Which Area of the Game do You Want to See Addressed First?

As interesting as what's voted on is maybe what's not. For example, noone's interested in exclusive items. I wonder how much is that people don't like the idea of them, or that people don't trust them to remain exclusive.

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me -- you can't fool me again" --George W. Bush

 

What changes are needed for the skill system? It is a known and controllable quantity. It is not the easiest thing to get your head around having to be a general pool up and spent them by using them and enabling them. It does not work as another MMO player might expect, but it does work and once you get your head around it, it seems fine.

 

Personally, I voted for it because it's more complicated than it needs to be for what it provides. It's the nonsense like having to have a Buff deck to cast my buffs at full power, like I'd ever want my base buffs at anything less. The cap-less nature turning the game into an infinite skill grind. The attunement system being able to break the system in half. You know, the standard complaints.

 

I like the skill system a lot so wouldn't advise big changes there.

Its hard to put my finger on where SOTA can improve (outside of PVP) honestly. The sum of its parts make it a much greater game than its ratings represent in terms of overall story, ongoing playability, and game systems.

The housing system and itemization is a natural place to look for improvements. But honestly, walking around my house looking at what's hanging on the wall, SOTA already has strengths over other games in spades. I think this is much better than 'good enough' for now.

My usual wish when roaming is for improvement is in overland map graphics. But maybe that's because I wish for a more seemless (less zoning) world. I'm not sure how overland map improvement can be achieved.

I suspect the real opportunity is in story (Episode 2) and PVP. Isn't open-world PVP what gave Ultima Online its lasting 'brand' (moreso than being a 'first' MMO)? Could improvement of PVP systems help Shroud? What is Shroud's version of PVP that creates real market interest?

PVP for me needs to be strategic though. By that I mean fighting for a purpose or 'side'. UO lost me when PVP seemed to be all about the individual, not a higher purpose or faction, at least initially. If Shroud's PVP had more of a purpose (strategic chaos vs order), perhaps it would be more of a draw. As is, PVP, who cares?

 

Except the subtlety branch i'd say needs some love. As a primary stealth/thief type character the ability to not swipe stuff like interesting paintings in dungeons, or pickpocket NPCs/Monsters is a waste of a skill space and definitely has so much potential like disabling traps temporarily or being able to see hidden doors easier in the spec skill would work wonders.

Just my 2c

 

PVP is still a good one imo, but even though I want to see it happen sooner its not my top pick. Id rather see quests/adventure stuff added so there is more places and things to do beyond the usual grind spots.

new player experience though I agree is the one that needs to be much better to do the crowed pulling for the game as they call it in entertainment industry.

Maps though are important to some, people that have been use to the game radars and the likes tend to want them, myself I memorize locations / maps so its not my top haha.. but still think that one is important as its mentioned alot over 8+ years.

At the end of the day though long as everything keeps moving forward and the plans become more solid that I think is the most important. Don't show off things to far in advance to make us think its here tomorrow. would rather only know about things in development but with a more solid release plan
so we dont end up waiting 2 years for something talked about in a stream today lots of let downs of past with teases that never happened which leads to excitement followed by disappointment and eventually with a lot of those it can be a let down / put off in some eyes.

All in all though appreciate everything and the Devs

 

I would love that as well. I mentioned this to a few devs before that even simply linking entrances between forests and locations rather than map exit. than they could do away with the stone entrances all together for a more natural exit.
The do it underground but not above as much. any zone next to another should have away to move between. more like the old EQ type days of scene to scene. If new scene between pops up than they just have to re link. I dont think people
would care if a new section appeared between A and B. Id have to go back through the conversations as to why not, think they were not against it but more so that it was a lot of work to relink stuff etc.. not as simple as it sounds per say
maybe one day

 

Boats is another that does come up alot. I get asked about boats at least a few times every months if I have heard anything on when boats are coming. That I think is all tech related as its a challenge, so suspect that one is not on the list until after new unity most likely which is another thing that some are awaiting on too.

 

That'd probably require an engine upgrade unfortunately. I think more recent versions of Unity are better at that, but that was always one of the drawbacks of earlier Unity games.

 

The overworld always felt cheap to me. Even with not-so-big scenes, it would have been way nicer to be able to actually travel from scene to scene by the different entrances, using towns as hubs, etc. than just zoning out at any direction and teleporting to overworld map.

 

I'm going to add something that hasn't been mentioned, but would probably be appreciated by a large minority: translation.
Although we have had the /translate and /copy commands for a long time, comprehension and translation for those of us who do not speak English is still an effort. A kind of "idomatic crowdfunding" would be a good idea, I'm sure many of us would gladly collaborate, me being the first.

 

Effective Tillermen required!

 

They never addressed the issue that this game was one, not fun, endless skill grind. New players will never catch up to players who dumped thousands of hours of their lives into the game and those players are running out of other people to play with. There needs to be a compromise, but it's probably too late.

 

I chose maps - and only maps. Why? Well, while most of the characters I have on my 4 accounts have their shroud, 3 of my characters do not. So I was working on one of them to collect the pages, etc. required for the Shroud Quest - and they don't even have the maps for the Shroud Quest? No maps for the underground paths *and* no maps in the PvP zones either.

C'mon guys, you can do better than that! If a new player comes in that is interested in questing, does the Outskirts, gets to be a mid-level character and gets going on the Shroud Quest you're going to lose them if they suddenly need to collect pages for the quest and they don't even have maps in the scenes which are quest related.

I found myself searching YouTube for videos on the shroud quest just so I could look at the maps that showed up in those videos that were made years and years ago. Losing the maps was the biggest mistake made in the game, imho. Okay, end of rant.

It was just frustrating, as one who wishes she had more time to play, to spend an evening trying to collect pages only to be stopped by the fact that there were no maps.

 

Obsolete in parts but better than nothing:
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/map/

 

Thanks - that is an additional resource. Unfortunately, what is missing are the underground maps - some of which are quite handy in the shroud quest - if you have a map.

 

Some of the maps underground are there too - at least many.
Open the area in which the dungeon is and click the dungeon entrance.
e.g. I can click and open "Soltown" and then in the city map click on the icon of the catacombs to get:

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/map/?map_id=640

 

Oh, great! I did not know that. Sweet. That will help.