How many fulltime programmers are on this project? Can we do anything to help to hire another?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by craftymethod, Jul 11, 2020.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Bedawyn

    Bedawyn Avatar

    Messages:
    791
    Likes Received:
    986
    Trophy Points:
    93
    There are very few companies funded by donators, period. Companies are generally funded by customers who are already getting what they want from the company or investors who have a reasonable expectation of getting what they want.

    There is an arena where organizations are funded by donations, out of general good will and a desire to see the project succeed. It's the nonprofit world -- where it is absolutely normal and expected for donors to attach strings to their donations and to designate what kind of activities the money can be used for.
     
  2. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

    Messages:
    7,944
    Likes Received:
    9,015
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Location:
    Hemut
    Going to respond only because I get very angry when false information continues to be perpetuated on the forums. I completely get your frustrations on this however.

    Let's go over a few things:
    Currently, the Quests system, which includes receiving tasks from various NPC's, Journal Entries and Quest Markers are actually working just fine, and actually complete just fine when finishing them. I know this for a fact because I just finished all 3 Outskirts areas (Main and side quests for each one) as well as the entire Chapter 1 Main Quest, using my one time quest reset. All Tasks, Journal Entries and Markers completed just fine for me for those specific quest. I did find one task not clearing with the lens quest and reported that.

    Sannio has actually been doing a LOT of work on fixing many of these issues involving the quest system. In comparison to when they game was released and as of now, the quest system now is finally in the actually working state.

    There ARE still some lingering...... issues like the entire Main Quest portion that starts with Khasi and Siranto and finally ends with Min Liang Tan, the design and flow needs to be addressed. You can however finish these, but good luck figuring that out on your own... *I* know what to do, new players wont... After finishing THAT..... part I found the rest just fine. And worked all correctly.

    Recently, Sannio went through and fixed a number of long-standing bugs in the Highvale Outskirts area. I recently updated my guide here, and could only find one bug, following this specific sequence here. This is another area where the design and flow of the quests in there need to be addressed. The entire sequence of quests with Esmeralda is just confusing.

    Lastly an extremely longtime bug while on the Love part of the Main Quest was finally fixed as well. Players would receive a summoning whistle for Samael, that doesn't actually work, and one does. Sannio is now aware of this now.

    Recently I got my White Duck, my virtue parchment and the anti-virtue parchment and now getting all the virtue armor pieces. The quest system for that was working just fine.

    Again the Quest System WORKS, but still some quests and designs have issues.


    You discovering doing the new Bunker C quest was bugged when doing it multi-player on the Live Server really should not have happened.

    Unfortunately as we all know, Chris does not want to utilize a Open Public QA Report Test and Fix to Live development process. As you wrote so very well here, but that does not seem to be the direction Chris will consider at this time.

    I didn't notice anything yet that was defined "a mess" so far. I won't however talk about the Love portion in the Main Quest in Ardoris. That is still what it is.....
     
  3. Duke Gréagóir

    Duke Gréagóir Legend of the Hearth

    Messages:
    5,676
    Likes Received:
    11,810
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Location:
    Dara Brae
    Please pay $84K directly to Puuk for a contract of 365 days of employment to work on Shroud of the Avvatar. That is what anything you can do to get Puuk back. ;) hehe
     
    Dinsoo likes this.
  4. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

    Messages:
    3,054
    Likes Received:
    11,752
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Female
    I acknowledge that it is possible for a player, particularly a player who has done the quests before and is not new to Sota, to complete the quests.
    However, even as recently as a few months ago, I still encountered a lot of 'functional' issues - these tend to crop up if you deviate from the expected path or don't do things exactly according to the intended script.

    As recently as a few months ago, trying to help people through the main storyline was still a harsh, painful process full of kitchen sink keyword spam, backtracking, and 'why wont this update'. (I've completed the full main storyline four times personally on two accounts, I've 'back seat' completed it with Scoffer four times on his two accounts, and I have shoehorned dozens of people through the pain points of this over the years, so I have a good idea of what is "supposed to happen"). Admittedly, yes, the Love quest is the worst of the lot, involving all sorts of screwing around to get the spirit talkers to cooperate, etc. Its a lot worse if you 'started' it at some point and left it for a year and try to resume it - prepare for a lot of trial and error getting it to work. Then there was all of the 'repeatable, but shouldn't be' quests, and npcs not acknowledging you unless you closed dialogue box and tried again, and so on and so forth.

    When I say even the 'new' quests - yes, Bunker C in a party was a disaster, with one member of the party's quest finishing but them getting no reward. Which kinda negates the point of the quest.

    I know Sannio has been putting in the hours working on the quest system. But it feels very much like going to the deep end of the pool, scooping out a bucket of water, and walking around and pouring it in the shallow end. A lot of effort for not a lot of visible result. I intend no disrespect to Sannio (or any of the devs) but quite often it seems there is reaction without a clear plan, and a stubborn refusal to rip out what doesn't work and start again instead of continuing to 'tweak things here and there' which often have unforeseen consequences in other systems.

    Regarding the quest journal - I stand by "mess." Its completely unfit for purpose. My journal is still full of tasks I've completed already, it gives no information about where I obtained the quest, often even after completion it simply disappears without telling me who to turn something in to. The Love quest got really nasty, having 3-4 duplicate entries of the same task, and having tasks disappear completely (nothing in my journal) but I wasn't actually done, had still to go to the Necropolis, for example. There's two sections, "journal" and "tasks" that seem to both include the same sort of things without it ever being really clear what you're meant to be doing. I had similar problems in Highvale outskirts where, (having done them many times) I know what I'm supposed to do next but no amount of creative NPC abuse would actually get them to 'tell me' to do it. I recently ran an alt through Solace Bridge (when the 10x quest xp was on) and on more than one occasion had waypoints that didn't go away, waypoints that were completely irrelevant, npcs that wouldn't talk to me, etc - the journal giving no indication of who/what/where/why. My last gripe with the journal is that everything is just jumbled together semi-chronologically (although, my journal jumps back to 2018 for a while, then carries on with more recent stuff, for some reason). I have to scroll past page after page of mail deliveries and other things - trying to use it as a reference for stuff I've completed is an actual impossibility.

    Or how about - super basic functionality here, most games have it - the ability to abandon a quest that's in a screwy state and pick it up again? That would alleviate so much frustration and I can't for the life of me figure out why we still don't have this.

    In light of all of this, I don't think saying that the quest system needs serious work is spreading 'false information' in the slightest. Having something work for "some users" "some of the time" is not a definition of success. And that's just the functional elements. The 'vague descriptions' and 'unclear directions' and waypoints that are just a magnifying glass saying "maybe what you want is here?" and - my personal favorite- NPC SCHEDULES having quest NPCs wander off or refuse to talk to you don't do much to enhance the experience, either.

    So, yeah. If you follow a walkthrough to the letter, with no deviation, the quests work.
    But if you approach it organically and actually try to have the 'conversation' with the NPC without a primer telling you which key words to say, it can be incredibly difficult to progress or ensure you have the correct flags set. That very capability is one of the reasons why we HAVE this dialogue system, so it wasn't "go here, kill this, fetch this" but felt more like you were part of a story. If the only way to get through the quests is to follow a 'go here do this guide' then the punishment of this system is not only "bad" but also completely counter to purpose.
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2020
  5. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

    Messages:
    7,944
    Likes Received:
    9,015
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Location:
    Hemut
    What you specifically said was:

    What you are actually complaining about (and rightly so) are quests that are still bugged.

    The quest system is not neglected or not working. Several very old bugs still exist with several quests.

    Could you give me an example? I'd actually be curious. I occasionally on the QA server have 2 Characters that I delete and start over from scratch and run through some of the Outskirts areas and other areas in different sequences to find if any specific quest sequence might be broken or other odd bugs might pop up. I have yet to see any, BUT there's no way I can check every possible way... If you can however find something that is not working specifically and can replicate it, please do a bug report. Sannio is actually very good at getting those fixed.

    If however your quote above is in reference to the Love part that is in Ardoris for the Main Quest, never mind....

    Of note on THAT, here was a quick summary of the Love part I was actually considering working on.... but just gave up....

    Let's Discuss the Main Quest portion in the city of Ardoris.

    This whole part of the Main Quest starts by getting a letter from Stanley in Soltown, to deliver to Cugel in Ardor. Easy enough.

    The player then heads off to Cugel, and delivers the letter to Cugel, he then tells you to speak to Khasi and Siranto. Easy enough.

    I noticed however, after giving him the letter there was a message:

    [2:12 PM] I made note of Cugel's request I speak with the two rulers of Ardoris.
    [2:12 PM] I should meet with Khasi in her Ardoris palace.

    Easy enough I head off to Khasi... as directed.

    So I speak to Khasi and she then send me off to Demig:

    [2:31 PM] Khasi, Priestess of Love: Thank you dear Avatar! Seek out Damai, the Mother of Peace, here within this keep. She shall show you the way which you must go to fulfill the promise of my emissaries and bring peace to the land once more.

    OK Khasi needs to fulfull the promise of her emissaries, and needs my help. No problem.

    I then speak to Demig, she sends me off to find a Spirit Talker:

    [2:34 PM] Damai: Seek the quiet man who screams within; the outward imprisoning the inner chaos. It is he who speaks truth to those who speak no more. You will find the quiet man in a public place - Peladjar's Inn in Sequanna Square. Seek the quiet that will speak to the quiet there, avatar.

    I have NO idea why they need me to talk to a Spirit Talker, to help fulfill this promise of her emissaries, but let's go find out...

    I head off to Peladjar's Inn, and following her description I talk to the one already named person there named Samael.

    Samael tells me about his ability to speak with undead. Neat! And that..... I need to hire him as a guide?

    Why Do I need a guide? This doesn't make any sense.

    He does however tell me that I need to find some Key Stone to enter the Necropolis. That's neat. I have no reason at all right now to enter the Necropolis. Still no idea why he is telling me this.

    Then he says to speak to Min Liang Tan about this Key Stone.

    Now to recap, I have no reason at all to visit the Necropolis. Still no idea why I was sent to this spirit talker?

    And then to make things worse (and more confusing for new players) both the Speak to Khasi and the Find a spirit talker tasks are still highlighted on the screen, so is Speak to Siranto. Did I do something wrong? Did I do something out of order?
     
  6. DavidDC

    DavidDC Programmer Moderator SOTA Developer

    Messages:
    1,532
    Likes Received:
    3,236
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    for 20k usd a year ill do the job! ;]
    I can wear many hat im fullstack :p
     
    Vox Aquila and Ancev like this.
  7. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

    Messages:
    3,054
    Likes Received:
    11,752
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Female
    Not trying to be pedantic, but saying that we don't have a working quest system and journal, when we both agree that many quests are still bugged, is just mincing words at this point.
    I accept your clarification that "yes, you can get through it so it works." - but its kind of like saying you have a toaster that toasts the bread just right most of the time, if you keep an eye on it, position it on a perfectly flat surface and use exactly the right amount of pressure on the button, you get toast. However if you push the button too hard or wiggle it, it sets itself on fire and/or explodes spewing burnt and still-burning toast bits in a fiery rain of crumbly death throughout your kitchen. I don't know about you, but I'd be throwing it in the trash and buying a new toaster.

    The state of the quest journal is kind of indisputable and has been an oft-raised topic here.

    How many bugs does something need to have for the whole system to be considered non-functional? Its rhetorical, the amount is different for everyone - we all have different frustration thresholds.
    The "kill the cabalist" quests not updating either on the killing end or the turning in end, despite the appropriate cabalist being killed, requiring that many of the same ones be killed again. Journal doesn't actually track which ones you've killed either.

    Path of Love, which you've mentioned, is particularly bad in the Ardoris steps in a lot of various ways. Its hard to treat that as an 'exception' since its the very first story quest the player is sent on and in terms of completion time is probably 50% of the initial storyline. Using Kardan instead of Samael seems to break several things further down the road begging the question of why even giving the player a choice of spirit talker. Have had it happen where it let me hire both of them, but neither would talk to me, had to go back to Ardoris, fire them both, try again, got to necropolis, still nope, back to ardoris again, fired them both, hired the other one, etc. Wont even go to the myriad of ways you can freak out that Khasi/Siranto steps.

    Path of Courage - ran into various issues ("hire a boat in harvest") if the player simply clicks the overland boat the step went away but couldn't progress unless you went back into harvest and physically talked to the ferryman, which you'd have no idea to do unless you'd done it before. Or, in another run, it DID let me progress, but Hire a Boat in Harvest stayed in my quest journal for 2 years after the fact. Ran into issues trying to free the guy in the kobold camp, esp. if you go in and murder everything its possible to get that into a broken state. Couldn't get ring event to trigger without zoning out and back in, etc. Possible to completely skip talking to the kobold in skrekk (and end up with Diplomatic note stuck in your inventory, not deletable or destroyable, FOREVER).

    Path of Truth - possible to 'skip' the entire subquest part with black iron ore (this was added in some point after the original quest) , progress to Xenos but then can't get the update for Artifice (ie possible to complete this out of sequence).

    And this is just from a couple months ago when Scoff did his quest reset to take advantage of the 10x on the main quest. He ran into problems every step of the way, usually if you miss a dialogue prompt and proceed to where you've been told to go and initiate conversation with the next person, you get yourself tied in a knot.

    Other examples I already mentioned -Bunker C not giving quest reward if in a group, etc. Not being able to progress the quest for the Geistershel-thing (I can't check spelling) unless you specifically say the words 'essence phylactery' after being given the quest before closing the dialog box. If you miss that bit, and go in, you can't progress, so you backtrack. Its not a 'bug' as such, just it adds the quest to your journal and you think you're good to go do the task you've been given, but you aren't. I ran into similar issues in Crooked Shank and I'm still not sure to this day if I finished it or if everyone just stopped talking to me, as there was no apparent end or reward after finding the elf children (none of whom would talk to me) and I couldn't turn anything in anywhere. I got myself into a mess in Blood River too, trying to play both sides, ie having elf scalps AND fake elf scalps, poisoning both food supplies, etc.

    And this is just what I can think of off the top of my head.

    As a funny side note, I've recently, along with a couple of other Sota players, been cheating on Sota wih other MMOs. The most common thing you see us say when we get stuck on a quest (in another game) is that the quest probably works just fine, but we're just missing something. And that usually turns out to be the case. In Sota, more often than not if it doesn't work, you immediately assume its bugged. Even if it isn't, because so often it is, that that's your default assumption. Its quite likely that a lot of stuff HAS been fixed, but history has taught us to approach questing with dread in Sota. I've yet to do any of the longer questlines (story quests, etc.) without encountering problems. Not once on all my accounts. As I mentioned before / the ability to abandon a bugged quest and restart it would be a godsend here. If someone uses that function, have it send a copy of the quest state/flags to the dev so they can see what happened/why the player bailed.

    Perhaps a more fair statement would be to say that the quest system, while technically functional, is not very robust in dealing with deviations. In a system that is designed to try and give the player 'choices' it can't really cope well with things being done out of sequence. The journal and waypoints often hinder rather than help. Its a system that, personally, I think needs a pretty significant overhaul to either a) make it able to cope with players not doing the expected or b) simplify it, make it more linear and straightforward (probably easier).

    ---

    As an aside, sorry to derail the point of this thread, which was what can we do to get more programmers funded. Despite my overall disillusionment with a lot of systems and direction, we've still got 4 active subscriptions in this household, and I'm still willing to spend $$ on things if they put something in the store that I like. I think we can all agree the best way to get more funding is to have more players who might buy something instead of trying to get the existing playerbase to buy their 18th house and 52nd dinner set. To get more players, you have to rethink the things that are not fun, that do not work, or even do not work as expected, that are not clearly explained, that are frustrating, etc. At the end of the day it is a game, it is meant to be enjoyable, and some of the core systems, particularly crafting, which is hundreds of hours of tedium in harvesting/refining for a "possible" good result is not a good enticement.

    Take one system - say maps. A functioning world map that lets you click and zoom into different areas. A minimap with waypoints, and the ability to add waypoints to it. These are basic, basic functionality that even 1-man zero funding indie games manage to have working from day 1. It is a bit baffling to me how this is still a problem. I'm sure there's technical challenges, but if that's the case, then do it a different way. Come up with a plan and execute it instead of trying to cobble together the pieces of what's there.

    More money and support will come out of me when I see the broken, unfinished stuff get fixed. They said to us so many times, that the best stuff comes in the last 20%. You remember? Telethon after telethon "the last 20% is where the good stuff is" but we never actually get the last 20%! Pick a system. Flesh it out. Balance it. Test it thoroughly. Then move to the next. This is software dev 101. Instead, we just see more and more fooling with combat, nerfing things, adding new things, nerfing those things, OH LETS ADD TREASURE MAPS, changing functionality that was not really a priority, (at least, from the end user's perspective). And I KNOW you have to make new things to monetize, we get it, but when you have existing stuff that's bugged, even $$ stuff like outfits that clip through the model, that don't get fixed, cause you have the art guy making new things to sell, it can be frustrating. A lot of people are protesting the only way they can - with their wallets.
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2020
  8. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

    Messages:
    7,944
    Likes Received:
    9,015
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Location:
    Hemut
  9. Vladamir Begemot

    Vladamir Begemot Avatar

    Messages:
    6,194
    Likes Received:
    12,076
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    I don't think you derailed, @kaeshiva, you just didn't tl;dr your main point, which is actually that we don't need more programmers, we need a lead designer who can take the mish mash, white board out ways the systems will work together, and plays modern games so he/she can also figure out how to cram in some fun. I would suggest including a UI overhaul with that.

    Take that solid plan, and hand it to the programmers we have.

    (edit: the systems SHOULD be great together. Interactivity is a thing, and with all the stuff we have going on separately it could be a thing in Shroud if they were tied together).
     
  10. macnlos

    macnlos Avatar

    Messages:
    442
    Likes Received:
    1,310
    Trophy Points:
    43
    No, Chris is not Awesome. Being in charge (CEO) and responsible means he has taken on the mantle of steering this ship. It's the fact that the ship is drifting vs actually being steered that proves this. He's a nice guy. I'm sure he is hard working. But those two sentiments do not make a good CEO. And if you tell me that he was given an impossible situation I'll tell you that he accepted the role.

    I would like to quote the whole post Kaeshiva. Thank YOU! That is long but very accurate view of what is frustrating to yourself and many others (me too).
     
  11. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

    Messages:
    4,648
    Likes Received:
    7,614
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Location:
    Veritas Sanctuary
    I came back from about six months off when the lockdowns started, and we got double xp. I've earned probably around 150 million xp since then. And I barely notice it. Maybe Torc and the satyrs in Tartarus go down a bit faster now, but I'm barely doing anymore damage to anything with decent armor like dragons or daemons. Most everything worth killing still takes me forever to kill, to the point I haven't been able to play since last weekend, as my wrist and fingers are sore from all the kiting. But if, after all that, I've barely improved, what else is there to do? We're getting new scenes, equally or more difficult than what we have now, but with worse loot. One small new bit of story content. (Which was broken and didn't give any xp when I did it.) I don't see a whole lot of reason to login this coming weekend, except maybe one last loot grab to earn enough gold to keep my rents paid during another extended absence.
     
  12. Titania Xylia

    Titania Xylia Avatar

    Messages:
    398
    Likes Received:
    1,211
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Gender:
    Male
    I mean finishing things was a problem when they were at full strength.
     
  13. Vladamir Begemot

    Vladamir Begemot Avatar

    Messages:
    6,194
    Likes Received:
    12,076
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    They need a lead designer with the beligerance to force things to completion and tying all the parts together.

    One personal benefit I have gotten out of this is the lesson about the value of finishing things.
     
    Lily Byrd likes this.
  14. Vladamir Begemot

    Vladamir Begemot Avatar

    Messages:
    6,194
    Likes Received:
    12,076
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    Oh, and that lead designer needs the wisdom to know when functional is not complete, polished, quality, and acceptable to a broad audience.
     
  15. majoria70

    majoria70 Avatar

    Messages:
    10,347
    Likes Received:
    24,869
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Female
    Location:
    United States
    You didn't read what I said.
     
  16. AoiBlue

    AoiBlue Avatar

    Messages:
    406
    Likes Received:
    319
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Gender:
    Male
    Awesome and perfect aren't the same thing. People need to learn this.
     
  17. Gorthyn

    Gorthyn Avatar

    Messages:
    617
    Likes Received:
    1,497
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Depends on what your definition of awesome is especially in this context.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.