Posts made by THH

Hello all,

after a long and productive discussion in Discord, I would like to address a topic today that is of real concern to me and some players I know.

The way the beta is currently managed from a developer's point of view, it plays like a typical non-wipe beta: there is no specific help to test as much as possible (e.g. KP rests, more frequent stat resets, spawn events, etc), nor is the progression rate intentionally adjusted or increased, etc; furthermore, there is reactive bugfixing of urgent issues (e.g. Siege mechanics), giving the appearance of simulating as regular a gameplay as possible - which I don't think is wrong in itself.

However, this fact and the fact that the closed beta it taking like at least 6 more month lead to my current finding:

For me, playing FO currently feels like Sysyphos work. I invest hours into the game, try things out, make suggestions - and then get the wipe hammer at the end, so by investing countless hours and my lifetime I got nothing but the feeling of having somewhat supported the development of the game. And some diverting fun (to note that again: I really like the game and have fun - but real fun in MMORPGS also and especially comes from persistency). For this reason I, and not only I, if everything remains as it is now (a beta that feels like it is a non-wipe beta and at the same time the impending wipe hammer in MONTHS), will certainly in 1-2 weeks at most lose the motivation to actively participate in the beta and, until the Go Live takes place, play other games again where I will not lose my entire investment without compensation.

However, there would be a very simple solution to this problem that would motivate me, and certainly other players, to be active throughout the closed beta and thereby not only provide a share to improve the game, but also keep the population high, which will certainly be an important part, also to test, for example, new features and especially new worlds and the underlying mechanics. This simple solution is:

Introduce cosmetic items or skins or something similar, which players will receive for their engagement in the beta in the live version. Examples could be mounts, weapon skins, colors, house decorations and the like. However, these cosmetic items should be (IMPORTANTLY) tiered so that participation in the beta alone is not enough to receive them. Possibilities to realize this would be e.g. (pure mind game) the introduction of 10 Beta Cosmetics, which can be unlocked by different IG Achievements... for example one Achievement for 40 IG hours, another one for 80.000 KP, another one for bringing a town to level 10, etc. Of course, the Achievements have to be increasingly difficult to achieve and especially reward a) game time and b) player performance. In addition, it is important that there is an assurance on the part of the devs that these cosmetic items can only be purchased in the closed beta, and that they cannot be unlocked later, for example, through a cash store or similar.

I would therefore like to address my urgent appeal at this point to the developers to thoroughly reconsider my idea, if the goal is to be a well-populated beta world, in which real motivation for a time investment (which is needed!) arises.

Thanks!

@spoletta said in Political Discussions on Discord:

These topics should not be brought on a game channel. Period.
This is not the place to discuss them and gaming has no relation with world politics.

Thats basically what I said, but it has also be true for relativistic statements like "there is no right or wrong". The whole topic has no place, neither as direct statement nor as passive aggressive relativistic opinion... And If this rules are broken, there needs to be the same punishment as for example spreading national socialist mindset.

I'm calling for a stricter ruleset for political discussions on discord, especially regarding the war in the Ukraine. I think that, as long as the game developers refuse to take clear position in the conflict...

1. the topic should be not discussed in a gaming community
2. all statements regarding this topic should be strictly punished - also statements being passive-aggressive like "there is no right or wrong side in this war"
3. statements praising Putin, nuking countries or the war should result in perma bans from discord as well as statements about like white supremacy should

The world right now sees cruelty and aggression and pics of dead children... I really don't think that these things should be topic in a game, if the game developers refuse to take a clear position against mass murdering people.

And yes, I like to troll in discord and sometimes someone may call me toxic.. but here we are talking about real people suffering and dying and not about some hurt epeen or some kind of flame war about how fat some mothers are.

@LordSkykal Yes, but I'm talking about unlearn skills and chose new ones. At the moment I would need to unlock all skills to test them, even if discovered. So what I'm asking for is a reset of skills learned to spend the KP on other skills.. in the beta we should test a lot, and this would be only in favor of discovering the most stuff...

@spoletta I don't talk about attributes, I talk about skills..

As I already suggested, give people the opportunity to flag a certain amount of stuff aa unlootable according to their karma.. like blue can flag 4-5 items as safe, grey like 3-4 and red like 2.. so you will both thrive the economy as well as incentive people using (at least partially) their high end stuff.

Furthermore, make some item sink for cosmetics.. like merging x highlevel stuff to get some gimmick for your house.. will also reduce the amount of items.. or let people sacrifice stuff on some kind of altair to give them buffs.. there are endless possibilities to thrive the economy instead of the durability stuff, which i really dont like too much... I think acquiring like 1 piece of S Tier stuff should take like 100 plus IG hours.. and not everyome should get that gear.. but when acquired, it should stay with you and not be lost due to lame durability or random drop on death (yes, even for reds)..

So i think its totally fine that most items will be worth a sh#t when meta starts (its the same in every sandbox) while others are so damn rare or you need it in so high numbers thar with players quitting, new ones starting, loot, etc, the demand will stay... it was the same in UO, which had the best player driven economy..

So my thought is:

• Player loot according to karma, but choosing what you keep
• Add item sinks that provide end game bonusses and cosmetics
• Make acquiring end game S tier game extremly hard with like nightmarish ressource consumption

another thought: let people sacrifice ressource heavy stuff for increasing KP limit or for reskilling.. so many ways to keep the demand side high..

As it will all get wiped anyway, please give us the opportunity to reset either all KP once in a while or allow respecing of skills. I would love to test some other builds in the coming weeks but I really don't see me putting in the time to level different chars to only have them wiped.. cool?

I agree. Receipes should have a limited number of uses, but not like 20, more like 50+... the other possibility would be to add seasonal items and receipes for them, that only can be acquired in a certain time span (like 3 month) and then having them no longer drop.

Hello,

I started the project to create a FO world map in PowerPoint containing (as far as possible) all resources, mob spawning zones, etc... here is today progress made in like 5 hours: https://ibb.co/FH1MzGc

As the map is freakin' huge I am looking for some players who want to engage in the project under the premise that the map will only be shared with players engaging in creating it, as it will be a good asset for the Go Live and provide some good advantages.

If interested contact me in discord

Is there any information on what mobs belong to what challenge level?

Hello Community,

I play sandbox since 2002 and had the biggest hype for oldschool Ultima Online, which is the main reason I was (and still am) so exited for FO. To put first things first: I really like the game so far and I fully understand that we are still in a beta, in which a lot of things are not implemented or may not be in their final stage; still, I'd like to give some feedback as beta tester and long time sandbox player as well as someone who is working in consulting and thus is (at least in real life) paid to improve things. So, my feedback, which I will keep as short as possible:

• Map size & exploring
  The map is huge, and I really like this. I like huge maps, as they normally offer a lot to explore and a lot of unique content - unfortunately, at the current state the map is just huge (which is, as said before, a plus) but really lacks content; after likes 15 hours in game I really did encounter nothing noteworthy while travelling the map, even when (and I do this a log) going beside the ways. Okay, there are some random mobs roaming around (expected), some random generated camps with loot, some resources - which none of seems rare - and some animals. Also some towns and empty towns. What I would look for:

1. Rare resources that spawn randomly and can be harvested, like special ore, or plants, or anything like this..
2. All kinds of rides to tame. Rare ones, funny ones. Whatever. Especially Llamas - you guys need definitely Llamas to be mounts, everything else would just be sad
3. Places to explore, that are not just more mobs of the same type in a more dense populated area; things to find, etc.

• Travelling on land
  Linked to "Map size & exploring" - Travelling takes ages, even if taken in the roads, and is just boring. I stare on the screen, see my character ride, ride through mobs, empty places, and nothing happens. Perhaps I need to build a campfire so I dont die of exhaustion, but thats it. My suggestions are:

1. If players are forced to travel for ages, make travelling more interesting (see map size)
2. If travelling stays boring, make it faster, for example by having mounts with different speed, or by introducing some kind of cheap fast travel, or bring some kind of Kal Ort Por (town portal - for reference how to implement in a good way see Ultima Online)
3. Get rid of the exhaustion as it is now. It is just annoying and really adds nothing to the game, besides convulsive rock gathering; a good solution would be to have exhaustion just slow down the speed, and not to inflict damage

• Travelling by boat
  Travelling by boat is ridiculously expensive. I understand that this is because of inter-city and inter-continental trading, but then again make travelling by boat a lot cheaper and add fees based on the median value of the ressources in the inventory, as soon as this median values are known; also, give the ability to take carts on the boat, tax them likewise; it makes no sense not to be able to ship the wagons.

• Lockpicking
  I understand that chests and safes and so on need to be lockpicked; but then again, it makes no sense that even low level chests require advances lockpicks, even when dex 15+; more so, because advanced lockpicks drop not really often and are destroyed after a failed attempt. It is really frustrating when clearing a spawn, just to notify, that the chest can not be opened. I understand that this is an incentive to party, but it makes no sense at low level stuff - of course, opening the dragons lairs safe needs to be challenging... but a goblin chest? C'mon!

• Resources
  It would be really helpful if all resources had tooltips; I have gathered a lot of stuff I dont even remotely know what to do with

• Showing Off
  This is a big one and perhaps some people will disagree; but I'm a busy man, I work a lot, and when I invest time and, later on perhaps money, in a game, I want to show off what I have achieved; so I would suggest the following changes:

1. In Ultima Online I was able do doubleclick a character and see, what he wears. I want something similar in FO; I want to see (and envy ;)) what other players have achieved and I want the same to be true for my character
2. It is really important (!) to have clothes to customize your character; like, what is a MMO without straw hats and robes? Also I want to change the color of that clothes. And have rare colors.
3. It is equally important that armour of the same type looks different IG if crafted from different materials; it is very lame that my cool warg hide armour looks the same as some other lame leather armour; I really dont want this, and it makes me sad.
4. If I kill a player, I want to be able to cut of an ear of something like that (hair, a finger, whatever seems compliant) and showcase that item in my player house, or on the walls, or so. This was a great feature on some UO servers and kept me (and some other PKs) motivated for YEARS.
5. Introduce rare, one of a kind items... like, really unique items. Or, if not unique, really rare items with no sense at all other then being rare and strange; I also spent YEARS in Ultima Online building a really large collection of such items and showcasing them in my house
6. It is really important that items acquired can be showcased in your player house. Like, okay it may be difficult to implement "dropped on the floor / table / etc." graphics to the game... but it is cool and necessary. If you dont want to do this, give at least the opportunity to place chests in which I can lock Items and which each visiting player can look into (look, dont touch)

• PVP / PK
  I think that the current player loot system is not really competetive and discouraged PKing a lot, which is, even if not everyone likes it, a big part of the thrill e.g. the original UO had.. so my suggestions are:

1. If not playing on Trammel (like, I mean the Animal Island or Beast Guy Island or however it is called), PK should be possible and if someone does not want to fight players, he can trammel.
2. It is discouraging that PKs (red, bad guys, whatever) drop equip on death, while others just drop inventory. I understand that being evil has consequences, but at the current state we will see a PK meta with minimal equipped characters, ganking upon some prey, which is funny (I dont mind it) in my eyes, but will be a huge turn off to other Players; so instead of full loot / no loot just do the following:
   --> Blue player (good guys) can chose like 4 items they wear and flag them as non lootable
   --> Grey ones (neutral) can do the same with like 3 items
   --> Red ones (the baddies) can do the same, but only with 2 items..

Okay, thats it for now. If you (devs) like some of my suggestions and want additional ideas how to monetarize them, contact me via PM - I'm german speaking.

Thanks