Mathematical Suggestions

[Holley]

It doesn't appear that you know how to make gear for this game. It also appears that you want this game to be "tool progression" based rather than "character progression" based.

This means that the better the tool we have the better our characters do.

However, the rarity of tools available - be it weapons, armor, etc. - all have no scaling or poor scaling. This means that you want to keep your numbers small.

It also seems to show you don't know how to make the small numbers.


Here's some ideas how to help.


============ TOPIC 1:
Mastery:

For Mastery Points you could use a system like Guild Wars 1; Attributes.
- While in town swap your points in and out (easily) to create different builds for different circumstances.

Here's that math:


Level Total Attribute Points
1 5
2 10
3 15
4 20
5 25
6 30
7 35
8 40
9 45
10 50
11 55
12 60
13 65
14 70
15 80
16 90
17 100
18 120
19 140
20 200 (Max)

Attribute Scaling Formula
Attributes start at 0 and can be increased up to 12 points naturally.
Further increases beyond 12 are possible with runes:
Minor Rune → +1 (max 13)
Major Rune → +2 (max 14, but -35 HP)
Superior Rune → +3 (max 15, but -75 HP)
Example Attribute Investment at Level 20
With 200 points available, a typical balanced attribute distribution could look like:

12 Swordsmanship (96 points)
10 Strength (61 points)
8 Tactics (43 points)

Summary
Total 200 attribute points at level 20 (plus bonus from quests).
Attributes max out at 12 naturally, or 15 with runes.
Weapons, skills, and critical hits scale with attributes.
Respec anytime in towns, allowing for build changes.


Another method you could use is Mass Effect 3's Multiplayer:

Skill Tree Progression
Each character had four abilities + one passive skill tree, with six ranks per skill.

Each skill rank costs:

1 point for Rank 1
2 points for Rank 2
3 points for Rank 3
4 points for Rank 4
5 points for Rank 5
6 points for Rank 6
Ranks 4-6 have branching choices, allowing customization.

84 skill points are NOT enough to max all abilities, so players had to sacrifice at least one ability to fully max the others.

Example of a Maxed-Out Build
Two abilities at Rank 6 (e.g., Biotic Charge & Nova)
One ability at Rank 4 (e.g., Shockwave)
Passive ability at Rank 6
Fitness (defensive ability) at Rank 6



============ TOPIC 2:
Weapon Scaling:

In Guild Wars 1:
small numbers were achieved using this scaling.

Level 1 (Starter) 3-5 0 Swordsmanship
Level 5 6-12 ~3 Swordsmanship
Level 10 8-14 ~6 Swordsmanship
Level 15 10-18 ~9 Swordsmanship
Level 20 (Max) 15-22 12 Swordsmanship

In Dark Age of Camelot:
small numbers were achieved using this scaling.

Weapon Damage Scaling Tables (Base DPS Progression)
Level Max Weapon DPS
1 1.5
5 2.3
10 3.0
15 4.2
20 5.4
25 6.5
30 7.5
35 8.5
40 9.5
45 11.2
50 (Classic) 16.2
50 (SI & ToA) 16.5
51+ (Champion Levels - Labyrinth) 17.0+
Additional Notes:
16.2 DPS was the standard for Level 50 crafted and drop weapons in Classic DAoC.
16.5 DPS weapons were introduced in Shrouded Isles (SI) and Trials of Atlantis (ToA) expansions.
Some higher-end Champion Level or Labyrinth of the Minotaur weapons had slightly higher DPS values, capping at 17.0+ DPS.
How Weapon Damage is Calculated
Weapon damage is influenced by:

Quality (up to 100%)
Condition (decays over time, affecting effectiveness)
Bonus % (crafted and artifact weapons had a bonus value)
Weapon Speed (affects swings per second)
Skill Level (weapon specialization increases damage variance and consistency)


============ TOPIC 3:
Leveling

I think you should cap levels at 30.

The honest reason for this is that you are slow to produce content and bad at producing it when you do. This is not to say it remains bad, but it is clear you have a small team with a lot of work required of you.

You should focus on the Guild Wars 1 method of leveling for your game. This is very simple. At level 20 leveling stops.

Your game does well to level 30 before it no longer functions as a game. I think you would be good to stop here rather than continue to try to go further.

Instead you would do well adopting Dark Age of Camelot's gear scaling from that point forward. This would give you a very solid, tried and true, gaming structure where you can focus on making content rather than making numbers.

Crafting could then be hybridized. You could use Materials to make Components with Alchemy to add Procs like Freeze Dmg or Slow on hit. Just to name one such thing. A utilities based game rather than your current faulty-goal (if I'm being honest).

You might also want to think about degrading and re-salvaging gear like DAoC had. Adding to reply ability and re-usability (re-visitation) of old areas infinitely.


============ TOPIC 4:
Environment

The Wilds demonstrates that you have or had a designer who was extremely capable in making interesting and satisfying game experiences. If you lost this developer you should re-hire them as soon as possible. If you still have them you should work on making more such environments like this.

You are actually very strongly competent at making good environmental challenges when it comes to lightning, fog, rain, etc. Likewise, the Wilds is very diverse. Using beautiful vistas - at low or high elevation - to leave you in settled in for a very relaxing grind over multiple levels. 20 to 30 levels or more are possible in this single region.

Note:
By contrast Thronefast is at T-shaped road that you run up or down in hopes of getting a great. You do this until level 23 with no content to solo.

Avendyr's Pass is exceptionally lethal. Having wandering death scattered in amongst any rhythmic grind you might begin to build up into. Most creatures hit exceptionally hard or poison. This is fun to an extent, but soon dawns on you that your main challenge are two types of landmines: Spiders or Bears. All other content is walking. Usually around a massive cliff that adds nothing to the gameplay. Instead, retracts from it.

Eastern Plains seems to be where the competence in Design really hits peak bad-ness. Nearly everything bleeds or poisons. Combine this with most classes having an exceptionally terrible solo-experience leads to the game feeling like a slog. You are forced to fight Level 15 orcs or Avendyr's Pass. That's presuming your class can fight on its own at all to even grey level creatures. There are several giant stone rises in the middle of the zone terrain that are populated with creatures no one will grind because the effort to reach this zone is too great. Being dead locked between two far flung starter zones and un-fightable due to everything having some form of bleed (or simply doing too much damage to a solo or duo party) to be worth the trouble. Leading to it being nearly always vacant except for Wycan/Boss groups.

Silent Plains is actually very good experience for what it is. It's more practical to be there than most other regions of the game, but is very alien which can lead to exhaustion. Whereas Eastern Plains is exceptionally serene, but due to its bleeds from basic mobs and the bears/rams being overclocked because you hate fun and creativety from your players (see your design decisions regarding kiting) that a majority of area feels closer to an 80s horror setting in rural Western US than the serene music might suggestion. The music clips from Generation Zero (the shooter) being more fitting.

Overall, though, you are strong in Environmental design when you do sweeping landscapes with pillars of stone or outcrops and poor when allowed to go wild with clifffs. You should strongly restrain yourselves from cliff-based content as currently you have made everything except the Wilds and portions of EP be "cliff world".
- Silent Plains again being something of an exception here. You're on your way to screwing it up, but currently it is decently arranged and the Western section actually helpful to level through the currently terrible design decisions of leveling.

You should profoundly avoid doing more "landmine" mob placement. It's neat, but Dark Age of Camelot provided vistas for the sake of beautiful sell better and play better than "agro chains because difficult".



Summary:
You don't have the team size or ability to make this "grand" world at our current pace before players will lose interest. Nor do I think you have the ability to sustain a player base because you have a grander vision for how "difficult" (absurd in reality) you want the items' (importance?) to be. If you continue on the path you are headed the game will fail.

If you instead focus on taking advantage of what you already have to create more content rather than more mechanics or item-rarity you'll have a game that can last decades. It may not be the world you wanted, but it is the abilities you have.

Overall it is a decent game with a sleeping giant in potential. However, you are imagining to make a world that is going to be 'urbanized' when it will always have a population that will be 'rural'. Embrace that.

Go for more rural "bands of ready-made or on-the-fly" teams type content. Less "landmines". And more "packs" to hunt.

I think if you embrace these things your game will thrive.


Special Note:
Having abilities drop like you do in Manor and the wandering mages was a great idea. You dropped this too soon. Instead of Item Hunts you should embrace Abilities Hunts. But not go overboard on this item rarity.

You've already made crafters in your game the worst players to interact with. Profound scam artists for the majority as they know they have things so rare they charge any price. Meanwhile they probably won't craft it because it's just so annoying to attempt. And then if they do have a willingness to craft it utterly stops their own progression and it is impossible to communicate to another player what is needed in materials with any brevity. This means that most players are in sub-par gear even if they get a full set of hangor. Meanwhile most hangor doesn't drop gear for any classes except rare few. Bows are non-existent and your ability to make numbers or obviously cloned-visuals on items means you don't know how to make your math work. So, you need to use one of the skeletons above for a foundation it really looks like as you don't have the capabilities to make your own. That's just how it looks to the players. No items. Bad stats. Random stats. Crafting is wanted, needed, but the way it works leads to players who can being rare, arrogant, and for lack of a better way to say... practically evil to interact with by design.

In summary, you're game is done at level 30. Regardless of what further "content" you imagine for it unless you make some sweeping recognitions of your own potential soon.

[Irot Noot]

Who is this for? If you want the developers to see and consider this I think you need to bring it to Discord to have any chance of anyone seeing it that matters.

[madvillain]

Originally posted by Irot Noot:

Who is this for? If you want the developers to see and consider this I think you need to bring it to Discord to have any chance of anyone seeing it that matters.

The devs need to get out of their discord bubble if they ever want this game to succeed beyond a tiny niche with 200-300 concurrent. This guy just threw down some epic suggestions and it's clear he enjoys the game and has played the hell out of it pretty well.

Look at the numbers, this game has already lost like 40% of its playerbase, druid will help, but so will listening to the testers outside a discord bubble where censorship and group think is rampant.

[Irot Noot]

Originally posted by madvillain:

Originally posted by Irot Noot:

Who is this for? If you want the developers to see and consider this I think you need to bring it to Discord to have any chance of anyone seeing it that matters.

The devs need to get out of their discord bubble if they ever want this game to succeed beyond a tiny niche with 200-300 concurrent. This guy just threw down some epic suggestions and it's clear he enjoys the game and has played the hell out of it pretty well.

Look at the numbers, this game has already lost like 40% of its playerbase, druid will help, but so will listening to the testers outside a discord bubble where censorship and group think is rampant.

I have no problem with his epic suggestions and am merely suggesting that if he really wants the developers to see them, he should bring them to where the developers are. You can insist they do this or they do that, but what they are doing is on Discord. Its not exactly hard to log into their Discord considering the top stickied post to the server status is their Discord server. One click and it opens in your browser like any other link we all visit a billion of every day.

[madvillain]

Originally posted by Irot Noot:

Originally posted by madvillain:

The devs need to get out of their discord bubble if they ever want this game to succeed beyond a tiny niche with 200-300 concurrent. This guy just threw down some epic suggestions and it's clear he enjoys the game and has played the hell out of it pretty well.

Look at the numbers, this game has already lost like 40% of its playerbase, druid will help, but so will listening to the testers outside a discord bubble where censorship and group think is rampant.

I have no problem with his epic suggestions and am merely suggesting that if he really wants the developers to see them, he should bring them to where the developers are. You can insist they do this or they do that, but what they are doing is on Discord. Its not exactly hard to log into their Discord considering the top stickied post to the server status is their Discord server. One click and it opens in your browser like any other link we all visit a billion of every day.

I hate to break it to you but for a game that is desperate to placate the 40+ crowd relying on Discord to relay information and gather thoughts will never work. We've told them this many times, but the team is either willfully ignorant or (more likely) prefers the hug box. They've already managed to largely control the info that is posted here and on Reddit so I can only *imagine* how bad it is on the Discord. I have zero interest in entering such an environment and I'm certainly not alone. The fact that this amazing thread was already derailed by yet another "but muh discord" post is asinine enough.

[Tommy Salami]

Originally posted by Irot Noot:

Who is this for? If you want the developers to see and consider this I think you need to bring it to Discord to have any chance of anyone seeing it that matters.

Or they could use the forums for the platform their game is on like any normal developer and not some garbage ♥♥♥♥♥ infested app.

What a braindead reply lmao

[Irot Noot]

Originally posted by madvillain:

Originally posted by Irot Noot:

I have no problem with his epic suggestions and am merely suggesting that if he really wants the developers to see them, he should bring them to where the developers are. You can insist they do this or they do that, but what they are doing is on Discord. Its not exactly hard to log into their Discord considering the top stickied post to the server status is their Discord server. One click and it opens in your browser like any other link we all visit a billion of every day.

I hate to break it to you but for a game that is desperate to placate the 40+ crowd relying on Discord to relay information and gather thoughts will never work. We've told them this many times, but the team is either willfully ignorant or (more likely) prefers the hug box. They've already managed to largely control the info that is posted here and on Reddit so I can only *imagine* how bad it is on the Discord. I have zero interest in entering such an environment and I'm certainly not alone. The fact that this amazing thread was already derailed by yet another "but muh discord" post is asinine enough.

Stick your head in the dirt if you like, no skin off my nose. Its a shame about his suggestion though if he and folks like you are so rigidly insistent on not using a silly simple tool that is practically standard for games nowdays. I was just trying to help him get his info to them, YOU are the one being rigid and unyielding regarding what tool should or shouldnt be used for communication with the developers.

[Irot Noot]

Originally posted by Tommy Salami:

Originally posted by Irot Noot:

Who is this for? If you want the developers to see and consider this I think you need to bring it to Discord to have any chance of anyone seeing it that matters.

Or they could use the forums for the platform their game is on like any normal developer and not some garbage ♥♥♥♥♥ infested app.

What a braindead reply lmao

What is brain dead about telling him where the developers actually monitor other than you have some nearly ideological bend against it.

[Tommy Salami]

Originally posted by Irot Noot:

Originally posted by Tommy Salami:

Or they could use the forums for the platform their game is on like any normal developer and not some garbage ♥♥♥♥♥ infested app.

What a braindead reply lmao

What is brain dead about telling him where the developers actually monitor other than you have some nearly ideological bend against it.

"Hur dur who is this for?"

[Irot Noot]

Originally posted by Tommy Salami:

Originally posted by Irot Noot:

What is brain dead about telling him where the developers actually monitor other than you have some nearly ideological bend against it.

"Hur dur who is this for?"

I am assuming you dont have the power to change anything in the game, I dont. So if the folks here have no power to execute any changes like he suggests, it suggests that his info is for someone else. Is that too hard a concept for you? I assume he wants this in front of the developers, to which I gave info on how to make that happen.

I find it of note that the OP isnt here complaining about me suggesting this be brought to Discord, just some loud "others" I guess that have decided to argue the validity of Discord.

[spectre.smg - han/ham]

I think that OP has worked harder on the game in the last day than the developers have in 11 years.

[Luckycharms]

Well put spread this around for sure.

[Balatro]

Originally posted by madvillain:

Originally posted by Irot Noot:

Who is this for? If you want the developers to see and consider this I think you need to bring it to Discord to have any chance of anyone seeing it that matters.

The devs need to get out of their discord bubble if they ever want this game to succeed beyond a tiny niche with 200-300 concurrent. This guy just threw down some epic suggestions and it's clear he enjoys the game and has played the hell out of it pretty well.

Look at the numbers, this game has already lost like 40% of its playerbase, druid will help, but so will listening to the testers outside a discord bubble where censorship and group think is rampant.

that would reqire they consider us testers and not players and honestly i dont think they do.

[Mordicai052]

If you post anything contrary to what the devs are already doing, you are immediately attacked by the crowds of VR white knights who patrol the discord, protecting the devs from contrary opinions.

The base community they cultivated over the last 11 years is going to kill this game.

[Menzagitat]

Originally posted by Irot Noot:

Who is this for? If you want the developers to see and consider this I think you need to bring it to Discord to have any chance of anyone seeing it that matters.

It is for me. Because it helps me understand what kind of developers I would support if I would buy the game. On Discord such a post would be lost fast as soon as others would post something in the same channel on top of it.
It belongs here where the game store is.

I wanted to buy the game from their own web page to avoid giving 30% to Valve but they push me here back to Steam. It is here where I read the threads and see devs silence.
I assumed their silence means they accepted the inevitable fate that the game is failing and is the last attempt to get some money before the game dies, as some reviewers say.

Now based on your posts I understand they arrogantly avoid Steam forums.

[Menzagitat]

Originally posted by Irot Noot:

Who is this for? If you want the developers to see and consider this I think you need to bring it to Discord to have any chance of anyone seeing it that matters.

One more thing to add.
If good posts go somewhere else, only the garbage will remain here.
Better go yourself to Discord and post the link to devs and tell them to answer.