Random Brainstorming re: Drakor

This won't be very organized and I reserve the right to come back here and edit this as I have time and think further about things, but I think it'd be a good idea to highlight systems that Drakor does well, areas that could be improved, thoughts about challenges that these types of games usually see, and possible ways to combat those.

Challenge: How to allow people to progress without continually having to put out new content and without allowing original players to basically 'win' the game because newer players can't catch up?

I think the level cap in Drakor does well here. In previous games I've played, people would continually outlevel content, forcing the admin to keep adding new stuff, but players would basically get far ahead of the devs, leading to boredom because the devs couldn't catch up. I know bala had talked recently about a 'new game+' mode where you basically would start over in exchange for a permanent modest advantage. A random thought I had was, what about a staggered level cap?

So for example, your main level cap is 70, but when you start, you can only level up to 30 max and then have to restart the skill to get to 40 max, and so on until you hit the final cap at 70. But you wouldn't have to level all the way through the skill again, every time you level up, you start 30 levels away from your current cap (so 1-30, then 11-40, then 21-50, 31-60, 41-70). This gives a hard cap in place to allow future players to catch up but also takes longer than a straight 1-70 run and allows for more leveling over time for players that enjoy that. You could also use this system to tax players (require certain resources / gold to reset their levels) to give purposes for whatever resources you require for a reset and give a modest permanent advantage for each reset if you want.

Downsides could be players get tired of going through the same levels multiple times and crowding at those mid-level locations (could have newer players at level 12 bumping into players that have reset from 30 to 11).

Jaize_ wrote:
Challenge: How to allow people to progress without continually having to put out new content and without allowing original players to basically 'win' the game because newer players can't catch up?

I think the level cap in Drakor does well here.  In previous games I've played, people would continually outlevel content, forcing the admin to keep adding new stuff, but players would basically get far ahead of the devs, leading to boredom because the devs couldn't catch up.  I know bala had talked recently about a 'new game+' mode where you basically would start over in exchange for a permanent modest advantage.  A random thought I had was, what about a staggered level cap?  

So for example, your main level cap is 70, but when you start, you can only level up to 30 max and then have to restart the skill to get to 40 max, and so on until you hit the final cap at 70.  But you wouldn't have to level all the way through the skill again, every time you level up, you start 30 levels away from your current cap (so 1-30, then 11-40, then 21-50, 31-60, 41-70).  This gives a hard cap in place to allow future players to catch up but also takes longer than a straight 1-70 run and allows for more leveling over time for players that enjoy that.  You could also use this system to tax players (require certain resources / gold to reset their levels) to give purposes for whatever resources you require for a reset and give a modest permanent advantage for each reset if you want.  

Downsides could be players get tired of going through the same levels multiple times and crowding at those mid-level locations (could have newer players at level 12 bumping into players that have reset from 30 to 11).  

I do like the idea of having a small cap (1-30, 11-40).
To tackle the "Downside" there could be a seperation between different reincarnations.
So for example Player 1 has reincarnated at level 30 and is now level 11 (R-Level = 1)
Player 2 has just started and just hit 12, he is really proud of it. He will know, there is someone that is level 11, but that level 11 (Player 1) will not "take" the resource from Player 2, but instead have a different resource "node".

This means that every Reincarnation level would have their own "nodes" (As in Drakor) but, the players with the Reincartion will use the same "nodes"

Does this make sense? I think so.
I don't know how hard it would be to implemented that, but that'd be a way to tackle that issue.

My review post from the Drakor Forum:

Posted: May 23, 2017 7:12:31am
Hi Drakor,
so I started actively playing Drakor 09/2016 and thought it is about time for a personal review.
You can agree or disagree - that's fine for me. It's just my personal opinion here.
First of all, I am still playing so thumbs up for the good game. Most parts I like and enjoy very much.

About skills:
Not too many, not too few. I like the mix. I just wish that specialization would be more beneficial to encourage playing in a group and supporting each other.
The node concept is great as it makes captures obsolete. I just wish it would be tweaked a bit for combat. As combat needs active gameplay it would be a nice move, if the respawn timer was lowered. It's highly annoying when I start fighting and after 20 fights the node is depleted and only respawns after 20+ minutes. For sure, at my current level I can also take another node and have only slightly lower exp/gold, but looking at max level I see this as a problem. Lower respawn timer for nodes or at least introducing an end game node would help to not feel punished for being max level.
I like the quest drops from combat. Some random drops outside of events would also be nice. I'm excited what you have in mind for it.

About Daily Quests:
I'm all in for daily quests. A man and a woman needs a task. A small reward with it is nice.
BUT, why 1 per skill per day? Here we go into a broad skill range again. But why? I play a multiplayer game because I like a diverse picture of characters and skills. If everyone does everything, I can aswell play a single player game. Maybe there is a deeper intention behind the way it is implemented that I don't see.
What I would find enjoyable is, to ask for several quests or the same skill, but they become harder each time. Each day at 24:00 server time this could be reset and the player can start over again. I'm aware that this would work against the idea of quest streaks, but I better say it now than later.

About pets:
I like it. Nothing more to say. Didn't use them in the beginning, but started with feeding them and using the buffs recently. Works pretty well.

Mounts:
I like this low permanent bonus. In comparison, the GD mount seems underpowered. The Bonus is somewhere between 0.6-1.2% bonus compared to 2-6% bonus for the other areas CR/DR/XP/TR.
Just a small issue. The "old" mounts that were 1-50 were not adepted to be 1-70. As they are purchased with tokens (real cash) I felt slightly ripped off. Feels like: Buy, become obsolete, buy again, become obsolete, and so on. The fact that newer mounts are 1-70 from the beginning does not make it better.

Guilds:
Guilds are great. I'm playing an online multiplayer game to play together with others. Some more guild features would be amazing, as so far the guild offers more storage, a chat, a forum and that's it. I'm pretty sure the lack of guild features encourages single gameplay with 1-player-guilds. Looking at the fact that storage is purchasable in the Drakor Store it's not a good move from an economical point of view. You give away free, what should be purchased in the store.

Events:
Well, yes and no here. I like an event every now and then. I also like the rewards and everything. I just don't like the current concept of it being a solo event. The only group effort is to finish all materials needed.
I know about the second Event, when EoD finished parts of step 2 within seconds. For sure that annoys some player. I totally agree here. It was a guild effort and the guild had a reward for it. No bad thing about that. Here we saw the benefits of a group over an individual.
I do not see it as unfair, as it is open to other people to also work as a group and compete.
I personally no longer work towards completing an event. I take the event drops from the skills I am currently working on, turn them in and that's it. There is no incentive to actually finish the event. The 50% event points I get at the end simply are not worht to go away from my current goals.
A possible solution can be to make the rewards or parts of the reward only purchasable when the event was finished. E.g. The titles are purchasable right away, but the pet/mount only becomes available once the event is finished. Depending on the type this would draw my attention =) Another reward could be a global perk for some time for finishing the event. E.g. LOW% DR/CR/TR/EXP for a week/months/until next event.
And the last step ... combat. Finished too quickly from my point of view. I go to bed, it is not available. I wake up and it is finished. Same as the account bound collection stuff, with the difference, that the EP you can get with combat are relatively high. Don't worry, I can live with that. But maybe there is a good idea about that in the future.
Ah, and the event drops from combat give mastery, but you can't see how far you are with the mastery. Maybe this can be made viewable.

Other features:
Shared inventory - great
Estates - great
Offline Worker - great, I just wish there was a timer you have somewhere to know when to collect your stuff.
Chest opening: It's a nice idea, but something is missing. I cannot tell what is needed, but it feels to me like it is not worth the time.
Market: Good feature, just sometimes very crowded. Maybe reject the items that are older than 50 days. After 30 days the player gets a warning and after 50 days it will be deleted.
Tools - great
Rings - great
Food - party great. Travel food seems to be an ancient relic. Qould love to see it being removed from the monster drop table at least. TR/EXP food would be an interesting pattern for the future. A chance we'll see that?

Drakor Store:
All in all I see it as well priced. Nothing around where I say it's too expensive. There is just this one thing, the reapir all feature. As a new combat player I thought it would save me sooooo much time. I bought it. I made a mistake. Epic and legendary cards cannot be repaired with it and scrolls don't work with the repair all feature. I totally wasted those 120 tokens and that made me really sad. The 1-50 mounts are a waste of money and the feature was it, too. I am careful about purchasing now.

What I would like to see or what are my ideas:
Endgame combat node - need it soon =)
Benefits or features for groups/guilds; e.g. weekly/monthly goals a guild can work towards that give certain rewards.

All in all, good work Goz. Please keep it up and keep having an open ear for the community. Thanks for this game.
---
Probalby forgot stuff. If something comes to my mind I can add it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reply Alec:

About skills:
-TH needs love
-Inscription (dura runes specifically) still feel underutilized.

About daily quests:
-Think they’re great, but I like Uschi’s idea about the difficulty increasing with your streak.
-Material-specific quests should only be on hard difficulty.
-The quantity of reward for easy and hard “feels* very similar. There is of course a random component to the reward, but it seems that the easy/hard range overlaps? Maybe not, I haven’t collected data…

About pets:
-We have a lot now. More variety may be needed so they continue to motivate donations over time.
-I also wish they lasted longer considering the token cost (relative to a much cheaper food buff).

About mounts:
-Agree that GD feels underpowered.
-Still think Goatertrike needs an extra -1 second shaved off.

About guilds:
-…masteries?

Events:
-I like the system and really think it is fine for the most part.
-As you are still adding events into the system (like the recent one) some more notice would be nice. This is a very afk game by design, so some announcements take more than a few days to get noticed by a fair portion of the community.
-I think there needs to be a way for “new players” to get more out of their efforts (e.g., first 100 contributions is worth bonus). I’ve seen newbies do the best they can and then get 0.5 EP, which is somewhat off-putting and cannot be good for long-term event participation.
-Probably need to lower the TH req even more.
-I like Uschi’s idea about some global reward to incentivize event effort/celebrate our accomplishment (e.g., some free perks).

Shared inventory: good

Estates: I love estates, but wish they did not make logging/construction and mining/smithing the most important skills (by a fair margin).

Offline worker: chat notification when done.

Chest opening: see my above posts.

Market: agree with Uschi, old listings need to auto-clear out. They affect how players utilize the “Market Price” info on item tooltips, especially the unrealistic listings that sometimes happen.

Tools: love them
Rings: and these

Food: agree with all of Uschi.

Drakor Store:
-generally agree with Uschi.
-Customize tokens seem to discourage leveling combat, which would replace the armor/spells I have customized. Not sure if I have any further thoughts, really just an observation.

Benefits for guilds: adapt event/daily quest system for guild use.

♥ Thanks for everything Goz! ♥

That could work, yeah.

Random tradeskill brainstorm: What about some skill combinations that open new skills? For example, level 40 ancient research + level 40 alchemy = unlock ancient elixir skill, allowing you to brew more complicated potions. level 40 enchanting + level 40 smithing = unlock enchanted armorer skill, allowing you to make boosted armor pieces or armor that lets you do something different. Another set of goals for people to reach for, different ways for people to differentiate from each other.

File this one under something to fix from Drakor: The idea of grey materials being very useful for mining / logging but the more rare materials being largely useless. It's an interesting idea in concept, but don't have people end up with tons of rare useless mats in their inventory. Either a better balance from gathering or (probably better) more things to do with them. Either include them in an estate-like system or maybe as a required material for resetting levels.

I like the idea of that two skills with a specific level unlock a new skill.
So for example when you have level 10 Logging (Woodcutting, whatever) and 20 Smithing you're allowed to unlock Construction.
Or perhaps something like "Get level x of skill y and level a of skill b to unlock this pattern"

-----------------------------------

I'm generally not really sure if I want to have so many different drops of skills, I'd rather like fewer materials but more uses for them.
So instead of having 20 materials which can be used in 25 patterns I'd rather have 5-10 materials that can be used in 25 patterns if that makes sense.

A system like that would make inventory less of a hassle (good), make the tradeskill items more valuable since they would be used in more ways (good potentially), downsides might be either a big explosion of pattern items to be created (which could be good if they are useful, or you have more slots for things necklaces, bracelets, cape, etc.) or very complicated pattern items with 7-8+ tradeskill items each (not necessarily a bad thing but might turn off some people).