Yourgrandmother wrote:Since I played Salem with characters that had essentially 'beaten the game.' I peruse the forums every couple months to see changes made to the game and after finding about a reset here is my reasoning for not returning:
- No Witchcraft: Something promised before I even started in 2012.
- No Priests: I was naive enough to think before the paradox split that this would be one of the weekly updates.
I'm also pissed they haven't added these two. Even tiny weekly updates would be a nice simple way to encourage players.
Yourgrandmother wrote:- Bigger Map: Once you had a 'terminator' as I liked to put it, the last thing to do in the game was to roam the map looking for criminal scents and running into players in the wild or at their claim. On average during the last 1-2 months of playing I would find a scent/player maybe every 4-5 solid hours in game and the fact the map has been increased even further is mind blowing.
- Biome diahhrea: With no world map as an adventurer/explorer with enough experience you could tell where you were in the game world due to the distinct landmarks and large biomes. Now from what I read biomes are in 30 second clumps everywhere taking any distinction out of your claim/location.
As a full time mapper last world and a big one this world I think that overall the map and world creation is actually much better.
I don't really have a problem with the bigger map. It added 3 things: Much Deeper Darkness, The chance for a bigger population and greater diversity of landmass.
The New World Map Creator is also a win for JLo in my opinion. The hill function, the new mountains, the new river builders, and some other land features are definitely an improvement over the last worlds. The new biomes only have a few new animals and inspirationals but they do have some differences. The 30 second clumps of biomes that you've noticed are actually part of the map creation.
Maybe you haven't noticed buyt there's more variety of biomes the closer you are to water. Rivers, Lakes and Ocean affect that function of the biome creator in different ways. You can still find some of the massive biomes that will take you 10-30 minutes to cross but you're right that none of them are continuous and unbroken like last world. It's much easier to detect the location by mapping the lakes or rivers.
Yourgrandmother wrote:- Seed purity: The nail in the coffin to Salem. One of the most enjoyable things in the game to me in my opinion was farming for gains in seed purity. Very few people outside of MM, Candy Gang, Darwoth, Russians knew what it actually took to raise seed purity on crops. The 'death patch' which ruined this mechanic along with foods, character growth, raidable characters. It affected everything for the worst.
- Raiding: After the purity patch the only point of raiding outside of killing players (summon killing 95% of the time) was to get legacy humus. Now with a reset why risk a character for a bunch of iron bars if you don't have their scents.
I knew what it actually took to raise seed purity and because I started 3 months after you on Roanoke they nerfed them right as I was juts starting to get good ones. I was left with very little legacy hummus but was able to loot dead bases for some after everyone left. I can appreciate how hard it was and I agree that the pre-bin nerf system we had last spring was probably the best system they had so far. It allowed people to buy the seeds and grow fast to catch up but it never had a cap on the characters. Allowing people to get up to 1000 humours was not good. The level difference between someone who had been playing a couple of weeks versus someone who had been playing 6 months was nuts. Honestly if they had
that seed/hummus system and this map and some sort of similar brazier system like now, with a soft cap on characters it might have saved the game and protected new players enough to let them get a start on the game.
Yourgrandmother wrote:- Titans/EVE effect: All the idiots who whined about titans pre-wipe who thought these characters were magically made in 2 days with 'legacy humus' now have to play in a game with an even bigger gap and barrier to entry. You want to know why almost no one in the PvP crowd wants to start playing EVE online in the last 5 years?
Legacy hummus also had an EVE effect but you're right this system has a much bigger EVE effect. Unlike EVE which encourages joining groups and still only allows you to fly one ship which new players can eventually match one-on-one, this game has no real way to catch other players other than the fact that older players take so much longer to feed. But you're right, you'll never quite catch them.
Yourgrandmother wrote:- Monsters: What has been added in a year, spiders? Yeaaaaaaaaah
- Braziers: So outside of mayble a dozen people TOTAL across 3 servers who actually experienced raiding versus heavy brazier claims the change to braziers made them even STRONGER in a reset with characters that no longer have access to high seed purity's. This point right here tells you Jorb/Loftar don't take any feedback from players and change things without any clue to the effects.
- Industry: After butchering seed farming, what exactly has been added to the game? Copper mines and water wells that serve no purpose.
About the only positive change I've seen from the game in the past year has been Colesie no longer being a mod.
High purity Copper is actually one of the biggest ways to raise food purity now.
Colesie isn't even playing the game anymore, just like you. He only pops on to say hi, which I'm glad you did to. Keep checking it out. I have high hopes for the future but then I've always been an optimist about this game.
