Early Dev+ Knight backer - this game is not commercially ready.

@Magyar

Thanks for posting. Obviously from your posting history you've been patiently awaiting (needed) changes. I think you articulated yourself quite well. I too tire of many of the same things you mention. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer but I'll b damned if I can figure out SotA math. Let's take the 80/20 developement thing. 1st off. I kinda get the production cycle; I know people in the animation business where 5 years from a concept to release is considered normal.. and that's for a product that lasts for 2 hours or so. It even makes sense to me when certain devs smile and talk about the bulk of the polish etc going into the last 20% of dev time. What I don't get is the notion that 4 years = 80% but 20% can be done in 3 months.
I'd like some real hard honesty about an expected "ready to launch" date instead of what has become a meaningless platitude <"we work for YOU"> to me.
The current release is one of the worst I've experienced in recent time. For gosh sakes... I have the flippin audio stutter and hitching just standing still chatting outside my house.. uhh that would be stuff like guild chatting...one can't have a conversation with someone else in an empty town. Basic systems still screw up in a big way... there is little combat balance to speak of....
Crafting hasn't gotten love in a glacial age... matter of fact they've just made a tedious system even more annoying with the silly time sink of hiding recipes all over the place. But . ohh have you seen the robust addo store?

 

Must be. All I know is that losing the ability to see anything (to play the game) every hour (and that's when I'm outside; indoors it's 24/7) has been an issue for me since the beginning. I've come to the conclusion that they just don't care.

The fact that "Camouflage" as a skill still exists (a skill about NOT MOVING) and that I have to grind it to level 40 is insulting to my senses.

I'm still playing the "guess the keyword" mini-game when doing the quests in the newly-built beginner zones (Outskirts) and NPCs still fail to give clear indications/directions.

I'm still spending WAY more time managing my skills' XP intake than I should considering the system is supposed to be automatic and "on use".

I could go on...

So I don't see the "the deficiencies are acknowledged" that you're talking about.

 

i'm not sure I asked for that. In fact, I'm pretty sure there's a whole lot of us that just want what was proposed at kickstarter and little else.

 

Thats right, if I was in portalarium's place I would have split the projects, like I told them at the first hint of this turning into a MMO/sims... you know what I think about what the game has become...

But now its too late, so "we" as a community, kept asking for more complexity regardless of the integrity of the whole situation.

 

I have that problem in real life too, we call it "night." You can alleviate it with most of the spells in the fire tree, a torch, a light spell the sun tree, nightvision, a LB helmet, a mining helmet, turning on wall torches and lanterns, or probably some other things I'm forgetting. Look at the bright side, atleast you're not getting eaten by a grue (if you get that, you're old too ).

I don't find being able to hide yourself while being still as a prerequisite to hide yourself while moving to be unreasonable. I don't remember where, but i believe they have said they intend to make the stationary hiding skills reactivate once you stop moving for the duration of the skill, so you'll be able to use them in conjunction (I don't have a link to that, offhand though).

Starr said they don't do a good enough job with player direction, he describes conveying the story as merely "adequate" (which isn't exactly my definition of high praise), he says the story fails to be compelling, and that the UI provides inadequate, counter-intuitive, and sometimes even WRONG information in the list of high-priority items to work on. That's a hell of a lot of acknowledgement, it covers a lot of what you have complained about. That said, it sounds like you haven't un-twisty-ed the list of keywords you've encountered; it's not a perfect solution (and like a lot of things, it needs a little polish), but it does make the "guess the keyword" issue much lower.

Managing your XP flow is always going to be a thing with the way they've set up pools and conversion. Maybe it was supposed to be an "on use" thing, but in practice it isn't. Gutting the whole thing is not reasonable at this point. Nor do I think it's necessary for a successful launch.

 

Your audio stutters too? Thought I was losing a hard drive. Bought a new one, have not bothered to install. Guess I'll wait...

On all accounts I agree. I have no problem spending $$ on Add On's if the product is engaging and worthwhile. This however, is not so worthwhile. Although I do feel a bit more... active... since I decided to leave the Spite area and do some of the noob adventures. There are people. They however say very little. Oh well.

 

Good feedback in the opening post. But as an AC player I have to disagree with the quote above. While a great game, AC's interface occupied a huge amount of territory and was cumbersome even in its day. It didnt feel good at all. It was just all that we had then. By comparison, SOTAs interface is easy to use and relatively non-obstructive. Though it needs some more polish IMHO.

 

Nope, the stuttering is real. It's not a sign of losing your mind, nor your hard drive. I think eliminating it is covered under this comment:

 

I feel like RG says stuff but really isn't involved in the day to day operations of the game. Wonder how many devs have played the game and what adventure level they obtained. I don't see how they could ever have played those quest lines and felt good about it.

 

Fire tree, torch, light spell, turning on wall torches and lanterns all break stealth.



Where I come from, humans have eyes that can adjust to different lighting conditions and have 5 senses.

You might not but when I play games, I expect to play. Not stand immobile waiting for a skill to level up.

Quote?

We'll see how the rest of the world thinks soon enough.

 

While this is on point, your narrative is taking a stringent undertone

Thats is where we must make a simple yet powerful distinction between roleplaying games and adventure games.

I know you will understand me : SOTA hopes to be a roleplaying game, LARP and AD&D inspired, with the unique ultima twist that includes virtue, companions and dynamic living world.

They are stumbling on the path but it does not make them bad...

To play the role of a mage means repetition, standing still, meditating, learning to be at the right place at the right time (astrology) to know the regions appropriate for certain magiks, etc etc etc...

In an adventure game like EQ or WoW, a mage is a DPS machinegun, it shoots spells it can somehow learn and memorize forever, even if the power of the magic is too strong to leave their memory intact.

I can make an analogous comparison for each styles but it becomes redundant.

Look further up the spheres of existance... the magic of the first true roleplaying games was so powerful that everyone forgot how to "cast the spell" again.

That is how magic works, always has a price, always uses itself within itself within yourself.

So in truth, everyone is falling to Mondain's curse equally, you, me, the devs, everyone.

We are living in a time where all those "comments" about the game possible success or doom is completely irrelevant, the game is omnipresent, everyone is stumbling on the way there...

Only the depth of soul, ethics, friendship and compassion matters now.

Peace, take it easy brother.

 

Are you arguing that having a ball of light following you is conducive to hiding or that performing an action like turning on a lantern isn't a dead giveaway to your position? Maybe perform these actions before you start hiding?

Have you ever been in pitch black? Frankly, compaired to actually being in pure darkness, our caves are like a christmas tree.

While I think it would be best to merge the two into one skill, if the non-moving ones reactivate after an action I think that will be a resonable fix. Apperently this change is only intended for the moon-magic ones (https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...ostmortem-missed-questions.99698/#post-875386). I would expect changes to the dynamic of the ones in subterfuge to be something you could convence them about. If they insist on the distinction, decreasing the cooldown seems like an option.

Okay:

Personally, I hope the also give significance to being virtuous or chaotic, but that's outside the scope of what's being said.

All of this is from https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=77776#more-77776 (Second time I've posted this link now). Underlineing is my emphisis.

I've said repeatedly we aren't ready to ship, so what the rest of the world thinks will likely be based on what happens between now and when we are.

 

Note the date of the following post. https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/known-lich-hitch-fix.92043/

That wasn't the first of the hitch appearing.. it was just the date I tried something to get rid of it.

It's certainly not in the "we can't reproduce it" files. Annoying as all hell though.. to the point of not wanting to bother with any challenging gameplay. THe only stuff I'm willing to do at the moment is stuff where I can anticipate with a reasonable degree of surety. I don't wig out per se' over XP loss when I die...UNLESS it's death to a st00pid freakin bug that's been here for ages.

 

Kidding !!! 0.o

 

There really, really needs to be a wipe though.

 

I loved AC. Old Darktide player since the beginning. I often disagree with reviewers. However I remember how scathing the reviews were of AC when it came out. They were right. I just didnt care. The gameplay of AC was amazing. Still difficult to beat today. The SOTA interface is utilitarian, but immediately leaves the impression of games from the 90's. Actually, I think some 90's games had better initial presentation. Ultima VI had better presentation. So did Quest for Glory, Kings Quest, etc. I could make a list, but yeah.

 

Mmmmm..... Quest for Glory. I often think about it and wish that the Shroud story characters could have a tenth of the personality of the QFG characters.

 

It'd be nice if it were the green channel at lower levels, but gradually put in the red and blue the higher the skill got. Never up to 100% red and blue (maybe a max of 60% or so) but something besides just a longer duration for bothering to put XP into it.

 

There's very little value in the opening post for me. Grats on being a dev-whatever backer. You still only scratched the surface of the game in over 3 years.

You might think having spent some $ gives you the right to bash the game and call it constructive feedback but for what it's worth I don't think so.

 

I remain highly skeptical of games claiming to be the UO successor, spiritual or otherwise, while they are still in the very early stage of development. The UO people seem to remember was the mature version - both LoA & AO (Albion Online) are just ramping up so their full shape & form plus level of content isn't there yet.

We'll see which one is truly the spiritual successor once the dust settles