09-30-2020, 12:01 AM
Maniacal hand rubbing.
Having spoken to a lot of people, I will say that my opinion comes more from discussion than lengths of play time, being around only for three years or so. In this time, SL2 was my first experience with this sort of game, and barely the second game I scratched on byond. I was also going to write more, but it's getting late, im weak ect ect. Anyway, Exposition end.
Now I'm going to be blunt, This discussion was long overdue on public forum. Having spoken to a lot of you privately in dms, on game etc I can safely say that nothing that there isn't much new thought-piece here, but a far more vocal and well structured discussion of such. Most of what's said here is danced around in flowery language when not at the forefront of argument, and swiftly brushed away should it prove a challenging topic, as if voicing sincere qualms is deemed as a confrontation.
Public Interaction
No beating around the bush here. It's dead. People have been clinging to cliques since before even I started playing, and motivation to stick to congregated public areas has been waning ever since. Interactions in public areas are generally shallow in part due to the lack of any substantive interaction with the environment, more so generalised pushes as to interact based on 'Why you're there.' Case in point arena, As PVP mechanically began to slip, so too did people avoid the place for fear of having their IC cheesed by a numerically superior build. This will be relevant later, but my foremost point will be that environmentsments harbour little player interactivity, and generally serve as scenery.
The general nature / lack of offense to said set dressings also hamper rp potential, preventing players from making any new assessments or unique takes on areas. There's just very little to cellsvich square, and it will be relegated to 'pleasant' background. Well designed areas elsewhere, such as obenque or the blades headquarters, offer far more to promote a setting, and harbour more involved interaction from players. It is not a matter of 'How pretty' these places are, it's that they functionally mean something, and have genuine weight that just isn't seen too often elsewhere. It's unusual ; The lore is detailed but the world never exceeds ankle depth, the players experience what feels like everything but the intended stage for such a game.
The slice of life air also comes to mind. Outside of events, public areas are generally for slow and relaxed posts, which to some grows old quickly. There is few alternatives elsewhere, linking back to my first point, your stuck between Mechanic based PVE / PVP or this soap-opera esque monotonous style of RP, where you have to breed your own conflict, leading to this feeling of 'Having to be the bad guy punching bag people ask for, and being shit on for it.' This leads to an almost meaningless feeling in myself and others, that sigrogana is going to always be this stagnant- No one else will take initiative, conflict must be cultivated for it to exist at all.
BDP Delving is a thing of the past or something done on OOC grinding builds now. It's a mechanic that has, in many cases, proven to be an unwanted end game to grind items for future IC's, and serves as a barrier for RP participation moreso than as building up to a character. A consequence of GR, you are now jacked or you aint. The progress from 1 - 60 is far too mechanical and far too jarring for people to take it as IC, so they don't. Experienced players will attempt to abbreviate their experiences in PVE as much as they can, because after god knows how many dungeons you aren't going to forget about how mathematical and repetitive you can make grinding. There is little reward and nothing new to learn from PVE, so it is cut as short as one can suffer through.
'Jobs' is a thing I hardly feel the need to mention, moreso out of insignificance, but I will tick it off the list at the very least: Another grind, for something that is almost always going to be used to either make murai or gear OOC homies. There is no rp or mechanic consequence to becoming a blacksmith or a tool smith, it just expedites one form of grind to another, or allows you to service people who need X for their coming soon build. Similarly, head doctor aint shit either. I know two people who take it as part of their IC's, and it's fundamentally boiled down to resource acquisition and offering people head for blood, assuming they don't have 80 Vit Glykins lying around. Numerical grinds such as these are not facetes of a character if they'll only be called on once, nor are they fundamentally interesting.
The stagnation of the world is also a key point that should not go on such a light note. It's understandable that, given the genre, players are expected to make their own legacies, but even that isn't facilitated in SL2. Player IC's don't amount to, well anything, in part to purposefully limiting lore.
The community's relationship
I want to be especially vocal about this point, and I will hurt some feelings in doing so. There is this culture, where you will voice your concerns vocally- sing them even, but then once they could go addressed people are suddenly gripped by; apathy, understatement or otherwise, and nowhere is it more clear than in the main server discord.
For different reasons each time, there are a lot of points that should go stated, but go obfuscated, a key example would be balancing, though there are many more. Complaining about a mechanic, feature or etcetera in dms or on-game isn't going to change shit, nor are threads that devolve into different topics, and only leads to a more fragmented community relationship with each other and the game itself, and the lack of clarity will only detrimentally affect what changes will be made in the future.
Lets talk about events
Overextend their welcome and they will become shallow, cookie cutter experiences that amount to nothing. A lot of people had the mindset that eventmins would '
SOLVE RP STAGNATION ' and while it's a step in the right direction, far be it to expect them to do what you fail to forge your character with. There's this notion that partaking in events will allow you to build character through shared traumatic experiences, and I rarely see this come into competent fruition. Event chains are at their strongest when people are few, hence the foaming at the mouth to the mention of clique events and clique rp people have spoke about, it is fundamentally de-individualizing to be thrown into a chain with 19 other people competing for top dog, see any MMO story ever. The more invested / fewer headcount event chains from what I've seen have gone swimmingly, lowering the required resources to facilitate this character development and allowing it to be far more approachable than previously, whereas before it was manpower and items for a quick event. It is my sincere opinion that events shouldn't just become 'If your in the area, come fight XYZ' I think that is fucked fundamentally, and will only dampen the weight of other chains. Give them weight, impact and consequence.
Okay, so what events would be GOOD? And not just token involvement of people for the sake of semblance. I am of the opinion that events other than festivals, world changing events or just player ran gatherings wont alleviate much. The RP in those isn't deep but there is greater immersion and player involvement with the backdrop, which is always nice. Everything else should remain closed off, gated to people of IC relevance, for the sake of preserving their importance. People relying on regular eventmin-ran events to facilitate character conflict, though, will do fuck all for alleviating anything. It should not be seen as a substitute for growth or player interaction.
Why is it like this
I can only throw spit-ball thoughts around here, having not been around long enough to witness every change, but my guess would be due to the almost political community and the lack of a strong mechanical endgame :
People making enemies of each other for the sake of conflict. It's no secret byond players tend to be confrontation averse, and rather than interacting with people they dislike, ignoring the offender full stop is more practiced. This adds obvious issues to the landscape, but I tend to look the other way and let people ruin their own fun how they see fit I guess. There's little else to do beside making friends and common enemies, I guess. The clique label / allebi gets thrown around a lot, and I don't believe it does as much damage as others suggest, even if I avoid them like the plague. If you get good rp with your friends, interact with your friends. Meaningful interaction comes like water in a desert and if that's the only reason you play, you should not be penalised for it. A lot of you are anxious, cynical, or just uninterested- and rightly so, so I shalln't shift blame where I don't feel its due, and ask you enjoy the game with as many people as you can.
Now, a more prominent note. Many people in this thread are old, old players. One's almost a bag of dust. What content has there been for you to do? I will state that, outside of resource hoarding or becoming 'Better' at pvp, there's sweet fuck all for you to take away. What other mechanics are there to better yourself at? There's the meta skill of becoming a better RP, although even that is a struggle with the aforementioned lack of quality public RP. Really, the true end game, is right here.
![[Image: jyk3L40.png]](https://i.imgur.com/jyk3L40.png)
Smack each other with sticks to try and get better at an obtuse and poorly balanced turn based strategy game, for GARUNTEED use in a future ic that will definitely probably possibly happen. It's no surprise that people feel bored, stale, tired. There's fundamentally nothing to better yourself at, giving this impression the game is a disguised time waster. However, and I cannot stress this enough, the fact that people stick here from mechanically stronger rp games? Testifies the community and shows that people, while not vocal, are still hopeful about the future of the game, less they would not be here. The fact you've read thusfar through shows you have some interested in the state of the game.
The only real suggestions I can give, is to reduce the initial / post 60 grinds to alleviate more dynamic character growth. The early game can be the most spirit breaking, mostly because of the natural uncertainty that comes with investing so much time and effort into a character you weren't set in stone about making.
Have more thematically relevant public areas, with better player involvement built in. There is interesting set dressing off continent, though all attempts to get people to spread out further across the map have been unsuccessful.
Avoiding impactful changes to PvP, focusing more on working with what you got to the communities content, more so than putting in new content. I will say, while petty, the shift in PvP meta has been more than reason for me to quit. It's volatile, people aren't always genuine with their intentions, and it's highly liable to shifting- But post GR stat changes makes it so anyone with a fruit or some time on their hands can facilitate any build ; No matter how meta.
Incentivise more conflict between players, be it through less Arjav time, or more interaction at Arjav. It's currently seen more as 'Godmod jail softban' than anything productive or fun. I would add it would also feel interesting to allow for other nations to have prison systems, as varied as they can be, and allow players to become 'guards' there independent of Sigroganan guard status (Which was a giant turn-off for me.)
Having spoken to a lot of people, I will say that my opinion comes more from discussion than lengths of play time, being around only for three years or so. In this time, SL2 was my first experience with this sort of game, and barely the second game I scratched on byond. I was also going to write more, but it's getting late, im weak ect ect. Anyway, Exposition end.
Now I'm going to be blunt, This discussion was long overdue on public forum. Having spoken to a lot of you privately in dms, on game etc I can safely say that nothing that there isn't much new thought-piece here, but a far more vocal and well structured discussion of such. Most of what's said here is danced around in flowery language when not at the forefront of argument, and swiftly brushed away should it prove a challenging topic, as if voicing sincere qualms is deemed as a confrontation.
Public Interaction
No beating around the bush here. It's dead. People have been clinging to cliques since before even I started playing, and motivation to stick to congregated public areas has been waning ever since. Interactions in public areas are generally shallow in part due to the lack of any substantive interaction with the environment, more so generalised pushes as to interact based on 'Why you're there.' Case in point arena, As PVP mechanically began to slip, so too did people avoid the place for fear of having their IC cheesed by a numerically superior build. This will be relevant later, but my foremost point will be that environmentsments harbour little player interactivity, and generally serve as scenery.
The general nature / lack of offense to said set dressings also hamper rp potential, preventing players from making any new assessments or unique takes on areas. There's just very little to cellsvich square, and it will be relegated to 'pleasant' background. Well designed areas elsewhere, such as obenque or the blades headquarters, offer far more to promote a setting, and harbour more involved interaction from players. It is not a matter of 'How pretty' these places are, it's that they functionally mean something, and have genuine weight that just isn't seen too often elsewhere. It's unusual ; The lore is detailed but the world never exceeds ankle depth, the players experience what feels like everything but the intended stage for such a game.
The slice of life air also comes to mind. Outside of events, public areas are generally for slow and relaxed posts, which to some grows old quickly. There is few alternatives elsewhere, linking back to my first point, your stuck between Mechanic based PVE / PVP or this soap-opera esque monotonous style of RP, where you have to breed your own conflict, leading to this feeling of 'Having to be the bad guy punching bag people ask for, and being shit on for it.' This leads to an almost meaningless feeling in myself and others, that sigrogana is going to always be this stagnant- No one else will take initiative, conflict must be cultivated for it to exist at all.
BDP Delving is a thing of the past or something done on OOC grinding builds now. It's a mechanic that has, in many cases, proven to be an unwanted end game to grind items for future IC's, and serves as a barrier for RP participation moreso than as building up to a character. A consequence of GR, you are now jacked or you aint. The progress from 1 - 60 is far too mechanical and far too jarring for people to take it as IC, so they don't. Experienced players will attempt to abbreviate their experiences in PVE as much as they can, because after god knows how many dungeons you aren't going to forget about how mathematical and repetitive you can make grinding. There is little reward and nothing new to learn from PVE, so it is cut as short as one can suffer through.
'Jobs' is a thing I hardly feel the need to mention, moreso out of insignificance, but I will tick it off the list at the very least: Another grind, for something that is almost always going to be used to either make murai or gear OOC homies. There is no rp or mechanic consequence to becoming a blacksmith or a tool smith, it just expedites one form of grind to another, or allows you to service people who need X for their coming soon build. Similarly, head doctor aint shit either. I know two people who take it as part of their IC's, and it's fundamentally boiled down to resource acquisition and offering people head for blood, assuming they don't have 80 Vit Glykins lying around. Numerical grinds such as these are not facetes of a character if they'll only be called on once, nor are they fundamentally interesting.
The stagnation of the world is also a key point that should not go on such a light note. It's understandable that, given the genre, players are expected to make their own legacies, but even that isn't facilitated in SL2. Player IC's don't amount to, well anything, in part to purposefully limiting lore.
The community's relationship
I want to be especially vocal about this point, and I will hurt some feelings in doing so. There is this culture, where you will voice your concerns vocally- sing them even, but then once they could go addressed people are suddenly gripped by; apathy, understatement or otherwise, and nowhere is it more clear than in the main server discord.
For different reasons each time, there are a lot of points that should go stated, but go obfuscated, a key example would be balancing, though there are many more. Complaining about a mechanic, feature or etcetera in dms or on-game isn't going to change shit, nor are threads that devolve into different topics, and only leads to a more fragmented community relationship with each other and the game itself, and the lack of clarity will only detrimentally affect what changes will be made in the future.
Lets talk about events
Overextend their welcome and they will become shallow, cookie cutter experiences that amount to nothing. A lot of people had the mindset that eventmins would '
SOLVE RP STAGNATION ' and while it's a step in the right direction, far be it to expect them to do what you fail to forge your character with. There's this notion that partaking in events will allow you to build character through shared traumatic experiences, and I rarely see this come into competent fruition. Event chains are at their strongest when people are few, hence the foaming at the mouth to the mention of clique events and clique rp people have spoke about, it is fundamentally de-individualizing to be thrown into a chain with 19 other people competing for top dog, see any MMO story ever. The more invested / fewer headcount event chains from what I've seen have gone swimmingly, lowering the required resources to facilitate this character development and allowing it to be far more approachable than previously, whereas before it was manpower and items for a quick event. It is my sincere opinion that events shouldn't just become 'If your in the area, come fight XYZ' I think that is fucked fundamentally, and will only dampen the weight of other chains. Give them weight, impact and consequence.Okay, so what events would be GOOD? And not just token involvement of people for the sake of semblance. I am of the opinion that events other than festivals, world changing events or just player ran gatherings wont alleviate much. The RP in those isn't deep but there is greater immersion and player involvement with the backdrop, which is always nice. Everything else should remain closed off, gated to people of IC relevance, for the sake of preserving their importance. People relying on regular eventmin-ran events to facilitate character conflict, though, will do fuck all for alleviating anything. It should not be seen as a substitute for growth or player interaction.
Why is it like this
I can only throw spit-ball thoughts around here, having not been around long enough to witness every change, but my guess would be due to the almost political community and the lack of a strong mechanical endgame :
People making enemies of each other for the sake of conflict. It's no secret byond players tend to be confrontation averse, and rather than interacting with people they dislike, ignoring the offender full stop is more practiced. This adds obvious issues to the landscape, but I tend to look the other way and let people ruin their own fun how they see fit I guess. There's little else to do beside making friends and common enemies, I guess. The clique label / allebi gets thrown around a lot, and I don't believe it does as much damage as others suggest, even if I avoid them like the plague. If you get good rp with your friends, interact with your friends. Meaningful interaction comes like water in a desert and if that's the only reason you play, you should not be penalised for it. A lot of you are anxious, cynical, or just uninterested- and rightly so, so I shalln't shift blame where I don't feel its due, and ask you enjoy the game with as many people as you can.
Now, a more prominent note. Many people in this thread are old, old players. One's almost a bag of dust. What content has there been for you to do? I will state that, outside of resource hoarding or becoming 'Better' at pvp, there's sweet fuck all for you to take away. What other mechanics are there to better yourself at? There's the meta skill of becoming a better RP, although even that is a struggle with the aforementioned lack of quality public RP. Really, the true end game, is right here.
Smack each other with sticks to try and get better at an obtuse and poorly balanced turn based strategy game, for GARUNTEED use in a future ic that will definitely probably possibly happen. It's no surprise that people feel bored, stale, tired. There's fundamentally nothing to better yourself at, giving this impression the game is a disguised time waster. However, and I cannot stress this enough, the fact that people stick here from mechanically stronger rp games? Testifies the community and shows that people, while not vocal, are still hopeful about the future of the game, less they would not be here. The fact you've read thusfar through shows you have some interested in the state of the game.
The only real suggestions I can give, is to reduce the initial / post 60 grinds to alleviate more dynamic character growth. The early game can be the most spirit breaking, mostly because of the natural uncertainty that comes with investing so much time and effort into a character you weren't set in stone about making.
Have more thematically relevant public areas, with better player involvement built in. There is interesting set dressing off continent, though all attempts to get people to spread out further across the map have been unsuccessful.
Avoiding impactful changes to PvP, focusing more on working with what you got to the communities content, more so than putting in new content. I will say, while petty, the shift in PvP meta has been more than reason for me to quit. It's volatile, people aren't always genuine with their intentions, and it's highly liable to shifting- But post GR stat changes makes it so anyone with a fruit or some time on their hands can facilitate any build ; No matter how meta.
Incentivise more conflict between players, be it through less Arjav time, or more interaction at Arjav. It's currently seen more as 'Godmod jail softban' than anything productive or fun. I would add it would also feel interesting to allow for other nations to have prison systems, as varied as they can be, and allow players to become 'guards' there independent of Sigroganan guard status (Which was a giant turn-off for me.)
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