Why I Feel Disconnected From Shroud... And Still Can't Persuade Others

Certainly not advocating that the game be turn into rainbow land right now, besides that will go against my sensibility as an aspiring Necromancer.

 

That is a great statement! I concur!

 

We don't know what is going to be in the end product, we just see what they give us to test the systems. Having doubtful thoughts do no good. I'm sure many things will be reskinned, reworked, optimized over and over again before this game is done. It is terrific
to say what people see though because that can always call attention to something and of course it is helpful with suggestions. So we will be getting more creatures, and I do hope for some erie scenarios that are kind of scary places to go. *shivers*

 

Who is only leveling off elves and spiders?

I found it more interesting and quite quick levelling into the 30s by mixing things up - fought skeletons, then wolves, then kobolds, scorpions, bears, skeletons+liches, plants in the shardfall, bigger wolves, elves , etc - similar mobs don't give the same xp in the various zones they appear in, try travelling around the map, there are alpha and obsidian wolves in one zone that give good xp later on for example.

If you aren't levelled up enough to at least have a go at pvp by then I seriously don't know what you can do.

If you are sat in one or two zones fighting the same mobs and feeling bored then boohoo, try looking around a bit more and grouping with others to speed the kills up. Its surprising how quick you can level in a team playing the challenge dugeon and enjoy the game even if you can't finish it.

This game is like UO in the sense that it does not give a gold shiny arrow or exclamation mark pointing out all the content to you - try looking for it!

Things will only get better as more enemies are introduced and they are on the cards for upcoming releases, there is not a total lack of content now though as some would put it. Also don't try to burn out on the game every release and try other activities to help test out other systems of the game - go post your findings in the forums too, I have spent a lot of time in here already squeezing my moneys worth out of the game

 

I agree that changing the colouring of mobs alone does not lend itself to variety - maybe when using a similar model again but recoloured the AI or other traits could also be amended to add that variety.

Take the humble spider for example:
Brown spider - regular as now
Red spider with fiery particle feet - spits fireballs, lives around lava
Green spider - slow mover, can run around it while fighting, corrosive attacks damage armour and weapons more
Purple spider - spits poison, ranged attack but low poison damage
Black spider with red spots - fast movin and not easy to outrun, attacks have a chance to inflict very heavy poison, best avoided
White spider - quick moving, low damage, come in swarms
Bone spider - undead, cannot drain life from it (why can we drain from undead now?), takes little damage from normal weapons, fire increases damage to it

You get the idea - all that is needed on top of re-colouring enemies is small modifications to their traits or behaviors to make them really feel different and add variety to the zones of the game.

This i itself should not be the only way to add variety and more enemies are needed but this could add GREATER variety to what we have now in most MMO games.

 

Something about the combo of undead and insect has always turned me off. Not sure why. Maybe popular culture has predisposed me to think the undead must start off as mammals.

 

Because I am not stupid and I know what gives the most XP, try killing wolves past level 50 and see what happens, you'll be killing wolves for the rest of your life trying to get to 60. I'm sick of seeing the same people post "its pre alpha" over and over, it's been pre alpha for 2 years now.. Again, I've killed the same monsters for 5 releases, nothing is worth fighting past level 40-50 other than spiders and elite elves if you guys would get away from towns and actually try to experiance a little bit of PvP you would realize this "you have to be over level 20 to do this rofl". Throwing a couple new high level xp monsters/newskins per release is not going to cripple the game, quit having such a closed mind and get out of your shells.

 

I did state pre alpha above, and it was never my intention to upset you bud. I get that you are into pvp and do not plan on playing much of anything else. However, denying that its pre alpha might be part of the problem. It is a testing phase, much of what everyone does is mindnumbingly repetitive. With every release (previously with wipes) we have had to gather and rebuild everything over and over again. I built the park for port phoenix 3 times which took days due to bugs. Certainly the playstyle can get boring for many of us. Now I am not suggesting anything but just stating what we actually have now. We have an unfinished game that they are still building. The devs are trying hard to make it enjoyable during this testing phase. We are already behind the scheduled release which was supposed to be last october I believe. They are really busy, but maybe they can find time to put something in that might make the visual grinding better.

 

You guys reply to me like I'm asking to release every monster that they have worked on to this point, I'm only suggesting they release a couple of monsters per release with xp worth farming, so that players do not tire out of farming the same thing over and over and can continue to test the work the devs are putting in.

 

I'd be interested in them adding some variety to how the existing MOBs handle combat. Not just AI but everything.

Range vs Melee vs Caster, doesn't matter how you skin, model, animate, they are all the same thing.

R16 looks to have the cover system, I hope some MOBs will be using this.

 

I have done a bit of pvp in the game but not at the level 50 mark (a mix of with friends and early on in the shardfall in the 20s and 30s), maybe the issue is that you have to max out before you start to really get into pvp as level difference provides too much of an advantage? This would mean the problem is not so much how you grind but having to grind in the first place. I believe structured forms of pvp should provide some experience at least.

Maybe the game itself could be tuned so that this is not the case and there is some sort of scaling in some pvp zones that minimises the impact that level difference has?

The game could treat pvp differently in different zones - some where the level difference really matters and others not so much.

 

I'm pretty sure we'll see this by R16. Hope so !

 

Well I mean if your sick of playing a game that is pre-Alpha then come back when it's no longer in pre-Alpha. Problem solved!

 

Why? There's actually many reasons I would recommend this. One reason is you don't want to burn yourself out so that by the time we actually release, you've gotten sick and tired of SOTA. Second reason is that if you are frustrated that a pre-Alpha game is still pre-Alpha even after 2 years then why not wait until it's out of pre-Alpha? There's nothing wrong with this. I'm not saying "don't play SOTA ever again", I'm saying wait until it's in a stage of completion where they have added more higher-level content because that's what your asking for. That might be Alpha or that might be Beta or it might be release. Demanding that they do high-level content, when currently 95% of the players aren't going to spend the time to get to high levels because of wipes and the fact that the game is incomplete, doesn't make sense when they have so many other things they have to do first. Third reason, the game is pre-alpha. Fourth reason, you can still participate in the forums without playing the game so it's not like I'm asking you to leave the community either (unlike you since you think I'm trash that doesn't need to be around). I know this first-hand because I haven't played SOTA in a few weeks. I might go back in on the 25th to get the hat but other than that, I'm done with this release.

But the game is in Pre-Alpha and will remain so until it's feature complete (notice how I didn't say content complete). So your going to keep seeing the same people post "it's pre-alpha' even though your sick of it. And if your going to complain about that, then why not wait?

 

Sadly, I and many other players don't want to have to "sit it out" and wait another year before they are able to play the game. I just don't see how it's going to hurt to add a mob or 2 to the game. But I guess I stepped on a lot of toes by making this suggestion rofl.

 

Since we're all throwing down our opinions, I'd like to see better collision/facing physics AND some truly disturbing, gruesome, attack/defense/crit animations added to what is already in-game first.

 

I both agree and disagree here.
I agree that the end game content is really repetetive.
(BTW have you tried the Brightbone in this release? I'm curious how it competes vs elves. Haven't tried since I haven't been level grinding this time around, but those are all high XP elite skeletons. )
But I disagree that there are no new mobs. The only problem is that they are mostly low-mid level mobs.

Then in some cases they have even removed some mob scenes. I miss the faun wood, it had a really mystical feel to it.

So to get some facts as a boundary for the argument.
They are planning on 2-3 new mobs per release so far and wramping up closer to release. But so far these were mostly skipped or delayed to after the switch to Unity 5 engine.
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/first-quarter-2015-schedule-update.18635/

R14 Plan:
Creatures: Our bestiary will expand to include Man-Eating Plants, Water Elementals, Greyhounds, and various Human Enemies (mages, archers, etc.).
R14 Actual:
Flesh Flayers: These giant carnivorous plants are found in Shardfall areas.
◦Water Elemental: These powerful elementals are our first example of support pet AI and will heal players who summon them. Note that the final visuals for the Water Elemental are waiting for our new water shader in Unity 5.
◦Air Elemental Visuals: We have iterated on the visuals for the Air Elemental to improve the way she appears.
◦Bound vs. Unbound Elementals: In order to make summoned elementals visually distinct from “wild” Elementals we have added visual bindings to all summoned elementals.
◦Greyhounds and Human Enemy Variants delayed: We decided to prioritize the updated elemental visuals over these new creatures


R15 Plan:
Creatures: Our creature list will continue to expand with the Fauns, the Phoenix and Wisps.


R16 Plan:
Creatures: Our creature list will continue to expand with Emps and Chaos Demons added to the game.


So maybe 3 mobs per release or so for another 10 months, that makes some +30 mobs. But simple logic dictates that most of those will be for low-mid levels. Which still gives a repetetive end content.

 

Maybe the really gruesome animations can only be seen in PvP?

 

No. The really gruesome animations are reserved for the house judging tours. I'm thinking especially of the one in Ardoris.

 

But wouldn't the really bad ones involve PvP?