Feedback for Release 32

Disclaimer:
English is not my first language, so this text is most certainly full of errors.
This text might come out as if the author is a bit salty. Which the author probably is, so if you do not want to read a bit of a salty point of view of the current state of things with SotA you shouldn't read this.

Disclaimer2:
In this feedback I do not touch on the technical bugs or anything like that. I understand that some stuff just isn't working the way it should. I only focus on the design philosophy and game design decisions that are seems to be made regarding this game.

Hey there.

Backed kickstarter long time ago. Haven't launched game since, but was cautiously lurking by and looking for an opportunity to jump in, and what better opportunity than final wipe and persistent mode?
While in most MMOs final wipe usually means open beta and soft launch here it is definitely not the case and that's the first thing that I think was a mistake on dev's part. Last wipe for MMO is a HUGE thing and you need to be ready for it. You need to be sure new players will get the experience that they will remember and want to go back to. Instead it feels like an extremely work-in-progress alpha and I had to force myself to overlook bugs and just plain lack of content which would make me quit any other MMO immediately (because if they can't make sure I get a decent and engaging experience in first 2 hours, they probably don't know how to make games at all.)

After the 'tutorial' part, which takes 15 minutes and makes you learn some basics the game basically drops you in the middle of nowhere (later I've learned that this is actually one of the most densely populated and developed areas (!) around 5 characters with some pretty simple dialogues and random "go kill 5 rats" quests. There is no core plot, there is nothing even vague guiding you through the game and establishing any goals for your character. The game says "well you're here, go". That might work, but paired with the fact that most location feel empty and faceless it just feels like I was dropped in the sandbox with no toys or friends to play with. All I see is sand.

Nevertheless, I was interested to see where this may lead. Maybe, I thought, it's only the first zones. Maybe other stuff is magnificent. Anyway, with the persistent state of the game it's time to get a house somewhere, so no time to slack and wish for better immersion, story and flavour. Time to grind some gold for a deed, right?
So I started grinding (also I don't really mind the process all that much usually, I like ARPGs and grinding gear anyway).
The process was pretty boring, because:
1) the combat system is mediocre at best. For PvE as an archer you want to use 3 buttons. (one of them being left click/t for autoattacks). You do not need to manage your focus at all, because it never ends. You do not need to aim anything, because everything autoaims. You do not need to be precise at timings. If you are not pulling two rooms in a row or trying to challenge monsters that are way above your strength - you cannot possibly die. So basically when I say that it was mediocre I am actually being very generous. It is the worst combat system out of any mmo that launched in past 10 years (and I've played a decent chunk of them.), but I can cope with it being simplistic if it was my only gripe with the game.
2) the loot is boring. I've played the game for about 25 hours since the launch (yes, I've slept 5 hours today.) and I haven't looted a single non-generic item. No magic +1 jewellery, no +1 accuracy sword of some bandit. Just same old gold, broken sword and a bugger. Hard to be excited about grinding when basically everything you loot is trash you sell for gold and gold.
3) trash weighs too much. Considering you basically want loot only to sell it for gold and that loot is almost 2/3 out of all the gold you find - you cannot throw it away. So you loot it and keep it. And 10 minutes later (not exxagering) you are now encumbered with 20%+ less speed and can't even use recall scrolls to haul the loot back, so you just slowly run from the depths of where you were to a vendor.
4) Selling to vendor is a pain. Considering you only want to sell weapons to a blacksmith to maximize your gold you are at mercy of his/her random schedule of sleeping somewhere, being in another building or hiding from you for whatever reason. I understand the purpose behind having schedules, but it is annoying and disrupts flow (considering you have to sell stuff every 10 minutes).
5) The monsters feel the same. There is literally no difference in fighting a wolf, timber wolf, bear, thug and elf fighter. Same goes for ranged monsters, there are all practically the same, you do not need to employ any difference in approach whatsoever. Continue mashing same buttons and then loot.
6) Bank slots are scarce. I've had 100 slots and they are filled by just some random basis **** that dropped. People who say "you can easily play out of bank, you don't need home" are pretty much lying. You need at least 1000 slots to feel somewhat comfortable (and for the low low sum of like 100 bucks...)
So, I guess this list could use some positive sidenotes. What I noticed was helping get through this overall horrific PvE experience are:
1) Decent zone design. The aesthetics of locations are a strong suit of this game, and while the zones are pretty empty and devoid of content they do look pretty.
2) Gathering random nodes of stuff is a nice change of pace with a bit of a pay-off, it's nice that you don't need to go to special mines to mine stuff (though I imagine there are more nodes there).
So this is PvE experience. It's straight up DOWNgrade from Ultima Online PvE experience which in itself is kinda unbeliavable. I mean how can you do worse than your own game which is more than 20 years old.

So, this is PvE. Let's get to PvP.
1) Most of the locations are not PvP ( - scope of pvp)
2) Players can just totally opt-out of any PvP by using friends-only/single online. ( - participation)
3) There is nothing even close to full loot. ( - motivation)
This is definitely not anywhere near close what Ultima Online was PvP-wise and it's definitely not in the "UO spirit successor wibe" here. That's a huge concern, because motivated free pvp is something that Ultima Online was loved for by a chunk of it's players, myself included.
I don't know if this is going to be addressed in the future but the current state is just sad.

So after I've grinded some gold I decided to travel to Owl's Head to look up deed vendors (and also have some change of scenery). I must say travel on world map is one of the worst gimmicks this game has by far. It's pointless, feels forced and strange. I am not even sure why it's there. Why you can't just use a regular world map like everyone else does? But ok, whatever. Those "blocking" 4-5 skull locations, which you can just run through by using Dash and some healing. Those strange empty player owned towns and even more stranger empty regular towns. It doesn't feel like an MMO. Especially considering the instanced nature of everything. You think you can trick people into thinking that it's kinds openworld by having them walk around in world map and then instancing them in a scene? It doesn't work and it makes no sense.
Overall decision to instance everything seems like a lazy copout to me.

After I got bored walking around Owl's Head, looking for a deed vendor, I thought that I'd ask people where to buy a deed how much it costs (to understand the scope of the grinding I have to do) and boy did I wish that I'd ask that question sooner.
Apparently housing deeds are only available for dollars outside of the game and you cannot buy one ingame. You maybe hopefully can participate in a lottery one day and have a chance at winning one. What a wonderful prospect. Yet another core feature of an UO spirit successor hidden behind a paywal. At this point I wasn't even getting mad, I was just sad.

Closing the game and contemplating if I should write all this up on a forum my last thoughts were "Who are they making this game for? What audience are they trying to get?". Casual gamers will definitely not claw through the horrible starting experience this game has to offer. PvE players have at least 5 MMO games that are out last or this year which offer a better PvE experience. PvP players are definitely not even welcome here. Fans of housing as a game mechanic are only welcome as long as they are willing to fork out a decent chunk of real cash for it.
And then I remembered the discord channel I've been reading for the past two days. Remember all the talk in it, all the people who are not talking about gameplay, crafting, hunting, pvp. All the people who are talking about telethons, stretch goals, hats, pledges, pets and god knows what else. All the people who keep giving money to this project (nearing 10 million soon?) for real estate, items, pets etc.
Portalarium doesn't want any other audience. They've already found you and judging by the fact that the number on the site keeps growing, I guess y'all happy with this product. They will continue feeding you the idea that this game will sometime be decent while you continue to give them money. And it's sad, because I actually hoped that this could be a real UO successor.

So that's it for me, I guess. I mean, hope is a hard flower to weed out, but mine is pretty much as dead as it can be. Feel free to ignore this rant, enjoy your stay and have a nice day. =)

 

Yes, I know. This is excellent feedback.

 

sadly, i have to agree in most points! lets hope it will get better

 

I do notice a diffrence between bears and spiders, and also higher level mobs though. Some of the more skilled humanoids and creatures can do the moves like the bludgeon stun and knock down. Others can cast earth quake. Archers and casters tend to take a different strategy.

I suggest playing a little bit longer than just 5 hours. You will notice that ghosts and liches are far different than wolves. Also we are able to carry a lot of stuff. We can harvest trees, ore, etc, and still loot heavy swords etc from day one. When you can raise your strenght enough to get the skill for added encumbrance I think you will notice you can carry quite a bit. If you can aquire the obsidian potion that increases encumberance, then you can carry even more. So when your character gets more potent in a week of playing not many of these concerns will be there for you. Seriously. You will find that the beginning experience does change.

Oh and go remove the blessing of the oracle for PVP if you like. Then anybody can attack you, or you can go to one of the shardfall zones. However if anybody attacks you then they are flagged PvP and they need to go back to the oracle to get the blessing or remain pvp everywhere in the world.

 

A lot of the stuff you post is true, I agree with a lot of it.

Yet at the same time, I got in this game a bit late (Jan of this year) and I have played it 6+ months strait through 3 wipes and I absolutely have fun playing it. So they will improve this stuff which means I will only continue to have more fun.

I would suggest you seek out an active guild and get involved in the social aspect of the game (which is also group pve and pvp), which is one of the strong suits of the game right now.


Just remember though, you press the "this world is under dev" button when you log in. A lot of the stuff you list will probably change by December (release), it has all changed dramatically for the better over the past 6 months that I have played for the better.

 

I have been "away" from the SOTA forums for quite some time (years), and only occasionally "test" the game to get a feel for where it's headed. Considering the game is still "under construction" I'll reserve my considerably negative opinions (that, incidentally, still mostly align with comments I posted in the forums years ago) for a later time.

I will state that Release 32 is the most unstable release for me so far - the game crashes regularly, whereas earlier releases rarely did so, on the same hardware. Well the game is still "under construction" you'd remind me, and ordinarily I'd agree with you. However, this time the "final wipe" is upon us and those of us with deeds are expected to choose our respective plots.

With the game in it's current state, I cannot even "get a feel" for where I might like to place my virtual home - something I had wanted to do before my first allocated time begins: Aug 05. Perhaps they'll fix the crashing bugs before then. I'd hate to be one of the "higher pledgers" whose selection time is already being eroded.

 

1) I actively playing this game since R27, I see that with new each release game become much better.
2) Yesterday I played 16 hours, last 7 I played with out reloging and I had zero blockers while VERY active trevelling and grinding. Windows 10.
3) There is huge difference between wolf or skelelton warrior for example, I had completely no problems with skeletons but advanced wolfs has to much DEX for me now.
4) What with advanced 500+hp elves archers in 5 skull zones, I`m sure that you would not pass their camp in CRAG for example, by dash and healing...
5) I`m sure that PVP will be much better in the future, but for now we should balance some core rules of this sandbox before we can build good PVP setting.
6) It is hardcore game it is not Black Desert.
7) I played UO for long time, and I can say that SOTA is the ONLY game on the market that has spirit of UO.
8) If all next releases would be same great as R32 in the next year we will get VERY VERY good game.
9) If Pay to Play will be implemeted it can give us chances for faster and bigger upgrades and patches. I live in Russia and I can easily pay even 20-30-40$ per month for good enterteiment such SOTA, I dont see how it can be a problem for US or Eurozone citizens.

 

Unfortunately I have to agree.
Specifics:
Shop owners - schedules are just too unpredictable.
I roll into Soltown on a Saturday night, at least that's what it said under the compass. Vendors are all in bed. So I fool around, Sunday comes and goes, no Vendors. Monday morning comes and goes, no vendors. I look at the sky, looks like noon or so and still no vendors. And I needed to log off for the day. I wasted hours waiting on vendors that never showed.

Why can't I be a courageous mage?

Why is it one trainer doesn't know where another is. Soltown has a robot, someone programmed it. Why doesn't it know where I can find a mast sun mage. At what point do I need a master sun mage?

 

Since it is early access I'm sure there will be changes in the future. Just because the sleepy town of Soltown has vendors that go to sleep doesn't mean a Metropolis with a night life and loads of foot traffic will shutdown.

What if they eventually add vendors who take the night shift in those places. This might also increase property values for those who live in such big cities since vendors might have around the clock access, whereas living in a small town might not have such things.

In such a case it would then require a bit of planning on the part of the player for being able to go to one of these locations that has the vendors they need 24 hours a day. This leads me to believe that some people will set their binding to the town cryer of a metropolis like Britney isntead of their home, which again creates greater value for the vendors and house owners in such a location. This sort of ease should increase the prices of goods sold on both private and public vendors since the high foot traffic and convenience.


Then the really savvy merchant might even buy discounted goods from sleepy towns way off the beaten path, to turn a small profit in a bigger town. Although the tricks to that sort of thing probably will only work for the really crafty merchant player. The average player will probably have to deal with local economies. Then some of the more seasoned players will go to the smaller towns to find better deals. but this is heading off on a tangent...

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Point is there will probably be places to go to find what you need at any hour.

 

Well in a starting area your vendors should be available more of the time not LESS!

Also, whats up with these NPC's reporting their busy and try again later. Nothing more fristrating trying to get a quest or trying to turn it in to an NPC who is just standing there with no one else around.

 

I agree that this game is far from ready to launch at least we dont have to pay a montlhy suscription.
Btw I have a complain about the game, its just me or the game is way too dark, I find it drepessing after 15 minutes in this dark world.

 

I agree on nearly everything Roleplayer has posted. And English is also not my first language, so forgive me if some expressions are a bit strange.

I joined this game in late 2014 and actually started playing late 2015. So I saw the progress of the last few releases and saw a good few wipes. I have to say I am pretty much disappointed about where this game is going.

- The overland map is indeed a total fail. It takes every good feeling about this game and is an absolute fun killer for me. Every few steps you make you have to wait until you get into another scene.
- Instanced scenes and zones ....... I don't wanna even talk about this and I can't believe that this really is an option for a MMO game. When I am out mining at Owl's Nest Mine I am always alone, never see another player in the mine to have a smal talk or something.
- Combat system ...... it's absolutely no fun to fight monsters, bandits or animals when it constantly and automatically switches the target to the nearest target and you never know which target you are fighting in that moment.
- AI of monsters bandids and others are ridiculous. They follow until a certain point and then just turn around and run with lightspeed to their fixed spawn zone and nearly instantly are back to full health.
- Crafting ...... this is something I am still indifferent about. I love crafting, but I do not get the right feeling when I always have to stay inside other players at the crafting table and cannot stay around the table where I want to stay.
- Quests ...... I have done very few quests, because they were just no fun at all.
- The best part of this game is the grafics and housing. Although I do not own a house or a plot, I like the housing part. Since I do not want to pay a few hundred dollars in real life cash, I doubt that I will own a house in the next months, so another lost reason to play this game.

I am sure many bugs will be fixed and many things will still change, but the things I want to have changed are there since I started.

I am an UO player since 1999, still playing, and I wished SotA could give me just a very little bit of the feeling I have with playing UO. But it fails big-time. I am just bored and frustrated about this wasted potential so far. I still try to find more good things in SotA and still will play it, but I doubt that this will be the game I want to play in future.

 

I don't think it is too dark, but the range and the intensity of the light sources is too low.

 

You've made some good points, but this one really stands out...

After this past week, this is my point of view as well. The team is probably a year or more away from open-beta, and pushing the final wipe through so far away from that point concerns me. I'm a dedicated crafter, and yet I spend most of my time doing combat. We know they intend to build out crafting to support full-time crafting, but they haven't even begun that effort yet (virtually every zone with crafting resources has aggressive mobs). Until that system is firmly in place, it's too soon for final wipe.

I'm very much hoping that we see one more "final wipe", sometime around August of next year, which will take the product into open beta.

 

I seldom read posts that I so thoroughly agree with. Here's hoping for improvement. As it is I don't have much interest in logging on these days.

 

Yeah, I was also compleatly lost after the tutorial and have essentially resorted to grinding. I want more maps, more big glowing "?" over peoples heads, more "you are now on a quest, here's what to do next." I don't even really understand if I'm making progress because I don't really see an xp bar or have any better stuff than when I started.

I have no interest in PvP until the skills / combat / deck system makes a ton more sense. It seem just as big a mess as it was 2 years ago when it was introduced.