Dance parties and fishing tourneys with light sabers...

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Artomus Sumotra, Jun 24, 2020.

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  1. Thodin

    Thodin Avatar

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    What the hell are you talking about? If massive amounts of people leave the game with no explanation (and they have), how the hell do the Devs know what to fix/focus on to retain players? Does "do so with class" mean being a passive ostrich stuffing its head in the sand every time they fear the game is a FAILING FLAILING FLOP - until ultimately running away as fast as they can in silence? This sir is NOT CLASSY. It is weak. Very weak. And not constructive to the success of this game.
    We have all invested in this, we all have a right to say how we feel, especially on the way out the F****** door.
    These "don't lawyer me bro" bait and switch tactics are not acceptable in any other workplace, professional field, or any other successful social communities or platforms. Period.
    If we wanted dance party sims, we would have kick-started that game and played it for 5+ years as well, but we didn't! As the post titles hints, that's what we got... Dance partys, fishing contests, and meaningless crafting in an undeveloped world with countless broken systems and abandoned promises, as the community desperately bands together to run these silly events as if the game is doing well, and there is something to celebrate, lol. This is attempt to keep the illusion that our/their investments are secure....
    *gulp*
    I have personally felt the foundation shatter, and the ground is still shaking (LB sell out, Port to Catnip)
    All of my friends & family have been attempting to invest thousands of hours, and tens of thousands of dollars towards the success of the game we were promised, and wanted to play forever! Yet to our surprise, it has proven to be one of the largest disappointments, and poor investments into what could have, and should have been much more than it is. This is why we are choosing to speak up, speak out, and we are all pointing backwards at what has never been delivered/finished/fixed. PERIOD.
    (Bowen, lol, g*d d@mn youve posted more obligatory rhetoric than anyone else on this post. So I took a look back into your posts, I noticed you too are a huge support in this game and have put a ton of energy into the forums, you should be equally as Miffed as we are, and demand the change or move on, because it isn't coming under this business ethic, or lack there of!)
    No need to squelch the silent majority (the current paying player-base), we are the outspoken minority, which most online communities don't manage well, once we point out a few major flaws, we are labeled as negative/toxic and easily dismissed... or even locked/banned for fighting for YOUR RIGHTS AS A PLAYER! WE ARE ALL SUBJECTING OURSELVES TO THIS.

    Keep an eye out for my exit wound - If this post isn't constructive criticism enough for the devs to take seriously into consideration, what is?
    I have been unable to play for months due to the constant broken state, delays, and most painful being Poor community management.
    Thread locking & banning is just bad politics. If you don't have the resources to monitor ONE persons "negative" "trolling" "spinning in circles" posts as you label them, then you probably don't have the resources to finish, episode 1 content, and catch-up with the rest the broken systems that keep getting forced into the game as the ground is falling out from underneath us.

    Try listening to us! If you can't deliver what has been promised, Honestly state you are in over your head. COURAGE. TRUTH. LOVE. Have the courage, to tell the truth, and the players will love you for it. Orrrrr continue to lie to us, block us and control us from stating the basic truths as the dwindling player base is being shined on. Insure the failure of this game. (which anybody reading this, including myself, does not want)
    We have not felt the virtue from this development team, and it shows they know nothing of what they are trying to sell us. It's no wonder the story line is so bleak and hard to follow, and major game mechanics are being neglected. :p
    We all had high hopes of the catnip switch, but this has been a sad few months of reality for SOTA and its players.
    Yo catnip - Quit acting like a mega corp. with millions of paying customers, as if you can afford to lose players... You literally cant afford it.

    *awaits the ban hammer*
     
  2. Bowen Bloodgood

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    It means doing it in a constructive and respectful manner. Whether you decide to post about it or not. Simply ranting your negatives is neither and players have every opportunity to post their feedback BEFORE they leave. It's not like devs only know the issues from goodbye posts.
     
  3. marthos

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    We can definitely agree to this!

    The rest, probably not, but that's fine :)
     
  4. Artomus Sumotra

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    WOW What can I say... I feel that the response to my post speaks for itself.
    My original statement was I stopped paying subscriptions... That is not a Hard quit but the step before RMT ing the significant value of what I have that is still worth... well whatever it is. The fact is... I am seriously considering just that. Not because I want to but what's the point... shall I wait for it to be absolutely worthless? Still I have not done this and really do not want to even though the ppl I have been here to enjoy our time together have dropped it and taken the LOSS.
    This remains the same and I am waiting to see...

    Another person saying similar feelings with their words... Thx @marthos Just incase they did not hear it when I said it my way.
    Thx @Rook Strife I do not see adding new skill systems to the broken ones as a fix... Start at the basics get it rite and then add new bugs to work out...
    That was my intent and I am doing it... Hoping I see a reason to return.
    Thx @macnlos Yet another point of view I feel supports my concern.
    Thx @Xee My experience in what is said and what really happens makes this difficult to continue just taking it as is.. I will need real results to start putting faith back into the waiting game.
    My original post was a heads up. "I" am not supporting this game by stopping subscriptions until I see change I won't be playing.. If it were a customer of mine I would like this feedback. But hey we have all had those relationships that just do not care in the first place... perhaps you just take the silent absence as status quo...
    @CICI The optimistic child that was given a shovel and told to empty the horse stalls of manure did so with joy year after year. Finally the neglectful farmer asked CICI why are you always so happy with this endless misery. CICI said " With all this Manure there has got to be a time I will finally be able to ride a horse I am SURE OF IT"!!! Thx CICI =-]
    Thx @Razalon Another view of the same intent... And My first Son to quit SOTA. A real loss to the community...
    Not confused just not paying for the wait anymore.
    I do not have a problem with Dance parties or fishing tourneys perse but the apparent focus of them buy the Devs in general I need to say no more will I support this. I do respect the massive amount of input you have put into all that you do for the community. Even though I do not partake I respect all that you do please do not feel I am in some way dissing this. I respect what you do and encourage you to continue as I am sure you will regardless of what I think...
    Thx @Superbitsandbob Yet another way to say Hey whats up with accountability and where are we going from here???
    Thx @Anpu On the off chance that there is change I am holding out even though part of me says unload it before it is worthless.. I am looking for my new FANTASY ISLAND.
    Thx Amber Paine, Not a Complete waist just not all about you...
    Change
    Is
    Difficult
    Thx @Thodin My second Son to quit another loss to the community. Considering his children played as well is even more than most will ever know.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 13, 2020
  5. CICI

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  6. Prada

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    ME2, with sadness...but I had already stopped playing, and got butt hurt over yet another post being censored/deleted, in response to this very thread.
     
  7. Artomus Sumotra

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    A post was deleted from this thread?
     
  8. kaeshiva

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    The sandbox elements of Sota that allow players to create their own events, adventures, etc. is really the strongest selling point.
    Sure, there's dance parties and fishing events. I've been part of building a board game across several lots, of building scavenger hunts, countless roleplaying events, and have been waiting with baited breath for the quest flag/dialogue system tools to be able to do much, much more. We've hosted Smashathons for mass salvage, Craftathons for mass crafting/training/recipe exchange, we do museum tours and storytelling and job fairs and well, all sorts of things.

    The only thing I think that's being "done wrong" is not playing to this strength, fleshing out the community tools, the guild system, achievements systems, crafting, economy. Instead, we see almost all of the effort going to balancing (and re-balancing, and nerfing) combat or things directly related to combat. Honestly, as a 'kill things take their stuff game', Sota's not really anything special. Its the other stuff that makes it special. I can kill stuff, level up, get stronger, get loot, in every single game out there and quite often those aspects are done a lot better elsewhere. Many of us who are still here are here because of the community stuff, the non-combat stuff, the decorating and the roleplay opportunities, the crafting and merchanting and farming and the rest of it.
     
  9. Alleine Dragonfyre

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    This.

    Honestly, I really believe this game should be partially marketed as a creative space with in-game music transcription and the ability to sync music to create full orchestras, paper and books we can write on creating massive player writings libraries, dungeon building, npc scriptwriting, radio stations, decorating etc,

    The game is FULL of extremely creative and talented people! @Chris @Vas Corp Por @Elgarion
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2020
  10. Sean Silverfoot

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    Welcome back old friend so very happy to see you!
     
  11. Prada

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    Yes
     
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  12. Artomus Sumotra

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    I feel it is important to point out that I was able to place my lots in a new POT a week or two after my original post. I am not sure if this was because of my post or if this is because of the nature of my move from a POT that was sold... Regardless I think it is a good thing. Thank you Devs? Knowing why would be useful...
     
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  13. Superbitsandbob

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    I look at the game and the releases and updates and with the greatest respect, I fail to see where all of the effort is going into the PvE side of the game. There have been some new scenes recently but that has to be expected with the release of a new Episode. Combat balance is a very loose term for what is happening also. The thing then with the PvE content is that it is put into the game unfinished, buggy or broken with cut and paste scenery and no testing (or so it seems).

    I have no idea how well the current sim life, housing, activity skills and the tools associated with that work or how bugged or broken they are, but there is a ton of this content and the releases are generally full of it and have been for years. It was pretty much the only content the game received for a long time. If it is in the same state as some of the PvE game then I sympathise.

    Maybe you are right and it is time to cut their loses and focus on what you suggest (although it could be argued that the reason the team is now small, finances don't seem great and the game doesn't seem to be bringing in a load of new players is because of the focus of that game). Perhaps the right question here is who are the devs now and what content do they want to create? Do they want to create new fish to catch or revamp crafting, or do they want to build PvE scenes and focus on combat balance and expansion?
     
  14. kaeshiva

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    We get new STUFF - for the most part, new outfits/furniture/etc. to buy.
    But the systems behind that stuff - not a lot of change. Some of the limits got raised (yay performance?) on lights and things.
    The deco palette functionality is probably the only real system change, and I feel like it was mainly added to address the frustrations of all the new stuff being 'no trade' and being difficult to work with for various reasons, and its still fairly limited. Mainly only use is for finding something you've set down and can't remember where.
    And a year or so ago (year and a half?) we got item size scaling.

    The crafting system is still prohibitively expensive and completely adventure-grind gated (for gold to buy fuels, fighting to get resources, rare drop recipes, etc) with no real sustainability of its own.
    All gathering is still heavily combat contingent.
    The dungeon system is still same handful of rooms (more adventuring extreme rare drops) and same handful of monsters (more adventuring drops), little to get excited about.
    The player created quest/dialog system is, essentially, a NPC signpost with an extremely tight word count (less than a player book for all possible options) but no quest flag functionality or linkability etc.
    Fishing is still a random lotto with no observable difference between level 80 skill and level 140 skill in terms of what you catch and only a nominal difference to acutal success rate, no meaningful gear for it and bait effect is so negligible it can barely be measured in sample sizes of 1000 (which was only possible with getting bait recovery to 100% with pax rings, which as i understand it, has been nerfed).
    Farming and brewing are profitable if done in huge quantities but this starts being like 8-10 hours a day of watching a progress bar and while lucrative, it isn't really fun or something you're going to want to do every day, esp. in the case of farming that you're committed to logging in every day or you make a significant loss.

    For the most part, not a lot has really changed to the underlying systems since release at least, not from the end user's perspective in terms of what you can actually do/build/make.
    Various things have broken (and been fixed) over time, sure, but it doesn't feel like this part of the game is being "developed". I'm sure someone will get on here and list all the small things that have changed in this space, but it doesn't change the point that decorating a lot now and decorating a lot 4 years ago is fundamentally the same process and that process starts with either spending money or fighting stuff to make gold.

    And I don't just mean this as a massive 'whinge' about it. It's just the way things are. We see constant tweaks and changes to combat and skills, bards (and the several rebalancings of), taming, artifacts, areas to fight, scaleable areas to fight, we saw the Age of UT give way to the Age of ERG and then more functionality changes to deal with the Abusers of ERG. For the last couple of years Sota has felt more and more like a 'fighting game' with a veneer of 'other stuff', mostly powered by player creativity and imagination. More monsters! Harder monsters! Monsters that 1-shot you! More artifacts! Combine artifacts! Combine them more! The most significant changes to crafting have been in the 'gear crafting' space with still nothing done to address refining, cooking, etc. Even then, there's not been a single new material added since launch either, or even uses added to existing gatherables with no purpose, except of course stuff you get from combat. We're still manually listing items 1 at a time on vendors (and still arguing over whether or not we want a global market so you can actually find stuff without spending 20 hours staring at load screens) .
    I guess I'm personally at the point where I don't feel like any of this is likely to change, where systems aren't going to get finished, and I can "kill monsters and take their stuff" anywhere without dealing with the bs rare drop rates, silly difficulty scaling, perma gear dura loss and poor performance. And I think that's a shame.
     
  15. Vladamir Begemot

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    Chris loves combat, so it has become a combat game. That's the short of it.

    The long of it is that if Shroud was a mechanic shop, the sweet 1957 Cadillac is scattered all over the shop in its base parts. The engine does run, but it isn't mounted, tranny is over by the back wall, the body is out back hopefully under a tarp. We've got all the parts but they aren't tied together, and they aren't in a very usable format.

    Sure, you could push the frame to the grocery store, much like you could list hundreds of items one by one, or do your best to use the recipe book, but eventually it will just seem silly.

    But the owners sweet motorcycle, that thing gets a ton of attention. It gets taken out for a spin every day, and then micro tweaked when he returns to the shop.

    Pretty cool if you're into bikes. If you want your Caddy finished, just hold up, the bike needs another tune up. And why are you so impatient anyway, it's only been lyng there in pieces for 4 years now! Check out my bike! Sweet right?

    But the furniture scaling was pretty awesome @kaeshiva, I'll give you and them that one. It made all of the furniture content suddenly about 3x more in quantity, and that's a good move.
     
  16. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    Don't forget the UI, I mean dashboard, is under the work bench ;)
     
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  17. Dinsoo

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    I didn't pay for a car that is in parts.
     
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  18. Vladamir Begemot

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    Hahah!

    Well, if you paid you did. And we can't take it to a different shop either, just have to wait for him to get bored of his motorcycle.
     
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  19. A'chelata

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    You are correct, and the population continues to get lower and lower with no evidence of any efforts to change that.
     
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  20. Dartan Obscuro

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    Yes! 100% this. This game will never satisfy people that are all in on combat.

    To get players, there needs to be activities that are unique and amazing. Deco is kind of like that but if that's your whole thing you're probably playing The Sims. I really want to be able to tell my friends "SotA is great! You can {do this crazy unexpected thing}". Over the years I've seen all kinds of ideas that would fit that. And there's lots of pieces built for it but they haven't come together with that synergy.
     
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