Posts made by GamerSeuss

@Nimerra said in UX Design and Second-To-Second Gameplay:

While I don't know the surrounding discussions - I think that decision will be the doom of the game. Let players play how they want to play. It's not a large design challenge to cater to both. If I'm so busy targeting with the mouse in the top-right - what if I want to move down and left?

This is one example of the kind of choice the Devs want you to have to make and prioritize in combat. Do you move or do you target. The entire flow of their combat system is based around the mouse move/target method.

Players can play how they want to play, as long as they don't 'want to play' what is basically "Not this game.' Monopoly wouldn't be the same game if you rolled only 1 die to go around the board, or you rolled 3 dice, or you could refuse to pay rent where you land. Twister would not be the same game if you allowed the players to pick the color and just spin for the body part, or vice versa. Those are 'how you play' those games, and they are a big part of those games. The challenge in combat that the mouse style adds in is part of how you play this game.

The Devs have specifically stated not only that the current PvP ruleset we see will be for Syndesia only, but also that Tartarus will be a whole world, full loot PvP experience for those who want that full loot experience. That has not, and as is right now, will not change because among other things, that is what the Devs are promising to the PvPers who aren't getting the heavy PvP experience they want in Syndesia

@munch You do have to concede the fact though that not all mobs have been seeded yet, and we may be in for a lot more Gold carrying mobs, not to mention once the other 2 continents and then 2 planets come in, that will help compensate for the higher player population.

That being said, there is still an easy limiter here, in the Devs only have to limit the mobs availability for gold farming, and, if that still causes a problem, they can lower the gold drop probability and amounts, and increase the taxes on the marketplace and crafting that go to the 'system' and not the Governors.

I still also say that @Daarknes is not taking into account such sinks as 'unclaimed gathers.' How many times have you gone to loot say a wolf, and just left the pelt behind because you already have a bunch in your inventory, or your weight capacity is getting full, and you don't feel like running back to town yet? You may be out trying to gather animal bones for arrows, and you end up with pelts you don't want, conversely, you go out for pelts, and you dump animal bones, wolf's teeth, and animal blood because of space.

People will prioritize different loot, and a lot of loot will quite frankly get lost. There won't be an optimum gathering out there. There may be some organized guilds that will go on specific optimized gathering raids, but mostly a lot of gathers will go ungathered. This is also true for a lot of vegetation and even ore. There won't always be someone at an Ore node when it refreshes, and a lot of the vegetation will sit for hours in game without being gathered. Thus supplies will fluctuate, and these things won't get over saturated. IF they do get oversaturated, their marketplace prices will go way way down, causing less people to gather them, until their price goes up again.

As @munch said also, Logs and Stone have no intrinsic value. Yes, when your building your city buildings and residences, it can sometimes be hard to find enough stone and logs to go around, near by, but I have yet to see anyone really opt for buying these supplies over just waiting for more to respawn. The fact that eventually, stone and wood storage sites will be relatively full won't affect the market economy at all really in this case.

@munch also has a point in that most MMO economies are not balanced and do end up with rampant inflation as more and more gold makes it into the mix. Thus, previous game design knowledge doesn't mean we are not ignorant of game economies. One of the hardest things to balance in a game design scheme is the economy within the game, and as a Game Design teacher, that is one of the first things I and colleges teach is that very fact. Shoot, actual economists have real trouble trying to do true simulated economies. The more factors involved in the whole, the harder it is to balance. The simpler the system, the easier it is. MMOs are meant to not be simple systems. Lots of variables means a more interesting gaming experience, and a more difficult economy to balance.

@spoletta yes, I also seriously doubt we'll see a total no-PK flag system in the final version of Syndesia, however, I also feel that the prevailing PK system they finally settle on for Syndesia will majorly discourage many serious PKers from Syndesia. The more serious PK enthusiasts will gravitate towards Tartarus, and although there will be gankers, the Devs are working quite diligently to make ganking undesirable for continued advancement. Penalize it enough, and ganking will become much more rare. That is not to say hunting specifically around resource nodes won't still happen, but I don't see it as the 24 hr camps that you experienced like with high tier mobs in EverQuest and WoW.

Let's face it, if a + b = c is all you needed to know to be a Game Designer or an Economist, we'd all be doing it, until supply would so way overload the market that it would get abandoned as not profitable enough to merchandize.

@munch They are still playing with the PvP on Syndesia, there is a chance that PvEers might be able to flag themselves in such a way that they can't really be PvP'd at all. Time will tell. The mix between the worlds is still way up in the air, but sufficient PvP to count as a massive gold sink is not guaranteed by any means right now.

@Daarknes @munch

Both of you have interesting points, and BOTH of you make some wrong assumptions.

@munch PvP is not going to be full loot open everywhere on any planet but Tartarus, so your PvP projections are flawed

@Daarknes You are looking at things with an eye to optimum gathering/collection/production and that is not the case.

Players will often prioritize their inventory and leave items on mobs to not be collected whatsoever. Other players will stockpile items for future use, and neither sell those items, nor use them but hold them in perpetuity.

You are also looking at the game with the "sliders" of difficulty and production set to Alpha Testing standards for no more than a month long testing phase with limited population. Neither of you, nor any of us, really, knows what those sliders will be set to once the game goes live. They are still playing around with all the numbers all over the board and will continue to do so all the way up until launch one would assume.

As @spoletta stated, there are several money sinks in the game. In an alpha, typically money is undervalued because other mechanics are what's being focused on and tested. The true Economy of the game really won't start to show until late Beta at the earliest. Once we know the more finalized costs for things like portals to the other planets and asteroids, transportation(however it is done) to the other 2 continents on our home worlds, final shipyard costs, final upkeep and upgrade costs for towns, Percentages of overall taxes that the game sinks from the various things you do in game, like crafting and selling. All of that will adjust.

YES, in those places where PvP is high, you will find a lot more degradation of equipment as PvP combat tends to go through durability a lot faster than mob combat. Thus, you will have a lot of equipment leave the resources of the game and need to be replaced. That is not to mention the equipment that the losing player has to replace because it was looted from them, while the looting player can't sell 'used' equipment in the marketplace. Once the durability of something goes down at all, it is no longer sellable.

YES, the Economy is a concern in the building of the game. That being said, there is no need to sling slurs and name calling over it. You can get on your soap box and claim all kinds of credentials about game design and how long you've been testing...shoot, I've played and tested MMOs since they started in the 90s, and I TAUGHT Game Design. doesn't mean I'm the world's biggest expert on the game. (Granted, I may act like it sometimes, lol) all opinions have merit, just remember that in an Alpha state, you are nowhere near where you can judge the final product's viability.

Interesting feedback, and there is definitely some value in it.

Having said that, there are a couple assumptions you don't have incorporated into it, maybe because you haven't been active here for very long and heard the lengthy discussions on the topics.

1. The Devs want Fractured to stand out, so they are trying as much as possible to not just emulate other game's approaches.
2. The Devs have stated that the Mouse Movement and Hot-Bar mechanics are they are are essential to the combat feel and aesthetic that they are going for in Fractured. As such, there is absolutely no plans to add in WASD movement or Hot-Bar clicking to activate. There are various reasons behind this. One is the whole way they want combat to be more skill based, with you directing your movement and targeting with the mouse, so it is not free to move over and click the hot bar, and also to cut back dramatically on the ability for Macro/bot users to exploit the system.
3. The 3 primary weapon slots are used for more than just swapping between a couple of styles. Most melee fighters will of course have their primary melee weapon in one slot, and one uses the bow for pulling mobs to you, but the third slot could be for swapping to an alternate main melee weapon (even of the same type) that might be higher durability currently, so if the durability runs out on the current one, with just a tab you can swap weapons and keep going. Another reason might be what enchantments are on your weapons. You might use a Longsword but one might have more effectiveness against Creatures vulnerable to Poison, and another might add some Fire damage, or penetration. Different enemies might dynamically be handled without swapping in the inventory. Also, some of us put our axe and hammer in the backup slots for when we go out to gather logs and large stones, as you don't have to 'swap' to them but it takes them out of your inventory spaces when gathering.

Additional note: although they are working on adding some QoL improvements even now, the main focus during the Alpha is to mechanics, not QoL because among other things, these things can change drastically depending on what they finally end up going with, and thus it is easier to solidify their intentions before updating the whole interface for QoL. That's why you generally see QoL mainly added in Beta, not Alpha stages of development.

@Dax As far as access to in-town stations, that currently can be set by the governor of the town. I think they just changed it to varying the tax you pay to build depending on if your a Citizen, a Resident, or a Visitor.

They are still playing around with some of the City specifics between testing, so keep the feedback coming. Even if someone (such as I) disagrees with you go ahead and make your case for things. I know I can be pretty defensive of the Devs and at times, my own opinion might seem like I want to invalidate someone else's, but truly, all feedback is good.

@Tardigrade This is the first test to include the Bowman option, and as such, how easy it is to play is not fully gauged yet. Playing an archer with friends, however should be easy, as the close up types can keep all but the other artillery types off your back to shoot.

also, you forgot to mention Logs can be put in Carts, not just ore and stones. This is also true of bagged protein and cereals for paying city upkeeps

@Dax Right now, house plots not connected to a city settlement do not have the ability to upgrade at all. This may or may not change.

Also right now, there is nothing stopping the swiping of finished goods, in fact there is a hot topic or 6 about that elsewhere on the forums.

The game is designed so everyone can craft. You do however need certain available crafting stations to finish products, and the game is designed to limit how quickly such products can be produced overall. That's part of why there's such a long refining process for metal and leather.

@Shins See, that's where your looking at this wrong.

Fractured doesn't have classes You choose an initial Build option, like an archetype, however, you are in no way locked into the archetype you choose at the start, so in effect, you can hot swap your 'class' as it were. Just as I explained above

Being able to dynamically change your ability scores on a whim basically eliminates individuality totally. If you can just change that whenever, then you might as well all just play a generic mook, that you change every time you want to. Every single character becomes the exact same character. It's like having a fleet of characters of every description, and everyone else having the same, and just choosing which one to go with.

The Build system and Attributes, on the other hand, allows the players to choose how they want to start a character. If they want to start another character, they have multiple slots, to start with different builds, but really, Fractured isn't grindy at all when you do go to flesh out your characters. Your characters are effective from day one. They just get more choices as they go along, and there is no experience point grind. In fact, every mob has a finite amount of KP it will give you before it reaches 100%.

Attributes affect your skills and abilities, but they don't rule over them. Everyone doesn't need to be min/maxed out on every single build they want on a single character. Attributes build the basic starting block. It shows the strengths and weaknesses you are starting with, so you can possibly build towards a strength, being slightly better at related roles, but slightly worse in all others, but not hopeless in any (unless you dump stat something, and even then, there are more than one ways to play towards a role in Fractured.)

Every Attribute has meaning this way. Putting them on a slider means essentially they carry no meaning whatsoever, and are just a temporary suit you put on. Where's the fun, realism, or true gameplay in that. That would quickly get boring.

The game also doesn't have a lot of late-game kind of content planned. There is some, but the point of fractured is the whole game is open to every player from day one. You don't have to build to late-game ability, it is already there. Even building and advancing a city can be done in just a short period of time, thus maxing out the potential for its citizens.

The primary 'late game' content planned in Fractured is Asteroid Raids, and group City Raids and Sieges. That is how the game is configured.

I'm not trying to be negative here. however, there is a level where customizing gets to be so possible, that nobody creates an individual character, so you can't stand out at all. Then everyone just picks the total optimum build for the situation they are going into, and there is no challenge to it.

@Shins This is not exactly true.

You are not locked into a role, because your role can be defined by your gear, your Talent set, and your Skill set. Yes, you can be optimal to only some builds, and suboptimal in others based on how you set up your attributes, but overall, each role can be played with different attribute combinations.

A bowman can change out to melee talents, and switch to a more dex based melee weapon set and still gain advantage from having a higher dex over strength. They won't Tank super well, and depending on how much they put into Intelligence and Charisma, they won't be quite as optimal in Magical support classes of course. The thing is, if you focus on your main attribute, then you try to focus after that on an alternate attribute, you can bridge the gap quite a bit. Alternately, you could balance out your attributes and not be truly optimal at any one role, but you would be equally well suited to all the roles.

It doesn't make sense to let players hot swap attributes in the game. That basically invalidates the whole attribute system in the first place. You quite literally would turn every character into the same thing, a doppleganger/mimic that swaps as they need, but basically has no personal identity whatsoever.

If you are going to do that, you might as well just set all the attributes to the same average value, and play that way (which is an option) as you don't want to play up to any personal strengths, which is what attributes reflect.

Being able to hot-swap Talents and Skills by just visiting a fireplace gives you quite a bit of customization. You can have 5 presets for each, 5 skill sets, and 5 talent sets. They use the same points, so you don't have to worry about getting 5 times the KP to pull it off in regards to Talents, you do have to unlock all the skills you want to use, it is true, but they are all available. If you don't start with an archetype, you can find that archetype's base skills to unlock in the wild.

There is a limit to how much 'total freedom' the game should allow. Fractured fulfills that niche well.

@Kralith More than likely, moving the chest itself updates the chest visually, but leaving and re-entering the plot updates the physicality of the plot. May not be intentional, but also may or may not be easily fixable, from a coding standpoint.

@hooby it is always good to report such things, but it is also good to realize they are low priority, and also if you watched the 4 alpha release videos preceding this launch, you will see that they specifically mentioned that some of the tooltips and text would be wrong.

So report it, but don't expect it to change very quickly. There is always a wording they missed, as opposed to one they didn't just get around to yet, afterall.

couple solutions to try:

1. Remove your armor from the Enchanting Table, log out, then log back in again and retry.
2. Doublecheck that you have sufficient Gold to do the enchanting.
3. Check if the durability of the armor is greatly reduced, that may or may not affect whether it can be enchanted or not, but is worth checking.

@hooby As an alpha, and a later alpha at that, they aren't exactly looking to cater so much to making it easier for a newbie. That's why changing/updating the wording is lower priority than handling the actual mechanics and bugs out there.

I know they made it an open Alpha for the last like 5 days, but that doesn't mean they are going to suddenly go out and change their focus to these things when they still have a long list of mechanics and bugs still to tackle. Everything has priorities. Opening things up for a public Alpha is a courtesy and a stress test to see if the servers can handle a larger player load, but it generally doesn't change the fact that they only have a small group of programmers working on the game. (even with recently doubling their programmers, they still have a good bit to go to even get out of alpha) and so you have to expect the Alpha test to not be so newbie friendly.

@Tardigrade In addition to what @Kralith said, also note:

You can make arrowheads out of bones instead of stone. You should be looting animal bones from the wolves near town, and then you won't have to hunt down so many stones. Also, many times if you mention your a rank newb in global chat, someone will at least give you some arrows or bones to help you get started.

The large stone question was answered elsewhere, so doesn't bare repeating here.

You can find some answers in the Wiki, and some by searching the forums by keywords. You probably won't find most of your answers on the first page of the forums, as they would have scrolled over to later pages. Try searching things like 'Crafting Arrows' for tips. Otherwise, global chat is basically your main recourse., That or joining others who might offer to teach you the basics if your having trouble. This is an Alpha test, afterall, so generally it is expected that testers are people fairly familiar at least with MMOs in general.

Remember, if you do get the purple blocks Kralith mentioned, to head back into town to the tavern, and sleep. Sleeping at the Tavern's fireplace is pretty much the only place a newb will be able to heal fully. Also, even if you are training as a bowman (which is frankly the hardest for a newb to pull off, really) you can still equip other weapons to fight easier targets, like wolves, just to collect animal bones and Knowledge Points from them.

You'll get the hang of it, just stick with it.

The tutorial quests are not meant to be something you can do over and over again with the same account. They purposely limited the harvesting of grain in town, for instance, as in the previous test, people were exploiting the quick refresh of starter town grain and using that to pay their city upgrade/upkeep costs of cereals.

My advice, hunt the young wolves until you get them to 100%. Then kite the small black bears near town to 100%. (Kiting is when you try to stay at a distance, and run away when they get close, to stop and fire again when you have a second). Of course, do the starter quests as soon as you can to get your basic gear, and trade out the newb gear you spawn with. If you are really stuck in such a newb situation and think you took a wrong turn, the good news is, you won't lose much be deleting that character and rebuilding it. The Gladiator is probably the easiest for a Newb to start with, overall, but is also the one that wants much better weapons and armor pretty quickly, which means aligning yourself with a city usually.

@Tardigrade also, when you get a blueprint, as your a newb, you should know that the blueprint needs to actually appear blue, not red. If it is red, move it around until you get to a blue spot

One of the chief goals the Devs want to encourage is players finding out how to play, not being shown. That's why they have a handful of starter quests, but the quests don't exactly tell you everything you need to do, step by step to do them.

Part of this game is all about trial and error. There is no 'easy mode' here

@DJUAN994 That's because City membership is by Account name, not character name. You can only join 1 city per planet