QoL Changes

[ISPY]

Hi all,

I'm playing Eden since about two weeks and I've seen many gameplay mechanics that make no sense from a player perspective other than the usual "but it always was like that", stretching game time or artificially limit the players freedom.
This shard could improve on many aspects and none of the things on my list would have a negative impact on the gameplay and would make many people consider rolling again. How many players do you know that just want to hit the RvR with their favorite class and a temp for example?

You have all the freedom, respected Eden Team! You could massively improve QoL. It's still DAoC, even if all those changes would be implemented tomorrow.

Most players are vets anyways and know exactly what they want to experience. Every new player that tries DAoC (Eden) for the first time wouldn't complain about those changes either, but take it with gratefulness.

Yes, those suggestions may be controverse to you, but none of those would hurt the playerbase, gameplay nor the experience overall. It only improves the overall feel, accessibility and fluidity of the game we all love.
Right now it feels as if certain things are knowlingy gated/stretched to improve playtime.


Those are my questions/suggestions/considerations:

1. Why is there a loss when you exchange currencies back and forth (Exchange NPC) you've farmed yourself that can't even be traded? Worst thing that could happen would be more players enjoying gear for their chars and lowering the bar for new players to get into temping.

2. Why are there multiple currencies at all? Just make one and let people buy whatever they want with that.

3. Why is Gold/Plat not included as currency to convert?

4. Why are those special merchants spread across the whole realm? 95% of areas are dead anyways, just clump them together and eliminate boring travel time.

5. Why are respec stones and limited respecs still a thing? Just let us respec and dual-spec as we like. I want to experiment and not be punished for trying something new.

6. Why do I still need to complete an questline to buy {insert mob} stuff? E.g.: If I kill Gole but haven't done mini's, I can't buy items from the merch. Than's confusing and annoying.

7. Why are colors from merchants in towns still costing gold? Just make crafted only colors from housing cost money and let people have fun coloring like they want without empty pockets from new players.

8. Why isn't everyone Realm-Enhanced 24/7 in PvE areas? Make the 'losing-buffs-on-death-mechanic' BG/RvR-exclusive.

9. Why do I need to search for a hastener or why are there areas without one? Just make every Village, Town or whatever in non-RvR speeding up people.

10. Why is the Hastener-Buff only lasting 10min? Make that 1000min like the buffs. You lose it in combat anyways.

11. Why is LW1, Endu pots and perma-sprint still a thing? Just make everyone sprint 24/7 per default, increase endu regen and call it a day. Everyone is perma-sprinting after level 30 anyways. But endu-pots are another mechanic to mess with, many people forget about it and it's super annoying for the whole group/BG.

12. Why is speed from speed classes not shared with the whole BG when in range? If a random group that just formed in a BG has no speed class, they must rely on BP speed pots (which not everyone has), which is annoying and not user friendly.

13. Why is there no porter to leave/enter areas where we have to walk like 10min? Any modern game lets you just port. We still run out of dungeons or to quest areas for ages.

14. Why do I still have to wait for lvl 20 to get a mount? Just throw that into every new chars inventory.

15. Why are the solo drop rates (Salv mats/RoG's) in Eden so absolutely and completely out of touch with people that just want to solo-experience their favorite game from their past at their own pace?

16. Why does craftig still takes ages to max out and doesn't provide any XP? It would motivate people to get into crafting more. We have done it. In the past. 20+ times. It's still nearly the same as 2004. Why? More people with professions would benefit us all.

17. Why is it so demanding to catch up with RP's? A simple solution could factor in the higest and lowest RR on the server across all realms and add a multiplicative factor to your gained RP's based on the Rank you are. Example: You're RR2L9 and you'd gain 3.75x the RP's from anything that you do compared to the max RR char on the server. We have limited RR anyways, why not try to make everyone equal in strength that skill and not time spent is the relevant factor in PvP? I'd guess that less than 10% of the players experience RR7/8+ in a season anyways. Make us have RP's and RA's and maybe soft reset that for the next season.


Those are just a few mechanics I've experienced in my limited time playing two chars to 50 and fumble around in our lands.
Any of those suggestions could be implemented without creating something entirely new or changing skills or other mechanics.

Just pure and sweet QoL chages.

Cheers Folks
ISPY

[shieldladaoc]

I agree strongly with points 1, 2, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15 and 16

I disagree with:

7. Why are colors from merchants in towns still costing gold?

I would prefer the anytime availability of the colors I want, and the merchant prices are affordable. New players cycle through gear so fast anyway it doesn't make sense to dye stuff until you have BG template, or level 50.

8. Why isn't everyone Realm-Enhanced 24/7 in PvE areas?

I dont think there should be realm enhancers at all because it's non buff bot server. Why not just increase everybody's base stats to match the buffs since everybody would be buffed all the time? People actually spec for buffs here too. IMO if you don't have buffs, or have a buffer in your groups, then you should not have buffs. It just diminishes from the self buffing classes when you give everybody buffs.

17. Why is it so demanding to catch up with RP's?

I would rather see them factor your loyalty % into RP gain some how, like if you are 100% loyal you get a 25% bonus or something like that. Give some more incentive to stop realm hopping

[ISPY]

@shieldladaoc

7. The colors aren't really afforable if you're new and want to try out like 9 different 30g colors. Coloring your char should cost 10x less. At least. Why not make it free? No one gets hurt. It's a 20+ year old game. I want to look cool and not spend 30% of my earnings at level 50 for that. Idk why this is still untouched. Certain people would love to color their gear, even if it's just for 30min.
There is just no reason to gatekeep stuff like this in 2024.
It's not 2002 anymore where a fully 30g colored armor was creating rumors. Just let us have fun.

8. I'm fine with your soloution. Just make something so that when I relog or die in a PvE area I don't have to port twice to be able to participate in the grp again. It's just not user friendly. My post was suggesting QoL features, not balance changes.

17. This is a factor too. But we need a way to close the gap between no-lifers and casuals. If you persist on increasing this gap, people will get frustrated and leave. RvR should be a skill test, not a "who played the most" test. If you scare away new players and make content like 8v8 a place where you can only participate if you have no real life, people will leave. On both sides.

[shoke]

#17 : There is a RR catch up mechanic in place at the moment. When you are 2 RR below current cap, you get a 50% RP bonus, that's huge.

A friend of mine made a ment and in a week and a half he caught up my RR (I'M 5L6 atm). I'd say it was pretty fast to RR to a suitable level (R5, after R5 it's just small increments, the big gap is from R1 to R5)

[ISPY]

#17 : There is a RR catch up mechanic in place at the moment. When you are 2 RR below current cap, you get a 50% RP bonus, that's huge.

A friend of mine made a ment and in a week and a half he caught up my RR (I'M 5L6 atm). I'd say it was pretty fast to RR to a suitable level (R5, after R5 it's just small increments, the big gap is from R1 to R5)

Why not 200+%? It still takes a lot of playtime to get your RR's up, even with my recommended changes.
Your friend must have a lot of time to play games. Try gaming ~10h a week and see if you can manage RR5+ in the same timespan.
There is just no reason after 22 years to not have this on a community driven freeshard.
Just let us have RP to play on a more or less even battlefield in terms of RA's.

I want to EDIT here:
Usually you get around 8-10k RP's/hour. To get to RR6, you need to farm 100-120h. That's A LOT. Way too much for a seasonal driven game that will reset. So you need 30-40h from a fresh start to 1-50+Temp a char. Then you need another 10-20h to CL10. Then you need another 100+h to RR6+. That's way too long. Out of touch.

[Idi]

seen many gameplay mechanics that make no sense from a player perspective

First, I commend you on a well thought out, passionate, and reasonable post, and I can assure you that you are NOT alone in your assessment of the server, as many of the issues you cite were brought forward during the beta and live version of season 1. While SOME changes were made, there is still a huge amount of improvement that could be made to enhance the server, and increase and maintain player counts.

How many players do you know that just want to hit the RvR with their favorite class and a temp for example?

IMO, players that focus on a single class are a minority, and the vast majority would rather play a variety of classes, if not realms. I enjoy playing all the classes, to a degree, and always have at least 3 50's on Hib, my home realm, tank, caster, support. The problem with that is the HUGE logistical issue of kitting out those chars for RvR, what with all the quests and cash required to make the chars even remotely competitive in the frontier.

1. Why is there a loss when you exchange currencies back and forth
2. Why are there multiple currencies at all?
3. Why is Gold/Plat not included as currency to convert?
4. Why are those special merchants spread across the whole realm?

No reasonable explantion for any of this imo.

5. Why are respec stones and limited respecs still a thing?

Considering players no longer are required to make a committment to a single realm, imo, there shouldn't be a requirement to make a committment to a single spec either. I don't have a problem with making a respec cost something, however, it needs to be reasonable and reflect the current player population. As I understand it now, the cost is pretty reasonable, which I support.

6. Why do I still need to complete an questline to buy {insert mob} stuff?

No clue man. Seems pretty silly to me that you have to kill 8....EIGHT dragons to gain access to a single merch.

7. Why are colors from merchants in towns still costing gold?

Meh...I have no problems with paying for products like dyes.

8. Why isn't everyone Realm-Enhanced 24/7 in PvE areas?

Valid imo. Not like we're getting a lot of new blood in the game, and this change would certainly help out those that do take the plunge.

9. Why do I need to search for a hastener or why are there areas without one?

No valid reason for this. This issue was brought up during beta / season 1 and still hasn't been reasonably addressed with anything other than "nah".... There is no valid reason why every town doesn't have a hastener, enchancer, and porter. It's a town, after all, which is where people gather to ply their trades.

10. Why is the Hastener-Buff only lasting 10min?
11. Why is LW1, Endu pots and perma-sprint still a thing?

No valid reason imo.

12. Why is speed from speed classes not shared with the whole BG when in range?

Croc ring eliminated this issue back in the day, but was then removed from live for some reason. IMO, it should indeed be brought back.

14. Why do I still have to wait for lvl 20 to get a mount?

A quest or cash payment should suffice at the start imo.

15. Why are the solo drop rates (Salv mats/RoG's) in Eden so absolutely and completely out of touch

This is an issue that was addressed during beta and live of S1, but largely ignored. There is absolutely no reason for this, and the live servers never had such paltry drop rates for salvage. They did make a minor improvement, but the vast majority of the mobs in the game are now wasted for salvage, with only the few named mobs offering anything close to reasonable drop rates. So many of the classic xp / farm spots are ghost towns, and little more than a lesson in frustration for players trying to make some gold. I think one of the issues on these shards is the fact that players can just realm hop, role a farm toon, and camp a spot in a realm they don't even play in, which makes it harder for the actual players of that realm. Limiting the amount of plat that can be transferred would eliminate this issue, and require players to farm their own realms instead.

Regardless, I agree with a lot of your issues, but think most will fall on deaf ears again, as they did during S1.

[ISPY]

What a wholesome answer, thanks. I hope some features will be implemented. Eden could feel much better with little to no changes or gameplay impact at all

[xisted]

i think purge cooldown should be lowered so we dont have to spend so many points into it and this lets us customize our chars more..cause with hib mage stuns and 90% of classes having slam if you dont have purge its almost always certain death

and i think cl xp should be faster to lvl up and hp incrase to 1500 from 1000

[Sprouty]

What you seem to want is some sort of instant-gratification/satisfaction on all sorts of stuff. While I understand the sentiment, you could easily extend these things to arbitrary issues.

Why should I need to level to 50? Just remove all XP and make me instant-50
Why should I need to level up my RR ? Just add instant-RR10
Why should I need to think about a template? Just give me all-capped gear at char-creation

There are servers like that, and generally they are not very popular. I believe it has something to do with getting an attachment to your char and its development. Some work/effort needs to be there in order to make the game enjoyable on a longer term. Where you decide where that (fine) line is between some work/effort and not is up to the devs.

[ISPY]

What you seem to want is some sort of instant-gratification/satisfaction on all sorts of stuff. While I understand the sentiment, you could easily extend these things to arbitrary issues.

Why should I need to level to 50? Just remove all XP and make me instant-50
Why should I need to level up my RR ? Just add instant-RR10
Why should I need to think about a template? Just give me all-capped gear at char-creation

There are servers like that, and generally they are not very popular. I believe it has something to do with getting an attachment to your char and its development. Some work/effort needs to be there in order to make the game enjoyable on a longer term. Where you decide where that (fine) line is between some work/effort and not is up to the devs.

You just made an assumption and added a list with stuff I haven't mentioned remotely close.
My list mostly contains elements to improve QoL, and not original features we all love. For my part, I love to solo PvE. And I love the way to 50 and do it on many classes.
Your comment seems as you've not fully understood my intentions. I'm very aware of the "instant gratification" aspect of modern gaming and this was for sure not the reason I made this list of recommendations for QoL improvments.
I still thank you to for the comment, as it means more people are interested in this topic, which is always positive.