Best Of

Let me first say that I am a big believer in this game and the vision that Steven has for the final product. I love the idea of a player driven economy where players need to work together. The intentional slowing of the game is a good idea. So, in short, I am a huge fan of the game and wish the best for a successful launch with long success.

Now for the concerns…

Keeping in mind that this is an Alpha I have grave concerns about communication of where things are at its current state and whether some things are broken, not fully implemented, or working as intended. My current view is that we are starring down the barrel of a game that will potentially be ruined by social media before it ever has an opportunity to launch. I love a complicated game that rewards hard work; however, the game is so complicated that it might actually be the death of the game. Or... maybe what we are seeing isn’t intended and we just need more communication from the leaders to further explain/expand on what we see now versus what will be.

With that said… here are a few things that I see as very problematic issues in the “current” state.

1) Requestion Agent – In the current state the donation system is overly complicated and confusing to the player base. A player looks at something like “Standard Tools” which are listed as needing 1500. They see that we have only donated maybe 300 and think we are so far away that the goal of 1500 is next to impossible. In reality, we don’t need 1500 but the only person capable of seeing that is the Mayor. This leads to confusion among the players which in turn leads to them making their own conclusions about the goal being so incredibly difficult to attain.

Additionally, the paired donations hinder the success of the system. A player that has copper will most likely not have fish. The player with fish will likely not have copper which leads to neither player donating. This pairing of donation resources further complicates a system that need not be complicated.

Solution: Use the system that is in place for the Construction Manager. The donation system for the Construction Manager is very clear to players. Both the goal (amount needed) and progress are easily understood. A player that has fish can donate the fish without having to worry about another material they do not possess. It also makes it clear to everyone what exactly they need to farm to accomplish the goal.

2) Rarity Level balancing – Rarity of items is a serious issue and a massive bottleneck that is killing crafting in the game. I mentioned this in a post that I tagged Steven in but got no responses from anyone in leadership. My question was whether the system is working as intended and that we are supposed to be stepping up things in a tiered fashion?
Example – Animal fat for hunting is essentially game breaking (or is it?). My theory is that the reason gathers are not seeing heroic or above is that the player rarity numbers aren’t high enough to see it. My thought is the player would first need to craft the uncommon shirt/pants which raises the rarity scale to see more Rare and give a small percentage for heroic. Then crafting Rare to tier up and see more heroic with slight chance at now seeing Epic. If this is intended that is fine, but the players need to know in order to play the game properly. When looking at the pickaxe for example we craft the first apprentice pickaxe with novice level ingredients. We also get additional crafting recipes for pickaxes that have “Rarity” on them; however, the rarity drops are so scarce that we are Journeyman before we even have the resources to make the other pickaxe recipes; thereby, making those irrelevant. The same goes for the clothing.

Partial Solution – Fix rarity drops if they are in a broken or unbalanced state (emphasis on Animal Fat and Weeping Willow). Another thing that could be done to slow things is to not give the clothing when leveling up but instead make it something that needs to be crafted. I personally leveled mining to GrandMaster with the first apprentice pickaxe and the clothing given by the vendor making all the other versions obsolete. Another thing to implement is to make it impossible to get higher levels until they are unlocked. Meaning, cap my xp so it locks at maxed 29 so that I cannot continue leveling to GM with an apprentice tool.

3) Node balancing with buildings – At the end of phase 1 I had been raising the alarm to my guild about the bottleneck faced with Tanned Raptor hides. I knew it was going to be a big issue, but it has been far worst than I predicted. Buildings are just as big an issue and, in another week, the entire server is going to come to a halt (mark my words). Why? The level of complexity in crafting that we face with needing materials from ALL professions is way beyond what it should be at this low level. To craft a Hunting Shirt, we need to get Tanned Raptor hides which is a huge issue just to get considering there are only 5 spawns (complicated further by how hunting drops work for carcasses). To make the “tanned” version the Leatherworker needs to have Weeping Willow and someone to gather/process that extremely rare resource. Then you need a Tailor for bluebell bolts plus further resources from Metalworking and gatherers of metals. All for an apprentice level shirt. Now, in the current state we are gathering Journeyman level metals that can’t be processed along with gems that can’t be cut. All because the building system for nodes is a bit too far in complication. The Mayors have designed a plan to have them in the desert and those nodes are far behind the rest which will bring things to a halt. Since we are reliant on all professions this will halt everything. No progress will be made for I am guessing the better part of 2 weeks at this point. In a game where the design is for everyone to work together this might be doable, but this game isn’t designed to be that way. We have a game that instead pits the nodes against each other. This reliance on needing all professions to make things will further be impacted when we talk about node sieges. Imagine if Halcyon was destroyed and the specializations they had in place where suddenly gone. That would bring down ALL professions because of the overly complicate reliance on all professions to craft something as simple as a shirt/pickaxe at the apprentice/journeyman level. No armorsmith, weaponsmith, or other profession will be able to craft anything at the journeyman level until both Metalworking and Stonemasonry are brought up into play. Even if you get Metalworking leveled up for processing metals you can’t cut gems or make molds. This is going to result in people abandoning the game. I have already heard from multiple hard-core crafters that if things don’t change, they will simply just be gatherers.

Solution: Honestly, I don’t have an answer here, but the overly complicated reliance on all professions needed to craft something at the apprentice/journeyman level is problematic at best.
There are lots of issues and so many things that are in the process of being balanced, designed, and built that don’t rise to the level of concern with the few things I have mentioned above. This is an alpha after all. This is where we raise our concerns in hopes of getting answers, but communication on these issues is a must. I fear that these areas will be used by those in social media to paint a bad picture of the game. We have all seen how social media can kill a great game before it even begins (Narc being the first pebble to be thrown). Some may agree with me and there will certainly be those that do not agree. To that I will emphasize that these are “my” thoughts and concerns of a few issues in the current state of the game.

I hope this gets seen by leaders and for some clarity on what we are seeing now.

Leathal

I agree, currently the Caravan system is extremely badly implemented. I don't hope, but expect major overhauls and improvements to be done over the alpha and betas.

I lost aproxximately 30 gold to caravans, nowadays you're almost guaranteed to get attacked. And I attacked and destroyed caravans as well out of spite because others destroyed my caravan randomly as well. It's a never ending cycle that breeds toxic gameplay. Overall, even though I made runs that netted out 4g and 8g, my real profit is around 5g. For the time invested I could've made 20g in pure profit from glint farming.

As a current counter for attackers, you could call for a friend to join in as attacker and crowbar the loot since that's instant and the attackers who actually wanted to summon their own caravan don't get anything. You still lose your caravan, loot and gold but this is a method to spite your attackers and ensure they lose their time with you at least, which isn't more than 10 minutes.

Speaking of time, why is it that a solo dps player can destroy a caravan in 10 minutes, but a caravan needs at least 20-25 minutes to do a single node to node run?

Anyway, I decided to step away from the testing grounds and have fun in other titles while Intrepid sorts out these more serious issues that directly make or break the player experience.

lukedawuke wrote: »

op cant even embed a signature but wants to tell multimillionaire devs how their game should work

I thought you two were related...
Neither of you can find the period key on your keyboard.

Steven way of marketing the game. Business side of the game matters also to you and me as well. Steven also loves interacting with gamers as he is a gamer as well. Be happy the dev team interacts with the players. I miss that from the EQ days. Thrills me to see this.