=AQ3D= Design Notes August 1st, 2016 - AdventureDarkSouls 3D

=AQ3D= Design Notes August 1st, 2016 - AdventureDarkSouls 3D (Full Version)

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fabri17 -> =AQ3D= Design Notes August 1st, 2016 - AdventureDarkSouls 3D (8/1/2016 17:28:00)
quote: AdventureDarkSouls 3D Artix Krieger \| Monday, August 1, 2016 [image]http://www.aq3d.com/media/1861/drawr-original.jpg[/image] Closed Beta = "Hard mode engage!" OK... OK... the new difficulty curve might have been a weeeeeee bit too aggressive. Meanwhile, under Yulgar's Inn: "OMG! The slimes are one-shotting me!" Hey! I did say a weee bit too aggressive O_O... OK, maybe there is a reason people started calling it AdventureDarkSouls 3D this weekend. The funny part is, some of you are such insane hard core players that you managed to play through it anyway. And if you were one of the people who did that without the weird Dragon Crystals XP glitch (which we are working finding) then you have my jaw dropping respect. [image]http://www.aq3d.com/media/1863/screenshot_14.jpg[/image] I was playing too :D So, I deleted Artix and made a fresh level 1 character with no perks or upgrades. Meet Wobbles.... he likes long walks in the dungeons, getting killed over and over by slimes, trouble understanding some of the quests, and being too low level to kill the monsters requires to craft items for his level. Good news for Wobbles, your friendly neighborhood game dev team is already at work on the "real solution." Because it is not that the monsters are too tough, it is that he is under geared to properly go all lawnmower on their fanged, snarling faces. Want to talk in depth about where to start fixing? [image]http://www.aq3d.com/media/1862/screenshot_3.jpg[/image] How many things are there to fix? In any big video game, at any time, there are no less than an infinite number of issues that immediately need fixed. I know this FOR A FACT because any time I log into any big game I can come up with an infinite number of things that need fixed... and need fixed right now. From graphical issues with the grass to the size and roundness of the server selection screen. Fortunately, building our previous games has given me the wisdom of knowing we need to target the single most important thing first-- and send our entire fleet into attack mode to fix it as quickly as possible. Then move to the next more important, and then the next, until the problems seem to magically start solving themselves. The #1 Most Important thing to fix So what is the #1 issue in the current Closed Beta release? Well, your character needs to be more powerful. You need gear. Right? Yup, sounds right. But wait, but what if we look even deeper? How do you get items and get more powerful? thinks Killing monsters? Sure... but why do we kill monsters? Quests & Crafting. Quests are the most vital system for teaching players how to play, and getting them the right gear, and progressing from area to area. Crafting is currently the essential system for obtaining more powerful gear. But, I think if we fixed quests, we could get you base-line gear to make you competitive... and that would also magically fix a good portion of crafting. Time for us to dive in... Questing System I am going to do a pretty hefty critique here.. but notice when I critique, I ALWAYS offer a solution along with it. In all things, spend 10% of your time on the problem and 90% on the solution. Playing as a new player, the intro quests were pretty confusing. Most of you skipped them entirely and headed straight to the town of Battleon. There are no level 2 or 3 items that can be easily obtained... the first item upgrades were in Greenguard Forest but the frogzards were so hard for me to kill that it was hard to complete the crafting quest. So let us tackle these... 1.) Quest System Improvements Most Important #1: Quests need to give you rewards for your current level so that you meet the base amount of power you need BEFORE proceeding to the next area. So you should be walking out of the intro with a few level 2 items. Every zone should be per-preparing you for the next area. Second, how the questing system works needs polished. Currently you can get quests from the button in the upper right of your screen, area quests can also come from an NPC in the current area, AND you can get bonus quests from other NPCs in the area. In the very first intro, we need to teach brand new players that the quest button at the top right of the screen is the best thing in the universe and pressing it is like hitting a pinata of love and candy. Right now we have a few different interfaces, so I redesigned the Quest Screen on Friday and Zhoom is working on putting it in now. No matter where you are in the game you should be able to look in the upper right and have something fun and rewarding to do. Third, I sat with the team and solved the "Go talk to an NPC" issue. One thing we kept noticing was new players never even saw that there were crafting shops on NPCs like Robina in Greenguard Forest. This was because they would get there and turn in the quest, then immediately get a new quest and move on. While those of us who played AQWorlds are used to this, players who did not play that game just assumed that our game was like almost every other where every NPC only does a single thing. (We were a little shocked to realize this too.) That is, in most games, all NPCs only serve a single function. Like there is one NPC who is just a shop... and another who just does quests. I remember older games I used to play being like ours, but when I went back to check I was surprised that they had changed the system. [img]http://i.imgur.com/2tKO5PP.jpg[/img] Items from Shops, Crafting, Quests, and Rare Drops I do not like "hard rules" because predictable math is boring. But guidelines are essential for setting expectations. So here is how I think you should find items... Shop Items - Average Power (+0 Levels) Quest Items - Above average Power (+1 Levels) Crafted - Awesome Power with power based on difficulty to craft (+1 to 2 levels) Rare Drops - Awesome Power! (+1 to 2 levels) Crafted from Rare Drops - BEST OF THE BEST! (+3 levels) When you enter a new area, there should always be a shop with "starter items" that you can buy for gold. For example, Robina needs a shop with level 2 items that are affordable for the amount of gold a level 2 player has. Even if you skipped the intro, you should be able to kill a few frogzards and start gearing up your hero... which will feel pretty awesome. Crafting with DragonCrystals Ooooh... heated debate time! Just kidding. Put down your pitchforks. I think we agree on a good solution for this one. I have read both sides of this argument about using DragonCrystals to bypass crafting. You will be surprised that it has prompted us to make a change. There is a lot of pride in working crazy hard for something. It feels cheap if someone can just buy it without doing the work. It was like my black belt. I worked REALLY HARD for my black belt in martial arts. It was a real one. I mean, failed tests for color belts. I trained for four years, took bonus private lessons, and pushed myself harder than anyone else in the class. I started with 40 other kids and was 1 of only 2 who made it to Black Belt.... and the only one of them to make it to 3rd Degree. So when I saw my first "McDojo" where kids passed no matter what as long as the parents paid... yeah, it stung. And that is the heart of what we are talking about here. Epic Weapons and Armor that are YOUR Black Belt. I could care less if people buy the lesser common items. But for weapons like the NightLocke Waraxe/ScytheBlade/WarStaff it NEEDS to be earned! Solution: The easy fix for this is for us to code the crafting shops so we can "turn off" the ability for some items to be crafted with DragonCrystals. Epic items should have to be quested for through worthy, grueling, hard game play only. That is what we are going to do. "But Artix, that is your entire financial model... that will hurt the game, right?" Uh... yeah. There are some ways we can fix that though. We can sell alternative items that are slightly less powerful or comparable. We could also just sell one of the ingredients for people to speed up a part of the creation process-- knowing that players would still have to run the dungeon to do the core part of crafting. These are compromises I could live with. The Nightlocke Weapons-- we are going to remove the ability to buy them with DragonCrystals. (If you already got one this way, you are Grandfathered in.) Then, we will add some other weapons that you can buy from the shop to help you in the dungeon. Power Curve Even with quests giving out more items it is possible that the power curve is set too high. Zhoom has a special setup where I can sit down and fight monsters at each level range. I will be doing that later today or tomorrow to make sure. [img]http://i.imgur.com/t0kFdGa.jpg[/img] New Player Experience From the data, it is clear that we need to fix serious issues impacting players who are not used to the way quests and things worked in AQWorlds. We are going to take a few days and rework the entire intro area to make a smoother, more rewarding experience. Other Bugs/Exploits/Glitches The team is on fire fixing up the existing glitches and issues. Expect several hot fixes this week. Open Beta will have to wait It is clear to the players, testers, staff, and to myself, that AdventureQuest 3D is not ready for Open Beta... yet. If we were baking a cake, we just opened up the over, stuck our finger in and realized she is not done cooking. You thought it would be done, but it is not yet. You would not tell your friends to rush over and eat unfinished cake. I mean, sure, we could release anyway-- but it would be a disaster. I look back at Oversoul and Herosmash and think to myself, "NO. NEVER AGAIN! NEVER EVER AGAIN!" This game is too important. We have made massive progress, but we need to fix all the current issues and make sure it is an amazing experience for new players before we release. I am going to meet with the team and do a time table and post it for you... but as we are missing the Summer launch window, my best guess (off the top of my head) would be Fall. The Android Beta will continue on schedule and be releasing next. I know a lot of people still want to join in the testing, so we are going to reach out to the gaming news sites and see if they would be interested in doing some BETA KEY giveaways (with more capes?) very soon. Check back tomorrow for news about the Time Table and Dragonslayer Class Design Tagged! ~Peachii

omgGrim -> RE: =AQ3D= Design Notes August 1st, 2016 - AdventureDarkSouls 3D (8/1/2016 17:43:37)
DragonCrystal shortcut items should be given a different colored name (or) a small design difference from the crafted one. Artix replied quote: If we could change the art on the item itself slightly that would help the problem a lot. It won't do much as what people wanted but it will show the difference of grinders vs payers.

Evangel -> RE: =AQ3D= Design Notes August 1st, 2016 - AdventureDarkSouls 3D (8/1/2016 20:08:11)
I do not think there should be any distinction between players who would pay to acquire content vs. those who grind to acquire the same content. That mentality is a seed for elitism that splits the community and causes toxic player/player interaction. It's not the perfect example, but look at Warframe. In Warframe, most of the content can either be ground/farmed for and crafted, or bought with Platinum, the in-game premium currency, from the in-game Store. For the most part, the only content that cannot be ground/farmed for is aesthetic content such as skins, color palettes to customize your gear and ship, emotes, stances, etc... Everything else can be acquired through playing the game. For AQ3D, as long as the gameplay itself is fun and enjoyable and the requirements are reasonable, grinding for an item shouldn't be an issue. Issues arise when the grind is too heavy to the point where it's almost as if the game/developer WANTS you to just go buy the item with real-world currency. There shouldn't be a distinction between these players aside from how quickly each acquires the same item they want. Someone shouldn't be punished or distinguished because they don't have the money to take the shortcut or consciously chose not to. The same goes for someone who buys that content. They shouldn't be distinguished from players who spent the time and effort. (It's a double-edged sword, there's pros and cons for both methods and types of players.) As for questing and progression. The only thing I have to say on that matter is, I have been playing a lot of Neverwinter on my PS4 lately. The game does a very good job of progressing you through the story with the quests in each area, and each quests gives the player character enough XP to level up and progress through the area, and lead into the next. There's no necessary mob grinding or grinding side-quests needed to level up enough to progress through the storyline and to the next area.

Shiny_Underpants -> RE: =AQ3D= Design Notes August 1st, 2016 - AdventureDarkSouls 3D (8/1/2016 21:03:15)
It's good to see there'll actually be gold shops for casuals. Not everyone can be bothered grinding. Also, in DF, DC items are mainly for aesthetic appeal. They tend to be the best shaded, most elegant weapons. People buy them for the art, not the 'awesomeness'- they're never as good as the Doom or Destiny weapons.

*Nova* -> RE: =AQ3D= Design Notes August 1st, 2016 - AdventureDarkSouls 3D (8/2/2016 5:08:54)
The game needs a separate and wider option in modifying the field of view. I absolutely hate how close my character is to the camera. Camera still pans towards the monster sometimes when my char attacks... really annoying. Combat is about the same despite what they said. Yeah, I can jam my auto attack more often now but it deals lesser damage anyway, so that's cool...?. It feels even more clogged now. I see almost no change. Questing is still hopelessly boring. I would rather do my laundry then play this questing tbh. Anyway, I just abandoned an completed 20 kill quest by accident instead of turning it in, which made me have to kill all those 20 mobs again. I see droprates are still as atrocious as ever. Everything is just too repetitive and boring. There's a difference between difficult and dull gameplay, and AE stuck gold in the dull part. Also I'm not quite sure why I have to go through the same tedious leveling process every time AE relaunches the game but ok. @Below Dark Soul is well known for the sheer amount of times the player would die because of how strong the monsters are and for the game's lack of linearity. The game doesn't tell you much and it's designed very difficult intentionally. You are to familiarize the game through your deaths. So, I guess AE got part of that right but left one of the main parts that made DS so great of a game, the combat. For AQ3D, I just see a bunch of number flying around in the unbalance.

Crystal Lion -> RE: =AQ3D= Design Notes August 1st, 2016 - AdventureDarkSouls 3D (8/2/2016 9:57:03)
So I wasn't the only one who found the difficulty curve annoying. And I've never played Dark Souls!

Fallen Crest -> RE: =AQ3D= Design Notes August 1st, 2016 - AdventureDarkSouls 3D (8/2/2016 10:41:27)
I think the general, non-dungeon enemies need to be more casual. The monsters sometimes require groups to farm them (efficiently at least). Same with non-dungeon bosses, which should be hard, but soloable once fully geared for the area. I also agree with making characters more powerful; regular enemies shouldnt have more hp AND more attack, and defense as my character. Puts me at a disadvantage regardless of my skills. Dungeon monsters can be marked "elites" which boosts thier stats (more than a handful of MMOs do this). More quests as well; I shouldnt be able to complete all content in an area and still be underleveled. I do like the idea of removing DC from epic-level crafting. Forces more individuals to queue up for dungeons. It would also be nice to have a way to create certain crafting components aside from random, low-chance drops. Maybe I get unlucky from 50+ runs for the drop, but I could merge 100 of some other commonish item for the material. On a side note; as someone who has beaten all three dark souls, bloodborne, and demon souls, this game is not even compareable to those games in difficulty. But I do like the reference. :)

LouisCyphere -> RE: =AQ3D= Design Notes August 1st, 2016 - AdventureDarkSouls 3D (8/2/2016 11:30:30)
I wouldn't really compare this to Dark Souls. No offense but I would call this, so far, GrindQuest 3D [:(] I'm just gonna keep this concise. 1. There's just too much grinding in this game. Grinding for exp via quests and mobs. But I do like the variety of quests. However, exp gains are just too low. 2. Monsters are tough. Although, it is artificially difficult. They high high HP and high damage. Probably they should tweak some numbers and consider how long a player should kill a mob on the same level. 3. I haven't yet tried extensively the crafting feature; but, this seems to be one of the main features of the game. I have to ask, does the timer for crafting also runs when you're offline? I have to be honest. I'm not enjoying the current state of the game. That's why I'm not playing extensively. But since it's still in close beta, I know you guys are gonna fix things. So I'm gonna keep on watch.

chaosup -> RE: =AQ3D= Design Notes August 1st, 2016 - AdventureDarkSouls 3D (8/2/2016 12:36:08)
Then as I have no time to play, even using dragon gems to get the fast equipment in the game will proceed with my weak character Compared to a player who has hours available? Not worth paying for each crafth material to get the equipment. After I buy one item then can I win in the dungeon, it would be very bad. [:-]

Azan -> RE: =AQ3D= Design Notes August 1st, 2016 - AdventureDarkSouls 3D (8/2/2016 16:49:03)
Yes, good point about the difficulty... I've especially noticed it when facing dungeon monsters. In my opinion, Barrow Pass and Snevlyn Wilds are way too difficult for the level they would logically be completed at. Level 5 wolves have around 3 times as much HP as level 7 Trolluks in the cave area. It'd probably help low level characters if the mobs from those two dungeons were nerfed to level 1-4.

Shiny_Underpants -> RE: =AQ3D= Design Notes August 1st, 2016 - AdventureDarkSouls 3D (8/4/2016 4:04:11)
A problem at the moment is that the combat is too restrictive to enable characters with less items to win battles. In many game, a really skillful level 1 player can navigate higher level areas. AQ3D's combat isn't widely varied enough for that to work. Calibrating the mobs then becomes the only deciding factor in playability, as the mobs decide who can play through it- not the individual player's skill. Basically, the skills and auto-aim restrict the gameplay so heavily that players reach the skill ceiling very quickly, especially as there are only four skills. I gather this is the real difference between AQ3D and Dark Souls. I think making money is such a high priority that it's getting in the way of the gameplay a little. From what I've seen and read, the devs seem to want to guide the players into in-app purchases, and this is reflecting a bit heavily on the gameplay. Expanding your market by breaking new ground would be the best method of making more money. There's no point just getting money from your current customers; although many people are willing to give $120 to a game that isn't even made yet, it still isn't enough for the company's survival. Casual gamers are more likely to pay for small things than farmers; farmers have everything anyway, due to the crafting and rewards. They know the game inside-out. Casuals also offer free word-of-mouth advertising, which is the best form (especially given that the company can't really afford any other type). They often tend to have more in the way of a social life than heavier gamers, meaning that if it's good, there's a much greater target market.

lampur1 -> RE: =AQ3D= Design Notes August 1st, 2016 - AdventureDarkSouls 3D (8/4/2016 5:49:04)
The biggest problem i have with the game is the grind. it's not just the low exp rates. the main problem comes from the horrible quests. i like the dialogue but the fact that i get about 10 quests that requier me to kill the same enemy 10 times is just sad. now that the character reset was a few weeks ago i just don't feel like releveling myself to that state i was before the reset, atleast give us more enemies so we won't have quests making us kill the same guy 1000 times. Example : 1st quest - go kill 10 goblins. 2nd quest - go kill 10 eye bats, 3rd quest - go kill 10 goblins again,4th quest - go kill 10 eye bats again. this is the worst in the shadow wolf area where you have to kill so many skeletons and wolfes it's just sad and puts me off the game.

orc orc orc -> RE: =AQ3D= Design Notes August 1st, 2016 - AdventureDarkSouls 3D (8/4/2016 7:52:42)
From what I can recall, there may be plans to reward players more if they play for the first x hours/mins. Something along the lines at least. I believe that something like that may be beneficial to the game as it becomes more attractive to casual players. Casuals, especially those who lack time to play, would get the most out of each login session. Hardcore players may also benefit as it has the potential to make farming feel less stagnant.

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