Classless becoming classed.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Mac2, Mar 17, 2018.

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  1. Creb Darkenie

    Creb Darkenie Avatar

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    I think the focus should be trying to get new players into the game, and to keep them instead of us veterans stuck in our old ways. We should be focusing on the game now, and player retention.
     
  2. majoria70

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    And why is it always thought that players have to catch up? With creativity players can run a whole beginners armor shop. They can hold their very own PvP events with players competitive with them. For example we have a pvp arena basement in Wizards Rest for use and anyone can select PvP choice for basements they have.

    Also Combat skills raise really, really fast when you're using them regularly and so do crafting skills. Especially with the new refining skills. I raised one of them to 75 in just a few minutes.

    I know I tend to be on the positive side saying it will be alright but I think it will be alright;). So with that said I'm not saying we don't still need some systems balanced and fixed and while I do want crafting fixed first I don't say never for specializations for it just not first. Fix it first let it become more interesting and enjoyable for us.
     
    Last edited: Mar 18, 2018
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  3. Creb Darkenie

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    Players think they need to catch up is because of the nature of the beast. People need to not feel inferior. Also people are used to having others help them along.
    Most forget that this is a Richard Garriotte game, and that there should be no hand holding, should be about consequences and rewards, and should be about the virtues. How can we have that when we have leveling services, and guilds that want to level everyone to catch up? It just makes the game invalid because everyone races to the end, which there is no endgame. So all you have is dancing and groups killing bosses repeatedly, no effort, no skill, no moral dilemmas, just people wanting to help other people... So sad, there is no really challenging content, because it can all be overcome, with help, from people wanting to help, but they are actually hurting. Its called enabling, and it defeats the purpose of actually "playing" the game.
     
  4. majoria70

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    I too interact with many new players and sometimes I hear this and other times I just hear how much fun players are having. Some want to be enabled others don't care and are just having fun.

    Before all the rmt stuff went down on this game I was totally for a wipe before launching. Now I would be burned at the stake for even hinting at it. And people are always putting down dance parties and if you look around at whose at those parties you would see that most of them have really really nice amounts of hit points and good stats since they play the rest of this game too.

    I'm never one to put my character on automatic Dancing Away or role playing that much but in the past I did have events sometimes like one called Name That Tune since I'm very interested in the music aspect of this game. And this is a something for everyone game and that's what we should all be in sync with in my in my opinion.

    So that it is enabling maybe some want to be enabled and do other things but be able to survive. personally when I started I did not want to be ran around having everyone take all the hits and just raising me so I played with a friend who was on my level and we helped each other but it is truly a personal opinion.

    Perhaps combat will not be their main thing they do. They may plan to be a Craftsman but of course in this game you must survive even to do that and so they choose the way of grouping with others and raising together.

    And yes I love the thought of having moral dilemmas in this game. I truly want us to have more of those. I want things to matter but yet I don't speak for everyone. I want eating to be viable and I want potions to matter and all reasons to be prepared before going out to that battle and if you are not then you face consequences to that. This also works for the economy in selling food and potions and this works for towns to be viable to get your blessings and now if we only had sleeping and dreams sequences that gave Quests or hints to Quests, or treasure hunting Clues, and cool things like that too.

    And true this is the Richard Garriott game and this is also an MMO game. I believe the devs are doing the best they can to give us the best of both worlds which sometimes twist and turn the world a bit but in the long run we will be unique in an interesting way hopefully. ;) And I'm not saying not saying you're not right just giving my thoughts on it too.
     
    Last edited: Mar 18, 2018
  5. .rhavin

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    exactly
     
  6. Snikorts

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    You can make 5 alts and be self sufficent in all aspects.
    Your suggested and currently implemented playstyle ruins game for casuals in PVP and PVE, especially with adventuring skills.
     
  7. Timmy Vortex

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    Restrictions are great, because of this you have to team up sometimes. This helps build community instead of creating all kinds of solo allstars :p
     
  8. Greyfox

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    Very easy solution. The crafting system should be set up where anyone in a reasonable amount of time spent leveling can make usable gear, +10 or so. The current system is fine for the amount of time required, although the amount of resources needed is unreasonable.

    For high end gear these should be on a long timer to create the uber gear. If a crafter wants to make an elite item they are UNAVAILABLE for anything else until the item is completed. Care to make a +20 Breastplate of Ganking. Cool! That breastplate will mean you are stuck crafting for 30+ days. The new Alt system will coordinate well with this process and encourage RPing. The crafting occurs online or offline but you can't move your character from the crafting area or your item is ruined.

    This system would eliminate the need for RNG failures destroying items, which is poor game design.

    Problem solved and this should be "low hanging fruit" to implement. Certainly easier than the specialization idea.
     
    Last edited: Mar 18, 2018
  9. Elwyn

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    You can still do it, just level up some alts! Yay!

    This is literally what people would do in FFXI. The crafting system there had a cap of crafting skills such that you could only take every skill to 60 (later 70), after which you could only have a total of 40 levels above that out of the eight crafts. (Fishing was not counted in this limit.) So, one alt would have woodworking to 100, another had smithing to 100, another had cooking to 100, etc. I never did that myself, I just had some same-account alts for storage and change of pace.

    And this in a game where you could level all combat classes and skills to the max on one character. That one I did do.

    Same-account alts were the low-low price of a dollar a month each. But you couldn't log in two of them at the same time. They could mail stuff to each other, up to 8 items at a time with a rather clunky interface. (Compare with SotA where they will inherently have access to all your bank and property!) Full account alts were $16 a month plus the initial account fee of $15-20. Now SotA starts looking quite affordable, one of the reasons I was so happy to discover it back in 2015.

    Where did you hear this? The only thing that happens is further cotos have less and less effect. I think the specifics were that 1 coto would do a first full repair, then it would take 2 to do the next full repair, then 3, etc. The actual math might be a little different, but that was supposed to be the basic idea. This is why the number of coto repairs is in the full description of gear when you hold down the ctrl key. For now, I'm just holding onto my old worn-out gear that I may repair someday later.

    I think there is still a chance that a small market may develop for people who craft these parts and sell them on their vendors.

    ...or the ones who think it is impossible for a new player to exceed an old player in a few months, and complain that they will never be better. Both are equally tiresome. Because of course all old players are already AL100+ now.

    Dance parties have been an important source of performance tuning. They are absolutely not useless, just for that alone.

    Ya know, guys, we've still got (at least) four more expansions to go. Don't let the comparison to MMOs that have been around for many years make you demand everything be maximum awesome at first release. We need to save some power curve for future expansions!
     
  10. Jezebel Caerndow

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    I see many post about how specialization helps people catch up. How does this work again? You don't think the people who have lots of exp end up with higher specializations? It does not add more exp per mob or more exp per node or craft. The only thing it does is allow a new person to take a specialization that most of those other high level people did not take ( and they are going to take the best ones) and MAYBE be better at that then the high level people, until that high level person makes an alt. And another point was how specializations were going to be a way to gain resistance without having to level magic, yet this never happened but no one talks about it anymore.
     
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  11. Kpopgurl

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    I think Chris mentioned in his last tech talk this is still going to happen. So people who have high magic and plan on not using it should delevel it now I suppose or do it later with obsidian scrolls. Also high specialization benefit flattens out real fast... it is an improvement, but I am sure we will see more changes to make the game more accessible for new guys and late joiners.
     
  12. StrangerDiamond

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    Like Majoria and Mac I think the whole system is backwards... if we had followed the path of regional economies and interdependence between crafters were ressource based, then we'd have a true Lord British game.

    Rather what we have is run of the mill ultra-grinding for close to 0 player economy.

    I was gifted a +12 armor and weapons by an enabler friend very early on and I do not plan to replace it... in months, maybe even years.

    All the while I'm seeing +6 stuff on vendors priced for 40k (which is probably the mats it costs a mid level crafter to produce it), guy does not really profit.

    But since the very beginning of the game, grinding like there was no tomorrow, I barely amassed 20k spare gold... so not enough gold for half a PIECE of armor that isn't that good. My guild tells me they pay 1500 gold a DAY for taxes on their VILLAGE LOT. This game feels like its meant to make me feel broke, like I wasn't already in real life.

    It's ridiculous, and even more ridiculous since we know how well UO's crafting system worked for over 10 years and people loved to play pure crafters.

    I still say that this game we have, although I'm enjoying it a little more than WoW, does not even come to the ankle of UO if we take a sandbox perspective.

    I have absolutely 0 intention of creating a crafter, ever. It would take me thousands of hours to produce the same results as my enabler friend. Then as others have said, breakage, waste... a grandmaster failing to make a simple dagger.

    Total insult to all I know about sandbox MMOs.
     
  13. Weins201

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    Ouch to the point and spot on but will just get ignored, over and over players have talked about how poor the crafting system was,and even player who are at the top end of the scale are concerned now not just the middle of the road crew - LMAO

    It is not creative, intuitive, rewarding, or profitable?????
     
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  14. StrangerDiamond

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    1500 gold a day ? looks like a cosy town to settle into :p *irony*

    kill a regular skeleton get 15 gold... kill a hardened skeleton that takes you 10 times the time to drop, get 20 gold.

    Great ! I wonder what I will do to pay my taxes... hang in fast spawning low level regions and grind grind grind.

    Who in their right mind thinks that will be conductive to a great community ?

    Hey friend wanna go adventure tonight ? Sorry I need to grind this meteoric iron epic plate until I make one worthy enough to sell, should take me about a week, call me back then.

    How can I enjoy it you say ?! Well its relaxing... no stress, no challenge, just throw the dice and cross your fingers.

    *ahu frowns so much he cramps*
     
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  15. StrangerDiamond

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    Oh and theres also the unbelievable fact that this enabler friend gave me 5 sets of this +12 armor (in case it breaks) lol... there were a few extra pieces I didn't need (remember +6 pieces for 40k on vendors) and I thought hey I'll go sell them for probably 500 gp a piece at the NPC blacksmith.

    He offered me 36 gold for a piece of suet, something similar for 10 pieces of copper.

    I have no idea how much copper and fuels it takes to make one piece of copper epic plate, but the blacksmith offered me 22 gold for it.

    In UO we had a system where yes you'd produce alot of products, and if you couldn't sell it on your vendor, a NPC would buy a few pieces (limited) for at least the price of the mats. The economy balanced itself from that vantage point. Salvage some, sell some to buy more resources and keep doing your thing.

    Maybe I'm missing something, but how is a pure crafter supposed to be able to afford his own progress ?

    This grandmaster crafted and MASTERWORKED plate isn't even worth the price of suet...
     
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  16. Daxxe Diggler

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    I totally disagree. I am a casual player, and what I'm suggesting is what I as a casual player prefer. You are suggesting a casual player should make 5 alts in order to be self sufficient? How does that work exactly?

    In order to get to a specialization, you're going to have to level up all the basic crafting skills again with each alt, just to get to pick a specialization. With the difficulty of gaining crafting XP in this game, that's going to take a lot more time and effort than it would if I could simply do that on my main account where I have already earned and spent that XP in crafting to be able to select them. Making an alt to redo what I've already done does not make it easier for me... a casual player.

    Just to give you my perspective, my main character is adventure level 88. It would probably be a bit higher, but I spend a great deal of time (and gold) farming for materials and crafting instead. I think I have a total of 8 GMs and 7 of those are on the Producer trees. I had hoped that grinding my way through crafting would at some point give me a chance to sell things and make some gold back. Sadly, with the high risk of total destruction when trying to make a decent piece of armor or weapon, it's simply impossible to recoup the resources put into making 50 to get 1 and still make a profit.

    Since I have this issue, I assume just about everyone else does too, so I know that I won't be able to afford to buy armor or weapons from someone else. This is why I want to be able to make the best items myself, at my own rate (which is very slow, but the only way I can afford it). If you limit me to specializing in 2 crafting schools, then I will be forced to level up alts to cover the other schools because that will be the only way a casual player like me can afford to get them.
     
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  17. Bow Vale

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    The amount of time/gold/resources it will take you to get the skills to the level that you want( ie the best) on an alt if you cant do yourself on main...because you want that extra 2% or whatever the specialisation offers, will be to me astronomical and certainly not worth it.. I will buy it if i cant make it....I also don't think a casual player or even a hardcore player will ever be the best at all areas of crafting even without specialisation with costs for xp/resources and the real biggie....time....sometimes you just have to make a choice i feel.
     
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  18. StrangerDiamond

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    To me the obvious caveat is that most crafters on top of the pyramid will have so much resources and so much unsold equipment that they will gladly give it to you if you're nice and bring them a few mats.

    As I've said with my 20k spare gold after months of adventuring and questing, I cannot even buy one piece.

    And now after befriending a gm crafter, I have sets of armor to last until episode 3... and he absolutely refused that I give him gold for it, he told me he had over 50 sets of this armor in his house, that means over 50 sets of all other metals too.
     
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  19. King Robert

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    I cannot fathom a game which discourages players from gaining power for their efforts. Such a game would be short lived; time and effort playing should result in a marked gain in avatar skill, else someone must assuage the outrage of those with thousands of hours invested in game play.

    Effort that goes unrewarded will surely extinct effort.
     
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  20. StrangerDiamond

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    That is kind of beyond the point of this thread, Mr. Darwin.

    BTW his theories are being wildly contested right now... it seems that since we made recent epigenetic discoveries, that its rather the survival of the fittest (which science seem to say is adaptability and symbiosis) rather than survival of the strongest.

    But this isn't a survival game...

    If you look back not too far around UO's golden age... it took a looong time to reach GM blacksmithing, but once you were a grandmaster, you didn't fail basic work, and people always needed you to repair equipment, so your efforts weren't rewarded with more skill but with reputation and reliability.

    It's beyond any RPG that I know (except the fake WoW like rpgs) that you can repair a completely broken sword with a "repair kit". I somehow have an anvil, a grinding stone, a hammer and a forge in there.

    So once you reached 100 in skill (in T2A UO) you weren't rewarded anymore for your effort, and yet people still play with this ruleset 15 years later and look not a bit bored about it.

    It didn't die like you predict...
     
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