iseijin
10-15-2007, 09:17 PM
I'd like to first say that I've only played this game for around 2 days so please excuse me if I get anything mistaken. I believe that class variety and development is vital but that will still not change the basic gameplay of the current game, focus on the fundamentals before expanding onto new content in my opinion =). The following issues are the ones that I feel should be on top of the list for improvements.
1. Questing, Dungeons and Exploration.
It may seem difficult at first and I'm sure it is, but having innovative quests that lead players from one place to another and keep them on track is a fundamental aspect of motivation. The only trouble with this is to be able to match quests of respectable difficulty with the levelling curve and provide enough rewards at the end of each quest to make it worth while. This can only be really achieved in 2 ways, either the developers have to play the game and experience the levelling curve and make quest difficulty/amount/lvl req based off that or just make a surplus of quests. This is very similar to WoW but hey WoW is a successful game no doubt and one of the main reasons is that it is very user friendly.
Also with Quest waypoints, have symbols above NPC heads that indicate they are available to give you quests at your level and if there is a hand in option, show a respective symbol above the hand-in NPC.
Quests that involve partying where the target objective may be too difficult to solo or where a dungeon is involved would really bring the community together.
Having multiple dungeons that are meant for partying where rarer items may drop for that level range is a simple way of encouraging people to group. Have dungeons for lvl 15-20, 20-25, etc. And not just 1 dungeon for each level range, have around 2 or 3.
Danger with this is that dungeons may become overcrowded and people will fight for that last boss kill. I'm not sure how you can avoid this except by making the dungeon very big with multiple bosses...or...doing what WoW does, having instances where a group will be in their own instance of a dungeon and completely separated from any third party.
2. Levelling, Skills and Stats.
Incentive to grind/quest/level up. That's the key to any mmorpg aiming for a large player base. In almost every successful mmo, the incentive is provided. Examples :
Diablo 2 - At every level gained u have 5 stats to distribute into any of your attributes as well as 1 Skill point to use to either learn a new skill or empower a current learnt skill.
RO - Similar to D2 except that you also were that much closer to the next class change which is what SoS provides (the current real main incentive to level, get an awesome class change).
WoW - Every 2 levels you can learn a new skill but every level gained you earn a talent point which has its own skill trees which enhance ur character in their current skill usage or overall survivability.
Basically what I'm trying to say is provide incentive, think about what the player is feeling at level 23 and what he is working for. If you can provide more short term incentive (and by no means does that include stumping the levelling curve) then the player will be more inclined to get to that next level. =)
3. Itemisation
Not much to say about itemisation, it is pretty straightforward. Try to deviate from the standard tier organisation of equipment. Have a range of gear where some may provide innate bonuses to attributes or provide effects, eg. make you run faster.
I'll use WoW as an example again, since we might as well compare to the leading mmorpg, the itemisation possibilities were endless. They had the standard items like most games, eg. for shields. Buckler, Tower shield, Kite shield, and so forth. However, they implemented suffixes and prefixes at a random drop rate so you may end up with a "Buckler of the eagle", where "Of the eagle" meant it was +4 agi, +4 int. Not only did they have that but they had normal, magical, rare, epic gear and gear sets as well where if you collected a certain amount of the set, you would receive a stat/effect bonus.
Anyways, I'm done with my suggestions and I hope they help. I realise that many of these ideas may be very difficult to code and this game is free to play. I'm happy to clarify anything that may seem obscure and please feel free to provide feedback.
Thank you.
1. Questing, Dungeons and Exploration.
It may seem difficult at first and I'm sure it is, but having innovative quests that lead players from one place to another and keep them on track is a fundamental aspect of motivation. The only trouble with this is to be able to match quests of respectable difficulty with the levelling curve and provide enough rewards at the end of each quest to make it worth while. This can only be really achieved in 2 ways, either the developers have to play the game and experience the levelling curve and make quest difficulty/amount/lvl req based off that or just make a surplus of quests. This is very similar to WoW but hey WoW is a successful game no doubt and one of the main reasons is that it is very user friendly.
Also with Quest waypoints, have symbols above NPC heads that indicate they are available to give you quests at your level and if there is a hand in option, show a respective symbol above the hand-in NPC.
Quests that involve partying where the target objective may be too difficult to solo or where a dungeon is involved would really bring the community together.
Having multiple dungeons that are meant for partying where rarer items may drop for that level range is a simple way of encouraging people to group. Have dungeons for lvl 15-20, 20-25, etc. And not just 1 dungeon for each level range, have around 2 or 3.
Danger with this is that dungeons may become overcrowded and people will fight for that last boss kill. I'm not sure how you can avoid this except by making the dungeon very big with multiple bosses...or...doing what WoW does, having instances where a group will be in their own instance of a dungeon and completely separated from any third party.
2. Levelling, Skills and Stats.
Incentive to grind/quest/level up. That's the key to any mmorpg aiming for a large player base. In almost every successful mmo, the incentive is provided. Examples :
Diablo 2 - At every level gained u have 5 stats to distribute into any of your attributes as well as 1 Skill point to use to either learn a new skill or empower a current learnt skill.
RO - Similar to D2 except that you also were that much closer to the next class change which is what SoS provides (the current real main incentive to level, get an awesome class change).
WoW - Every 2 levels you can learn a new skill but every level gained you earn a talent point which has its own skill trees which enhance ur character in their current skill usage or overall survivability.
Basically what I'm trying to say is provide incentive, think about what the player is feeling at level 23 and what he is working for. If you can provide more short term incentive (and by no means does that include stumping the levelling curve) then the player will be more inclined to get to that next level. =)
3. Itemisation
Not much to say about itemisation, it is pretty straightforward. Try to deviate from the standard tier organisation of equipment. Have a range of gear where some may provide innate bonuses to attributes or provide effects, eg. make you run faster.
I'll use WoW as an example again, since we might as well compare to the leading mmorpg, the itemisation possibilities were endless. They had the standard items like most games, eg. for shields. Buckler, Tower shield, Kite shield, and so forth. However, they implemented suffixes and prefixes at a random drop rate so you may end up with a "Buckler of the eagle", where "Of the eagle" meant it was +4 agi, +4 int. Not only did they have that but they had normal, magical, rare, epic gear and gear sets as well where if you collected a certain amount of the set, you would receive a stat/effect bonus.
Anyways, I'm done with my suggestions and I hope they help. I realise that many of these ideas may be very difficult to code and this game is free to play. I'm happy to clarify anything that may seem obscure and please feel free to provide feedback.
Thank you.