Revisiting the game after two years

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Burzmali, Apr 13, 2021.

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  1. Burzmali

    Burzmali Avatar

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    As a player who followed the game from the original Kickstarter, tried the game originally at around release 8, and played off and on from around release 12 until around 2 years ago. I originally quit due to the tiresome cycle of Nerf and Revert the devs had gotten into where every release seemed to contain a massive nerf against one group with the following release reversing around half of the nerf. When my play style came up to the block, I went from being able to solo some of the weaker bosses to being reliably stomped by bridge trolls, so I called it a day.

    Around a month ago I decided to log back into my account and see how the game had changed in the last couple years. To my surprise, the answer was "not a whole lot". I'm not a big time crafter, I have no real interest in playing medieval barbie, if I wanted to play a capitalism simulator, there are far better titles, and the fishing experience is worse than Stardew Valley, a game made by one person on a shoe string budget. I wanted to adventure in new areas, fight new monsters, rampage with a party or two, and find new and interesting loot. What I found were new areas that were copied and pasted from age old templates, half written quests and a new daily quest system that is probably one of the laziest implementations I've ever seen. Adventuring with parties is dull, most just camp a control point and let overpowered pets farm XP for them, I managed to get a couple that ran in the Rise, but it was literally the same path I was running two years ago. Interesting loot now has tiers and need to be leveled up, underscoring the devs' commitment to the "grind in all things" design philosophy.

    In the end, the change to NPC vendors was enough to convince me that the game isn't really targeted at me. I was on one of the livestreams and the devs are devoting energy to new foods and I'm thinking, damn this game his 0-2 public adventuring parties running at any time and the devs think "food options, yeah, that's what the game is missing". So, off I go once again, maybe in a couple years I'll swing back through again to see if the game has materially changed for the better.
     
  2. SeyuNanatus

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    I wanna more PvP group content and PVE content.
    Myrkur with Despair - Good location - but chest with reward - lol what??? :D No good loot.

    No good loot Despair/Myrkur.

    And I think, who pay - orders music :))

    And I understand one more problems - RP player pay, and not wanna more pve and pvp content(group content).
    Need more fish, food and party.
    [​IMG]
     
  3. Powersurge45

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    Well the game just might not be for you. It sounds like you are looking for a more modern version of WoW. This game isn't that. It is a game where you are expected to create your own adventure and play your way. The customizing of your character and how you approach the way you play the game is the treasure this game offers. It isn't the acquisition of some great loot from some monster you killed with 12 of your raid buddies. Grouping for content and quest hubs is the current MMO formula that you see in the market today. SOTA isn't that... Could there be improvements to the game to allow for more group friendly/quest based content? Sure...but this game will never be considered on of the best that does that. Here are some of the things this game can offer.

    1. Community building and interaction with player created quests and prizes.
    2. Customizable character progression and combat using the skills you want to use completely free of a "right or wrong way to play". (You dont have to follow the preferred meta to be powerful)
    3. Deco simulator with City and town customization to cater to crafters and combatants alike with player vendors to sell everything from artifacts to crafted gear to rare items to be put on display if you choose.
    4. Become a business owner and deal in resources and maintain a selection of merchants that sell anything from food to real estate.

    These are just a few examples. I think SOTA is more of a Farmville/EVE Online Medieval Fantasy. I really like the customizable glyph combat system that allows me to play the way I want. I can be a harvester, fisher, crafter, entrepreneur, socializer, combatant...that is what makes it different. The cookie cutter MMO of combat and quest hubs is something i can get anywhere. The things i have listed are the things I can get here.
     
  4. Bridge Troll

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    It is refreshing to see someone else gets it. Thanks for that!
     
  5. Burzmali

    Burzmali Avatar

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    When I first seriously played the game, I was part of a guild that assisted new players in completing some elements of the main story quest. Personally, I used to help lead tours of the various underground passages folks could use to traverse the map. I took a short break and came back to find my guild fractured and all the public parties being either dance parties or grindfests. You list four features the game offers, only one of those is mentioned as a feature either on this website or on Steam. The other features the sites list are what I originally came for, an open world full of things to explore, a deep story, choices that matter, those promises are still being used to promote the game. I spent two weeks back, I saw no hint of player created quests, not in the chat or on the few dozen notes I read on notice board, unless you count the endless spam for fishing contests. Items 3 and 4 can easily run you over $1000 to enjoy, is that really a selling point for the game?
     
  6. oplek

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    This doesn't differ from WoW that much. SOTA was supposed to be a game with a rich storyline and world and quests to explore, not a DreamWorld empty sandbox where no game is provided to you... you have to bring your own.

    It wasn't supposed to be about community building. It wasn't even supposed to be an MMO.

    There are de-facto classes you must play if you don't want to sabotage yourself. The meta is preferred because it's powerful.

    On my second character, I wanted to play a cloak-and-dual-dagger non-magic rogue character. Oh boy, was that rough. I may as well have been trying to tickle skeletons to death.

    It's missing a key element to be EVE-online-like ... open world full[partial]-loot PVP.

    --

    This is a very generic MMO. They chase trends. They don't even really have their own identity, with half the assets being whatever was on sale in the asset shop.

    I'm thinking of making a new board game. It's called "cardboard". You get a piece of cardboard. You have to bring your own pieces, and use your own marker to draw a map on the cardboard. That's the real treasure of the game.... the player having to bring everything to the game.
     
  7. Powersurge45

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    We all have our opinions. Each as valid as the next. I do hope the game does provide something for you to stay. And if it doesn't, perhaps it will in the future.
     
  8. FBohler

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    All I can assure you is the nerf cycles aren't nowhere near their end.
     
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  9. necronut

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    Shows up in every thread. Always entertaining. Love it.
     
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  10. FBohler

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    It's on topic in case you didn't read the OP.
    Good for you that you find the truth entertaining ;)
     
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  11. necronut

    necronut Avatar

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    lol k
     
  12. Spinok

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    It always was, generally CP lovers usually came solo to any advanced content and cant handle it. So camp the CP is not the best way to play this game.
    Have you been to new Ulfheim or Well of Aldur or Spindelskog or Tanglemire ? Seems not, and locs that was copied anyway are not solo lamech extreme/breach.
    The new food system is great and it is a basic mechanic for tree balance.
    See you.
     
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  13. Greyfox

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    Great idea! Charge $10,000 USD for the cardboard, sell it at a 50% discount to the first 10 people and limit the cardboard to only the first 100 purchasers never to be sold again. Later sell the same cardboard to everyone at $10 with an endless supply.
     
  14. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    hmm I farm spider silk belts in Myrkur, the chests are not the main rewards but extra. bosses now almost always drop something.
     
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  15. Rook Strife

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    Gonna have to go with the OP on this one

    Flip on the livestream and the talk is things like combat balance, fish foods, unity stuff, bla bla bla

    Don't even bother watching them anymore


    You got an online multiplayer game that looks like this


    -Open LFG
    1) A single PVE group grinding a control point
    This is a group to park your character in 1 spot, afk and watch some tv with other people who are doing the same
    Since when do you watch tv for entertainment while playing a video game lol ? (engaged in combat yet)

    And that's it most of the time

    Occasionally, if you're lucky, maybe a player created event or an adventure group might pop up


    Visiting Towns
    The vast majority are empty ghost towns
    That is 0 people in them
    If you ever come across 3 or more ppl in the same town who are not AFK, Wow! This place is bustling!


    Visiting Adventure Zones
    Same thing

    Toss in one of the worst quest and combat systems I have ever seen plus unsatisfying loot, journal and map problems etc etc and good luck getting players to salvage any entertainment value just going around questing or killing things.




    I don't know how they look at the state of this game and have balancing the current combat skills a priority lol.
    Maybe a rework of the whole combat system to make combat entertaining might make some impact.


    This game would literally have thousands more players simply by having basic MMO stuff in place

    Group Queues for Raid/Instance content
    Daily Quest Hubs
    Good Reward system
    Basic popular activities that are available in most MMO's


    It has nothing to do with trying to emulate WoW

    These things just put a hell of a lot more ppl into playing the game



    When they brought in Elgarion, it resulted in many areas finally being put on the right track.

    Priority should be doing the same thing with the standard MMO stuff

    Bring in someone experienced with the modern group queue content, daily quests, etc etc
     
  16. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

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    ~SOTA Monk~ ~Monastery~ ~Thailand~
    ~All our stuff is still here!~
    (Along with it's issues)

    "The second largest crowd funding in the history of online gaming",

    but we never had Star Citizen's $100's of millions. SOTA became what it is today on less than 1% of what Star Citizen's been funded with. I often wonder what SOTA would have became with those types of funding numbers.

    When placed front and center as a target, SOTA has many weak points to hit, yet continues to be a great value to those who now come to our game "Free to Play", and our micro transaction funding cannot be said to be "Pay to Win", unless that's in winning a player housing lot decorating contest. "The Sims" is a great example of how that same continued funding plan continues to work well for SOTA.

    It wasn't free to early backers but it wasn't expensive either, unless you were a gambler "investing" seeking to turn a re-sell profit. Only some were very successful in that regard and some still continue to turn a coin through re-selling, but the bountiful hay-day of those days are over. As a lover of the entire Ultima history in every game they have or ever will again produce, I'm very satisfied and looking forward to our games continued successful future, even with it's burn points that come and go or here forever. It's still Ultima and the Ultima way of online gaming life.

    Many "Gaming Critics" who make their money reviewing games said SOTA would not last, they backed their claims of fortune telling with many false claims as well as just unleashing their target practice at SOTA's most always temporary soft points, of which so many of those critic's points then made are now not existent, as they were as many of SOTA's short comings, "temporary awaiting updated programing".

    SOTA "was" the second most successful crowd funded game of all history within it's past history, which made it a very big target for all the fan boys of other games to follow, with many of those failing, or being out-right development scams. SOTA was pointed at as a scam within those past storms of scandals but truth prevailed, the SOTA critics were wrong and proved wrong through the outcome of history. Star Citizen was the #1 player funded while we were #2 and in invested "dollar to dollar" player funded value, only recently has Star Citizen come into even being a game at all, so our SOTA funding (I believe) out-stretched Star Citizen's investors dream fulfilments. Sure they were/are building a much higher programing required game, yet SOTA got to a more finished level sooner in something that could be actually played. In that Rabbit vs the Turtle race, the SOTA Rabbit won, achieving playable long before Star Citizen, without spending 100's of millions in development costs. SOTA was said to never financially survive but has and in great shape to continue. SOTA's development is slow when compared to some, yet it's financial survival future is assured. SOTA's developers have been a lean company both in Portalarium as well as in Catnip, yet it's always been the quality of SOTA's programmers who have made the difference in balancing development dollars with company survival dollars. Our programing continues and will into our future. SOTA will never vanish with your stuff as many other games have, meaning that all old and new player's micro-transaction have a forever future ahead of them with well proven developers with a well proven company plan to take SOTA into our forever future.

    SOTA Burn Notices are what they are, some will come, some will go and some will always be there to hit on and well deserved to be hit...

    But our early backer stuff is still here! :D So we haven't lost anything!
    [​IMG]

    Good points @Burzmali , we all came with individual hopes in backing our game and came out with what's been possible.
    I do hope you feel that Ultima need to come re-visit us and all your stuff more often! :)

    "It's our early backers that carry our history because our forums don't go back that far anymore"...

    "Still in Development" still applies when talking SOTA and possible missed early development issues still come up as weak points, but as a Free to Play and surviving off Micro-Transactions game, Sota is well worth "that" play button.

    In the far past sometimes I've sometimes felt like this picture of John Goodman about some issues in our game, but SOTA survived and it is what it now is.
    But every micro-transaction and all our early backer stuff is still here! :D So I'm very happy and satisfied about that!
    ~Time Lord~
     
    Last edited: May 8, 2021
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  17. FBohler

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    I mostly agree with you, except for the combat part. I find SotA's combat quite interesting with the deck building, dynamic slots and everything.
    In my opinion the problem dwells in how the game challenges and rewards the players. Proof is semi afk CP has been the best way to "play" the game for some time now.
     
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  18. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    I do agree from your view it is how you say, however I have a different view from yours but that is because I am in an active guild. Well the queue system is great for random parties I can tell you the majority of the folks we roll with do not use it. instead most of our groups are guild stuff so we just group with our guild members for the most part. That said we never run into the lack of players. We have more than enough on at any given time to do most the content in the game. Raid wise the Breach , and Spindle cog , myrkur, and Despair are the only zones where we tend to require full 12 people to complete... oh and now the new rise addition.

    Town's you have hit a nail on the head there is far to many inactive towns which is a constant debate internally with players as to what to do about the dead ones. Myself I run Silverdale Market which is a busy town, but not busy in the sense where people are everywhere but more like 2-8 people at any given time, especially on guild group setup.

    as to your combat view vs mine its a different perception as well. ideally though if they ever fix the tab target so it locks properly than I think it would be a good start. you then have the option of cross hair only for action types and tab for all the rest. as it stands now any target that gets between you and your target ends up getting the hit which from a real perspective works but for style of play can be frustrating. over all I think the combat is good and fast passed unless you are a mouse clicker.
    but that is my view. Id be curious if you would give more detailed view on the combat side of what you would like to see.

    the rest of the UI stuff like journal etc is being worked on currently so expect to see changes over the next few months to that which is a huge start and long over due want :)

    cheers.
    Xee
     
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