Things you DON'T want in Shroud of the Avatar or want improved

I'm all for blood fountains, screaming, amputations, or wounded animation states. The numbers are annoying and I think even the presence of a toggle would contribute to min/maxing because even without combat logs and combat parsers, there's gonna be someone out there who'll be recording every floaty number they see for each particular combat skill ability or item used over the course of whatever sample number of combat events in which they participate. I say make it tougher for them.

 

With my mental and math skills you don't have to worry about me min/maxing, friend.

But people will figure out how to exploit even without being able to see that, they will figure out how to do key-binds and macros and every other underhanded way to get an advantage, all that totally removing a feature like that will do is to hamper honest people that like but don't abuse it.

I like that it helps in a game that doesn't have "tab targeting" to tell if you are hitting or not. But some other visual affect could do that too.

 

I agree. In SotA I hope we all steer clear of using the term toon to describe our avatar. Avatar is a great term. If not avatar character works okay as well. Toon sounds so non-immersive doesn't it?

 

My friend, you know that I can't abide by that, if for no other reason than I just can't...

 

Well I understand that some people will call it what they like, but I'm going to pretend not to know what a toon is if somebody asks about my avatar. If they then tell me what toon means, I will say oh you mean my avatar... and so on.

 

This is one of the only posts that made any impact on me, since I am most definitely not an mmo player. I'm so glad there's a single player option. I agree that taking npc companions would be nice and help make it feel like a true Ultima game.

 

I agree with the single Character slot. I thought it worked really well on Siege Perilous, you were limited to one character and you could not sell anything to NPCs so you had to find other people who would buy your loot.(ya there where the people with multiple accounts but most didn't)
There wasn't any insta-travel(recall spells) but you could cast the Gate spell which took longer to cast than Recall so you couldnt just run away from a fight and recall away and there where the moon gates but you had to run to them to use them anyways. There was much more of a community feeling on Siege, I actually started out chopping wood for a guy who would give me pieces of armor or weapons or bandaids or what ever for the wood.

I utterly HATE cartoonish looking avatars like they have in WoW... HAAATTTEEE!! So I would like realistic looking Avatars.

I like the way UO's criminal murder system works so stick with that.

Keep Weapons and armor simple. One of the things that really killed ultima online for me was when they added element damage stats to weapons and armor. Made my War fork of Vanquishing pretty worthless :-\

And in siege there wasn't a Trammel so you weren't safe from PKers so people had to actually stick together and form communities and look out for each other.

I dont like when all the chat is in a chat box. I really liked UOs original Chat system where what you said just popped up over your head and if you missed something you could just open up your journal and look back at what was said.

 

Agree with no raids.

 

I think you're going to really like SotA then.

 

--I do not want NPC vendors to sell items identical to my high-end crafted items. this irritated me in old UO (circa 2000).

 

I don't want to see an over abundance of magical stuff, whether it be weapon or item. Just enough, I understand that people are going to be creating a lot I just don't want to see everyone geared up to the hilt with magical paraphenalia

 

I'd like villages, towns & cities to feel living and breathing rather than the lifeless husks they were in UO, further destroyed by improved features only to the expansion towns with a blind eye to all that came before. Aesthetics, location of that roving "BANK" vendor and the people who lived in the area were some of the only things that defined them overall. A few global quests helped to a small degree (e.g. Zog Cabal - Invasion of Trinsic; Inu the Crone) but these seemingly came years later and came and went as various employees moved on. The conversation system in SotA was a nice start and it would be interesting to see some random NPC schedules thrown in when time permits.

No mirror image moons please, fizzled enhanced clients, and updates that only revolve around adding new dyes.

Also, I certainly wouldn't wail if they had a "McDonalls" [Ultima II] or if "Short Round" [Ultima IV] showed up again. The little quirks were always an Ultima staple..... Looking forward to a U7 type "Star Citizen" cameo.

 

Don't want
1.Anything easy mode (like fast leveling to cap in under a week,or one click no thought crafting) Nothing worse than folks capped in a week standing in town crying about nothing to do. Yes Devs they used to say you were lazy if you made the leveling curve to high but they still say you are lazy in a week when they have nothing to do. At least if they are leveling they are doing something
2. Anything instanced
3.multiplayer play to be like solo play (Multiplayer play should not be solo it should be group,or large group only content, since you already have the solo option) I can play a solo RPG not an MMO if I wanted that.
4. One Character only either. It becomes a pay to win game if others are buying more accts and you only have the one. All this talk about the way the game is supposed to be played means zip when you know others will be exploiting period. Seriously why are folks not seeing the simple in your face facts? There is no argument that negates this fact.
5. To be sitting on my butt at end game waiting for content.
6. "!" or "?" marks over quest givers heads. I'm in a world I want to interact with. If I only talk to the ones with the icons why have others NPCs there? I like to talk to everyone and like hidden easter egg like quests.
7. Marks showing me where the quest destinations are. I'm an adult I can use a compass and landmarks. If the NPC says go west to booger town and meet lance by the town square I can find that just fine without my hand held.
8. A linear questline on rails that points me from quest hub to the next quest hub doing the same things over and over. Like town 1 kill rats and bring back tails,town 2 kill boars and bring back ears,etc...You know same quests different beast. Or quests that send you up the road a ways then you turn in, and they send you further up the road, then into the cave, then return back to cave to kill boss inside. Just give them all to me at once it really is redundant since I was just there!
9. Raids or dungeons instanced. If they have to be make them a specific number of people for all. Nothing worse than a game with 5 man dungeons then at end game its 10 or more. Keep it consistent so folks can manage their guilds accordingly. I prefer non instanced personally.
10. to feel like I'm playing a game where everybody gets a trophy. If I want to be like everyone else I will just go outside.
11. No risk who cares if I die game. I like death to sting because it makes you a better player. Not talking perma death or lose all your items just maybe a xp debt or corpse run. Why play a game that has no risk?
12. Empty areas. Nothing worse than a beautiful game with nothing in it. Fill it up with mobs and wildlife. Taverns should have gambling and drinking games. Vanguard had a nice Parlay card game that gave you diplomacy with differing factions was rather creative.
13. To many menial quests. I love a nice creative puzzle quest where you actually have to think. I also like long epic quests that give very nice rewards or spawn a named mob for you and your party to kill.

 

I don't want people to do anything I don't want to do myself.
I don't want other players to play in a manner I don't approve of.

 

I don't know much about the planned combat system at this stage, but right now, there is only one thing I really don't want in this game:

A D&D4e style combat system, with a quick-bar that contains silly moves and special attacks with "cooldown periods", turning the game into a tactical miniature skirmish game rather than an RPG (Blizzard I'm looking in your direction). I don't want to see things like "extra-strong attack", "push back attack", "double attack", "kata of uber pwnage", "stomp the ground and stun everyone around you", "whirlwind slash that decapitates everyone in a 12 yard radius" and "shout so loud that everyone within a mile gets knocked down (but not your own guys)"

I'm aware that I'm probably in a minority in this, but I actually prefer the old tried-and-tested "click on the enemy, then watch them fight" mechanic. I don't even mind flanking mechanics, or even options like "defensive fighting", or "trade speed/accuracy for power", but silly moves (that you can only do every 10 seconds for some reason) make no sense to me.

Please keep combat simple, like the Ultima games always have done.

 

Yes this. Some games (i'm looking at you Tera) have you kill 20 things at a time hence your character is loaded with AOEs galore...which generally are great spells, except when you are forced to fight a huge army every battle it's just annoying.

I prefer 1 on 1 or 1 on 2 combat at most. I like simple combat as well, but something different, like what I've been hearing about their plans for combat.

 

Did anyone mention meaningless Achievements like those present in recent games? I think it would be better if achievements were tied in with a player's reputation instead of some log consisting of icons with descriptions of how many enemies you killed or resources harvested during a siege, etc.

 

I don't want anything that attracts the interest of new players, or anything that maintains the interest of current players.

 

See you trolling... and hatin....... cause you cant type a rebuttal that's remotely worthy........ lulz

Just when you think the community seems adult and mature and friendly something moves from under the bridge.