If I may be so bold…

Discussion in 'Feedback' started by Elrich Skychosen, Oct 15, 2021.

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  1. Elrich Skychosen

    Elrich Skychosen Avatar

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    I don’t know how this will sit with anyone but…

    BLUF: Dedicate a small team and resources to the single player experience, and sell for a modest price.
    This team should dedicate itself to making a SOTA single player experience, more in line with single player games on the market. Meaning a completed quest should change aspects of the game. Deliberate loot tables, for example at tier 3 mobs will drop healing potions, not the lesser version and so on. A sleep system (maybe), to manipulate the flow of time. Sell the single player experience as a stand alone game. I recommend $20 dollars.

    the Online experience can stay as is and can be marketed as free to play. The single player “version” won’t be free and the overall feel should be different but recognizable from the online version. The single player version should be a stand alone game, but familiar enough if you jump from single player to online you’ll have your wits about you.

    Why? You might ask. I bought this game when I didn’t even have a rig that could handle it. I had this game for about a year before I could jump in and play. I paid good money for this game and because it has a single player option, presumably I can play it even after the server goes down. Lately, it seems there are less player playing, I think because of New World. Long story Short this game as an MMO May not last for a long stretch of time and I would like to continue playing long after the server goes down. I think if they can package a single player experience they can build revenue to improve the multiplayer experience and polish the single player one as well. Then if they have to kill the server they continue selling the game and turn a profit. I win because I can still play the game which I absolutely enjoy.

    Thoughts?
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2021
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  2. Elrich Skychosen

    Elrich Skychosen Avatar

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    Some things I would incorporate immediately are, 2x exp. lock episode 2 to online only until it’s complete then package as an expansion to the single player game. Add a sleep system. Change the COTO store to actual NPCs, so no real money is needed nor an option. Change loot tables so that certain items become available sooner. Bring back regular potions to the loot tables. Create a companion system so you can take on dungeons at lower levels to lessen the grind. Increase how fast a player learns skills. Ensure all quest are functioning as intended. Finally, all future updates to the online version get vetted before applied to the single player version to ensure they make sense and don’t hamper the experience. Long story short the single player version should be a grind but 50% less so and character development should be exhilarating since things like “control points” and “the air ship” will not be available.
    Crafting should stay in place as well but should be fine tuned so the player doesn’t feel like it’s a a chore, or an NPC (NPCs) should be available to turn harvested resources into specialized gear.

    Thoughts?
     
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  3. majoria70

    majoria70 Avatar

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    Hi @Elrich Skychosen. I understand where you are coming from on this request as I do play a lot of single player games but just so you know there are very few devs left on this project. Single player gets the game updates also in the best way it can. I still play this game but many solo it still in multiplayer.

    It is your choice to play with others or not. If there's a reason for offline playing due to connection issues the best of this game is online. Things such as player vendors, our music system, and game tips due to universe chat. Chat is not spammed as in most games. It is well moderated to keep it in check.

    Since the game is so divided into scenes rarely do you have to be around other players. It would be great imo if players could have a 'do not interact' type of notice if that is their choice which can be turned off and on at will.

    I am managing steward of Wizards Rest a player town next to Owlshead in Hidden Vale. It is a very quiet little town imo . It is a snowy biome which I personally love. Anyone is welcome to place a lot without asking permission and with no worries of being bothered if they don't choose except for a welcome to town letter arriving in their mailbox.

    The game is still regularly updated as funding allows which is a very good thing. So not to sound hopeless because I do understand wanting to play alone this is my take on the situation. I am Majoria in game if I can ever assist you. And good luck to you on your journeys.

    edited
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2021
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  4. Kara Brae

    Kara Brae Avatar

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    I would welcome this idea, but it is a pipe dream. Many of us bought this game and became early backers because it was originally supposed to be the spiritual successor of the old Ultima single player games despite having a multiplayer option. What we got was a multiplayer game with an option to play the very same multiplayer game in a bare world. There was hardly an attempt to customize the game to the single player experience. The deed vendors even offer Player Owned Town lot deeds for sale though there are no player owned towns. There are PVP areas, though PVP is only a multiplayer feature. The only real exception to customization was the addition of the three companions (which, admittedly, is a nice addition). The multiplayer game was made more and more difficult to accommodate the demand for new challenges for high level players and for scenes that can only be survived by groups of high level players. These changes were replicated to the single player game, so much of the new content is off limits and much of the old content has been rendered too difficult to survive even with the companions. To make things worse, original backers were promised access to "all 5 episodes" of the game, but access to even episode 2 is blocked because of the high difficulty level.

    Changing all this to make a playable single player game would require more dedicated resources than the development team has or can afford.
     
  5. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

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    I would like to see regular quarterly story installments with major installments annually (like ESO does). I know it will never happen, but I still wish for it.
     
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  6. Winfield

    Winfield Legend of the Hearth

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    I need to play the offline version sometime and get a feel for what @Elrich Skychosen suggests.

    When we played the Ultimas (all of them Offline ... of course) and we had NPC companions, it was great fun (but by ourselves).

    Then UO came out! We flocked to have similar experiences as the offline game but now with our friends! Real-time! Talk to each other, adventure together instead of with mindless NPCs, and even fight each other. Wonderful! (even though we would lag for seconds and minutes in the early days ... we were connected).​

    So that was Offline game comes first... then Online game comes next leveraging the experiences of the offline game.​


    I think an Offline SotA mode should be very interesting and addictive like the Ultimas were. Being offline, certain things could be programmed without multi-player in mind; just give the single-player the best user experience/adventure possible with a pure sense of accomplishment, problem-solving, and victories along the way and at the end of the game.

    This would probably require a somewhat dedicated SotA team for the storyline, quests, challenge for game-play (not difficult to play) with personal rewards, and perhaps an incentive to "start over" in Offline Mode to play the game again, but differently (non-linear story/quests and those options). Skill progression could be significantly faster than the online version perhaps.​

    I play The Long Dark too... a purposefuly Single Player game of survival. It is very satisfying including the grind, skill improvements, etc. with the risk of Death that ends your game (and you have to start over). I can play this many times, many ways, and get endless satisfaction.​

    If SotA had (maybe in years to come) a solid Offline Game for purchase that is rock-solid with content and features (not worrying about game balance, player economy, stats, etc.), it would be fun to see that sell for a price and then if you are "hooked" on SotA offline, then go out and play online with friends or solo for free in a player-based world. OR vice versa... try SotA Online and then go enjoy the "enhanced single-player experiences and gameplay" in Offline mode for a $20 price.

    This could be a bi-directional delivery model that the Ultima/UO combination did not have -- i.e., SotA players could get offline version first ($$) then go online version (free) OR get online version first (free) then go offline version ($$).

    Of course, rolling out an offline version must be stable, polished, intriguing and addictive by itself. I could see that the offline version could add storyline "chapters" to add more content to the offline game that might not become available to the online game.
    Sure, there would be Dev and Community challenges (dev team, funding, cost-vs-benefit, player involvement/criticism/advice, etc.).

    Hmm... bold idea @Elrich Skychosen ... needing bold ideas and thinking.

    Thanks! Huzzah!
     
  7. grendal1971

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    I agree that with some polish and advertising SotA could be touted as a Skyrim LIKE experience solo RPG, with an online free option built in.

    My thoughts on the servers going down (this thing is a single "sever" game that requires several servers to run) is that is a long time off. Chris would not have bought the project and devoted to continuing it if he thought it was on it's last legs. SotA is never going to be the big MMO with a huge development budget, but it fits a very strong niche market void and will slowly plod along with a small team getting more focused content and fixes.

    Regardless, Look at games like City of Heroes and Star Wars Galaxies... they both have strong emulated servers and communities and SotA would be no different.
     
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  8. CatDude

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    Hi @Elrich Skychosen

    I agree that the offline single-player mode needs improvement, but the priority will always be the MMO mode. Until such time as staff dedicated to Single-Player Mode can be allocated, we will have to wait.

    I think the first priority should be enforcing permanence of decisions to the storyline, key example being the politics of the Norgard court. In the MMO version, things there will reset so that all players can do the questlines, but in Single-Player, the results of which faction you support should be fixed. Those who are killed as a result should stay dead. I also want to see the child-killer brought to justice in Ardoris as a result of my exposing him.

    I can accept not having any inventory control over my companions, though having them increase my carrying capacity would be nice. Having them undergo some gradual increase in both the variety and efficacy of their combat skills as you advance would also be helpful as challenges grow.

    I agree with you on tweaking the XP and Crafting to reduce the grind factor, especially since you can't receive mentoring help in advancing skills. Also, I notice that early on, you end up have to let your companions do most of the fighting, as you can exhaust XP in combat if you fight enemies that require you to strike them multiple times to defeat them. This problem does diminish as your skills go up and you defeat a foe in 2 strikes or less. Also, crafting will be needed as the player has to forge the weapons and armor they need to defeat higher tier foes.

    About the CotO store, I remember the "Shadowy Merchant" who sold them, I'd like to see him back in the Single-player Mode to add flavor to the scenes.

    Having access to the radio stations to have something to listen to while working at a crafting station would be nice.

    Also, since there is no PVP, several skills are useless: Pickpocket, Confusion, and Torpid Torment. Whether they can be made PVE without impact on the MMO side, I don't know. Similarly, this means the Obsidian Trial and Ardoris Arena are useless scenes, as are anything to do with Obsidian Skull Coins and Obsidian Medallions. Converting them to Gauntlet Challenges, like the Compendium of Pain, would given them a reason to be visited in Single-Player Mode, but again, whether that could be done without affecting the MMO code would be the issue.

    Glad to discuss this.
     
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  9. CatDude

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    I heartily endorse doing that.

    I had been wishing that they had done that with UO from the beginning. They had a map/world that would have been perfect for a single-player questline, either as a Avatar prequel/sequel or and alt-history.

    Thing is, this was exactly what Rockstar had planned for GTA 5, with downloadable add-ons for BOTH the the single player story mode, and the online mode. But they never followed through on the Storyline plan, (which is a shame, because the Doomsday Story belonging there instead of the online mode), only the online mode got the add-ons.
     
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  10. Winfield

    Winfield Legend of the Hearth

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    I played GTA5 offline a while back. I really liked it and played the storyline quite a ways in. I learned more about the online mode too and became interested in that content ...

    So I played a little of the GTA5 online version and got killed quickly, but I also saw many groups and people willing to help newbies (and protect them too). I was not all that interested in getting into a whole new community at the time; I just wanted to play the mods and add-ons and some of the player-storylines/content/events players made.

    I think a well-balanced offline/online deployment model would be fun to see and is possible; yet it may be hard to make practical when one is enticed to monitor and follow the number of users in offline/online mode, where the most "buzz" and feedback is (which generally indicates consumer demand), etc. It would take courage and persistence to dedicate dev cycles to both audiences (offline and online) looking at long-term goals. Leveraging common storylines and capabilities between the two are cost-savers. Yet, one or both need to be revenue generators too.
     
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  11. CatDude

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    Finding a good crew to join does enhances the fun and camaraderie.
     
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  12. Bowen Bloodgood

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    I think this is a bit of an understatement as a truly single player experience would likely require a complete rewrite of some core systems the original team spent over a year putting together.
     
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  13. Time Lord

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    "Trippin SOTA Balls Offline" :)!'
    or
    "Pay to Win Your Heart Out!" ;)!'


    I play offline sometimes, and the only thing I'd change is to make it even more easy than it currently is through adding even more exp gain and bring pay to win items sold through our coto shop for fighting higher content. Offline should be just a thrill ride in a super nerfed world, yet where P2W is the norm beyond Ep#1. To use a term used by Elon Musk, our offline sota game should be just a "Trippin Balls" experience to play there. Our offline sota should continue to be a shell of our online game, never as good as our online game.

    Our offline content can be played from scratch again and again, which is a quality unto itself which should be exploited for furthering our entire game's development.

    In the above lines of thought, P2W becomes meaningless, meaning that there is no competition offline and therefore should have products sold in our coto shop that cater to Pay to Win. If such items could be sold for only offline use, then the entire dynamic of what things for offline cost and what things could be aquired is totally different than what our online game offers.

    Offline should be unique through just these simple few "Offline Pay to Win" changes.

    Examples:
    If I don't want to blacksmith offline, then I should have offline equipment in our offline store to purchase.
    If I don't want to make my own food, then I should be able to buy a Burger King, or Whataburger to place on one of my offline lots I aquired through buying an offline deed.
    If I don't want to make my own potions, then I should be able to buy my own Potion Smoothie Shop.
    If I want bulk regs our offline game should encourage me to "need" to buy agricultural things like planters and lot deeds to place more planters to get those regs.
    If I don't want to quest to get companions, then I need to buy a place to hire minions... (ie.. needs to be manditory to fight the frost giant and other high offline content).

    In every aluring way possible, we need for our offline players to become dependent on Pay to Win.

    Simply put:

    • We need to make Ep#1 content a super nurfed exp gain while Ep#2 and above should slowly increase the player to pay to win.
    • We need a seperate offline coto store full of pay to win items in every shape and form.
    All this should require the least amount of modifications from what we currently have, while keeping the offline game within our current micro-transaction ways of funding content development.

    "Trippin' SOTA Balls Offline!"
    [​IMG]
    Everything Funds Everything!
    ~Time Lord~:D

     
    Last edited: Oct 19, 2021
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