This game ultimately feels demotivating to me

[Coglin]

All the augments I've seen trigger attunement. Is there a way to do an augment without attuning an item?

I realize you can buy crafted gear from players, but as far as I can tell, it has to be non-augmented and non-transmuted, so to me, that's just buying a base item that will need a lot of work done to it to get the mods you want.

I expect finding an item with mods for your build for sale from a player would be rare.

And dropped gear isn't non-augmented and non-transmuted? You will not ask a friend or pay someone to make a 6 modded item that is non-augmented and non-transmuted but you feel a drop one serves you better?

Can you explain the logic to that please?

Let's see:

- I don't like dailies in any game: to me, they seem like a cheap attempt to get players to play, and ultimately result in players feeling like they have to do them. I'd rather a game stood on its organic gameplay.
- NPC work orders are, well, NPC driven. They don't seem to make much money, though I've done them just to get industry experience. The best ones I've done rely on crafting, which drags you into the whole NPC favor nightmare.
- Player work orders are very nice, and I've filled quite a few and gotten good money that way (though it's not as reliable as skinning). And even if I don't have what folks are looking for, it's good to get an idea of what's valuable to players (so I know what to bank up or look for).
- A vendor stall would be cool, but the Serbule vendor area is lag hell, and I avoid it as much as I can. (The casino area doesn't seem to be used much, though it's not as bad.)

Whether you like dailies or not is not particularly relevant. It simply supports my point that you chose to use selling to NPCs as your access to money.

"NPC" work orders generally pay very well. I am a little unclear how you determine they do not.

I barely get any lag in Serbule. maybe a little while moving. Sounds to me like a bad excuse to justify your not using it and thus trying to disingenuously stick to your position of claiming the only way to make money is by selling to NPCs.

You do not have to like all the options or any of them for that matter. The point is that it was originally claimed that THE ONLY option was favor with and sells to NPCs which we clearly have determined is not the case.

Again, what I dislike most about PG's game mechanics is the favor trap: I wouldn't mind spending money on training so much if I could just buy it outright, but having to raise favor with NPCs just for the privilege of buying something isn't fun for me. I've burned out doing that, and have taken a break from playing.

Would be nice if you could distill your training into books to sell at vendors, and thus bypass NPCs entirely for others.

Enjoy your break, but otherwise I agree that earning favor can be tedious and annoying at times. i do not agree about the perspective with books.

[Mikhaila]

(In reply to no one in particular. )


No one has to earn favor.
No one has to earn money.
No one has to grind exp and slay monsters.
No one has to work on more than one class.
No one has to do trade skills.
No one has to learn transmutation to play endlessly with your gear.
No one has to explore, forage, skin, butcher, stare at dead things guts, talk to dead people, die and get experience from it, become an animal, or find all the cool lore in the game.

NO ONE HAS TO DO SHIT!!! Just don't play the game at all.

You GET to do all these things. You don't HAVE to. The game is an opportunity for entertainment. It gives you a lot of options to do things. Or to not do things. Complaining about the options for playing the game is just useless. If you don't like something, don't do it.

Part of my attitude is from running a game store. We sell a huge amount of models and paints. But I hear "Do I HAVE to paint these?" Nope, you GET to paint them, it's a hobby, people enjoy painting. If you don't like painting, don't do it. But for some reason I'll have people rant forever about 'Having to paint models', and I'll tell them something similar to what I tell people in this game: "It's your hobby, paint or don't paint, whichever you like. But don't complain loudly that you hate painting, when other people enjoy it."

Here we have a fairly unique game. it offers a lot of skills and mechanics. Often they can take some time and work, but offer a lot of benefits. I've seen some long term players do amazing things because they have the best food and snacks and cheese. Make potions. Use sigils. And a dozen other things that made me think "I want to be like that guy when I grow up". It encourages me to keep working on things, and as I get better, the game becomes more and more fun.

If you want the enjoyment of overcoming obstacles , you have to have obstacles. If you just see a lot of the game as a grind and it isn't fun, then absolutely a time for a break and play something like wow.

[Cleo]

Snip

You seem more than a little bit hostile. Maybe take a breath?

NPC favor, on the other hand, shouldn't feel grindy. "Grindy" just means boring. Leveling anything in any MMO is repetitive, and if you really notice the repetition it's called "grindy." NPCs favor is just a generic leveling mechanism, so the actual way that you raise favor can change. Maybe I should reduce the focus on item gifts by adding a few hundred more favor quests. (They'd naturally have to be very samey, but then, so is gifting right now.) My question is: do you think having a bunch more directed leveling goals for favor (kill-ten-monster quests, fetch-the-gizmo-from-the-dungeon-chest quests, etc.) would be worth the effort?

I personally would like having a bunch more favor quests. I like those way more than just giving gifts. The NPC's in this game are funny, and I love reading their dialog when I pickup and return quests. I think it would make the favor leveling feel less grindy and add more immersion in the game. I like talking to NPC's.

Dailies are lvl 40-50 dungeons so actually they're for about mid-game players currently, and in the future I'm sure it will even be considered early game when there's level 100+ content around. I think it should be advertised better, maybe alongside the work order board and pocket gear, because they are things that people should be doing/using, but nothing actually inside the game tells you that you should be doing/using them unless you talk to other players.

I did my first daily yesterday, and I definitely feel this was an activity I was missing. A fun dungeon with lots of quick councils. Running it with the higher level players in my guild gives you some sense of where the game is going later on and is very motivating. It provides the money I need to keep my trade skill leveling going, and helps with favor leveling. And it gives you something else to do while leveling that stuff. It is good to do a couple different types of gameplay to keep things from getting monotonous. Maybe they could add some in game hints for players around level 40 that they should look into starting running the dailies?

[Lyesea]

Hey everyone!

Quite the thread; actually made a forum account to reply.

So I am a brand new player, started around the 25th as a demo account and purchased a day or so after.

Now I'm far from even mid level, sword/dagger around mid 20s.

I have LOVED the new player experience, I have tried hard to avoid any online resource and to try and utilize the exploration, sandbox, and community avenues first.

I have read a bunch of reviews so knew of the inventory and storage woes. I went in with a mindset of being a new green horned adventurer.

I set myself a goal, explore the map, find monsters that were challenging but didnt take consumables. After my first death I realized my trusty rat minion wasnt too fond of death and left. So then I found I needed to train animal handling. I asked another player i happened upon in sewers to join a hunting party and soon thereafter my inventory was full

I sold literally everything to every vendor I could find in the starting keep. Quickly made enough to train, but ate my last cheese! I recalled how I got some.cave cheese in sewers so trekked back. During a harrowing encounter where i was able to tame a rat with less than 5% health remaining.

With the trusty sewer rat I trained sword and dagger one at a time, scouring the sewers. When I felt both were strong enough I left the rat in town and soloed the sewers for a few hours. Enjoying the life of a novice adventurer clearing a semi dangerous place and selling the spoils.

It was then I decided to explore this favor, I enjoyed the quests and appretiate the downtime activities, I think they are a great Avenue for alleviating any favor challenges. After some hours ranking them up I felt like I really did become.comfortable and friends with these NPCs.

Buying some stuff from other players and the used tab felt great, like I was really interacting with a community.

I have started branching out and exploring all the dungeons in the starting area. Can always find people to hunt with and try to get all the way through these areas.

I love the lack of rails, as when I get bored of hunting I try to make some new food to try or go fishing for an hour.

I just wanted to chime in and Express my delight and that I havent felt the sentiments expressed by other new players.

Granted I've played loads of sandbox MMOs but PG has the benefit of not being a full loot pvp!

[Mikhaila]

lol, no cleo, not hostile at all. Have a wonderful day.

[Figger1]

When people say a game is too hard, I always say "If it was easy, you would be looking for another game to play". Sure, some things are hard but after completing them, you have the feel of accomplishment. And I should know, I have 3 characters, so I have to do almost everything 3 times.

[Dumdidum]

The way i started this game and started making money was as follows. I chose Animal handling (the game already hints at giving it a go in the tutorial island) and psychology as 2nd (again, a suggestion from doing the starter island). The great thing about AH is that you basically can run around naked forever with your rat doing the work. No gear is needed to level your toon to 50. It will, obviously, help if you do get your hands on gear with useful mods, but is isnt needed hence no costs involved if you choose not to.
After levelling up to around 15-20 on easy mobs in serbule, i would go to the brain bug dungeon and do my thing there over and over. This dungeon has dead corpses in it, that drop stomachs, sulphur, brass gears, fire dust, metal bars, in other words items that are very useful for yourself or easy to sell to other players.

Once you have some levels (30 +) you can alternatively farm the goblin camps in serbule hill or some other dungeons.

"easy ways to make money":
- farm stomachs in the way mentioned above and sell
- farm fire spiders and fire rats in eltibule for fire dust, sell to other players
- fill workorders from other players
- skinning, selling hides to NPC
- farm skulls, trade them for potions in rahu (the dead mage wandering around) and sell the potions to NPC
- industry
- start a player vendor (if you do this on an alt, and have him get the dance buf at poetry jams that splits the vendor costs in half) you can basically run that vendor at half the cost for as long as the buf stays - usually 2.5 hours)
- buy items from the NPC buy used tab to save costs (in stead of buying at player stalls)

[Roccandil]

And dropped gear isn't non-augmented and non-transmuted? You will not ask a friend or pay someone to make a 6 modded item that is non-augmented and non-transmuted but you feel a drop one serves you better?

Can you explain the logic to that please?

Whether you like dailies or not is not particularly relevant. It simply supports my point that you chose to use selling to NPCs as your access to money.

"NPC" work orders generally pay very well. I am a little unclear how you determine they do not.

I barely get any lag in Serbule. maybe a little while moving. Sounds to me like a bad excuse to justify your not using it and thus trying to disingenuously stick to your position of claiming the only way to make money is by selling to NPCs.

You do not have to like all the options or any of them for that matter. The point is that it was originally claimed that THE ONLY option was favor with and sells to NPCs which we clearly have determined is not the case.

Enjoy your break, but otherwise I agree that earning favor can be tedious and annoying at times. i do not agree about the perspective with books.

It seems very unlikely that I can buy the best gear for my build. Almost certainly I'll have to transmute and augment it myself (however I get the base item). That endgame is not interesting to me.

Money has been fairly easy to get (I've gotten hundreds of thousands, maybe a million+, and pretty much spent it on favor/training as fast as I've gotten it). NPC work orders haven't paid well compared to other activities, however, and the better orders I've seen, for the most part, require good crafting skills, which requires favor. Mostly I've done work orders for skills I'm grinding anyhow.

The lag for me is Serbule is horrible. If it's not for you, great!

TL;DR: The favor system is really what gums things up for me. Earning money isn't that bad, but having to earn favor too is a double whammy, and I've just gotten bored with the repetition.

[Coglin]

It seems very unlikely that I can buy the best gear for my build. Almost certainly I'll have to transmute and augment it myself (however I get the base item). That endgame is not interesting to me.

I am sorry that it doesn't interest you, but it is a core aspect of end game.

The lag for me is Serbule is horrible. If it's not for you, great!

I agree, it is great. I get a hair occasionally in the player vendor area, but nowhere else in serbule. I truly feel for the folks that do, I imagine it sucks.

TL;DR: The favor system is really what gums things up for me. Earning money isn't that bad, but having to earn favor too is a double whammy, and I've just gotten bored with the repetition.

How would you suggest improvements?

[Lyndshade]

Its pretty hard to make suggestions with these types of games. By type I mean the ones classified as hardcore by having a mechanic that is viewed to be repetitive or extremely difficult for some. Providing feedback is also difficult in that 9/10 times a player-base will just say "well that feature is in such and such game go play that instead" or "if its too hard just leave". Any new player that enters has to deal with the difficulty barrier and while help is appreciated the 100+ veterans have to understand this is a niche game with a lot of moving parts. I myself have tried to play the game over 3-4 times through out its lifespan. Just for the record I think the game is great but it falls hard after you leave starter island.

Where most people hit the wall is with fame/inventory. First time I tried the game was with 2 other friends (i never tried playing it solo for whatever reason) and we had the most fun in that starter island oh boy! From collecting numbers from the pillars to getting cheese and taming a rat. My other friend was so excited he was saying "this game is amazing, I just gave this depressed dude some potion now I learned psychology!" Point is we all had the same feeling and thought of that starter island and expectations of what was next was super high. When leaving the island we are riding high! Then we arrived at Serbule.

After 2 hours of killing and banking with my friends at the new town you can sense the immediate problem already. "Do we keep this item?".. "Oh wait you need that for fame for an npc"... "the one in serbule?"... "nop the one in hills".. "listen lets just sell everything for now"
Then some npcs start to not give money so you go into this juggling mode of I am out of bank space and after each exp run having to check inventory for about 10 minutes. Maybe I put something in share bank and login/out 2-3 times passing items. It just killed the mood of group play and we all felt like man what happened after we left the island? This turned into a fame/inventory online game.

Along the years we revisited but this last time it was just me. Went in again and seen the usual number I see when I often log in to check 100-200 players. Not bad for a small community but I seen plenty of feedback to help increase player-base and doesn't really get any attention. These are all things that can make this game flourish but instead continue to be. An example is just google "project gorgon ugly box" and read just how many players find that target box not pleasant to look. Start with the little things and work on the way up. Almost every content that is released feels unfinished and then more new things come out and the rest feel ignored. Every feature in this game is probably at 50% completion. Crafting, fame, skills, maps, new races all not complete yet new feature animal husbandry coming soon along with more new races and housing for a 2 person team? One of these should be at 100% or close to it after so many years.

I went on a rant my point is new players go from seeing something incredible to arriving at Serbule and being disappointed, while its not immediate, after 1-2 days of seeing how it all works you are left with a huge letdown. The entry to having "fun" should be lowered a little if you want to see an increase in player-base numbers. Having to fame and increase my inventory just to quest and play a higher tier class should be more accessible. Currently it is way to tough especially for anyone who wants to start with animal forms.

tldr:
hard to make suggestions with hardcore veteran players around;
new player feels nice at the start but hit with reality once u reach serbule;
Inventory/fame is rough entry level wise;
2 person dev team with too many features none with 100% completion;
Animal forms should be more new player friendly