simple math :-)

I used to think this, but after I watched that youtube video of the guy soloing all the dragons and his build wasn't that much more exotic than most people's in UT that I see, I was like oh wow. I mean he was close to killing the practice targets...

 

Right, but which dragon? There are different level difficulties of dragons. Also, what was his adventure level?

 

I watched him solo the Southern Grunvald Barrens Dragon and the Clockwork Dragon. Not sure, he didn't type /stats but he had around 1100 hp, maybe less. And he never got in trouble it was like, all spinning around with just 2 unlocked glyphs

 

Ok, fine. That just confirms my point that the game is too easy, not too hard.

 

Well, for new players it's actually intimidating. But for experienced players, I can see where the issues are now pretty clearly. It took me about 3 months of solo play to exhaust it and I only have time to play on weekends mainly, sometimes on weeknights. And I knew from pre-alpha that doing things with guild or groups accelerated your progress vs going alone. I do have to hand it to the players that have persevered to 100 GMs lol, it's uh, amusing. But I totally get the addiction.

The question is really whether this is okay or not or if things are kinda broken.

 

I fully agree. Great summary!

 

We started in August and Drizz was soloing sieges in November. We were a bit confused at first but not at all intimidated. How are people intimidated?

 

I'm not talking about you Alleine, you're not a normal player. You're an enthusiast. I'm talking about casuals that don't know about this game yet ( talked to a few more today ) or how it's systems work or how to play it. You know, the people we can't seem to retain judging from the steam numbers.

Also, sorry I didn't say hi in upper tears the other day. I didn't notice you said hi because the chat log got buried - another issue newer players need help with.

 

I think the quest system overhaul will help with that. That guidance plus some UI enhancements should solve a lot of the confusion people have.

 

Intimidated is the wrong work. SOTA is frequently tedious and obtuse. One example the interface is overly complicated without reason. Compare an Apple computer to a PC. The Apple will give you one mouse button and create an interface enabling you to create complex music. The PC will give you a mouse with 20 buttons and create an interface using all 20 buttons to create complex music.

Consider some games such as Overwatch. The depth of combat and strategies is incredibly skill based and competitive yet uses two or three mouse buttons and a few keypresses. Eve is arguably the most complex game ever created. Yet the interface is less complicated than SOTA.

In SOTA a locked combat bar with the heat system is a good system for combat. An unlocked combat bar with random skills popping up, trying to do combos, in a 3d environment while conducting PVE or PVP combat is far more frequently a button mash. The combat is not elegant, intuitive, or primarily based upon tactics and skill. The winner is determined by whom is most accustomed to the tedious interface, has the best gear, highest levels, and build of the day.

I've frequently seen spreadsheets with algorithms thousands of characters long. After using the calculation for a while, patterns emerge where you begin to realize one or two variables within the long algorithm are actually what is determining the result. Everything else is cancelling out and the result depends upon two variables. On the surface a beginner would be "wowed" when they see the extremely long mathematical equation used to output a result. An expert will see the long algorithm realize 99% of it is fluff and know the same results could be obtained using two variables with a 256 character algorithm.

SOTA needs more elegant design not more tediousness.

 

and how did you do that?
Alone? never!
with support beeing pulled by other highlevels i guess. Well thats the problem, some like grind and this gameplay, but A LOT dont like grind and this sort of gameplay.
see the player numbers shrinking, see the staff is reduced, see the double telethons, see the subscription plans... they need money they need players and what they delivered only pleases a very few of hardcore fans
and as long as these pay and keep sota going they adapt to the income and just keep servers running as long as they get any profit out of it.
See EP2 Stretchgoals, i'd bet the goal wont be reached and the money i gone to maintain what we have, but no big or huge improvements or gameplay changes.
the fans have to recognize that what they like and play is not what the majority of backers want to play, they left, thousands of them are gone, because SotA developed step by step into the wrong directions.
1st lost the SP Fans, lost the PvP fans, lost the Sandbox players who liked interdependecies of UO.
the only players that satay are those with lots of money involved maybe doing RMT and the hardcore grind people who like dumb repetetive gameplay to relax. No insult, i like it sometimes too for 2hrs maybe once or twice a month, but the game is designed that you need to like this 24/7 more or less. UT hasn't that changed imho.
Its the same more or less than mage room, Dragons Slaying in a row or Mining all day long.
Thats not Sandbox gameplay, thats timesink stuff.

 

Nowadays it takes very little time to get your skills to 80 by yourself.

In single player its even easier because gear and money is much easier to come by and everything is only half as hard.

They say the storyline takes 40 hours to complete which is shorter than alot of games. Once its done, boom, you have a house. What’s not casual friendly about that

 

I was unable to complete the story without help. Some quests were bugged. I believe some quests are still bugged (looking at you geistesser). Some difficulty curves were too steep (I was unable to help free the soldier from the kobolds on the path of courage). Several times I had to watch videos for 10-20 minutes just to figure out what I was supposed to do (my first steps into the caverns of skrekk, I was slaughtered by a T5 spider, and after I watched a 10 minute video, I realized that I could just run past the spiders, and the goal was 20 feet around the corner). I did manage to complete the 3 paths on my own (with a bunch of internet searching and video watching). As well as collect the first 2 or 3 pages on the path of the oracle (again, searching for videos on how to access the areas in the PVP zones via underground passages as I did not want to risk the pvp zones). At this point, I was scooped up by a guild (Jade Dragons), and was whisked through the rest of the story in a single evening by 2 high-level players (adventure level 100+). They had completed the story many, many times (helping guild members get their shrouds), and knew exactly where to go, and exactly what to do for each step of the way. I'd say that I put in a good 20-30 hours of gamepllay prior to that, and finishing on my own would have easily taken double that. That is, of course, if it was even possible to solo tho obsidian forge. Even with 2 high level helpers, we failed at the forge a good 4 or 5 times before I was able to complete that step. I'd (personally) hardly call the story casual friendly. The house is nice though.

 

The special instance it puts you into for the forge quest should not have respawning monsters.

In contrast, having never done the story, when i did it at launch the only part i couldnt figure out was giving samael time to grieve. So the need to look up how to do things is not universal.

In single player, the difficulty of the entire game is cut in half.

 

OK, so in our sample set of 2 players: 1 entirely new to the game, 1 (I'm guessing) experienced with the game, but new to the quest-line, we have a 50% success rate.

I've been playing the game for 3-4 months now, and I've learned a bit. I've learned that if you read patch notes in their entirety, you get clues. If you search for videos you might get answers (videos are not so common, and frequently out-dated). I've tried the story again in offline mode (my first stumble through was in online, multiplayer, as I had not even discovered that setting at that point). It is much easier having gone through them once (except the ones that appear to be bugged, still looking at you geistesser). The companions in offline mode also help quite a bit (had to search for the location of the companion of love as I had never encountered her naturally in multiplayer mode).
But all of this is objective. It was hard for me, it was not hard for you. If steps were taken to remove hurdles (for players that struggle, like myself) would that make the game unplayable (not fun, too easy) for players such as yourself?
What about other features that I would label "not casual friendly"? How do you feel about the state of the following?

• Having to read patch notes to find new content (nothing within the game itself leads you to new quests, re-worked zones, new emotes, etc...)
  • This one is even worse for new players trying to discover things that were introduced before they started. Having to read old patch notes to find out if zone might have content they have any interest in.
• No explanation of how systems work (thinking specifically of XP pools, settings on individual skills, and adventure / producer levels)
• No explanation of how music works within the game.
• Combat deck building tutorial is a wall of text (that I skipped in favor of internet searching).
• No explanation (in game) for how the housing system works (houses, deeds, lots, lot-types, town-types, decoration placement, rent).

I can see people that grew up with the game taking these things for granted. You've watched them evolve from nothing, you understand them. But what can you point new players to, to help them understand?

 

The manual (available on the main page under “About”) covers alot of that.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z-svq1OvcZwViqGxFCKdjH3NCn2LTfLuGny5qaAqjTM/pub#h.p61sqmppdj77

Having played a long time i did know where the towns and scene’s the quests directed me to were. Other than that, i just read journal entries and talked to npc’s to figure stuff out.

 

Level 80 is lowlevel and a Row is nice.
Where is sandbox gameplay , where are traderoutes, why i cant pvp and have a chance only because i dont grind 24/7 oh sorry "put the effort in and work" instead of playing.
Where is that casual friendly if i'm doomed to be allways on the low end if everything?
Counter question, why does anyone think playing an unhealthy out of time every day makes him stronger in a game and able to own all and everything.
Whats that sort of an outdatet and lame gamedesign what only love some hundred players instead of 10the of thousands of players or even Millions that play hard cap games where everybody after some time can contribute into all aspects of a game at the same level of strength.
This bs meritocracy Systems with power disparities and no intwrdependcies and all that are just bad gamedesign and therefore very few people like SotA.
It's not Grafik , Heck i am SWG Emu atm, because the sandbox is well setup.
It's not Performance, load times , Gui, Decksystem it's :
No caps, no interdependencies , huge power disparities , grind, grind grind
Prices for Housing and RMT
This is what keeps players away! !!

If they dont change that drastically i'm glad if these developers vanish into thin Air and only Code some mobile or Facebook games, because they just didnt learn their lessons.

The concept of Selective MP failed.
SP failed
MMORPG failed.
Just that simple.

 

And exactly this isnt really fun, or?
And thats the point.

 

Drizzt may be completely soloing them, and he might be a mage... but to say soloing the rest of it is impossible in that timeframe is a bit of a stretch. I'm (for the most part) a pure archer build, started from scratch at launch (r52), and I can solo the sieges themselves, if not the Cabalists themselves (only one I can actually manage solo is Corpus). I am a mostly solo player, only very recently rolling with some friends in UT (*bows to the Drunken Elders in thanks*), and was able to manage the Ebon cultists long before that.

 

I submit. I did not even know this game had a manual. I'm too used to my casual games that build the knowledge into the game itself. I will stop now. The game is casual-friendly enough.