SOTA's Target Audience is too broad.

hmm..I remember seeing something recently maybe in the streamathon? But may also have been a speculatory comment by someone. In either case I look forward to discussing the particulars for EP2.. you know it's likely to be a hot topic.

 

I thought they learned a lot from UO (of what not to do). In some ways I wonder if their combat system is trying to be too much unlike UO's, but not in the way many people might guess. When I first heard about the deck system I was very excited because I thought it would be more turn based and less twitchy. But the application of it has been very twitchy so far, and that seems to be the one thing they kept from UO combat (something I detest). They've slowed it down a bit for sure, but really it's still everything I didn't want in combat...no strategy and all tactics.

 

There has never been a successful RP/PVP game without RP police. I had some RP in SWG only because I joined a guild that was into it and we basically hung with each other and RPed within our "click."

I guess what I am trying to say is RP will only happen within RP communities(POTS) or most of it. That is IF POT owners have the ability to ban RP trolls. In a PVP zone.... Fat chance that any RP will happen. I can just see it now...

If Portalaruim and the staff decide to not add that option to the game then this is NOT an RP game. Without the ability to police an area to keep the RP flowing...

Imagine joining an RP play and some RP troll decides to crash the party and all of a sudden he decides to start gold spamming in your city.

WWW.SOTAGOLD.CON 10 USD for 100000 gold
WWW.SOTAGOLD.CON 10 USD for 100000 gold
WWW.SOTAGOLD.CON 10 USD for 100000 gold
WWW.SOTAGOLD.CON 10 USD for 100000 gold
WWW.SOTAGOLD.CON 10 USD for 100000 gold
WWW.SOTAGOLD.CON 10 USD for 100000 gold
WWW.SOTAGOLD.CON 10 USD for 100000 gold

Imagine that.... So if no mechanics are not put in game to help with this. Then RP is pointless.

Now I have been to at least 6 plays hosted by Pax Lair and not once has it been ruined by what you see above.


Now we have been successful at PVP tournaments, several of them. Everyone loves them and we used to get PK party crashers but Violation has a way with words, sooner or later he will either get them to leave and or join the fun.

We have not had what you see above yet(well game hasnt released). He does have guards posted and we have had to chase people around a few times. Honestly they kept me from falling asleep at guard duty.

From what I can tell is we do have a strong RP community. Since the majority tends to rule I am hoping the RP trolls will get it. You can ruin everyone elses fun or you can have fun with everyone.

Sooner or later these jokers will be labeled and or blackballed from activities and no one will want to be seen with them and mist likely quit.

 

i have won many 1v1s without taking a single step between the first hit and body hitting the ground. depends who you fight, with the stillness bonus, (especially once its maxed) sometimes toe to toe is the way to go.

In my experience with ranged builds in R13, standing still is indeed an option

 

Total nightmare!!! But I bet there is even a person who will read this post that is thinking, hell ya its for the cash yo hippy fools.

I hate to be defeatist, but if there is one thing I am convinced of, it is that no matter what anyone does, if there is a way to make cash, regardless of legality, they will do it.

 

@Duke William

We have a very strong community for RP. I'm not worried about the community.

What I'd like to have concerning PVP is a competitive way to engage in it that doesn't require the following:

1. An internet connection that gives you an advantage (either a slow one or a fast one). If you're roleplaying, the speed of your connection shouldn't impact the success of your roleplaying efforts.
2.The ability to talk while in combat. I don't expect full length conversations. This goes to the point that if I can't talk, then the game has stopped being an RPG while I'm in combat. Currently, I can talk while I'm in PVE because the AI is so horrible. It's predictable and it's slow. But in PVP I can't talk because it's too fast and twitchy and that will take away from my DPS and I'll get owned.
3. I want strategy to trump tactics. I need a way to block, counter, and counter a counter. If I have that, well then I can prepare for battle ahead of time. If I know you're a fire mage. I can come to the party ready for that. But if I can't block or counter fire magic, then it doesn't really matter what I do, it's just a DPS war. This is really essential to roleplaying. Roleplaying has logical rules. The current combat system just has twitch and best builds. (and this is not just in pre-alpha, it's part of the known design)

I can already opt out of pvp, then I can roleplay all I want. But I can't roleplay that I'm brave. I can't roleplay that I'm competitive. Only pvp offers me those titles. So until pvp can be fairly balanced and tooled for roleplaying, it's not something that's being made for roleplayers.

 

My biggest shock has been so far that Life is Feudal that did go Full Loot PvP and calls itself a Ultima Online Inspired Game has currently around 7000 playing it over steam at early access average daily vs only 130 average at SotA. ( That is a huuuge difference. )
I always asked myself how this game, that i feel is far more unfinished managed to grab so many.

So basically Life is Feudal did grab a much larger piece of the Medieval RPG Cake with going more niche , then SotA trying to go broad audience.

I have no problem the way SotA is going , but sometimes our "very good community" manages to maybe create a wrong assumption of our standing.
Of course it is great that we are capable with our presumably little number to get good results on "Best anticipated Game User-Choice".
And also we did as a community a great job with fast Greenlight and great reviews.

But this i fear is not a result of "mass of players" , but more of "small amount of hardcore fans" all "participating".

 

Yes, I've been shot up with arrows that make me unable to move. They're over powered in this system and the attack of choice if you can get away with it. But even this shows that when someone can't move (in this case the person you shoot with arrows) they die.

 

Part of the problem with the current combat system is that you can't really do a turn based system when the player is allowed to move in real time. You more or less get the same issue you have now with auto attacks where if your opponent moves out of range fast enough the auto attack doesn't kick in.

My impression is (now that I'm really thinking about it) that you have legitimate concerns but you may be better served by a different solution. One that dimishes the advantage of constant movement. Not with turns.. but by transfering some of the 'skill' from player to character. I think this would also help somewhat with lag issues.

Ok now let me explain my thinking here. the auto attack is an example of the character's autonomous actions. They're doing it without your specific direction, but part of the problem is that it's based off a timer.. in a sense the auto attack is more or less turn based. Instead, what should happen is if your character should attack more intelligently. So we're looking at an AI solution rather than a timing solution.

People close in, attack and back off hoping you don't have the reflexes to respond.. but that's not effective if your character always reacts in time. What if that auto attack is both instant and based on a weapon skill rather than generic swings? Whenever an opponent enters your attack range when you're not moving.. free attack. It would discourage people in melee from running around stationary targets all the time.

 

I'm not worried about gold spammers in SOTA because it's not free to play and the accounts cost $45 a pop. I think it will be easy to ban those guys fairly quickly at launch.

 

If the small amount of players funded the game...why not make the game for them?

 

Is Life Is Feudal doing monthly wipes? I think that is keeping most people from playing right now.

Also, I think most SotA players aren't using Steam where as all Life is Feudal players are using Steam.

If we know that Life is Feudal sold more than 47,500 copies, then we can say they grabbed a larger market share.

Edit: It should be also noted that Life is Feudal is selling for $20 as opposed to $45 on Steam and that it was given away super cheap in a $25 bundle for 4 games. So you basically could have bought a copy for $6.

Before they started giving the game away real cheap, it failed miserably in its fund-raising campaign. They only raised 5,324 Euros total.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/life-is-feudal

 

If our small amount of players are able to keep the game sustainable till Episode 5, I have no problem.
Are 50 000 going to be enough?

 

A year ago SotA had less than $3 million raised and now we're over $5.5 million raised. With retail sales, post-launch I'm predicting 100,000 copies sold.

 

Lets forget Life is Feudal.

But i think you are correct. Lets hope that if 130 are active over Steam playing , that 90% Log in not over Steam.
And the Wipe System we have vs the player server until full world is build from Life is Feudal is a strong argument to keep players more active in LiF during early access.

 

I'm an advocate for turn based elements. The kind found in MUDs. Not turns, just well defined cool downs, essentially. So you thrust your sword and that's going to take you 5 seconds. You can't effectively do anything else during that time. Meanwhile your opponent might have 3 seconds left before he can swing his mace, so if you were looking for a block you're not going to get it unless he delays his attack. To me, this would help servers keep up with players moves and deliver a better product across multiple platforms and network connections.

But the average gamer wants speed speed speed and doesn't realize that the cost of that is an unfair playing field. Right now the people that win the most in pvp are the ones with horrible connections in Asia. That's just a fact. I may not be great at PVP, but when I play against someone that is lagging out, I don't stand a chance.

 

100 000 would be awesome. I think Dallas once said in a interview the minimum they need to be sustainable is 50 000. They hope to grab alot of the current only Forum User to jump over to purchase the game.

 

The real question would be, if this game is created to support those 50k, would the finish product attract more?

I'm so heavily invested (as are others) we're not going anywhere. We want the game to succeed. We're not just going to say "goodbye 1000's of dollars". We're going to keep hoping that the game becomes what we wanted it to. We WANT to be here for the long term.

Please, take my money and make me a good game!

 

agreed, if you get rooted or disabling shot and you don't have ranged spells, then you will need to waste your focus on heals for most of the fight. Seems they over corrected from the R11 days of fully plated polemasters with OP reach.

i I don't think Knight's Grace(heavy armor tree) or Hard Headed(tactics tree) innate skills help against root. A root cool down like the one for stun would level the playing field.

 

I think there will be much more, based on how well Archeage did.

I'm not saying they're going to play for 6 months, just that they'll buy it, try it out, and then the product is what the product is.