Answer the question; What is the number 1. reason the Mortal population is declining? A homework assignment for all Mortal enjoyers.

[CherryKush]

Lmao the people who said what players really want is npcs that gang fuck you. Jesus mo2 alpha was an L

Mobs that drop on your head and spawn out of nowhere is the worst. No one wants that. People want to be able to scout an area out and then make the decision to either fight or try and navigate their way though. Mobs just popping out of nowhere is nothing but frustrating for the player. Its a crap mechanic.

 

[ElPerro]

Mobs that drop on your head and spawn out of nowhere is the worst. No one wants that. People want to be able to scout an area out and then make the decision to either fight or try and navigate their way though. Mobs just popping out of nowhere is nothing but frustrating for the player. Its a crap mechanic.

Yeah I absolutely hated that mechanic from the day it was patched in. It really goes against any definition of sandbox and immersive gameplay, feels like its straight from a shitty single player game. We were supposed to get roaming mobs that could ambush players but it would be the result of poorly scouting the area not just mobs popping out of thin air.

But you go to the official discord and the NPCs there completely love it, of course Henrik only listens to them instead of veteran players.

 

[azezal]

There are numerous problems as to why new/solo players leave.
1. Constant ganking :
Start as a new player: Pushed in the water while fishing, killed while mining, killed while cutting wood, killed while leveling your skills at the GY. Then the new player goes outside and sees that EVERYTHING is camped by the same RPK guilds, who first and foremost prey on unarmed noobs. Then the newbie quits and leaves a bad review.
2. TC :
TC has made the world unimmersive and ugly. Theres so many villages on the map, that its actually impossible to not ride through at least 2 of them when travelling from town to town (mind you, you are completely f'ed if they try to gank you in their village). Also its so expensive and time consuming to siege people. WTF is a siege window supposed to be good for? "No, i walled off ALL the content in the area and if you wanna change it, you need to get an appointment." lol Makes it impossible to take revenge on large guilds, especially for smaller groups. Ninja sieges can be bad, yes. But they cant be as bad as walling off every bit of content and giving you a different place to gear/revive every five minutes travel time.
3. Exploiting/ SV not enforcing basic rules:
You're using a 3.8kg Towershield while knowing they should not be in the game anymore? No problem. You're exploiting trolls? Okay. You're exploiting mob-pathing in dungeons? Good. Logging in Necro Dungeon? Be my guest. None of this behaviour is punished at all in a PERSISTENT world without wipes.

4. Lack of systems tying into each other:
Tasks are a useless game of running back and forth. Just hand in the trophies/heads and get your reward, would in my mind be more fitting to a "full loot sandbox".
Reputation means NOTHING. Reds can still go to towns, if youre part of the local zerg, noone will attack you anyway. Guilds arent affected by reputation, so the murdering zerg can just freely buy houses and build them in the region of an Empire that hates them without any downsides, makes a lot of sense.
5. Basic Balance:
Im not talking mage vs footie vs hybrid but basic item balance. A few examples: The different types of bladeheads arent special enough in my mind. The weakspot chance with daggerheads should be looked at (lighter/weaker= more weakspot maybe?). The lightest shieldframe is ALWAYS the best, since the frametype has no influence on defensive stats and only affects weight. Some armor materials are absolutely useless. Placoid scales are made from rays (rare) and you can make a glorious 27 pierce res armor with it lol.
6. Map/ Ressource Balance: Most items have very, very specific spawnpoints which makes it much too easy to just build a stronghold on top of it. Also the "endgame" area, is no "endgame" area at all. Its just the most convenient place to be and its therefore filled with zerglings, thats the whole difficulty. No harder mobs, no roaming risars ready to kill you, no, nothing. So to fix this maybe put in a worldboss like a roaming risar general with a regiment of warriors thats roaming around the Tephra area and some more spawns of different stuff all over the world. A little salvia in the khurite forest mountains, a little gabore or tephra somewhere, nymph herb, thymus a little further south in the colored forest, a little more calx around rivers... not just around A LAKE(!!!).

Stand behind a wooden fence when fishing. Cut spongewood and blackwood in toxai (alt watching the bridge in Toxai to be safe for blackwood) and sell in MK. Farm GY in Toxai (no one ever there). Avoid dungeons as a solo and don't take the obvious route between towns. Be a tamer/MA and fight naked from horse with a crepite bow. Get Marksmanship so you can WS headshot ganker horses as they chase you in steel horse armor ignoring it. Get back into town with a few horses and profit.

Honestly the ganking is fairly rare after subs and when I started it was very common. I mostly saw it as a challenge to avoid or kill the ganker kids horses when they chased me. I only use naked horse since speed is everything.

What really depresses me about this game is the carebear attitude to sieging. You spend a month learning about the enemy POS, hoping one day you can wreck their day like they tried to wreck yours. Low and behold you may as well need permission now to blow up their strongholds. Ninja sieging does not exist in this game, because it likes to protect those who use groups to behave like a%%holes, with no way to actually get revenge against them apart from bombing their pets in town or using a legal exploit of bombing them when afk, using crawling hand, then using an alt in your guild to crawling hand again.

Game feels like PVE-combat server on conan exiles. ASPD kids Killing minors all day because you lose in a 1vs1 duel, but can go back to the safety of your base knowing no one can damage it apart from exploiting a purge

Either make a hardcore game where a solo can destroy an SH when enemy are asleep or just make a pve game with pvp switch.

End of the day hardly any gankers can actually play hardcore games where they have to go against equal or worse odds and not having e-friends to support them, hence they play this for safety in numbers to roll noobs mostly. Calling them pvpers is like calling pet town griefers pvpers.

Make the game pure hardcore or pve. No middle ground. Buildings should be seen as temporary structures just like in real life if someone decides to save up a year just to drop an atom bomb on it.

Also I really wonder what my endgame should be. I have oghmium bloodsilk draco set, which I can't even wear because I rerolled all alts that had heavy armor training for mounted wheelchair builds. I have bloodsilk tindremic attire sets in every town almost on every alt. I force myself to go out and tame pets or usually just horses because its easier, or most of the time because I am lacking any inspiration, just buy underpriced pets on broker and lvl them up and resale for profit while i'm doing stuff in RL. Even if the pets get bombed, its not a big deal because a ritualist or a newb who needs lores buys the carcass.

I know the obvious solution is that I should go out and look for pvp, but I don't really see the point in shooting newbs horses to death in a GY while I send my pet to attack them. Most RPK vets travel in groups so it's difficult to get revenge on them. The few who RPK alone, are hard to find. Like riding around outside fab looking for ******* during hours he camps there, not finding him and getting my horse shot out by someone with a longbow who must have ran away after. Enemy always mine on unguilded or different guild alts and don't really like just killing randoms in hope its an enemy.

So really what am I supposed to even do as an unsociable solo end game?

 

[Rahz]

Stand behind a wooden fence when fishing. Cut spongewood and blackwood in toxai (alt watching the bridge in Toxai to be safe for blackwood) and sell in MK. Farm GY in Toxai (no one ever there). Avoid dungeons as a solo and don't take the obvious route between towns. Be a tamer/MA and fight naked from horse with a crepite bow. Get Marksmanship so you can WS headshot ganker horses as they chase you in steel horse armor ignoring it. Get back into town with a few horses and profit.

Honestly the ganking is fairly rare after subs and when I started it was very common. I mostly saw it as a challenge to avoid or kill the ganker kids horses when they chased me. I only use naked horse since speed is everything.

What really depresses me about this game is the carebear attitude to sieging. You spend a month learning about the enemy POS, hoping one day you can wreck their day like they tried to wreck yours. Low and behold you may as well need permission now to blow up their strongholds. Ninja sieging does not exist in this game, because it likes to protect those who use groups to behave like a%%holes, with no way to actually get revenge against them apart from bombing their pets in town or using a legal exploit of bombing them when afk, using crawling hand, then using an alt in your guild to crawling hand again.

Game feels like PVE-combat server on conan exiles. ASPD kids Killing minors all day because you lose in a 1vs1 duel, but can go back to the safety of your base knowing no one can damage it apart from exploiting a purge

Either make a hardcore game where a solo can destroy an SH when enemy are asleep or just make a pve game with pvp switch.

End of the day hardly any gankers can actually play hardcore games where they have to go against equal or worse odds and not having e-friends to support them, hence they play this for safety in numbers to roll noobs mostly. Calling them pvpers is like calling pet town griefers pvpers.

Make the game pure hardcore or pve. No middle ground. Buildings should be seen as temporary structures just like in real life if someone decides to save up a year just to drop an atom bomb on it.

Also I really wonder what my endgame should be. I have oghmium bloodsilk draco set, which I can't even wear because I rerolled all alts that had heavy armor training for mounted wheelchair builds. I have bloodsilk tindremic attire sets in every town almost on every alt. I force myself to go out and tame pets or usually just horses because its easier, or most of the time because I am lacking any inspiration, just buy underpriced pets on broker and lvl them up and resale for profit while i'm doing stuff in RL. Even if the pets get bombed, its not a big deal because a ritualist or a newb who needs lores buys the carcass.

I know the obvious solution is that I should go out and look for pvp, but I don't really see the point in shooting newbs horses to death in a GY while I send my pet to attack them. Most RPK vets travel in groups so it's difficult to get revenge on them. The few who RPK alone, are hard to find. Like riding around outside fab looking for ******* during hours he camps there, not finding him and getting my horse shot out by someone with a longbow who must have ran away after. Enemy always mine on unguilded or different guild alts and don't really like just killing randoms in hope its an enemy.

So really what am I supposed to even do as an unsociable solo end game?

Ohh i used to get ganked, but i dont anymore. Im talking about new players, not about me, although i also dont have an alt . My problem with ganking is that killing pets isnt considered a crime and that gankers have EVERY advantage imaginable if they fight miners/lumberjacks/fishermen. The gankers just run to their Stronghold or get backup from their zerg-guild. I have BM, 100MM and a naked desert horse, i only have the gank-problem if the sounds dont play and i cant hear someoone shooting my horse/ running up to me..which btw is also kinda bad. the sounds stop playing once youre about 10-15m away. So youll never hear a horse until it might be a little late.
100% agree with sieging ! There are absolute shitter-guilds in game who only prey on solo-newbies. Now if they are red in town, ill go to the stable and let them cosplay a chewtoy but 3 people ganking newbs just outside the guard-range ,getting a blue guildie to collect all the loot made me so mad, that i actually found out where their village is. Now i wanna burn it down, but I cant... Why TF should I make an appointment for sieging them? Destroying shit-tier bandit guilds TC structures would actually be my preferred endgame as a solo player. Im actually malding about this. I scouted for their village, hid in the bushes to not get spotted, picked off some of them and in the end i gain absolutely nothing from it because the good stuff is in their chests.

 

[Emdash]

Lmao the people who said what players really want is npcs that gang fuck you. Jesus mo2 alpha was an L

All that shit came in later. I need to practice breathing exercises because every time I try to talk to people about it, they fall back on MO1 was a failure, players need safety... etc, and yeah then they add outlaws cuz the world is too dead. BUT THEY DROP GOOD TRINKZ. I got my +1 raw copper trinkz (for str, dex, int), a couple silver ones I bought unid that actually turned out pretty damn good, and I'm all set. I got those just by playing normal, before outlaws.

People are anti pvp, but somehow it's OK to die to outlaws. Haha. Like when you are trying to run back and collect your loot naked and you realize wolves aggro'd on you, that's how you feel when npcs spawn on your ass.

I agree w/ Perro tho, it's just not working for me. I don't wanna duel in town. I don't even care about having a fair fight. I want something that matters, and I want to do what I do which is sneaking thru the world and using terrain to gain advantage. Even that is less with all of the choke points, but it's still possible. I wanna feel like something is happening in Nave that I want to be involved in.

It's like what fartbox is saying, but I don't think he understands that's solo content, too. If there is stuff happening that you can observe and get into, that's good enough solo content for me. I don't have huge expectations for MO. I just wanna get a little mental work out and face something unexpected.

I think most of the people still playing MO are just zergy bads, and that's how the game is designed. I know I could sneak around and grief them, but I dunno that it would be satisfying. I enjoyed MO around the beginning of 23, legit, before TC stuff was pretty decent, game seemed to be running really well for me. I was sad that they started spamming guards, but that was only the beginning.

In beta, I had people trying to gank me at the crusher in Bakti, old skool style.

Surprising that devs don't see the value of that.

 

[Emdash]

also at AZ n Rahz, it depends on where you are. I got a lot of stuff in Hyl from before, and even tho it's a dogshit place, there is a guild entrenched there. They try to kill everyone who doesn't tag. It's like MO1. They try to control all resources, etc. Def a good chance to get fights, but they aren't trying to fight fair. They got pets, etc. Still, with the mountains and everything else, it'd be possible to have some good survival level gameplay. Not for great gains, but just for fun.

I assume people still fight @ jungle camp, too. I really wish Hyl was Wilderness (as it should be, granum pass should be the beginning and Hyl can stay a blue town, but have wilderness around it.)

Siege is def necessary in order to ignite the world. It won't be until there is really a nuclear holocaust level 'siege bite' taken out of the world that things will start to move. The question then will be, will everyone quit? Until then, the game is really boring. People have to be knocked out of their spots in order to 'wake up.' The problem is devs fear they will quit, and a lot of them might. But rest assured, the spots will fill as they always do. AFTER WINTER THERE IS SPRING.

 

[Rahz]

Emdash, i agree 100% with your last two statements. (beside your copper trink being good, compared to whats out there, its trash you can get about 15% pierce dmg which is every archers wet dream, +10 raw stats,+10 normal stats and 100 primary points from a set of "nice" trinkets, not even the best)
The chokepoints and some of the cliffs in Jungle/Hyl (can get down but cant get back up most of the time) makes sneaky survival gameplay and actually using your brain not as viable as it should be. Outlaws are straight up dumb. I mean if it were skeletons that unborrow at night...i could somewhat get it but the outlaws make no sense at all and dont make the world feel more alive. I would honestly delete them, put in some more pickables to spread out the playerbase across the map and add these nightspawn skeletons.. a mounted deathknight as a terrifying world boss in the steppe areas that can randomly roam around at night would also be fun and would certainly be a PvEvP hotspot. (also a little easier to put into the game than a dragon that would get stuck on flying rabbits)

 

[Calcal]

Low population is inversely proportional to the numbers of guards and protections added to the game !

The more guards and guard towers they place on MO2, the less population it gets.
Game gets way too much care bear...people stay safe...so the game becomes tedium and easy mode, therefore, people lose interest.

Easy to fix. Here are the steps :

- Remove 90% of the guards inside all towns
- Guards should have line of sight
- Guards should NOT teleport on you when you go criminal and is hidden
- Guard towers outside towns MUST be eliminated. Erase 100% of them. I feel like roaming in Trammel when I travel between towns.
- Guards should do AT MAXIMUM 30 damage... Elite guard arrows should never hit people for 110 damage
- Guards should be ONLY INSIDE TOWNS... Never outside or at cemeteries.

There is your fix.
Do that and I grant you we will have a boom of players joining in quick time. Plus, the old players will return to MO2 when they realize it has been fixed.

Go back in time if you doubt my word and check the population number in february 2022, when we had no excessive number of guards or safe areas with lame guard towers.
Group of PKs could even raid towns like Fabernum without being idiculously insta killed by guards with god powers.

It was the BEST time of MO2, no doubt.
The only bad thing during that time was the lack of Thieving... Which still lacks

But MO2, even with all the Trammelization, continues to be the best game on the market...by far

There are places in the game with no guards. How many people live in Kranesh? cave camp? GK? 0 right. Turns out no one wants to play a game where you have to be on edge 100% of the time.

 

[Emdash]

Emdash, i agree 100% with your last two statements. (beside your copper trink being good, compared to whats out there, its trash you can get about 15% pierce dmg which is every archers wet dream, +10 raw stats,+10 normal stats and 100 primary points from a set of "nice" trinkets, not even the best)
The chokepoints and some of the cliffs in Jungle/Hyl (can get down but cant get back up most of the time) makes sneaky survival gameplay and actually using your brain not as viable as it should be. Outlaws are straight up dumb. I mean if it were skeletons that unborrow at night...i could somewhat get it but the outlaws make no sense at all and dont make the world feel more alive. I would honestly delete them, put in some more pickables to spread out the playerbase across the map and add these nightspawn skeletons.. a mounted deathknight as a terrifying world boss in the steppe areas that can randomly roam around at night would also be fun and would certainly be a PvEvP hotspot. (also a little easier to put into the game than a dragon that would get stuck on flying rabbits)

nah I understand what is out there. lol I mean, I don't care @ trinks. I've always been anti trinks. Dex was capped at 130 when I quit so I could get max speed @ lean (129.) I'm so straight on paying thousands of gold for shit that imo shouldn't even be in the game. I never used pots, either, but I would def use pots/kua before high lvl trinks. I just feel they are garbagey content and one of the bigger flaws in the 'hardcore full loot game.' Like someone on Reddit said, he asked "are you saying I can get trinkets that give me total +20%~ slash dmg?" and people were like yeah but they'd be some of the best ones. And he said, "OK I'll look for a more hardcore game." I feel the same way. There are a bunch of things that need to just be cut from the game + siege needs to be back. It's amazing how much of a joke the game is now, imo.

Outlaws need to go, too, and I've said it, but they aren't gonna, just like everything else. They aren't interested in building a game the right way.

Again for SV if you are listening! REMOVE OUTLAWS, REMOVE TRINKETS, REMOVE GUARD TOWERS, HEAVILY THIN GUARDS. The reason people don't live in red towns is the rest of the world is guarded and thus it condenses the people who play like that. Bad faith argument! Being afraid to go AFK in MO1 was good. Or just being like ah well if I die I die, I stashed my stuff.

FIND A WAY TO REDUCE TC BY ABOUT 2/3. STOP ADDING DUNGEONS. MAKE MAGIC OBTAINABLE BY ALL. REMOVE PET ARMOR, REMOVE MOUNTING PETS. REMOVE INFINITE 3RD SPEED. REMOVE MOVING CASTING FOR NON-NECRO.

It's just one thing after another, and when I really think about it, it's like, yeah I could play, but... nah. I'm cool with getting mats in the right spot (got mats a lot of places) and being ready to go in on people. I'm not cool with farming trinkets and magic scrolls as the end game. That's just bad theory.

And yea, there are a bunch of people w/ pets now. I was looking around Bakti on my alt, and it's like wewww. I'm all for people not having to be good to play, but there's gotta be another way! It's sad because all the shit they aren't gonna change is eventually gonna weigh the game down again once people get bored of 2nd slot and leave.

It coulda been good. I'm still saving my stuff if they do fix it. I would sub. I know other people would, too, and it would be a better, more popular game, but they are risk adverse and don't know how to (imo) interpret data.

 

[Rahz]

nah I understand what is out there. lol I mean, I don't care @ trinks. I've always been anti trinks. Dex was capped at 130 when I quit so I could get max speed @ lean (129.) I'm so straight on paying thousands of gold for shit that imo shouldn't even be in the game. I never used pots, either, but I would def use pots/kua before high lvl trinks. I just feel they are garbagey content and one of the bigger flaws in the 'hardcore full loot game.' Like someone on Reddit said, he asked "are you saying I can get trinkets that give me total +20%~ slash dmg?" and people were like yeah but they'd be some of the best ones. And he said, "OK I'll look for a more hardcore game." I feel the same way. There are a bunch of things that need to just be cut from the game + siege needs to be back. It's amazing how much of a joke the game is now, imo.

Outlaws need to go, too, and I've said it, but they aren't gonna, just like everything else. They aren't interested in building a game the right way.

Again for SV if you are listening! REMOVE OUTLAWS, REMOVE TRINKETS, REMOVE GUARD TOWERS, HEAVILY THIN GUARDS. The reason people don't live in red towns is the rest of the world is guarded and thus it condenses the people who play like that. Bad faith argument! Being afraid to go AFK in MO1 was good. Or just being like ah well if I die I die, I stashed my stuff.

FIND A WAY TO REDUCE TC BY ABOUT 2/3. STOP ADDING DUNGEONS. MAKE MAGIC OBTAINABLE BY ALL. REMOVE PET ARMOR, REMOVE MOUNTING PETS. REMOVE INFINITE 3RD SPEED. REMOVE MOVING CASTING FOR NON-NECRO.

It's just one thing after another, and when I really think about it, it's like, yeah I could play, but... nah. I'm cool with getting mats in the right spot (got mats a lot of places) and being ready to go in on people. I'm not cool with farming trinkets and magic scrolls as the end game. That's just bad theory.

And yea, there are a bunch of people w/ pets now. I was looking around Bakti on my alt, and it's like wewww. I'm all for people not having to be good to play, but there's gotta be another way! It's sad because all the shit they aren't gonna change is eventually gonna weigh the game down again once people get bored of 2nd slot and leave.

It coulda been good. I'm still saving my stuff if they do fix it. I would sub. I know other people would, too, and it would be a better, more popular game, but they are risk adverse and don't know how to (imo) interpret data.

I did also not play for a while and am back in since about 1.5 months. Max speed is now 133 dex lol, thanks for that.
I dont have anything against trinkets per se but its again the usual problem of SV and being bad at math . 20% more dmg is about as much as a veela gets from strength ( i think). kinda idiotic to get that much dmg from trinkets.

I actually dont think the guard towers are the problem, the guard AI and their stats are the problem. The guards are lightning fast, accurate, do A LOT of dmg and are as effective as a bloodhound when it comes to sniffing out your location.
A better AI would also go a long way in towns. As it is you can on one hand just stand on the cliff next to vadda and shoot random shit inside the city but the second you go into the guards active zone, youre doomed. Both examples are what i would consider bad gameplay.

Pets can be problematic but I do think a lot of people overestimate their strength. For me Heavy Armor is the biggest balancing issue. Endgame Heavy Armor makes you (and your pet) almost immune against all physical dmg that doesnt come from an oghmium weapon.

I think the reason people dont live in red towns is that it would be kinda dumb to put anything of value on the markets there considering the risk of losing stuff while getting there, putting it on the market and getting your cash off the market is really high. On the other side it really doesnt take much skill or preparation to ambush people in this game, especially since they wont hear you most of the time.
I live on the country side, i know what it sounds like when a horse is charging down a hill towards you, its not exactly quiet.

 

[Philocypher]

I like trinkets but I hate that they're so prohibitive.

They started dropping a ton of trinkets from the new dungeons but flux are way too expensive.

They just nerfed spirit farming again by making it so you can't vendor boxes anymore which is so stupid... So flux has gotten crazy expensive.

Trinkets should be made far more accessible.

 

[azezal]

I agree with removing trinkets and outlaws. SV will never remove trinkets though. Those who RMT for the best ones would rage quit. When ever a large guild threatens to rage quit, like WheelchairBandits after guard towers outside Fab, SV moved all their buildings to different part of map free of charge.

Guard towers should stay. It's more realistic that highwaymen would not operate easily outside large towns in in RL. Plenty of other places and chokepoints to camp that don't have guard towers.

 

[fartbox]

Trinkets is unironically one of the best updates they ever made. It introduced a minmaxing end-game content loop that wasn't dramatically overpowered but did provide character progression. Its probably the only reason this game has around 1k average daily instead of much less.

I see alot of cope in this thread. I want to squash that. MO2 peaked in popularity at ele patch and has slowly become less popular over time since that patch. Unless you count launch numbers but I never do when talking about MMO population trends, its best practice to wait 90 days after the launch of an MMO to truly start collecting population demographics.

Territory control? Minor temporary population boost, the MMO gaming community as a whole did not care.
New dungeons? Minor temporary population boost, the MMO gaming community as a whole did not care.
Ele patch era? +60% population boost. 800 to 1300 over the span.

Why is that do you think? Because many players thought ele patch might introduce a different type of game-play to Mortal. Possibly disengage mechanics, possibly intel or utility tools. Possibly any tools at all to be successful in the game as a small group or solo player. Many were disappointed, Mortal was not able to carry any momentum from this boost, even though they transitioned directly into TC the game became less popular.

It actually fits perfectly with my experience too. I considered the game too poor to play at launch and left like many other did but came back for elementalism in hopes that it would introduce new mechanics to the game to allow for a better small group or solo game-flow. I was disappointed but decided to continue playing anyway as i'm a sucker for a good deal(free) and joined various groups only to be reminded that mandatory large group play game-flow is very boring and is best reserved for timed objectives. When subs hit, I quit.

I expect you will see the same results with combat abilities. Sprint 2, right around the corner. New combat mechanics means new possibilities. You'll probably even see me. But I expect to be disappointed again and I expect the population to see dramatic growth and then dramatic decline during this period just like Ele patch.

Why do I expect to be disappointed ? Because Henrik has not even acknowledged that this game is not popular because it does not include the largest demographic. It's up to you the community to organize and present Henrik with a primary concern. Everyone is throwing around random trivial shit. Do you really think changing outlaw spawns would make the game grow? Really do you believe that? I'll wager you 10000$ USD escrowed if you can facilitate a way to get Henrik to patch that in and then we can watch the population not move in any meaningful way.

Are there other reasons that the most modern MMO of all time can only obtain 1k.1.3k concurrent after a major content drop?
Yes there are.
Is the solo/duo/trio demographic being excluded from the game the biggest single factor?
Yes it is.

 

[fartbox]

Why is it important to grow Mortal 2 right now? Do we want growth? Do we need it?

Both. You want it, you need it.

Why?

Because there are competitors surfacing every few months. Ravendawn, ROG and Fractured in just last 4 months. People want a piece of genre. AI dev tools are out and for purchase. Games are going to be released at an accelerated rate. If you include every survival type game that isn't a first person shooter and you include OSRS/Albion/EVE the genre is massive despite people not thinking it is. This doesn't include cross demographic compatibility with games like League of Legends. If you start including first person shooter survivals like rust then it is definitely the largest PC genre.

It's probably the largest or second largest genre of gaming. Despite people like Jonah considering it small.

If Mortal doesn't position itself with a large population before a viable competitor steps up then it will die entirely. It needs a cushion a safety net or its going to pull a DFUW as soon as something hot drops. All the veterans shitposting here will be in those games instead of dealing with their consequences here for suggesting trivial changes that will lead the game to an early grave. That isn't good for anyone here.


*Double posting, but it's reasonable to do in this situation.*

 

[Emdash]

Trinkets is unironically one of the best updates they ever made.

No they aren't. haha. Dammit, fartbox.

Trinkets are content outside of the full loot hardcore pvp 'loop' and provide a progression that is outside of the spectrum of normal character growth. This isn't diablo. I believe trinkets are keeping the pop up, but it is because the demographic changed, and in the end, once you get your 'ideal trinkets,' it's done. There should be a constant engagement. It's not gonna bring people to the game; it's something to keep people hanging on.

Think about tasks and how they 'improved the experience.' Now, think about the economy per city. Realize that a task is a closed loop and ideally, you'd want players going out to do things that benefit the city. That is poor game design. Those are the sort of limiting factors that make MO fail. Trinkets are just like mmo lootz boost in dopamine. OOO A TRINKET. Instead of being like yea I gotta pound out 6 stacks of granum. Soft.

The reason that all content is large group is because it's all based on shit like that, farming trinkets. TC has moved people away from cities even more, as it was a poorly implemented system. Cities and brokers are very important. There needs to be intake and outtake.

The world needs to have things happening. IF things are happening, you can get involved in them, even as a solo. You are faced with constant choices to go with the grain or go against it. That is solo content in a nutshell heh. Unfortunately. You will never be a big mover and shaker, but you can influence things and enjoy the world. Crafting is another thing, but there isn't good crafting in MO, either.

People need to be able to gank. A little in cities, and especially outside of cities. It keeps the economy 'right.' Calcal said nobody wants to play a game where you are in a heightened state all of the time, but I dunno.

(colored text) in the end, it's all energy. Energy is what drives action. Sandbox requires action. Positive energy, negative energy, you want people to have a lot of choice in the action they take, and you want their actions to possibly have a large ripple. You want their time investment to be able to ripple enough to affect even a larger group. Because even a small group can cause a big war...

Lastly, if I understand correctly, outlaws drop pretty good trinkets. The game is kinda dead, so you can go around and farm outlaws for your ideal trinkets. SOLO. That's gg solo content for one of the best additions in the game. Oh wait, but it's not. Once you get your trinkets, the game is still ass! haha. Gains are predicated on the idea that you wanna use them. Trinkets are cool, but unnecessary, and they are a short term high / distraction at best.

I'm with you on a lot of things, but you're still not coming up with the idea that is gonna make MO more fun and solo friendly. My PoV is open it up. Griefers are solos. They annoyed people because they could mess with them and they couldn't fight back. It seemed like no matter how strong your group was, you could get griefed. That needs to be balanced in some way, but the idea that you can just group and group and then you have to face to adversity is trash. If someone wants to dedicate their life to being a nuisance, they should be able to. That was way more important for the MO world than people think, and most people who are left were on the receiving end of such stuff. Instead of learning how to avoid or how to diplo / fight back, they were just like IT SHOULDN'T HAPPEN. NOT TO ME.

Think about that. Start there. It might sound condescending, but I dunno how else to say it. Think about what one person can do in regards to pvp, and how limited it is. Then think about what one could do if it wasn't limited, and look at how it branches out and how it begins to affect everything. You are gonna end up getting zerged most times if you grief / pvp small scale outside of towns. But there is content for awhile. In MO1, people would walk from Kran to Bakti to pvp, stay there for hours and kill everyone as they filtered in. Not even like "ganking nubs in the gy" but actually pvp until they lost. It would be a short walk from town, but far enough that guards weren't there. That is soo important for overall game trajectory. It's not gonna get better with the way the game is. That + making town life more important are the only two things they can do to fix the game imo.

 

[Jatix]

The number 1 reason I dont play is sub model. But thats because other issues.

I dont want to play enough for the game to be worth a sub. and I'm not subbing so me and my friend can log in 4 times a month. We arent kids anymore, we cant play 5 hours a night. And the games not fun enough to want to play that much.

The games a chore to play, nothing happens in any reasonable amount of time, and bad systems make it harder to have fun quickly. MO1 you could just play tindrem online if you wanted to find action quicker, there was always something going on, at least when the game had a decent population. Someone was grey somewhere or someone wanted to jump you lmao. MO2 has no equivalent.

 

[fartbox]

The number 1 reason I dont play is sub model. But thats because other issues.

I dont want to play enough for the game to be worth a sub. and I'm not subbing so me and my friend can log in 4 times a month. We arent kids anymore, we cant play 5 hours a night. And the games not fun enough to want to play that much.

The games a chore to play, nothing happens in any reasonable amount of time, and bad systems make it harder to have fun quickly. MO1 you could just play tindrem online if you wanted to find action quicker, there was always something going on, at least when the game had a decent population. Someone was grey somewhere or someone wanted to jump you lmao. MO2 has no equivalent.

Best argument so far. I think if they patched in fast travel they might get 200-300 more players concurrent on average. Free to play we know produced 1700 players peak (during ele) but during TC rollout the game was also free to play and it was around 1300 IIRC.

It takes a commitment in many different ways to play the game and that is not a good thing. When you approach games from a unit of 1 perspective you build from the floor up, games built with this mindset are less committing and more popular as a result.

 

[Xenom]

Tbh I still think number 1 reason is the lackluster pk system. Now with the alt chars I have been around the map quite a bit and if I would be a new player with all the gank squads right outside tower range... Hard to stick to it. It's like swarms all over
Tho I simply cannot play eve or albion for the combat systems anymore since darkfall the system for risk and reward with their zone tiers is what offers a place for most ppl types and that is one of the main reasons they flourish.
Mortal just needs to follow the path in this and adept what has been proven to work for decades. You don't have to invent the wheel a new when you can't come up with something superior.

Mortal on the other hand basically encourages to kill anyone because why not. Being red on one char doesn't do much when you get a second and the standing hit with - 1 a kill are laughable on top with what a few tasks generate so it's hardly a penalty being red in the first place. Not having the second char forced in the same guild and share standing did only make it worse on top. In the end there has not been 1 successful sandbox game that refused to have a solid pk/pvp system that overall discourageds killing anyone you see, have it possible yes but with consequences.

 

[Emdash]

Best argument so far. I think if they patched in fast travel they might get 200-300 more players concurrent on average. Free to play we know produced 1700 players peak (during ele) but during TC rollout the game was also free to play and it was around 1300 IIRC.

It takes a commitment in many different ways to play the game and that is not a good thing. When you approach games from a unit of 1 perspective you build from the floor up, games built with this mindset are less committing and more popular as a result.

We've been discussing stuff for awhile. I thought ghost fast travel would be fine. Some people were like FAST TRAVEL?!?!?! It would certainly benefit me haha. Zero reason you should have to ghost for an hour all of the time.

But, you need to realize that guards do suppress this sort of quick play content. There should be protection, but it shouldn't be as overwhelming.

Jatix is describing a situation that I am talking about, but he is (and good on him haha) doing so by using way fewer words.

@Xenom PK is one of the most simple player interactions. Rep system is kind of outdated the way the game is, unless they introduce regional conflicts. RED should be open pvp and you should have to wait until people are out of town to attack them. Guilds should also be able to be red. If someone wants to have a blue alt, then screw em. People deserve some level of protection in cities. The fact that dudes can jump on you as a red before you can do anything is a dumb balance change.

Pvp is some of the only real content MO has. Pushing that away from cities was a big mistake. They had a good reason, but they weren't thinking. It's supposed to be a jungle out there. Players are supposed to be the high level mobs.