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Yea it's just too early to use these. The game needs to be more newbie friendly, especially when it comes to how keywords work and what benefits you get out of them. I will definitely encourage my friends to join in a few months or however long it takes to get some of these things in the game! I'm just afraid at this point people will get frustrated, leave, and never come back.
I hope you have an ideascale contribution for this, you have my vote.
Which is exactly what I have proposed on ideascale. Please vote for it.
I agree this is sorely needed. I was hoping they could put in a PO Box type system as a stop-gap measure before their more advanced systems are implemented.
I disagree. The only thing you lose is time, and the amount spent on tier 1 skills will be insignificant compared to later. The non min/maxers and new players will all play significant roles in the game. Now in tier 2 and up, you're right. I'd be very careful about diversifying there.
The genius design of the game is you don't have to. For example if you're a crafter, anyone can use the items you craft, but can only take advantage of keywords they have trained through feats. So the demand for high level items will be much lower than the demand for lower level items, and all levels can be used by anyone. Combat is similar, with diminishing returns and higher costs as you go. And there is no xp gained from combat. You can group with a wide variation of "levels" in your combat groups and everyone will still benefit. It's kind of hard to explain but the old MMORPG concept of everyone racing to cap and "catching up" simply will not exist in this game. It's one of the most attractive features about the game.
I don't know.. I think the new player experience needs to be pretty high priority. It's the reason I gave up on Alpha and nearly gave up on EE as well. If I didn't find a good group of very helpful players (7th veil/Phaeros) I likely would have left again. People who give up on a game often don't come back because of that first impression. I'm willing to bet turnover at this point is still far higher than it needs to be. There are some really big bang for the buck items that could make the new player experience much better, namely gating feats and some better UI guidance on keyword matching. Tutorials can be lower priority.
Great to see this report. As for your comment that a constant presence (having to pvp every night) may begin to feel like work... There are some people that want to spend most of their time in this game PvP'ing. I'm encouraged that we can send those type of people to our borders or on escort missions and they will likely not be disappointed. While the rest of the company stays back in the relatively safer territory to PvE.
My experience for probably the first week of playing was largely the same as yours, very frustrating. The number of feats at the start is overwhelming. They need to do something to make this easier for new players, though I'm not sure what that will be. Since so much to do with feats is based on matching keywords, I think that matching keyword highlighting will help. But I do also think they should somehow reduce the number of feats available at the start. The map has gotten much better over time. You should have seen it 8 months ago when it was a single low res image that you couldn't zoom on. Give it time, it will get better. At this point in the game, you really have to join other players to get some meaning in the game and to help understand some of the more complex systems. There really is a ton of depth to the system and the game will be very good soon IMHO (it's a fantastic core it just needs a lot of polish).
Although towers are temporary, a lot of the mechanics we're talking about here would be re-used for PoI's. The items you have in your list should be easy implementations, I hope they are able to do something.
I think the point accrual should only be allowed to occur by one company at a time, the first to start the "capture". If somebody else wants to come and capture they should have to overthrow the previous would be captors. This would also make it easy for allies to help without a need for a just visiting flag.
In LOTRO, this is accomplished via NPC defenders assisting in the Keep (Tower) defense. I don't think that strategy seems quite right in PFO. Maybe a "buff" for the defenders? Or traps that can be crafted and added to a tower that can cause damage or debuffs to would be attackers.
War of Towers as it is now is not that far off from being a decent system for engaging in meaningful PvP. * Obviously it will be much better when instead of just towers we're fighting over varied PoI's each with different effects on the owning settlements, but that's a ways off.
Do you have any other suggestions for improving War of Towers? What are your thoughts on the current mechanics?
I'd also like to see an alert system for the defending companies (https://pathfinderonlinecrowdforging.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Tower-Capture-ale rt/72782-30320). Sorry, I felt like I was going off topic and I didn't want to hijack the thread. :) Moved here.
I like that feats are gated behind achievements. If I played 20 hrs/week and were completely equal in all aspects to somebody who played 2 hrs/week with the same start date as me, why would I play? The "grind" argument is tired and silly IMO. It also makes sense that to improve your skill at a weapon, you actually have to PRACTICE COMBAT! Anyways, that whole conversation belongs in another thread. To the OP, this definitely doesn't sound like the game you were looking for.
Thorgrim, I looked up your company and joined the teamspeak. It's 7th veil and there is nobody online. Am I looking in the wrong spot? Thx.
By settlement though, do you all mean company? I'm having a hard time exploring the companies available in game, is there an easier way to see what companies are out there and what they are about? We're looking for the following.. Accepts casuals - we both lead very busy lives and will often only have a few hours per week to play. We do enjoy occasional binge sessions on the weekends, especially if the game is fun :) Mature - we're late 30's with kids and enjoy playing with other family friendly players. Must use some sort of voice communication - Teamspeak, Mumble, Ventrillo, whatever, we've used them all. Mix of PvP / PvE with maybe a slight lean towards PvP - we've spent a lot of time playing LOTRO monster play (years). We enjoy meaningful group vs group battle.
So I bought EE for my wife and I during the kickstarter. We're thinking about playing but don't know really what there is to do in the game. When we played Alpha before we just ran around for a few evenings and farmed goblins, trained some skills (which we didn't really understand what they did), and never got into crafting because it seemed difficult to get started with. I logged in last weekend and there was no tutorial quest, I was outside of a town with trainers (selling an obtuse number of skills). I don't want to have to study for hours outside of the game just to get a clue on what to do. So, is there anything that would be enjoyable for us to do as a duo now? Or is the game still to raw and we should hold off for awhile?
It should be a combination of both. I like the fact that spells and abilities don't become obsolete as your character grows. That is great design. At the same time, everything should not be available at the start. It makes things far too overwhelming for a new player when they are. The things that unlock at higher levels don't necessarily have to be more powerful (and in most cases shouldn't be, so they don't make other things obsolete), but they should add utility and variety to your characters choices.
This is a fantastic suggestion, and not something that should be considered "low priority". Something that clearly displays what keywords do and what keywords are active IN-GAME is critical. Even if it wasn't on a tooltip but somewhere on your character stat sheet (where it should also be), that would be a huge step up from what we have now. Until such a system is in place, PFO will continue to frustrate players. I don't want a SIMPLE system with no depth, I just want a system where the information is AVAILABLE (in game).
I haven't played the game in a month due mainly to the strange weapon and armor system. I tried for awhile to grasp it and have simply given up. Being in Alpha is no excuse for a completely counter intuitive system. Such important core mechanics should start out simple and can grow over time, but there is no need for it to be so confusing. I don't like that you have to do key word matching. If I'm training up an armor or weapon feat, I should get better with that weapon or armor, not have to run new equipment I find through some matrix to see if it's an improvement or not. I'm not interested in returning to the game until they improve these systems, and I doubt they'll find many players who make it over the learning curve before giving up in frustration.
What this causes is everybody having to take the same feats, the ones that increase scores the most, completely derailing the gist of open leveling. Ability score gaining needs another major tweak imo. It seems the largest complaint was that you could train feats completely unrelated to "Attribute X", and once you leveled your role you would still be able to add to "Attribute X". I get this. But you still want a certain amount of freedom so that players can customize their attributes. I think that trade off makes it worth it. If I'm focusing on a Cleric role, I'm going to be inclined to spend my points on Wisdom, to not do so will just limit the feats I can gain and their effectiveness. This is why the system I proposed would work. Maybe I didn't do a good enough job explaining the system.
IMO the worst design decision made so far is how we raise attributes by training feats. I don't mind if it gives a small bump to attributes but it should not be the primary method of training. This leads to what we're seeing now, you are basically forced into taking skills you don't necessarily want. Mark my words, at later stages in the game characters will be much the same because of this. I proposed an alternate solution, where you gain attributes as you advance in a role, and was shot down by this community. So be it, you get what you ask for. Hindsight is 20/20, don't say I didn't tell you so. http://tinyurl.com/onzrdsl
LIF looks decent. I do prefer the "learn skills by doing them" system over the "gain XP over time" systeme, by far. Even though I'm a very casual player (4-6 hrs game time a week total), which the xp over time system's claim to target. The physics based targeted system doesn't appeal to me, but I'd have to try it before judging.
I love that the game is so open ended, but that can also be a problem. After playing dozens of hours in alpha and still equipping nothing better than loot drops, I don't really understand what I should be doing to improve my character. I keep improving achievements which in turn allows me to train feats. I get that. But I don't really have any screens that clearly show me my improvements or stats. I'm increasing feats just because I think I should be. Understanding crafting and how I can use it to improve my character seems to be a big hurdle as well. The keyword system is not intuitive at all. I've had it explained many times and I still don't get it. Just show me what "keywords" are active(?) and give me the numbers. Let me compare different armors and weapons to see which is better for me. I hope people get over the grinding thing. There should be a grind, it should be fun though. I wish games would just stop billing "no grind".
Yea I really don't get why they made the decision with coin. It should also be a local coin economy. If you need to get your coin from one bank to another, that should be a decision you make understanding the risk of transporting the coin. I remember 10+ years ago playing Dragon Realms and occasionally I would haul 6+ months worth of coin from one town to another. My heart would race during those trips, worried about bandits and pickpockets. You're taking one of the adrenaline filled adventures out of the game for traders/merchants.
Yep, and I think those people should definitely be welcome in this game as well. I hope they think of something with achievements to allow it to be a possibility.
People need to stop expecting the game system to handle everything with policing PvP. The largest detractor from open ganking will be how the community responds to it. Characters at high levels may have less to lose as far as not having access to town services, but they have a heck of a lot more to lose when a group of bounty hunters puts them on their hit list, or they become blacklisted by the players.
You've got it right the way you're doing it with the loot tables and the bonus in groups. I really like the system you're describing and it will be a blast just going out and farming in groups. I would stay away from unique bosses that have a high percentage of dropping specific recipes. At least if you're doing this have the uniques also spawning at a random enough location that people aren't just location farming in a single spot waiting for long periods of time.
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