Re: Level Cap still 250?
Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 12:08 am
Many interesting points.
I still think that the game doesn't need more levels and, at first instance, neither new skill trees, now.
I still think that we need first a better 'core' game and after we can think for more:
Specifically:
Mechanics:
1. Fix the stanzas so people are not encouraged to use just the average actions, but need to do better the higher they raise. What Acridiel said some post ago: people tend to use the easy way as most as possible and it's not encouraged to experiment new and personalized actions. Actually the most diversification is done by gear and not by actions (that could have been intended, due the heavy crafting orientation of the game, but, over time, even the hard recipes will be found first or later, so this cannot be a permanent solution).
2. I welcomed the fix in the afflictions, but the condition was, once fixed, to find a solution to make them more useful, and not only in specific situations, and most important, without using bugs. I know devs and players were arguing a lot on this point and I hope a solution will come soon(tm).
World design:
1. Make the huge world meaningful and not just some region. Having Void the only crowded region and the rest almost empty is not because of the low population but it's caused by a bad game design. With more population we would just have Void more crowded (as it was in the past) and still many regions, even some nice place as HH or HS, almost empty, or just traversed by occasional treks.
2. There are still a lot of places (that i have always ticketed but dunno now were my tickets really finished) where the animals go stuck in a very small place, unable to move. Years passed and not a single of this places are fixed.
3. Why there is not a single tribe that use mounts? Why an enemy tribe group patrolling an area doesn't attack me, if I have a bad reputation with them? I could understand when the group is just some harvesters, but a group of warriors? This would also add some interesting behavior around some Outpost, during PvP. People would know who are there and would add another reason to work to have better fame with them.
Economy:
1. Is it really so hard to add upkeeps for apartments, Guild halls and, most important, Outposts (with a much higher cost to declare, less to defend to avoid cheating trying to make a guild bankrupt over-declaring).
- Benefits:
Currency would have finally some meaning;
Solo-guilds would be hard to maintain (almost impossible without some agreements between guilds);
Fake declarations would magically disappear because of the high costs
Multiple declarations will be done only when really an Alliance want a war
Everyone will think more and better to make an OP war, for casual PvPers we still have Umbra opened for them (and the tag as well);
2. Add trading routes. This is not new. Look at EVE. Well, almost every software company is just cloning MMOs nowadays, I think copying something well done from another MMo would not be a big issue.
3. many others have said a similar idea, I have a very old post here where i spoke about wooden cars (a la far west) and the need to move materials between towns (my original idea involved moveing mats from OP to GH, adding OP in the PR and new, heavy, special mats). There can be many good reasons: move mats from OP to GH instead of having them automatically in GH, move mats from one point to another because of a trade between people, move mats because of different place a people organize to craft, etc...
For this, the devs should add specific points, similar to the ring terminal, where an NPC offer the expedition service, with different cars in relation to the amount of mats they have to move. To avoid having a full wooded car for each player in game (the world would be unmanageable), just pack different expeditions and send cars at scheduled intervals, with fixed departures and, almost fixed arrivals (being italian, i could not guarantee for the time arrivals ). I'm sure, the more i write the more things appear in my mind and sure this happens to all the players so masochistic to still reading this.
MORE sand in the box:
1. Containers, jewelry boxes, containers at specific places (similar to the above cars idea), where tribes can even offer better services, where fame would have more reasons to. All this with some cost to have the economy still working. I go to the Green Seeds (in example, could be the Renegades in the desert) and ask for a storage: if i have enough fame i can speak and the storage would costs considering my actual fame. It wiould just be a click on a scenery object and a new window to store things into.
Devs can put some limit on the max agreements a player can have, to avoid the need to buy Oracle to manage all the data
It's sure that something like this would means more 'real' storage to have in the dataserver, so this need some good calculation before thinking to implement.
2. more animations and some passive action such as screaming at a herd while digging to see the herbs scattering around worried. Very easy to do: just trigger the same behaviour the herbs have when a carnivore approach, to a special emote, accessible from the right click menu (generic, even with no target, enabled only if standing still doing nothing). If no herbs are around, the player just screamed for nothing. Or, add a stanza for that (a power stanza) earnable thru a new rite.
3. ability to invite people into apartments and guild halls (when not in guild).
4. furnitures? Well, maybe i'm asking too much But, looking at all the mission mats scattered around, i'm pretty sure the furniture are already implemented since the beginning, just waiting some polish and a final decision.
The ability to customize apartments and Guild halls, thru furnitures, being craftable or just obtainable thru some missioning, would be really nice.
Last thing: maybe a new skill tree would be nice to have soon(tm): social clothing.
I could continue, but the post is already too big. Many people have sent a lot of good ideas over the years, we just need the devs having the courage to really implement some of them. Need to risk a bit if you want Ryzom stopping to have 'potential' since 5 years, and actually offer what it promised: a true, sandbox, living world.
Sorry if i wrote a wall of text just to say what Jayce said in one row of text: raising the skill cap is a bad idea.
I still think that the game doesn't need more levels and, at first instance, neither new skill trees, now.
I still think that we need first a better 'core' game and after we can think for more:
Specifically:
Mechanics:
1. Fix the stanzas so people are not encouraged to use just the average actions, but need to do better the higher they raise. What Acridiel said some post ago: people tend to use the easy way as most as possible and it's not encouraged to experiment new and personalized actions. Actually the most diversification is done by gear and not by actions (that could have been intended, due the heavy crafting orientation of the game, but, over time, even the hard recipes will be found first or later, so this cannot be a permanent solution).
2. I welcomed the fix in the afflictions, but the condition was, once fixed, to find a solution to make them more useful, and not only in specific situations, and most important, without using bugs. I know devs and players were arguing a lot on this point and I hope a solution will come soon(tm).
World design:
1. Make the huge world meaningful and not just some region. Having Void the only crowded region and the rest almost empty is not because of the low population but it's caused by a bad game design. With more population we would just have Void more crowded (as it was in the past) and still many regions, even some nice place as HH or HS, almost empty, or just traversed by occasional treks.
2. There are still a lot of places (that i have always ticketed but dunno now were my tickets really finished) where the animals go stuck in a very small place, unable to move. Years passed and not a single of this places are fixed.
3. Why there is not a single tribe that use mounts? Why an enemy tribe group patrolling an area doesn't attack me, if I have a bad reputation with them? I could understand when the group is just some harvesters, but a group of warriors? This would also add some interesting behavior around some Outpost, during PvP. People would know who are there and would add another reason to work to have better fame with them.
Economy:
1. Is it really so hard to add upkeeps for apartments, Guild halls and, most important, Outposts (with a much higher cost to declare, less to defend to avoid cheating trying to make a guild bankrupt over-declaring).
- Benefits:
Currency would have finally some meaning;
Solo-guilds would be hard to maintain (almost impossible without some agreements between guilds);
Fake declarations would magically disappear because of the high costs
Multiple declarations will be done only when really an Alliance want a war
Everyone will think more and better to make an OP war, for casual PvPers we still have Umbra opened for them (and the tag as well);
2. Add trading routes. This is not new. Look at EVE. Well, almost every software company is just cloning MMOs nowadays, I think copying something well done from another MMo would not be a big issue.
3. many others have said a similar idea, I have a very old post here where i spoke about wooden cars (a la far west) and the need to move materials between towns (my original idea involved moveing mats from OP to GH, adding OP in the PR and new, heavy, special mats). There can be many good reasons: move mats from OP to GH instead of having them automatically in GH, move mats from one point to another because of a trade between people, move mats because of different place a people organize to craft, etc...
For this, the devs should add specific points, similar to the ring terminal, where an NPC offer the expedition service, with different cars in relation to the amount of mats they have to move. To avoid having a full wooded car for each player in game (the world would be unmanageable), just pack different expeditions and send cars at scheduled intervals, with fixed departures and, almost fixed arrivals (being italian, i could not guarantee for the time arrivals ). I'm sure, the more i write the more things appear in my mind and sure this happens to all the players so masochistic to still reading this.
MORE sand in the box:
1. Containers, jewelry boxes, containers at specific places (similar to the above cars idea), where tribes can even offer better services, where fame would have more reasons to. All this with some cost to have the economy still working. I go to the Green Seeds (in example, could be the Renegades in the desert) and ask for a storage: if i have enough fame i can speak and the storage would costs considering my actual fame. It wiould just be a click on a scenery object and a new window to store things into.
Devs can put some limit on the max agreements a player can have, to avoid the need to buy Oracle to manage all the data
It's sure that something like this would means more 'real' storage to have in the dataserver, so this need some good calculation before thinking to implement.
2. more animations and some passive action such as screaming at a herd while digging to see the herbs scattering around worried. Very easy to do: just trigger the same behaviour the herbs have when a carnivore approach, to a special emote, accessible from the right click menu (generic, even with no target, enabled only if standing still doing nothing). If no herbs are around, the player just screamed for nothing. Or, add a stanza for that (a power stanza) earnable thru a new rite.
3. ability to invite people into apartments and guild halls (when not in guild).
4. furnitures? Well, maybe i'm asking too much But, looking at all the mission mats scattered around, i'm pretty sure the furniture are already implemented since the beginning, just waiting some polish and a final decision.
The ability to customize apartments and Guild halls, thru furnitures, being craftable or just obtainable thru some missioning, would be really nice.
Last thing: maybe a new skill tree would be nice to have soon(tm): social clothing.
I could continue, but the post is already too big. Many people have sent a lot of good ideas over the years, we just need the devs having the courage to really implement some of them. Need to risk a bit if you want Ryzom stopping to have 'potential' since 5 years, and actually offer what it promised: a true, sandbox, living world.
Sorry if i wrote a wall of text just to say what Jayce said in one row of text: raising the skill cap is a bad idea.