Expanded R9 Insights

@devs - I'm tired and I think this feedback is valuable. Don't take the snark personally, I'm just passionate and this is the easiest way for me to give feedback while being sleepy and grumpy.

1. Maps: You should allow maps to shrink and grow in size. If I have a map pinned to my screen, clicking on the map should make it get super big (so I can actually read it). I should also have an option to make the map AUTO shrink down to a small scroll icon on my screen somewhere. This will make having a map less intrusive and more helpful when players need them.

2. Signs in front of player houses should have visible information, like who the owner of the house is. I don't want to click on a sign just to wait a few seconds for an unimmerssive screen to pop-up. I already know I can't claim the house. I just want to know who owns it.

I'd also like to know when they were last online. Maybe if they are willing to sell the house, and what price they might be asking for it. Maybe even allow me to leave them a message there.

3. UI: Loading up the game is too many clicks. I should really only need to double click the SOTA icon and get into the game. Instead, I currently need to double click the icon for the launcher, launch the game, enter my password, tell the game that YES I want the same damn character I used before and oh yeah, it's the only option I really have so thanks for asking me. How about creating a quick start button that uses all last saved settings and character info? BTW, I don't know how to reinstall the new launcher. So maybe you should create an easy button to help me out with that too.

4. The game world should make sense. In the case of Owl's Head, there are still wall towers with missing ladders. No one can physically get up there so it kind of screams at the player "you're in a game!" Please add ladders to all the wall towers and stop the screaming.

5. Exiting a scene is painful. If I'm not paying attention I'm forced to sit through the loading screen when I didn't really intend to leave the scene I'm in. This happens A LOT.

What I would suggest is making the boundaries of all scenes a shade darker so the player knows that if they go into that area it's eventually going to take them out of the scene. I know it's not as immerssive but it's far less annoying.

6. Before exiting a scene, you should always have SOME idea where you are going. If I'm walking down a hallway and the next scene is part of that hallway, it doesn't make any sense for me to just teleport there and be stuck in that new hallway without first knowing that I'm going to still be in a hallway. For example, if I'm in the underground teleportation fest and I turn a corner and suddenly I'm in Ravensmoore...that may not be where I wanted to end up. And yes, I know this might be a bit of a secret where I end up, so how about instead of just posting a blerb that says "Ravensmore this way!" you give me a description of what I might be getting myself into? So maybe something like "If you continue on this path you will see....blah blah blah".

7. I need an easy way to toggle walking. I think it should be the right mouse button. I don't understand why anyone would NEED to move forward using the left and right mouse buttons. What's going on with the other hand? Are people eating a bowl of cereal? I think the right mouse button is being under used and would be much better served giving players the ability to easily walk or run.

8. Vendors should show their wares to you. I'm sure you know the NPC's don't really do a good job of listing everything they have for sale. After players have been in the world for a while, most vendors just have an endless scroll of Founder Cutlass and Warasss Eggs. What I'd like to see is two things. A) Make duplicate items stack and have the quantity levels shown on the list. (I know this is probably just a bug)

B) I'd like vendors to PHYSICALLY show their wares. And while they're at it, maybe they shouldn't have so much stuff on them. 5 Alchemy tables, 50 sets of armor, and 34 swords? Where are they keeping all this stuff? I know, pre-alpha...just food for thought.

9. Deck Building should be much easier to access. Currently there are 3 pop-up windows required to build a deck. THREE! OMG 3. And although I LOVE the combat deck system, I HATE moving things around in my deck or creating a new one. It's painful.

Please make the pain stop and come up with a simple easy access way to build a deck with just one freakin pop-up window.

10. Jumping off a tower should kill you. Please increase damage for jumping off stuff across the board. I think it's too weak currently and needs to get a good push. Players heal too fast for the damage to be much of a reason to stop jumping. I do it all the time. Yes I know you can't really die yet, but I'd really like to know that I should just take the stairs.

11. Speaking of jumping damage, I think it should cause critical damage, and I think critical damage should require more healing besides just standing around. Here's the way I think it should work. Say you have 100 hit points. You jump off a building and take 92 damage, barely surviving. You stand around for 30 seconds and you're 100% healed. Great.

But then you notice that the health bar is like 20% grey and 80% red. The grey area represents critical damage. Critical damage is like "breaking your leg" or "having a concussion". You can't just stand around and heal that, you need a doctor or a magic healer. And you can't just do it yourself either, you have to go find another player. Until you do, you're going to be "less effective" depending on the injury you suffered.

There are a million reasons this is a great idea, including that it adds social interaction/dependency, it helps the economy, and it makes people say "uh yeah, I'm not going to jump off the roof of this thing because I'm going to break my freakin leg". The only downside is that people are lazy and they would rather have less risk or have to think about their actions. (for reference see responds to this post)

12. Being in combat mode should drain focus. That's right, just standing around in combat mode should slowly remove focus. There are a lot of reasons this is important, but the biggest one I can think of is combat initiative. If you're hiding behind a tree and you're intending to jump out at someone the moment they're in a bad position, you're going to be standing in combat mode while you wait. If combat mode doesn't drain focus, you can wait there indefinitely knowing that you have initiative.

You can also script attacks easier because you won't have to manage the wait time.

13. None of the NPC's know anything. I really can't talk to them about stuff that they should basically know. They're really stupid and annoying and I know it's not because Lum did a bad job it's because they're not real and the technology is very limited.

So here's what I'd like to have happen. Make at least 1 NPC (maybe a few) that knows A LOT about the lore. Not a collection of all the NPC knowledge, but a place you can basically say "well if this guy doesn't know it, no NPC knows it".

Yes I understand that your first reaction is going to be "but that's exploitable and players will just try to goto that 1 NPC for everything!" No, it shouldn't work like that. It's basically like if I say "How do I learn magic?" That guy would know in a round about way where and who I might talk to. If I say "What's this oracle about?" Again, the smart NPC would know.

But unlike other NPC's that smart NPC wouldn't tell me key words so I'd have to have some knowledge of what I was asking him.

You could put the smart NPC up on a mountain top and only have him come out during full moons or something. He (or she) should be like a wise hermit.

But the point would be that instead of just randomly asking every NPC I meet "Oracle?" I could ask the smart NPC and know what the baseline is for this subject. Because right now it seems like there could be an NPC standing next to the Oracle and if I asked what the Oracle was the NPC would say "I don't know what you mean."

14. Andoris rocks. It's a really great city and I spent a lot of time just walking around and exploring and marveling at the craftsmanship. But here are a few things I'd add.

A. The guard towers should have a guard with a bow at the top of them. This is to keep the piece. Players start fighting and BOOM, arrow in your back.

B. It's easy to get stuck inbetween some of the stairs and the columns. I'd either widen the gaps so players can get through without getting stuck or smash the two together so they don't try to get through those areas in the first place.

C. I noticed that the player row houses do not have back doors. This is fine until you have a whole row of houses where it's nothing but flat wall. It seems like there should be backdoors on the houses that don't have buildings behind them. This might increase the value of those lots and be good for the economy (bonus!), but really what it would do is make the city look that much more practical and immerssive.

D. The aqueduct in Andoris trails off into the sunset and then abruptly ends. As a player that has explored that area, it's a little disconcerting to see the world just "stop". My recommendation would be to just use a darker shaded area around Andoris to signify that this is where the HEX ends. Then blur what's inside the darker shaded area so that the players belief in the scene can be expanded within their own imagination while also understanding that the game scene cuts to another location.

15. I still don't have an easy way to tell another player "hey man I'm talking to you". I need a very quick way to say "HELLO" that will ping them, make a sound, and give them a chance to stop running around ignoring me. So this can not be abused it should have a long cool down timer and not work in combat.

16. I went to a player owned house in Owl's Head where someone had shoved like 6 crafting tables into a small room. Most of the tables were partially stuck in a wall. When I tried to use one of the tables, the animation forced me to become stuck in the wall (or between the tables, I couldn't tell) too. Yes, this is a bug. Heads up!

17. Still looking for active defenses and counters. I know there are active reduction abilities that will for example make Fire Damage do 20% less damage. But that still means that I'm at the complete mercy of the caster. It's still a DPS fight unless I can totally block a fireball.

18. Speaking of fireballs. I think a fireball should damage everything in its path. Friends, trees, everything. How about it? Afterall, you can dodge it.

19. Spells don't do enough damage (yes I know it's pre-alpha) making reagent consumption rates too high. Seriously, what's wrong with casting 1 fireball and killing someone? Afterall, they could dodge it! And I'm calling for active defenses to block the thing entirely.

20. I'm naked. My character just wants to wear cloth. But because full sets of cloth are hard to find. I have to make my own. It's not very stylish, imo, and it takes a lot of time to collect cotton and craft it. Not to mention I'm always having to delete my character in these releases so I can continue playing, so it's a bit annoying. In the short term could you please make full sets of cloth easier to find?

In the long term, could you please make robes? I know there's a problem with Unity. But maybe you could make SOMETHING mage worthy until that gets fixed.

One more thing, I'm not using a weapon of any kind so the combat animation is my character looking like he's boxing. Could you please (at some point) make the combat animation for not weapons in hand be more mage like where the character is standing upright preparing to cast a spell or something?

21. Lastly, no spells should be cast without reagents. It won't balance. A light spell is still a light spell even if it's "less effective". A summon spell is still a summon spell for the same reason. Not having reagents encourages naked mages and lazy fighter mages that will min/max magic to death.

Thanks for continuing to make a great game.

 

Well, that's a nice list with some good ideas.

However, I would not like my house sign to allow people to track when I've been online. If lots of people want that, allow me to toggle that off. Being able to leave a message pinned to the sign would be nice.

Loading up the game will eventually need to ask which of up to three characters I want to use. It wouldn't hurt to have two icons. One icon pretty much the way it works now, allowing me to choose game mode and character and set display options, and another that loads the game with whatever character/mode I was last using.

Since vendor wares will be player created, I want to be able to sort through items by maker.

Deck building in one window would be nice.

If you introduce critical damage as described above (which is a cool idea), I need to be able to visit an NPC healer, rather than another player. There is a solo mode to this game.

The city's name is Ardoris, not Andoris.

I do not want other players to have a quick way to disturb or interrupt me or to get my attention. They can say something in chat or use whisper. That's enough.

Area of effect spells should not be a way to grief other players.

Mages do need robes and wizard caps so we can spot them more easily.

And, I agree that reagents should be a requirement, at least for advanced spells. Perhaps simple low level spells can be without reagents.

 

[quote="7. I need an easy way to toggle walking. I think it should be the right mouse button. I don't understand why anyone would NEED to move forward using the left and right mouse buttons. What's going on with the other hand? Are people eating a bowl of cereal? I think the right mouse button is being under used and would be much better served giving players the ability to easily walk or run..[/quote]


YES, we should only press the right mouse button to move forward (not both).

I raised this issue in my release 1 to 6 feedback.

 

It's a regional thing. We say it that way in the swamps.

:noted:

 

I agree that it shouldn't be intrusive. But most of the time my chat window is down unless I'm using it. It takes up a lot of space, even if you have a large screen. So it would be nice if there was a sound or some que that let me know that someone was trying to include me. Again, it's important that this can't be abused.

No doubt.

So you can give them money and praise them?

Something to think about. How can a light spell be "less effective"? You either get light or you don't. If you have a reagentless light spell, you're giving players a cheap and easy way to get free light. Now apply that to all the other "low level spells" and you should see how this is not really a good solution.

 

Duration.

 

Wow. So you're saying I have to cast my FREE spell multiple times? What a consequence.

 

Actually it is. There's been plenty of spells in WoW and other games that were totally free to cast but had short 3 or 10 min duration that drove people up the wall and had constant petitions to increase the duration of them. You forget to renew it, it wears off in the middle of combat, it wears off when you're out of focus. All kinds of things could happen.

Also they could make it so that reagent-less has less of an area of effect as the reagent version. Or you can only cast it on yourself.

There are plenty of ways to make low level spells less effective.

Mind you I'm a proponent for low level having no cost at all, medium level having bonus for using reagents and high level 100% requiring them so it's not what I'd propose. But I was just posting the obvious answer to your question.

 

You can't have it both ways. If the spell is not worth casting without reagents, then it begs the question, why not require reagents because otherwise it's worthless. If the spell is of value without reagents then it begs the question why use reagents when you can just build a combat deck augmented by spells that don't require reagents?

Not having required reagents is a horrible idea that just makes the game more imbalanced. You can't fudge the numbers to change that. The people that min/max the game will eat it up alive.

 

What did you think about this suggestion from a while back:
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/fillable-and-emptyable-shelves.2815/

It was meant to deal with that type of issue. Basically, a vendor's table would be fill-able like a container, and whatever he put in that container would show on the table. When things were emptied off the table, he could move some more things that were on his back shelves.

Even if they just decide to go just with the vendor window, I think there's an issue they have to resolve about how they display the items. One of the NPC vendors on the outskirts of Owl's Head sells rugs, and they have patterns you can't really make out in list view. I had to buy the rugs first to see what they looked like. It would help players a lot if items like this were shown in a larger size, like we have in the free-form bags. Obviously, the messiness of the bag isn't a good format to show items for sale -- but it could be done in a type of grid system like you see in other games.

 

I don't know where you fell from, but I fell from some steep cliff in one scene and I died instantly.

 

There was a discussion some point in the forums about having injuries that didn't auto-heal required other healing methods. In one of the videos, RG stated that he found the idea interesting.

(Sorry about splitting up my replies.)

 

There were a number of places where this happen for me too. But it was hit or miss. For the most part, I was able to kind of hop scotch on trees or fences to lower the fall damage, then I could just insta heal.

This is a case where the players can kind of "game the system" and effectively get the same results by doing the same thing in a slightly modified way. I'm sure that most jumping has probably been curved from it's highest points during R1 through R6, but I'd like to see a stronger mechanic in place pre-launch to keep the min/maxers from making this an everyday occurrence. It's really a disruptive form of transportation, seeing someone jump from a three story building and then just running away like nothing happened.

 

Not sure I like the chest table idea as you describe it, but something like that has to exist prior to launch. I'd personally rather see a vendor have limited carrying capacity, and then require tables or carts (more immerssive) to hold more. The "wares" could be spread on the ground (duplicates could be represented in smaller piles).

 

Regarding 7 there is a simple key command to do it. Cant remember off top of my head and am not at my pc.

Yes, i have a family member who very well may eat a bowl of cereal while they are playing (seriously as ive seen them do just that before).

Theyll probably craft only. Being able to move with the mouse only is a huge deal to them. If they cant move and craft with just the mouse it might be a deal breaker for them.

 

What? How are they moving and crafting at the same time?

 

Not at the same time.. But you can do both things via mouse only.

 

Oh sure...so if the right mouse button became a toggle to walk or run, how would this impact anyone's ability to craft?

 

I must admit I also find it useful to walk with L+R, and pressing "/" in the numeric keypad to toggle walk/run is not usually a problem... Now, making the mouse wheel click (3rd button that almost every nowadays standard mouse has) toggle walk/run, however, could be even more confortable and useful.

 

You indicated why would anyone need to move forward using the mouse. Im indicating why someone would need to move forward using the mouse.