Diversity in targets, Spell damage vs melee, abundancy of tree's, Questlines and more...

(Meant to post this here not in other forum)

Few topics here.

Bears, wolves, skeletons, zombies, spiders, scorpions, evil elves, kobolds, satyrs, fauns, humans... that's the extent for the most part... OK the occasional rare Troll and ghost and a few places with elemental but that's to be expected since they are already in game as pet/summoned creatures... where's the orcs, ogres, ettins, sphinxes, drakes n dragons, serpents, hydra's, sleastacks!, mermaids and men, leviathans and loch ness monsters, pterodactyls and other avian creatures that require ranged attacks and all the other creatures that UO had or even the diversity other games have. As it stands now a 20 year old game has more diversity in creatures to combat then Shroud does.

Also the reward is lacking, when I skin a white wolf I expect a white pelt, when I skin a deer I expect a deer skin when I skin a scorpion I expect a hard shell, when I skin a drake I expect some scales that resist the element that matches what it came from, fire drake immune to fire, acid drake immune to acid etc.,... if I skin a human I should hear a rumble in the sky as the Oracle condemns my evil act... but I should still get the skin

Speaking of which... where is the Evil path within the game, where is the dark side quest-lines opposite of love should be hate quest-line, courage should have its nemesis quest. Where is the Deceit quest-line?

Where are the dungeons and caves and endless fortresses of the enemies of my race? Where are all the evil cities to sneak into with my skills of stealth to rescue the damsel in distress? I think the very limited quest-lines are a downfall to the game... there should be ones outside the box and the games base story-line, ones unheard of... why just rehash the past... I've played those quest-lines before in UO... is all that this game will offer is a UO with new graphics?

Staying away from "classes" limits your ability to run a variety of quest-lines... I want the mages quest-lines to follow the path of scholars and wizards to reap the rewards of a master wizard and find those artifacts that only a wise one can use, the staff of ages and such, the ring of spell casting... no I can't call myself a mage because you didn't put classes in the game. You may want a system that allows for individualism in how we develop but that does not prevent me from enjoying the path of mages or thieves or warrior of honor or disdain. Ones that are not part of the "story-line" where I'm bound to follow the same paths as everyone else... so much for the idea that Shroud won't be restricted by class labels... you found another way to clump us all together into a cookie cutter Avatar... in the end we will all be just clones of each other... enough of rambling and back to the problems with game mechanics,...

Spell damage vs melee damage is definitely imbalanced. I do 3x the damage to all targets with various weapons vs what I do with spells. I use a weapon only because it makes sense to add the additional damage since I'm always in melee even tho I cast spells constantly for attack. I do far more damage with hand weapons. I am mainly fire spells and most are over 50 and the main spells I use are 60-70 skill level. There is certainly an imbalance... spells in most games far more potent its the lack of armor and ability to defend well that compensates for mages OP for damage. That's not the case in Shroud.

Abundance of tree's and even a wider variety that actually look different... all wood nodes are identical, I can spot them all from a distance. There's pine and maple that look same... wheres the oak and cedar, willows and spruce... why they all look the same. Time to chop should be different based on hardness/density of the wood... you ever chop an oak tree? Maple vs Pine chop different as well.

Abundance of Iron nodes is seriously lacking imo... real world has more iron then gold or silver yet I find the more precious ores more abundant then iron. You want a player based economy with deteriorating weapons and armor... then you best start dropping new iron nodes all over the place... especially with the ratio of ore needed just to produce a simple dagger never mind the quantity needed for armors plus the loss rate when trying to enchant... which I don't object to at all I like that but the quantity of iron ore is seriously lacking, same as the tree's.

Also the weight factors and horrible, I know we don't have pack mules and horses yet nor horse drawn carts for materials... but we need those put in game asap so we can bug test them, and raise the weight of ore and wood once you do.

Node gathering time seems different between one area and another... I have seen 95% success nodes take 10 seconds to gather and 85% ones take 5 seconds... even the percentage of success can match but go one zone its 5 seconds go another its 15 for the same reward.

I understand the game still early in development but you're fast approaching final wipe and count down to release in 6 months... I assume you have some major updates to put all of these things right... but one thing I know is that games that have the investors pushing for release asap have always released before ready for mass market and pay in the end with loss of revenue do to a weak first impression (you will not get those disappointed players back no matter what you do, word of mouth is 75% of advertising... you need a raving review from 99% who try game when released in order to become the dominant game on market... anything more then 1% negative review and you will never be more then the average game, just another mmo). Many changes that should be coming will have little chance for bug tweaking if you wait until last months before release.