Okay, after 2.5 months here's a few things I'd like

Discussion in 'New Player Experience Feedback' started by Justiciar, Nov 22, 2019.

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  1. Justiciar

    Justiciar Avatar

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    * Maps of all primary quest areas and non-POT cities.
    * Turn off Force-PVP in all main quest areas. I see no reason for this.
    * Ideally display success and crit success base values in crafting skills just like hp/fp/cooldown/duration for adventuring skills. Would help me figure out how many points I want in potions and cooking.
    * It would be nice if there were more COTO sellers than Phil.
    * I would like to know if there's a reason for the pop-up screen with the single button marked "play" and an additional screen with another button marked "play". Why not just have everything on one screen?
    * I still think it would be nice if there was some kind of intro with text and screens telling you about Novia, its fall, the rise and fall of the Obsidians, and some stuff about the current state of things.
    * My main problem with the game is that there are game masters and new people but very little in between and no real guidance on how to progress in the game other than to gain massive quantities of xp and put it into skills.
    * My pet peeve with MoBs is that they don't follow the standard rule "if it has an X, the X becomes treasure". Let's ignore the headless, bodiless, boneless wolves and bears that roam Novia for now (it is possible to imagine that skinning damages the parts too much) and focus on the bandits, Elves, Obisidians, and Kobolds that seem to be able to attack you and do massive quantities of damage without weapons and absorb a lot without armor. I'm pretty sure those Kobold Grenadiers aren't doing heavy ranged damage with those axes they always seem to carry. I don't care if the item is worn or crappy or whatever, but not having it at all on a humanoid is weird, and having loot be nearly identical for lower and higher level MoBs (e.g. T2 Bandit Mage and T? Lich Mage or Skeleton Archmage) is also weird.
    Thanks.
     
  2. Anpu

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    There’s no forced PvP area you have to go to for the main quest. Samael even tells you this to. So does every journal entry.

    Just wanted to clear that up.
     
  3. Vesper

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    -'Phil' is a player vendor that buys and resells cotos, there are other players that do the same all over.

    -The pop up 'play' screen is the updater and launcher program, which is separate from the client. You could run the client application directly if it really bothers you, but you would have to launch the updater manually when theres a patch.
     
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  4. Astirian

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    They made a pretty cool lore based trailer I wish they'd use as an intro. Here's a link:



    Just clip it at 2:04 and boom, game intro.
     
  5. oplek

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    It effectively is forced. The back ways in are so hidden, some of which are very difficult to get through, that it's basically the same thing. Some vaults I only could figure out where the back ways were by going through the PVP zone and trying to reverse-lookup. One vault I couldn't figure out what the back way was, even when I was right there.

    It's not forced! You just have to spend 100x as long exploring the entire world, fight your way through waves of boss enemies, and pay a billion gold feed. It's technically possible, so it's not forced.

    And no, before you say it, having to ask other players for help on something that should be easily achievable, particularly given that it's a solo quest, is a failure of game design.
     
  6. oplek

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    For spiders, between non-humanoids droping substantially less interesting loot, having stop and painstakingly skin each one just to try to get any loot, and the fact they constantly web you, I find spiders to be the single-most unfun thing to combat in the game. I will actively avoid non-humanoid combat in general, just because they're such a waste of my time... but spiders... my god.

    .. just to vent a little.
     
  7. Vladamir Begemot

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    There is a redundant first screen that has only one big "Play" button on it. As if you intended to either play, or look at that image forever, and thus they are giving you the choice to stare as long as you like.
     
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  8. Justiciar

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    @Jaesun I agree with oplek. While there are back ways, where do you start looking for them? The only one I used was the Graff Gem Mines and that was because the game pointed to it as the way into Rhun.
    @oplek I don't mind the non-humanoids. Earth/sand/obsidian elementals will root you which is exactly the same thing as web. What you do should reflect your character class: mage and archer should attack from a distance, while the fighter has a high strength and skills which are a natural antidebuff. But I still don't know who would want to make a soup out of spider eyes and legs. And while non-humanoids don't drop loot, their parts are rather valuable. It would have been better if devs would have realized that wolves and bears are vertebrates, of course, and should drop animal bones. Now I just have to find about a dozen regular bears and about a hundred Obsidian wolves to skin for meat so that I can balance out the Obsidian bears and regular wolves.
    @Vesper The problem is that almost nobody else sells COTOs for IGG. I've gone through a significant amount of Novia and have found maybe 2 or 3 other vendors and they have low quantities and match prices with Phil. I presume the small window is because there is some weirdness with Steam in terms of updating the game from the intro screen.
    @Astirian I like the whole thing, but it doesn't mention "Novia" as the name of the continent. Maybe have that guy in the intro area mention "You are in Novia now"?
     
  9. Anpu

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    The path of Love is the only virtue quest that has a pvp area associated with it (Crypt of the Avatar). Also the path of Truth specifically takes you to Kiln of which there’s even a quest with the Kiln Cistern which happens to connect to the Midras Passage and the Crypt of the Avatar.

    The developers did provide a way for the player to discover the underground network.

    The onus of exploration is on the player to discover.
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2019
  10. Vladamir Begemot

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    That's because using the vendor interface is a major PITA and causes Carpel Tunnel as well as Extreme Boredom. If you seriously run a COTO vendor you can expect to spend a few hours a day refilling, and even if you sell your profits for real world money it doesn't pay for the medical bills.

    The devs have said that vendor UI overhaul is coming soonish, so perhaps at that point we will see more COTO vendors.

    That comes from butchering the animal carcass. It is interesting that you get the similar parts off the spiders without the extra step.
     
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  11. oplek

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    It's more than possible that my knowledge is out of date, given the last time I bothered with the main quest was before launch. However, this complaint keeps reoccurring.

    The POL is the only one with the PVP association? Good. Then there's less work for them to do to fix it. Is the player told that the Kiln Cistern "just happens" to connect to the Midras passage, etc? If not, that's more bad game design that should be corrected.

    The game is in a bad position, if it's either in contradiction with the promise of consensual PVP, or the player is expected to accidentally discover an unknown secret passage.
     
  12. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Hm. I've done the main quest twice, and avoided PvP areas completely both times. (Not saying it was easy to find the paths, just that it's possible. They need to be directed to much better, with the caveat of, "hey, it's a lot faster to just go through the PvP areas.")
     
  13. Cora Cuz'avich

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  14. Anpu

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  15. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Sort of? I was thinking of something a bit more straightforward. You can figure it out by working through the wiki entries, but it might be more helpful to spell out how to get from Novia into each vault/story scene. If I recall, some of the paths require quite a few steps. (Not to mention, needing to solve the Serpents Spine Mines puzzle.)

    Regardless, it'd still be a good addition to the puzzle solutions thread.
     
  16. Anpu

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    I just provided the necessary information on where they connect. The rest is up to you to discover and figure out on your own.

    Someone else can do a detailed walkthrough. I’m not a fan of walkthroughs. I’d rather figure out stuff on my own.
     
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  17. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Me either, but as the game doesn't really give any indication at all as to how to find this information, the (incorrect) notion that the game forces you to PvP in order to complete the story will remain.

    And, it is literally a thread of walkthroughs.
     
  18. Anpu

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    Again, as I stated above, the path of Truth takes you to Kiln, of which you can get a quest to investigate the Kiln Cistern. And they even included a second quest (the Devotional Quest), which literally takes you to the Devotional in Kiln which is right next to..... the Kiln Cistern.

    They have provided 2 ways for you, to lead the player to discover that (the entrances to the passages there). Specifically, the one needed for the Love quest (Midras passage > Crypt of the Avatar).

    And even further, Samael tells you there’s ways to avoid the pvp areas. As does the quest journal.....
     
  19. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Yes, that one is spelled out. The vaults, however, pretty much require stumbling through underground areas that, even if you've done all three paths, are likely beyond your level unless you know where you're going. If I recall correctly, one requires going into the Rise. To be fair, if you enter the Rise in the right place, you're right by the vault, and won't even encounter any enemies. But if you're AL50ish, you're not spending a lot of time in the Rise, and probably don't know that. Also, if I recall correctly, that route requires entering from a tricksy to find and well guarded entrance in one of the passes.

    Regardless, not the point. There's a thread with puzzle walkthroughs. I'm suggesting non-PvP routes be added to that thread. Whether the info is in game or not, it is a thread of walkthroughs. It would be a good place to post, you know, walkthroughs.
     
  20. Justiciar

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    @Vladamir Begemot Unfortunately Wolves and Bears are apparently not vertibrates in this game. No animal bone from butchering the carcass, which only has a moderate chance of dropping from skinning.
    All: The T/L/C path PVP are a minor inconvenience if that. The time you spend in PVP areas is far more significant in the Path of the Oracle, and the bypasses are difficult to find apart from Graff Gem Mines which is shown as a quest marker.
    Oh, one more thing: Pecan nuts seem to be extremely rare and costly for their apparent purpose (cooking oil, a required cooking ingredient for meat). I know they're a relatively common find from harvesting trees, but compare the quantity of wolf/bear meat you'll get in an area versus the quantity of pecan nuts you'll get in the same area.
     
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