"Ask Not What SoD Can Do for You ..."

Zengo said:
Tanks that have been retired for 5 years continue to get xp, continue to get better, and will always be used over someone else. This is a huge problem. One can always 2 box their character and some other retired character. I just really wish they could find a way to end this cycle. Lock the account, send an email to the original email asking them to log in and unlock their account. That would get rid of a few of the big names at least clearing the way for some new folks to be able to do stuff.
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I do not see this as being an issue. There are maybe a handful of tanks that are doing this, but I have seen a fair share of new up and coming tanks. Look at Kraizik, Moraelin, Zioni, Khandra, Laisia and I am sure I have missed some that are not old/retired toons just being recycled. Sure there are a few out there that may fall into this category but at the same time that is the choice of the ppl in the group / person boxing the tank. Furtheremore, if it were not for some of these older toons there is a bunch of the population that would not be able to find groups b/c they are either looking for a tank or a healer. I can count at least 10 times in the last 3 weeks I have been ooc'ing for a healer and ended up soloing/duoing or camping b/c I couldn't find one.
 
langdorn said:
I think until end game guys stop camping everything for the alts and quests, fresh 65's will get burned out competing for an exp group let alone gear. How to fix? I'm serious, server wipe for any toon made over a year ago. It's progressing that keeps people going. Make everyone start from square one. The full-timers will piss and moan, some will quit, some will make a new toon and get over it. New players will be on a level playing field.
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I do not see the end game guys camping everything for quests. How many toons from dragonkin, prophecy, resergum, eternity etc have vah backs, sagacity, supreme, etc.

I also do not see any competition for exp I regularly see groups looking for more. Enasc said is elsewhere that 99% of the guys I know (high end included) would much rather have a fresh 65 in the group than boxing. We mainly play this game to chill with friends and have a good time. Don't get me wrong but there are a certain few that are still pretty hardcore/selfish that want the best possible way to make the most possible pp and exp the fastest. I have seen/invited more people recently than I can think of to exp. The biggest problem is there are not enough people playing. There was a time when rust, citadel, BQ, HHK, FR, and Kaesora all had 1-2 groups in them at any given time. Now you can basically go wherever you want without checking the zone b/c more often then not all of them but 1 is empty at any given time.
 
langdorn said:
I think until end game guys stop camping everything for the alts and quests, fresh 65's will get burned out competing for an exp group let alone gear. How to fix? I'm serious, server wipe for any toon made over a year ago. It's progressing that keeps people going. Make everyone start from square one. The full-timers will piss and moan, some will quit, some will make a new toon and get over it. New players will be on a level playing field.
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I think wiping the server would fix all of the issues. I think it would kill the server. You would lose probably 75-80% of the active population, and crush the very casuals that log in 1-2 times a week and slowly make their progress.
 
As someone that plays sporadically now, a server wipe would entice me to come back full time.

I'm sure many veterans don't share that opinion, though.
 
Moraelintz said:
I think wiping the server would fix all of the issues. I think it would kill the server. You would lose probably 75-80% of the active population, and crush the very casuals that log in 1-2 times a week and slowly make their progress.
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This is right on.

Also, the last sort of surge for the goons was using a ringer tank along with my tank and maybe 1/2 others depending on who was playing at the time... This got maybe 6-12 people playing at a time for a couple of months. There is some talk on the boards of maybe playing again one night a week. If you remove ringers, I highly doubt anyone from goons is going to log in to 'raid' even 1 night a week. I would like to add that many times I have brought people lfg in OOC just to be able to loot rots (depending on the content.) Additionally, I often ooc people to join me if I ringer tank XP. I usually even let people leech if they want, until I kick them for a non-leech. I haven't been on hardly at all due to work/life, but I'll be back. You get the point...

If you want to complain about ringer tanks, the real problem is that fresh 65 tanks are so fucking weak. Taking ringers away would suck, changing the raid system in some way to allow new 65 to tank in raids and be useful is how you fix tank issues at fresh 65.
 
Daffie said:
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If you want to complain about ringer tanks, the real problem is that fresh 65 tanks are so fucking weak. Taking ringers away would suck, changing the raid system in some way to allow new 65 to tank in raids and be useful is how you fix tank issues at fresh 65.
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This is more of the issue with tanks. In order to be worth it you have to be good. In order to be good you have to be worth it.
 
Probably 75-90% of the groups I'm ever in are one of two or three situations. We can find no real tank, so a ringer is boxed by someone allowing the group to even exist. We can find tanks, but they can't stay alive or hold agro well enough to keep up with the rest of the group and I end up tanking. We can find no real tanks and nobody willing/able to box a ringer-type in, so I end up tanking. If I don't feel like tanking (99% of the time, heh), it's almost always ringer tank or sit lfg until you get bored and log. I wish the population was high enough for this not to be the case, but right now those boxed ringer tanks are actually one of the only things allowing most groups to exist. (and don't get me wrong, I'm all for making new tanks better suited to handle groups. Just pointing out that imo ringer tanks are not so much the issue they may once have been. In fact, imo, kind of the opposite..)
 
A server wipe? Are you serious?

Take what amounts to literally months upon months or even a year or more for some people of /played time - time literally spent sitting in a chair - and pay it the disrespect of deleting that persons toon?

I would never ever log into this game again if that happened. I have a feeling 99% of the people on this server agree with me except the casuals who won't spend the time to catch up.
 
Don't care either way but I would like to point out that the "sunk cost fallacy" is a fallacy for a reason. If the amount of time you've put into the game is the main thing going for it, that's not really a point in its favor.

Time spent "advancing" or "building a character" is absolutely, 100% wasted time. None of that stuff matters -- it'll all evaporate eventually, whether because you quit or because the game ends. The only thing that's really worth considering is whether you've enjoyed -- and whether you continue to enjoy -- wasting away that time here.

I can't imagine that a wipe would happen, simply because no half-way drastic changes have happened in a long time. But at the end of the day I think it would be better to become a game people would quit this game to play than to sit here and keep declining. The sunk cost fallacy goes the other way too -- no one is willing to try any major changes that might upset the shrinking number of people who've been playing forever. No matter how much they want them.
 
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Oh, and: it's not quite the same, but "most people who do play wouldn't play if they started today" is not a huge vote of confidence for attracting new players either ;p

A game should be rewarding for the people who play a lot, but if that turns into "you must put X amount of time into the game before it's really worth playing" that's not great. No surprise that only old players stick around if that's the case.
 
Zaela said:
Oh, and: it's not quite the same, but "most people who do play wouldn't play if they started today" is not a huge vote of confidence for attracting new players either ;p

A game should be rewarding for the people who play a lot, but if that turns into "you must put X amount of time into the game before it's really worth playing" that's not great. No surprise that only old players stick around if that's the case.
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Too lazy to quote both your posts but +1 to both.

The grind to get my toon to where he is today was fun, but at the same time, I don't want to do it again. It was fun because I did it with a cool group of dudes, but I've also earned my way to being tier 10 or whatever I am.

I'd compare it to some magical sport - you practice and practice to be good at it, what if one day a new guy walks onto the field, isn't as good as you, so he can magically take away all your achieved skill to level the field for himself? You enjoyed practicing and earning it, but would you really want to work that hard again just to get back to where you were?

Edit: For me - the magic of this game was discovering it the first time through. The excitement of downing a raid mob you've never killed before (looking at you, folerit redsun) or *finally* getting that item drop you've been waiting for. Once through was enough.
 
Zaela said:
Oh, and: it's not quite the same, but "most people who do play wouldn't play if they started today" is not a huge vote of confidence for attracting new players either ;p

A game should be rewarding for the people who play a lot, but if that turns into "you must put X amount of time into the game before it's really worth playing" that's not great. No surprise that only old players stick around if that's the case.
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The biggest issue is that SoD is still using the old EQ live time sink format. EQ live used that format because the longer people played the more money they got, it had nothing to do with fun.
 
As someone who plays this game once said: "If you're playing this game for some other reason than you enjoy logging in and killing monsters with friends, you're going to have a bad time"

Do you have to play a LOT to make it worth it? Yeah, maybe you kind of do. Why? In my opinion, because that's the only way you're going to find people online to hang out with. If there was *something* to do for those people who pop in, lfg, don't find one quickly, and pop out, then maybe there would be more groups made, and more people playing the game.

The game this game is built upon is a MMORPG. Those Ms, Massively Multiplayer. Does SoD seem massively multiplayer to you right now? Has it ever?

Seems to me like the mechanics that this game was constructed on relied on a larger base of players than SoD currently has, perhaps ever had, while at the same time enforcing a smaller population.

Progressing when you're 1-65? You can do solo, boxing, or in a small group. It may be slow, but you'll get there.

Progressing at low tiers? Try to do that solo and you won't get very far. But with a small group of reliable friends, you can do some things. Get that tmap gear, maybe some from CMal, buy some BoE gear from those big meanies doing xp in Cita or BQ.

Beyond that? You raid. Meaning you have to line up your schedule with at least 8 (if everyone is boxing) to 17 (if no one is) other people who are approximately the same tier as you. But you also need to be sure that there isn't a second guild raiding your tier who will beat you to the monsters, because that can kill your guild too.

If your schedule does not work for raiding, as a caster, you're done before you get a relic. Having seen how much more the game has to offer after that point, I think that's a shame.

I don't know anything about the server's vision for what it should be, so I can't really make any kind of suggestions for improving things that would stay in theme. Maybe a discussion with people who make those kinds of decisions would be good for the server to have. Maybe they're happy with how the server is going right now, idk.
 
Enasc...you said it. "If your schedule does not work for raiding, as a caster, you're done before you get a relic. Having seen how much more the game has to offer after that point, I think that's a shame."

It is a big shame. Totally my situation. I still get to PUG every now and then, but I've been playing a long time and other than XP grinding, I am getting no where else. I do get the occasional gear upgrade from the PUGs or Guild related "snipes" or whatever it's called.
 
As I mentioned when I said I'd be for a server reset, I didn't think the majority would be for it. It's just my personal opinion.

Getting to XP a new toon up and do the content all over again with a few familiar bros and a bunch of new friends is very alluring to me. But that's just me.
 
consolidate the active player base (which is often 100-200 characters, PLENTY for grouping and raiding) by increasing progression at low levels/tiers, and keeping end game slow
 
It's a shame the population is so low because even opening up a second server where you start from scratch (and could possibly migrate to fully if the experiment proved there was merit to that) would possibly kill the game by splitting such a small number of players between the two.
 
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