where is everyone

As I said here , bring people together don't dont split the small playerbase into elitist minorities.
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...nside-of-sota-headquarters.86303/#post-792581

 

And they allowed and allow a lot of exploits in SotA in my eyes.

 

They should have waited with persistence until full release, but that horse is dead.

Darkfall was more casual friendly than this. In Darkfall your guild mattered the most and your teamplay in that guild. You could contribute with PVE to a common goal, build your city - Empire. That's what a sandbox needs. Trying to match a powergamer with a casual by boosting the casual won't help. If the game is not twitchy enough why should someone put hours into it and play? If the casual gets his ass handed everytime because the combat is too twitchy, he will stop as well even on a level playing field - that why you got tiers of skill in those games.

All that doesn't work in a sandbox. In a sandbox you need teamplay, guilds and alliances to bring casuals and powergamers together.

 

Totally agree *wonder*

But the whole concept of SotA doesn't fit that.
Or let's say it's possible but with a lot of compromises for both the more passionate players and the more lazy ones.
I really doubt that will happen.

Edit: I never was a top player in DF, but I was important when we go hunting.
In SotA I can run with highlevels , but I am totally worthless

 

Just got the game a few days ago. Played all weekend and was never alone anywhere. I ended up with a group of high levels. We went to Bloody Bay and killed the clock work dragon several times. They even let me have 2 loots. Then we went and killed the phoenix for my sun quest. Great group of people and all the players I have met were awesome. Now only if the big towns would run less wonky. Also the quest line where you go to Necropolis is pretty fun. This game has a lot of potential.

 

Welcome Drebge and I agree the game has lots of possibility. I am Majoria in the game if I can ever help

 

Next time you go can you message me. I've never been and would love to join in

 

Pick one....



OR



Empty theme parks just dont seem inviting. Sure the rides and games still have its appeal, its kinda like a no show birthday party. sure the presents are still great, but... I believe the point is valid that people make the show come alive.

 

It is a sandbox without sand... and therefore with not many players around anymore.

 

Also it's a story-driven game without interesting quests and choices with consequences so in this regard there are not many players around anymore, too...

 

I wait with the story until it is completed. But I heard so far it is not good or very interesting.

 

I'm not surprised the active population is really low. Outside of a good community you might be part of, there's little reason to play the game for some of us. If you haven't sunk hundreds or thousands of dollars into the systems which have gotten the lions share of developer love (gee, I wonder which ones those could be), it's hard to find a reason to log in. The combat system for example should be robust, polished, and fun at this point given there isn't a whole lot else to do for anyone who hasn't bought in to those other systems and it's not IMO. Couple that with punitive mechanics like skill decay which - even if very minor - make you feel like you're swimming against the tide and any gains you make will be slowly undone.

So for me, when I think about logging in to SotA, knowing I'll be doing mostly fighting mobs (I guess I could gather resources if I'm feeling particularly masochistic or just want to get into RMT), all I can think is "well doing that is a lot more enjoyable in X game" so I go and do that. And when I want the sandbox experience of building houses/towns/crafting/whathaveyou I think "well doing that is a lot cheaper and just as fun if not more fun in X game" so I go and play that.

But don't worry, we're still pre-alpha and it'll all be ready and full of people come official release, right?

 

@Lord_Darkmoon @Vallo Frostbane you are both right, but what it is is a good (not perfect) sandbox to RPvE/P.
If they do more uncloning and maybe make Non combat NPC in FM customizable , add own text to them or make them have a player written paper to share You could create cool player created quests, also PvP.
I really would have good ideas , but scenes just lack "story" or I didn't find them until. I would create things like small story's that would give you a cause to fight bandits or explore Ruins and others could have quests to beware some ancient places to be discovered.
A lot of possibilities to create player content in scenes to have immersing fun, pve and PvP.
Sure not the Witcher 3 quality or epic 200vs200 PvP raids , but I think you can do a lot of cool small Party things.
To me it's a co-op sandbox.
I am working on a fictional setup or Frame for a small group of Adventurers who RP their way in New Britannia and do immersive pve and maybe PvP if there will be a better balance and less grind needed to be competable or let's say the need to skill at least "everything".

Ofc allways have to make compromises, but i already had some cool playsessions which were immersing, a challenge at my level and fun.
What i would need is more players to participate or possibilities to configure NPC in Scenes in FM like the old man in the hut in N. Drachvald Spur for example. Or just the possibility to drop an item in a scene in FM what others need to find. I don't know how that could maybe work, but think of a player created quest introduced by a player or PoT NPC who send you out to get an item back lost in the old town in XY overruned by undead and spiders or something like that.
It's maybe not for all of you, but i and some people sure have fun to play this way.
And even if it's just from time to time aside the "usual" grind.
This would also be cool for PvP.
That's maybe old, but if it were more balanced it would be cool to have a bounty on a players skull and things like that.
But this are things for nearly equally strong chars. If let's say i go hunting Vallo with 3 people we wouldn't have a chance until we haven't grind some month more . But this grind or what Vallo says is better managing your char development is just lame and dull grind in my eyes.
Maybe the PvPers or high-level already do such things and already bored about that.
I am still not able to farm a t4 scene

That brings me back to the point that the small playerbase is to much "divided" when you look at it from the balance side.
Some have millions of Gold, millions of XP , 10, 30, 50, 100+ GM , high stats and other people have a hard time to manage a t4 scene.
And to be not ready does not mean they have less playerskill, they just haven't put in as much time or are willing to grind as much as others do.

This is where it comes back to "homogeneous" groups of players , coop and small group PvP and such.
Or just wait if more people have reached endgame and have good equip etc...
But for me this takes years in the actual system, if I have the patience and fun until I reach that level.

 

Aye, those are some, but of course not all of the reasons myself and a lot of other people I knew and have spoken with left. The devs believe they are at 80% complete, so the last 20% is just polish to combat spell effects, making things look a little better, make it run better, replacing some creature models, and the new user experience. The game is very bland for me and just has no hooks to keep me wanting to log in to play. The grind is all there is. Just logging in and seeing the depressing looking game world makes me log immediately whenever I've tried to play new releases. I gave the game over 3 years to get better and we're now going to be moving toward beta sometime this year, which they stated at some point would only be a matter of weeks when they do beta, so I think mostly what we see at the moment as a game, is what we got for whenever they decide to say the game is released. So what we got is just not good enough for me.

There are still people left playing Sota though, so there's a niche market for Sota, though it does seem to be a very small amount of people. I just hope it's enough for those that really enjoy Sota so they can continue to play a game they love. It wasn't the game for me as much as I had hoped it would be, but that's just how it goes with gaming and I still wish it well for the community that's left so they can continue enjoying their game. .

From the steam page under development roadmap they do mention there will be battlegrounds. Not sure what kind of battlegrounds, because they're pretty vague on specific details on a lot of things.

Future Updates

• Story: A rich narrative that presents you with complex moral choices will come online closer to launch.
  
• More Scenes: Many additional scenes will come online including cities, dungeons, deserts, arctic areas, swamps, fortifications, battlegrounds, etc.
  
• Performance: Continued optimizations as well as sophisticated fallback routines will greatly improve performance.
  
• More Magic & Combat Skills: More skills will be coming including the Chaos Magic School.
  
• Localization: Support for multiple languages.
  
• More Creatures: More creatures along with multiple variations and new behaviors.

 

Yuck, well I hope this i meant to be closer to the kickstarter promises of sieges and not a "feature" that hardly anyone will use in the end, because they lack the development time to make it any good and worthwhile.

 

I actually like that idea. Although I keep thinking with the idea they want to do multiple characters, that everyything to GM, specialized for 4 trees to 200 per character just gives them more options in the long run for not only better PVP, but actually adding some value to groups. (right now anyone who wants to play healer can quite literally just switch deck) Oh im a tank today? (switch deck) .. i think its a gross setup and is only going to get worse as the average skill level raises. I think the idea that you need to (and i say this solo) put in 1000+ hours to even get close to a competitive PVP level, is a massive turn off for people.

IF they want guild wars to be the GO TO for real PVP, then yea your right. Guilds will powerlevel, and push their members up to a successful level. And you know what? Done right this could be an amazing PVP setup. But this goes back to, guildwars needing to be an amazing mechanic, and add real meaning to guilds/pvp. Otherwise, you will see that small select few, godlike characters running around, occasionally fighting each other. As competitive players can play games they can PVP from level 1 to finish in, and get a lot more enjoyment then having to do a PVE grind. Personally i think guildwars will be their only saving grace for any kind of PVP worth mentioning.
UO was sandbox, but had multiple characters with skill caps. Meaning you always had counters to other characters. SoTa being capless, and the way the resists/attunement work.. mean no matter what ure leveling, your becoming more resistant to something. ( Godlike character can quite literally be 99% resist to everything. In which case 1 v 10.. doesnt matter how much organizing those 10 do.. ) And you can see this already in game. 1 Chainlightning killing 3 guys. 1 obsid arrow killing a player who has 1k hours in. etc etc.. That issue will only get worse, and be more and more of a turn off for people who want to have PVP as part of their play.

*Edit - I also want to point out that the fact they wont elaborate on their guild wars mechanics.. or really give insight.. it makes it hard to hold my breath for it.

 

That's why most people who left do not bother coming back... There isn't even a plan how the things they were missing are going to be implemented.

 

I kinda get your point. But I'd really prefer empty theme parks to crowded ones. Less queues.

Give me real life single player mode please.

 

It's easy to find fun people in New Britannia and have a great time.

 

Skill caps will help lessen the skill divide between long time players and newer players. Without it newer players will almost never "catch up" with older players.

Nothing will fix the gold divide. People can easily buy from the add-on store and sell items for gold. Nothing will balance that.