Archeage forums are not as bad as they once were, still probably 50/50 negative/positive. Reddit is a lot more reasonable if you want a more unbiased discussion. They are having an anniversary event right now that if you login for 15 days until Sep 15 you get a free weapon that is comparable to between T3 and T4 obsidian I believe, which is really really good. It is pissing some people off, but for a returning player like me, it's enough to help close the gear gap. That means I don't have to worry about finishing T3 Hasla, or farming Library for a weapon.
Now Playing: Bless / Summoners War Looking forward to: Crowfall / Lost Ark / Black Desert Mobile
I wouldn't waste my time on it honestly. The game lacks integrity to its primary concept. It supposes to be a sand boxy MMORPG but time and time again, when faced with the realities of what that actually means, its developers have gone weak and installed into the game certain mechanisms that have amounted to a near reset and have caused loyal players of the game to feel completely unappreciated while it caters to the new money.
The initial game was about striking out and building a new home in a new land and a lot of players signed up for that. The struggle was hard, yes, but the rewards were worth it and one could easily set themselves apart from the crowd by either A. Pounding on the game. B. Opening their wallet. or C. Some combination of the both. Free to play players were able to assist in populating the servers by purchasing their account with gold earned inside the game and life inside Archeage was a struggle but it was a meaningful struggle.
Then came the addition of weapons that could be earned without having to learn how to craft or collecting any materials. Suddenly the pvp faction shot out in front of the rest of the population, the pirate faction doubled in size and the game became less about all of the players and more about a specific kind of player.
Nearly every update since then has fairly followed suit. Quested gear was lowered in level while easier to make obsidian gear replaced the more difficult to make previously craftable gear. Resources in the land of Auroria were intentionally placed in more contestable spots in order to facilitate even more grief-like pvp from the already over geared and over powered non-crafting pvp players.
Now, with the addition of houses that allow the top tier of craftable consumables to be created without any prerequisite skill and farming patches that considerably cut down on the amount of time needed to gather the raw materials, there is going to be little left to do inside of that game save for to get and upgrade gear (a thing that often requires the spending of additional real world cash).
And even if you are willing to go in as a brand new player and take advantage of all the things that Trion and XLgames are doing to close the gap between you and its loyal customer base it won't matter. Because in less than 4 months they will have found a way to nullify whatever progress you have made in the game by installing yet another device meant to assure that the only difference between you and a brand new players will be the amount of time and money you have invested in the game.
All of this is verifiable in their forums and patch information.
Archeage is on its way out. Best to shop for something else.
Oh wait, I left out the thing where they are uprooting entire servers of people from the lands that they spent months acquiring and restting them all to new servers where they will have to go out there and get that land all over again.
This is little different from the legendary Vanguard - Saga of Heroes re-release only they aren't calling it that, they are calling this 2.0
Jesad, while I agree with you to an extent, you have to let others catch up at some point. You can't exclude people from the game with no possible chance of ever being competitive. Otherwise the hardcores who have been playing since day 1 will continue to rule the game for ever and onward and that is just boring.
Hasla and Obsidian were meant to catch people up. I do think that they let Hasla open to early for T2 & T3, but Obsidian is fine. It's not crafting with no skill, it's grinding, not crafting... It's an alternative and reduces P2W and I am OK with it. Crafted gear is still preferred in most cases, and wealthy players will still normally opt for crafted gear.
Now Playing: Bless / Summoners War Looking forward to: Crowfall / Lost Ark / Black Desert Mobile
Won't ever go back and neither will several of the people I know who used to play it. The game, while fun, is nothing more than a cash grab for Trion and XLGames. The developer seldom fix anything and instead keep adding more eye candy to the game while Trion has them remove stuff and placed into RNG boxes.
Tried to go back a couple of days ago. Downloaded launcher and client, got patch and boom...bugged out. Couldn't complete the update and so couldn't play. Nothing suggested by their "support" worked, so just uninstalled it. Its a known issue that has been around since beta apparently but has yet to be fixed.
If they don't have time to fix it or get a solid workaround for it, then I don't have time to download and install the game every time I want to play.
"If MMORPG players were around when God said, "Let their be light" they'd have called the light gay, and plunged the universe back into darkness by squatting their nutsacks over it." -Luke McKinney, The 7 Biggest Dick Moves in the History of Online Gaming
"In the end, SWG may have been more potential and promise than fulfilled expectation. But I'd rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity." -Raph Koster
Drop that labor system then I'm in. I don't care if it's P2P or P2W, just don't dictate how I play.
i always though the labor system was to stop people just botting for materials and so forth, i like labor to be honest, means casual gamers dont get so left far behind by the poeple so have the time to farm 16hours a day.
each to their own though
Any developer that implements automated mechanisms that inconveniences, penalizes, or hampers those players who have, and make, the time to play their game just so that those who don't have, or make, the time to play their game are able to keep up is a failed game. Players who don't make, or have, time to play the game should be the one's that should be inconvenienced, penalized, and/or hampered not players who have, and make, time to play the game. In AA scenario it should only be those players who don't make, or have, the time to play that should be inconvenienced, penalized, and/or hampered by having to buy or somehow work for labor in an effort to keep up, not the other way around. Players who have, and make, the time to play the game should experience no such inconveniences or penalties.
AA's labor system is its achilles heel. It will never attain the success that it should merit on account of it. There are many other ways to suck money out of your player base. There is no need to implement one that will frustrate your player base into quitting the game altogether. That said, the labor system is just one of AA's problems. There are many more that I won't mention because those will vary depending on game style preferences.
Players who don't make, or have, time to play the game should be the one's that should be inconvenienced, penalized, and/or hampered not players who have, and make, time to play the game.
Lets see. Potential amount of time per day 24h.
Some charecteristics of a hypothetical profile of them who can make the max out of that potential time: not employeed, doesn't have any other interests, doesn't have any girlfriend/wife, doesn't have any other social life (friends to meet in RL). That narrows down the possible playertype who doesn't get "penalized" to someone who doesn't pay any bills, doesn't have to pay for life.
Drop that labor system then I'm in. I don't care if it's P2P or P2W, just don't dictate how I play.
i always though the labor system was to stop people just botting for materials and so forth, i like labor to be honest, means casual gamers dont get so left far behind by the poeple so have the time to farm 16hours a day.
each to their own though
Any developer that implements automated mechanisms that inconveniences, penalizes, or hampers those players who have, and make, the time to play their game just so that those who don't have, or make, the time to play their game are able to keep up is a failed game. Players who don't make, or have, time to play the game should be the one's that should be inconvenienced, penalized, and/or hampered not players who have, and make, time to play the game. In AA scenario it should only be those players who don't make, or have, the time to play that should be inconvenienced, penalized, and/or hampered by having to buy or somehow work for labor in an effort to keep up, not the other way around. Players who have, and make, the time to play the game should experience no such inconveniences or penalties.
AA's labor system is its achilles heel. It will never attain the success that it should merit on account of it. There are many other ways to suck money out of your player base. There is no need to implement one that will frustrate your player base into quitting the game altogether. That said, the labor system is just one of AA's problems. There are many more that I won't mention because those will vary depending on game style preferences.
I think you are being one sided. Why should someone who doesn't spend a dime have an advantage over someone who is contributing more money to keep the game alive? should the paying player have a HUGE advantage, no. and they don't have a HUGE advantage in AA. A big one, maybe, but not that much unless they spends 100s of dollars a month.
AA is still a game that rewards those with the time to play it. Farming gold will get you patron and will buy you labor. If you have a lot of time you can do this. maybe instead of buy a soda or red-bull at 9:00 on a Friday, you buy some credits and buy some labor to support the game.
Subs aren't profitable anymore, and B2P is restrictive, it's difficult to convince friends to go shell out $60 on a game that may or may not be good. Adjusting for inflation; unless subs increase to $20-25 a month on a F2try title, I don't see them ever happening again, too much competition to get the numbers required to make a profit on subs. Even Wow and FFXIV which make a profit on subs and B2P model don't update their games in any meaningful way. Just give us more of the same to breeze through, hit max level and quit.
Now Playing: Bless / Summoners War Looking forward to: Crowfall / Lost Ark / Black Desert Mobile
I like the game but it has too many negatives for me to
continue to spend time playing it.
1.
Trion has poorly managed the game. From the bad launch where even subbers waited
an hour in the queue, the terrible launch of the castle lands (cant remember the
name) where half the servers population could not log to try and claim a
castle, the dupes, the crazy amount of housing and other hacking that went
on. Don’t even get me started on the way
they said one thing and then said a different thing later on. For example, Scapes saying on the forums that
Trion did indeed have a lot of control over the cash shop pricing.
2.
The blatant cash grab model where your best
chance at getting a TS tree was .26% from a pine tree which is a crazy small
amount. That’s less than half of one
percent. Then they introduce siege weapons
that need them so they add boxes to the cash shop which give you a 10% chance
at one.
3.
The terrible RNG crafting system where player
skill has absolutely no influence on your success rate. You can be a master crafter and fail 200
times while your friend can be an idiot and get insanely lucky in his first
guess at making that item and succeed.
Which would not be so bad if the crafting components dropped reasonably
well in the game but they don’t. Again those
items that you NEED to progress in the game have ridiculously low drop rates of
less than one percent. But of course
they are offered in the cash shop.
4.
There really is no fair PVP in the game. You might get lucky in the arena and draw an
opponent who is geared like you but many times it is a whale like Koon who
dropped thousands of bucks into the game and will own you rather quickly. The Hasla area is camped by legions of
enemies and frequently large guilds roam there killing anyone working on
getting their hasla weapons. The only
fairly even PVP is the castle sieges and those require a ton of gold and a very
large guild to get into.
5.
The game is designed for progression which
limits new players from entry. This is
why they are currently giving out hasla 3.5 grade weapons. You can work for a year to get your gear and
then next year they will just give everyone almost comparable gear. Why bother?
6.
You can work your tail off to get land in a
decent non-pvp area only to lose it 6 months later to a server merge. You are fooling yourself if you think this is
the last one. Once the game hits 2.0
there is no longer a ton a new features ready to be added. The game has done reasonable well up to this
point due to Trion releasing it far behind the Korean version and then adding
updates quite often to bring it up to Koreas level but soon they will hit that
level and then the game will see a lot less updates and those updates wont be
tested as well as the current ones which have already been released on Korean
and Russian servers so don’t need as much testing.
Again, I actually liked the game. It was the future potential, the way the game
mechanics pushed you to the cash shop in order to progress and the terrible way
that Trion has handled things that made me leave and keep me from coming
back. At this point with no land and
being very far behind most other players, why would I even want to come back?
"Sean (Murray) saying MP will be in the game is not remotely close to evidence that at the point of purchase people thought there was MP in the game." - SEANMCAD
I like the game but it has too many negatives for me to
continue to spend time playing it.
1.
Trion has poorly managed the game. From the bad launch where even subbers waited
an hour in the queue, the terrible launch of the castle lands (cant remember the
name) where half the servers population could not log to try and claim a
castle, the dupes, the crazy amount of housing and other hacking that went
on. Don’t even get me started on the way
they said one thing and then said a different thing later on. For example, Scapes saying on the forums that
Trion did indeed have a lot of control over the cash shop pricing.
2.
The blatant cash grab model where your best
chance at getting a TS tree was .26% from a pine tree which is a crazy small
amount. That’s less than half of one
percent. Then they introduce siege weapons
that need them so they add boxes to the cash shop which give you a 10% chance
at one.
3.
The terrible RNG crafting system where player
skill has absolutely no influence on your success rate. You can be a master crafter and fail 200
times while your friend can be an idiot and get insanely lucky in his first
guess at making that item and succeed.
Which would not be so bad if the crafting components dropped reasonably
well in the game but they don’t. Again those
items that you NEED to progress in the game have ridiculously low drop rates of
less than one percent. But of course
they are offered in the cash shop.
4.
There really is no fair PVP in the game. You might get lucky in the arena and draw an
opponent who is geared like you but many times it is a whale like Koon who
dropped thousands of bucks into the game and will own you rather quickly. The Hasla area is camped by legions of
enemies and frequently large guilds roam there killing anyone working on
getting their hasla weapons. The only
fairly even PVP is the castle sieges and those require a ton of gold and a very
large guild to get into.
5.
The game is designed for progression which
limits new players from entry. This is
why they are currently giving out hasla 3.5 grade weapons. You can work for a year to get your gear and
then next year they will just give everyone almost comparable gear. Why bother?
6.
You can work your tail off to get land in a
decent non-pvp area only to lose it 6 months later to a server merge. You are fooling yourself if you think this is
the last one. Once the game hits 2.0
there is no longer a ton a new features ready to be added. The game has done reasonable well up to this
point due to Trion releasing it far behind the Korean version and then adding
updates quite often to bring it up to Koreas level but soon they will hit that
level and then the game will see a lot less updates and those updates wont be
tested as well as the current ones which have already been released on Korean
and Russian servers so don’t need as much testing.
Again, I actually liked the game. It was the future potential, the way the game
mechanics pushed you to the cash shop in order to progress and the terrible way
that Trion has handled things that made me leave and keep me from coming
back. At this point with no land and
being very far behind most other players, why would I even want to come back?
I agree with you on most if not all points, but I also don't think any of them are nearly AS bad as you make them out to be. Especially not the current state of the game. That said, AA IMO, still has less problems than all of themeparks going right now, because those games have no dynamic content, they have scripted content only. Also, look at the development of themeparks these days, it's more insulting to players' intelligence than AA is insulting to players wallets >_< More of the same, more of the same, more of the same.
Now Playing: Bless / Summoners War Looking forward to: Crowfall / Lost Ark / Black Desert Mobile
Comments
Looking forward to: Crowfall / Lost Ark / Black Desert Mobile
The initial game was about striking out and building a new home in a new land and a lot of players signed up for that. The struggle was hard, yes, but the rewards were worth it and one could easily set themselves apart from the crowd by either A. Pounding on the game. B. Opening their wallet. or C. Some combination of the both. Free to play players were able to assist in populating the servers by purchasing their account with gold earned inside the game and life inside Archeage was a struggle but it was a meaningful struggle.
Then came the addition of weapons that could be earned without having to learn how to craft or collecting any materials. Suddenly the pvp faction shot out in front of the rest of the population, the pirate faction doubled in size and the game became less about all of the players and more about a specific kind of player.
Nearly every update since then has fairly followed suit. Quested gear was lowered in level while easier to make obsidian gear replaced the more difficult to make previously craftable gear. Resources in the land of Auroria were intentionally placed in more contestable spots in order to facilitate even more grief-like pvp from the already over geared and over powered non-crafting pvp players.
Now, with the addition of houses that allow the top tier of craftable consumables to be created without any prerequisite skill and farming patches that considerably cut down on the amount of time needed to gather the raw materials, there is going to be little left to do inside of that game save for to get and upgrade gear (a thing that often requires the spending of additional real world cash).
And even if you are willing to go in as a brand new player and take advantage of all the things that Trion and XLgames are doing to close the gap between you and its loyal customer base it won't matter. Because in less than 4 months they will have found a way to nullify whatever progress you have made in the game by installing yet another device meant to assure that the only difference between you and a brand new players will be the amount of time and money you have invested in the game.
All of this is verifiable in their forums and patch information.
Archeage is on its way out. Best to shop for something else.
This is little different from the legendary Vanguard - Saga of Heroes re-release only they aren't calling it that, they are calling this 2.0
Hasla and Obsidian were meant to catch people up. I do think that they let Hasla open to early for T2 & T3, but Obsidian is fine. It's not crafting with no skill, it's grinding, not crafting... It's an alternative and reduces P2W and I am OK with it. Crafted gear is still preferred in most cases, and wealthy players will still normally opt for crafted gear.
Looking forward to: Crowfall / Lost Ark / Black Desert Mobile
If they don't have time to fix it or get a solid workaround for it, then I don't have time to download and install the game every time I want to play.
"If MMORPG players were around when God said, "Let their be light" they'd have called the light gay, and plunged the universe back into darkness by squatting their nutsacks over it."
-Luke McKinney, The 7 Biggest Dick Moves in the History of Online Gaming
"In the end, SWG may have been more potential and promise than fulfilled expectation. But I'd rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
-Raph Koster
Any developer that implements automated mechanisms that inconveniences, penalizes, or hampers those players who have, and make, the time to play their game just so that those who don't have, or make, the time to play their game are able to keep up is a failed game. Players who don't make, or have, time to play the game should be the one's that should be inconvenienced, penalized, and/or hampered not players who have, and make, time to play the game. In AA scenario it should only be those players who don't make, or have, the time to play that should be inconvenienced, penalized, and/or hampered by having to buy or somehow work for labor in an effort to keep up, not the other way around. Players who have, and make, the time to play the game should experience no such inconveniences or penalties.
AA's labor system is its achilles heel. It will never attain the success that it should merit on account of it. There are many other ways to suck money out of your player base. There is no need to implement one that will frustrate your player base into quitting the game altogether. That said, the labor system is just one of AA's problems. There are many more that I won't mention because those will vary depending on game style preferences.
Lets see. Potential amount of time per day 24h.
Some charecteristics of a hypothetical profile of them who can make the max out of that potential time: not employeed, doesn't have any other interests, doesn't have any girlfriend/wife, doesn't have any other social life (friends to meet in RL).
That narrows down the possible playertype who doesn't get "penalized" to someone who doesn't pay any bills, doesn't have to pay for life.
I think you are being one sided. Why should someone who doesn't spend a dime have an advantage over someone who is contributing more money to keep the game alive? should the paying player have a HUGE advantage, no. and they don't have a HUGE advantage in AA. A big one, maybe, but not that much unless they spends 100s of dollars a month.
AA is still a game that rewards those with the time to play it. Farming gold will get you patron and will buy you labor. If you have a lot of time you can do this. maybe instead of buy a soda or red-bull at 9:00 on a Friday, you buy some credits and buy some labor to support the game.
Subs aren't profitable anymore, and B2P is restrictive, it's difficult to convince friends to go shell out $60 on a game that may or may not be good. Adjusting for inflation; unless subs increase to $20-25 a month on a F2try title, I don't see them ever happening again, too much competition to get the numbers required to make a profit on subs. Even Wow and FFXIV which make a profit on subs and B2P model don't update their games in any meaningful way. Just give us more of the same to breeze through, hit max level and quit.
Looking forward to: Crowfall / Lost Ark / Black Desert Mobile
I like the game but it has too many negatives for me to continue to spend time playing it.
1. Trion has poorly managed the game. From the bad launch where even subbers waited an hour in the queue, the terrible launch of the castle lands (cant remember the name) where half the servers population could not log to try and claim a castle, the dupes, the crazy amount of housing and other hacking that went on. Don’t even get me started on the way they said one thing and then said a different thing later on. For example, Scapes saying on the forums that Trion did indeed have a lot of control over the cash shop pricing.
2. The blatant cash grab model where your best chance at getting a TS tree was .26% from a pine tree which is a crazy small amount. That’s less than half of one percent. Then they introduce siege weapons that need them so they add boxes to the cash shop which give you a 10% chance at one.
3. The terrible RNG crafting system where player skill has absolutely no influence on your success rate. You can be a master crafter and fail 200 times while your friend can be an idiot and get insanely lucky in his first guess at making that item and succeed. Which would not be so bad if the crafting components dropped reasonably well in the game but they don’t. Again those items that you NEED to progress in the game have ridiculously low drop rates of less than one percent. But of course they are offered in the cash shop.
4. There really is no fair PVP in the game. You might get lucky in the arena and draw an opponent who is geared like you but many times it is a whale like Koon who dropped thousands of bucks into the game and will own you rather quickly. The Hasla area is camped by legions of enemies and frequently large guilds roam there killing anyone working on getting their hasla weapons. The only fairly even PVP is the castle sieges and those require a ton of gold and a very large guild to get into.
5. The game is designed for progression which limits new players from entry. This is why they are currently giving out hasla 3.5 grade weapons. You can work for a year to get your gear and then next year they will just give everyone almost comparable gear. Why bother?
6. You can work your tail off to get land in a decent non-pvp area only to lose it 6 months later to a server merge. You are fooling yourself if you think this is the last one. Once the game hits 2.0 there is no longer a ton a new features ready to be added. The game has done reasonable well up to this point due to Trion releasing it far behind the Korean version and then adding updates quite often to bring it up to Koreas level but soon they will hit that level and then the game will see a lot less updates and those updates wont be tested as well as the current ones which have already been released on Korean and Russian servers so don’t need as much testing.
Again, I actually liked the game. It was the future potential, the way the game mechanics pushed you to the cash shop in order to progress and the terrible way that Trion has handled things that made me leave and keep me from coming back. At this point with no land and being very far behind most other players, why would I even want to come back?
I agree with you on most if not all points, but I also don't think any of them are nearly AS bad as you make them out to be. Especially not the current state of the game. That said, AA IMO, still has less problems than all of themeparks going right now, because those games have no dynamic content, they have scripted content only. Also, look at the development of themeparks these days, it's more insulting to players' intelligence than AA is insulting to players wallets >_< More of the same, more of the same, more of the same.
Looking forward to: Crowfall / Lost Ark / Black Desert Mobile