Golden Xan

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Mallius Odium
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Mar 30, 2019
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Hey everyone,

I have some quick comments to make regarding the last stream on February 21. I don't have a YouTube to link it right now, but here is the Twitch link to the video: https://www.twitch.tv/deadhaussonata/video/555672821

EDIT: The video is now available on YouTube.
Here it is.


1. At 26:57 - At the risk of being wrong, I believe @CyanStargazer meant to ask about something else. He was asking about what happens when you have a class that requires effort to accumulate its power or execute its abilities but other classes are faster and plummet through the enemies? In his example, if a Liche takes 1 minute to acquire someone's soul as a vessel, how will this process be made viable if an allied Vampire is coming in and bursting through the enemy that the Liche was trying to transform into his vessel? In other words, will all characters have a similar pacing when using their powers and defeating enemies?

That also goes hand in hand with one of the questions I've had before: Can characters share their slain enemies? Can a Liche acquire someone's soul as a vessel, a Vampire drain blood from that same individual, and a Ghoul eat its body all together? Or will players be forced to find different enemies to gain their power from?

2. At 49:00 - Denis says "you get more than just loot when you play Deadhaus Sonata, you get an experience."
This was beautiful, and I think you should make that more prominent in your marketing.

3. At 1:13:43 - I'm interpreting what someone else said here, but I believe they meant to ask whether there would be punishment for not participating in a group activity such as a raid or a clan war, where everyone's participation is often required for completion in MMOs.
As a personal comment, I think people need to be free to choose how they spend their time in the game and people shouldn't be forced to participate in any event or game feature if they don't want to, or simply can't.

4. At 1:20:43 - It seems to me the question was whether you'd be able to play content from Ages previous to the current one. Like I once asked whether it would be possible to replay quests and the story of Ages before you began playing the game.

5. At 1:38:49 - My question was whether there would be any meaningful utility to possessing people beyond being just something funny to do. Whether you'd have missions that involved possession, or whether there would secrets only attainable through possession, or whether there are interesting mechanics related to combat (such as being able to possess a leader of a group and give commands to your subalterns).

6. At 1:54:35 - There's something I'd like to add about MMR. I believe most of these things will depend on what the game plays like itself, but something that seems intuitive at first and generally ends up not being so are ranking systems.
It's understandable to try and shield newer players from being wrecked by experienced players who have been playing for much longer, but after this threshold ranking systems are often degrading to the overall experience.

A lot of what I have to say about this is anecdotal, but I do happen to have a lot of experience in online gaming and competitive environments.
Generally speaking, a too strict matchmaking system makes for a frustrating experience for everyone involved. The idea is making things balanced, but MMR ends up often making every match a struggle, because you have everyone fighting at their peak capacity to overcome each other all the time, in every single match. This happens when you have a large enough population playing the game so that there is a pool of equally classified players available to form a full match at all times. And when you don't, a portion of the players within a match will be of a lower skill level, making it even more frustrating for them.

This is one of the hardest ways to evolve, as a player, because if you start to gain experience and improve your play you will be ranked higher, with people who play better, and then you're back to square zero in the sense of progression. Then, you are still fighting at peak capacity, only slightly below everyone else in terms of skill level. And if you keep improving, you're gonna keep getting worse and worse experiences.

The best system I have ever witnessed and felt is virtually no system. Because then you will, as a player, have all kinds of experiences when playing the game. Some matches, you will own the game because you're the most competent player. Some times, you'll face off against another equally competent player. Sometimes, the enemy team will be unevenly better than yours, and you'll be wiped out. But the way in which these matches happen is natural. It is not random per se, it is natural. Sometimes things work, sometimes they don't. When you own a match, you feel happy. When you get owned, you learn new things. The varying nature of this makes it feel just like life itself, which is why no system works so well as no system.

The only system I can think of that is valuable in this regard is precisely protecting extremely new players from getting immediately destroyed in their first experiences. But for that, you can have them play against bots or other newer players. After a certain point, a point in which they are used to the game already, there is no need to protect them anymore, otherwise they won't be able to evolve.

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That was all I had to say on this one. There's one more thing I'll be talking about, but I'll leave it for a separate topic.

Play safe, everyone. Vae Victis.
 
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