Subscription Poll

[Malyck]

I voted no, I would need to see the current roadmap successfully implemented before I would pay for a subscription. If the UE5/Epic launch sprint goes well, then I would agree with starting paid subs. I still would greatly prefer for the ability to add additional characters to your account, something we would have to pay for of course.

 

[Doom and Gloom]

Voted no because of the following things:

1. The game's core mechanics are poorly explained, not enjoyable, buggy, and clearly not well designed, especially as they are still changing after all this time.

2. Playing as a mage is an awful experience, so is tamer, and the directional combat does not interest me, it is super clunky and boring. I can enjoy melee combat, I really love it in Dark Souls / Elden Ring, and recently when been playing Elden Ring I get reminded of how well combat can be designed, and how crap this combat truly is, both melee, magic, and archery (MA balance at least).

3. I love exploration, the really big map was a big draw-in for me, but this game does not reward exploration (or at least when I scouted the whole map by myself the first few times I found almost nothing worthwhile SOLO content). Elden Ring has a huge map too, but almost every exploration attempt rewards the player, be it items, info, or new cool locations to explore. MO2 is just barren wasteland, and while the (very well hidden) dungeons which you need to stumble on by luck or online map, are cool looking, there is nothing for me to do there, as a solo player will just get crushed, even if there is no one else there (which would be rare). Other than dungeons, the map has nothing in it but bugs and glitches, plus places you can easily get stuck in. Even the towns are mostly empty space with nothing cool hidden anywhere. Oceans are empty and devoid of life. You see a lot of mountains, which are either inaccessible or have nothing on top of them anyway.

4. You cannot enjoy the game as a solo player, at least not after you have realized all the stuff you cannot do. In my opinion, even MMOs should have most of the content accessible to solo players, that is how most of them are too anyway.

5. The difficulty is artificial. There is nothing for the player to do if they want to go clear a bandit camp as a mage only, it just doesn't work, even with mounted the caster will get you. The difficulty of the often buggy mobs has nothing to do with skill, it is a numbers check or weapon style check. EIther you go with a big group or use a horse and it is piss-easy, or then you cannot do anything about getting dunked. The bosses are most disappointing, their attacks have been designed to just go through everything, so players need to rely on their healbot teammates to "succeed". there is no space for individual skill. You physically cannot just learn the mechanics and be so good that you could solo a dungeon, and I think that is shit design. Nothing worse than exploring the world, finding a dungeon only to realize you have to turn back as it's not content made for you. And that's about all the content there is to explore.

6. Travelling takes all day. It really does, and at first this was interesting to me, but then when I learned the map the interest faded as I realized I'm not going to find anything that special, all the camps are basically always being farmed by some group who will kill me if I dare to get anything, and even if not, the rewards are underwhelming compared to the time spent, and then there is a long way back to nearest safety. Dying due to bug or player or even your own mistake is heavily punished by loss of not just all the items, but also so much time to get back to where you were, depending on your objective, that it might not be worth it for the day.

7. The dev team keeps repeating the same mistakes from a previously failed game. It doesn't matter if your vision is one server, no instances, if you cannot make it enjoyable for ALL players (or even any really), then you have to go back to the drawing board, not all ideas can be reasonably completed. Henrik, you don't control the internet connectivity of people, neither can you force players to be nice and let everyone into the dungeons. You need to design the game so that these problems don't occurr, or they mean very little. Make dungeons which restrict access for multiple people at the same time if you really don't want instances, or design the combat so that it adjusts to group vs solo gameplay, or at least give ppl ways to deal with groups, or at least flee..

8. Henrik is damn delusional. First I admired his resolve and long journey, and while it still is cool that he is the man with a vision, I wonder if he ever did a single game design course or did he just one point decide that I wanna make this game FOR ME and my mates to play because this is what I like, and then when it didn't really hit he has been adjusting things when people tell him it sucks. And yet, after failing MO1, which I only learned of through this game, he insists on repeating the same mistakes here, why not redesign the combat when you can SEE so many other games with a lot better combat systems, why not rethink the PvP-system and make a really small scale single player game first, and make THAT fun, and then increase the size and start worrying about network? The problem of the game isn't the online issue, the problem is the core design, which would be just as unfun in a single player experience, where we would mimick other players with bots. The mechanics just are really not well designed, and he does not see that, and rather he looks to the future constantly with his head in the clouds, that oh we do this and that feature and it will be great. And he keeps patting himself on the back with "isn't this great we did this and everyone loves it except a few haters"? Sure there are some shitty ppl in the community, but from game design perspective this game is a nightmare. A game can be hardcore without being obnoxious.


But yeah, I will enjoy myself and try to learn as much as I can from this game's certainly failing path so that I will never hopefully repeat these mistakes in my own projects. Probably won't open the game anymore though, the roadmap has been a farce this far and I expect that to continue, obviously beast master wasn't going to work like I knew it wouldn't, and neither will TC, anyone thinking otherwise is just drinking that hopium a little too much. We all KNOW it will be a mess like every other mechanic they introduced during this time I've played since the "launch", why would it change now when the stakes are the highest and mechanics get the most complicated? You can make yourself believe that "let's give them a chance", but I have from my part given them enough chances, and they are well overdue their welcome. And even if one mechanic would magically not be super broken, the other already broken mechanics will ensure that even the new mechanic will not feel complete.

 

[Hodo]

Voted no because of the following things:

1. The game's core mechanics are poorly explained, not enjoyable, buggy, and clearly not well designed, especially as they are still changing after all this time.

2. Playing as a mage is an awful experience, so is tamer, and the directional combat does not interest me, it is super clunky and boring. I can enjoy melee combat, I really love it in Dark Souls / Elden Ring, and recently when been playing Elden Ring I get reminded of how well combat can be designed, and how crap this combat truly is, both melee, magic, and archery (MA balance at least).

3. I love exploration, the really big map was a big draw-in for me, but this game does not reward exploration (or at least when I scouted the whole map by myself the first few times I found almost nothing worthwhile SOLO content). Elden Ring has a huge map too, but almost every exploration attempt rewards the player, be it items, info, or new cool locations to explore. MO2 is just barren wasteland, and while the (very well hidden) dungeons which you need to stumble on by luck or online map, are cool looking, there is nothing for me to do there, as a solo player will just get crushed, even if there is no one else there (which would be rare). Other than dungeons, the map has nothing in it but bugs and glitches, plus places you can easily get stuck in. Even the towns are mostly empty space with nothing cool hidden anywhere. Oceans are empty and devoid of life. You see a lot of mountains, which are either inaccessible or have nothing on top of them anyway.

4. You cannot enjoy the game as a solo player, at least not after you have realized all the stuff you cannot do. In my opinion, even MMOs should have most of the content accessible to solo players, that is how most of them are too anyway.

5. The difficulty is artificial. There is nothing for the player to do if they want to go clear a bandit camp as a mage only, it just doesn't work, even with mounted the caster will get you. The difficulty of the often buggy mobs has nothing to do with skill, it is a numbers check or weapon style check. EIther you go with a big group or use a horse and it is piss-easy, or then you cannot do anything about getting dunked. The bosses are most disappointing, their attacks have been designed to just go through everything, so players need to rely on their healbot teammates to "succeed". there is no space for individual skill. You physically cannot just learn the mechanics and be so good that you could solo a dungeon, and I think that is shit design. Nothing worse than exploring the world, finding a dungeon only to realize you have to turn back as it's not content made for you. And that's about all the content there is to explore.

6. Travelling takes all day. It really does, and at first this was interesting to me, but then when I learned the map the interest faded as I realized I'm not going to find anything that special, all the camps are basically always being farmed by some group who will kill me if I dare to get anything, and even if not, the rewards are underwhelming compared to the time spent, and then there is a long way back to nearest safety. Dying due to bug or player or even your own mistake is heavily punished by loss of not just all the items, but also so much time to get back to where you were, depending on your objective, that it might not be worth it for the day.

7. The dev team keeps repeating the same mistakes from a previously failed game. It doesn't matter if your vision is one server, no instances, if you cannot make it enjoyable for ALL players (or even any really), then you have to go back to the drawing board, not all ideas can be reasonably completed. Henrik, you don't control the internet connectivity of people, neither can you force players to be nice and let everyone into the dungeons. You need to design the game so that these problems don't occurr, or they mean very little. Make dungeons which restrict access for multiple people at the same time if you really don't want instances, or design the combat so that it adjusts to group vs solo gameplay, or at least give ppl ways to deal with groups, or at least flee..

8. Henrik is damn delusional. First I admired his resolve and long journey, and while it still is cool that he is the man with a vision, I wonder if he ever did a single game design course or did he just one point decide that I wanna make this game FOR ME and my mates to play because this is what I like, and then when it didn't really hit he has been adjusting things when people tell him it sucks. And yet, after failing MO1, which I only learned of through this game, he insists on repeating the same mistakes here, why not redesign the combat when you can SEE so many other games with a lot better combat systems, why not rethink the PvP-system and make a really small scale single player game first, and make THAT fun, and then increase the size and start worrying about network? The problem of the game isn't the online issue, the problem is the core design, which would be just as unfun in a single player experience, where we would mimick other players with bots. The mechanics just are really not well designed, and he does not see that, and rather he looks to the future constantly with his head in the clouds, that oh we do this and that feature and it will be great. And he keeps patting himself on the back with "isn't this great we did this and everyone loves it except a few haters"? Sure there are some shitty ppl in the community, but from game design perspective this game is a nightmare. A game can be hardcore without being obnoxious.


But yeah, I will enjoy myself and try to learn as much as I can from this game's certainly failing path so that I will never hopefully repeat these mistakes in my own projects. Probably won't open the game anymore though, the roadmap has been a farce this far and I expect that to continue, obviously beast master wasn't going to work like I knew it wouldn't, and neither will TC, anyone thinking otherwise is just drinking that hopium a little too much. We all KNOW it will be a mess like every other mechanic they introduced during this time I've played since the "launch", why would it change now when the stakes are the highest and mechanics get the most complicated? You can make yourself believe that "let's give them a chance", but I have from my part given them enough chances, and they are well overdue their welcome. And even if one mechanic would magically not be super broken, the other already broken mechanics will ensure that even the new mechanic will not feel complete.

On points 1, 2 and 3 I can completely agree on.

On point 2 I would like to expand. With the game so heavily reliant on ping, and with SV continuing to deny that ping REALLY matters melee is just not possible for many of us. Not at the levels we would like. I have a melee character I enjoy playing him, but when it comes to PVP, if I have to deal with any EU player I may as well just stand there and get spammed to death.

Point 4 is the only one I dont really agree with. I play as a solo mage, and I can do most of the non-major dungeons solo with my tamed pets. Until they removed the ability to do the bosses with pets you could do the Nitre, and Clothos queens with them. But I guess that was a no-no for those who didnt think of that first.

 

[Doom and Gloom]

On points 1, 2 and 3 I can completely agree on.

On point 2 I would like to expand. With the game so heavily reliant on ping, and with SV continuing to deny that ping REALLY matters melee is just not possible for many of us. Not at the levels we would like. I have a melee character I enjoy playing him, but when it comes to PVP, if I have to deal with any EU player I may as well just stand there and get spammed to death.

Point 4 is the only one I dont really agree with. I play as a solo mage, and I can do most of the non-major dungeons solo with my tamed pets. Until they removed the ability to do the bosses with pets you could do the Nitre, and Clothos queens with them. But I guess that was a no-no for those who didnt think of that first.

Well tbf I never tried lvl 125 White bears, or what pet are you talking about soloing a boss? Too difficult to get hands on the rarest and best pets and not worth the effort considering how quickly MAs would have sniped em. I love the crab, but it's so damn slow.

 

[Doom and Gloom]

On points 1, 2 and 3 I can completely agree on.

On point 2 I would like to expand. With the game so heavily reliant on ping, and with SV continuing to deny that ping REALLY matters melee is just not possible for many of us. Not at the levels we would like. I have a melee character I enjoy playing him, but when it comes to PVP, if I have to deal with any EU player I may as well just stand there and get spammed to death.

Point 4 is the only one I dont really agree with. I play as a solo mage, and I can do most of the non-major dungeons solo with my tamed pets. Until they removed the ability to do the bosses with pets you could do the Nitre, and Clothos queens with them. But I guess that was a no-no for those who didnt think of that first.

And also, by mage pet, you mean being a healbot with the pet tanking right? Not much magery there imo .d

 

[Jatix]

1. The game's core mechanics are poorly explained, not enjoyable, buggy, and clearly not well designed, especially as they are still changing after all this time.

Just this one is huge. The standing system is aids. I can attack someone and die, and they can still abuse the system to give me a standing loss. I found a dead guy the other day. No idea how he died. So I killed his horse lmao. Got a MC cuz he didn't res yet apparently.

 

[Bladeer01]

Voted no because of the following things:

1. The game's core mechanics are poorly explained, not enjoyable, buggy, and clearly not well designed, especially as they are still changing after all this time.

2. Playing as a mage is an awful experience, so is tamer, and the directional combat does not interest me, it is super clunky and boring. I can enjoy melee combat, I really love it in Dark Souls / Elden Ring, and recently when been playing Elden Ring I get reminded of how well combat can be designed, and how crap this combat truly is, both melee, magic, and archery (MA balance at least).

3. I love exploration, the really big map was a big draw-in for me, but this game does not reward exploration (or at least when I scouted the whole map by myself the first few times I found almost nothing worthwhile SOLO content). Elden Ring has a huge map too, but almost every exploration attempt rewards the player, be it items, info, or new cool locations to explore. MO2 is just barren wasteland, and while the (very well hidden) dungeons which you need to stumble on by luck or online map, are cool looking, there is nothing for me to do there, as a solo player will just get crushed, even if there is no one else there (which would be rare). Other than dungeons, the map has nothing in it but bugs and glitches, plus places you can easily get stuck in. Even the towns are mostly empty space with nothing cool hidden anywhere. Oceans are empty and devoid of life. You see a lot of mountains, which are either inaccessible or have nothing on top of them anyway.

4. You cannot enjoy the game as a solo player, at least not after you have realized all the stuff you cannot do. In my opinion, even MMOs should have most of the content accessible to solo players, that is how most of them are too anyway.

5. The difficulty is artificial. There is nothing for the player to do if they want to go clear a bandit camp as a mage only, it just doesn't work, even with mounted the caster will get you. The difficulty of the often buggy mobs has nothing to do with skill, it is a numbers check or weapon style check. EIther you go with a big group or use a horse and it is piss-easy, or then you cannot do anything about getting dunked. The bosses are most disappointing, their attacks have been designed to just go through everything, so players need to rely on their healbot teammates to "succeed". there is no space for individual skill. You physically cannot just learn the mechanics and be so good that you could solo a dungeon, and I think that is shit design. Nothing worse than exploring the world, finding a dungeon only to realize you have to turn back as it's not content made for you. And that's about all the content there is to explore.

6. Travelling takes all day. It really does, and at first this was interesting to me, but then when I learned the map the interest faded as I realized I'm not going to find anything that special, all the camps are basically always being farmed by some group who will kill me if I dare to get anything, and even if not, the rewards are underwhelming compared to the time spent, and then there is a long way back to nearest safety. Dying due to bug or player or even your own mistake is heavily punished by loss of not just all the items, but also so much time to get back to where you were, depending on your objective, that it might not be worth it for the day.

7. The dev team keeps repeating the same mistakes from a previously failed game. It doesn't matter if your vision is one server, no instances, if you cannot make it enjoyable for ALL players (or even any really), then you have to go back to the drawing board, not all ideas can be reasonably completed. Henrik, you don't control the internet connectivity of people, neither can you force players to be nice and let everyone into the dungeons. You need to design the game so that these problems don't occurr, or they mean very little. Make dungeons which restrict access for multiple people at the same time if you really don't want instances, or design the combat so that it adjusts to group vs solo gameplay, or at least give ppl ways to deal with groups, or at least flee..

8. Henrik is damn delusional. First I admired his resolve and long journey, and while it still is cool that he is the man with a vision, I wonder if he ever did a single game design course or did he just one point decide that I wanna make this game FOR ME and my mates to play because this is what I like, and then when it didn't really hit he has been adjusting things when people tell him it sucks. And yet, after failing MO1, which I only learned of through this game, he insists on repeating the same mistakes here, why not redesign the combat when you can SEE so many other games with a lot better combat systems, why not rethink the PvP-system and make a really small scale single player game first, and make THAT fun, and then increase the size and start worrying about network? The problem of the game isn't the online issue, the problem is the core design, which would be just as unfun in a single player experience, where we would mimick other players with bots. The mechanics just are really not well designed, and he does not see that, and rather he looks to the future constantly with his head in the clouds, that oh we do this and that feature and it will be great. And he keeps patting himself on the back with "isn't this great we did this and everyone loves it except a few haters"? Sure there are some shitty ppl in the community, but from game design perspective this game is a nightmare. A game can be hardcore without being obnoxious.


But yeah, I will enjoy myself and try to learn as much as I can from this game's certainly failing path so that I will never hopefully repeat these mistakes in my own projects. Probably won't open the game anymore though, the roadmap has been a farce this far and I expect that to continue, obviously beast master wasn't going to work like I knew it wouldn't, and neither will TC, anyone thinking otherwise is just drinking that hopium a little too much. We all KNOW it will be a mess like every other mechanic they introduced during this time I've played since the "launch", why would it change now when the stakes are the highest and mechanics get the most complicated? You can make yourself believe that "let's give them a chance", but I have from my part given them enough chances, and they are well overdue their welcome. And even if one mechanic would magically not be super broken, the other already broken mechanics will ensure that even the new mechanic will not feel complete.

i just dropped on forum to see if there was any good new , and here the post i saw first hahahah

 

[Hodo]

Well tbf I never tried lvl 125 White bears, or what pet are you talking about soloing a boss? Too difficult to get hands on the rarest and best pets and not worth the effort considering how quickly MAs would have sniped em. I love the crab, but it's so damn slow.

Snapping Turtles... You can solo a troll and used to be able to do the spider queens with one. Or the Crabs... is another that could do it.

 

[Xunila]

If the missing alchemy effects are coming (e.g. purify potions and new poison effects) and if the siege system would work well, then yes.

 

[Hodo]

And also, by mage pet, you mean being a healbot with the pet tanking right? Not much magery there imo .d

Unfortunately with magic right now that is all there is if you are on foot. You are either a heal bot, or a dagger hybrid in PVE or PVP.. Unless you are mounted. You can solo a troll while being a mounted mage but you want to talk about tedious and boring.

 

[Silenko]

I like to see so many diverse opinions

 

[Bigbadwolff]

I will sub 100%, only play MO2 and Albion, and the rest whats out there is to boring

Population is increasing, at epic lunch will expect long qs even with 2-3 aditional servers.

Olso this smart/small talk about game mecanics here on forum is a blow in the wind

Good Luck

 

[Philthie]

I will sub 100%, only play MO2 and Albion, and the rest whats out there is to boring

Population is increasing, at epic lunch will expect long qs even with 2-3 aditional servers.

Olso this smart/small talk about game mecanics here on forum is a blow in the wind

Good Luck

I don't think there are enough people who only play EPIC games on EPIC games launcher that wouldn't already know how bad MO2 is. It will most likely be another MO1 Steam release.

Look we updated the new player experience now buy our shit game.

Also check out new pilering skill but you have to sub to steal from people...

The player population will end up half being free to play sitting in Haven.

The other half will be a zerg alliance sieging down every building in the game until its dead.

 

[Bigbadwolff]

I don't think there are enough people who only play EPIC games on EPIC games launcher that wouldn't already know how bad MO2 is. It will most likely be another MO1 Steam release.

Look we updated the new player experience now buy our shit game.

Also check out new pilering skill but you have to sub to steal from people...

The player population will end up half being free to play sitting in Haven.

The other half will be a zerg alliance sieging down every building in the game until its dead.

I just play the game , if you are looking for someone to cope with quote some guys above, you will be in luck.

 

[Jackdstripper]

If and when this game will have a proper and functioning territory control with asset destruction and accurate taxation/town control then maybe it will be worth a sub.

The road map is nothing but a wish list.

 

[ArcaneConsular]

biggest problem with the game is there really is not a lot to do. I only play once or twice a month, certainly wouldn't sub for it. Wouldn't be that hard to add sieges, add random events, add more mobs, add rare loot tables to encourage farming and thus pvp. but SV just have no clue

 

[Emdash]

i just dropped on forum to see if there was any good new , and here the post i saw first hahahah

A lot more people standing around in cities these days. I'm 'playing.' But yeah, not really. haha. I was never one of those YEAH MO2 people tho (maybe like pre-release I was cautiously optimistic,) I have very tempered expectations, but still...

To be honest, I did Jungle Camp stuff for awhile as MA, but I really like the content around Hyl for maximum brain pseudo-engagement. I mean really like as in... I prefer it to what else I've seen. It's mostly all bandits and animals, but it's content you can walk around and do. The gains are trash for bandits, pretty decent for animals, but just as an area, it's pretty nice. Feels like its own world. Plenty of room for foot content, but the gains are low so nobody wants to play there.

I can enjoy zoning out and walking around, chillin'. And I still say bandits are the most dynamic PvE content in the game; even tho their AI is dog shit at least they have diversity of builds, and it can be interesting solo (depending on how many you want to take on at once and what sort of gear you have haha.) That's what I felt like coming back for, and more and more people are going thru Hyll area now w/ the 'increased pop.'

It's derp content, but it's SV's greatest achievement of yet. Bandits that feint and parry and have magic, bowmen. The rest of mobs you just bow down in a lot of cases. Some people bow down bandits, too, but that's amazingly boring.

ONCE MORE, at Doom and Gloom, MO1 WAS NOT A FAILURE! Probably the biggest 'visionary' flaw stems from that. They didn't have the ability to make MO1 good (and don't really have it for MO2, either, but they can get a lot closer,) but the idea was very solid and a lot of the extra wack glitches have been fixed. The idea that MO1 was a failure led to what is a very stale game in MO2, which is the last thing a sandbox should be. MO2 is arguably a from-launch failure, sales-be-damned... why? Because it's lifeless and lacking in potential (for instance, how they have not been able to make the game significantly better after all this time.)

I got the game installed, even picked up exit lag, but really hoping this next patch fixes the stuff I said in profile post. I feel new players are super hampered, and the ones who are into the grind are gonna go c20 in Haven then probably quit in the real world haha. Just bad design that hasn't been fixed. Dur, they put a req for clade to leave haven, but not a limitation. RIP. You should get like 1k clade for leaving haven and be able to get like c6 or something lol.

Also as said, siege is just gonna be try hards knocking everything down w/ probably dubious mats.

 

[Doom and Gloom]

A lot more people standing around in cities these days. I'm 'playing.' But yeah, not really. haha. I was never one of those YEAH MO2 people tho (maybe like pre-release I was cautiously optimistic,) I have very tempered expectations, but still...

To be honest, I did Jungle Camp stuff for awhile as MA, but I really like the content around Hyl for maximum brain pseudo-engagement. I mean really like as in... I prefer it to what else I've seen. It's mostly all bandits and animals, but it's content you can walk around and do. The gains are trash for bandits, pretty decent for animals, but just as an area, it's pretty nice. Feels like its own world. Plenty of room for foot content, but the gains are low so nobody wants to play there.

I can enjoy zoning out and walking around, chillin'. And I still say bandits are the most dynamic PvE content in the game; even tho their AI is dog shit at least they have diversity of builds, and it can be interesting solo (depending on how many you want to take on at once and what sort of gear you have haha.) That's what I felt like coming back for, and more and more people are going thru Hyll area now w/ the 'increased pop.'

It's derp content, but it's SV's greatest achievement of yet. Bandits that feint and parry and have magic, bowmen. The rest of mobs you just bow down in a lot of cases. Some people bow down bandits, too, but that's amazingly boring.

ONCE MORE, at Doom and Gloom, MO1 WAS NOT A FAILURE! Probably the biggest 'visionary' flaw stems from that. They didn't have the ability to make MO1 good (and don't really have it for MO2, either, but they can get a lot closer,) but the idea was very solid and a lot of the extra wack glitches have been fixed. The idea that MO1 was a failure led to what is a very stale game in MO2, which is the last thing a sandbox should be. MO2 is arguably a from-launch failure, sales-be-damned... why? Because it's lifeless and lacking in potential (for instance, how they have not been able to make the game significantly better after all this time.)

I got the game installed, even picked up exit lag, but really hoping this next patch fixes the stuff I said in profile post. I feel new players are super hampered, and the ones who are into the grind are gonna go c20 in Haven then probably quit in the real world haha. Just bad design that hasn't been fixed. Dur, they put a req for clade to leave haven, but not a limitation. RIP. You should get like 1k clade for leaving haven and be able to get like c6 or something lol.

Also as said, siege is just gonna be try hards knocking everything down w/ probably dubious mats.

We can agree to disagree on what constitutes as a failure and what does not. Fair is fair, I did not play MO1, but I did watch gameplay analysis videos of it, and I find it difficult to see the success of it, or if there was any I doubt it was due to excellent game design choices, more just the lack of options at the time. I get there were hard limits on the tech side of it too, but that does not excuse the lack of basic design knowledge. I think the idea sounds nice on paper, but with real people clearly does not work, even if well implemented. Wasn't MO1 plagued with the same kind of zerg problem that this game has? I don't believe a game can survive if you can't do anything meaningful without a large group, as then the largest group will do what they want. I read they even built walls to zone off most places from others in MO1, and I fail to see how that could ever become a great new player experience, which leads to the game dying even if everything else works perfectly, which it really does not. Also not teaching the new players the game mechanics does not make a great experience, it is just lazy design with lack of general direction, a game should not rely on outside forums etc. to be playable for the average target player. There is a stark contrast between "hand-holding" and "throwing the player blindfolded into a 50m deep swamp". Kinda similar how MO2 doesn't mention all of its stats even anywhere, like weakspot chance, why do the weapons not read it? Why is it not visible when viewing player screen? These are basic stats. Similarly it is awful design to have no accessible information on material creation and upgrading in the game itself, this kind of guesswork serves nothing but gatekeepers of information who have spent ages randomly mix and matching everything (see alchemy).

Additionally, letting players build the map and control territory sounds like a cool idea for the players who get to first take control of the best areas, but afterwards it turns to a really sour experience for everyone else. I've played some browser-based games where people start a new server with a city on a grid-based large map and try to conquer the place and other people, and if you don't get started when everyone else does, a new player has zero chance to ever become powerful in those games without joining the already established guilds, which might or might not accept you, and if they do you will become a non-player anyway as you won't get to make any decisions for the rest of the server's existence. The same principle goes here somewhat. And those servers also could last for years.

I came to this game because the idea sounded amazing on paper, as most MMOs are very restrictive on the PvP side, making interaction with other players completely unnecessary in most cases, and also they have zero real exploration, are filled with boring filler quests etc., but after experiencing it, I think even if the mechanics would work really well, the core issues would not go away. I think removing the filler quests and giving players more freedom is great, but you can't just do that without taking into account the issues that decision brings, some serious design work is needed to address the remaining game (like dungeon access). Although, it would be nice to have the mechanics work well and be interesting and then see if the premise would feel any different. As of now, it is like you are writing here, it is more enjoyable to play the game wandering solo, even though there is barely anything to do but battle the godawful "supreme" bandit AI, than take part in the multiplayer mess portion of it. Now, this would be fine to someone like me who enjoys exploration, if the world was populated and had near endless exploration options, and most things were achievable, plus the combat would be drastically improved. (And you wouldn't be zerged down randomly for no consequences). Although then it might as well be a single player game.

The design concept that most things should not be possible alone is not really the best approach either imo, maybe just let it be less efficient instead of totally impossible? You see many people with many characters, as people actually don't want to rely on others to get the stuff they need, like crafting etc. even, which breaks the core philosophy of the game. This quite well indicates that the philosophy is flawed (and also that people want to try more than one build lol). Of course it would help if the process of skill levelling up would be actually interesting and rewarding (and challenging), instead of a drag, and I did read that some things were more interesting in MO1 (like scribing), hard to see why they would be changed to, whatever this spamclick is supposed to be.

The process of everything needs to be way more fun, travelling needs to be fun or then it needs to be less necessary and time-consuming (I guess MO1 was smaller but I bet not completely avoiding the problem), farming should have a lot of variety and options and possibility to master the mechanics, PvE should become less of a choice between horse riding in a circle or dying, the journey needs to be the reason to do things, not the destiny (aka farming rewards only). Less downtime on death and instead consequences which matter ingame to make the choice of randomly fighting people less binary (or less just yes), etc. etc...

So all in all, bugs aside (which is a huge issue don't get me wrong), the multiplayer elements do not have a solid design foundation in my opinion, and that is the same case in MO1 unless I'm totally mistaken somehow. They haven't designed a functional system to make PvP meaningful and have interesting consequences (both negative and positive), which is part of the core in their game, the PvE is boring and repetitive (or impossible), and the combat is clunky or unusable altogether in most situations (with better graphics and less lag now than in MO1). The territory control system is a player-repellent rather than an engagement tool for most. There is a reason why most MMOs only allow for non-impactful territory control, it is because of the gatekeeping issue, so there needs to be a solution for that before this mechanic can be enjoyed, and tbh I don't see them coming up with a solution. I guess trying to make it really hard to just trash random solo players' houses is one, but that's a rather lame one.

 

[Emdash]

We can agree to disagree on what constitutes as a failure and what does not. Fair is fair, I did not play MO1, but I did watch gameplay analysis videos of it, and I find it difficult to see the success of it, or if there was any I doubt it was due to excellent game design choices, more just the lack of options at the time. I get there were hard limits on the tech side of it too, but that does not excuse the lack of basic design knowledge. I think the idea sounds nice on paper, but with real people clearly does not work, even if well implemented. Wasn't MO1 plagued with the same kind of zerg problem that this game has? I don't believe a game can survive if you can't do anything meaningful without a large group, as then the largest group will do what they want. I read they even built walls to zone off most places from others in MO1, and I fail to see how that could ever become a great new player experience, which leads to the game dying even if everything else works perfectly, which it really does not. Also not teaching the new players the game mechanics does not make a great experience, it is just lazy design with lack of general direction, a game should not rely on outside forums etc. to be playable for the average target player. There is a stark contrast between "hand-holding" and "throwing the player blindfolded into a 50m deep swamp". Kinda similar how MO2 doesn't mention all of its stats even anywhere, like weakspot chance, why do the weapons not read it? Why is it not visible when viewing player screen? These are basic stats. Similarly it is awful design to have no accessible information on material creation and upgrading in the game itself, this kind of guesswork serves nothing but gatekeepers of information who have spent ages randomly mix and matching everything (see alchemy).

Additionally, letting players build the map and control territory sounds like a cool idea for the players who get to first take control of the best areas, but afterwards it turns to a really sour experience for everyone else. I've played some browser-based games where people start a new server with a city on a grid-based large map and try to conquer the place and other people, and if you don't get started when everyone else does, a new player has zero chance to ever become powerful in those games without joining the already established guilds, which might or might not accept you, and if they do you will become a non-player anyway as you won't get to make any decisions for the rest of the server's existence. The same principle goes here somewhat. And those servers also could last for years.

I came to this game because the idea sounded amazing on paper, as most MMOs are very restrictive on the PvP side, making interaction with other players completely unnecessary in most cases, and also they have zero real exploration, are filled with boring filler quests etc., but after experiencing it, I think even if the mechanics would work really well, the core issues would not go away. I think removing the filler quests and giving players more freedom is great, but you can't just do that without taking into account the issues that decision brings, some serious design work is needed to address the remaining game (like dungeon access). Although, it would be nice to have the mechanics work well and be interesting and then see if the premise would feel any different. As of now, it is like you are writing here, it is more enjoyable to play the game wandering solo, even though there is barely anything to do but battle the godawful "supreme" bandit AI, than take part in the multiplayer mess portion of it. Now, this would be fine to someone like me who enjoys exploration, if the world was populated and had near endless exploration options, and most things were achievable, plus the combat would be drastically improved. (And you wouldn't be zerged down randomly for no consequences). Although then it might as well be a single player game.

The design concept that most things should not be possible alone is not really the best approach either imo, maybe just let it be less efficient instead of totally impossible? You see many people with many characters, as people actually don't want to rely on others to get the stuff they need, like crafting etc. even, which breaks the core philosophy of the game. This quite well indicates that the philosophy is flawed (and also that people want to try more than one build lol). Of course it would help if the process of skill levelling up would be actually interesting and rewarding (and challenging), instead of a drag, and I did read that some things were more interesting in MO1 (like scribing), hard to see why they would be changed to, whatever this spamclick is supposed to be.

The process of everything needs to be way more fun, travelling needs to be fun or then it needs to be less necessary and time-consuming (I guess MO1 was smaller but I bet not completely avoiding the problem), farming should have a lot of variety and options and possibility to master the mechanics, PvE should become less of a choice between horse riding in a circle or dying, the journey needs to be the reason to do things, not the destiny (aka farming rewards only). Less downtime on death and instead consequences which matter ingame to make the choice of randomly fighting people less binary (or less just yes), etc. etc...

So all in all, bugs aside (which is a huge issue don't get me wrong), the multiplayer elements do not have a solid design foundation in my opinion, and that is the same case in MO1 unless I'm totally mistaken somehow. They haven't designed a functional system to make PvP meaningful and have interesting consequences (both negative and positive), which is part of the core in their game, the PvE is boring and repetitive (or impossible), and the combat is clunky or unusable altogether in most situations (with better graphics and less lag now than in MO1). The territory control system is a player-repellent rather than an engagement tool for most. There is a reason why most MMOs only allow for non-impactful territory control, it is because of the gatekeeping issue, so there needs to be a solution for that before this mechanic can be enjoyed, and tbh I don't see them coming up with a solution. I guess trying to make it really hard to just trash random solo players' houses is one, but that's a rather lame one.

I'll read this in a second, but I'm gonna comment first. Not really trying to camp the forum (it's hard not to!) I had to message my friend about how I just ate a giant #@*$... in pvp Anyway, I do think of posts after I make them, and I made a post on steam forum after I posted this.

The main thing I wanna say, and I'm not gonna respond to the post beyond this (but def will read and intake, I like your feedback tbh,) MO the game was not at all a failure. It was something special. How it was managed was definitely very, very bad. So, I guess I should make that distinction. That's what I was saying. MO1 was a fcking amazing game if you look at it as its own thing. I told dudes on steam that MO2 was like a B game ((MO1 was like A fr, only game I ever subbed to,) and I won't say what I rated SV. I don't have SV hate tho, but they def drop the ball more than me on foot. IF THE BALL WAS LOOT. AIYEE. Ok reading, and peace!

Edit: all read. It's hard to explain if you weren't there. I'm talking pre-TC. Gonna end up responding if I say much more! One thing I will 'respond' is they TOTALLY blew MO2 given they were able to fix a lot of the more wack mechanical problems.

 

[LoPing]

There has been 0 improvement over QA issues. Taking the path of other failed publishers of releasing new broken content over old broken content never ends well. When your own staff people refer to these problems as legacy bugs the fights long been lost.