[Chaos]

Due to a good amount of things I've heard about people finding the game to be getting stale, I thought it would be a decent idea to get a tally on everyone's opinion of how SL2 is currently appealing to them. Note that this is not a topic to stack up suggestions on 'improving SL2' nor a place to debate over opinions, but a general consensus of what people think.

That being said, this topic concerns the gameplay itself. Do not talk about the roleplay going on here. Pick whatever two options apply to you the most, and if you feel like explaining your opinion, feel free to post. (No debating with the others, though)

[Ryu-Kazuki]

Too much combat focus. We really need other things to do and other activities to make the game less, "go do a dungeon and RP if other people are around." Which would help if crafting was more desirable, we had some other casino games, etc. And of course it might bring in more players overall.

[aranamor]

My group is trying to get the main plot rolling again, with the whole God Grave thing. It'd be nice if there was something to push us along towards the goal, because it's rapidly becoming slice-of-life 'lets dick around the house and facepalm at people in the arena' mode.

e: On that note, how precisely does one get 'caught' up? We've fought Kinu twice so far, but we're stuck and looking to figure out where she's gone next. Is this the point where we should team up with Ashe and company for mutual benefit, or is it still at a point where we have to go it alone (Insofar as 12 people is 'alone')?

[MakeshiftWalrus]

As a player who (mainly) play SL2 for the sake of roleplay I can honestly see why it's starting to get unappealing to a lot of people, and while I know you stated that this topic isn't meant for the discussion of how the RP affects the game itself I fear it's impossible to salvage anything worthwhile from it if we were to exclude it.

The game plays as a simple SRPG in the best case without much focus on anything but leveling your character up to the maximum while throwing cool classes and skills at you which you can then utilize to kill the few critters that live inside the random dungeons. Some of the skills are neat with their visuals and others are more boring than your old grandpa's billion stories from before the war. The combat is mediocre at best, you start out on the battlefield and begin to set up while your opponents does the same. Depending on your class you do specific things, which is cool at some point I guess, but after hundreds and hundreds of battles it gets tiresome because your opponent never does anything different (Talking about the average dungeon mobs here) and you yourself have no reason to do anything different. It gets repetitive really, really quickly.

There's obviously the story of SL2 which at one point is fine as it is since it's still being added to, but considering the fact that SL2 is a plain as a brick about anything else than what's mentioned the lore could seriously use a helping hand. Anything that isn't mentioned or isn't completely obvious to any normal person is lacking in descriptions and details, hell, even some of the things we know about is lacking in details that would help a lot of people understand them better other than there being a vague 'Red line' which people can sway around but in most cases break horribly until the Staff decides to slam a boot down and fix it again.

The world is boring as well, and by that I mean the overworld itself. While I can see the appeal in a small overworld due to the file size and everything I can't help but feel it takes away something from it. It feels out of place due to the small size of it and the even smaller characters that run around it, but that's just a personal peeve of mine.

And speaking of tiny, you're not important to the world. You can't interact with anything in the world save for the vendors, a few NPCs with like, three lines of text to tell you and the story characters. (Who I admit are pretty sweet.)
You're nothing but a ghost floating around the world. Your entire purpose is to level up. Get gear. Max skills. Repeat. Without the roleplaying between characters, this game would have been dead a long time ago.

In short, what I dislike about SL2's gameplay is:
-The combat is unappealing and repetitive in the long run.
-The lore isn't very fleshed out and is mostly left to the beholder's brain to toy with.
-The tiny overworld isn't that fun to walk around and people look rather silly when they do.
-You don't matter at all.

I could probably think of more things, but this is what I could come up with from the top of my head that isn't roleplay-related.

[Sawrock]

I'm one of the "Other" voters (along with voting for Random Dungeons aren't cutting it anymore), and I have to agree with Walrus. Roleplay is a MAJOR part of the game, but it gets stale, since instead of being an interactable sandbox that we can create characters for and immerse in, we're just pointless beings that will have NO chance of affecting the in-game world on a large scale. It's fine if we don't do such a thing. but not even having the smallest chance to, besides the Lore Quests (which EVERYONE does, therefore making them not even in-character) really makes this game disappointing to me. I mean, I'd like to start a business that would eventually out-do Asago, or rule over a small village (which, to note, I attempted with, with Law's End, but it eventually stopped), or the like. We can't even have children, reasonably, since time effects no one if they don't wish to, so if someone was thirty, and a second person had a kid, the kid could grow to be thirty with the first person remaining thirty, which really ruins immersion. So, most people don't really age... which adds to the stale roleplay factor of nothing changing.

On the positive side though, I really love the combat system, weapon customization, and other customization (music, houses, etc).

[Lolzytripd]

other
overworld and maps
more places, mecha forest plz,
if dormeho, oniga, and tannis were as fleshed out as chaturanga. expanding forests would also be nice


perhaps make a player placeable campsite map

spawning non-dungeon maps
a dirt road map that can be set on any dirt road with fences and travelling caravans, beach maps, magical oasis in oniga, portals to youkai realms that are not static doors with rare youkai.

[Rockabye]

I would love a change of focus to non-combat systems for awhile. I think we have enough combat systems to last us while more focus is placed on immersive systems for the world that don't involve cutting something/someone open.

[Yumi123]

I was one of the many who joined SL2 for the role-playing, even bringing in other players to join the game (hi Walrus!) and donating in to support it. I found the game to be pleasing, fun, entertaining, but also so SO SO repetitive.

Combat alone was just a pain to go through. New skills are nice, and I don't necessarily mind the combat against other players. But until you hit max, fighting other players isn't too viable, making the game feel more like a grind fest to the cap. Not to mention, the monsters that you have to face in the dungeons are incredibly predictable, and are easy to deal with. So on that side alone, while combat has received a massive focus, the AI is what really makes it feel dull.

Even with the problem though, I agree that there has been too much focus on the other parts of combat (seriously, that AI is as dull as the disappointment sack), and that role-playing itself hasn't received as much attention. I try and try and try to come back into the game from time to time, hoping of a big change to help me out, but it's always the same as the past. There's still the clique's that don't bother helping new players getting into the community (Although not as bad as in the beginning), there's still a lack of a large incentive to role-play at the start (due to the need to grind in order to actually get into things like fights and not get instantly destroyed), and the game is still more about the combat. There's nothing of interest for anything but combat, and SOMETIMES role-play, which can be hard to come across. There's also far too little influence for other potential parts of the game.

In short:
-AI is dull, but otherwise combat has way too much focus
-Clique's still exist, however not as much
-Not too much incentive to go out and role-play, even with the exp
-Everything feels boring except for combat and role-play(If you can find someone who'll talk to you)
-Game feels like a grind-fest if you want to pvp other players and not get instantly shrek't
-Obvious lack of things to help role-play form more often

[Neus]

How precisely does one get 'caught' up? We've fought Kinu twice so far, but we're stuck and looking to figure out where she's gone next. Is this the point where we should team up with Ashe and company for mutual benefit, or is it still at a point where we have to go it alone (Insofar as 12 people is 'alone')?

There's a laplaceNET request you receive after beating Kinu for the second time. Then you can go to Law's End (though Kinu does show up for a brief time in the World and Heaven Inn if you want to talk to her too).

If people have suggestions for things that would be a good addition in terms of roleplay focused things, I encourage them to post it in the Suggestions forum. This is one area that I'm not sure what people want, since it varies from person to person. The next update is another 'combat focused' update (it's a new class), but after that, I'll try to focus on roleplay/side activities for a while.

[aranamor]

Thanks. I did the quest and fought Ashe. I lost the first time, did some roleplay biz involving Mercala, and then critwhored to victory. On the note of roleplay suggestions, maybe add some class quests? It'd be nice if I had a real reason to associate with the Black Knights as an organisation.