Akyla's Essay on TMW (And why not to smoke crack)

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Akyla
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Akyla's Essay on TMW (And why not to smoke crack)

Post by Akyla »

So yeah I pretty much beat what's in the game so far with two lvl 31s in a day (yes I have no life) so thought I'd just throw some random garbage out and try to help. Or some jazz like that :P~


Well, first good game. I won't kiss ass here but this is a great foundation. I am playing it. Consider all the bad stuff here constructive critizism cos I'm definately not bitching about this game. Just trying to help.

The XP is way screwed up. For example, in the desert south of town the green poop stains give 25 xp. 5 hits for me to kill. The big worm things give 50 xp. 10 hits to kill. The poop stains hit me for 1 while the worms hit me for 15. Why even fight the worms? Same number of hits to kill for the same amount of xp, they just hurt you alot more (but they have low dex ha).

The same goes for the newly included mine. I fought one of those dark booger things and it took about 20+++ hits to get 85 xp or something... Umm ok, where's my incentive for hunting harder enemies again? ESPECIALLY when you have about 10 aggressive enemies around you Hitting 40s and 70s. There is no xp bonus there? So I can sit and fight the poop stains in desert and take 1 dmg constantly and get better xp. How? 5 hits to kill a poop stain and 25 xp. like 20 hits for a booger in the mine
for 85 or some junk xp.

There should be some kind of incentive to fighting these harder monsters. Why fight a red scorpion that doesn't drop crap, gives same amount of xp per hit, and uses up alot of yer pots. I suggest giving the harder monsters on some maps rare drops that can't be bought. Like a longsword ha! But make it rare so you gotta work hard to find it. Or just fix the XP distribution so it's acutally worth it.

The drops also need fixed. To bring up the poop stains and the worms yet again, the poop stains have the best drop yet. Period. Why? They drop only high healing items and don't hurt you at all really. The tough monsters on that map (worm things) actually hurt you and give you a Chocolate Cupcake drop (arrow) that has no use whatsoever. The arrow isn't even worth money!

Next on the list is money. What's the point of it again? You need 9k that's it which most new players get after an hour or two. I only have 300 bucks left after I bought my flimsy armor and butterknife, what do I need money for now?

BIG CHEESE REPORT: If someone hits something super strong, it will chase him down as long as he is in line of sight. AKA another player could constantly whack at it and the monster is still focused on the first player.

Next, the character animation for attacking does not match the speed rate at how fast you attack (agility). I know this might not matter once new server comes in but I'm doing a report dammit. Also, damage shown needs fixed but I think everyone knows that.

SPECIAL REPORT: I know people have been asking me about how the stats work in Ragnarok and I've seen someone tell everyone what they do in these forums, but they forgot one thing. There is a bonus in 5's in some stats, 10 in the others. IE you get 10 str you get an added dmg/carry bonus. You get 5 dex you get a dodge/hit bonus etc etc. 10s: str, vit, int, agl. 5s: dex. 3s: luck. I think that's the right combo but I can't remember atm, so look on gamefaqs.com or some crap. :P~


Ummm I had alot of little bugs last night... Oh yeah! If 3 or more people are on the same map together sometimes the drops will magically disappear when they hit the ground. I think it might have happened with 2 people before, but definately three. ESPECIALLY around that noob town (whatever the name is, that map).

OK, I'm hungry. I'll post more when I can remember them. I'm such a pest ha ^^
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Bjørn
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Post by Bjørn »

Ok, thanks a lot for your elaborate posting. Two things came to mind while reading:

1. It would probably be nice to work towards a unified formula for the amount of XP gained from a monster based on its stats. After a while of tweaking I think we could come up with a fomula that will be close to the reasonable XP gain for any monster. The idea is then that this formula is easier to tweak than all the individual XP gains for each monster.

2. When we're using our own server and the game becomes bigger, like when we'd actually get serious about balancing the game, it could be interesting to set up a player supported system for reporting things that are out of balance that will allow voting. When enough people would agree that something is out of balance, it'll be corrected.

On the more general note, balancing is near to our last concern at the moment as we struggle to get some more functionality in the game besides hitting and running. ;)
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Akyla
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Post by Akyla »

Oh I remembered 2 things! Weight/max weight being shown somewhere and global chat! PLEASE GLOBAL CHAT so I can leave you guys alone in IRC.

And I've played tons of RPGs and balance is HARD. LIKE YOU'LL RIP YER HAIR OUT HARD. SERIOUSLY. There is so much to take in consideration when it comes to balancing things. I'd seriously suggest doing paper/scissors/rock if you enjoy keeping yer mind partially sane. But that's thinking way ahead. *shrug*

Also, on the formula for XP rate, you would have to consider alot of things IE surroundings, aggressive? other aggressives around it, stuff like that. Not different each monster you kill but if I walked into somewhere with no aggro monsters it wouldn't be that hard. A place with all aggros can be hell on earth (or whatever planet TNW is).
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Rotonen
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Post by Rotonen »

Well we're still a pre alpha tech demo, so.. :) I do agree on the fact that the cave exp is really messed up.. There will be a red scorpion related quest later if we have the time to actually prepare it (it's all pseudo content to please the audience while we develop the actual game in the background, so it's not a priority).

The exp tables from maggots to gigagrubs were done by me in about 15 seconds, so I guess they held up quite nicely if you only complain about 1/4 of the content.. :) I agree that the gigagrubs should have something worthwhile to drop.

My suggestion: Since you've proven you have some sharp insights on the current content, would you like to be our pseudo content maintainer/developer? (If this is ok with the other devs.)
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Akyla
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Post by Akyla »

I'll be a who what?

Small words please ha.
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Kyokai
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Post by Kyokai »

Do you want to help balancing the game, I bleieve is Rotonen's question. Sort of like a playtester who can tweak things to make them more balanced. If you want to join the design team, just ask me or Bear, and we'll find some way for you to help out.
The Mana World System Coordinator.
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So what does the systems coordinator actually do? My job is to take your ideas for TMW and build them into working aspects of gameplay that can be implemented by the artists and programmers. If there's anything you think we can do better or differently, let me know.
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Bjørn
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Post by Bjørn »

I heard she already joined and a few hours later also resigned from her position. Her contributions are nice though, complete essays on both forums and wiki.
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