2021+ Player Priorities Poll

Hi Everyone,

So, as discussed, I went through this post and pulled out all 134 valid and usable submissions. I then manually reviewed them one by one and found the commonalities between them and distilled them down into this list of 50 topics.

• Please use this poll as a means of informing the devs what you think their top priorities should be for their reference.

• Everyone gets 7 votes
  • Worst case scenario you pick your submitted 5 and 2 others
  • Best case scenario, you consider other people's perspectives

• Your votes can be changed
  • Why should one thing be prioritized over another? Here is your chance to make a well reasoned, rational argument for your items.
  • Please be respectful to others.

• 2 Weeks to vote and make your case to sway people's minds

• Is this official/binding for the devs?
  • Not at all - but it makes sure your voice is heard in a quantifiable manner and not buried in some forgotten post

2021 Player Priorities Poll Top 25 Items

1. Balance/Debug/Polish/Completion passes on existing systems
   1. The Shroud Vision Statement published by Chris, and continuously mentioned since, states a commitment to revisiting/polishing/balancing systems as the top priority of 2021
2. Global Vendor Search Need solution
3. Treasure Maps / Message in bottle
   1. 2021.02.26 - Elgarion confirmed in Friday stream he is working on message in bottle system
4. Crafting System QOL Improvements
   1. 2021.02.26 - New foods introduced reducing crafting time
5. Improve UI
   1. New Dev hired Q2 2021, Devil Cult, whose sole responsibility is UI improvement.
6. Quest system overhaul
7. More daily quests (incl. crafting/gathering/fishing/etc.)
8. Performance Improvements
   1. New toggle button added to toggle party member effects icon increasing performance in parties.
9. More/Better Crafted Gear
   1. 2021.02.26 - New salvage system improvements announced to take place over next few releases - system needed for easier implementation of new crafted artifact-component gear
   2. Release 89: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=128668
   3. Release 90: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=128907#notes
10. New mobs & New Player Dungeon Mobs
    1. 2021.02.26 - Continued hints of new mob being worked on in Friday stream
11. More engaging crafting
12. Send lots to property manager when lot expires if space is available
13. More Dynamic Scenes / convert old scenes
14. Centralized dev communication
15. Deeper competition across tamed and summoned pets, magic trees & builds
    1. 2021.02.26 - New foods introduced increasing all summoned pet powers
       
    2. 2021.02.26 - Devs discussed new artifact buffs to increase all summoned pets across the board
16. Farming QOL Improvements
    1. Button added to display plants that have not been watered
17. Inventory Management QOL Improvements
    1. Button added to sort inventory by recently acquired loot
    2. Plan added to add separate tab for locked items
18. Make NPC towns more desirable for players to live in
    1. 2021.02.26 - NPC towns added to Catnip fishing competition rotations generating foot traffic near water
    2. Artifact loot added to daily quests in NPC towns
19. Player Inventory UI Improvements
20. Player Vendor QOL Improvements
21. Make PVP more attractive to players & expand PVP scenes/mechanics
    1. 2021.02.26 - Treasure Hunting monthly quest added for PVP scenes
    2. 2021.02.26 - Lava fishing added to Blood Bay - first PVP adventure scene with housing and lava fishing
    3. Obsidian Panopticon level capped for PVP mentoring
22. More long-term/multi-scene quests
    1. 2021.02.26 - Monthly treasure hunts by Catnip is being created
23. More meaningful virtue impacts
24. Tie utility bar with combat deck
25. More Avatar appearance customization

 

Thanks for doing this. This is rather interesting.

 

Is there away to see what has been picked already. To see the going trends?

 

Vote.

 

Missing loot improvements // Looting balance

Voted.

 

Thanks for putting up this poll!

Here is what I voted for, with a few adjustments to more closely match my preferences:

Balance/Debug/Polish/Completion passes on existing systems
Crafting System QOL Improvements
Global Vendor Search Need solution
Improve UI
Overland Map improvements
Player Vendor QOL Improvements
Send lots to property manager when lot expires if space is available

 

Problem with this kind of poll is that it has an extreme survivorship bias. We're getting the opinions of people who are still playing the game, not people who would be squarely in the target audience but have given up, so we're simply not gathering data on what the most egregious problems are, only what mildly bothers people who find it tolerable as is.

 

While not 100% accurate, at least Sorgin is trying to do something that could benefit the community and the game. And I’m ok with that. Instead of doing nothing at all.

 

There was a lot of "better" loot requests, but that isn't really clear on what the devs should focus on in that respect. So this is possibly broken down into a few differnet areas:

• Balance/Debug/Polish/Completion passes on existing systems
  • This covers going back over scenes and enemies to make them more rewarding to kill/visit
  • This is something Catnip & Chris has already stated they are going to do
• More/Better Crafted Gear
  • This includes more dropped artifacts that can be used as components like elven hilts, mossy handles, etc
  • This is also something Catnip has stated they are working on
• More Dynamic Scenes / convert old scenes
  • More high teir scenes, more variety of enemies, thus loot, and rewarding time spent in other places
• Treasure Maps / Message in bottle
  • Loot and looting-based quests

Also why people have the ability to change their vote

 

I encourage everyone to post a link to this in their discord channels to encourage feedback and/or spread the word to people who have left the game to come back and express why they left with their vote and possibly an explanation why a specific thing in the above was important to them and they felt it was neglected or how they feel it can be improved.

 

Pretty much everyone here has written extensively about what they want improved about the game at one time or another. It's absurd to say anyone is doing nothing at all just because they haven't bothered writing anything in the last few days when it's often years before any given piece of feedback receives attention, if at all.

 

It's not a contest, I'm not trying to override, validate, or invalidate any prior posts made by players or Catnip.

In full transparency, this is something that came about between talks I had with Anpu and others in Discord. There seems to be a lot of people that want many things, and my original post was designed to both capture the shear volume of player requests in a easily compliable format - if nothing else then just to demonstrate all the varied needs of the small subset of players who are vocal - and then this was a follow up to quantify some of the data, when players are faced with many but limited options, where their actual priorities lie.

As some have pointed out, this is by no means scientific in approach - it is only taking the ideas of the player base that currently wish to participate in the prior and/or this post, and as a person who likes dealing with data, I often find valuable insights can be extrapolated from poorly compiled or even incomplete data sets - so long as it is tangible. Ironically, this taking place after Chris already discussed his company's priorities for the year, not to mention other people's toes I may be stepping on, so I'm probably annoying him as much as I am annoying some of the players with this.

I have nothing profound to sign out on.

 

"Surviorship Bias"... I'll tell you this, don't consider those that have left. We are gone, don't try and make the game to solve what we want. You have a small current player base. Make the game right for them to stop the bleeding. I know, but what about growing the game? At this point growing the game is a fallacy. Make the game solid for those that are still playing it, once that has been done then slowly introduce new things to the game. Chris and Portnip cannot afford to lose more of its player base. Whether that is a foregone conclusion is another discussion but for now let's assume it can continue.

 

True to some degree, but for me as someone who has given up on playing but still wants the game to succeed I am putting my votes towards what might persuade me to come back.

 

I think there's a lot of choices in that poll and we'll see a spread based on some thing that could realistically be grouped together. Also some are very small, highly specific things (like "more deck slots") which can't really be weighted against larger things like "Performance Improvements." There's also general UI improvements, and then a bunch of specific ones like inventory, vendor, etc.

I think it will still be a good feedback for the devs about what players consider priority, absolutely.

My own picks:

Balance/Debug/Polish/Completion passes on existing systems.
This kind of sums up a lot of the specific stuff itemized beneath it, and I'm not really fussy about which systems get addressed just that they are. Chris's 2021 vision echoes this sentiment which is encouraging. I think a lot of the specific items fall into this category, like, expanding POT functions could be part of doing a completion pass on player town functionality. So it encompasses most things that aren't true "new content."

Crafting System QOL Improvements
What this means to me, is:
-Making crafting interface better
-Completely overhauling crafting recipe book
-Balancing inputs/outputs (so, harder materials => better effects)
-Overhauling longstanding disparities in resource gathering (beetles vs. suet vs. secondary metals)
-Addressing the horror of RNG slotmachining and adding consistency
-Making producer levels more meaningful at high end
-Recipe rebalance across the board
-General housekeeping of messy/unneeded stuff that nobody bothers with

Global Vendor Search Need Solution
Super-important to me, the awfulness of buying/selling/shopping is one of my biggest reasons for staying away at the moment.

Improve UI
I chose this one rather than specifics elements in the list. In general, the UI isn't -horrible- , it is functional, but there's a lot of elements that could use work, like inventory sorting/filtering, quest journal, recipe book, maps, minimap functionality, etc.

More QA before releases
Definitely need internal testing or longer release cycles for thorough player testing to prevent some rather embarrassing fiascos.

New Quest System
The current quest system leaves a lot to be desired - both in concept and execution. The journal is a big part of that, as are all the nonfunctional waypoints or missing waypoints, poor rewards/itemization and lack of clarity on what to do a lot of the time, random invisible hits to virtue with no explanation, etc. Most quests are now functional and can be completed if the player follows a precise set of instructions, but deviations from expectations still can break things in sometimes spectacular ways. At the very least, the ability to abandon/reset an active quest would assuage a lot of issues.

Performance
This.
Games 10 years older look better and load faster and run smoother.
I know a lot of this is down to the limitations of unity - but its a real concern, in that even high end machines struggle with hitching and stuttering and poor load times that have only gotten worse over the years. Its not an easy fix, and it isn't sexy, but I think Sota will struggle to ever maintain a large playerbase with the performance as a limiting factor.

 

The ammount of choices and only being able to choose 7 made this incredibly difficult for me to read having to go forward and backwards and not retaining the info very well. But i feel many items i am not able to select are equal in importance to the ones i was limited to selecting.

 

I didn’t see the one I really wanted, cooler and more exciting loot drop items.

 

That dude that says “episode 2” in every thread has a point that Lore should be added to the list.

Also i wanted to vote for making old scenes unique and dynamic but didnt

 

Ya, I saw that, but as Chris stated in the past live streams, Episode 2 content is still being worked on and this year's focus on performance improvements isn't really affecting Episode 2 plans.

Seems like it would have been a waste of a vote to put something on there that Catnip has already stated they are working on, especially when it would compete with: More Dynamic Scenes / convert old scenes, More/Better Crafted Gear, New Mobs, More Achievements & Improve Achievement System, More daily quests (incl. crafting/gathering/fishing/etc.), More long-term/multi-scene quests

All of which, and probably more, represent Episode 2 content - though these options and other give Catnip info on what the players want to see first.

 

There was a lot of "better" loot requests, but that isn't really clear on what the devs should focus on in that respect. So this is possibly broken down into a few differnet areas:

• Balance/Debug/Polish/Completion passes on existing systems
  • This covers going back over scenes and enemies to make them more rewarding to kill/visit
  • This is something Catnip & Chris has already stated they are going to do
• More/Better Crafted Gear
  • This includes more dropped artifacts that can be used as components like elven hilts, mossy handles, etc
  • This is also something Catnip has stated they are working on
• More Dynamic Scenes / convert old scenes
  • More high teir scenes, more variety of enemies, thus loot, and rewarding time spent in other places
• Treasure Maps / Message in bottle
  • Loot and looting-based quests