Checking in .... and its still here.

[Chisaineko]

Hey all.. I stopped by to see what if anything has changed since summer started, and I've been away three months now. Even started downloading the updated game, I'll let it finish and maybe tonight login for a bit. But then started reading the patch notes about the level 50 dungeon in dryfoot (now a level 44/33 dungeon) and about the raid frames (le sighe).. about the lack of itemization and no evidence of crafting updates and well.. not much of anything that has been long promised; It wasn't positive.

Seems the game still has the same serious issues:
1. Cost to travel is too high with the dungeon zones spread out across the world, it was bad enough traveling to and from the Aquifer (meadowlands) to Highland Hills, to Redshore... taking often more than 40 minutes to run the distance.
2. Getting a group together with no ability to summon group members, thus making a group could take hours.
3. Crafting... whats the point of no value in player crafting? Why even include crafting if its always the 11th best choice, or the last choice and better than nothing else. Why can't players modify world dropped items? Max level crafting should mean something. The world drops and legendary drops are lackluster as a driving meme.... its going to fail; This process should feed into a player driven economy and player crafting.
4. Game itemization lacking any real sense of upgrades versus threat.. The level 25 not very rare haste belt for example compared to drops at level 40 (all much worse).
5. And evidently the game focus is still driving for raids... something embers can't begin to compare to wow, or for that matter any other mmo raid game.

....its all so tiring, I'm not sure I'll manage to login. Game remains stagnant.

Ryssa

ps I canceled my sub, so I can only play the level 50 character now, if I manage to login that is. Kind of hard to make groups when isolated at the extreme end of the leveling cycle, pity there is no mechanism for bringing the population together; And evidently still no plans by the devs to resolve this glaring issue.

 

[Undone]

1. Cost to travel is too high with the dungeon zones spread out across the world, it was bad enough traveling to and from the Aquifer (meadowlands) to Highland Hills, to Redshore... taking often more than 40 minutes to run the distance.

I think you missed a few: a) the taproot and b) the ley pylon (city mono) both of which bring the cost of travel down.

3. Crafting... whats the point of no value in player crafting? Why even include crafting if its always the 11th best choice, or the last choice and better than nothing else. Why can't players modify world dropped items? Max level crafting should mean something. The world drops and legendary drops are lackluster as a driving meme.... its going to fail; This process should feed into a player driven economy and player crafting.

Some find crafting to be useful, some not. We are in the midst of working through a revamp on the back end but it's time consuming.

5. And evidently the game focus is still driving for raids... something embers can't begin to compare to wow, or for that matter any other mmo raid game.

Because we added some UI elements to help folks who want to "raid"? I'm not sure where you are drawing this conclusion from.

 

[Chisaineko]

Undone... you deserve an answer.

Please don't get me wrong, raid frames are not in themselves a bad idea. I remember juggling two groups in a level 26 assault on the forgotten depths, and it was a serious pain for the majority of the group. Raid frames on their own aren't an issue, developing this game as a level 50 raid game however is a mistake. You guys by which I mean the development team have a niche, its small group and single group and its good; Getting out of that niche would be a bad choice. Now if 11 people want to run depths with 1 tank and 4 level 22 healers it can happen, because they're friends and want to play together without the arbitrary restrictions of a 6 player group.

The hurdle you should be looking at is what nothing in the game currently addresses, and thats what happens at level 50, the "end game" which is so cool that level 50 players want to keep playing. Thats where their level doesn't increase but the monsters get harder, much much harder. This is where the player economy and player driven crafting should be king. Levels 1-50 are the intro in how to play, and most players by 35 are mostly onboard with how different kinds of groups can work, and work well. Alas.. all said before and probably again, and for the most part the devs have kept true to a pure group game. None of that silly ESO round up 50 and insta-gib the lot crap thats soooo boring, or the wow rinse repeat extreme dungeon boss fights (again boring). Embers is kind of drifting that way with the push to finish content through 50, it became almost cookie cutter there and as the game keeps expanding the unique feeling should start to present itself again. And not in OMG raid boss fights at level 50 (huge mistake) with legendary drops that cheese the whole game, but rather holding onto the dream that was Embers 2023 and is shown in the Aquifer and Forgotten Depths dungeons.

Hurdles to face include:
addressing a level 50 playing with a group of level 20s in a cool dungeon without cheese rolling it.
second classing or alternate skills, or something that lets a smaller player base be more flexible to make groups, be it a healer, tank, or dps.
player crafting of all world drop loot to make the better quality and giving meaning to player mastery of crafting
secondary reasons for level 50 players in the game, seriously its not all about killing the same level 50 mob over and over and over... there should be more to the story of the game as a whole that needs its elder player base (huge failing here and no reasons for guild bragging rights)
pvp arena was a mistake, the classes are so ridiculously unbalanced.
Keeping a game focus on the 3 player group with harder (Forgotten Depths/Aquifer) dungeons focused on 6 players.

Its still a decent game for a 1000 hours of play, but it has no legs right now to be more than that.

Ryssa

ps.. the downloader keeps losing connection, I'll start it again.

 

[x1101011x]

Levels 1-50 are the intro in how to play

This is how it is in other MMOs like WoW. I'm pretty sure it's been explicitly stated and emphasized that this game is not like that, repeating the phrase, "It's about the journey."

It sounds like you played the game, enjoyed the game, got to the end of the content, and then lost interest. Games don't have to go on forever. One way or another, you will eventually stop playing.

Here are my personal responses to your original points:

1. Travel is important. Games that skip out on travel feel hollow and artificial. It breaks immersion, and it cuts down on the anticipatory reward of approaching a dungeon. Too much travel is bad. Too little travel is bad too. With zone pylons, there is a maximum required travel time. I think this travel time is low enough.

2. Summoning players is far from the hardest part of gathering a group. Finding players willing to go in the first place is. Again, travel time does not take hours, as it's capped at a few minutes with fast travel. You can even teleport to the nearest ember ring after porting into a zone. Yes, fast travel costs ember, a limited and difficult to obtain resource. Fast travel is also very important. This makes planning travel significant and adds weight to decisions to use alchemy in combat. This is good.

3. Crafting provides a baseline, it allows you to gear up alts or friends quickly, and it provides versatility in armor combinations to maximize stats within weight constraints as your items or armor weight vary. You should not be able to craft gear just as good as the best gear in the game, unless crafting that gear required a group effort. Even when you're geared, crafting is still significant for creating consumables, which every profession has.

4. Itemization in this game is exceptionally good. Different item types (inner armor, outer armor, jewelry, weapons, shields/off-hands) have different stat types, allowing players to have upgrades of different significance levels that can improve primary, secondary, or tertiary stats without simply focusing on maximizing the most important stat(s). Items themselves have character. Things like the +5 hit lantern provide players the opportunity to learn about the game to discover where the absolute best items are. As items increase in level, they are generally better, but having some interesting and unique exceptions makes the game itself more interesting and unique.

5. I haven't seen any focus on raids at all.

The game is constantly updating. I stopped playing for just a few weeks, and when I came back there were all sorts of changes, including a city pylon and a mail system. In no way could this game be called stagnant.

The only issue with this game, as far as I'm concerned, is the fact that not enough people play it. There are plenty of people who would play it if other people also played it, enough to make this game perfect. Unfortunately, I don't see a solution to this prisoner's dilemma type situation. I mean, if people were rational, then they'd just play regardless, and then we'd end up with a populated game. Unfortunately, people aren't rational.

I don't know how that can be fixed.

 

[zabatiz]

1. Cost to travel is too high with the dungeon zones spread out across the world, it was bad enough traveling to and from the Aquifer (meadowlands) to Highland Hills, to Redshore... taking often more than 40 minutes to run the distance.

Travel is cheaper than ever with the city monolith and essence converter. 40 minutes is such an exaggerated time.. I can get anywhere in the world within 5-10 mins.

2. Getting a group together with no ability to summon group members, thus making a group could take hours.

Again, you can get anywhere in less than 10 mins with monolith or ember fire travel. Getting to a group is not problem, but I'll admit its simply finding a group that can be a challenge with the low pops.

3. Crafting... whats the point of no value in player crafting? Why even include crafting if its always the 11th best choice, or the last choice and better than nothing else. Why can't players modify world dropped items? Max level crafting should mean something. The world drops and legendary drops are lackluster as a driving meme.... its going to fail; This process should feed into a player driven economy and player crafting.

Plenty of good crafted items. Cloth pants and shirt 30+ are great, as is jewelry and arrow/bolts you can make. You can modify dropped items with patches, straps, buckles, etc to enhance all sorts of weapons and armor slots. Not to mention repair kits and crafted tools make for quicker harvesting.

4. Game itemization lacking any real sense of upgrades versus threat.. The level 25 not very rare haste belt for example compared to drops at level 40 (all much worse).

You clearly havent played in a while, tons of good gear from drops and quests that would fill that slot nicely. Huge gear upgrades at lvls 20, 25, 30, 33, 36, 38, 40, 43+

5. And evidently the game focus is still driving for raids... something embers can't begin to compare to wow, or for that matter any other mmo raid game.

Adding raid frames was a great addition for the lvl 50 skull bosses as well as the GM events. Its not a focus on the game as there are limited times you need to raid, with most content still being focused on a 4-6 man group.

 

[EMB7778]

Hey all.. I stopped by to see what if anything has changed since summer started, and I've been away three months now. Even started downloading the updated game, I'll let it finish and maybe tonight login for a bit. But then started reading the patch notes about the level 50 dungeon in dryfoot (now a level 44/33 dungeon) and about the raid frames (le sighe).. about the lack of itemization and no evidence of crafting updates and well.. not much of anything that has been long promised; It wasn't positive.

Seems the game still has the same serious issues:
1. Cost to travel is too high with the dungeon zones spread out across the world, it was bad enough traveling to and from the Aquifer (meadowlands) to Highland Hills, to Redshore... taking often more than 40 minutes to run the distance.
2. Getting a group together with no ability to summon group members, thus making a group could take hours.
3. Crafting... whats the point of no value in player crafting? Why even include crafting if its always the 11th best choice, or the last choice and better than nothing else. Why can't players modify world dropped items? Max level crafting should mean something. The world drops and legendary drops are lackluster as a driving meme.... its going to fail; This process should feed into a player driven economy and player crafting.
4. Game itemization lacking any real sense of upgrades versus threat.. The level 25 not very rare haste belt for example compared to drops at level 40 (all much worse).
5. And evidently the game focus is still driving for raids... something embers can't begin to compare to wow, or for that matter any other mmo raid game.

....its all so tiring, I'm not sure I'll manage to login. Game remains stagnant.

Ryssa

ps I canceled my sub, so I can only play the level 50 character now, if I manage to login that is. Kind of hard to make groups when isolated at the extreme end of the leveling cycle, pity there is no mechanism for bringing the population together; And evidently still no plans by the devs to resolve this glaring issue.

Well I haven’t played an MMO yet in my 23 years of playing almost every MMO, (yes even a lengthy shadowbane run) where crafting at least weapons/armor made the difference other than BDO which is a hybrid. Food and pots are invaluable crafted items. Repair kits in dungeon crawls not mention armor patches, pins etc that add permanent buffs at the cost of soul-binding the equipment are helpful. There is a game where you can add slot crystals into weapons to make them upgraded but I can’t recall the name.

For travel 7EE from city to Dryfoot aint bad for 20 level toons. Then from mono to any campfire on the map makes the zone easy to traverse. Only downside is its one way ticket.
If group summoning was introduced it could be done as easy as placing a dungeon monolith by the campfire in each dungeon. Group summoning anywhere else in the dungeon via at a boss spawn would lead to players logging level 50 alts for guild item farming. I think that takes away from the “crawl” aspect.

Yes raiding against the classic MMO’s and the heavily funded MMO’s will be a tough one. The game could definitely use a larger item loot table. I have no idea how long this would take in terms of man hours to implement. Tweaking existing item stats sounds easy but then you have adjust mob stats to keep the ying/yang stabilized.

At the end of the day you want to have a game that has a different system unlike your typical MMOs on the market. Then again you don’t want it to be too bland for welcoming new players. If Embers starts implementing “type-x” then players will ask for “type-y” because thats the latest trend in example MMO. It then becomes a rat race. Embers Adrift introduced the magic system in a different way than any other game I have played. Its the initial step to separating themselves from the vanilla MMO. The first phase of magic has been introduced. The next phase could be in the form of enchantments, we don’t know.

You have every right to want game features that make the game enjoyable and not a chore. However I do think the devs are trying to make improvements and have a timeline set. Overall the game could check off some of the basic classic MMO features to drive in more players.