OK feedback time...

I want to talk about creature spawning in SPO:

-they're spawning way to fast.
-their agro range is way too wide.
-they are ganking me at every turn.
-there're far too many to deal with.

Its OK, I'm having fun, but only after I put on a full set of plate w/blades and hit level 30... I'm a resource gatherer, and one of my technics is to let the bodies lay to slow the respawn a little, sacrificing any treasure for the resource, but that doesn't seem to be working anymore.

I played the graff gem mine/Blackblade pass and noticed there was no respawn, at all. Is this a bug? It was nice to clear the area, but there are not that many ore nodes for it being a mine/cave and all... and I got my fill of gems. It would have been more fun to see a long respawn timer there. Maybe not the whole group, but one every once and awhile would be nice...

Deep Ravenmoor is pretty impossible for SPO, I couldn't put a dent in the creatures spawning there, just too many wolves, spider, skeletons to deal with, and all protecting resource nodes. I finally gave up, and just ran in and gathered what I could before I died. Then to rez up and do it again, and again until I found just about everything in there...

The random draw scenes are pretty nice, but there is nothing in them besides critters to kill, it would be nice if you put in a Silver or Gold node or trees or cotton or just iron nodes, something to gather. Here too the respawn was nothing at all, sometimes I would get pulled into the same scene over, and over, and still no respawn...

I'm hoping you can come up with a "scalable" respawner, so that us SPO players can clear an area out, but still have a mild respawn of critters. And then in OPO the spawn rate might increase, depending on how many are in there, and how fast they're killing things off, something like that, maybe put in a lull between storms. Continuous fighting is kind of boring...

 

Also I don't quite get why the creatures are much harder to kill in certain areas. I mean they all look the same. There is no indication for the cause as to why the skeleton in area A is much easier to kill than the skeleton in area B. They are the same. This is another reason why creatures need a purpose in the game. Why are they in the area they are in and why are they harder to kill than in another area?

 

Agree that respawning time is too fast.
I've been playing solo and find that by the time I've killed the last skeleton attacking me the ones I killed first are respawning! It's very annoying to feel like you can't actually win the war!

 

I can answer this, the areas are tiered easy, medium, high (the farther away from Braemar you get)... The exp is tiered too, sometimes I kill 5 guys and go up a level... As the story goes, the Undead/Bandits are invading, and there is a bounty put on exoplasm/red sashes. If you talk to the head guard in Owl's head he will give you a reward of 50/20 gold for each (which is pretty high). Plus there is a Hunter wandering Braemar that will give you 10 gold for each animal hide you give him...

If you chop tree's in the higher areas you get something called Emerald "something" borers which sells for like 100 gold and is used in recipes. Cotton/Spiders/Ore are giving different resources for Textile/Smelting use...

Plus you need to watch the wear on your weapon/armor, once your weapon is at zero, it won't kill flies... after patch 188 repair kits do 50 pts of repair, so it's worth it to carry some with you...

 

An Arctic Wolf, a Timber Wolf and a Grey Wolf don't look very different, but I assume they each have different stats. That may be why it seems wolves are tougher/easier on different maps.

Respawning in SPO does seem high.

 

Its scene specific. Wolves in the Northern and Southern Marsh areas are easier to kill than wolves in the Mysterious Swamp area. But the Mysterious Swamp isn't farther from Braemar.

In general, I don't get naming the animals different things "grey wolf" vs "timber wolf" vs "obsidian wolf" vs "elder wolf" unless they look different to the player; otherwise there's no reason you could tell that they're different. But hopefully this is something they plan to work on. MMOs that have many titled variations on an enemy but have them all look the same really bug me.

I was curious about what a "big skeleton" was, whether it was a skeleton of some race other than human.

There should definitely be some lore related reason in the game for these variations, otherwise I really don't see the value other than as a form of level-gating. If there's no lore behind it, then they should just leave the variations out, IMO. Just make them all the same.

One variation I was really happy to see was the "small wolf spider" vs. the large one, which is easily differentiated by the size, and which can be explained by the game in many ways.

 

They do look different in HD, and they get tougher as you go up the tiers/areas... I was in the Vale Hills mining and the spiders there are throwing poison goo that traps you, with 4 of them on me, I nearly couldn't escape, I was surprised the area got so tough when the resources stayed about the same... I didn't find a single copper node anywhere, and no nickel or tin either the bears/wolves are about the same, but the elf camp has a smaller contingent..

I'm quite happy with most of the changes, just turn it back a notch or two...

 

i havent had so much problem with the level of spawn (makes it easier as i dont have to run far to find them) - if you find you're dying a lot you just need to take it down a lvl and go to a slightly easier area imo.
some of the tougher areas like deep ravenswood and the mysterious swamp i didnt even bother attempting by myself until i was lvl 35.

the thing i did have a problem with was the agro range. i had some monsters traveling all the way across fields to hit me (actually my first fight area - valeway south - omg, the skellies there seemed particularly bad - but could have been my shock! lol)

I have to say i'm loving the new look for obsidian bears! ooooo they are SO cute!! the wolves are very nice too, but i just want to pick that little bear up and squeeze it!

So from what i'm hearing from the op is that there ought to be different, unique creatures for the different levels, not jut tougher iterations of the same critters? I think that's a great idea! but i have no idea how do-able it is....

sry if i seem scattered.... it's late, hard day of grinding, etc. etc.

 

All of this, going to other areas to level up (grinding) or tiered areas are mechanics that make SotA less of a virtual world and more of game that really screams "I am just a game" into your face. Then I am not in New Beitannia anymore, I am staring at a monitor and "see" the numbers in the background.
Such things rip you out of the experience and stop the flow of the game.

 

I like the numbers. Doesn't rip me out of the experience so you may want to personalize that & not include me.

 

These pre-alphas are here to test systems, not live in a persistent world. This world is wiped regularly. We're not seeing most of the content.

That's why I haven't played much in the pre-releases thus far.