Anyone playing in offline mode?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by jregel, Jul 28, 2020.

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  1. jregel

    jregel Avatar

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    I completed the main story last year in offline mode and have recently started playing again, exploring the different scenes that I previously missed.

    Although I don't get to see any other players in offline mode, I do have my three companions (who are very helpful in a battle!) and don't have to experience the immersion-breaking costumes, decorations and activities that you sometimes see in screenshots.

    As an offline player, I get the feeling that we're ignored and there's not much development to encourage offline, single person play. So, anyone else playing offline? Are we a silent minority or majority?
     
  2. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

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    Offline mode is actually a great way to test various skills and other things, due to the fact you can edit your save game and give yourself unlimited gold and xp! :D
     
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  3. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    Almost exclusively. I sign into the online game every few weeks, but I only "play" offline. I have no interest in yet another MMO, but I no longer have the choice to play online selectively.
     
  4. Godra

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    I was online from the beginning, but the XP grind was unbearable as a Solo player. I don't like grouping with other players. Switched to Offline mode and did the grind faster since I could edit my pooled XP and gained skills faster that way. But even with a crap ton of skills at lvl 200, there were still some things I struggled with. The companions are a joke, if you ask me; could have been done better. However, that's the whole thing. They really didn't put alot of effort into Offline and I think they would like to just forget it even exists. I have been back in Online now since the double XP is in, but if they remove that, I probably will just stop playing the game altogether. Plus there was items, such as the Pledge Reward Houses, that were supposed to be available for purchase in Offline, but that never happened and probably never will. I think I spent over $10,000 so far into this game with pledges, bundles, POT and upgrades, add-on store, COTOs.... I never expected to get anything back, but I expected the game to be more than it is, including the Offline play.... just waiting for the change and the next change....maybe it will turn out just fine in the end....the quest continues....
     
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  5. Toular

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    One thing that has bugged me ever since you got a housing deed for completing the outskirts is that you get a free Player Owned Town Row Lot Deed. Is that as worthless in offline as it sounds? Nope. because in offline you can use it in an NPC town.

    I wonder, though how many offline players don't know that.
     
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  6. Kara Brae

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    It looks to me like offline was tacked onto the online game and not much was done to hide that fact. References to player owned towns were not removed, and as long as I was playing I never noticed any further development on the offline part. Maybe that has changed - I haven't played it in a year or two.

    I used to enjoy having the companions and with them I could go to places I didn't dare go alone. Mostly I stuck to tier 4 areas. I loved getting loads of loot in the offline game, even though it was 99% garbage. I was recently surprised to see that I get more experience for logging into the online game than the offline game.

    I once thought I would like to buy up a whole town and fix it up to look pretty in the offline game. That was my original goal. But it wasn't possible because housing was still too expensive. I never thought of cheating by editing files to give myself more resources, and now I have lost interest. I do have a pretty row lot home in Central Brittany that is nicely decorated.

    I stopped playing because it was getting boring to repeat all the quests that I already completed in the online game (where I got as far as completing the three paths, but I never got my shroud). If the Journal was better, I might have continued, but dealing with it is so aggravating! It is the one thing in the game I hate the most. (Let me know if it has been fixed and I might take another look!)
     
  7. Ancev

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    Haven't played the offline mode yet but I'm glad it's an option. Wish there was also a LAN version of the game that was similar to offline mode.

    I liked Richard's idea of different modes of play and if the different modes aren't coming back it might still be cool to put some type of content that caters to the retro Ultima gamers.. I loved the turn based Ultima games and random encounters.

    Perhaps there could be some quests that increase the amount of random encounters as you travel from one place to another.. like dark cultists trying to hunt you down, or you have to track down a group of bandits.. these could be handled through invisible random encounter mobs that you just bump into as you're traveling on the overland map, in addition to the ones you see that can be avoided. Could also be handled by joining an NPC guild etc. Then just leave the guild if you tire of the additional encounters.
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2020
  8. Astirian

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    I legit don't think I've ever heard Chris talk about Offline Mode in any other kind of way than "those folks who like that kinda thing".

    Single-player died long before "we need to build a multiplayer framework first" finally revealed itself to be "let's do a F2P MMO". What is astounding now to me is the horse blinkers. I'll re-sub if you add horse blinkers in the next release because that would be hilarious.

    And it's so damn frustrating because they have an entire game there waiting to be given some TLC. There is so much there already, all those years of hard work, all that effort... just that last 10% missing!!!

    Not just adding sunglasses and tweaking combat every month please, k thanks.
     
  9. jregel

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    Totally agree. If you read some people's views of SOTA, they see only a disaster, but there is a lot of stuff in the game. I think Novia is a really interesting place with lots of potential. I've been working my way through the Perennial Coast adventure scenes and there's so much that could be done to tighten the single player game up and make it genuinely good fun to play.
     
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  10. HogwinHD

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    i play offline mostly for fun by way of giving myself tons of experience, gold etc. I dont do that online mainly because i havnt got a clue how to and it would ruin online play, whereas offline i use for testing etc
     
  11. oplek

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    "Lots of potential" has been said about this game for years. They can't seem to break out of that. Instead, Shroud of the Avatar is a fractal of chronically early-access features in various states of development.

    Even this "looking for duel" thing is part of a system that'll flop, because they seem to hell-bent of taking the wind out of their own sails, with the most hype-evaporating release schedule imaginable. Especially for PVP, which needs lots of hype concentrated to get sufficient critical mass to be self-sustaining. Yet, trickling out it comes.

    So get used to "lots of potential".
     
  12. Bedawyn

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    Offline used to be my primary playmode; the ability to run multiple characters in the same saveworld was fantastic. But they ruined that when they combined xp, gold, and banks for all characters. They've removed the shared xp since, but not shared banks and gold, so it's no longer practical to track the earned rewards for separate characters. Online, you can work around it by creating new accounts, but not offline.

    So that drove me into online mode, even though I knew I didn't want an MMO environment. But the constant stream of immersion-breaking deco and lag-causing overdeco online finally drove me back to offline this year. When I asked back in January what their plans were for offline, Atos said it wasn't going to get any worse than it was already was. IMO, he's made it clear in streams that offline players aren't his target audience and he doesn't consider offline mode to be worth development time. So I figured I'd just try to appreciate it for what it was -- a complete free game offline -- rather than for the tremendous potential of what it could have been. Like Kara Brae, I looked forward to eventually decorating an entire town or two, slowly, without worrying about the time constraints of needing to play a certain number of hours every week in order to pay for online taxes.

    But then they decided to remove the vault from offline mode, so all the houses I wanted to buy for offline are no longer available, so that goal's out. There's nothing left now but the adventure game portion, and while that's fun for a few hours here and there, it's just not enough to hold my interest.
     
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  13. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    all the houses were supposed to go onto the actual deco vendors. if there's a house missing from the vendors in offline, bug it.
     
  14. Bedawyn

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    MOST of the houses are missing from the offline deco vendors. I don't know what claims were originally made, but in practice, the "everything available offline" only applies to the pledge reward items -- not to telethon or bundle items. There's a TON of deco content available online that has only been available offline through the vault, and since the vault was removed, is no longer available at all offline. I'm not going to waste my time bugging things that are working as designed, even if I dislike the way it's designed.
     
  15. Barugon

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    Yeah, I like to test new skills and combinations to see what's effective before I commit to it online.
     
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  16. Barugon

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  17. Bedawyn

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    So, in the latest, the Vault was removed from offline mode so the devs can "more efficiently use our development time on other things." No surprise there, but I thought a few of those still trying might want to see it in the devs' own words.
     
  18. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    Not surprising. It would be easy for the server to select 4-6 weeks of vault items, then patch the list out with the monthly download. Since there is no other way to get those items offline, it sucks to have it broken. Maybe @Elgarion can put a request in.
     
  19. Xiones

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    You can edit XP, Gold and COTOs in offline mode.
     
  20. Barugon

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    Ultimately, you can edit pretty much anything if you know what it is. Also, you can buy crowns in-game for gold in offline mode.
     
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2020
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