As the title indicates, I will try to point some ideas and suggestions on this post. I will also beg, on my knees, with kitty eyes, to be heard if necessary.
I have started playing Planeshift not so long ago, I confess. I joined shortly after the Oja city was implemented. It was quite exciting in the beguinning to see my man playing, and I got more excited specially with the possibility of helping to develop the game. Fortunatelly I managed, and I have become a WTB member on my birthday (yesterday), which makes me quite happy.
Unfortunatelly, not all is fun and hapiness.
Truth is, I am, as a few other players that I know (some that have been playing for much longer than me), getting a little bit tired. Not that the game is bad. Not at all. It's quite nice. But I am running out of options. I know crafting was only very recently implemented, but it's not enough to get us moving. I will try to explain this feeling into straight points. I hope you do not read this as a complain, but more as a report that might help the technical part develop their new ideas.
1 - The roguesOk, I know you have seeded a few rogues around the game that are extremly nice for new players. I know because I have used it myself. They are extremly easy to kill and give 5 progression points. AND they give a gorgeous loot. The problem is exactly this AND. The rogues are to my point of view absolutly unbalanced, which unbalances the game. This is because the rogues that are EXTREMLY dificult to kill usually give either 2 or 4 progression points and have NOTHING to be looted. So my humble suggestion is to divide the extremly good loot to the difficult rogues and the progression points for the easy ones.
Benefits
a) You have no longer traffic jams on Oja road waiting for a poor rogue to respawn, which looks absolutly non medieval and non-realistic (acording to the rules of the game itself, realism is wanted)
b) gives a bit more spice and will to actually kill the extremly difficult rogues, and not just let them in the fields as flowerly decoration.
c) people can even make rogue chassing as a role play of "cleaning police"
2 - Correction of the bug of multiple questsI know this has problably been asked tons of times already. And probably it's very difficult to correct.
But it blocked my quests for 2 weeks and I did not know why, which made me desperate. Until someone nice player in the forum pointed the only solution available.
When you have different quests that demand the use of the same NPC, there is a high chance of one overlapping the other, and they get blocked. Until one of them is discarded, ALL other speaking quests are not able to be solved. Problem is, since we do not know from beginning to whom we have to talk to, it is impossible to know which quest to discard.
P.S.: If it's because of lack of developers, I know a nice [inteligent and skilled] boy who is waiting to become a prospect for the coding team for more than 3 weeks. Please do not forget those that really want to help you!
3 - PLEASE I BEG YOU, ON MY KNEES, MAKE THE NPC MORE INTELIGENTProbably everyone knows the famous Holy Script quest. It's been a enormous use of %&@%
in game. Of desperation, sweat, frustration and tries of corruption. BUT THE GENTLEMEN INVOLVED SIMPLY TELL US TO BUG OFF
Another one is the Unreadable Page. After getting all the 5 parts translated (which takes a lot of work and effort) the monsieur interested just ignores us. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I should return to a certain monsieur, but this one, as the Holy Script, tells us to bug off.
As I said before, I am aware that this is probably very difficult. Problem is, once you solve all the easy "killing monster and bring hide for reward" quests, you are only left with the absolutly unthinkable speaking quests. Some I was able to solve alone, most with great help from friendly players. But some simply seem to be impossible to guess what the NPC want.
Easy example:
Me: tell
me about [censured item here]
Levrus: I'm deaf, blind and dumb
Me: tell about [censured item here]
Levrus: AH, OF COURSE! YES! JUST GO TO THE SECRET PLACE AND GUESS SECRET PASSWORD
English is not my mother tongue. And even though I am desperatly trying to learn the
[censured] German, I am not able to play in any other language than English. AH! WHO CARES ABOUT THIS WESTERN EUROPEANS, you think. Well, I know a lot of them that would like to play too. But when they realise that when they write a whole huge paragraph at the high risk of mispelling, and the quest is just blocked, or that even though you use perfectly normal english sentences the NPC ignore you, it gets a bit sad...
4 - The MonstersOk, my fellows of the 2d team. Please help out in here. There are the following monsters available that I have seen:
1 - Rat
2, 3 & 4 - Rogue/ Brigand/ Thug
5 - Tefusang
6 - Consumer
7 - Carcass (by the way, I would love to send a
to the designer because it's my favourite one
)
8 - Ulbernaut
9, 10, 11 & 12- Gladiator, Mercenary, Bandit, Fanatic
13 - Gobble
14 - Trepor
Ok, as you notice, even though we have 14 types of monster of variable difficulty and loot, there are 9 models (excluding the each race in bandits and mercenarys). And the difficulty is also quite unbalanced. I have a nice hit of 150 damage already. It's more or less the middle of the damage available in game. Problem is there are only 2 monsters that frightnen me to hell, 1 that is even, and the rest is quite easy (except for the unbalanced rogues already refered in the first point). It's quite nice that you made each type of enemy with different levels (and not all equal difficulty), but as I reffered, the loot is not very balanced. I have no will to kill monsters except for the minor loot available on the "non reservated" enemies, since the easy rogues are supposed to be for beginners, and the ulbernauts are far too impossible for me still. This makes Minning the only resource of incom which is DAMN BORING. (see next point)
5 - Stocking problemAfter terrible hours under the sun, being threatned by Ubernauts that simply fall from the sky, with just a pick on your hand to defend yourself against these brutal creatures, after dying miserably and having to walk the whole way again from Oja to the mine, you realize that as soon as you are over level 5 in Mettalurgy you are not able to melt iron any more. This is not nice... Specially the dying part, in front of everyone
This is not very realistic... Hope it's a bug and not a feature
6 - Linear development is not so goodOk, since we are talking about Ulbernauts and dying... The current system for character development is: You kill 100 monsters, you get 100 points. Ok, that's cool in one way: It's easy. But not so cool in another.
People making 200 of damage are seen in the sewers killing rats. Ok, I have no problem with crazy people that still go to the sewers. But the poor players that started 2 mins ago have no rats to kill anymore. I still get exactly the same points as I did in the begining. I believe that the non linear development (meaning someone with a lot of strength gets no more experience from rats) would be a bit better because it would release the monsters from their burned of premature death, would spread the fighting mob a little bit more, and would actually allow a specialization in fighting.
I don't think a good soldier would make a good baker or a good miner. If you make the fighting as difficult as minning (ok, not so boring), then we have a bit more work with the development of the fighting porperty, which does not erase the interest in hunting in the wild so much. Please note that in Oja road, you have to walk miles to actually see a monster... or a minning place
This is also touching the profession system that you want to implement. Just as a simple example, it's a bit strange that by killing tefusangs, you will get baking trainning (progression points). Unless you are making teffie pie, it just doesn't make sense
. You should get more progression points by using your profession skill (in this case baking a gorgeous 3 towers cream wedding cake).
Ok, please do not get mad with me or think this is complaining. I really just want to help with the developement of the game.
These are just my humble suggestions and everything was writen with a tone of joke. You are free to comment or disagree.
Just do not kill me for grammar and spelling mistakes, please.
