When adventuring was fun and there was progression

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by macnlos, Apr 27, 2020.

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  1. macnlos

    macnlos Avatar

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    When I first started SotA I realized I need to do some mining to get some resources and make some money. I hoofed it over to Owls Head Mine and grinded there. I didn't know much of the lands but after reading up and asking questions I found out there was a mine that Copper.

    The problem was that the mine was north of the Drachenwald pass. This presented a problem because I could never survive the pass so I always ran as fast as I could, died and ended up on the other side. The whole idea of it being difficult to get there made it fun and rewarding...

    Once at the mine I found myself overrun by the Kobolds. I had to rethink my build a little bit, change up my armor and then learn to kit them as much as I could. Once defeated I could then go on to mine the copper ore I had came for. I even managed to start handling the first sets of skeletons to get at a few pieces of Gold Ore..

    Back then... the game was fun. But then someone decided that it was a good thing to dumb down the game. Make the passes skippable. Make the sieges skippable. Make the outskirts a nursery so you could safely hang out there (cough, cough... Trammel, cough). In the beginning it is supposed to be hard. The hard / effort is the fun. When did Portnip decide the sucking all the fun out of the game was a good thing?

    Oh wait... I'll just go to the next Dance Party, all will be okay.
     
  2. Titania Xylia

    Titania Xylia Avatar

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  3. that_shawn_guy

    that_shawn_guy Bug Hunter

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    When there weren't enough paying customers that like the old-school difficult & challenging game to support the size team required to keep that up.

    I want what the challenge too. The regional economy. The years of struggle to get to "good". Meaningful PvP/Guilds/Crafting/loot/etc/etc/etc. All of it. Whatever marketing there was around release and has been since has failed to pull in those kinds (if any) players. Businesses need customers to survive. If sacrificing those things means keeping the servers up and at some level of fixes coming, then so be it.

    The game may not be as enjoyable is it once was. But, it is still playable (most of the time) and the community is still worth being here.
     
  4. Spinok

    Spinok Avatar

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    But our characters are becoming stronger, and here always were very big lobby of players, who have a pretty limited understanding of how things work, and this group was strong affects the decisions(hope now they are not).
    CP was a great foundation for a huge amount of mechanics, but due to lobby I noticed higher, nothing was done to implement it fully. What should be done? - easily:
    1) CP only PVP zone with loot rules much more hardcore then in any zone ingame like 30% of stash and half of gear lost if you were killed with no "nearby players" graph at all.
    2) Deny teleports between the regions.
    3) Deny underground transmission between regions.
    4) Make CP different way, when you open the gates in CP you should see smth you see in Despair(but much harder) so even party of players like me should be vulnerable while making PVE for PVP activities by another party.
    5) Make regions matter, make cotton mining lumber regions.
    6) Vendor search inside one region only.
    It would be cool, but all those ideas were buried.
    P.S. Also I forgot, 2-6 ideas would not work without idea N1 at all, we all know it.
     
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2020
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  5. Xiones

    Xiones Avatar

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    The game is sad...
     
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  6. macnlos

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    Yeah, one of the initial design decisions of no skill cap... that bothered me and I thought it would have repercussions on the backend, which it has. I left "Elaina" at 100-120 in areas like Arch, Light Armor, Water, Fire, Air, Death and in the craft specialities. If I were to grind her out I could take her up to 100+ in all the combats and the rest of the magic tree... and then what? No, I'm off to take on Mac of Faz but from a game standpoint there isn't much she couldn't handle.

    I loved the 7x skill cap that was in UO because it forced you to have different characters that were specialized to a certain style of play. While it sounds "fun" being able to play what ever skill, in the end it makes it kind of boring too. It's like Minecraft... I can't stand playing in Creative Mode because everything is just given to you. I like playing Survival where you have to go and get what you need. Plus now I even like playing in Hardcore where if you die, your character is dead and the world is done.

    And @that_shawn_guy - yeah the game can be fun but it really missed on what it could be. I have a good deal of $$$ and time into the game. I'm still login here and there to refresh things, now to quickly baby-sit the POT I have. I really wished the game had a place for me but it doesn't seem to be.
     
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  7. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    I (respectfully of course) strongly disagree with all 6 of those "fixes".
     
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  8. Duke Gréagóir

    Duke Gréagóir Legend of the Hearth

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    Nothing wrong with Trammel. Most of the best years I played UO were in Trammel. Please don't bash.
     
  9. Cora Cuz'avich

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    I think that depends a lot on implementation. We could have had a system in which an initial class didn't determine what skills you could/couldn't have, but you still had to make choices. Those choices could always be reversible, but you'd still have to make them and be limited by them. But the players got used to having all the things all the times early on, and that became their definition of "classless," and anything less meant raising holy hell about it. I had suggested specializations be limited to one per "category"- so you'd pick a combat spec, a magic spec, and a strategy, and caught all kinds of grief for it. Even the current "pick any two" ticked off a bunch of people.

    I think I had a point to all this, but I seem to have lost my train of thought. o_O
     
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  10. macnlos

    macnlos Avatar

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    That's funny. I think Portnip said that too. lol
     
  11. macnlos

    macnlos Avatar

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    Looks like someone did not like my response and deleted it. Let me rephrase that. I completely disagree with you on this point. Because "you" had a great time in Trammel did not make the change good and the logic of that reasoning is flawed.
     
  12. Violet Ronso

    Violet Ronso Avatar

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    What is good or not is relative, so maybe you found that change bad, and Gréagoir found it good, both of you are right, for your own reasons each, and that does not make his reasoning flawed. Maybe that is why your message was deleted, you were maybe too harsh in the way you decided to call him out for being "wrong" ;) (Or the Oracle Watcher has grown tired of you killing his brothers when you log in and is now on a vendeta against you, but I doubt that's the case :p)
     
  13. Cora Cuz'avich

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    You know... my original version of that line was something to that effect. I changed it; I'm trying to save my negativity for when I really get upset about something, instead of letting it creep into every post I make.
     
  14. Violet Ronso

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    I have mine as well, "#JustBzusThings", usually when I am upset about the state of crafting with any change lol!
     
  15. liz_the_wiz

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    the good news is our old ulfheim is back - we can play there once again.. I nagged chris so bad for that.
     
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  16. kaeshiva

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    I think there are ways to keep the game challenging and progressive while also adding quality of life and removing pure 'nuisance mechanics' (like the excess load screens required to cross a control point). Even at early levels, running through them didn't present any particular challenge. Same thing with the sieges. It was just adding unnecessary load times (and potential for crashes as the 'zone crash' bug was pretty bad in those days, and persists even today as you do more scene changes).

    I do miss when things were 'challenging' though, the experience bonanza skips players past 90% of the available content making it both trivial and pointless. It may help new players catch up, but it just pushes hardcore players that much further ahead, widening the gap. It doesn't significantly change the landscape.
     
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  17. Beaumaris

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    Eh, I dont know.

    I appreciated passes and sieges.

    But I'm not sure that 'repetitive content' is the key to making the game have good progression.

    The fact is that the passes and the sieges were repetitive.

    And giving players …. options …. when confronted with repetition can almost always be a good thing.

    As is we STILL DO have the option to play those sieges and passes just like we did before. Its only dumbed down ….. if we choose for it to be …… You can choose otherwise.
     
  18. GMDavros

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    Sure. they could bite the bullet and give some people they trust limited abilities to create real events. Takes a leap of faith, but a properly vetted "staff" that interacts with the players running events would breath a ton of life into things.

    Fenris
     
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  19. liz_the_wiz

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    In my mind I think a lot died when UT became the in place to be and basically anyone who wanted xp joined a UT group and fight for 15 mins and then mooch about for an hour due to attenuated. Esp when the double xp weekends kicked in. Then suddenly you had brand new players heading to UT who never saw any of the game but could go to UT and suck up the xp like a thirsty sponge.

    while I would sell a body part to be able to solo it like some I like my bear grinds and I’m cool with that but it also makes me feel like a lepper and shined because I can’t/don’t suck in the xp like others can/have
     
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  20. Warrior B'Patrick

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    Greetings all

    There is a lot to do in this game. Choosing a play style and getting it to a level you like with the skills you like takes a long time. Once you get there go explore/conquer all the areas you want, how ever many times you want to. When you get bored try a different play style or magic skills Variety is the key to happiness. Or as I have said in other post, the game is not just about killing, loot, and exp it is also about exploring, finding Easter eggs, and community.

    I understand the frustration of things changing but how do you keep ALL the players/supporters happy when each has a different idea of what the game should be. I have always been told that "If you can not offer constructive criticism don't offer anything" . @macnlos criticism was constructive based on their ideas for the game. Other people offered theirs. Here is mine.

    My constructive criticism:
    1.I believe offering 2x or 10x exp is counter productive to the happiness of the population. It will become the norm and then they will want more.
    2. Decrease the number of hotbar slots or number of skills per slot to make choices more critical. Having maxed out all the skills in the list is great but defeats the idea of a play style.
    3. This one "Portnip" (@macnlos have you copyrighted this or can I use it?) has done a lot of work on but more diversity is needed. Conflict is the nature of the game but more needs to be done with group events, player created content, crafting, LUA, Ink, and things warriors would do when not fighting. This would help to satisfy the well rounded warrior and manage the blood lust.

    This is constructive criticism only and am not saying. If it does not happen I will still be here finding my own peacetime things to do.:)
     
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