Bad experience, pointless game

[petko]

I've played last summer within the closed beta, and I liked the game. The extensive crafting part was very good, and it seemed to be a complex and entertaining game. After the char wipe I wanted to restart next time with a buddy of mine, but then there was no option to use the wilderness guide in a party and Ive waited for month for some kind of feature to make this possible. But it never came...

But anyway 2 days ago when the game became open beta I made myself to grind out the settling skill and build a stake claim within a day, and so I could teleport my buddy. We have settled in a nice abandoned farm, there was an oven and meatsmoker and lots of pots and a small house etc. It seemed to be a good place to settle. We played for 2 days and slowly we got some basic skills and started to evolve, and today I logged in and someone wasted all the containers on the claim, and even he wasted the oven, meatsmoker even my 2 corn fields.
I realise that this things can happen, but clearly something is very very wrong with the game concept, because this means someone took lots of hours with crafting and building and evolving, just to grind his character on a level, that after that he can just waste stuff of noob players. And by doing this he does not have any kind of risk of being retaliated.

I've tried the tracking and evidence collecting method yesterday because there was a guy who knocked me. He did that twice so I collected to 2 scents and got 20 charges. I followed the arrow to the claim, but after 20 minutes continous walk it still pointed to infinite nowhere. And the same happened to the waster now. There must be some kind of exploit too, because as I know, people can only teleport between boston and the homestead. (besides the wilderness guide at start, but clearly thats not avalible for these kind of criminals). I also tried the tracking from boston, but it also went to infinite nowhere. So where could they be? They could also just go by foot from boston or from the point where the scent was, and even if they run me out then my arrow should not have pointed in almost infinite distance (with triangulation) where the charge went out. So this part is clearly not working, you have no chance to find the criminals claim (or at least in this situation something bugged or was exploited). But as I know even if I would find them, I could do nothing to retalite without the right of the englisman which is a pain in the ass to grind. So clearly the crime punishment system does not work, you have no control over crime, you cant retalite, and the perpetrator if is on a high enough level has nothing to fear from when wasting noob farms. The tracking should be at least fixed, and also in this case someone who was robbed, wasted etc. should have the right to do the same on the perpetrators claim (allowed to trespass and steal and waste without commiting crime).

Also as I read through the forums, and other issue is the alt characters. Someone wrote that these people have a high level farmer character who produces food and inspirationals for the raider character to gind to very high level in matter of hours. Why in the hell is this allowed? It completely messes up the gameplay. If someone commits crime he has to bear the risk with all his assets. Even if multiple characters are allowed it should be limited to 2 chars per accounts, and character switch time cooldown for 24 hours. It would solve lots of things.

And back to the topic. Yes, I know there are ways to protect the claim with walls and braziers, but clearly it would take me at least 2-3 weeks to get to the level where i can build those. And if someone says I should join up a village... well what I have done was just that, I brought my buddy and an other guy and 3 of us just started a little community. If we cant do that this way, then whats the point of the game? Everyone should just join up an already existing village? And then there would be one giant megapolis where you cant do a thing because everything is already built up? That would be awful and boring.

So yes, I'm not that stupid to torture myself with this game, so 2 days is enough if it works like that. If they don't bring in some kind of balance and the real risk of being retaliated then only the sickos will play who just want to live out their dominance, because in real life they are just made to suck cocks. And in matter of days the game development will end and fail, because there will be no players to ***** with.
Also someone said in an other beginners guide topic that you don't have big risk to being killed or ***** with if you are not a criminal and you are not too rich. Well how did this happen then?

[dageir]

Bad luck? I have played since november and nothing bad has happened to me, yet...

[Ass_Kraken]

You're not supposed to be able to do everything in two days, especially not murder people. Be glad you didn't get murdered.

This isn't a game you can just dive into without dedication, things take time and effort so you care about those things.

[petko]

Bad luck? I have played since november and nothing bad has happened to me, yet...

Well yes, last june I played for a month and besides a one time inspirational steal when I did not have had a stake claim yet, nothing bad happened. But if i would like to play a hazard game, I would try the stock market, go to a casino or play online poker.

[petko]

You're not supposed to be able to do everything in two days, especially not murder people. Be glad you only got ko'd.

This isn't a game you can just dive into without dedication, things take time and effort so you care about those things.

Well thank you for giving the respect of reading my post before replying. And clearly realising that I already played more than a month in closed beta, so I know the game to some extent, and I was also dedicated.

[welkyr]

Good read, love the tears.

Here's the thing, YOU"RE DOING IT WRONG. until you have built walls and claims you just have to consider all your assets liquid. Nothing in Salem is really that hard to acquire. USE EVERYTHING you find dont save valuable things because you'll always find more and they're GOOD! Getting your main character powerful enough to build and manage a decent base is your first goal. Once you have walls and a pclaim or even better a vclaim then you can start acquiring stuff to grow in power more.

When I was starting out I grabbed a pclaim and had no walls on it. Granted this was before the wicker fence, so no there's not even really an excuse for not having walls. I was robbed from plenty of times, but I kept my most valuable assets in my inventory and consumed as much stuff as I could when I was on. This meant the only things really left in my boxes were things that still need to be processed which I wasn't really attached to.

While Material wealth IS the end goal of a sandbox game, the first part of the game is character progression to the point that you can attain and hold material wealth. You didn't lose your character, and that's good. Your character can grow to the point where everything you lost today seems insignificant because you can just create far more wealth in a much shorter amount of time.

I know you want to have justice served, but the whole idea of Salem is it's lawless. In order to persevere you have to be crafty, take extra precautions, and be able to accept losses. Justice might come if you can find a bloodthirsty veteran player, but don't count or rely on this.

TLDR: don't be butthurt about being robbed, you're still alive, and your character is your most important asset.

[colesie]

Bad luck? I have played since november and nothing bad has happened to me, yet...

Well yes, last june I played for a month and besides a one time inspirational steal when I did not have had a stake claim yet, nothing bad happened. But if i would like to play a hazard game, I would try the stock market, go to a casino or play online poker.

So the game isn't for you

[JinxDevona]

Balance? So older, more developed characters shouldn't be stronger and better than new, barely developed characters?

[alloin]

nice troll attempt, if not, bwwaaaahahahahaa (sorry)

[petko]

Good read, love the tears.

Here's the thing, YOU"RE DOING IT WRONG. until you have built walls and claims you just have to consider all your assets liquid. Nothing in Salem is really that hard to acquire. USE EVERYTHING you find dont save valuable things because you'll always find more and they're GOOD! Getting your main character powerful enough to build and manage a decent base is your first goal. Once you have walls and a pclaim or even better a vclaim then you can start acquiring stuff to grow in power more.

When I was starting out I grabbed a pclaim and had no walls on it. Granted this was before the wicker fence, so no there's not even really an excuse for not having walls. I was robbed from plenty of times, but I kept my most valuable assets in my inventory and consumed as much stuff as I could when I was on. This meant the only things really left in my boxes were things that still need to be processed which I wasn't really attached to.

While Material wealth IS the end goal of a sandbox game, the first part of the game is character progression to the point that you can attain and hold material wealth. You didn't lose your character, and that's good. Your character can grow to the point where everything you lost today seems insignificant because you can just create far more wealth in a much shorter amount of time.

I know you want to have justice served, but the whole idea of Salem is it's lawless. In order to persevere you have to be crafty, take extra precautions, and be able to accept losses. Justice might come if you can find a bloodthirsty veteran player, but don't count or rely on this.

TLDR: don't be butthurt about being robbed, you're still alive, and your character is your most important asset.

Usually in common PC games I alway get someone suggesting "YOU"RE DOING IT WRONG". But for god sakes, I enjoy a game if I can explore it and as being a game I can PLAY with it which means there are lots of options to discover and expermiment with it. Thats why I dont play with all the crap PC games which are on the market today because they are simple as a treestump and you can only play on a predetermined template which is as boring as hell.
If you play this game like that, just like grindig through with your template, then whats the enjoyment? I can do this just by doing my RL job and I even receive money for that. And also the theme is the 17th century life of the settlers who slowly build up farms and villages. If you forcefully jump everything throuh and can't just enjoy the fun of slowly advancing it also messes up the whole concept of the game.

So the game isn't for you

You seriously belive that a crafting-farming-settling MMO game should be based on pure luck? If you like risk that much why dont you play with something which has a point in risk. (partypoker.com) I would say that then you are the one this game is not for.

Balance? So older, more developed characters shouldn't be stronger and better than new, barely developed characters?

No, I mean balance in crime. Whenever someone commits a crime there should be some kind of drawback or risk of being captured like in real life. But as I experienced now, there is none, because they cant be captured. You just need to reach those high crime skills and the game is yours. Im sure the summoning-tracking system was included because of that, but its broken.

nice troll attempt, if not, bwwaaaahahahahaa (sorry)

Well I don't know what you are talking about, so its the 2nd.

And a final note: I wrote my experience, but not just because I'm angry or anything like that, and I want to criticise the game.I also wrote some suggestions how to fix these issues.