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Sony's Hand
nauttymalu
Member Posts: 5
I was one of those orginal EQ players, fell in love with the game since it exposed a whole new concept of gaming. I felt the same feeling rush back in as i started playing Vanguard, but with this patch tonight I'm very disappointed. I was able to put up with the bugs and server issues, but there was no reason to have a harsh nerf after release, if sigil/sony felt certain classses were overpowered it should have been fixed in beta.
The overall outlook on this game has been postive up until tonight, i read many posts were members of MMORPG urging others to try the game out, but i dont see that happing much any more after this "emergency patch" . It was stated that they were looking for an wide audience, and if they decided to make the game for people who can spend 8hrs a day playing they will lose a lot of customers fast. Many of the players today like to play in a world with other players while having the freedom of playing solo, also having the option to play in grps or in large scale raids. This game had the potential to provide this, some even said it will be the "WOW Killer", and it very well might be if they can appeal to all players.
In closing I plan on ending my subscription tonight and will only renew if they can appeal to me by having solo play in the game again.
Comments
I don't understand - what do you mean, they took solo content out altogether? No more quests involving standard two-dot mobs?
Or you find that higher levels just take too damn long to level up solo?
Hey, it's a matter of preference, but being on of those casual players who never did well in the level race and missed on alltogether too much content when they were competing, I am glad for the snail's pace in leveling Vanguard has. For once, I don't have to worry about lagging behind everyone else, because everyone else I would wish to play with (in other words, everyone who is not a frothing maniac spending 22 hrs a day at their computer and treating games like some sort of a job) is generally leveling as fast as I am.
But I can see how that would not be everyone's bag of, er, stuff, or whatnot. Heck, I've been level 12 for two days now, never happened to me in WoW.
Personally, I think the game has plenty of solo content - quests and things you can do on your own. Just don't expect rapid progress, and you'll be fine.
I just logged in to test the "changes" they introduced, and tried to solo a level 8 three-dot mob with my level 12 shaman, a 4 level difference.
I whoopped it's arse.
I feel so powerful. 
A couple of things to note:
-a shaman is a vastly better soloer than a warrior. My heals give me easily eight to ten times more HP than I originally have, which is more than a warrior can hope for. A shaman can do decent melee damage and preserve energy for healing only, so going OOM is not an issue. Long fights are very much possible with a shaman... a warrior has a tougher job soloing unless he's got top notch gear, and even that is not going to do jack if the mob is using spells, and plenty of them do.
-warrior is, was, and probably always will be a poor choice for a soloer. I know the class may appeal to you, and I respect that, but face it - warriors are poor at soloing. If you want to solo, try a shaman, disciple, ranger, necromancer...
Actually, a warrior is probably the least succesfull class for soloing bar perhaps the rogue. You can't kite, you can't heal, you don't have a pet and your damage output is not so great. All you got is moderate damage, lots of HP and good armor. And no matter how much HP you got, equal level three-dots have more.
My suggestion before you quit, is go and try to kill some different mobs, or some normal solo quests. Or, reroll a class that's inherently good at soloing. Warriors and rogues just don't cut it at this time (and I hear rogues have a bunch of other issues like "revamped" animations that ended up totally missing etc.)
And of course, from the patch notes, it is obvious that the world is being still tweaked, which is expected for a MMORPG of this size. So casuals, fear not, not all is so grim.
I wonder how many players actually cancelled their accounts last night. I'm another one who did. I don't think Sigil has quite grasped how tenuous their hold on a lot of their subscribers is right now.
I'm in a guild with about 15 members and only about two of them are really gung ho about playing the game a lot. Actually, in the last few days it seems like we've all been playing less since the game came out. I think everyone wants to play and have a good time, but we're struggling to find reasons to stay online for more than a couple hours a day. If the bugs and unannounced server shutdowns don't interrupt our stride, then a lack of any real focus does. It seems like everything that could be a hook for the game is out of reach either because it isn't implemented, lacks polish or is waiting for high level progression.
Crafting is broken right now with "complications" being far too common and nothing seemingly worth making when decent mob loot is so common. Diplomacy is fun for a while as a mini game and offers a few token rewards, but otherwise serves no purpose at this time. Dungeons areas are fairly well laid out and interesting, but seem to offer too little experience and loot for the amount of time it takes to clear them during group quests. Soloing is slow and tedious for most classes now that a lot of the stronger solo class skills were nerfed (yes, some of it was needed but that doesn't change the boredom I'm experiencing). I've been trying to find the fun factor in this game, I really have. But at this point it feels like I'm increasingly having to convince myself that I'm having fun or that if I wait just a little longer then some patches will come along to make the game feel worth spending my time on.
A lot of complaints with this latest patch really have less to do with nerfs and a lot more to do with what appears to be Sigil's failure to set their priorities straight and be forthright about what they're doing. The downtime warning advertised the patch as being something urgently needed to fix a series of problems that players had been experiencing throughout the day. But when you read the notes, almost all of the changes dealt with class rebalancing and other minor, non-game breaking issues. That, coupled with an awful support presense in game and on their support forums suggests that something is definitely out of whack at the Sigil and SOE offices. They really need to be working harder to give paying customers a little more confidence in their product. The game may actually be on course towards becoming a polishing product, but these companies are going about it the wrong way right now.
I'll continue to play off and on through the time I have left on my account to see if things turn around. But at this point, the promise of fun isn't good enough anymore. Posts on other VANGUARD forums by cheerleading fans who try to convince people to stay positive and be proud for staying loyal to "the vision" only reaffirms my belief that Sigil doesn't deserve to have my $15 a month at this time.
Ah, I won't cheerlead anyone.
But I remember that when EVE first went out, it didn't even have turret tracking - the fights were as easy to predict as adding up numbers. Boooring. Look at it now.
So yeah, Sigil may lose some subscribers now. If they shape up, and it looks like they will, they will gain them back in time. So no need to cheerlead. Those who like it, play it. Those who don't - well, don't.
Look at the mess that is SWG. I mean that game is completely borked. And I see people asking which kind of joystick would go well with it. So if there are masochists (no offense) out there who can bear to play in a horrible carcass of a once great game, obviously keeping it afloat, I can't see Vanguard, a vastly better product, being ruined by a lack of subscribers.
MMO's are tough beasts to kill. Most of those who get cancelled are B-class titles, not A ones.
For the record, I was one of those people who had problems being booted out of a specific zone upon entry. It made it impossible for me to level since it was a "bottleneck" zone, an exit from Halgarad into the plains below. So I... explored a bit to the east, where Frostwind Pass exits upon the high cliffs looking over the Misty Sea... got attacked by a huge dragon swooping down from the sky on me, ran away thanks to the, *mwah*, spirit of Rakurr, had fun.
Then I logged and did some overdue studying.
When I came back, I found that I could go into that zone again, got myself a group by running into them on accident, did some pointless questing because we cleared half a dungeon looking for molesharks who weren't there. It was a bug, found them today, outside, guess they fixed it. Ah well.
Point is, if you can't find the fun in the game, don't play it. I won't be a fool encouraging you to burrow in something looking for fun if you can't see it yourself. That's pointless, and a waste of your and my time, no?
So your idea of coming back occasionally untill your sub runs out is a good one - maybe, when they even out the wrinkles more, you'll like what you see.
Me, I'd hope to be one of those vets one day, telling tales about "missing molesharks, nothing like the smooth ride you youngsters got today, ah the good ol' times..."