Embers Adrift turns into a mostly solo RPG at lvl 30

[Mynno]

I have been thinking about this thread a bit and have come up with a couple of more ideas that might better suit what you are asking for which is players to group with.

1. So how about the game gives additional experience per member in a group. An example might be if there are 3 players in the group then each of them gain an extra 3% in experience while grouped. If the group is full then all the players in that group would gain 6% more in experience while grouped. This would encourage players to want to group more in order to get the experience buff and to have full groups.

2. This is another possible experience idea. What if the Devs looked at the data and then assigned bonus experience to certain play times. An example of this would be, let's say that 11 am to 7 pm are prime time so when playing during that time there is no bonus to experience. The player base starts to drop from 7pm to 3 am, the players during that time would gain a 10% bonus to experience and then during the dead 3 am to 11 am time the players playing during that time would get a 20% bonus to experience. This might encourage people to play at off peak times to maximize their experience gain and spread out the player base a bit more so those who play during non peak times would have more players to group with.

Just some out of the box ideas I am throwing out there.

 

[Undone]

Also, I do think it's worth sharing that if I only wait for my stam to regen in between fights similar to what a striker or supporter would do, then I can sometimes kill a good number of mobs before having to sit and wait the 1-2 minutes. However, the number of mobs I can kill before being forced to wait for health regen varies wildly depending on many factors. I try to stick to only dark blue mobs which don't hit me that hard, but often times whites and the occasional yellow are mixed in, which increase my downtime by a lot. Even blues can be quite hard on me when they have nasty buffs or debuffs.

I do like the idea that Marcus is suggesting where all defenders get some skill that increases health regen when out of combat. Something like that may need a minute or two cooldown so it's not too OP.

Other ideas are to increase the base health regen of defenders, add health regen to more defender specific gear, and/or make health regen itself more effective.

I feel like going into detail so much about soloing is straying a bit from my original problem, which is I don't want to be soloing all the time. I would much rather be in groups. However, I believe small changes like making the solo experience less miserable for defenders will keep a few more players around for longer when the population plummets. If it's easier for the people who really enjoy the game to make it through the slow times, then hopefully online player counts will stop going down to crazy low numbers like 10 or 20, which makes it almost impossible to find groups.

Thanks for putting together this dataset! Will need to gather some data for a similar level supporter + striker and see what the true delta is. But when Adric gets back from his mini vacation I'll have a chat with him about it.

 

[Undone]

1. So how about the game gives additional experience per member in a group. An example might be if there are 3 players in the group then each of them gain an extra 3% in experience while grouped. If the group is full then all the players in that group would gain 6% more in experience while grouped. This would encourage players to want to group more in order to get the experience buff and to have full groups.

We already do this. On your group window you will see "+N" indicating how many group members are nearby and the tooltip indicates that you are currently getting an advancement bonus because of it.

2. This is another possible experience idea. What if the Devs looked at the data and then assigned bonus experience to certain play times. An example of this would be, let's say that 11 am to 7 pm are prime time so when playing during that time there is no bonus to experience. The player base starts to drop from 7pm to 3 am, the players during that time would gain a 10% bonus to experience and then during the dead 3 am to 11 am time the players playing during that time would get a 20% bonus to experience. This might encourage people to play at off peak times to maximize their experience gain and spread out the player base a bit more so those who play during non peak times would have more players to group with.

I think it could be an interesting idea and ultimately might be a strong motivator for people to play the game. However, as a company we try to stay away from any FOMO-like tactics of which this is certainly one.

 

[KapyongQ]

Gday all,

Yup, I've just reached the 30s, and groups are not easy to find.
(Unfortunately Crank, I'm currently on a different time zone to you, but I run a 23-hour day here, so maybe I'll be catching up with you later.)

Over the levels this hasn't been much of an issue for me generally, as I can find plenty of fun solo - running multiple characters and just wandering and gathering & crafting in this lovely world (have I mentioned recently that I really enjoy relaxing & wandering in this lovely world? )

Dungeons are icing on the cake for me - fun and challenging, but a bit intense for a tired old brain - so for occasional fun when in good form.

But now I'm at the level 34 book-hunting stage, hanging around Shrieking Barrows mostly. Hours of solo has produced one 34 book (not my class, not tradeable). Joined a trio for the 2c loop once or twice - no books. And once I saw on /who a full group of 6 in there.

May be a while before I get that book (please don't mention what any 34 skills are, wanna have that surprise.)

Love this game, but too few agree. There was just 5 online today.

Remaining positive though - new patch, new features, holidays soon - always things to be optimistic about. Keep up the good work in the Stormy Haven

 

[Codered125]

Gday all,

Yup, I've just reached the 30s, and groups are not easy to find.
(Unfortunately Crank, I'm currently on a different time zone to you, but I run a 23-hour day here, so maybe I'll be catching up with you later.)

Over the levels this hasn't been much of an issue for me generally, as I can find plenty of fun solo - running multiple characters and just wandering and gathering & crafting in this lovely world (have I mentioned recently that I really enjoy relaxing & wandering in this lovely world? )

Dungeons are icing on the cake for me - fun and challenging, but a bit intense for a tired old brain - so for occasional fun when in good form.

But now I'm at the level 34 book-hunting stage, hanging around Shrieking Barrows mostly. Hours of solo has produced one 34 book (not my class, not tradeable). Joined a trio for the 2c loop once or twice - no books. And once I saw on /who a full group of 6 in there.

May be a while before I get that book (please don't mention what any 34 skills are, wanna have that surprise.)

Love this game, but too few agree. There was just 5 online today.

Remaining positive though - new patch, new features, holidays soon - always things to be optimistic about. Keep up the good work in the Stormy Haven

There are dozens of people roaming around the starting areas now, my group just hit level 10 and we see roaming groups players. Just need to wait until they all reach you!

 

[Koschy]

If we had a do-over that is likely what I would want to do (not speaking for the company here, just me personally). But I think it would be a pretty hard pill to swallow for most if we changed from "launched" to "early-access" now. We went B2P, we added a free trial, I'm not sure what else we can do to buy that flexibility at this point.

I've always thought the best way to approach this is an "expansion". Take a few months off of regular big updates, and just re-tool the game how you want. Gear, stats, levels, etc. - and bill it as a free expansion. As a bonus, it tends to get more coverage on the gaming sites and it may draw in more people. I know there was always a surge of new/returning players after any expansion in other MMO's that I've played.

 

[MarcusFromOz]

You know, we already have magic classes.

All you would have to do is have a quest that drops an item with some special properties.

What are those properties you ask?
- Your allowable weight is dropped by 75%. so 100 cap becomes 25 cap.
- Your cooldowns on Alchemy skills are dropped by a factor of 10
- Your ember essence usage is dropped by a factor of 10

So then you have a choice, use this item (lets call it the cape of ember) and have less defense but use Alchemy skills back to back or don't.

Cool eh?

 

[Undone]

I've always thought the best way to approach this is an "expansion". Take a few months off of regular big updates, and just re-tool the game how you want. Gear, stats, levels, etc. - and bill it as a free expansion. As a bonus, it tends to get more coverage on the gaming sites and it may draw in more people. I know there was always a surge of new/returning players after any expansion in other MMO's that I've played.

While this idea is sound, the question becomes how many people would we lose due to lack of updates in the interim? And with our low population can we stay afloat as a company during this development time if people are leaving?

 

[Mynno]

I just don't get why people are not subbing to this game. It is a good game and is constantly moving forward with updates. The devs obviously care about their game and I know they play it themselves as well. People want everything right now even when they are told the dev team is small and decisions have to be made to prioritize things but that a lot of what the community is asking for is on the radar and in some cases being worked on. Seems quite a few people want a AAA title that has been out for years with the content to back it up from an indy developer who are sacrificing themselves to keep this game going. Again, this is a good game and is worth subbing to.

I have heard for years people complain about the newer games being trash and why don't someone make a game in the old style. Well here it is folks! It is here and ready to play in. Support this game or shell out another 60 dollars for the next shiny game on the market that you out level in a week, get bored of then leave. Or keep hoping that the game you have been keeping an eye on for years finally comes out of alpha testing. Join Embers Adrift and grow with the game today!