Concerns about state of and Future of the game . . .becaue of Balance

Almost everyone here knows who I am - Been around since the very beginning, am Grumpie - yeah in my name.

But quite simply this is why I am concerned - I play Casually - I enjoy the game but I play it I do NOT game it. I know how I could grind experience mindlessly but I enjoy more just adventuring / exploring / playing.

I have just recently reached level 86 and with that have learned I can now take on the Reapers. It is a challenge but can be done. There are resources in the area and lower level spawn to gain more exp and more resources. B-U-T I have killed around 10 Reapers and not one has dropped Ashen Heartwood, the special resource. I have killed many wolves and harvested trees and cotton and ore, over and over. - WHY. One I am getting better at stronger critters and two I am still trying to gather enough to decorate Houses on my own Island. Sadly over all this time I still am not even remotely close to being able to make all I need. So onward I grind. Yet in a few weeks I will once again be forced to grind mindlessly to even maintain this ability.

Now State of the Game Current- ok (from my point of view) but just OK .I am progressing. I go out, at times with others and do much harder content I have no chance to do on my own, and I play, gather, learn. So all is OK but still something is lacking? So this is not really good but again O - K.

The Future is the biggest concern. As all I have is going to once again be crushed and I will suffer a HUGE set back in the name of Development. With the new release there will be more skills which will eat up much more time and experience to learn. I will be forced to first stabilize my progression, then it will be even harder to move forward again. The Reaper since it is a "Boss" will once again be unkillable for me. W-H-Y because they are "balancing the game for Higher Leveled Players, using the right side of the bell curve.

I have over 600 points in taming and it is a non viable skill tree - the entire tree. Now add to this I will need to train a New Skill - Proficiency to again first maintain a level of inequality then endure even more work to once again progress. Meanwhile those that Power Gamed (and more problematic, the abusers) will just unlearn skills and relearn what the want overpowering something or another. The developers are starting to chase the tail of the Dragon called Balancing. They will never catch up and I will forever be forced to chase behind them.

BTW those that can solo things that are the cause of the start of this loop are not going be phased one bit by these changes, those that really care for the game will just adjust and continue on. Those that are here for other reasons will walk away, when they figure out it is more work than profit. Changing Mechanical creatures to resist fire but susceptible to Air is a perfect example. Especially with the ability to unlearn and speedy learn once they do this, Air mages will be the skill / template of the day and they will once again just Lightening / Chain Lightning their way thru the world, chase on devs.

New players - LMAO they will have no hope at all of achieving even what I have in a reasonable amount of time, sure someone could "Power Game" it but . . .

In the end the niche players like those who kept UO alive will be left behind and 5 years from now when all the players who no longer can profit economically or socially (certain mentality) will leave and the game will balance out.

During that time though???

Does that make any sense to anyone - I know there are MANY who feel the same concerns and even more have already just left because they do not think it will turn around.

It can turn and in the end will but it will be a long road, being made even longer with bad decisions driven by looking in the wrong direction for answers.

I know this will be called a ramble and senseless, without merit or reasoning but It does not change the fact that once again I and every other casual player will suffer a HUGE setback in the sake of Balance. More and more will not stick around.

 

I have not made it anywhere near your level, but I have had some of these same concerns. Do you specialize you skills or are you spread out across tons of trees? I'm genuinely curious. I kind of always figured if you specialized instead of learning everything, that you would begin to see more of a "profit" instead of "loss" when it comes to the work put in and maintenance; if you know what I mean.

 

Yep. What you describe is the reason I will not be playing this game unfortunately. Progress is annoying with the stupid xp-pool and seems punishing and futile in the end. Not a good thing for an rpg.

Still hoping they will make changes to this system when they notice population will still be lacking after "release", so that is why I am sticking around.

 

Lvl 86 can solo everything if you know what u are doing.

However balance is an issue with this game. You are forced to play a certain way and develop your character to be able to do it. That was a design choice to some degree... but just things like if you use staffs ur doing it wrong make the game look unfinished and stupid to some degree.

 

I wrote a lot of questions, asking about the sense of the XP pool.
The one and only "positive" answer for this was the explanation "... to prevent unfair playing - botting ..."
As all of us know (watching the thread of @Chris), the XP pool can't prevent botting.

So, yes, I am also concerned about the following facts:
1. You earn NO Skill raising while your XP pool is empty (what can happen very fast with the death decay )
2. The hardest fights I have had in past did nothing to raise my skills - this is very frustrating! A skill should raise of course in the case I USE the Skills!
3. It is unfortunately the reason not to fight against high tier enemies. Really: I wouldn't fear to loose the XP pool for additional Skill raising points, knowing my Skills will lvl up while using them.

A base amount of Skill raising should happen while we are using a Skill.
And of course: Until you are Skill lvl 70/80, the "standard" use of this skill will not raise the Skill as it was done at the beginning from 1-40! We know, to do so, we need lots of XP points! And that's okay. So an amount of (just a digit!) 10 - 40 points should be a base skill raising amount every time we use it.
The XP pool would be on top to give the chance to lvl skills faster as normal.

With a base amount for Skill raising by using each skill people wouldn't stuck after the XP pool is empty . For example: after dying a few times while fighting groups of enemies ... consider: we are forced to run through high tier lvl zones !!!
And a newbie dies very fast ... So the earned XP from a quest vanishes and you fight and receive no Skill raising

@Chris, what about a base amount of points while using a skill? This would solve so many problems for newbies
It wouldn't give us any longer the feeling of making no progress, while the XP pool is empty ...
Thank you for considering this in further changes!

 

It will be to late then ... again

 

This game is just a grindgame with socializing.
Grind and socialize, there are zero dependencies or rewarding actions for MP purposes.
PvP or any competetive content want you to be a hardcore min max gamer.
Roleplay is limited to only conversation and gamemechanics cannot be involved because of the huge gap between players.
The whole measuring for everything is nor in a balance neither fit for RPvX gameplay.
It's ridiculous what they think playing a game is.
Maybe they should ask themself where the players are.
Without to balance it and measure things significantly down and limit skills and trees there is no sandbox , no real interaction, no balance, no RPG Sandbox possible.
They will learn it until the end of 2018 when the Flop of this game what is still happening continue after release.
There will be no Ep2, there will be not enough players to keep it running.
May the RMT 's trade among themself until they realize it's a dead horse.

I just read a post in a german forum asking how to make your life as a crafter in Town without to fight / grind .
Now the player is going to fight and will realize that she has no Chance to be ever competetive on a market, or wait what market ? What players ?
The game was never really alive, the game had never more then a few people login and all they do is grinding and nothing else.

 

I try not to compare myself with the high level players. That can only lead to frustration. I find satisfaction in my own progression, and I enjoy the feeling of the game more than the accomplishments.

I can see the point of view from people wishing for hard skill caps. But I honestly don't think it would make the game more fun. I don't see all that much changing in the way people would play, except a bunch of them quitting when they reach the limit.

But it could be a good idea to make the systems support specialization even more than what the new proficiencies bring. It would be nice if a high level couldn't be better at everything than a medium level, but rather be really good at his or her thing. As long as different combos of specialization can be made, there will still be tons of options for character buildning and different choices to be made.

When it comes to pvp I agree there is a problem that the incentive for lower-mid players isn't there. Again, I don't Believe the solution is hard caps. My utopia is some kind of virtue system with a bunch of smart mechanics that creates fair levels of risk/reward while characters still have different power levels.

But I still wish more people would try the pvp zones. I have played 100s of hours in them and I've only been ganked by high levels like three times, and I had fair fun fights just a few times as well (from when I was level 75 to currently 90).

 

Downmeasuring, hard caps and tree limitations would make it possible to "everyone" to partake in the RP sandbox and make a contribution .
Otherwise there is only progression (grind) game.
With hard caps and limitations of what trees you can learn dependencies for pve and crafting come to existence.
People cannot heal themself need healers, cannot tank or do enough damage, cannot harvest, refine or craft everything, dependencies are the key to a RPG Sandbox.
Hard caps and Downmeasuring allow also casuals to partake at some time.
Grumpy says he is casual and has 10 GM.
Sounds like a very good and ambitioned casual to me. I'm casual level 80 and have 1700 hours ingame doing all sort of gameplay from RP socializing (except to much dancing) to fighting 1-3 hours a t5 scene. More is boring to me. I need variance , i dont like to grind and progress only. But the game is exactly about that only , grind and progress.
Without getting rid of no limits, people will allways and only concentrate on grind and progress only. No RPG Sandbox, because of no need to do it.
RMT and xp Services destroy ist even more.
Maybe they are looking for a special group of players, otherwise i cannot understand their decisions.
I just think , and i remember to the actual discussion in gaming industry about loot boxes and such, or making games even with level or zone scaling and such, they backed on the wrong horse.
Unfortunately they are resistant to the critical voices and just follow the 150 hardcore progress and RMT Gamers here.
I hope for a Desaster at launch and correcting the route of development, but i doubt and think it still falls on deaf ears.

Again: no dependencies, no sandbox, no RPG, no limits = less competetive participants
If it is about xp/hour i forsee very less players in the future and only those anti social / RP "i dont mind how my character looks like as long as he is setup optimal and efficient" players.
With these people there is only progression gameplay as you can read in the Chris Daily Blog Discussion .

Not worth anymore to even argue about it. It's unpopular and the 300 playing dont see it, dont want it and are happy.

Problem is why arent 3000 happy, where are 215000 Backers, where are the players?

The ones coming at "release" will get disappointed very fast, at least when they realize what it is about .
I bet there will be less than 10% of players who will join stay longer than 3 Month.

But we will see and Portalarium and Many Backers will learn a lesson teached by LB again . As they were teached with Tabula Rasa what had no endgame, what stucked in development and financed him to make his space trip.
Nothing else is happen here again i believe. He maybe should have stay with developing mobile and Facebook games.
That is the audience he can satisfy, not RPG lovers.
Clickbait xp/hour games with RMT.

 

Often I am hearing about negative stuff, which is claimed responsible for everything:
- we can't pvp
- we can't do roleplaying
- we can't do this or that
- ah - and sure: no one is playing ... the world is empty!
- don't forget to mix it sometimes with insulting and assertions ...

May be we should focus on what is possible and don't generalize things?

1. We can play the whole storyline without what is often called "grinding".
The enemies got reduction. I did the paths over the last 2 years and this was really a challenge!

2. We can set priorities on our skills.
May be a lot of players care too much about others, which have 10+ GM? And less on their own playstyle?
I just have 2(!) GM (Skills, actually at 100+) The "GM" means nothing to me.
And the best would be to NOT to show this sign to signalize:
This player has 32 Skills at 100! Well, what does it mean for MY gameplay? Nothing

3. And also if we like to flag for PvP:
If we work more specialized on a few Skills we can manage a player with 10 or more "GM".
The new system inserted from Chris allows a more specification at actually two Skill trees.
(I would prefer at least 3, because we have 3 skill trees).

About population:
When I am playing the story in offline mode, I really don't care about other players!
Did I care in the past, while Playing Ultima III or IV, V ... , how many players bought and played the game at the same time?
No.

Well, if we prefer to participate in the online world, sure, it's interesting to have others around.
I am playing since 2014. I NEVER entered the world online without meeting another player!

My friend list shows today about 220 people, filled over the last 4 years.
1 Player last seen in 2015, 1 last seen in 2016, 25 last in 2017. A few at beginning, a few mid of the year, a few end of 2017.

The most friend requests I received was from end of last year until now! About 60 in a very short time!
Most of them were new players, who asked me about stuff, most about quests!
And of course, not every visitor and inhabitant sends me a friend request!

I am often in Soltown, where the path of love takes place.
I also visited the Outskirts a few times (almost after changes each release):
there are every time new players around.
So I can tell about a raising of visitors/players over the last months! More than in 2015 or 2016!

How will this change MY gameplay? Not at all. I try to help them, if they have questions. That's all

If a lot of posts would have included more constructive bug reporting, a lot of bugs could have been found earlier and a lot of good feedback could have improved the quest lines. And I don't mean the generalized feedback spiked with a lot of opinions, "how" the game will fail and how Portalarium is responsible for that we can't do, what we want

This are just opinions. If we really want to have this game changed,
we should give more bug reporting and constructive feedback.

If we try to give feedback while we are angry about whatever(!) our feedback is most time useless - full of negative emotions.
Well, nice to pour out our negative emotions over others? Well, unfortunately and generally this behavior changes nothing ...

The more concrete a concern is, the more chances, the Developers can do something against.
Shouting a generalized "New players are missing!", "I told you!" from the roof of our house means nothing.
It's both: true or false. Like our point of view is ...

At last there are the good old beahviors we can choice:
Love it, Change it - or Leave it ...

And I never saw things changed with hateful statements

What I can reconstruct exactly is
my friend list over 4 years:
2 have choosen (may be!) to leave in 2015 and 2016.
8 have choosen not to come back since a year.
9 have choosen not to come back since half a year.
8 have choosen not to come back since three months.

What does this mean?
May be the 2 will never be seen. May be 17 will never be seen, or may be 27 will never be seen in game.
But it also could be, 25 will come back after release, and who knows, may be all 27?

As I explained before: 4 of my nephews (3 backers!) will start to play with launchdate!
They are waiting for launch (1 of them still plays Ultima Online!)

So, who can really say, what will happen until end of this year?
If the development goes on, like it did since end of last year, there will be a lot of new stuff and of course more polished game mechanism.

And believe me, there are also things I am not happy with at 100%, (Journal, Map situation, Parts of Quests, Read above about the "no-skill-raising-while-using-Skills")
Well, does it mean, I can't enjoy what I have until now? Of course not!
Places, I can't manage at the moment, well, I don't visit!
I can't manage a Troll by my own - yet. Okay. May be end of year I can. That's no reason not to like what I can do instead!
And there is a lot ...

And at last:
A player who starts at launch time will need a lot of time to finish the whole Episode 1 to be concerned about things, a lot of us are thinking about after 4 years of watching the progress of development. Most of new players will not care about what we are thinking of ... They are focused on learning how this game works.

And yes: changing the System 2 months before launch was courageous! And sure, @Chris needs time to balance new things.
But if this isn't done at 100% until launch, do you really think, NEW players will notice?

As I started to play WOW, I didn't care about skills. I just played, enjoyed watching how they raising, feeling I got stronger.
And in a lot of launches they gave out changes in skills! To be honest: Most time I didn't knew, what they are talking about.
It took a long time for me to understand, how the skills works on different enemies.
And I would say the skill system of SotA isn't more easier as WOW

 

Does everyone understand that the game is still not a released version? I know it is close but if you were not a beta tester or early adopter and started playing at official release would you still be complaining about the same things? I like the game and have enjoyed playing even though things have changed frequently, sometimes drastically. If you don't want to be a early adopter and offer creative suggestions on the progress of the game then maybe you should wait for release. IMHO

 

PvP is definitely not working for lower level players.

If I'm caught in a PvP zone it's almost immediately over due to the power difference. The 10% experience bonus and the unknown % increase for rare drops isn't worth the ransoms. As a non-crafting, adventurer type player, my income comes from MOB drops and harvesting resources. I would make my gold by selling rare resources on the public vendors. This income source has fallen off drastically in the past couple weeks. This is especially true for all resources used in leather items. With armor repairs and reagent costs I simply don't have the disposable gold for PvP.

Someone might tell me that I need to spend more time farming and less time adventuring. I'll tell them that's a grind and not a game. I'm not going to grind all week long just to afford to get rolled over by high levels for a weekend. That's a core mechanics problem.

 

I would agree with that in principle. I am enjoying the game as it stands but do have alot of concerns regarding balance, content etc.

Personally I think there are too many things still to be sorted to mean anything but a rather bumpy launch and immediate aftermath when reviews role in and the hopefully many new players start running into the many outstanding issues and problems.

Personally I think they are launching too soon now, each new release is making great strides at the moment but I can't see that R52 is going to get the game to where it should really be at launch. Maybe something like R55 would have been more realistic but thats just my gut feeling.

No doubt there are commercial pressures that have led to the March release date, but I just hope the ongoing development beyond that point will address the issues fast enough to make the game a success. The jury is still out for me on this at the moment but we shall all see soon enough..

 

you all know the answer to this .

 

ONLY IF YOU GAME THEY SYSTEM - I clearly said I KNOW how to do it but I am not going to . . TY for making my point clearer

 

not talking PvP in any way shape or form - there is a whole forum for it nit is not it and not the problem.

 

If by game the system means playing the game yes you are right If someone refuses to build resistance against fire while fighting dragons he will get problems at that level.. I would find it bad design however if your choices didn't matter. Your choices were limited however, which is now going to change I guess - and some people will now need groups.

 

Becauseyou are not interested in a RPvP sandbox.

Then play offline or SPO, but this has nothing to do with a MMORPG it also want to be.
SotA failed to be a good SP game and failed to be a worthwhile MMORPG.
It is a lone Wolf SP game with MP option to socialize, to do Tavern RP only and for RMT , to deco and dance .
It's the new D&D deco and dance RPG


Its unbelievable how blind a lot of people are, other they are exactly these type of gamers.

There are tons of constructive posts and suggestions.
I made bug Reports in many releases and still they are not fixed, some are Starter quests of the Outskirts.
Tired to Report the same bugs release after release .

And then you expect something and have done it, and then you recognize what it is about regarding "endgame".
SotA has none other than progress grind.
There is nothing other to grind xp/ hour Spots and gathering tons of ressources to produce stuff nobody buys because a handfull of players rule the market.
Because a handfull of players rule pvp if they want.
Failed to create a sandbox.
Failed to create endgame .
People will realize 3-6 Month after release and in the end of 2018 the game will be dead as it is now.
If anyone think they will be able to produce Ep2 with 500 active players , good luck.

 

@Stundorn, @Paladin Michael you have made you points over and over so have I. If you want to debate it, take it to PM. there is no need for you to continue on this thread. TY

Again TY for your input

updating since being nice did not work

Ok since this did not work reported the posts have a good day

 

@Stundorn

I will say it one last time because you are unwilling to stop insulting parts of the community:
The game you wish for doesn't exist.
SotA was never intended to be the game you dream of.
I have no idea how you could ever come to the conclusion that SotA might be an RPvP Sandbox.
NO game was EVER intended to be the game you wish for.
My assumption is that there WILL NEVER BE a game that is like you wish it if you don't go and crowdfund it yourself because a RPvP Sandbox is pretty darn special.
Maybe go and look for a conan exiles RP PVP server if something like this exists.

Ah, here we go.