Thought's and idea's on game's direction

[joshnpk]

I was in the first wave of alpha invites and played a lot, I'm sure there was a wipe and then I came back to the game in about February this year and stopped in about April.

It was the video total biscuit did that first sparked my interest, and when I started playing, the game was exactly what I had expected it to be, obviously it was missing some things and needed tuning but I still really enjoyed it, the notion of nothing being permanent and that it could all just be lost in a instant really made what you did more worth while, it does become a very big grind just to get to the point where you can start an even bigger grind. However the very premise of the game I still find quite exciting because there is no other game where a small group of random people could effectively "take over" a server (or server's) and start imposing there demands on everyone.

Nothing ever really put me off Salem I just got a bit bored with it like I do with all video games, the grind didn't help but wasn't what stopped me. I'm still very enthusiastic about this game but seeing all the things on the forum's make's me worried. I'm sure I've posted topic's in the past about things I think would benefit the game but after time away from the game and after reading a lot of stuff on these forum's I just want to list what I think it is that would bring balance to the game and remove a lot of the grind.

CRAFTING AND GATHERING

Crafting and Gathering for the most part is a very large grind, however I still always enjoyed it. My problem with it was there was never enough variety in terms of gathering mats or what you could craft, for instance I'm sure anyone who was in the early testing groups remember's the frustration when you couldn't get any of those red leaves off the tree's unless you went ridiculously far out, and if you didn't have them you couldn't craft this certain item you needed to level up a particular skill. Because there was only a few item's to find like grass, leaves and some mushroom that were common and about 5-6 other items that where rare, you couldn't afford to miss any of them, so you'd get Ender's client which would show you the mats on the mini map (which I'm sure is in the base game now). The problem with that tho is your just walking about looking at a mini map and if you don't have it your walking about fixated on the ground because everything take's so long (which I'm fine with and actually enjoy) you can't afford to miss anything because it will take a lot longer if you do. Another effect of this is everything becomes very much about micro managing the hell out of your character other wise you'll be there till next Christmas till you get to the point where you could do any of the mid to end game stuff.

My opinion on how to combat this is by simply adding more variations of items for you to find in the world, for example you had the red mushrooms which were common and the black ones which ware rare what if there where more kinds of mushrooms that could be used for different but also the same things that existing ones can be used for? So lets say you had the black mushrooms but as well as that you also had a white spotted version that was just as rare and did the same thing but due to the fact that there are now two mushrooms that can do the same thing its now not necessarily as hard to find what it is you need. You could also have something like a small shriveled orange mushroom that you could find and could be used in some of the recipes the black ones are used in but not all of them. Not only would this add more variety to the game but would add alternative crafting mats for existing recipes and take out some of the time you'd have to spend just searching about for particular items.

If you also added more craftable items that could raise particular stats that would give the player more options and take away from a lot of the grind. I remember when I was playing there came a point where mines and mountains (I think that's the right name) became really hard to level up, and the item I needed to craft to get the most point's in it had some mats that where really rare, I couldn't get them in high enough quantities to make any sort of impact with out undertaking the biggest grind of repeating the same actions for days on end. If there was just a few more variants of Inspirational items to raise that particular skill to similar values that grind would be eliminated, also more items and things to craft improves the variety and enjoyment of the game (to a degree of course).

COMBAT, RAIDING AND HUMORS

Combat and raiding in this game was something that excited me from the get go, not that I wanted to raid or even really fight, the notion of it tho always excited me as no other game offers it in the way Salem does. I know the actual Combat isn't great at the moment but because it's still in beta and because I didn't really fight other player's that much it's never really bothered me, and with a bit of work I think the fighting mechanics will be okay. What I didn't like when I played was the changes to raiding settlement's and villages, I'm sure it was changed so you had to place a claim thing outside where you wanted to raid a day or two before to warn the other player. I don't know if this is still in the game so ignore this bit if it's not, but I think that spoils a lot about the game, I understand the need balance wise but I think a better system would be to have it so when you place you claim stone you are some how linked to it through your soul or some crap like that and basically if your away from you claim in game and someone step's on to it you get alerted to this, maybe you could have a stone that you could link with your claim like keys with locks that would glow or make a noise or something if someone stepped on your claim. Maybe if your not longed in it could even email you to let you know. You could give a player returning to the claim when an aggressive intruder is invading a buff like 5% more humors and you could even give the attacker a 5% debuff when the player is present on the claim, like an attacking debuff and defending buff. It would also be good if when not logged in the player invading your claim would get something like 5% extra damage from braziers and torch posts as opposed to when your logged in. I know this wouldn't always be the fairest system in the world but I don't feel you could ever strike up true fairness in a game like Salem and I feel this would be better and more fitting to the game than the current system.

The humor system always seemed fine to me obviously it needs some work, the only problem I have is I know there are a lot of people who have character's that have such high humors there virtually indestructible. I honestly always just assumed it was capped at 100 either way I think it should be and any other power from that point should be gained from things like better Armour, weapons, spells or just skill with the game.

END

I know the general direction of the game is currently under review I just want to put my opinion out there on what I think would help this game grow and become a lot more interesting. Either way I think Salem is a great game an hope to see it continue to develop.

[iotuegli]

post 2, 16/dec/2013

seems like nobody G***aF*** about walls of text.
please, explain bettar OP