Population Concerns

Oh yea, forgot to add, I'm also waiting on all the tools developed by the community that will make this game fun. UI mods, Map mods, crafting resource websites, quest walk-through websites, websites that list where to go etc.

 

Agree. That the same feeling some of my guild mates brought to me.

 

At this stage in development I care less about the population and more about the direction the developers are taking the game in. The reason I say this is that I think the two are directly linked, the changes they make or the path they choose is going to hinder/help the game in the long run. As it stands right now we have a product that is still super early and rough as all hell around the edges. Many people here have stated that there simply isn't much to do in the game in it's current state and neither end of the fan base is completely satisfied. For those of you that want a tight narrative, it's just not there and for those of us who want a thriving MMO world to call home well that's just not there either. I know it's a glass half empty way to look at things but I myself am just as confused about the direction of this game as I was at the beginning, I personally don't really know what the heck they are going to do with this thing or where it's going. It almost sometimes feels like they take a few steps one way and then turn around again. The game is full of half decisions, from the combat allowing auto attack AND click to attack to the deck system allowing random draw AND locked bar to the design focus of the game seemingly caught in between the two aforementioned single vs multi camps, it's just a nightmare.

I am not saying it's a problem for the game to offer players a variety of choices in how they choose to play, I think that choice is awesome and that the developer wanting to give each of us that kind of control is a good thing. What I am saying is that when you are trying to develop a product having all of those different audiences to cater to all at once is a daunting task, even more so for an indie studio like Portalarium. I have said all along that I don't feel like the game will flourish until they narrow things down a bit and press forward HARD. I have friends who have pledged this game that simply cannot stand playing it, they log in and they are confused and angry and they don't want to put in the time it takes to learn what the heck is going on - to a certain extent I can't even blame them the game is clunky in so many areas where at this stage in its development time it simply shouldn't be.

My personal playing habits for right now, fwiw are as follows "Single player online" or "friends only online". My reasoning, it's simply a hindrance to compete with the rest of you for resources/mobs. I might as well just play alone and as someone else in this thread said earlier, I see that becoming more widespread as time goes on.

 

For me the lot taxes and stuff aren't really an issue - I don't need a huge lot. To be honest its reagents and fuels that are killing me, that's the hole where all the money goes that forces me to either fight at reduced effectiveness (reagent free deck or use a melee weapon) or farm endless cash to keep up with usage. It would be different if I could earn that cash while also making meaningful experience or some other progress but things just aren't balanced that way at the moment. I guess its taking a toll.

 

Lvl 102 whit 40 x GM.

How the game is broke and poeple continu to cry for not decay.

 

Wtb hard caps, loved how uo handled this. And it made having 5 characters fun and rewarding.

 

Actually I switched back to fpo because mmo mode got far to busy the last few days Oo
Funny how perception differs.

 

Portalarium has to figure out how he got approximately 151,536,000 XP's in two months. Then figure out what to do about it. Maybe cut all XP gains to 10% of their Current levels. That will slow down everyone.

 

You're always going to have that person who grinds out absurd amounts of xp.
This is my main issue with decay is that its not going to slow down the hardcore powergrinders but its going to frustrate everyone else.
Sure, you'll have people who get things really high and get bored and leave. It will happen regardless of what you do.
But I think you'll risk losing a lot more people if you cause people to lose their earned progress and gameplay is nothing but a tedious repetitive grind of the same crap every day.
There needs to be advancement by ways other than mindless grind; crafting is heavily weighed toward 'stay in a mine for a week then go craft for 30 mins' - that could do with some balancing with more xp on the production side.
Combat could be supported by daily quests or tasks with an xp reward component or something just so you aren't mopping the same mobs over and over and over again on repeat.
Anyone would get bored of that eventually. We'll get bored of it faster the more you make us do it, and if we can actually go BACKWARDS...? Ugh, thanks but no thanks.

 

I agree he got there REALLY QUICK, but turning the game into a bigger grind most certainly will not get people to stick with the game. Killing spiders or slimes, or whatever it is OVER AND OVER AND OVER is not going to retain players.

I feel a lot of people have stopped playing because every time you work something it gets nerfed and you're back to starting over again, which for some players is fine. For casual players it's VERY defeating and discouraging. The entire combat system needs to get a hard look at and figured out properly. The quests and skill systems should have been 1a and 1b priorities. Instead we have things like children NPCs, which aren't bad, but are not going to keep players.

There's also people who just hound people about the game being pre-alpha, alpha, or beta or whatever it is. That does not help with the issues this game has. From any sort of "Go live" perspective this game is live. It's persistent, available to anyone and requires a purchase. You can scream early access all you want, but the second it went persistent that screaming became meaningless. The time, effort and money people are putting in are permanent to this game now; that's exactly what a production product is, no matter the quality.

 

If you have that level, those skills, which is why you came before the R32, or play with someone who already has a high knowledge: where and how climbing skills, where to buy recipes, where to get the money, manufacture of armor a long etc .. believe that when you return, either find new content, just all more polished.
A new player needs time to adapt to the game, then it will be the launch. Just take a little more patience.

of course, I think the same. A shoot facing the serious public crucial for the game is really active. But it is sure that there will be no more wipes.

Finally comment, in the case of my guild happens gradually we grow, we were few members in the final wipe, and we are now a group something more consistent. Something strange, there are many people who speak our language playing.
But it is true that many people waiting for news.

 

You all realize with the new nerfs to exp gains, that unless the devs add in major skill decay... that 40X GM will be unkillable and so will all his friends if/when they choose to PvP. I was 82ish and PvPed a guildie who was 65ish and he barely touched me. Both of us were GM bows but that little bit of difference in some extra STR and defensive skills made all the difference in the world.

Normally I am not one to punish hard-core grinders as I usually am in that group but something was seriously broken where this guy leveled... After reading that level 102/40GM statement, unless this game puts in skill decay to hard cap to 7ish GMs, or just institutes a hard cap there is no way I will ever come back to play. I joined this game to PvP (even if it's not the best PvP game out there) and that is some ridiculous imbalance and I grinded HARD until the last 2 weeks. And the devs have only themselves to blame for this situation, they should of been running queries at the end of each day for the highest level and where the exp was coming from. And it never should of been allowed to continue for some 8 weeks before they put the brakes on!

 

What do you expect.
$550 for a tax free village lot
Can't exactly see a massive casual influx with this madness, and it is madness.
Got to get rid of the tax, give casuals row houses, bring the cost of the larger ones down.
Currently at the rate now, it is a luxury niche market of players, it will never grow.
Tax and exp/skill degrade are words casual gamers don't like.
An expensive shop ...?
High prices sell less or lower prices and sell many more units, it is a no brainer.
I've run and sold quite a few businesses in my time, this business plan for SoTa is so limiting I was surprised to see it develop this way.
SoTa is shutting so many doors for its growth
I love the game but a tipping point will be reached shortly, it may already be there.
In for the long haul or in for the cash grab and shortfall ?
I am not seeng a lot of content being added, but loads of products in the shop, and it worries me.

 

Skill decay is not going to solve this problem, if someone is grinding hardcore they will grind right through the decay. Because decay is proposed to be linked to death, someone with that many GMs is likely not getting killed grinding that often. Skill decay will make it even harder to 'catch up' because you'll be going backwards half the time. A complete skill system revamp with a hard cap would potentially fix it, but it would require a complete re-think of the skill trees AND attunement as the game currently forces you to invest points in a lot of...well, crap.

I agree that this should have been monitored better, that exploiters should have had their ill gotten xp deleted, but, we are where we are.
I suppose you can take solace in the fact that a lot of the people that powergrinded or cheated to lvl 100+ adventure level are bored and are leaving the game.

 

Agree with the points above.

I think what I see of the game so far looks very good, but overall it's just so incomplete that I can't log in just to grind out some gold to pay taxes. Speaking of which, the taxes and economy are just too far out of wack to allow casual play without purchasing COTO which I refuse to do until I see more progress. If they really want to hold the attention of more players to allow testing (which I thought was the point of final wipe), they have to drastically reduce taxes and other gold sinks, because, let's face it, owning a house is a major draw for most of the potential player base. I don't buy the argument that only the "true supporters" who are willing to put in the work/money should own housing.

Now, if reducing taxes (or equivalently increasing loot) causes balance problems because the hardcore players who grind 16 hours/day amass too much, then maybe they need to look at some kind of rules that affect *only* the elite, and not on trying to compensate by applying rules that apply only to the other 99%. Why not approach things by taxing them much more heavily (ie progressive tax brackets)? Isn't that what we do in the real world?

Do we really want SOTA to become a game only for monied whales (like Mechwarrior Online), or do we want it to be the next great MMO? It will fail if it stays the way it is now.

 

Great post. Just wanted to say, screw anyone who says or makes you feel like your opinion isn't valid. They may disagree with you in regards to their own play time, but for someone to fault you regarding the reasons you personally have down scaled play time are idiots.

Having said that, glad to have you with us and looking forward to eventually seeing you in game. 8^)

 

Mh? MWO is possibly one of the Ftp games with the easiest access.
Either your threshold for activity to game access is very low or you didn't play it in ages.

 

I'd be very careful about assuming someone is exploiting just because they are effective at leveling. It isn't actually that hard to get there in that amount of time if you are constantly grinding and know how to do it. I personally don't enjoy grinding enough (or at all to be honest) to push to that level, but knowing respawn time/rate/location you can run zones pretty effectively.

I am also one of the ones who supports hard caps being far better than a false no-cap decay design. Punishing casual players always sucks more than limiting power gamer's totals imo.

 

I AOE grinded almost all my levels so I think I am qualified to comment on efficient leveling. I'm not saying this guy exploited although people have said players were in The Rise AOEing thru structures without getting hit which would be incredible exp with no risk... I know I personally witnessed 2 large groups of EVL players at the CP outside of Ardoris all stacked on 2 different pixels spamming AOE over and over and over. Did EVL do something wrong? No. But I would guess that group exp is or was severely broken in SOTA, unlike other games where the exp wasn't being properly divided among the players and so having multiple groups or 1 large group (no idea player limit on a group) killing the same mobs was ruining the calculations. Once again, I put the blame for the current state on the developers for not monitoring the levels of the highest players and WHERE their exp was coming from. Well, the people exploiting the Rise should have had their characters deleted for cheating.

 

I would love to spend time in Drachvald. I used to have one lot in Brookside and one in Lux Sanctuary before it moved. But I can't afford to go there any more. I know that lots of people stroll casually through Vauban Pass and complain that it's not a challenge, but I've never managed to get through alive by myself. So you will find me strolling casually through North Paladis where I see lots of other folks running around.