New Player Feedback (Highvale Track)

Discussion in 'New Player Experience Feedback' started by Bedawyn, Mar 11, 2019.

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  1. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

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    There’s Row lots in Resolute, they are outside the wall. My offline dude has a home there. And the loot drops in offline are great. You will have a bunch of COTO’s in no time.
     
  2. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    there's also a step in between big story cities and the player owned towns that are not offline; these are called player run towns and they are JUST housing, including rows, and some basic amenities. there's also some big npc cities that have not gotten a proper personalization pass and just work like player run towns for now. the simpler towns in the nw region are

    axwich (prt)
    new holtrot (prt)
    smaragar (prt)
    goti (npc)
    noreach (npc)
     
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  3. majoria70

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    I'm looking forward to more of your feedback @Bedawyn . And really 8 gb of ram is nothing in todays games. It will only get worse. I have 32 gb with my new computer. I can't afford to keep buying computers so I planned ahead ;). You need a good 16 gb for this game and for your new computer. You should at least have this not just for this game which is graphically intense but for your future gaming experiences.
     
  4. Bedawyn

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    But a newbie isn't going to know what the drop rate is supposed to be! And that applies to a lot of the problems I'm running into. Esmeralda not recognizing keywords, 2-headed mobs, those are clearly bugs. But many of these problems, a new player will have no way of knowing if they're doing it wrong, if it's a bug, or -- like the respawning -- if it's operating just the way the devs want and the player just doesn't like it. If something is happening consistently and obviously, the general assumption is that the devs want it that way. And I've even found discussions on the forum saying the constant respawns are necessary for the multiplayers and they're not going to spend the resources to make it work for single players, so we have to just suck it up.

    Bugs are bugs, and I'm happy to file them. Design decisions are something else, and if a new player can't tell that something wasn't meant to be a design decision...
     
  5. Bedawyn

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    Outside the wall, but entering Resolute still puts you inside the walls, so I still have to go through the sloooooooowwwwwwwly turning around to face the gate (because I appear too close to all the lag-triggers downtown), sloooowwwwwwly creakily opening the gate, and putting up with the stupid guard telling me not to stay outside the gates too long, even though that's where my house is. *rolls eyes* (I seriously want to smack every Knight of Norgard I run across.) I've been thinking of using Recall scrolls to go straight to the house instead, but they don't drop so frequently that I want to risk running out when I really need one.

    I did mention 150 COTOs in 2 weeks of playing? Maybe they're better in higher tier areas, but why would someone want to bother with a harder area if even the newbie areas are full of flaws and give you no reason to believe that there are more rewarding areas elsewhere? A game should be designed to draw you in on its own merits -- not rely on forums to convince you that your first impression of the game was wrong.
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2019
  6. Bedawyn

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    Thanks! I'd seen Axwich on the web map and wondered why it was showing up when I'd turned POTs off; I haven't seen any official explanation of player-run towns. It's close enough I probably will end up there, assuming I can ever get out of Highvale Outskirts -- and that I read you correctly, that it should be available offline even if it's player-run.

    @majoria70, yeah, I would have preferred that. But the new computer was a gift, so I can use it for my work; gaming wasn't in the criteria. I did try to tell the buyer that the most important factor for me was a computer that would be upgradeable and not completely obsolete next year, but he's convinced there's so such thing anymore. :)
     
  7. Bedawyn

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    Some general thoughts on Highvale Outskirts:

    The landscape is really beautiful and intricate, and I'd love to just explore it for the sake of exploring. But the vicious wildlife and the constantly respawning elves make that impossible.

    The wildlife -- When I first got here, I really loved the wildlife. The animals were beautiful, believable, had just the right amount of diversity, and behaved like real wild life. Leave them alone, and they'll leave you alone. You could hunt if you chose, but you weren't forced to massacre innocent animals for the heck of it. I quickly decided I wanted a Small Grey Wolf for a pet (a desire thwarted by the seeming impossibility of getting a taming collar as a newbie). I was also utterly endeared when, while giving a bear a wide berth, I stumbled over a stealth elf who promptly attacked me, drew the bear's attention, and was bloody mush before I'd even drawn my weapon -- after which rescue, the bear just turned around, went back to its business, and continuing ignoring me. :)

    I particularly liked the alligators and ducks, because I grew up in a town with alligator- and duck-laden lakes. You knew not to let dinner-sized toddlers wander too close to the shore, but you also knew the gators were only a danger if you were an idiot who antagonized them. So I was happy the ducks looked like real iridescent ducks instead of stupid white farm ducks, and that the gators would only attack you if you got too close (or, I assume, if they hadn't eaten enough duck lately).

    However, since then, the wildlife behavior patterns have conspicuously changed and they're no longer remotely believable or fun. There are twice as many bears, including ice bears way down in the western lowlands where they just look out of place. Instead of an occasional ice wolf who's wandered down to the lowlands, ice wolves are all over the place, and all the wolves travel in packs. And all the bears, wolves, and gators have become far too aggressive -- I even had an alligator follow me all the way up a cliffside. I seriously can not move ten feet without being attacked by either an elf or a wolf. They're not going to kill me -- but they're annoying the heck out of me, distracting and delaying me from whatever I'm trying to do, and I can't even ignore them because the game automatically slows me down to draw my weapon when they attack, and then they follow me when I try to just retreat and get on with my business.

    The Bogman was mildly amusing and just different enough; and I don't mind him respawning since (a) you can always avoid him easily, and (b) it makes more sense that he's not the only one of his species anyway. I wish he dropped actual mushrooms, though. I LIKE mushrooms, and food would be more useful than this club.

    Monty is fine for a bit of variety and I would have been happy if I'd just stumbled across him without any particular goal. But neither he nor the club were worth the hassle of searching the terrain looking for him. I would have preferred it if, instead of giving a newbie carpentry for free and having a know-it-all trainer at the monastery, you had to search out Monty to learn carpentry. That would have been worth the hassle.

    Nach was fun, because I was completely not expecting it. I'd seen his site from a distance, but initially thought it must be the boss location, then later decided it must be Monty's location. His quest was initially frustrating, because I clambered all over the mountainside looking for this mine entrance -- I'd already been up and down the ice road several times before meeting Nach and hadn't seen the trail forking from it, so I didn't think to look there again until after I'd failed finding it anywhere else. The mine itself... feels like there ought to be more to it that I'm missing. The rubble respawns when it shouldn't -- the ice spiders guard the path well enough that a little rubble isn't going to make any difference, except to break immersion.

    His quest reward.... rrrr, I suppose knowing the mine is there is reward enough. But it's frustrating for Nach to give a copy of his book back to me, when it's unreadable, I can't find a keyword to get him to translate it, and I have no idea whether I should be keeping it because it will be useful in the future or trying to sell it. (The same applies to many of the books I've come across.) Again, I'd have been happier if you had to finish his quest before he would teach you water magic, instead of everyone being given all sorts of magic for free.

    I haven't messed with the rest of the kobolds yet. They obviously don't want to be bothered by outsiders, and they're not hurting anyone either, so I see no reason to go attacking them. I'm hoping -- I don't think it likely, but it's what I would do if I were a dev -- that later on there will be a way to negotiate with them, if not make friends, at least establish a trading post at their entrance.
     
  8. Vladamir Begemot

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    Loot is supposed to be much higher in offline mode, so I'd suggest just filing the bug report.

    Also, you can reach through the gate and pull the interior handle yourself in Resolute. ;)

    Nach's book is awesome once you get a house. Perfect deco.

    I'm assuming it's in Runic, here's a translation key:

    http://sotawiki.net/sota/Runic

    Or, I believe you can highlight and copy paste into a text file, and it will show up there as English.
     
  9. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    it's in kobold.
     
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  10. Vladamir Begemot

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    Waaaaaat!?~?~?!?!?!

    Does anyone know how to read Kobold?
     
  11. WaltC

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    I imagine that you no longer live in the town where you grew up--but if you do still live there, I'd love to know where I could find a population of alligators living in the mountains...;) They'd not be a talkative group, I'd imagine! I don't know, maybe they wear sweaters when it gets really cold?--got to do something as they are cold-blooded reptiles and mountain chill and ice would no doubt do them in quickly!....:) J/K

    But I did want to say that single-player games without any online component are legion--ubiquitous--and even ShroudoftAvatar has an offline version--which I much prefer myself. So it isn't like you are limited--buy single-player games via Amazon (or buy SoftA direct from this site and have the disks shipped to you--if they'll do that, of course)--or use some other service and fire them up to your heart's content--no worries then about "old phone lines and a flaky Internet connection" because everything is local, then, restricted to your hardware, and you won't need anything much at all via the Internet for your gaming. Just a suggestion. You can still contact Internet forums like this one, though, as the bandwidth required is almost nothing compared to what online gaming asks for. And I also noticed through your posts that you know most of the buzzwords associated with online Internet gaming, so at least through all of your listening to others play you've come away having learned a lot of pertinent concepts yourself. Anyway, every cloud has a silver lining and any situation can be turned to a person's advantage, is what I am trying to impart. You do have some options! Follow this sort of advice and the "lag" you mentioned disappears!

    It's not so much that I disdain socializing, myself, but like you I have an active personal life and have little need for any of that online. I do enjoy communicating in forums, however. Rather, in a game I like a good, solid story line with plenty of optional stuff to do on the side, if the mood strikes, with the appropriate character building along the way (a la Witcher 3, etc.) Only advice I can give you is to save your pennies and start looking at single-player, off-line games in addition to this one, as you can that way eliminate many of the practical bug-a-boos inherent in online games that you have talked about here.

    So good luck and the best to you--hope you get things sorted to your satisfaction!

    Later, 'gator

    WaltC
     
  12. Bedawyn

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    Oh, it's worse than that. According to Nach, it's in his own secret cypher -- which is presumably based on Kobold.
     
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  13. Bedawyn

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    Yeah, I hied away from the lowlands first chance I got. I will say, the lakes, ducks, and alligators, and general abundance of water are the ONLY things I miss about Florida. Give me the mountains any day -- which is part of why I WANT to love this game. I truly love the landscaping, I just can't enjoy it because apparently the wolves and bears all have rabies.

    I gave all the details in the first post to explain why SotA seemed so appealing, because it was promoting itself as single-player online with multiplayer as an option for those who wanted it. Offline mode is fine, but it doesn't have the same appeal as single-player online. In OpenSim, or SecondLife when I did that years ago, I know which areas to avoid because I'm going to lag if I go there, but I can still enjoy the less laggy areas. SotA promised the same flexibility, but seems to have reneged on the promise, which is worse than not making it at all.

    I've now settled down in Axwich, which would be perfect for my needs if I didn't get whomped on by Tier3 bandits every time I try to go back to Highvale or Resolute. After dying three times in about 5 minutes the first time it happened, now I just run for the exit as quickly as possible and try not to die on the way there. Given this, the long overworld journey to Ardoris seems like a fool's errand. Yes, I found the NPC companion in Resolute, but I'm assuming he's supposed to help with more serious adventures -- not things designed for low-level characters.

    My biggest question now is -- how are you even supposed to know if you've finished an area? Given that (a) so many of the quests (or their rewards) are "hidden", so that you won't find out about them until you hear them mentioned on the forums, and (b) everything respawns so you can't explore properly. Heck, in Highvale proper, the bandit leader respawned literally seconds after I cut off his head. Right now, it seems the only way to move forward is to keep mindlessly killing things until they become more annoying than threatening.

    And I still can't find the door to that building where the bandit leader is. And my sense of logic is offended by the Hall of Valor in Resolute clearly have several upper stories with no way to get up to them. The downstairs is lovely, but I want architectural sense!

    For what it's worth, for all the fun I'm NOT having playing, I am having just as much or more fun mentally revising everything. But that's just the way my mind works, the world-building is far more exciting for me than hack-and-slash ever could be.
     
  14. Vladamir Begemot

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    Hmmmm perhaps it's time to get out the Jr. Achiever's Codebreaking Kit!

    I think I'll make this my goal of the week.
     
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  15. Vladamir Begemot

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    Just run over the hill if you don't want to fight them. If you run around encounters you should have no problem making it to Aerie or anywhere else without getting stopped.
     
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  16. Bedawyn

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    Testing... testing. The forum says it's now for paid players only.

    Yep. I can reply here, but anywhere else, if I try to reply or post a new thread, it gives me an error message saying the forums are only for people who have paid at least $1. (Which admittedly isn't much, but still... talk about turning off new players.)
     
  17. Vladamir Begemot

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    Yes, it's true. You can blame China, they seem to be the ones spamming the forums every time they get access.

    Here's what you're going to want to get to open up lines of communication, the Universal Broadcast Orb. Being able to get help in /u is super handy. $2, and you can feel great about having helped the company stay in business.

    Or go all in with $5, and you qualify for this months stretch goals, which are Darkstarr themed.
     
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  18. majoria70

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    Yes really bad spamming took over the forums for a while. Always before it was free. So patience and understanding on this is needed.
     
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  19. Bedawyn

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    Gotcha. Well, I have NO income at all other than food stamps, haven't had a credit or bank card in years, so I guess I'm out. Not a complaint, really, I'm very understanding of the need for folks on staff to be making money. Heck, if I could get PAID for the work I do, I sure wouldn't be doing it for free -- cheap, but not completely free. :) So I ain't gonna complain about a game I get for free, and if they don't want me on their forums, their right. Just disappointing, because what I do best is analyze things to bits in hopes that the creators can put the critique to good use, and being blocked from the forums actually prevents me from giving back to the creators or community the one thing I DO have to give. Ah well.
     
  20. majoria70

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    Well you are a great example of a need for options. So we shall see if circumstances can waive anything.
     
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