Needed Tweak

There is a gap, between starting the game and actually being able to play the game. I just joined today and I spent a good 3 or 4 hours Scavenging and rolling 3 different characters to get a starter character that I could work with.

Alas, I never did. I almost came to the point where I was about to quit and give up on the game forever. If it wasn't for a very friendly player (Dakota) who happened to be close by when my frustration finally hit Local Chat, I wouldn't be here right now. The game would be uninstalled and I would never return.

The problem is, that as a new player you are stuck. No matter what skills you chose, you're stuck in an endless grind to find certain things before you can actually have fun. I was in dire need of an Old Saw Blade. I couldn't make anything useful or do anything but craft the same thing over and over for no reason, w/o the Saw Blade.... that I couldn't find.

The tweak I am proposing, as a new player, is to give new players all the tools they need to start having fun immediately. I'm not asking for anything more than a proper set of tools that would allow the player to craft better tools, or craft other things that would allow them to advance in a proper fashion. As a tool maker, I couldn't make my tools because I couldn't make the handle to make the saw without a saw and I couldn't find a saw blade to make a bone saw, once I finally got to that point. Which is where my frustration came to a peak.

Every new player should start out with a basic set of tools, that will allow them to eventually get to every tool in the game. Without this, it's just simply not fun and retention is not going to be all that great. This is a simple fix and not game breaking in any way shape or form. With the way tools seem to be designed, it seems that future releases will allow item degradation and better tools will yield better results on the products.

This is just a simple fix, that would probably take someone no less than 10 minutes, that would increase retention and decrease refunds. Ever since Dakota has given me those tools, I am well on my way to having fun and enjoying the game. There is no reason I shouldn't have been having fun from the get go.

This is planned come release with the fact that ANYONE can teach you basic skills to get you started. Plus tools and other things will be much easier to get once people are playing the game.

Skills aren't the problem. The problem is, without someone else you can't do anything. You can make this unless you have that, but you can't make that unless you have something else. A new player should be able to get started, without absolutely needing another player to give him things. The real problem here, is the Saw. I scavenged for hours, without finding anything. I couldn't do anything that was fun, and I couldn't make anything useful. My skills were terrible, which is understandable, but what's not understandable is that it wasn't fun. It's a game, it should be fun from the minute you log in. I am into things like this, everything else so far has been kosher. Ever since I was given the new tools, I've been having fun.

Edit:
I tried starting off as Woodcrafter, I think, but it was the same sort of problem.

Here's the problem.
You have tools: A, B, and C.

You have A, but you need B. You can't make B w/o C. But you can't make C w/o B.
Which is why I eventually opted for the Toolcrafter. Then I think the problem was that I needed a fairly rare part, with a very low Scavenging skill. (I did pick Scavenging as one of my starting Skills)

The Game is designed to require a social approach. The new settings that allow you to do everything is new and I am not sure if it will remain this way at launch. But you are supposed to have to rely on others to further your crafting. The way things are now, toolcrafting would be the way to go as far as solo play. I would take Toolcraft, scavenging, and Logging. These skills will give you the basics needed to get started. It will take a very long time to get all the tools and items needed playing by yourself. Or you can join up with a tribe and have them all within a very short time.

This game is designed so everyone will depend on each other. At first,.. ;)

this game isn't released, in other words still getting down basic game play, so your whines of quitting out of frustrations will fall on mostly deaf ears.

as you've obviously discovered there is a whole community online that you have access to. So do some research and ask around if you feel things are too hard.

My advice: make suggestions of what you would like to see added to the game, find a tribe you're interested in or make one, and test the crap out of the game

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Originally Posted by Xx1327

this game isn't released, in other words still getting down basic game play, so your whines of quitting out of frustrations will fall on mostly deaf ears.

as you've obviously discovered there is a whole community online that you have access to. So do some research and ask around if you feel things are too hard.

My advice: make suggestions of what you would like to see added to the game, find a tribe you're interested in or make one, and test the crap out of the game

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Which is exactly why I made this thread. Calling it a whine, is not necessarily fair. It's completely broken for new players, without the help of someone who's been playing for awhile. The purpose of a beta, is to help better the game. To have something completely broken as it is, is not fair to new players either. Personally, I don't go around asking for help and free items. As it stands, you have to basically beg.

I understand that it is designed for player cooperation and I understand that before a recent patch, it was even harder. However, it's still impossible for a new player to make any headway w/o the help of others. Given that I never saw anyone in the entire time I played, doesn't help a whole lot either. I was just lucky that I found a nice player within earshot of me at the time.

You speak of testing, which is what I did. As I understand it, I may be one of the first players to come in since the recent changes in the starting characters. But you called my post a whine earlier in your post, which it is not. It is feedback, there is a difference.

I've actually been playing by myself for quite some time now (guild wise). I wouldnt say you need to beg....but you will need to interact with people. I did some trades for tools and needed supplies, as well as did some labour for them. And that was before everyone got all the skills.

I hope they eliminate everyone getting every skill....because we'll start seeing the one man powercrafting guilds with no interaction at all, except maybe some battles. And even battles will be questionable...as one man powercrafters, usually log off when danger is near. I'm not sure how softcaps will deter the individual powercrafter.

I was gonna suggest that players even only start with one style of pattern, and be required to learn new patterns from other people, or found patterns...but I knew that would raise a mighty stink about the forums, so didnt. But if I keep seeing people trying to make the game simple...I may just do it anyway.

I've been playing & studying MMOs for quite some time now, and your idea may be good but it's just one of those things that work really well on paper. But, when they are actually introduced into the game world, it doesn't work at all.

Perhaps at later levels and further into the game, this would be a great idea. I honestly don't know, all I know is what it's like to be a new player. However, it's essential for anyone who begins playing to have fun right off the bat. Otherwise, they will just log off forever and try to get their money back. At this point it may no be a problem, but in the future it could even come to a point where it would destroy the game. If item decay was put in (I think it's in the plans?), I can't see how this would effect anything at all.... other than allowing new players to actually have fun.

Please note that the word "fun" does not mean to start off being able to do anything and everything. It simply means fun. Being completely stuck with no hope of progression, is not exactly fun. Either way, I honestly didn't mean for this to be a discussion. Just a simple report about what it's like as a brand new fresh player who knew nothing of the game, the problems that I faced, and a suggestion for the devs to take a second look at what it's like to come into the game as a brand new character with no friends. I actually tried to keep within my boundaries of a brand new player who knows nothing of the game. In retrospect, I guess I should have reported it via email.

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Originally Posted by TheHatter

Alas, I never did. I almost came to the point where I was about to quit and give up on the game forever. If it wasn't for a very friendly player (Dakota) who happened to be close by when my frustration finally hit Local Chat, I wouldn't be here right now. The game would be uninstalled and I would never return.

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this is what i meant when i said "whine"

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Originally Posted by TheHatter

Which is exactly why I made this thread. Calling it a whine, is not necessarily fair. It's completely broken for new players, without the help of someone who's been playing for awhile. The purpose of a beta, is to help better the game. To have something completely broken as it is, is not fair to new players either. Personally, I don't go around asking for help and free items. As it stands, you have to basically beg.

I understand that it is designed for player cooperation and I understand that before a recent patch, it was even harder. However, it's still impossible for a new player to make any headway w/o the help of others. Given that I never saw anyone in the entire time I played, doesn't help a whole lot either. I was just lucky that I found a nice player within earshot of me at the time.

You speak of testing, which is what I did. As I understand it, I may be one of the first players to come in since the recent changes in the starting characters. But you called my post a whine earlier in your post, which it is not. It is feedback, there is a difference.

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yes there are plans on fixing the difficulties faced by solo players so really its just waiting to test that out, just make suggestions to things that aren't going to be released or have been made before, also look for things you could a consider bug. it is pretty bare at the moment of players and i think much more animals(NPCs) can fix this, which is planned.

be sure to check out the FAQ in the "developer zone" and read through the updates

No, I don't think simply throwing more animals and adding skill training will simply solve the system. The problem it would seem is that it is not immediately apparent that you need to work with other people. This could very easily be a single player survival game of some type.

You would think that it would be an easy conclusion to make that you have to work with other people, but all other signs in this game can easily lead to the opposite conclusion. The landscape is barren, there is nothing around you, and very likely not to be people around. There is nothing to points towards civilization, and likely very little civilization. Unless you know who you will play with, and already part of a tribe, there are no facilities to help you find players to play with. And since the game is designed to be played cooperatively solo players starting out are really in a pretty steep slump. If your lucky someone comes along and helps you out, or someone else comes along and quickly dispatches you.

The problem right now is that the game is indeed a grind, but it is a boring grind. I hope that it's much less so at release.

Then again, I'm not sure that there's a grind that's not boring. So, getting rid of the grind all at once would be nice.

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Originally Posted by Gamefreak

The problem right now is that the game is indeed a grind, but it is a boring grind. I hope that it's much less so at release.

Then again, I'm not sure that there's a grind that's not boring. So, getting rid of the grind all at once would be nice.

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TBH, I've thought about this...as it seems every game has a grind.

If people just played the game, the repetition of doing things would improve your toon with skills or money.....but people are obsessed with being the master "Pwnzer" so instead of just playing...they grind their toon as hard and fast as possible. That in turn, forces others to grind away at skills etc, just to remain competitive.

So...in essence, no matter what type of leveling system is in place....the hardcore players, will always force the grind. The only way to eliminate it, is to eliminate the ability of toons to improve themselves or crafted materials. That in itself would almost kill a game, as people want to see their time devoted to playing a game...get some sort of reward. If they saw a 1st day player, be as good as a several month veteran, then they'd say "WTF"....why bother.

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Originally Posted by Deacon

TBH, I've thought about this...as it seems every game has a grind.

If people just played the game, the repetition of doing things would improve your toon with skills or money.....but people are obsessed with being the master "Pwnzer" so instead of just playing...they grind their toon as hard and fast as possible. That in turn, forces others to grind away at skills etc, just to remain competitive.

So...in essence, no matter what type of leveling system is in place....the hardcore players, will always force the grind. The only way to eliminate it, is to eliminate the ability of toons to improve themselves or crafted materials. That in itself would almost kill a game, as people want to see their time devoted to playing a game...get some sort of reward. If they saw a 1st day player, be as good as a several month veteran, then they'd say "WTF"....why bother.

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Where this fails is the devs job to make the game fun, and NOT force or even people to want to grind at all. You play the game and you level up while having fun. If you are forced to grind for any reason (whether you believe you should or not) is where the devs failed. If you are leveling through normal place instead of clicking brick making 10000 times, is where the game doesnt seem like there is a grind. Even though BOTH can be considered a grind.

Its like this. Say you want to be a better football player. Well there could be 2 ways to be better. 1) You could play the game over and over which is fun, to get better. or 2) You could hit the gym, and through the ball into a net, or run passing routes over and over, which is less fun and a grind.
See how there are 2 ways to go about it? Well if you force people to do repeated tasks that are boring thats a grind. If you have them doing things that are fun to level, even though its really the same thing many times. Then its not a grind.

People dont mind leveling to be equal to a vet, but what they do mind if the grind in which its done.

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Originally Posted by MrDDT

Where this fails is the devs job to make the game fun, and NOT force or even people to want to grind at all. You play the game and you level up while having fun. If you are forced to grind for any reason (whether you believe you should or not) is where the devs failed. If you are leveling through normal place instead of clicking brick making 10000 times, is where the game doesnt seem like there is a grind. Even though BOTH can be considered a grind.

Its like this. Say you want to be a better football player. Well there could be 2 ways to be better. 1) You could play the game over and over which is fun, to get better. or 2) You could hit the gym, and through the ball into a net, or run passing routes over and over, which is less fun and a grind.
See how there are 2 ways to go about it? Well if you force people to do repeated tasks that are boring thats a grind. If you have them doing things that are fun to level, even though its really the same thing many times. Then its not a grind.

People dont mind leveling to be equal to a vet, but what they do mind if the grind in which its done.

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both ways involve repetition.......so "Pwnzers" will do it non-stop, foregoing fun, until they reach maximum obtainable level. The play and level type will then be required to reciprocate to be able to compete. It's not the task that is unpleasant...its the repitition. In your example...your repitition is in "playing the game" continuously or "working out in gym" continuously....either scenario requires an effort of the "have to be best" types to reach top dog status...and forcing casuals to do the same. The players with mindset that has to be better than anyone else, set aside anything and everything else, save for reaching that top spot, even to the point of always "working out in gym" while never really "playing the game".


EDIT: to address point of having fun...I do have fun playing the game (Xsyon), but then I realize, if the grinder happens by, I'm toast. For me, the journey is what is enjoyable, not the final destination. But no-one will have fun if constantly beset by maxed out grinders.

My point is that if there is no gym to workout in, then the grinders would have to PLAY football to grind.
But like this game they allow people to grind by putting in a system that is boring as sin. If you were to play the game (not making 10,000 bricks over and over) then there wouldnt be a way for the grinders to grind other than doing fun actions.

I dont think anyone thinks that making 10,000 bricks is fun. Maybe taking those bricks and building a wall, and making a stove etc is fun, but making bricks is NOT fun. Remove the option to level of making 10,000 bricks, and put in a system that makes it more fun. Like a system that say click this button and it starts making bricks while you do something else like make mortar or gather to harder resources, or plan how the stove is going to fit etc. But clicking 10,000x4 times to make the bricks for a wall is boring and shouldnt be put into the game. That's a grind.

Just like leveling a toon in another game. If you were to kill a level 1 mob 1million times you will level. But its much more fun to level doing party raids, and dungeons and quests etc. Which is why killing 1million mobs isnt a good way to level, thus the grinders are forced to play. Now they might cut some corners while playing, maybe they dont take the quests that are not good time/exp. Or maybe they kill the same boss mob 10x times because its better than doing these other quests over here. But thats a far cry from killing the same monsters 10,000 times and never leaving that area.

so what would be your solution for this game, be exact as possible. What can make it difficult for all day grinders to level, and yet let casual players remain competitive?

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Originally Posted by Deacon

so what would be your solution for this game, be exact as possible. What can make it difficult for all day grinders to level, and yet let casual players remain competitive?

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I posted this under the crafting changes before. But there are many things to change to stop grinding and make it more fun. Simple things as much as eating while walking.

For crafting, what should be done is changing it so you feel like your actions effect the outcome, and something where you dont have to click over and over for the same things. Like making bricks (yes I know I keep using it but its clearly needed for revamp) you click 4 times to make a brick. OVER AND OVER AND OVER same 4 clicks without change. You need 1000s of bricks maybe even 10s of 1000s. No way to speed it up, even after skill level 35 or so you dont even fail anymore. I dont see the fun in there for that kind of grinding. Plus it does give you skill just doing it over and over (I would hope it would after something so boring as that).

I can be detailed but its better to show you a change in 1 thing which applies to many things.

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Originally Posted by Deacon

so what would be your solution for this game, be exact as possible. What can make it difficult for all day grinders to level, and yet let casual players remain competitive?

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(IMO) There is no way to make anything competitive for all, Unless you nurf it down so much that no matter how much time one person can put into it, It does not reward that person any more than it does for the person that only puts in a small amount of time.

In this game, Much Time is greater than Less Time
In games with cash shops, Much Money is greater than Less Money
Unless you use a gaint NURF hammer, And no one wants that!

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Originally Posted by aliksteel

(IMO) There is no way to make anything competitive for all, Unless you nurf it down so much that no matter how much time one person can put into it, It does not reward that person any more than it does for the person that only puts in a small amount of time.

In this game, Much Time is greater than Less Time
In games with cash shops, Much Money is greater than Less Money
Unless you use a gaint NURF hammer, And no one wants that!

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I don't want the game to have new players on the same level as veteran players as soon as they start up the game, as this is what you mean by the nerf hammer. In contrast, I don't want to spend three days clicking the same button to make bricks to grind up masonry skill.

Normally MMORPGs ease the pain of grinds by putting out quests that immerse the player in the game, and at the same time level them more than just slaughtering the same monster repeatedly. The whole point of a game is to relieve stress and have fun. I'm not going to judge anyone if they think making thousands of bricks, wooden posts, baskets and or other materials is fun. It is, however, incredibly boring for just about everyone else.

If this immersion cannot be provided, then this game will have great difficulties holding on it it's player base. It will likely follow the same fate as mortal online; a slow death. The whole point of a MMORPG is to immerse the player in the game, and by doing repetitive tasks all day long, it feels more like a second job than immersion.

Well one thing that can be done is to is to implement activities that would have a similar reward/time. Most MMOs seem to go to the extreme and have it so that quests give so much exp that people only quest to level and don't even bother killing NPCs outside of quests. Instead of that, since to many people that feels too linear, I'd have quests that didn't follow an overall story and had various gameplay mechanics, like, tower defense mechanics, rts mechanics, standard MMO mechanics, etc. That way it keeps things "fresh." But if it takes the average person 30 minutes to complete a mission and they gain 1000 exp, then it should take the same character about 30 minutes to gain 1000 exp just grinding mobs similar to what they'd encounter in a mission. It'd never be perfect, but as long as it's close I figure players would have choices. If they can log in for a few minutes, they might go grind a couple mobs. If they have more time, then they might want to do a mission or two.

What I'd like, and I know it'd be hard to balance, is dual advancement system. Lately I've been playing some offline sandbox games like Red Faction Guerilla and Red Dead Redemption, and one of the things I noticed is that they eschew the exp grind in favor of obtaining new equipment. I think it'd be pretty cool if there was a twitch based mmo that had a robust skilll and item systems. Instead of skills and items making your character insanely overpowered, you'd have more options with how you want to build your character because even though you'd have benefits, and increasing benefits so you feel like you are advancing, there'd also be trade-offs. You might start with a skill that makes you deal more damage with swords, but at the cost of swing slower and having no armor penetration. Then, as you level up, you'll open up skills that allow you to train into dealing extra damage with a sword, at the cost of a slower swing speed, but there would be less penalty to armor penetration. Items would work in the same way. And while things would get stronger, they wouldn't get too strong. I'd have it so that you got "stronger" by training into a different "role." You might start as a fleet swordsman, but then train into a heavy armor two-handed axe guy that can take huge damage, dish huge damage, but be slow as heck.

I figure that with a skill system like this, players could be given points to use on equipping skills while in "town." That way players can train everything on one character, but they wouldn't be able to be everything at any one time. To balance this with crafting, I'd make it so that there were a ton of craft skills and crafting was more of a mini-game, similar to fighting mobs or something.

So what I think, is that reducing the feeling of grinding, devs have to do a few things. The first is to give players different choices with how to "level" and make each choice give, as close to possible on average amongst different players, the same reward/time; have many different skills that help define what you want to do with your character, but where the skills give players more options (with trade-offs) instead of raw power; and give players many different options with regards to how they would like to equip their character at any one time to enhance their role or balance out some of their short-comings.

I'm not sure I 100% agree with your first paragraph, but it might work. Your second paragraph would be nearly impossible for Jordi to code with his current financial situation and time constraints. It's a good idea, but it's just not that feasible for what he has for a development team and what he has for time. EDIT: Due to how the last paragraph was written, I did not understand portions of it. Revision is that I do not agree with most of it. Namely the stuff including part 2.

The last paragraph is pretty much a summation of what I wrote in the first three paragraphs.

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Originally Posted by Gamefreak

I don't want the game to have new players on the same level as veteran players as soon as they start up the game, as this is what you mean by the nerf hammer. In contrast, I don't want to spend three days clicking the same button to make bricks to grind up masonry skill.

Normally MMORPGs ease the pain of grinds by putting out quests that immerse the player in the game, and at the same time level them more than just slaughtering the same monster repeatedly. The whole point of a game is to relieve stress and have fun. I'm not going to judge anyone if they think making thousands of bricks, wooden posts, baskets and or other materials is fun. It is, however, incredibly boring for just about everyone else.

If this immersion cannot be provided, then this game will have great difficulties holding on it it's player base. It will likely follow the same fate as mortal online; a slow death. The whole point of a MMORPG is to immerse the player in the game, and by doing repetitive tasks all day long, it feels more like a second job than immersion.

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This is what I'm talking about.....where as I made bricks to actually build a project, you see it as a way to "Grind Up" masonry, and make it a chore. I guess it can be made less clicky, but the mind set wont change on what or how it's used. If they made it so you could make 1000 bricks with one click...you would still make enough thousands of bricks to level up, not just to make projects.

And I didnt mean "making bricks" was how I was having fun playing. I mean I play.....a typical day would be to start off fishing...to get food for the day, then build up more on the terraforming project and after awhile, go scavanging to obtain some non-crafted items for use or trade. Next day may be fishing, then off to explore and trade with other tribes etc....that is what I mean by "I'm having fun".

And just for the record, incase it wasnt clear...I absolutely DO NOT want a first day player to be as good as a several month vet, if they're training same fields of interest.

I guess we can talk about this at great length...maybe we can come up with solution/suggestions for Jooky. But we need to make suggestions that are actually do-able within the time/resource constraints that the Devs have at their disposal. Or at least can possibly be implemented later, after game is going well.

lol, so here's my first couple :) ....

1. Make it so you equip a tool when selected (like RV for those who played). That would reduce the amount of clicking per item. (like for bricks you'd have a chisel and hammer equiped, no need to reselect them next brick)

2. Break up some crafting patterns, so only two tools are needed at a time. (example: when making a leather hat....equip scissors and measure to cut a hat pattern from leather......then equip a punch and measure to prepare the hat pattern for assembly.....then you have patterns ready to be made into hats.....equip thread and needle to contruct the leather hat pattern into a leather hat.)


I hope that after launch, the Devs will be able to turn some of their attention to one particular area at a time, to refine or even slightly revamp it. But we all know that people will be pushing for "More Content" because we see it in every game. The "Race to the top" crowd will have done that, been there, and be clammering for more.


EDIT: I have noticed that Jooky has said in several posts that he will look at and consider some changes for some of the stuff already in and under construction, which makes me happy :)

I also do not think that a first day player should be as good as a several month vet, but there has to be something in place to at least let the new player be able to play the game without getting completely steam-rolled by vets. A lot of changes that the Darkfall developers have been implementing is a direct consequence of having extremely powerful veterans relative to very weak new players. Heck, when I started playing I got completely owned by a vet. I think he killed me in 3 or 4 hits whereas my hit barely dented his health bar. I don't mind vets dealing more damage and having more health and armor and so on. It's an RPG and people will expect their overall power to increase, but at some point it's just too much and it drives people away from even trying the game. At least in Eve it doesn't matter if you have 10 million skill points and I only have 3 million, because if we both have frigate level 5 trained and the associated fitting (equipment) skills trained to level 5, then we will both be just as effective in a frigate. The difference is that that 10 million skill point player can do other things beyond just flying a frigate.

New players should feel that they are useful and have the ability to accomplish something. In Eve, if I'm flying that same frigate in a fleet, then I might not be able to dent a battleship as far as damage, but I can still fly a support role and do something. That's how it should be in an MMO.

Deacon has hit the nail on the head. No one forces you to grind but you. There is no reason you need 100 masonry or 100 woodcrafting unless you personally see that as your goal.
This is a sandbox, not Wow... There will be quests, there will be towns and civilization. We just have to build it.
Also there are not any player levels, just skill levels. If you feel the need to be the best crafter, that is fine. But it is not necessary.

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Originally Posted by Tybalt

Deacon has hit the nail on the head. No one forces you to grind but you. There is no reason you need 100 masonry or 100 woodcrafting unless you personally see that as your goal.
This is a sandbox, not Wow... There will be quests, there will be towns and civilization. We just have to build it.
Also there are not any player levels, just skill levels. If you feel the need to be the best crafter, that is fine. But it is not necessary.

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You are right its not WOW, its a sandbox game that is boring as heck.

You are 100% right no one forces me to grind, just as no one forces me to play. If I dont grind then Im not playing, if I am playing Im grinding the way the game is set up now. The way it is now, I would not play this game due to how boring the grind is, and dont say Im not a grinder because I am. Ive played Lineage 2, Ive played Roma Victor many other games that would be considered a "grindy" kind of game and this one right now takes the cake for the worst.

Name 1 skill that you dont "grind" to train up. I cant think of any. Lets go into WHY you would want a skill higher level.
Lets see you have higher skills that allow you to preform better. You have skills that open up techs for you to do. Thats it. So of course EVERYONE is going to want to grind up something. NOTHING in this game is without grind. Fact is the only skill I see thats not a grind is skinning animals because everything else you can just sit there and grind. Not only can you but you do.

Yes I understand Deacon thats how you play, but I will tell you what most tribes dont have everyone doing everything like you are doing most tribes have people spec'd to do things. Some people are masons some are hunters some are basket makers. So guess what is going to happen? They are going to try to level up basket making skills very fast so they can make the best baskets they can in the game.

Things that are NOT a grind are when they reward you for doing something over than clicking 4 keys 10,000 times. Making you make reactions to what is going on, allowing your input to make a difference on how fast or good something is.

Anytime you reward people for having higher skills you are forcing people to get higher skills. So saying that the game doesnt force you to do something is wrong. People dont want to play with 10 skill the whole time they are playing, just as people dont play WOW at 10th level the whole time. There is a reward for being higher level. Thus the game forces people to level.
According to what you are saying WOW doesnt force you to level either. Heck in that manner WOW doesnt force you to wear items either. HAHA

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Originally Posted by MrDDT

You are right its not WOW, its a sandbox game that is boring as heck.

You are 100% right no one forces me to grind, just as no one forces me to play. If I dont grind then Im not playing, if I am playing Im grinding the way the game is set up now. The way it is now, I would not play this game due to how boring the grind is, and dont say Im not a grinder because I am. Ive played Lineage 2, Ive played Roma Victor many other games that would be considered a "grindy" kind of game and this one right now takes the cake for the worst.

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I kind of agree with you, there is a lot of grind in the game and its boring. You posted about it several times. I'd like to ask you if you have any solution or idea how to make it more fun ? All of the games I've played had grind and it was boring since its repetitive...I so wish someone could find a good solution for this, really. When skilling and leveling up is actually fun....thats my dream game. Can you give an example what would you like to see in the game, how would you make crafting (tailoring, mason, whatever) more fun ? I can only think of minigames but they get old fast too.

Right now this game is split into two halves IMO, The crafters and the PVP players. In both worlds you have the same thing, It has to be right or you are going to lose a lot of people. As we are talking crafting right now, I will stay on crafting for this. The way crafting works right now is boring as heck, As MrDDT said. It's very grindy, I also know that Xsyon is going to change things for crafting, I just have no idea what he has in mind yet. There is no way to take the grind out of crafting in a MMO. No mater what you add or change, At some point you will have seen and done it way to many times and it becomes a grind to do. So you have to find a way to make it fun, Or at the very least not so dull. And this is what will be the hard part, How to add fun to crafting without breaking the players immersion.

I think by adding some simple add-ons to crafting could make it seem a lot more complex. Like adding a way for the player to decide what to do with the XP from crafting. Where you can make your toon go into innovation mode, And gets no XP to leveling his skill, But comes up with new recipes for what ever type of thing they are working on. Then when all you want to do is level, Then you can make it where you want get any new recipes, But make more XP for your skill. Or just keep it the way it is and get some recipes as you level up. But having that option will make people feel like they have more control over their character, And they will with this.
Add a way to choose to become a master crafter, By clicking this add-on all other crafting skill decay afster, But your chosen craft gains XP a bit faster and skill decay is slower for that craft. This would be for people that only want to work with there one craft. But as always Option is king.
There is more add-ons that would work, And I'm not saying my idea are great, I was just trying to come up with ways that would make you want to craft more.

As to how to make crafting more fun.
I would have to say what has been said a number of times before. Streamline it to a point. Have tools auto activate, Once resource(s) & mat(s) are clicked for crafting, They stay active till you stop crafting that recipe or close the crafting window. Having a way to be able to craft many would help. Now by craft many I do not mean hit craft once and you get ten out of it, What I mean by craft many is that after you are done crafting that one item it auto starts crafting again without you having to click craft again. I think that would help streamline it some.
As to the mini games I have read a few of you talking about on this post and other's, What do you mean by mini game? Because when I read this I think of playing pacman to craft, Every time I eat a ghost I make a new item. OK I being silly there, But I do want to know what you mean by mini game, As I really don't know what it means.

Now I am not saying go to this game and rip there crafting system off and add it here, But I did like the way EQ2 crafting was set up at the start of the game. I even liked the idea if I F'ed it up so bad I could die from crafting. But here was the basic setup. Once crafting you could have one of three issues pop up at any time, And it would randomly do pop up one of the issues till you was done crafting. When the issue poped up you only had a few seconds to solve. How you solved the issue was by picking one of six issue solving icons. Each type of craft had there own issues and solving icons. With the six solving icons you had three icons that would help with quality, And three for progress. So when any one issue icon poped up you had two solve icons to pick from to solve the issue with. One would add quality and the other would help in progress of what ever you was crafting. And if you picked the wrong solve icon for the issue icon, It had a chance to hurt you. When you are first learning crafting, Just the act of crafting could kill you. Later after your toons skill was higher you didn't have to deal with dieing as much.

I didn't like Vanguards crafting as much, But it was a good crafting system, It was a lot like EQ2 crafting. But with Vg when an issue poped up, Crafting stopped till you solved it. Just with VG, You had to deal with only having so much power to use when crafting and if you ran out. Well unless you was almost done making the item, It would turn out to be a fail.

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Originally Posted by MrDDT

You are right its not WOW, its a sandbox game that is boring as heck.

You are 100% right no one forces me to grind, just as no one forces me to play. If I dont grind then Im not playing, if I am playing Im grinding the way the game is set up now. The way it is now, I would not play this game due to how boring the grind is, and dont say Im not a grinder because I am. Ive played Lineage 2, Ive played Roma Victor many other games that would be considered a "grindy" kind of game and this one right now takes the cake for the worst.

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This.

Hmmm......fun.....

I guess the funnest I've ever had in an MMO while crafting was SWG -PreCU. I loved how the different qualities of same type materials made the difference in final product...as well as the "Experimenting" on it. The different qualities of different components produced a final product of different values as well. Crafting was fun, because you had a way to semi-control the out come, while never knowing exactly what that outcome would be until final completion. But because most items we craft from are of same quality......(ie a steel rod is a steel rod...no variations) it's not possible to do it SWG style. Unless there was a skill like a metalsmith who'd reforge metals, somehow making it possble to alter current metal stats.


As for combat, I guess archery in Darkfall, and melee in Roma Victor were best for me. In the DF archery, you actually had to be fairly accurate with the bow and able to judge distances and trajectories to get a hit. In Roma victor, the melee combat was 1st person view, and aiming at specific body parts, and the chance that a newb could actually get a lucky hit in on a vet was there...and did happen occationaly, and sometimes, one good hit was all it took to win...but those fights were often quick, and that system needed some tweeks/refinement as well.


It is true...this game will not be for everyone. All MMO's face that dilema. Our best bet is to offer what we feel are good suggestions, while still supporting current efforts of the hard working Devs, and see where that takes us.

Hi everyone. I think this is a very important topic so I'd like to add my 2 cents if I could.

As with anything in life, the act of being predictable can be boring. Having said that, it would go without saying that in order to eliminate boredom one should aspire to become less predictable, or become more spontaneous. As it applies to crafting, or the goal of making crafting less boring, perhaps the objective should be to inject the element of surprise into the process. By doing so, there is an element of expectation to every result that will keep the player on the edge thereby making the process more interesting.

One example would be to have varying qualities within similar items that can be crafted (Ie., +1s and +2s). Another example would be varying the output of items that can be produced with each click. And yet another example would be instituting a system that produces surprising random prototypes of the same item determined by the material used.

The different possibilities are only limited by our imaginations. The key factor is to add the element of surprise and spontaneity to the process. The expectation of the unknown is what keeps the player interested and on edge.

Anyways, I hope this helps to advance this topic. I haven't been on much lately. I hope everyone has been enjoying their holidays :)

simple way to make click on craft cool :)

1 - Fail 30%
2- Fail and save resources 20%
3- Sucessefull 40%
4 - Big Sucesseful ( your make 2 intem or save resources ) 10%

More or less based on skills / tech (see my topics) / Bulding
enjoy i think people dont know in each click

Stay tuned :) i hope group all my topics in one sugestion (Warfare and Clan Wars Comimg )

Well, a crafting system where I fail in 50% is everything but fun for me. I don't consider frustration as fun. Failing when attempting to craft a recipe which is higher level than my actual craft level is ok, but we should never fail a lower or equal level recipe IMO. This gives a motivation to level up too.

@Alik:
When I say minigames I mean something like Atitd or RuneScape has for some of the crafts. In Atitd when someone try to make charcoal he has to control an oven, he has to keep wood, air pressure and water balanced otherwise the charcoal gets ruined. There is a very similar system in RS for making petroleum.

But its really very hard to make good minigames, ones that fit the lore and the game, which are challenging but not frustratingly hard. And even a good one gets old fast...

That sound cool with me Jad, If it didn't take forever and a day to code into the game. You could have another small crafting window pop up with gauge/meter to show lelves, And action icons under that, So that you could react to the levels on the gauges/meters.