General post to all

[Belrath]

Hello

I usually dont say my opinions on here cryier since - first of all - my english sucks and I seem to annoy ppl so I appoligize for that. Hopefully this time you understand my point and not how it comes out. Cool?

This post is a general post to all issues you're talking about, I'm just flying my taughts and how I feel about it here.

1. Our creators wish us to vote every day to keep up the newbies coming. That's the best way to keep them coming so please vote - everyday.

2. I felt like slapped into face when the gem-pop-thing changed. I just build myself up to be able to kill solo lvl40 mob. Plp used to able to pop them solo and it was taken away. Just seems unfair to me.
I know this sounds selfsentered but that kinda major change should have been done in next sloth.

3. I have popped past 2 years less than 5 tier-3 gems(bought alot so cant remember escant number - even with bought it's still under 10- so no runes) and 2 tier-2 since I dont have the time to group so much

4. But anyhow - you're now talking about rebirths and making new drachma eq and new area for avatars etc.
It's ok and I like what read in cryer - but you all seem to forget one thing. We're all screwed if we dont attract more players.

5. I do alot soloing since my RL takes me afk all the time. I like groups but can't find the time to go with them so often. And when I go with group (hoping to pop a gem) all gems that I primaly want are taken already by calls. Heh - good luck me ever getting GYT

6. Mudding is my time to get of from my painful reallife. I just want to have fun. I want everyone around me to have fun. So to everyone - thank you for the nice groups and good times - lets keep them coming and big thanks for immortals that keeps up coding and making us this awesome experience which can be both pain and fun - still the best!

Written 30.11.2016 6.03am drunk

-Belrath

ps. That post was meant to be positive - I just can't express myself in english when emotional.

[Josiah]

I agree Belrath. New players are definitely needed, and we aren't particularly good at getting them.

When people log into Aardwolf and see 100s of players online, they just trust the game more than our little server with 12 people. Nevermind that SlothMud has infinitely more depth and breadth and is just generally more interesting...

Other than voting, which we've not been doing very well, I'm not sure how else to attract the dwindling pool of people that are interested in text-only games. We could try breeding some I guess; my son just figured out his way through the newbie school as part of his typing/computer literacy practice.

Gems were initially supposed to be super rare, but the original implementation made them only semi-rare. I preferred the original drop rates, which let a dedicated player could complete a full set of runes in the same time it takes to hit 9x40. Of course, we weren't intended to ever achieve a 'full set.' Currently your best bet for completing a set seems to be finding some good wealth building strategies and then buying them for 10-30 million gold each.

Rebirth discussions do address an important point. Our game community is very small, and historically we lose most of our top players when they hit 9x40. A few create alts, but most leave. The game really can't sustain these losses, because we aren't attracting enough new players. The players we lose have been around for many years. Without rebirth, I was just out of interesting stuff to do. It is a relatively simple way to add a ton of content, and is getting a lot of interest from many players who have spent many hours on the game.

[Zlodiak]

This time i came back to sloth with 5 friends.
One is very expirienced player and he still plays. Others stop.
3 of them quit almost immediately.
For 2 keywords were "wall of text", "too complex", "no time".
One said he don't like interface.He played lots of other muds and was displeased there is no highlighting key objects (he wanted to see "A frost giant [giant] is guarding the gate." or "A frost [giant] is guarding the gate."), also he was outraged he can't use "open west" but have to type "open door west" or "open gate west". I don't really get his point, but that's what he said why he don't want to play sloth.
Madmonk played quite a lot, but he said he is getting tired, because "sloth is more a work than a game"

So, as i get it, most of real newbies can't start playing because it's too complex and they don't know what to start with. I guess we need an interactive tutorial for new players. May be a mob, mentor, who will teach new players how to play. He will give players mini-quests like "go kill cat! you need to type "kill cat" for it" and will provide more and more info individually with the speed player can accept.

Also, language barrier is the reason too. If your english is not too good, wall of text become wall of unreadable text Translation to some popular languages will help, and i think sloth community can help with it, but it's an insane amount of work, even if we'll translate only key info, not all room descriptions etc.


As for gem's rate, i found that removing the posibility of getting t3 gems solo made lots of ppl unhappy.
It's like life imprisonment - no chance, no hope.
What's about making chance of popping t3 gems solo like 1/50 or even 1/100 of 10-man group rate?
I mean make this chance low, but leave the hope.

Agree with Josiah about rebirth, it's a good way to keep 9x40 from quitting.

[Teron]

0. A good number of us have English as the second language, so feel free to post more You it works, when you are sober, too .)

1. Belrath, I've sent a letter to JB about getting more new players about 7 months ago.

Out of this, he created a university, where players can learn how to do basic stuff on Sloth. I'd say it sort of works, because Arcainic got through it. So it's already done, Zlodiak.

I earlier suggested that imms should promote the MUD, and then Splork told me it wasn't immorts' complete responsibility. I agree and here's why and what can be done by all of us.

2. I agree that solo gem restriction sucks. Even as the leader of half of the groups in the last year, I have built 3 t3 runes I needed - and that's only one weapon dam rune. When it comes to weapon damage, that's really disappointing, because a good portion of it lies in the runes.

By the way, you get more gems you need from trading the ones you get in groups, not just hoping the gem you need pops in group. It does happen rarely, but there are many more ppl, who need what you get randomly. So, you can trade the under 10 t3 gems to get at least one t3 rune you need.

I agree that a slim chance of popping a t3 gem solo would be good, because playing games isn't only groups, it's also solo. While some games, like WoW, depend on groups, we don't have the luxury of that many players online here.

3. Different players are at different stages of leveling/interest in the game, so it's natural that they discuss different things.

I'd say we lost most of our players during or shortly after wipes. Loss of top avatars is particularly hard on us, because there were/are so few on them and it took 10 new players to produce 1 6x40, so something should be done for that too - and rebirths is the perfect incentive.

By the way, can we see the updated stats, since bonus exp has been going for 5 years?

4. It's good to see you in groups, when you join, find time to group more on the weekends, if you can - more chances to find a group in the evening/morning there.

[*teker*]

I'd be interested to know if there are game features that people think are obviously missing that the bigger games have in place. I've started working on the new quest code again which would provide a journal containing discovered quests and their progress. I'm hoping I can get it to a workable state over winter. But what else? We can certainly do small things like "open north" for non-secret doors, but I seriously doubt little issues like that are driving lots of people away.

[Filk]

1. Damage meter! Damage Meter! Damage Meter!

Seriously. Every popular game around has all information about each and every skill and spell. What formulas, what exact output. So ppl dont wanders in the dark like we do for plenty of skills.
I dont expect all that information to be shared, at least now(though there are no real matters to hide it actually), but at least displaying of exact damage(and actually healing) result of each attack and skill should be implemented.

2. That in fact greatly raise motivation of any group. When you see your low output, you are heavy motivated to improve it as much as you can.

Well. Avatar rebirth thing as well. We concluded some good and easy to implement variant in rebirth topic. That could be done to give another live to some bored 9x40s who left.

3. Also. I want to touch another holy cow. Eq looting by mobs when corpsed. Thats just too hardcore for current times. I guess we lose some ppl due to that reason also.

[Teron]

0. Teker, "open north" is how doors work in Aardwolf.
Also, you can unlock the door if the key is lying on the ground.
I think a lot of mudders have been to Aardwolf and, perhaps, liked the feature.

1. An auction that accepts all the items at once, not every minute. And that doesn't lock up, when someone else is putting stuff on auction.

2. I agree with Fluffy: there's certain satisfaction in seeing how well you are hitting the mob after spending weeks on forges and quests.
E.g., just today, I've x3 stabbed a mob, I do 2 normal vicious attacks and 1 massive crit. How hard did the crit hit? I have no idea, because my exp counter/damage meter says it wasn't that different from 3 vicious massacres.

3. If you want an example of a good quest log, check WoW:
http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Quest_Log

I know it's graphical, but there's some grouping, info and options that make it really useful among hundreds of quests.

4. A melee, toggleable, skill to block fleeing mobs, shieldblock. The more ppl, the more effective it is.

5. An automatic PVP arena with rewards. Maybe give honor for winning in the same bracket? Double honor for the first win of the day.

I wanted to say, "group PVP matches", but we already have that on SS. The only reason the SS Thunderdome is lacking participants and visitors is the lack of reward for participation.

6. Daily quests.
It's a repeatable quest you can do for a good reward:
- kill a number of mobs in an area for honor (current honor from most raid mobs is a joke, when you need 5mil honor w/o a remort bonus, and you get 50 honor per kill). Or kill a number of any mobs above cap/2 total exp
- collect a number of drops (dust, pelt, gemstones, etc) for gold
- defeat a boss in a group for a double chance of a tier 1 gem pop

Ideally, there should be 3-7 dailies in an area, and they rotate every day, so it's not boring.

7. Complex boss fights that require more, than standing at the boss and spamming a few commands.

I'll try to think of more, but this is a good start already.

However, I'd appreciate if you first do 1. from the list here:
viewtopic.php?f=30&p=37601#p37596

It'll only take some minutes.

[Hung]

I support the damage meter idea with my whole gaming desire. And I promise never to question game mechanics behind those revealed numbers.

[Gorka]

Show damage...

Really, without this, the game is like going sight seeing in a tunnel, looking for views of progress... Hiding damage makes for a sloppy game as no one can detect if they are, or if they can... do better. In my view group leaders should also be able to see the percentage damage of mob hp each group members did on mob death.

Without vision the people perish.

[Teron]

Gorka, ingame group damage stats is what follows showing damage.

Personally, as a leader, I'd want to know how's everyone doing.

If we look at the top addons for WoW, we'll see that people need:
- info about epics
- personal and group damage stats: Recount
- show buffs and debuffs (here's another: show which song a bard is singing, when I type "look" and "score", so I don't tell bards to gods, when they are already singing their lungs out)
- alerts on bosses, where not to stand
- easier access to info/options
- ability to get stuff in and out of bags easily
- a locator to tell you, where the mob you need is
- an easy to use auction.

In my experience with Recount I used it to:
- see my contribution to boss kill
- see how I compare to others of similar gear level
- learn which skills I used more, and how much damage they did (were they worth it, or I need to adjust my skill rotation?)
- to see the same for others, so I could understand, if they were doing what they were supposed to (or not). Even tho anyone can spot a slacker at the bottom of the DPS meter, this list helps a leader tell the group member where to fix the rotation, if he's familiar w/ the class - I've seen newbies only use 1-2 spells, when you usually use 4-6 main ones.

Here in Sloth stats would tell me:
- which of the mages were throwing acid blasts, how much, and how many of those blinded the mob
- who was healing, and what's their contribution to healed hps (and how much of that was overheal)
- who was blasting, how damage they dealt, and which skills they used
- what the bards were doing: just singing or also striking/healing
- what were the 3-4.healos were doing, when waiting for their turn to heal.
Stats should also time spent in form and damage in form.

Damage stats would also help people choose more powerful class orders, something only very experienced players can do now.

Another thing we should consider is eq points, which would help:
- new players to easily compare eq they found
- immorts to price drachma items adequately
- both players and immorts to create a custom eq shop, where players can buy/forge items with the stats they like.

[Gorka]

Taron, I don't know of anyone who takes efficiency to the degree that you do. When I am in your groups I am always second guessing myself all the time... asking myself I am doing everything to the level Taron expects of me and I sometimes feel under a bit of self imposed pressure. In Knubberub/Curate groups I have the freedom to do more of what I feel is best and there is less pressure and occasionally I enjoy more. No one is going to want the break down that you are going to want... but with that said, I do feel players need some feedback about what they have contributed to a mob kill.

It would be nice if the system echoed automatically debuffs back to group members.
The mob is cursed by Gorka.

It would be nice if players could get an indication as to their percentage dam contribution to a mob kill in a group.
The mob is dead! R.I.P. You did 22.2% of the damage.

Feedback could be determined by the "role" a group member flags themselves as... tank, healer, damage.

Tank - You took 2135hp's of damage on this mob.
Healer - You healed 2000hp of tank damage on this mob.
Damage - You did 22.2% of the damage.

It's a matter of pride for me to be a strong damage contributor in groups, but I lack the feedback to monitor this.

There is also a positive spin off from this... people who do not contribute well in groups will be forced to change there ways simply through the imposed social pressure they will put on themselves, not to be "the worst."

To tie this back to the overall point I think players are making here... we want more information back from sloth so we can monitor our own performance and progress, because not being able to see this clearly kills the joy of the time we spend in making our character improvements... and if a game no longer becomes fun... it becomes like Zlodiak said... work.

[*juggleblood*]

Yeah, I have to say that little about the game frustrates me more than not seeing my damage. When I issue a strike and sometimes see some tiny little gain of experience, I actually get angry, because I don't know if my strike actually sucked or if the stupid exp randomizer is fooling me. I basically feel intentionally lied to all the time by my exp reporter.

As for code which judges the performance of players in a group...that's something that can be accomplished client side. With all the things we ask for from coders, it's a bit much to ask for things that we could be contributing ourselves on our clients.

[Josiah]

Don't worry Juggleblood... strike never sucks!

I disagree with Taron regarding Recount-level information for groups. I don't mind everyone seeing their own damage. You can already do that with clever scripts. I don't think we should make that information public (seeing other players damage).

In WoW, Recount contributed to a very elitist environment, and it was regularly used to exclude people who were performing optimally. Groups shouldn't be stressful!

[Teron]

Gorka, Josiah, I understand that you only want to see your progress.
However, as you and others see your damage/second, you will have no choice but to consider how you can improve it. Breaking down to each individual skill damage, attempts and success rate for oneself and groupies would be appreciated, but it is hardly a 100% requirement of the counter.

Oddly enough, what I'm pushing people to do is to do their jobs however they see fit, something they would have been doing with the counter enabled. I think you mean that I remind ppl about mob specifics: spectral, nostab, nofire, arms, bind, etc. I tried not telling ppl what to do, but they stopped doing all that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and what's the point of that?

As far as dps/hps, if someone can't do their primary job in the group, I tell them how to do it. I even provide them with trigger patterns/commands more often, than not. Eg, if someone is not healing and not striking/blasting, he's sponging exp and not making things go faster. It's in everyone's interest that everyone performs at least at 70% efficiency.

Josiah, I think it was more up to each leader, than to overall atmosphere of high-level performance. Sure, some leaders, who are tired of wiping during their RT and want to go to bed soon, require high DPS, but the rest of them just ask people to perform ok. They can be leading for fun, popping shards for themselves, eq for their guildmates or for other reasons other than being top 1 on the server.

Good leaders take into account player class and eq, and only speak up, if performance is significantly lower, than optimal for that particular player.

By using a group counter addon I can help a player do actual damage and feel pride on doing it, same thing you feel when you see yourself brutally massacring x5 (Gorka) or viciously massacring x6 (Josiah).

You'll have to trust me that I've seen a far more efficiency-bent raid leader, who was routinely doing mythic raids in WoW. Perhaps, long distance running and heroic raid experience has taught me that every effort counts. I can't imagine someone would think otherwise.

JB, I can't see, how I can script my client to see what damage others are doing to the mob.

[*juggleblood*]

Well, we can't even see our own actual damage, but we could count player blows.

Something like:

Pattern:
^(\w+) (barely |brutally )?(misses|massacres).*

Trigger:
groupHitCount[matches[2]]=groupHitCount[matches[2]]+1
if matches[2]~=tank then deleteLine() end