Fresh perspective from new player

I've had my eye on SotA for awhile now. As someone who played UO and several other MMORPGs over the years, I'm no stranger to the genre - though, my attention span for these games typically falls off after a few weeks or months, I'm hoping SotA will be something I can enjoy for an extended amount of time.

That being said, I stuck with UO much longer and went back to play on private servers on a few occasions - to my mind, UO was one of the greatest open games ever created. So, my expectations for SotA as a spiritual successor may make me a bit biased.

Below are my impressions after about 30 hours in game so far, maybe they'll provide some helpful feedback or questions from a new perspective, and it's quite possible that many of these things will have been addressed already on the forums (which I've only skimmed a little).

• Why care about housing subdivisions? As I was first exploring I found myself in one of the little towns and spent about 20 minutes wandering around looking for monsters and resources before realizing it was just space for player housing. Since then, I haven't entered another one. I understand that with zoned environments (as opposed to an open world like UO) there's a need for these exist to have a place to build - but if you don't live there, what's the point in ever going to one of these zones? Maybe player vendors and/or player content will help, but it would seem to be kind of a waste of what seems like fully 50% of visit-able zones if they're nothing more than subdivisions.
  
  
• Realism vs. Convenience - I appreciate the effort to make the game skew toward realism and immersion, but it's a fine balancing act between convenience and ease of play (keep in mind that gaming is usually for enjoyment, not tedious repetitive activities). Here are some instances where I think the balance is offset:
  • No overhead map - admittedly, there's a compass, but not having some sort of overhead navigation is kind of annoying, especially since it's a standard feature of almost every game. The maps you can get in game compensate for this somewhat, but are unwieldy to use and store. A possible solution would be a cartography skill which maps as you go based on what you've explored and allows you to create maps.
  • Runic text - again, I understand the immersion aspect and that it's probably not too hard to translate once you've stared at it long enough, but it makes navigation and finding your way more difficult. I think the option to show translated names on the overworld map should be the default rather than an option you have to select. I think the runic text on the maps you can buy also diminishes their value - a map without a readable legend is kind of useless IMO.
  • Location specific banking - makes rational sense, but this is a game and this should be easier. It's also annoying that your item/weight limit is universal despite items being in one location only. The fact that pledge rewards are available in any bank also kind of breaks the illusion of location specific banking. Finally, given how much stuff you need for crafting (raw goods, refined goods, tools, purchased consumables, etc.) the item limit is absurdly low - IMO, should just be a weight limit.
  • Seriously? moments: why can boats have basements? For all the immersive qualities, turning on the ether radio thing in someone's house and hearing Lady Gaga kind of kills it...
    
• Inventory Management - as mentioned above, crafting requires a lot of stuff in this game and managing it is not what it could be. I still think that one of the most unique and memorable things about UO was inventory - bags within bags within chests to keep everything in order. Realistically it didnt make any sense, but it worked. So, I was elated when I discovered that you could switch to visual inventory - only to quickly realize that it's missing some key components which made it work in UO:
  • The way I kept all my stuff straight was with color coded bags, not possible here so far (probably something already on the list). Alternately, being able to name a bag would be helpful.
  • Not being able to transfer or move a bag which contains another bag (tried organizing all my crafting stuff in bags in a backpack only to be told the bank doesn't allow it).
  • The list mode inventory needs additional tabs according to bags (also where naming would be helpful). It's a pain to try and figure out what's in my crafting bag and whats in my general inventory.
  • Also noticed a bug where if you put a bag of stuff in the bank, it will always tell you have no more space until you close/open the bank again.
    
• Death and loss - Dying in UO was always frustrating because you just lost all your gear and may or may not be able to get it back. On the flipside though, it made for more cautious play. Also, because people were always losing their stuff it really drove market demand for player crafted gear and kits. On the downside it made very valuable items somewhat unusable for fear of losing them. I think there is probably a balance somewhere in between with the ability to bless (newb) items.
  
  
• Location / Creature Difficulty - On the one hand it's fun to explore and see if a zone is someplace which is challenging but doable. On the other, having some of that info up front would make things easier to navigate. Likewise, having some inclination on whether or not a monster is something I can handle would make adjusting to the game a bit easier, but it hasn't been a major roadblock so far and I have yet to find anything that has killed me with one hit.
  
  
• Crafting - I understand that this system is still in development (it doesnt appear as though the refining / production skills have been implemented). But I'm a little annoyed at the inclusion of required consumables which have to be purchased. I get that this is a trope of games, and something that probably helps balance the crafting system and so maybe there's a good logical reason for this, but it doesn't always make sense. For example - I can see that it would take curing salts to cure animal hides and make leather, but why would you need more salt to turn it into a yard of leather? Or for that matter why do you need so many specialized tools? I guess this is where my UO bias comes into play in considering it to be one of the best crafting systems in any game I've played. Maybe it will pan out such that your character can derive a profit from a system with these purchased components, but at least at this point, it seems crafting is a value reductive system rather than value added. The ideal crafting system to me seems to be one that rewards the time spent gathering resources and the skill level of the craftsman. Hopefully this will get balanced out a bit more.
  
  
• Combat - I'm sure this is still something that needs a good amount of balance, as most encounters are either way to easy or way to hard. The only thing I've found which really changes the equation is whether or not your fighting a single mob or multiple. The deck system is an interesting spin on things, and makes combat a little more interesting. Though it does limit your options and ability to use a broad set of skills. Again, maybe it's the nostalgia, but I always kind of liked combat and spells in UO's with the spells, tiles, and macros. Lastly, enough with the spiders! Poison sucks, it always seems to land, they're in groups so purify doesn't that well, and it seems like every environment has some sort of spider, often with half the map being infested.
  
  
• NPC Conversation - I like that this element of UO was carried over in terms of having to talk with NPC's as opposed to going through scripted conversations. However, I was sad to see that as it's currently implemented, it's little more than a scripted dialogue with little apparent improvement over UO that I can tell (other than being able to click on key words). I would've thought that with the current work being done on machine learning that there would be a better tool to make NPC dialogue work, but maybe it's out of scope. Which brings me to:
  
  
• NPC's in Genearl - I like the work that some RPGs have done recently (see Oblivion and Fallout NV) in terms of giving NPC's a life. It seems like one of the goals of this game is immersion and realism and that one of things that would help is if NPC's had a life. I'm guessing that a system like they used in Oblivion to give life to the NPCs may be too far out of scope here, but it would be nice if NPC's were more than just static point of interaction or window dressing. On a side note, if NPC's were a robust and numerous part of the world with needs, they would be an additional market for player supplied goods.
  
  
• Overall Experience - So far, I'm happy to see many familiar elements which remind me of the UO glory days and how great that game was. Perhaps as byproduct of where the game is at in development though, I already find myself a bit aimless. I've managed to finish a couple quests but none of them have been super engaging so far. I've spent a fair amount of time crafting - but kind of feel like I hit a wall with that as I have yet to find a way to make it profitable. So my next effort will be to cut down an army of skeleton archers in an effort to buy a property lot and build a house and then... I'm not sure.

Overall, SotA seems like it has a ton of potential and I'm very happy to see these systems develop and roll out as the game progresses. My hope is that maybe SotA will be the game that finally strikes the right balance, and isn't just about grinding for epic loot or building the most numerically effective character. I appreciate that the devs have a vision for a game that isn't super easy (even though I think it could be more a little more intuitive). If you've made it this far, thanks for reading, and hopefully my perspective will be helpful in some regard, and sorry about the long form version.

 

A good read. Glad that you can enjoy and critique a game at the same time.

 

Welcome to the game! Thanks for the feedback. I agree with you on many points.

As far as why care about housing zones. There are many NPCs you will interact with in housing zones. Bankers, Merchants, Quest NPCs, etc. Eventually you will have a reason to stop at a town or village. Perhaps not all of them, but with hidden quests, you could miss out on one w/out talking to the NPCs. Player owner vendors will be a huge draw I believe, like it was in UO.

The banking is location specific. Unlike UO. The reason you can see your rewards in All banks right now, is because you haven't taken the item out yet. Take an item out, and put it back in. You will see it is now located in a specific bank. So, at launch your reward items will be in a "bank" but it's more like a temporary storage spot, like the mailbox feature of other games where after picking up your reward you are now burdened with the need to store it in a specific location.

I agree.

I prefer that as well. But it's pretty clear to see, at this point anyway. That there will be no Felucca style gaming. The closest thing to that will be PvP flagging your character in a PvP zone. Less loss, as only a random item will drop, and less caution. But I bet players won't take their best weapon out there unless they have two or like the small risk, which isn't even close to the risks UO had.

You mention how you played UO. UO didn't have a sign over Destard "Warning Dragons kill newbs in 1 hit", so why would you expect this game to have that? I like the open world, sandbox aspect of, here's an area, anyone can walk here, anyone can die by that vicious monster, just like it was in UO.

They've said they will give NPCs schedules and make them more life like. I have yet to see that, but I'm keeping them at their word, that they will at least be as lifelike as Ultima VII, where they slept, opened shutters, opened doors, unlocked and opened shops etc. But, then again, we will see. I really hope for this as well.

 

Nice feedback, Serillian, thank you for sharing.

Mostly everything you said has been debated at length elsewhere in the forum (and ingame, and in dev hangouts, and in updates, etc.), as you could expect.

But it's a good contribution nonetheless. Thanks and welcome.

 

No overhead map
-coming, maps are planned but only scene maps have been implemented yet
Runic
-there is an option in settings to have this in english
Location specific banking
-a service that transports goods between banks for gold is planned but might not make it into E1 launch
Inventory
-what you see is a second pass, there is a whole lot of things planned, maybe R21-22 something according to the assprod (associate producer)
Death & loss
-not fully implemented yet
Crafting
-only a skeleton, we don't even have full skill sets yet
I'm really hoping for Crafting Scrum sessions, just like we are having Combat Scrum sessions on the QA server right now...

 

Welcome Serillian!

 

Welcome Serillian!!! A very good read.

 

SHHHHHH! don't ruin my tardis!

 

They've started giving schedules to some NPCs (the blacksmith in Soltown is one I often notice, she goes home at night and returns in the morning) and I imagine many others will follow suit. Realistically I expect most NPCs will have no more of a 'life' than this and some will probably just be static, due to the sheer number of them and balancing realism with knowing that the quest-critical character will be fairly easy to find, not on the other side of Ardoris. We might see some of them get a more active eventually though - for instance, how do all those crafting merchants expect to make money when they never do any crafting?!

Good post with some excellent feedback, welcome to the game/forum

 

I admit that I have tremendous nostalgia for the original UO, however that doesn't mean SotA cant incorporate new elements from other successful games that have come since. And while it's true that UO didn't come with a clear visual cue about difficulty, the game was structured such that you could kind of infer it - for example the harder dungeons were all pretty far out of town, so as a new player you were unlikely to just stumble into Destard. Difficulty somewhat naturally scaled as you got further away from civilization. I would also point out that you did have skills to inspect creatures to get a sense of their abilities - even if they weren't super effective/helpful

 

Welcome Serillian, Great feedback .. the best part of SoTA is just keep all of what you said in mind and see how fast things can and will change ... we are Currently at a Speed bump with overall content updates and changes due to combat's need for some huge changes but don't burn yourself out I had a slight burnout with some rinse and repeat grinding so I had to take a step back .. Testing isn't for everyone .. Hang out here or in game, lots of things to do besides level progression. Thanks for such a great wright up On your first 30 , I look forward to more .
Lor