The future of PL ... long term recommendations; my most important post for this year

[WhoIsThis]

Introduction

To begin with, I know that there have been others that have made other similar threads. My goal is to summarize the list of grievances and to make recommendations. I would like this kept in the General Discussion for now. I intend for this to be the most important post that I have ever made since I joined the forums, so please keep this civil readers (I desperately wish to avoid this being locked, moved, or to turn this into a flame war). The other thing I would like to say is that if you ignore every other post that I make, I would like this one to have the most weight. This will also be the first post that I at some point plan on blogging.


Recently, there have been trends in PL that have been ... controversial. Perhaps the last time that the PL was so controversial was the introduction of the Global Cooldown System which heavily split the community in two, resulted in heavy flaming, and a variety of other unpleasant effects. I am also a bit troubled at the long term direction that things have been going. There has been the perception that the developers have been less receptive to feedback overall (and in my opinion, not without justification).

I have played several MMOs before, and I can tell the long term trends. Were this any other MMO, I would not have bothered to have posted this and left quietly. I have known several people that have quit out of frustration with the direction of the game, most prominently (and those of you who are new to the forums will not know him), a player known as "Royce", who had disagreements with the random drop packs and the quality of the forums themselves.

I will split this into a 2 part post for readability purposes.







Today

The typical PL character looks something like this (this is my main, circa December 2011):


Many players have spent varying amounts of platinum and have put varying amounts of time into the game.

Lately however, there has been a decline in the satisfaction of players, particularly after the fall of 2011.







Nuri's Hallows

Ever since the introduction of Nuri's Hallows, there has been the perception that the developers have been more profit rather than quality of content driven.


Problems
For the most part, I found Nuri's Hallows to be somewhat underwhelming. There was nothing truly new in a sense. The last time I was disappointed was the introduction of the Shadow Caves. I felt that it was like Alien Underground, with the monsters of Alien Oasis (the Djinn, Shadow Monsters, and the like) with nothing truly new that only hit hard. I think that many others got similar motivation in Nuri:

1. The environment did not look "new"; it looked like the old Forest backgrounds in Symphony, old bog backgrounds, etc. Madness looked like Alien Oasis. The others, such as Lion's Den looked new enough.

2. The monsters were not new in the case of Symphony; they said the same things as before

3. They just hit harder, with nothing more interesting (ex: in Lost Expedition, monsters could freeze you)

4. The bosses said the same things that prior bosses in the Sewers (ex: Bandit King and Queen, Goblin King, etc) said; and King Mynas was reused for the Snake Charmer

5. There was less creativity overall it seemed

Contrast this with the Sewers, which had relatively new content, an acceptable difficulty level, and challenges for the boss. Up until 5 months in, people were not bored. The only good thing about it was that the Demonic sets looked cool. The custom, enchanted, and fortified by contrast looked plain, especially when one compared to their predecessors (void, rift, cosmos) which looked unique.


Demonic Glyph
Yet the demonic itself caused much controversy. I created a thread, recommending that people could craft their sets for platinum. The reaction from those that spent money was instantly negative and resulted in a flame war. I asked a friend of mine to tell me how much he spent to finish his demonic obedience dex set (he purchased it on the first day). He said ~15 million gold and 90 plat. What is astounding is that it was just the bow, helm, and leather. He would have had to spend more if he wanted the dagger and wing (which he did not). I suppose int mages are at a drawback here - they may need the staff, wand, and bracer. This also means that they need to spend more platinum than dex builds who just need 3 pieces.

http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...able-with-plat

He was indifferent to the fact that prices dropped to 9 million shortly, but others were very protective of their investment. The point is that it illustrated the growing rich-poor gap in PL and resulted in a flame war. Unfortunately some of the posts in the thread above were deleted. Nonetheless, the gist of it is clear. It took months for many to get the demonic, by which point the depreciation was at a much faster rate. The poorer players had envy of the rich, while many of the wealthy resented how fast their demonic sets declined in value.

I think that for demonic, STS made it too hard to obtain. The many threads complaining about this are a testament to that. It was a chore, not an accomplishment. Fortunately, this was rectified with the latest level, Mount Fang.



The Elixir Controversy
However, the biggest controversy that resulted was the difficulty level. Combined with the aggressive promotion of elixirs that STS had made (free dailies, the placement of Vinnie the Vendor, etc), it led to the perception that all that mattered was platinum. At first, I defended STS, but when I realized that in a typical PUG, this game was approaching unplayable, I found myself frustrated.

Some of the oldies told me that the last time they recalled this level of difficulty was what they called the "pre-nerf" AO3 days. I have not been around long enough to know what that was like, so I am forced to take their word for it.

The point is that the game for many was extremely difficult without elixirs. A standard Bandit Boy Hideout run in the Sewers could be completed in 5-6 minutes, and under 4 minutes with a proficient team. Catacombs and other more difficult levels were also not as long. Without elixirs, the run length (I believe STS formally calls this the "rate of content consumption") was several times that of others, particularly for Symphony, with only Nuri's Madness being of comparable length.

Needless to say, STS made a significant windfall over this. But the bigger problem is that of lost goodwill. A lot of players no longer view STS as benevolent as before. Most of course understand that STS is a business, but they felt that things had gone too far.

In frustration, I introduced a guide for players:

http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...nce-the-update

Seeing how few people read it, I will not be introducing a guide for Fang.








Mount Fang

Mount Fang relieved few of the problems that Nuri had, but worsened a few.

Observations


Timing - Earlier than Expected

The first problem that occurred was the timing of the release. The level cap was supposed to have been raised on the 24th of November. When it came sooner, several players complained as they had (barely) missed the cap. They were perhaps 0-30k of xp from the cap and had originally been timing for a release on the 24th. They missed their chance at the vanity shield.

For PvP Balance, I have voiced some ideas:
http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...-and-now-Armor

For those that are in this position though ... I'm at a loss on what to say. I thought it was going to be on the 24th as well. I think that the crown of persistence and vanity clothes should give the same set bonus as crown and shield. I also recommend that STS give more warning if they intend to do this in the future. People ... be advised, whenever there's a cap rise, get to the elite if you want it ASAP.


The Release

After the release came, there were other problems:

1. The background again: Nothing original - I though for a moment that I was playing in Balefort Castle only with harder monsters. Little things like this imply a lack of effort, especially combined with how rapidly the dungeon was released (3 months, although the 6 months of Sewers was mainly due to the bottleneck by SL).

2. The monsters hit less hard relative to the new equipment, but they had an insane amount of hp. Eyeballing it, I'd estimate 7-9 thousand hp. A standard non-elixir run requires for a bird 50-100 pots (depending on what level), although it can be less than 25 with a good bear (which are unfortunately in short supply and the bear will need to consume a lot of potions as well). This was huge. It worsened the perception that STS wanted platinum elixirs. This also worsened the fact that the levels would take a long time without elixirs.

3. Some people found the equipment ugly looking. On one hand, I do applaud STS for making the equipment original (the vampire theme), on the other hand it did not look truly "end game".

4. Some people are unhappy with PvP balance - in particular, dex gear needs a buff (preferably to crit).


Things Resolved

It is easier to get the end game gear now than it was in Nuri. This is a good thing. It means that the rich-poor gap has been somewhat narrowed. The introduction of the daily quests was also a step in the right direction. I do not understand why similar quests were not present in Nuri - they were there in the Sewers for crafting materials. For end game equipment to be optimal, it needs to be hard enough to seem like an achievement, but at the same time, not so hard as to divide the community and cause the controversy that it did.

The mobs do not hit as hard (which I said earlier), which makes the game somewhat more playable than Nuri. A competent group of players at level 60 with level 60 gear should be able to complete the level. However, this was largely negated by the volume of health the mobs had. It takes 2 nature strikes from a pure int mage with a staff to wipe out the mobs. Few PUGs have players that have the good enough timing to execute this successfully.

However, the big problems introduced in Nuri still remain.





The Big Problem

The big problem though still remains. There is the perception that STS has been milking people of platinum too hard while players do not feel as if they are getting their money's worth. I have asked some players in my guild. Apparently I am cheap by comparison. To date, I have purchased "only" 4,800 platinum. Others have spent $500 - $1,000 USD on the game.

I think that the biggest problem is that STS is going to make a windfall in the short run, but lose customers in the long run due to frustration.

I have seen similar trends in other MMOs.




In order for a game to succeed, 2 things need to happen:

1. STS must make enough money in order for its developers to enjoy a good living and to be able to afford high quality content

2. The players must feel as if they are getting their money's worth. Increasingly, #2 is in question.


I suspect that for a game like this, the initial cost of developing the game engine (which takes years) is the most expensive, and then the marginal costs of releasing new dungeons declines with time. However, server costs should increase as more players come in, although this should be more than offset by the increased platinum sales. If this is not true, please disclose. Transparency on these matters is always welcomed.

Part 2 will go on about my recommendations on how to fix this.