Warning to new players:

[Elijah]

The thing about MO2 is that it is a sandbox, and that means people are given the freedom to pvp using numerous, unconventional ways. This is where some players will be turned off, as they are expecting pvp to only occur through A, B or C ways. Anything else will seem to them to be griefing, trolling or anti-social behaviour, because the other player played with the sand in a way that they weren't expecting and can't control.

But in a sandbox game, pvp can be achieved through A, B, C, D, E, F and all the way to X, Y and Z. Then AA, AB, AC and so on all the way to AZ. Then BA, BB, BC to BZ and ad nauseum. It's not just about pvp, it's creativity, ingenuity and in a way it's how the real world works whether it be in business, human politics or war.

But I can understand that not everyone will want to play a game like this, and that is totally fine.

I think the problem he has is that it isn't happening in numerous unconventional ways. 90% of what these 'HC PVPers' are looking for is the same conventional sandbox stuff. They don't bring any creativity or enjoyment to it because, to a lot of them, killing someone with a small fraction of the game time they have is the biggest rush they will get in the game. All the joy they get is from trash talking nubs as they try to get to the graveyard for the thousandth time.

The comparison I like to make here is this: I either run dungeons or look for fights most days I play. Usually I'll end up with a mountain for loot from either mobs or players, and it just takes one group our size to come along with a plan and the right number of people to come and take it. Often times that does happen, as with all players in the game. It's easy to be like 'gg wp' when there was an actual fight over something valuable at a location that isn't super easy to get to. It takes skill and coordination to get a group of people together to go find, set up a plan, get position, and gank another group to potentially get their stuff. It's a GG. When you have nothing, and you're just trying to get a start it really fucking blows when you can barely go farm bandits or zombies for a miniscule amount of gold. I think a lot of us have been there, and it doesn't feel like a 'GG WP'. It feels like you're being trolled for no reason other than the brief hit of serotonin that a 30 year old with an underdeveloped brain needs to get through their day. It's part of why most of the fights near cities are just straight toxic, but most fights at dungeons end with a 'gf' from both sides.

 

[finegamingconnoisseur]

I think the problem he has is that it isn't happening in numerous unconventional ways. 90% of what these 'HC PVPers' are looking for is the same conventional sandbox stuff. They don't bring any creativity or enjoyment to it because, to a lot of them, killing someone with a small fraction of the game time they have is the biggest rush they will get in the game. All the joy they get is from trash talking nubs as they try to get to the graveyard for the thousandth time.

The comparison I like to make here is this: I either run dungeons or look for fights most days I play. Usually I'll end up with a mountain for loot from either mobs or players, and it just takes one group our size to come along with a plan and the right number of people to come and take it. Often times that does happen, as with all players in the game. It's easy to be like 'gg wp' when there was an actual fight over something valuable at a location that isn't super easy to get to. It takes skill and coordination to get a group of people together to go find, set up a plan, get position, and gank another group to potentially get their stuff. It's a GG. When you have nothing, and you're just trying to get a start it really fucking blows when you can barely go farm bandits or zombies for a miniscule amount of gold. I think a lot of us have been there, and it doesn't feel like a 'GG WP'. It feels like you're being trolled for no reason other than the brief hit of serotonin that a 30 year old with an underdeveloped brain needs to get through their day. It's part of why most of the fights near cities are just straight toxic, but most fights at dungeons end with a 'gf' from both sides.

From my experience, 4 out of 5 times (to date, literally could count them on my one hand) when I got PK'ed it was either by some guy equipped with a high-powered bow hiding in the bushes along the road outside of town, or in full cronite plate and two-handed tungsteel sword waiting inside the graveyard. But afterwards, I thought it through and came up with a different set of strategies to not get jumped the same way again. So far those strategies have worked and continue to work.

I'm saying all this because I'm playing with the same sand that all the RPKers who did me in are. We are all in the same sandbox. I believe every form of RPK has at least one counter, and that includes those that you mentioned earlier. The ones that expend the minimum amount of time and effort to gank a new player and trash-talk down on them afterwards. Asymmetric guerilla tactics work exceptionally well in such cases if you want to avoid ever having to fight or even encounter them in the first place.

Where there's a will, there's a way. As they say, fortune favours the prepared mind.

 

[Elijah]

I'm saying all this because I'm playing with the same sand that all the RPKers who did me in are. We are all in the same sandbox. I believe every form of RPK has at least one counter, and that includes those that you mentioned earlier. The ones that expend the minimum amount of time and effort to gank a new player and trash-talk down on them afterwards. Asymmetric guerilla tactics work exceptionally well in such cases if you want to avoid ever having to fight or even encounter them in the first place.

Where there's a will, there's a way. As they say, fortune favours the prepared mind.

For sure. Definitely not disputing that, but new players won’t figure out how to properly counter veterans for a hundred hours or more. Most normies that join leave this time because progress is so brutally slow, and easily taken from you. It’s not like once your established and have the money and resources to spare.

I think that, for the sake of the game and it’s growth, this is terrible. Obviously to sandbox players this is nothing to worry about, but we want more of a casual player base. We need more people, and the casuals are the ones that will fill the world.

LO was a similar game in a lot of ways, and it was so massive when it launched partially because it allowed for casual play. I’m talking about that sweet period before the devs gave up on the core dream of LO. Season 0.

Of course this depends on SV and their rental servers being able to hold more than 7k players, but in the end I think that literally everybody would benefit from an improved onboarding system that locks new players into the game, and gives them a reason to push through the brutal starting period.

 

[Emdash]

For sure. Definitely not disputing that, but new players won’t figure out how to properly counter veterans for a hundred hours or more. Most normies that join leave this time because progress is so brutally slow, and easily taken from you. It’s not like once your established and have the money and resources to spare.

I think that, for the sake of the game and it’s growth, this is terrible. Obviously to sandbox players this is nothing to worry about, but we want more of a casual player base. We need more people, and the casuals are the ones that will fill the world.

LO was a similar game in a lot of ways, and it was so massive when it launched partially because it allowed for casual play. I’m talking about that sweet period before the devs gave up on the core dream of LO. Season 0.

Of course this depends on SV and their rental servers being able to hold more than 7k players, but in the end I think that literally everybody would benefit from an improved onboarding system that locks new players into the game, and gives them a reason to push through the brutal starting period.

People also need to chill out and have fun. Once again, I dunno why people wanna rip off nubs and such on broker, but they do. Still, other than everyone quitting (haha,) the reason Eternal (our guild,) is so empty is because it's hard to find people I think will fit. It's mindset. People who come in with grandiose empire dreams or RP dreams or whatever, any idea of what they want to happen, it's gonna be tough. However, there are people who look at the game like aha this should be fun... I think MO is losing those people, too, cuz THE GAME SUCKS. haha. well, a lot about it sucks. There is like the 'game sucks' and there is the 'got griefed out.'

If they make the game decent, shit will turn out OK. But yea, looking for people who want to play somewhat seriously, but their main goal is to play THE GAME and just have fun... that would be the kinda casual we want. Still, there are other reasons why people quit. People getting PK'd out of the game is not really as big as it was in MO1, at least in my opinion.

There also aren't that many options. There is def a meta way to do things in the beginning and if you don't wanna do that, you're kinda shot. There isn't the kind of crafting depth that is gonna let someone come in and make money in town, either.

Still, guilds are looking for warm bodies and people dunno what they are signing up for. There are prol some other 'have fun' guilds, but I dunno how many. This game is not really stressful enough to quit, but people are def failing both nubs and themselves by making gear hard to attain. I mean if you fill the broker w/ dog shit gear so nubs can just gear up and go out and be like hehehe every time they die, it's cool. You can see towns change over time (COUGH BAKTI COUGH) when this doesn't happen.

Not to mention, and people might take offense to this, but the most 'casual' way to play MO would probably be PvP, and they made it so you have to invest a lot of time to do that, too. Those are the casuals that would stay, imo, but it seems SV doesn't want that. But every other thing in the game requires significant grind where as you can start killing people in the GY pretty fast, not even skilled up, esp if you got a friend or two.

SV will rue the day they thought pvp was causing their pop to decline. That's THE WHOLE CASUAL PLAYER BASE. What else possible could you do in MO that is 'casual?' Certainly not any form of crafting, gathering, etc, that shit is tuff. Grab a horse, go fuck w/ some people, that's casual. But SV wants ACTIONS TO HAVE CONSEQUENCES, and they got their consequences... lol (steam charts.)

I can't say I am like I was in MO1, where I won't fight, cuz like I said... casual fun, w/e. But I'm def not one of those people who thinks I am dominating the map or aspiring to. The trashy pvp and bad broker prices I think inhibit growth. Some people come in to spec crafter and that's cool, but most people you'd think that would be their secondary goal while they PLAY THE GAME.

 

[CistaCista]

LO was a similar game in a lot of ways, and it was so massive when it launched partially because it allowed for casual play. I’m talking about that sweet period before the devs gave up on the core dream of LO. Season 0.

What game is that.

 

[Kaden]

Věc na MO2 je, že je to sandbox, a to znamená, že lidé mají svobodu pvp pomocí mnoha nekonvenčních způsobů. Zde budou někteří hráči vypnuti, protože očekávají, že k Pvp dojde pouze prostřednictvím A, B nebo C způsobů. Cokoli jiného jim bude připadat jako truchlení, trolling nebo antisociální chování, protože druhý hráč si hrál s pískem způsobem, který nečekali a nemohou jej ovládat.

Ale v sandboxové hře lze pvp dosáhnout přes A, B, C, D, E, F a až do X, Y a Z. Pak AA, AB, AC a tak dále až do AZ. Dále BA, BB, BC až BZ a ad nauseum. Není to jen o pvp, je to kreativita, vynalézavost a svým způsobem to funguje v reálném světě, ať už jde o byznys, lidskou politiku nebo válku.

Ale chápu, že ne každý bude chtít hrát takovou hru, a to je naprosto v pořádku.

unfortunately, your theories definitely have gaps.
1) If you start an MMO game and you are not at the start and do not know the mechanics, then you have a very small probability that you will get hooked on starting the game, because veterans have the know-how and within a week they have what you have in a month or 2, and then all you need is a raid and ress kill and the game will stop entertaining you...
2) You obviously don't follow the events of MMOs and online games, because these days it's a difficult time for MMOs and it's very thin ice between the community and the developers

The sandbox is nice, but you have to be able to handle it... If you don't think so, then prepare to play on a whole hill with a maximum capacity of 1000 players max

The biggest **** was hastily started, where after 14 days of waiting in the queue, a lot of people left. The next part in about a month...
If this hadn't happened and the game would have had a smooth start, plus a lot of things would have worked, it's possible that this wouldn't have been discussed so much and it wouldn't have been possible to see so much.
Time will tell, but their updates are really slow. I thought the game would be playable by the end of the year, but unfortunately I don't see it in a year or two at the earliest.

 

[Emdash]

unfortunately, your theories definitely have gaps.
1) If you start an MMO game and you are not at the start and do not know the mechanics, then you have a very small probability that you will get hooked on starting the game, because veterans have the know-how and within a week they have what you have in a month or 2, and then all you need is a raid and ress kill and the game will stop entertaining you...

Might be true, circumstantially, but if people can have goals... if the game is only a grind fest to gather mats, and there is no mystery, sure, that's true.

MO2 was a real shit show. In some ways, they are paying it back by giving us the game b2p for probably at least a year. That is the draw. It's sad. I wish they could do it over. They are in a precarious situation, and I don't think they want to lose any more player base. Still, we went from 1500 to now 1000. The reason I look at 'peak' opposed to 'avg' is because there are definitely dead times cuz it's a world game.

So, June and July were pretty brutal for the game, then it leveled out. When the new numbers update, eventually and Oct numbers drop, it's gonna be a big loss. Those people are still 'around' because we get 1500 peak sometimes. It's been a sec. To not hit that on the weekend is pretty sad.

But yeah, MO1 also had a really deep crafting system and big rewards for enduring whatever, even tho you couldn't spec combat on the same char. This is just like... throw on your reptile carp, pick up your steel wep, and let's go. To me tho, I'm good with even incis/mola (even dropped my wt again,) and on my 'saboteur' like 11wt w/e. Then what do you do? Pound rocks, hit mobs. Go get some samey horses. I guess they improved(?) the dungeon content, but by making it less accessible, they played themselves, I think. It's good to see things happen in real time so nobody can say you're wrong. We got 3 magic schools, who knows how many dungeons, more armor sets, risar weps, mats are re-balanced to where a lot of animat armors are decent enough. Yet... the game feels flavorless. Kinda like the whole you come upon a chest... but it's locked... or it's not locked and there is 1 silver coin.

I've said this before, but I really expected MO2 to have MO1 content... even like pre-TC content... by now. If it did, I would have fewer complaints. Even without the deep crafting, mounts with different carry weights, speeds, etc. Breeding is not, or should not be, hard to implement. It's just flavorless. It's 'true sandbox' in that we are the only people providing flavor. Check out the guild politics section: nothing's doing. Even if I try to make a thread there, I prol end up deleting it cuz NOBODY CARES haha. MO1 forums, even w/ tinypop had way more engaging forum content. People were shit talking til the day I put the game down forever. There was a 'history.'

The advantages of MO2 are: fewer dcs, fewer bugs (but still many) 'is that a star or a belbus? ' -squints -, less stuck-ing (altho a stuck button that will never get you UNSTUCK if you do get stuck), and horse armor defining speed to the point it's a big factor. Clade gifts were a great idea (cuz I was suggesting it, so of course!) but as of now, it's much too grindy especially like up to 10... dudes should be like 6 ez coming out of haven and get to 10 speccing up haha.

No more long poles, no more weak spot on spears, flanged mace is no longer a light wep (a real head shaker tbh, considering that makes all hammers 'too heavy' except warhammer which also got changed a lot. War hammer used to be a possible weak spot wep, and I really wanted to make a skadi weak spot war hammer in MO1. That was a goal. Never got around to it. Even lulsy stuff like that can encourage people to play,) just more limited play styles.

Crack pipe is stupid, 4kg armor wt is stupid, KD resist WILL BE STUPID, double pots are stupid, elf speed buff + actives are stupid, combat leap is stupid.

Reserve system means v little, 1800 like Jose. Taming is 30-40 spec... cc is almost no spec.

If you really look at what they did, they were operating under the premise that MO1 was TOO HARDCORE and TOO UNFORGIVING (prol why they are so hesitant to implement siege cuz doods like JohnOldman talkin' about quitting the game from being ganked in town,) however, my PoV was keep PvE accessible, even dungeon content, to small groups, keep the game hardcore... some people want a hardcore game. By changing the game up, you get this "NULL" level we are at now where nobody is satisfied. People are still like STOP THE PKING!! It's like wat PKing?? It's just some wew level stuff on so many levels.

AGAIN: MOST OF THIS STUFF COULD BE FIXED WITH A FEW CONTENT ADDITIONS (SIEGE ESP, even tho it would be a grief mechanic atm, would still get people riled up enough to get into the game,) and swapping around the numbers. Think about it... CHANGING NUMBERS. Imagine the game is all numbers, certain weps have dmgs, wts, swing speed, horses have speed, tankiness, armors, etc etc etc. They could take this week and do some deep thought and come out with NEW NUMBERS, literal like "enter this number instead of that number." And the game would be completely different. For better or worse, we dunno, but they won't even try...

 

[Kaden]

there is more to the problem. We'll see how the developers fight with it...unfortunately, time is against them...

 

[finegamingconnoisseur]

unfortunately, your theories definitely have gaps.
1) If you start an MMO game and you are not at the start and do not know the mechanics, then you have a very small probability that you will get hooked on starting the game, because veterans have the know-how and within a week they have what you have in a month or 2, and then all you need is a raid and ress kill and the game will stop entertaining you...
2) You obviously don't follow the events of MMOs and online games, because these days it's a difficult time for MMOs and it's very thin ice between the community and the developers

The sandbox is nice, but you have to be able to handle it... If you don't think so, then prepare to play on a whole hill with a maximum capacity of 1000 players max

The biggest **** was hastily started, where after 14 days of waiting in the queue, a lot of people left. The next part in about a month...
If this hadn't happened and the game would have had a smooth start, plus a lot of things would have worked, it's possible that this wouldn't have been discussed so much and it wouldn't have been possible to see so much.
Time will tell, but their updates are really slow. I thought the game would be playable by the end of the year, but unfortunately I don't see it in a year or two at the earliest.

Every MMO I know of has had a rocky first few weeks, from way back to the early 2000s with Anarchy Online, and before that UO. Even the big names with multi-billion dollar publishers like Blizzard and Amazon pouring insane amounts of money into their respective games WoW and NW didn't fare so well when they first launched. Many of them still have longstanding issues from what I've heard. Singling out MO2 for its rocky launch and slow pace of development isn't really much of a talking point.

To address the two points you raised, firstly, of course every new player is not going to know the tricks of the trade when they first start out. But those who are willing to learn and have the analytical capacity and situational awareness will become the established players of tomorrow. Whether they started playing at the beginning of the game's launch or years later, it makes no difference. It all comes down to their strength of mind and willingness to persevere and adapt no matter the odds. These people are the game's target audience.

Your second point would probably relate back to what I said about the first. If the player isn't someone who wants to better themselves, find alternate solutions to obstacles, doesn't have a can-do attitude even if they are the underdog, then I'm afraid there's not much that can be done to retain them, short of turning the game into present-day Ultima Online.