The Importance of Goals and Challenges: Rethinking the SOTA Experience

First, sorry for my English, I'm using Google Translate to talk to you, and sorry for the long post.
___

The game lacks objectives, a game needs to mark the player who plays it, even more an MMORPG like SOTA, which has dozens of things, I say this as a Tibia player. From what I see, older players and higher "levels" only enter the game to tinker with their cities (many of these players have terrible taste in decoration).

After my criticism of other people's decor, let's get down to business... lol

I know that many people must know Tibia, but I will summarize what I liked about the game and what impressed me so much.

I know they're going to sound like suggestions, but I wanted to discuss them with the community.

1 - Maximum level: for years and until today, there are "fights/wars" to be the top 1 of Tibia's level. There are fights for the best hunts in the game because of the experience gained. Here at SOTA we don't have rank by level, we can't see the level of other players. So "it doesn't matter" that level of adventurer. And what did that mark me? well that was the funniest thing in my adolescence, the first level 100 of tibia were king types (because it took a long time to get experience), the whole community talked about them, they became "idols" for many people, until today there are fights for the top 1 and videos being made talking about these legendary players.

And speaking of level, there are quests that are only released when you reach that level, this made many people focus only on getting a level to unlock these quests/doors.

At the time I played, I accessed the site dozens of times a day (at the time it was fansites), just to follow the fight for the top 1 (level, magic level, distance, sword etc).

Not to mention that seeing the player's level, you can distinguish if you can duel with him or not.

2 - Achievements: well, this was implemented a little later in tibia, but it is a fascinating thing, there is also a rank for players who have more completed achievements. This makes players brave all kinds of quests to go after these achievements, some very cool outfits and mounts were only possible if you had completed such a quest and received such achievements. Some achievements are secret, and that made many people think and explore even more to get it, and with the rank/rewards, the players who got it also stood out in the community.

3 - PVP: This is another point that moves an MMORPG, here at SOTA it is very difficult to happen, I for example even though I know that I don't lose anything in PVP (which is ridiculous on the part of the dead player who doesn't lose anything and is not afraid and for the player that killed, for not having any reward, except the victim's skull), I don't leave the PVP open because I don't know the level of the other players, everything is very confusing. And another thing, the pvp mode being [PVP] written in the nick is very ugly, why not put a skull? or a sword? to stand out as an "evil player".

4 - Bestiary: is another point that should exist, along with a rank. I would love to complete the bestiary of monsters I've killed, from the weakest (rabbits etc) to the strongest, this could also unlock achievements, successively unlocking different and exclusive quests and equipment (outfits). I also imagine that it would move more hunts around the maps, and would keep more players in the game.


5 - Diversity of Monsters and Hunts: well, I've been playing SOTA for a few months and I can't stand killing Skeletons, Boars, Bears and Wolves anymore. Pretty much everywhere in Novia has it, a new player pretty much kills it all the time. I know it's because of the items and husks that are used in crafting, but why not go bigger and put more items in these recipes? or change some ingredients of some more complex recipes? I particularly spend more time in the game than hunting/breeding/farming. Why? because I don't like to enter a map and always kill the same monsters. I could name dozens of monsters/hunters to be added, but that would make the post even bigger. It's tiring, and you don't get excited about exploring new places, you don't strive to get stronger to hunt alone on such a map, because you know you'll "only find" stronger boars and skeletons.


6 - Rare Items: these days I made a post on the forum asking about this, and practically nobody answered about rare items, could it be that they don't exist? Does any monster have a drop rate of 0.000000000000001% chance to drop a rare item? not even the strongest monster in the game? does everyone have everything that is implemented in the game through Crowns? Does dropping only difficult recipes make the item rare? the answer is no. What's the use of paying millions of gold for a "rare" item, knowing that the person who sold it to you can earn more and sell it to more people. Not to mention that we don't have a place to see photos of all the equipment/items that you have in SOTA, which makes new players more lost, it is difficult to have ambition in an item, without knowing that it exists.

7 - Wars: well, I know that there are not so many active players to have wars, but wars with good rewards attract groups of players, in tibia for example, cipsoft is earning a lot of money just because of the wars on the servers, where the guild that dominating such a server has many benefits, both within the game (the best free hunts for members, character progression, services for neutral guilds etc etc etc), and outside of it earning real money (selling coins and strong equipment), which always keeps active players in the game. The tibia wars are legendary, and they move a crowd, both on stream and in the game, if you search in your language on youtube about war in tibia, you will definitely find many videos about it. Here at SOTA it is nothing more than a simple trophy.



Well, all that I mentioned and much more that I would like to mention (but it would make the post too big), make us have good memories about a game, about a player, about an impossible mission that was solved, about an important milestone in the game and etc.


I know that a lot is part of the longing I feel, but I imagine that's what moves a game as old and "unfunny" as Tibia until today, and tons of stories told until today.


Memories and ambitions that were fulfilled by you, that's what makes a remarkable game for me.

And you, what do you think of this? and on the points I mentioned, I would love to hear what you have to say. I know I'm still new to the game, and there may be a lot of things I've already mentioned in the game, I also know it's inspired by Ultima, not tibia, but this is my point of view on a game so "complete" that it's forgotten by the mmorpg community, where the only ambition of the game is to have its ghost metropolis.

What would you do differently in SOTA to curb players who don't just like to decorate their homes?

I know the post is long and I may be talking nonsense, but I wish I had SOTA ambitions.

 

Such good feedback. I rallied for an in-depth in-game achievement system for so many years to cover all aspects of playing including pvp and pvp quests as well. Sota has so much to offer but is very much missing the glue that I call an achievement system. We were told we would get one but we did not sadly. Thanks for the detailed input.

 

You categorize some very important areas for SotA and MMORPGs in general. I appreciate the time you took to give these ideas!

You wrote about these areas or categories. I added my short interpretation in a few words in the brackets [].

1 - Maximum level [example: player level enables content]
2 - Achievements [example: enables content after achievement]
3 - PVP [reward needed]
4 - Bestiary [count killed beasts, randomly-created hunts]
5 - Diversity of Monsters and Hunts [more monsters, more locations]
6 - Rare Items [more rares, probabilities of drops, view rares in a catalog]
7 - Wars [guilds, groups, challenges]​

From my point of view, I see that each of these areas depends on (or is solved by) three things:

a. Game Mechanics: Developer game code, interface, equations, values, artwork, animation, combat system, etc.
b. Game Content: Developer storyline, themed locations, quests, etc.
c. Player Community: Guilds, groups, events, player-provided rewards, content (books, conversationalists), themed/decorated houses/towns, etc.​

Where a category lacks game mechanics/content, the community can enhance it in some ways, for example PVP contests, tournaments, guild hunts, LUA statistics programs.

I suspect each of your categories can be analyzed in detail. They could be assessed as nascent (little), in progress (some), or mature (lots). And then also assessed as Developer-Driven, Player-Driven, or both. For example, right now Wars could be Player-Driven. Beastiary is Developer-Driven. Achievements are both (Dev code, LUA code, events perhaps).

Many of your categories are being improved monthly by the Devs and Players, yet perhaps not always in the right proportion between the categories to everyone's satisfaction.

You give good ideas. I don't give specific feedback on the details, but my feedback is more about the "approach" or "a way to look at this" by the Devs and the Community. A sound approach can lead to steady improvement and success.

Thanks for listening to me. Huzzah!

 

Interesting ideas, though much of it is ground that has been well tread in the last decade or so.

Max level: The game is "level-less" by design, though less in practice. Adventurer Level used to be the hard enforcer of the grind, I'm not sure many would be eager to see it gain prominence again. A Max level would be Interesting, but that would mean that the game would need "end game content" which the devs haven't been eager to create.

A-cheetos: The game has some achievements that grant titles, but adding levels for those that are publicly tracked sounds an awful lot like a leaderboard, and leaderboards in MMOs are their own kettle of fish.

PVP: PVP in MMORPGs has sucked since the invention of the DOTA. There probably is some epic implementation of PVP in an MMORPG that is theorically possible, but is there is, it is far beyond the technical ability of Chris and team, I mean it was out of the reach of Amazon, so that's not a knock on the devs' abilities, it's just really hard to make. Once DOTA and LoL, siphoned off all the players that didn't view PVP opponents like a 5-year old views a full piggy bank, PVP became mostly a newbie trap.

Kill counts: Not a new request, or a bad one, the "big number crowd" makes up much of the remaining SotA player base, so I'm surprised this hasn't been implemented yet. It probably has to do with a "Timber wolf" in one scene not really having any relation to a "Timber wolf" in another making tracking complicated, but sure, I wouldn't turn it down.

More monsters: That's mostly up to the Unity Asset store these days.

Rare items: Depending on how you look at it, these either already exist, for example there are some top level artifacts that pretty much only exist in the collections of the longest playing players, or would be hard to justify the cost of creation if they are so rare that most players never even see one.

Wars: That's one of the OG requests, folks have been asking for that since before the first playable release, but what would the stakes be? It can't be property, messing with POTs would be the quickiest way to lose the base level of funding that is keeping the lights on.

 

thanks for answering majoria! The game really lacks and A LOT of achievements. I just took a break from playing, even though I'm "hooked" on SOTA.

very good, that's practically what you summarized in []

About events created by players, I don't think it's very right (although I like it a lot), most are in English, but there are people from other languages who won't be able to participate/compete correctly. What is certain is the system's own events, with warnings and reminders on the screen (who knows, maybe even a letter in your mail?).

I like to think, it wouldn't be a problem to spend 1 week debating just 1 suggestion, to take advantage of the existing mechanics and have "less work" for the Devs.

thanks for answering!

I believe that many of these points have already been discussed, but we need to revive this, it makes me feel sorry for a game with potential, not leaving 50~100 players.

1 - Don't you agree that it's difficult for you to do a PvP with someone you don't know the level? We need to have a point to understand our opponent's strength. We need a top level rank, to hold players that just like leveling/grinding.

As for having to add "end game content", I don't think that would be it. Tibia, for example, adds some new hunts in winter updates etc, and these hunts give a little more exp for high levels (today we already have level 2300+, and the fight continues for top1). Although I think tibia has lost a bit in balancing the experience so we have as many level 2000+ players.

I also believe that we have a lot of space in the maps created to change some hunts, there is a lot of repetitive stuff.

2 - Well, I didn't quite understand what you said (the translator didn't help much). Leaderboards for me are ways for you to have ambition for that position, to have admiration for that player... not to mention that you can make different contents, with different rewards and access. It's another business that holds players for hours/weeks/months.

3 - Good PvP... I like the way it is treated in SOTA, that you have the protection of the oracle, this already helps new players a lot.

In the short term and less "work" for the Devs, it was just painting/marking parts of the map in the overworld, where you already know that area is PvP.

And what would attract people to these maps?

Answer: + Resources for collection, Monsters/Hunts that are more profitable in terms of exp or gold, players who are looking for fights (and who have a reward on death), access to other maps (which are not PvP, but are good too)...

NOTE: and for this to work, we need to know the opponent's level, or at least know the limit/minimum level in that area/scene.

We can discuss this further.

4 - Really, this should already have.

5 - About Unity Asset, I don't understand much, would that be the place where they acquire the "sprites"?

6 - Yeah, they must be really rare lol, I think that if there was at least a list of items with images on the website, it would help to know how difficult it is to obtain them. It would help with ambition too.

7 - Good Wars would attract groups of players, I'm sure of that.

in a simpler way to think about it at the moment:

We could divide Novia into regions (we would leave the Center of Brittany out, which would serve as an area market), and in each region have a city/castle where the attack/defense would take place (maybe like a Lineage?).

The winning guild of such a region would win a fixed value + trophy and a % of all items traded in that region.

These attacks/defenses could happen 1 or 2x a month in each region, it would certainly move the server, and the guild would be useful for something.

To rebuild the city/castle members would have to collect a lot of resources, they would have to craft some parts. Some rare (super rare) recipe for a catapult for defense/attack, etc etc. There are several ideas lol

 

End game content is content that provides a challenge to even the top level players. This is currently not feasible in SotA since the system isn't capped and any challenge the devs create will be solo'd by players that just grind until they can. The most popular games prevent this with level caps or difficulty scaling, but that's never really been on the plate for SotA.

Sorry about that, I can't imagine "kettle of fish" translates well. More simply, many MMOs use leaderboards as a tool to drive players to the cash shop. So, any prominent leaderboard in an MMO is viewed with skepticism, regardless of the developer's intent.

Yeah, the old wolves and sheep design. Wolves love it as the sheep do all the work and the wolves get all the reward, sheep hate it since they need to put themselves at risk to optimize their harvesting and whether or not they get to keep their work is a roll of the dice. This conversation has come up a lot, PVP players requesting that the devs make other players play the role of sheep so they have soft targets to fleece, is my standard explanation as to why PVP is horrible in modern MMOs.

The devs don't have much in the way of artists and modelers on staff. Since the game runs on Unity, they can buy new models from the Unity Asset Store and import them into the game. This is much cheaper then doing new models in house, but if what you want isn't in the store, you're out of luck.

6 - Yeah, they must be really rare lol, I think that if there was at least a list of items with images on the website, it would help to know how difficult it is to obtain them. It would help with ambition too.

Sure, the could work, but the majority of players operate out of Player Owned Towns and disrupting those in the slightest threatens the game's funding. They did it with Sieges in the past, they have since walked that back. As I see it, the devs lack the design expertise to implement such as system. They've gotten decent at maintaining and expanding existing systems, but new systems, especially ones that aren't copies of systems in other games, appear to be outside of their current skill set.

 

i wanted to start by saying thank you to @maldoke for a positive, forward-looking post this post could have just as easily been created with a negative vibe, which is usually not conducive to making progress. i think you have a lot of great things in here that are currently missing from SotA but would significantly help in answering the question of "what should i do today?".

from personal experience, i am not a PvP player and really have no desire to be. one of the things i do like is hunting large creatures for the challenge and if they drop something i can collect that is an extra bonus. for me this was the white pit dragon in the fall and the blue/green named dragons in grunvald shardfall. if the clockwork dragon were only in blood bay it would be the same for me as well. the challenge of the battle and the desire of the heads/eggs kept me going back for more despite them being PvP areas. i was ganked many times and did try to put up some kind of defense against my attackers when the opportunity arose but alas always fell but it shows you are correct. with the right incentives, players will be drawn into PvP areas.

this one made me chuckle a bit as it reminded me of the recent release of the tank fish where there was a frenzy to collect them. then, after all the fish had been caught by at least one player there was rumored to be one more. it drove players crazy and universe chat was abuzz with questions and theories about this fabled tank fish. rare items do work to bring excitement, but i think in some cases they maybe arent rare enough. once the fabled fish was caught and details were shared about where to find it, the buzz died down and now it is rarely even spoken of. i guess the goal would be to find the rarity balance between keeping that excitement going yet not disappointing players who may feel like they will never have a chance to obtain the item. slippery slope.

im sure i will respond more when i have more time

 

I agree that mob diversity could be improved. even if they are just different variations on the existing themes

PVP and its related accoutrements are a can of worms that SOTA probably can't handle for a variety of reasons