The Hard Questions & Ideas

No, no, no, no... You don't get my point here. If you do nothing, you are open to attack. If you want to be safe or if you want to kill then you have to pay. The default game state is open to be killed, NOT Trammel safe.

 

And none of this "No Full Loot" crap either. Safe is safe. Not safe is not safe. None of this in between safety stuff. That is what we have today and its dull and dreary!

 

It sounds like your referencing the fact that they have a small team and are not capable of giving us the things we want. while yes they do have a small team, (and I know I very much appreciate all the hard work that teams puts into the existing game) that should not be used as a reason to not push the game to become the amazing game it can be. You won't gain large numbers of players until you do things to attract and keep large numbers of players. I manage a small team that is asked to perform the task of a team twice or three times its size but if I went to my boss and used the excused "sorry I didn't get everything done I needed to because I have a small team" would not be acceptable and I very quickly would find myself without a job. You find a way. Maybe they are focusing on the wrong things. maybe they need to better utilize their small team and small resources. I don't have all the answers because I am not there but I do know this. certain things need to happen for the game to advance and grow. period. up until now I have been resistant to these types of post because I love the game and I value and respect the devs and the hard work they do but to grow and evolve sometimes the hard questions need to be asked and the hard reality addressed. if people are not willing to do this than there is no growth or advancement and things die.

 

They might as well shut off the servers right now.

 

It's not that they can't do it. It's that they can't produce enough content at the rate it is consumed and deemed dull. Sieges? Monkey Room? Rise? UT? Users burn through that content, get bored and ask what is next. That's why people left, it got dull, nothing else to do.

I don't disrespect the development team at all, I admire what they have done. It's direction we are talking about here. Where the team has been steered to and where it being steered toward.

Hope things are going well @ShurTugal !

 

What they are currently doing with their resources looks counter-productive.

SOTA it seems, was built as a fantasy/medieval life simulator first and a PvE/PvP roleplaying game second. Maybe this was the only way to keep the game going at the time, giving people cloaks and chairs and what not to buy to fund the project.

It's had a big impact on the game though as they are now playing catch-up, probably with the majority of players, who want more and bigger PvE content and less fishing rods that look like a weapon from a Final Fantasy game or dungeon rooms. I'm not saying these things are not great, but the game needs more PvE content. Even looking at the most recent patch notes the larger sections of them are dedicated to housing, dungeon rooms and skills like fishing. Again, nothing against these being in game, but the players that see these things as the most important are in the minority generally speaking amongst players that play MMO's. Maybe they see dungeons as a way out, but you are then relying on the average player to create interesting content for you.

A hard question here is should they drop all of the life sim stuff including fishing and dungeons and housing etc (just for now) and concentrate on the core PvE game with regards to content and mechanics? I think this is the way forward to attract new players. The argument that there are different devs for different jobs so the artists might as well keep creating bows covered in ice is also not a strong one. Stop paying those guys and give that money to content creators.

I would also like to see the crafting system get a revamp to make it more accessible to players where crafting is not generally their go to system. It give them something to do when the PvE content runs out.

 

Full loot PvP is not a popular option, just look at pop levels between trammel and felucca.

Also at present PvP isn't an option without a cap on skill points as it just becomes he who has played most wins.

A cap on the number of skills would even up the field and allow new players fair access to it earlier on. At al70 I'm pretty sure I'd have no chance in PvP.

Alternatively, make scenes relative to adventure level for PvP or make the scenes scale the al level when you enter.

The combat system itself just needs tweaked to improve it, ignoring decks it's pretty much the same as all the others.

As I've said previously, decks managed and developed properly
could make it really special.

 

I tend to like the survival games (like 7 Days to Die), and having to figure out the logistics of dealing with hunger, thirst, shelter, etc. But I'm not going to assert that this is what's needed for SOTA to become a good game. This style of gameplay drives most people nuts.

If Fallout 76 suddenly went full-loot PVP, I'd probably be looking into trying to get a refund. I won't have other players disrupting my gameplay. One guy (who was 200 levels higher than me) tried, but I teleported away, and he logged off within a minute. I just don't have the patience to deal with other players' BS anymore. That said, I could probably live with committing some regular resources to achieve PVP immunity, if the rest of the gameplay was worth it.

I compartmentalize Eve, because that's where I specifically go to engage in PVP. Something something about liking pepperoni pizza and ice cream, but I don't want pepperoni on my ice cream.

 

This sums up the kinda of questionable priorities that I think a lot of us are feeling at this point.

New content, when added, tends to be aimed at a very small, elite % of hardcore players and the new 'stuff' is all but unobtainable for players who lack the sufficient level and/or refuse to change their build to the flavor of the week in order to do it. This small % consume said content, sell the rewards to the rest of the players, and then look for the Next Thing. And you're right, this is not forever-sustainable.

The reality that must be faced is there will always be a hardcore 1%. They will always devour content. They will either stick around to be kings of the world or they will outpace the content and move on. Those aren't the players we should be trying to "make happy" - - its a doomed endeavor - instead, focus on fleshing out the full game experience for everyone.
There are dozens upon dozens of empty, underutilized, "boring" scenes that are non-lucrative and other than perhaps a 1-off exploration there is no reason to ever go back to any of them. Everyone congregates in the same half dozen or so optimal scenes and does their thing - earns their money/resources/xp to continue to develop their character/real estate/personal goals.

Rather than continually push with harder and harder content that almost inevitably is "make a BIGGER dragon/spider/kobold that has more HP and hits harder and gives the same crap rewards" (that less and less people do, due to the significant grind investment required to even get there and the mediocre rewards / poor grouping incentives), it would make more sense to try and make some of the dozens and dozens of scenes we already have unique, appealing, and have replay value. Harvesting-themed scenes, such as dense forests of choppable trees, fields of reagents, mining alternatives -help support the whole "living world" and creation of "industry". NPC subgroups/factions that unlock unique titles, deco, COMPONENTS, or even SKILLS would add countless hours of lateral-advancement gameplay and could have their own in depth backstories/cultures/storylines.

A lot of this stuff could be absolutely streamlined.

I'll give an example - North Drachvald Spur was uncloned and is a beautiful scene, with temples atop plateau spires and unique aesthetics. Most people will never have any reason to go there, other than 1 low level quest. Its tier 2 or something, so, there's no reason to stick around once you've done the quest and moved on. No need to go back. Its an example of content that was added but gets consumed in 30 minutes of playtime and is done.

What if on top of one of these spires, there were some NPCs who followed some sort of ancient religious/lore/order thing that sent the player on a series of tasks that incrementally unlocked more and more things - the orders secrets, earnable titles, perhaps even modifiers to skills/techniques based on your level of achievement. They could send the player on world-spanning quests. Now consider you could put something like this in pretty much every scene, every scene could have its culture/group/faction/thing, and they can be added 1 by 1 - no need to start over ambitious. Completionism is an extremely powerful driving force particularly if there are marginal character improvements possible, since at high lvls, marginal improvement's all you've got. Yes, it would take time to do. But you could also totally get the community involved, with the new quest tools coming, have a competition for it even, and get some of the stuff implemented. Use the hundreds of creative, invested, passionate players.

There's been talk of further developing specialisations. Use the quest system - send the Earth Specialist to cleanse the forest on behalf of a sect of druids, send the death specialist to soothe the troubled dead - epic quest to cleanse every cemetery - that sort of thing. Non-specialists could still do the quests/content to unlock the rewards should they ever choose to change their specialization as well (similar to the xavara/phoenix/lich quest unlocks). Give us reasons to visit and re-visit these scenes, because there's an objective there.

Measure the character growth by the breadth of their exploration rather than the number of hours sat grinding XP.

Lastly, give a serious pass to node/mob density in ignored/underutilised scenes. Verdantis mines is a fine example of a scene that is suffering from an identity crisis. There's not enough ore to be a mine, and its too sparsley populated by critters to be a worthwhile adventure scene, and its awkward / hazardous to navigate. The only real use for it is that its one of the more favorable entrances to the Rise. Its a beautiful scene aesthetically, it just needs either 5x the ore to be called a "mine" or a lot more things in there worth killing. Or even both.

Add unique resources to specific scenes.
Coal mine, salt mine, granite mine -
Seriously consider making crafting/industry a viable activity /cash faucet - reduce emphasis on fighting/grinding.
Give people things to do for years and they will stay for years.
Imposing limits (like specialization in crafting) just means people will max out 1 thing to the most grind they can stomach and then be done. You never want people to be done! Done is bad!

 

This is fantastic feedback and I absolutely agree with everything you wrote. I was actually getting excited picturing THAT shroud. @DarkStarr. and @Chris. For what its worth there are some good ideas in this post.

 

I'm not a power player by any means but I have been here since R1. I love SotA and it's my only MMO and will (hopefully) be my last MMO I play for the rest of my life. I have loved Richard's vision from the beginning and I think we have a beautiful playable enjoyable world in which to exist. I'm baffled when people say there's nothing to do. One of the problems I have it LIMITING myself as I only have a few hours on the weekends to play ANYTHING. I have mostly enjoyed being a merchant. I have shops that specialize, I have vendors INSIDE my shop as that makes sense role playing-wise. I have also adventured a bit on my own, gathered resource, grown a garden, and on occasion taken off for grand adventures with my guild (who mostly just protect me so I can see things I would never see otherwise). And what fun all the player run events, dance parties, a church service, plays. On and on.

Having established that, there are many valuable points made in this thread. I certainly don't agree with some of them but SotA has problems. And it would be a good idea for the Devs to listen to what the players have been saying for many years. And it's my opinion that due to the extremely limited staff, they need to start from the ground up and fix what new players will be experiencing FIRST in order to KEEP those new players. That doesn't mean they shouldn't keep working forward and fixing the issues that more advanced players are experiencing. And I personally think all of this needs to be done BEFORE we get an expansion. Because working on EP2 makes it feel like these major issues in EP1 will never be fixed. And that's discouraging.

I went to the first Sotacon in Baltimore November 2016 and asked Richard a direct question that I've yet to see the solution to. I explained that while *I* know what the virtues are and that there are three paths to follow, in the game, I see no way to tell what path I am on. How will a brand new player to SotA know what they are doing? What is a path? Which quests go with which path? Richard said he thought that was a great point and they would work on that. These paths are extremely important to the game story.

Jump ahead to a few months ago. I finally decided to do the virtue quests. I felt like this is something a new player would stumble on very early in the game once they got past their starting areas. Well, going to Arabella tossed all of those initial quests paths into my already jumbled up journal. I had to rely on my Discord friends to figure out which quest went with which path (because I read that Love was the hardest and probably should be done with a stronger player than myself even now). I was completely lost. Many of the quests were bugged. There was "secret" dialog that had to be spoken on one quest that I had to hit up my Discord friends to figure out. Maybe that was the intent, to rely on other people but I found it extremely frustrating. I kept going to the person my journal told me to go to and was unable to get any further without outside help. There were issues where my journal was incorrect on who I was supposed to see next. And of course, the journal isn't searchable or organized in any way.

To me, this is a very basic issue that will cause a new player to feel like the game isn't finished or just give up out of frustration at it being too difficult. I do understand the vision that this isn't supposed to be an easy game to play. We have plenty of those games in the world. But if it isn't easy, then it at least to be fixed so that those playing it don't think it's something they are doing wrong that is preventing them from advancing.

There are other things I could mention here but I don't want to repeat what others have said. This is all fixable. And it's all about priorities. Hopefully the team is listening, filtering through rage posts, and looking at the practical suggestions to make SotA the amazing game/world it could be.

 

@kaeshiva I would absolutely love to see Portalarium announce stuff like this. Just like @ShurTugal said I was excited when I started reading and envisioning this.

 

I don't have any figures to back it up, but I would say you play MMO's in a different way to the majority of MMO players. All the things you mentioned in your first paragraph are great, I enjoy them, but it is not what players in general consider lots to do. I can only go by people I have spoken to (which are not long time backers or who have bought into a vision) who have tried the game and stopped or who have not tried it when I mention it. The overwhelming majority don't want to spend months crafting, or fishing, or building a house, or searching around endless vendors for an upgrade. They want to go out with their friends and experience compelling PvE content and hopefully come home with some magic items. Shroud does have some of that, but it is not up to compelling level of other MMO's and that is inevitably where the players go.

They like the other stuff as well. The stuff you mention. But it is not compelling enough to keep them in the game. Or they find it to complex or overwhelming like crafting.

I hope the vision changes a bit for the sake of the game as a limited vision in what you allow and not seems short-sighted. I guess at this point people would say that there are other games that offer these things, go there. Again it seems short-sighted. Do we want a successful game that moves away a bit from the original vision or one that sticks to it and potentially becomes unsustainable.

 

I play this game in Shroud where I go around visiting as many scenes as I can for the immersion and to get a flavour of regardless of if they are too high or low AL for me and you are right. Many are just scenes populated with random mobs that don't seem to be there for any other reason than just to have something there. A few are great, but as you said, spend the resources they have on making compelling scenes with stories and reasons for things being there.

 

The foundations of the game aren't stable enough to handle a bunch of complex bandages. The foundations (questing, skill system and combat etc) need to be rebuilt before any real progress can be made. Forced pvp is not the answer or even close to it.

 

I’ll be blunt, that statement is ridiculous. If you put two places side by side and one place is “safer”, people will go there. The question isn’t whether one is better than the other. The question is why was the 2nd place (trammel) created at all. Creating that 2nd place was a horrible decision and was destined to doom that part of the game. So I respectfully reject that statement of yours. If proves nothing besides how horrible an idea it was to begin with.

 

Great point. I think this hits on the root fear that I have for this game. Is it too late? If the financials are in the pot, and we can honestly say they can’t be great. And the foundations are all shaky, once again there are a lot of cracks and gaps.. Is it too late for the game to survive. <— That is my biggest fear for the game.

 

More scene continuity, quests and content would great, but the reality is those things do not bring in immediate revenue. Port needs continuous immediate revenue, so they are locked into a vicious circle of having to focus on things that bring in revenue now. They may not want to do that, but seems they have to.

So you will get focus on dungeons -why? Because players will buy fancy entrances, rooms, and, you guessed it, tons more deco to fill up those spaces. If the focus was adding content and quests, Port may get and retain more players in the long run, but that doesn’t create revenue today. So beyond a very occasional scene redo like mysterious swamp, this isn’t likely to happen. There’s no money in content or quests - I wish that wasn’t the case but it is what it is.

 

I'll be blunt also, you can reject the statement all you want but it is a fact, if full loot PvP was the more popular option then the majority of people would have stayed in Felucca and almost every other successful MMO would also have had full loot PvP. They don't and they don't for a very good reason, it's less popular. There are some great examples of competitive PvP out there not requiring full loot. Dark age of Camelot and Warhammer were both good but different options, once scaled levels the other had different BG's to level in.

I can't think of one example where full loot PvP has become mainstream in an MMO. Eve online at a push perhaps.

I can't even think of a decent reason for full loot other than the opportunity for PvPers to grab good stuff of people. However I don't really think that is why people PvP, in my opinion it is for the skill challenge and to an extent showing who has the biggest ****.

I also think Trammel was a mistake, along with every other land they added on, but for different reasons.

 

You seem to misunderstand what I rejected there @Nevyn Waldail ... You cannot use “look at the pop levels between trammel and felucca”. I rejected that.