[Poruku]

Caution: May contain dangerous amounts of opinions

Hello, I'm a random guy who plays this game from time to time. I'm not in any way an active member of the community and very rarely go on the forums or the discord.

However, I consider SL2 to be one of my favorite games. I had a tremendous amount of fun with it because of the combat system which is my favorite in all gaming. I also love the in-depth class system and all the stuff that makes the core gameplay great. Despite this, the roleplay aspect is certainly something that grew on me and made the game that much more fun and replayable.

But in my opinion, despite how fun the game is, SL2 suffers from a terrible roleplay environment for multiple reasons.

Before I talk about the reasons I'll explain what a good roleplay environment is. In a game, when you interact with other players using rp, you are dependent on the roleplay environment for determining a lot of things: your characters' backgrounds, what they do in life, what they own, what they can do, what they think about certain elements of the world, and most importantly the context of their interaction. A good roleplay environment is one that allows characters to be unique and interact in interesting ways. SL2 fails rather heavily on both aspects.

Here are the reasons why roleplaying in SL2 is subpar, in order from least important to most important.

5: Dungeon rp is always a bit weird
I feel like when you group and do content, the rp is always a bit rushed and extremely secondary. You might say a few words when you do a cool attack, or your characters might have a small conversation during battle. Either way, it feels a bit awkward, like rp and gameplay are disconnected. A very minor concern, but I wanted to bring this up.
This means that the core gameplay of the game isn't really good at stimulating rp, which it should be in a game with high rp focus.

4: So many gameplay systems creeping into RP
In the game there's a lot of amazing systems. An example would be the stat system where you level up. People constantly talk about "getting stronger", and that's okay. But things like Laplace.net are a bit strange. I just feel like it's... Too gamey to be something IC. The same could be said about the BDPs themselves, which I always thought were really really weird IC-speaking. Random dungeons appearing with a ton of chests and a boss inside that gives items? I dunno, I always have a hard time RPing with that in mind. Then there's the whole legend authoring which is supposed to be IC but is basically entirely disregarded IC as something that exists because it makes no sense. So the point is that a lot of things that might be better off staying OOC are shoved into IC by force, which forces people to rp around those things. It makes an overly bloated environment for roleplay, where a ton of really gamey mechanics need to be addressed by normal people in their normal world. Like should my character ever mention stamps? They're totally a thing IC, but like why not just have those be OOC quest rewards?

3: Similarity of background.
In the game, when you make a character, you are railroaded into fighting monsters. It sounds dumb, but the effect is that everyone you meet is a monster hunter. What people do is clear dungeons. Despite their side-jobs which might include a wide variety of things like cooking, mining, blacksmithing, etc, the player characters are mostly killing machines, at least in their spare time. That's simply because there is only one way to level up without pulling your hair out of your head, and that's grinding. I am not saying 100% of characters are monster hunters, but most of them, from the way the game is designed. Levels equate progression, and since people want to progress, they will try to get xp. Not to mention the fact that it's difficult to get rich from other means than grinding high-level dungeons.
This means everyone does dungeons, and possibly kill black beasts and do raids. This means 95% of people are similar in their occupation despite their varied background. It's honestly a bit boring.

2: Abundance
There's very little reason to trade in this game. Only reasons are: buying really rare gear, buying fugu, or buying certain alchemy items and services. Most of the time, you'll get all you need through automated vendors in cities. Who needs player interaction when you can just sell hundreds of pieces of powerful gear and buy the one rare thing you need and be on your way? Nobody can roleplay as poor, because the first shmuck that comes around will throw 10k at you. It's nothing to them but you can buy food for years with money like that. People routinely give away super rare shit for free or for low prices just because they have insane amounts of high-quality rare items and can just pass them out.
Why is this a problem? Because all material things are now mostly worthless. Being an alchemist is good. Most of the stuff you do is useful. Being a cook is cool, but even then you can only make certain high-tier foods because 99% of what you can make is outclassed for 25 Murai at the nearest store. You can be a woodcutter/woodworker but nobody will ever care about you except one guy once in a while who is nice and wants to rp. You can be a blacksmith but you will have a really hard time finding people who want your stuff. It'll mostly be parts for gear.

You get the idea. The economy is messed up beyond repair and players can get everything they could possibly want with minimal effort. Every character that reaches level 60 will have a lot of money to spare and will probably be able to min-max their build to the maximal extent if they want to within a few days. Then what's left? I guess you better roleplay because there is nothing left to gain for you on this mortal plane unless you reroll. But then...

Why is it bad for RP? because your character has everything he wants on a material level. He's both rich and has huge power. And that's 95% of characters. That's a problem because... It's boring. It's simply boring to roleplay as a person who owns everything they could possibly want.

1: Lack of things to do with rp
This is the big one, and I could probably have made a whole post just about this one, but here I'm talking specifically about rp.
When you play sigrogana legend 2, what do you do?
- Grind mobs
- Do professions, gather ingredients etc
- Quest?
- Roleplay
Let's address these in order. First of all, grinding. This means running dungeons, the jammer cave, black beasts, and raids. This is the core gameplay where the point is to level up and gain money and items. Pretty cool and fun.
Then there is the professions. You get materials by gathering or grinding mobs (usually the good stuff requires you to grind or trade to obtain) then you go to a bench and craft. It's very fun, and trading with other players can be really entertaining for everyone.
Quests: Not gonna talk about quests much, they're a bit secondary.
Roleplay: How do you roleplay in this game? There are a few ways: Either you sit in a populated area and wait for people to talk, or you talk to other people. You can also group for dungeons and kinda chit chat. Now if you're really motivated you can do bigger stuff like events and such with a lot of people, or you can have more long-lasting stories with other people and meet in other places and do stuff. I never got that far because it's so much investment to get any kind of story going. You can also trade with people and rp as a merchant and that's cool but it takes effort. You really need to sell yourself and your goods and the trading system is a little clunky. Shops exist but basically OOC.
So what I'm concluding from my limited experience (been playing since sigrogana 1 but really on and off so never been really dedicated), is that roleplay is very secondary. It's simply not been much considered when making the game. It's another thing you can do, but it does not tie into the other elements.

TL; DR: START HERE

Now that I kinda explained my reasoning I'm gonna bring together my points and say something more concise. The biggest problem with SL2 is that gameplay and roleplay are detached. In my opinion, the game would be more fun if playing the game created opportunities for roleplay. How do we do this? By making players interact through gameplay in a natural way.

I think I should clarify that this isn't as much a problem as it is a thing to consider that could help make the game even better. I love sl2 and play from time to time, but I have a hard time getting into rp.

[strike]Now if we wanna make players interact through gameplay in a natural way, there's 1 easy way:
Conflict

How we introduce conflict in this game, I am not sure. But a few examples could be:
- Having a territory and faction system where there are battles that determine who controls which part of the world
- Certain resources or rare stuff can only be gotten by one person every, like, day, and people need to fight if other people are there.
- People get rewards for accomplishing an act such as raiding a caravan. If you sign up as a mercenary, you get a reward if it makes it safely to its destination.[/strike]
Conflict is a shit idea, let's forget it.

Wild examples and I don't wanna make this a suggestion thread. My questions are:
- What do you think about the issues I'm describing?
[strike]- Do you agree that mechanically-supported conflict would help roleplay?[/strike]
- Any ideas on how to make sl2 a better roleplay environment?

Thanks for reading!

[Noxid]

Okay gonna try and respond to your points. Some I agree with some I don't.

5: Yeah pretty much but it's not that bad and it's one of the better places to meet new people.

4: I'd agree the laplace card is a bit weird to RP. Often I don't even bother RPing it or RP my char not having one which seems to blow people's minds.

3: This isn't exactly true. Most people are gonna be killing monsters and shit but in my experience people are quite different in their backgrounds. The monster killing tends to just be a side thing for a lot of characters. But there are plenty of people who don't even touch dungeons IC. At the arena for example many of the people there only PvP and non combatants usually just get leveled OOCly to get their talents or whatever they need. Actually I've seen some baker guy going into BDPs that others are emptying and just scooping up all the chests.

2: You are pretty spot on here for the most part although I wouldn't say it's necessarily a problem, I'm glad we have a nice community who don't just hoard shit for themselves. I've had strangers give me rare stuff for free. As for the rest of what you said here I'd say you are shouldn't be using mechanics to enforce your RP so much. Let's take the the cook for example. I know a guy who runs a bakery and has gotten tons of RP in it he will use some food items as props but will often RP these are something else. You could do away with even handing out the items, in my own guildhouse me and a friend pure roleplay out serving tea.

You character does not have everything they want on a material level though. They have everything they want on a game mechanical level. I'll use my character as an example. He has had his gear pretty much set from the first week I played him very easy to gear so mechanical wants were filled very easily but the thing is IC he isn't really bothered about being stronger. His goals were to start a business and grow it. So he started off helping someone else's then he got his own small stall now he has his own guildhouse. Now if by material level you are talking making enough money to keep a roof over your head and food in your belly the honest truth is most people are gonna find that boring as shit, people come on games like this to escape that kind of stuff in their real lives.

1: To this point I'd say "I never got that far because it's so much investment to get any kind of story going." is your big problem here. Cellsvich square RP is never gonna be that fulfilling, I only use it myself to meet new characters. You need to join discord groups, add people as friends OOCly and plan things with these people to get the best experience. For example right now I'm in a group where our characters go off on adventures in a custom event space made by another player. The combat we do for the most part is pure RP, meaning that we hardly even touch the SL2 combat system and because of this the host of the event can do some very cool shit. This is just one example but there are tons of little groups, guilds and factions with there own storylines going on you just need to reach out and get involved. I'd say the effort is worth it, I met tons of cool people along the way who I can spend time with even outside of SL2. But obviously whether or not effort is worth it is down to the individual.

While I agree that it would be nice having some more of the mechanics line up with RP I have to disagree heavily with the idea of some kind of mechanically supported conflict. This would not encourage good RP at all actually I'd say it would do the opposite. It would encourage OOC gank squads to be formed so people could take these resources easily no casual player would stand a chance because an elite of players would be the ones forming groups and taking shit. I kinda like the idea of players being able to rule parts of the world but then I think back to Eternia another byond rp game. A nice fantasy world turned into an undead ruled hellhole because people are edgelords I guess. I wouldn't trust 99% of players to be able to rule an area in an interesting way.

[Slydria]

SL2 certainly has it's fair share of issues when it comes to roleplay but I have some issues with your opinions. So I'll just go through in order on what's said and express some of my opinions on the matter.


Dungeon RP is weird
I agree. Dungeon RP is not normally going to be quality stuff for a few reasons but mostly because it gets in the way of the mechanical goal of dungeons, to earn experience and loot. Which is why I rarely see it or when I do see it, it's usually short and simple since that's not normally the primary reason you go dungeoning to begin with.

So I think the weaker RP is just a consequence of the nature of the randomized dungeons and the reason people go through dungeons.

However, most of the RP takes place outside of dungeons anyway so even if something were done here, it wouldn't make much difference in the grand scheme of things.


Gameplay systems creep into RP
I think you have to accept that no matter what there's going to be a disconnect between gameplay and roleplay and in my experience most people know where to draw that line so I don't find that this is normally an issue.

Beyond that, I don't think it's a matter of these things just don't make sense in the world or can't be justified but rather that they aren't really elaborated on too much in the game itself.

We roughly get to know how they function but the why is left a mystery which doesn't leave us much to do with that information other than just accept that it's a thing that happens.

(That said, we know Legend Authoring isn't entirely an IC thing from Lore Questions.)

Is Legend Extension an actual in-character thing?

If so, how exactly does the process work?

I consider Legend Extension an in-character thing to an extent. It's not a literal interpretation, but it's more like what Asha describes it as; your legend has come 'this far', and Legend Extension is a way to show that. By that I mean it's supposed to be a representation of your character's story, and it's not something actually exists ICly.

Similar backgrounds
I wholeheartedly disagree that this is an issue. While mechanically speaking, 99% of characters fight monsters because fighting monsters is a core part of the game, people understand that grinding can just be a means to an end.

You don't have to be roleplay out being a monster slayer. You can justify your character's 'experience' in many different ways.

That said, I would not mind more alternative methods for acquiring experience and money.


Abundance
I agree that the game economy has big problems but this only really becomes a big issue once you reach a certain point with your character.

At first, there is plenty of reason to trade with others but once you reach the plateau point where you essentially have all the upgraded gear you want, money stops being valuable.

There's not enough high value things to buy to sink all that excess money. The most expensive thing in game is the Guild Charter at 25,000 but even then there's not much point to making a Guild currently.

While these are issues, I'm not sure the ones you've listed are even strictly because of the economy. That shmuck for instance could still very much throw their money at you, even in a balanced economy, some people are simply like that.

Certainly I would appreciate more unique benefits for the various professions (such as more unique items or unique bonuses for crafted gear) but for me it's not so much about attracting roleplay opportunity and moreso just an effort to make the crafts more valuable to learn.


Lack of things to do with RP
I wholeheartedly disagree with your opinion that roleplay is very much secondary but I can understand why you might think that.

To me, SL2 would be a much lesser game were it not for the roleplaying. By far, some of the most fun I've had with the game is in the roleplay with the friends I've made.

That's not to say it's because I think the gameplay lends well to the roleplay, it doesn't always and at times those things are at odds but despite that I can still enjoy both just fine and feel immersed when the ball gets rolling.


While there's more I could say, I already think my comments are getting too long, so I think I'll leave it here for now.

[Skullcatrons]

Some few things to help you understands here, and there.

5. Dungeon roleplays is always awkward. Especially because people already done the content over, and over for nearly four years at this rate. Most of monsters are easy to robust, and usually simple to take down. PvE contents are usually dulled down when GMs are not managing the horrors they've conducted for players in their events. Which you'll probably never really get to witness, because they don't usually work with alot of players.

4. Legend Extension were by default OOC nature. LaPlaceNet, and BDPs are wholly IC. The way they are described are very random- and unable to be defined because there were nobody to really teach you this. There were nobody to show you what they are. What they are. Honest. At this point. I should elaborate more. Black Doors are not dungeons. They're literally magical doors- literally magical doors that can appear at any location, point in time, and anywhere- Or so what the "BlueCat" once said. The Black Doors are powered by the "Spatial" Core, which is found at last floor of any dungeons- and usually summon the Last Defense Mechanism to deal with you- before you take the core and the Dungeons die down rapidly because the dungeon have no core to sustain the life- therefore disappearing. Static Dungeons, however are on different case and are considered just mechanical grinding for people who needs an item.

LaPlaceNet is just a pool of confusion. I won't lie to you. Originally I was confused too. People don't know that there's no direct messaging. There were no images posting. It was entirety a mess. But let me put this way. Imagine LaPlaceNet as an actual forum where you can discuss with other adventurers, coordinate, and try to figure out what is going on in the world via LaPlaceNet system. Now, not everybody will have LaPlaceNet Card- or anything. But most economy in the game accepts "Murai", which is standardized currency thanks to ASAGO Corporation's ability to somehow make Murai global currency. So TLR? LaPlaceNet is an IC Forum that your character can use. With some limitations, of course. More information can be found in http://www.neus-projects.net/viewtopic.p...1&t=10

Now there's alot of things. We don't mention stamps. Because that's silly. We don't mention legend Extensions- because that's just also silly. There's a tremendous amount of mechanic that was put in game- but we never talks about it because it refers to the "Main Character" - Which is not the character you're role-playing as, but the character that you're "playing" as in Dev's Main Storyline.

3. Someone did actually did my awesome challenge. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1itAP...sp=sharing
in the end of his day, he was able to achieve over like what - 10k Murai without even fighting monster! But I can understands. I really do. It may feels hard to not roleplay Monster Hunter because most of game's economy is just that. Also- for the player that did achieved without fighting monster. It was grind-hell.

2. Well. Sly already got this one.

1. Clearly someone had never been gambling in Oniga. Or been doing archery competitions. There's also Fishing event, and hospital attendance that you can do for small sum of experience scaled to your level.

[Poruku]

It's true that you can do a lot of things in sl2, but if you can do so much without involving gameplay, why would you play a game like this instead of finding a more dynamic platform?

I agree that conflict is a bad idea because of power gamers (like me admittedly) who would use op builds and do the conflict stuff. In that case simply making professions more useful in general to all players would go a long way towards enabling cooler roleplay. I would also love a kind of more structured faction system that could help organize stuff in the game.

That said, I would not mind more alternative methods for acquiring experience and money.

When I say everyone is a monster slayer, this is the kind of thing I had in mind. I'm not saying literally everyone is a monster slayer, I'm saying having more ways to progress in the game would really help with having more varied backgrounds. I think having more people who aren't really combatants at all would be interesting.

You need to join discord groups, add people as friends OOCly and plan things with these people to get the best experience

I think this is for me the biggest issue. I find it would be just so much better if things like that could be organized in the game. A friend system and guild system that are easy to use and lets people organize and do events in the game would go a really long way.

I admit I have trouble putting a lot of effort into getting great rp out of sl2. I hope you won't blame me for being honest, but I feel my efforts are better used elsewhere, in an environment like a forum or discord where I can do all of that but instead of coordinating in a game that isn't that suited to roleplay, I can use a system made entirely to facilitate roleplay.
SL2 to me is a fantastic game gameplay-wise and I just wish some roleplay melded more naturally with it. I believe the vast majority of players will never go find people on discord and make the effort necessary to make SL2 a great rp experience. It takes too much time and dedication which me and most players do not have.

I'm sorry for making this long again. I just wanna say a few balance changes to professions so players are really inclined to interact would be a start. Also profession xp so you don't have to grind perhaps? More non-fighting characters would be nice.

Also in-game guilds and friends system which anyone can use and you can chat together to set up events. I honestly am not sure what would be best. But I'm just saying it's all about making it easier and more natural to do the things you super motivated people are already doing.

[Skullcatrons]

I mean.
Professions XP are alot easier to get now that Dev finally implemented multi-crafting. No more. No more pain.

[Autumn]

You need to join discord groups, add people as friends OOCly and plan things with these people to get the best experience

I think this is for me the biggest issue. I find it would be just so much better if things like that could be organized in the game. A friend system and guild system that are easy to use and lets people organize and do events in the game would go a really long way.

Also in-game guilds and friends system which anyone can use and you can chat together to set up events. I honestly am not sure what would be best. But I'm just saying it's all about making it easier and more natural to do the things you super motivated people are already doing.

I wasn't originally going to reply but something like this already somewhat exists, there are guilds in the game, mostly facilitated through housing and in game areas, which respectively have their own discord servers as well, but to expect a system like this be put into place on a game that maybe tops around 60 maybe even 70 individual players each day is a ultimately too idealistic, not to mention even if this sort of system is put into play no one would use it, there's a guild-chat function that barely gets used as well.

And thats simply because people have taken to using the SL2 Discord as the norm, if I had to argue any changes be made to help people reach out to the community, perhaps the SL2 public discord invite should be plastered on the login message, similar to the outdated guides and such.

It is more than possible to RP with people without needing to talk to anyone OOCly, just don't expect to get it done outside of Cellsvich and the Arena without actually reaching out to the community first, most of us are welcoming to the new players after all.

[Poruku]

People have taken to using the SL2 Discord as the norm, if I had to argue any changes be made to help people reach out to the community, perhaps the SL2 public discord invite should be plastered on the login message, similar to the outdated guides and such.

It is more than possible to RP with people without needing to talk to anyone OOCly, just don't expect to get it done outside of Cellsvich and the Arena without actually reaching out to the community first, most of us are welcoming to the new players after all.

Well I guess this is the bottom line. If discord is so central to the experience, there should be at least something in the game explaining that if you want deeper rp your should go to the discord. I have been to the discord a few times, and I'm not really sure how to proceed to get into stuff.

Most of the time when I play sl2, I kinda think about a cool character and backstory and spend a while crafting the story and the character. Then I just level up to 60 and try to like.. Find people to roleplay with. But I usually can't find more than just casual conversation.

Should I just go on general in the discord and say "Hey there I wanna join a group of people who do rp a lot"? If that's the way to go, it should probably be said somewhere in game.

That being said, I wish it was possible to have deep rp naturally roleplaying in the game.

[Noxid]

It can be done in game you just have to get in with a clique. Which is admittedly hard because people in it usually don't RP much outside of said cliques. You can trying posting in looking for group but that doesn't tend to make long lasting RP. What you need to do is stick around and make friends, lasting connections. Try sticking with one character too. That way that character will build more relationships and become better known. No one can invest in your character if you are going to just make another in a week (Not sure if you do this but I felt it was something that should be pointed out just in case.)