[Shujin]

INTRODUCTION/INTENTION:
This is not a salt thread, or an jab at dev saying that Sigrogana Legend is bad in itself. Heck no, like most of us who are still around we enjoy the game very much and overall I think Dev is doing good work. He is just a bit to absent in the actual core of the game that keeps it alive. The RPG between the players. So I actually want a serious discussion and see how the community as a whole see the thing and if this is one day going to be a game that actually keeps those players I personally enjoyed RPing with like Cat, Esther, Leah, Kam and so on while making people like me, Saw and a bunch of others not "Zombie" around pretty much only out of Nostagalia and cause we have some friends we like. In short, make it more enjoyable experince overall.

This thread is basically a collection of things I have thought about that bother me, things people that have quit said to me and their reasoning, and what people like me who actually like the game but rant about a few key features this game is currently missing to make it more appealing as an RPG overall.

So everyone is also invited to bring up their own thoughts of what bothers them, is free to agree and disagree to whatever I have to say but most importantly. Voice what changes you feel would make the experince much better for you. To adress the things we REALLY need changed instead of adding more fluff here and there to let us forget about the main issues for a week or two (looking at you, beautiful Alstalsia!).
Of course everyone has their own ideas of how the game should look like, and which direction it should take, so here are mine!

ISSUES

Progression

When I talk with Ex-players, one of the main things I hear is that they quit because they felt the RP is going nowhere. Not only the RP but the progression of their own character is basically just this: Grind to 60 as fast a possible, get items, done. Forever. Currently this is so much of an issue that someone who actually tries can easily get 3 Characters in one day up to the absolute Maximum without an issue if being grinded...But even reaching 60 in one day with just running around and doing Dungeons/Black Beasts/Scar repair is quite possible.
This encourages people to get many different characters, mass produce powerhouses that have litterally no story with the people (Unless it's a group of people with their friends, but that doesn't really count), And makes people abondon the Characters cause of a current "Meh" feeling, because they want to switch things up instead of working on that one character to intervine them more with maybe other people.
The current system supports this, making it hard to bond with characters that you aren't actively following for OOC reasons cause once they get a tiny bit bored of the character they get replaced by a new one cause how easy it is to have one character fully grown in not even a day. Instead of trying to overcome and grow with that one character, giving us a bunch of...Well, unintetionally half assed and partly repurposed Characters that have little meaning to even the player behind them. (I mean, you certainly are more careful with your character, when you have spend months and monthy RPing with them, over someone who has been around and didn't root with the others much yet.)

Damm I remember how HARD it was back then to reach level 60. Back then when the EXP curve was much higher, we had no Training day, no full clear bonuses, no black beasts and no real map nuke attacks like Wretched Oil (we have isendo though. Was okay though most of the time cause Goblins are a bitch, and you were worrying about your growth rates anyway.), which came much later. But at the end? It felt so DAMM good. It was really rewarding and making you feel good about yourself, it took certainly longer and was a chore that people certainly don't really like remembering. But it didn't devalue what it meant to be at Level 60 the so called "Elite".

RP Enviorment: Who is my character and whats his Value in the world?

I know it was said once, that players are basically "Main Characters" or atleast the absolute elite in the world with a lot of potential. Like a Level 60 Battle Character basically being a one man army, compared to the normal NPCs in the world. Top Tier, something that I personally think should be the case. (Though reaching this state shouldn't be as easy as it is at the moment, more about that later.) Players should be something that stands out from the crowd atleast a little, unless they choose otherwise of course.
But as it stands right now? I don't feel it, and many seem to feel that aswell, while argueably thats simply because they forget just how many NPCs are around them, cause of them being invisible there is also the fact that we are sourrounded by absolute beasts. God Tier Emporer, Super Insane Mud breeder with apparntly endless power, Chaos Events, Kinu/Ashe godly powers and so on. Even if you read the many different lore bits and stuff...Everyone who sligthly mattered was litterally near god tier, like the former Tennou, Ryart or whoever really. This isn't bad! It shows that there is still an instance above them thats not easily reached and only a few selected ones can acheive under specific conditions...What I think is bad however is, that there are no other ways really that allow us to stand out in the RP much, the honestly biggest position that was given out and was still kinda small was probably Mayor of Voilegard.
Another HUGE part of what could make people stand out, outside of combat is Crafting and Jobs. The Crafting system as it stands is REALLY lackluster, unimmersive and absolutely meaningless. A level 6 Master Blacksmith? badjoke, they barely even RP as such and just have is by the by. This I blame on the Leveling system of crafts (Crafting 1000 longswords is certainly not going to make you suddenly the best Smith in the world.) and what you can actually do once you are full Leveld in the craft. And Metal smithing is even one of the better crafts currently and still is...Underwhelming. Don't get me started on Tailoring and such.
What I am trying to say here, not even a Master Blacksmith can make himself a name here, it's just a rather boring OOC number you use that matters little if you RP a Master Blacksmith or a Masterswordman, they are probably even at smithing in the end. And for ME thats an major Issue. A Master Blacksmith deserving of the title should outshine a hobby smith who just knows basic maintenance actually. But at the same time I do not think a Master Blacksmith, spending most of his time should be by default on equal footing than the Master swordman who practices the usage of the sword.
And yes it is possible to acheive this, with the right system behind it.

Alternatives to being a Arena Combatant who oh so happens to be dragged into Events, randomly.

Actually similiar to above, we are lacking Jobs and stuff to do outside of PvPing. PvPing is currently only the Focus of most people cause there is nothing else to put your focus on. People play the game for a bit of slice of life RP in a fantasy setting, mostly. Sometimes they want to progress though and follow some personal driving points and this currently met with basically... Have a house and do a business that is atleast giving the illusion of something happening (which is okay, can be actually fun too.) Or well...PvP and be known as such. This goes hand in hand with the issue of Progression though cause even here you have a hardcap, thats equal to those "one day flies". And they can depending on the build just because they choose to be unfair, easily roflstomp that person that has been invovled with the RP since beginning of SL2. I do not think thats "Fair" at all, even though by the definition of the word it probably is. But I am getting distracted, Reacurring jobs could be implented to help people do things and break out of the stallness of the Square sitting, making people go out and explore and most importantly REWARD you for doing such. Jobs that go hand in hand with other players, making them work together much more in their different crafts and well...Stop handholding them and cut every form of progress down for convieniance. I think in a long term RPG such as Sigrogana, if you want something you should work hard for it. You don't need instant progression. It feels much better after a month to have finally caught up to your rival, or having worked hard on your crafts that you can do stuff thats much more amazing what people can currently do.

TL;DR:
-Character progression is hard locked on the current level 60, and reached WAY to easily.
-Mechanics that could be used for RP are cut down for convenience sake.
-The lack of meaningful positions in RP
-The Crafting system as a whole is deserving a overhaul, So it can be actually meaningful jobs that hols value in the players eyes and encourages interaction between always more than just one player.
-Lack of long term Motivation, for both RP and sticking to a Character, resulting in many people to either abondon the character or even quit the game.
-Characters aren't really part of the world. We have "Story mode" which is cool, also helps to get ideas how the world works and stuff. But the players have very little hands in any of the happenings and world building. Or at the very leasts thats how it feels because of the distance to our beloved Dev, who sorta reminds me of my Dad. Never at home, always working and bringing the moonies home, so that I actually do not know him.

IDEAS TO FIGHT THE ISSUES

Progression of the Character:

Idea A): RP Levels
I think it's time to change how the leveling system in general works. Though instead of really cutting away from something, I rather actually add a few tiny bits to it. Ideally I would say Cut "Max" level down to 50, but add a system that REAAAALLY slowly together with RP Exp only grows and I don't know...Has a cap of level 20? Resulting in a max level of 70.It also works with not touching the current max level at all I guess. Though when I say really slowly, I mean it. It shouldn't be possible to rush it at all, and people also shouldn't feel the need that they miss out on anything just cause they can't play for a week and being suddenly totally overhelmed by someone who is on equal footing as them ICly.
I think this is very much possible, we have a timer for when we can gain RP exp, so it's limited on how much you can proc this in a day. I don't know if anyone of you ever tried, but I did. Leveling a character from 1 to 60 completly just with RP exp. It took me roughly 3 months till I was bored afterall and was at like 52? I must say I wasn't really active with that char though either, so I could have reached it much faster aswell. Thing is, I am talking about this sort of speed, mostly because this prevents the "one day flies" that I really learned to hate and promotes sticking to your char in a fully unbiased system, that allows them to shine a bit more over the "new" ones. Also makes you wanna RP with them a bit more cause it feels even more Rewarding! Roleplay is fun!
How exactly the speed of this progression is, is up to Dev I guess. but honestly, the slower the better in my opinion. Though of course still noticeable.

Idea B.)Rewarding Story milestones.
I think this can work together with A.) but I do not really like this one to be honest. Simply cause it still boils down to "I need to rush the story real quick to get some more benefits". But I guess it can work, if you put a bit thought into it or let it be very specific raid bosses only or laplace requests that give you special quests once after reachign specific conditions. (those quests also being a bit harder than the Kill 100 XY quests...Or well, more time consuming atleast.)
Each time you reach such a milestone, you get another small but noticeable boost. Like maybe +1 max level cap, or +1 max class level, etc. Which each on their own would not be that strong but once you got them all? Thats probably going to weight in a good deal, rewarding you for spending all the time that can't just be rushed with the help of a grinder easily.

Idea C.) RP milestones.
Call me crazy, but similiar to B, this could simply be much like the current medal system. You could get a "medal" for being online on that char for like 50 hours (I kinda dislike this cause you can just go AFK online, though it could not count "idle" time), or having reached RP Exp 100 times.
Similiar concept as above, giving players more tiny boosts with stuff that does not really demand much more than being active on the character.

I am mostly for A and B together, though you need to be careful to not make B to impactful and make it something thats not just boils down to "I pick up this friend and he drags me through all this shit!". Though honestly...Prolonging the process of reaching a fully maxed character alone, will make people consider it a tiny bit more before they mass produce characters. So whatever.
The main idea here is, to not let grinding alone determine the full strength of a character, but give them something that takes really long time to acheive and more or less passively comes while simply sticking to your guns and not let boredom and convenience determine the amount of effort you put into a character. There are certainly other ways to acheive this aswell, but I think this is one of the easiest that con potentionally also bring some new fun mechanics and raid bosses into the game.

Crafting and Jobs being more immersive and meaningful

Crafting

Currently crafting is this:
Get a cheap item that you can mass produce into the cheapest craft in your tree and max it out. Once in a while do something with it, but actually just watch people find better stuff that you can ever hope to produce from Chests, or just masterwork them up with some Greens easily. Or material kits of course.

This is kinda boring? Also kinda feels not special at all, for your character to have been practicing something their life time (Like a lich having studies magic for ancient times, but kinda still enchanting like a bitch.)
So first few important changes that HAVE to be made:
-Not allow to gain crafting exp for something that is like 3 levels under your current skill level. Actually change it so that you gain more exp the more the craft exceeds your current skill and less for the easier it is for you, to give actual feel of gaining experince.

-Increase the level cap of all crafts. Still allow to only gain a specific number of crafts however overall (I mean in different crafts at once, to clarify, like it is currently). You should be able to gain 10, if not 20 in a craft (See spendable point system for crafts below) since blacksmithing at the very least has already stuff that can be difficulty 14 if you use a certain material. A masterblacksmith should be able to handle that, without the use of alchemy.

-Obviously expand on what you can do with the crafts, and at the very least let them craft everything thats in the game. I was considering that 10* may be exceptions, but honestly? There should maybe be a system that still alows them to do even that. Maybe add some search of research system that people with a certain level in a craft can attempt to make blueprints of the thing they wanna craft, which has a chance to fail and actually break the item. So for 10* you actually have to be fucking good already just to attempt it.

-Maybe add other benefits to what you can do with a Crafting job, aside the obvious crafting. As example, Enchanting could be the general art of magic, giving you the abbility to create wards, temporaily buff someone with something minior (I imangine a priest being able to give someone a protection charme against undead). Also those things would comsume specific items, which are however easy to get if you put a little effort into it, again more to this later in the Job section. Smiths could also get stuff like the current maintenance talent tree does and improve on that or even give some sword of weapon sharpening buff for some time. Honestly I am a bit low on ideas here, but I am sure people could come up with stuff here! Woodworkers could probably be also carpenters, that can make special decorations out of wood that they can either sell or use for houses. Stuff like that.

And well the biggest change, which I think is nessecary however and kinda goes hand in hand with all mentioned above. Either adjusting the trait and talent system to also grant benefits to crafts, giving your character small disadvantages in other areas while they perfect this one. And/Or what I personally prefer, a whole new pointspending system that can give you various boni for crafting and maybe even item gathering and so on. Maybe even get new "Destiny crafters" that have like -10 max level (the level that you can gain through grinding only, so if they stick around long enough they are probably still better than one day flies in every way almost) but get more points to spend in that specific craft and other boni. To work this out shouldn't be all that hard.
I think that people who dedicate themself to something and want to go all the way with it, should excell in this, making the market flourish between players aswell.

Jobs

With crafts being extended, the demands of certain materials are going to rise. And I guess thats where we finally move away from the "BDPs drops everything randomly, try to have luck!" stick. We could actually get Miners, Hunters, Herbalists and so on, who can fullfill the needs of the crafting people. Similiar to crafts those things should increase with time and use. Much like crafts they would have a similar tree that benefits their work and they have specific main focus on them (In dire times where no player is around, they probably still can cash those things at some NPC or whatever):
Hunters:
They have tree focusing on increasing the drop rate at the end of battle for material parts, that are depending on the Monster they hunt of course.
They get boosts of using the bonesaw and the amount of resources they can get from corpses. I am not talking about remains only, stuff like Beast fangs, teeth, hide/fur and what not could all be things the collect. Heck maybe add special Job weapons that help with this aswell.
Actually an Idea I originally had for Hyoya since they hunt alot and extent the game with some more huntable Animals and Monsters that aren't just from BDPs. Could be also connected to hunter quests, that give you reputation for a town etc. etc. There is alot that could be done to make this interesting and part of your characters life that fullfills a purpose.

Miners
I guess those are a little more boring the way I think about them, but some probably have ideas to make it better? Basically what they get it better pickaxe skills, higher chance to drop special materials while mining, maybe even gold sometimes or other valuables to sell, and less stamina drain, less injury chance and bla. The higher your mining skill the more you get out from mining and the more high tier stuff. Dungeons pretty much are already "Elemental" themed, so yeah...But the elemental metals kinda need to be reviewd anyway, they sorta lost their appeal over remains. While they do not need to be better, fullfilling their elemental niche, should be looked at. But thats for another topic.

Herbalist
pretty much like Miners, but I think it would become worthwhile if you add some very rare plants, that a alchemist can work into really special stuff. Not like gathering herbs is bad. But yeah you get the gist.

Farmer
Mostly because why not. They could get special stuff like increasing the amount of items they add to the count per watering, maybe even decrease farming time cause "Love for plants helps them grow!" or something like that. Honestly I would enjoy this. Maybe even special farming skills ala harvest moon! Like watering the plants left and right of you at the same time aswell!... I am not even kidding.

I think those changes alone (well I say alone, but thats actually lots of work, but I think nessecary.) would help us to get a bit away from the PvP being the only thing you kinda do in end game. In all the things I mentioned I want you all to keep in mind, that all of this should be things you work really hard for and is going to be time consuming, because I believe thats the only real way to go about this to feel that what you do is really meaningful and you don't feel like you can be replaced by litterally everyone else. I know looking at the way will make you think "Who in their right mind wants to go through that shit? It's annoying and hard, I wanna my instant power so I can run my ideas through as fast as possible". But I seriously believe that good RP is based on hard work and high reward aswell. So I would really love the system change to something that gives you this feeling back, like the past "Wow, I am level 60! I DID IT!" over the "Fuck, come on get me to 60 real quick, it's annoying."

I know that I am probably not in the majority with this opinion, but I always felt that Dev wanted to Reward people who put effort into the game, but that goal kinda was lost in the convenience store while he simply began to Focus on other stuff.
Now that Alstalsia is done though, and the traitsystem rework was on the list anyway, I think it's a good time to start the second part of the GR which does not only focus on Combat mechanics but the overall life in Sigrogana.

I know long text, feel free to ignore, but I wanted to point it out since I would like it when some of the old players return and I think thats atleast a step in the right direction! Feel free to comment or add your own Issues here, something that you think would better our overall experince as a community and wahtever you think fits here. Do not mention to much stuff thats about PvE monster or general PvP mechanics though, cause this is really not about that, here.
ENJOY!

[LatentSparrow]

I really do like the sounds of it, and I know I've already talked to you about it before but I might as well say it here.

RP Levels
What I had in mind for like a RP level system is something entirely different from the normal level system. So you can have a character at Level 60 combat, but with a RP level of 10. You can get RP levels by getting experience from RPing, and each time you do gain a level, you get a point that strictly benefits RP situations. This is the tricky part though, cause there currently isn't really anything that I can come to mind that would seem meaningful. But as an example: for real, just an example

RNG Dice Roll Perk:
Whenever you roll a dice, add +3 to the dice result.
crappy example, i know but you get the idea

Jobs/Crafting/Drops
I'll just put this one together because what I wanna talk about kinda goes hand and hand.

I feel like crafting is a waste of time since basically you can almost get every item with the exception of 10*s from every enemy in the game. Not to mention that certain items dropped by enemies come with curses that you can only get from enemy drops. Crafting right now is only useful if a player wanted a specific item and didn't currently have one on them from enemy drops. I feel like more drops being limited to certain enemies similar to how 10*s currently work.

As for jobs and crafting, I'll use a weapon as an example. As your Metalworking level (or Woodworking) increases, currently you only have a chance to get an item quality. I mean, that's great and all, but anyone can get their hands on item quality materials. To separate a weapon made by a talent blacksmith and a random drop, I feel like the crafted weapon should have an additional perk, or a Special Item Quality. For example:

Sharp Edge:
When basic attacking, weapon gains +1 Power and +3 Hit.
It's not an insane amount to throw balance off, but it's still a buff.

As your Crafting Level increases, the strength of the perk would increase or enable the chance to create an item with more than one Special Item Quality. This can also go hand and hand with RP Levels, so a RP level perk can give a Blacksmith a better chance to get a Special Item Quality.

Just a thought, but we definitely need to find a way to jobs in the game.

[Shujin]

Fuck I knew I forgot to mention something.

Addon Crafting:
The higher tiers could also mean that in the end you might even be able to upgrade a weapons to +7 in each area, much like the +1 crafting stamp.
Something like that would be the high end stuff of crafting though and shouldn't go TOO overboard, but having something that outshines the NPC shops would be nice.
But yeah more "Greens" and such would be also cool. Tool working could on higher levels probably also recreate that, buuut as I said. Only at higher levels. So masters of both crafts actually work together.

[Fern]

I'm one of those people that keeps playing SL2 with a fair amount of apathy towards the flaws it might have, and also stick around due to my friends. As well as my wonderful waifu.

Some points I agree with, others not much, but there's one thing I do wish we had in some way or another. And that is a way for players to run events after obtaining GM permission on the matter... whether it should be through 'event admins' or house tools, I don't know but I think we need more ways to cause exciting things to happen, I feel.

As for the "RP progression"... well, if Dev really wants to implement a Level Cap raise, he could totally tie that with roleplay somehow if he believe it's a good idea. I'm unsure if there's more methods for this, but one of the mentioned was making it so roleplay experience would be more significant at level 60 - likely in a way that made it so it would be one of the methods for levelling up past that, or the only one if it'd be best off that way. It could also help people take a break from the whole "I MUST GRIND FOREVER AAAA" mind-set.

Other than that, I don't really have much to say for now.

[Slydria]

Alright, so here's some thoughts I have about a few things brought up here.

Progression:

To me the accelerated progression is ruining the "game" part of SL2. It's really quick to get to 60 with the latest methods but it's not at all fun.

Furthermore there's always been this issue where generally people don't want to play through the game from scratch, for whatever their reason, they'd rather get it over with quickly, so they'll ask their pals to help on already geared up characters and pretty much ruin any semblance of difficulty.

Level 60 certainly doesn't feel particularly special as it did so many years ago. But I also don't want to go back to the "good old days" because it was changed for good reason. Level 60 was only really an achievement because it felt like a complete chore to actually get there. Ideally, it should be a challenge requiring some time and effort to reach the top but it also shouldn't be painfully slow and tedious.

I think it's a good time to think of how to smooth out the progression and make it more enjoyable for players. Personally, I'd like the non-Level 65 static dungeons to be more fleshed out and made into actual locations than large, specific Black Doors (for example like the Darkwood Manor) where they can be places for quests, they can have set loot that makes sense and helps in that area and be just far more enjoyable than what they currently are.

Crafting:

Now as for crafting, I think "crafting 1000 Longswords" to become a maxed out Blacksmith isn't necessarily the problem but the fact that you can do so relatively quickly is.

There's no stamina cost to crafting and as long as you have the Mura, there's nothing preventing you from buying a truckload of Iron Ore. So there's not enough to stop you from getting to Max Level Blacksmithing in a matter of minutes. (Of course, it's not just Blacksmith but all the crafts have a quick method to do this.)

Moving on, I don't think there should be a large divide in combat potential between characters with crafting skills and characters without. However, I wouldn't mind say tying some crafting effectiveness to traits and talents. At least then they have to give up some power for crafting prowess but I wouldn't go too much further than that.


Now what I'd like to see for crafting would be things like adding a stamina cost (Physical for most, Mental for Enchanting and Alchemy) to slow down the progression and to make multiple crafters of the same type not totally step on each other's toes. I think the only exception should be when crafting Furniture because stamina limitations would make house building more annoying than immersive, if that means Furniture no longer provides EXP as a consequence so it can't be abused then I think that's an acceptable loss.

Furthermore, I think Metalworking, Woodworking and Tailoring should be consolidated into Weaponcraft (for weapons and weapon parts) and Armorcraft (armor, shields, gloves, boots, accessories, etc.)

I think this is a necessary change because Metalworking can do a lot of things but Tailoring and Woodworking don't do much of anything and there's not enough Wood or Cloth gear in the game that can really compare to Metal but by dividing it this way, you can have two all-around useful crafts rather than one useful craft and two rather niche ones.)

However, to keep the diversity, I think you should be able to obtain bonuses (most likely through traits) when working with specific equipment types or materials. Furthermore with this, you could make it so there's at least some difference between each high-level crafter. One person could be a gun specialist while another could be a jeweller who makes accessories.

Other improvements I have in mind are simply things like more recipes, particularly ones for Armor and Accessories and more benefits for crafted Gear like unique qualities or more items that can only be obtained by crafting them.

Jobs:

I've wanted something like part-time jobs for a while, where you can do certain things for certain people for some experience or crafting experience and more importantly a reliable source of Mura that you can get without having to go kill monsters. Currently, the only thing we have like this is the clinic, which is a nice touch but we could use more things like that.

Examples would be things like:
Making particular weapons with certain ores for Michelle, helping Risu out in the kitchen with cooking or even things not tied to crafting like a courier job where you go deliver letters or parcels to NPCs.

[Skullcatrons]

You pressed SL2 Memes!

You felt disappointed, as there was nothing here.

You pressed an actual post!

Wait. Are you- Are you actually serious?
Fine. I'll go ahead, and state my stance..

How about we try solve it this way?
- Prevent active multi-keying then. Probably gonna incite a lot of rage, because people can't role-play more than one character at a time then.
- Disregard Roleplay levels. That's just gonna end up in e-peen contest, and we know it. [strike]There's already others that do that.[/strike]
- Grant the GMs MORE story-building powers. That is what they need. Additionally,
- Create a special role that Dev authorizes, known as Event makers, or event managers. Bunch of volunteers who enjoys writing up stories.
- Crafting is just really dead-end profession. It shouldn't be crafting items that YOU can find in the dungeons. Like, what's the point if a Player forged the Legendary Shining Sword. But then some idiot picked up a Shining sword from a dead Jammer? Sure. It's random generated, and you have better chance of getting the item you wanted. But Crafted items could, and should be stronger than weapons commonly found.

- My stance on job is positive. It would be nice to give people PvE incentive to grind for other means instead of having to farm dungeons, or having to constantly farm, or repair scars.


Now. Meaningful positions, and lack of "connection" to Main world that Dev is creating himself. I can understands that. But there's just how it is. It would be too much of a pain to abruptly removes the Main storyline just so Dev can focus on role-play aspect at large. The Main storyline was implemented there so that players could obtain few variant items, and alas also explores us more into current circumstances of the World.

Buut- Here's a thing.

I will never- And Jesus- I'll never actually trust a player to be a King. I'll never trust a player to be a literal King, Emperor, or something actually divine. It is too much of responsibilities for a player to be comprehending, and at all best - should just be NPC'd on. Only to be used at the staff's convenience. Players are often very weird, and derpy when it comes down to it at the core. Only at best, it just turns into some kind of incomprehensible horror of mess. At all cost, it's mainly for sake of sanity that players don't ever get role of actual rulers. Lords, sure. A guard captain- Sure. But there's just lines that need to be drawn.

I mean, I've seen people that can handle roleplaying a ruler well. But often more than not, it tend to be very stressful for them because everybody is trying to get their attention. Everybody is trying to do something, and well- it just get messy. I don't think players can survive being a Ruler

Additionally, there's just one point I wants to really really point out.
Arena combatants aren't needed just for some events. It's just that you have to be talking to GMs. The GMs will do events. They just need a certain group of people. Or a specific person. Or some kind of criteria. It doesn't matter WHO, and I mean WHOM the person-

Okay. Screw it. Lemme post this screenshot, so you get an idea.


You could talk to a GM about upcoming events if you're an Oracle. Could do that. I mean, it's stupid - but hey. There's one of the thing that you can do. It's just that you have to be talking to the GMs. They just need people to talk to them. GMs are people, but they are people that are willing to do events for you. They are willing to write a story, or help you write a story. They have tools that you don't have, but they are willing to use that tool to make your roleplay experience entertaining. The issues is, the people that left the game. They never knew of this. Additionally. . .

And I'll finish it off.

Peer pressure.

The community is to blame. It isn't Sigrogana Legend 2. We're not gonna fix the roleplay problems by just asking Dev to change how things work. It's the mentality of the community that is beholden. But this mentality is pretty ancient, and unfortunately not new. The players'll felt neglected, and leave the game because once they hit level 60, and they can't get anything feeling special about their characters. They'll just leave the game. When they try to be involved in some awesome story, but they never got to put in their own efforts, and are rather discarded because they're just complete strangers. They are not even given a hint of a chance to even get a chance to engage. And even then, they never get to. Then they starts listening to people to multi-key. Then start creating bunch of characters, and literally have no emotional attachments to them at all- because they don't bothers to try to even take an effort to do what they could've done. To roleplay more diligence, and try to find a different spot. A different approach. Arena isn't a good place to find roleplay. Unfortunately, most of interesting stuffs are locked behind guilds, cliques, and people are very prone to isolating their circle from the public. Because they have their own ideals. And their own concepts. And ...

Let be honest. I don't think this'll fix the roleplay problem.
You're gonna have to fix the community first.

I'm sorry for waste of time, but there you go. I have stuff all over the place- But hey. I'm never on point on these things. There won't be TLR. Sorry.

[Sarah54321]

I would definitely not prevent multi-keying. That'd... I'll be honest that'd ruin the experience for me. Being able to multi-key makes things fun, and it makes doing events so much easier.

I don't have too much to say here, because a lot of people have already said what I wanted to. I wouldn't recommend a level cap raise right now, but that's of course my opinion.

I agree that the community definitely has some issues, and it needs to be fixed. However, it's very hard to fix something like this, so I will simply say that I hope people evolve and become better as time goes on. I'm hopeful.

[Chaos]

If we want to fix these kinds of issues, it's best to place down and iron out the actual suggestions rather than to continue highlighting/signal-boosting them. We've got a better shot at getting changes through if we go 'Here's exactly how I think we should fix the problem' rather than 'There's this problem, please fix Dev'. That being said, I might as well try and lay down some groundwork:

Progression

This is a two-part issue; not only is PvE completely unbalanced in the players' favor, but there's also too much accelerated growth for characters. Here's how I'd tackle these issues:

PvE
a. Identify and balance overwhelming strengths on player-side. (AoEs, Food Regeneration, etc)
b. Identify and balance areas where monsters need help. (I.e. Enemy Skills, AI, etc.)
c. Plan/debate/work through ideas of high-level content.

Character Progression
There is a point we should debate: Namely, Should there be progression after progression? I'm not talking about Legend Inks, nor Eternia's/Spire's RPP, but another resource entirely that players can slowly gain to keep improving their character. Something to keep a character going, and push people to attempt things. I'll throw up a separate topic for this.

I'd also recommend a more progression-based item grind, but at this point, that would just be something akin to the Arena Shop, rather than something that could even come close to replacing the RNG item grind.

Event Tools

Suggestions for further tools were already made some time ago. It's just a question of when Dev looks at them/makes them a priority.

Crafting

At this point, I don't think it's a top priority to go for a Crafting Rework. Yes, SL2 has the potential to host an amazing crafting system, but we have greater issues at hand.

[Shujin]

Progression

To me the accelerated progression is ruining the "game" part of SL2. It's really quick to get to 60 with the latest methods but it's not at all fun....
Level 60 certainly doesn't feel particularly special as it did so many years ago. But I also don't want to go back to the "good old days" because it was changed for good reason. Level 60 was only really an achievement because it felt like a complete chore to actually get there.

Yeah, I agree, I remeber just how much of a chore it was aswell even before we had the LE system. I do not say to make it like that again per say.
More like having an additional system that works parallel to what we have already, that can by no means be rushed for just having friends on high level and gear. I am trying to find a solution that is rewarding people to stick with old characters even if stuff looks a bit stale for a bit, because characters that are already established in RP are more meaningful to RP with over the dishing out of 20 new faces a day. Heck how do you bond with that? It feels really shallow and for me at the very least, ruins the RP experince on many ends while at the same time makes me question "Why do I even stick with this character since pretty much the beginning of SL2, if I could just make a new and better one within one day?"- And I wish I was exaggerating here, but I am not.

So I figured a additional progress system to what we have, that is SLOWLY with time giving you tiny benefits that in the end add up to something slightly noticeable would be cool.

I think it's a good time to think of how to smooth out the progression and make it more enjoyable for players. Personally, I'd like the non-Level 65 static dungeons to be more fleshed out and made into actual locations than large, specific Black Doors (for example like the Darkwood Manor) where they can be places for quests, they can have set loot that makes sense and helps in that area and be just far more enjoyable than what they currently are.

While I agree that we should also make the "battle grind" part more enjoyable over all, I do not think this is going to solve the "One day Fly" characters that are getting dished out so frequently and fast, so it devalues any other characters. It's kinda like an inflation right now, nothing really matters cause there is zero difficulty to it once you have got the general gist of it. So I am trying to move away as much as possible from any kind of grinding. Cause that way it won't be a chore either, just something to feelgood about in a few months where you sticked to your guns, in my opinion.

- Disregard Roleplay levels. That's just gonna end up in e-peen contest, and we know it. [strike]There's already others that do that[/strike].

Thats actually the point of those though. To not have those E-peen people dish out what they want within a few hours and people that actually roleplay and develope their character over long time can stand up to that. Call it E-peen contest if you want but...I think that actually better as what we have right now. cause:

It could also help people take a break from the whole "I MUST GRIND FOREVER AAAA" mind-set.

Pretty much this. People won't feel the need to grind to "max" anymore, when they can't...You know? Get to max with grinding. Giving them mentally the break forcing them to think "Ah right, can't rush this so might aswell just relax and RP". People will start to consider twice if they rather want a new char or work the one out they have right now cause in the long run they might be happier with it which in turn increases the presence of these characters in the RP and overall makes them bigger parts of everyones story.

While of course new characters CAN bring a freshwind into the game, the way it currently is it's more damaging than it is helping cause again. 20 new faces a day that only stay for about two weeks and get replaced by new 20 faces is hard to bond with and makes you even ask "Do I even bother RPing with them if they just vanish for no reason anyway?" since most the time your rp vanishes in thin air. Thats just getting worse if you have a character that is socially difficult and takes its time to bond and open. I slightly exaggerate here, but sadly also just slightly.

I wouldn't recommend a level cap raise right now, but that's of course my opinion.

Yeah I know, I am not exactly aiming for it aswell, for the sake of raising it, but trying to find an sort of easy solution to migate this more rewarding feel into it while not exactly taking something from anyone. Thats actually sorta hard.


Crafting and Jobs

Now as for crafting, I think "crafting 1000 Longswords" to become a maxed out Blacksmith isn't necessarily the problem but the fact that you can do so relatively quickly is.

There's no stamina cost to crafting and as long as you have the Mura, there's nothing preventing you from buying a truckload of Iron Ore. So there's not enough to stop you from getting to Max Level Blacksmithing in a matter of minutes. (Of course, it's not just Blacksmith but all the crafts have a quick method to do this.)

Yeah, I mean the 1000 longsword was pretty much the example of it being so easily acheiveable aswell. But I still believe the system itself should encourage smithing different kinds of weapons aswell and very much more difficult ones. Mostly cause in my "Dream world" I would enjoy if the main econmy is handled between players interacting with each others with jobs they actually fullfill within the world.
A smith relying on Miners or Hunters for quality wares.
Alchemist on Herbalists and so on.
To have a constant flow between those people and each fullfills it's purpose and with time and experince can maybe build up actual merchant guilds. That would be something to acheive that isn't combat related at all but valued by the people. This is of course just an sample of how I imangine things and why I believe that:

I've wanted something like part-time jobs for a while, where you can do certain things for certain people for some experience or crafting experience and more importantly a reliable source of Mura that you can get without having to go kill monsters. Currently, the only thing we have like this is the clinic, which is a nice touch but we could use more things like that.

Examples would be things like:
Making particular weapons with certain ores for Michelle, helping Risu out in the kitchen with cooking or even things not tied to crafting like a courier job where you go deliver letters or parcels to NPCs.

Are not going to help the game much cause they do not require interacting with people much, but are just another thing you can either entirely ignore or well...be bored with. Clinic likes are basically just "Here have this item I might have in my inventory, gimme quick exp!". I don't feel thats much fun, really.
THOUGH having renewable parttime jobs/Quests aren't a bad idea either, and should probably be a thing along the line.

- Crafting is just really dead-end profession. It shouldn't be crafting items that YOU can find in the dungeons. Like, what's the point if a Player forged the Legendary Shining Sword. But then some idiot picked up a Shining sword from a dead Jammer? Sure. It's random generated, and you have better chance of getting the item you wanted. But Crafted items could, and should be stronger than weapons commonly found.

Yop, thats also something I dislike. I am generally in the opinion that players should eventually become noteably better at something at some point if they work towards this specific thing. One craft that actually gives a sample of this is Alchemy. You can get items from it that you can't get otherwise, and thats reaaaaaally cool. Just sucks that there aren't many and those aren't THAT special either. But could be expanded on!

- Prevent active multi-keying then. Probably gonna incite a lot of rage, because people can't role-play more than one character at a time then.

Multikeying shouldn't be forbidden either, much as Sarah says...It helps a lot with events, really. I am one of the people wo do really not like bothering GMs for every tiny shit of event you wanna do, so the more I can do on my own, the better. Of course bigger events still require Admins but I honestly try avoid "Open Events" cause they are usually generalized and unimportant to my character personally nor does it make much sense for them to even attend to it most of the time.
Most Open events have either been Arena attacks (for some reason thats ICly a good target? I mean I get it's OOC reasoning cause everyone flocks there, but I am argueing ICly) or some invites to something like Chimera enterprise back then. Aside from that most events are either slice of life (Which is okay, I don't hate slice of life) or specifically made for a group. Because lets be honest? Whats more fun? A Necromancer sending his hoards of undeads for some reason at the arena or a Storyline specifically crafted for your characters group he is in and building up their story more?
Not to mention that I atleast try to avoid open events cause of certain players being unbearable in my opinion.
So yeah I much rather see mini GM tools for player houses and shit.

Now. Meaningful positions, and lack of "connection" to Main world that Dev is creating himself. I can understands that. But there's just how it is. It would be too much of a pain to abruptly removes the Main storyline just so Dev can focus on role-play aspect at large. The Main storyline was implemented there so that players could obtain few variant items, and alas also explores us more into current circumstances of the World.

I don't think a storytelling tool should solely be used to get you items. But to tell a story, which it is. Though instead of making it a Story(past) it's way to interwined with the Characters present timeline that you wonder why you have no influence. The storyline can't even be used IC much cause its build in a concept like a generic hero from an MMO so everyone is the "Choosen one". But my feelz when I have to look into Kinus eyes and realize "Thats what you say to everyone, isn't it!?", Jokes aside though. It's sadly a point that is driving alot of players away because no one wants to play something long term in a world where the NPCs are the Main Characters forever.
It's like buying a ticket for a concert and all you get is to watch a live stream on youtube.

The rest of what you said pretty much boils down to "Oh god don't trust anyone, people suck!" Which I agree with, I certainly have my moments I suck hard aswell buuuut. Those wouldn't be things tossed out like candy, nothing permanent if the person proves to not be able to handle it well, and given out to players that are trusted in the firstplace. We lost a lot of reaaaaally good RPers over the time simply cause nothign was going anywhere. And I am not even talking about leadership positions themself. What heard recently was about being a priest for years is also kinda...Yeah just that. The Church has a pretty nice lore, Ranks within it and organisations. Those could be things given to trusted players with time. Or well Geistritter aswell (Which is actually happening in a way just...It means nothing currently).
The only group that actually comes with Responsibillity and Benefits is currently the Guard force pretty much. But this is also not exactly something everyone wants to be. See Villians in a world already overflowed by Heroes (Which by the way is also something I hate about the current progression system. Damm is it impossible to keep up with that amout of people, if they just decide it's fun to screw you over, they succed 100% with not much problems)

Chaos posted:

PvE
a. Identify and balance overwhelming strengths on player-side. (AoEs, Food Regeneration, etc)
b. Identify and balance areas where monsters need help. (I.e. Enemy Skills, AI, etc.)
c. Plan/debate/work through ideas of high-level content.

I would also add more reasoning to even tackle those challanges. Like the "bonesaw" to gather materials but I would go in circle again to my idea of economy from player to player. Something that again, those not only boil down to grinding for the sake of leveling and 10*s.

Character Progression
There is a point we should debate: Namely, Should there be progression after progression? I'm not talking about Legend Inks, nor Eternia's/Spire's RPP, but another resource entirely that players can slowly gain to keep improving their character. Something to keep a character going, and push people to attempt things. I'll throw up a separate topic for this.

I'd also recommend a more progression-based item grind, but at this point, that would just be something akin to the Arena Shop, rather than something that could even come close to replacing the RNG item grind.

Mostly to the latter, cause thats also interesting. What if we entirely remove the random items drops (or atleast for the most part, bar 10* and special monster spcific weapons like bear claws)
And instead get more materials, that can either be sold or well used for crafting. This would in one way be "like arena" but more immersive into the world, this is one of the points I am also hoping to acheive with my Craft/Job idea. Like trying to make it more reasonable to hutn specific monsters for their parts, to go and get the gear you want...
While not really aimed to be that, think Monster Hunter. Where you get stuff mainly from crafting the remains or Ores or well in this world it would be other magical items.
Chest would probably still give our random weapon loots and what not.

Though I agree, we probably have greater problems, but it's still a huge one that could give people perspective aside from PvP being the only end game for everyone.