Time And Effort

The key to success in any game like sota, which involves a lot of grinding, Requires time and Effort, If you arent willing to put forth the time and Effort,then why do you spend your time Clammering to the forum to complain that people are Advancing much faster than you therefore they are cheating and need to be nerfed/Banned?

Instead of Complaining, Actually Put some effort in and youll Quickly realise that i and all the other '' high level Cheaters/Exploiters'' are no better than you and that the only advantage we have is The amount of time we can play the game.

You All know who you are

 

this is taken from an article reporting during the kickstarter. This states that Richard did not want a game that encouraged grinding.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2416415,00.asp

"In general, describes the game's Kickstarter page, Garriott is making a role-playing title that, "will focus more on player choices and discovery than on level grinding." Which is to say, you can just hang out in the woods and live a solitary life if you so desire — everything that looks usable in the world should be interactive, suggests the game's description, which will allow you to pursue your simple single-player life with reckless abandon. You can also pull out the ol' family sword and go fight evil for glory and profit if you're a bit more into the action bits of games like these. "
This is one of the reasons I want single player online. Because I can pursue my game with "reckless abandon". But not really, single player online is a red headed stepchild.

 

Oh. See.. ive dumped 2000 hours into sota.
Itd be nice if my buddies could join game and actually pvp realisticly in a group with me, without getting 1 shot, sometime before 1500 hours of mob grinding.

Pve content? Sure ill grind away. Time vs reward. End goals. Etc etc.

Group content? How long do u think till they would be useful in a group where we could realisticlly push new content if i ztopped leveling TODAY and waited for them to catchup?

Its late so i appoligize if this isnt a well thoight out post.. but thats my immediate thought. Its still a game and the goal is entertainment. For me socializing and group play, and pvp is a large part. For me to get a buddy to get up to my level to play competitivly with me, is easily 1000 hours.

The only counter here is * yes, i could probly power level him a bit and bypass some of this *.. but even then it would probly take me .. what ? 500 hours of him watching me kill things ?
Lol.. and my adv level isnt that high. 3 months.. 5 months.. from now, imagine trying to bring in friends.
= solo players looken for the entertaibment value of playing WITH people, will feel like they r fighting an uphill battle to * catchup *.

So its a bigger argument and issue then * dont worry about others focuse on you !* ...
This is the reason guilds that run low level events and powrr leveling are so popular. But imo a game relying on that... isnt a good thing.

Want to be a crafter? Millions of exp and jhundreds of hours to * compete * in the market. That adds a pretty crushing feelen on new players who realize their initial goal of matching or being competitive.. means an obligatiom to 100s of hours.. then they ask themselvs.. is this game worth it over other games? Is thr entertainment value worth the hours needed to be dedicated?
I dont feel the answer for many people is yes. And i feel with the gaps widening.. that answer will continue being no more often.

So while i may shift my opinion of hard caps with the idea of a limited skill spec.. and maybe some locked level pvp zones or guild wars.. it currently IS an issue thst brings down player base IMO.

 

Diminishing returns for spended/invested time for 2/3 hrs plus.

1st that arent complains, thats Ideas to close the power gap between casual and hardcore gamers to the competetive content, economy and pvp, to have more players competing, more variance, more challenge.

2nd alltime i make some comments to this some feel offended and personally attacked. Why? Nobody is against that people play the game 24/7, unless i think thats not healthy, but anyway i am not nor your Mom, neither your Doctor and i really care less if people smoke, drink or play too much!
It's just about the game and to enpower casuals and depower hardcore time investment to ensure a healthy
Distribution of Power

3rd If a game like Shroud tend to be a meritocracy with 2 major competetive contents, Playerdriven Economy and PvP, i forsee not enough new players incoming, playing, supporting, competing while it's unneccessary rough, imbalanced and unfair to get to a level where you are competetive.

This is the same ignorance of a high societys we are just experiencing in real life in the western world what dont care about their "lowlevels" that much who then vote bullshit.

 

A person who gets into crafting can still sell their stuff for less, as its is not as powerful, so they still can compete in the market. Expecting to get the same price for crafted items that are not as good is ridiculous.

As far as pvp goes, I see lots of low level people pvp flagged.

As far as no new players will join an established game, new players join established games all the time. They are level 1 and tons of people are high level compared to them, yet this does not bother them, why does it bother you so much?

 

The pvp in this game is a joke. What skill based pvp? Sota's pvp is time based and rewards those who have time to grind rather than those who have skills. Anyone who has more time to play than anyone else will win. You want a true skill based pvp game? Try Starcraft and achieve Grandmaster. Then I will say you really deserve your status/title. Until then, while you tout your pvp title and lord it over others in pvp, people will laugh at you behind your back.

 

This Right here is what Gets Me, Why should the hardcore Gamer be penalised? look at it whichever way you like and justify it however you want. it is plain wrong to go punish them ( that is effectively whats happening) just because they have been around a long time and know how to play the game. We dont Sit and complain about how easy the casuals Have it, it is their right to play the way they want to, who are we to try and stop them?

We hardcore gamers have put the time and effort in to get where we are, Only to be met withh ''We dont care that you have X amount of hours in the game, its not fair on the casuals so we are gonna ruing your fun to keep the casuals happy.

Dont get me wrong im all for balance which i have said time and time again, but i am really sick and tired of being met with a prospective ''F*** You'' Simply because other People simply cant or Wont Put the effort in and want it handed to them on a plate.

 

@Stundorn I am sorry that I have to jump the gun at you again but:

1. You still failed to point out where the competitive content is. There is no pvp and I still don't get against who you think you are competing against in terms of economy.

2. If you aren't against hardcores like you just said it would be a good idea nit to insult them directly after that statement.

3. If (lol) "pvp" (lol) and economics are the competitive content we have... We are in trouble.

To sum SotA up: co-op mmo

 

"Sota's pvp is time based and rewards those who have time to grind rather than those who have skills."

Hmm wonder how jack beat all those people who had 10+ levels on him? I guess it was just luck, not skill. Dam hes a lucky guy, kept doing it to many people over and over.

 

No true skill caps is the problem. Not "time and effort." The game should level out at the end in level/skills and the latest and greatest weapons should be the fruit of "time and effort" - not an infinite 1:1 hour of being ahead of experience.

I think new players understand that it may take "X" amount of hours to catch up and cap out to enjoy end-game content, but not that it will take them 5,000 hours of gameplay to catch up to the guy who has played this game for 5,000 hours. Then when an expansion comes out they can start out on an equal playing field.

 

I am more a communist on that.
What @MrBlight said.
And there is no such prospective spelling.
And there is no request for things handed on plate, only a request for balance power due to time investment.

If it's not in your interest to compete with more people, but to "dominate" and "win" have more effort because you have more time invested, then i have to ask you is it about competition on equal levels with othets or about to do down others to have fun?
Thats sort of be a Fan of a rich footballclub who can buy the best players around the world.
I was never a fan of that.
If you, fine, i deal with having you around and you deal having me around.
I complain about an unbalance you like, and you complain about my complains

I dont like arguments like:
"The mob blames himself, they just need to work more and hard to get rich."

Edit: I know some powerfull players are using their power to just help people.
That's cool for everybody who want get helped and dont want to accomplish that on their own.

If some GM roleplay an Ice mage or enchanter i'll be luckily your scholar!!!

But there are enough people around who don't do that.

 

Then we play a different game or have at least a diametral perception of the game.

 

Skill Caps?? NO!! NO!! NO!! Chris is doing a good job of trying to balance things out and yes, Alexander John, I do feel that the decay penalty should be significantly harder on the higher level players. But there is no need to cap anything. A sure way to ruin this game.

 

"If it's not in your interest to compete with more people, but to "dominate" and "win" have more effort because you have more time invested, then i have to ask you is it about competition on equal levels with othets or about to do down others to have fun?"

He enters the tournaments on the top level. He likes to pvp vs the highest level people. Alex also helps many people and go out and parties with them, hes like to have fun, you know, what games were made for, fun.

 

Btw

All people i try to encourage to play the game answer:
I am not willing and wont have the time to grind that much to be a competetive pvper or a valid crafter who can sell well crafted things.

If we want more players, more competition, more variance we need to balance things and we need to have some caps for the amount if GMs you can have and maybe diminishing returns for time investment or more soft cap related things like death decay which already will be adjusted exactly in this direction and if we dont want to have hard caps.

I forsee nerf is coming, just wait and we'll see who will complain or ragequit.

 

And all of us will gladly welcome the guy that will jump in and scream "i told you so".

But you DO understand that this actually INCREASES the grind you don't want to be part of!?

 

In every game (even Starcraft), an experienced player has better chance to win than a casual one, because he had more time to experience the game one way or an other. And in every game, including SOTA, you can win against a more experienced player than you because you have better tactics. This should not be a problem for anyone. That's why we can't disagree with @HogwinHD statements.

Also, as PVP is consensual here, you don't have to compete with experienced players, then you don't have to grind.

In SOTA, the issue with the hardcore gamers, the 1% or whatever you would like to name them came from one thing initialy : the game allowed fast experience at start. @HogwinHD , with R42, if you had to get all the experience you earned in the precedent releases, I would bet it would take you much more time. One could see this as a privilege. Jaleousy (because that's what we are talking about) used this as a starting point.

But everyone should remember this : with the SOTA skill system as it is, more experienced players have to get much more experience than you to get additional bonuses. There is no need for hard cap, really, because, at some point, it will take them one year to gain a level when it take you an hour, a day or a week. So I have really no issue with more experienced players who tried hard to get what they have (except for the fact death decay should punish multiple repetitive deaths, in my mind).

 

Some people just want the effort part to be enjoyable. Difficult concept to grasp I know but I'm sure with a little effort on your own part, you might be able to understand where they are coming from.

 

Ah, but dear sir, most post are not about making the part more enjoyable. They are about removing it.

 

i think that i maybe aren't educated enough to point that out, if...
about the second point you maybe are right, but iff we just buff casuals or make it easier there will still be an umbalance.

I'm ready to discuss things constructive and you make way better points than some others who just feel offended or stick to the
time= effort formula, what i think isn't it all about if we talk about competetive content.