80% of the players I played with a year ago are playing in Mortal direct or adjacent competitors today. Why Esports and MMOs do not mix.

[fartbox]

This community is a curious one. The few that remain are stalwart adamant defenders of the giga skillcaped and pingcaped melee combat. But they also demand from Starvault that they increase the amount of players while maintaining this combat system. I am here telling you today that if Mortal had different combat that it would have far more players then it has right now and that the melee combat is one of the primary factors in why this game cannot and will not grow.

But how is Mortals combat holding it back? If you start thinking of a MMO in the same nature of a Casino it starts to make a little more sense. Josh strife Hayes just released a video that briefly touched on dying MMO's and the casino->MMO paradigm, it's worth a watch if you haven't already seen it.

Lets break down an example of Albion Vs Mortal. This isn't the only relevant example but its one thats close to my heart since many previous notable mortal players on my friends list now reside in Albion.

Albion combat-> Low/medium skillcap, Easy to pickup, high variety, high outplay potential despite low mechanical skill cap.

Mortal combat-> High skillcap, hard to pickup, low variety, low outplay potential and Mechanically intensive

Joe Bob wants to play a game: he has a full time job, he has a fat needy wife as well. He likes mortal, he really does; The graphics, the concept, the map, the creatures all of that appeal to him. However he only has 2 hours a day at most to play. 14 hours a week. Joe Bob tried to play mortal but because of his time limitation and the mechanical nature of the game requiring hundreds or even thousands of hours to be competitive in he could not compete in the game on his own. Group play required too much organization time for Joe and since solo play is the most accessible format of play, especially for someone like Joe with limited time, that is what he spent most of his time doing. He was forced out of the game by the few players that could play 8-10 hours a day against which he could not even hit once in melee combat even in the very rare situations that he got a 1v1, because those players had won whatever relevant objective that Joe was also interested in playing at. By the time Joe had gotten to that in-game objective, someone named Time Freeman had already forced many players out.

Joe Bob never won a fight in Mortal, even though he liked the game he had to go to a different game, one where he could win at despite only playing 2 hours a day, even if winning was rare it was still possible for Joe Bob in Albion. Thats why Joe Bob plays Albion now, its a casino he can win at, even if its rarely.

Now lets talk about Time Freeman

Time Freeman wants to play a game, he has no obligations outside of gaming. He chooses Mortal and likes everything about it, just like Joe did. Time Freeman can play up to 14 hours a day and quickly dominates the opposition. He has many accounts and can single handedly hold multiple valuable objectives in the game, of which there are only handful. Time Freeman notices over time there are less and less players challenging him for objectives. The objectives themselves aren't very fun if repeated to infinity without the intervention of other players. Because other players no longer come Time Freeman gets bored and trys Albion and finds a plethora of players to play against, tons of action. Time Freeman quickly ascends to the highest tiers of Albion gamers with the highest mechanical skill cap in the game. However Time Freeman still loses fights to Joe Bob rarely in Albion due to the nature of the combat, the variety and randomness. Time Freeman is willing to accept that Joe Bob can rarely win, Time Freeman would rather play in a game with lots of action then a game with no action.

Hence the Casino->MMO paradigm. Both players eventually played Albion anyway because Joe Bob plays where he can win and Time Freeman follows the action.

People are going to play where they can win, because always losing is not fun. We should take players time restrictions into account when implementing game design. It is crucial to design an ecosystem not an esport when designing an MMO because MMO's depend on other players to maintain in-game systems or the whole thing collapses. Esports work differently, because they have matchmaking. Player time constraints are not a concern when designing games around matchmaking. Esports also do not rely on players maintaining in-game systems. A game of Halo plays the same whether 5 people are online or 500000 people are online.



You didn't listen.

 

[Teknique]

Would you rather play a game you enjoy with a 1000 people or a game that you hate with 10000 people?

 

[fartbox]

Would you rather play a game you enjoy with a 1000 people or a game that you hate with 10000 people?

You wont even be able to hold on to 1000 at this rate brother. The attrition is undeniable at this point and the new arrivals are drying up. Most MMO gamers that would be interested in a sandbox PVP experience have already tried this game. Awareness for the game is high in the MMO community at large, I don't think there's going to be any new lemons left to squeeze a year from now.

My friends list is vacant now, bleak. All of these were "veterans" by most regards and now in other games namely because they can get action there. Have you tried getting action lately in Mortal? Do you play the game currently? Do you play alone or in groups? Actively or just for pings?

You should have listened.



Where is Lordus, where is Kru, where is Wicked, where is Jonah, where is Klean?

These are all people that "loved the game". But at the end of the day they will follow the action. All of the people i listed above would be back in the game today if Mortal had 10k concurrent.

 

[Teknique]

You wont even be able to hold on to 1000 at this rate brother. The attrition is undeniable at this point and the new arrivals are drying up. Most MMO gamers that would be interested in a sandbox PVP experience have already tried this game. Awareness for the game is high in the MMO community at large, I don't think there's going to be any new lemons left to squeeze a year from now.

My friends list is vacant now, bleak. All of these were "veterans" by most regards and now in other games namely because they can get action there. Have you tried getting action lately in Mortal? Do you play the game currently? Do you play alone or in groups? Actively or just for pings?

You should have listened.

View attachment 6698

I’m just dabbling right now playing more or less alone, the game feels relatively alive, in the sense that you see people frequently.

Quite probably large scale roams are met with no pvp but that has been a common problem in MO and the sieging doesn’t help.

Interestingly I’m more of an advocate of mo1 combat which was more footwork and aim based, but I do want you to ponder that there are much more noble goals than player count. Again I’d rather play the game with 100 people so long as I was enjoying it. Mo2 combat does have a sweat, ping and cheat problem undeniably but it also is interesting in its own regard. The first game was much more accessible combat wise but that was destroyed intentionally by selfish bad actors.

 

[fartbox]

I’m just dabbling right now playing more or less alone, the game feels relatively alive, in the sense that you see people frequently.

Quite probably large scale roams are met with no pvp but that has been a common problem in MO and the sieging doesn’t help.

Interestingly I’m more of an advocate of mo1 combat which was more footwork and aim based, but I do want you to ponder that there are much more noble goals than player count. Again I’d rather play the game with 100 people so long as I was enjoying it. Mo2 combat does have a sweat, ping and cheat problem undeniably but it also is interesting in its own regard. The first game was much more accessible combat wise but that was destroyed intentionally by selfish bad actors.

Not having players in the game is a serious concern. No MMO can survive on hundreds of players because MMO's depend on players to maintain in-game systems, like the economy.

Even in the universe where Mortal can be funded at a loss indefinitely the game would ultimately die. Because the last 100 players would slowly dwindle to attrition from natural causes and the game would have no new adopters.

Games like WoW, League of Legends, and Runescape will be here long after you are dead. Mortal will not on current trajectory.

 

[MortalEnjoyer42069]

I agree. What really kills MO2 is the ping. If you're higher ping than your enemy at equal skill, you just lose. It's not like in other games, in MO2, it means you don't stand a chance.

 

[fartbox]

I agree. What really kills MO2 is the ping. If you're higher ping than your enemy at equal skill, you just lose. It's not like in other games, in MO2, it means you don't stand a chance.

Even if Mortal could somehow give everyone 0 ping the combat would still be a poor choice for a MMO for more then 1 reason and the population would still be low. I'm most interested in growing the population. I am stating today that under no circumstances can the population grow unless the melee combat is fundamentally changed.

 

[Emdash]

I almost always like your premise, but what you infer from it is something I often disagree with. Your thesis is that esports and mmo don't mix, which I understand to mean that a highly competitive MMO is impossible.

The thing is, that's not true. There is no line that says the melee combat has to be highly governed by ping and macros, that's bad design. MO by nature is highly competitive. Even the crafting is pvp because the goal is to achieve intake and make money off of your mats, kind of like a drug dealer would, buy x, chop it up, sell some, and keep some. Then there is TC, then there is combat. There was breeding, again, something that is highly competitive. Or was before everyone had the same mount.

The problem with MO is that it's too easy to block. The game should not rely on swing reads and swing hides, which are made worse by trash ping. If you take out parry, like imagine a larger team fight, there is nothing that bad about the combat. The key is to keep some block, add some movement, and have the same kind of 'zergy' combat.

That's a bad word around here, but there is still room for outplay, like kiting or dpsing people down then escaping as a small group. In MO1, the good pvpers would come to Bakti and tons of people would come out to fight them. They would be able to survive a long time just by kiting and group play. It wasn't because they were able to parry 3 people at once.

IF the game is designed for group play, then the parrying makes no sense. Obviously, you want it to be more than just blobs of people eating each other, but stopping like heal me while you try to parry is bad gameplay.

It needs to be... faster, less reliant on the kind of things that ping governs, and more cut throat.

Think of MA: MA is fun, imo. It might take me a couple shots to find someone's hitbox, but once I did, I could play with anyone at my skill level, regardless of their ping. I imagine lancing is kinda like that, too. It just needs to be balanced for foot because foot is the meat of the game.

 

[Jackdstripper]

Where is Lordus, where is Kru, where is Wicked, where is Jonah, where is Klean?

These are all people that "loved the game". But at the end of the day they will follow the action. All of the people i listed above would be back in the game today if Mortal had 10k concurrent.

Most of those players arent playing because this game has too many bugs, broken mechanics, cheaters and exploiters, and an absolutely terrible community of stream sniping no lifers that will greef most streamers out of the game just for giggles.

It is true that the game requires a ton of time, most of which is boring travelling, or gearing up, or grinding, or just waiting for things to happen. However, many other games have huge grinds and time sinks and still have healthy communities.

The problem with MO is that after all that huge and boring time sink when you do get to the fun part, you end up dying and losing your shit due to frustrating bugs, or crazy lag (if its a big fight), and cheaters and exploiters of game mechanics. Thats what has people leaving the game.

Everyone always leaves with a “fix your damn game SV, this isn’t worth 20$ a month sub.” attitude.

 

[fartbox]

Most of those players arent playing because this game has too many bugs, broken mechanics, cheaters and exploiters, and an absolutely terrible community of stream sniping no lifers that will greef most streamers out of the game just for giggles.

It is true that the game requires a ton of time, most of which is boring travelling, or gearing up, or grinding, or just waiting for things to happen. However, many other games have huge grinds and time sinks and still have healthy communities.

The problem with MO is that after all that huge and boring time sink when you do get to the fun part, you end up dying and losing your shit due to frustrating bugs, or crazy lag (if its a big fight), and cheaters and exploiters of game mechanics. Thats what has people leaving the game.

Everyone always leaves with a “fix your damn game SV, this isn’t worth 20$ a month sub.” attitude.

So are you refuting my point or not? I didn't elaborate on why these players left and i personally don't care to the individual reasons why certain players leave the game, I only know what changes would drive up the population in general. I only stated that they will "follow the action" and I said they would return to the game if the game had 10k+ concurrent.

Do you disagree or not, your post is not a clear a response to the post you quoted.

 

[Jackdstripper]

So are you refuting my point or not? I didn't elaborate on why these players left and i personally don't care to the individual reasons why certain players leave the game, I only know what changes would drive up the population in general. I only stated that they will "follow the action" and I said they would return to the game if the game had 10k+ concurrent.

Do you disagree or not, your post is not a clear a response to the post you quoted.

You made many points in a very long post. From time sinks, to skill level required, to community, to solo vs group experience, to just needing more population to bring back streamers.

Of course a lot of those points have merit, but even if those things are changed, and we manage to bring in 10k new players, it’s not going to save the game. Not unless the problems i outlined are fixed first. Population alone will not make things better, it will simply ad to the issues, especially lag and server instability.

Frankly i don't even think this game could handle 5k without insane lag and login queues.

Fixing the core problems will automatically bring AND retain people. So i somewhat agree with what you say, but i believe there are more fundamental issues that drive people away.

 

[fartbox]

You made many points in a very long post. From time sinks, to skill level required, to community, to solo vs group experience, to just needing more population to bring back streamers.

Of course a lot of those points have merit, but even if those things are changed, and we manage to bring in 10k new players, it’s not going to save the game. Not unless the problems i outlined are fixed first. Population alone will not make things better, it will simply ad to the issues, especially lag and server instability.

Frankly i don't even think this game could handle 5k without insane lag and login queues.

Fixing the core problems will automatically bring AND retain people. So i somewhat agree with what you say, but i believe there are more fundamental issues that drive people away.

1. The game would quite literally be saved with 10k concurrent because that would translate to around 30k-40k total subs which is enough revenue to sustain a MMO.

2. The game would not have lag with 10k concurrent because there would be multiple regional servers. Much like OSRS. This is what happens when games get popular. You spin up additional servers to meet the needs of the market.

I expect server caps to be somewhere around 2-3k players. Unless you are implying that starvault is not capable of hosting multiple servers. (SPOILER: They already did at launch)

 

[Emdash]

I only know what changes would drive up the population in general.

I know you've done this before, but I think people change with time. I think we all kind of change our points of view a little based on the direction of the game. I would love to hear your outline for what would fix the game. I will read it and comment if you post it.

I felt like MO was reaching one of those times earlier and I went in hard to get it fixed, then they added more bullshit. This is another one of those times. You have to believe they are listening more so now because I don't think they have another short term solution.

For me, I think the time sink paradigm is an issue that needs to be balanced, but I don't think that's the main issue. I think jack is right in that they need to fix core problems. Unfortunately, nobody wants to agree on what the core issues are. We need a real plan, step by step, what to fix first, and next, etc.

The time issue with grind is wack, practice is semi-wack, but people are gonna practice. However, it's really hard to make the game so that people who play all the time don't have an advantage. The whole game is about gaining resources and controlling stuff, so camping it does yield returns. I think the issue is more making it so that said casual players have a place to play and enjoy one aspect of the game.

That's why it's really hard to curb grief: the further they push action from towns, the further you have to travel for action. I really think they should consider just making it so that pets are not targetable with criminal actions in town lol. Then chill on the guards and let people have more around town action. Make rewards you can get around town so people can protect town or gank around town, create a non-tc gameplay loop.

 

[MolagAmur]

These posts are a dime a dozen. I know what it says without even reading it. Henrik hasn't looked at these forums in years because its 90% doom posts. While there is absolutely some truth in most of them, it's just pointless to even post them unless you're simply just wanting to talk about it with the other 6 of us forum users.

It's just an echo chamber and they will contribute nothing to the direction of the game.

 

[fartbox]

These posts are a dime a dozen. I know what it says without even reading it. Henrik hasn't looked at these forums in years because its 90% doom posts. While there is absolutely some truth in most of them, it's just pointless to even post them unless you're simply just wanting to talk about it with the other 6 of us forum users.

It's just an echo chamber and they will contribute nothing to the direction of the game.

Do nothing and Remain silent while game tanks population every month. Got it, thanks.

Anyway changes that will result in immediate population growth:

1. Lowering the TTK and incorporating melee abilities with wide damage ranges. Adding abilities to sustain yourself through combat. Shifting the focus of footy VS footy to knockouts rather then health bar attrition.

2. Adding abilities that punish clumping heavily, scaling damage and utility with how many people are around you. Making a single player getting zerged dangerous enough to inflict damage on aforementioned zerg.

3. Adding gap closers and pulls to all footys while allowing mages to cast with weapon out and giving them evasive abilities. Switching mage gameplay focus to blocking and evasion rather then turtling with a tower shield in a corner.

4. Limited fast travel for blues for gold between all major cities (ghost only)


Inb4 but how do you balance races if everyone gets gap closers: If races are holding the game back then consider getting rid of them. Much like poker, when designing a game most of your biggest mistakes that result in your biggest losses are made "preflop" or in this case the concept phase of a game. The races are currently not balanced anyway, with elves completely dominating every aspect of the game right now except massive zerg fights.

 

[Teknique]

So are you refuting my point or not? I didn't elaborate on why these players left and i personally don't care to the individual reasons why certain players leave the game, I only know what changes would drive up the population in general. I only stated that they will "follow the action" and I said they would return to the game if the game had 10k+ concurrent.

Do you disagree or not, your post is not a clear a response to the post you quoted.

Those players in question definitely didn’t quit because of the combat. Most of them are advocates of the combat.

 

[MolagAmur]

Do nothing and Remain silent while game tanks population every month. Got it, thanks.

As someone who made thousands of posts on the MO1 forums, and only got a handful of things changed based on my posts....Yes. I'm trying to help you.

You're not going to save the game. I'm not saying don't make these posts...because they are fun to make and discuss. I was only saying don't expect SV to read any of it. I'd be sending in more feedback with the new in-game feature.

 

[fartbox]

Those players in question definitely didn’t quit because of the combat. Most of them are advocates of the combat.

Biggest cope i've ever seen. Read steam reviews. Combat is one of the chief if not the #1 reason for the poor adoption rate of the game. Unless we are trying to focus our efforts on retaining the small playerbase the game already has of people willing to play it (around 1k unique players globally think the game is good enough to play long term, the rest are alts or bots).

The current combat facilitates zerging
The current combat is clunky and slow when compared to its competitors in the genre. The combat is low APM even compared to 20 year old games.
The current combat doesn't resonate with the genre in anyway, different isn't always better.
The current combat is dependent on ping to such a degree that it creates 0% win conditions


You need to rip this bandaid off now. Mortals melee combat is often considered the worst combat in the MMO genre. Don't believe me? Look up any number of youtube video reviews from notable content creators.

Oh thats not good enough evidence for you?

Steam reviews

Oh thats not good enough evidence for you?

At what level of consensus are you willing to agree with me? When the game hits 500 players? 300? 100? 0?

Consensus = truth. Truth is subject to change, just present evidence and get enough people to agree with you and you have the new truth. Remember the earth used to be flat. Right now the truth is Mortal 2 is a bad game and has bad combat. Why? Because no one wants to play it. That's consensus therefore it is truth.

INb4" but its FuLl LoOt ThAts CaUSing LoW pOP!"

No it's not, stop being silly. There are over 500k players playing full loot games at this very moment. They just aren't playing this one.

 

[Teknique]

Biggest cope i've ever seen. Read steam reviews. Combat is one of the chief if not the #1 reason for the poor adoption rate of the game. Unless we are trying to focus our efforts on retaining the small playerbase the game already has of people willing to play it (around 1k unique players globally think the game is good enough to play long term, the rest are alts or bots).

The current combat facilitates zerging
The current combat is clunky and slow when compared to its competitors in the genre. The combat is low APM even compared to 20 year old games.
The current combat doesn't resonate with the genre in anyway, different isn't always better.
The current combat is dependent on ping to such a degree that it creates 0% win conditions


You need to rip this bandaid off now. Mortals melee combat is often considered the worst combat in the MMO genre. Don't believe me? Look up any number of youtube video reviews from notable content creators.

Oh thats not good enough evidence for you?

Steam reviews

Oh thats not good enough evidence for you?

At what level of consensus are you willing to agree with me? When the game hits 500 players? 300? 100? 0?

Consensus = truth. Truth is subject to change, just present evidence and get enough people to agree with you and you have the new truth. Remember the earth used to be flat. Right now the truth is Mortal 2 is a bad game and has bad combat. Why? Because no one wants to play it. That's consensus therefore it is truth.

INb4" but its FuLl LoOt ThAts CaUSing LoW pOP!"

No it's not, stop being silly. There are over 500k players playing full loot games at this very moment. They just aren't playing this one.

Just for clarity I was referring to the ones that were named Lordus Kru etc.

I’m not really an advocate for this combat also to be clear. What I want is very specific to me. I like aspects of this combat. Overall I think it’s clunky as fuck, lag dependant, cheat dependant.

 

[fartbox]

Just for clarity I was referring to the ones that were named Lordus Kru etc.

I’m not really an advocate for this combat also to be clear. What I want is very specific to me. I like aspects of this combat. Overall I think it’s clunky as fuck, lag dependant, cheat dependant.

I am 100% certain at this point that combat is one of the major hurdles Starvault must face if they wish for their game to survive to the next generation.

The game cannot and will not grow unless the combat is fundamentally changed to address these major concerns:

1.Agency: Novice players being able to have agency in combat. Being able to inflict damage and occasionally win against even veterans. The chance of them winning doesn't have to be large, it can even be as low as 2-3% but it has to not be 0%. The difference between 0% and 3% is the difference between having 500 players and 50000 players. Other games solve this in a number of ways. Albion uses variety, OSRS uses RNG, EVE uses subterfuge, RUST uses 0.5 TTK. Its up to the devs, but I have given decent starter concepts to expand upon in my previous posts.

2. Zerging: If we insist on not instancing the game then we must provide answers to zerging. A player should never feel completely helpless, no matter how enemies there are. A player should never have 0 agency over their fate. Do you think anyone in Rust feels hopeless when 20 men roll up on their base to attack it? No absolutely not, they know they can fight and inflict damage. They have a reason to play, a reason to persist in the game because there is a small chance(very small) they may defeat their attackers, even as just 1 man. In mortal its 0% 1v20.

3. Fluidity and APM. The combat in mortal is boring. Even at the highest levels. Its slow, cumbersome and clunky with low APM. It doesn't fit in the MMO genre, it honestly doesn't fit in any genre. The combat needs to flow and feel good. How many times do we see a pvp video of someone just holding on someone. Super cringe, super boring gameplay in 99% of situations and it's why even the best Mortal PVP videos get very little interest. Looking at you Cerqo and slasher.

The combat is boring to play, it's boring to watch. Otherwise more people would be watching and playing.