Is This Game Too Hard?

[Volki]

(Don't move this to Complaint Department, otherwise not enough players will see it.)

I want to know if I'm imagining things or if this game is really that impossible to play.

Been playing for years. Just recently I've been trying to level a new character. I've found it to be very difficult. I know how to rank up. I know how to get PP and money. I know the tricks. But they aren't enough. I am losing motivation to level this character, and I really don't see how an ordinary gamer is going to want to level up, either.

For four hours today, I've focused on this new character. His rank started at 2 in 3 different skills, one being magic. In four hours, I have only been able to reach rank 3 in each. I haven't had any trouble with money. The main issue has been PP and time.

Regarding PP, I will have to try something other than hunting. The creatures my character can kill right now do not offer enough PP as reward. The other creatures are too powerful, and although they reward more PP, it is not enough for the amount of time it takes to kill those creatures. Problem here is, my character is supposed to be a hunter. I guess I could change the character into something more profitable, like a smith or miner, but that completely changes who he is.

It didn't take too long to rank up in skills after buying them, but I know that it's going to get much harder later on. I feel like it already might be taking too long at the low level I am. That is very disappointing.

The only reason I continue to level this character is because I want his skills to match who he is in roleplay. If I weren't a roleplayer, there is no way I would put up with this.

Not looking for arguments. I want to see who else thinks this game is hard. In fact, I don't want to see anyone arguing that this game isn't hard, because I already know it is and you cannot change my mind or the minds of anyone else who thinks the same. This thread is for players to speak their minds. Those players exist, even though you may have not heard from them. They're always told, "You're wrong, you're not willing to try, you're criticizing what you don't know." Well, they do know. They're the players. So, listen to them.

[MishkaL1138]

Everyone has said it before, and it needs to be repeated over and over: 3 years ago (back when I started, mind you), things were just fine. Combat, crafting, etc. It was both easy and hard enough, yadda yadda. The problem is that the learning curve has turned steeper, and the earlier stages of the game experience for a neophite are too hard.

Just my

[Suno_Regin]

I've recently done the same thing. Once again, I gave this new character probably a million tria; if I hadn't, good luck! I found it impossible to generate PP without music grinding, which meant days of simply not playing and letting the music PP roll in until I was adequate enough with a magic skill to break that chain and go kill some trepors. (Trepors, by the way, are garbage. Don't grind them.) I can't even imagine trying to do any of this training without some sort of gold flow from another player or alt; the PP grind meant simply not playing the game until later, which is out of the spirit of everything. I sadly think that the first notion will be to remove music grinding rather than put in place an easier way to train PP; there are only so many quests, which will drive a new person away when they realize how long they have to run each pass, and how many times they have to risk dying to imagos and vilenauts or random fall damage until finding a decent path to deliver some carrot juice to somebody.

The game is incredibly hard. No, it's artificially hard, meaning it could be easier in these ways and harder in others (battles of attrition need to replace the glaring choice between being one shotted or tickled with a feather). Certain mobs, such as Ojaveda rogues, need their PP value reevaluated, as these mobs are clearly harder than the average rat, and should not simply give a standard 100 experience points.

Edit: I beg to differ about it being more balanced years ago. Years ago, we were able to grind mobs whose NPC server prevented them from attacking you; grinding anything was so simple because it was basically time-based revenue with risk factor. They've fixed that bug now.

[Zontick]

So as someone who does write, sometimes getting paid for it, and who has been considering this all from a PR angle (how to get more involvement for the project)...

I've written some of my gripes in the complaints department some time ago. I'll revisit this but will do so from a PR angle.

That said, let's say that the following are true: (1) We have a relatively small community of players, (2) We have a relatively small community of volunteers who keep things running.

The problems I see are echoed by others here, but from a PR perspective, I find it hard to sell the game even to friends because:

(1) Starting off is decidedly wonky nowadays, and balancing tria/PP for training is difficult. Meanwhile, with an upper-mid level character, I have more PP and trias than I can spend. So that scale needs to be readjusted - so that we *retain* players.
(2) The disappearing NPCs allegedly add realism, a point I will not debate (I am a stone creature that rides a fish - REALISM?), but a player who may have only 1-2 hours a day to play may simply not see some NPCs when they do play. That needs to be dealt with, or we can't really attract players so that they can sit around and be frustrated.
(3) Running. The quests require some silly amounts of running that used to be much more interesting with mobs attacking along the way. Going to Bronze Doors the first time, way back when, was a group adventure. Now it's a long solo run that would eventually bore even Forrest Gump. Getting people to the game so that they can press an arrow key for half an hour at a time isn't really a selling point.
(4) No spoilers vs. Reporting bugs: I've done at least a few quests where I thought I should get a glyph but I haven't. Is it a bug? I don't know. Honestly, I sort of gave up on that and I pity anyone that is starting off on the quest chain simply to get access to the Winch so that they aren't handicapped characters. And access to the Winch requires a level of potentially OOC decisions, as do some glyphs. "Sure, I'll run back and forth to Bronze Doors 6 times so that you can give me a glyph" is somewhat sadistic. Oh, and that anvil quest? With the newer system, that seems kind of silly (no more said to avoid a spoiler).
(5) Not enough characters for an ingame economy, and I'm not sure adding more characters to the world will help the ingame economy. We're top heavy with crafters who make 300q everything - and 300q almost never wears out! The ingame economy is wonky.
(6) Different mobs need to be added to allow for characters as they develop. Tefus to Ulbernauts is a pretty big jump, as an example, and the game is full of that.
(7) Empathy for mounts... c'mon. That forces grinding with the present algorithm. I recall Talad saying that there would be less grinding sometime in the past...

Now, these are all tough sells for a newcomer player. But then there's the newcomer volunteer: how does one know that it's worth volunteering if you may not agree with the general direction?

From a PR perspective, PS has a lot of stuff that really needs to be thought out - and that directly impacts attracting players, retaining players, attracting volunteers, retaining volunteers, and so forth. My 2 cents.

[Dannae]

For me, it's not that it's too hard to level, it's that leveling or training all skills is incredibly boring, repetitive, and too time consuming. I don't understand how anyone enjoys moving items from box to box to box for hours at a time to craft items. Casting spells or hitting things with a weapon thousands of times to rank up one level gets old pretty quickly too. Because of this system, I simply neither have the time nor the inclination to concentrate on leveling. I will never be able to compete using mechanics with other players who either enjoy the system, or suffer it, in order to reach high skill levels.

Would I like my RP character to have mechanical levels to match who they are? Of course! It's taken me 5 years of casual playing to reach the levels my present character has, including one summer in which I did suffer the system concentrating on leveling and hating every minute of it just so I could try dueling. Even after all this time, my highest levels remain mediocre at best, and I certainly am not thrilled by the prospect of spending another 5 years to get a second character to similar levels.

I think it would be fun to be able to do some of the things the advanced mechanics allow such as casting high level spells, being able to create crafted items, being able to fight well... but for me, gaining some of those abilities will take a hundred years, and crafting will never happen unless it becomes enjoyable.

I wish we were allowed to start a new character with a set amount of skills and levels which could be allocated as we see fit, rather than extremely low in all areas. I know players who have spent the time to raise their characters to high levels may be put off by this kind of thing.

A solution that would work for me would be an ability to create 2 kinds of characters. The current regular, and an RP only which gets player assigned stats and skills during creation, within limits, which will remain forever unchangeable. Possibly an option to assign a character as RP only and set levels could be made sometime after entering the game so as not to add confusion to the initial process.

[Calmus]

I started a new character about 3 months ago. Leveling consumes indeed quite too much time, especially the fighting and magic abilities, and it is quite boring as well.

I see the point that people with superhero abilities should be a exception; But leveling is still taking quite too long at low-mid levels currently. In fact I do much of the combat grinding afk. Otherwise I had probably already stopped my efforts to get my character to decent combat levels. Of course it doesn't work to only afk grind, because tria and PP is required as well.

Certain mobs, such as Ojaveda rogues, need their PP value reevaluated, as these mobs are clearly harder than the average rat, and should not simply give a standard 100 experience points.

for my nolthrir character it's not hard to kill cutthroats and he gets around 17 PP for each of it. I read somewhere that it is a good idea to focus on skills and not so much on stats, otherwise the issue of getting enough PP in fight is too big. Perhaps the formula which calculates the PP for each mobs needs adjustments if this is true.

[...]
I wish we were allowed to start a new character with a set amount of skills and levels which could be allocated as we see fit, rather than extremely low in all areas. I know players who have spent the time to raise their characters to high levels may be put off by this kind of thing.

A solution that would work for me would be an ability to create 2 kinds of characters. The current regular, and an RP only which gets player assigned stats and skills during creation, within limits, which will remain forever unchangeable. Possibly an option to assign a character as RP only and set levels could be made sometime after entering the game so as not to add confusion to the initial process.

interesting idea 

[Zontick]

A solution that would work for me would be an ability to create 2 kinds of characters. The current regular, and an RP only which gets player assigned stats and skills during creation, within limits, which will remain forever unchangeable. Possibly an option to assign a character as RP only and set levels could be made sometime after entering the game so as not to add confusion to the initial process.

While an interesting idea, I don't like it myself - because there's already an apparent separation between role-play and game mechanics. I'd like to see that separation become smaller and not larger.

I don't mind people RPing outside of the game mechanics, mind you, but allowing characters completely outside of the game mechanics doesn't seem like a solution to a game mechanics problem.

If the game mechanics problems were addressed, maybe this idea wouldn't be as appealing to some. In short, it seems like treating a symptom instead of the disease. "Yes, your cough is gone, but the lung cancer is still there."

[Jawir]

Probably I'll not be popular with this statement, but I think that the time required to level up it's not too much. I like the idea that just a small elite can max a skill, what for me it's not working it's the difference in damage dealt (thus the mob you can kill) per each level.  For example rising a weapon skill from level 150 to level 200 doesn't make much difference so stopping to level 150 saves you about 75 hours of grinding. I believe that players complain about the time required for level up a skill because they think they need to max the skill to be proficient. That is partially true: even with a maxed skill, if you don't use q300 crafted weapons or some rare looted weapons, you aren't proficient and it's quite disappointing (from here the feeling of wasted time in grinding sessions). It's also true that if you stop at level 100 of a weapon skill you are almost out of play because you can't kill the mob that drops the best items (moreover the quality of the items is bond to the level of the char so this means yoy can't even have the chance to loot a great weapon). If the mechanics could be adjusted so even at level 100 of a skill of choice you can have "an easier life" probably this kind of discussions will be less frequent.

[Rirenil Masdo]

completely overhaul the default controls for basic movement as well as taking care of the weird camera issues to instead use the industry standard setup and you will get a larger group of people that end up trying the game to stay at least a little bit longer.

[LigH]

Good point. When I install PS for the first time, I have to edit the movement keys to the opposite: Every other game I know uses Shift as accellerator, left and right equally.

[Rigwyn]

The problem is not so much with being weak, but with not feeling any success or progress after training a level. When I buy skills, I want to feel the benefit. I want to see that I can now kill creature X with a little less effort. I don't want to discover that all my hard work was for virtually nothing.


Please, turn this "Awe crap, that sucks" experience into a "Dude, this is wicked!" experience.

As for PP shortage, would it be possible to factor in extra PP for weaker characters - knowing that they are quite possibly newer players who will make more mistakes along the way? This is less of an issue once you are able to hunt effectively.

[Zerxzz]

not feeling any success or progress after training a level.

I completely agree with this. In my opinion, this is because it takes 200 levels to max a skill, which makes each individual skill gain feel very unrewarding.

[Candy]

I agree with pretty much everything that's been said already. PlaneShift's gameplay is not engaging or rewarding enough, so even if it WAS easy to build up a new character, I still wouldn't.

Now for the TL;DR part:

I like the loregasmic nature of the quests, but they need the aid of mechanics that aren't there yet - say, you get sent from Point A to Point B to deliver an item, and it looks like it's only going to take a minute to get there, but - GASP! - an mob ambushes you on the way there and steals your Shiny Dagger of the MacGuffin! You have to aim and throw a net you conveniently find at just the right moment to catch them and retrieve the item, and are given the choice of whether you want to spare the ambusher's life or send them to the Death Realm. Maybe it will effect something later in the quest chain, you never know. That's just ONE suggestion off the top of my head, based on quests I've done in other games that older players fondly reminisce about.

Zerxzz hits the nail on the head about the amount of levels - you know why ninety is the current cap for WoW? Because it can be done as little as a week, and maximum level is where the "real" game starts there.

I understand that as a roleplay game with actual focus on the roleplay, PlaneShift should probably be more about the journey. However it's a pretty lame journey if all that's involved to master swordplay is grinding out x levels in the arena and occasionally running to a merchant to sell your loot or a trainer to buy the next rank. My fix would be to make a few of those aforementioned engaging quests for weaponry and melee, similar to the Mage's Circles - maybe a few combat-realted minigames, and require those for access to the next trainers. One chain to kick off the "beginner" levels, then more quests - increasingly fun, engaging quests, mind you - for middling, expert, and master ones, too. Perhaps some dailies at the end that allow the experts and masters to help the lower-level trainees out.

Speaking of weaponry, combat is still pretty unengaging, too. I had to spend a lot of time hitting the same key over and over again before I could hop on a mount, rapidly get some distance, and shoot down a mob that's way stronger than my character that way. Even that gets pretty stale after a while. I don't know how that experience would change for a new player because I don't feel inclined to train another mage with the gameplay as it is right now.

I've never had a fight in PlaneShift where my heart was thumping against my ribs and I was fully absorbed in keeping my poor character alive - at least, not one that I remember. The fights like that that I do remember were in WoW or Neverwinter, and it's fights like that which often tempt me to leave PlaneShift and go back to one of those games instead. Compared to them, PlaneShift plays like RuneScape (given, I haven't played that in years).

[Pakarro]

To the original question. No, this game is not too hard.

It is slow sometimes, but what is so bad about being slow?

I wonder why people want to make a new game out of this one? Like it, and play it. Don't like it, find another one. But this game has a specific character, and it would be a pity to loose that uniqueness.

My dreams:
I'd like more quests, more complicated ones, like Volki proposed (if this is reasonable possible), and maybe player guided quests. Masters who teach ways or crafting (Just the same as the npc-s do, not their own ones.). Maybe a player scriptable questing system (for the far future) with auto pp-s and rewards, or pps and rewards for the creator of a quest. And players can take these scripts and hand out the quests as their own. Rp in the game mechanics.

Npc fighting is on a good way, with mob intelligence rising and them being able to cast.

[Bonifarzia]

Yes, training is boring. The boredom is more balanced, though, so at least you can advance in skills now that used to be practically impossible to master. For the games focus on RP, Dannae's point makes sense, and similar suggestions have been discussed a few times already. We should see what can be done about that!
Concerning little rewards for ranking up skills: I don't think it is a bad thing if there is no huge gap between advanced and maxed fighters. For other skills and activities than fighting, some rank ups can feel like quite an improvement.