What changes would get you to play Shroud again.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by City Slicker, Nov 4, 2019.

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  1. Kaffien

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    For myself, get a QA Dept. The game is launched, your players should not be your entire QA Dept.
    (Kudos on starting on this already.

    Number 2, All devs must test their work in the player client NOT the GM client at a minimal. They should also be encouraged to play the game as well. This will greatly cut down on Jira's and probably save money on QA in the long run.

    When there are collosal screw ups the devs should be finding it by following suggestion number 2. These fundamentals should work in QA. Players should be testing minor bugs and annoying intermittent ones you can't nail down.

    Number 3, quit putting new things into the live client that haven't been tested in QA. This is a recipe for disaster. It is a huge no no and does not inspire faith, in fact it really does the opposite.

    Number 4, please focus on base systems instead of new things. Repair your foundation before adding another floor to the building as it were.

    Finally do not ban people to bringing up legit issues that you may or may not have failed to address.

    Thanks for all your hard work, keep it up.
     
  2. Vladamir Begemot

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    Not affecting me at the moment, but I feel for @kaeshiva . I think the idea of the exponential curve should be reconsidered. It wastes the lowest levels and eventually becomes impossible. Neither is a good thing. It was a good thought at the start, but perhaps it's time to tweak the curve a bit.
     
  3. Mishikal

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    The above shows you have a profound misunderstanding about Lua. It's not something done to appease a few techies. It gives players the power to rework the game in ways that work more favorably for *everyone*. This is the reason why games (not solely MMOs) support Lua. As I noted previously, it will be important for the SOTA devs to implement the Lua support in such a way that it's trivial for any user to obtain and install MODs, similar to how is done with hundreds of other games. If you haven't, I suggest looking through a site like https://www.curseforge.com/ to see the possibilities that open up for *all* players to have improved gaming experiences.
     
  4. eli

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    There are a couple of radical changes that would get me playing the game (when I have a computer again in May) as it is:
    -Some type of skill cap
    -Some type of stat cap
    -Some type of casual-friendly reward hierarchy
    -Some item decay that makes significant churn in the craft market
    -A revamp of the economy with a centralized trading house to facilitate a merchant class
    -The removal of unlimited XP/artifact printing zones

    There are also some new features that could be added that would let me overlook the flaws:
    -an arena/battleground style instanced PvP zone with sufficient reward to have a population
    -a real queueing system for existing PvP instances
    -a full loot PvP zone
    -a revamp of the rans(d)om system
    -the elimination of teleport and novia exits from PvP zones
    -a revamp of attenuation/magic resistance in PvP
    -boss fights with player and skill caps that make them balanceable
    -boss fights that require more than 1-2 classes
    -boss fights with guaranteed loot
    -boss fights with diminishing returns

    Any one of the above would get my enthusiastic attention. Any one of the above /done well/ would probably make sota my main game.
     
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  5. jschoice

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    @Duke Aventine Some interesting ideas in your OP. I did have a question for you or anyone really, despite the problems with some aspects of crafting, which current game has a better crafting system that allows players to make a living as a crafter? I think the concept that Shroud has is way better then anything out there. There is certainly some things that need to be changed and some QoL things but I can't name a game that makes for a player economy based on player made gear. Other games have much better boss fights and better questing but I don't see any current game with a worth wild crafting system and none have a housing system as good as Shroud.
     
  6. oplek

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    I see this point made often, but I feel it should be clarified. The housing system certainly has a lot of intricacies and complexity to it, but that doesn't necessarily translate as "good". I can name other games where I've found the housing more fun. I'd gladly give up the decoration palette and 95% of decorations, just to have the ability to place a lot/house where I want.

    As for crafting, Eve online has a lot of potential for a player to make a living crafting, or hauling, or whatever. About the only thing it's lacking is the ability to tailor-make individual items. However, crafting in SOTA, as implemented and paired with other mechanics, has been a determent to the rest of the gameplay. Crafting in other games, that I've experienced, may not be as intricate, but again, I've found them to be significantly more fun.

    When housing has a purpose, and when it has the freedom, and isn't just the same static houses, placed in the same static position/orientation in the lots, in static located lots as dictated by other people... it may earn the title as "best". Some people complain that this would litter the countryside with peoples' houses. I thought we were sacrificing immersion so people can.. you know.. have fun? After that, eliminate crafting RNG, and implement mechanisms to remove anything that can be crafted, over time. Then crafting in this game may have a point, and may be fun.
     
  7. jschoice

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    @oplek Eve Online does have an awesome resource gathering and hauling system that supports a very lucrative money make but as you said lacks making tailor maid individualized items. I think crafting in other games is certainly less frustrating but not as important as most best in slot is loot drops.

    As far as housing you didn't mention a game. So I am aware of a better system. BDO pointless, Archeage boring, ESO nothing special and FFIV meh.
     
  8. Cora Cuz'avich

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    I left out the most important one:

    3. Get rid of Confusion! As much as I complained about the ArchNerfening, I would have accepted it gladly and unreservedly if it came with the permanent removal of that mechanic.

    3a. Or at least, give us a better counter for it.
     
    Last edited: Nov 11, 2019
  9. oplek

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    You're making my point for me. Fallout 76. Eve Online. Subnautica. Hell... Minecraft, and it doesn't even have a housing system (last I checked). As you'll inevitably disagree on all of those, the fundamental point is that it depends almost entirely on the personal preferences of the person. Therefore, asking what other games out there have as "good" or better housing system, is not asking something objective.

    SOTA's housing system is meh and boring. The only thing it seems to excel at is sheer diversity of decorations, which is mainly driven by micotransactions. The decoration placement system is typical (if not a Unit Asset Store purchase). The actual placements of the houses, as I mentioned, is frustratingly simplistic. The housing itself serves little to no purpose. It's pretty much just the place to put your trophies, alongside identical-looking houses in the same 2-3 POT templates that are all the same biome. The permissions system is rivaled by Eve Online, yet, completely unimportant to me. It might be important for role players or guild halls, but otherwise has no relevance to me.

    On the other hand, I had a blast in Fallout 76. Just trying to decide where to build a home, was a challenge in itself, and I couldn't make up my mind. I built on the side of a cliff, overlooking a valley. I built a house in middle of a pond in the forest, next to a waterfall. I built in the plains, surrounded by fissures. I built a home in the charred lands. Your home meant something - a refuge away from danger. The things you built kept you alive, whether it was turrets defending against a ghoul attack, or water purification systems to have a supply of clean water to drink. Even the beds had a purpose. It'd heal you up, and give you +xp bonus for awhile.

    That's why I keep advocating for purpose and consequence to be built into the game. I'd be nice if the 6-7 property deeds I have could be used for some kind of fun.
     
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  10. Daxxe Diggler

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    My list of things that would certainly bring me back to SOTA:
    1. Crafting system with no (or very little) randomness involved when making an item.
    1a.) I'd be OK with a slight random variation in quality (small range in difference) but I hate the fact that masterworking and enchanting can yield a wide variety of outcomes when using the same materials (even with the new "crafting masteries and the ability to "reroll".) Why can't we just make what we want the first time around?
    1b.) I'd much rather see a system where recipes accept a variety of "altering" ingredients and the outcome is directly based on which of those you choose to use to make it.
    1c.) Variety or rarity can be controlled by having the "altering" ingredients be rare mob drops and/or resource node drops that are hard to come by. This rarity in special altering ingredients can create a market demand which is a side bonus.

    2. Overhaul to food / drink stats. Once you are able to make the highest tier foods, there really is no incentive to make lower tier foods and those low tier ingredients become trash loot to sell to merchants. I can see a small use for the 2 hour foods for short term play spans, but even then I usually use the 4 hour foods just because the stats are better.
    2b.) I'd like to see low tier foods complement high tier foods. For example, perhaps low tiers would provide the health/focus regens with no other stats and then the middle tier foods would give stat buffs (str/dex/int) and then the highest tier foods would give other bonuses (resistances / attunement / combat proficiencies / etc.). That way, there would still be a reason to mix/match the different tier levels. The fact that the highest tier foods have the best of everything makes the lower tier foods less desirable.
    2c.) Still waiting for the brewed drinks to do something worthwhile... It took 23 months for them to get brewing into the game in R55 (longer if you count pre-persistence before R32) and it's almost 17 months later and we still haven't had any real changes to the brewing drink stats! I guess it's been forgotten about or something? Brewing was a major deal for many people... and the fact that we get no real use out of brewing (not even as a viable profit maker to sell to merchants) is really puzzling to me. All that Dev work went into a brewing system that nobody really uses. :(

    3. Better way to farm crops. Yes, the skills added to plant/water/harvest an AOE was a big improvement... but could have been much better. First off, planting beds are rectangular and the skills use a circular area of effect. While I understand making the area a square might be hard to code, perhaps a better solution would have been an interaction interface with the planting bed itself? Then we could just right click the bed/pot/planter and select plant/water/harvest from a drop down. With regards to the "plant" option, it could drop to a further drop down menu to select the seed type you have in inventory. This would eliminate all the missed watering of plants due to the circle overlaps not hitting everything.
    3b.) Surely the Kobolds should have been able to design a plumbing system to water an entire crop automatically... even if it would require a greenhouse or a special sprinkler system we had to craft/buy and place on the lot.

    4. LUA UI modifications - Thankfully, this one is already being working on... but one of my biggest gripes with SOTA since day one was the inability to move certain UI elements to where I wanted them and/or to be able to resize/rescale windows to fit my screen. Can't wait for this one to eventually get here as that alone may bring me back... at least for a while.

    I could think of plenty other things I'd like to see changed, but these are main things that would at the very least get me back in game to experiment and have some fun again.
     
  11. Tanglewood

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    Episode 2 and animal husbandry (pet chickens and cows etc which we could milk). I would love to have some pet chickens scratching round my property.
     
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  12. Alleine Dragonfyre

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    I quit, rather publicly on Steam, and came back when I found out Chris was taking over. I believe in second chances.

    Repair of all bugs and Broken systems


    Working maps that allow ALL govenors to customize as well as useful maps that function correctly throughout the world.

    A rich story with working questlines.

    Titles for playing the game and not spending money exclusively. For example, a new title for each GM, quest completions, etc.

    More rewards for playing the game and not spending money (loot drops from bosses and quest completions).

    Equitable access to land ownership that doesn't require a big bank account.

    Meaningful and deep content in EP2. Please don't just put a comet in the sky and call it Ep2.
     
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  13. Dantuin

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    I agree:
    The lack of purpose and consequence for what we do, or don't do, is one of the main reasons why I don't play this game much anymore.

    I would also add Conan exiles and Wurm to the list, IMO, having better housing systems (of course these are open world games so its a bit hard to compare to SotA). For me, these games are very addicting and fun because purpose and consequences are built in. You first find a place to build, stake your claim to the area (exception would be pre-existing clan areas and some towns). Then starting with the foundation each floor, wall and roof areas are constructed individually as the resources are acquired. This IMO, gives so much more purpose to logging in and an actual purpose to having community's to help each other succeed. The final end result of all your combined labor provide a safe shelter area to craft, rest/recoup, collect stuff or even later remodel as you acquire more mats. In these games there is no standing outside in the heat, cold or storms without the consequence of detriment to your life, so building a shelter area is very important. The idea of just pointing and clicking a shell of a house to appear in a pre-assigned slot is IMO not as satisfying as locating a suitable open site and painstakingly build the structure until the final result is something to be very proud of and is also truly meaningful for your (and possibly others) overall well being.

    For me another example of consequences; would be crossing large water areas, you should either need to build a boat or chance that you can swim across without drowning.
    In SotA, it totally breaks my immersion having the ability to jump in the water and swim forever or stand outside in the pouring rain/snow for hours with no apparent consequence whatsoever.

    IMO having more purpose to even log in, while also having consequences for your actions or lack of action, would make this game so much more exciting, meaningful and oh yeah, FUN!
     
    Last edited: Nov 16, 2019
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  14. Black Tortoise

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    More forest scenes

    more scene unclonings

    decent wildlife populations in my remote village town, so i can RP a hunter that just hangs around the local forest

    oh, and occasional invasions of monsters to actual npc story towns (which is what i envisioned sieges to be during the kickstarter discussions - not a separate scene!). i wanna have to defend my town from undead or kobold invasions, and do some cool miniquests in the process.
     
  15. Frederick Glasgow

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    After getting sucked back into Warcraft to help a friend, I basically see myself there for the duration now. But the one thing in Shroud that made that decision easier for me was when the death penalty was introduced.
    At the time folks were listing how many games had it and none of them were games I ever played. I can't claim it would bring me back.
     
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  16. Barugon

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    Decay is long gone.
     
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  17. Frederick Glasgow

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    lol Just goes to show I haven't played. TY for the heads up.
     
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  18. Greyfox

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    So are most of the SOTA players who left due to the death penalty.
     
  19. Elwyn

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    Can add to that list LOTRO, it probably was impressive 10 years ago, but housing areas are instanced like floors in a high-rise skyscraper, and you can only place items in specific slots around the house and yard. Also I don't think you can change what house is on a lot.
    And with more actual choppable trees in them. It's funny how the scenes with "Forest" in the name tend to be the least attractive for chopping wood.
    The cloned scenes still left around Novia are mostly clones of the ones I never liked very much. Like that one with three entrances and a spider cave, and a town with covered with webs. The main exceptions are Twins and Serpent Spine Foothills.
    Yes, we need a lot more silly titles from quests. FFXI makes it hard to change titles on demand (you have to go to a specific NPC in the region the title comes from), but it has titles for every time you kill a boss, do a quest (sometimes even daily quests), etc. I'm not asking for that level of chaos, but there should be more quest-related titles, like say "Firefeather Plucker" for completing the quest to get a phoenix summon.
    This is hardly unique to SotA. In fact, I'd say that most MMOs are like that, especially after a couple of expansions. And not even with food, it tends to be a general problem with MMO crafting, especially with no minimum levels for item use that would allow a small window of time for such items to be useful during the initial race to cap.
     
  20. Olthadir

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    I haven't read the entire thread, but I want to share my opinion because I love this game and don't want it to die, even though it is currently in a ditch hardly breathing in my mind.

    I agree with a lot of people who want there to be a good story. That is what I want. I like the world, I like the story as it stands, but it is not anywhere as indepth as Ultima 7, Ultima 7 part two, or even Ultima 8. It is not any better than a JRPG at this rate (and I enjoy JRPGs (mostly SNES era), but compared to Ultima... come on, am I right?)

    The world is ripe for exploration. I love exploring and spent a lot of my time doing that. But I didn't find anything. Nothing. Just obelisks that were used for puzzles. To collect collectables. What was the reason for this puzzle and collectable to be there? Because the devs said so. No in game reason, no NPCs discussing, no... nothing. I even learned about nearly 100% of the collectables I found in the release notes, not from anyone IG. And I mean NPCs.

    Dance Parties need to end. I am so sick of these semi-RP events that are basically people emoting for no reason. I get people like it, but it feels like this is the only social thing that goes on. And when people try to do RP things no one comes. It's all about dance parties. Do they add anything to the world? No. Are they fun? For some. I don't want them to be gone entirely as people like them and this game should be for all kinds of people, but it cannot be the only social thing out there.
    And fishing contests don't count. They have a purpose that I think is more important than dance parties, but even then, what do they do? Yes, people have fun and I don't want them to go either, but why focus on that instead of world building?

    WORLD BUILDING

    From the two pages I have read, world building, story and interaction/exploration is the big thing that resonates with me. A lot of people want the game to be as indepth as the later Ultima games (sans 9), and it isn't. The logos are unfinished and irregular, even when people, including myself offer fixes to it, it is ignored. The last real change to the story that I remember was the group of books in runic that gave a very basic rundown of history of the continent, and a joke book about Jira. I don't know if there was any other large changes (other than some story elements being revealed in the Lost Vale) since then, but in reading the release notes over the past year I don't think there is. They certainly weren't made a big deal.

    So who plays this game? People who are interested in numbers, designing builds and PvPers. They are important to every MMORPG. I enjoy designing builds, numbers interest me slightly, and PvP doesn't at all. That's ok. We all are different. But I feel over the past year everything has been put into numbers and nothing else. Even the people who want a robust and fair PvP system have complaints (i can't speak to any of it because I have no opinion but I know they exist).

    So, fill out the world. And I'm not talking about the big story. I know that is coming un Episode 2 (at least I hope to all the gods it is), but what about the stories of each of the locations? Why are there buildings in the swamps of the perrenial coast? What is the purpose of the Rise? The Fall? What about the fifty or so other locations that have some interesting ruin or architecture? Any clue or work on that? Anyone living there? Why did they choose that place? Where do they raid? Are they hunters? Why do the kobolds live there? Why do the cannibal beserker types live there, and what do they believe in? It doesn't have to be major, just SOMETHING.
     
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