Houses quest won't work, now what?

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FedUp
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Houses quest won't work, now what?

Post by FedUp »

Hi all! This is my first post here although I have been lurking about for a while now. Been playing the stand-alone (RPG) version of the game on my 'droid tablet since sometime in last December. Now at level 177, and pretty much fed up.

I won't bother everyone with a long list of complaints, anyone who played this game for a while knows what they are anyway. Would be pointless to repeat all that yet again. But I just can't quit without saying anything, I feel really cheated. Read on if you're interested...

==== possible spoilers ahead! ====
==== adult innuendo too, btw ====

I've been playing on computers for a loooong time. I mean, there were games I played even before I played rogue on my 'nix terminal back in 1985, but I just don't remember what they were. Throughout all those years, I have had a special fondness for RPG-style games, they are my favorite kind of game, except perhaps for C&C but that's another story.

I played everything including Zork and Enchanter -- for those of you not old enough to remember such games, they were text-only (yeah, that's right, no graphics at all) adventure games that managed to create an experience not unlike the best RPGs seen since, you just needed some imagination. Dozens of games up to... well, this game is the latest. There were most of the Ultima series, with specially fond memories of the huge universe of Ultima Underworld II. And so many more, not to forget almost a year in Ultima Online, one of the very early MMORPGs (the first?). All good fun.

What I want to say here is that I have never before quit a game before seeing the end of it. I mean, some games are by nature open-ended, like rogue, you literally can't see the bottom of it. But I quit playing because the game got old and better games came along, not because the game made me angry. I repeat, I never quit a game out of frustration. Until now.

As I mentioned, my party is currently at level 177. Been bored beyond description for some 50 levels now. But I kept grinding, telling myself that things should/would pick up when I got to 150. Got a whiff of fresh air with the recent update, as that gave us something else to work with. I even laughed out loud when I realized that I was grinding spray-tanned mostly-shaven [censored by mod]... man, does that description ever sound worlds better than the actual thing!!

Got to 150 and ventured in the new dungeons only to get my backside whipped by monsters I couldn't even think of defeating. The worm wasn't even funny, btw. Bah.

So I went back to the original plan and started the Houses quest. Almost quit right there and then when I realized that I had to get ANOTHER Mithril Club. AND a Swamp Bow!! AND a Diamond Staff ???!!? -- heck, I had given up on that one because I couldn't face the boredom of the task and now I needed one to give away?? Worst part of it was that I had sold my mithril club just hours before that to make room for a map, rope, candle and ring, for all the good that did me.

But I sucked it up, and earned all the items. It was a painful experience and I just have to say it: drop rates of 1/1000 ARE JUST PLAIN STUPID. My worst fear was that the item would get dropped at one of those moments when I dozed off out of total, absolute boredom. Yep, I kept falling asleep!! But I kept at it, even sold 24 Steel Bows after I finally got a Swamp Bow, to give you an idea - that's a boatload of Ghost Archers right there. Persisted until I got TWO Diamond Staves -- I'd be darned if I was to give one away while my mage didn't have his own!

So I got all four required items (hard to believe that the easiest by far was splurging 15M gold on a sword) and delivered them to the rogues, who gave me access to their respective houses. All fine 'til then.

As instructed by forum posts, I performed every quest I could find before trying to enter the houses, because one has to do well, ya know. I mean, I had pained enough to get to that point, there's no way ever that I would start over because of some technicality. EVER. And thanks to the limited (let's keep it at that, if I am to remain polite) saving capability of the game, and the (recent?) change preventing from backing up save files, one has to be damn sure he's right before moving on. So I did everything I could and then some.

Well, I can't find my contact in one of the houses, searched everywhere, up and down. Tried entering the House of Houses having made only three contacts (could the game be like that?), but I get kicked to the curb when I try that so something's not right. Even went back to the mage tower but the monkey there has nothing more to say, so that's not it.

I did pray at all four altars, done well at only two of them, one of which didn't give anything so all I got in the end was a (second) Gold Plate. Big deal. Not that I care anymore, but I kinda wonder what more I could have done before entering the houses to fare better with my prayers? Or make them less expensive, man that church is greedy! :shock:

Now what? Well, I'm fed up. As I said, no way on earth am I ever starting over, that will never happen. There's nothing else to do other than aimlessly grinding, and I had my fill of that for two lifetimes.

So, congratulation to the game designer, you got me. After more than three decades of play (yup, that's over thirty years for the math-challenged ones), I finally quit a game out of... I would have to call this disgust. It's not frustration -- I've been frustrated countless times before by dozens of games, this one not making exception. But I am downright disgusted at myself for having wasted that much time, for having sucked up that many frustrations to get to a point where I have to admit that it was a total loss after all.

Funny thing is, I'm not even pissed at the dev(s?), only at myself. The sloppy programming should have been enough warning in itself, sort of a flashing rotor saying "stay away, these people can't be bothered to do things properly". Don't get me wrong: I've been paid for many years to provide programming assistance to faculty, grad students and other talentless hacks, so I know a poor coding job when I see one. I think those now actually have a distinctive smell for me. Don't have to see the source code of this one to be 95%+ certain that the reason why characters teleport at random while traveling (among other bugs) is due to poor IPC implementation (that's Inter-Process Communications, FYI). And so on. Should have used my head and quit weeks ago.

There are a few more things I'd like to say to the dev. Don't know what kind of a childhood you had, but it feels to me like your daddy was a dentist and his idea of quality time was experimenting on you. Or something to that effect. I can't possibly imagine any other way by which you could have gotten your conception of fun, I almost feel sad for you (but not quite). There's always the odd chance that you have a doctorate in mathematics and thus deserve no compassion. Those people are unique in that they are both smart enough to always identify the worst way of doing things and dumb enough to insist on doing things only in that manner. No pity for those.

Anyway, as I said before, drop rates of 1/1000 are just plain stupid, there's no fun in that. And since you don't seem to have figured that out yet, we play for the fun of it, not to conform to your vision of how the game should go. I once found a sword of incredible power that gave me a severe case of hiccup (and prevented critical hits, but that took a while to figure out). I have no words to describe how annoying that hiccup curse was, and yet I kept using the sword. That was over 20 years ago and I still smile when I think about it, that was so much fun even if the sword turned out to be so much trouble I was almost glad when it broke.

My point is, I'm absolutely sure that the devs of that game never even gave a single thought to the possibility of upsetting the precious game balance with that item: IT WAS FUN. Who cares if a player gets a free ride every once in a blue moon? That's what makes a game worth playing, not the sacrosanct math ensuring perfect balance.

Why do your dungeon chests remain empty once opened? Every visit to a dungeon should find chests closed and containing something new and random. Don't be afraid of upsetting game balance, with the general worthlessness of the items you put in there there's no chance of upsetting anything anyway. At least, that would provide some reason to re-visit a dungeon every once in a while. More fun for the players at little to no extra effort for you, how's that for a good deal?

And if a player gets a lucky break every once in a while, like finding a weapon worthy of his level, then GOOD FOR THAT PLAYER!!! There's nothing that will kill a player's enthusiasm like the certainty that nothing interesting is going to happen. That anything he's likely to find or run into will be worthless. What planet do you come from, for Heaven's sake?

And those are only minor examples, there are dozens more things that could (and need to) be done for little work and max return. But get that stick out of your wazoo and chillax, man. Nobody's gonna die from making it possible to play the game out in a finite amount of time. Heck, people might do it again instead of quitting.

And a final word: if you think that ridiculous drop rates will incite people to buy items instead of earning them and thus make you rich, you are grossly mistaken. Ask around. You'll get pennies for every player you disgust and in the end, you'll only kill your game.

Good luck.

P.S. Now, go ahead and delete this post all you want, I don't expect anything else anyway. But if you do, I just might edit it and post it elsewhere...
Last edited by FedUp on Fri Feb 20, 2015 2:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Insider
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Re: Houses quest won't work, now what?

Post by Insider »

sword guy in snowlands, if ure looking for him in colloseum
blitzcraig
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Re: Houses quest won't work, now what?

Post by blitzcraig »

my game list sounds similar to yours (though I have no question about rpg before c&c lol) anyway, my only comment is a question: were you ever involved in one of those games during its development?
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Re: Houses quest won't work, now what?

Post by Insider »

Bored of RPG? Test MMO!
Bored of MMO? Suggest new things on forum and wait updates!

Thats all.. ;)
FedUp
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Re: Houses quest won't work, now what?

Post by FedUp »

blitzcraig wrote:my game list sounds similar to yours (though I have no question about rpg before c&c lol) anyway, my only comment is a question: were you ever involved in one of those games during its development?
Can't say that I have, no. If that's what's really going on here, then I apologize for the harsh tone. Game should state more prominently that it's a work in progress, though, because that was not clear to me (lots of stuff on Google Play is listed as "in development" in one way or another, doesn't make all of that beta level). IMO, the RPG is almost unplayable as it is now. What's frustrating is that this situation is caused chiefly by the ridiculous drop rates, which make the game incredibly tedious and boring.

Abysmal success rates in crafting are just as lousy, btw. To think that anyone would ever attempt to craft a Gold Plate without cheating is just plain daft, someone is seriously deluding himself. To force cheating (saving & endlessly reloading, however you want to call that) is even dumber, sorry to say. I just don't get it: either remove the item from the crafting list or make it feasible, anything in-between makes no sense. What person in his/her right mind would endeavor to craft an item knowing that a positive outcome would take an average of 250 hours? (and that's a conservative figure!)

There are many things in this game, like the above numbers, that simply don't support your claim of "being broken because in development". There's something so obviously wrong with the drop rates / crafting success rates that this excuse just won't fly, sorry, I don't buy it.

One more thing I'll add is that I don't see how you guys think you can pull off a feat like maintaining gameplay interesting on both the MMO and the RPG without introducing serious differences between the two. Many aspects of the two game styles are downright antagonistic, chief of which the requirement for balanced play (very important in MMO, almost insignificant in RPG in comparison).

As for playing the MMO version myself, been there & done that with other games and it doesn't work for me. I'm a freelancer and I have time to play when between jobs, but I have to be willing and ready to ditch the game as soon as new work comes in -- not very nice for friends and didn't work out very well in the past, to say the least. And since MMO is all about the cool relationships you form in-game...
Last edited by FedUp on Wed Feb 18, 2015 12:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Houses quest won't work, now what?

Post by Insider »

MMO is much more interesting imo
Never bored coz many other players always around. Chatting,pvp, pvb etc
Test it, i guarant u satisfaction lol :lol:
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Re: Houses quest won't work, now what?

Post by ogonbat »

Insiders/Inferno! wrote:MMO is much more interesting imo
Never bored coz many other players always around. Chatting,pvp, pvb etc
Test it, i guarant u satisfaction lol :lol:
Inferno as you know because u answered me sometimes, there is people like fedup or me that have not the opportunity to play a 'social' game and have the fun due to virtual relationship with other players(i don t give rates about game programming because is not my job).if u remember in a more kindly way i told the same of him. If u remember i also said many times i like this game.but now the point is:this game wanna be a mmo and part of fun is contact and discuss with other players or wanna also be the beta for a complete game that can be played with fun also offline? The attempt of creators to do both seems not to work properly.if i still write is because i thought that suggestions by players are welcome , do i understand wrong?
blitzcraig
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Re: Houses quest won't work, now what?

Post by blitzcraig »

@ fed up - the current mechanics (drop rates, crafting rates etc) are more set up for mmo, this is sure. the dev has recently gone through the entire game to recalibrate many aspects (very good for mmo) but I would agree with you that there are various parts of the game which would be better for rpg by being considerably different than mmo... again, both are in development and very likely to change often, and in many ways.. your comments are welcome (and would even be appreciated imo if you would try a more helpful or constructive tone - if I'm reading your intent wrongly, I apologize ahead of time)

for the record, very little gear is purchasable for real money, and I think none of those drop at all, so that comment is unfair... the drop rates are low to control the number of certain items in the mmo to ensure they remain valuable, not to encourage purchases in the rpg ;)
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blitzcraig
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Re: Houses quest won't work, now what?

Post by blitzcraig »

@ogonbat - you are correct, player input is always welcome... in the last few months there was another player with A LOT of complaints about the rpg... he turned them into helpful ideas, and many were already implemented ;)
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FedUp
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Re: Houses quest won't work, now what?

Post by FedUp »

blitzcraig wrote:for the record, very little gear is purchasable for real money, and I think none of those drop at all, so that comment is unfair... the drop rates are low to control the number of certain items in the mmo to ensure they remain valuable, not to encourage purchases in the rpg ;)
I get what you're saying, but you perhaps should take a step back and look at the situation from my point of view, or that of any other player of the RPG for that matter. It is precisely because purchasable items cannot be obtained otherwise that a player can (and will) feel cheated. If there is no other way to properly equip my mage than by dishing out real-life semolinas, then what's the point for me to play the game? For what reason should I keep playing 'til level 200 when I know there's no way I'm ever gonna get that Master Robe (or any substitute of similar worth)? Please explain that one to me, because I certainly fail to see the point.

Because that's the mystery: at level 177, why is it that there's no way I can get decent gear for my mage other than by purchasing a Dark Robe and crafting something out of it? I'd so much rather go out and earn one, but it would have to be something within reach, and I somehow have doubts about that seeing how the rest of the game is. It is way too often the case that, by the time I manage to acquire some item, I no longer have real use for it because I'm now way past that point.

I suspect that that's yet another case were the logic behind MMO proves to be seriously ill-fitting in the RPG. In the MMO, a more advanced player might get the item and trade it, thus placing it within reach of lesser players, but there's no such thing in the RPG. Btw, that's what made me quit Ultima Online, in the end: many of my characters were Grand Masters of crafting arts, but nothing they could craft had any real value compared to the treasures you could either get from high-level monsters or (more commonly) steal from your neighbor. Made all the effort to GM non-fighting characters worthless, as only thieves and old-time players could get the high-end stuff. Bah.

So, in a nutshell, purchase-only items are a no-no, IMO. Make every item purchasable for all I care, there will always be people to pay for shortcuts and I have nothing against you making a buck or two. What I don't want and certainly despise is yet another game that reels me in and then forces me to either quit or reach for my wallet. I'm in for the play, not the shortcuts. For the same reason, every time I face a situation where ridiculously low odds force me to resort to cheating (I don't have thousands of hours for play), I feel cheated by the game designer. It's that simple.

Don't you guys get this? The only reason a player will suffer the tediousness and frustrations of the game is for the sense of accomplishment that comes with reaching a set goal. And getting items waaaay after their usefulness expired is just plain insulting, one has to be able to score every once in a while, so to speak. Again, stop being such control freaks.

--
As for the tone of the comments, well, you guys got me pissed.... ;-p

I'll post some more later, suggestions about crafting, we'll see what you do of that. But long-term involvement is out of the question because I might have time now as I'm waiting for a piece of equipment, but as soon as that comes in I'm off for 12-18 months with little to no time to play. MMO, you say? Sry, pointless.

Oh, and you can see now why I kinda consider my playtime precious, I get very little of it. That's why I got so pissed after having come to a point where it felt like I had been cheated out of my recent break.
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