Observations & Thoughts
Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 11:34 am
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.
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.
