With our first game concluded, we're opening a thread for feedback! What did you love? Hate? How can we improve these games for the future? Let us know!
Please use this thread for all ToA feedback so other threads aren't polluted.
You may enter the memory by using the command ENTER MEMORY at the splinter. Upon entering, you will view a short history of t
he happenings of the war between Avasyu and Legion.
Once you have entered, you will be placed in the battleground and able to complete daily quests. These quests will give you 5
points per day toward the Tournament of Ages.
You may complete the quest to help Avasyu or to help Legion. To begin, seek out their respective generals on the battlefield.
Hooray.
Yet another two-faction event with one of the sides being "clear and obvious evil". I could swear that you guys said you'd stop doing that.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
As previously stated, this is not really an event you can change things about. The event revolves around getting points, winning games, and getting credits.
The lore side of things is just that, to release lore.
Our next event will not have sides or scripted endings.
The ToA's first Overrun event was insane, but it was fun! I also really like the idea of these daily quests, and the instanced area is amazing. The tie-ins for these events makes me want to be irresponsible and stay up for events that I know I shouldn't, so good job making me struggle with my sanity in a good way!
The overrun still has the problem of with group size not being limited, it's massive groups of players and it a snooze fest right until you're getting hit for massive amounts, and the lag from the large group/the mobs trying to track to players prevents healing abilities (shard heal, ritual heal, kai heal, hands, etc) until it's too late.
Finally got a chance to at least check out the quest thing after laying down for a bit, and I have to say, I really like the instanced area because it's a way to present the lore in an interactive fashion rather than just text dumps or stuff, and there's some interesting stuff in there if you go poking about. Two thumbs up.
Even though it would give me a significant advantage if it weren't the case, I'm very glad that the bashing challenges have been made to work in a way that allows even people without bashing systems to compete. Inclusion is awesome. =D
I don't have anything positive to say about Soul Trap
So let's meet in the middle and try and come up with some constructive criticism!
Soul Trap is a variant of Shadowlovers, which I know can frustrate some people due to shadows appearing in hard to access areas, very large large areas (like the Shaahri), or really obscure sections of an area. With the current twist, it's a race to see who can find an assigned shadow first.
What would you do to make the game more enjoyable? Or could you expand on what, exactly, you don't like? I know some games just aren't everyone's cup of tea!
I like the daily quest, the historical tie-in is nice. The quest itself is nice and easy, simple participation for those who don't dig the major events but still want to get in on the action. It's ridiculously spammy for the intro messages with everyone running around, though. If I were to change one thing about that it would be to add in one extra room where folks are unable to take actions and go through the intro messages there so they aren't lost in the movement/bashing spam.
Overrun could kick up the pace a little faster, but once it got going it was crazy fun. Even if AM apparently has a magic stick that the rest of us clearly lack. :P
The bashing competition was also nice. I am a big, big fan of bashing competitions that don't rely on people finding un-bashed-out hunting areas. Plus I dig the tie-ins with other events. Also, I placed top ten. So. \o/
Three primary complaints thus far -
First, the games are skewed towards bashing, some pk, and very little of the other stuff folks like to do. Earlier ToA's had a better balance between lore nerds, RP/writing nerds, PKers, bashers, questers. I wish we'd stop the slow march towards Armageddon IRE-style and create more incentives for those who are NOT strictly PK/bash/coders.
Second, whoa, man. The times. It feels like these are all really terrible times for folks in the US who actually enjoy sleeping. They are late for me on the west coast, so are happening in the wee hours of the morning for folks on the east coast. I'm all for a good spread on times so folks from all over the world can participate. Maybe my brain isn't translating the GMT to time zones very well, but it seems a little meh.
Last! Kind of minor, but there used to be design competitions that did NOT require you have the tradeskill to participate. That's how I got my first bite of the credit bug, actually. I'd likely NEVER have purchased a single credit in IRE games at all had I not won my first design contest. I certainly didn't have a tradeskill then. Someone else submitted it through for me. Likewise, other IRE games are not requiring a tradeskill for entrance to these because a newblette of mine placed in a design contest in another IRE game sans tradeskill. Given the really minimal amount of games for the writer nerds, this is disappointing for me. I can see the argument in favor of giving those of us who have spent truly insane amounts of real money on having tradeskills a bone (gee, look, our skills are useful for SOMETHING), but really, it just feels limiting. I know a decent number of folks who can't afford a tradeskill and submit through other people. This is fixable by having someone else submit the design through the system on their behalf or simply having people send in letters with designs that follow the design criteria and opens up the competition to more players. This really doesn't effect me, since I currently have something like six characters I can send designs in through on everything but masonry. If anything, I'm saying give me more competition. It's just... a more inclusive way to run the show and opens the door for more future credit ladies-of-the-night.
Last! Kind of minor, but there used to be design competitions that did NOT require you have the tradeskill to participate. That's how I got my first bite of the credit bug, actually. I'd likely NEVER have purchased a single credit in IRE games at all had I not won my first design contest. I certainly didn't have a tradeskill then. Someone else submitted it through for me. Likewise, other IRE games are not requiring a tradeskill for entrance to these because a newblette of mine placed in a design contest in another IRE game sans tradeskill. Given the really minimal amount of games for the writer nerds, this is disappointing for me. I can see the argument in favor of giving those of us who have spent truly insane amounts of real money on having tradeskills a bone (gee, look, our skills are useful for SOMETHING), but really, it just feels limiting. I know a decent number of folks who can't afford a tradeskill and submit through other people. This is fixable by having someone else submit the design through the system on their behalf or simply having people send in letters with designs that follow the design criteria and opens up the competition to more players. This really doesn't effect me, since I currently have something like six characters I can send designs in through on everything but masonry. If anything, I'm saying give me more competition. It's just... a more inclusive way to run the show and opens the door for more future credit ladies-of-the-night.
It's kind of the same thrust as the artidrops in a way I think - if you show someone how much fun they could have with something, they're going to be much more willing to invest some money in the game to get into it, and the design competitions seem like a very natural way to do so when it comes to craft-skills.
I've been enjoying the tournament so far. One thing that I've noticed that would be nice, is a little more announcement when games are run in a different fashion than usual.
This was the only notice received before Memory Match earlier:
Type JOIN MEMORYMATCH CAANAE to join.
This memory match:
* Lasts until the first person matches all the tiles.
Since it's never played that way before, most of our side of things was totally taken aback when it ended so suddenly. Some noticed and assumed it was just an error. Could we get a little more info when things are run a different way?
One thing that bothers me is that some things like Memory Match and Infestation are only being played once, so it's miss once and you miss it entirely. I think A+B events for everything were overkill, but I would like to see everything getting played at least twice.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
One thing that bothers me is that some things like Memory Match and Infestation are only being played once, so it's miss once and you miss it entirely. I think A+B events for everything were overkill, but I would like to see everything getting played at least twice.
Both of these games are being played at least twice! Infestation and Memory Match were played the first and second days respectively. Their secondary times in the schedule are below:
Day Five: Thursday, May 5, 2014 Daily Quest : TBA 00:00 - QUEST : Overrun 03:00 - WORLD : Horror Hunt 07:00 - ARENA : Infestation 17:00 - ARENA : Free-For-All 21:00 - WORLD : Soul Hunt
Day Nine: Monday, May 9, 2014 Daily Quest : TBA 00:00 - WORLD : Horror Hunt 03:00 - ARENA : Soul Drain 07:00 - ARENA : Free-For-All 17:00 - WORLD : Infestation 21:00 - QUEST : Overrun
Day Six: Friday, May 6, 2014 Daily Quest : TBA 00:00 - WORLD : Soul Hunt 03:00 - QUEST : War Zone 07:00 - WORLD : Horror Hunt 17:00 - ARENA : Bloodbath 21:00 - ARENA : Memory Match
We tried to make every game run at least twice when planning the schedule, though it's possible we goofed somewhere.
These daily quests are sort of blowing my mind. I cannot stress enough how much I love that they're not only unfolding a story, but giving us new and unique things to do every single day. Like, I -want- to do these things for more than just the 5 points. I would do this for free (hypothetically; I want to keep my points).
I've been mostly having a great experience so far. The new events/reskinned events have been pretty amazing. I do think that FFAs need to be revamped somehow to account for the huge amount of people that join them and inevitably cluster with their circles to survive. I'd suggest some kind of timer from the last time that someone died, that either straight up eliminates a random person, or shuffles that person into another room with someone else (possibly shuffle everyone just to make things truly intense, chaotic, and productive).
That is how ToA FFAs always work. Everybody groups up with their teammates because credits are at stake, and if you don't team somebody will team you. There is really no way around it without changing the game so dramatically that it's actually a brand new arena event instead of an FFA.
Note, I'm not averse to them coming up with a brand new arena event for it, I'm just saying that it wouldn't be an FFA anymore.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
These daily quests are sort of blowing my mind. I cannot stress enough how much I love that they're not only unfolding a story, but giving us new and unique things to do every single day. Like, I -want- to do these things for more than just the 5 points. I would do this for free (hypothetically; I want to keep my points).
Maybe make them Manhunts or something. I am not actually sure why everything comes up FFA. From what I can tell, a lot of people don't even like FFAs all that much (unlike Team FFAs, which can be great - usually because there just two teams). And I guess teaming is always a major strategy in FFAs anyway, but that one was rather painful because we didn't want to be the ones to rush and eat the totem (understandably), and you guys (understandably) didn't want to get picked off with radiance every time you tried to enter the area. So long as there are two areas where people can hole up away from the ranged stuff, the team that can be more patient (so in this case, neither of us ) probably does have an advantage. But a lot of people are going to say "but that's still silly, and waiting like that isn't fun", and they have a point.
If FFAs worked the way they are "supposed" to, it feels like it really would just be chaos. Not even controlled chaos... just... randomness. It even happens as is sometimes. I won an FFA way back when, basically because all of the good fighters forgot I was there, and I got a killing blow on another person who was worth a lot of points, if I remember right. It was hilarious - because it was just a random FFA to pass the time. Or, there might have been a small prize, like a doll or something. Maybe they were really mad about the doll but ashamed to admit it Anyway, I don't think people would be as amused if someone won one of -these- FFAs by what I guess what you could call the "flail method". This is also what I understand to be the main reason people don't care for FFAs to begin with and do everything they can to force some semblance of order onto them.
Can we disable flooding in the warzone/overrun events? It is extremely irritating for those professions that can't use their bashing attack while mounted. Having to swim/part every room is a fairly large time sink; if it takes just two seconds to swim in and out of a room, you can easily end up spending 5-10% of the event just swimming. Monk can't even mount/move/dismount effectively due to restancing.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Iniar said:
Oh man, what if I didnt do the daily yesterday? Did i miss out?
Not sure if they plan on doing "reruns" or not. Would be nice if that area was somehow playable start to finish after the TOA, though, since there's a ton of really neat lore in there.
- Sorry about the first memory match, it's a new system, and I'm still getting used to it. However, now I know what I'm doing (I hope) so next one should be better, and will be timed. I was thinking 30 minutes, do you feel that is enough?
- Daily quests: The quests go with the story, so if you missed a day, sorry, that quest is gone. As far as reopening it after the ToA is done, I do not currently have plans for that.
For the Horror Hunt ... would it be possible to reward a credit for every 100 kills or every 200 kills after the initial. It just keeps everyone more interested in a 3 Hour event compared to only those gunning for top 10.
Comments
(Ring): Lartus says, "Then it exploded."
(Ring): Zsetsu says, "Everyone's playing checkers, but Theophilus is playing chess."
Hooray.
Yet another two-faction event with one of the sides being "clear and obvious evil". I could swear that you guys said you'd stop doing that.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Soul Trap is a variant of Shadowlovers, which I know can frustrate some people due to shadows appearing in hard to access areas, very large large areas (like the Shaahri), or really obscure sections of an area. With the current twist, it's a race to see who can find an assigned shadow first.
What would you do to make the game more enjoyable? Or could you expand on what, exactly, you don't like? I know some games just aren't everyone's cup of tea!
Overrun could kick up the pace a little faster, but once it got going it was crazy fun. Even if AM apparently has a magic stick that the rest of us clearly lack. :P
The bashing competition was also nice. I am a big, big fan of bashing competitions that don't rely on people finding un-bashed-out hunting areas. Plus I dig the tie-ins with other events. Also, I placed top ten. So. \o/
Three primary complaints thus far -
First, the games are skewed towards bashing, some pk, and very little of the other stuff folks like to do. Earlier ToA's had a better balance between lore nerds, RP/writing nerds, PKers, bashers, questers. I wish we'd stop the slow march towards Armageddon IRE-style and create more incentives for those who are NOT strictly PK/bash/coders.
Second, whoa, man. The times. It feels like these are all really terrible times for folks in the US who actually enjoy sleeping. They are late for me on the west coast, so are happening in the wee hours of the morning for folks on the east coast. I'm all for a good spread on times so folks from all over the world can participate. Maybe my brain isn't translating the GMT to time zones very well, but it seems a little meh.
Last! Kind of minor, but there used to be design competitions that did NOT require you have the tradeskill to participate. That's how I got my first bite of the credit bug, actually. I'd likely NEVER have purchased a single credit in IRE games at all had I not won my first design contest. I certainly didn't have a tradeskill then. Someone else submitted it through for me. Likewise, other IRE games are not requiring a tradeskill for entrance to these because a newblette of mine placed in a design contest in another IRE game sans tradeskill. Given the really minimal amount of games for the writer nerds, this is disappointing for me. I can see the argument in favor of giving those of us who have spent truly insane amounts of real money on having tradeskills a bone (gee, look, our skills are useful for SOMETHING), but really, it just feels limiting. I know a decent number of folks who can't afford a tradeskill and submit through other people. This is fixable by having someone else submit the design through the system on their behalf or simply having people send in letters with designs that follow the design criteria and opens up the competition to more players. This really doesn't effect me, since I currently have something like six characters I can send designs in through on everything but masonry. If anything, I'm saying give me more competition. It's just... a more inclusive way to run the show and opens the door for more future credit ladies-of-the-night.
One thing that bothers me is that some things like Memory Match and Infestation are only being played once, so it's miss once and you miss it entirely. I think A+B events for everything were overkill, but I would like to see everything getting played at least twice.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Day Five: Thursday, May 5, 2014
Daily Quest : TBA
00:00 - QUEST : Overrun
03:00 - WORLD : Horror Hunt
07:00 - ARENA : Infestation
17:00 - ARENA : Free-For-All
21:00 - WORLD : Soul Hunt
Day Nine: Monday, May 9, 2014
Daily Quest : TBA
00:00 - WORLD : Horror Hunt
03:00 - ARENA : Soul Drain
07:00 - ARENA : Free-For-All
17:00 - WORLD : Infestation
21:00 - QUEST : Overrun
Day Six: Friday, May 6, 2014
Daily Quest : TBA
00:00 - WORLD : Soul Hunt
03:00 - QUEST : War Zone
07:00 - WORLD : Horror Hunt
17:00 - ARENA : Bloodbath
21:00 - ARENA : Memory Match
We tried to make every game run at least twice when planning the schedule, though it's possible we goofed somewhere.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."