Why SotA is not as fun as UO was. What I enjoy/dislike & overall feelings.

Thank you Hauk. Well the thing is they were being more active on the forums for a while. I don't think they would jump on with some of this, but oh well. I am sorry and you are right we do want them to see peoples ideas. I wasn't seeing a lot of understanding in this thread and a lot of bashing. So anyway, carry on. I will go sleep

 

Zylo, you shine out like a shaft of gold when all around is dark.

Cheers, mate

 

it's pretty much too late. these things that need to be changed would require a complete redo. You can see they are not interested in that.

I am angered that i gave up supporting my freeshard from the promises of the Sota marketing.

for a game to have nearly every element of uo except the fun, somehow, is mind boggling. I'm not sure how to make it fun. and I tried hard last month.

The Hendoman

ps. i'm starting to sink again... somebody lift my spirits about Sota or these post'll get more gripe-y

 

Thank you for the kind words Epona. There are lots of great people here in the SotA community, I can see that already...

That is what made Ultima Online so great which gives us all a great start here.

Players are financially invested.. What does this mean for the game?

A more loyal player base? That's a good thing...
A more biased player base? That's a bad thing...
A more critical player base? That can be good and bad...

We'll have to see how it goes. I have a lot of faith in Richard Garriot...

Just PLEASE, PLEASE lets rework the combat to make it more interactive and challenging... Right now it's like watching grass grow... Ugh...

 

When Majoria has to be called out and subsequently apologizies and Katrina Bekers promises to light C4 charges, we can think that this thread has probably run its course. I made my points on combat in a thread that was moved by the moderators over to the Skills and Combat section of the forum, and I suppose that makes sense, although I thought it was of more general interest. But even I feel like I've said enough on the topic. But the points had to be made and I'm guessing will continue to be made by new players coming in the future. People who complain about "yet another one of *these* threads" are only reinforcing the point that there is a lot of unhappiness with combat as it is. This cannot be ignored or swept under the carpet as a non-issue that will improve because "it's pre-alpha", so long as the same fundamental system remains.

I have a lot of respect for this development team. Their history, their agile development philosophy, focusing on quick turn around based on customer feedback without being bogged down by weighty design manuals, and their native intelligence. Anyone who has spent any time listening to Richard or Starr talk for any length of time knows that they are brilliant minds with intense creative passion. So I have confidence that they are also reasonable people who understand market forces and the cold, bitter reality that you cannot successfully launch a product that has this much dissension over a core system that will not fundamentally change throughout the development cycle. I am confident that they are reading these threads and asking themselves the tough questions now that every developer faces when they come to such a realization. I would remind them of a few points:

1) THIS is why we went with you on the crowd funding route, to give you the freedom to take the time necessary to regroup and reset. There is no publisher deadline. There is no external pressure. It's all up to you.
2) You told us that if card combat wasn't fun, you'd consider "trying other options". I submit that we've come to that point, or close enough to it that you should now be "considering".
3) We have been loyal to you in the most demonstrable way, by giving you our money, in substantial amounts far in excess of what we would ordinarily pay in any other game. We deserve at least your commentary on your thoughts.

Thanks,

 

At roughly the time Shroud first reached Kickstarter, it was joined by Elite: Dangerous there, and I debated for some time which to back as I couldn't afford both. In the end, I plumped for Shroud. The relevance of this is I recently picked up Elite post launch and joined their community, so I experienced their forums there as many experience ours here... new and from outside the Funding circle.

And I was staggered by how utterly intolerant of dissent and criticism they are. I'm not one for mindless bashing, but it is indeed an objective fact (a word thrown around here I notice too, and mocked for it) that my copy of Elite: Frontier from the 1990s on the Amiga is more feature complete than E : D at launch today. But even the slightest criticism of the game is treated as if it's posting like a 4Channer there; The forums are relentlessly positive, and you even have people putting up filters to remove certain critical topics, because they are so hyper-sensitive to them. I thought about that for a little, and my conclusions are it's because they spent an intense amount of time within a bubble of people who were financially invested in the product before it even released. It's what is known as the Sunk Cost Fallacy; and if you are wrong about E : D then it's challenging not just the money you've had locked into it, but your own ability to rationalise, to judge a decent person or reaction etc... Too many people would rather double down on the commitment than step away and admit they might be wrong.

Now the community here is relatively decent too; but I do wonder if something similar isn't going on here as well. Indeed, whether I'm just doing the same thing too. The reasons I hang on are a lot less rational than they should be. I want to see my characters name on a gravestone, after spending hours translating the ones in older Ultimas; I want to help the game become better, even though I'm not enjoying much of it when I'm actually in it; I don't agree Shroud should be like UO in the metagame, but I do find combat pretty stiflingly dull; I really, really dislike the focus on ultra rich players in real life, although I still get a little dizzy when I see Lord British in game, even though I've met him in Ultima Online already, and he breaks my legs when I meet him here.

Every now and then I debate selling my pledge and using the cash for something more undeniably a positive; I could upgrade my aging computer system. Take the new girlfriend on a holiday. All kinds of things. But I stay invested though. And stay feeling at the same time a bit guilty about criticizing the game and those still here and happy. That doesn't mean those who are happy are wrong; but there are clearly issues with the game as well. Shouting down those who question them doesn't make for a better game, it's just protecting our own sense of mental well being. I'd sooner the game was better so I don't find myself doubting if I really, really am happy however...

 

I played Darkfall which combat is pretty much how you explained. If you happen to swing where the player is not standing you swing at air, same for spells and arrows. I actually quit that game because combat was so damn hard. I gave it a shot for like 2 years. Now I must agree that combat in that game was not exactly fun but god damn challenging. My hands would shake and sweat, my adrenaline would go through the roof. The full loot is also what made it more exiting.

My machine was part of the problem, in as soon as I would start combat it was like a lag spike just hit my machine and my ping would go up and up. Make SOTA have combat like Darkfall... Well the only problem with Darkfall was that it had no special moves and combat was all about hitting your target.

Now if we were to marry both kinds of combat and make it where you have special moves and have to "hit your opponent VS tab targeting" Now I think we are on to something better and twice as exiting.

 

The fact that it was so damn hard tells me one of or a few things...

1. They didn't implement the combat system correctly.
2. It is hard to do Object Collision detection Combat in MMO's... (God of War is amazing at this and combat is not hard, it's just hard to be good)
3. You're terrible at combat

I simply can't play a game where combat is based around tapping some hot keys and sipping my coffee as I watch the dice roll on if I get hit or if I hit someone else...

 

It was something with my PC. It lagged horribly. I would like to see tab targeting go away.

 

Lag.... The biggest PK in MMO's.. Since '97

 

@Nemo Herringwary - No joke about the Elite community. Love the game, but no interest in it's community. But yes, there is a bit of that sunk cost fallacy happening here, especially with combat. Many of the people claim that "it just needs to be tweaked to make it better" but the tweaks they suggest all undermine, or remove, the things that make card combat special.

@Wanderlust - As odd as it sounds, my respect for many of the devs, is what keeps me thinking about this game, and talking about how the conversation is going, and honestly getting me to talk about combat again. I see Garriott's legacy ending if this game goes badly. He can blame EA and NC Soft for lots of things, but not this game. And after his "Other developers aren't as good as they should be" interview around the launch of this game, he kinda set himself a high bar to cross. I'd hate to see it undone because of a desire to be 'new' even if it's not sustainable.

 

This is not even alpha. It's using the game (I won't say "playing" the game) to identify issues and bugs. It's not about "having fun". The reason why you expect to have fun is that there has been a relatively recent and subtle shift in the software game business where the meaning of alpha/beta has changed from being about testing to being about marketing. A recent example of this was the ESO beta which maybe you have experience with - that was most definitely not about finding and fixing bugs, it was about marketing, trying to get as many people as possible to try (and presumably like) the game, tell their friends about it, and convince them all to pay for it when the time came. SotA does not appear to be like that; it's truly about identifying and fixing bugs and other issues.

 

*BOOM*

Straight in the feels!

I'm looking at that box right now. Right next to the one of Elite for C=64.

 

You must have made a template that I've completely overlooked.
Most certainly the stuff I've been fighting would be checking their own emails after they quickly dispatched me (while I was reading mine)........

And he has made good on his promises to the fel crowd here in SotA. He made PvP available pretty much anywhere in the game, with consensual flagging. He even introduced the shardfalls where, if you enter, you are consenting to PvP and are freely attackable. These things he has done.

What he hasn't done, and has never said he would, is to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to perfect a system of combat that would ever satisfy those whose playstyle is CENTERED on PvP. And I believe, from what I have both seen ingame and read here and elsewhere, is that the overwhelming majority of backers are fine with this approach to things PvP related.

@Mugly: +1

 

Well I'm not fine with the combat. It's too abstract- and that goes for PvE too, not just PvP.

 

Wow, what an awesome read. Thank you. I did want to bring to light your saying Majoria was called out and had to apologize. I never meant it in that way. I was only trying to say that we do need them to read our posts. I enjoy what she writes, I just thought she was wrong this go around, but never did I mean any ill will. Maybe I am reading what you said wrong, I hope so.

 

They should have a minimum viable product at this point. If the potential is not viable yet there's a problem.

 

Not what I was implying. He said things about immersive gameplay, things like a hotbar-less, health bar-less UI that was truly immersive for the players. As I already said, everything that man said for years leading up to and including initial marketing for SotA would lead someone to believe it was the Star Citizen of fantasy games.

And we get card combat. We get click-and-wait, ting-ting-ting, roll-of-the-dice resource gathering. We get 1995 PlayStation-era 2D tree walls. Skills and combat abilities and iron vs. valorite ores or whatever, that all can be added, yes, but the core mechanics do nothing to impress. I've seen flash games on Kongregate with more immersion, story-telling and innovative game mechanics than anything SotA is offering.

 

I kind of like the combat..I say kind of like not because I actually like but it is what I was expecting for this game when I bought it, since I play a lot of Action-RPG my hands get tired and I like to play slower games that demands more thinking to recover while playing. Buut..yeah you guys have a good point that this auto-target system is way too simple, inappropriate for a good PvP community ( with good I mean professional PvP tournaments ) and well.. PVP is the after life of the MMORPG because at some point the player will get tired of the A.I. no matter how good it is and how many loot it has to chase and every story come to an end but not battle... battle never ends. if it has a great PVP after everything is gone you will still find a few guys in field fighting for absolutly no reason but battle

Its already release 17 and I read release 20 is already the game launch so I don`t know if theres still time to make a brand new combat system and finish the game but I think it worth a try since they already have the animations, they would just have to add the BOX colliders in all weapons and all creatures and make the codes to activate it as a new advanced deck type and also a move where the player can dodge jump (space + direction). I know it`s possible to do it but it would be such a big risk so close to launch... maybe they can delay the lanuch. I would have absolutly no problem with a delayed launch and if it works I would pledge my soul into this game, buy a castle in a open PVP area with open entry for anyone , free food and call it Valhala so we can all spend the rest of our lives there fighting like true viking gods

Well.. that`s just my dream, I`m certain they will improve it I just dont know how deep its possible to do it because I noticed they are making the game very light for almost every computer, thats the reason for the 2011 graphics wich I totally support, I would rather 10000x time have 2010 graphics than 2020 graphics game full of bugs and that only runs well on NASA 10k $ computers wich would greatly reduce the number of players online, besides this combat system we aim demands more code and network and depending on the code might make the game a bit more heavier than the intended but I hope Im wrong and Im sure there`s a way to find something in between that can satisfy our lust for battle without loosing processing speed.

 

Oh don't worry you are so sweet *hugs*. I am fine. So no worries and I want the development team to take a big look at combat also and very soon. I do believe it will happen before the next release and of course I could be wrong. True I do have optimism in my blood for this team and a lot of trust that we will be pleasantly surprised in many things. I have thought lately that I perhaps should step away for a while, but I am as always a diehard supporter of this game and for the community, even when I am not in agreement. I know everyone is speaking out of passion. So **cheers** as always.