Questions, predictions, thoughts:

[Emdash]

So, here we are, approaching the weekend after the first patch in months. Where is the pop?

Will there be pop this weekend? I predict there will be a minor surge. I would love to see over 700, but I bet we won't get there. I bet we don't get over the 650 that we have had for a month, which is sad. That's including the days when people probably dec a siege, so that could be more or less EVERY PLAYER WHO IS COMMITTED TO THE GAME + / - those who could truly not be there (probably less than 50.)

Why are we here? How do we fix it? Can we fix it?

I admit to taking various angles with my opinions and suggestions for the game, but I am not playing 4d chess here. I think the 4d chess part would be making it seem like I am playing 4d chess and embedding SIMPLE TRUTHS. I am open. I will help. I know other people will help. I am tired of typing this shit, but it's so important for everyone to understand. Henrik, etc.

The thing is, there are solutions to the problems. First, you have to hash out an order, decide what is most important, and address the problems one by one. You can't just throw this and that together. You have to fix the game in stages because it can only be assumed that fixing some parts will throw other parts off.

I have my beliefs about which parts need to be addressed first, but I have said them. I believe it's time to gather more pointed feedback. PTR surveys are cool, general questions at the login screen are cool, but what about being like "OK, we've decided the first thing we want to fix is to make combat balance better and to make the game more exciting (not my first choice, but indulge me.)" THEN look for feedback. Take feedback from people and cross reference it against other people. Take 100 suggestions of areas of improvement, survey everyone to pick 50, then have everyone pick 2 ways they could take said areas of improvement (limit it to a select few if you want to keep reducing the number.) Run those through a survey, see what you have, see if it's bullshit. If it's bullshit then consider adjustments to gather better data. I don't think it will be all bullshit, though. I think you can get 5-10 things out of that, easy, and go with that. Then move on to the next one.

The game still has the same limitations that I felt it had when I came back, but I am overall feeling satisfied with what they are doing at this moment. However, it has done nothing but become more dead the whole time I played. MAYBE IT'S ME?!

So, yeah, I am annoyed by talking in discord and by listening to people in discord currently. We need to look at the last patch as a great moral victory, to prove what can be done if people work together, but it's barely a scratch in terms of 'fixing da gam.'

Let's fix da gam!

Peace

 

[Teknique]

We really have run the risk of overcomplicating things.

The first game played like a shooter and a wow clone. Or more specifically I said counterstrike + wow, wowterstrike is actually a blend of two popular and good games and is an interesting concept. Add on top the thrill of an extraction shooter I.e the tc and the winner takes all war and you have a blend of all the best genres.

Mo2 on the other hand plays like, who the fuck knows, because whatever game it’s most similar to nobody is dumb enough to play or care about. No game has such trashy movement speed, arrow draw speed, weapon tracing, input clunk. It’s all really really bad. On top of that all actions in the game are meaningless, just everyone rocking the same steel set looking ugly as hell? Really?

Therefore fix the pacing of the game or perish. There can be no alternative.

 

[Dalam]

Mo2 on the other hand plays like, who the fuck knows, because whatever game it’s most similar to nobody is dumb enough to play or care about. No game has such trashy movement speed, arrow draw speed, weapon tracing, input clunk. It’s all really really bad. On top of that all actions in the game are meaningless, just everyone rocking the same steel set looking ugly as hell? Really?

1. MO2 plays like Mount and Blade during combat. I cannot believe people criticise this aspect of the game to be honest. I play very sparsely nowdays, but I actually enjoy doing some of those plain tasks involving bandits, risars, whatever. Either as an archer, melee, ele or lancer.
2. Everyone is rocking the same steel set because only big guild veterans probably remain in this game. Otherwise you would see emalj, bone tissue, crepite. Maybe even molarium if those players feel like risking!
3. Steel set is beautiful, what do you mean ugly as hell... :O

 

[Teknique]

1. MO2 plays like Mount and Blade during combat. I cannot believe people criticise this aspect of the game to be honest. I play very sparsely nowdays, but I actually enjoy doing some of those plain tasks involving bandits, risars, whatever. Either as an archer, melee, ele or lancer.
2. Everyone is rocking the same steel set because only big guild veterans probably remain in this game. Otherwise you would see emalj, bone tissue, crepite. Maybe even molarium if those players feel like risking!
3. Steel set is beautiful, what do you mean ugly as hell... :O

1) ok you’re right ill concede that point it does play like mount and blade. A mount and blade with severe input lag issues, unnecessary mouse deceleration, and majorly flawed end game politics
2) hard disagree on this point. The reason you don’t see those is all of the guard rails that kept materials balanced were thrown out the window with 0 consideration. Specifically weapons above 1.8 kgs were slow to swing, materials were actually difficult to come by, 10 piece sets and npc dropped gear kept variety, movement speed allowed dex fighter builds and simple mobility to act as a defensive stat instead of pure mitigation, but hey what do I know except everything

 

[Emdash]

Man I run around in mola / arthro w/e. I've never worn steel in MO history, outside of town. That's tru fax and hilarious. I feel like I would never consider steel unless it was a big group fight and I was never truly involved in a group fight, just side griefing.

However, it's tough. I was walking back on my alt, and I had incis or mola, 'decent' armor and dude was banging me with a bow for 35s. Steel is getting more and more necessary. Pansar and stuff is so damn heavy. That's really my issue w/ steel is just not wanting to spec that hard into armor training. Would be nice if they came up with a light good metal that wasn't cron. I would wear that.

In MO1, you'd be dying walking down steps in heavy armor. Ankles would just pop off.

___

now in response to the game play, I DO think we have to scale shit back. I think there are a lot of good ideas that got added. The idea of combat skills makes sense, the idea of actives makes sense, but combat skills are still weird and imbalanced, active skills should be clade based and have huge cool downs. I remember back when I was talking about some CC might be nice in MO1 and people lost their shit. Oh how things changed.

Why? Because in MO1, if you could slow someone they were dead pretty much period haha. Same with stamming out, dead. I dunno how much they changed wep weight since I played last, but I sold my tung / spw war spears. That was what I enjoyed using on Maltie (who was lean) because it was like 1.7 wt and you could run holding it without bleeding stam. So you could kite so much. Now, since it is so parry and gear based, you don't mind slowing down.

I could rattle off a bunch of random shit they could do to make the game more interesting, that makes about as much sense as adding 10 hp. Like:

Raw increase speed of everything by 15%. Desync yea, but it happens anyway.

Make parry not parry for 0 if you are below a certain level of stam. Make it so that it doesn't parry for 0 when you are standing still enough to trigger elf stam regen clade.

___

Unless something majorly changed, big weps might swing faster, but they still drain stam hard. It's just not that important. Like, I have made an absolute mockery of a build on Maltie. I spend a lot of time mounted, but still... endurance, no, sprinting, no. Combat maneuvering? 50 so I can have a little AT. Why? I don't need that stam. I can run in a straight line long enough in most instances and I am able to recoup major points. Same with balance. You'd take balance before, too, because if you got hit and thrown out of a sprint YOU WERE DEAD. So you had to spec so hard into just movement skills.

It's hard to see how this combat is preferrably to MO1 combat, and I wonder what this game would be like with MO1 combat.

I really think that they need to find a way to get new players to play first and foremost, tho. They can work on this other shit in the background. If we don't get ANY pop increase for the weekend, like not even over 600, that is shocking to me.

 

[Dalam]

I really think that they need to find a way to get new players to play first and foremost, tho. They can work on this other shit in the background. If we don't get ANY pop increase for the weekend, like not even over 600, that is shocking to me.

Look man I might get some reactions but the reason this game is down so much is because it's wayy too hardcore for anyone. Full loot PvP is just unfeasible (to not say bad game design). All my friends who said it's the spice aren't playing anymore. All that is left is the excitement of getting a lootbag, but since pop is how it is...

 

[Emdash]

Look man I might get some reactions but the reason this game is down so much is because it's wayy too hardcore for anyone. Full loot PvP is just unfeasible (to not say bad game design). All my friends who said it's the spice aren't playing anymore. All that is left is the excitement of getting a lootbag, but since pop is how it is...

hardcore as in grindy, that is true. Hardcore as in cut throat, they have scaled it back a lot of ways. Now, one could say that the bleed would be worse if it was not scaled back, but I am not ready to believe that.

I think I may write another post that will probably be similar to my thousands of other posts, saying what I think needs to happen and wondering why it hasn't, which no one will read or reply to hah.

Either way, I am playing MO atm: cool. I left the discord because tho it seems like you are reaching someone when you talk about stuff and people are like YEAH, in the end, it just doesn't get changed enough.

Quite simply, the game needs to be psychologically hardcore and intense but not require such a huge time investment. It should have massive diminishing returns so yeah, the guy who plays 8 hours a day has an advantage, but the guy who logs in on weekends, who works at NASA and is an elite player should still have a place. The 8 hour guy will do everything in his power to protect his grip on the game from the skilled weekend warrior.

 

[Teknique]

Look man I might get some reactions but the reason this game is down so much is because it's wayy too hardcore for anyone. Full loot PvP is just unfeasible (to not say bad game design). All my friends who said it's the spice aren't playing anymore. All that is left is the excitement of getting a lootbag, but since pop is how it is...

In MO1 your guild would be literally destroyed overnight when you woke up, and 100k worth of shit which is like 1 million gold in this game would disappear overnight. We consider mo2 to be no core, not hardcore.

 

[Emdash]

In MO1 your guild would be literally destroyed overnight when you woke up, and 100k worth of shit which is like 1 million gold in this game would disappear overnight. We consider mo2 to be no core, not hardcore.

and the brain damaged people who played (myself included haha) would be INSPIRED by that, not defeated.
They just need to find a way to make it so that people playing at that level can be more and more cut throat and the people playing at mid level have mid cut throat and casual / chill people can possibly live a decent game life without worrying that much.

It's strange in MO it seems like the higher you rise with TC and stuff, the easier the game is. Obviously, TC makes a lot of things easier, but the risk should be super high. The guilds that are sitting on stacks and stacks of gold should be constantly destroying each other's shit.

They made some assumption that people get sieged out of the game, but I think new players get griefed out, if not by PK just by gating, way more. Need to move that slider a bit.

 

[Teknique]

and the brain damaged people who played (myself included haha) would be INSPIRED by that, not defeated.
They just need to find a way to make it so that people playing at that level can be more and more cut throat and the people playing at mid level have mid cut throat and casual / chill people can possibly live a decent game life without worrying that much.

It's strange in MO it seems like the higher you rise with TC and stuff, the easier the game is. Obviously, TC makes a lot of things easier, but the risk should be super high. The guilds that are sitting on stacks and stacks of gold should be constantly destroying each other's shit.

They made some assumption that people get sieged out of the game, but I think new players get griefed out, if not by PK just by gating, way more. Need to move that slider a bit.

Maybe for us, we were just soldiers, so maybe we don’t understand the people who invested millions, but I think there were people that wanted to fill the niches. There were people who wanted to be kings, protocorporations, hermits, local lords, mercenaries. Now everybody is everything, they have their personal stronghold in every section of the map filled with gear and safe in their walls. Gating or maybe just daunting is the word that id use, too much gold to farm.

 

[finegamingconnoisseur]

My opinion is that SV spent the best part of almost fours adding fluff like new armours, pets and dungeons which, while nice to have, is not sand. What we needed was more sand, lots and lots of it. This is meant to be a sandbox game, not a generic mmo.

Thievery, wagons, boats and more defining features that gave players small and large-scale agency and influence over the game world and player politics, could have been added. But they decided to give us lots of fluff instead. I'm saddened by this, to me it felt like a massive missed opportunity to cement MO2's place in the video gaming industry as a ground-breaker that showed the world what an mmo could be.

I would say put Sarducaa on hold and work on pouring sand by the bucket loads, and then leave the bucket in the sandbox for the players to use it in whatever way they can think of. Make the invasion spawn system more aggressive, the Tagmatons in the lore were a world-ending swarm that devoured everything it came across. I don't get that sense at all, and it feels nowhere near that.

 

[Emdash]

I would say put Sarducaa on hold and work on pouring sand by the bucket loads, and then leave the bucket in the sandbox for the players to use it in whatever way they can think of. Make the invasion spawn system more aggressive, the Tagmatons in the lore were a world-ending swarm that devoured everything it came across. I don't get that sense at all, and it feels nowhere near that.

I know a lot of my brothers feel differently, but I agree.

Player Brokers. More areas you can 'do stuff' in. Even being able to build something with proper training dummies so you could skill up on them. Farms. Let people make more rules in the area they control. Make regular broker much better. Whole armor sets count as 1, at least. Pet tickets.

Add in more dynamic consequences for being a pvp guild. I think they should focus more on the way the most deviant of your members behave when deciding how to qualify your guild. Guilds with a lot of people who just murder everyone should be open pvp. Flag system is stupid and punishes solos more than it does guilds.

Add in stuff that makes it so that people don't nutcup. There is enough shit in the world for everyone and nobody wants to lose the soft spot they already have, so they nut cup. There need to be things that happen that will make people fight for them.

Like, if outposts, instead of just giving passive bonuses, gave a bonus each time they got capped, say a bonus and some mats, and the bonus would be like a week of +10% wood, or 10% taming, loot w/e. Then it would come up with a new bonus, and it would stay up for say... 24 hours, and if the holder still held it, they would get that bonus, too. Etc etc. There just need to be bigger gains that don't inspire stagnation, but that last less time, imo.

Then there def need to be ways for small scale stuff to raid larger groups' TC. They just need to get everyone doing stuff. The more people doing stuff, the better the sandbox. I dunno if they even need that many more tools, but people need to stop staying in such a small loop. The only way to get them to is to reward them for doing it. People probably do their dailies, so it is possible to inspire them. Otherwise, they will just sit in the same area and perma farm.

 

[Teknique]

My opinion is that SV spent the best part of almost fours adding fluff like new armours, pets and dungeons which, while nice to have, is not sand. What we needed was more sand, lots and lots of it. This is meant to be a sandbox game, not a generic mmo.

Thievery, wagons, boats and more defining features that gave players small and large-scale agency and influence over the game world and player politics, could have been added. But they decided to give us lots of fluff instead. I'm saddened by this, to me it felt like a massive missed opportunity to cement MO2's place in the video gaming industry as a ground-breaker that showed the world what an mmo could be.

I would say put Sarducaa on hold and work on pouring sand by the bucket loads, and then leave the bucket in the sandbox for the players to use it in whatever way they can think of. Make the invasion spawn system more aggressive, the Tagmatons in the lore were a world-ending swarm that devoured everything it came across. I don't get that sense at all, and it feels nowhere near that.

A kingdom divided against itself can not stand. Sv tried to make a game that ran counter to all the things that made the predecessor great.

We needed support from mo1 players, I think I found maybe less than 5 souls. The rest either never played, fled, were silent for too long, or just plain moronic.

 

[CherryKush]

My opinion is that SV spent the best part of almost fours adding fluff like new armours, pets and dungeons which, while nice to have, is not sand. What we needed was more sand, lots and lots of it. This is meant to be a sandbox game, not a generic mmo.

Thievery, wagons, boats and more defining features that gave players small and large-scale agency and influence over the game world and player politics, could have been added. But they decided to give us lots of fluff instead. I'm saddened by this, to me it felt like a massive missed opportunity to cement MO2's place in the video gaming industry as a ground-breaker that showed the world what an mmo could be.

I would say put Sarducaa on hold and work on pouring sand by the bucket loads, and then leave the bucket in the sandbox for the players to use it in whatever way they can think of. Make the invasion spawn system more aggressive, the Tagmatons in the lore were a world-ending swarm that devoured everything it came across. I don't get that sense at all, and it feels nowhere near that.

It's because fluff is a whole lot easier to copy and paste into the game from the UE Asset store than it is to create more sand..

 

[Emdash]

It's because fluff is a whole lot easier to copy and paste into the game from the UE Asset store than it is to create more sand..

dono if that's true, tbh. They have added some crazy shit to the game and they still don't have player brokers and pet tickets haha.

I think it has less to do with what they are capable of doing, or even their vision, and it's just that for some reason, people are telling them not to do that shit. Like thievery, etc.

But like I said, I enjoy popping in here, but the real time feeling of posting in Mortal Discord makes me think that what I am doing / saying has way more effect than it does. I am tired of spamming. We shall see when they add ONE thing I suggested this go round.