Posted by Sinatra.SUN 4 years ago

Greetings gentlemen, its been a long time since my last confession.

Queen update.
Initial thoughts, seems worth returning to although i do miss this one interesting thing that is new and not redistribution from a solo player perspective.
My main uncertainty is if you are making a new awesome game, that will be so different for the old zvz and gvg guilds, that both might not find out how to adapt. But looking at royal city population and how many players the game has i think it will work out regardless. I do think that the game must be working in the very centre of outlands for the hardore guilds, and being and living there MUST be "worth it" to ensure its clear that this is where you compete for the top places, instead of life until now where guilds like my own in the past, and phrasing recently can make top results in Anglia without actually competing.
If living in the centre is very attractive, you will have something for everyone - my concern is that there might lack incentives for the "endgame" guilds.

New outlands.
I am very unsure on how the players will embrace the change from instant access to real distances. I Believe it makes a better and more future proof game, but i also think there is a initial risk that the players might have a negative reaction when they actually feel it in action.
You are making a world where distances matter which also means your island choice is more important than ever.
Guilds and players will be more likely to have a need to move area, which means to a new royal city anchor - and i believe you must have a solution to move islands- with buildings and chests, but without the items. Make it a monthly thing like the old outland portal bind.

Item power progession:
Fantastic. T8 must matter
Mastery power progression:
Fantastic - a master swordsman should be significantly better with a sword than a table knife.

With the above thing t7 and t8 gear will get a come back after years of solitude. VERY happy to see this, and a main motivator for me seeing that what you wear actually matters.

Gathering:
T7&T8 node redistribution.
I think this is one of those cases where you do something brilliant, but your players dont recognize it. Having logged out gatherers to log in when a 23 tick node is spottet is bad, having to run for hours without finding a node is bad and as gathering is very uninspiring.
I encourage you to stick to your design possibly with one small change:

Rare Aspects of all tiers.
Keep a very high low node distribution to accomodate the 98% gatherer gameplay, but add a rare spawn (every 6-8 days) of a aspect fitting the zone level. This is the moby dick, and where we can get the spontaneus zvz call, and heavy fighting over a mega node and since its a aspect its not for the solo player. You have everything you need to do this and it would make a world of difference, and a dynamic zvz event.

Gathering addition:
I do believe that gathering gear should have combat bonuses, so gatherers can actually fight. There are a ton of encounters where the gatherer meets a ganker, and its one big running game. in a pvp game it should be a option to fight back. Running as only option is like no shows in gvg's. Its bad for everyone.


Crystal League:
Format and concept is interesting and i look forward to see it play out.

From a fundamental level i think there is a to little content for those wanting the 5v5 gameplay, and my suggestion is to simply have the offseason schedule run all the time.

Right now a good team gets one fight for 3 days, then wait for the biweekly, then wait for the weekly, then wait for a monthly and then wait for season to end.
For a good team, its not fun. The grand finale is, and its awesome and it will be huge. Id love to see it as a best of 3 even for rank 8 and 9. The ending will be epic. the same goes for the monthly events, another great albion tv evening.

I dont see why you cannot run the crystal lvl1-3 schedule like you plan to in off season. The only complication i see is a possible thing with the territory buffs, but that is solveable and should not stop the posibility to get action.

IP Caps.
Running 3 tiers over is easy and gives you 60ip. I beleive you are doing the players you want to help a disservice.
When you are new and engage in the lvl1-3 crystals you will encounter new, medium and top teams. the experienced teams overgear as the IP matters. the new ones wont understand it, and when they lose they dont see how much gear actually matters even with a 20% effectiveness. My solution is this:

Lvl1-3 - 1000 ip HARDCAP.
lvl4-5 - 1200 ip HARDCAP.
lvl 6-9 NO CAP.

The monthly and quarterly events must be the main events. It should also be where the players dish out the gucchi gear. Let it be a spectacle and a showcase for the game. The game needs a place where top gear is used and seen. I want to hear shozen and lewpac go nuts over the 8.3 masterpiece, i want it to be epic, and as a guild leader i know that players not competing actually likes to donate a top item piece to the team. You want everyone to root for someone.
Making the monthly and quarterly fights become really epic, enables the top players to still be rockstars.

Increase the prices for the monthly and quarterly event with the no cap gearcost in mind. (and why is there no avalonian energy?).
Winning a lvl 1 map should give 1 season point, and winning a lvl2 should give 2.
Having this whole thing going and awarding 0 points for the win is wrong for crowd of players that will typically lose the lvl1 fight.


Additional note:
You are making 3 NPC city hubs. One with the 3 neutral zones in outland centre, one in the former royal cities, and one in Caerlon.
Its very ambitious, and opens for the feeling of a vast world, and there will be actual need for moving high end items from outland centre to neutral cities, on to royal cities and on to Caerlon. It will be interesting and could be amazing, but it could also create a empty feeling and it might not actually be fun to be so reliant on transporting materials for hours.
That aside, i feel the update is a very ambitious move and i like the direction as such and i think the players will embrace it.
I have yet to see and understand the territory fights, and to understand what prevents 2 zergs to take it all as well as having yet to try out the cluster queue system.

Interesting times ahead, and i look forward to get back into the game and find my queen waiting.
After having tasted the forbidden fruits out there the last 4 months, i can easily say that Albion simply still is the best mmo on the market, and even more after January 20.

Happy holidays to the SBI team, and thank you for your continued drive and innovation.

Frank Sinatra