State of the Game?

I disagree. Shroud is not old school. If it was old school, it would closer resemble it's namesake's former works. As it stands today, Shroud is a cross between an jr high dance party and....and....actually, I think that's it. Awkward, strange costumes, socialization, and stumbling. I definitely would not call it an old school game. Except I played old school games in jr high. Hmmm....I'm starting to see the connection.

 

Old school, that's why you don't have a quest log ... oh wait.
Old school, that's why NPCs with quests aren't highlighted ... oh wait.
Old school, that's why quests never seem to have any weight, combat against even trivial monsters take minutes to complete and grinding, grinding, grinding all the day grinding.

 

Quest are clearly now the primary focus of the dev's moving forward. Quests are "content" and "content" goes in at the last 80% when things are nearing complete (or of course it would be impossible to put quests in, when quest zones haven't even been uncloned yet). This game is still being built and "quests" are something that go in last during game development. the only reason you have had access to some quest lines up to now is that every one is allowed to play the game in development so what you have seen is a rag tag build with simple early content being heavily worked on. That is really not that hard to understand.

 

Thanks for the diversion but no thanks. I'll continue to point at the painted pig and refuse to call it a goat

The reason I backed the game, btw, *was* old-school nostalgia. This isn't "old-school" or "complicated". It's just broken. There is a pretty significant difference.

Depressing but true.

 

How is what rustypup said, "a rant"? He wrote three lines. The first is humourous. The second states his personal situation. The third is his summary. It's straightforward and concise. Hardly "a rant".

I find it particularly worthwhile to point this out to someone who is writing about people "generalizing". I put it to you that classifying a three line comment as "a rant" is generalizing, and more, in itself.

 

It pretty much goes without saying that some people classify a rant as anything that does not speak positively about Shroud. Ooops - that was a generalization.

 

People revere the chains that bind them. It is almost impossible to not be bias if you have monetary value in the game. People want to protect the investment, its understandable, even if it is wrong.

 

Oh yes it is, the Love story was considered finished and they had moved onto the other storylines, yet free trial feedback means they are now rewriting content once considered done. They will also be rewriting content once they get phasing tech for towns into the game (which still has not been given a commitment for ep1), the content writers cannot even get started until that phasing tech is in the game. So as far as quests go, they are nowhere near 80% complete.

 

Doth protest to much.

 

I always say that I would have jumped ship a long time ago if I hadn't pledged so much...
But I would for sure be missing a lot of fun I am having with this game lately... and it will just get better as the sandbox completes and gets more features.

 

Actually the only reason that new phasing tech and new starting quests is even being worked on is because free trialers complained off this forum. None of that was even scheduled work prior to that, nor has it shown up on a release schedule. Since RG and Starr both have said they want to hear people's complaints, (as long as they don't violate the rules of the forum and become slanderous or foul) they do want their voices to be heard, it is why they are doing early access with open development. Complaining after story or ep1 release is too late, because that leaves it for the next batch of free trials to complain about.

 

Surmise what you like. You replied to a three-line post, which wasn't a rant, and called it a rant. When taken to task on this you said your comments included other things he'd said... that you weren't actually replying to.

I'm just pointing out how hard a conversation like that is to follow... when you're calling a post something that it's not, because you're upset about posts that were made elsewhere, and you're actually talking about them.

 

Ill bite, and ignore the other 50 posts.

I clocked in 800 hours, in the first couple months. And then fadded away to more casual play as time went on. Im currently sitting at over 1000 hours on SOTA.

I have to ask, can you elaborate on how/why you think SOTA even falls under old school? What part of the gameplay do you find *complex*, and do you classify as *not hand holding* instead of badly implemented.

SOTA has for the most part, 5 skull areas. No level system, though the colors of the mobs are based on a hidden one.

Sota has a wide variety of skills, that are quiet easy to find combos, that work well with each other, but also find skills that are unbalanced.

Leveling, and gathering exp, becoming a master crafter.. is complicated? In what aspect?
Ive got a guildy who has spent 3 months straight, mining in the same zone, and is now GM in every single line of crafting, masterworking, and 50% of the specialties. Was this complicated?

Im genuinely curious where you divide Complex and difficult, over simply tedious and time involved ?

So i would love to have the discussion of where you make this distinction on SOTA that even makes it different then standard MMO's or *WoW generation* ?

The deck system? I like it in theory, i do. In reality? it translates to spamming skills without looking. I watch the tournies, i participate in PVP, i grind regularily, ive run all the dungeons, killed all the bosses.. Lets not mistake *complex and strategic* with the need for high skills / time.

PVP still comes down to mostly skills VS first strike. While the PVP has some * skill based factors * .. a lot of this is obsolete due to skill level vs skill level. I've got 1000 hours in, im Adv level 90+ ... and yet i can be 1 shot by someone. Explain the strategic complexity of that PVP.
I can 1 shot new players.

In a perfectly fair match, same level, yea there is some randomness, skill involved.. but lets not pretend skill level isnt a massive, massive part of it.

Killing mobs? I cant think of many times outside my first few hours in the game where i had to *strategically plan * my fights with monsters?

This will turn into a *rant* so ill summarize..
Can you explain What you think makes SOTA * complex and old school, compared... to any of these other MMOs? Lack of tutorial? Im actually curious.

 

State of the Game:
- it is not finished
- many other awesome features will not make it into EP1 (understandable)
- beta may be in 2017, release 2017/2018

+ i totally agree with @MrBlight's post above. The game is not complex. EVE Online for example is an complex game, but not SotA.
Once you get past the tutorial areas, SotA becomes tedious and grindy very soonish.

Dunno about the oldschool part, SotA turned too much into an ActionRPG for me (due to the deck/combat system and no more tab-targeting system), oldschool means more slowpaced combat for me.
Basically realtime turnbased combat like it was in Everquest I, Ultima Online or Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2, that's what i would call oldschool.

But all theese current MMOs with Action, action and again action are, for me atleast, not complex at all and very very easy and mostly require zero tactics.
The only tactic required in such MMOs usualy is: AOE dps dmg everything down. And SotA currently is no different there.
And bosses are just meh, tank&spank, easy. Not complex at all.

ESO & Black Desert Online are also good examples i call es easy games and not complex at all.
It's just action action action, spam your AOE sh.. and dps everything down.
So damn boring and not complex, i played both games for quite a while, meh... easy.
The only complex thing in BDO was to get used to the interface/mechanics, but that's it, the overall game is just grindy and super easy.
Both games require almost no tactics in PVE and Bossfights, easy & boring. It was a cakewalk to get through the endgame in both games...
SotA is no different... currently...

I stopped hunting for endgame in SotA simply because it's just way too easy and boring.
+ being able to endlessy farm all bosses 24/7 doesn't really help either.
I hope someday this will change.


And the decksystem in SotA btw., or let's just call it Deck-Minigame is just something Port needs to get rid of someday.
Because currently the Deck-Minigame is an eye-catcher, but in an very very bad way.

 

Havent played in a while since they change targeting. Do i still have to click G to shoot my bow at a target and likely not even be able to until i am rubbing against it?

 

Actually note true, what they said was in July another major milestone would be reached, the completion of all three quest lines. And the July date is not written in stone but a guesstimate.

Also DS stated he hoped to have the Pledge rewards mailed by end of year. Again not a hard date. All in the telethon and DS missed answer post.

 

For me the term "complex" is more like: Why do we need so many steps and why does it take so long to achieve things?
For example. In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild we put a few incredients into a bowl and get a meal. This works so fluidly and easily. During my travels I simply click on ressources or hunt an animal, do some fishing and it doesn't take long. It just works "in passing". And then I simply put everything in a bowl above a fire and get my meal.
In SotA the gathering takes so long, it can't be done "in passing". Then we need to create some items first which we then need to create the item we really want. And this is not done "in the world", we have to open some windows to do this. It is like suddenly switching to Windows 10, working in the OS and then go back into the gameworld. And it takes soooo long... Why? Why can`t it be more natural, fluid, fast? Other games show how interesting and fun this can be nowadays. But in SotA we have this interface from 1990s and such a slow and complex process... Even in Ultima 7 it was more fun baking bread. Just fetch water from a well, get some flour, mix it to get dough and put it in the oven. But in SotA somehow everything has to be a chore. Be it crafting, gathering, leveling or questing. It feels more like work being done in some 1990s interface instead of having fun in a modern game...

 

Well if everything is obtained fast, it's worthless. That works in a SP game maybe, but not in a MP environment.

As a compromise they need to change the process how crafting works.
You should be able to go somewhere else, while your smelting table melts the ore itself for example.

SWG had systems like that, where resource gathering worked over time - while the player went somewhere else and did more entertaining stuff.

In SotA you could use buy orders to obtain resources... but without a global system for people to see were they can find good offerings this is not used as frequent as it should be.

Additionally the smelting or other processing should be done automated and just needs an amount of time and coal you put into the smelting station.

During that time you could go afk, or do sth else.
(automatic tanning over time, automated spinning wheels etc for players to build etc. etc...)

As for the crafting of Armor or Weapons itself I think it is ok as it is. It is the processing of materials that makes it feel dull and that part should be automated and just take time not "active playtime".

 

Where is immurrshon?? If you Automate the crafting, why have crafting tables at all?

 

But what about the SP part of SotA?

Yes, an automation process would be good - similar to how it works in Conan Exiles.

But it's not just crafting. As I said, everything is so tedious and takes so long and feels more like work than play.