How to make SotA great (please read carefully before posting)

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Corv, Jun 21, 2018.

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  1. Ellrynn

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    I think so too
     
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  2. Tailz

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    I have sent in suggestions and I do still play the game. I see some folks have made some detailed posts and I think that will help. It would help me to have a voice discussion about it rather than typing it out. To much to type. :)
     
  3. majoria70

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    Well you have been gone a while right? Are you speaking from recent experiences? Most of the content, new scenes, re-worked scenes have happened in the last 5 or 6 months. I'm not saying it's all roses but lots of wonderful got added in too in all this time. Players who left many moons ago should talk from having dug in and played the game recently, not from all past but having experienced lots of the new areas and new things too. Let someone who knows show you around to see and experience it.

    Perhaps you will have discovered how fun it is to sync music with our interesting array of instruments.

    Perhaps you have walked the tightrope, taken the log ride, rode on a mine cart, seen our amazing looking reapers, or shot way up into the sky on a geyser.

    This game has lots to love already and needs lots of love too of course, but I do love it so much and feel it is worth it. I wil keep fighting for it. I do say all of this to everyone here so fight the good fight with me now, step away if you must, or come back later. We are going onward to victory.

    Edited and I of course do have detailed threads and posts everywhere discussing being focused on completing current systems as very important and other ideas. I am also out of town for a while on my phone so you will all miss out on the multitude of pictures and more I would also add to this already long post. ;)
     
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2018
  4. Andartianna

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    - why are you, as a (former?) Ultima / Garriott fan and backer not interested in SotA anymore?
    My interest has waned lately as there is a lack of things to set goals to get.

    - Why are you, even though you are playing, not happy with the game?
    I play the game a lot over 5000 hours into it already. I Hate the quests. They are not intuitive. I should not be tearing my hair out trying to figure out a quest chain. If some people like that great let it be a hardness based game where I can choose story mode to just enjoy the story. PVP sucks and not the actual fighting which I enjoy. It's the lack of benefits. There is no reward that is given for pvping. There are rewards for being flagged and pveing but if I'm fighting(healing) I don't get anything. I would love a bone trade in vendor. The bones are already given to us so having a place to turn them in to either get pvp related gear or pvp related gear recipes for crafting would be a wonderful addition to the game. You also need to add an assist token for party members. I'm a PVP healer I'm not going to get kill counts so I should get heal counts that give me items instead. And yes I'm a little pissed that they first pvp arena has nothing for healers. I realize we can be a rare breed but seriously ignoring an entire play style makes pvp suck!

    - What can be done to make this game more appealing to your friends?
    Add more things for us to do and meaningful trade ins. If we're doing daily quest/grinds, give us goals or tokens to turn in so that the time spent means more then just more gold and exp. We need a reason to play. For example titles for healing massive amounts, titles for virtues. The reason arcades and slot machines are successful has to do with what reward can be gotten. Right now I don't feel like there is anything to earn or work towards other then higher stats which at my level gets rather silly.

    - What went wrong and how can we fix it?
    Well if you want us to fix it give us those dungeon making tools and I guarantee you will have amazing player driven content in no time. Games like mine craft are extremely successful as you can build almost anything you can imagine. Think about it this way. If you make it so dungeon items are add-on items then you would make tons of money off of players who build and design the works of art that other players can then enjoy. If you make craftable items you will employ hundreds of hours of crafting to make cool places to fight. You have a massive highly motivate group of Governors that would readily get behind making content in their zones. If you want us whales to spend even more money give us reasons to spend it beyond simple housing decor.

    I also just want to add things that will immediately make me quit the game since I have seen them repeatedly mentioned from the people that already quit.

    -Any sort of hard cap. I'm still pissed over specializations being locked to two. This is an open skill game and should remain so.

    -Any changes to RMT policies. I really appreciated the devs coming out strongly for not interfering with RMT. I am not a seller and don't plan to make a killing on holdings. I am a consumer and I consume a lot. 2 municipalities, tons of lots, decor through the roof. I know how many thousands of dollars I have spent on this game and want to freely be able to spend more.
     
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2018
  5. kaeshiva

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    To summarize (not every question applicable to everyone reading this, chose):

    - why are you, as a (former?) Ultima / Garriott fan and backer not interested in SotA anymore?

    I'm still here, and I'm still interested, though the interest has waned a bit over the past year. After 6000 hours, gaining character experience is no longer a significant motivator. When I need to put 50 million experience into a skill to get less than 1% better at it, even at optimized experience gain rates (a million per hour) this translates into more than your average work week worth of effort for imperceptible benefit. To me, this says that the soft cap and curve is working as intended. Decay on top of this, is quite frankly, an insult, and remains the number 1 reason why I can't entice other gaming friends here as they correctly see this for what it is, wasting their time. While I have absolutely enjoyed the journey to get to this point, the reality is that with changes to the game and the extremely frequent 'double xp' - it doesn't take as long to get here, anymore, and once here, well - there's nothing else to do.

    Sota needs to have a hard think about what they can do to improve player retention for the long term. The classless system is a beautiful thing but again, lateral exploration of additional skills/builds has been hampered both by decay and by specialization which funnels us into classes and severely hurts the 'replayability' - before specialization, if I wanted to do something different for a while I could pick up a sword or a bow or something else I wasn't familiar with and go try that. Now, doing so is a handicap, both in the lack of the specialized abilities and taking the full xp penalty hit even if I'm fighting with skills/gear that I'm less capable with, making doing so a risky proposition when every single character death translates into "how long will I have to grind just to maintain?" This same mechanic discourages trying new things, exploration, or doing anything outside your comfort zone.

    For me, it seems the best way to protect what I've earned and achieved, is to actually play less, do less, engage less - which is a very poor model for player retention.


    - Why are you, even though you are playing, not happy with the game?

    The game still has a lot of punishment systems - not only decay, but plentiful cash sinks, taxes, delays - that can make it feel jobbish. You can't simply log on and enjoy a few hours, you have to make sure you earn enough money for your reagents, your food, your taxes, your other consumables should you use them (scrolls, repair kits, poisons, potions, and so on and so forth). Fighting anywhere other than a handful of scenes will ensure that you probably wont even break even for these costs. We have to pay to send mail. There's a pay option to pass through control points instead of tediously going through. And not just gold - we must deal with pointless, tedious load scenes from random encounters and sieges just trying to get anyplace where it can literally take 30 minutes to travel from point A to point B, most of which is spent staring at load screens. While I think most of us accept load screens are a fact of life, the game seems designed to inflict as many on us as possible when a workaround for needless load screens (like NOT going into encounters/sieges when you have no intention of clearing them) would be so very simple. Then there's the needlessly slow speed of refining crafting materials - so slow in fact, that I was spending 20 hours per week just watching the yellow bar go from left to right, to the point where I bought a second account JUST to deal with my refining needs. Speaking of tedium and waste, the entire gear-crafting system is designed to cost a player dozens upon dozens of hours and hundreds of thousands of gold worth of effort in order to get temporary items that degrade far too quickly and are never exactly what you want due to extremely poor RNG implementation. The entire crafting system is a giant cash sink, playing as an artisan requires you be an adventurer first, it can't sustain itself due to exorbidant fuel costs which can't be obtained any other way.

    In summary, its quality of life features that are missing. A reasonable fast travel system. Spending a million xp to speed up refining should actually speed it up in a noticeable way. For god's sake, let us skip the stupid encounters/sieges we have no intention of clearing - paying to skip them is not a fix, its another slap in the face. Id say my typical play session is 75% tedium and 25% fun. I can accept a bit of tedium as a necessity but grinding to pay my taxes and watching progress bars and load screens it not long term sustainable 'fun' gameplay.


    - What can be done to make this game more appealing to your friends?
    Remove the tedium - the time you spend in this world should be fun, and engaging, not frustrating.
    Remove XP decay and let the natural softcap curve do what it is designed to do
    Speed up progress bars for gathering and refining
    Remove RNG completely from crafting, replace with increased material costs / ingredients to achieve desired bonuses.
    Allow harvesting of all reagents and fuels at a reasonable 'per hour' rate - create a market for these items and reduce dependency on NPC; allows low-lvl to contribute to the economy
    To compensate for decrease in cash sinks - Make NPCs stop having infinite money to buy rusty junk; put profitability into the crafting sphere. If players don't want to craft,selling scrap to a crafter becomes the new faucet.

    Also, stop shoving PvP down our throats. There are far better, designed-with-PvP-as-a-core-mechanic games out there ,if that's what we want to play. The opt-in, consensual gank fest is sufficient - everyone who wants to PvP, can PvP with each other as much as they want. Stop with the special bonuses and forced multiplayer pvp nonsense - stop with the quests in PvP zones - it doesn't improve PvP, it just means people who aren't interested must avoid those zones entirely or suffer being antagonized to try and achieve a non-PvP related goal. More "victims" does not equal a better PvP system. Make PvP meaningful for its own sake, instead of something that PvErs have to 'put up with', and you'll find a lot of us will be more inclined to participate. The new stuff I'm hearing about coming up in R55 is a good start in this direction.

    The two main questions I'm asked when trying to entice people to come play this are "do I have to deal with pvp BS" and "how grindy is it?" You can see why the answers to these questions don't paint Sota in the best light.


    - What went wrong and how can we fix it?


    Adjust spawns, xp, loot, in every scene, to make them lucrative.
    With the outskirts, we don't need a million t1/t2/t3/t4 scenes anymore. After about 50 hours in, anything under T5 is pretty much a waste of time, particularly for someone trying to earn producer XP.

    Instead of constantly reviewing scenes and skills to figure out how we can slow players down (particularly the top 1%, who will not be slowed) instead focus on bringing less played scenes (and skills) up to par.

    The biggest frustration I hear in my circles is that the door constantly gets slammed in their face. They could nearly do something, and suddenly, because the frontrunning elite have been farming the crap out of it, by the time they got strong enough to do it, its been nerfed to uselessness. Players who took time away from the game, come back after 6 months and find that their usual stomping ground is now impossible, as players keep getting weaker and slower with each successive patch. What are they likely to do? Log off.....

    I know that we have to find balance and I appreciate the tireless efforts in this direction. And balance is important, but it shouldn't be at the cost of 'fun'. People always ask where's the best place to get X, because they need hundreds of it, and actually going out and getting it, is not 'fun' - its grindy, and as a result, they want to get it over with as quickly and efficiently as possible.

    Instead of having players consume all their time doing their "job" - we need alternative advancement, titles, achievements, things to unlock and alternative progression. Reward players for their time spent here in small but meaningful ways. For example, after I've picked my 1000th cotton bush, give me an achievement that increase beetle find by 1%. After I've mined my 10,000th ore, you think I'd be better at spotting those secondary metals like nickel & tin. Achievements - and completionism - can add years to someone's playtime and give us so very many other things to work on.
     
  6. Birko

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    Just create.
     
  7. Aetrion

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    My biggest issues with SOTA are:

    1. I like playing mages and mages in SOTA just don't feel satisfying to play. You simply don't feel like you're the heavy artillery in the party because those slow to cast, big payoff spells just aren't there. Even a lot of the top tier spells that look impressive just don't do enough damage, and seem to be geared toward mobile casting rather than group support. Having such a high emphasis on running while casting also makes the glyph system seem like the mage gameplay was designed for people with three hands. It's endlessly frustrating to see people with weapons regularly hit triple digit damage while your spells barely crit for that much.

    2. The game dilutes the mechanical identity of characters way too much. Right now the only thing that really defines a character is the two specialization choices. I don't necessarily want a harder skill cap, but there just need to be more long term choices that are mutually exclusive to each other to make characters actually feel like they have a unique role. I can't stand it when anyone can just turn into anything with a simple gear change, it kills the mechanical side of roleplaying. There is no payoff to trying to play a specific kind of character if everyone can do the same things you can do by just swapping decks and items.

    3. The game encourages repetitive grinding over continuous exploration. Nothing in this game encourages you to wander around and explore zones, all the big payouts and XP gains are predictably in the same places at all times. With all the places you can visit the game could reward you for going somewhere different every day through randomly generated quests, special spawns (both mobs and resources), daily zone bonuses, hidden treasures, random events etc. but instead it's just a waste of time to not just hit the areas that are considered good for grinding.
     
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  8. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    - why are you, as a (former?) Ultima / Garriott fan and backer not interested in SotA anymore?
    1. I am still a huge Ultima fan, but have certainly lost interest in playing SotA for the past few months. After completing the main story line and most of the side quests, I feel like there is really nothing left for me to do. Plus, the side quests that are in game are often broken, or non-intuitive making them needlessly annoying. Finding quests can also be a challenge. I like the sparkling wave, but on the overworld map it gets a bit ridiculous. Then, even when you complete quests it doesn't update on your journal or the sparkling locations on the map. This is frustrating.
    2. The game is very grind intensive, which I really hate. The grind could be made bearable if there was an actual goal at the end of the grind. Currently, I do not feel that there is any real reward other than just grinding for the sake of grinding. I have stayed away from crafting because every attempt to make something is SO labor intensive and grindy. I really admire those crafters who make some of these items because I know how insanely hard it was for them to do so.
    3. Lore of the game is really limited and not explained well at all. This was such a great part of the Ultima genre, reading books and scrolls and learning little tidbits here and there about Britannia and the world around you. Some of this does exist, but it is really limited or too cryptic to make any sense. I am thrilled when I find a scroll or book in runic, only to translate it and it's nonsense or an Easter egg for the Cthulhu mythos. Don't get me wrong, I love Cthulhu but it would have been cooler if it was some type of lost Obisidan lore!
    4. Taxes. Taxes are way too high and again, just add an extra grind element to the game. Although I am relatively unaffected by taxes due to my TF lots, it is a deterrent to new and more casual players. The game should be fun, not another mindless grind. It ends up feeling like a job and I already have a job.
    5. Constant combat "balancing" and limitless skill system. I can understand the appeal to be the best in every skill, but to me it is not fun. I never wanted to use magic at all, but in order to be viable you simply have to invest for resistance buffs alone. I hate this and disagree with those that say it isn't necessary. To add insult to injury, the constant nerfing, balancing, re-tooling, whatever you want to call it absolutely ruins the game for me. Every time it happens I feel like I wasted hours getting my character skilled up properly. Why is this so difficult to fix? Oh wait, maybe it's because you can literally become an uber god/goddess by min/maxing every skill.
    - Why are you, even though you are playing, not happy with the game?
    1. I am currently not playing other than to pay my taxes and collect "Oracle Welfare".
    - What can be done to make this game more appealing to your friends?
    1. I have gotten four people to buy SotA and none of them play the game anymore. Their issues are similar to the ones I expressed above, but also that combat isn't fun, quests are confusing, high barrier to entry and confusing gameplay. Even though I have tried to get them to come back, they play for a few hours and then quit shortly after. The last time my friend Greg and I played together, he basically said, "Dude, I have no idea what or why I am doing these things. The quests just don't make any sense. Let's play Divinity Original Sin!"
    - What went wrong and how can we fix it?
    1. I really do love this game but I feel there were a couple of things that continue to add frustration. The first, as mentioned above, is the constant balancing and nerfing of combat and skills. This has caused me no end of aggravation and has been cause of many a break from the game. I can fully appreciate that a limitless skill system is cool in theory, but is untenable in the long run. Those players who have the time and interest will always min/max their way into the best builds under a system like this. Hence the constant nerfs we continually see, now it's Meteor Shower. Tomorrow it's going to be something else. It doesn't make any sense and creates a situation where you will ALWAYS be re-balancing the game. This is why I truly believe their needs to be a skill cap and better way to specialize within certain skill sets. Not only would this make balancing easier, but would allow for a more intuitive system for players. I still don't truly understand how to build out my character (other than get everything to 80) and I've been around since 2014!
    2. Forum Moderation. I truly feel forum moderation got to the point where any dissent was viewed as an attack against Portalarium, resulting in bans and deleted posts. This is really unfortunate, since negative feedback can be valuable in fixing what is wrong. How is being a sycophant helpful when we can all agree there are a number of problems that need to be fixed? Respectful discourse should be encouraged not limited to only what people want to hear! I would truly like to see a forum where all people are welcome to give feedback, without the worry of being banned from the forums or the game. This is not to say that offensive language or trolling should be allowed, but rather a true "forum" where ideas can be argued and discussed, respectfully.
    3. Player Owned Towns. No offense to anyone who owns a POT, I live in two of them myself, but there are way too many of these things. I can fully appreciate that these were a major source of revenue for Portalarium, but they are everywhere with many being complete ghost towns. So much time was devoted to the implementation of these things that I feel a lot of features that should have been focused early on (Story and Quests) got pushed to the wayside. The problem is exactly what we are seeing now, really buggy, non-intuitive, broken quests that should have been finished months ago. Moving forward, if there is an Episode 2 (and I REALLY hope their is) POTs need to be limited to a specific amount and not just "willy nilly" all over the map.

    In conclusion, I would simply like to add that I dearly care for this game and continue to hope for it's long term success. I have made some wonderful friends here, some of whom I have met in real life and others who I have chatted with across the globe. What a travesty it would be to lose those relationships due to player burnout or worse! It is my utmost hope that positive changes are made in the future and that we all learn from the mistakes of the past. Thanks for listening, goodnight and good luck!
     
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2018
  9. Bubonic

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    Very well spoken, and I agree with almost all of your points here.

    I'm one of the few that has been holding out for offline... but it is worth noting that I wasn't always planning on playing offline.

    I had loads of plans, spreading pubs throughout the land, and living a virtual life in (new) Britannia for many years.

    But I was completely turned off from online play for all the reasons you listed above, plus...
    • the lack of brewing (can't really have a pub if you can't brew beer, right?)
    • NPC towns turning into a carnival sideshow
    • loads of non-lore decorations and costumes
    • the horrible organization of Lot Selection
    • full wipe coming over a year before launch
    • lack of any organized community events (aside from dance parties, of course)
    • the steady stream of asset store assets, at the expense of original lore-based content (like more varied monsters and creatures)

    Well, I could go on, I suppose. But you get the point.
     
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  10. Gravidy

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    This is your own perspective, but that doesn't mean it's universal. Mine is quite different. I have 100s of hours in, and I get demolished in most T3 scenes and certainly anything beyond that.

    I disagree that the "soft-cap" works. I think a hard-cap would lead to a much better game-design through more meaningful choices and decisions.

    Aside from that, I think your post is absolutely terrific! I simply can't "like" it enough :).
     
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  11. Paulie Walnuts

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    @Cordelayne you can just speak for me going forward. I agree with nearly everything you just said and I could add a few obvious things outside of that.
     
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2018
  12. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    Lol, thanks Paulie, but I think you should expand on the things you could add. Even if it is obvious or repetitive, it can only help further the conversation. :)
     
  13. Tailz

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  14. Paulie Walnuts

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    @Cordelayne A lot of it just pertains to early game confusion, bugs, and making people hungry to move forward instead look around and slowly back out. I think a lot of the points you mention hit on that.

    To avoid just complaining, here are several suggestions I have as well.

    For new players, they need to be stoked about the next task right off the hop. Meaning clear concise quest journal that walks them through getting started. As well as a bug free story to accompany the tutorial that ramps up right as the tutorial ends to venture out into Novia and beyond. At this point (out of the first scene) they should be knowledgeable enough to understand how to play their character what where to go to grow. Quests and journal have to be on point going forward so they can jump off the quest line at any time and free play without fear of getting lost and not being able to jump back on track to continue the story to the next tier of zones. Is this hand holding? Probably. I don't know if that fits into the spec that LB is really going for. But I feel like it's pretty important these days if you want a new generation of MMO gamers.

    Loot. I would argue a lot of people, if not most, have no problems grinding if they know there's a chance they can get something unique and useful. Right now, there's an element of that, but it's not enough. Consider putting low level uniques out there for the new people coming in. Whether it be for completing quests or a drop, just a little something special that can help a new player feel accomplished and stronger can go a long way in generating interest to keep moving forward. But it does have to be useful, not just stuff. In the mid tiers you can start making items that are unique to different enemy classes (I.E. reapers, Vrul) which should encourage newer players to start exploring more to find those enemies, and late game mobs and bosses can drop their own unique items/crafting materials forcing players to any part of the map you wish and to work in groups. Also, keep in mind, people don't want a bag full of a bunch of crappy loot items. They want useful items. (Salvageable, sales value, ETC.) Is this hand holding and giving too much? Maybe. I don't know if that fits into the spec that LB is really going for either. But I feel like this is also important these if you want a new generation of MMO gamers.

    Combat and skills. Combat is too slow in my opinion. Turn up the draw speed, reduce global cooldowns (or just remove them), or just rework it. Having to pay so much attention to what's popping up and when can be distracting from the actual fighting especially if you don't know how to build a deck that eliminates some of that. Regardless, fighting things feels slow and flat. By flat I mean there's no satisfaction when you land a crit, or really when you're hitting something in general. It just feels like an animation and a cooldown for most skills. For skills overall, I'm not opposed to a skill cap of some sort that a lot of people have mentioned. If you want true specializations, then that's what you have to do IMO. If one person can do everything, that hurts the point of grouping other than leeching. Where's the fun in that? But for solo purposes, being able to do everything sure is nice. I don't have a staunch opinion on skill caps or not. I can modify my game play for either as long as it stays fun.

    I do agree that the pay wall to a new player is a huge turn off and intimidating for housing. When people see those huge dollar amounts for that stuff they usually scoff. I know I did when I first started playing. It wasn't until I learned that you can play and trade for things at a much deeper discount in discord and on the forums that I started being able to create goals that were realistic for me. That took some time and up until then I nearly gave up hope for acquiring land without dropping a lot of coin. It's still not cheap, but it's obtainable through game play. However, that's not obvious to new players coming in. All they see is what's on the front page and go OMG. Going free to play after the game has been fully polished may not be a bad idea. It would certainly help justify the price of some things in the add-on store.

    I think nostalgia plays a lot on why people were/are interested in investing and diving head first into this game, and I don't think that's completely crazy. Nostalgic aspects can be implemented and help fill that void all while creating new things to be nostalgic about down the road. Part of that nostalgia for me was making friends (or bringing friends into the game), getting together with those friends and doing things together because it meant something. It either meant going out and conquering something that you couldn't alone (monsters and quests). Or just having strength in numbers for survival against other players (PvP). But there was always a good reason and reward for it and there was always competition whether it be between friends or against others. But in Shroud, I pretty much play by myself and the only real reason to being a guild or a group is for social purposes IMO. That's really a shame. Gotta figure out group play. Upper Tears and the LFG system is a good example of something that brings people together. We need that all over the world, not just a few places. It's possible that a cap could help with this. But if you go skill caps, EXP decay has to be gone.


    TL/DR: Fix the game for new players to journey from start to finish with minimal bugs with clarity, and give them enough along the way to learn and get excited about what's around the corner. We now have a nice reason/reward for completing the story line. So now make it fun, engaging, educational, and rewarding in between.
     
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2018
  15. blaquerogue

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    My suggestion to the devs @Lord British, @DarkStarr anyone else in the dept. that was part of that game and people that have suggestions Is...…………… Take a trip back in time look at what made UO last so long! I understand not all people loved all the mechanics in UO, but that game lasted for a very long time! Longer than most games of this type genre.

    here are some of the reasons I was part of UO

    -customization #1 house building deco etc...

    -hard cap to define who you were, mage, rogue, healer ect…. (ive said this a 100 times this is number 101) the skills we have now make sense for a single player game, but not a multiplayer one. Each character/person you meet in in multi should be unique in their skills, and needed for their skills in a group!

    -Fishing and sea adventures (creatures treasures etc,..) got many people to work together! It was also really enjoyable and felt rewarding when you got stuff from it.
    -There were differences between caves and dungeons (example Dungeons typically run under main buildings to get to them you had to conquer what was above it first, caves and caverns are caves and caverns, which you had to conquer what was outside of them to get too.)

    -PVP was great, I PVP'd people to get what they had, or put them on a shelf by handing all that nice crap over to the lowbie they just ganked. There were rewards for players heads! If you "murdered people" you automatically become red to me if I was blue (which told me that that red was a bad dude and was killable without consequence! If I was blue.) the flip side is your an evil "murderer" and you saw an innocent blue and could kill them to keep your "evil Status" and rep, one last note on this ...Open world I think should be PVP! Single/party is for people that want to party together without the worry of a "real world".
    -Dev rescue When you were stuck you could call a GM to unstuck you, and sometimes the GMs themselves would hang out with people and give advice and hold events to keep the online community excited about what comes next.

    -Resources and crafting! UO had it right from the start, any tree, any rock any creature was harvestable, and had decent amounts of resource so crafters could ply their trade efficiently (you had a choice from the start what kind of crafter you were going to be but you had to make a choice. This jack of all trades is stupid!) Skill development while crafting was done absolutely right as well! If I chop a tree or mined ore I built strength, if I harvest herbs it built Dex, and intelligence, if I made potions I increased defense of poisons, and or focus. If I blacksmith it built str, if I did carpentry it build dex and int! All this is missing from this game! (keep in mind I hate crafting to begin with but I still see this fixes that are needed!)

    -Quest lines, My god people clean that up on all angles, I like to know where the hell im going and who I need to talk too and some quests are so long some people lose interest in it!

    -More character customization!!! More hair more body types more colors etc...….(you guys are way behind on this)

    -Melee skills - light weapons build dex & str, casting spells build focus, heavy weapons build strength, Wearing heavy armor makes you stronger, wearing light increases dex so much of this you devs have ignored!

    These are some of the elementary issues with this game! Port has the means to make it happen even with the layoffs! No one knows what the real issues are only what we are told..if your running out of money, lower prices on add on store get yourself a constant flow of usable cash, when the game get up to par (which it is not at the moment) then think of overhead.

    Team up with known video games and company's out there with cross overs and specials.

    Since leaving UO I feel like the people making this game went from, High speed excitement to retirement home! This game is boring too much repetitive stuff, with no decent rewards, everyone can do everything (boring) So the question that needs to be asked to Port, are you ready to throw in the towel, or are you going to come out fighting to keep up with whats out there already and what is to come???? Serious question there! The game could be so much better if you guys look back on what your accomplishments were in the past and capitalize on that!

    Right now I feel im being pushed away from this game instead of drawn into it, Has nothing to do with PVP or PVE, just the game as a whole!! Im trying so hard to stay with this game, its hard at times not to just say screw it im done with it!

    For those of you that hated UO, pick a game you really enjoyed in the past and post your ideas on making the game better based on your favorite games!
     
    Bambino, Cordelayne, Aberwine and 2 others like this.
  16. blaquerogue

    blaquerogue Avatar

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    I just wanted to add to this post here its right on so many levels! The pay wall/add on store. Honestly if I want to get something like deeds and houses, I tend to find other players that sell it cheaper, prices are way high! So the money you could be getting from players is actually going to other players and not the company! So no money going back into the company to make the game better.
     
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  17. Pikegirl

    Pikegirl Avatar

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    - why are you, as a (former?) Ultima / Garriott fan and backer not interested in SotA anymore?

    First off, it's not Ultima Online so there's no comparison.

    To make things clear, I love supporting early access games and Kickstarter projects, and have kept my character and deeds intact in Novia. But the Devs here seem more intent on milking the game, than making a deep and fun experience for more players to try.

    - Why are you, even though you are playing, not happy with the game?


    I used to play a lot; ran a community Quest line with live players for months, went on the game's local radio for an interview, and made my own fun basically. Spending 1500+ hours and about 2 years in SotA, ample time was given for improvements and such.

    The game did change. But it didn't improve much.

    SotA is marketed as a sandbox MMO, but yet has many restrictions that prevent it from being truly one. The mechanics don't stack organically, and fail to work as a sum of all parts which most sandboxs do, good ones at least.

    During my spare time, I design my own sandbox games, and the terms that come to mind for me to describe SotA is clunky, inelegant, and close-minded.

    - What can be done to make this game more appealing to your friends?

    Not every player behaves like me, and spend their own time to create fun out of a mess like this, so please look at making the game fun and appealing from the get-go.

    200, 300, or heck make it a thousand players do not make an MMO. Stats do not lie, so the Devs should look long and hard at themselves and change positively.

    - What went wrong and how can we fix it?

    The Devs. Period. SotA's base game is already clunky and inelegant with a super small player base, yet they think of going forward with Episode 2.

    There's a problem with their professional decision priority that only they can answer.

    To me, they need to take more pride in making SotA good instead of whatever goes (as long as the monthly Telethons work etc), and don't commit game "bloat" with Episode 2 until the foundation is strong and at least 10k players are inside playing the game that is.


    TL: dr

    If you wanna make a game for 100 players, go start a private server or something. If not, admit that there is a problem and work together with the community to solve it.
     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2018
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  18. mass

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    I am a royal founder 2013 kickstarter backer and backed based on my experience with the single player ultimas and also enjoy some MMOs. I continue to play as I have some long term goals for my character that I have not achieved yet and I'm still enjoying working towards those goals. Lot's of great feedback in this thread. I do think, though, that many of us need to accept what will not change before we can focus on what can.

    1. RMT. I was shocked when I discovered RMT would be allowed and was very much against it. This should have been more clearly disclosed at the kickstarter. However, the genie has been let out of the bottle. I don't think they can ever back track on this policy. If you have zero tolerance for RMT, there's not much point in trying to make the game great, because this will always be a non-starter for you.

    That being said, they can manage this policy by lowering the priority of protecting the value of in game assets compared other game priorities. In game asset value should never be prioritized above fun, accessibility, and appeal to new players. They have wisely moved in this direction some by making regular vendors more functional and making deed ownership more accessible. They should continue this direction to address some of the 'grindiness' of the game. RMT thrives when content is a) not fun; and b) too time consuming; and c) yields a reward perceived to be needed for enjoyment of the game. RMT will always exist, but if the game is fun and accessible, few will feel the need to participate in it. Putting lockout timers on some content so that you are guaranteed a reward but can only access that content monthly or so would help distribute rewards away from hardcore grinders looking to sell those objects for real money.

    2. Soft caps. This is a core design feature. I like the idea that I can continue to progress my character independent of gear grind. There is a problem or real or perceived (perhaps some of both) of runaway character advancement for hardcore players that makes the game unappealing to new players and casual players. Devs should continue to attack both the reality and perception of this problem. However, it is very unlikely this mechanic will completely go away.

    3. Lack of specialization. I like being independent and being able to do everything myself; it's one of the core reasons I continue to play. I do think that specialization can occur naturally in this system by providing better rewards for extremely high skill levels in both adventuring and crafting. I only have so much xp, so if there's a few things to craft or a special skill to unlock after having brought another skill to 150, that will create de facto specialization for me, in the near term. I need to perceive, though, that if I play the game for another 5 years, I can get it all. There should be very few people 'getting it all'.

    4. Combat (heat/deck building). I dislike hotbar combat generally. However, SOTA is at least more engaging than other MMOs that have 'a rotation' where you learn the most effect combination of skills and press the same buttons over and over again. Combat would greatly benefit from finding more ways to make position, movement, and strategy important. I want people to be able to solo bosses because 1) they are just awesome at the combat system and can do things most others can't; or 2) they've spent the time to build a character that can simply over power the boss with moderate combat skills (I would be in the latter group). Both groups should be a minority of the player base.

    Those are some issues that I think we sort of need to acknowledge can't be scrapped at this point; we can only improve them. I think they can be improved. But here's where I get a little negative:

    Story/quest/journal/lore etc.
    In my mind, this is the greatest failing of the game, and I'm frankly surprised that this aspect never gelled. Here's where I would say scrap and start over. Now that the world is largely built, the quest chains can be much better visualized. You can more intelligently pace the story, create multiple paths for quest completion, create better choices, and quite frankly, introduce higher quality ideas, writing, and story telling mechanics. I still can't recommend the game to friends because the story is not worthwhile and on top of it, is buggy and doesn't integrate well with the gameplay mechanics.

    I would say take an entire quarter and remap all the quests, rewrite the stories, integrate more locations, add overt and subtle lore, and create some memorable characters that we empathize with, love to hate, love to love, or passionately want to defeat. There are no deep, well written characters present in the story. What's currently in place is simply inadequate for the LB brand.

    My last comment about 'what went wrong': communication. The kickstarter painted some broad strokes and seemed to offer everything to everyone. Things were not expressed in enough detail for potential backers to have a clear vision on what was planned for PVP, RMT, sieges, trade routes, etc. In the future, try to be as explicit as possible about what you intend to develop as features so that everyone can enter eyes wide open.
     
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  19. Kyri

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    - What can be done to make this game more appealing to your friends?

    Increase rate that skill use draws from your experience pool.
    I'm okay with this game mechanic, but it adds a lot of grind and takes away from my enjoyment of the game.
    Challenge: Lord British Livestream leveling Summon Lich from 80 to 100. I'll even throw him a safe word: Carpel-Tunnel-Syndrome


    - What went wrong and how can we fix it?


    *MARKETING!*


    1) YouTube search for Gary Vaynerchuk to learn about current state digital marketing.
    I only learned about this game via word of mouth and never saw a single FB add for it.

    2) Here's a prime example of a negative Shroud review that was viewed 258K times.


    Typical "reviews" these days involve a charismatic person recording himself playing a game for the first time without reading a wiki, forum, or game manual and you can see these reviewers quickly clicking the red X to close the in game tutorials windows.
    5 second attention spans aren't going to read lengthy in-game textbooks, period.
    Result: the reviewers think they're playing a Wow-like game with global cool-downs, tab targeting, boring combat, and the subscribers that like/trust the reviewer aren't even going to try the game during a free trial.

    Solution:
    Most gamers spend their time focused on combat, so don't lead with player driven, crafting-based economy unless your trying to wean people off of Ambien.
    When you interview for a job, they don't hire you first then invest the time getting to learn what differentiates you while on the job.
    Shroud needs to highlight what it does differently and/or well. A tag-line of appeals to retro-gamers is absolute rubbish. If that's the only thing it's got, why should I play this instead of UO, Pool of Radiance, or even Super Mario Brothers?
    Differentiators: Glphys! Stacking! Dynamic Decks! Combo Glyphs! Attunement! Ability Scaling!
    Challenge: Find a single YT vid outside the Shroud community where any of the above is showcased - I couldn't

    A high profile Shroud person could connect with YouTube stars and literally show them how Shroud is NOT like other games
    Incentive the choir (existing core players) to *help* produce some YT vids highlighting Shroud's strengths. Good YT vids have high production values. Ask them to submit videos for content to Shroud and hire a professional marketing firm to apply the polish.
    Overhaul the in game tutorial system to show the best features up front.
    i.e. you could have a tutorial arena where players can choose from and play around with lvl 40 characters with mixed static and dynamic decks and demonstrate stacking etc.
    Brick and Mortars hold Grand Re-Openings all the time after they figure out what they hell they are, what the hell they are trying to sell, who they are trying to sell to, and how much they can sell for - Answer these questions, tweak the product, and Schedule a Re-Launch
     
  20. Despothes2

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    Make the game fun. If I was into grindcore I'd play some Korean crap.
     
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