Grue
Active Member
Good work on a lot of the new features coming out the last few months. Things the game really needed in order to succeed imo.
Feedback
I believe that a lot of the reason players don't stick to embers is the time commitment ends up feeling too high. IMO embers target demographic has pretty deep pockets but doesn't have endless amounts of time that they used to. I believe embers has a lot to offer but after a while tends to ask too much from its players. I realize 15-20 minutes doesn't seem like a lot of time to some people, but to many (including me) that is enough to cause them to disengage quickly or just not bother engaging in the first place. By getting people engaged in content in a timely manner there is an increased chance that player will end up "staying up too late" or try to keep things going longer than they initially planned for. Getting over that inertia to engagement I think is key. I also think that's why things tend to fall off after new haven valley. The valley is is probably the most tightly designed area in the game imo from a player engagement perspective anyway.
I feel there are several parts to this:
1. Time to Engage and Time to Disengage With Content
2. Resource Time Sink, i.e. Ember Essence
3. Other Time Sinks
Time to Engage and Disengage With Content
Players like myself, want to play a group focused mmo with (moderately) punishing mechanics, but are generally not interested in a walking simulator or running through content they've out leveled. I'd like to see a target of 5 minutes or less for a player who wants to meet up with their group and engage with content AND less than 5 minutes for a player to return to New Haven or other significant hub after they are done. This would only apply to content a player had already engaged with in the past; content that the player had not previously engaged with would require the initial run through all steps normally expected to engage.
I'd like to see additional steps taken to reduce the friction getting to and from content. A dungeon queuing system would not fit the overall "old school" feel I believe embers is trying to create, but additional compromises i feel need to be made to reduce the existing feeling of, "do I have enough time to engage with this content and would my needing to leave ruin my group mates experience" or "when i am done getting to this content, how long will it take me to return to a location where i can regroup and resupply afterwards." or "if i have to leave cause of ____ am i going to be screwed the next time i log in?"
I believe this could be accomplished by allowing travel between all ember fires both in and out of dungeons. This could also be accomplished in dungeons by allowing players to shortcut previous content via invisibility, some other ability, or unlock shortcut paths/doors/etc within the dungeons as each major section of the dungeon is reached and "unlocked".
An additional time to engage concern is the randomized moving of content. i.e. rifts and veins. I think keeping their locations static or if they must "move" ensure the player can easily track where they are when they want to engage with the content. Honestly though, i think static locations and set schedules are the way to go. Is it "immersive". No. But, its more fun than spending 10 minutes running to a dungeon entrance that either isn't there or just moved.
As a note, world exploration, treasure chest hunting, etc... does not necessarily fit into this type of time to engagement expectation as exploration is the content in that case.
Resource Time Sink, I.E. Ember Essence
This resource is used for travel and combat. Regeneration of this resource requires you to find specific creatures that are also of a comparable level to you and kill them, as such, this resource directly represents player's time that they would have preferably spent on engaging with desired content. While there are locations where players can both regenerate this resource and engage in content there are many locations where that is not the case and a "time debt" is created. This debt creates aversion to engage in content that does not regenerate the resource it also creates an aversion of spending the resource. i.e. Do i want to spend resources to join a group in a dungeon where i am not going to get any of said resource back? Is the time to generate the resource afterwards worth the debt i will be generating now? Engaging with content should be the overwhelming drive and not worrying how long it will take to recover the resource. In addition, I feel that by making alchemy II available as a direct result of using alchemy I 200 times provides additional incentive to only engage with content that regenerates the resource, reducing player desire to engage in a wider range of content.
I believe that making all kills of non trivial mobs generate essence to be a solution to making more content engaging. I also think there should be items and locations that regenerate the resource, but i have many dreams...
Reduce Other Time Sinks
Health and Stamina fatigue forces players to disengage from desired content and move to an ember fire and wait for a period of time. Forcing player disengagement increases the likelihood players will decide to end their play session. 20+ years of MMO experience has shown me that when one player has decided to end their play session others are quick to follow. This is not uncommon in long term "static" groups but moreso in "PUGs". This tendency to have a group "split" when someone leaves is commonly exacerbated by:
- Locations where reps take a long time to arrive or require the group to reengage large amounts of previous content
- Bringing in a new group member causing at least a new cycle of Team formation steps of Forming, Storming, Norming and finally Performing.
Having a player stand at crafting station and process stacks of resources one at a time, each of which has a "crafting time" is reducing the amount of time a player has to engage with desired content. By removing crafting time or allowing the player to craft an entire stack at once or allowing the player walk away from a crafting station while resources are processing will allow the player to engage in secondary activities which will move them towards engaging with content. If the intent is that crafting is the engagement, then additional gameplay loop surrounding resource processing is required, until that point, reducing player time spent staring at a crafting window is preferrable.
Reduce the severity or remove completely the player movement debuff on slopes. Feels bad, I don't' have any other thoughts other than it feels bad and makes moving around take more time.
While none of the above pieces of feedback are game breakers on their own, combined they invariably wear me down and I end up frustrated and disengage from Embers for a while.
Also, remove combat stance. While combat stance wouldn't keep me from playing embers, I will forever champion its demise.
Feedback
I believe that a lot of the reason players don't stick to embers is the time commitment ends up feeling too high. IMO embers target demographic has pretty deep pockets but doesn't have endless amounts of time that they used to. I believe embers has a lot to offer but after a while tends to ask too much from its players. I realize 15-20 minutes doesn't seem like a lot of time to some people, but to many (including me) that is enough to cause them to disengage quickly or just not bother engaging in the first place. By getting people engaged in content in a timely manner there is an increased chance that player will end up "staying up too late" or try to keep things going longer than they initially planned for. Getting over that inertia to engagement I think is key. I also think that's why things tend to fall off after new haven valley. The valley is is probably the most tightly designed area in the game imo from a player engagement perspective anyway.
I feel there are several parts to this:
1. Time to Engage and Time to Disengage With Content
2. Resource Time Sink, i.e. Ember Essence
3. Other Time Sinks
Time to Engage and Disengage With Content
Players like myself, want to play a group focused mmo with (moderately) punishing mechanics, but are generally not interested in a walking simulator or running through content they've out leveled. I'd like to see a target of 5 minutes or less for a player who wants to meet up with their group and engage with content AND less than 5 minutes for a player to return to New Haven or other significant hub after they are done. This would only apply to content a player had already engaged with in the past; content that the player had not previously engaged with would require the initial run through all steps normally expected to engage.
I'd like to see additional steps taken to reduce the friction getting to and from content. A dungeon queuing system would not fit the overall "old school" feel I believe embers is trying to create, but additional compromises i feel need to be made to reduce the existing feeling of, "do I have enough time to engage with this content and would my needing to leave ruin my group mates experience" or "when i am done getting to this content, how long will it take me to return to a location where i can regroup and resupply afterwards." or "if i have to leave cause of ____ am i going to be screwed the next time i log in?"
I believe this could be accomplished by allowing travel between all ember fires both in and out of dungeons. This could also be accomplished in dungeons by allowing players to shortcut previous content via invisibility, some other ability, or unlock shortcut paths/doors/etc within the dungeons as each major section of the dungeon is reached and "unlocked".
An additional time to engage concern is the randomized moving of content. i.e. rifts and veins. I think keeping their locations static or if they must "move" ensure the player can easily track where they are when they want to engage with the content. Honestly though, i think static locations and set schedules are the way to go. Is it "immersive". No. But, its more fun than spending 10 minutes running to a dungeon entrance that either isn't there or just moved.
As a note, world exploration, treasure chest hunting, etc... does not necessarily fit into this type of time to engagement expectation as exploration is the content in that case.
Resource Time Sink, I.E. Ember Essence
This resource is used for travel and combat. Regeneration of this resource requires you to find specific creatures that are also of a comparable level to you and kill them, as such, this resource directly represents player's time that they would have preferably spent on engaging with desired content. While there are locations where players can both regenerate this resource and engage in content there are many locations where that is not the case and a "time debt" is created. This debt creates aversion to engage in content that does not regenerate the resource it also creates an aversion of spending the resource. i.e. Do i want to spend resources to join a group in a dungeon where i am not going to get any of said resource back? Is the time to generate the resource afterwards worth the debt i will be generating now? Engaging with content should be the overwhelming drive and not worrying how long it will take to recover the resource. In addition, I feel that by making alchemy II available as a direct result of using alchemy I 200 times provides additional incentive to only engage with content that regenerates the resource, reducing player desire to engage in a wider range of content.
I believe that making all kills of non trivial mobs generate essence to be a solution to making more content engaging. I also think there should be items and locations that regenerate the resource, but i have many dreams...
Reduce Other Time Sinks
Health and Stamina fatigue forces players to disengage from desired content and move to an ember fire and wait for a period of time. Forcing player disengagement increases the likelihood players will decide to end their play session. 20+ years of MMO experience has shown me that when one player has decided to end their play session others are quick to follow. This is not uncommon in long term "static" groups but moreso in "PUGs". This tendency to have a group "split" when someone leaves is commonly exacerbated by:
- Locations where reps take a long time to arrive or require the group to reengage large amounts of previous content
- Bringing in a new group member causing at least a new cycle of Team formation steps of Forming, Storming, Norming and finally Performing.
Having a player stand at crafting station and process stacks of resources one at a time, each of which has a "crafting time" is reducing the amount of time a player has to engage with desired content. By removing crafting time or allowing the player to craft an entire stack at once or allowing the player walk away from a crafting station while resources are processing will allow the player to engage in secondary activities which will move them towards engaging with content. If the intent is that crafting is the engagement, then additional gameplay loop surrounding resource processing is required, until that point, reducing player time spent staring at a crafting window is preferrable.
Reduce the severity or remove completely the player movement debuff on slopes. Feels bad, I don't' have any other thoughts other than it feels bad and makes moving around take more time.
While none of the above pieces of feedback are game breakers on their own, combined they invariably wear me down and I end up frustrated and disengage from Embers for a while.
Also, remove combat stance. While combat stance wouldn't keep me from playing embers, I will forever champion its demise.
