Opinions are like you know what.

Greetings, all. In this post, I am just going to give a few of my opinions of what could make this game better. I didn't know if I should put this down in r42 feed back, but I figured this might get more eyes on. I have been around since r14; I have put more money behind this game than I EVER dreamed about putting behind any game, but I saw the potential this game has, and I do still see it, though sometimes I worry about how long this project can be sustained. I have never given my opinion about the direction, and maybe I have done the community/ team a disservice for not giving my own perspective. I am a 30 y/o hardcore gamer; I have a feeling that I might be part of the "younger" crowd, so maybe my ideas can offer a perspective from that generation. But as the post title reads: opinions are like you know what lol.

1) Fast travel: One thing that really irritates me is the SLOW travel between anything. I understand that this has to do with trying to keep balance in the economy, but an economy needs players. I believe the slow travel will turn a lot of people off.

My suggestion: Have every scene hold a moongate. Once you find that moongate in a scene, it is saved to a list of moongates you can travel to. If you want to keep restrictions in place, have the "Oracle" grant you the power to travel through a moongate two times once every 24 hours. This can be stackable. Maybe the oracle can give a fellow avatar a stone (that forever stays in the avatar's inventory) the next time it sees them, and the "charge" can be held in that stone. From then on, once a day the oracle can grant 500 gold, 500 experience, and 2 charges (that can be stackable) to grant moongate travel (Fast travel). This would give avatar's more reason to login everyday and talk to the oracle.

2) Global marketplace: It's a struggle for a guy like me that logs on every other day or few days. I'm broke. I like seeing that the loot tables are being worked on every release, but I don't have time to find the best place to buy gear (maybe because it takes so much time to get places). I don't really know the value of an item because I have no idea where to get a good reference on an item's worth.

My suggestion: Have the option for a player owned vendor to make a "run" to the "marketplace" The vendor will stay with the items until recalled. An avatar could then talk to the towns public merchant who happens to have access to the global market, and the avatar can then compare prices of everything that is available there. I could finally find bone armor. This could create supply and demand; maybe I could see a piece of gear that I could afford because of competition. Players that have vendors (be it tax free or a vendor that costs a daily/ weekly/ monthly fee) could sell their items with a 10-15% tax, while average Joe Avatar without a vendor could sell items on the global market at a 30-40% tax. I know this might upset those who have "prime locations", but I am thinking about who are you going to sell to with little to no players. I want to attract players to the game.

3) Monthly objectives: Something that always drew me in to SotA before persistence were the monthly hat quests.

My suggestion: Introduce something similar; a reason to login. I figure with many of the systems in place, implementing this wouldn't be nearly as tedious. Maybe have a monthly goal to take down some creature or complete a quest that would require a team encouraging guild play. You could get some stupid yet unique item... who cares what it is. Maybe dish out some patterns for completing a weekly/ monthly task? You could bring back a pattern for an item that has been taken off the marketplace (it's ok, the item can be destroyed). Imagine how many people would login to get some of those? I have never seen a pattern drop since they have been introduced into this game.

4) Decay: I find this to be a huge turn off; I know it has been stated multiple times. I know Port wants to make death meaningful, but I feel there is better ways to do it.

My suggestion: Do away with it lol. But seriously... Why can't it be debuffs? First time you die, -10% exp gain for an hour. 2nd time within that hour, -20% exp gain, all the way up to -%50. Insert your own punishment here. That would hurt a lot, but the player would still feel like they were moving forward.

I love playing RPG's. I love feeling stronger and progression. Though I am nowhere near it now, I don't want to feel like taking that risk cost me hours of grinding. I would be disgusted, and probably never play again. I have read another poster's comments on how just the thought alone of losing progress alone is enough to keep someone from playing because the player knows inevitably, that is going to be the endgame. I totally agree. If you make progression exponentially less and less, who cares how much someone grinds to become godlike. A 0.01% increase over hours upon hours in a skill isn't going to break the game, and at least it's still moving forward.

From my understanding, Black Desert doesn't have this problem; everyone eventually gets to a level playing field, right (maybe that is my ignorance talking)? Or perhaps set people who want to PvP at a level playing field, and have it all about skill at that point. Whatever... I'm sorry, but decay sucks, and it is a huge turn off. I know this is a niche game, but we need more people (revenue), and decay is going to turn the HUGE (bigly) majority off IMO.

Big league.

5) PVP: I get it... most of the SotA's players are UO vets. I am not willing to fight for the simple fact that I can be looted.

My Suggestion: Have two PvP modes. One mode for wimps like me who just want to have fun and not worry about taking a step backwards, and the second mode for hardcore PvP. Give those who hardcore PvP more incentives to do so. Another post I have read mentioned something about PvP titles... yes. Give the Hardest of the hardcore PvP'er the BAMF title, so he/ she can feel very special, and you can give me the title of "Pansy" because I am too chicken ****.

6) Scene spawn location: I always spawn at the same spot of every scene.

My suggestion: Once I learn the exits of a scene, let me have the choice of entering in one of the learned entrances. I could click on a scene, a map pops up before it loads and asks where I want to enter from. Bam. Awesomeness.

7) Necromancy
I can only summon a skeleton (I know it's possible to summon a Lich, but I'm not kool enough to do it, yet).

My suggestion: Have the option to summon some type of creature that lasts, and it's health and stats are based off an item that you sacrifice. You have a super bad a$$ +7 obsidian claymore of destruction, make that into a creature that will do your bidding. You could create a creature from of a piece of armor, so that creature would have high defense/ hit points. If you fail to cast it, the item takes permanent durability damage. One can't cast off of indestructible items. Once the creature is dead, that item is forever gone the way of the dinosaur. I believe this would be an awesome spell/ skill, and it could be a way to stimulate the economy as well. I would play a lot more to earn that $$$ to buy some gear to have my undead BFF.

8) Again... move too slow
I've hit a wall.

My suggestion: Increase the dash time length, and please let me cast it on the over world.


Thanks to anyone that read that long, boring wall of text. I am sorry if I took a bat to a few dead horses; I know one or two that I hit, but some I may have gotten unknowingly. I hope you also enjoyed my Christmas colors... that was not my intention.

I hope everyone has a great weekend. Keep up the hard work, Port!

EDIT: Changed body text to one that might be easier on the eyes... I guess green and red really were too much, but green is my fav color on these forums, and I don't want things to get boring.

 

Colorful text, not reading. Next.

 

Good. Thanks. You read that?

 

In the positive spirit of the thread, here are my opinions on the same items...

Don't, agree but don't have strong enough feeling to oppose. I just don't want travel to require a friends list.

Agree it is a pain to have regional economies and every vendor with a different price. There is nothing easy about it. But it could be one of those things that makes this game different and worth playing. Anyway, that is really a major game design choice on the scale of "is this mid-evil themed or not". It is not a simple fix, nor a simple choice.

Absolutely

100% disagree. SOTA is a classless game. The only way this could ever work is to make it a class game like everyone else.

No opinion here either way.

Yep, agree.

Cool idea!

Sounds great to me.

 

That was fantastic @Mortanius. I love reading constructive feedback from those who care about the game and see more possible for it. I didn't mind your colors and I found your long text interesting and easy to read and yes Christmasy but I love Christmas .

You are not alone in your fast travel request. I think we definitely need fast travel options and wonderful incentives to wander the map and world for fun adventures. As mentioned before caravans traveling with goods going to different areas to sell for more and nice rewards for getting your goods to new markets like coto rewards sometimes, pets, mounts, all kinds of interesting things, perhaps crystal lamps, rugs, anything.

We will have renting so everyone and I mean absolutely everyone who comes to this game can have a place to stay that is their very own, well rented, but that is true in RL too sorta.

So the point is that fast travel has its place is this game (the mmo part at least) and overland map travel and scene travel have purposes that should be discoveries, quest related discoveries, and achievements (like fishing/agricultural discoveries like *look you've found a rare herb or fish and then a *ding sound played*) *tada*

Pvp Criminal points, wanted posters from a pvp quest earns cotos or chance of cotos and more coolness related to pvp.

Well the argument against decay is ongoing but whatever they do we will adjust but still we should give strong feedback as you did with examples of alternate options for decay.

The thing is if we have decay, we will have decay as a system then if that is all we have is decay. We will accept better if there is lots of fun to he game also and ww don't see passed up opportunities to add missing components to this game that will make this a fun game in-spite of decay before release, then that would surely be sad.

So getting those fun systems in game like fishing embellishments, boating, treasure hunting, agricultural updates like finding rare herbs or something like: *oh what's this? You spot a ring in that patch of garlic* then we will have a game. Thanks for your thoughts again Mortanius.

 

1) There are 8 moongates after this release, not sure where they are yet. It's not one in every scene, but should help. Along with that, load times are supposed to be improved, so that'll make it feel like you're zipping right alone!

2) Go to Novia Market (south of Brittany Alleys) or Outlander Help Center (on the hill above Soltown), there's a book on the desk in front of the S Mart vendor that has a method for pricing gear. It's a bit complex, but if you use it it'll give you a pretty good idea of the crafting cost of gear. It is a tiny bit underpriced at the moment, as I printed it when Iron and Copper were 40, now they are 45 and 50g each.

But for shorthand, if it's made out of Meteoric, White Iron, Bronze, Hard or Supple, there's a good chance that it is below cost, buy now while the gear economy is shot. If it's Carpacian or Fustian cloth, it might be about right, those tend to be not so out of whack.

Another pricing shorthand, if you go to the S Mart in Outlander Help Center there is a bunch of non-exceptional gear for sale for 1/2 it's crafting cost, multiply by 2 and you will know what it cost the maker to create it (priced with copper and iron at 40, same as in the books.)

 

ditto

 

You might try the trade channel in Discord or also the player Marketplace section of the forums. I think you'd get more rapid response in Discord.. just say "hey I need to buy some X"

I doubt we'll ever see a "Run to the mkt" type thing and.. tbh I don't that most would favor that.

Interesting ideas in general... thanks for posting

 

Tahru, thanks for the thoughtful reply. I wish I could always say the same to everyone. I know it adds to the atmosphere to the game, but like you said "is this mid-evil themed or not". I know I bought one of those "Remote Banks". I know the technology exists in the world. The slow travel kills me, and I don't have time to walk through every single scene and talk to every single vendor (whose inventory might change daily) to see what's all out there. There are some NPC/ POT's that I will never see just because there the enticement is lacking.

I totally get it. I understand that this game isn't supposed to let everyone become a Jack of all trades, but hasn't that happened already? Aren't there people with up to multiple grand master skills? How can that happen in reality? I know in reality, some people are lovers and not fighters. It seems in this game, one has to know how to fight to survive. How else do you gain experience (except for quests, which still require fighting)? IDK... I honestly think the decay system is shooting the game in the foot. I don't want to feel like I'm working when I'm playing a game, and not reap the rewards. Why would I want to fight and risk losing my progress? I think most people just want progression; if that means playing it safe and not exploring, then it is what it is. That becomes boring quick. I haven't hit that point of massive losses yet, but once I do, I don't know how much I will have left in me to grind just to maintain or get back what took hours to gain.

 

Majoria, you are always a delight lol. IDK if you remember me as "Mac Ray", but you were the first person I interacted with ingame back when I was deployed. The friendliness and enthusiasm you have was my first impression of the community, and I thank you for that. About a month ago, one of the few times that I joined up with some friends to farm, you and a team with you came up. You engaged us in conversation for a brief minute. All I'm saying I guess is you're awesome.

I agree that that it will really be sad if there is are plenty of things lacking and decay still in place when this game has "launched". I will be around, but I wish there were more things that motivated I and others to constantly log back in every day. As is, I only play a few hours a week.

 

Yeah, I will have to find 'em all, because it does help. I just don't like how I have to wait for the right spawn location. It seems random, which I know it's not. I have no idea what's going to pop up next. Again... time consuming.

I appreciate the advice. It's been a long time since I have visited Brittany and it's "suburbs", but I will definitely check it out. Thanks

 

Haven't thought of checking the Discord channel, but that's a good idea I will have to check out. I just wish there was something ingame that was just as easy. I wish I could scroll through all the items, so that way competition will drive the prices down and I can easily locate exactly what I'm looking for.

 

Hey, and if you check the Standup notes, the devs are working on a bulletin board system, which may be able to take over the role of the forum I think, depending on how well it works. It would require a little more player initiative, because bulletin boards would be local to towns, but I think it should end up being a positive thing.

At any rate, @Mortanius, I don't think map travel has much to do with balancing the economy in general, but making the economy more interesting and making the world more interesting. A global marketplace could be as balanced as any other. But if certain places have rubies and others have emeralds, and it takes time to get from one place to another, it makes the game more interesting. And frankly, I think its absolutely true that without travel, the game would be a lot more boring. From a solo gamer perspective, this is what most of the gameplay currently consists of: going to a scene, then grinding. Its relatively uninteresting. At least travel (and everything else associated) makes this a little more interesting.

I hate to sound like I'm being hostile to your opinions, because I appreciate your point of view; I would have to just say personally I'm on the opposite side of this than you and if the devs moved in this direction its something that might push me away from playing the game.

I do think there will be a lot more benefits to map travel later on if the devs stick to it and understand its potential as a feature. It would be nice for instance, to see regional weather, so you know whether you want to enter a scene (where what you find there depends on the weather). It would be nice to meet up with players looking for a party by finding camps on the map that other players have set up. There are all sorts of events and encounters, including PvP encounters, that could potentially go there. So I would just invite people to look at it from that perspective.

And the travel really isn't that long, IMO, its the loading screens I hate. Its also nice meeting people on the map; though I wish we'd see more in multiplayer.

I think the devs have talked about letting players enter scenes from different entrances, btw... last I heard it just wasn't implemented yet, but they were working on the tech to do it.

 

I think as a middle ground to a *global* market, because for whatever godforsaken reason nobody wants true convenience or actual competition, have a merchant next to the town crier that you can search through every vendor in the zone. That way the market is still "regional" but the giant pain in the ass factor of visiting every, single, often empty, stall would be greatly reduced.

 

@Trihugger,

I think there are a lot better ways of accomplishing the same end. Bulletin boards will be a great start... will require player initiatives to advertise their store on the boards, though.

 

I'll be the first to admit you are correct. When the design was communicated, I did not expect people would just plow through it so easily.

 

Just have something in place that auto updates for the zone. Easy for the people selling things in the zone to see if they're competitive with each other and easy for the prospective buyers to quickly search everything in that particular zone for what they're looking for. You can easily make this as nice or barbaric as you want with search fields etc. built into it. IE I want to find food, so I tap a button and now only the food being sold in a zone is displayed along with the vendor name with an option to add that vendor to my compass.

 

I m pretty sure the slow travel would be less irritating if loading a scene would take less time. Someting like 10-15 seconds would make things a lot more tolerable. Maybe also consider running in non adventure scenes not consume focus.

 

Well thank you again so much for your kind words and I am happy we did meet in game again today. So Yay and thank you for the songs you gave to me. Music is one of those things we definitely do have except we are still stuttering quite a lot this release but I know the Devs will fix it for us.

Yes we will keep rallying for things that make this a truly memorable game to play. Some very basic Reasons to play and reasons to keep logging in are very important and needed still. We already have some of those things here but we are of course missing some basics too. I look forward to future adventures with you and others in this game for many years to come.