Game inprovement suggestions

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  • So i have read in this thread that Sarkas wants to get suggestions, that are widely agreed upon by the players. Let's give it a try shall we.


    -note; i haven't played for like 2 months, although i logged in a couple days back to see what's up in rom to quickly log off again-


    So you are wondering what needs to be changed in rom? Let me what changes would make the game more enjoyable (and consider returning to) for me personally.


    1)

    Class balancing. Classes dont need to be perfectly balanced, BUT there should Always be a viable combo to play for whatever mainclass + race you play. This right now is not the case, think of a Priest for example, they are in no way viable compared to a druid, apart from some really specific situations. Make Mage an actual class to play? from what i remember this class is even more dead than the priest. There is plenty of threads/post that go into deep detail about which classes, combo's and races are viable to run, so ill leave it at that for now, theres for certain work to be done here.


    2)

    Grindability (is this a word?). Give people an incentive to play the game. When i played (maybe because i was endgame) people logged in to do nothing all day waiting for enough people to form a party and run an instance. Create content for people to do in the meantime when there are not enough people to run an instance. I myself used to solo Dreamland, but i think this is very niche and highly class dependant. People need to be able to grind out their equipment other than having to run the daily minigames and quests.

    Playing time varies alot. In the weekends most people might have more time to play than during the week, therefore they get "punished" for not playing during the week (missing minis/dailies), and get bored during the weekend -> i done my dailies/minis and theres no party up, ill just go play another game in the meantime that i waiit for other players to log in.

    --> One of the many suggestion i have to make this better is to bring back normal mode stat farming. Bring back a useful way to spend mementos. Stats and best in slot equipment were perfect for this. Now the jewelry slots are locked behind HOE which is really difficult for players that are gearing up to farm it. Also mostly comes in low durability so that the general player gearing up has to spend a ton on gold hammers for learning instances (you could go with a lesser set, but then you might not be accepted in instances)

    I remember farming a boatload of stats in Bone Peak normal mode, this resulted in a lot of gold to get me to endgame fast.


    3)

    Speed up the process of becoming endgame. I know it's highly dependant on the current highest instance, so right now it might not be too hard, but the general burn instances requires near perfectly statted optimised gear. The general player base gets stuck in what i call the midgame, since it is so expensive to optimise just one piece of gear, let alone a full set of it. Also there is almost no gear progression possible, you dont scale up in this game. You are either good enough to run the latest instances, or you are not. Instances in between are dead. Players only do them for the set skill, but that is character bound. The cost of ABLs makes it so it is not possible for lower tier players to make a profit out of lower instances to afford stronger gear. Also the way to achieve the insane boost you get with Ironblood Will is rediculous. I don't know the math, but it takes a dedicated player like 2 years to achieve this gamechanging skill.

    --> To make this better you remove the bound on pickup of items dropped in lower instances, so players can profit off of it. Implement before mentioned normal stat farming. Shift away from the amount of days it requires in favor of the amount of hours it takes. This way players are more flexible with their time. The highest percentage of players doesnt get to run the latest instance while making a valuable contribution to the raid, this has to change if you want players to keep playing ROM. Why release new instances when most people cannot run it in hardmode, and the other modes are not worth doing. Again, make mementos worth farming.


    4)

    Siege War. Although this shouldn't be the primary concern in ROM you have to acknowledge that there is a great amount of people that play ROM solely for Siege Wars. I do not have much suggestions for Siege War itself, as i havent played it other than to farm the much needed buffing/debuffing titles for running instances. I myself feel like this is the core problem as well. The people playing SW aren't on the same page, there are people trying to aquire PVM skill, and there's people that enjoy playing SW in the sense of teamwork, strategy and leaderboards. This clearly devides the players. On the one hand you want the extra amount of people in SW that are going for PVM titles so that SW isn't dead content. On the other hand the diehard SWer gets really annoying with the laidback approach a titlegrinder has regarding the actual war.

    --> with great hesitation i would suggest moving away from the need for PVMers to partake in SW. Make the PVM titles grindable via mementos or some other actual PVM method. Rework the SW rewardsystem so that it is not so much focused around the amount of merrits collected. Give SW badges another purpose if shifting PVM titles to mementos. im not sure what a worthy reward would be, maybe something like diamonds or proofs of myth? There have been many suggestions about this in the past from people that are more involved in SW than i have ever been, so they should probably come up with a fitting reward. I also like the idea of a ranking system where the top SW teams get additional rewards for being in the top ranking slots. Also there needs to be some balancing classes for PVP purposes from what i remember, but again, SWers are more suited to come up with suggestions regarding this.


    5)

    MAKE EVERYTHING CHEAPER. As has been said many times in the past; its better to have 50 people spend 10 euros than to have 2 people spend a 100 euros. The game is way way way too Pay2Win, and also you have to spend way too much IRL or ingame money to get a set of endgame gear. Make it easier and more affordable for people to reach the endgame. Its so expensive to make one set that it takes years to reach endgame, and with ROMS current environment who knows how long this game has left. Its almost a certainty you wont reach endgame status if you start now before the game closes down for good. Even if you reach endgame (gz, you are one of the few!) you most likely have like 4-6 classes at the level cap from which you cant use the majority of it. Its hard enough to upkeep the one combo you primarily use, let alone try picking up a second class. With ROMs unique class combo system there is so many great combos that you would wanna try out, but with the insane costs of gearing its impossible to do so. People do wanna try new stuff, and test there limits and expand the "meta ", but its just way too expensive to even consider in most cases.

    --> Make diamonds and IS items cheaper. I dont know the diaprices these days, but i remember paying 250-350k per diamond generally, with prices going up to as much as 500k with a special IS promo and no diamonds promo. With diamond prices only going up and up and up and up the situation of gearing is only gonna get worse and will take even longer for new players to get a good set of gear. make endgame gear affordable.

    ------>> if it were to cost a 100 euros for a toptier weapon, and somewhere between 25 and 50 euros (this is already pretty expensive) for a piece of endgame gear players would actually get endgame gear (theres Always those players that wanna be better than others and spend crazy amounts) and run instances. People could go for a second or even third set of gear once they dont have to spend as much since they can farm their own items. They would play more content, use more of the classes available and have a ton more fun doing so. Gameforge would probably earn just as much money when you offset the few amount of player spending alot of money against alot of people spending a lower amount.


    6)

    Perfect Jewels. Try to move away from all the gambling that is Runes of Magic. While making gear is already way too expensive, players might not mind spending a bit more on perfect Jewels, to Ensure they do not have to risk making their equipment worse, where they will have to pump in more money again, just to get to the same level they were on before. This is highly frustrating and the reason a great chunk of players leave the game. Is it not time for a fairer approach? As easy as you spend X and you know you will end up with equipment with +Y, this way players can make a better judgement call on whether they want to buy diamonds or not.


    7)

    Ingame and forum events. From what i remember is that on the forums there were alot of competitions, where there would be winners from most regions, but not from EU. why is this? it's a matter of rewards. I recall getting like a really low reward for participating, and the big prize being a permanent mount that is available in the Item Shop. This is not rocket science. Ingame there is no notice of the forum events, so only the players that visit the actual forums discover about these forum competitions. Which players do visit the forums? that would be the "nooby" player looking for advise while questing for his life so he can reach the level cap (busy with leveling) and the absolute endgamer who wants to have more insight about the game. The leveler will be busy with questing, and the endgamer has no need for yet another mount. The typical midgamer will not visit the forums since he will just log into rom, do his dailies and minis, talk to his guild, do a SW or normal or lower end instance, and then log off again. The audience that MIGHT wanna compete in such a forum competition is not reached this way. Also i think even midgamers have a mount already, so for them its like whatever.

    --> Come up with unique rewards that people wanna have, but that do not give a big advantage over others (so its not required for endgamers to partake). A special good looking skin for example (not shetty, recycled and recolored skins). People like skins in ROM. A special title maybe, that gives an unique bonus that is not OP, but still worthwhile to have. You could also give the winner a set of durability drillers or other convience items all players have a need for. But mounts to me seems really strange, as a mount is generally a one time purchase (i know there are mount collectors, but there are not many of them).

    Ingame events are really hard to balance, since noone will come if the reward isn't good, and people will only come for the reward if its too good. Its also a matter of what audience you want to reach. Do you want the midgamer to attend a special gathering with his midgamer guild? Or do you want to interrupt endgamers in their instance grinding? Be clear about what crowd you want to attract, and more people might come. Maybe use a poll system INGAME, or via a link ingame you get when logging in, about these sorts of things. Make it easy for players to find these things.

    You can poll what kind of events players want, when they want it, what rewards they want to get. Small things like that. Its too easy to say the players got to let us know what they want. Promote player held events, award that with diamonds or something. Organise a AA (cant remember the name, that battleground where you start at lvl 1) tournament with a nice prizepool.


    TLDR: make it cheaper and easier to reach endgame, shift away from DailyROM, players can manage their own time that way. Seperate PVM from PVP. Give PVP a worthy reward for their contribution. Balance classes in both PVM and PVP. Make more classes viable. Bring back mementos farming. Keep players engaged.


    Additional suggestion: make guard dog meat unbound again. it was to stop players from botting guard dogs, i doubt theres many botters left in this somewhat dead game. Good for starting players to farm some money. Smoother way of leveling during a bonus xp event. This will make more people buy Daily Quest Tickets (reduce them in price) and less people leveling in instances (no dias are sold then).


    This is all i got for now, as i said, i haven't played in a while, so this is just what comes to mind. There is alot of other stuff that needs attention too, like zodiacs/dracos and Instance testing before releasing content, but lets not get into that. These are the main changes i would like to see and i would consider coming back to this game. I've played this game for many years with a great passion, but it keeps on getting worse and worse and that when you lose players.


    I know all these suggestions will make exactly zero change, but since i had some time on my hands and my man Sarkas specifically asked for it, i thought why not try it one more time, for old times sake. Hope the people that still do play this game are having a good time with their friends and guild, because thats what made this game so enjoyable for me all these years.


    Oh i couldnt find a way to post this in suggestions, hope someone fixes this for me, thx.

  • Thank You Warrior for this great work - but you say it yourself: "I know all these suggestions will make exactly zero Change"...

    And because of that, nearly all players who formerly made suggestions, have left the Forum .

    To blame the community for this small amount of suggegstions today is very wrong! Gameforge is to blame , from the head of the Company to the team here in the Forum.

    They all contributed, more or less, to today's situation.


    But maybe a miracle happens, and some of your suggestions become reality - this would be great!

    Try to move away from all the gambling that is Runes of Magic.

    For example this point might be a very large step in the right direction!

  • There are many great ideas here!

    I really don't like the gambling of plussing and the jewels to +20 are really expensive. It would be nice to have the fail rate go down (increase success or no change in level).


    For grinding, I do a lot of mirrorworld and while upgrading cenedrils is nice, I think there should be more uses for the Mirror Shards. All of the things you can buy with them is practically free since I have thousands laying around, but I think there should be other, more expensive things that we can work for.


    Last time I was in Arcanium Arena it was full of people just afk waiting for end rewards. If I remember correctly, they reduced the rewards for it but that hurts people who actually want to do it. I think they should have a participation requirement for rewards (like actually leaving the starting area) and increase rewards to encourage more people to do it.

    (While we're on the topic of battlefields, has anyone actually been able to start the Windrunner Race? I still have the buff from years ago.)


    (They went overkill with the guard dog meat. They're bound, can only get them while you have the daily quest, and you can only have 10 max last time I checked)

    Signature coming soon. Maybe.

    Edited 2 times, last by Lowen: Submitted first draft on accident. I had more to say. ().

  • I’d like to add another perspective to Warrior’s well thought out suggestions. First, I’ve been playing for years, I’ve reached level cap, but I’m not an end-gamer. I play ROM to relax from a very stressful life, so the thought of running high-stress end-game instances makes me shiver.


    My guild has attracted a constant stream of new ROM players, and here is what I have noticed: XP event burn-out is a real problem. I know there are players that want to level from 1 to 100 in a week. Most new players think they should hit every XP event hard. When the XP events are too long and too close together, ROM goes from being a game to being a chore. Those events may produce spikes in diamond purchases from new players, but if the cost to the game is the loss of those new players two weeks down the road, I’m not sure the diamond buying spike is worth it.


    One of the other things I’ve noticed is that most instances from level 55 to 80 cannot be run by a group of two or three players… not because of the strength of the mobs, but because of traps or puzzles. Getting two experienced players with enough time to run a newbie through a mid-game instance can be a problem. If a new player cannot find a group large enough to do a run, that instance might as well not exist in the game. I’ve heard many new players express their frustration at not being able to do a level appropriate run.


    Adding to Warrior’s excellent suggestion to unbind the purple drops in instances, I will point out that even if restricted to instances under level 80-ish, it would go a long way to helping new players get their item-set skills and some decent leveling gear.


    Some of these mid-game instances have poorly programmed trash mobs. KBN is a prime example where the trash mobs hit harder than the bosses. It appears that these mobs are programmed to do a fixed percentage of armor-bypassing damage, thus negating the time, effort and diamonds a player has invested in their armor. I cannot believe that such mobs create a favorable impression on new players advancing though the game. As Warrior pointed out, the stats they are going to get from these instances are worthless, but the gear drops could well be helpful if there was a higher chance of OD drops. Any mid-game trash mob that hits a character harder than the instance’s bosses desperately need rebalancing. Rebalancing these trash mobs might also make more instances attractive to level capped players as something else to do on a slow day. Throw in a 33% chance of a bound “Lesser Titanium Hammer” for armor or weapons in the final bosses’ loot, and running some of these abandoned instances might be popular again. I know, Lesser Hammers don’t exist, but if they did they would only work on gear under level 80-ish.


    On a related point, some mid-game instances seem designed to drive players away. If the standard strategy for a mid-game instance includes “take off your gear and allow yourself to be slaughtered”, that’s a bad instance design. Since those instances are no longer end-game and thus don’t have to challenge end-game players, those instances don’t have to be so discouragingly deadly. I may be wrong, but I think most players don’t find dying to be especially fun.


    All classes, especially priest, need a skill that allows them solo gobs. It’s sad to see the priests waiting outside gobs begging someone to run them through. The Blessed Spring Water skill slot is there not being used.


    My last point is that the class-guides, instance guides, and event guides from the old forum need to be updated and migrated to the new forum. It’s very hard for new players to find information on useful vs useless skills. Even out-of-date info is better than no info. I don’t think I would have stuck with ROM had the guides not been there for the first couple years I played.

  • I agree with all these points. There are a lot of Mage/Priests who can't do much in instances, it would be good if that class was viable. It would be cool too if we had hard mode on some of the dailies, like Gobs, it's so easy its a chore. Lower prices and I might gear more than one class. It is so expensive to gear end game.

  • I agree with most of the suggestions posted here so far, clearly a lot of time has been spent expressing these opinions so I hope they are taken on board. Just one thing I would have to say is that "class balancing" is not just unlikely to happen, but also quite a touchy subject for a lot of players. I would suggest making some classes like mage more viable WITHOUT nerfing other combos, even if they are overpowered (like s/r) - I think it would just make people leave the game.


    My suggestion to add is to rehash some of the older instances and put a hard mode in. Instances like HoS/ZS/DS etc. - all of the content is already there, only the values would need to be changed. Might make it a more bit more fun than just grinding the same instance for 12 months, if there were perhaps 2-3 hard modes made per update in addition to the "new" instance (content is already there) then there would be less of an obvious grind, with the option to do different instances. Plus nice nostalgia for older players.

  • Hey there!


    Thank you so much for this input. You da man :S


    Warrior


    1) Class balancing:
    A never ending story in any kind of somewhat mmo related game. RoM was kind of balanced in level 50 and after that it became only more and more difficult. Alot more time will pass before new class balance attempts can be made.


    2) There are plans, more I can't say! But you guys are very welcome to provide more suggestions related to only this topic in an extra thread. What kind of instances would you like to run and what kind of currency would you like to earn by this?


    3) Should also earn a thread by itself. Because like any suggestion ever, as soon as we provide "bulk suggestions" it gets lost. It's better to flesh out one idea at the time per thread!


    4) Siege War is a whole new story again that doesn't even fit into one thread on its own because there are so many aspects to think of.


    5) Just the same as all other points. But generally there's a) too much gold on the server and b) the items you get for your money aren't as worthwhile as mostly expected (cost/performance ratio)


    Also to the you and rest of the posters, especially Crevan thank you so much, it's alot of useful up to date stuff that we can use to slap peoples again, most appreciated!


    Don't let it rip <3

  • Wow i didn't anticipate so many comments. I haven't played the game for 2-3 months now i think, and honestly these were just the points that came up thinking back about how it was then (can't really see it having changed much tho). Just had some spare time and was reading up on the forums and noticed how you wanted some feedback.


    Sarkas


    These could all deserve there own threads, be thought out alot better, since i just quickly listed all i could remember, but as many people have pointed out, there is not really a point. Uncountable amounts of people with far better ideas, and far more thought behind it have done so in the past and nothing has happened. Can you honestly tell me GF has turned a new leaf? I don't think you can (not a personal attack on your part or anything).


    I could go around on all the servers, getting people to speak up on the forums, contact all the people that used to play this game, but that quit, get these people on board, but to what end? Unless you can promise me that this will make guaranteed changes within a reasonable time, it is in no way worth the time (also this is really more your job, but lets not fight here). You can send me a PM if this is really something you would want, but you'd have to come with some pretty good reasons as to why i would do this, and how this will have impact.


    On behalf on your comment Sarkas:

    1) as someone said before (my man Aktl?) you dont need to nerf classes, thats not what im saying, people will guaranteed quit over that. But in my opinion you need to scale up the other classes so that they can be used, and not that once you have grinded your *** off and are somewhat geared to find out that the MAIN class you run is not even viable. Thats a problem and you lose alot of players over that. Ofcourse it's hard to make a perfect balance, but nobody is asking for a perfect balance, but there should be some balance nonetheless, which is lacking right now.


    2) I dont know anything about programming and all that, but why not open a beta server where people can try content? (i think there is some testing done, but hardly anyone knows about that as its hidden away somewhere on the forums). Dont take this the wrong way, Sarkas, but i think YOU should come up with information about what you are guys are working on in that department, and THEN the players can give feedback on those ideas. I think thats the correct order in how things should be done, especially since so much of the suggestions are cast aside or end up on some dusty old shelve. I think right now the developers have enough suggestions as is to work on new content, share what they are working on, and the players can help finetune it.


    3) Could make it a thread of its own, but whether it gets lost in "bulk suggestions" orjust not done anything with, its 99,99% not gonna happen anyway, thats how we, the players, feel.


    4) As you pointed out, SW is too big of a problem to even discuss in one thread. But it needs work, implement some small changes, reflect on it with the community, did it make things better, or did it not, then move forward from there. Reread 3) people won't take the time anymore, be transparent about whats being done with feedback, if there's anything done with it that is. That motivates people to come up with things, and not give up on your game. But since you can count the number of times suggestions were implemented pretty much on one hand, people dont feel its time well spent. I know its your policy to not talk about what's being discussed internally, but that would be a good change to start.


    5) Yes there's too much gold on servers, but right now this game is going downhill (to put it politely), and if you don't give new players a chance to develop faster than players have had to go through before, no new player will join. Ofcourse you need to keep the veteran players happy, but if you ask me the veteran players know dem well the state of ROM is in, and would rather keep it alive than have billions of gold lying around when they can't log in because the game has closed down.


    6) you completely forgot my suggestion about the guard dog meat, i really think its a good idea (you also forgot a couple of other suggestions, but others have already pointed that out, so i don't expect a different result if comment the same).


    So Sarkas, promise me change, and i will work with you, send me a PM, convince me, i feel like this a great opportunity for you to turn things around. But remember, the ball is with you, not with me or any of the players.

  • I didn't take any offences in that anywhere and I'm certain you don't take this as an offence either: I'm well aware of what is part of my job and what is not.


    I can only respond with the honesty I always did and always will do:

    I cannot make any promises and never will. Especially not just for the sake of some activity. Activity will help, but any kind of activity still takes time to respond to, if there even will be any response to. Your (everyone's) text is already so helpful, you probably can't even imagine. It supports the feedback I give to my coma better than anything I could ever come up with. And I am more than just thankful for this.


    6) I didn't forget any of your suggestions, I simply can't answer with something whereas I simply don't have the knowledge of what is planned. (Again promises, I don't make promises)

  • I know we are going a bit off topic here, but i think i can tie it together.


    I hear what you are saying, but people are done with putting time and effort into suggestions and feedback to then see nothing happen to it.

    (<<<---- apart from this dumbo ofcourse)


    I'm not trying to go after you here, but this is how it comes accross:

    - Deserve their own thread, sure i could dump a ton more time in ideas, pros and cons for different levels of play, different playing styles and different races, but as showed time and time again, then dont happen.

    - the one most concrete idea i had, was just not commented on, until i asked. Why not give it your own opinion? Do you like it? What's the reason for either liking it or not? People absorb these sorts of feedbacks so for the next suggestion they keep these things in mind. Now it's like ye whatever, thats another idea we will put in a bottle and throw in the sea hoping it magically reaches GF.


    Hold some sort of competition for the best small to medium scale idea/suggestion that gets implemented into the game guaranteed (ofcourse you need clearance from GF which you wont get? questionmark?)


    We, the players, don't know any of the communication that goes out from the support team here to GF. All i think is that it's not pretty what comes from GF's side. They seem not to be willing to change a single thing to save their game. Are you, Sarkas, maybe getting played as much as we are? Does GF blatantly say they won't change a think, or do they give you all sorts of requirements before changes will be inplemented that we dont know about? I myself would find it morally questionable to keep dangling a carrot before the players (we need more likes, we need more comments, we need more suggestions) (no offense meant) full well knowing that the effort they put in is for nothing, so i think the problem is with GF. What do they want for changes to happen? That's only something the support team can answer, but i don't think they are allowed to.


    It is just so night and day compared to most other games that are available online, and i really don't get why GF doesn't seem to spend any attention to any of their games. Ofcourse ROM is a smaller title, but accross the board they are doing a bad job AFAIK.


    Take the time this Phelan guy was here (his name was something like that, can't remember exacly, cba to look it up, you know who i mean). His format was horrible (AMA, 1 question/suggestion per person), with 1 question you are gonna get the same question from every person, related to diamonds and real world costs. Whereas with more questions you could have a constructive back and forth about the current state of the game, what needs fixing etc. Now it was just keep all your critisism as compact as possible. Also i don't think his visit did very much in terms of improvements (if you wanna stretch it real far you could say it was the diamonds repricing/ IS rework, but i can't remember if that was a success or not). from what i remember all he did was level his char to 60 and thats it. No struggling with gearing up, no running buggy instances, no grinding daily quests and daily minigames day after day for months to even years.



    So the real suggestion the game needs (see what i did there, no offtopic) is more transparency. Which actual thresholds are needed to trigger change? I remember from some community letter a long time ago things would be more transparent, im not sure how it is right now, but i don't think it has improved much. That's the starting point.


    --- A suggestion that also came to my mind, but im not sure how i feel about this, so i need some feedback on it, is the following:

    Pick out some sort of suggestions that you want to implement in the game. Let's say unbinding guard dog meat, as it is small, so perfect for this example. The suggestion could be voted for, or some other priority system needs to be in place.


    So the suggestion is: Unbind guard dog meat.

    GF will then make some kind of calculation as to how much this would cost to implement. for easy explainations sake lets go with GF will do this for €100. We, the community, for every diamond purchase store up a percentage of our purchase (lets say 50%) towards this €100. for every €10 spent on diamonds, €5 would be dedicated towards this implementation. Also players can directly donate towards this goal to get their full money spent towards this fix, but dont get the diamonds in return. This way spending money on the game doesnt only make your character better (if your Jewels dont fail, funny joke, rq game), but also the game better! This also gives people a little more incentive to buy diamonds without having to decrease the price of the actual diamonds (like greedy GF will do that)

    This way you could bring cedric back if a certain goal is reached and things that will never be changed otherwise.

    Again im not sure how to feel about this as it might make GF even greedier, and make players pay even more rediculous amounts of money on this game. The prices need to be fair.

    Let me know what you think.


    EDIT: ^ the amount to reach and the current amount (€5 out of €100) needs to be visible for all to see, no scammy service, but clear and transparent.

    Edited 2 times, last by Warrior ().

  • I think we should be able to put bound gear in the auction house. The buyer pays the diamonds to unbind it. This would put a LOT more gear in the auction house.

    The intriguing thing about your idea, for GF, is that more people would have to buy diamonds, if they wanted to buy off of AH.


    Better for the players, and easier for Runewaker to program, would be to get rid of the 'bind on pick-up' altogether.

  • Warrior


    I can't give you a direct answer to any of your suggestions, but I guess you knew that already. There will be no immediate response to our feedback, because as it always has been, it all comes together from various games and communities.


    The calculation though is pretty simple -> effort/cost/gain


    The outcome of this on the contrary is not that simple.


    Simplified it means, what does a company gain when they substract an amount of menpower from a project to another project. What's the cost, stopping the work on the other stuff, what's the result of increasing the menpower for a certain aspect.


    This isn't a new concept, it's always been like that.


    For example: When the community was longing for house energy, they kept posting about it and we kept forwarding this feedback over a course of several months straight. And it only happened with the help of the community.


    Now what's all that even supposed to mean now? Well, imagine you work for a company that sells car wheels and 3 of your regular costumers say 'hey it'd be great if you hire a magician in front of the entrance to do magic tricks and gift baloons to kids' They'd have to convince you and explain why this is helpful.


    Instead of just throwing in 'I like that, do this' and after that never show up again, they'd have to come up with reasons. In that case they could say 'there's a school on the other side of the street, kids have parents and parents mostly have cars' something like that. Eventually it's still at your boss' risk, wether the costs this would create would be still worth the cost. Depending on that, decisions are made.


    As for the things I said about "deserves its own thread" well I got carried away from the topic I wanted to have. I got a bit too excited when I saw you taking the effort and actually respond :)


    --


    To everyone:


    Replying to the 7) of Warrior's points from first post:


    The amount of events reduced for various reasons. The main reason though always has been participation. Speaking of effort and cost, we're not really willing to run an event that has a participation of one single entry (Yep this happend. More than once.) or a server full of players not even caring at all, just waiting for it to end so they can get prizes for doing nothing. Doing nothing well, who cares, but there are some players who just love to ruin it for everyone. Sometimes it was so bad, we even stopped in the middle of an event. I don't mind this at all, because it wouldn't be our loss.


    There's a big process from the basic idea until the actual event on the server. This means, besides our actual volunteer thing, we put in an extra amount of free time next to that. (Feel free to apply and help hint hint)


    Nevertheless we would like to bring more local events to you in (hopefully very) near future.


    Local events are entirely run by the respective volunteer teams. Bring some joy (I know that's a difficult task) and have fun. For this I'd start a new thread, give you guys some guidelines as to what we're possibly capable of regarding planning those events.


    Now the question is, would this be in your interest?

    Any other questions regarding this?

  • Working my way top to bottom, i'd like to start with the fact that i like Erich1999's idea about the AH bindings. That's a smart thing to do which i haven't even thought about, but its a great way to fill the auction house so that there is actual gear in there.


    Sarkas


    I hear what you are saying and i get the gist of it, but your example is both a little strange and hilarilously accurate to me.

    On the one hand, we are not customers asking for something totally out of GF's wheelhouse (get it? hehe). We are just asking for better quality and/or cheaper wheels. No magicians, no tricks, just what they sell: wheels.

    On the other hand the thought of us actually getting this upgraded version of their product does really feel like asking for magic to happen.


    Also if you sell great wheels, the customers will come. You can't expect to sell bad wheels first, to later invest your money in better wheels to sell, or just keep selling bad wheels.


    If your teacher tells you if you do this additional task you might get a higher grade, but after doing the additional task for 10 times, but not getting the higher grade ever (okay maybe once), most people will be hesitant to do the additional task the 11th time. What i mean with this is that i feel that players have given so many good suggestions which never made the game, that they gave up on it. We can't look in GF's financials, so we can't justify change on the basis of effort/cost/gain. I think if there is some willingness to change the game that a way larger portion of the playerbase is interested in sharing their thoughts and ideas.


    (BTW if people know GF will improve the game > players will spend more money as they like playing an up-to-date balanced game with alot of potential > GF can improve game further with a part of the additional income > this will make them even more money etc etc, in theory ofcourse) .


    The experiences i have had with other games, is that the gamepublisher tries to convince their audience that their game is so good you want to play it, while with GF they do not seem to care if anyone wants to play it, just milk the couple people we have. Ofcourse you could say: but you are still posting in their forums, with their game on your mind, so their game is worth it, but i haven't actually logged in for a while, because i know it's probably in a even worse state than when i left. I know there are a good amount of people idling until a new instance is released to then farm it for a good couple of weeks, then like go do something else again.


    7) now on topic of the events.

    With what i can remember from my time is:

    - rewards are the most important.

    As said by my man Erich1999 ABLs are a pain. Why not hand out a ton of ABLs with an event? They are highly wanted, but have limited uses on an alt (to conquer people "farming" the event, although they still willi guess).

    - event date/time were (atleast the one last event i remember) decided by PMing Sarkas your preferred date out of 2 ingame.

    Maybe a poll ingame could be more clear? Dont think we have this option though. PMing ingame is the least effort for the player i guess, but a poll on the forums maybe? get the forums a bit more active..hm..maybe players will think its too much work to check the forums, a link ingame when you log in perhaps? Not sure whats your best bet here.

    - Ingame events you could host a Arcanium Arena tounament; no gear/level requirement, very active (can't afk the event if you want to win). I remember the easter chicken mount event doing well too. But people get more tryhard the more there's at stake. Maybe host events for certain types of players, but be clear about it. An endgame PVP challenge, weaker players will know not to come. VN run with whole server? I liked the hide and seek events too to be honest. just those trolls with fireworks are annoying.

    - forum events. Im usually not creative enough for them, although i like the ideas behind them usually. I just assume i have no chance to win (i can't bake a rom cake, nor can i write a fine romantic poem in proper english). Other than that rewards are just too worthless for me, be a little more generous here. Maybe make people design a quest or something, with some perfect Jewels for the winner + their quest gets implemented in the game (aren't quests made years in advance before releasing?idk) What was the last forum event's prize? a permanent mount of which i already have 7? Not really interested. Maybe do a poll what people wanna win, after establishing the boundaries in which the reward has to stay. If you can lure more people to the forums somehow, you might get more feedback on other parts of the game too. Newspost in the login client maybe?


    But for me events are nowhere as important as the game getting fixed.

  • Sarkas, I always appreciated the in-game events, even those I chose not to participate in. Fear of the lag in the more popular events was what normally kept me away. That why I like Warrior’s idea of hosting events for different types of players.


    For example, the general consensus in my guild is that a mount is the single most important item a new player can acquire to make the game more enjoyable. So an event aimed at converting new players into long-term players would have as its main reward a 30 day mount and maybe a Big Angel Sigh or three.


    Taking into account the level of effort vs the return on that effort, the event would look something like this:


    • A GM logs into a server in stealth mode, and notes the number of characters currently logged in that are level 35 and under. If the number is more than X, the GM notes the names of the characters then announces in world chat that:


    • A “Hide and Seek” even will be starting in 10 minutes near Logar. The event is restricted to characters level 35 and under that were on-line 5 minutes ago. The reward will be a 30 day mount and a Big Angel Sigh potion for all participants. Each participant can ask 3 questions in Zone Chat to narrow down my location.


    Low participation is not really a problem for the event as the goal is specific to new players. ANY new player that becomes a long-term player is a win. In addition, the event will likely encourage new players to purchase a mount, so the event encourages diamond sales.


    A similar event offered to characters between level 35 and 54 could offer three Tier 5 mana stones with stats like Cougar X, Force X and Savage X. These rewards are helpful to the characters of level 35 through 54 for stating a piece of gear to help them move forward in the game while discouraging experienced players from logging in with every alt they can to crash the event.


    Events like the above require little planning and little coordination. They are simply random acts of marketing.


    If you want to get a little more ambitious, ask guilds to sign-up to sponsor a scavenger hunt for characters under level whatever. List the dates and times available on a forum “sign-up sheet”. Each character in a guild that participated at a designated event stop passing out the scavenger hunt items (low level food?) would get a “thank you” gift (ABL?, Wedding Food?, etc.). The general public participants could compete for a different set of rewards (it’s late, so don’t ask me what).


    As Warrior mentioned, an event for end-game PVP players would look different and offer appropriately aimed rewards.

  • Warrior


    I'm not a baking person either, so those events would have never appealed to me if I had to participate. We're trying something else for similiar rewards because the rewards from that event have been declared as "not that bad". You can check the news archive, if you're interessted as to what has been given out.


    Anyway, even at events - though to a lower degree - still includes effert/cost/gain. I don't mind all the preparation. It's one of the most fun steps, but still difficult step with a team as tiny as ours. What we were trying to archieve was having some fun and get some extra stuff (prizes) next to that. Prizes have to come with an effort worth and willing to participate for. When a prize is not appealing enough to bake a cake, that's fine there will be different events at some point. But the willingness in participating at all stands in foreground. Successful events can get repeated and eventually it will be likely to get better in performance and prizes, but it lives only from participation and feedback.


    Unfortunately running events always been like cycle with a one wheeled bike through a field of mines. All planning in the world can't help with that one occurrence that happens during an event.


    Crevan


    You can't imagine the good news are that you bring to me with your post!


    • Mount races were turned into "global" events. Meaning the coma team is in charge. Global events mostly mean better prizes but also every server has to run them. If one team says nope can't do in given time frame it's not gonna be run at all for the fairness to all. Highly understandable I think.
      Planning mount races and run them is the most difficult thing ever, but they are also the most fun!



    • Hide and Seek is possible to run but we don't want to exclude players from events. Hide and Seek events from the beginning were designed as lower level thing. Literally everyone is invited to participate. If you peoples are interested, we can surely plan those again.
  • Hi,


    I agree with a lot of things said in this thread...


    I will not repeat the well-argued demonstration but as community support is needed to convince whoever decide I will explicitly support these ideas :


    1. diamonds' price and items'prices in diamonds are much too high. The game is far too expensive.

    2. items intented for sell with random effects should be prohibited.

    3. some main classes should be rebalanced to be worth to be played. No class should be nerfed risking loosing players.

    4. some part of the game need to be fixed to be worth again (example : siege wars)

    5. and definitively all players, beginners, mid-players, end-players need something to hope to keep motivation... Beginners should be able to hope they could rise their level and play with others. Mid-players should be able to hope they will find some pieces of stuff for a reasonnable price to improve their character. End-players should be able to keep motivation by developping new combinaisons of class for a raisonable price.


    It is a long way. And much of that narrow path relies on point 1 and 2... This is said by players for years now and I play and read the forum since 2011...


    Some little tricks...


    We are aware this will not come tomorrow. But you could show some indices there is something going on...


    Some little examples... I am an elf with the six class level 100 and I could play all the 30 combinaisons... I ask for some little things for years that never come :

    - action bar set with class combinaison and not only the main class...

    - more slots for equipment... Six is not sufficient... (Think : four kind of equipement, (leather, plates, etc.) three kind of role (heal, tank, dps), player versus player, player versus environnement... How many slots are needed ?

    - fix number for each slot for you should not try all of them to find your equipment...


    Some little tricks easy to implement for an old pretty game. Just examples :

    - more page on teleportation book

    - more page on compagnion book (and fixed place) so I can keep all my compagnions. By the way an event could be : Jack said "show your "name of compagnion" compagnion". You're in game as long as you are able to show the compagnion requested...


    Some little tricks to keep motivation

    - there is no title when you reach level 100 with a cenedril. And yet it's a feat !

    - there is no wall of fame for cards' collector...

    - etc. etc.


    Shop policie :

    - How can you play with only two page of backpacks ? (Nota bene : and a long time ago you got the third page in a quest for free !)

    - For how long permanent page of backpacks have not been seen in the shop ?

    - Should we mandatory buy package with 3, 4, 5, 6 permanent pages ?

    Shop policie is not respectfull of the customer with these bound sells...


    Some easy tricks


    To keep motivation it should be worthwhile to farm mementos and energy of justice to get mana stones with interesting statistics. You don't want mini-games statistics or instance statistics could be obtained on those items ? Then at least put good blue statistics on it... People have not hundred of hours to farm bags... Should we arbitrate between farming machine bags and helping a new player in a old instance ?

    Diamonds and gold : let them back in the auction house. Why not ? It was so easy to deal...


    Some harder tricks


    Siege wars is so often not interesting because in front of you you have no enemy but a reroll guild just here for reward. Rather than unnecessarily regulating siege war with additional rules, that only forum readers know, set a rule on rewards that excludes inactive characters and guilds. So that reroll guilds cease polluting siege wars.


    Crash in siege war is a common thing. And crash can be a weapon in the hand of the enemy. When you crash you loose your merits and the items you buy with. All (merits and items) should have a duration of one hour for you don't loose it when you crash... It is ask for years know...


    Some tricks that seems impossible to reach and yet easy ones


    Quality is needed ! Just on example, I don't even speak of these days trouble :


    - a long, very long time ago, I buy Boka pet in shop against diamonds. This pet do not work correctly. You can call it just one time a day. After that, you can't call it again. If you crash before buff is setted you can't get your buff. To recall this pet the only way is to call another. A ticket was made at support years ago and it is still not corrected...


    Well siege war hour is coming and I spend to much time on forum... I stop here !


    Sarkas I trust your diligence !


    8o


    PS : and the daily bonus items need to be collected with an simplier interface :

    - list of all items with the number of each of them

    - click on a check box in front of the item you want to pick up for your character

    - input number you want to pick

    - validate and get it in your bag...

    An option to put to garbage all items we don't need will be appreciate...

    "En vérité la Présence était Rose et en forme de Licorne. Mais si puissante était-Elle, que je ne pus la contempler. Aussi, la nommons-nous la Licorne Invisible Rose ; sa présence est trop incommensurable pour que nos faibles yeux la voient et nos faibles esprits la conçoivent. C'est par notre foi que nous savons qu'Elle est Rose, et qu'Elle est une Licorne. Et vraiment ceux qui disent le contraire sont des hérétiques et des infidèles !"

    Edited 3 times, last by Renovatio: orthograph corrections ().