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; Rubberbanding
: Guys, thanks for the feedback, but we need more to go on than "rubberbanding/lag". This is a dirty word among MMO developers because it's meaningless. There are a thousand things that players call lag, rubberbanding, etc. But they aren't all the same problem and they don't have the same solution. Without specific details, we can't fix anything. So please tell us exactly what you're experiencing. I can tell there are at least two utterly different issues in this thread alone.
: First, know that there is no player rubberbanding. (It's been disabled for over a year, and we aren't turning it back until other development is closer to finished.) That means that the server never moves your character without your client telling it to. In other words, if your character doesn't seem to move when you direct it to, or or moves erratically, that is never due to the network. It's always, 100%, due to the game client, and usually due to bad framerate. So if that's the symptom you're seeing, the first thing to ask is, what is your framerate when this happens? Turn on the FPS meter so you can tell us. Turn down the graphics settings and see if it continues.
: If it's something else, we really need to know what actual symptoms you're seeing. Are you seeing monsters skate back and forth along the ground? Monsters, unlike players, can be moved erratically by the server. But if you see that happening often, it's not likely to be your personal connection to the game -- that would probably be on our end. Our ISP has been doing work so that's entirely plausible, but we'd need to be able to give them specifics to help them fix it.
: Another case is that monsters stop moving or slow down fighting, like they become stuck in mud. That could definitely be due to your network connection. To track that down, we'd need to know your ping to the server, what country you're connecting from, and if you experience other corroborating symptoms, like a very slow login from the character-select screen. It might not be something we can fix right now, especially if you're on a different continent from us.
: But it might not be networking at all. It could be due to a bug related to your specific character or account -- we've seen that too during alpha. There's a ton of other possibilities. All options are on the table, but we can't fix "lag". We can only fix bugs.
: The more specific you can be, the better. Thanks!
::09-26-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?769-Rubberbanding-lag&p=6214#post6214
; Real World Skills
: Nah, this is a case where it makes sense to have them separated. Much like we won't have one skill to make armor and weapons at the same time, we won't have a skill that augments all the slots at the same time. In some cases balance is much more important than the "fiction".
: The idea that, say, a leathersmith naturally can't also make swords is a fiction that happens to be useful for balance purposes. Leatherworkers obviously aren't metalsmiths, right? Even though, realistically speaking, the two skills will have very similar recipes.
: In this case, there's no real-world comparison to augmentation, and it seemed pointlessly complicated to try to invent four totally unique fictions. So there's one. But for balance purposes, they are separate skills and I want players to choose them separately. That's just the way it has to go sometimes to make balance work.
::09-26-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?780-Question-to-Skill-Makers&p=6207#post6207
; Solo Content
: While grouping should be the most efficient way to get gear, I want soloing to be viable at all levels and I agree that it's too slow to get gear while soloing at some level ranges. We'll be working on this in the future, though I'm not sure yet what form that will take.
::09-14-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?750-Loot-frequency-and-game-style&p=6032#post6032
; Hard Bard
: To repeat, again: bard is supposed to be moderately hard to level. Because we don't need 5,000,000 low-level bards in the world, so it should be something you have to work a bit for. That's how you gate things in a game where everybody can be everything: are you willing to spend a few hours to get there? If not, use Sword, it's great and it doesn't require any extra work.
: As to "what about bards requires you to grow plants", well, my idea of a bard is somebody who likes nature, so I picked nature-oriented skills. Maybe it's too hard to level right now, maybe it's too easy. It's alpha, and those are prototype prereqs. Again, we'll be revising all skill's prerequisites into their final forms in late beta after more skills are online. I don't know what the final prerequisites will be for bard, of course, because we don't know which skills will make the cut. I usually toss out about half the skills that get prototyped, so we'll just have to see. There are no planned changes any time in the near future, though we can tweak the temporary settings up or down if they've proven to be too tough.
::09-09-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?729-On-Bardin-prerequisites&p=5975#post5975
; Market Stalls
: The reason the market stalls are chopped up the way they are is for occlusion culling. Basically, it's so that your framerate doesn't go even worse than it already does in there. When more optimizations are in place, I hope we can improve the layout, but we can't right now.
::09-08-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?740-Player-Vendors-high-rent-slow-sales&p=5954#post5954
; More Inventory Problems
: What are you overcoming by having, say, 10 extra inventory slots? You don't overcome anything. The inventory is still much smaller than you want it to be.
: There is no artificial shortage: I'm giving out as many inventory slots as I think players should have. I didn't make that number artificially small. I assume the average player won't spend a dime beyond their purchase price, and I want the game to be fun for them.
: But I expect we'll need continuing money to keep developing the game in the long term, so we'll give players small benefits for paying a monthly subscription. I don't know if those benefits will include inventory slots, but if so, they won't get a lot of slots. It sure won't be enough to make players happy with how the current inventory system works!
: So the difference between what you're saying and what I'm saying is not semantics: it's scope. You will never be able to buy your way out of inventory management problems! But those inventory problems are real problems with the game, and I intend to improve them in the future. I definitely don't intend to let you solve the game's inventory hassles by giving me extra money. I'm insulted by the idea that I'm making the game extra crappy in order to get extra money. I'm just not finished yet. There's a lot more work to do.
: We can talk about other topics in other threads; this one is already pretty chaotic. The short answer to "why are some skills gated by other skills" is... that's the sort of game I want to play, so it's the game I've made.
::09-07-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?706-Update-Discussion-August-28-2017&p=5924#post5924
; Player Population
: First, there's absolutely no reason we can't reach 1000 concurrent users. That's a very modest goal. We had 250+ concurrent users TWO YEARS AGO, the last time we did a small marketing push. Those players ran out of content and wandered away a few months later, and we haven't done much to bring new users in, because the game isn't finished yet. But I am going to finish the game.
: And when the game is finished, if we can't get a measly 1000 concurrent users at peak play hour, then the game will have failed, and we will have to shut it all down. We can't even cover costs with the current user base. But I'm not fretting about it right now, because we aren't trying to bring in new players. Because the game is not finished.
: So no, I'm not going to spend any time making your life easier right now. I know Alpha is hard because there's no players to buy or sell to. You can either deal with those frustrations, or not, that's up to you.
: But seriously. Cut it with the p2w bullshit. Suggesting that a few inventory slots is p2w is VERY insulting. You insinuate you've played p2w games, but a p2w game requires thousands of dollars investment to win. It won't even be possible to spend thousands on this game after launch. So it will obviously not be p2w. And since "this game is going to be p2w" is pretty much the most insulting thing you can say to me, you need to stop, please.
: Edit: I reread your post and I think it's best that we admit this is not your game. You actually think I'm making game design decisions in order to bilk money out of people... that shows such a lack of trust that I don't think we need you here any more. Your feedback has helped in the past, but it's time to admit that this is not the game for you. Go play something fun! Something without any crafting!
::09-07-2017
::https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?706-Update-Discussion-August-28-2017&p=5921#post5921
; Storage Slots, P2W, and Inventory.
: Actually, I haven't ruled out selling a few slots. It may happen. But if you think that's what "pay to win" means, you're wrong. Look, this thread already set me off on a bad foot by calling me Hitler -- as you no doubt know, that term "pay to win" is very offensive to game designers, and this thread is already Godwinned. Calling my game p2w shows a deep misunderstanding of what the term means.
: P2W means pay to WIN. Have you ever played a p2w game? Try beating the best players in a p2w game without paying lots of cash. You literally can't. P2W means that to be competitive, in whatever form competition takes, you have to pay more.
: That is not what's going to happen here.
: "But slots are power!" no. Stop it. That argument is nonsense. People don't seem to understand just how many items are in the game, and how many more are coming. At least 1000 more types of items.
: Let me repeat: THERE WILL BE AT LEAST 1000 MORE TYPES OF ITEMS. Probably far more than that.
: You will not be able to store all the items. Even if you send me $1,000,000 and the deed to your house.
: My job as a designer is to convince you to sell your shit. Not hoard it. I am working on tools to help, and that's a major focus on game systems going forward.
: I will have tools that show you exactly what each item does, and help you quickly determine if it's something you'll likely need in the near future. If not, you will need to sell it, and I will make it easier to sell your items.
: I will NOT be giving you inventory slots to store all the items you want to store. Not ever. I simply can't, and I wouldn't want to if I could. I want you to sell shit, because that's the only way the economy will work.
: Why more items? Because it will make your life easier in the long run. As we progress into beta, individual items will fill FEWER roles than they do now, not MORE roles. That will help you make decisions faster. Right now, say you find a piece of worthless green glass, and you know it's used in three or four alchemy recipes. You go "Eh, I may need this some day" and you spend 30 minutes trying to store it somewhere. (Hint: you don't need it.) In the future, the game will make it as clear as I can make it that you should sell it. The green glass won't secretly have a special use at level 502 that compels you to save it forever just in case. All of its uses will be listed when you right-click the item.
: I'm hoping that simplifying items' roles will help. But it will also mean there are a lot more items, because we won't reuse items as much. And there are a LOT more skills coming, all of which have their own items. So you will never be able to store all the items you want to store.
: If I add a few more storage slots as part of the monthly VIP pass, or some other little thing, it will be a small benefit, and it won't scale -- you won't be able to just keep buying slots. In other words, it will not solve many players' fundamental desire, which is to store literally every single valuable thing you find, and conveniently to boot. You will not be able to do that. If that's a deal-breaker for you, I can accept that, and you should look for another game.
: But if your main inventory concern is that it's just hard to manage, I agree, and as I've said before, we're going to improve things. We'll be addressing problems like these:
- it's hard to tell what items will be useful to you in the near term,
- hard to find where you left your stuff,
- hard to find a buyer for your items,
- hard to clear out your inventory quickly so you can go adventuring
: Stay tuned and please be patient. We will be working on those problems in lots of ways during beta.
::09-07-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?706-Update-Discussion-August-28-2017&p=5914#post5914
; Battle Chem & Bard Prereqs
: Some of the existing prerequisites will probably be replaced with different craft skills in late beta, after another 20 or so craft skills come online. For now they've been chosen because they make the difficulty curve about right. Bard is supposed to be moderately hard to level.
: (This also applies to some of Battle Chemistry's leveling prerequisites.)
::09-05-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?729-On-Bardin-prerequisites&p=5878#post5878
; Carrot Power
: You don't need carrots to use Carrot Power. All higher level veggies can be converted to rabbit treats, and rabbit treats act as carrots for the purposes of Carrot Power. You are not supposed to actually eat the rabbit treats.
: And yes, it's still a hard-to-use ability. In some ways it sucks to be a rabbit.
::09-05-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?726-Rabbit-form-Carrot-Powrer-is-this-a-fukin-joke&p=5877#post5877
; Knife Offhand
: Knife will in fact eventually be main hand / off hand. Daggers for main hand and shivs will be off-hand. We don't have the animations for it at the moment, and it's not really a high priority during alpha, but it will happen.
::08-31-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?716-How-do-you-feel-about-Knife-being-off-hand&p=5760#post5760
; Weekend Events
: Glad you're enjoying them! We pretty much expect to keep doing weekend events forever, or at least as long as they're seen as fun bonuses. I mean, players might get burned out on them, start taking them too much for granted, and need some time off. But I'm hoping we can create a large enough repertoire of events that we can keep them varied and interesting for a long time.
: (And we do plan to do occasional mid-week events as well, for those who can't play on weekends. But not until launch, as we don't have the time to coordinate more events right now.)
::08-20-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?684-Weekly-Weekend-Events&p=5599#post5599
; Ursula Bartering
: All her trades are pretty simple stuff, like a spoon for a femur. The most useful to my mind would be either the goblin hairpin for ivory mandibles (swapping one gift item for a different one), or maybe the ones that give you crossing/uncrossing oil for favor. But they're not very impressive trades from a monetary point of view.
: The thing is that we want people to eventually GET RID of the Ursula curse -- I don't want people telling newbies that the "right" way to play to is "always get the Ursula curse on every character because of [the chance for X special thing]". So it's unlikely we'll make her trades more exciting for higher-level players.
: We might make her trades more useful for low-level players, though -- although I don't know what that would look like at the moment.
::08-16-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?675-What-Can-You-Get-From-Bartering-With-Ursula-Considering-the-Fact-Wiki-Doesnt-Say-Crap&p=5558#post5558
; Fillets
: Only the three intermediary vegetable items are being removed. We may remove fillets eventually, but probably not any time soon. The fillet recipes give scales, which are useful, while the three recipes being removed don't do anything useful except add extra clicks to the cooking process. (They made sense once, but not anymore.)
::08-16-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?680-Question-regarding-intermediate-steps-in-Cooking&p=5557#post5557
; Skill Level at Launch
: At launch we expect the combat skills to scale to 100, plus 25 points of synergy bonuses, for a "max level " of 125. (There will be more than 25 available synergy points for each skill, so that you can pick and choose which ones you want to earn. But only the first 25 synergy skill points count.)
: I've occasionally talked about the possibility of skills going to 125 base, plus 25 synergy, for a total of 150, but I suspect that'll happen post-launch.
: There will be other ways to advance your character beyond that -- sort of "alternate advancement" if you like. One of the ways I've talked about is "Master Abilities", which are more-powerful versions of normal abilities, earned by killing elites. I'm not sure if that specific idea will end up in the final game -- I prototyped that idea but decided it was super dull, so it's still sitting on the back-burner -- but there will be some mechanisms, whatever form they end up taking.
::07-31-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?653-End-game-level-caps-what-to-expect&p=5366#post5366
; Undead Necromancers
: Necromancy already has it pretty good in this department -- they have Necromancy Orbs at all level tiers, plus various items with necro gems in them as an added bonus. This makes them vastly more versatile than, say, Sword, already.
: A living necromancer will always need a focus item to control the undead. Perhaps if you were undead yourself, that would be different...
::07-30-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?646-Necro-Gems-Not-Needed-To-Use-Necromancy-At-A-Certain-Level&p=5363#post5363
; Race Development Update
: Shieldbreaker's links are a good starting point for this topic. I can give some updates on the race development: basically, fairies are blocked by other things that need to be done first.
: Fae - We now have the needed fairy animations (just the bare-bones necessities of flying, landing, etc.), but I still need to figure out some of the systems involved in fighting-while-flying. Because it's insanely abusable atm. Fae also have a custom death system, and to integrate that into the game I need to finish changing the REGULAR player death system -- that is, changing how "Enter the Light" works, among other things. But I know that players use "Enter the Light"'s infinite-travel-back-to-Serbule feature as a fast-travel system, and I don't want to diminish that until we have other travel tools in the game. So I've been pushing on getting travel systems in. The biggest remaining one is horses -- at this point I think horses probably have to happen before fairies. And horses have their own set of bottlenecks -- the new GUI has to come online before horses, for instance. So I don't know when fairies will be ready. Their newbie area also needs lots more development, but that's fairly straightforward. (And interesting -- they have an unusual home place.)
: Orc - here we ran into problems with our plans of using Gazluk as the newbie area. Basically, I want to let new orcs run around inside Gazluk Keep -- but it can't be the REAL Gazluk Keep, because (for instance) there's valuable level 70 loot just lying around in there. I'd planned to make an alternate version of the place, with different spawns and stuff for the new orcs. But the tech to do that optimally ended up being tricky, because other technical features need to be completed first. Orcs are still likely to be the first new race to come online, though.
: Dwarf - not very far developed yet and will almost certainly be the last of the three to come online.
::07-23-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?568-Fae-race&p=5235#post5235
; Bats
: It's true, this is a significant oversight for bats. Bats were introduced before we decided animals should have weapon-slot gear, and I guess they never got retrofitted when we redid the other animals.
: This will be addressed at some point relatively soon -- when I do the next batch of treasure mod work -- but unfortunately it's not as easy as banging out a few new items. There really are no bat-specific treasure mods for those slots, so they need to be invented, and (if it ends up like pig, cow, etc.), we'll need to shuffle some of the existing bat mods around to other slots. Which will cause gear to go Legacy. So it'll be messy, but hopefully not too disruptive.
::07-20-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?624-Need-Weapons-for-Bats&p=5185#post5185
; Mushroom Box Restock
: If you return to the same mushroom box BEFORE its timer is expired, you should be able to start another crop of mushrooms. If you return AFTER the timer (e.g. on hour 13 of a 12-hour box) all you can do is harvest the existing crop. That's the intended behaviour, anyway! It may be buggy.
::07-19-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?618-Mushroom-Farming&p=5162#post5162
; Launch Wipe
: We are wiping items and probably NPC favor levels, possibly favor-quests... the exact list hasn't been decided. But what we have always said would NOT be wiped is skills. Your skill levels will continue into the live game. People who say otherwise are trolling you or are very confused.
: (Edit: and we're not wiping things at Beta, only at launch. Beta will start when the game is on Steam Early Access -- relatively soon. Launch is when the game is out of early access -- probably late 2018.)
::07-17-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?620-Please-clarify-Beta-Launch-for-us&p=5145#post5145
; Gear Switching
: The game balance is designed around not being able to switch weapons or gear (or combat skills or ability bars!) during combat. That's why we allow you to wield both a bow and a sword at the same time -- so you don't have to switch.
: If there are cases where you CAN switch gear, those are bugs.
::07-12-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?605-Combat-switch-weapons&p=5055#post5055
; Group Dungeons
: First, I want to clarify that I'm talking about the three "group dungeons". (Dark chapel, minotaur dungeon, and Gazluk Keep.) There's also lots of work to be done with the other content in the game -- especially low level content. But that's somewhat tangential here. Someone mentioned the Serbule Crypt -- that's probably the weirdest of the game's dungeons because it's literally 5 years old. It's the only dungeon from "pre-alpha 0" to still exist. It's been the testing bed for all sorts of things, so it has small group encounters, large group encounters, solo areas, quest NPCs, and a ridiculously large level spread of 25 levels (level 5 monsters in the front door and level 30 bosses at the very bottom). It's been the place we figured out how the game works. And as we understand how the game works better, I plan to redo all of the dungeon's content during beta. It'll have a much more specific level range -- maybe levels 15-20, something like that.
: So if you're concerned about low-level content -- that's completely understandable. And we would love feedback on the existing content! (Not in this thread, though, please.) We're working on a bunch of new low-level content that will be added to South Serbule soon, including several large dungeons. So even if we don't immediately change the existing content, we're taking lessons from that content as we move forward.
: ---
: So about these group dungeons -- I don't mean to say that reducing group size is a magical fix for grouping. It's definitely something I'm considering, but it's just one of a LONG list of steps I'm considering. (Beta will be chock full of changes in this area.) My point is mainly that INCREASING the group size would be steering us in the wrong direction.
: What sort of changes will we see here eventually? I'm not sure of all the steps yet. But we'll definitely see a lot of ability and treasure rebalancing. The sheer number of offensive mods a player can have right now makes the "large group of glass cannons" approach always viable, and that makes it hard to support other combat roles -- without REQUIRING those roles. (The last support skill, Priest, is waiting in the wings, because right now there's not enough "room" in groups for pure healers -- and Priests lack the offensive versatility of the other support skills like Druid.) I'd like for players to have less DPS overall, and for group monsters to hit harder and have more weird powers -- and give players more ways to counter those powers. But obviously that will require a lot of balancing.
: For related reasons, I'm considering rewriting how buffs work. Originally I expected all group content to be 3-man groups, and although that's changed, buffs are still balanced around 3-man groups! In a six-person group, most buffs are literally twice as good as I expect them to be.
: So I'm thinking about other ways to implement buffs. Instead of "everybody in the group gets 25% melee evasion", maybe it's "the first X people that are attacked get melee evasion" or something like that. I need a system that scales better, from solo up to the largest group size. I don't know what the answer is yet though.
: A lot of the steps we need to take aren't fully obvious yet because there's not enough players doing group dungeons. The group dungeons require higher-level players, and there just aren't a lot of those in the same level range at the same time. I do get some very valuable anecdotal info, but that only lets me make changes a few times. Without a constant stream of people running a dungeon -- dozens of groups every day -- it'll be impossible to keep them in sync with the rest of the game's changes. (This is also true for much of the game's economy: "needs more people".)
: That's why we're working as hard as possible to get the game ready for Steam ASAP. (Of course, the presentation needs to be the best we can manage before we put it up on Steam -- but we're working very hard to get there.) When the game is on Steam, with the new GUI in place, we'll consider the game in "beta", and that's when all the fun balancing work can REALLY begin in earnest.
: For now, these are just pain points we'll have to deal with. But it will get better. Content difficulty won't ever be as tight as it is in some games, because we're so free-form that it's impossible to predict a group's exact capabilities. But it will be BETTER than it is now. Both for soloing and for grouping!
: (Also: often when I post more than once in a thread, it kills discussion. That sucks. I don't mean to dissuade people from posting here! I wanted to weigh in, but I'd love to hear more feedback.)
::07-10-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?603-Groups-of-8-vs-6&p=5001#post5001
; Public Bug List?
: No, there's not a public list of bugs, that is a very difficult thing to maintain and we don't have the manpower for it. (We can only barely keep up with our internal bug DB, which is full of private player info, personal conversations, etc.)
: Please report any bugs that you see! Even if the bug has been reported before, multiple reports are a HUGE help because we prioritize based on the number of people reporting it. It also helps us correlate details to help track down what's going on. But really, the prioritization thing is a BIG deal. The only way we can tell if a bug is bothering somebody is if they report it.
:: 07-10-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?607-List-of-known-bugs&p=4999#post4999
; Mapclear
: I'm not sure why you can't see your pins, maybe they're blending into the image or maybe they'd be visible if you made the map window larger. Anyway, there's an alpha-tester debugging command you can use to fix it: in the chat box type "/mapclear". It will wipe all your map pins from all your maps.
::07-10-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?606-Maps-and-Pins&p=4996#post4996
; Steamroll
: But a group of six already steamrolls existing content. So I've been thinking smaller, not larger. How the heck would I make content for 8 people that's engaging and interesting when I haven't managed it reliably with 6 yet?!
: This seems like a "we can be more inclusive while we steamroll through content, yay" thing. I'm not interested in that. The point of group dungeons is to provide interesting adventures, and I need to reach that goal of being interesting and compelling.
: But don't worry, we will find other ways and places for large groups (like guilds) to have fun together later. (That's, frankly, pretty easy compared to getting small-group difficulty right.)
::07-08-2017
:: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?603-Groups-of-8-vs-6&p=4978#post4978
; TCP Port
: At the moment we're only using TCP port 9002. (We have in the past used UDP 9002 also, and may again in the future, but we don't right now.)
::07-06-2017
::https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?593-Which-Ports-to-open&p=4951#post4951
; Vanity Slots
: We don't have any solid plans for this, but I kinda-sorta expect to implement vanity armor slots as part of the "VIP package" -- the optional monthly subscription that gives you some little extra perks and features. I haven't planned out how they would work, but I liked the EQ2 system and thought it worked pretty well.