I love how hard this game is

I had given up on MMORPGs for a while now, simply because there was no challenge, no danger and no merit to anything when everything is easily obtainable, especially when you can get max level for a new expansion in days, such as is the case in WoW.

I'm mostly a crafter & PVP'er, although I enjoy PVE as well, and I absolutely LOVE the crafting system. Obviously it's a huge money sink at the moment and I have to sell part of my mats to make gold, but making that one awesome piece of gear feels so worthwhile given how much time and effoert you put into it. Even after investing a crazy amount of mats in tailoring i'm still a far cry from GM Masterwork, which is great! Finally a game that makes true master crafters something extremely hard to achieve, which makes their masterpieces that much more valuable and satisfying. I also love the random element, which makes truly "perfect" gear extremely rare... even though I ripped more carapacian armor than I care to mention, lol

I also love how long it takes to Grandmaster skills and how much time you need to put in to really specialize in something. I also love that gold is not easy to come by, and that it takes sp,e game knowledge and some know-how to make money (plenty of great regs-free decks, good places to gather and sell mats or straight up get loot from monsters). It also encourage player interaction to share tips, tutorials and knowledge.

Obviously the game still has a long way to go; I had fun talking to NPCs doing the Soltown and Owl's Head quests and there still a lot of story/interactions/quest content to put in, but I loved what i've seen so far and hoping for more.

Just felt like throwing my 2 cents out there to express my love of the game!


PS : give people a reason to go to PVP zones; big increase in drops from nodes, high chance of rare mats, anything in that direction would get way more people in. Thanks

 

They are definitely thinking long term.

I do worry about the gap post-launch though.

 

I agree, I hope they keep the game challenging. I don't agree that gold is too hard to come by. For me it is perfect. The effort I had to put in last night to craft my first two wands was epic!

 

Agreed! Ez mode = no sense of accomplishment = leaving after 3 months

Old UO was even tougher for skill gains and getting gear with bonuses. The skill cap was rough though for veterans.

I love how strategic I have to be, leveraging multiple trees and a well devised deck to 'face tank' 6+ elder wolves with only one piece of heavy armour.

Archers (and later on magi) currently add that ' oh *%#@' moment. Partially due to no critical/elemental resists ingame and/or functioning properly.

I never used root, pre-adjustment, to ezmode mobs either. No fun in that. Thus game will be niche no matter what.
Happy it isn't targeting the masses

 

Finally, someone actually liking the game and not complaining they aren't uber rich or maxed out after the first week. I completely agree, I am enjoying the game at this level as anything I accomplish feels like I earned it (including death).

 

This just sounds like bait and I think is a poor strategy to get people who don't enjoy PvP to suddenly like it. To some degree it has already been implemented and the reaction from people not interested in PvP has been almost universally negative. The trick is to try to entice the larger portion of the community who do not enjoy PvP to want to give it go. More thought will be needed here than simply throwing out a lure, perhaps factions where there is some meaning to the conflict other than bragging rights. DAoC's realm vs realm paradigm I believed did a good job bringing in people to PvP conflict who did not normally particularly enjoy that style of play by giving them a large team and purpose/reward to the fight. There is supposedly some announcement coming out in the Q4 roadmap which the devs are smirkingly hush about. I'm relatively new here and I am sure in the past three years there are countless threads talking/arguing about this same thing.

 

I was thinking the same thing about PvP.

Increase farmers entering = adding ganking rage. Which really is a net loss (except for the happy ganker lol)

Early UO was all ganking. Humans had the best loot! I dunno how they will make all parties happy with PvP. Most games add special rewards, tournaments and casual 1v1 and team options. Balancing is always tricky

 

Personally i'm not a big fan of organized PvP and usually play on PvP/FFA servers whenever I can because PvP means more risk as a whole which means everything is more valuable which I love as a merchant! Obviously this playstyle isn't for everybody which is why I think the zones are a great place for world/random PvP. Filling up those zones with more valuables is a great way to get those who want to face the added risk a just reward, just make sure they're not PvP-zone exclusives so people who aren't interested in PvP aren't "forced" there. That way there's actually a reason to go there and hold it. Plus given how large the zones are and that there's multiple "shard" zones, no one group will be able to dominate everywhere at once, so everybody that wants the valuables can risk going in a zone where the added risk is much higher than PvE mobs.

Personally, all my best PvP souvenirs in UO, Asheron's Call or even vanilla WoW come from random, unorganized world PvP, where a routine quest-day turned into epic moments and new friendships - something that the PvP battlegrounds or arena could never provide, not even close, despite getting Gladiator on multiple chars & seasons. Here, we already have big zones for this kind of world PvP - all that's missing is added incentives to actually go there and run the risk of facing other players for that reward IMHO.

 

Early UO isn't really a fair comparison, because there was no opting out of PVP unless you stayed in town forever. These zones are opt-in only, so you know going in that you might get ganked, but on the other hand you might get your hands on more valuables, seems pretty fair to me.

 

The only valuables as incentives you need is the chance to loot the corpse of the loser in a pvp battle. That's a pvp incentive. Putting in craft materials is a pve incentive and has no place in pvp.

 

But why would anyone go there in the first place if there's nothing there? That's what world PVP is all about : going out in the world, finding valuable lands/spots of interest and exploiting them... until someone else wants it and conflict arises. If there's nothing worth fighting for, there's no conflict and PvP might as well be restricted to organized tournaments.

For example in Asheron's Call the best lifestones (respawn points) and towns (high NPC prices) were heavily fought over and guild warfare arose naturally around these hot spots. The savvy adventurer could still sneak into those places without being a member of course, but the added benefit of higher NPC prices meant someone in town could kill you. That's great world PvP right there, and just an example. Same thing with the best XP spots, etc. They weren't "PvP designed zones", but the heart of PvP conflicts arose there so those in control had access to great XP spots... until others came along and knocked them out. etc etc.

IMO the best PvP system is one where PvP arises in the world organically.

 

Because pvpers like to pvp. PVE players go to pve areas because they like to pve, and the drops from mobs are worth far less than the drops you can get from players, so clearly just liking the activity is incentive enough.

Instead of looking for more financial rewards in the form of pve incentives, try thinking up ways to make people who like pvp enjoy their pvp experiences even more.

These should be pure pvp incentives. Things that pvpers do that has nothing to do with players vs the environment (pve).

 

Somewhat of a paradox here when you call out the need to fill up PvP zone with folks looking for greater reward but at the same time not make it exclusive. Pretty sure those folks will just go to the zone that is not PvP exclusive and shine the PvP zone in that case. I probably enjoy the random PvP as much as you do but am stating this is a poor design to "fill up" those zones so that there is skirmishes going on all hours of the day with a player base who do not enjoy this style of play. I guess I was responding to making PvP more attractive to those that don't normally by offering greater reward. Not by folks who enjoy PvP... we are going to do that no matter what

 

Well I guess that depends on your view of PvP. I usually play on FFA servers, à-la-old school UO. But obviously that's not a playstyle for everyone and would be terrible for SotA as a whole. However, if you do choose to go into PvP zones, it should still feel like an organic part of the world, including ressources, monsters and whatnot, not this pen where you paint "PvP" on the floor and throw people in to "have at it".

For me, most of the fun from my 'PvP experience' comes simply from playing in a world where PvP conflict might happen at any moment. Most of the time i'm just doing my thing, gathering ressources, fighting monsters, etc. but you never know when PvP could change your whole day. Otherwise, PvP might as well be restricted to tournaments and PvP "games" like WoW battlegrounds/arenas. Which are OK I guess, but nowhere NEAR the fun of real, organic world PvP.

 

Well say I login and I want to gather wood to craft stuff. I can either go to a PvP zone where i'll find trees that drop 2x as much wood but I risk being attacked by other players for it, or I can just go chop wood in whatever normal zone because I don't feel like worrying about PvP today or PvP doesn't interest me at all. The same thing could be done with monsters. I want to level up, I can go into PvP zones where monsters give more XP, but that means i'll probably get in fights because its an awesome spot to level up. Or I can just go to other zones and level up just fine if I don't feel like PvP'ing. More risk, more rewards, and it keeps the world, both PvP or PvE, more organic and real.

 

But the whole game already has all the resources and monsters found on the maps when you pvp, same as when you pve. There are even more resources in the special pvp zones already. You can even get things pve players don't have access to (skulls for making Skull Candles, though I hope to see that come to pve soon to be fair to crafters).

Your focus should be on making the pvp side of the game have more pvp incentives, and give it that pvp feel.

 

Well thinking back on my best PvP experiences in the past, there was no "PvP world" and "PvE world". It was the same world for both. If you played on a PvP server, the only difference was that everyone was PvP-enabled. Same game, but with the added variable. So in this game, the "PvP server" would be the PvP zones. It should be the same world and game experience as a zone, but with the added difference that PvP is enabled for everyone in there. That is the best way to go about PvP IMHO.

 

I wondered why they didn't do this, instead we've basically turned MPO into the "pvp server". And every pve player is forced onto FPO or SPO (especially after that pickpocketing bug where pvp enabled people could pick the pockets of pve players).

There really needs to be a fourth game mode, call it PPO (Just let the P stand for pvp so it falls in lie with the other naming standards of MPO, FPO, and SPO). Everyone who logs onto that is pvp-enabled everywhere you go, same world except you know absolutely everyone you meet there is up for pvp.

 

I'll keep the discussion going, why not. So one of the issues people are having (if you read through the posts about this and I recommend you do) is this is giving the (much smaller) PvP community an advantage on resources since they are primarily the only ones going to these zones and I kinda have agree with them. This really isn't creating a larger PvP community, the divide still exists and will continue and changes like this can potentially make the divide greater. This is awesome for you/me, but to what I believe makes up majority of the community, has already created a sticking point with this implementation.

"Ultima"tely what will create a thriving PvP community is a fantastic game that many many more people want to swap out their TV time for running around in New Britannia. If that happens I'm sure there will be no shortage of people you can take that risk in these zones for the reward you seek

 

I would love to see what ideas the pvp community could come up with to make actual pvp more exciting, if they all put their minds to it. You guys know what you want - some like 1v1s, some like large scale battles, some like to capture and hold structures - start thinking up ideas to make these situations feel exciting.