On Sloucho and Numa, and a few other things to consider for the next one
Now, that I'm over 90% done with 31 I began reflecting what it's been like and what the life after 31 would seem to hold for me. And I have to admit I am not exactly thrilled, massively less this time (when comparing to the numa 26 or even PL ao3 50 and bs 56). Comparing numa with sloucho reveals few significant differences.
Enemies in Sloucho are less varied than in Numa
The enemies are all rather alike in sloucho. In numa there were a wider range of enemies, i.e them dogs, sprites, different types of gunners, jedi sandpeople, big black spiderlike vulars, minibosses and the guardian. And most importantly one had to deal with each of them rather differently. In Sloucho I feel like there's host of bots, minibosses and the director. And aside from director they are all dealt identically, none of them need any special treatment and are arguably all too easy to begin with.
Maps in Sloucho are less varied than in Numa
In sloucho all five maps are rather identical, which is not simply a bad thing. For running purposes it allows thirties to run 1-4 for example, to avoid boredom without making significant losses in efficiency.
I would appreciate maps having somewhat different character, yet being suitable for close to level cap and cap+1 runners. It's not a simple feat to balance between the interest, challenge, reward and all that, but imho it was accomplished in Numa rather well and in sloucho, well, not so well. I wonder if this has ever been better achieved than it was in PL BS (pre gcd) where all of the maps where massively run by cap players, they had different character and sufficiently different drops making all of the feasible and worth while. Well, of course the aoe3 was good and varied, too, plenty to do for fifties of all kinds.
Maps in Sloucho are too easy
As a corollary to the last one, the maps from the first hall of films pretty much right up to the director are a breeze. On first go as a bunch of 26s we ran with mere few deaths right up to the director (and did get our butts whooped there throroughly). Again in Numa at least the Uncharted Ruins was a little more challenging. It was tough to solo and an experienced player could find nice challenge there by picking up a group of not-much-over-twenties and trying to keep them alive and deal with the guardian in a reasonable amount of time.
Remember them yellow speed crystals
I think their power hasn't been fully investigated yet. In numa they worked wonders when you could join a game in even it's late stages and catch up with them yellow crystals. I thought that was a fabulous idea. There can be seen dangers there, if people begin to lurk and seek out late games, but it never became a real problem with the guardian runs and that was late rewarding map, au contraire, friends made many guardian invites to help them out and that was made possible by the yellow crystals. Moreover, these days the significant drops are the vanities and they drop where ever, reducing the need for taking down bosses significantly (because the purps are overly cheap and common anyway and the pinks are useless aside from their price and rarity), yet speed crystals could allow people to join late pugs more frequently.
Expert maps?
PL players remember Vic Laps? Not to mention shadow caves... (although, they were soon made infeasible by not enough drops, costing too much pot-wise and when finally when BS got out as powerfull 50+s we could've run them the kills weren't allowed) Even the BS maps were wider and varied.
Something to do as at a level cap when running for the cap+1. Heck, in the PL bs there were many many people that either didn't exp-pot at all or exp-potted infrequently. One way to accomplish that could be to make a little more challenging bonus map or something.
Rewarding
Anything that's even mildly interesting should be at least mildly rewarding. Currently there seems to be absolutely no reason to run the director. It takes longer and no reward what so ever. Or none that people have found out so far. The director is not the best example of this. The shadow caves are. Although they were massively fun to run. They cost a lot potwise and pinks were just too damn infrequent (after the initial week) to have made it worth while. And then when we had the gear and levels to run them when bs had come out and they were still the most challenging levels to run we weren't granted kills and no one ran them even then. Such a waste considering that in my opinion they were one the best maps in SL/PL saga. The shadows caves, vic laps and stronghold pulls, god I miss them. I'd put the Uncharted Ruins right up there with them, but I'm afraid the sloucho will not be remembered as the greatest although it is probably the best looking (in spite of it being a tad white, and thus also bright, making it a little problematic for me, who likes to play late at night at bed next to my wife and kids who all prefer sleeping over looking at my flashing tab. thank god the paparazzi flashes were reduced.)
Something to do...
Once 31 in Sloucho, what is there to do?
Farm for vanities? Hardly. (don't get me wrong, I find it brilliant that they're just that rare, if for nothing else at least there's that left for me)
Making money to buy one. I guess that's it.
Cyber Quests, pinks, different stat sets (in PL a mage had the brilliant option of speccing to a pure int, a pally or a dexchantress. none of that exists anymore :( so there's three times less of the collecting to do), they were all something to do. I think the amount of level cap people running the snowball quest showed that one out of something on one's stat screen is plenty to keep people busy. :)
I'm not complaining
New content is new content. Trying to cater for us all is immensely difficult. I'm merely trying to point out things that I've found good and bad in the hopes that some of these observations might help improve the next 30-35 content towards things that players like me and others, too, might find worth while. There are people that have spent a lot more/less time and money for these games than I have, these were just my 2 cents.
Cheers.
EDIT: I added this because it does deserve a notion and I initially forgot it
Crafting (thanks elly)
I liked it this time, a lot. The wide range of new materials and their varied availability made things very interesting for a good amount of time. The crafted gear, in my opinion, was just the right amount better. There have been enough suggestions about making crafting even better that I'll leave that to those who have more experience on the matter than I do.
Set bonuses
Like I said, the set bonuses were brilliant this time around, they've tended to be a notch too good in my opinion, especially when for the most part the sparkles would've been a sufficient reward. And thank the heavens the weapon didn't complete the set, but the dispenser/widow/crusher/incinerator remained an open question and the comparisons were interesting as was the case with the shield altogether. Sadly however, it turned out that the 2 handed dispenser was too whimpy (or the widow too powerful) and the 1h vs 2h dualism was pretty much lost for engineers.
