The future of TSO

[Raubhautz]

I see some very good ideas here. I would like to add some thoughts to the list:

1. One of the biggest problems since playing TSO is that there is very little communication from the TSO DEV team and the forums where we post suggestions/complaints and the like. So, we have no idea what is going on. 'PvP' is a perfect example: 1 year of nearly no feedback from DEV team and then BLAMO! Here is PVEv2... Not sure what player advice they were using for it.
2. TSO has apparently put all the cookies in the PVEv2 basket. Since the release of colonies, loot has been stripped from adventures, the Coop adventures have been all but abandoned (loot so bad they are not worth doing), science development has not moved forever, and as previously stated, lebensraum is exhausted.
3. One of the nice things (IMHO) is the inclusion of the scenarios. I like that they are more relaxing to do; they are a good change of pace and you can do one in-between FT's or other adventures. They can also be used for completing an adventure for a quest in a pinch. The problem is they do seem very difficult to get in searches.
4. Also, I like the way BB added achievements for them; some of the achievement markers are very hard to get, unlike many of the others where most of us finished them in 2 weeks. It would be nice if there were some more achievements in adventures, coops, and general game-play that would be more difficult to achieve, leaving more things that we can get that others have not... expand the current achievement system.

[Moonlime]

Which brings up another point that may not be pleasing to other players, but why not reward the players in an adventure to the same ratio of treasure (loot) as they get in experience/star coin?? So, you 1R tag, you get very little loot; help take down a tower, get more loot.. You still get credit for the adventure for quest purposes.

That's an interesting idea, and makes sense. You put in the work, you get rewarded for it. As opposed to you do the adventure and you get 1 egg.

[Plumz]

Removing weapons from loot was a huge mistake. It hurt most players, bleed the under 40 ones and made the game almost impossible and horribly tedious. Not to mention how really awesome it was for lower level players to one day find themselves without a source of much needed weapons -strangled by older players dictating exuberant prices for weapons that are slow and not easy to make...

I remember the post where by simple calculations for a chance to get titanium and salt it will take doing 1 BK adventure a day for a year to get enough salt to make 400 canoneers standing army. And one of the devs confirmed it is working as intended! They seriously expect a player to work a year to get canons to do FT advies...If I wasn't 50 already I would have given up on this game because of how tedious and slow it became for lower level players. It appeared to me a while ago. The biggest problems of this game are ...the devs themselves.

[Perwyn]

I made a joke in guild chat the other day, saying "By 2073, this is gonna be a pretty good game!". It was in response to discussion about all the minor tweaks that have happened over time that are actually quite good. Irma's Feasts/24 hour buffs, the economy overview, being able to input troop numbers in garrisons, the move function, the trade office...... the pace of this game is very slow and so is the pace of improvements. But if a person who's been playing for a while really thinks about it, a lot of good changes have happened in the past few years.

As far as people leaving the game, some people quit, new people start. A lot of people quit long before weapons were dropped from loot because it became obvious 50 was the level cap. A lot of people quit when loot changed because they'd based their entire playing style on a bazillion bronze swords and recruits and they now had to make higher end weapons. A lot of people quit when PVP was unveiled because it wasn't what they were expecting.

A lot of people are always gonna quit a game after they play it for a while regardless of the reason they say they leave. Many of us stay regardless of all our complaining and moaning cause all in all, it's still a great game to us and we all know who we are.

Things might look pretty different from the perspective of a newer player that never got weapons in adventure loot. Maybe even along the lines of, “What's the big deal? Just build the weapons chains”. Or even, heaven help us, “What's the problem? Expeditions are kinda fun”.

I think all in all BB's doing a pretty good job. I don't like everything they've done to be sure, and there are still bugs and unfinished aspects of the game that drive me nuts. I've done my share of moaning and groaning and bashing them on this forum, but I'm still here after more than 3 years of playing. Looking at the join dates of some of the major posters, some of you guys have been around even longer than me. So why are you still here? There's gotta be something good that keeps you here, right? There's always going to be stuff to complain about, but if we're all still here, BB must be doing more things right than they're getting wrong.

[RonEmpire]

Yes, that was huge. I do think they needed to adjust the numbers of rewards, not remove. i.e. someone should not be able to ls their way to riches... You know as well as I do, lots of folks just ride ls and collect the goodies and never put in any real work.

Which brings up another point that may not be pleasing to other players, but why not reward the players in an adventure to the same ratio of treasure (loot) as they get in experience/star coin?? So, you 1R tag, you get very little loot; help take down a tower, get more loot.. You still get credit for the adventure for quest purposes.

I like this idea- so long as you end up walking away with more than the current loot of one player.

In theory, these adventures with 2 players where 1 player does all the work and the Loot Spot person does nothing- other than tag. the loot for you should be doubled of what you normally get now and the other guy gets almost none.

[RonEmpire]

[LIST=1][*]One of the biggest problems since playing TSO is that there is very little communication from the TSO DEV team and the forums where we post suggestions/complaints and the like. So, we have no idea what is going on. 'PvP' is a perfect example: 1 year of nearly no feedback from DEV team and then BLAMO!

I so agree with this. Devs need to stop making up random choices without giving players aheads up on what they're doing because they end up just failing with their bad design choices and end up wasting time on things the player base does not.

This game is an online game and evolves a lot and they should consider doing more survey's and polls and read more forum discussions and communicate more to avoid creating really stupid things (example: four winds challenge. poorly thought out events like the balloon server races.- that you couldn't even test it on test server. they just released it. and a lot of complaints on the 'server' competition thing.)

[Aurboth]

The idea of distributing loot based on the actual amount of work done was brought up before, and was pretty much rejected by the players who responded in the forum at the time. The economy that the current system spawned was already too entrenched, and much of the change is likely due to a decreased number of lootspots available for trade.

http://forum.thesettlersonline.net/t...d-Distribution

[Raubhautz]

[...] was pretty much rejected by the players who responded in the forum at the time [...] [/URL]

Lol, no surprise there! Looking at the responders... Taking away the freebies would be resisted. I noticed from the responses that the most vehement detractors are the same folk that work to 'control' the market of the server. Two items that would be interesting to know when responding to the survey would be: 1 - How much (In USD) have you spent in your TSO account? (Are you a coiner?) - Note that BB might be more interested in - How much do you currently spend in your TSO account? (Are you relevant, or are you now just a dead weight?); and 2 - Are you in a guild and/or helping other players grow or just sitting in the TO looking to mastermind your retirement?

Thank you for that information, Aurboth.

[Forrell]

The settlers online is a game of conquest, games of conquest tend to attract advantageous players.

PVP is not what players had envisioned. The first problem is pvp was to be optional, the second problem is the anonymity aspect.

"The thrill of victory" is nothing without "the agony of defeat".


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asxr5v9arH4

[Moonlime]

The idea of distributing loot based on the actual amount of work done was brought up before, and was pretty much rejected by the players who responded in the forum at the time. The economy that the current system spawned was already too entrenched, and much of the change is likely due to a decreased number of lootspots available for trade.

http://forum.thesettlersonline.net/t...d-Distribution

Well, as everyone said on this post, adjusting is not the same as removing completely. Life isn't black and white, 8 or 80...

And.. in reading that old post, I read that some players were concerned about the lootspot sale value being lowered if the lootspot table was changed. Not looking into the bigger picture of what it actually meant to remove weapons from the loot completely, the lootspot sellers responding to that post just provided the developers the reasoning they needed to remove it completely. But, instead of actually "balancing" it, removing weapons provided a greater advantage to those who already had the advantage.