What do you think is neccessary for Ep1 and Release?

All are hyped talking about 2 years Roadmap and Ep2, but we havent Ep1 ready to launch.
The Story is completable and once you have done that you are maybe pleased
(i was), but no doubt, the quests need some more polish and hints what exactly to do and where to go etc...
Without some spoilers and help i would say only a few hardcore riddle cracks and well experienced gamers are able to get to the end of Ep1 Story.
Like it be no handholding game and quests, but if someone say it need no more improvement, please do now.

What else Features or Bugs are you think need to be worked on for Ep1?

Snow Bug in Houses annoys me personally very much. It destroys atmosphere while Roleplaying at home.

I want Brewery!
I want "tons of sidequests" which are allways mentioned if we talk about neccessary grind to get further in the path quests (Tower, Malice...)

What else do you want for Ep1 to have a successfull release of that Episode?

With release they said more than 50% of the Backers what havent even placed their lots are coming.
With release they hope for at least 100k players and R.G. said even 400k are imaginable.
Bad Press aside, even if only 5000 players want to see what was released and official magazines etc rate the game, what do you think we need to get a good Reputation and a solid rating?

What bugs need to go, what features need to be ingame, what content need to be polished or added to Release Shroud of the Avatar Episode 1 successfully?

I like the 2years post Ep1 list, but i think we should concentrate on Ep1 as it is not ready to release imho.

 

I would like daily quest, and maybe BODs (Bulk Order Deeds) for crafting would be nice to keep us busy once the main story quest are done.

 

90 FPS or GTFO.

 

Frankly, performance. Discord integration is neat and all, but performance shouldn't be taking a backseat to that.

 

I am on mobile and try to keep it short

1) npc dialogue overhaul - more room for text that include description of show emotions, surroundings and similar immersion support that the current graphic and sound cannot provide.

2) quests that have / look as if they have an impact on the world. Npc vanish, different npc change their stories (I.e Adoris black arrow quest if solved has an impact how children and adults on the street behave. Town criers or follow up quest tell the end of the story)
Small quests that are repeatable should come from random npc - ideally traveling merchants/gypsies/mercenaries/refugees where similar problems could logically fit into the world.
Clearing out a bandit camp should reduce the spawn for a certain time.

3) main storyline should be balanced (Malice) and remain logical in the urgency - if the army of Solace bridge just moved on there's a great sense of urgency that a new player cannot live up to - and doesn't have to as the quest otherwise is static

4) more "grey" in the world. Vigilantes / Racism should not just be evil elf killing mobs but have a background story that creates moral problems and doesn't have simple, permanent solutions. (Yes, a game should be more fun than reality and not overcomplicate matters)

5) no mixing of pvp and pvm (I.e. Thieving from npc leads to forced pvp)
Pvp should be satisfying enough to stand for itself.

6) reputation system that is logical - if you steal and nobody is around it shouldn't affect how town people treat you - the oracle also doesn't know everything unless she's a higher being...
Stealing should lead to penalty quests or fines. These could be crafting or gathering quests.
Npc should start to recognize the outlanders that do good or bad in a region and act accordingly (friendly/unfriendly dialogue, prices different/ unwilling to do business/ run away / come and greet etc)

7) more peaceful interactions on adventure maps - daylight exploring, evading robber encounters by camouflaging or just paying a small bribery

8) more npc dialogue and dialogue variation - better keyword recognition

9) more quests

10) guards have a function by enforcing the law in a good sense - i.e known murderers are approached and apprehended. If they fight the guard should be something like a T4-T5 mob so put a fight but not be a tough challenge. Fleeing then could trigger warrants (bounty hunts) or npc guard group encounters...

 

I'd be happy if they would just commit to actually providing some info. We have no idea what they are prioritizing and no idea what they will consider to be feature complete for episode 1, and for some reason they refuse to say.

They listed pledge rewards and things that still need to be completed.. but gave no timeline or any idea if those things will be completed for launch, after launch, 2 years from now.. etc.

All the "info" they are putting out recently lacks any contextual information to be useful at all.

Meanwhile, info about the game that was blatantly not true still stayed up on the investing page and still makes it into the odd article or video outside the game, despite them promising to correct and clarify. But don't point that out or Chris gets offended at being called a liar... and then doesn't fix any of the lies..

So basically what I think is necessary for episode 1 is some honesty and transparency for a change. Better late than never, right?

 

Repeatable quest, crafting minigames and more dynamic buy/sell orders are the most important features needed imo

 

For me , just better performance. I would love to attend the large parties, but unfortunately,usually get kicked. I am looking forward to being able to attend the various community events without stutter, lag or getting frozen.

 

Moral system

 

I'd like to see a series of epic trailer type videos. str8 hollywood CGI badassery

 

Many, many, many, many improvements and additions to the crafting systems experiences.

 

The main story need to be solid and flow well and all the performance issues need to be worked out. Everything else is secondary and can be added piecemeal.

 

Performance is the most important thing.

If your game runs like **** after release you will get a lot of bad reviews.

 

A more user-friendly Journal would be great. Proper toggles for active quests, inactive quests and a seperate page for completed quests. Also (a few very specific hints) when the quest involves mentioning something in conversation. Would also like to see the active and inactive quests put into a ZONE category.

It's so easy to lose track of a quest with the current system. Unable to tell if you're doing or saying the right thing to advance or if the quest is somehow bugged and anything you do just isn't registering properly.

 

No game can carry the title of Spiritual Successor to the Ultima franchise without a moral system.

 

I'd say performance. Load times, minimum / overall average frame rates, stuttering, hitching, lag, etc. The performance has come a long way but still imho unacceptable in terms of Commercial Launch quality. Let's see what they can do in the next 4 months, if it's still an end-of-year target...which I highly doubt will be achieved given the current state of not just performance but other core systems...

That said, I'd hate to see them "fix" performance by further reductions in deco limits, even more removal of NPCs that makes towns even emptier than they are now, lowering player instance limits, etc. That's not really fixing anything except making the game experience even worse imo.

Also, more polish on any story-based scene, story-based NPC, the quests, related dialog, related UI, etc.

And of course, the offline single-player RPG experience, of which everything said above very much applies. It will be my primary way to experience the game upon Commercial Launch. The online mode is just for the sandbox and community interaction.

 

- Choices with real and lasting consequences on the world and its inhabitants
- Epic quests full of twists and surprises
- Much more to do: Sidequests, more to explore and discover
- More to discover and to do in the scenes. Right now they are just there to grind - fight monsters and gather resources
- Less grinding
- A much better flow to the game - we always need to know what to do next and where to go next and there should be no artifical obstacles preventing us from getting to the next goal (grinding to continue the story)

 

Better Performance must be number 1

Please, please, please get rid of annoying bugs like raining/snowing indoors and being thrown into the air by opening doors (can't believe these were not sorted ages ago)

Alot of the quests I have come across are pretty poor to be honest in their story/resolution, figuring out the right word to say to trigger something with a quest npc can get very tedious very quickly and the quest journal isnt great. All this needs a good look at.

Npc's ; Need to have much more variety in appearances and clothes (all the women that same red dress, all the identical old ladies, all the identical merchants etc really do need changing as do the annoying moaning and sighing noises they all make - ridiculous)

More variety in appearances of players merchant npcs

Bigger variety of monsters etc

Better low level loot - new players need more incentive and encouragement than they currently get.

Easier ways to discover things like how to unlock skill deck/turn off auto attack etc. No need to make those sort of things obscure just for the sake of it.

Proper guild war function as per UO and many other games would be excellent too.

 

The user interface, performance, load times, and depth.

When you open the skills menu and click on fire, all the skills should be connected by flames instead of the generic pipes. When you click fireball and drag it into a deck it should feel responsive, as that fireball is hovering over the area to plop it into the deck it should change and give feedback somehow, when it's picked up it should be animated and feel alive. When you use that fireball as it's drawn on your hotbar, it should disappear into a burnt crisp and if it's set to train should give a +50 fireball experience floating text on the screen which is in golden letters if you're partied with that GM in fireball who makes it +75.

When you mine you shouldn't need to awkwardly walk to the exact point to mine the rock, any angle should work. When your pickaxe is raised in the air perhaps clicking at exactly the right time at the peak of your swing will trigger an animation and lower gather time plus chance at a rare yield. When that rock is mined it shouldn't just disappear, but be animated and feel good to mine. The window that comes up showing the yield shouldn't feel like looting a bag, it should be a different window with rocky edges that shows the yield you've gotten and not need a confirmation, but simply fade into transparency and then nothing automatically giving you your yield. A big +500 exp pops up with a few sparks or whatever, maybe the sparks will be different for a GM miner. The pickaxe you're using to mine shouldn't just cost 80 gold from the store and be good for 100 uses, but truly be your pickaxe. You should be able to lovingly craft it from different materials, enchant and masterwork that pickaxe, give it your maker's mark, make a few for a few guildmates or a public vendor. You should be able to make high risk pickaxes that have a chance at crazy things, but most players will say are stupid to craft and naysay. When you take that ore to a crafting table it's great that we have the camera swoop over for a close up and show a generic animation as we smelt it, but I want that crafting animation to be in sync with an animation on the table as well, again an optional active element to speed things up. We see that crafting ore animation hundreds of times in a loop, maybe a few that it cycles between and a different animation for when we fail an ore or have a critical success. It doesn't matter how that ore affects the economy and how many bad guys it kills, but how good you felt taking that journey to affect the economy and kill bad guys. There needs to be as much intrinsic gain as there is extrinsic gain, we need to have players who are truly crazy and swear up and down that smelting ore is their thing and that they don't care about anything else and want to get to level 200.

Once we have our economy and cutesy one time story content in place, there needs to be meaningful choice. What if you can't get past Nightshade Pass until you do a certain quest? What if you can't enter K'rul without doing a story element... What if K'rul is controlled by the strongest guild and you need to declare a guild war to have entry, but it alerts all of their members that you are entering? What if that guild has a stranglehold on K'rul but you're willing to use a Dragon Neckbone to craft an item that allows secret entry with a group one time to cheese it back? Now the stronger guild will need to come in and take it, but because you have the home advantage you can now defend it. What if during that story you made a choice that walled off a section of K'rul and the only way to get through was be partied with someone who made a different choice or be able to talk to someone and flip your choice but then wall off another section? When you complete a quest it should proudly show it in a succinct lists of quests exactly as Runescape does it. There should be quest points that unlock and are required for more quests. Certain quests should require level 80 in fireball, or that you have crafted an Astrolabe dipped in the Blood River. We need to feel that as we complete quests we have access to more quests which give access to more nonquest (Grindy loop) content.

And finally there needs to be options for the truly messed up and crazy players to make messed up crazy choices. I want to laugh at people who fail majorly, and hear stories of how great that one guy I hate succeeded. We need high risk and high reward in Shroud of the Avatar, I call them iconic moments. There needs to be something that most will shy away from, but because it's possible 1% of the time to get something completely worthless otherwise, someone crazy will do it. Jon "Neverdie" Jacobs is the king of iconic moments, he mortgaged his house and bought an asteroid which he later sold for profit. SotA cannot succeed as a game where you put your brain in the mayonnaise jar and kill time, after killing enough time we need leaps to take that will put us ahead or make us cry.

 

1. Fix all skills that do not work properly. (Taunt, poison weapon..)
2. Fix main quest paths AND much more side or unrelated quests.
3. Fix loot tables.
4. Fix recipe mess.
5. Make map available in every scene.
6. Add more weapons and mob types.
7. Fix animations.
8. Permformance tunning.
9. Make interface more atractive.
10. Make PvP fair/apealing. (No need to be a super avatar to be competitive)

They are not orderes by importance, just wrote as I thought.