Sota; A retrospection. So long and Thanks for All the Fish!

All right everyone this is going to be a doozy, so sit down and buckle up.

First things first, I want to explain who I am and where I stand with this game. My name is Xyntharoth Dreadwhisper. Currently level 116 unbuffed Fire/Sun specialized mage with over 1000 hours invested into the game. (600+ of which is in adventuring) I had also spent $1000+ over the course of my playtime; either through Sota official store and 3rd party vendors. I want to state that at that time I have played many different MMO's. World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, Maplestory (1 and 2), Final Fantasy 14, as well as Runescape during it's peak in 2007 which ultimately turned into Runescape 3.

I first heard of this game from a friend back in 2016. My friend, whom I've watched played Ultima Online suggested I buy into this new game and "spiritual successor" to UO. I tried the game in it's early stages through my friend but eventually started my own account later on. My official start date of the game was July 27th, 2016. I understood going into this venture would not be like most other MMORPGs. I had learned that there was no actual cap point on gaining levels in skills. This intrigued me. As someone who wholeheartedly enjoyed the competitive nature and "time is money" idea of MMO's, I invested $45 dollars to gain early access.

With my game downloaded and patched, I logged in to a world similar yet different from the other games I've played. I must note the game at this time was definitely a "fixer upper" in a sense, but I persevered. There was something very enjoyable and different about this game that caught my attention immediately. Perhaps it was the nostalgic feeling of gaming with your friends. Maybe the clearing dungeons, crafting of gear, and challenging yourself drew me in. Regardless, I was hooked.

Off and on over the year I would join the game, try out the new content for a couple weeks, and ultimately have to take a break. I originally started off in the Guild "House of Serenite" before moving unto "Bone Thrones and Harmony" and then ultimately I found my home in "House of Mangar". I knew there was multiple Player wipes over those times so I didn't feel inclined to invest a lot of time in the game past a certain point. But, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. A final player wipe to end all wipes. This wipe was set for July 28th, 2016.

Once the wipe hit I was released into the world. I already knew the basics and was set on leveling my character. I spent close to over 100 hours to get to Adventure level 100. This was mostly due to the low level start-up and not gaining as much experience per hour as now. I tested many skills, tried many things, and reported many bugs... but i persevered. I ground up enough experience for our little band of fighters to take on Deep Ravenswood, leading into the Rise, and then eventually the Dreaded Upper Tears. I will leave the discussion of Upper Tears for another time.

Months passed and my character grew, taking breaks when I got burned out. (Upper tears kinda ruined the game at that time for me albeit the best xp at the time) I should also like to note: I primarily was an adventuring player.I did enjoy gathering for a good while and decorating when i could afford it, but primarily adventuring. I loved the challenge and the idea that more was awaiting me. This idea is commonplace when looking at MMORPGs. The idea that there is going to be consistent high end content for the die-hard player base going forward.

The challenge that drove my gameplay and aspirations to climb higher lead up until level 105 or so... Then it all started to waver. Most mobs that were once a challenge, that seemed hard even a week ago, were a breeze. I broke through.. I was there and could see the clouds; I hit the End-Game.But the problem was there wasn't/isn't an End-Game. There was just more of the same. Control Points, Upper Tears, Rise, and repeat. This couldn't be the End-Game I strove for, right?

There were plenty of high level mobs in the game, sure.. but none worth as much experience and rewards as the ones listed above. As the game currently sits, most bosses can be solo'd. Dragons, Lich boss, and demons are all very easily killed. However, as of now, there no reason to kill the mobs. (Rare loot stacking up/price dropping)

As it current stands I've solo'd every boss in-game except one; The Spider Boss. This Spider boss was the only "really" hard boss implemented into the game but the fight was long, obnoxious, and cheesy. Kite the spider adds and burn the boss. This boss encounter negated a quarter of the usable abilities in the game. No cleave, no aoe, No aggro. I took the boss and its quirks as a sign of good faith and for more things to come. I unfortunately was wrong.

I should also note that the average player can't go in and kill the spider boss without serious help from the more experienced players. Even our guild, a very high level guild, doesn't even touch it. Why you ask? The boss is not worth our time. It took a long time for even the higher level characters to down this boss and our guild gained more my bunkering down and pounding out more Control Points. So, began this cycle of attenuating and waiting.. attenuating and waiting; Waiting for the content we so selfishly wanted. Some kind of content added to the game to fulfill our drive and aspiration.

Everyone is looking their own calling within this game. For me, it was my dream to defeat the newest high level content, content that would push our techniques and at the same time also drive our experience. For my guild, they strive for PVP. They want that fulfilling notion that the hundreds of hours and effort put into gaining experience, spending months crafting gear and optimizing their character to be shown when they slay their enemies. An admirable thought if i say so myself.

So, for months I grind experience the same 2-3 ways occasionally throwing in a boss or lesser dungeon out of boredom. I sat there between attenuations hopeful for the Portalarium Devs to hear our cries and produce the content we so desperately need. When I hear of something new and exciting that could be a benchmark or even cornerstone of Shroud of the Avatar; Player Made Dungeons. A way for the player base to create the content that we we're lacking! A refreshing new idea that would let high end players strive to create the biggest and baddest content in the game. This paired alongside the Role playing and decorating aspects of these dungeons would create a well rounded and thought out addition to the game. Little did I know the ensuing turmoil heading our way.

With pickaxes in hand and gold in our pocket. My guild and I farmed resources and collected the necessary tools required to build our very own dungeons. Spending millions of gold/real world money and over a combined 100 hours farming for essence. (I personally farmed 3000 kobold essence for the guild dungeons and well over 5000 for my own) We created a dungeon worthy of farming experience and it was on par with the better XP in the game! Our group of 4 or would attenuate, in roughly 12-16 minutes. Finally some brand new, adaptive, refreshing new content that made me proud to play the game!

Little did our guild know a very select group of players; incredibly high level players could do these Kobold Dungeon rooms solo. We heard rumors of some people attenuating in less than 10 minutes. Shocking. I myself was a streamer of Shroud of the Avatar at that time and tried to solo our guilds dungeon to see if this was close to possible. I spent hours testing, trying new methods, and dying. A lot. But ultimately I found a route that worked. I timed it live on stream and could only...ONLY get a time of around 15 minutes. I streamed these dungeons multiple days for the public to watch. Answering questions, giving tips, and helping the community learn about the new content. Trusting >10 minute attenuations were a fluke, I once again, persevered.

I enjoyed killing mobs in player owned dungeons so much I purchased my very only Tax free lot, dungeon and invested a considerable amount into the game to create a dungeon for every player to use for experience. ($200-$300) I hunted for Rotunda blueprints and paid handsomely. I personally farmed the essence in the dungeons on live stream to strive to make the dungeon viable for others. (about 5000 essence!) I was so proud to create something for others by myself!

Unfortunatel on this past release, the very rooms I've spent so much time and effort into were nerfed, mostly due to less than 4 people in the game. Now a lvl 125 buffed fire mage, fully geared and buffed, can only attenuate in that same dungeon in over 20 minutes. All that time and money invested into these rooms were wasted. The kobolds don't even drop essence anymore so now you're getting less loot than solo'ing the rise. They would make a great "story" for a quest in-dungeon or decorating perhaps... but then again I prefer adventuring.

After all this I am finally announcing my intentions to leave the game that I love so dear. I stood by through so many downfalls and issues. Weathered the storm through the droughts of content. I honestly can't stand that it's come to this. There are plenty of other issues that I could bring up that helped lead to this
decision, but what I've mention has pushed me over the edge. I love this game. I've support and will support this game. Heck, I even streamed this game. I looked forward to updates and appreciated the time and effort the Devs poured into this game.

But the game currently sits, the future looks bleak for high end content. The PVP system looks promising as a downtime between the Control Point attenuations. I would like to acknowledge that the housing and decorating system is done fantastically well. I just wish I personally enjoyed those things within my MMO experience. My only issues seem to be with skill balancing, some aspects of PVP, but primarily the Adventuring system as it stands today.

As I sit here I do feel nostalgic about the game. I have so many fond memories. Meeting new friends, having List Rostov crash one of my first Sota streams, getting my first GM, I'll cherish it all. As the game progresses I hope this becomes a reminder. Who knows, maybe someday i'll return to the game I wanted. A game we all wanted. A game that has it all.


And with that I say.

So Long and Thanks for all the Fish!


Xyntharoth Dreadwhisper
116 Fire/Sun Mage
Scamerongg Sota Streamer
1000+ hours playing
1000+ monies spent

TLDR; 116 Adv Lvl Fire/Sun mage unhappy with current state of adventuring. Currently leaving the game. Sharing story and why.




I would like to thank all my brother in arms at House of Mangar for the wonderful times and experiencing these burdens together. I hope the PVP system is everything we need it to be!

I'd also like to thank all the Devs from Portalarium for doing their best to make this game and trying they're best to meet our demands. @DarkStarr @Chris @Sannio @Lord British

 

I would have love to have read you whole post it looks like you did an amazing job of telling your story. I did see this bit that I quoted and will respond since I have knowledge of this.

It was possible to attenuate in about as fast as your could in UT. The issue was t2 kobalds were easy slaughter and have full rewards. T4 and t5 rooms took about 45 mins with lots of death and wrecked gear. Their solution was to nerf all the kobalds there are people who cannot attenuate now on the hard tiers however if they goto UT they can still attenuate in 17 mins.

So in summery T2 kobalds ruined kobald dungeons as a whole

It is my option that the control point path has doomed this game for the majority of the players. People know this is the cheesy way to add content. Upper tears instead of cool progressive dungeons with real risk vrs rewards is one of their biggest failings.

Most people don’t go to upper tears because they love the experience, they go because it’s easy, the path of least resistance and little focus.

Anyways awesome post and thanks for your time, come back in esp 2 maybe?

Portal might understand risk vrs reward better then.

 

The problem was that most players didn't exploit tier 2 Kobolds now all other rooms are unusable. It's a shame that the sins of a few ruined an entire archetype of a game.

 

I think exploit is a strong word, people used what was given to them and their was only 1 room. If anything the xp for tier 2 was rolled out to0 high(Chris even said as much, I sent him a pm telling him as muc). The fix should be for tier 2 but instead they all got nerfed and I’m not sure if you tried a t3-t4 or t5 it’s murder. Even with all that said UT is just as fast so no one gained anything orver what anyone else coulda gained in UT.

 

Wow, I am starting to see why you did such a long post...I can't speak to doing the rooms in a few minutes, I am swords and it would take me forever to clear the Tear 1 i have in my dungeon. When i engage the two at the entrance I seem to pull half the room... I retreat back and do those and then pick up more...takes time for me to clear that same room...That being said I hope they fix the issue so everyone can enjoy the game and have fun...

I do recall doing the Hilt back in the day. I would just learn to clear it and some invisible dev would step in and increase the difficulty...I always giggle when I recall the time the added the slim to the silver room...i would bust in and they would be killing the ghost guardians...was fun to watch as i mined the silver...

I am eager to see how they address this issue going forward. Sorry to hear you are leaving the game, come back if you want, anytime...Take care...

 

My dungeon was all tier 3 Kobold rooms! My guilds Kobolds are tier 4! It's completely unrelated to any abuse that was done

 

Cool but I’m missing ur point.

 

Literally a TLDR at the bottom.

 

From my experience talking to other players, there's more than one reason... for example, something that Upper Tears has offered is also reason for players of different levels to group together. A high level player might be okay going into the Rise, but then it would be too much trouble for a low level player, and then there isn't necessarily an incentive to go to a low-tier zone.

Then there's the people who just see XP as a goal and want to rack up XP as easy as possible. And yea the burnout is you get is hard to avoid if you orient the game around rewards, and then make it a convenient, narrow path to get the rewards. That's what grinding is. Talking and chatting with your group (or in universal) makes the time go by easier, but its not that fun and eventually you get burned out. Its why I would have preferred the game more oriented around role-playing than grinding & socializing as I think was in the original design goals before the devs started steering the ship in the other direction.

@Dreadwhisper

I don't know how much we agree on every issue but I sympathize where you're coming and appreciate your post.

 

IMHO, if you have to use attenuation to limit the amount of XP gained in an encounter, that encounter is broken. Period. End of Line.

 

Why would attenuation matter when you're still limited experience for the hour? Whether its 50 minutes or 5 minutes. You still have the hour. 1 million per hour.

 

I think he is saying design the encounter to where it rewards xp based on the encounter and not impose artificial caps like attenuation.

 

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever that you should get LESS from mobs because they are in a player made dungeon, considering that to make dungeon rooms that spawn encounters, you need to spend 500 cotoes and farm essences like crazy for the totems. The whole change makes absolutely no sense at all.

 

Imagine a world where players created dungeons and players rated them and different types of groups would be showing up in the LFG channel....... that isnt just UT or CP....... OMFG THE HORROR!!!!

 

Lol not sure exactly what you're getting at...

But if you want to go deeper into that, I don't think dungeons are ever quite going to work that way. I don't how the devs believe this will work. But IMO people aren't going to go town-to-town to look at dungeon ratings, then check them out, then once they find a dungeon they like, invite friends to do the run. And if that were ever to happen, it would still be a few dungeons worth doing, and players would get bored of the dungeons very quickly.

IMO, player-made dungeon runs are likely either going to be driven by player events, where some POT/guild invites everyone to come and do a dungeon run, or by quests started in POTs where players go in to finish a quest or get a reward.

I think people should look back at why Ultima and UO were fun though and it wasn't because of endless types of content, but the games worked differently.

 

You're right redfish. But Sota is a different game set in a different time. The devs have caught the interest of the old-school player base and will have their support but have yet to gain the thousands of younger gamers. It's a very competitive market. Players have so many options not just within the gaming marketplace but within the games themselves. That being said, I am one of the younger crowd who has tested many different MMO's so I might be biased on making broader changes.

 

Also if anyone just does one thing mostly in this game they will get burnout faster imo but it is what it is.

We are still missing things that will make things matter like faction like systems, a raid system and more. You can't have a dungeon building system that matters without a rating system. We would say is that all there is? Building them can be a challenge and then what, just like fishing, just like anything in the game.

What reason is there beyond the grind, the challenge, the expense etc? Why should we care after that has been done? We just have to get those reasons to play and continue to play in and I'm sure we will but it will be after the system is implemented and we tell them about. I mean really tell them to.

Anyway best wishes to you @Dreadwhisper . It is kind of a bad time to leave with so much going on but if you must you just must. I find it difficult to be away a moment in case I see a place was missed to give feedback. What if it didn't happen because no one told them it needed to happen. lol well that's me a bit obsessive about this game. Hopefully one day you'll find your way back. *cheers*

 

Thanks for trying to make enjoyable content.

 

I think it ultimately comes down to the way end-game content is included into the game. As the game currently sits there are about 4 very good zones for good experience and gold in the game. Time after time, guild after guild, I've seen the same old thing... Control Point and then waiting. Upper Tears and then waiting. Rise and then waiting.. So on and so forth. That is what the game is looking like on the adventuring side for months now with no high end content in sight. By nerfing the entirety of Kobold encounters abroad instead of a very specific portion of it.. you basically doomed any adventuring in dungeons. Player made dungeons could have been very competitive with the aforementioned zones and could have brought new life to the dying adventurers.

The devs are revamping lesser zones but if they buffed one of these zones high enough with no real incentive to enter them... then nothing happened. Now it went from a unused lesser zone into a unused higher zone. New zones going forward would have to be close if not in-line with these bigger zones to bring the players in. Why visit a new zone after the first week when you gain more in the old ones. I mean, it's possible that the devs that do play (@Chris) aren't up to that level and don't see the problem. A lot of players aren't... but they will be.