L2 is such a shame

Comments

• Torak Member Posts: 4,905

  July 2006

  
  

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  Originally posted by Cryomatrix
  I love this game, it is really entertaining, but it could be so much better and it wouldn't even require a huge overhaul, just a few minor changes, a few additions and boom, this game should destroy the market.

  LoL, you are at the "wouldn't be cool if they________?" stadge What you are really talking about is broadening the scope of the game.

  You need to keep in mind that we are only on C4 going to C5 and we really do not know what NC has in store.
  
  So what changes would you make. Now i know many people obivously see the need to make a few changes but they do not think of it from many angles, and thus the change is probably ill-advised.
  
  For example, server transfer seems like a good idea, but it can be so easily abused, i was checking prices on different servers and the price of AA on bartz is twice the price on hindemith. I mean just buy AA in Hindemith, transfer to Bartz, sell it all, transfer back, buy more AA, back to Bartz, sell it all, and back to Hindemith, it's like infinite money.
  
  If NCsoft wants to propose a $surcharge for transferring, no problem, transfer a few times, make billions of Adena, sell a portion on ebay to recoup the loss for surcharge and boom, everything is done and you're rich .
  
  Even if they put one character able to transfer only once, you level on hindemith, get AA, transfer to bartz, double or triple your money, make a new char on bartz, give all the money, transfer back and reroll on hindemith.
  
  Anyway, I want to know what changes a person would make to the game and why it would help. Make sure to evaluate it from many different angles.
  
  1. I'd add more proprietary things to own, more castles, a few new things like animal farms, and mines, and wood mills that would give relevant basic mats to the owners.
  
  Like animal farms = animal bones, leather, animal skin, crafted leather, strider food etc
  Mines = coal, iron ore, etc
  Wood mill = blank scrolls and recipes
  
  This may upset the balance in terms of supply, but then again, eliminate all the bots like they should and this would give a legit way to return the supply to bot-like levels and keep prices somewhat steady. I think it will give clans more things to do, it would increase strategy and allow players more options, other than grinding.
  
  One reason why I think this may not be a good idea is that it would make owning a castle less prestigious and not worth as much. Then again if they each give advantages and disadvantages, then strategy becomes involved.

  I always liked housing in my games. I agree thats a turn off for me as well in L2. The problem you have with housing is this. You can only do it a few different ways.

  Instanced - which you may as well not have it.

  Scattered around the landscape - which, IMHO, ruins the game. Have you ever played SWG or UO? Houses everywhere. Its ugly. Its destroys the immersion. It totally removes any feeling of discovery or exploration.

  A limited amount of lots - this sort of worked in DAoC. The problem with it is that a few people could get control of the majority of the lots. Its not a problem in DAoC because it has a low pop now.

  Housing is a difficult issue.
  
  2. Better player customization
  
  reasons for it = no brainer
  reasons against it = worsening lag during sieges etc, perhaps asian computer standards aren't up to par with american standards but I highly doubt that

  One thing to keep in mind about L2 is this. It has reletively low system requirements. It even works well on my old secondary comp. Lots of customization causes performance issues. EQII has shown us that "more" doesn't mean "better". It just means more. How many times in any game have you ever looked at the details of the other players toons face? Probably never. Its irrelevant really, its a feel good feature. Yes its nice but I would rather play a game that works then a piece of crap like SWG or EQII.
  
  3. Allow clans and individuals to hire themselves out during sieges and clan warfare
  
  Reasons for it, allows clans and people to be able to do a different thing, to make money in different ways, to be a mercenary, to increase RP, etc
  
  Reasons against it, if not implemented well can become a broken aspect of the game that would reduce appeal, may be susceptible to abuse, may favor clans with money, then again this game favors those with money.

  Thats what the player politics does, yes?
  
  4. Player customization and stat customization.
  
  When a person creates a new character give the person a chance to fool around with the base attributes. Essentially, take every base attribute relevant to the class and reduce it by 1 each and then give the player an option to put the points somewhere with a detailed explanation to where they want to put it.
  
  If the company is worried about people making mistakes and not liking it, then at lvl 40, allow a quest to change the stat allocation and then another at 61 and that's it.
  
  Also, at lvl 40 allow 1 stat to be put on a character without a penalty. This would lead to more customization and different builds adding to the complexiity.
  
  Reasons against is that the characters become too overpowering, imagine a nuker with 4 extra points in whatever gives damage , it may own in PvP. Then again, PvP is already broken so who cares lol.

  Balanced that would be cool
  
  5. Skill additions
  
  Allow a character at lvl 61 to choose one special MP skill from another class. This would allow my gladiator to have an AoE skill from a sps class or perhaps a buff from a bladedancer class.
  
  This would allow greater complexity and customization and allow for great strategy and nice surpries during PvP and it would be kind of fun.
  
  Reasons against it, major balancing issues if not implemented correctly. Nukers + MP regen = bad. Gladiator with heal skill = bad.
  
  It could be fun, or perhaps it could be limited to race specific and of course be balanced like no heal and such.

  They sort of have that already, sub-classing?
  
  
  Okay, i'd also include something I call societies. Which is a class specific group that gets special abilities during sieges and clan warfare.
  
  Anyway, just interested and bored at work,

  I would like see this......

  Siege engines,

  More mounts - the striders are to damn ugly wtf whats to ride that thing?

  AUCTION HOUSES -F*&% this shop crap already!

  Boats

  Some sort of player housing would be very nice.

  Cloaks
  
  Cryomatrix
  
  P.S. I'd love to talk to an NCsoft individual to run ides and see what they say, they're the experts but then again, the way they screw up games, i'm not sure it matters.
  
  Qais - 61 Glad on Hindemith
  

  
  

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• Cryomatrix Member EpicPosts: 3,223

  July 2006

  Hey Torak,
  
  I always enjoy your posts. Anyway, my first point was actually to have clan owned. Like put an animal farm near Floran Town and one near cemetary or whatever and one near elven place, it's like a castle but an animal farm, not as good as owning a castle, but at least it's something to affect the world.
  
  I didnt' mention hosues because it would be very hard to not have it screw the game, I like the idea of housing, but it's so hard to implement, perhaps a private clan hall thingy but smaller.
  
  The subclass wasn't what i was looking for in terms of customization, a sub-class is just a class with a different looking race.
  
  I mean have one quest to get skills from somewhere that's not natural to your class to add to individualism. I do agree with your point about custom looks.
  
  I agree with you on teh face and hair color to some degree, I mean my hair style covers my right eye and my pirate patch covers my left eye, SO I AM BLIND, but no one notices lol. Waste of 6.5m for some effect no one notices but me.
  
  But seriously, this Blue Wolf armor is making me go postal, i'm sick of baby blue color and every glad i see 52-61 looks like me, kind of annoying, i'd liek to run around in rainbow wolf armor plz. I'd get pked often but i'd be the center of attention YETHHHHHHHHHHHHh.
  
  And FLYING MOUNTS PLEASE, have em cost 100m or so or whatever, i'd definitely get one of those badboys, screw teleporting i'm going to fly, fly baby fly. Hell I'd pay 200m for one. It'll take me a couple of months to get that cash but I'll do it.
  
  Yeah striders are ridiculously ugly, so ugly it's almost a turn off to ride them. It's like you couldn't have picked a more ugly mount other than a floating hairy scrotum.
  
  I kind of like the shop crap, it rewards people who spend the time looking for good deals, meaning, ebayers are so lazy they overpay, whereas people like me are more patient and find good deals. Auction house is cool, but I like the current model, and adding an auction house = too much like WoW
  
  Also, they need to do better lotteries, the lottery aspect of the game is so beyond useless it's funny. Have a lottery ticket system and put an A grade helm as the reward lol. Or have a reward of 200m, with a 1m buy in price.
  
  Anyway, siege engines would be cool, also it would be nice to have new cities that start out sucking hardcore and then a clan/alliance can take ownership and make things better.
  
  Oh well just killing time. Cloaks are cool, but capes are better, they sound cooler, and more nice things like formal wear is good, they should have like seductive wear. They should also allow marriages in which when the two married people are in a duo they get special bonuses.
  
  I love this game but at teh same time it pisses me off, It's funny, I look at the 2 months I played WoW as 2 months where I was tricked lol.
  
  Cryomatrix
  
  
  
  

  Catch me streaming at twitch.tv/cryomatrix
  You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations. 
• Torak Member Posts: 4,905

  July 2006

  
  

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  Originally posted by Cryomatrix
  Hey Torak,
  
  I always enjoy your posts. Anyway, my first point was actually to have clan owned. Like put an animal farm near Floran Town and one near cemetary or whatever and one near elven place, it's like a castle but an animal farm, not as good as owning a castle, but at least it's something to affect the world.
  
  I didnt' mention hosues because it would be very hard to not have it screw the game, I like the idea of housing, but it's so hard to implement, perhaps a private clan hall thingy but smaller.

  I always liked DAoC solution, they made seperate housing zones next to the capital cities of each side. They never got in the way of the game but where entire zones free to roam around in.
  
  The subclass wasn't what i was looking for in terms of customization, a sub-class is just a class with a different looking race.
  
  I mean have one quest to get skills from somewhere that's not natural to your class to add to individualism. I do agree with your point about custom looks.
  
  I agree with you on teh face and hair color to some degree, I mean my hair style covers my right eye and my pirate patch covers my left eye, SO I AM BLIND, but no one notices lol. Waste of 6.5m for some effect no one notices but me.

  LoL  at least it doesn't effect your "to hit" in PvP
  
  But seriously, this Blue Wolf armor is making me go postal, i'm sick of baby blue color and every glad i see 52-61 looks like me, kind of annoying, i'd liek to run around in rainbow wolf armor plz. I'd get pked often but i'd be the center of attention YETHHHHHHHHHHHHh.

  D grade is the best for variety. to bad everyone insist on wearing brig, A lot of the D grade armor looks pretty good. Brig is the ugliest IMHO.

  Again, I believe its for performance reasons. Sieges happen at higher levels with hundreds of players. The less armor types involved the better for the system.
  
  And FLYING MOUNTS PLEASE, have em cost 100m or so or whatever, i'd definitely get one of those badboys, screw teleporting i'm going to fly, fly baby fly. Hell I'd pay 200m for one. It'll take me a couple of months to get that cash but I'll do it.
  
  Yeah striders are ridiculously ugly, so ugly it's almost a turn off to ride them. It's like you couldn't have picked a more ugly mount other than a floating hairy scrotum.
  
  I kind of like the shop crap, it rewards people who spend the time looking for good deals, meaning, ebayers are so lazy they overpay, whereas people like me are more patient and find good deals. Auction house is cool, but I like the current model, and adding an auction house = too much like WoW

  Actually a MUCH older game started the auction house thing. One of the MOST under rated BUT infulencial games...FFXI. Its 5 years old, has had Auction houses AND player shops along with instanced housing. When everyone was hyping that crappy EQ the "500lb gorilla of MMO's" with its 500k subs, FFXI was almost twice that population. Do you know why, at the time, the western industry dismissed FFXI's subs? Because they included worldwide pops not just North American.

  Suddenly, HOWEVER its O.K. now to hype WoW's 6.5 million subs even though more then half of them are Asian, because its a U.S. company.

  (interesting article on how Blizzard got all those subs)

  http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/storeroom/misc/wowfeecut.gif  (can you say - price cut?)

  Thats what I would like to see. a LOCAL (city only) auction house OR if you want, run a shop. It works in FFXI to this day.
  
  Also, they need to do better lotteries, the lottery aspect of the game is so beyond useless it's funny. Have a lottery ticket system and put an A grade helm as the reward lol. Or have a reward of 200m, with a 1m buy in price.
  
  Anyway, siege engines would be cool, also it would be nice to have new cities that start out sucking hardcore and then a clan/alliance can take ownership and make things better.
  
  Oh well just killing time. Cloaks are cool, but capes are better, they sound cooler, and more nice things like formal wear is good, they should have like seductive wear. They should also allow marriages in which when the two married people are in a duo they get special bonuses. to easy to exploit.

  Cloaks are in there but have not been activated.
  
  I love this game but at teh same time it pisses me off, It's funny, I look at the 2 months I played WoW as 2 months where I was tricked lol.

  Bah, all these games could be something else we all think is better. Hell, I'm no programmer but I honestly believe I could turn SWG around in less then 6 months if given a free hand.

  Anyway, Im off to play BF2, as the kids are in bed now. (go figure lol)
  
  Cryomatrix
  
  

  
  

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• moncea Member Posts: 17

  August 2006

  Lets face it, some of the items you have listed have not been added because L2 is what it is...a hardcore pvp game.  Role playing games allow for more character customization because the graphic engines can handle it.  In mass pvp games, reduction of lag in mass pvp action carries the day.  The designers have this always in the back of their mind.

  That being said, I also would like to see a better selection of mounts.  I cannot imagine that would be too terribly difficult to do.  I am in 100% agreement with each of you, I am sick of seeing clones of myself everywhere, yet I love the mass pvp...I find myself in dilema here with no clear compromise.

  I wish the xp lose for deaths decreased as your level went up and I would like to see a no xp loss on the siege fields during sieges.  This would make for some very serious pvp action during sieges!
• damijin Member Posts: 37

  August 2006

  I'm anti-auction house. I feel that player stores populate the world in a way that sets L2 cities apart from other games. If not for the population of stores in cities, the game would look very empty and boring. Take a look at Gludio for example. It's a ghost town on every server.

  I'm sure with a combination of auction/shops you wouldn't turn Giran into Gludio, but you might turn Giran into Aden. I just really like the way player shops provide a real sense of "shopping around" and allows you to even have some strategy in your market game. Providing services in a well known location over a long period of time will gain you some repeat customers, one of the most awesome parts of the system.

  Now, I think perhaps there should be a L2 "mode" that would run a smaller client. You could set up a store, then press "store client mode" or something where it would close the normal game and open a small window that uses virtually no memory. From this client you would not be able to move, trade, or do anything else except for sell/buy things from your store. And perhaps chat.

  Until that happens I think a lot of people will continue to use out of game bots for their stores because the preformance issues of running 2+ clients is just too much while you're trying to PvP for many people.
• Torak Member Posts: 4,905

  August 2006

  
  

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  Originally posted by damijin
  
  I'm anti-auction house. I feel that player stores populate the world in a way that sets L2 cities apart from other games. If not for the population of stores in cities, the game would look very empty and boring. Take a look at Gludio for example. It's a ghost town on every server.
  
  I'm sure with a combination of auction/shops you wouldn't turn Giran into Gludio, but you might turn Giran into Aden. I just really like the way player shops provide a real sense of "shopping around" and allows you to even have some strategy in your market game. Providing services in a well known location over a long period of time will gain you some repeat customers, one of the most awesome parts of the system.
  
  Now, I think perhaps there should be a L2 "mode" that would run a smaller client. You could set up a store, then press "store client mode" or something where it would close the normal game and open a small window that uses virtually no memory. From this client you would not be able to move, trade, or do anything else except for sell/buy things from your store. And perhaps chat.
  Until that happens I think a lot of people will continue to use out of game bots for their stores because the preformance issues of running 2+ clients is just too much while you're trying to PvP for many people.
  

  ---

  Now my bone to pick with the system isn't that any one is better then the other, I can definately see the merits of the shop system. However what turns it on its head is the fact you need to stay logged in to sell.

  Now I can run my L2 shop while I go play WoW with my wife but what the f*ck is the point of that? I'm leaving one game "on" out of necessity so I can go play and have "fun" in another. It ceases to be a game when you get to that point. If you could sell offline it would be different but the shop system as it stands is flawed. It provides ZERO to the "fun" or "enjoyment" of the game. It is a necessary task or chore an incredibly huge time sink on top of it.

  Sure I have tons of money and crap for all of my toons in L2 but the price in terms of time was simply not worth it. It wasn't the PvP or grind or any of that type of thing that drove me away from L2 but the economy. Its just to much of a pain in the ass to deal with higher up. I have top C grade but once I stated looking a B grade, but honestly WTF wants to deal with it anymore?

  The critical flaw in this game is the economy and item dependancy and the mechanic of how they tie together.
• Cryomatrix Member EpicPosts: 3,223

  August 2006

  I agree with you on that Torak,
  
  Im at work and i'm wishing i can have L2 running hte background so I can sell my junk. What you say about the economy is very true, it is so time consuming, i'm a lvl 61 gladiator and i'd be probably lvl 68 or so if i didn't have to sell my junk like that.
  
  But i like it, i like trying to make moneby in the market, it is very frustrating at times, but it is fun. The auction house in WoW was great but it was kind of simple.
  
  Too simple, not much work to really do.
  
  As the orignal poster said, to have a smaller game client would be great, then I could actually 2-box ion this piece of crap character and it wouldn't be a big deal.
  
  Anyway, i'm not so sure the game is so item dependent. I hear you can get to 78 with B grade on as the difference in A to B grade is almost meaningless.
  
  Then again, i'm spending countless hours in giran trying to make money to afford A grade that I know won't make a difference.
  
  Then again, an ebayer is like, i spent 5 hours extra at work and now i can afford A grade whlie you spend 3 hours a day trying to afford A grade and after 3 weeks you still can't do it lol xaxaxaxaxaxa.
  
  Sorry my ADD got to me. Anyway, I'm so pro-ebay it's not even funny, it's just that I want to enjoy this game to the fullest and that's the only reason I don't.
  
  Cryomatrix
  
  
  

  Catch me streaming at twitch.tv/cryomatrix
  You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.