over the past few days, immediately after first hearing about this mod, I've sunk about 20-30h into it, so yeah obviously nothing compared to the long-term players but also I didn't "just quit" or anything, I got my 55 troops half of which are tier 5, got a few hundred k gold and feel like I've gotten to experience a bit.
I know that I'm not the most pro M&B-player out there and compared to many here I outright suck in combat, but I've done runs like "no recruiting (except prisoners), no buying anything (except grain when you run out of food), no smithing" in SP and would say I feel "adequate" with my 500-550h of playtime overall. But maybe I'm just not the target audience for this mod, if so, that's fine (though sad for me).
Let's start with the pro's:
- initial "tutorial" is pretty well-explained and mostly straightforward (that you dont just chop wood für 500 gold but better do it for like 50k or so, ell it becomes obvious after the first round-trip so it's fine)
- player-determined economy is a cool concept and mostly fine (obviously when there's tons of new players at once, prices for newbie stuff go through the roof, that's fine)
- I like the "farming" minigames introduced, they feel appropriate overall, even though chopping seems to be by far the best in terms of income/time-ratio
and then let's move on to the "not-so-great"/"this could be improved upon" (imho!):
- many introduced game mechanics have no type of tutorial/ingame help, the time I've spend telling other newbies in chat how to recruit units (which actually is mentioned, I know) or how to level up trade, scouting, how selling items works and what influence does is almost as much time as I've spent on actual quests.
- speaking of quests, while I like the artisan quests (even though he sometimes scams you by giving you way less than the item value) and the "get the guard captain trained troops" and think the tier 1 Mabons (spelling?) notes dungeons are all appropriate for early gameplay...there is basically nothing to do after that for a solid while, except killing looters and chopping wood, before again killing some looters oh and did I mention chopping wood?
- finding those hidden hideouts can be a pain since the "hideout near <city>" can be several screens away from that city, why not make the journal tell you near which village it is? that would limit the area a bit while still preserving the "look around and find it" factor.
- the daily quest dungeons (Slave trader, Looted Caravan, etc) are just plain inaccessible and honestly very frustrating, because from the description it seems that you're supposed to be able to do them, but when you enter them as a newbie, you're now suddenly faced with an army that is usually twice your armies size (I went with 27 troops and faced 50, went with 48 and faced 90) and on top of that is also much stronger than the looters and bandits which are all you've come across before this. Similarly killing the bandit army with 50-80 troops is pretty annoying but at least here you can (in theory) recruit other players to help you. here it would help a lot of if there more quests for players lvl 5 to 25, you dont have to make "best-in-slot-gear" or "toptier-companions" available for these, just...anything better than looter-crap would honestly feel rewarding here. I liked that the 2nd tier of the Mabon hideouts warned me that "my preparation" was low and asked if I really wanted to proceed, adding this to the current dailies would allow "lowlevel-proplayers" to still do those while adding lower-tier quests (with a shared 10/day-limit with the "big ones" so it doesnt get exploited) would give "lowlevel-normals" something to do.
- and besides that, the world is still really really empty. I get that you're still working on this and that stuff like the global trade upgrade might lead to people actually moving away from Zeonica but I feel like even really simple stuff could make this world feel more lived in. Like adding tier1+2 troops to villages, so you can recruit those there (making higher level troops available in cities where they can get equipment/training seems appropriate), or adding basic quests like in SP, such as "train these troops" or "deliver this package". for these you could make it so the quest giver hands you a random tier 1/2 weapon or armor or for harder ones maybe a horse or basic saddle, that way you'd introduce more items than just the looter-trash into the economy which might help balance the pinch on newbie gear right now (though to me it still felt okay to have to chop 30min to be able to afford a "proper" set of armor + weapon).
- overall leveling the skills is okay/fine, but how about making it so players can (similar to SP, but much much weaker) choose one skill to start with and have that one set to maybe 10 or 15, so they can already use the basic bow/xbow/horse if they want. this would maybe shave off 1-3h of having to grind this skill, which overall isnt much, but I'd say it would feel nice to the new player and also connect them more with their hero. The lack of perks for most skills and some not being able to be leveled at all (at least that's what it seems like to me so far) is a valid design choice and probably great for future development as it gives you tons of room to just add perks to skills with new big patches. but it also feels really empty, especially when coming from SP and I feel like adding 1-3 per skill overall wouldnt make it too cluttered but would allow some nice features like "scouting 50: 'Sneaking' - there's a x% chance bandits and looters dont run away from you" which could add more flavour without really impacting the pvp-side (which probably is the one you're worried about when it comes to balancing).
this is already a long rant and anyone that has read up until here, I respect and thank you for and thus dont want to start on the whole "forced-clan-membership"-issue.
Overall I really really immediately fell in love with this mod and wanted to keep loving it, but unfortunately I have to say it feels like new players arent currently really welcome (I heard it gets fun when you have like 80-100 troops and can do more stuff) and that the world is still too empty.
Still, respect to everyone contributing to this mod, and who knows maybe in the future I'll give it another go, it definitely has so much of what I am looking for in a game, but right now it's like a loveless relationship: lots of work and not that much fun after the honeymoon-period
Cheers,
Ace
I know that I'm not the most pro M&B-player out there and compared to many here I outright suck in combat, but I've done runs like "no recruiting (except prisoners), no buying anything (except grain when you run out of food), no smithing" in SP and would say I feel "adequate" with my 500-550h of playtime overall. But maybe I'm just not the target audience for this mod, if so, that's fine (though sad for me).
Let's start with the pro's:
- initial "tutorial" is pretty well-explained and mostly straightforward (that you dont just chop wood für 500 gold but better do it for like 50k or so, ell it becomes obvious after the first round-trip so it's fine)
- player-determined economy is a cool concept and mostly fine (obviously when there's tons of new players at once, prices for newbie stuff go through the roof, that's fine)
- I like the "farming" minigames introduced, they feel appropriate overall, even though chopping seems to be by far the best in terms of income/time-ratio
and then let's move on to the "not-so-great"/"this could be improved upon" (imho!):
- many introduced game mechanics have no type of tutorial/ingame help, the time I've spend telling other newbies in chat how to recruit units (which actually is mentioned, I know) or how to level up trade, scouting, how selling items works and what influence does is almost as much time as I've spent on actual quests.
- speaking of quests, while I like the artisan quests (even though he sometimes scams you by giving you way less than the item value) and the "get the guard captain trained troops" and think the tier 1 Mabons (spelling?) notes dungeons are all appropriate for early gameplay...there is basically nothing to do after that for a solid while, except killing looters and chopping wood, before again killing some looters oh and did I mention chopping wood?
- finding those hidden hideouts can be a pain since the "hideout near <city>" can be several screens away from that city, why not make the journal tell you near which village it is? that would limit the area a bit while still preserving the "look around and find it" factor.
- the daily quest dungeons (Slave trader, Looted Caravan, etc) are just plain inaccessible and honestly very frustrating, because from the description it seems that you're supposed to be able to do them, but when you enter them as a newbie, you're now suddenly faced with an army that is usually twice your armies size (I went with 27 troops and faced 50, went with 48 and faced 90) and on top of that is also much stronger than the looters and bandits which are all you've come across before this. Similarly killing the bandit army with 50-80 troops is pretty annoying but at least here you can (in theory) recruit other players to help you. here it would help a lot of if there more quests for players lvl 5 to 25, you dont have to make "best-in-slot-gear" or "toptier-companions" available for these, just...anything better than looter-crap would honestly feel rewarding here. I liked that the 2nd tier of the Mabon hideouts warned me that "my preparation" was low and asked if I really wanted to proceed, adding this to the current dailies would allow "lowlevel-proplayers" to still do those while adding lower-tier quests (with a shared 10/day-limit with the "big ones" so it doesnt get exploited) would give "lowlevel-normals" something to do.
- and besides that, the world is still really really empty. I get that you're still working on this and that stuff like the global trade upgrade might lead to people actually moving away from Zeonica but I feel like even really simple stuff could make this world feel more lived in. Like adding tier1+2 troops to villages, so you can recruit those there (making higher level troops available in cities where they can get equipment/training seems appropriate), or adding basic quests like in SP, such as "train these troops" or "deliver this package". for these you could make it so the quest giver hands you a random tier 1/2 weapon or armor or for harder ones maybe a horse or basic saddle, that way you'd introduce more items than just the looter-trash into the economy which might help balance the pinch on newbie gear right now (though to me it still felt okay to have to chop 30min to be able to afford a "proper" set of armor + weapon).
- overall leveling the skills is okay/fine, but how about making it so players can (similar to SP, but much much weaker) choose one skill to start with and have that one set to maybe 10 or 15, so they can already use the basic bow/xbow/horse if they want. this would maybe shave off 1-3h of having to grind this skill, which overall isnt much, but I'd say it would feel nice to the new player and also connect them more with their hero. The lack of perks for most skills and some not being able to be leveled at all (at least that's what it seems like to me so far) is a valid design choice and probably great for future development as it gives you tons of room to just add perks to skills with new big patches. but it also feels really empty, especially when coming from SP and I feel like adding 1-3 per skill overall wouldnt make it too cluttered but would allow some nice features like "scouting 50: 'Sneaking' - there's a x% chance bandits and looters dont run away from you" which could add more flavour without really impacting the pvp-side (which probably is the one you're worried about when it comes to balancing).
this is already a long rant and anyone that has read up until here, I respect and thank you for and thus dont want to start on the whole "forced-clan-membership"-issue.
Overall I really really immediately fell in love with this mod and wanted to keep loving it, but unfortunately I have to say it feels like new players arent currently really welcome (I heard it gets fun when you have like 80-100 troops and can do more stuff) and that the world is still too empty.
Still, respect to everyone contributing to this mod, and who knows maybe in the future I'll give it another go, it definitely has so much of what I am looking for in a game, but right now it's like a loveless relationship: lots of work and not that much fun after the honeymoon-period
Cheers,
Ace
