I think our game is still in Beta state in Development

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Time Lord, Apr 16, 2022.

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

    Enfo Avatar

    Messages:
    246
    Likes Received:
    355
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Texas
    World of warcraft is still unfinished. They have 4.8 million subscriptions and a cash shop and still cant get the game right. They make more in a year than star citizen has crowdfunded since its inception.

    And both are still incomplete.

    Yes, you can currently play both games and kill mobs and players and do quests, but they are as complete as SoTA.
     
    Time Lord likes this.
  2. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

    Messages:
    15,679
    Likes Received:
    24,293
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    Most I actually agree with for the purpose of balance, even though they were a bit hard to swallow at first. There was one, however, that was way too much that I am still very miffed about.
     
    FrostII and Time Lord like this.
  3. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

    Messages:
    8,336
    Likes Received:
    28,405
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    ~SOTA Monk~ ~Monastery~ ~Thailand~
    (Using Unity was always in the SOTA plan & many other things)

    It's not important to watch this interview. I think it's main importance here is to show that Unity was always where we were headed into, as well as instances. But also to point out that even then, Chris's most valued talent is that he knows how to make games and not just that he's a good computer programer (to hear Lord British speak of him and the qualities of having Chris on our team).

    Alpha or Beta?
    I don't see the states "Alpha or Beta" as being bad descriptions to be used, I just see their traditional sense of them being challenged to describe something more modern in development cycles. 100% Crowd Funding broke the old mold in describing phases inwhich games were normally made before 100% crowd funding was ever considered.

    We players and backers don't know what to make of it when we see our gaming group begin new projects, thinking somehow that we're abandon, when we're clearly not abandon at all, we're still in creation.

    We don't seem to have any peers in 100% crowd funded games, or not many to compare against for contrasting our opinions from.

    What the hell is that thing? You kids get away from there!
    Oh, I know what that is... umm... What the hell is that thing?



    and so...

    Here's a real comparison in someone I think is also part of our Ultima Gang, "Warren Spector" and what he's doing right now.


    It would seem that he and Richard the Lord British are in a sort of mirror situation here, which seems like something we can compare ourselves with.

    If you watched that short video, then you can see that, "the Ultima Gang" is and always has been on the tip of the spear when it comes to pioneering new ways while expanding the future of gaming possibilities.

    and so...

    All of that let's me know that things are actually quite normal around here in the Ultima Gangland. As Lord British's interview clearly point to the fact that his gaming titles that have always had the most contraversy surounding them in their creation phase, have always turned out to be the most fan beloved and most profitable. AND, Warren Spector recently handed off one of his games still in development, just as Richard the Lord British did when handing things to Chris.

    We are in great hands, whether or not Chris is at the keyboard or not, it's his talents in making games which is his strongest trait, no matter who's at the sota development keyboards.
    In recent sota development, I think our "new team" (especially including our player developers) have been doing brilliant work. Our fishing is kicking and our new instances are real eye poppingly beautiful and full of fun.

    I'll comment on one more thing further, about our instances being small or a thing to complain about (btw everyone has every right to complain about stuff here. It's how we get things), our instances scale up in their size by average, from skull lvl #1 and random encounter instances being our smallest, to huge scale which can be seen in our Frost Giant's instance. They all have the size that is needed for the purposes we go hunting in them.

    I think we're on target with no downside through this new endevor. It's just another game in the continuing journey with the Ultima Gang.
    ~Time Lord~
     
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2022
  4. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

    Messages:
    8,336
    Likes Received:
    28,405
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    ~SOTA Monk~ ~Monastery~ ~Thailand~

    I can never keep up with these, my being on the other side of the world, so I'll repost this here.
    ~TL~
     
    Cordelayne likes this.
  5. Akandriel

    Akandriel Avatar

    Messages:
    47
    Likes Received:
    73
    Trophy Points:
    8
    Maybe I'm lucky. I was able to finish the quests to get my shroud avoiding human interaction for 2 years play solo and no game crashes. Since then, I interact with human and go on hunting raids with no crashes and aside from general bug fixes that is normal across any game, the game feels good right now in EP1 and EP2. I don't have any high level complaints. When I played Guild Wars 2, 10 years ago, the game was finished, but they were also doing bug hunting and even worse, they were constantly adjust the character classes to the point where you felt the game was in an alpha stage. I left the game because of this.

    Because SoTA is skill based, I don't have to worry about my character classes getting major reworked as there are no classes; I just create "classes" from the available skills and mold the character's function in each combat deck: a great system vs. cookie cutter classes.
     
  6. Aeryk

    Aeryk Avatar

    Messages:
    141
    Likes Received:
    181
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Location:
    Terra (thus far)
    I'm not a fan of Unity (very much used to be before leadership changes), but so much appreciate what you say here. That likely won't stop me from quietly complaining about Unity between friends, or occasionally slipping and making a public disparagement. This though is Truth: "...sometimes you just have to move on faster than you want, because money drives projects. You just have to get stuff done, with the codebase you have."

    Anything reasonably complex takes resources, people, and their time. There will be times we can only move forward with what we have.
     
    Cordelayne, Time Lord and Anpu like this.
  7. Burzmali

    Burzmali Avatar

    Messages:
    1,290
    Likes Received:
    1,771
    Trophy Points:
    113
    I'm usually all for skill systems, but SOTA's implementation, coupled with the lack of meaningful end game content means that all high level characters are more or less clones of each other. They all have all the skills at a high level and can switch out specialties as the meta shifts, or with alts for crafting skills. You mention that class-based systems are cookie cutter, well SOTA's is more of a ball of dough that was roll out and tossed in the oven.
     
    FBohler and Time Lord like this.
  8. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

    Messages:
    3,054
    Likes Received:
    11,752
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Female
    The specialization limits and gear limits (ie, attunement, taming necklaces, weapon slots) pretty much shoehorn us into classes anyway. The specifics change, and there's a bunch of peripheral passives ,but people are essentially "fire mage" "tamer" "melee" "archer" "some other flavor mage" "healer" "bard". Where a true class based system would be much easier to balance, Sota's freedom (which I LOVE, don't get me wrong) does make it difficult to address emerging synergies such as the recent discussion of tamer/bard. We all level everything because we can, because the content difficulty is scaled to our ability to do so, and there's a checklist of essential passive benefits across several trees that nearly any build will benefit from.

    In the old days when Tier 5 content was the hardest there was, you could get away with more generalist builds, splitting attunement on gear, having more even stats, etc. But the content of today, if you don't have 400+ in your key stat, you are not effective. As a magic user, even with 400++ attunement maximizing every buff, food, gear slot, imbued gem, artifact, etc. you will still be thwarted by extremely magic resistant high level enemies (unless you are a fire mage whose fast stacking resistance stripping and evaporate capability mitigates this).

    This isn't a problem with having a skill based system, its a problem with the balance on specific skills and the mechanics of the deck system making some magic trees with less damage skills fail to reach min deck size without mixing unattuned spells. Its a problem with synergies that have no corresponding limiter/sacrifice which has the not unexpected result of everyone using it. Of all the possible combinations, permutations that exist with our skill system, we see the same combinations again and again because they are effective.
     
    Cordelayne and Time Lord like this.
  9. Adam Crow

    Adam Crow Avatar

    Messages:
    1,792
    Likes Received:
    3,730
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Go pvp with Estroma, Rev, Jemma, Joe, Delta, Vesper or any of the other pvpers and tell me if they are clones of each other. Cause that is not what I see at all.
     
    Tirrag, Xee, Enfo and 1 other person like this.
  10. Burzmali

    Burzmali Avatar

    Messages:
    1,290
    Likes Received:
    1,771
    Trophy Points:
    113
    They are clones because they have the same skills and access to the same equipment. Using different gear or tactics in PVP is mostly a symptom of the poor state of the PVP scene. As with most MMOs, when players have the time and inclination to grind PVP the "best" build or two are eventually worked out and all the top players fall into line.
     
    Time Lord likes this.
  11. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    2,199
    Likes Received:
    2,993
    Trophy Points:
    153
    I have 4 decks for pvp which are different than those Player. I do swap between them depending on what class I am fighting. Jemma's I am still working on a deck before I try him again.

    each one mentioned are not clones. There is for sure some pvp specific skills that some may use that are the same, but gear and the likes is not all the same.

    I fought Estroma recently and he and I were 50/50 chance of killing each other and the battle was epic (5min which felt like 20min lol) There are many builds for pvp. and a lot that people still have not used yet at least on the top end. Back when Para was around I tested a ton of builds with Para and it all came down to who are you fighting and to have a counter type deck for that class... so from that perspective perhaps there is a pattern to builds vs builds but there way more than two :)
     
    Time Lord and Adam Crow like this.
  12. Burzmali

    Burzmali Avatar

    Messages:
    1,290
    Likes Received:
    1,771
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Yup, and why are you able to have 4 decks with equipment ready to go? Would it be because you have virtually every, if not literally every, skill GMed? That's what I mean about clones, I ran with several different parties during my last stint playing the game and every group seemed to have at least one or two players with almost every skill GMed. Sure they might not use the same deck and equipment, but they could if they wanted to, if you strip the decks and equipment, the characters are basically equivalent.
     
    Time Lord likes this.
  13. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    2,199
    Likes Received:
    2,993
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Th
    No, I am very spec'ed into 2 classes with specific skills. Some people do GM all skills however I dont waist my xp on things I dont use. GM level 100 is nothing to be honest. anyone can GM all skills pretty easy as the cost to get to GM is minimal.

    I have a dual wand pvp build, with chain, as well same build with buffs as 2nd deck for that attack deck. I also have a shield version of the same with a little more protection incase I run into a ranged.

    I also have about 20 other decks. A cloth one for pvp and pve same as the above but the cloth gives me more int and crit chance. it has a lot less hp so I die faster but my dps goes up a whole lot more.

    the people that GM all usually do not go spec or spec in physical and or taming as spec creates a negative attunement on opposite tree for magic schools. That means if they GM everything in opposite they are wasting points as it will reduce the max power they have for their spec magic school.

    this is why its all about what you want to be. there will always be some skills you will always want to take like Res for example. Or against air mages torpid. This is not a class based game so you dont have the tank, healer and dps as completely separate classes. its a build your class as you need.

    I have tested so many mixes over 7 years and there are unlimited options for end game pvp and pve. They are not cookie cutter builds like other games. I can make pretty much any class work in either with enough exp to complete. Well some will say some schools are weak its because they dont understand how to make it work because they have not either attained the right levels to reach the curv point where it become viable or they dont know what to mix with it to make it work well enough.

    All Skill based games work this same way... the one bigg difference is there is no skill cap or limit to the numbers. meaning a person who xp's the most will always have the most power end game with time.

    Now if it was like UO where there was a 200 point cap, or like some of the other games than your choices are reduced a lot more because some things dont shine until they reach a certain level where the skill changes either through the benefits or even the negatives. That is why people like me are just now switching to PVP because we finally hit a point where we are ready to shine. before now I never pvped much because there was no way I could survive.

    add in the new pvp dmg mitigations they had talked about where some skills are reduced in pvp over pvp for more balance has helped bring some of that chart curvs more in line to made it easier for some of the weaker ones that need more xp to reach its peak to be viable sooner.

    like all mmo's skills are always being adjusted over time as some of those curvs are hit which make some classes too powerful. others are because of bugs where something was not created right from day one and thus has giving benefits to those using. in time they usually get adjusted but some they avoid fixing right away as it would break a lot of builds people discovered.

    this game was all based on the idea you could be master of all if you wanted but it would take you a life time to get there because of how the xp works per level of skill. best skills usually cost a lot. I am just working on a 140 spec and it costs me 100mil just to get one point up... some people I know have skills that now costs them 500mil or more lol. so some people choose not to focus on those and just pump points into other stuff. but given you can only have 10 skills per deck up at a time. you are only limited by how fast you can switch decks which always has a cost in focus. So you really are not that unlimited.. your armor you will not be swapping much between two many types as that is way to slow. for each item you change it costs more time which = less time hitting. some people get around this pre-buffing but they are on a timer the minute they buff up so for pvp its not usually something many do unless they are dueling as the real world pvp battle you usually have what you have on when the fight starts and thats it... no time to put all your bard stuff or get your other gear on to do x, y ,z.

    That is what limits a lot of the swapping. unless you have all your same gear with just different skills which is doable but than you are still capped by your skill levels as well that you cant be changing out chests and weapons which give the bonus to attunement with out that slowdown and focus cost so most folks tend to focus on what works for them as the primary for a pvp deck and pve deck. with odd decks for fighting key mob types and or people.
     
  14. Tirrag

    Tirrag Avatar

    Messages:
    853
    Likes Received:
    1,820
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Iowa, USA
    the are only two things i have ever felt makes this game feel "beta" since persistence. first is the lack of minimaps (or the inclusion, subsequent removal, and then incomplete reinclusion). i know the history and i have built minimaps in Unity, multiple ways. i know there is a lot involved in fixing them but i would not sleep until they are all in. i have never played a game with broken minimaps (when they are offered) and there is no question new player experience and game reputation suffer from it. you hit M, you should be presented with a valid minimap no matter what scene you are in. second, is scene content (or lack thereof). every scene should have a purpose with mini/side quests... something to explore and discover. there are a lot of scenes that do (more than many players realize just look at the quest solutions post on the forum) but there are also many scenes that dont. the ones that dont are the ones that make empty spots in the game and make players wonder why the scene is even there.

    people can argue that systems in the game are not "complete", though what complete actually means is dependent upon the perspective of the player. they are complete as in they are fully functional (except minimaps)... maybe not to the original vision or contain all the features to meet a players personal desire, but they are fully functional. some players dont like aspects of farming, yet there are massive farms built that help with the economy and sustain individual players need for GP. some players dont like aspects of dungeon building yet i have seen huge, elaborate dungeons built. some players dont like aspects of block-building yet amazing castles, towers, and stoneworks are created using it. some players have issues with the crafting system yet powerful equipment and items can be built with it in nearly infinite combinations. some players dont like not having classes yet we can build out any class we desire using combinations of skills, decks, and equipment. what we can do as players within the game of SotA is nothing short of amazing and i cant help but appreciate the amount of work that has gone into this game. i recently took a personal tour of Mysteria with Governor @Irishize (again thank you!). the amount of detail and thought put into that entire town left me at a loss for words and marveling at what can be accomplished in the deco side of this game... and that is just _one_ POT (yet another system in SotA). can all of these systems be improved? certainly but right now the players of SotA have the ability to make this game as amazing as they desire.

    for combat, i would tend to disagree with the notion that there are only a few playstyles within SotA that can be successful. we first need to acknowledge that like "complete", what "success" means varies from player to player. it may be that players can get a head start by doing what others do to be successful, but that is not what has to be done. once experience is gained we can fan out to try new ideas. find a goal and figure out the skills, decks, and equipment to make it successful. on my main character i set a goal for soloing the orange pit dragon with the minimal amount of armor. eventually taking it on and defeating it with just a shield and weapon. in my current main, i am an spec earth summoner and air spec. opposite trees that multiple times experienced players have asked why those two, but i happen to find they work very well together for how i want to play that character and i have been very successful with it (IMHO). on my alt, i just melee soloed an Ancient Yellow dragon using mainly polearms and light armor skills. that to me is a success. i set a goal, trained the skills, built the equipment, decks and then accomplished it. @Time Lord went on a melee autoattack journey to build a character completely around the concept. i wont speak for him but in my opinion it was a success. we dont have to fit a specific mold in SotA. we certainly _can_ but we are also free to pick our own mold and figure out how to make it work.

    as for the state of Chris, my hope is that he delegates to keep the work flowing but oversees the work in more of a managerial role. things like that take time so i fully expect a slowdown in certain areas until resources and work are realigned and a new plan has emerged. i think there was a hiccup in communication with the plan presented being that he will work on both. we all know that is not sustainable and unnecessarily caused panic. companies take on multiple projects all the time this is nothing new. i have faith that a new balance will be struck and once again bug fixes and features will come to us in the quantities we have been used to with each exciting new release.
     
  15. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

    Messages:
    7,944
    Likes Received:
    9,015
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Location:
    Hemut
    Thank you @Tirrag that mirrors my same feelings as well, but much better written.
     
    Tirrag, Xee and Time Lord like this.
  16. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    2,199
    Likes Received:
    2,993
    Trophy Points:
    153
    @Tirrag exactly, and very well written cheers.
     
    Tirrag and Time Lord like this.
  17. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

    Messages:
    8,336
    Likes Received:
    28,405
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    ~SOTA Monk~ ~Monastery~ ~Thailand~
    Yes, I have done several different skill sets of that type of character now, which were all vastly fun and very challenging to build. Each of those characters individual journey continue to be very fun.

    When we look at our games progress from an Alpha, Beta or complete standpoint we all see something different because we each have our focused vision of what may or should lay ahead of us.

    What I see is that our game is less than 50% complete, which can also mean many different things to all who consider the Alpha, Beta or completed, question.

    What less than 50% means to me is that we now see and play our game with only and around:

    • Less than 50% of the skill trees have not yet to be seen.
    • Less than 50% of Agriculture has not yet been seen.
    • Less than 50% of Fishing has not yet been seen.
    • Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...
    In accepting the above mentioned possibilities, this means there's a great deal to be commented on and as yet to be player or developer suggested to.

    Many know my views on how our game needs to "become more monitized and morph our game design to better fit monitization" due to our historical development funding's tragectory.
    :rolleyes: Which... there again, is a matter of what reading glasses of our future show to us, each through our individual focused view of what should be and become here.

    I look more to demographics currently to shape my own predictions of what is coming, which is not always what I wish to come through our evolution. I do wish to change those negitive trajectories or flat lined trajectories of ours to better fit a more robust development pace.

    :D @Tirrag :thumbs up:~Time Lord~ :D
    [​IMG]
     
  18. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    3,333
    Likes Received:
    11,010
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Washington, DC
    Been saying this for years! ;)
     
    FBohler, Ancev and Time Lord like this.
  19. Krovakin

    Krovakin Avatar

    Messages:
    121
    Likes Received:
    160
    Trophy Points:
    18
    sooooo read over this forum (Jemma Star) .... and
    #1 I do not have every skill gmed not even close maybe 1/2 of them.
    #2 I am a air/light armour speced mage and only use 2 bard skills so I do not fall under any of the above mentioned "fire mage" "tamer" "melee" "archer" "some other flavor mage" "healer" "bard", as I am not speced into any of these skills.
    #3 Melee as mentioned in #2 is a VERY large category you minus well say everyone is dps or tank.....
    and #4 the game has made leaps and bounds, it is not going to change over night and the devs are working on new changes (for the better) every month.

    to give you an example I am a high tier pvper.... take deltalok, Revenant, and estroma. me and Deltalock have back and forth fights even wins and losses and hes archer. Revenant I can kill a few times but he wins a lot but is pure melee, and Estroma I have a very very hard time killing and he is melee / ranged, and again I am airmage/light armour. None of us are copies of each other and most if not all of us do not have all skills gmed. we focus our xp on very narrow builds to be the best at those skills. So sorry Burzmali but I highly disagree with your comment.

    I do not think the game is alpha because alpha games are almost unplayable which this is not. I would put it as a new release stage or late beta. A lot of games not at early release have lots of issues look at new world for instance and they had a much bigger dev team. I am very happy with the games progress in the last year imo.

    Anyways that's my thoughts but what do I know.
     
  20. Ancev

    Ancev Avatar

    Messages:
    1,150
    Likes Received:
    1,956
    Trophy Points:
    113
    It might be helpful to post the adventure level of players in the PvP Leaderboard section just to be transparent. I believe Jemma, Estroma, and Revenant are all adventure level 150+ I'd guess deltalok is a bit lower? Revenant is adv level 158 last I heard, not sure about Estroma.
     
    Time Lord likes this.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.