Dear Lum

I've been giving it a lot of thought lately, and I think there has to be a fourth path to choose from at the start of the game.

1. The starting skills are a total waste of points for the character builds that I want to create.
2. The forced choice between LOVE, COURAGE, and TRUTH removes the choices of dissent, curiosity, and rejection of the overall premise.

In short, if I'm to be judged by my choices then you must let me make my own choices. Which means there must be a fourth choice that allows players to choose none of the above (start us where you will) and allow us to pick our own starting stats (even if that means new players might screw up their build).

Please consider allowing a fourth path.

 

I want paths of the anti virtues!! In the kickstarter we were told that we could choose our path: from the kickstarter: "

• Players can specialize in a wide range of combat and non-combat skills, provided by a robust, classless skill system, and full-featured crafting and housing mechanics. Play the way you want to play, molding your character into the hero, anti-hero, or artisan you want to be!

 

Baron Drocis is Divergent !

 

I'll happily add to wanting to have anti-virtues as an option in the character creation process.

 

Path of anti-virtue = kill Arabella

 

Is that possible?

 

I'm pretty sure that you won't be able to kill Arabella.

But, I'm not totally sure that's her actual self, or just an incarnation of some kind, and you could kill that. Or, if its actually her, the game could let you attack her, which could have many results, including her killing you and you going through the moongate as a ghost, her teleporting away after cursing you, etc.

Now, if that's a good idea storywise is a whole other issue.

 

I like it, it should be pursued.

 

Is it possible in the current game to just ignore her and refuse to answer her questions, then go to Novia anyway? I didn't pay enough attention I guess.

 

when I tried, I was not able to zone out of the zone until I completed the quests to leave the beginning zones. I could not /zone until I got to solania.

 

The fourth path: stay in limbo forever

 

as any undead should! oooOOOOooooOOOOOooo.

 

Yeah, and the trailer/intro even says something about "forging your own path".. Or something like that... But we're all forced to choose from one of three preset paths... Hello? Excellent point, Ravicus.

 

I disagree with a fourth choice that would allow someone to bypass the test of three principles. A few reasons:

First, SOTA is an Ultima RPG spiritual successor. The test of the Avatar's guiding principle by Arabella is a critical feature for the game to connect the Avatar to the virtues from the get go and capture that spirit. A character should not be able to bypass it.

Second, a desire to min/max skills differently is a really bad reason to give up on a great game lore system, in my opinion. If the skill system is broken, lets fix that. Lets not sacrifice key game lore and legend for the sake of min/maxing personal preferred skills.

Third, we should look at this through the eyes of someone brand new to SOTA and maybe even an Ultima RPG. As early testers, we know too much. For frequent testers, the choice at the beginning becomes repetitive and a perceived hindrance to those of us testing new skill builds over and over as part of alpha and beta testing. However, that is not the behavior of a person new to the game, create one character, take the test, and not look back. That a newbie starts in the world with what they are given is part of the Ultima spirit.

Fourth, the skill system is extremely forgiving as is. It should not take long to level a skill that someone wanted but didn't get to start with. At best, for a player setting out for a long journey in the game, that is a minor nuisance. It is only a bigger pain for testers who start over and over to try new things. A new player will do this fluidly through the course of adventure.

Firth, if there were to be more paths to further differentiate starting skill sets, don't go with four. Go with eight. One for each of the eight virtues.

 

good analysis.

 

My biggest problem with this is the lack of free will.

Here I am in the game and the only choices I have are LOVE, TRUTH, COURAGE. That's it, if I don't answer those stupid questions then I just don't get to play the game. How immersive is that? I mean if I'm supposed to believe that Arabella is a person the same as I'm a person, shouldn't I be able to say "uh no, I'm not playing this game, if I have a destiny then why do I have to answer your questions? Why don't we let destiny decide, sparky."

Why is the game giving me all these skills that I don't want or will never use? That's so frustrating I can't even tell you. It's not about min/maxing for me, it's about my character having all this skill in Fire Magic when I'd never choose to have fire magic in a million years. Or my character having all this bow skill even though I'm never going to use a bow, ever.

Nothing says "this isn't really your destiny and we really don't have a clue who YOU are as a character" than making someone choose an arbitrary path and giving them arbitrary skills. This is bad story telling.

What if instead of LOVE, TRUTH, COURAGE, my answer would be "How about I just kill that guy, steal his stuff, and then we no longer have that problem anymore do we?" I mean, to assume that there are only three possible outcomes to some of these questions is just silly and it superimposes a narrative on every Avatar that somehow they are good at their base level.

What's the point of doing that? What's the point of saying "hello Avatar that has a destiny, don't tell us if you're rotten to the core yet. We're going to make you talk to Edvard and he's going to put you on a path. What's that? You're a horrible person? Well we'll let the Oracle decide that later, now run along!" What are we doing here?

 

Arabella is waiting for the Avatar of old (reference to original Ultima game series) to reappear. That Avatar would freely answer the questions and then start down the path of his destiny. Players can subsequently stray from the virtuous path if they want. To change the whole basic premise of the path of virtue would be to disassociate SotA from the spirit of the old Ultimas.

 

I'm not the Avatar of old, I've never played an Ultima. I don't give a flying flip about Arabella or what she's selling. So why do I care?

This is important because if I'm playing ME, and I am (as are we all) then this is a perfectly reasonable attitude to have. Now if we're just playing a "game" and I'm not supposed to be roleplaying me, then ok. But you guys can't have it both ways. You can't expect me to play me and then say "just kidding" wink, nudge, during the opening start up scene. ME thinks Arabella is nuts. The kinds of questions I'd have for her would be "how do I get back home?" And other people would probably vary greatly in their responses, so why not just let everyone have a generic fourth option that's basically like "yeah, whatever lady" and then we can pick our own stats (that fit who WE are) and be on our way?

And if it's my destiny to do "whatever" then why does it matter if I get a fourth option? It doesn't, because that would just be a part of my destiny. Again, can't have it both ways and be taken seriously. If we're going to tell this story effectively, then we have to give players a sense that they have free will. If we're all going to be herded along through the game, that's fine to the extent you can lure players to go on these quests, but it's not fine if we're just going to black and white everything from beginning to end. If that's the case, it seems like my decisions are kind of meaningless. Everything is going to come down to 1 of 3 options.

And if the game judges me because I take the fourth option, I don't care! Judge me all you want using your arbitrary rating system. Just let me make my own decisions and you can compile them however it makes you happy it matters not to me (not yet). And that's how it should be, that's how you should want your players, to just be them (whatever that is). Right now we're predisposing them give beggars coins and not loot corpses (two things that are diametrically opposed to normal MMO behavior).

It's ok to loot everything else in the game but don't loot some random Vertas Elves in the opening scene? Whatever, it's my destiny! ::rolls eyes::

How ever I'm judged, I want it to really be ME. Not some cookie cutter version of me that I'm half RPing and half being herded around as.

 

There are very few things Richard has outright turned down. This is one of them.

 

I'm a very strong proponent of multiple characters being linked by the virtues (and last names). I know RG has turned down people that asked for that to change, and I'm very happy he did.

But this is different, I don't remember RG saying anything about this. In fact, if anything I remember many of the devs at one time or another saying there would be a dark path that players could take. I'm not fighting this so I can explicitly take a dark path, I'm fighting this because I want to explicitly make my OWN path.

How can anyone choose their own path if all the choices are predetermined? Those starting skills are valuable. If you want to play a Blade using warrior you're in good shape with the path of Courage. If you want to play as a Fire Mage, you can't go wrong with the path of Truth. If you want to be an Archer, the path of Love has you covered. But what if you don't want to do those things? You're behind the eight ball. You don't get valuable starting skills, you get speed bumps to your progression.