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My new assessment of PFO
wfsaxton
Member UncommonPosts: 73
I posted the following a couple of month ago:
Anyone else think...PFO kinda sucks?
I'm now in EE and I wanted to give it a more fair shake.
TLDR; PFO is the fantasy sandbox you may be looking for...if you like a completely player-driven economy and can ignore the rough edges. Feel free to contact me on the forums if you'd like to meet up in-game!
The concept of the game is still great: Fantasy sandbox. EvE-like skill progression.
CRAFTING: I'm currently in a very active guild that are starting to ramp up their +2 weapon, +2 robe production. This has required about 6 dedicated crafters/refiners that have trained almost EXCLUSIVELY their specific profession. In addition, the rest of our 15-odd members have trained up in one or more of the gathering skills to gain the materials for these. It's only a matter of time, though, when they too will have to start specializing in a specific gathering skills. Yes, it is almost impossible to play this game by yourself, unless you want to live in crappy monster dropped weapons and armor.
I also see this game become very spreadsheet oriented if you are a crafter and into that sort of thing.
GEAR PROGRESSION: So far, it seems pretty well implemented. The higher tier/bonused the item, the more time and material it takes to make. Items degrade on death (die 20 times and the item is gone) Again, we are only in the process of making Tier 1, +2 items and it has taken us quite a few days to do this for 5-10 people.
ECONOMY: Is still very young and currency is still kind of worthless. Our guild is pretty much working on communistic principles. What's great, though, is that "traders" from different parts of the world have already stopped by our city looking to trade their wears. We have copper in abundance but need weak adhesives and yew wood. Boom: Items exchanged hands and the trader continued on his way.
COMBAT: This part is probably the least polished part of the game. Once you get the hang of it, you'll do alright, but sometimes abilities will fire off even if the mob has just died. The ability queue is kind of permanent, so if you go out of range of a mob it will fire off again as soon as you are in range. (This is supposedly intended, but there is actually no way of canceling this yet, ha). Many of the debuffs in-game either don't effect players, don't effect monsters, or both. At some point, player-looting will be implemented but it isn't right now.
PvE: The majority of PvE is fairly straightforward. Button smash to kill groups of mobs. It's almost like another type of gathering. The challenge, however, is the escalations. We currently have a 50% strength one right next to our city and it is wreaking havoc to our area. Every day we need 5-10 players to go there for a few hours to cull down the strength just to keep it from overwhelming us. I really like how there is PvE with a purpose in our sandbox (and none of it is quest-driven).
PvP: Small-scale PvP exists to some degree. Sometimes you'll find someone in a Hex you are farming. If you don't want him there, you can kill them (for a rep hit). We do this especially in our areas that we control (ie hexes near our settlement).
POPULATION: Slowing starting to ramp up. On launch, you'd occasionally see a few people in town but then, in the wilderness, maybe 1-2 people a day. I now see lots more people in towns and quite a few Hexes are "contested" by people grinding for resources.
GRAPHICS: If you play PFO, you are playing for the sand, not the eye-candy. I'm sure things will get better, but as for right now the graphics are somewhat meh.
OTHER: I really like the communication between the players and the company, Goblinworks. The CEO is in the Help channel every day answering questions and helping people out. The company is supposedly taking very seriously player feedback w/r/t the direction of the game, but we have yet to have a patch post-EE so only time will tell.
CONCLUSION: If you are looking for a fantasy-based sandbox, you should definitely give this game a try. (FYI, If you join within the first month, you will automatically have your experience points back-dated to launch so now is as good a time as ever to check it out!
Comments
My question to you OP. Why would anyone play this over EVE? Just because it is fantasy and not scifi? EVE has the same skill system, better combat, best economy of any mmo, better crafting, full loot, territory control, and not made in an open source engine (unity) made for college students with graphics that look like nintendo 64.
If your going to play a tab targeting sandbox game, why not play the one that can have 50k players online and battles with thousands of players? Personally I am waiting for a sandbox game with better non tab targeting combat.
I'd play a fantasy sandbox game, no matter the targetting, over EVE.
Not everyone gets jazzed at sci fi games.
Also, the "better economy" remark isn't fair. How can you compare an economy from a game that has been in existence for years to a game that's still in or approaching (whichever it is) Alpha.
My concern about this game is whether or not the developers can finish it and not have it be a piece of junk.
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Exactly this.
I prefer fantasy over sci-fi. I like tab-targeting vs twitch. Just because a game is tab-target doesn't mean its EvE-style combat. That's not even a close simplification. EvE combat kinda sucks IMHO...
Plus, yes the week-old economy is not as advanced as the 10-year-old one. ::boggle::
Whoops, I saw you had some other points. Let me answer them all:
Thanks for the report, OP. Sounds pretty interesting.
What is the best and worst part of the game right now?
It would be nice if you gave us another post about things in a week or 2.
I pledged both games so if one doesn't work out ill go with the other. I lean PFO because its fantasy, but I did quite a bit of repop alpha testing and that game has potential too, though the crafting there is pretty insane.
Do the RIGHT THING: come be a Paladin with us! http://ozemsvigil.guildlaunch.com/
That's so weird--I don't know where that idea came from, but I keep seeing people say this, houses cost $250, etc.
1) There's no player housing in PFO.
2) You get your settlement by earning them in game. Now, we in EE got them through a landrush contest, as a way to get folks involved for Alpha, and as a way to jumpstart the social structure of the game. But going forward you get a settlement by a) conquering someone else and taking their settlement, or b) clearing a settlement hex and building a settlement from the gound up.
3) There are two smaller base of operations structures you can build in game, or buy: base camps and smallholdings. A base camp is kinda similar to a camp in SWG: it's a short term (5 days) forward base of operations so you don't have to run back to civiliaztion. Smallholdings are a guild-level base of ops just outside of a settlement.
Hope that helps.
Do the RIGHT THING: come be a Paladin with us! http://ozemsvigil.guildlaunch.com/
This is sincerely my main hope for this game, and I intend to make an attempt at it. What really brought me to PFO is the promise that there will be real raiding. Not dungeon raiding like in theme park mmo, but true raiding, as in going into another grouos territory and taking their stuff from outposts and other points of interest. We've been promised the ability to ambush caravans and either issue a stand-and-deliver demand, or to outright attack them and take their stuff by force. Eventually the real endgame of PFO is supposed to be the ability to conquer settlements and potentionally plunder their banks and auction houses of the goods stored there.
All of this is the promise of the game and it's developers. The first step is player looting, which is not in yet. Once that is in, we will see how much push back the community has towards the concept of loss in PvP. If the community accepts a certain amount of loss without turning into a pack of Care Bears, the game has a serious chance of reaching those other promises.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
I would rather play this than EvE because I would rather play a character than a spaceship.
That said I won't play either because I feel they took this IP and took a giant crap all over it. I really wish Paizo had enough interest in it's own IP to have invested some money into making this game with at least a smidge of quality. I really wish that an MMO based on a tabletop game could find a way to capture what is great about tabletop gaming and the group dynamics.
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Yes, although you may have to dip into some crafting or refining or gathering skills in order to get some of your ability scores up. For example, as a mage I need to get my wisdom up to use the magic defense based armor feat. Dex if I want to use the physical defense one.
As far as getting loot and stuff, full loot (with some exceptions) will be implemented @ some point. It isn't in-game right now.
If this game goes care bear, then it has no chance. Eventually player loot is a given. Settlement raiding is also eventual.
I'm not sure why you don't think this isn't being true to the IP. I also don't see how you can say Paizo doesn't care. The jury is still out on whether this is a success or not.I disagree on all accounts,Eve is a game i tried several times and every time it felt so bad i wanted to logout almost immediately.
This game has an addictive property to it,the gear and gems something which Eve has NOTHING of.
This game is 3 different games and trying to look like DIablo,th Diablo part i am not a fan of,i wish this game was a wide open world but most definitely not a EVE world which is just boring dead space.The graphics and textures in this game are actually quite good however as i said,confined into the small grids and a terrible non moving camera is it's biggest flaw.
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With the announcement of the 2 week plan for updates I am very excited. It makes me think they are on the right track. Week 2 of EE saw us start the war of the towers, next update will see corpse looting among other things.
The fact that we are seeing things implemented on a regular schedule speaks very well for the future of the game. The fact that it is honestly at a late alpha early beta stage right now is something I am not worried about. As experience in game is gained in REAL time even when you are not logged into the game it is well worth playing now for me to have an edge later on.
My reevaluation of the game is not too generous I'm afraid. I believe PFO needs a near complete overhaul, from the game engine, including almost every game mechanic, and in its vision.
Their business model is by far its real draw back. MVP + Buy2Play + Subscription is an epic fail and particularly on these forums I have not read a single positive post about that model from on non fanboi.
Many of us know what it took to get Age of Conan turned around, and I think the same needs to be done with PFO.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
Wow. That spat you had with Dancey on the GoblinWorks forums must of really pissed you off.
The problem is that they really live in a small echo chamber with the few die-hards singing their praises and shouting down anything negative. Just yesterday there was a thread where a die-hard fan was repeatedly saying F-You to multiple people. in multiple posts. You know what happened to the guy? Nothing. Same guy was posting right afterwards and this morning.
The thread was cleaned up and Dancy said to play nice or he would start to suspend people. Really? If Bludd had gone off like that the punishment would have been real...
Sorry but if the company allows fans to have blatant behavior like that on their forums with ZERO discipline it's a really, really bad sign.
Right now there is very, VERY little to do in game. Just go and grind mobs or resource nodes. The game design is literally built around having to mindlessly farm thousands of mobs and that is just to get to level 8. I don't know if it changes but I think from what I see (and I'm not the expert) that you have to kill 5,000 mobs with a single weapon to get rank 10 in that weapon.... Forget if you want to have a backup weapon like ranged and a melee... well that's 5,000 more!
And grouping doesn't help because only killing blows count.
Wow... just wow.
The only reason my account is active is because I don't know if the game will make it for another 4 months so i want to use up my pre-paid kickstarter time...
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
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Bad editor. Sorry.
Guess I was wrong. I was told it's 10,000 kills to get to rank 10 with a weapon and another 10,000 for a backup (second slot) weapon.
ouch.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Old School! Isn't that what people want?
Oh yeah... and that "fan" with the bad language went on another "F-U" rant...
No ban... no suspension. GW just deleted it again.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Lets address a few things.
About 10k kills with a weapon to get it to 'achievement rank 10' This is pretty much accurate. Thing is, it will be MONTHS before you have the experience to even take advantage of anything that comes close to requiring 'achievement rank 10' in a weapon.
The design isn't for you to 'grind it out', but through the period of playing over those months, naturally arrive at it.
Also, they're adding a major quality of life improvement for EE 4 (They've been titling their updates as 'versions of Early Enrollment, next patch is EE 4 with us currently being on EE 3). In EE 4 if you're in LoS distance from a mob that is killed, assuming you are in the party that is killing it, you will get credit for that achievement.
Great! So what is the motivation to party, then? Well, loot!
Wait, I thought this was a player driven economy!
It is! The loot is Recipes, Salvage (which is basically materials used to craft items), and Expendables (read spells, manuevers, etc. that players can use. These are the 'Dailies' [use once or twice between rests] not 'at-wills' if one thinks of it within a PnP mindset. This mechanic is 'replicated' through them costing 'Power' which is a renewable stat that comes from visiting taverns, or using campfires/Regen_PoI <--which are coming EE 4).
Well, why would I want to group? Why shouldn't I just solo?
Well, the loot comes from a loot table that is tied to the difficult level of the mob. So higher difficult mobs drop higher tier recipes, salvage, and expendables. To tackle these difficult mobs, it is often much safer and more efficient to do it in a group.
IF you're looking for a highly solo friendly game, right now this is not it. This game has always been about community (just read the design documents). Later on, with how the systems currently work, IT will be very feasible to have a solo play style, just wouldn't be 'typical' of a solo-play style of other MMOs. There will be interdependencies of resources, alliances, trade agreements, ambush points to foil those, global wars focused on capturing Points of Interest and Settlements, intrigue, etc. This is ON TOP of any PVE content (read, primarily escalations right now. Haven't seen our first dungeon).
Financial model, currently, is definitely targeted at the dedicated. This game is constantly referred to as being in year 2 in a 5 year development plan, with the game currently being enjoyable and playable by the current dedicated players. While it is DEFINITELY rough around the edges currently, Early Enrollment was never bashful about stating exactly what it was, a chance to support EARLY an endeavor that is FAR from cookie cutter.
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