I am the kind of guy that loves picking up plants like herbs and flowers in games. Mortal is such an immersive experience that I love just walking around and interacting with the natural environment. I do feel however that the actual game systems and items I get from doing this are not very satisfying. I also think that this example points to a bigger issue with the games design and is a factor for why new players do often not stick around.
If I gather plants in other games, I usually can use them quite easily in various ways. I can make a simple potion, make poison for my weapon, use flowers to dye my clothes or just eat plants to regain health. Others are just valuable to sell. In any case, the reward I get from picking up plants is quite clear and immediate. Usually the interface or tooltip helps with this.
In Mortal, this is not at all the case. There is a very nieche set of pickables that are worth picking up in lower quantities and usually they are of no use to the person picking them up. Instead you have highly specialized people that are pretty much the only ones that can make use of them so you have no choice but to sell them on the market - usually for very little or next to nothing, unless you invest alot of time in gathering huge amounts.
So the simple joy of picking up plants when you walk through a forest and make any kind of use of them does not really exist. The use of them is gated behind a huge convoluted system that nobody but a very tiny percent of players interacts with.
There is a certain lack of simplicity in terms of "how does doing this actually feel for the player in this moment". Players quickly learn that picking up things is usually not very worthwhile, so this game system is disregarded for the vast majority of players.
You are now left with those small amounts of useful pickables, minable stones of very little variety and trees you can gather wood from. This is the extend of how the environment (flora) in Mortal can be interacted with.
Cooking (a potential use for picking up plants, fruit and vegetables) is so irrelevant and unfun in the current state - especially from the point of view of a player with less than 30 hours in the game- that you could pretty much delete the entire system without anyone complaining.
Immediate rewards and just simple things that become useful in the next 60 mins of gametime to the player are simply missing from the game.
Don't get me wrong - I love complex and deep systems that require research and knowledge to get the most out of them. But guys: this is step 2. You forgot to take step 1. Actual fun usage for normal players running around, doing random stuff.
Fishing is similar. Why would anyone except very dedicated fishermen pick it up? There is nothing of use gained from casually fishing from time to time. This is a problem.
Almost every game system outside of combat is not immediatly rewarding or fun. People just don't bother (except the small amount of players that any nieche attracts).
So while on paper Mortal has many things to offer, in reality most systems outside of combat are not engaged with by the vast amount of players because they are not fun or rewarding enough.
If I would work for SV, I would sit down and review every single system in the game outside of combat and work out what is/isn't working and where this element I described above is missing.
Now as I was writing this so many other things about the game came to my mind that I have to type out somewhere. I do appreciate the game alot so please don't take this too negatively.
Here goes a list of suggestions I have:
1. Introduce overworld PvE group content outside of trolls that are NOT static and thus can't be gated (for example roaming mini-bosses)
2. Add actual random spawns (of mobs and plants) and roaming mobs (not spawning on top of you in set locations) of different rarity
3. Add a small percent chance of rare item drops for every single mob in the world - they cant just be a paycheck to collect - making killing anything exciting. And not just trinkets pls. Give every mob an individual rare material of better quality like "shiny wolf fur", "shore prowers scale" i.e.
4. Reward collaboration instead of competition by introducing big pve threats or projects that players need to tackle together.
5. Reward community projects and events, make them visible in the game client (not just guilds). More community features.
6. Fix longstanding bugs and polish existing game systems. Bugs cant become a meme for years. This is so bad for the game.
7. Stop adding more content that requires lots of dev time that does not introduce new or fix existing systems. The games problem is not primarily content, its game design.
8. Stop catering too much to the community you currently have and instead actually make the game you want to make- that you feel in your guts. There is a limit to what the community can and should dictate.
9. Introduce more well designed life skills to actually hold a crowd that is not combat or trade focused. Make it easier for life skill casuals to exist in the world.
10. De-clutter/overhaul existing systems with a focus on fun and short-term use.
11. Add a "camp" structure to experience different parts of the map without needing to build a house (like this idea on reddit)
I have to say I am actually shocked how many items on the roadmap and the potential roadmap (poll categories) are just MORE content instead of crucial changes to move the game in a new direction (not all, but too many). We are running in circles here, guys.
Thanks for reading this wall of text, have a good day! <3
If I gather plants in other games, I usually can use them quite easily in various ways. I can make a simple potion, make poison for my weapon, use flowers to dye my clothes or just eat plants to regain health. Others are just valuable to sell. In any case, the reward I get from picking up plants is quite clear and immediate. Usually the interface or tooltip helps with this.
In Mortal, this is not at all the case. There is a very nieche set of pickables that are worth picking up in lower quantities and usually they are of no use to the person picking them up. Instead you have highly specialized people that are pretty much the only ones that can make use of them so you have no choice but to sell them on the market - usually for very little or next to nothing, unless you invest alot of time in gathering huge amounts.
So the simple joy of picking up plants when you walk through a forest and make any kind of use of them does not really exist. The use of them is gated behind a huge convoluted system that nobody but a very tiny percent of players interacts with.
There is a certain lack of simplicity in terms of "how does doing this actually feel for the player in this moment". Players quickly learn that picking up things is usually not very worthwhile, so this game system is disregarded for the vast majority of players.
You are now left with those small amounts of useful pickables, minable stones of very little variety and trees you can gather wood from. This is the extend of how the environment (flora) in Mortal can be interacted with.
Cooking (a potential use for picking up plants, fruit and vegetables) is so irrelevant and unfun in the current state - especially from the point of view of a player with less than 30 hours in the game- that you could pretty much delete the entire system without anyone complaining.
Immediate rewards and just simple things that become useful in the next 60 mins of gametime to the player are simply missing from the game.
Don't get me wrong - I love complex and deep systems that require research and knowledge to get the most out of them. But guys: this is step 2. You forgot to take step 1. Actual fun usage for normal players running around, doing random stuff.
Fishing is similar. Why would anyone except very dedicated fishermen pick it up? There is nothing of use gained from casually fishing from time to time. This is a problem.
Almost every game system outside of combat is not immediatly rewarding or fun. People just don't bother (except the small amount of players that any nieche attracts).
So while on paper Mortal has many things to offer, in reality most systems outside of combat are not engaged with by the vast amount of players because they are not fun or rewarding enough.
If I would work for SV, I would sit down and review every single system in the game outside of combat and work out what is/isn't working and where this element I described above is missing.
Now as I was writing this so many other things about the game came to my mind that I have to type out somewhere. I do appreciate the game alot so please don't take this too negatively.
Here goes a list of suggestions I have:
1. Introduce overworld PvE group content outside of trolls that are NOT static and thus can't be gated (for example roaming mini-bosses)
2. Add actual random spawns (of mobs and plants) and roaming mobs (not spawning on top of you in set locations) of different rarity
3. Add a small percent chance of rare item drops for every single mob in the world - they cant just be a paycheck to collect - making killing anything exciting. And not just trinkets pls. Give every mob an individual rare material of better quality like "shiny wolf fur", "shore prowers scale" i.e.
4. Reward collaboration instead of competition by introducing big pve threats or projects that players need to tackle together.
5. Reward community projects and events, make them visible in the game client (not just guilds). More community features.
6. Fix longstanding bugs and polish existing game systems. Bugs cant become a meme for years. This is so bad for the game.
7. Stop adding more content that requires lots of dev time that does not introduce new or fix existing systems. The games problem is not primarily content, its game design.
8. Stop catering too much to the community you currently have and instead actually make the game you want to make- that you feel in your guts. There is a limit to what the community can and should dictate.
9. Introduce more well designed life skills to actually hold a crowd that is not combat or trade focused. Make it easier for life skill casuals to exist in the world.
10. De-clutter/overhaul existing systems with a focus on fun and short-term use.
11. Add a "camp" structure to experience different parts of the map without needing to build a house (like this idea on reddit)
I have to say I am actually shocked how many items on the roadmap and the potential roadmap (poll categories) are just MORE content instead of crucial changes to move the game in a new direction (not all, but too many). We are running in circles here, guys.
Thanks for reading this wall of text, have a good day! <3
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