Simple Fixes to improve player retention

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Greyfox, Apr 10, 2019.

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  1. Aartemis

    Aartemis Avatar

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    I just don't understand it, why do you need to limit Essence drops in dungeons? You need to have SOMETHING in them to make them worth going to. Fine, limit the XP and Loot like control points but up the Essence count for fighting in dungeons. Make you get the encounter rooms in the open world, fine... but once you have them, let you collect the Essences with a bonus underground. You cannot limit EVERYTHING or you have nothing. Balance it, and give the players willing to dungeon dwell something for the effort.
     
  2. Antrax Artek

    Antrax Artek Avatar

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    It's the same about pvp zones, why incentivizing and balancing private dungeons rewards and instead be against balacing rewards in pvp zones, considering that most of pve zones available in private give much more reward without any kind of risk and competition?
    I would like to give the same answer that I often hear about pvp but players dungeon themed "none is forcing you to play in a player dungeon, you should kill mobs for fun not for rewards".
     
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  3. Vladamir Begemot

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    Pull out all skills and make it an FPS.

    :p
     
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  4. Aartemis

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    Except they have not REMOVED things from the PvP Zones, in fact, you get an XP BUMP for fighting there, amirite????

    What I am talking about is the reduced XP and Loot in PoD's and now the Cry to limit or eliminate completely essence drops there. Its absurd. Why does anyone care where people choose to adventure as long as they are not getting an unfair advantage? I'm talking about the general population not the 5% who can top off anywhere they go. The game feels like it is being cut off at the knees to protect it from a small influx who would take advantage of the situation. Throttle the top off players but please let the rest of us play. :D
     
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  5. Bow Vale

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    1 ) -
    2) +-
    3) --
    4)+++ LOA is rubbish in all areas compared to SOTA apart from 1. 600 skill points to be allocated max, makes choices to be made and forces interaction between players. No one player can do itr all. Sure u can have alts but that alt still cant do everything, this matters more so for combat than crafting i feel but would make players choices and direction matter, something always touted but never put into being here.
    5)+
    6)++
    7)++ ( overall not just for fishing) Why log us out when we afk for an hour..Would make sense to boost steam numbers as well by having more logged in.
    8)++ I dream that player dungeons will have overly restrictive and costly size limitations removed/enlarged. Also let the players make the game for the players by allowing player dungeons the same or even more xp( players could donate saved xp to loot drops/chests) + their own added loot to the tables. Allowing players to generate most of the game content is a no brainer for such a small developer team.
    9)-- We need a generic developer made faction system....badly. From that the players can make their own content.
    10) ++ There's lots games to take inspiration from. Salem for crafting please.
    11) +-
    12)+++ See Salem, for a deep and engaging farming simulator. Also Salem has perma death pvp so no reason detailed farming/agriculture games cannot be hardcore..
    13)+++ Or any exploits fixed and people punished else it sets a bad precedent...

    Overall…..-+---++++++++++--+++-++++++ = +20 to OP's post...
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2019
  6. Duke Gréagóir

    Duke Gréagóir Legend of the Hearth

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    Artifacts are a boon for single player OFFLINE. Let's not forget this great mode. I play in offline more than online and I'm loving it.

    I cam do more content when I want Instead of hoping for a group appears with one slot open for me to do the same content.

    I am no Mac and cannot do everything solo in online but I can in offline.
     
  7. Necrothaftis

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    I agree fully with Antrax - there is nothing wrong with the game - there is a whole lot wrong with the winey nich driven antisocial insipid player base who think they know everything, compaare everything to a 20 year old 56k dialup game they played when they were 12 and ruin everything by generating negativity at ever turn.
     
  8. Brass Knuckles

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    You can mod ur stats in off line mode 200ostr 2000int 2000dex will make u like Mac :)
     
  9. Scoffer

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    14. Stop systematically nerfing stuff that people find enjoyable or profitable. (i.e. mining, crafting, naryiad woods....pretty much everything that isn't boss farming)
     
  10. Duke Gréagóir

    Duke Gréagóir Legend of the Hearth

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    like I said, in offline mode I am Mac.
     
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  11. kaeshiva

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    I agree with most of your thoughts here.
    Movement speed - agree it feels slow, but then, scenes aren't that terribly big and there are spells and such to mitigate it.
    We know that there was some sort of technical reason why player speed was reduced, something about server being able to tell where people are...perhaps they're holding out a bit to have mounts actually have a purpose...?
    I don't have issues with the animations. They are not bad, I've seen worse. Its not a retention issue for me though.
    Heat system as default is fine, but I'd hate to see dynamic decks go away.

    #4 is where I disagree. If you put a limit on progress then I finished with this game well over a year ago. The whole appeal of this game (for me at least) is the ability to, even after 10,000 hours played, still see my character get better, even if that's only incrementally. Specialization already put a cramp in that for me, I'd love to see alternative specializations as a thing, as many games that funnel players into a specific build do. There's no reason to draw a line at GM because progress is so minimal beyond that it becomes barely relevant. Only thing you'll do is make it pointless for players who've been here a while to stick around. That's the opposite of retention.

    #5 I like the idea of rare items that level with you that aren't subject to breaking. But they should NOT be more of this slot machine bs drops, rather, they should be things that take you weeks/months of effort to acquire parts for and create. I'm tired of playing shroud of slot machine. Its disappointing that in most games, when you see a named creature or boss, you change direction and go kill it because its almost always worth the effort. In Sota, you see a boss, unless you're one of the small % of players who are built to steamroll bosses, you avoid it because its never worth the effort. Takes too long, loot is crap, pass.

    I like #6, or anything that increases the whole life skills/economic game as opposed to more "fight fight fight" which is what Sota has really become lately.
    Same with #7 - I have no issue with a semi-idle type system for something like fishing. The rewards for fishing are crappy enough that it wouldn't make a significant difference, the only way I think I could ever stomach fishing would be if it was afk-able. Its just too poor return to spend active time doing unless you're doing it as a social event.

    #8 - Dungeon stuff - yeah, I admit I'm disappointed with the way the dungeon system is going. Rare drop nonsense - hell, you want players to make this content, but then you make the pieces irritating to get....? And the rewards for doing said dungeons diminished? The only reason to build a dungeon now is for novelty purposes. I was hoping we'd get some decision about what spawns in what room, but fixed room type with fixed totem is gonna get boring, quick. These aren't player created dungeons, these are modular dungeons that are variations on a theme.

    #9 This one's gonna get some opposition. I don't have issue with there being dev created pvp areas, although since the dungeon system being how it is is going to be pretty pointless as a pve thing, making pvp dungeons makes more sense at this point. I agree a lot of the best and most interesting zones are wasted because there's no non-pvp option - for a lot of players, that's a non-negotiable.



    #12 Honestly re farmville - I'd love to see crafting, production, and economy be more relevant than now. At the moment, the best way to make money ..is to kill monsters and take their stuff. By a large margin. Any profit that could be made from crafting has been stamped out. Agriculture/brewing still yield a bit of money but nothing compared to kill monsters, take their stuff. If player time -> cash generation, it shouldn't matter what that player is doing. Some say fighting should be better because 'risk' but honestly at some point that risk drops to 0 and grinding trivial content for gold becomes the way forward. Farming, mining, crafting, manufacture - work orders, global crafting projects, trade goods - all of this would bring the community together and create an outlet for consumption of the stuff. Part of my waning interest these days is that I've got boxes with thousands of everything and there's no reason anymore to go get more of it.

    Honestly, I think we just need to pick a direction. Is this a 'fight stuff, lvl up, and then play the slot machine until bored" game? Or do we want an actual living community. If we want the latter, artisans are just as, if not more important, than fighters and that entire aspect of gameplay has been more and more marginilized as time has gone on. These days there's best in slot artifacts for most of your gear that even a crafter with enough XP in a skill to GM it 100 times over can't hold a candle to. I'd love to be able to work a trade and make my profit that way instead of mindlessly grinding green crap, it would absolutely have me logging in and spending time again.
     
  12. Rook Strife

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    lots of great ideas in the OP

    Unfortunately I will have to agree with #11
     
  13. Vladamir Begemot

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    Yep. Picking a direction is key in most things in life.
     
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  14. Woodchuck

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    Crazy! Just like how people are still playing Gemstone! (1988 text-based RPG!!)
     
  15. majoria70

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    I am not sure why there is a speed problem. Could it be on older machines or lower end graphics cards? About a year and a half ago I bought a new computer with a 1060 Nvidia graphics card and 32 gigs of ram. I had it built to lessen the cost. I know not everyone can afford a new computer but since we are gamers it is a necessity to stay updated to play what we want to some degree. The game runs very fast and smooth for me. I do also play it on an SSD.

    1) Improve movement speed. Movement in SOTA is like you're stuck in molasses. Run speed should be the default speed and only increase with speed modifiers. Jumping should be responsive and not stuck in the air for seconds.
    2) Animations need weight and improvement. The Forest is a Unity game, Crowfall a Unity game and an MMO. Both are good examples. See above. Is not the case for me.

    3) Heat system combat only. Random card decks probably the worst idea ever for an MMO. Keep the system in the game for the 3-5 people who enjoy it. Locked bars with heat system is default. At first I did agree about the combat system but it has grown on me. It's easier after you get to understand it imo.

    4) Impose limits on how many GMs someone can keep, period. Make specializations more impactful to create classes and interdependencies in a group. The holy triad of Tank/Healer/Crowd Control works, DPS for other group members. Due to the limited population 4 people in a group should be able to tackle all content. I do agree that it would be fun to have some class options such as specialization should promote a class option and give more fun things & spells unique to the chosen specialization. Rather than doing the whole system over I think we could have it where we have special options in specializing. Options that make it so you can specialize for a class you want to play.

    5) Rare loot. Should drop from mobs "named" and some should be Best in Slot, even better than crafted. Alternative rare components drop that are required to craft BiS items. These BiS items should be called something like Artifacts and they should NOT decay. They should be rare items that level up with you and are cherished. Once you start leveling them they should be character locked but extremely powerful. Yeah loot struggles in this game also imo. It is overly repetitive in nature and not much to surprise anyone. Now to drop something accumulative such as tokens that purchase certain things might be an idea. So could have a token merchant and we could even purchase fragments with tokens we get from loot or something else that is presently in the loot system. At least it would be our choice of what we are getting. I think would then be more interesting since we will be getting something useful to us that doesn't feel like junk. So we just build up tokens for purchases. I know we have cotos but still these are very rare for store stuff. This could be for in-game stuff.. We should get some of the junk out of the loot system well lots of it. Put it someplace else to acquire. Like you want a rusty pot well pick it up off the ground don't put it in our loot system. You want a batch of fragments save your tokens for them. Just an idea. I did watch a video on Everquests loot system since I did not play that game. I was strictly UO. I did play EQ2 tho. It looks cool and much more flexible than what we have as another idea to control loot.

    6) Property should generate income through materials. One should not have to spend countless hours gathering resources in the wild. Property and hired NPCs should gather/farm set amounts each day based upon property size. Larger properties generate more resources. If property ownership becomes profitable people will work towards owning larger properties and buying more with COTOs. The extreme levels of resources needed for crafting will control inflation of resources. NPCs should do ALL the work (we pay them with COTO or Gold) we just log in each day to collect the "profits" make this enjoyable NOT tedious and annoying. Not sure I agree with you here. Yes some things are repetitive like I am mining in game right now too but it is one of my choices. Like today I spend an hour mining and the other hour doing other things like working on my concert hall. Yes I agree it is slow also and perhaps some of the tokens I mentioned for loot could be used to hire an NPC to do a chore for you. I would like that much better than just giving it to you. So these NPCs should not just do it for you let our loot give us tokens to build up for hiring them.

    7) Remove AFK prevention mechanics to fishing. If someone wants to fish AFK, LET THEM. An AFK player at least adds to the player population and gets people logging in. So what if people want to stay on 24 hours fishing or gathering water with a macro. FAR too much development time was wasted in implementing these anti macro systems. Fishing should NEVER require you to move an inch. Fish all day in the same spot, make it mindless just like real fishing. A player should NOT have to gather water and water crops to begin with. Stop implementation of tedious gaming mechanics. This won't destroy the game economy, because it's already destroyed. Fishing is another thing that stopped at a point to give us more to grind. If you are not interested in trophies you might fish or if you have them all then forget it will you then fish? Maybe or maybe not. I hate grinding for loot to be our reason to play. It is necessary to some degree but imo it is well over-done in this game. Reasons to do anything are like achievements, quests, titles, or any other rewards which we are not getting much of still imo. I played black desert and yes some mindless things are in that game but it does not have our soul and that does not make me want to play that game. I am not sure mindless is the way to go unless you want a quite often mindless game choose a game like Black Desert that offers some of that experience. We have a game we can multi-task in. So sometimes while crafting I download abc files and make sheet music. Especially while crafting wood pulps. Making fishing more interesting is of course something imo that needs done so don't get me wrong. I want crafting quests for all things we do even fishing as well. Progressive quests that give you some things like special baits, tools, special poles, special fishing clothing etc as you do them for more days than one. yes definitely more should happen that keeps our interest.

    8) Give players the tools to make all content like dungeons. Our dungeons should drop the same loot as any Developer dungeon. XP should be the same. If the player dungeons are better than the developer dungeons so be it. Developer content should not provide better rewards it should be better content to get people to play Dev content versus Player content. Rewards should be the same.

    9) Remove PVP from all Developer created content except the Arena. Let players create PVP areas and test their leet skills in the Arena. Developer created content should be PVE only, outside PVP arenas. Some of the best zones are wasted because they are PVP enabled. (Blood Bay, The Fall). I was really disappointed about The Trials well I know i've mentioned just a few times ;) I wanted us to get some timed event that had capture the flags and daily quests involved in it similar to what was found in Wintergrasp in WOW. I don't say all areas should be like this but I love the idea for this with 2 large raids competing and strategizing in a timed event is something else to do. Let there be no ransom and the two teams are able to heal and rez each other during this event. Let it happen a few times a day to reach all time zones. As for other than that I'm still hoping PVP will get some love and faction type things plus daily quests with pvp points earned, titles, dailies, and more reasons to pvp. At least some Titles should give buffs so we have to choose.

    10) Play Everquest to get an idea on how to implement rare loot. Copy that system. There is a reason a 20+ year old game is thriving while SOTA is dying. Its the reward system! I did watch a video on Everquests loot system since I did not play that game. I was strictly UO. I did play EQ2 tho. It looks cool and much more flexible than what we have as another idea to control loot. and above I mentioned a token system and getting the junk out of the loot system too. Such as all those rusty pans and stuff just let us pick those up off the ground if we want any.

    11) I'm wasting my time writing this, but hey the forums are dying too so at least it gives us something to do? No don't think it's a waste of time please. Imo no matter how it seems this game can still be turned around in many positive ways. The modes of communication are too vast. A lot of great ideas get missed by the Devs and some they pick up are just not it well imo of course too. So thanks for trying again. It has been a long, long road for many of us but there are still paths this game can take if it will. ;) So nothing is over even at this point.

    12) I remember hearing we don't want to make SOTA into Farmville. I say why not? Farmville was a HUGE success. Make farming better and less tedious. Let us grow trees, ore, all resources on player land, sometimes rare crafting Mats should drop too. I think the more details each system has will benefit this game. If its all just a grindfest with no other reasons for doing things then the system will get old fast. We need to add in those details that make things more interesting and fun. Crafters don't necessarily want to do combat for example and we need more non combat things for them to do such as dailies and in town quests. The game Vanguard did a good job of this. I feel we could benefit from that game's ideas for crafters.

    13) It's not too late to fix this game. Until it's too late. Yes I so agree with this. I've been waiting for so much for so long. I do think we've had a good run and some things we got have made a huge difference already but we are not done for sure. Thanks again for caring and for your ideas.
     
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  16. Arkah EMPstrike

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    This is definately not a thing. If i were any faster teleport scrolls would be pointless. I think your issue is that you are in heavy armor. Heavy armor is alot slower than light, and the price you pay for the defense.

    The deck system is actually one of the more popular. And both exist. So they can use whatever they like, and its locked by default for new characters.

    I would actually also prefer more give and take with the skill system. Everyone now either has everything, or is advised to do everything for good reason.


    I think the animations need more weight too but i believe the big issue is the quest system. New players come in, start the quests, are unhappy then leave.

    In some posts its also apparent some are looking for a used based skill system but are mistakenly led to believe adv level is far more important than skills. That needs to be adressed just as much as the quest system
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2019
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  17. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    Could not agree more wholeheartedly if I tried!
     
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  18. Vladamir Begemot

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    I think it's the UI. Imagine trying to read a great work of writing in that UI.

    They've patched the quests to the point they are functional ish. But the UI is sooooo ugly and makes any large text a bore.

    And this is important for them to finally realize because the UI could be changed in one release! Redoing the rest of the quest system is another year of work.

    Maybe it's time for a protest.
     
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  19. Arkah EMPstrike

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    Ima start pushing to get adventure levels turned into a passive skill that levels from gained xp instead of pooled xp
     
  20. Barugon

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    Your AL is 100% based on earned XP and has nothing to do with the experience pool. Also, that 10,000 experience points you get each day is added directly to your pool and does not count toward AL.
     
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