Posts made by Tuoni

This is getting quite monologue, but I think the OP deserves also answers (mine are bold).

@Warlunhardt said in Will Fractured upgrade on what Albion Online did:

I know @Prometheus saw Albion as his competition and finds it fun so he must know the pros and cons that game has and not make the same mistakes Sandbox Ent did.

Pros

• Addictive Gathering Resources System - True, but also very grindy.

• Purchase Gold with $ (takes out Gold Sellers) - It actually does not, Gold sellers were a huge problem.

• Housing System - It was nice, but in otherhand it was instanced and not part of open world.

• Path of Exile similar skill system map - True! That Destiny Board was fantastic.

• Character Builder on website - True, this was very nice add and helped a lot with theorycrafting.

Cons

• Combat is slow and dull - Imo it was ok, because there was also skillshots, which needs to leave possibily to miss and dodge.

• Weak Character Customization - True.. even I think "weak" is more like high price, it was awful, poor and everybody looked the same.

• Implementation of Reputation created PvE players to taunt Red players lose Rep when they force them to kill them. - Reputation system had its place in red zones (which can be compared to rules in Syndesia), but it could be implemented better for sure.

• Separate Bank per Town - This is a PRO. In sandbox games where economy is run by players, its really important keep banks separetely and not ruin local micro economies with combining all banks together.

• Horrible Quest System - It was.. Never seen so bad before.

• Change Map so many times - True. They failed too many times to find world map which would actually work.

• No Main City near Starter Zone - Hmmm.. If you talk about central hub Caerleon, it was lil bit far for sure, but all those five biome cities were really close and just few zones away from starting areas.

• Grind Premium ex. 32,000 points to level up skills. - Not sure what you mean by this..

• Founder Items just able claim once - Yeah, you could not use these outside of safezones in fear to lose them permanently.

• Not Alt Friendly - Depends on PoV.. In classless system there is not so much need for ALTs, but in AO those were mandatory if you wanted to be competitive. You got so much benefit to progression if you spread your fame and focus points within different characters. Awful p2w system. So still a CON, but from different reason than yours.

@Pluto said in Will Fractured upgrade on what Albion Online did:

In fact, allowing players to purchase premium game time from other players for gold gets RID of pay to win ;). And that’s assuming we are considering the premium to be pay to win... which I don’t. Bunch of assumptions eh? Gotta love pay2win arguments

You right, that premium time is not necessarily P2W, but it surely can be that too. We could say its a business model. So lets say company advertises to be B2P and with optional premium subscription. Now in most cases if you want to competitive against other players you need to buy this premium time or you fall behind. If there is option to create ALTs, buy several accounts (if number of ALTs / account is restricted) and buy premium to all your characters.. Then we can be in situation where this premium is changing more and more towards P2W. Purely for business point of view this can be really good, but it will put people inquality position, which will cause discord. And no, I am not making these up from my mind, I have actually saw how Albion Online did this.

@Pluto said in Will Fractured upgrade on what Albion Online did:

@Gothix
Having such a system actually attracts players as well. Some people won’t play a game where you can’t get the advantages of a paying player through in game means (this includes premium).

Although we might lose you, we will also gain other players as well as increased revenue from those players. Even if they aren’t directly purchasing premium. Neither of us knows which is greater, but I honestly don’t think people worry too much about in game subscription tokens for the most part. I’d assume you’re in the minority, but I could be wrong. I also always think the “I won’t play if X” is a pretty weak argument.

Anywho, I don’t really have a stake in the fight. Thankfully there’s an unlimited premium option at the moment. I probably wouldn’t play Fractured if I couldn’t buy premium through in game means to be honest. “Won’t play with x” argument, I know

I am pretty sure that people are mostly getting bored with fishy business models and premium time in many cases are part of it. Cash shop works only as long as you can buy just cosmetics from there. Everytime when you can buy somekind of benefits with real money, it will always be loved and hated by players. Optional premium time is just a camouflaged subcription. You dont have to pay it, but in practise you really do, and then games advertises them as B2P or F2P.. sigh

I would argue, that honest subscription models are what most MMORPG players wants nowadays. People have seen so much crabby business models and are ready to pay something to get rid of every kind of p2w possibilities. Setting whole playerbase equally on the same line is what games really need imho. Take a look at Ashes of Creation. They have announced to be purely subscription based game, not even need to buy the game separately. They will add cash shop on top of that, but only with cosmetic items and skins. And how all the players have taken this? Numbers speaks behalf, people loves it.

@Pluto said in Will Fractured upgrade on what Albion Online did:

@Gothix

What direct benefits can a player get by buying gold that a player in the game can not achieve? Just curious.

Is that how you define P2W? Just curious. P2W as a concept is not a black and white matter. People have own opinnions and how they feel what is p2w and what is not. Its more about how people experiences it. P2W does not need to be advantage what you can buy only with real money. It can also be something which progress you faster than others and that way you take the advantage. It is true that those who progress normal pace without help of real money are eventually getting there where this spender was, but when they get to that point, that spender is already way more further. That is why its easy to argue, that paying for faster progression is also P2W. At least we are that point in somewhere grey area depending of the degree of benefits ofc.

@boogis said in Will Fractured upgrade on what Albion Online did:

forget about it already its dead. zeds dead baby z dead

That is actually why we should not forget it. I see its important to rise up all points where Albion possible went wrong. Maybe that could help Dynamight to not make same mistakes.

@Jetah Oh that kind of system. I have played WoW 5-6 years in past, but I was not were about this kind of program. Oh well, back then I focused only for playing and I visited forums quite rarely.

I actually hope Dynamight creates more forum sections after they have introduced good amount of new features. I would say gear/items and abilities could have own sections to keep feedback and ideas related to these in order. Maybe crafting/gathering/resources as well. This worked pretty well in Albion Online and important post related to balance concerns did not drown to mass in general section.

I understand that WoW had that kind of system. Their playerbase was massive and it was reasonable to get feedback from rep persons who first filtered and gathered all the meaningfull feedback and information in one tight package.

@Jetah If player focus to do specific aspect of the game, he or she usually becomes a master with a lot of knowledge related to the matter. It can be a class like you mentioned or anything else from crafting, gathering, exploring, raiding, PvPing... When you really focus on something specific, you will also learn a lot of about it, you notice things what others wont and even more than devs. If those players share their thoughts and concerns, they can be really valueable to gamestudio.

I would also say, that player GMs can cause issues or at least there is the risk. However, Dynamight Studios can use help of players and community in different ways. Some players can be really good at moderating ingame, -chat, -forums and such things. Also some dedicated testers and players can be very valueable giving constructive feedback and useable ideas. How Dynamight wants to benefit their community is something I would leave to their hands. If they want help from testers/players/community, lets wait and see what they will offer.

I played Albion Online about two years and more when it was still in beta stage. Albion was actually much better game in beta and the last minute major content updates just before launch ruined the game in my opinnion. There was no time to test these changes proberly and results were really bad. Game was partly unplayable for long time and started only getting better after lots of people was already left. Huge part from sandbox was taken off when devs decided to make one major central hub city. That destroyed local living and economies and made the world feel small and other cities fell in bad position with low population. Performance issues were huge, because most of the playerbase was centralized to one city.. my god those decisions were baaad. What it comes to Albion's p2w part, its kind of argued matter, but they are at least sailing somewhere in grey area. You can buy ingame currency with real money and with ingame money you can buy everything.. Its really bad system imho and on top of that lures a lots of gold sellers. Gold sellers managed to even break big guilds and ruin lots of players gaming experiences. I dont even remember all issues what I faced, but the list was quite long. That game had a lot of potential, but finding own identity and bad decisions ruined the game in most parts. Shame actually.. I really hope Dynamight Studios is smart and does not make same kind of bad choises What Sandbox Interactive did.

@kellewic said in Will there be fast traveling?:

@Jetah said in Will there be fast traveling?:

between planets, yes.

between towns/locations on the same planet. i hope not.

There is planned teleportation on the same planet, but you can't carry resources through - it's geared as a way to meet up with others quickly. Was in Spotlight #2.

This Spotlight #2 was actually very informative and I am personally very happy of the content. Traveling system gives us some possibilities to move and group up faster, but we can not use fast traveling for transporting resources and other goods. I also like how some fast travel options can be unlocked via knowledge system. It was quite long text, but I will copy it under here anyway if someone has not read it yet.

"*TRAVEL AND EXPLORATION
Exploration is a staple of the Fractured experience, strongly tied to the progression of your character. In Fractured, you’ll want to travel to faraway lands to discover every inch of the world to extract all the knowledge hidden there and expand the options given to your character.

Of course, such a unique type of progression – all part of the Knowledge System – requires travelling to be more than what you’re used to in other MMOs – which typically boils down to walking or riding from point A to point B (without getting murdered on the way if the game supports Open PvP). Indeed, on Fractured survival mechanics come into play to spice things up, requiring a greater deal of preparation the longer your travel takes and the more extreme the environment is. Let’s have a look at them following the (mis)adventures of a player whom for the sake of simplicity we’ll call… You.

Food and drinks. You start your journey to the largest town of the realm. Just like fighting, travelling accelerates the need to feed yourself. While some regions are rich with edible resources and you can hope to find food on the way, this one is quite bare and requires adventures to plan their trip wisely. You open your bag, and realize there’s only a slice of hardtack in it – and this is not LOTR. Damn!
Clothing. This time, you’ve brought the perfect quantity of food and water with you and you’re sure you’ll reach your destination with ease… but you’ve forgotten you have to cross a mountain pass in the meantime. Your journey ends up with a new human popsicle on the way, reminding travelers that on Fractured equipment doesn’t matter in combat only.
Rest. You won’t get fooled this time. You have plenty food, water and all the clothing you need. A little too much, in fact. You’re heavy, and you’re tiring quickly. When your legs refuse to move any longer, you set up a makeshift bed, feast aplenty and close your eyes for a shirt sleep – but your lame camp offers little protection, so a pack of wolves ends up feasting on you. Too bad!
As you might have understood from the examples above, the safest route for a new player is to to move from one inhabited location to another, get some rest at local inns and explore the surroundings. Once you get better equipped and experienced in dealing with the wilderness, you’ll be able to create safe camps to take naps and dive into long and perilous travels through remote locations.

If you engage in the merchant profession, things get even more complex, of course. In Fractured, there is no magical “stash” or “bank” that makes your items easily available everywhere you go. You can earn some warehouse space to store your items in a village, but such space is not free – and even if you unlock it, what you deposit in the village stays in the village. As your character inventory on Fractured is quite limited, you’ll need wagons to move resources – which means animals to drag them, and a proper escort to see that your bounty doesn’t fall to unwanted hands. This is once more a wide topic though, which will be given further elaboration in future feature spotlights.

TELEPORTATION
A MMO without fast travel allows for exciting open world adventures and guarantees true profits for merchants, as we discussed above. On the other hand, having to walk or ride long distances just to meet up with your friends or reach your favorite dungeon can become unbearably cumbersome in the long run, disregarding how exciting the travel is.

Is it possible to get over this ostensible dichotomy? We think it is! Here are the three main fast travel options available of Fractured.

The easiest fast travel option, Gateways are magical doors located in a few key locations of each planet. When you enter one, you’ll be able to instantly teleport to any other Gateway located on the same planet that you have already discovered by physically travelling to it. Here’s the catch, though: you’ll be subject to various limitations when using one, including the inability to carry resources. They’re a good option to group faster with your distant friends, but not suitable for merchants!
Teleportation Magic. In Fractured, you’ll have the chance to learn a few spells that will allow you to teleport yourself to other locations on the same planet, subject to limitations similar to those of Gateways, including what items you can carry and the need to discover the destination first. When casting one, you’ll be drained of your energy and severely fatigued for a while after teleporting. Moreover, while more flexible than Gateways, earning access to certain destinations through teleportation magic won’t be an easy task.
The prime way to travel to other planets, Stargates require a great deal of group effort to be summoned and don’t last for long. After crossing one, the time you’re allowed to stay on the new planet is limited and varies according to your race, your alignment and your destination. Demons are a notable exception to this rule, having been gifted by Babilis the ability to travel to other worlds more easily to bring terror to the other much hated races. However, the penalties they’ll be subject to are no smaller than those suffered by the other races… and sometimes, actually worse."*

Fast traveling (ships, flying paths, carriages, teleport gates..) in MMOs and especially in sandbox games is something where development can go easily very wrong and mess up the whole game. That is why I am asking.. Is there any official information about this matter? And how players would like to see this?

Imo, if the world will be relatively large and there will be far distances between towns and activities, then game needs some fast travel options. Who wants to use most of the playing time just running around? I guess not so many people. However, adding too much fast traveling will also hurt the game. Especially in areas where is mentioned to happen open world activities. Moreover, too much fast traveling will effect negatively for economy side of the game. There will be less small local economies if all resources and trading items are easily aquired from almost everywhere. So I hope we can see very middle-road and balanced fast traveling. Some options, but not game breaking from economy point of view.

Also if we can create ALTs, that is one option to play together now and then. Moreover, because character progression is horizontal focused, it wont be an obstacle for playing together in different situations.

Fractured seams to have a great concept what it comes for balance of PvE/PvP/casual/hardcore and this balance has been very difficult to make right in other MMORPGs. If they succeed to cater all this audience, they have a pearl in their hands. Horizontal progression and less grind is something I personally like to see. I would categorize myself nowadays a competitive casual player, meaning a former semi-hardcore player who does not have that much time what I used to have for gaming. And I presume, that I am not the only one with less time nowadays. So Fracture offers me that hardcore feeling casual way and I am really happy of this possibility. I can go do some PvE (gathering, crafting, raiding) or group up with few friends/guildies and go find open world PvP action or take part for somekind of siege. And I can do this with decent amount of time and effort. Sounds like a dream to me. What it comes to whole playerbase, it seams every kind of player can find a corner from one of the three planets, which caters his or her personal playstyle. So summa summarum and answer to the OPs concern; I personally believe, that Fracture will ALSO be casual friendly, but at the same time offers hardcore gamers (and to anyone between these two extremes) content as well.

Humen and Beastmen can play together a good amount of time if we can believe what wiki says. Depending of your alignment however:

*"Humans with Good alignment are allowed to walk the lands of Arboreus for a considerable amount of time – 20/40 real-world hours, thus being able to explore a good portion of the world at once, collecting resources and acquiring knowledge.

If you’re a Human with Neutral alignment, you can also stay for a while – around 5/10 hours, penalized only by a slight stat debuff. However, if you get flagged as Aggressive, you are immediately treated as Evil, suffering all the penalties explained below.

If your character has an Evil alignment and you manage to enter Arboreus, well, now you’re in trouble! The planet itself, pervaded by the primal energy of Elysium, immediately starts fighting to repel you. You become heavily debuffed, and normally pacific creatures turn aggressive against you, seeking you out to rip you apart. Even worse, you are only allowed to stay on Arboreus for half an hour at once, and you are quickly drained of all vital energies if you step into a Good-only area."*

Also it seams that beastmen have no time restrictions in human planet:

"Beastmen on Syndesia lose the powers they are granted on Arboreus. Other than that, they can stay on the Human planet as long as they like, finding shelter at any town that allows them in."

@Gofrit I know Fractured goals to be game with less grind and with horizontal character progression. That makes its easier to new players hop in straight in action and be at least somehow competitive against veteran players. Even so, players needs some goals, something to achieve, because they should not get everything straight away or they get bored very quickly. Some games' end-game is in raiding and others its in territory wars for example. And because Fractured's design will be something different, I am also courious, what there is to goal for? Can it be somehow related to knowledge system? Can that unlock new possibilities?

To me end-game content means activities what I can not do from day one. Something great and big to achieve. Something where I need to put some effort and work hard to get there. Content which still challenges me after months of playing. I actually like the concept of less grind and horizontal character progression. That is why I am interested to know, what is the catch what keeps players going?

YA@Specter said in End-Game content:

@Tuoni

In PvP, is there some kind of territory warfare, castle/city sieges, guild wars or something else?

You can siege towns owned by other players/guilds on Syndesia and Tartaros and take control of those cities/territories.

In PvE, is there dungeons- and raids- and world bosses? Instanced, open world or both? Or something else?

There are going to be dungeons and bosses, and also other endgame content like asteroids (zones that only appear for a certain amount of time and then disappear forever or return after a while) and the labyrinth, a hardcore survival challenge in a procedurally-generated dungeon.

Exploration is also important if you want to gather all the skills and knowledge points.

Okay sounds quite good. I am personally interested of this asteroid and labyrinth mechanics, because these sounds kind of unique and fresh ideas. Even I sometimes enjoy do some solo content, gather, craft and things like that, I still like to do group content as well. I am interested of raiding what it comes to PvE and I am a huge fan of open world PvP. Moreover, I prefer large PvP sieges. Seams like there is going to be lots of interesting content to follow.

@Meiki said in End-Game content:

The freedom for players is also important so it is not hard to create your own content. That's also the nice thing about sandboxes - you are free to create "events" of your own, given the sandbox allows you to do that with the freedom it allows.

Freedom of sandbox games are a great bonus, but unfortunately that by own can not carry the whole game and keep most of the players within the game. That is why I see the "end-game" content as important part.

What will Fractured's end-game content look like?

I know this is a sandbox game and end-game content is not always so relevant in such games, but still what are those activities players can do, experience and goal for in higher level? What has been announced? What there will most likely be? And what kind of wishes people have?

In PvP, is there some kind of territory warfare, castle/city sieges, guild wars or something else?

In PvE, is there dungeons- and raids- and world bosses? Instanced, open world or both? Or something else?

Mostly I am interested, will there be something unique?

Imo its important to keep looting rules as even as possible and leave no room for scamming especially when playing with PUGs. Personal loot system is one really good option. Money is easy to share equally between all group members and that wont be a problem at all. Personal loot system can be easily keep in balance with scaling drop rates. If an item e.g. has 60% drop rate, it will decrease to 20% each in party of three people. That way mobs will averagely drop the same amount items or resources. Of course looting purely with RNG is another option and works fine too. It might lead to situations where someone gets more than others, but in long run this will become close to even/average. We have to remember, that within guilds it does not usually matter who gets the loot and people can more easily discuss who needs the loot most and trades can be easily made.

I have played Albion Online before and I can see some similarities between these two games. Both are Sandbox MMORPGs with MOBA styled combat. Economy is player driven and most items are crafted by players. Both games includes full loot rules and has somekind of player housing. Both games are diveded to biomes which have own mobs and resources. Also the character progression bases on classless system.

So some base ideas are somehow the same, but of course with own mechanics, content and flavor. Even these two has a lot of same, we can still speak of two different games or at least it looks like that to me. Fractured tries to cater more wider audience when giving PvP and PvE oriented players their own playgrounds. Of course you do not have to be either of these two extremes and you can be anything between. Its hard to cater both sides, but on paper Fractured's concept looks like a success. Even both games have classless system, it seams that Albion is the one with vertical progression and heavy grinding, where Fractured advertise to be totally opposite. Moreover, I guess Albions 5v5 end-game content with territory fight is something we are not seeing in Fractured.. I guess..

I am sure I forgot some points, but this is how I see these two games if I try to compare them. I hope best luck for Fractured and I will definitely try your game out when I get the chance.

Coffee is a must to wake up at morning and stay a wake at work.

Orb as main weapon and not just static offhand.