Not hard enough...

There's plenty of stuff that can kill me that I can't kill.

 

To me, the rise is pretty dang hard by myself.

Krul is too.

The control points are insane unless you’re coordinated

The ruins liches are hard with the added threat of getting ambushed.

These are some things i cant do on my own easily with my build.

 

Unfortunately, with playing and testing a game while in development you can run out of challenges. Episode 2 will have more challenges so when the testing pre-alpha gates open for that, you will have your harder adventure areas.

To me it does not make sense to add any more to Episode 1 while Episode 2 has been announced that they are making it.

 

I don’t know about you but jumping is incredibly challenging for me. I was in Artifice last night and strolled upon a lava pit. I saw a path around but I said to myself “Self you can surely jump over that lava pit!” So I took several steps back and ran as fast as I could straight into that evil pit. To add insult to injury I tried to jump out. There wasn’t even barley a ledge of maybe 1-foot. I couldn’t even do that. I just swam around in the lava and died. After several minutes I guess the Oracle decided I was worth saving. She stuck me right in front of that evil pit. I lowered my head in shame and walked around. I dream of better days when I will defeat that pit but it wasn’t that day.

 

Oh and just to let everyone know just because I mentioned I had checked out Project Gorgon in the past does not mean I am playing it. I have often checked out a game to get ideas from it and to just know what it is like. My heart is with SOTA 100% and things I mentioned in my post here are not 'all' that I see but some details missing imo. I do think that traveling around we should have consequences and surprises sometimes really I do.

Some players might want to power quest and that is all they want to do, be in their own world running through every quest and then onto the next game perhaps. Lots of dailys of all kind fishing, pvp, crafting etc would help with rewards that build up over time sometimes. Some Others might want to power-game levels and when they have achieved that and tested all of that then they will be off to the next game. Some others like to do a bit of all of what the game offers quests, combat adventures, pvp enthusiasts need more, boss kills & dungeon challenges, play and sync music, create their housing environments, museums, book stores, create events, write books, create worlds, homes, towns and more.

No matter what anyone would love to do in this game the truth is that it is taking time to build it all for us. We are still missing some of the replay-ability in may ways for this game. The quest enthusiasts will run out of quests as will all others who come here for just one thing or another. Once it is achieved they will go or take a break until more, more, more is created. It is a viscous circle. Some perhaps will not go and will stay continuing to create their worlds and do a bit of all of it waiting for the 'whats next' that is coming. They may have their homes in game, their friends to play with, and their projects they are doing.

Imo in the long run we still have the opportunity to have what keeps us playing in Shroud of the Avatar. The game has went in so many directions due to player feedback. In my strongest opinion we do need to take advantage of that. Instead of going off in more directions we do need to take some time to address the things we already have going for us as a game. Some things in my opinion need to be more meaningful before we run off to create a new system, which truly I also am excited for all of this, but still the empty feeling players might get from the in-completeness of so many things that are already in game needs to be addressed.

Ok so what could that be you might ask, well to name a few see below:

Epic battles with bosses that rock our world, creatures that are interesting and challenge and surprise us. Perhaps in high leveled areas they swoop down from the sky at random places and times. Perhaps they spawn randomly in various places after we have farmed an area for a while and you either run, fight, or call your friends to fight with you. I miss seeing some random danger appear. Reapers were a awesome addition but they are farmed and while they can wonderfully surprise and are not always noticeable which I love, their is predictability enough to farm them. I want surprises for this game. Dragons swooping out of the sky occasionally and scaring the hell out of us. Adds some spice to the mundane. I don't want it predictable and boring.









Next fishing upgrade has been pushed and push and push way too many times. @DarkStarr Hopefully the water in all scenes is getting the updates they all need so the water in the game will support this update soon. It is not a new feature but one that is in the game and few do it and this is not acceptable. We should have our fishing system be a part of the adventure of this game as well imo. There are many opportunities to add this to the quest lines, fun events, cooking recipes for good fish eating, needs a nice 4 hour food too, perhaps intelligence boost which is still needed, but alas finding that special fish may take you to the frozen tundra for example
We need bait types, types of fishing such as ice fishing cutting a hole in the icy waters of Wizards Rest has always been mine and Baldriths wish. Perhaps some waters will have dangers but alas we can't yet fight in water but hopefully one day off a boat at least.




For later yikes!!!!





Another system that stopped in its tracks and is waiting and waiting for more to get added to it is agriculture. So many neat things could be added to this system that we do have the core system for already. Okay so we can water our plants after we plant them and yay now we can use the cute watering can the devs made us to show up when watering groups of plants. (secret: drag the watering icon to your bar, sheesh I just found that out the other day) and wallah your avatar uses this watering pitcher on the plants. So we are still missing types of fertilizers that has been pushed and pushed.

We are still missing consequences and more interest to our plant growing. Does playing a song to them make them happy and do we even know if they are happy *sighs*? We see vaguely that they are growing and have matured if we point at them, we do see dry soil and can try to water them because it does not say they are thirst. We never hear sounds that tell us ta-da we have achieved something or found something special. So anyway this system still needs it's update too. One planter I know is not playing atm and waiting for this system, maybe to await the additional aspects of this system. Perhaps there are plants that grow better in cold climates which can affect where they are grown like potatoes. And public planting areas that need fixed too as a reminder.




This post I make is not a put down of a game I love, it is another call out to systems in the game that still need their updates and for other systems to be added to that are already there. Tasks and achievements and consequence details still needed imo. While fishing and agriculture may not be interesting to some. They are and can be part of the adventure and tied into it all in interesting ways. The great locust plague someone causes on their plants could indeed cause some danger to the lands for example.

And fighting for lands, castles etc can be included in the game too. Rewards for holding the castle could be fun and interesting even involving a point system to earn cotos, achievements for most kills, most body parts collected, fun recipes for body parts, we have a few but more, special titles, tabards. My thoughts are for all aspects of the game to get the details needed over time to make each of them more satisfying, challenging, fun to do. There should be quest lines for all aspects of the game imo. Make things matter. Perhaps a higher score if less damage is taken by the castle. Lots of details will make it fun. It should not be another control points. It should stand alone in its type of game play.

 

Obviously i defer to your experience so correct me if i'm wrong, but my impression is that if you tried to solo the ancient dragon, it wouldn't be as much of a "challenge" as it would be a "dice roll" about whether you got crit too many times close together, or whether the same, normal dragon strategy with a modification or two would suffice.

 

I dont use bow or magic, so I can really kite it around, I dont know for SURE but I think I would die.

 

I didn't find it too easy. 2 - obsidian mobs, while orange to me, were still kicking my butt, if I wasn't careful. It feels ok. Go to the Rise and enjoy some challenge.

 

I love your ideas. Imagine, if there was a game of all games, where everything was combined... I think you're talking about Oasis from the REady Player One , but, SoTA ain't it. Unfortunately, it will never be anywhere close to that. Maybe if they hire about 500 more people, something may come this way, but with such a niche game that only appeals to the gamers of older generation that used to games like UO and EQ, for the rest of gaming community it will unfortunately always be "that meh" game. which means low to average development budget, and very slow development cycle.

 

I personally watched this game go from the complexity I like (which breeds sandbox and innovation inside the game) to having to be completely pacified in the new user experience because of the modern gamer. Come on fella's, when we were playing Ultimas on Computers back in the 80's and 90's, you actually not only had to really know how to build and run a computer (damn autoexec and config.sys), but you had to really dig in and learn the game. Games like this were replaced by "rails" 18 years ago. A lot of it is the consul generation and I even think the move to 3D graphics which really... really simplified game play in most game to focus on graphics. This is still a complex game but I think they had to Completely dumb it down, especially in the earlier levels.

Imagine Skyrim with the merge of true openness in UO. I still say SOTA is the closest thing to that there is. That is one reason why a lot of us old time gamers not only pledged a lot to this game but have played it so much. It is what a lot of us want and have been waiting for... for a long time. They actually have done an amazing job for the money they had to work with.

 

I think what the OP is trying to say is no risk = no reward. This isn't a new idea, there's been a ton of study on how reward cycles keep people engaged in everything from video games to near miss features on slot machines in casinos. You've got to feel like there's something out there that's worth the risk (like making the jackpot on the slots on the next quarter because you were so close this time!). If there's no risk, you've got nothing invested aside from your time and the rewards you get will feel less fulfilling.

Sadly, this isn't necessarily a problem with SOTA as it is games in general. They've gotten ridiculously easy over the past decade or so. Very few MMORPG's offer any form of actual loss, those that do are far from the super popular ones. I love high stakes stuff. For me, getting my teeth kicked in and eventually achieving what I've failed to do previously is a driving reason for gaming. If I'm not challenged, the chances of me sticking around are basically zero. Not everyone is like this, and the demographic has shifted away from players like me recently, but there are some of us still left.

 

The average gamer changed, my friend. We are dying breed of old gamers, who likes complexity and extravagance in games. But I think SoTA still has a lot to offer to us, while is also VERY slightly attractive to the modern gamers. We will actually soon see the turnaround of the game being 'dumb down", like you said, even though I personally don't believe it is dumbed down. With an influx of modern gamers the mood of the forums should soon change . If it won't, we should be OK.

 

When I was 10 my dad brought home some unmarked disks that had Ultima III. It had no books, no directions, no maps, nothing. It took me quite a while just to figure out how to run the game and then how to play the game.

 

I tried to kill an reaper (the mobile tree things)
Got it beat down half its health.
Had to run with my tail on fire because it is pretty strong.
Survived because i knew when to run.

So that is ok in my book, challenges but if you are smart about it you survive..

What makes me wonder is how easy it is to level adventure versus crafting, that is in my book the real challenge in my book (and it is sometimes awefully boring like mining, when it does not have to be)

What is missing is an systhem to find groups and places to go to with them, loong deep winding dungeons for groups like the one under the hilt (like that, just not private)

And quests (and an working systhem for them, what we have is so confusing i gave up after i got my shroud_