The game feels incomplete.

For a PvP standpoint, it would be waaay easier to balance.
With the nuclear warfare we got now, real competitive PvP would lead to 2-3 meta builds being used. This means the players would reduce the possibilities to a few, because the 99.99% rest is just not as good. So the "freedom" isn't really there.
So yeah, rock, paper, scissors would make it better for sure.

But it seems PvP isn't the real cup of tea to a sizeable portion of the player base, so making changes to make PvP more viable can end up doing more harm than good to the game as a whole.

Now on a slightly different matter: full loot can work, but not with the current RNG crafting system. I spent literally months to get my perfect 5MW xbow (hope it doesn't vanish with the outage lol) and if I'm in danger of losing it, I'll probably never use it. Gear should be, as you stated, disposable stuff. So no RNG, just pick what you want and dump the materials, so I can lose that xbow and make another quick enough.

 

There are some genuinely good ideas in place, we have some level/skill/gear capped zones around. And I honestly feel that classless skill progression would allow for balanced pvp, we just have to address the powercreep, the OP skills and synergies, the useless skills, and argue from that standpoint. That's the level playing field portion of the conversation. That's where we can get productive.

 

PvP never stimulates the PvE game, it just skims off the top of it, maybe once upon a time it was different, but those players that wanted engaging PvP have long since left the MMORPG space. What sane PvP player that wants a fair fight would play a game where you can buy power?

 

You and I are just not going to agree. I've played MUDS, gMUDS, and tons of mmos, and in literally all of them, pvp stimulates the pve crafting economy, and atop that, in the face of decades of overwhelming evidence within seconds of google search reach, I don't see how anyone would argue. You might say "well, present your evidence," and I'd respond "it's not my evidence, it's the evidence of every company and developer who has ever produced an mmo with a pve/pvp element, and a crafting element running alongside... you should just go play some games, and flag for pvp, and do some googling." So I'm gonna dip out of this thread now and just let it be. You take care, and have a good day.

EDIT: Wait... you can buy power in SotA? How? Where? What item or object can I buy that gives me power?

 

Well, if you have that much experience in MMOs and their predecessors, and then choose SOTA as your game of choice, that raises a whole host of questions. I mean, I get it for people that were huge UO players or Ultima fans, and maybe those that took LB at his word and went all in on the SOTA crowd funding, but certainly not folks that have actually played good MMOs.

Unless something has changed in the last year or so, you can buy the best items in the game from player vendors for gold, you can buy gold for COTOs, and you can buy COTOs for cash. That seems pretty straightforward to me. There are boosts for sale too. I mean it isn't quite Korean MMO level, but it is far above the "cosmetics only" level that is the de facto standard for non-power selling MMOs.

 

Did I, or anyone, tell you that SotA is my game of choice?

SotA is 1 of the many video games I play, because I'm a gamer. I play video game(s)... not video game. But you go on.

So the best goods are crafted by players, and you can buy those goods from players with in game currency!?!? This is outrageous!

Wait... you can do that in literally every video game in the history of the hobby.

Have you played a video game before?

 

Ah, troll, understood.

 

Ah... removed completely from reality. Understand.

 

As an offline player who got in this game for a single player experience (long time ago), it especially feels incomplete as there are parts on the map where you don't really need to be.
I prefer not to fight unless necessary, so grinding for power is something I do not do. So I dislike scenes where I have to kill everybody without a good reason (eg Mariah's Overlook)

The first scene is very clear as a tutorial style scene. It shows everything you need to know.
Then you go to soltown, there are a couple of quests to do. Good scene. One quest sends you to another scene in search of an iron sword, also nice. (And I'm missing more of these quests). Arabella tells you to go to Highvale.
When you go to Ardoris, you pass a couple of scenes that you don't really care about because nobody ever sends you there, so you skip.
In Ardoris I found a couple of quests of which one sends you to Solaris. One quest sends you to tower of the shuttered eye where (even with Fiona in the party) get almost insta killed.
So I decided to follow through on the lead from Arabella and while looking for Highvale, I stumbled on the blood river outskirts.
That scene was very engaging, with lots of stuff to do. Then you go to Aerie, where a couple of quests exist of which 2 send you to Longfall woods. (Why only there, who knows) I didn't really find quests to either Longfall wetlands.
So up to Vertas, Jaanaford (where you don't know what you're looking for), Kiln, Exceter, .... Truth quest done (Could I have saved the people in the cages?) But I used a walkthrough because the quest was not engaging enough anymore. The Exceter mines done running because the foes could insta kill me.
Truth done, this time I managed to find the Highvale and Highvale outskirts. This again a very good scene, very engaging. Resolute with a couple of quests (but i didn't talk to everybody any more honestly)
One quest sends you to Middle Downs I think to find an orator which I never found due to a missing map (preferably with fog of war, so you know where you have been)
You have to get to Harvest which was difficult to find. In between I stopped at Crooked Shank as I remembered this scene to be interesting from last play through. The quest actually only triggers when going there, if I hadn't stopped.... a nice scene would have been lost on me.
So Harvest, Estgard and then to the kobold camp. The fight proves too difficult (because for this quest there is no difficulty indicator) So I try too save during a fight and upon reloading have lost all progress....

That's where I stopped.

In the mean time I've started playing Escape from Avernum. Each city basically triggers quests to all points that you are capable of doing. It points you to the next city. All points on the map serve a purpose.
And that's something I'm missing in SOTA.

Edit: I hope this sounds a bit coherent. I'm going from memory so I might have put a quest in the wrong scene.
Also Bloodriver Outskirt and Highvale outskirts are very nice scenes, gripping story. Soltown less so, but that is where you start. And when you go beyond to next scenes it becomes less engaging.

 

I had a very similar experience when playing the main quest. A good portion of the scenes is just "there". Nothing more than a placeholder for resources and mobs.

 

And it's a pity that nobody actually picks up these comments because nobody actually cares about the single player experience.

 

The single player experience is great - if you are the type of player who likes an open world like in Ultima or Daggerfall and not a railroaded system like in many other games.

Ultima allowed you to go almost anywhere right from the start - and it was your decision if you were fit to go there or it would be wiser to do something else first.
You could even ignore the whole quest and work for a few days baking bread or playing merchant buying thread or wool.

If you do not get enough quests that send you to other places then the main fault is yours, as in your other post you wrote that you stopped to talk to everyone. Talk. To everyone. There are NPC´s that noone sends you to and that have quests to do that are sometimes great and sometimes silly (talk to Dupre in Brittany Fields about buying a duck).

The scenes are large - and if you follow only the trod down pathways you will miss out too. Not only beautiful scenery but NPC´s with quests and/or emotes.

 

... and haven't played any single player open world games since those.

 

The single player game is actually a VERY good platform to test and try out things on. I, and many others, use it all the time.

 

In Ultima every person had something more to say then "I'm a generic character that has nothing to say" or " You are not an online player, so I have nothing for you".
So yes, I stop after a few if half of the characters say that.

Second Ultima 7 had way less characters in it, was way smaller landmass wise, but felt way more vast.

 

Which ones for example?

 

Morrowind comes to mind immediately, not needing to leave the Elder Scrolls franchise. If you like node based adventuring, there is Pathfinder: Kingmaker. If you accept post-apocalyptic the Fallout series. On a smaller scale, Shadow of Mordor shows how you can take a fresh spin on open world system. Basically, game design has advanced since Daggerfall and Ultima 7, not always for the better, but few of the positive improvements, and sadly some of the negative, have made their way into SotA.

 

I agree. I wish there were a way to save my online game to be loaded offline so that I could quickly try out changes to my build in order to see where best to put my experience.

 

You can do this sort of thing on QA. Generally, it get's sync from live once a month.

 

Sure, if you have the required experience and you take the time to train the skill and then you discover that's not the best place to put your experience, untrain it and train another skill. It's just a lot of wasted time.