Observations & Thoughts

[cyrogen18]

Warning: This is going to be a novel.

I was one of the Beta testers for this game 4 years ago, and I've come back for another round with the new owners. I don't know if they intend on working on the game, or if they just intend on turning on the servers, but I thought I'd give my 2 cents anyway on the things that need fixing. I am not doing this to complain, this is my effort to help.

I like to be a part of the community of the games I play. I don't have access to most of the forums (thus the post is here), I apparently don't have access to Klients, if you want to keep players like me later this doesn't feel very welcoming at the moment.

The crafter quests on the starter island. One of the earliest ones is "Make 5 pairs of boots & 5 pairs of pants, here's the materials". We've probably already been out killing for a while, most new players probably start with mage or warrior quests and would have alot of materials already, and any new player looking at the items in their bag can probably work out that every item is useful for something. I wasn't ready to try & dispose of all my junk materials, but here's this quest trying to give me waaaaaay too many materials to fit in a bag that I just don't understand yet. Cut this down to 1 pair of boots & 1 pair of pants. Sure it's nice to be given all those free materials, but for a new player it's better to have a smooth pickup & turn in of their quest.

I leveled with a friend, I think he made a pair of pants out of different materials & it didn't count to his quest. If this is incorrect and all pants count ignore what I'm saying on this one. If it is correct, change it to any pair of pants made with the correct quality. As soon as the quest is accepted you have no list of what materials you were given, your just looking in your crafting and saying "I think I had to make it from this one", when you also have alot of other materials you gathered yourself in your travels.

The 4 various starting trainers I assume are all aimed at being accessable by players on the trial (so up to level 20 in any skill?), some trainers have quests that say "you'll need this skill".... The crafter trainer has one that says "Make me three q20 mage weapon things - sorry I forgot the name). At this stage you probably don't have weapon making level 1 (25 points) weapon making level 2 (25 points) and the plan for the mage weapon thing (30 points). This is 80 points that you probably just don't have, and if your trialing the game you may never have this many points. Definately make an alternative to this 80 points quest, though in general needing any points for quests isn't good. If someone requires an ability for a quest, give it to them.

"Where is the Fine Zun Amber" seems to be one of the most asked questions, maybe improve the directions to it, I think the trainers directions are "Just behind me", possible change to "Just south of the Karavan Embassy".

Weaned Rendor's. This is a mage quest that says "Form a team". Change it to "You can form a team, or do it on your own" like other similar quests. The counter on this quest is broken also leading sooooo many people to be yelling in channel for teams because they think it isn't working on their own.

Javings and the root spell. "Kill the Javings with the root spell" The root spell does no damage and some clarification is needed on this quest. People try killing with acid or melee or whatever after using root & think it's not working because once again the counter does not work.

Quest rewards. Now this one is the most horrendous of them all. A q20 pair of pants as a reward with +20 focus. We have new players working on their crafting, and they cannot make a q20 item with 20 extra points of anything. Hell, I don't even think ANYONE can make a q20 item with 20 points on it. These quest rewards should be at most as good as the best stuff the local crafters are making, why craft at all if you can't make things at least as good as what the game is giving you?

The quest reward mage weapon thingy. 84% faster cast speed & 84% better damage. In the whole game, how many things are better than this percentage? Any? When I finally grabbed a spell that wasn't able to be benefitted by this q40 item I went to the weapon vendor and there were NO items with this percentage, with my brief bit of research I think this percentage is the best in the game, and my first spell that wasn't covered by it wasn't doing much more damage than the previous rank, it was also slower, all in all my new spell might not have been an upgrade at all. You force crafters on the starter island to learn to make these if they want to get past that quest, but you just hand mages the best ones possible..... what are all the people you've just forced to learn these supposed to do with them?

Rendor's look like torbuk's from a distance, then you get closer & they all of a sudden fatten up, I remember it was like this in Beta also.

Dead Javings still flap their wings when you look at them from a distance.

Go talk to "guy", deliver package to "guy", etc. These quests are horrid. I've grabbed a few since coming to the mainland, "find this guy in majestic garden".... do you know how big majestic garden is? To find him without having him marked on my map is near impossible. This is not majora's mask, I do not know everyones name & their movement patterns.

Screen clutter. I have all the original windows up, and also normally the map window, the team window, and maybe the mission window. This takes up most of the screen. Granted there isn't much that can be done about this, but there is a little. The mission window currently can have the title turned off.... why not the map window & the team window also? What's the point of the big square around the compass? why not just leave it with only the circular section? Do I really need to know my own name and title? As long as I can see my health bar etc there could be an economy option for this window. The map window could have an option for only the map (I currently have the background faded, but the title still stands out and the buttons above the map). The lower right box has a few view modes, the smallest one has all the original buttons, plus buttons for sit, stand, party invite, etc.... there could be a smaller version with out this extra row of buttons.

When a player leaves the party it still keeps an extra player in the party window.

So many things die, but the last bit of health doesn't dissapear off the bar from your last hit.

The web site - This game looks abandoned by the web site. The first thing anyone should see when they load up your web site is what's been happening recently, the news. Sure you want your free button to be noticable, but it shouldn't be your center piece. The center piece should be a small article about a game event that just happened, or an upcoming event, or some new art, changes to the game, or even an article about the game being free. But the center piece being a picture saying free just seems like a site you never want to look at again to me.

The "B" key... is it really such a secret what our level in skills currently is? This could be a tab in our player info section that we already have a game button for.

World patrol's. So I've seen the harvesters & fighters etc walking around the world, but are they really harvesters & fighters? Harvesters could make detours to some of the nodes, prospect a few nodes, harvest them, and then continue on their way, thus also showing players where at least a few nodes are out in the world. Fighters should actually fight a few things as they travel.

Death..... The death penalty is fine, what is not fine however is locking the camera on your dead corpse. Teams of people fighting bigger monsters are bound to have casualties, and what is there for a dead player to do apart from go make coffee? A dead player wants to look at the fight if it's still going, see how the rest of the team is doing.

Yelling. /s does not go very far, but yet I can see a player within my 250M radar, that may be willing to ressurect me. Even if I could turn my camera that way I might not be able to see him. If I send a message in regional chat and he see's it, he dosn't necessarily know it's near him. I'd suggest adding a /yell that covers the full zoomed out radar distance, thus if someone see's it they know you are near.

Carrying items..... there are 3 different factors altering what you can carry. and the most important one is the hardest to notice. I looked in my bag originally when it filled "55/500", well ok, maybe increase my strength.... nope still full, then I mouse over that bar and find the almost secret "300/300". It took me a little while to understand the 3 different things limiting my backpack. Things that you are wearing should not be classified as bulk, do you classify your pants and shirt that you are wearing as something you are carrying? The "000/500" could be removed entirely with your bulk number put in it's place to be more obvious for new players. If the 500 spaces in the bag thing is an issue people will get the message from an error that simply says "You have too many different items in your backpack" if they ever hit it. If anyone has ever done it I would be very surprised.

The "&" key. I understand that Ryzom doesn't currently support special characters, and I like that, but the "&" key not being usable is a pain, and a common part of some people's typing.

Goo contaminated meat. This item keeps apearing even if you don't have the quest for it. The player doesn't know if they should just keep holding it or destroy it.

I have a packer, I checked the help tutorial on pets. "You can't rez a dead animal".... I need more information, what happens to my items, can I loot it? How long is the dead corpse there to loot? can I make a trip back to town to unload and come back and loot? Is the corpse still there if I log off? I want to know these things so if I DC & the packer is killed while I can't do anything I want to know my items are still there when I log on next time.

Forage Bales, The description says they restore hunger, I assume the restore this satiety bar then, but I have no info on how quickly packers lose it, what happens if they lose it and don't have a hay bale, etc. Some more info is required here.

A pets health window for pets in your party would be nice. If I have a few packers, and only one is with me, I don't want to have the window up for all my animals just to keep an eye on one health bar. Also I don't mind healing packers of my team mates if I have an easy window to see any damage.

What's with the 3000 maximum experience? My friend and I kill a scary gingo with some effort & get 3000 each. If he dies & I have to kill it myself I still only get 3000? If we've managed to kill something we shouldn't have our experience limited. The limiting things should be as normal, level, and rank of ability used. If I only get 3000 because the scary gingo is too high level for me, and my friend and I normally get 1500 each, fair enough, but if it's worth more and we manage to win than it's annoying.

Leveling defensive magic early on. I can cast a heal type spell, or fear. Mages generally kill things before the thing gets to them (so no heals needed, and only a limited window for sap gift before the monster is dead), and Warriors tend to avoid most of the damage also (so not much healing needed). I was partied with a warrior on Silan in the kipee area, both of us "could" take down a kipee on our own, but not a second one without lengthy regeneration, and thus we party. I wanted to level my defensive magic, the warrior fights, part way through the fight he's hit, I start the heal up, and half the time the monster is dead before the heal finishes.... and I get no experience. I have to leave the warrior partly dead until next fight if I want to cast a heal at the start to get experience. Or I could use fear.... and the warrior dosn't want a feared target as he has no range ability. The category of some of these spells is a real pain. Elemental damage should be straight out damage spells, offensive affliction should be spells that damage while afflicting the enemy (damage over time abilities, maybe madness). Abilities that effect the enemy and do no damage what so ever should be in the defensive affliction tree, root, blind, slow. Standard healing would be heal gift, sap gift, stamina gift. Active aura's should contribute towards their tree also.

Cooldowns on abilities.... I dislike the higher timers on higher self abilities. 2 minutes for a full self heal when I start (rank 1) as opposed to 2:30 for a partial self heal at a higher level (rank 4 with a good amount of +stam). I feel that fact that we have to get these higher ranked abilities is enough, without adding extra cooldown time.

Also on cooldowns, how long are they? How do I know if one is almost up? Self heal I can add the cooldown credit myself to know how long it is initially, but what about the speed up ability? what about the aura's? what about invincibility? Add a visible countdown on these buttons, either analog or digital is fine. Just something we can see.

Invulnerability, I did some melee early on, but not much more yet. I picked up invincibility. Now I see invincibility in the mage trainer, it just says "Invincibility". Checking the ability info it says rank 2, but it is not immediately obvious it is rank 2.

The quest to find something in crates (I think the crates were called caisse?) on the starter island can't be done in a team, I spent a hell of a long time destroying those things before I found out I needed to leave the team I was in.

[iphdrunk]

What can I say?

First, welcome (back, in your case) to Atys. Thanks for your report. I can't elaborate now, just let me point out:

- I agree with you regarding Silan missions. When you remove common mistakes, errors, etc. when lots of players state the same things, there is something from on the "dev" side. Silan needs polishing, that's crystal clear.


- Some (most/all?) of the annoyances you mention are, unfortunately "well known" for ... years... the ball is on "their" side. If you count: accumulated tickets, accumulated error reports, forum threads, specific forum threads "what bugs you the most"... there are hundreds of identified (again and again) issues and bugs and yet, years after there are old bugs "the javing seems alive flapping the wings" or critical (crash and lost landmarks). I cannot state the obvious but ... we will get the same canned answers "they are known", "devs are aware", "I'll submit the ticket", "they do what they can with the resources, time", etc...

Most of the things you mention have been "discussed thoroughly" amongst players. e.g. the XP system (the 3k cap is very controversial), with full threads dedicated to them.

Finally, these "new owners" thing.... In my opinion, "been there, done that".. twice. First, when Princess Mulligan came to rescue the game. Second, with Gameforge. The "give them some slack, they are new, they want to improve" songs were sung by many a player. It sounds and gets old, but so is life, I tell myself.

Let me state that, despite these things, I hope you still have fun and have a good time, enjoying what this game has to offer, which is plenty if you look past the issues.

Yours,
Ani

[cyrogen18]

- Some (most/all?) of the annoyances you mention are, unfortunately "well known" for ... years...

I know, I remember seeing alot of them when we beta tested originally, I remember you also *waves*, you probably don't remember me, haha, boroshi wouldn't give me my Elder of Atys title either

Even so I figure it doesn't hurt to just say it again, it makes me feel like I've tried, even if it falls on deaf ears.

[boroshi]

Just as a note, you have access to the CeB chats. Please see here, and email support-ee@ryzom.com if you have any problems

[acridiel]

Welcome back then

First: What iphdrunk said is true and needs no repeating here

Warning: This is going to be a novel.

My answers will be short prose

I was one of the Beta testers for this game 4 years ago, and I've come back for another round with the new owners. I don't know if they intend on working on the game, or if they just intend on turning on the servers, but I thought I'd give my 2 cents anyway on the things that need fixing. I am not doing this to complain, this is my effort to help.

Very appreciated, now please understand that I don´t want to degrade you/your experience in any way by my answers. Ok? I just want to help you and others reading this big ol´wall o´text

I like to be a part of the community of the games I play. I don't have access to most of the forums (thus the post is here), I apparently don't have access to Klients, if you want to keep players like me later this doesn't feel very welcoming at the moment.

The old Klients Chat is out of order and has been replaced by what Boroshi told. All about this can be found at the Website: http://www.ryzom.com/en/support.html Please don´t assume that realy everything stayed the same since Beta

The crafter quests on the starter island. One of the earliest ones is "Make 5 pairs of boots & 5 pairs of pants, here's the materials". We've probably already been out killing for a while, most new players probably start with mage or warrior quests and would have alot of materials already, and any new player looking at the items in their bag can probably work out that every item is useful for something. I wasn't ready to try & dispose of all my junk materials, but here's this quest trying to give me waaaaaay too many materials to fit in a bag that I just don't understand yet. Cut this down to 1 pair of boots & 1 pair of pants. Sure it's nice to be given all those free materials, but for a new player it's better to have a smooth pickup & turn in of their quest.

Its a bit impractical, yes, but the quests was designed to show players that there are XP to be made with crafting and and to see that different results may come from different combination of stuff, so if I´m not terribly mistaken, most new players do make a level or a half on these boots alone. So these boots are made for walkin´ and thats what they donna do...

I leveled with a friend, I think he made a pair of pants out of different materials & it didn't count to his quest. If this is incorrect and all pants count ignore what I'm saying on this one. If it is correct, change it to any pair of pants made with the correct quality. As soon as the quest is accepted you have no list of what materials you were given, your just looking in your crafting and saying "I think I had to make it from this one", when you also have alot of other materials you gathered yourself in your travels.

Correct, but same as above and easier solved if just the darn text would be re-readable. We all spamed various Devs with that one for ages...

The 4 various starting trainers I assume are all aimed at being accessable by players on the trial (so up to level 20 in any skill?), some trainers have quests that say "you'll need this skill".... The crafter trainer has one that says "Make me three q20 mage weapon things - sorry I forgot the name). At this stage you probably don't have weapon making level 1 (25 points) weapon making level 2 (25 points) and the plan for the mage weapon thing (30 points). This is 80 points that you probably just don't have, and if your trialing the game you may never have this many points. Definately make an alternative to this 80 points quest, though in general needing any points for quests isn't good. If someone requires an ability for a quest, give it to them.

Hmhm, most people strangely do seem to have the required points, but I can see the problem here. Not everyone crafts extensively. 80 points are 8 levels, may be a bit much to ask for, yes.

"Where is the Fine Zun Amber" seems to be one of the most asked questions, maybe improve the directions to it, I think the trainers directions are "Just behind me", possible change to "Just south of the Karavan Embassy".

Agreed on that. The "Foragers Blues" is at its highest with this Mission, something should be done about it. Bugged old and new Devs with it since Silans first day....

Weaned Rendor's. This is a mage quest that says "Form a team". Change it to "You can form a team, or do it on your own" like other similar quests. The counter on this quest is broken also leading sooooo many people to be yelling in channel for teams because they think it isn't working on their own.

Same as above, known and requested for ages...

Javings and the root spell. "Kill the Javings with the root spell" The root spell does no damage and some clarification is needed on this quest. People try killing with acid or melee or whatever after using root & think it's not working because once again the counter does not work.

Yes, same as above, should be fixed soon (tm)

Quest rewards. Now this one is the most horrendous of them all. A q20 pair of pants as a reward with +20 focus. We have new players working on their crafting, and they cannot make a q20 item with 20 extra points of anything. Hell, I don't even think ANYONE can make a q20 item with 20 points on it. These quest rewards should be at most as good as the best stuff the local crafters are making, why craft at all if you can't make things at least as good as what the game is giving you?

That was one of the most controversial points when Silan appeared.
It´s pretty nice to have these pants to die in, but a I think most of us agree with your point, although later on you´ll be able to craft muuuch better things. Remember that there´s a Mainland and other players crafting?
Only most do not sell by the venderos.

The quest reward mage weapon thingy. 84% faster cast speed & 84% better damage. In the whole game, how many things are better than this percentage? Any? When I finally grabbed a spell that wasn't able to be benefitted by this q40 item I went to the weapon vendor and there were NO items with this percentage, with my brief bit of research I think this percentage is the best in the game, and my first spell that wasn't covered by it wasn't doing much more damage than the previous rank, it was also slower, all in all my new spell might not have been an upgrade at all. You force crafters on the starter island to learn to make these if they want to get past that quest, but you just hand mages the best ones possible..... what are all the people you've just forced to learn these supposed to do with them?

There are certainly much better items in the "whole game" to be crafted exclusively by players than this pair of Magic-Amplifiers (the word you´re looking for btw.)
The new spells you receive, like all spells/actions in Ryzom can be altered by yourself to be faster/slower/further/shorter/more/less powerful as you like it. Just right-click on it and "Edit" it

Rendor's look like torbuk's from a distance, then you get closer & they all of a sudden fatten up, I remember it was like this in Beta also.

Torbaks
And yes, thats a small problem of your systems power and the RAID engine, that decreases graphic details in regard to your RAM and stuff. Keep in mind that it isn´t capable of using multiple core technology yet. It simply was conceived before these came out and no-one had time or money to update it until now. And if its planed, none of us knows. You´ll get used to this reverse diet effect pretty soon and its not that much of a game breaker I think.

Dead Javings still flap their wings when you look at them from a distance.

Known funny little bug. Other things are more important.

Go talk to "guy", deliver package to "guy", etc. These quests are horrid. I've grabbed a few since coming to the mainland, "find this guy in majestic garden".... do you know how big majestic garden is? To find him without having him marked on my map is near impossible. This is not majora's mask, I do not know everyones name & their movement patterns.

These quests were designed to "encourage" new players to team up and get to know the lands layout. Known and complained about since Beta...
Possible solutions proposed too numerous to count...

Screen clutter. I have all the original windows up, and also normally the map window, the team window, and maybe the mission window. This takes up most of the screen. Granted there isn't much that can be done about this, but there is a little. The mission window currently can have the title turned off.... why not the map window & the team window also? What's the point of the big square around the compass? why not just leave it with only the circular section? Do I really need to know my own name and title? As long as I can see my health bar etc there could be an economy option for this window. The map window could have an option for only the map (I currently have the background faded, but the title still stands out and the buttons above the map). The lower right box has a few view modes, the smallest one has all the original buttons, plus buttons for sit, stand, party invite, etc.... there could be a smaller version with out this extra row of buttons.

Each Window and its contend can be made transparent to a higher/lesser degree separately as you allready saw, so I don´t quite get your problem, sorry?
The right click is again your friend here Additionally each one can be turned on/off with the single hit of a button/rightclick, so just turn off what you think you don´t need.
Agreed that there could be more variations to the main Menue Window.

When a player leaves the party it still keeps an extra player in the party window.

Known bug, just won´t die! Returns with each second patch apparently XD

So many things die, but the last bit of health doesn't dissapear off the bar from your last hit.

Same as above, some of these buggers seem to be really pesky...

The web site - This game looks abandoned by the web site. The first thing anyone should see when they load up your web site is what's been happening recently, the news. Sure you want your free button to be noticable, but it shouldn't be your center piece. The center piece should be a small article about a game event that just happened, or an upcoming event, or some new art, changes to the game, or even an article about the game being free. But the center piece being a picture saying free just seems like a site you never want to look at again to me.

Agreed, but please remember that the Game/Site is only just recently back from the grave and the new Devs do have more important things to do atm, you pointed out a few of these already

The "B" key... is it really such a secret what our level in skills currently is? This could be a tab in our player info section that we already have a game button for.

Nice Idea

World patrol's. So I've seen the harvesters & fighters etc walking around the world, but are they really harvesters & fighters? Harvesters could make detours to some of the nodes, prospect a few nodes, harvest them, and then continue on their way, thus also showing players where at least a few nodes are out in the world. Fighters should actually fight a few things as they travel.

Huh? I don´t quite get what you mean here? Sorry.
I know many people who organize Treks for especially these purposes, I think.
A bit confused about your intention here.

Death..... The death penalty is fine, what is not fine however is locking the camera on your dead corpse. Teams of people fighting bigger monsters are bound to have casualties, and what is there for a dead player to do apart from go make coffee? A dead player wants to look at the fight if it's still going, see how the rest of the team is doing.

Agreed on that, but most of the time you´ll be resurrected within a few seconds if you fall in a fight, so no real immediate pressure to reinvent the wheel here

Yelling. /s does not go very far, but yet I can see a player within my 250M radar, that may be willing to ressurect me. Even if I could turn my camera that way I might not be able to see him. If I send a message in regional chat and he see's it, he dosn't necessarily know it's near him. I'd suggest adding a /yell that covers the full zoomed out radar distance, thus if someone see's it they know you are near.

If it does carry for 250 meters he doesn´t know if its right beneath his feet or over the next hill either, so why? A quick invite into your team, or a more detailed description on where you fell helps wonders in these situations. These methods have been tried and found true for quite some time now

Carrying items..... there are 3 different factors altering what you can carry. and the most important one is the hardest to notice. I looked in my bag originally when it filled "55/500", well ok, maybe increase my strength.... nope still full, then I mouse over that bar and find the almost secret "300/300". It took me a little while to understand the 3 different things limiting my backpack. Things that you are wearing should not be classified as bulk, do you classify your pants and shirt that you are wearing as something you are carrying? The "000/500" could be removed entirely with your bulk number put in it's place to be more obvious for new players. If the 500 spaces in the bag thing is an issue people will get the message from an error that simply says "You have too many different items in your backpack" if they ever hit it. If anyone has ever done it I would be very surprised.

The things you wear do not count for bulk/places in your bag.
Only things IN your bag do count, some weigh more, some weigh less, but I agree on it being less then obvious and quite a bit confusing. Could surely be done better or with a better tooltip.

The "&" key. I understand that Ryzom doesn't currently support special characters, and I like that, but the "&" key not being usable is a pain, and a common part of some people's typing.

Well, partial agree on that. While it should be possible to use the ampersand it´s not entirely necessary for me to write a full sentence in a chat. Sorry to reign on your parade a bit but I personally prefer proper written language to abbreviations and such. Personal preference here, no offense intended.

Goo contaminated meat. This item keeps apearing even if you don't have the quest for it. The player doesn't know if they should just keep holding it or destroy it.

Known and thrown at the Devs since the first days of Silan.

I have a packer, I checked the help tutorial on pets. "You can't rez a dead animal".... I need more information, what happens to my items, can I loot it? How long is the dead corpse there to loot? can I make a trip back to town to unload and come back and loot? Is the corpse still there if I log off? I want to know these things so if I DC & the packer is killed while I can't do anything I want to know my items are still there when I log on next time.

If a packer dies there´s a symbol for it on your screen right away that says it all if you mouse over it I think its a small skull or something, can´t just remember at the moment. But for the record:
Yes you can loot it, its lootable for 72 RL hours by you and you alone, then its eaten up by scavengers

Forage Bales, The description says they restore hunger, I assume the restore this satiety bar then, but I have no info on how quickly packers lose it, what happens if they lose it and don't have a hay bale, etc. Some more info is required here.

Known bad translation *sigh*
The animals will drop into a slow canter if they go hungry while out in the wild, so always carry at least one bale on each. Like old cars, always have a spare tire, some gas in the trunk

A pets health window for pets in your party would be nice. If I have a few packers, and only one is with me, I don't want to have the window up for all my animals just to keep an eye on one health bar. Also I don't mind healing packers of my team mates if I have an easy window to see any damage.

Packers can´t be healed and I don´t think it will ever be implemented, because their quite easily to come by. Health window for your own animals should suffice and normally does, didn´t you just complain about "Screen-Clutter"?

What's with the 3000 maximum experience? My friend and I kill a scary gingo with some effort & get 3000 each. If he dies & I have to kill it myself I still only get 3000? If we've managed to kill something we shouldn't have our experience limited. The limiting things should be as normal, level, and rank of ability used. If I only get 3000 because the scary gingo is too high level for me, and my friend and I normally get 1500 each, fair enough, but if it's worth more and we manage to win than it's annoying.

3000 it is, 3000 it stays unless you get your hands on our local form of "Crystal Meth". The Outposts do produce so called Elevation Crystals, that double the XP you can get. Some like them, some don´t. *shrug* Ages old discussion not worth laying out here.
The 3000/6000 XP should really be enough of an encouragement and usually are, to kill something thats bigger than you. Most higher level players are glad IF they get 3000 in one go. You´ll either get used to it or... get used to it It again is no game breaker for the majority of players.

Leveling defensive magic early on. I can cast a heal type spell, or fear. Mages generally kill things before the thing gets to them (so no heals needed, and only a limited window for sap gift before the monster is dead), and Warriors tend to avoid most of the damage also (so not much healing needed). I was partied with a warrior on Silan in the kipee area, both of us "could" take down a kipee on our own, but not a second one without lengthy regeneration, and thus we party. I wanted to level my defensive magic, the warrior fights, part way through the fight he's hit, I start the heal up, and half the time the monster is dead before the heal finishes.... and I get no experience. I have to leave the warrior partly dead until next fight if I want to cast a heal at the start to get experience. Or I could use fear.... and the warrior dosn't want a feared target as he has no range ability. The category of some of these spells is a real pain. Elemental damage should be straight out damage spells, offensive affliction should be spells that damage while afflicting the enemy (damage over time abilities, maybe madness). Abilities that effect the enemy and do no damage what so ever should be in the defensive affliction tree, root, blind, slow. Standard healing would be heal gift, sap gift, stamina gift. Active aura's should contribute towards their tree also.

Uhm, they are categorized as you say? I don´t see the point of your last sentences here?
But yes, at the beginning levels Healing is a bit on the difficult side, especially if you get a quick and dirty fighter in your team who just rolls over the mobs. Here comes in the rule of: No Risk, no Fun (XP)
Kill harder things to be a useful healer, the Tank will thank you for your effort

Cooldowns on abilities.... I dislike the higher timers on higher self abilities. 2 minutes for a full self heal when I start (rank 1) as opposed to 2:30 for a partial self heal at a higher level (rank 4 with a good amount of +stam). I feel that fact that we have to get these higher ranked abilities is enough, without adding extra cooldown time.

Also on cooldowns, how long are they? How do I know if one is almost up? Self heal I can add the cooldown credit myself to know how long it is initially, but what about the speed up ability? what about the aura's? what about invincibility? Add a visible countdown on these buttons, either analog or digital is fine. Just something we can see.

Agreed, they are sometimes a bit too long. But more important things are to be done first.

Invulnerability, I did some melee early on, but not much more yet. I picked up invincibility. Now I see invincibility in the mage trainer, it just says "Invincibility". Checking the ability info it says rank 2, but it is not immediately obvious it is rank 2.

Some abilities you simply may learn from both/different trainers. They´re one and the same and do not have to be bought both. But I agree that some more work should be put into their tooltips.

The quest to find something in crates (I think the crates were called caisse?) on the starter island can't be done in a team, I spent a hell of a long time destroying those things before I found out I needed to leave the team I was in.

Known and reported bug, also that the crates sometimes "dodge" your attacks *LOL*

Alright, please now I want to state again that I did not mean to offend you in any way and please do not misunderstand me. I could´ve stayed silent on these matters but well... then I couldn´t

Have fun and enjoy your stay, do submit your findings and those that may come to InGame Support Tickets to add importance to them though

CU
Acridiel

[iphdrunk]

That was one of the most controversial points when Silan appeared.
It´s pretty nice to have these pants to die in, but a I think most of us agree with your point, although later on you´ll be able to craft muuuch better things. Remember that there´s a Mainland and other players crafting?
Only most do not sell by the venderos.

Acri,

What you say is true, but the point is.... we start to see a trend here, and it needs to be stopped (specially if, as devs said, they would also add low level missions to Mainland): We already had a share of "uber items" - shield crafting got a blow with Kami/Karavan shields. Kara pants are better than any other crafted one. event q200 daggers are as good as supreme q250... I'm scared of what Kitin Lair may bring...

3000 it is, 3000 it stays unless you get your hands on our local form of "Crystal Meth". The Outposts do produce so called Elevation Crystals, that double the XP you can get. Some like them, some don´t. *shrug* Ages old discussion not worth laying out here.
The 3000/6000 XP should really be enough of an encouragement and usually are, to kill something thats bigger than you. Most higher level players are glad IF they get 3000 in one go. You´ll either get used to it or... get used to it It again is no game breaker for the majority of players.

I understand that the original XP system (based on "actions") was broken and bad conceived, but I always thought the 3k was a "workaround" that is a bit limiting. It is too heavily based of strictly number of team mates, and levels involved. By caping to 3k, suddenly the "all the server agains the Huge Yelk at Kami oassis" during FBT is not present anymore. It owuld be great if a team of 6 players could spend e.g. 30 min figting a way higher mob... chasing it (they could flee at some point) et... and get a proportional XP share.

Sad the original idea did not work and we had to revert to a "mob is a cake, 3k", you split the cake idea....


Just a few random ideas...


PS: *waves back* no, sorry I'm afraid I don't remember you, at least not by the username :*)

[acridiel]

Acri,

What you say is true, but the point is.... we start to see a trend here, and it needs to be stopped (specially if, as devs said, they would also add low level missions to Mainland): We already had a share of "uber items" - shield crafting got a blow with Kami/Karavan shields. Kara pants are better than any other crafted one. event q200 daggers are as good as supreme q250... I'm scared of what Kitin Lair may bring...

Sorry Iphy, but you seem to forget that all of the above are limited and do degrade.
Today, on Leanon at last, the sight of such an Item is indeed a very rare one.
So I personally don´t see a problem with this kind of rewards. Über-Items that would be "indestructible" and limitless, or available in an onlineshop, now that would scare ME.

CU
Acridiel

[cyrogen18]

Thanks for taking the time to respond acridiel

No offense is taken, and in turn no offense is intended by my response, just clarification with some of my points I don't think you understood, and disagreement with some of your responses & hopefully to continue some great discussion

The old Klients Chat is out of order and has been replaced by what Boroshi told. All about this can be found at the Website: http://www.ryzom.com/en/support.html Please don´t assume that realy everything stayed the same since Beta

I didn't assume, this was after speaking to one of the CSR's and was told new players didn't have access to Klients. I was asking about the forum access, and figured I'd ask about Klients as well. I did however assume that Klients was still functional (after seeing forum messages refering to it, the loading message still there, etc.) and I guess the CSR thinks it's still working also >_>

Its a bit impractical, yes, but the quests was designed to show players that there are XP to be made with crafting and and to see that different results may come from different combination of stuff, so if I´m not terribly mistaken, most new players do make a level or a half on these boots alone. So these boots are made for walkin´ and thats what they donna do...

Correct, but same as above and easier solved if just the darn text would be re-readable. We all spamed various Devs with that one for ages...

These boots aren't made for walkin' they are made for vendoring, you cannot make any better boots or pants than the items given to you by the quest rewards for a long time. As you've stated they also weren't made to see that different results come from different materials, as you have to use the exact same materials for each set of boots & pants. Yes they are great for leveling, but the main reason I brought up the 5 boots & 5 pants part was that it was just too much to hold for a player who is just starting out and already has alot of materials from other means.

Hmhm, most people strangely do seem to have the required points, but I can see the problem here. Not everyone crafts extensively. 80 points are 8 levels, may be a bit much to ask for, yes.

This quest is the only thing that needs weapon crafting on the island, awesome Magic Amps come from the mage quest, awesome Swords come from the warrior quests. This is an 80 point waste for the starter island.

That was one of the most controversial points when Silan appeared.
It´s pretty nice to have these pants to die in, but a I think most of us agree with your point, although later on you´ll be able to craft muuuch better things. Remember that there´s a Mainland and other players crafting?
Only most do not sell by the venderos.

Yes, I'm on the mainland now, but I was mainly refering to the Island, and the switch over. The best crafters on the island should be able to craft things their fellow islanders might want. Not just stuff that is going to get vendorer. There is no incentive on the island to go out and hunt those fine materials. The only 2 crafting incentives on the island are jewellry and heavy armor, and the heavy armor is mainly only an incentive to those already ready to leave the island. There is no low to mid level range for crafters, the low level is ruined by the island quest rewards, and the mid level is just covered by all the higher level crafters.

There are certainly much better items in the "whole game" to be crafted exclusively by players than this pair of Magic-Amplifiers (the word you´re looking for btw.)
The new spells you receive, like all spells/actions in Ryzom can be altered by yourself to be faster/slower/further/shorter/more/less powerful as you like it. Just right-click on it and "Edit" it

I'm well familiar with editing spells, all my spells have the time credit removed, and I'm not sure how you say I can make my shiny new rank of spell more/less powerful with editing, unless you mean don't use my shiny new rank, or grind out another more powerful rank....

Thus as I mentioned the only issue is this Magic amp. It's more powerful than anything an island crafter can make, and more powerful than anything people are willing to sell on the vendors on the mainland, if there are things with higher than 84%, without being "of offensive affliction" etc, then I haven't seen any in my travels so far.

If there are these better items as you say, they should not be closely guarded guild secrets, or hidden in the stash's of the high level crafters. The crafters of similar level to myself should be able to make items I would want to use after leaving my old quest rewards behind. I'm not saying the guilds and high level crafters shouldn't have their uber items, but there should be a middle ground between them and the quest rewards.

Each Window and its contend can be made transparent to a higher/lesser degree separately as you allready saw, so I don´t quite get your problem, sorry?
The right click is again your friend here Additionally each one can be turned on/off with the single hit of a button/rightclick, so just turn off what you think you don´t need.
Agreed that there could be more variations to the main Menue Window.

Just because you've gotten used to it, opening & closing, etc, doesn't mean it's not one hell of an eye full for a newer player.

"my problem" is there are things that could be done, like adding the feature already on the mission window to remove the title bar to other windows.

Agreed, but please remember that the Game/Site is only just recently back from the grave and the new Devs do have more important things to do atm, you pointed out a few of these already

Personally I feel that this is one of the most important. Do you really want all these new players to feel that the game has life, or that it's just been turned on for a free go for them and that nothing they haven't seen during their free go will happen.

"Yesterdays Kitin Invasion was fought back with the full might of the Homin Empire, sadly this Tryker did not turn around in time to see the Invasion incoming [Screenshot of dead Tryker under Kitin foot]."

More interesting to the potential new player than just a big "free" button?

"Here's the winner of this months art comp [awesome picture]"

Things like this are always interesting to see.

Huh? I don´t quite get what you mean here? Sorry.
I know many people who organize Treks for especially these purposes, I think.
A bit confused about your intention here.

This was just an additional feature I woul like to see, refering to the masses of tribes walking around like the Green Seed for example. Just saying would be nice to see them do more than just walk.

Agreed on that, but most of the time you´ll be resurrected within a few seconds if you fall in a fight, so no real immediate pressure to reinvent the wheel here

Leveling with my friend, there are quite a number of times when one of us is lying on the ground dead for a while, and the other one is fearing & rooting, and running like hell from something that he can't handle alone. This is one of the most annoying things for me, just lying there for a few minutes not being able to watch.

If it does carry for 250 meters he doesn´t know if its right beneath his feet or over the next hill either, so why? A quick invite into your team, or a more detailed description on where you fell helps wonders in these situations. These methods have been tried and found true for quite some time now

If it does carry for 250 meters, he knows the dead guy is one of the yellow dots on his radar, and that if he invites him to the team he will be close. You can use the region chat, but just because you've been doing it that way doesn't mean that there isn't a more useful way. There might not be a decent landmark to describe your position near in region chat, but anyone seeing a yell automatically knows you are close.

The things you wear do not count for bulk/places in your bag.
Only things IN your bag do count, some weigh more, some weigh less, but I agree on it being less then obvious and quite a bit confusing. Could surely be done better or with a better tooltip.

I'm not at home to check again, but I'm pretty sure your wrong on this one, my apologies if your not.

If a packer dies there´s a symbol for it on your screen right away that says it all if you mouse over it I think its a small skull or something, can´t just remember at the moment. But for the record:
Yes you can loot it, its lootable for 72 RL hours by you and you alone, then its eaten up by scavengers

Known bad translation *sigh*
The animals will drop into a slow canter if they go hungry while out in the wild, so always carry at least one bale on each. Like old cars, always have a spare tire, some gas in the trunk

Packers can´t be healed and I don´t think it will ever be implemented, because their quite easily to come by. Health window for your own animals should suffice and normally does, didn´t you just complain about "Screen-Clutter"?

None of this information seems to be readily available in game, I thought packers could be healed in the beta *shrug* It's annoying if your traveling & it almost dies, your stuck with a packer with little health to try & get somewhere

Yes I complained about screen clutter, I still think it needs alot of work, but you also said I can turn on & off the windows I'm using. This would be one of the ones that is only on when needed - traveling with animals.

Uhm, they are categorized as you say? I don´t see the point of your last sentences here?
But yes, at the beginning levels Healing is a bit on the difficult side, especially if you get a quick and dirty fighter in your team who just rolls over the mobs. Here comes in the rule of: No Risk, no Fun (XP)
Kill harder things to be a useful healer, the Tank will thank you for your effort

Sadly they are not categorized as I suggested Maybe there was a reason for this, but it seems like an easy fix early healing to change the category of a few spells.

Some abilities you simply may learn from both/different trainers. They´re one and the same and do not have to be bought both. But I agree that some more work should be put into their tooltips.

As I said, they were not one and the same in this case. One was an unmarked rank 2.

Known and reported bug, also that the crates sometimes "dodge" your attacks *LOL*

They also hit me in the legs!

[cyrogen18]

By caping to 3k, suddenly the "all the server agains the Huge Yelk at Kami oassis" during FBT is not present anymore.

Damn, I had thought that I was just below the level of the groups doing runs for named creatures, and that 3k was probably just my current limit....

So sad, these runs used to be awesome.

[kalindra]

I have to say it. I have spent a LOT of time (4 months) on Silan back when there was a lvl 21 cap (no money to subscribe back then) and after a couple re-rolls, I ended up concluding that Crafter Missions DO make you waste some precious SP, especially when you are capped.

Mostly because, to be able to do all the missions, you need to pick ONLY the stanzas that Sterga Hamla asks or you won't have enough SP to finish the questline and won't be able to repair your mistakes through grinding because of the level cap. Add to that the fact that the plans he requires you to buy aren't useful on Silan : the mission rewards are indeed better than whatever you can manage to craft with those plans.

In other words, the only way to craft something useful for Silan is to ignore Sterga and his silly missions and to pick either jewel (with HP bonus) or heavy armor craft. And even then, back when I was stuck with a level cap, the lack of SP versus the high cost of plans was a very discouraging obstacle for young crafters.

Considering the fact that one of this game's major features is the uniqueness of its crafting system, I consider Silan's tutorial approach to crafting to be a major flaw that NEEDS to be fixed. It's hard to convince new players of the importance of crafting if you don't let them craft useful items.

The quest line needs to be revamped in order to make player craft items that will be useful either for themselves or other players EVEN if they are still on Silan. In other words, items that will not try to rivalize with the other quest rewards, but will instead complete the holes left by the absence of certain types of rewards (such as jewels and/or HA).

Newcommers on Silan would benefit more from learning to craft helmets than amps.