Suggestions on Various Aspects of the Game
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Progression - I think character progression overall is in a good spot. However, I think gearing progression needs an improvement. Right now I think its taking too long to see gear changes.Make T1 easier to acquire/craft (time limit restrictions), put in a new T2 where its slightly better and a midway point between the current T1 and T2. Then keep T2 (now T3 in a new system) as it is. Two reasons I think this is needed. For one, I see a lot of people pvping naked/cloth gear as its the easiest they could craft. Lowest loss rate. Maybe city sieges will be more T2, but at its current state I see a lot of T1. I suspect its because people think that T2 is too valuable to risk losing in PvP. Along with this, the market for T2 armor is pretty sub-par in its current state. With quite a few of the T2 item sets being straight up missing from the market or exist in a very small quantity. Part of this is balance, part of it is a dropping population. But I think giving a more steady dopamine drip via a new gear tier that is around that T1 is right now in terms of difficulty to acquire, then introducing a new T1 that is easier to get than its current state will probably go a far way for market diversity and player retention. Heck maybe you need to look into reducing the time it takes to get t2 armor too. Between gathering and refinement, its quite a significant time investment. Especially for materials that take time to refine like ore or leather. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a sizable portion of players who look at the time it takes with gathering + refinement to get near gear and are discouraged/quit. Time constraints like refinement are hard to pull off with today's audiences. But perhaps more gear tiers with shorter time frames to placate players will help with this feeling of discouragement
Housing - If you're wanting to sell housing based cosmetics, the current system in place will end up working against you. A lot of players are buying plots to place down crafting stations and such. Mainly refinement stations. Not to build a house/decorate it. You're basically saying that if you go for the "cosmetic" side of things, you will hamstring progression for yourself compared to other players. So IF you end up selling say housing blueprints or even put in the founder packages blueprints, I would not be surprised if people don't buy them/build them because you can't build all the crafting stations on them. I'd like to suggest putting in new blueprints or changing existing ones to be built indoors instead of having outdoor requirements. This will help incentivize people to "build big". Instead of leaving plots empty and the likes.
Neutral needs to be incentivized more. I don't think buffing red or nerfing blue is the answer in its current state. I think both of those are in a good spot. But there needs to be more reason to go neutral for ALL playstyles. Mainly PvE grinding and gathering. Those two playstyles are the most likely to sit in blue. Which is fine. But neutral needs to be more appealing to them. Better drops, greater cart speed, things like that. Something to keep in mind is that MMORPGs don't exist in as much of a vacuum as they did back in the UO and early 2000s days. If people get inconveinced/frustrated, they're a lot less likely to "stick with it" or "power through it". They'll just quit because there's loads of other games that are out there. That's why I'm a bit worried about nerfing blue or encouraging red gameplay. Gamer's tolerance for roadblocks or slow downs is significantly less in today's gaming ecosystem. The same worry applies to "nerfing" Terra. If even after making neutral so much more appealing, people STILL don't roll neutral. Nerfing Blue gameplay will likely NOT result in them "staying". They'll just say "fine, whatver. I'm going to play something else".Aerhen Legends - I RARELY see legends summoned on Aerhen. At least vs Terra. Why? I'm assuming because its too risky with the PvP situation. I would look into buffing legend drops, especially Aerhen legends.
Repairing - I do think there should be repairing in the game, but it should come at a cost and something that you can only acquire through quite a bit of work. As such I think some kind of "repair" item that is consumable single use should exist in the game. Maybe it wont be a full repair. Or maybe it repairs it to full, but decreases the max durability each time it is used on an item. These items would only be acquired through killing legends. With Aerhen having a larger drop rate. These items would also serve to help buff legend drops. As you could see these items forquite a bit on the market.
Terra and the Stargate -I'd recommend looking into removing the requirements to open the stargate. Potentially just leave it open 24/7. One of the reasons people like Albion's blue zones and yellow zones is that you can travel between them at will. Just takes time to travel through them. Its easy to just jump on say "I feel like just PvEing today" and going to a blue zone. FO doesn't offer such a thing. That barrier of entry I wouldn't be surprised turns off a few people. Just imagine a player on Aerhen. They lose their young status, they end up getting ganked. In frustration, they say I want to go PvE because they want to still play the game. Just not PvP. So they go to the stargate but don't have any energy crystals. Resulting in them either afking or buying it. If they afk at the stargate, they get bored and quit. If they go buy crystals that are priced heavily at some nearby market and get ganked on the way to the stargate, they may also quit. The possible other solution is to introduce energy crystal farming on Aerhen. but that barrier between entry between the worlds may be causing friction
Stargate and Reds - Its not uncommon for reds to patrol around the stargate looking for people to gank. Especially in groups. This of course heavily hinders trade and frustrates those who are actually trying to travel between planets with a purpose. Part of the frustration for this may be coming from #6. But also from that there's only one stargate and its easy to patrol around. If your game every starts getting a TON of people playing and a larger "red" presence. Leaving the stargate will become very risky to the point where people probably don't want to deal with it. I also suspect that's why there seems to be a reduction in those "public announcement" stargate openings. Reds figured out that they could just gank players coming through it on Aerhen side. A possible solution to this is to create another stargate on the opposite side of the respective contineint. Or near a town that doesn't have much value right now. Helps make red blockades less effective, especially if you account for future populations if the game takes off. This issue will probably become more noticable if you end up nerfing Terra.
Unstuck button should probably exist in the game.
NPC Towns - Would be cool of each NPC town had its own "reputation" system. You gain reputation by turning in material items. And as you raise the reputation, you gain access to the crafting services in the city. Perhaps there would be a maximum of how many of each item you can turn in for reputation
Meat - Would be cool if each type of meat had a special food buff it applied depending on what kind of meat it is. Like maybe deer gets a small movement speed buff. Reptile meat gives a poison resist. Mammoth meat gives a bit of extra health. Doesn't have to be anything major, small increases.
A "Rested" buff for staying inside taverns in a city. Similar to the way it works for WoW. For Knowledge point gain.
Chat QoL features - Mainly blocking and whispering players.
Watchtower City Building - This is a building that cities can build that will monitor for reds in the territory that the city controls. And players can see "estimated" amount of reds in a city by hovering over the city icon for the city that has the watch tower built.
Security State - This is a dynamic level that increases over time. It will provide a buff players who are citizens of the capitol city in the territory at varying levels. The security of a territory will drop when reds kill players in those areas.
Integrity State - This is a dynamic level that will change depending on how many neutral flagged players that are citizens of another territory/city that are in the territory compared to neutral flagged citizens of the city that "owns" the territory. Again this will provide some kind of buff to citizens of the city the less neutral flagged citizens of other cities are within their territory. If the city is in an alliance/faction with another city, then neutrals of those cities don't have a negative impact to the others integrity state.
Both these city state buffs will help push neutral players into combat (integrity state) and help encourage players to be sheriffs in their own territory. Rather than being red.
Lawless City State - Ability for a group to set themselves as a "lawless" city. The no longer have to worry about integrity/security states as those two things disappear. Lawless cities can't build Watchtowers, but they can build a "Den" or something similar. Where red players can spend gold to gain a buff that prevents Watchtowers from seeing them.
Church Buildings - Ability for cities to build a church/temple/chapel to a specific entity. They can pray there and "donate" gold to obtain a buff related to that entity.
Group Drop Buffs - When near others who are in the same group as you, you gain a buff to drops.