Posts made by spoletta

No, during that test, there was very little trading actually happening.
Only minerals were being traded.
Minerals are only a small part of the intended trades, so that wasn't a working example.

The actual reasons why trading didn't work in the previous test are multiple:

1. No one developed a market because they wanted the tech points of other techs. Now the marketplace is available by default.
2. Gold was mostly useless. Gold is now in high demand due to all the new gold sinks.
3. Cities were able to become almost self sufficient, and unlock all important techs. New tech tree prevents cities from having it all, they MUST trade to get all kinds of equip.
4. Enchants could not be traded. Now thanks to the imbuing system they can be traded.
5. Gems had no value except for rituals. Gems are now a really important resource.

As you can see, this test is aiming at removing all reasons for tradings not happening. It is very PVE/Crafting oriented.
I too do have many ideas on possible changes for the trading, but until I see how this set of rules shapes up, I'm keeping them for myself, since I know that I will necessarily miss something important.

Let me be clear about one point.
I don't like the global wallet and I don't like markets being linked by default. I preferred it like in the older version with fully local markets and requiring a tech to allow cities to look into the smaller villages markets. It made sense, I liked it... but it didn't work.

This next system allows much more freedom and will for sure increase the trade activities. Having many trades going on is the first priority, everything else is secondary. This suggestion adds a lot of flavour to trading, but flavour comes second. First comes actual trading.

That was the reason of my concern. I first want to see if these changes make the trades happen or not. If they still don't happen, then we must make it even more easy to trade, or try to understand what is wrong. If instead we see that in this coming alpha there is plenty of trading going on, but as we can expect, not much risk involved with it, then we can start thinking about something like this suggestion.

Previous test was the black and this next test is the white. Let's see what are the features of this white and then we start thinking in scales of grey.

If there is no good argument design wise, why one of the most succesful and long lasting game in history used this same control set without ever changing it or allowing alternatives in a dozen years? Why it's direct competitor followed the same control set without ever thinking about changing it to get an edge in the competition if it was such a good idea?

Don't make this mistake. There definitely are good reasons for forcing a certain control set, especially one as old and tried as this one.

This game's pvp aims to offer a MOBA like experience, so it uses MOBA like controls. That's all there is to it.

Sure, this doesn't mean that there can't be changes at all to it. For example, a button for auto run would a very welcome feature for those 30 minute long trips. But straight up allowing WASD movement would change the game in such a deep way that I fear that we are never going to see it.

I can see the merit in something like this, but I have the following concern.

It is too soon to talk about this.
The last alpha had a really restricted market system. It required a tech, it was local only, only worked with direct posting of the item. The result was that the markets didn't work. In no small part that happened also because gold wasn't useful.
This next test has swinged the pendulum in the complete opposite direction. No tech required, possibility to have buy/sell orders, possibility to have a global vision on the market offers, gold seems to be a lot more useful.
I would first look at the effects of this system before looking at alternatives. Even if at a first look I like this idea, it represents a compromise between the old markets completely local and the next ones which are fully linked. Without looking at the issues generated by the next iteration of markets, we can't really devise a good proposal on something like this. We really risk missing something important.

Welcome Andreussi.

Personally I came from Legends of Aria. Had a look at Albion but didn't really catch my interest.

These last tests are introducing many features to make the game more approachable to solo players, so your feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Bows have auto attacks and they are skill shots.

@Bhan if you have been away from a while, then you probably missed the legends. Big mean mobs you can summon by making offering at their altars. Some are easy and doable in 2 or 3 persons. Some require a very specific preparation.

The incoming changes to equips and stats will probably make them more challenging compared to the last alpha. And that's good, because the challenge is my only gripe with the pve in this game. It starts very difficult and ends up a bit too easy.

@BitterLoD as with all things, those penalties are a test. If they work they remain, if they don't work, they don't. Easy.

We already tried going the way of harsher bounties and jail times though, and it didn't work.

Also, penalty on forges isn't needed. They already can't use them. They can use only the forges in criminal cities.

Knowledge loss would be very hard to implement. They are not experience points.

House taxes are extremely cheap. Increasing them would hardly be a penalty.

Temporary true death would fail for the same reason that long jail times failed. You try to avoid features that make a player not play the game.

Believe me, there have been a lot of discussion on possible penalties, and what you proposed isn't new. Let's try this solution, if it doesn't work, then we try other ideas.

@OlivePit Those too are limited.
You can't use the same page twice.

Yes and no.
It is true that there are experience systems which reward discovering areas and resources like in fractured, but the major difference between a knowledge system and an experience system is that while an xp system is a simple sum of xp contributes irrespective of their source, the kp system is a sum of multiple small source restricted contributes. In an xp system you can spend a day farming trolls and you will have your xps. in a kp system after 20 minutes killing more trolls is useless, you "know" them. In an xp system at the same time, you can reach the cap without ever confronting a troll, while in the kp system you have to confront all sources of kp to reach the cap.
Seen in another way, the xp meter is like a big jar that you have to fill with water. No one cares where you take that water, as long as the jar in the end is full. In the kp system you instead have to collect many small jars around the world.
The xp system rewards grinding.
The kp system rewards traveling.

They are similar in concept but very different in effects on the game. A boost to KP is also terribly less effective than a boost to xp.

If you want to stream the game, I would suggest checking the content creator program.
You can get some free alpha keys to distribute during your streams.

Welcome!

Welcome!

Agree. I don't really see that big of a gain in implementing them, especially considering the dev work involved in that.

Time will tell, but I'm a bit afraid of allowing a possible +100% on a weapon damage. Maybe it could be scaled back to 15% per level to a total of 60%. Guess that we will require testing to get a real feeling.

We actually already know the numbers. Each increment is worth 25% of weapon damage and 25% of armor value. Armor value though does not work linearly.

Let's assume that you have a light leather armor. On it's own, this set gives you 180 slashing, 72 pierce, 108 crush armor. Assuming a strenght of 10 to avoid external factors, this equals to a protection of :

34% slashing (receive 66%)
17 % pierce (receive 83%)
23.5% crush (receive 76.5%)

If you were to increase those values by 25%, you would get the following reductions:

39% slashing (receive 61%) -- > Damage reduced by 7.6%
20.4% pierce (receive 79.6%) -- > Damage reduced by 4%
27.8% crush (receive 72.2%) -- > Damage reduced by 5.6%

Now, these numbers while abysmal compared to a strainght increase in damage of 25%, get actually better with heavier armors. In a plate, you would get the following result for the slashing armor (the higher value):

Base armor value 900.
Damage reduction 72%
Damage taken 28%
Damage taken after first enchant 24%
Improvement 14.3%

With later enchants, talents and with a bit of starting strenght you can reach a little better numbers. But this is assuming that you are enchanting the chest, the helmet, the boots and the gloves. 4 enchants to obtain defensive results similar to one enchant on the weapon. Also, half of these bonuses come from the chest piece alone.
That's why I'm asking if different pieces have different costs to enchant, since the benefits are wildly different.

Also, after doing this analysis I got 2 more issues:

1. The offensive and defensive bonuses are too different. Fights between higher equipped opponents will have a lower TTK.

2. Mages seem excluded from all this. While it is true that native bonuses are also empowered by the enchant, the spell damage bonus of a mage weapon is (currently) only a small part of his total damage. Also, resistances to elementals are not changed, except for the ones already on the equipment (material). Wouldn't all this make mages almost enchant agnostic?

Will there be a different cost to enchant weapons compared to the cost of enchanting armor pieces? Because the gains from enchanting a weapon are really high, since it increases the base damage of it. An enchant to a single armor piece would instead give you only a small armor advantage. You would have to enchant all 4 pieces of armor to obtain similar results to a single weapon enchant.

By the way, I thought of this only later, but the game can already be played with a single hand.

Grab a mouse with multiple buttons like the Razer Naga and you are fine. This game doesn't actually use that many keyboard keys.
It does take some time to get used, but if the OP is confident in his mouse skills, then this is best solution in my opinion.

@Jetah that would be VERY clunky. I don't consider that a solution.