SOTA's Target Audience is too broad.

LOL

The funniest part of that is how it fixes so many problems with it's simplicity.

 

It also sounds not unlike Ultima VII. Just sayin.

 

So many passionate and caring people! I say TGIF, so be happy and have a little faith in the gaming expertise of Lord British and the fine folks at Portalarium.

 

What I think of when you add RP to Tarsin's idea.

 

This game is in no way going to cater to Pvp, which in the end will be the smaller community playing, sorry but you are in the minority. People who play FPS don't not care about SoTA in the slightest.

The broad approach is to target AS MANY PLAYERS as possible, especially since this IS ALPHA, what will come out in the wash is RPers who will stick with it, PvPers who want the game to cater to them more and FPS will go back to playing Ghost recon or whatever.

Sorry but the PvP dynamic of this game is and will remain in the back seat as it should.

And in ANY fight if you are trying to run your mouth, you die????

 

Not sure I agree with every point on that. If there's one thing I've noticed, it's that PvPers consistently look for balance. Granted, they'll scrounge for every advantage they can, but the moment that advantage gets turned on them, THEN they're researching to see if it's 'OP', and if they believe is, they begin griping if it is (some even skip the 1st step ).

People - on a whole - love to believe that we're always competing in a level playing field. This generalized assumption protects us in two ways. 1) If we win, then we're allowed to feel justifiably good about ourselves; we won in a fair fight, erego we're superior. 2) If we lose, can simply believe that we were mislead in thinking the competition was a "fair fight", and walk away with our egos largely intact.

I remember watching UO faction fights back in 2000. Talk about some of the most imbalanced PvP I've ever seen. If I could replay some of those battles to many of my PvP friends I have today, they wouldn't touch them with a 10-foot pole. That doesn't mean that the faction fights weren't fun as hell to watch (or play), although sometimes you did get stuck being on the losing end. Shucks, it even gave the RPers a reason to be around; the politics amongst the factions was fascinating! Point being, UO never made a distinct effort to the balance the PvP (if anything, they encouraged the opposite), but it was still enjoyed by many, just the same.

So, the reason I think your post is generally inaccurate is because it makes the assumption that because the Devs haven't established an expressed interest in severely balancing the PvP combat (up to and including changing the combat system entirely), that PvP will take a backseat to everything else. I don't think this to be true. IT IS entirely possible that it will get lost in the crowd because SotA's broad approach may cause it to overextend itself. However, I highly doubt the PvP has or will be shrugged off in any fashion.

This is just my opinion. No offense is meant, and you're welcome to disagree!

I do think that, aside from Inigo Montoya, yapping during a fight is a sure way to get a fireball in the face.

EDIT - To the OP - sorry to blab about PvP a bunch. As stated before, I think SotA MIGHT be overextending. But it begs the question: are we overextending ourselves by playing a game that wants to support a broad range of features? Surely, if we wanted JUST PvP or Crafting or RP, there would be better places to go. That's just my two cents.

 

Baron you are in a unique position to use strategy which is something I always coveted of my commanders in Darkfall. We used to win battles in Darkfall only because we were organized and employed strategy. In Darkfall we used similar tactics to what

Alexander the great used in battle. We would literally copy what he did and it worked. The most infamous move was to send in the front line and come from the back fast and hard with the cavalry.

The cavalry had the strongest and most skilled warriors. Now these commanders would use different channels in team speak and convey orders to the squad captains. Each of these squads of course all had different purposes. So to get back to my point,

You are in a position to create your guild to perform PVP in this manner. Will you be able to effectively PVP while commanding the battle? If you position yourself in a spot where your troops can keep you alive, maybe. Do these same mechanics work

here in SOTA? Are the PVP fights going to be like in darkfall where 80-200 people would show up for a fight? So you can actually see these tactics actually matter? I say this because smaller pvp groups don't need much strategy other than kill the healers.

When a battle was over in Darkfall we literally would give all praise to the battle commanders. We saw first hand how powerful employing strategy was to a battle.

The bigger problem is lag and the reason I quit Darkfall. My machine in big fights would just bog down to 3 fps.

Can these servers handle that kind of load? Will my machine take a crap in PVP? Who knows but I know other games which have RP which I still play to this day going 6 years now.

If the PVP fails for me in this game I will happily RP for years. I have also given serious thought to trying my hand at creating dungeons and or or items for the game. I just wish I had more time.

In any case PVP games like Darkfall dont have much staying power. Those 7000 people in life if feudal will most likely dwindle down soon enough. UO servers are still packed to this day 20 +years later. UO has a roleplay in it too.

 

UO always felt twitchy in combat but yea they have all but gotten rid of many of those players.
I guess they could keep dumbing it down some more.

 

We have much bigger problems then so called "twitch" combat. Everything perfectly balanced makes a boring rpg....npc's that are all the same other then some flavour text makes a boring rpg...items that are all the same player crafted makes a boring rpg....

They really need to work on adding content at this point because there really isn't any so far. I think they have at least a year of work in that regard.

 

Found something else to stir up fear about, have we, Your Excellency?

 

So far I am enjoying this thread, lots to discuss..
**redundant garbage**

MOBA's... this is a new comparison for SOTA... don't know what to say other than I dislike these games and think they are too easy to attempt to duplicate.. I don't really understand why they relate to SOTA but I see a bit of that in the way Skills have turned into the "trees" format... I don't see Sota being that much like a MOBA... maybe because the smallish size of levels or encounters. I see Sota more like a regular MMO than anything.

 

I'm having a blast reading the comments of all of the players that talk about PvP, and have absolutely no idea what they are talking about, and have not PvP'd long enough to even consider commenting about it. It's not all "just stand still and press buttons"... If you plan on doing that, then you need to plan on taking a few minutes to respawn because you're going to end up in ghost mode quick.

Also the people saying there is "no strategy" to SotA's PvP again are completely wrong, there is so many strategies you can already use in this game that it's unreal, you just have to use your own imagination and there is an unlimited amount of things you can do in PvP... For an example there is nothing better than messing with someone and they come chasing after you and as you hide behind a building you watch them run right pass you with no clue of where the hell you went, that to me is completely awesome to be able to sneak attack your opponent by outsmarting them.

I know I will get flamed for my post's as I always do, but if you roleplayers would take the time to actually go out and dedicate a good amount of time actually trying to learn pvp then you will realize that pvp has a lot to offer and for this early in the game that is pretty amazing if you ask me. Yeah it needs a lot of work, but it's such a blast even how it is.. I also recommend getting to level 50-60 before even attempting to pvp so that you do not get discouraged and come to the forums to express the way you feel about the PvP.

Also PvP is pretty damn fast paced if you use the utilities that they give you such as the random deck, mind wipe, etc.. It really has a lot to offer and I wish more people would turn on their PvP flags and give it a chance, get a group together and actually try to get some PvP going.

 

I had a long and interesting conversation with Fortimus in game that is quite relevant. He highlighted that many of the things that both myself and others argue to support are things that directly benefit us as individuals and are not necessarily beneficial to the long term health of the community. For example, stacking and combos ... people like myself, Enderandrew, Fortimus and quite a few others have no issues with chasing somebody through winding streets while stacking and combo'ing and find the system easy to use. This gives us an advantage, therefore appealing to us and that is reflected by how we post opinions about that feature here. It seems though that many people find it distracting and difficult to the point where it is upsetting and if that is the majority then it needs to be adjusted.

Another good example is grinding. Once again the same people (we were level 70+ when the crowd was level 30) find it easy to rapidly gain advantage so we tend to see no reason for it to change at all. But if the majority see a problem (not saying this is the case) then perhaps that also requires a tweak.

There is however a large crowd of people that migrate from game to game, joining during early access development and tend to vote for changes that make everything into a virtual clone of unreal tournament. They then play for a short time, get bored and go and do the exact same thing on the next project that comes along. I think the goal should be to isolate key features that benefit the greater community in the long term and to focus on and refine them. Many of us have invested with the expectation of making this game our home for at least the next decade, not a fast burning candle to be abandoned after a year of blood curdling PVP.

 

Good points Thermo.

I also have had little issue with stacking and combos. PvP-wise, I'm not sure how I measure up compared to you and the people you mentioned, but I've been able to clear content with relative ease and enjoyment using the current system. If the majority truly is struggling, it would certainly explain why the frustrations about the current system were so vehement in the discussions I've been a part of. It also explains why I was more or less oblivious to this (I'm too much of a positive thinker ).

I agree that we shouldn't inadvertently homogenize SotA; it would be disappointing to squash good ideas in our hurry to make our own lives easier. Already, my family - whom, like the apparent majority, have been struggling with the combat system - are beginning to adjust and are now enjoying the game much more than before. Maybe we just need to see if/how folks adjust over time? *shrug*

On a last note, I hope you and I get a chance to PvP at some point. I'd love to see how we compare!

 

Is PvP just beating people up as fast as possible?
I was thinking about this. How about taunting the enemy, teasing him... This would create real cool combat situations and could even work in large battles where you pick someone out, hunt him, tease him and taunt him.
But this is not possible. You are in a crowd and others attack you while running by. There is no chance for such elements. PvP is just beating, beating, beating until the enemy drops, then running to the next, beating him up. This makes the PvP in SotA feel more like an arena game, a shooter. It's not that it is as fast as a shooter it is that the game mechanics and how people use them and play make it feel like an action game in which you just kill everybody as fast as possible.

What about exhaustion? Running around with full plate and swinging a two-handed sword sure would wear you down pretty quickly. BUT PvP Players would not accept that as it would take the action out of the game. Imagine that you get exhausted in Quake... But such features would add to a an RPG that also wants to be realistic.
Which agains come to this: Combat and the rest of SotA simply don't fit together.

 

My first question is who roll plays in pvp. I understand if you’re using some sort of voice communication with a friend talking crap. But i have never once seen a single person r/p during pvp.

To make this game successful beyond our wildest dreams we need to attract 4 different audience types.
a) Pvp
b) pve/pvm
c) Crafters
d) Roll players

I personally think they have done well trying to get a little bit of each in so far. Its pre alpha and they have allot of work left to do. Were playing this game way before most people get to play any game. Were the guinea pigs setting the standards for this game.
Allot of things are imbalance in the game so far, I can point our deficiencies in all 4 areas. Yet I can also point out great achievements in all 4 as well.

Yes I grew up on UO. I loved that game yes I’m butt hurt that certain parts of what I loved about uo are not in this game and probably never will be. I have a son and daughter I’m getting into this game, my daughter likes this unfinished version much better than wow. She has completely stopped playing wow now. My son is still struggling playing this game and keeps going back to league of legends. My point here is that my daughter goes off to college this year. My son still has a few years of high school left and he will be gone as well. This game will be a way that we keep in touch while we are apart. Family time so to speak together even when we are apart.

This thread is based around the idea that the game is over extended and catering to many different play styles. Yet to me that is what will make this game great. I know I’m in the minority here but 100k games sold at launch is way conservative.

I agree we have a long way to go before live. But I do like what we have done and where we are at. Yes I get frustrated that things i like are not all in the game yet. we all are however would we be any better off if we focused on just one thing right now an alienated 3 other factions. I don’t think so.

Bottom line is this will never be the perfect game. By the nature of the beast 4 different pulls (stated above) all want something differently entirely. However all 4 need each other to be successful. Yes there are a few games that cater to individual parts but rarely do they ever dominate the numbers game.

Mismanagement of uo lead to its downfall. that mismanagement allowed wow to more or less kill uo (yes I still play uo as many others do but it’s not what it once was) better graphics but the mechanics of wow were basically uo with a new face. Over time they have developed their own feel but its ground floor was uo. It has dominated pretty much till now. There have been several games that tried to tap into their market but failed. But if anyone wanted to be honest wow is almost at the same point uo was when it crashed. Seriously the content adds to wow have gone down each year in originality. Many wow players I talked to moved over to archage briefly and went back to wow only cause archeage felt corrupt.

That corruption was/is the biggest problem we will face in this game and the real threat of if this game survives or not.
We are here now to work the kinks out of the game help balance it before it goes live. Many aspects of this game are not in yet. Hell I haven’t even found a cow I can kill. This game is still in its infancy and will grow with each new release. How can we say combat is broken when all the combat skills are not even in the game yet?

Ill close now with this quote.

Rome wasn’t built in a day

 

How about including killing sprees which make you temporarily invincible? Some achievements like "Killed 150 guys with 75 fireballs in under two minutes!"

Kidding aside, maybe SotA really should have turn based combat. MMOs like Atlantica Online, Wizard 101, Pirate 101 or Dofus show that this can work really well.
Also playing Wasteland 2, Divinity Original Sin and Dead State is so much fun because of the turn based combat systems.

 

Agree in that I think SotA is trouble. It may sound harsh, but I look at SotA and my impression is "what in Hell happened here?" It just seems undefinable.

The lack of planning shows... and it shouldn't. I feel as though our views are undervalued. I can't possibly take a dev who only reads positive feedback seriously. Even worse... not reading feedback period!

SotA's issues extend beyond the combat system. Well... we tried...

 

I think the best step forward in the game for the time being, is to go whith what they already have planned, then come back and fix things. It would get the game out there and running ("cringes" even without PVP) Work it from a form where there is no PVP and add that later. It would have a base that they can work off of build everything they thought of, even leave POT's intact, then come back and add/fix the PVP part of it. That way they have "blinders" going one way, instead of adding this and that because he said or she said! I think most of us would still play Minus the PVP or certain areas to PVP! If we knew they were working on making PVP better at the right time. (keep in mind i am an avid PVPr)

I hope that made sense! (also they could leave up the open flagged areas, so we could still PVP without perfection in it yet) Ill still PVP with it broken

 

How can we not? As you stated, we are testing and trying to work out the kinks. Broken combat is a very large kink.

It's not wrong to say it's broken when it's broken. It's only wrong to be quiet about it when it's broken, there's no way they're going to fix it if we do that.