The Grind

you shut your filthy mouth! *slap* (i want that back on the character sheet (c) lol), that menu you open with v is just for pre-launch..all those pretty numbers...*sob*

 

I'm sorry, but I'm with Themo on this. I prefer to have this kind of info available.

 

Put tricorders in the add on store so we can make it explainable lore how an avatar can see the numbers in the air!

 

Perhaps we also need to explain these few things:

How an Avatar can build a house on their lot in a second.
How an Avatar can carry hundreds of weapons.
How an Avatar can skin a wolf and get multiple skins and (multiple heads).
How an Avatar can carry hundreds of thousands of gold and not be encumbered.
How an Avatar can eat 500 apple pies without bursting.
How an Avatar can swim in full plate armour.
How an Avatar can go without sleep for days on end (game time).

Seriously the list could go on for pages and it just becomes silly.

 

It's magic.

 

I love it!

 

there are a things that as a role player, need to be explainable. I agree. Even in a "magic" world. What is a "gustball" exactly. Why is it immune to damage. Why cannot we reproduce it as armor?

 

Frankly, they gave into the vocal mob long ago, regardless of how much time and nonsense it adds. We currently have people victory dancing with inanimate objects, these are problems indie roguelikes solved (or at least mitigated) years ago, but here SOTA is blundering through all of the mistakes as the mob demands a change than then demands a fix for that change, etc. "Able to respec"? Sure, that'll happen. "Closed loop economy" Sure, that'll work great with the focus grind they've implemented. You were sold a bill of goods, the actual product is being sorted out by the loudest voices as best I can figure.

 

I don't really understand exactly what's being said here. It seems to me that if I have any EXP in my pool then I should train just as fast (per skill use) as if I had a full bar of EXP. Are you saying that the act of having more unused EXP makes skill advancement faster, just because it's larger?

Well if I were playing a single player game where it didn't matter then I wouldn't think about it at all. But since I want to PVP and that's the determining factor of success, I'm not going to stop thinking about it.

Chris, why can't we change the way this works so that the VERY SMALL number of people that are capable of playing absurd hours don't think about it? Why are the vast majority of players gimped in PVP so that a handful of people can dominate them using zero player skill?

I think these are fair questions that deserve consideration. If we launch this game and there's a huge gap like this between being pvp competitive and not standing a chance, well then PVP isn't going to be a very interesting or populated part of the game, is it?

 

It's the soft little round thing you blow over and over to get your windpipes stronger so you can blow harder than any other avatar. Also, it cannot be crafted and only exists by the power of the merchants who materialize them for 100g.

Question not the merchants and their powers of creating amazing things for reasonable prices. Question what you can do with these amazing things. Free your mind Ravicus. Free your mind. There is no gustball. It's you who's getting blown and not the gustball. #RavicusIsTheOne

(please do not read any strange or weird things into these texts... they're literal explanations of what you're doing when playing the sport of gustball while roleplaying as a superpowerful coder that is selected by the oracle, a computer program, to compete with the architect, a computer program, to bring balance between AI and AI (Artificial Intelligence and Avatar Intelligence) so both can live happy lives... ergo: homeostasis.)

p.s. I said AI and AI and ergo.

 

Why do I feel all strange after reading this I think I need a shower now.

 

Baron Drocis Fondorlatos, why are you still harping on about how you want pvp to be, I see a lot of players liking the actual effort needed to become strong for pvp/pve. we all have commitments and sometimes this doesn't allow us to play games as much as others, that's life. or should we all wait for you to log into the game so we don't get any unfair advantage over you because you had to work or go shopping etc. (exaggerated)

 

"Like" is a rather strong term, currently leveling is a Skinner box. Kill the monster and XP pops out, do it enough and shiny stuff happens and music plays, its the same logic that casinos and F2P games use to keep folks pulling the lever for years. "Addictive" might be a better term, and not everyone is susceptible.

 

No, when people say they like something..they mean they like it. Not everybody likes it of coarse.

 

Little old ladies like spending days on end plunking quarters into slot machines and other folks love spending hours and hours clicking on cows. While both "like" their game of choice, it is fairer to say that they are more fond of the dopamine rush they get from winning or seeing the number go up than from the act of playing, that's been demonstrated since the 1940s. In MMO terms, number making biggering is fine for achievers, they'll grind forever as long as the number keeps going up, but for explorers like me and killers like BDF, the numbers are less important than finding new content and smashing player skulls in respectively. SOTA is catering heavily to some groups (socializers are getting lots of love as well) at the expense of others.

 

If you say so Dr Internet.

 

Game design 101, bro. It wouldn't kill you to pick up a book or two about a hobby you are willing to invest thousands of hours into. Hell, you could be reading them while your avatar slowly depopulates the world of small woodland creatures for the 4th or 5th time.

 

Busy writing the books, bro.

 

@Chris
If the reward for killing mobs was better I could do that. It's not very rewarding killing stuff to just find low cost weps and a few gold coins on them. It's a double grind, grind for levels/skills and grind for a few scraps of gold dropped from each mob. The same goes for gathering, it's incredibily boring to sit and wait on the bar to move to see if you fail or succeed only to feel you wasted your time for 1 or two scraps of mats. Hopefully, it's just because it's Pre-Alpha and loot will be adjusted for the better in the future. The way it is currently, I can't bring myself to level much since the change. It's extremely boring and not rewarding.

I'd love for it to be so fun that I can't wait to go out killing stuff, like it is for me in most every other mmo I've played. In Asheron's Call I knew I'd never get to max level, but I was fine with it because I could go out and kill mobs that dropped other useful items that I could sell and trade to others, such as dark shards, pyreal motes, diamond powder, sturdy iron keys that opened chests around the world, etc...not to mention items that dropped that I could save up and combine with other items to use to create weapons. Even though I could never reach max level, I had a reason to go out killing creatures and it was fun for me and I didn't even care about maxing my levels out. In Sota, so far it's just go out and grind with no reward for doing so.

 

They did. It was not a popular change. It is now back.

So for now at least you will just have to resist pressing the V key.