Mixed R13 feedback

Hi devs and everyone.
First I'd like to say that I like the progress that is happening, the game is getting a better vibe with every release as I see it.

Below are a few of my and my wifes thoughts (we are both backers), in no special order.
Lots of text so be warned.

******See what level the monsters etc are at when clicking on them?
I think that would be a good thing to be able to see.
That would make it a lot easier for the player to make a quick judgement call on if it's time to run or stay and fight or ignore.
Or have I missed how to activate this function?

******Showing everyones hitpoints and mana/focuspoints as numeric values also, if one would like to see that?
I haven't seen that option yet, but I would appreciate it. Is it hidden somewhere or is it perhaps coming?

******Minimaps with non runic text and a bit more info?
For the major cities/villages at least, like Owls Head, Kingsport, Ardoris - and write where a few key shops are.
I don't remember where the trainers are or where I can buy armor, perhaps I'm too casual but I seem to have problems remembering some such things.
If you feel this is too much handholding or something, limit this extravagance to the biggest and the starting places where people go?
Think about all the new players, as well as the older players with memory issues

******Overland map
Very sweet that town names have a non runic name now
It keeps getting nicer, but I feel something is off when you move about there, yet I can't put my finger on what.
Perhaps it is the way you control the character - left mouseclicking to move could be worth trying perhaps.
Then I thought that maybe it is because you can't zoom way out/up, but I don't know, that might not be good.
Maybe we should be able to zoom in to the same level as when inside a scene, but that probably would not be good.
Could we try to enable more free zoom-out and left mouseclick to move just to see how that feels? - ask for specific feedback if so.

******The Grand Tour Quest and Questing overall
May I suggest that the devs take future revisions of the Tour Quest to polish quest handling and test some quest helping measures?
I don't know how the help measures should be implemented at all, such specifics is not the point I try to make, but object tracking through compass indicator is one possible measure.

The point is - without The Mad Hermits Tourvideos and Google, me and the wife would not have found every tour guide on these events, at least not without getting upset in some form.
I have found us in need of either Googling, Foruming or Mad Hermiting to complete them, there has so far always been some detail that has eluded us.
Thanks Mad Hermit - you make really nice videos!

I believe the Tour Quests are the most visible quests in the game right now, they are mentioned on the web site for example, so they should reflect the devs questing vision as much as is possible right now, for what the quests are supposed to do (visiting places).

We found it for example not very fun to blindly (ok, we followed The Mad Hermit) run and locate the Tour Guide in the new desert scene. Roughly the same can be said for some other areas and for previous Tour-events too.

Also, it would be quite good to know what level range is recommended for a given quest or parts of a quest, but such functions ought to be forthcoming. Is the sooner the better perhaps?
(Our characters/avatars were at the moment of finishing the R13 Tour at level 7 and we ran around in partial leather and cloth armor, hehe)

Perhaps not all quests should have a quest help measure like compass tracking, but some might benefit from it.
As a counter argument to "this game will not have any form of guides, that has been said many times": anything can change in a games development phase, so there is no harm in me mentioning this again.

Ponder this: If a not negligible amount of the player base is more or less forced to Google hints to progress, is this really what we want? I say keep the players inside the game.

******Customer/player feedback on a larger scale
Very few games really ask actively for feedback like "did you like this or that thing we just did, do you want more?"
It might be a bit late now for use as episode one development feedback, or perhaps its felt as not needed at all, but I wouldn't mind answering an in-game poll every now and then and if I don't feel like answering the poll "now" perhaps I can choose to answer it later.
Devs - don't be shy: I suggest you make polls from you available in-game at some point.

 

I thought I comment a few of your concerns and by doing so show how hard it is for the devs to satisfy everyone.

I see no reason why my character should have this info. It might make your decisions easier but it will also remove some of the adventure.

No, please no! I think we actually get to much info on everyone's conditions as it is right now. I think the health during fights only should be a estimate just as the old muds did when they showed hitpoints as healthy/fine/hurt/wounded/awful instead of a number. Same should go for focus!

Also instead of showing a number of how many HP in the log there should be things like "you barely hit", "you hit extremely hard" and so on.


not fun to be developer and try to satisfy everyone.

 

No, I don't want any info my character should not have about enemies and other players. How would I know how much hitpoints someone has or what the level of a monster is?
The next step would then be exclamation marks above the heads of NPCs... No, I don't want that at all.

 

I would like SotA in old school style. No information about hitpoints, no leading arrows on the map, no exclamation marks to find quests. There are enough games which supporting this on the market and the absence of these things is an enrichment for me.


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The only problem I see is how to find quest-relevant NPCs in a city full of filler-NPCs. I hope that the devs find a solution for this without adding breadcrumb-trails, exclamation marks and other such immersion-breaking hints.

 

leaving breadcrumb trails is unavoidable, because not everybody's willing to talk to every single NPC. I think the main point is to make this trails non-immersion breaking. So far the chatter from the NPC's tells you the name of the ones who needs help works for me... and the guards if asked will prompt you to the main quest givers... Maybe if a random villager is asked for help and he doesn't need any, he can say something like "i don't need any help at the moment, but i heard that <QuestGiver> could use some assistance. You can find him/her in <QuestGiverLocation>"

 

What I think could work without breaking the immersion would be some kind of mark on the compass. You "activate" a quest in the logbog and a subtle mark on the compass shows where you have to go. It begins to pulsate when you are near the according NPC or object.
Of course this should be optional so that you don't have to use this.

 

OP, you are fighting an uphill battle asking for more immersion-threatening on-screen information. This is not a classic stat-based, min-max MMO. It's meant to be a living world full of adventure and surprise. There is a fine line between this and frustration, I agree, but it is a noble experiment. While I would ordinarily join you in all your requests for more data, for this case I would oppose these moves because I'm eager to try a different approach and see where the fun/frustration level balances out. But let's keep a watchful eye on it.

 

That's nice, but I'd like better to show an X in the town map. As they're giving you the general directions, if you're carrying a map for the town you're in they can also put a mark down where you can find the NPC.

Regarding the OP concerns, even when the game design is against on screen information, there are a lot of things our character knows but we don't and, in my opinion, that information should reach us players, but floating text must be avoided since it's a big deal for many players. What should be discussed is "what information is needed?" and "how to give it to the player in a way it break immersion the most?".

 

What information are you thinking about? I can't see any information ym character knows that I don't, but I might be missing something. Not that there is other way to show info than a number.

 

Well, there are limitations because of the game being a game regarding the current amount of information you can gather. If you were really into the game you could gather more information. For example, regarding the level of the monsters we're fighting... Level is an abstraction used to measure power in an absolute way; in real life i don't know the level of anybody, but i can evaluate their relative strength, and a seasoned fighter may do it in a more accurate way, since he's been in more fights than me.

Following that thought, my character should be able to see the difference of power between grey wolves and timber wolves, since the former are less powerful than the latter. I can't discern it until i fight the wolf in question, so maybe in this case the game should inform me of the challenge each enemy supposes, from my character's point of view. The question is, how to do it in a non-immersive way? A way could be displaying text over our character heads, allowing us to "see" what is he thinking. "That wolf poses no threat" "That bear means trouble" "That lich scares the hell out of me", and things like that.

Other factor where i feel a big loss of information is in crafting. I know that current system is just a placeholder, and i don't know if they thought something for the final system regarding that aspect, but in the same way i know how many boards i need to make a closet, i could guess how many cloth i need to make a shirt, and i could guess how many iron i need to make an iron sheet, my character should be able to know all that, but i can't because i'm not in the game. Maybe "reading the thoughts" of our character to the crafting system could be a good option, so we can use them as hints when we're trying to guess how to craft some item that's way below our crafting skill.

 

strength, dexterity, intelligence, encumbrance, hit points, level, mana.

weapons. ..... speed, durability, etc. .... there is tons if info on the screen that anyone, unless they are a freaking robot, should not know by value, only subjective feeling and eventually experienced observation.

so, the real question is, why is it ok for some stuff, for you, but not ok for other stuff, for someone else?

 

A radical idea would be to completely remove numbers and stats from the game and make it more natural. If your hero gets more strength he can carry more, does more damage and looks more muscular. If he gains intelligence he can cast more spells, if he gets a higher dexterity he can evade and dodge more easily and shoot better with a bow etc. all of this without any numbers.
I think that this could indeed be very interesting but I doubt that players would accept this.

 

Well once you character have been fighting the monster he should know if the monster is too hard for him to kill or not, same information you would get by fighting the monster or perhaps talking to someone that have been fighting that monster. That is the exact information you and your character should have.

Again if you are an unexperienced character you do not know that difference, once you fight them both you know the difference or perhaps via some lore or tale but that can your character read or hear about too. You might perhaps make an educated guess be the size of the creature you are fighting, with can be information that are presented graphically.

Well my hobby are carpenting and when I was new to the craft I would not have a clue how much wood I would need to make a closet (Actually have no clue about the other occupations you mention but I guess its about the same.), yes I could make an educated guess but it was much easier to read instructions, specially when is comes how to best joint the wood depending on how sturdy you want your closet. To top things of different joints demands different amounts of wood. But I guess basic recipes will be in your recipe book so you can start learning...

To be honest nothing in your posts are information that you character have that you as a player can't get displayed to you in a way so you as a player can get it. Yes you might read a book or speak to a hunter to get info about different wolves, etc etc But the info is nothing you should get for "free".

 

No to all points. All makes the game to Casual and no one want another 08/15 Casual MMO.

 

I think options are very important. I like to know exactly how many hp and focus my character has left. I like to know the level or at least difficulty of creatures before I fight them, to better prepare.

Hardcore is fine, but make it an option

 

Draykor Darkale hits spider for 18 pts, visible fraction of health bar dissapears...yet somehow its "immersion" breaking that the op would like to know the actual number of the spiders hp, I really don't get any of the rebuttals using that argument at all, its completely nonsensical in a world already filled with stats and figures.

I'm not particularly sure about monster level, never needed it in UO because all ettins had X stats, all Harpies had X stats, this game seems to be heading that way anyway, so you should know that going against a wolf at level 10 is okay but don't try a giant spider.

 

That can't be an option

What I mean is that if one character get info that he really shouldn't have he get a huge advantage over the one that don't have that info.

 

My point was one can guess the relative power of an enemy just by looking and the guess should be more accurate depending on the combat experience the character has; no need to fight before knowing how much of a threat an enemy poses. Of course a character without any experience should be insecure about everything, but after a couple of fights you might guess which enemy is in your possibilities and which aren't.

Of course you didn't know. I don't know either, but we both can guess because our trials produce imperfect results. And obviously reading a book is the best way of learning, but that "books" to learn how to craft an specific item costs 250 g at the moment, and since i expect craftables without recipes... i think guessing those just by throwing stuff in the table and hoping for the craft button to light up is not fun to me without some kind of guidance. In SotA craft system useless combinations just doesn't produce anything, so you don't know if you're close to craft what you wanted to craft. That's what i meant about receiving hints.

For example, years ago i wanted to craft a lectern for my RPG books, so they don't come unbound for being open more than 90 degrees. After a few tries i made one that suited my expectations, and i could do that because i guessed from my previous tries what the final product would need.

I feel you bro, and it's undeniable you made fair points. But i'd like to highlight i wasnt asking to get that information for free, I don't want my character to be telling me exactly what i should or shouldn't do, and i think most of the community doesn't. I was suggesting we should receive hints of that information (guesses) in the same way you can get them in real life, because guessing it is free; the amount of information or his accuracy may depend of your character's intelligence or the amount of skill points invested in a certain tree or his value in a certain craft skill.

Of course, everything would be better if all that information i'm talking about could be presented graphically as you suggested and we could make directly our guesses from the images displayed, but i think that costs more time and money than just display your character guesses above your head, so that's why i went with that.

So to wrap it up, i just wanted to express i can't actually make guesses from the information the game is giving to me, and i'd love to be able to do that, whatever the way that information is displayed

 

Thing is that it shouldn't even be "Draykor Darkale hits spider for 18 pts" it should be something like "Draykor Darkale lightly hits the spider". That way you still got the information that you didn't do much damage and if you get messages like "Draykor Darkale hits the spider extremely hard" you know you are doing good damage. This way you get information you actually would get when you fight someone and not a number add some differences in graphics and animations and all the information you need are displayed.