s7
Junior Member
Posts: 11
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Post by s7 on Feb 3, 2019 17:57:31 GMT 1
To preface this suggestion thread, I understand the heavy code lifters are busy with primary life responsibilities and treat this as a project of passion and love with their minimal spare time. By all means continue keep up the passion and great work for this niche community. I know I have enjoyed it for almost 2 decades. Thanks to all the past and present developers' commitment and selflessness to allow such a fun medium of roleplay and personal expression. Hats off to you all.
On that note, I write from the viewpoint of an elite TPS'er and even more elite (I like to think) PVP'er; been going hard in the paint since 1999. Any fellow Magic Arrow PK swarms out there?
I read some great and helpful suggestions for the potential new players, such as a more robust in-game message and chat system (helpful for all actually), new player bonus XP, more robust guide (in the works thanks to Emeliana), starting island safe for new players to learn the game (like COBD) etc.
And that vote regarding cap/soft cap... that should never be the focus of any game. The focus should be, as Gris mentioned, content therein. Endgame & newbie content in the way of weekly boss (pve) and raid (pvp) events, quests, puzzles, competitions, and races etc.
Agonia feels like the solid reboot that has been needed for at least 15 years now. Evolution system is a great start, but the incessant and obscene grind is still a major focus. That is why I quit Stax 3 years ago and Lambe 1.5 years ago. Too much grind for little to no reward other than the character growth obsession most of us have. The grind has spread into crafting now too. With movement encounters reduced so heavily, all efforts of weapon and non-weapon skills are placed solely on a player's turns training gens or exploring for fights. Turns are the same 5/hr rate, which needs to be addressed in my opinion. It's a new game, new world; new rules should be established too.
I would suggest increasing turn rate and pool, increasing movement rate and pool, and improving the encounter rates. Most new gamers, or ones with no TPS background have no patience for the current rates, and even the fight page (11 sec per round) is way too slow for today.
To be brutally honest, Agonia needs to be reworked from the ground up, similar to how COBD was rebuilt. Right now it just feels like an alpha release testing us to find a true direction. I have treated it as such for the last month. And thus why I am writing my input, but from a veteran standpoint.
Hope this helps with future guidance and development, again thanks to all the awesome devs.
PS - Giant race needs some lovin'
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Post by Belouch on Feb 3, 2019 19:46:22 GMT 1
The rate of turns and encounter rate come up often. They will definitely not be increased. This is not an alpha looking for a direction, but exactly what we intended for. Here are the two key reasons: -We don't want players to become a slave of this game. To be an elite player in Stax, you needed to play all day. In Agonia we aimed it so that players who spend 3 hours a day can compete at the top. To be frank, I really believe that is the upper limit of what a text-based browser game can ask to players. -For balance reasons too. In Stax you could train for 12 hours. This created a huge gap between the every-day player, and the crazy passionate (unemployed?) player. The game became dominated by a few elite players who could beat 1vs4 anybody and be absolutely uncatchable. We want to absolutely avoid this. There are several aspects of the game which are in the 'try and see' phase, but not this  |
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Dutch
Full Member
Posts: 34
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Post by Dutch on Feb 17, 2019 15:45:15 GMT 1
The rate of turns and encounter rate come up often. They will definitely not be increased. This is not an alpha looking for a direction, but exactly what we intended for. Here are the two key reasons: -We don't want players to become a slave of this game. To be an elite player in Stax, you needed to play all day. In Agonia we aimed it so that players who spend 3 hours a day can compete at the top. To be frank, I really believe that is the upper limit of what a text-based browser game can ask to players. -For balance reasons too. In Stax you could train for 12 hours. This created a huge gap between the every-day player, and the crazy passionate (unemployed?) player. The game became dominated by a few elite players who could beat 1vs4 anybody and be absolutely uncatchable. We want to absolutely avoid this. There are several aspects of the game which are in the 'try and see' phase, but not this Would it be correct then to assume you don't intend to raise soft/hard caps in the future? Because that is what I would recommend. Keep your caps rooted. Players, even now, are constantly preparing for the possibility that they'll need to be ready when the caps raise so they don't fall behind. I'm new, but I'm getting told that constantly by long-time Prophets veterans who've dealt with this in the past. And the problem with that is an MMO becomes slave to the grind, with those who are newer or are not a part of a powerful group falling behind, incapable of raising up. Or for said people having to devote exorbitant amounts of time for months or years on end just to be relevant. I absolutely hate to tell game developers "be like X game", but let's take Eve Online as an example. In that, there is some grind of course. However, if a player devotes time in certain skills, they can be capable and useful within a couple of months, out there joining player conflicts and having fun. No, they won't have the wide plethora of skills of an older player, or be able to build Titan-class ships, but they can get to a point where, in the set of skills they devoted themselves to, they can be a credible threat, even for those long-time players. In my opinion, you already have the evolve system, which gives a reward to people who've been around longer, by letting them edge up on stats that provide a minor boost here or there, and in the process raise secondaries that give them more versatility. I don't think it needs to go further than that. If long-time players need new content, there's ways to provide that without having to throw more grinding into the equation. Territory-control, quests that provide valuable items that may be unique while not over-powering, special tournaments or events geared toward long-time players, new locations, etc. But let the skill caps remain hard in place so even folk who haven't a lot of time or resources, or who started new, could raise up a weapon skill to a point where they may be competitive in their area. |
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