mention that, without death decay, people are rather more aggressive/ambitious than they were before when choosing their adventure scenes which ultimately means more time smashing higher experience-giving mobs with no decay to slow them down.

    Have we entered an arms race with the developers? Only time will tell.
     
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  20. Elrond

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    I think new players progression ( power gain ) can be handled better with introduction of new zones in current areas with crazy respawns...or even dungeon rooms with same purpose... xp gain and no loot drops .

    Tier 1 zones - Attenuation limit 100k/hour -fast respawn rates of Silly zombies 2-10 hp- no loot drops -
    Tier 2 zones - Attenuation limit 200k/hour -fast respawn rates of x type creature 20-30 hp- no loot drops -
    Tier 3 zones - Attenuation limit 400k/hour -fast respawn rates of x type creature 30-40 hp- no loot drops -
    Tier 4 zones - Attenuation limit 700k/hour -fast respawn rates of x type creature 50-60 hp- no loot drops -
    Tier 5 zones - Attenuation limit 1 mil/hour -fast respawn rates of x type creature 100 hp - no loot drops -

    The attenuation limit per zone prevents a high level player from going to a tier 1 zone and grinding the hell out of it ... and the no loot drops for same purpose . This way players have a choice .. can go grind xp in x tier zone but gain no loot or if they want both xp and loot can go to mysterious swamp or Upper Tears after they gain enough power. This model ensures new players are free to carve their way into the world without being dependent on someone to take them to UT or other areas ... as it should be ..in my view... If we only add content for veteran players to grind ....
     
    Last edited: Dec 20, 2018
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