Please stop neutering the game

Before any more changes are made to remove, scale back, nerf or neuter parts of the game, please think twice about how it will affect the other 99% of the players. We've already seen tamed creatures, loot drops, gold income and several aspects of the game changed drastically from the previous release, all to the negative.

This game is supposed to be fun, not a grind. But, these latest heavy handed changes have made it more of a grind than a game. I thought this was an adventure game, not a sim. I want to beat down skeletons and trolls and kobolds and satyrs and steal their lucky charms, not some shoddy dreg of a weapon. I am seriously being impacted from that goal.

 

I've always wondered why we use the word neutering instead of castration or spaying. Games are what, always a male animal? For the sake of variety, let's not get the tubes tied.

 

Can you give some specific examples?

(of changes, not more words to use instead of neutering)

 

I thought the original post was pretty specific with regards to nerfs to loot drops (replacement of higher value monster drops with shoddy equivalents). This was after removing ectoplasmic residue, which was like 90% of my income before because everything else you loot has a use for crafting, albeit as salvage in many cases. Now I have to sell stuff I could use for salvage (or that I could circulate to crafters in the guild) to be able to afford reagents to even fight anything.

We've seen similar 'neutering' (or whatever) to resource gathering (see notes to the three main mining locations - Owls Nest & Etceter are in patch notes, Hilt is not in patch notes but was severely nerfed - see thread "Harvesting Ores")
Mages have gotten severely nerfbatted (dramatic focus cost increases across the board, complete nerfage of the one focus regen item in the game to absolute uselessness).

Not all of the nerfs are bad. Some were needed - like yesterday's fix for the 100% chance tremor proc sword enchant was reduced to a much more reasonable 10%.
However some of them have gone from one extreme to the other, leaving people sat perplexed.

I keep holding out, hoping that this hood masterwork will become useful....and that some of the extreme changes will be reconsidered and perhaps tempered to fair and reasonable values.
Its certainly starting to feel like a 'job' when I log in though - gotta go grind income from 9 to 5 so I can afford to craft and adventure in the evening, pay my rent, whatever.

 

Yeah, I feel the same. SOTA is more like second job than a fun game right now. I don't mind that game is difficult, but all that grind has to be more intellectually engaging.

 

Kaeshiva has it exactly.

The Chest Mimic went from 175HP to 50HP. That's not balancing.

Owl's Nest was a low level mine with deposits of copper, iron and crystals. The yield was minimal, but you could advance your mining skills. The mine has been the same for over a year, but most of the nodes have been removed.

Ectoplasmic Residue was introduced as a quest reward. It was available in the 3 skull areas of Ravensmoor and became a viable way to earn income. It has since been removed.

Greymark Forest and Ruined Keep were higher level areas used for "farming" and XP. The Elves had swords worth salvaging and selling. The Troll guarding the bridge was XP and experience in fighting a "big" monster. The skeletons also gave Ectoplasmic Residue. The dropped loot has all been scaled back, the respawn rate has been reduced.

These are not exploits, or examples of gaming the system. They were staples of the game and have been unchanged for 12+ months. Here we are less than a month into persistence, and major changes have been made to reduce forward progress at low levels. And these were slipped in as patches, not a gradual change because of overuse.

Additionally, property taxes for City, Town, Village and Row lots were based on a gold income that used to be available, but has since been reduced. For people who paid real money for those, the lots are now almost impossible to place and maintain based on a single player trying to earn income in the game. As a simple example, how are you supposed to make 25k gold, per week, to afford just the taxes on a City lot?

Row: 500 gold per day
Village: 1000 gold per day
Town: 2000 gold per day
City: 3500 gold per day

That is no longer achievable.

It was stated in the Hangouts that this game wasn't supposed to be a grind. You weren't supposed to spend all your time being a 'combatant'. It was supposed to be a story driven (social) gaming experience.

At this point, none of those are true.

Players eager to advance their character are being punished for their enthusiasm. The basic progression of the game, in my opinion, has been severely stunted. I have to be a Level 50 carpenter to make a wooden chest which has 2 ingredients - 5 boards and chest mechanism, and you buy the mechanism. How is that fun or exciting?

We're all supposed to be out having adventures, solving quests, talking to all the citizens and learning about the land. How is that supposed to happen when you have to spend all your times in mind-numbing repetition to pay rent?

If making basic progress is this slow and this tedious, what is the reward for playing?

This is a game, an adventure game. My want is to go out exploring the world, talk with the NPCs, learn their stories, help where I can and defeat whatever evil nemesis lurks at the end. Along the way, I expect to gain loot which can be broken down or sold and get gold at a steady and reasonable rate.

To be a touch melodramatic, we spend our daily lives grinding away in order to pay debts and taxes. I don't want to spend time in a game that is meant as "escapism" doing the exact same thing.

 

It's not? You considering having a pet you don't have to tame or replace and can allow you to survive a 3 skull area at level one to be balancing?

Serious question: How does anyone today know what is balancing for the long term game when not all systems or content are in yet?

Balancing will continue all the way through launch. Our job is to play test and provide feedback.. which we're more effective at if we think of the game as what it is.. unfinished.. and unbalanced.. and in recognizing that what cause do we have to get upset? This is what we all signed on for.

 

Taming was not brought into question, nor was the red spider. I have used the Chest Mimic and only the Chest Mimic as an example. It was a creature that most everyone could summon, had the same stats for over a year, then had to be changed in a patch after persistence. Your Red Spider is more of a red herring and isn't applicable. And no, despite your left field comment, I didn't expect to keep a Ferocious Red without any taming, but thanks for checking in on me.

Additionally, I'm not basing it on just one release. My comments are based on low level items and areas used by players to progress at an acceptable and entertaining pace, which have been the same for 12+ months. And that is the point. Early game progression needs to be swift, exciting and engaging. I'm not talking about mastery of skills, or tier 3 and above. I refer to Tier 1 and 2 so players have a sense of accomplish and the ability to move forward into harder areas with greater reward. Struggling to defeat the most basic creature (wolves) and walking away with a reward of 1gp isn't going to keep someone coming back for more.

It should take time to progress through the upper levels and mastery even longer still with multiple factors coming in to play.

I accept balancing. I understand balancing. These are not examples of balancing. You are referring to high level items, while I am referring to low level items and areas.

And the game is still in development? My goodness, I was completely unaware of such things. And here I was thinking Alpha meant I was the top dog, not a stage of game development. Silly me.

 

This dropped off all undead and it's value to NPCs was the single most economically unbalanced item in the game.

Are these really the current taxes?

I got a level 50 in carpentry from salvage and wood after maybe 6 or 7 trips out adventuring. Pretty easy.

 

No, I don't consider that balancing. Going to 125HP, then perhaps to 100HP is balancing.

We don't know what true balancing is for the long term. My comments are based on low level play and allowing players to feel as though they are making progress.
I'm not talking about high end skills. I'm talking about the basics so you can get to and survive in 3 skull areas. And my feedback is, it's not a fun experience.
Do I expect the upper levels and skills to remain timing consuming and difficult? Yes, I do.

Ironically, you say to give feedback about a game that is unbalanced and unfinished, which is exactly what is being done, to the the point where it has been too severe. But then people argue against that feedback saying high level areas and high level taming need to be balanced, which isn't what I have brought up at all.

I am referring to the low level area and first tier skills. In my opinion, the game is becoming a grind and not exciting to play in the early stages.
Additionally, gold generating items have been removed, but gold payment figures weren't recalculated and don't seem realistic.

 

Yes, those are the current rates - https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=61019

 

All the bounties were removed, and for a crafter, salvaging drops is fairly critical to stretching gathered resources.

I agree that gold is extremely tight, and I won't be owning a home anytime soon. I play quite a lot too. Hopefully some economic tweaking happens soon

 

Yeah, those seem pretty nuts. Like, maybe when inflation starts to be an issue, but not now.
I've gotten enough time in a week to maybe play 6-10 hours. That would be all my play time.

 

I say persistent did exactly what it was supposed to do, give them real data about what people were doing. While they had data before, the data was skewed because the sample sizes were small and wipes meant that people's activites were reflected of what they would do in the final game. Now they are able to see what people's activities are really like. They saw areas that were out of whack and adjusted them to be more in line with their expectations. Too bad if that made you change your habits from previous releases. As they find more places that float to the top that don't provide the proper risk / reward balance or where more money is being gained than should be, more changes will be made. For me that's a good thing, not everyone should head to the same zone to play the game.

 

This was posted in another thread but the same applies here.

I find it interesting to read the opinion of those who have been playing a long time.

Think for a minute if you started right now, or better yet 3 months from now when a greater sense of balance is achieved . You would have no idea what was nerfed or changed, only as it is. I'm not saying there might be some valid discussion on various topics, but do you think half these complaints would be made by that future player who knew nothing else?

I don't, and hope the devs continue with the course they are on. This is, and will continue to be, an unique and awesome game.

 

These changes are not surprising people. We are in persistence now so no wipes. The devs accelerated a lot of stuff for the testing cycles, more gold, more exp, better drops (say chests in pass's).

Just remember, as persistence goes on and people level up, you will have more resources.

Ive said this a few times but right now I have more gold then I know what to do with. I can easily buy all the crafting stuff I need (I just turned 1200 copper ore and 300 silver ore into ingots and made armor). I expect as persistence continues that this will be an exponential curve.

I've made adv lvl 64 now with 99% solo farming (I got in one Santus group that game me one adv level).

Im personally feeling that the game is moving a bit to fast to soon.

 

I still don't understand why "grind" is such a thing. I started with the story quest lines, my opening was an unfinished area but I was told to head over to Soltown to pick up on the love quest line. I have had no issue with following the quest line so far and am just gaining skills as I go through the story.
I do not have to "grind" to do anything! I can get through control points without dying by studying movements and timing my movements through the areas.
My equipment is either the starting gear or items I have bought from NPCs/Players.

I guess I just don't see the need to be a super skilled character to play the game.

 

Not what I brought up either.

Then how do you know the change isn't appropriate when we don't know the true balancing for the long term?

But most new players won't have a free chest mimic that makes it easy to get there.

Here's one way to look at it.. if you didn't consider that it wasn't fun without the mimic before.. then the nerf was a good thing as it forces you to focus on the experience without it. Ok it's not fun.. so what would make it fun now that the mimic (being a starter pet) can no longer get you to that 3 skull zone?

 

I personally think people are way to much in a hurry to advance in this game which requires grinding. This game is not a short term game.

Here is something I learned long ago.

Nobody really cares at all how much bling you have in a MMO. No one really cares how fast you advance, how high a level you get to. In fact, many people see a lvl 100 right now and make negative assumptions about the persons life. This game is a game and meant to be fun. That being said, this is a MMO and what I have found is that everyone in an MMO thins they are the best at everything in an MMO. Welcome to the interwebs!

I left wow with 7 lvl 70 characters, 4 of them were top of the line fully geared in PvP gear. Nobody really cared back then, nobody really cares now.

Just kick back and enjoy the game. I farmed a bit at first to get to adv lvl 60 because at this level I can do everything. Now I am spending a lot of time just doing what I want to do. One day I build my PoT, another day I craft, the next day I hit a Sanctus group, and after that I spend a day in guild meetings and just hanging out with people.

This game should be around as long as UO (it will considering the amount of money people have in it as a long term investment).

Just kick back and have fun.

 

Completely agree with you! I'm only Adventure Level 47, not a single GM skill, apparently terribad with gold management (things are so shiny...must buy.....), and I keep changing my mind on what I want to do, but the game is still fun to me. I got to (finally) place my house Monday morning, so I've been decorating that, and it's been....fun....except when you try to lay a rug, and realize that, yes, things can go on top of them, but you have to pick everything up first in order to get them there >.<# Anyways, I just enjoy the ability to do what I've been doing, which is changing up what I want to do and just roll with it. Started as a pure mage, then went 2h bludgeon + close-range/aoe mage, now I'm building a crit dual-daggers build...and loving it honestly. I see a lot of what people are complaining about, but honestly, I really couldn't care less. If they change it up, they change it up, learn to adjust and move on (pretty much what had to happen with melee combat). As @2112Starman pointed out, we have got plenty of time.