SotA – MMO and solo experience
1) MMORPG is about competition… a lot.
2) Competition = each player want to get more resources than others.
3) Currently solo gaming gives player more resources than in online mode – you could meet more mobs, nodes, chests & etc.
Conclusion:
People would play mainly in solo-mode if there wouldn’t be any bonuses for playing MMO-mode – like extra experience or bonus loot.
SotA – newbie experience
Some new players complain about newbie items durability and that its hard to get repair kit… But newbie do not need repair kit, guys
Yep, things break. But newbie items has more then enough durability. Its impossible to destroy newbie items for 3 hours, for example Till then you would get loads of gold for quests, loot from mobs, items from crates & etc. You even could play NAKED and beat weak monsters, gather resources, complete quests… But again, its not necessary – game gives you pretty good weapons at the beginning.
The problem in newbie experience not in items durability, but in not really good tutorial… It has to be polished a lot. OR it has to be removed, like it was in UO. There could be two approach – no tutorial (it gives sandbox feeling) OR good, polished tutorial, which shows beauty of the game. Right now it has to be revamped imho (I started to play at R32).
SotA graphics tweak – how to reduce lags
I got quite good PC (GTX 970 videocard), but when I go near player houses IT FREEEEZZZEE (road from Soltown entrance to town in the middle is like slide show). Other MMORPGs like Black Desert Online works without freezes even at high graphics… Its kinda wierd.
How to make game much faster:
1) turn on video option “cull interior decorations”.
2) shadow distance -> medium. It would look good and help with performance a lot.
3) game options -> Disable cloth
Also, my suggestion to developers: it would be AWESOME to have an option to turn off all players deco items in their houses, just see only houses walls… It would help a lot with performance. So if there would be New game option “do not load others people deco items” – it would give huge boost for SotA performance.
SotA — fast skill gains
There is a big discussion about skill gains at official SotA forums. My two cents there…
There are always would be hardcore players who play 10 hours per day, who knows “effective way” for skill training – “features”,”tricks” and even “bugs”… also some @#$% are using “afk macro” (hello, UO!).
Very often (but not always) hardcore players have “hardcore” goals – to PWN all the World and become “The Best of the Best”, to make all GMs as fast as it could be… They do not _explore_ the world, do not RP.. They know everything about the game and they getting bored when they get to the “ceiling” of the game. As they are quite “pro” in char advancing, it could be very soon, not really matter how fast skills could be gained… Also interesting thing, that after hardcore players get to the “ceiling”, they could transfer to “casual gamers” category and start to explore the world & etc…
The good thing about it – that hardcore players is 5-10% of population. Most of the population – its normal, casual players who play 1-2 hours per day. And they advance their characters 5-10 times slower cause they do not know “effective ways” to train, they explore world and the game slowly, they just have fun in there.
A lot of people who read this words are playing the game already for 1-2 years. You know the game very well and know hot to advance fast. You could be even not hardcore players, but you _know_ the game and do everything _much faster_ then we, army of newbies, who just get into the game. We do not know nothing. We advance chars very slow. Please try to look at the game with ours, newbie, eyes.
So every MMORPG (sorry, but SotA imho is clearly MMORPG game, just with some casual options) could be adjusted to hardcore players or casual players. Or something in between. Right now SotA is VERY hard game for a new player. It has very uncommon, to other modern MMORPG, features. Everything is different. So starting the game and trying to understand whats happening is huge challenge for a new player. Make it even more hardcore… It would not be wise imho.
Dear hardcore players. You would get your endgame soon, devs working at it; I’m sure you would need for it to advance your skills to 200, not to 100 and it would take some months (years?) of your time. So relax and give casuals like me their time to _have fun_ in the game. You already made all GM chars? Good job, its cool achievement. But why to ask now make skill gains harsher if you already got your GMs and we (casuals) just started? So we would stuck at ~40 each skill? And another slippy question – there was several wipes before, why you was silent about skills there?
No offence to anyone, I respect people who aquire big goals in gaming. I was pretty hardcore player myself for many years… But His Majesty “Time” makes you casual eventually
SotA – arrows guide
I got an issue at the beginning of my journeys in SotA – I started with a bow (game adviced it), but when I spent all my 600 arrows.. I went to sword path, cause I didn’t understood how to craft arrows – no recipe… I even killed chickens for feathers (like in UO), but at that time I didn’t understood how to create arrows. Now I know it but its too late
Going sword was not easy, but fun, indeed. It was like small adventure – to become swordsman from zero
IMHO there could be several solutions:
1) May be there has to be a newbie tutorial crafting quest for archers about crafting arrows? Right now newbies got quest for cotton.. May be its possible to make it for arrows if you start with a bow? Describe newbie how to get them (buy from shop or craft).
2) Add “simple” arrows type which could be made without steel. Just wood and feathers (like in UO). Lets they would be 75% effective to normal ones.. But its good for new players.
How to to craft arrows in SotA:
To create 500 arrows, you need:
Carpentry Hammer x 1
Wooden Board x 1 (Cubit Measure x 1; Wooden Timber x 1; Creosote x 1)
Bundle of Feathers x 5 (kill chickens for them; chickens could be found in Soltown)
Arrowheads x 1 (Smithing Hammer x 1; Arrow Head Mold x 1; Iron Ingot x 1)
SotA housing in compare to UO – Shroud of the Avatar housing VS Ultima Online
In SotA houses aren’t so crucial like they were in UO… In UO was full-loot so people had to have a lot of armours and weapons inside of chests in their houses – banks had very limited place. In SotA you don’t need so much weapons/armours cause you do not loose anything after you die… So actually its ok to be without house in SotA. Main use of housing atm – vendors, but you could rent one from others… Of course its fun to be owner of house just for fun, deco and RP 🙂 But its not really essential for _playing_ the game 😉
RIGHT WAY TO PLAY SotA — Shroud of the Avatar
In that video I said that SotA is _sandbox_ game and you are not obliged to focus _only_ at questing like in other traditional MMORPGs, where the only way to lvl is questing. Of course SotA has very interesting storyline, but as game right now is in early development and some quests could not give full satisfaction – better do not focus _only_ at quests, but also explore the world and especially pay attention to system of character advancement, which is already (even in early development :p) quite perfect.
Also I made that video when I just started my adventures in SotA, after ~10 hours or so. Now I played much more (~50 hours I suppose) and I’ll create a new video with my thoughts about this subject very soon
Shroud of the Avatar REVIEW in 5 minutes