Bro, do you even Role Play???

Excellent post. But they already said SotA will have levels...and also almost no looting...so isnt this a sign that sota will follow the pyramid scheme?
I dont really see a choice in between, it's either full loot open-pvp or the pyramyd.

 

And why the hell do they need levels? Isn't skill progression enough? Whats the purpose?
Not like levels add any depth to the game.

 

I think you misunderstood my comment. I was speaking to how gear moves within the PvP community with Full Loot in response to Owain's comment that it is wash with PvPers looting sometimes and be looted others. Owain's comment sugar coats how the Full Loot gear moves internal to the PvP community such as the one we are likely to see in Shroud of the Avatar.

 

Levels are not there for the leveling system. There are there to represent the total skill gains.

No different than saying in UO you are maxed out at level 7 because you gained all 700 points. Just a label.

 

yeah, it would be like if UO had 100 levels and each level gave you 7 skill points... effect is the same. I think they are moving away from the skill use based system of UO because it leads to macroing or performing the same mundane thing over and over again to maximize skill gain. Which I'm glad we aren't doing a skill use based system.

 

Actually I think it's the other way around. Use your skills and gain points to spend. Every 7 points you gain a level to represent the amount of skill points you have gained.

But since they have not added a leveling system this is only based on the tone of direction.

 

They are going to do an experience points system gaining levels giving you skill points to spend (crafting levels/exp and combat levels/exp are separate) So it is like a hybrid of what we are used to, so far. I think it's closer to a Diablo 2 style, but as if you had every class tree available.

 

To speak further as to how disingenuous the characterization was... why do we need Full Loot if it is a wash? Current proposal offers a reward to the victor and a choice of poison to the defeated. Current proposal is flexible and can be adjusted without changing the loot rules or PvP ruleset.

I am not inherently opposed to Full Loot with the current proposed PvP ruleset. In the right environment (my personal definition of course), I enjoy it as a casual PvPer. I enjoyed Siege Perilous immensely once I made the switch and logged exclusively onto SP until I ended my subscription. That was contingent upon the SP community and the unique circumstances that made SP's community possible will not be present in Shroud of the Avatar.
The are pros and cons to every choice. Portalarium has chosen to try to find a middle ground that mitigates the cons. If they can do that while maximizing the greater benefit to the entire community, then I will be satisfied as will the plurality of players.

 

Whatever the flaws of UO -- and I think there were a lot of flaws -- the design of UO came out of the spirit and philosophy of the single-player games, anyway. The single-player Ultimas had both a lot of realistic depth, and also a lot of player freedom. Its why you were never prevented from slaughtering NPCs even while other games prevented you from doing that.

Despite that, a lot of single-player fans never liked UO and some UO players never liked the single-player games so the devs have to understand why and deal with it. But ultimately the goal of being a spiritual successor to both is the same goal, imo.

 

So....what you want is minimal gear in the game? Isn't this what I have been saying is part and parcel with what the full loot crowd wants?

 

Thats the thing Rune... I'm going to shock you !

I want full open pvp and looting for community building !

Thats my reason, because I have never seen a long lasting community without forming STRONG bonds that only form in the face of adversity.

What I'm not saying is let all the bad guys loose and lets see how we can balance it.

But even then, regardless of the consequences, you won't see any new player having trouble ever. Real trouble that is.

In the current model the only reason Silent strider is going to interact with other players is optional, if someone helps him cause he lacks, it will be "cool" at best... but he won't need it, he won't crave it, nor will he care if something bad happens to a new player.

Turn it around please, indulge me a little.

Strider comes out in the world... gets his socks handed to him a few times while trying to get PvP exclusive ressources... but surprisingly enough since our community was built to quickly fix those issues (aka established players and EVEN playerkillers answer general chat and equip back a player in need) in 15 minutes he's up and running.

This didn't even happen to me on Siege Perilous which is full loot full open pvp (even free for all which I don't suggest here) the only PK that killed me there brought my ghost to his house and gave me 3 million gold cause he had fun fighting me. He was cool and we're friends to this day.

Truth is I found out he was a very established and benevolent member of the community, playing as an evil character in his spare time.

Even with those arguments aside, I'm still seeing the only real path to a well woven long lasting community is moderated (yes MODERATED through roleplay and game masters, dungeon and dragons style) adversity that is dynamic and not only :

Well I flagged PVP so now I can calculate my risk and reward...

Is it like that in Ultima ? Can you always calculate and "not care" if you did an action that involves karma or fame ?

NooooOOo, it should never have been like that. It makes a shallow community that says "oh well" when trouble arises.

Yes, a LEAKING community that looses players.

Turn around my friend and look at the free servers, look at EA servers... I'd even tell you to pay a month so you can see with your own eyes.

It's the same thing as SotA proposes what you will see on EA, pvp zones, and all the tralala.

But the community, if you ask them... they all HATE the guardian (EA), they think all their choices are stupid, their EM storyline is shallow and never kicked in cause nobody ever feels important enough in the community to invest their time. Everyone is their own little "number" and people have to acquire REAL messageboard fame in order to participate in something remotely rewarding.

This is a major hurdle to the gentle type of players who just like to help, they always fall down in a little corner and noone really is there to direct them on HOW to help, cause it dosen't really make a difference if he helps or not.

Heck its even worse on some servers, to NOT have to deal with gentle helpers, insanely rich guilds give insane amounts of gold to each new player so they can "go on their own" and "do their thing"...

I'm not getting into the politics of that, my point is simple... the strong, I should even say diamond hard community on Siege and some EA servers, and free servers only exist because of the memory of what UO was meant to be.

This might sound vague to you but the only reason I kept playing EA's UO is because of memories... I visited museums, spoke with nostalgic people, decorated my house to remind me of those times where community meant something.

Everyone I talked to agrees, they were all there not because EA gave them GAME, but because they had so much emotion invested that even Satan himself could not corrupt them into leaving their virtual *emphasis* home.

And mind you the emotion invested wasn't dynamic, using the metaphor again it simmered so much in the fiery depths of hell that it became small and hard and cold like a diamond fused to their skull by dragon's breath. They will be there until EA closes the servers, I'll bet you.

I'll also bet you that portalarium made NO effort in getting these great community builders right and thats why theres only 50 of us left to argue about it.

Ignorance is bliss ? I say its a curse...

 

Agreed. If they stray from this, then they have never listened to this community. This has been a clear message since the beginning. What starts out as top level gear had better remain top level gear through out the series. NO INCREASING TIERS OF GEAR. IT RUINS PVP, AND QUITE FRANKLY MAKES THE GAME SUCK.

EDIT: I have to admit I do slightly cringe every time I hear chris talking about higher and higher level gear. Especially after he said there is another level of plate higher than epic.

This isn't an argument about glyph combat, this is something different and we are not wrong on this one for sure. Continually increasing tiers of Gear kills this game. At least it kills all the PvP work you've guys have done. Can't have increasing tiers of gear with new players trying to PvP. They will automatically lose to veterans. The removal of a skill cap already makes PvP tough for new players, adding PvP skills make it tougher for new players to jump into PvP.

I know SotA isn't a PvP only game, but if you want to make a game with PvP you don't ruin the PvP as you are developing the game. WE ALL VOTED NO ON INCREASING TIERS OF GEAR! IF THE GAME FAILS BECAUSE OF THAT DON'T BLAME THE COMMUNITY.

 

I like to see equipment being better in different situations. So Episode 1 top tier gear is good for this continent, new continent has new monsters new challenges and new enchantments/resistance is needed to be competitive there, go back to episode 1 continent and you need to equip your old gear. That way your old expensive stuff is still good and still worth just as much as the new stuff. so by episode 5 you'll likely have 5 different suits of equipment. I know some people don't like that idea, having mulitple sets for different occasions, but I do. I want a fire resistance suit of equipment and others so I gear for what I'm going to do. That doesn't mean I HAVE to have that equipment to do the content, it just means I'm much more effective if I do use it. That way those that want their generic resistance, armor class, damage 1 suit that works everywhere can do that, but I'll clear out the fire elementals a lot faster/easier than you will once I put on my resist gear...

I'd also like 1 or 2 items to be really good no matter the situation, in each episode. So by episode 5 if you really have no life and took the time to quest through and get the rare spawns and everything you need to craft the items you are fully decked out in top notch gear that has no peers...

I like that system, because it rewards effort and time put into the game (they should be bind on equip or bind on pickup as well). But that doesn't equal a gear grind. To me a gear grind is when you go do the same dungeon over and over again waiting for a drop and being lucky enough to roll a win when it finally does drop. Then once you have all that tier of gear you go on to the next set of dungeons and raids, and onward doing the same content over and over again.

The system I describe is 1x quest(long chain), and many hours hunting for a rare spawn creature/ingredient/NPC. But not doing the same content over and over again to reach it, those rare spawns should be able to happen in most places. or in a variety of different areas so you can just rotate through 15-20 hexes.

 

I have to say I hope this never happens. I really hope this isn't what the dev team is cooking up. They may as well not make any PvP in this game, because it is going to be like WoW.

UO had certain types of items. Vanquishing, power... etc etc. You could mix and match different durabilities and accuracies... It would be nice to have the option to have something more like that. Let there be multiple types of gear properties, but not ever increasing tiers.

I don't want to have to change gear just to play a different episode. I would rather it be based on the SKILL of my character, and my skill. Let character skill determine how well we do NOT GEAR.

 

If it turns out the devs want to go this route. I would really like them to express it to us in a dev chat. So far they said this was not going to be a gear based game, with ever increasing tiers of gear.

I'm hoping that those words still stand. If they veer off from that, then that is not just an... ahh oh well things change... That is a change into a totally different game.

The only reason I mention this stuff since the devs actually said that it wasn't going to be a gear based game, is that they may have said it but their actions seem to be opposite of that. NO LOOTING is one place where that shows up. They want us to feel comfortable with our gear. That's fine. I can see how that might work, and still not be a gear focused game. However it really is on the verge of that though.

PLEASE NO EVER INCREASING TIERS OF GEAR! We've said this from day 1, no before day one... during kickstarter. It was clear as black and white. There was no debate about it like there is about looting. We do not want ever increasing tiers of gear. Character based skills need to be the focus.

 

I don't think there should be ever increasing tiers, but the example Mishri used of using fire resistance to fight against fire elementals has nothing wrong with it. I also expect the same equipment to protect me against dragon's fire, and to need to use certain equipment to fight against ghosts and wraiths etc who would otherwise be ethereal and impossible to hit.

I'm not sure that these challenges should be intentionally structured per episode though...

 

I see the appeal from the perspective of more to do - but I really hope the devs stay away from this linear mode of game development

I rather see new skills / or introduction of tickets - that possibly adorn your current gear than a whole new set of gear ... that's just a gear grind / and I thought that this game was aiming to be different in that regard

If there is any gear grind associated with this game I would like it to be more like path of exile / torchlight - its more about customization

 

OH so if we see a fire mage, we should change clothes into our fire resist gear? That's almost like having PvP gear and PvE gear.

Another problem with fireresist gear is that it nulifies an entire skill set. What about those mages that pick up fire magic? Those guys will no longer be effective against a person with firepoof clothing.

*We have to think PvP as well as PvE while developing SotA. The point PvPers always try to get across is that in most games where PvP isn't the focus, PvP loses out because the game designers are not developing the game with PvP in mind. Therefore, they create things that may in fact be cool if you are in PvE mode, but it totally ruins the PvP portion of the game.

So when we come up with ideas let's also filter it across through the PvP crowd too, so that we have a balanced game. It would be nice to have a game that is both PvE oriented and PvP oriented at the same time, and remain ballanced.

ALSO fire elementals. They are basically a good damage over time spell for a fire mage, but in PvE maybe the fireelemental can do more damage or have the ability to interupt spells, and do damage over time (which it doesn't do in PvP). I like how they ballanced it for PvP, but against monsters maybe some pets and spells should be more powerful, whereas in PvP it might be too powerful. SO THE OPPOSITE IS TRUE TOO.

 

Well, it should be expensive, and damageable -- so you don't want to use it if you don't have to. Personally, I would hope lootable, too. I would argue non-overlapped; in that a mage can have both fire resistance and lightning resistance, but I don't want a single piece of armor with two resistances at once... though a mage could always add to his resistance with enchanted armor. Some items will have limited charges. Alchemy and making scrolls also replicates a mage's skillset and gives it to other players, too... and you had those things in UO.

 

I don't want to see armor with any special resistances at all. let armor be armor, and protect against physical damage. If you want to be more resistant to electrical damage take up the air magic innate skills to resist electrical damage. This is a classless game. Picking up those skills won't make you a spell caster, it just makes you more resistant to electricity. Same with fire resistance skills, and cold resistance skills.

I'm concerned about the game if it is gear focused like this. As far as I'm concerned this thread is going backwards not forwards in creating the ultimate RPG.