Posts made by Kazzier

I know it's already been discussed but I would still like to chime in:

Resources REALLY need to be more scarce or have higher demand. I'm personally aiming to be a local merchant, and everything I have gathered, nobody is interested in buying because all resources are too easily available / uncontested. This is probably partly due to low population with it being an Alpha, but if you need food for example, it's literally everywhere, so there is never a need to "stock up". So for new players, or someone wanting to play casually, that's a whole system that isn't worth engaging with. Or if they do try to engage with it, it yields no profit.

Harbours - Personally I am totally against fast travel, as it reduces the immersion of the game and I've seen it damage the open world in many other MMO's. That said, if it's here to stay, then whatever. The only true plus side to this is the "money sink" aspect. And I honestly think it should be extremely expensive to fast travel around the world, as otherwise the value of rare/locational items because eroded. Someone on the very south of the map should have a very very hard time attaining resources from the very north of the map, which in turn increases their value. Over-accessibility = no value or sense of achievement for acquiring it.

Long story short - resources across the land need way more value.
Thanks for reading. Hope this helps

I mean if you think about medieval times. Bandits would often rob well geared knights / mercenaries etc. So in that respect, it's pretty realistic.

Even in real life, if you have all the armour in the world, it's likely that 2x people with no Armor will still best you. The Armor just helps (abit).

In that respect, I would say that this is a positive thing that the gear isn't over powered.

Funny, I found you streaming the game on Twitch before I saw your introduction.

Anyway, welcome to the Alpha. The game's come a long way, and the potential is getting better and better.

Yer that's an obvious one. It's no doubt on the to do list, but it's not an urgent priority right now. Better they work on the core foundations of the game first. It will come.

@Alexian said in Let's talk business! (And the lack of it):

Put the marketplace at the lowest branch of the tech tree
Ditch harbors; seriously, no need for fast travel
We may need to revisit locking resources to cities so it prevents rival cities from harvesting them directly, forgoing trade
Emphasize/incentivize niche roles like roaming merchants/merchant caravans/merchant guilds to travel between cities

I think I have to agree with all of these points. Especially the point regarding fast travel.

If you think about this, once gold has a more abundant presence in the world, unless fast travel costs are EXTREMELY high, it's always going to be a go-to mechanic simply on the basis of how convenient it is.

If we use World of Warcraft as an example here, once flying mounts were introduced to the game, resource gathering became significantly easier because all of the risk in getting to those resources were removed. You also remove the possibility of bumping into random people/events. This can make the game feel empty - if they don't have to actually engage with the open world.

Lets advance on this, if there is a small cost for instantly traveling from one side of the map, to the other, but the benefit is that you skip large amounts of danger and save vast amounts of time. Your always going to do it, because it's a path of zero resistance. Thus in turn this makes the world less interactive and has less opportunities for things such as traveling merchants / bandits etc. It also means that pretty much anyone can get pretty much any resources from anywhere, which is a problem we are already seeing (people asking for region locked nodes etc). I honestly believe that fast travel shouldn't exist in this game. OR, if it is included, it needs to be very very expensive to deter people from using it for general resource gathering.

Just a bit of feedback from someone who was jumping in to get a feel of things, but not overly participate:

1)
I jumped in a few days after alpha release and decided to run around the player cities and find a city where I could make a home and work the local market providing resources for cheap amounts of gold (I like to engage in economy). To my surprise, at the time, I couldn't find ANY cities that had even bothered to make a market. Likely due to it being far less imperative to a starting city than other buildings. However the problem with this, was that as someone who was intending to play the alpha casually (hardcore PVP server at release, for the active economy), I found myself somewhat lacking in ways to engage with the economy, because for whatever reason.......nobody prioritised making a market.

I suppose this problem will be less apparent as time progresses on the server, but I do think cities should be encouraged to build a market earlier in the tech tree.

2)
Another observation while running around player housing: Many houses seem to stack building loads and loads of processing facilities. While I get the practicality of this, it looks stupid to see a line of houses and then say....12 smelting stations all in the same area. I honestly believe that such crafting and produce stations should be within the city grounds only - it also makes people gather and interact, which is good for the game.

Hope this feedback helps!

@Ragnarock said in Change to Syndesia, the true mix of PvE and PvP?:

my little suggestion (might be pretty dumb) is to have a PVP button switch off/on

Your problem then is that 9/10 times, people will never have PVP on. Because there is no incentive to do so. So you would end up with 2x PVE planets.

I suppose until all 3 planets are released fights are going to happen. I personally want to live on a dangerous planet, but mixing the PVP players with purely PVE, is going to be hard on those that don't like conflict.

You will be able to tame creatures, probably such as wolves and spiders. Although it's not been developed yet. It will probably come later in the year closer to official release.

@GreatValdus Thanks for cascading this information. It's appreciated.
Will be joining in.

I would expect taming to be more akin to PvE content and less effective in PvP for balancing purposes. Which makes sense and is a fair compromise.

Although feeding the pet and loosing them when they die, is an awesome concept and adds a lot to immersion. Really looking forward to such mechanics (eventually).

Just to point out that you can decorate and move things within the house how you like. There will no doubt be cosmetic items for the houses you can buy, which is pretty cool. So a decent amount of customization.

@Gropes said in First Impressions on the new City System:

@Kazzier I thoought all these changes were pretty good what is OP suggesting exactly?

Not in relation to OP's post, but a proportion of the playerbase dislike some of the changes.

I don't think people minded the reduction of cites, as that in many respects made a lot of sense. Although it might hurt small guilds / groups who wanted their own small piece of the map to call home.

The main issue people had was cities becoming safezones and how that changes the whole dynamic of the game. Your guild's base can essentially be accessed by your enemies, and then your enemies can take advantage of your cities commodities. They can also stand there taunting you and such and there is nothing you can do about it. That can feel very un-immersive and is a bit of a slap in the face to anyone who wants to take their cities and the game seriously. There also wont be random events happening in cities, such as brawls, duals or robberies, as they are all safezones. There was discussion of having an option to allow players to change the rules of their cities, however even so it still changes a vast fundamental of the game, as undoubtedly the majority of cities will be inclined to be friendly/open cities, aka, safezones.

I'm not exactly opposed to changes such as these, as they have their advantages. It certainly helps casual players and less-knowledgeful players start out (which is a good thing), but it also takes away a lot of what the game was originally envisioned to be (by many players outside of the PvE planet).

I think the problem is several people are concerned that recent changes are altering the games design direction and it feels more....casual centric in recent design than what was originally being developed.

Personally, I think the only safezones should be inside buildings and the starting zones. I think that's a fair compromise. Otherwise I feel it impacts the immersion and identity of the game too heavily. But that's just my personal opinion.

@Gropes said in First Impressions on the new City System:

can anyone give me a tldr of this essay?

120+ Building spots have been reduced to 36~ cities per planet.

This was done so that towns are not left derelict and people not in guilds can still have a place in the world - People can have houses in cities even if they are not part of the guild that owns the city.

Cities are safe zones and people stood inside them cannot be attacked (there is some consideration to allow players to change the rules of their cities to avoid abuse by enemies, or how the cities / guilds wish to operate etc)

Harbours are now able to be used by anyone, and are not tied to their respective city.

Hope that helps as a general run down.

I kind of like the fact that you have to go into the world to acquire abilities. It encourages people to adventure and explore.

That said, if they added a few abilities which were in books, dropped by enemies, that wouldn't be bad. But they would have to be super super rare.

I guess an arts section or "creative corner" would be a good idea.

There will be a month long test either during or around the end of Feb. So will be worth the wait.

I certainly want an option for chat bubbles. However granted there are more pressing design matters. Hopefully it's something that can be turned on in the options at a later point, then everyone's happy.

Another question -

I posted this on another thread but would you consider a compromise such as say......3/4 NPC cities across a map which are classed as safe zones, and then player towns are restricted to the actual guilds (with obvious benefits over NPC cities). Natural resource nodes could still be contested etc.

This would also allow more smaller settlements, rather than forcing large coalitions. It would also allow more of the smaller guilds and groups to have access to their own land / towns and function independently (or collectively if they wish).

Welcome.