Most of the newer changes kind of just suck.
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Overview of my experience thus far
So far I have played for around 50 hours in the last 3 days split about evenly between a mage character and a warrior character. I started the game with about 15 of my buddies from a previous game and we recruited many people i/g as well as from the discord and quickly got the first town that didn't use a p2w skip package down at the morning of the 2nd day.Equipment costs and time gates on time gates
The resource cost on top of the time gate for gear was already pretty steep before, but now equipment costs have been increased across the board and the time gate and resource cost for crafting intermediate materials like leathers and ingots is still the same. In fact you produce less metal because the number of smelters you can place on a blacksmith plot was reduced from 8 to 6. This changes the time it takes to gear a person from what used to be like 6 hours to make a kit to something closer to 20 hours for a kit that requires intermediate resources.
Also this is pretty imbalanced because mages do not need to go through any time gate and simply craft intermediate resources using monster drops like spider silk in the weaving table. Compared to mage gear the resources that go into metal gear is EXTREMELY limited and has a 6 hour respawn time, actually creating another issue where mathematically there is simply not enough nodes on the map for someone to outfit a 20 man clan in any reasonable amount of time.
Recipe tangent
Also on top of this I hear that monsters are supposed to drop recipes for equipment now. I think that's insane, from a game design perspective you are adding an RNG drop chance grind to mechanics that are already gated by both time gates as well as resource gates. Let people make gear. Recipes should be tied to tech if anything.My solution for equipment crafting time/resource cost
If your going to make a full plate set cost 20 ingots, and your only going to let me place 6 smelters on a black smith plot, and it has to take 4 hours, than 5 ore should convert to 5 ingots like the tanning tubs do. This solves the problem with the dramatic scarcity of ore as well as drops the time it takes to make a kit back down to around 6 hours which I believe was reasonable.Alignment and Risk vs Reward
I believe that the changes to alignment are HOT GARBAGE, first of all I get it Jacopo, you want to protect the newbies you want to make sure that they don't get slammed out of the game but these changes to neutral and blue do not make any sense at all in a resource driven game. If you want it so that people don't drop gear, then EVERYONE should not drop gear or EVERYONE should at least drop some gear. Having it like it is now is honestly insane unless you want to promote only naked mage red pvp.
It simply doesn't make sense to go red unless you are a very low tier low gear type build. You risk everything for the meager reward of bandages and wolf meat and some other trash, it just doesn't add up and really discourages the red playstyle to the degree that literally all the rocks on the map are constantly tapped with no contest because no one wants to go red because they are the only ones who get punished for pvping.
ARPK Playstyle note
Anti Red Player Killer or ARPK players are at such a MASSIVE advantage right now, not only do you get GOLD for killing reds and jailing them but you can literally loot their entire kit without even risking your own, all you risk are bandages. Being a sheriff has never been more profitable. Compared to the red criminal, the blue arpk ganker is at such a massive advantage it doesn't even make sense.Resident requirement nuance
So one of the reasons I really don't like these alignment changes is because you already had a very nuanced and elegant way of preventing Red players from going on absolute murdering sprees. Red players still needed to build towns and red players still needed to convince other players to come live there as residents. Removing this requirement from town rank ups is not only silly, it's completely counter intuitive to the type of environment you say you want to create. At this point why would any guild even need residents outside of sucking taxes out of them. Residents should 100% be a requirement for town upgrades and city holders should have to engage in a gameplay loop that involves enticing players to move in and stay there.My solution for alignment
Like I said, I think the only way the alignment system will work properly for all types of players is if all players are generally subject to the same rules. If that means that full loot needs to be removed from everyone than so be it. Reds already have a massive disadvantage, they can be jailed and have to pay a fine or not play the character for a day or two, they don't need a second massive disadvantage that neither of the other alignments share. Either everyone drops none of their gear or everyone drops pieces based on karma. I would be fine with reds dropping all gear if blues at least dropped 2 pieces like it was before, in the games current state I honestly cannot say I can recommend the game to anybody mainly because of these alignment issues.
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Completely agree with this post. Please look into this cause it will destroy the game for a lot of people who actually like the game a alot.
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I haven't tested any of this myself yet, but I can kinda see where he is coming from.
I have yet to see ANYONE flag for PVP. And thinking about it, I don't really see much benefit in doing so. There doesn't feel like any competition or interaction with other players in the open world - Hell even resources seem over-abundant (but that might be due to low population with it being in beta). Myr basically feels like a full PvE world.
Obviously this is an issue that wont be present on the demon world, but in terms of a world that should have some access to all kinds of content and encourage interaction between players/competitors, it feels like it's missing a trick.
My personal solution would be to have the top half of the map essentially a "red zone", where if you stay in that zone longer than 1min, you are automatically flagged as being able to be killed and looted accordingly. This way new players can simply stay away, but players looking for a challenge can exist in this zone.
But that's just my opinion. I'm personally holding out for the PVP Zones / Lands. (I suck at PVP - I just enjoy the economy better in such lands).
Still very impressed with the actual development speed mind.
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I agree
I thought the game developed a lot in the last 2 years, instead it's worst.
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i do not understand OP compliant, talking about PVP and aliment without having the 2 other planets, seem silly to me.
human planet as developers said, should be mostly with no PVP, that why red being punish... if you want PVP wait for the demon planet.
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@grofire The Human world is supposed to be all types of players not just one or the other. Also Red players already get punished because they can be jailed. If no one else drops the equipment that takes 20 hours to make, than red players should also not drop equipment.
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@diabalo12 sorry, but this is not true, PVP isn't banned, but, as developers said, should contain massively disadvantage in the human planet, or it will become just demon 2 planet like previous test.
if PVP is your style , just wait for demon planet.
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@grofire What are you even talking about?
The demon planet doesnt exist.
Lets keep the discussion to things that are actually real and in the game, not things that are limited to marketing material/pictures.
The same complaints exist - no one is going to spend 20 hours to make a set that will drop on death to fight people who drop nothing, it would be even more ridiculous if you have people who dont drop anything invading worlds where people do.
The game doesnt and wont have the pop to support all these different worlds, the increase in grind is ridiculous as it goes against how the games been marketed.
"Tired of MMOs where the fun begins 80 hours after you’ve started playing? In Fractured Online, you’re free to join your friends in the most epic adventures right off the bat. Once the strengths and weaknesses of your character are set, you’ll be on a quest for knowledge and reputation, not attribute points!"
You literally have to grind knowledge for points to give yourself attributes.
"Say goodbye to the conventional RPG level and skill systems you’ve seen way too often and embrace the power and flexibility of the Knowledge System. It’s about time you get rewarded for your courage and cleverness, not for the hours you’ve spent hunting zombies or punching a training dummy!"
Literally have to grind mobs for hours to unlock the skills.
I think the OPs post is really on point and he clearly understands game dynamics, the devs decisions seem to be pretty brain dead and not showing any understanding of how their game plays.
They should offer OP a job.
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Hard to review a game when over half of the content is missing still. I'd wait another 6 months before taking it too serious.
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@Donk dude, the game will have 3 planets, its really not worth talking about PVP since the game will have a full planet for PVP....
in my post i have said nothing on the grind, and ya i think there is grind, and i posted about it a few times in the past.
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I do agree with some of the points made and disagree with a few other, in order:
Equipment costs and time gates on time gates
The resource cost on top of the time gate for gear was already pretty steep before, but now equipment costs have been increased across the board and the time gate and resource cost for crafting intermediate materials like leathers and ingots is still the same. In fact you produce less metal because the number of smelters you can place on a blacksmith plot was reduced from 8 to 6. This changes the time it takes to gear a person from what used to be like 6 hours to make a kit to something closer to 20 hours for a kit that requires intermediate resources.
We have clearly seen an increase in resource cost to make the equipment. The one on metal items is small, but for example a leather armor went from 11 to 50 resources needed. At the same time, the durability has been hugely increased. This overall means that making equipment is harder, but it lasts longer. I do understand the reasons that this was made. There were a few people which didn't like that weapons broke regularly, and other that wanted it harder to reach better equipment. This compounds with the new alignment system, because the items are less "disposable", so you have to reduce the amount you lose on death or it would be very punishing, especially considering the new tier of item sets which are very hard to make. I don't think that this is a good direction for the game. In my opinion, it works better with more disposable equipment. What we probably need is something between the current and the previous system. So items less durable than they are now, but more durable than what they were before. Resource costs rescaled down a bit, but still higher than what they were. Blue drop 1 item, neutral (and sheriff) drop 2. The current version went too much into the other direction, we probably need to adjust the aim a bit.
Also this is pretty imbalanced because mages do not need to go through any time gate and simply craft intermediate resources using monster drops like spider silk in the weaving table. Compared to mage gear the resources that go into metal gear is EXTREMELY limited and has a 6 hour respawn time, actually creating another issue where mathematically there is simply not enough nodes on the map for someone to outfit a 20 man clan in any reasonable amount of time.
Agree again. Hide, wood and silk items don't have enough depth, as I have said in multiple other treads. All items should be as complex as leather and metal to make.
Recipe tangent
Also on top of this I hear that monsters are supposed to drop recipes for equipment now. I think that's insane, from a game design perspective you are adding an RNG drop chance grind to mechanics that are already gated by both time gates as well as resource gates. Let people make gear. Recipes should be tied to tech if anything.And agree again. Recipes are a bad idea. They are ultra high value items at the start of the game which then become trash later. I don't think that we need them, they are an item without a natural death, their effect is permanent. It doesn't fit in this game economy. I think that we can just remove them and have the items known by default. The game already gives you enough of a challenge to craft that stuff, considering that they are time limited items.
My solution for equipment crafting time/resource cost
If your going to make a full plate set cost 20 ingots, and your only going to let me place 6 smelters on a black smith plot, and it has to take 4 hours, than 5 ore should convert to 5 ingots like the tanning tubs do. This solves the problem with the dramatic scarcity of ore as well as drops the time it takes to make a kit back down to around 6 hours which I believe was reasonable.This is were we disagree. The current scarcity of resouces is perfect, it is the cost in material of items that must go a bit down for metal.
Alignment and Risk vs Reward
I believe that the changes to alignment are HOT GARBAGE, first of all I get it Jacopo, you want to protect the newbies you want to make sure that they don't get slammed out of the game but these changes to neutral and blue do not make any sense at all in a resource driven game. If you want it so that people don't drop gear, then EVERYONE should not drop gear or EVERYONE should at least drop some gear. Having it like it is now is honestly insane unless you want to promote only naked mage red pvp.
It simply doesn't make sense to go red unless you are a very low tier low gear type build. You risk everything for the meager reward of bandages and wolf meat and some other trash, it just doesn't add up and really discourages the red playstyle to the degree that literally all the rocks on the map are constantly tapped with no contest because no one wants to go red because they are the only ones who get punished for pvping.
As I already said, this is a direct consequence of the new durability/cost paradigm. Fix that and I agree to going back to having blue and neutral drop something every time.
ARPK Playstyle note
Anti Red Player Killer or ARPK players are at such a MASSIVE advantage right now, not only do you get GOLD for killing reds and jailing them but you can literally loot their entire kit without even risking your own, all you risk are bandages. Being a sheriff has never been more profitable. Compared to the red criminal, the blue arpk ganker is at such a massive advantage it doesn't even make sense.This is correct. ARPK are supposed to be at an advantage on Syndesia (but they should drop as much as a Neutral).
Resident requirement nuance
So one of the reasons I really don't like these alignment changes is because you already had a very nuanced and elegant way of preventing Red players from going on absolute murdering sprees. Red players still needed to build towns and red players still needed to convince other players to come live there as residents. Removing this requirement from town rank ups is not only silly, it's completely counter intuitive to the type of environment you say you want to create. At this point why would any guild even need residents outside of sucking taxes out of them. Residents should 100% be a requirement for town upgrades and city holders should have to engage in a gameplay loop that involves enticing players to move in and stay there.It was removed because it was flawed, it couldn't work unfortunately.
More residents, more techs. More techs, more residents. It activated a snowball effect on cities.
The current system is half good, but the cities need to have more incentives to attract residents. I'm in favor of increasing the taxes progressively for the houses, so that they actually represent a decent income for the city.My solution for alignment
Like I said, I think the only way the alignment system will work properly for all types of players is if all players are generally subject to the same rules. If that means that full loot needs to be removed from everyone than so be it. Reds already have a massive disadvantage, they can be jailed and have to pay a fine or not play the character for a day or two, they don't need a second massive disadvantage that neither of the other alignments share. Either everyone drops none of their gear or everyone drops pieces based on karma. I would be fine with reds dropping all gear if blues at least dropped 2 pieces like it was before, in the games current state I honestly cannot say I can recommend the game to anybody mainly because of these alignment issues.Again, this is all connected to the new durability paradigm. Fix that, and you fix this.
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@spoletta well i just disagree with you on most of the items.
i think that on human planet the red vs blue is ok now. i think that items should be hard and timely to craft, but the effect of them need to be stronger so it will be worth the wait.
i hated the last test gear durability, i think, there should be a way to fix the items, and that you can upgrade an item more and more.
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Mostly agree with this post.
Except for the whining about blue ARPK "gankers", LOL!
sorry mate, being red should suck, like, a LOT.
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100% agree. They need to make armor more disposable. I like the 5 ores for 5 ingots suggestion. And they should for sure make blue and neutral players drop atleast some of their gear.
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@grofire Reds already have a massive disadvantage they get jailed. What the hell do you mean just wait for demon planet. Right now there is 2 pve world.
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@grofire This alignment system is JUNK
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@Radamand It already does suck being red they get caught and go to jail for 2 days, they shouldn't also lose their gear if no one else does. It's simply an inequivalent risk reward and completely destroys the red playstyle.
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@diabalo12 learn about the game little more, this test we see only 1 planet... the human one, there is 2 more that needed to be added the beast and the demon, the demon one is the full PvP world.
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@grofire The other worlds don't exist and probably never will at this rate. Stop trying to shape the human world like arboreus. It should be a middle ground for players who want PvP as well as Politics and Economy. Players who don't want PvP should wait for arboreus.
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Okay, didn't read the last 4 or 5 posts, but here's my take on things:
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The new 'time gates' for crafting: Times to do things have been extended because we are now going into a longer running test, and they want a real affect to be felt. In a test that only runs for a couple weeks to a month, you obviously couldn't have these kinds of time sinks, but with the plan not to wipe/reset the servers through this beta as much as possible, it makes a LOT of sense to increase time sinks.
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No incentive/really anti-incentivized to go Red: This is on PURPOSE. As has been said, they have not brought in the other planets as of yet, however, Syndesia, although allowing PvP, is supposed to heavily discourage it. PvP on Syndesia is meant to be an overwhelming challenge for the PvPer out there. Regular PvP, encouraged PvP, is going to wait for the Demon World. The cards are supposed to be drastically stacked against going Red, and the incentive to hunt Reds is supposed to be as high as it can get.
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Mage advantage on time sinks: This I agree with. They do need to make the mage (light) armor options, at least the better, more advanced ones, as rich and dynamic as they are doing with Medium+ armor. Yes, it makes sense, a character who doesn't go around wearing a whole lot of padding wouldn't have to go around doing a whole lot to get it, but when said padding is giving them some massive defensive spikes, based on their kind of hunting/playing, comparable to some Medium+ armor, then they should have to go through some time sinks to get it as well. Of course, I use Massive loosely here, because although equipment is nice, it in no way massively affects the game. It is nice, and does make things easier, but so does bringing around a few friends, or having the right skill/talent load-out for the mob your after.
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Cities and Residences: They are still balancing this. Personally, I have no problem with them maintaining a Citizen/Resident requirement for leveling up the cities, but I also understand why they would scrap it right now and see how it goes before possibly implementing a new version. Also, as @spoletta said, once they do get the crafting balanced out, they will be better able to determine how best to proceed, but crafting DOES need to get addressed and rebalanced some.
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Recipes: Monsters dropping recipes is something I'm a little on the fence about. In general, it goes against the basic tenets of Fractured for something like a Bear or a Wolf to drop a recipe, as it doesn't make sense. Humanoids, on the other hand, could drop recipes and schematics and other such things and it could make some sense, but like was said previously, it doesn't have its own 'expiration' system. You get the recipe once, install it to your character/town/crafting station/whatever the method is, it never really goes away, so eventually they are a useless drop. Recipes should be based around Crafting Level Mastery and Tech Level of Crafting Stations, not on drops, in my opinion.
Overall, I'm finding the new game play fun, and think that several of the changes have been beneficial, especially for going into a 24/7 outlook on the game. If I had one minor pet peeve, it is that needing 5 of a reagent to enchant can be a bit excessive when we're talking about the highly rare reagents, like Rabbits Feet, Foxtails, Dragon Souls, and such...but who knows, that may balance out. At least we don't have to sink as much gold and any gems into most of the crafting. More crafting levels, and that stepping up recipes however would be better I think.
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