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Wishlist for Ardoris

Discussion in 'Wishlist Requests' started by Bedawyn, Aug 15, 2019.

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  1. Bedawyn

    Bedawyn Avatar

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    @Chris and List have been talking about possibly maybe doing a polish pass on Ardoris sometime soon. This worries me, to be honest -- yes, Ardoris has some performance problems, but from what I've seen so far, the devs have a tendency to OVERcorrect at times, trying to fix one extreme by going too far to the other extreme instead of finding a middle ground. So I'm hoping we can ward that off by using this thread to tell them what kind of changes we would like to see in Ardoris -- and what kind of changes we DON'T want to see.

    Personally, as someone playing on an average laptop, the Ardoris lag doesn't bother me. Yes, it's a frustration sometimes, especially when we get a release like this one that's buggier than usual. But my frustration is always due to other factors that exacerbate the Ardoris lag, not the design of Ardoris itself. I LOVE the cramped quarters and tons of deco jammed into a small space. It's beautiful and unique, and it's realistic as an old city. It's WORTH THE LAG. Sure, by all means evaluate the scene and do what you can to optimize it, but please, not at the cost of removing content that's already there and contributes to the charm of the city. I'm terrified now that I'll patch one day and find an Ardoris that loads faster but is as empty and passionless as most of the PRTs.

    So where is the middle ground? What changes would be on your wishlist for Ardoris?
     
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2019
  2. Bedawyn

    Bedawyn Avatar

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    For me:

    [EDIT: I'm adding ideas from other players as we go along in the interests of having a comprehensive list for the devs.]

    (1) Remove most of the breakable crates and barrels. They may look great as deco in dev testing, but that's not what most players are going to see on the ground. We're going to see broken scrap wood. Either replace them with nonbreakable versions or remove them all together. Crates and barrels make sense near the docks, but we don't need them sitting around on every corner.

    (2) Re-decorate the NPC building interiors to take advantage of the newer decorations that didn't exist when Ardoris was designed. That doesn't mean jam-pack every building with decos, just make sure the decos that are there are appropriate for Ardoris and appropriate for the NPC who lives there. For instance, Zangoff the Axe Addict should have displays that show off our variety of axes. Martin should have a bedroom. The rulers definitely should have more luxurious furnishings.

    (The ground floor of the New You shop is an example where someone did a fantastic job of this already.)

    (3) Take this opportunity to evaluate the Perennial Coast-style decos that are already there but not yet available to players, and give them to us! I'm especially thinking of the various fence styles.

    (4) Evaluate the default state of all the lights and windows and ensure that players have enough light to get around even at night (unless something is supposed to be a dark alley where the baddies hang out). In particular, I tend to go around opening NPCs' windows during the day. Ideally, windows and lights would be on a timer, but I don't know how much more lag that would create.

    (5) Tweak the appearance of the top "landing" of the stone staircases so that it's easier to tell where they are. Most of the staircases are easy to see when you're at a distance coming towards them at an angle, but very difficult to see when you're actually close to them. And there are a lot of paving tiles that look like they ought to have staircases leading down from them, but don't. Just a tiny low border around the top landing would make navigation a lot easier. I think this is the singlemost important improvement you could make to Ardoris.

    [EDIT: And as Vladamir says below, please remove that hiccup that stops you in place when you get to the top of a staircase.]


    (6) Re-evaluate the placement and naming of the ferries. For instance, the area of Sequanna Square has three ferries close by, even though two of them (the Confirmatory and the square itself) have no water access. Meanwhile, other sections of the city have no ferry access. And the names of the ferry locations are almost meaningless to a new player who isn't yet familiar with the layout.

    [EDIT: And as Echondas pointed out below, from any distance the ferries are hard to distinguish from deco boats. And a new player isn't going to know that the blue cushions are what they should look out for. The signs don't help either, since they're not always close to the boats. Please find a way to better distinguish them. In fact, why don't you turn some of the prettier boats into ferries, then get rid of most of the extra boats? That way we could keep the pretty boats functional and not have a lot of nonfunctional boats taking up space.]


    (7) Along the shorelines, replace much of that dirt with green grass. Dirt at the water's edge itself is fine, but on hillsides, that much bare dirt is (a) unattractive and (b) a mudslide waiting to happen.

    (8) Move the two southern island lots several meters further south. I know you don't want to upset existing lot owners, of course not, that would be nasty. But the castle lot is unclaimed at the moment. And if you ask the keep lot owner, you never know -- he might appreciate being further away! Access is by ferry anyway, so it wouldn't be less convenient for them. It would improve the view and the verisimilitude of the scene to not have two such huge islands so close in to the harbor, that realistically they'd be blocking ship access.

    (9) At the palaces, decorate the large exterior landings so that they look like actual outdoor rooms, where courtiers or others could hang about. That's an awful lot of space that's not currently being used for anything. The lawns are also pretty bare and boring for a city of beauty.

    (10) There are too many wide alley spots that are just begging for some deco. It doesn't have to be much, just a well-placed planter, moved from some other, more cluttered area. Ideally, in the long run, we could have mini-lots so that the people whose lots adjoin these empty spaces could share decorating privileges or use them for vendor booths, but I know that's not feasible any time soon. But right now they're screamingly empty; just putting something down would make the emptiness less glaring.

    (11) In the long, long, very long run, if you did consider mini-lots designed for vendor booths, Ardoris would be a perfect place to test them. In the meantime, the one bit of content removal that wouldn't upset me too much would be the empty vendor stalls. If they don't have someone there, either live or NPC, they probably shouldn't be there. I wouldn't want to lose the empty spice merchant, because it's the only one there, but how many empty fish seller booths do we really need?

    (12) The elevated platform near the Cheese Man -- please please pleeeease give us a ladder so we can climb up there!

    More ideas:

    (13) The western gate should lead directly to Aldwater, not to the overworld. Given how close Aldwater is, it's just silly to make us zone twice to get there. (I'd also put Fallin' Green on the overworld and make the eastern gate lead directly there, but since it's a POT and not mine, alas, I don't expect that to happen.)

    (14) We don't want to lose the cherry trees, but please do evaluate the places where they might be blocking pedestrian paths and consider options OTHER than removal (collision tweaking, size or shape tweaking, etc.) to mitigate this.
     
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2019
  3. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    as pretty as the cherries are, i have a heck of a time navigating in sequanna square due to all the low branches. perhaps if there were fewer of the trees they could be a bit taller, which would pull them up out of the way a bit.
     
  4. Vladamir Begemot

    Vladamir Begemot Avatar

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    I have a huge post with pictures from 4 years ago.

    But at this point I'll be happy if they remove the obnoxious blocks that are in the middle top of stairs, and cause you to come to a full stop when you hit them.
     
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  5. Echondas

    Echondas Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    Reasons I avoid Ardoris:
    - Too much player housing around the important NPC / Quest locations ( I get lost and have to use the mini map constantly )
    - Excessive deco and shogun lightning slowing things down - this started when it was revamped / beautified
    - So many entrances - where do I enter ?
    - the ferries to help scene navigation are hard to distinguish from deco boats
    - No enticing reason to go here once finishing the quest lines
     
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2019
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  6. Bedawyn

    Bedawyn Avatar

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    I haven't had this problem in Sequanna Square, but I have seen it near the Seamoon office. I picked that location in part because of the pretty cherry trees on each corner, but I didn't anticipate the way they would make turning the corners difficult. Perhaps just tweaking the collision would work? After all, we're not talking about sturdy oaks here, people ought to be able to just brush cherry branches out of the way.

    Obviously I disagree with most of your items (personal preference is personal), but THIS I'm absolutely on board with.
     
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  7. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    i'm not complaining of colission, but of view-blocking. i prefer to run around with the camera all the way out, but those branches don't have an associated camera cutoff, so they're all i can see.
     
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  8. Echondas

    Echondas Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    I was a little tipsy when I wrote that last night :p
     
  9. Paladin Michael

    Paladin Michael Bug Hunter

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    A few things, I would like to see:
    - the missing Gondoliers to know, someone can use a boat for fast travelling inside Ardoris, and as told above: good positions.
    - the palace of Khasi and Siranto are poorly decorated and don't look like a palace - they need some new Shogun style deco.
    - trees look great, may be give them a longer tree trunk for a better sight? ;)

    Not only for Ardoris, but for the whole Perennial Coast:

    - basic row lot houses should be in the style of the Blue Roof or Shogun style :)

    I think, every region with special house design should provide this basic house style for the basic lot deed ...
     
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  10. Paladin Michael

    Paladin Michael Bug Hunter

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    --> There is a good reason:
    Ardoris is a town, where you can find items very frequently with the public vendor (between Oracle confirmatory and Sequanna Square)
    also a good place to provide items for new players :)
     
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  11. Sulaene Moon

    Sulaene Moon Avatar

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    Yup, I picked up some nice things there for a great price. Thanks so everyone for that :)
     
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  12. Dartan Obscuro

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    Ardoris being a major city, I'd like for the Sequanna square shops look prosperous displaying their wares in glass cases and more themed to the city. For example, the blacksmith's shop should be decorated with katana's and shogun armor. The tailor should have a mannequin with the priestess robes.

    The crafting pavilion should probably be a variant of the Shogun Crafting Pavilion.

    Peladjar Inn could be a Shogun Village Inn if the Poet's Circle Guid house was moved maybe combined into the old COTO art store?

    Maybe bad for performance? but it would be nice if the shops were converted to something similar to the storefront row house but with the blue shogun roof.

    The master trainers just kind of hang out in a row house on the square but just north of the square there's the Adventurer trainer w/ practice dummy house. Maybe they should all be in that like a dojo. Or moved to the guard barracks by the docks.

    There's redundancy between the market alchemist and tailor and the Sequanna square alchemist and tailor. Really, the market stall area could probably be removed. The couple unique stalls added to Sequanna square or added for sale by the general merchant in the square or the one by the docks.

    I agree with above that moving the southern islands would open up the dock area. It should feel like a shipping hub. It would be nice if there was a barge being unloaded.

    A lot of walls were added in an attempt to improve performance. Chris mentioned that Unity doesn't do a good job of culling. If they're not helping I'd suggest removing them.
     
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  13. Black Tortoise

    Black Tortoise Avatar

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    this is sometimes referred to as "the pendulum strategy", and its likely utilized on purpose by this dev team. this is how one finds the middle ground.

    settings too low? well, how high is high enough? well, we could go maximally high, and await feedback? ... ok, that was too high, so how low is low enough from here? well, we could go just above what the original setting was, and await feedback. ... ok, that was too low, so how high is high enough? well, we could go slightly less high than the last time and await feedback... eventually we arrive at goldilocks / middle-ground setting.

    keep in mind the simultaneously evaluated variables in this online world are many, and are increasing. this middle-ground will always change as the game gets developed more. therefore this pendulum will never stop, though, it will only return to extremes when extreme changes occur.

    look at shroud of the avatar as an online world that just got started, and has a very long future ahead of itself. over time, these pendulum swings of settings tweakings will become almost unobservable (until radically different systems are developed, then the cycle begins a new!).

    i choose to look at this as a world that will therefore always evolve and change. im more excited about that than a static world that will be 100% predictable forever.
     
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  14. Black Tortoise

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    this thread is basically all great feedback, thanks everyone :)
     
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