The Forum

[quote="DETHRONE"][quote="EDAY"]I for 1 would like to see the server wiped. I think Soma is at its best and most nostalgic when everyone is competing to level. Cap level at 75 and increase by 15 levels every 6 months, the server will be buzzing for the next 2 years. Adjust swift spirit to go +5 only. Slower exp rates increase drop rates. Find some way to sell rested potions again to fund the server. Mass email with a months warning of new server, glorious.[/quote] What used to make it good was the variety of weapons people levelled with. It would just be bow/axe now, dull.[/quote]

[quote="EDAY"][quote="DETHRONE"]What used to make it good was the variety of weapons people levelled with. It would just be bow/axe now, dull.[/quote] I’m not sure I agree, people will use Knuck for speed, spear for 2nd aura, sword for 1 hand and shield. New server takes away the ease of doing +50 route. It’s Soma, wipe it and most will come back. That’s why we are all still here after 20 years. [/quote]

[quote="SB99"]Stat wipe or something? cod4 prestige mode or whatever? too many alt chars about. Many many games have wipes monthly,yearly etc etc but with current state of obtaining items, it would be too hard to justify a wipe of items. Just my opinion.[/quote]

[quote="3D"]Regular, planned wipes with stats, items, crafting etc balanced around them might have worked years ago. Now? I don't really see it. Is the desire really there to fix all the little bugbears and rebalance everything? Would be as well starting or joining a server that actually has some active input and you can be vaguely confident something like the valour update wouldn't happen. No offence etc.[/quote]

[quote="FOXTRCK"]I've written loads but its the same stuff I and others have said in the past, so I've held back for now and just given the simplest stuff... but Finito, if your a one man band now, I think people will change their tone with you. I think there is a lot of frustration towards the other blue name out there and makes sense why OTD is playing devils advocate, I think the apathy is a bit more widespread than publicly said. That said, thanks for the honesty though, its a refreshing change. [b]1.[/b] Character, item and guild wipe. Go back to rates at the start of this server. Decide the date for [b]1st October[/b] - to coincide with people coming back from the summer and heightened times of people gaming. Take the time to publicise, prepare, whilst giving time for existing players to have a blow out. If you want to be sure the existing server lasts, do some wilder, crazier stuff as you get to that date. Take the game back to the release of Gorshak and holden to the last 2-3 years of content, giving you also a chance to fine tune them. [b]2. [/b]Use that six months+ wisely, you don't need immediate content or new levels, you just need to put something in place that reflects the server [b]you want to run[/b]. If it were me, I would seek out the "channels" of people I want to talk with and present certain aspects of the game and rather than making it appear like "work", get into bed with the why you "love" this or if you never did, consider how you might love it, to "world build" is my own personal thing to you it can be something else. Set out the strategy and the motive to want to do this and enjoy it - so that others will to even if it is pewpew. You want people that can create new content, you can have that You want people that can garner exciting PvP, you already have had that and can have it again. You want people that can help you decide on a new hierarchy of items, you can and have had that. But if you want a council, know what you want from it before hand. [b]3.[/b] Take the opportunity and set Devil soma to be the same stats as Human soma - mobs, items and even character stats. (It was only done to be stronger because of them being some 2-3 years behind on HSoma levelling, using a narrative of "they are beastly, stronger but less in number"). Setup a dedicated non-GM presence for them and I'll happily work with them to create and give content to build up their world. There's a lot of missing narratives and randomness that TYT/Merc have. There you go, RvR is harmonised, just give Devil soma content and make Conti worth fighting for and a central focus for rareitem NPCs, higher matt quantity NPCs etc. [b]4.[/b] The fundamental problem with the game that's caused you the most grief is dex, it's too powerful. Just adjust the maximum evasion / minimum hit rate as follows (As player) None-Upgraded items - 70% max evasion - 30% hit rate Upgraded items - 85% max accuracy - 15% hit accuracy. (or if you really want to play it a bit safer, go with 90/10) Encourages other melee builds, doesn't render pure strength as "useless" or one trick ponies. In combination of incentivising other upgrades but also gems on craft. [b]5.[/b] Nerf recoil upgrades by a good 30% - give reasons for people to use other upgrades such as damage, MA, magic elemental, slow etc. Maintain the original "2 handed axes / swords were speed F, Spears E, 1handed axes / swords D, Bows D and Knuckles A". Don't let a 2 handed axe / spear become 500 recoil, that's just crazy. Don't let a bow become below 400. Maybe a band difference limit of 3. D can become A F can become C E can become B C can become A+ A can become A++++ [b]6.[/b]The moral system / death drop worked with slower rates and a genuine punishment but its important to say, as Kaz has already, it doesn't when the rates are too fast as after while people then have disposable characters. So consider that when planning for the server, ignore people asking for rate increases or one off fixes, just go by the population and community. If the rates are slower, you can keep immunity / 2 deaths disabled for a time. But honestly, I just feel the toxicity/excessiveness at times was out of boredom and a lack of meaningful content, it's a symptom more than anything. It could be worth deciding a cadence of updates to help things along in that respect. I think there's room for more "healthy" competition as well in the form of a league or ladder but that's just me, it's not my area anyway. [b]7.[/b] It might seem minor but if you can't get the in-game presence that people want, just give a couple of low sRank anonymised characters the likes of Raven can have access to, to run events and have a unique shout ability. It needs to be anonymised though. You will never please anyone unless they don’t know who they are. Hope that's helpful either way.[/quote]

[quote="RECRUIT"]Could maybe add a repeatable ToV quest to get attendance up.[/quote]

[quote="HEATZINC"]I don't see the game being ready for Steam at all. It is what it is, but it would get ripped a new one. Technical issues with that aside, it would just be PR suicide. By then standards, the new player experience wasn't great. By today's standards, the new player experience is appalling, The DB will be filled with 5 minute old chars that go through the same mill of where do I go? what do I even do? Where's this NPC? What's the point? And then log out and leave a bad review for the pleasure. People expect interactive guides and tutorials these days, and they're not being unreasonable, it's just become the norm. Then top it off and tell them they can't multi-screen, that glitch you're seeing on the map? Deal with it, or run poverty 2003 resolutions, don't forget to run in 16-bit mode too. I jest slightly, but mostly retro games are reborn with good reception because of nostalgia, Soma's player base was never particularly huge, so if it does get attention apart from anyone who browses these forums, it's most likely to be fresh faced players. First impressions and that.[/quote]

[quote="EMYRK"]I dunno if i could start yet again lol, i appreciate this has been ten years running and it has been the most stable server to exist but i've restarted soma so many times now that I just cba to waste more of my life on something that's being restarted again.[/quote]

[quote="RAVENSOUL"]You might as well just turn the server off and save your time Finito if you wipe the server, or rewind. The server is 10 years old mistakes have been made but that’s not enough reason for either of the above. Live with where we are at and carry on, everything can be fixed it’s just going to take some time, energy and patience on all of us. Here’s a wild thought, remove valour weapons/armours, sort the damage out on the weapons, increase the low df on these new armour, cap recoil on weapons, return all anvil ripped valour weapons/armours to original characters fix ss to max +5, increase toe to +8 and dsoma equivalent upgrade to +8 then it will be a slight restart of valour. Also place the ability to buy what tag you want and still have the current option of taking risk and gambling with whatever tag you get both options imho should be available.[/quote]

[quote="LUP2SCUS"]all reasonable ideas Raven . think though..apart from pissin the many capped characters off .. we can farm and make new stuff... the elephant in the room is: we are now at endgame phase of the game... no new levels .. no new mobs to farm .. no incentive to remake all this gear... so it would just be the same 3-4-5 mobs to farm.. to make worse gear than players have currently... and ..well and nothing, other than tedium and frustration.. fresh start, with impetus for current/ex/ new players and everything less grindy is a good place to begin again levelling slowed down.. and ur in thunderbow/silver bow, whatever for a few weeks ( wud be nice to get all the weps reworked so spear/sword are viable ofc...but that's another conversation ) get those half toe thingies drop from mobs.. make a +4-5-6 thunderbow before u move onto silver kinda thing..make decent gear and don't grow out of it in 1 or 2 hours.. things like that..make the game last longer but more means to enjoy it.. up to shak weps/ lev 100 ish everything is pretty good here... with some qol adds could be great everything has been too quick, descending into a cap in 10-12 weeks ... and then a gear fest including buying items for cash..... meaning missing out the vital elements of what made the original soma great to play and nothing left, but a cheat fest .. not a good place for f2p game to be well imo anyway x . [/quote]

[quote="RAVENSOUL"]If you look at it this way..... If the major problems are tweaked/fixed first then long term there can be 10-20-50+ more levels added plus mobs added to level on. But you can see what the main problems right now are and I think Finito’s time is best working his magic on them to get players enjoying soma again and hopefully get returning players trying again.[/quote]

[quote="SALEM"]More folks would be likely to rejoin with a fresh start imo, myself included. There have just been way too many disastrous decisions implemented regarding balance over the years to really buff them out at this point. It would also just create a lot of hype having a fresh start. Worth realising that there are a small handful of players that will be playing this server no matter what the situation. GMs need to consider how to appeal to the largely silent majority that have left most of all rather than the 10 or so diehards that it already has if they really want to see a UC increase and the game flourish. There are also those for whom the concept of not cheating just doesn't even compute for whatever reason. There are plenty others who are just totally demotivated by rank and blatant cheating. At least with piloting and item buying somebody has to theoretically play at a human pace but allowance for botting just totally destroys the game.[/quote]

[quote="MIKELOWREY"]A wipe with cap set to 110 might be the best option tbh, have dsoma go back to the old system and cap punching int/str to a reasonable level - this was when balance was at it’s best. Cheating and horrific balance were the 2 main reasons I quit.[/quote]

[quote="3D"]Would there be any less cheating if there was a wipe, though? Software can only go so far and can always be circumvented - you catch people now and then when you update certain flags but they just update and come back. The only way to stop cheating beyond catching the pretty basic bots - and looking at how the bots work ingame now, that was never done either - is to have some sort of active admin presence ingame. Would that magically change just because of a reset? You need to look at how things are on here currently (and really, for years now) and be realistic about how much of that could change. It might sound great and ping people's nostalgia but I really don't see many people playing even remotely long term on a slow leveling server. It's not like that option hasn't been there several times in the past and, even when posted about on here, those servers barely get into double digits population for more than a day or two.[/quote]

[quote="SALEM"]You'll never wipe out cheating entirely. It is impossible even on modern AAA games with active staff etc so hopeless on Soma. Nonetheless it'd be less demoralising if it was punished by perma-ban when it was caught out. I'm talking about bots etc personally. I see no difference between piloting and multi-ing anyway tbh. With item buying even at least somebody has to make the item. Main problem that requires a great reset though is balance. The game is totally pointless now because basically any semblance of balance has been totally and utterly destroyed by the compound effects of multiple clueless decisions about the game. Refresh would be hype af, draw a lot of people back esp if advertised that you were undoing a lot of the mistakes. Why did people play before and not now? Folks dropped off because of the terrible decisions were made that were supposedly meant to improve things and did nothing but kill off the player-base despite constant feedback and warnings against them. Where mistakes were made they were always doubled down on and never undone. Anybody who spoke up was banned.[/quote]