PW's Bigger Problems & My Suggestions

Hasukurobi - Heavens Tear

Warning: This will be LONG, you have been warned.

Perfect World is a great game in many respects and one of the current kings of the FTP market for its strengths. It has a lot of quests, a fairly big world, challenging dungeons, many skills and build possibilities, more than passable graphics and sounds, beautiful landscapes with great mood elements, fun and unique mounts/aerogear, and a system that rewards multi class integration for greatest power in a squad.

However, it also has a strength which I feel is going to be threatened by an MMORPG currently in closed Beta...It has an appealing non-human race. Barbarians and their Anime Girl counter parts the Venomancers are a breath of FRESH AIR in a market dominated by humans, elves, dwarfs, and...Cows...I bet I am not the only one who joined PW and plays it because I prefer a few more options on Species and liked what PW had to offer. So my first suggestion is that if PW wants to hold onto that market which I think they have honestly secured rather well at the moment then they may want to expand upon this idea. Female Barbs, Male Venos, different Animals you can turn into, such and so forth. (Maybe the Tide Born will help? Hard to tell seems how I have not seen a reliable image of them yet)


However, this is not my main focus just an bonus suggestion. My main focus is to identify what the actual weaknesses of PW is and try to give a suggestion about what path could be followed to help fix them. (This is not the typical "Graphics Error! Fix now!" or "Bug! Fix it now!" sort of thing either)

The first obvious flaw that can be seen by even a cursory examination is that PW follows in the well depressed footsteps of many other MMORPG's especially out of China in being a Grind Fest. Now in this case I do not mean that it is required that you go out and kill endless swarms of monsters to level that is a problem. That is not a good thing, especially at higher levels where it becomes unreasonable (Because you should really get a fairly regular regiment of reward for your effort otherwise things lose the interest of the people putting in the effort), but it is not the real issue behind a "Grind Fest".

The real issue is that in a "Grind Fest" there is little more to do than kill monsters. You level up, gain new skills, and go kill the same monsters more. Your whole focus is how fast you can kill the monsters and how many or how difficult of monster you can kill...That is alright for a little while but can lose its charm for many after a time. Besides the Events hosted by the GM's, the Races, and TW there is little to do in PW but kill monsters. You can customize the look of your character very well and buy them fashions which are often quite neat but besides this there is little to make you stand out amongst the hoards of other monster slayers and there is no other real social devices or activities in the game. No house, no clan hall, no real reason to get together and socialize at all. People wonder why many are silent and just go about grinding without a word? Why bother typing? That just wastes time you could be gaining EXP...but that is the problem.

A path to solving this monster in the room is to add in more features to help people really stand apart from another character. Oddly, the Genies to me look like this sort of thing. What skills do you have for your Genie? Some will pick only the cookie cutter skills, others will pick the skills they want and in the end there will be a bit of a distinguishing effect based on what skills you do or do not have. Pets for Venos COULD be this if they were all viable to do the job needed & if 2 of them (you know which) were not so obviously superior that EVERY Veno has them who can (except me LOL). The fact that you have to grind for EVERY single pet you own is also a bad addition to the Grind Fest feel of the game.

Houses & Especially Clan Halls which were customizable would be a GREAT asset here as they would give people something ELSE to really work for rather than JUST their EXP. To work to make a very self-styled or faction-styled living space that you could share with others would be an inspiration to others. With this can come the idea of gambling mini-games for the houses or halls (as I KNOW how much the Devs LOVE figuring out ways for us to gamble our coin away) to add yet more depth.

FBs can be a bit lack luster and making them less about obnoxiously over powered Bosses and more about strategy could be a slight but noticeable improvement over the feeling that you are just doing the same thing all over again just with more monsters and more obnoxious bosses each time.

The Crafting system, save apothecary which is fairly good, could have been one of these social enabling features but it falls drastically short of this goal or much of any other. If you could have only ONE Craft skill per character and you could really make it count by being able to add in your own specializations to items you create then it could REALLY change the landscape of who characters are. Having your NAME on an item you made would MEAN something whereas right now it just means that you either got lucky or did not depending on the quality of the item. For someone to invest their time, effort, and SP into learning up particular paths in their particular craft would help set their wares apart and thus give them a name. For instance, player made weapons should be almost as good as Legendaries and by specializing into "Light Weight Construction" for instance perhaps the Smith could forge a weapon with a bit less damage than others but faster attack speeds and greater accuracy. They should only be able to specialize in one or two areas and when they reach very high levels of specialization in these crafts should be able to tack on special abilities. (Very little Random results in this system should be had and the results should be less and less random as the level of skill improves) This would also help to establish a real PLAYER based Coin Market in-game.

Lastly, MORE GM interaction is GOOD. I know the GM's are just Customer Service (trust me...I know your pain) but people ENJOY interacting with them. Just getting to hang out with the GM's in-game, fight them for the fun of it, or play other games with them like some of the contests the GM's have been doing is a great way to break the deadlock of grinding. It gives people something else to do which is fun and rewarding that might be more to their liking than the norm. No matter how much you think people do not like you guys the truth is we love you and want to spend more time doing crazy things in-game with you LOL.


Another issue that has reared its ugly head lately is the Boutique Vs. normal play. This game NEEDS the Boutique to be used because that is what gives it is money. However, there needs to be careful lines drawn in the sand that are not crossed when dealing with Boutique to keep it reasonable. Fashions, mounts, cosmetic changes, Trainers, Charms (especially so long as good in-game alternatives are available for those willing to use them, like apothecary), Guardian Scrolls, Special Equipment that is a noticeably better than standard but not outrageously superior, and even Mats & Refining Aids are all just fine. Even though these give some advantages to Cash Shop users they are not world endingly dis-balancing and tend to be generally acceptable. What should NEVER show up in the Cash Shop though is the following: Anything that gives an immediate MAJOR advantage in Stats & Performance Vs. Anyone who does not have it (Like the Gems that got thrown around or Tome of Scroll which was a horrible offender, even the Veno Legendary Pets do not quite fall into this Category but they are coming up LOL), Anything that players have had to work VERY hard to earn in-game (TT, Frost, Lunar items...These represent a LOT of hard work and dedication and throwing them away to those using the Cash Shop like it is no big deal is a real mean slap in the face to anyone who put in the effort. If such ever show up in Cash Shop they should come with some compensation for those who worked so hard to get them in the first place. If they are meant to be obtainable more easily then this should be done for all not just Cash Shop users), or Anything that is a notable advantage to only one class or race and has no equivalent for other Classes or Races available (Veno Legendary Pets Hoooo!!!).


Last problem that I can think of is...Bugs...Not specific ones but bugs in general and what seems to be the Dev's attitude towards them. It may be annoying and unwelcome for the Devs to spend time focusing on fixing every little bug that exists in the game instead of introducing new material to keep things interesting but the truth is it hurts. To give an analogy it is like having a car that is pretty great but its steering is a bit stiff and the break pedal takes all your might to slam to the floor when you need it. So the company decides to fix this by rolling out a new model of this car which looks much better, has some great features like AC, MP3 Player, Blue Tooth Phone Jack, more horsepower etc...but they never bothered to fix that Stiff Steering or Nearly Stuck Break Pedal and to make things worse the new model now has a problem of leaking gas on occasion...So what do they do? Release yet a better model that while having even more great features still has the old problems of the first model and the one that replaced that model...

The idea of moving forward and ignoring the little bugs and glitches to ensure that new content is always dazzling people is not a good one. It will lead up to an inevitable systemic crises where all those bugs add up to bring the final product to its knees. It is not so horrible and Americans are not SO impatient that the Devs cannot put a halt to any further creation just long enough to sift through and nail down every last bug once and for all. New ones will always show up and they can cream them as the customers find them (seems how with so many playing we will ALWAYS find bugs they did not know about at first) but it is a good policy to get them taken care of now instead of waiting for it to get beyond tolerance levels in the future.

That is all I have to say in this thread...My apologies for the walls of text but I felt it was about time I gave an in-depth and honest look at what I see in PW and where it could hopefully improve.

outlawarcher

i agree with just about everything you say. the grinding gets rather tedious after a while. my highest level alt is 60 and even now i find it hard to level up i can't imagine how those high level players make it.


in addition to your list of problems, i would like to point out the lack of opportunities and actives for low and mid level players. at level 60, the only thing for me are the quests and the cube both of which get old, and the solo TT drops got nerfed (at least that's what i'm told). where as a player at level 80+ can own TW, wraith attacks, they have a good dungeon for grinding and drops. don't get me wrong, i know TW and wraith attacks are optional regardless of level but still steps could be made to make it possible fore mid levels like me to take part in these events and not get constantly ksed or killed on the spot.


and more importantly above all else, the bugs. i can say that i haven't really played this game in 2 months or more due to the bugs. the rubber band glich slammed the nail in the head for me. when i had to make a quick leave form the computer in the middle of a fight, i ran to a spot where i knew the mob won't follow, but to my surpise when i got back (like an hour or so later) i was dead in the same spot i was fighting and the half of a gold hp charm was gone. i didn't know what the hell happened. i let it slide and put on my plat charm the next day i found myself in a similar situation when i had to leave the computer immediately and ended running to a area where the mobs won't follow. when i got back my BRAND NEW plat charm was almost gone and my alt was still being attacked my a mob, stuck in a rubber band glich. seeings how my character is an archer, i REALLY needed the hp charm due to the fact that i play recklessly. i worked hard to get the coin needed for those charms and seeings how everything is inflated, it was a pretty penny. countless hours competeing with other players (who have fast mounts) for mats to make subs, stopping ALL questing to do so. it took me nearly a month of pure harvesting to get the mats i needed and nearly 5 days to get the subs sold. to loose them in such a manner was infuriating! since then i lost all drive to play really. now i do understand that fixing these bugs can be hard at times however with the expansion coming up, i think they could afford to stop adding new items and put more attention on the bugs. cos when THAT comes out i'm certain there will be even more bugs.

Heartstone - Dreamweaver

I can't believe i readed it all. I must be bored.
but anwyay I do agree with you in everything. you said it all xD.

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear

A few other things to keep in mind

Said game is a p2p, so it is competing directly against the mmo with 11million players. Keep in mind PWI has kept his rankings even with said MMO around, so this one will mostly steal people from the other p2p mmo. People that "left" will be back once the free beta is over and they are made to fork over the monthly fees and upgrade fees.

Of the f2p mmos, PW is the top one, and I have not seen anything around or coming out to compete directly against it.

Also, with the expansions, PW has released one major extension per year and a couple of smaller ones, if the next one does not get delayed, they would have released 2 major content expansion in one year. That is more than even the most popular P2P MMO.

That said, it would be nice to have the bugs fixed faster, however, for a F2P, it does have very few critical bugs, compared to other games.

Housing was avaiable on the P2P version of PW, once they made it F2P, those features were removed.

Asian MMOs are grind fests by design, so if you want to change that, you may need to find developers that subscribe to different game philosophies.
Unlike US made games, where the focus is on instant gratification (like said P2P MMO), asian mmos believe you need to work for your stuff (or spend money on it, which means, you working in RL for it), and they encourage group play, since group dynamics are far more important.

I have lots of friends that will get the new upgrade to said P2P MMO, and within a week they have all the new gear and have maxed out their characters again, so they come back to PWI to play, since there is no fast way to max your character level and gear. So the grind fest part has its advantages, since it keeps people from maxing out their characters in a week or two.

That brings the other important part, in P2P games, people already gave you the money, so, in fact, you want them to get all the cool stuff as fast as possible, so they get bored and stop playing, that way they do not overload your servers, also, makes them want to buy the new expansion as soon as it got out. On F2P games, you need to have people on as much as possible, since the money you get is spread out through the gaming time, therefore you have to create grindfests, so people have to spend time on-line, and so they do not max their characters and gear.

The amount of GM interaction, in my opinion, is great in this game. You can get a GM within a reasonable amount of time, if you have a problem. To be honest, they are as fast at responding to problems as other P2P games I have played.

Bugs are the problem with all games, P2P or F2P. Heck, even the new one that people keep talking about managed to crash on the first day it opened to everyone, and that is P2P game!!! PW, does seem to do a good job at bugs, although they could do a little better job at communicating about what is being done about the bugs.
Having a sticky with known bugs listed and the words (under review, working on it, fixed) would be a good idea, so the player base would have a feeling for that is being worked on. Obviously there would be no player comments on that stick, only GM updates.

The cash shop in this game is the best of any cash shops out there due to the fact that all the items you can buy with gold, can also be resold for coins. On top of that, you can buy gold with coins directly, therefore, there is no reason a person that plays for free cannot have access to the same things the paying customer have. They may have to grind a little more to make extra coind, but the option is there. Most other F2P MMOs have several very good things in cash shop that cannot be resold, and most also have it in their TOS that you cannot resell gold, that does give paying customers an edge non-paying customers have no chance to get.

Hasukurobi - Heavens Tear

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear wrote: »

A few other things to keep in mind

Said game is a p2p, so it is competing directly against the mmo with 11million players. Keep in mind PWI has kept his rankings even with said MMO around, so this one will mostly steal people from the other p2p mmo. People that "left" will be back once the free beta is over and they are made to fork over the monthly fees and upgrade fees.

Of the f2p mmos, PW is the top one, and I have not seen anything around or coming out to compete directly against it.

Also, with the expansions, PW has released one major extension per year and a couple of smaller ones, if the next one does not get delayed, they would have released 2 major content expansion in one year. That is more than even the most popular P2P MMO.

That said, it would be nice to have the bugs fixed faster, however, for a F2P, it does have very few critical bugs, compared to other games.

Housing was avaiable on the P2P version of PW, once they made it F2P, those features were removed.

Asian MMOs are grind fests by design, so if you want to change that, you may need to find developers that subscribe to different game philosophies.
Unlike US made games, where the focus is on instant gratification (like said P2P MMO), asian mmos believe you need to work for your stuff (or spend money on it, which means, you working in RL for it), and they encourage group play, since group dynamics are far more important.

I have lots of friends that will get the new upgrade to said P2P MMO, and within a week they have all the new gear and have maxed out their characters again, so they come back to PWI to play, since there is no fast way to max your character level and gear. So the grind fest part has its advantages, since it keeps people from maxing out their characters in a week or two.

That brings the other important part, in P2P games, people already gave you the money, so, in fact, you want them to get all the cool stuff as fast as possible, so they get bored and stop playing, that way they do not overload your servers, also, makes them want to buy the new expansion as soon as it got out. On F2P games, you need to have people on as much as possible, since the money you get is spread out through the gaming time, therefore you have to create grindfests, so people have to spend time on-line, and so they do not max their characters and gear.

The amount of GM interaction, in my opinion, is great in this game. You can get a GM within a reasonable amount of time, if you have a problem. To be honest, they are as fast at responding to problems as other P2P games I have played.

Bugs are the problem with all games, P2P or F2P. Heck, even the new one that people keep talking about managed to crash on the first day it opened to everyone, and that is P2P game!!! PW, does seem to do a good job at bugs, although they could do a little better job at communicating about what is being done about the bugs.
Having a sticky with known bugs listed and the words (under review, working on it, fixed) would be a good idea, so the player base would have a feeling for that is being worked on. Obviously there would be no player comments on that stick, only GM updates.

The cash shop in this game is the best of any cash shops out there due to the fact that all the items you can buy with gold, can also be resold for coins. On top of that, you can buy gold with coins directly, therefore, there is no reason a person that plays for free cannot have access to the same things the paying customer have. They may have to grind a little more to make extra coind, but the option is there. Most other F2P MMOs have several very good things in cash shop that cannot be resold, and most also have it in their TOS that you cannot resell gold, that does give paying customers an edge non-paying customers have no chance to get.

Um...the MMO I am talking about is FTP and has not been released yet. It is in closed Beta and it is DRASTICALLY different from a certain very popular PTP MMO.

I never said that PW should not HAVE grinding. I said it would be VERY good if it could also have something ELSE to go with it. Working for your stuff is great but it gets very boring when all you are really accomplishing is being able to kill more monsters (which often are very similar to the ones you killed to get the new stuff). Grinding in and of itself is not the problem it is the lack of any real socializing elements that is the problem. That is something that the Popular PTP MMO does a fair bit with and it can really help to make your time more enjoyable.

As for PTP wanting you to get your stuff and get bored...um...not really. In PTP you want your customer to play as long as possible so adding in any Time Sink you can is a big + because it means they will keep their subscription going. PW does not have to add in Time Sinks or use them because they do not need you to play longer they just need you to enjoy playing your character enough to keep buying them more things to keep them top notch or looking just the way you like.

The GM's here work their butts off for us there is no doubt but I have seen FTP's where the GM's were even more active in-game. You could literally see them standing in your main city almost any time of day, they would talk to you, give you buffs, throw out a server-wide EXP bonus if asked nicely, hand out candy (it was an odd healing or buffing item LOL), and just generally do cool things. Our GM's in PW do this sort of thing via their events they hold from time to time which is awesome but it would be really cool if they could do it more often. I know they are busy and I am not sure how staffed they are vs. the work load they have but if they COULD spend more time playing with us I KNOW we would love it.

As for the Cash Shop in PW I generally agree though with current Gold Prices it is insane to believe many normal players can afford to buy many of the items with Coin. However, the reason I agree that the Cash Shop in PW is good is BECAUSE it rarely has made those critical errors in offering the items I mentioned should not be there...but sadly it has been missing the mark a lot lately. Now everyone makes mistakes and I know the CS is eventually going to miss of on a few things that come out which is why I do not bother posting serious whine threads about it but I would like to give a guideline to what really IS IMO pushing the advantage too far and what is not.

Hasukurobi - Heavens Tear

Heartstone - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I can't believe i readed it all. I must be bored.
but anwyay I do agree with you in everything. you said it all xD.

LOL...Well you WERE warned heehee. Glad you liked the suggestions though.

outlawarcher wrote: »

i agree with just about everything you say. the grinding gets rather tedious after a while. my highest level alt is 60 and even now i find it hard to level up i can't imagine how those high level players make it.


and more importantly above all else, the bugs. i can say that i haven't really played this game in 2 months or more due to the bugs. the rubber band glich slammed the nail in the head for me. when i had to make a quick leave form the computer in the middle of a fight, i ran to a spot where i knew the mob won't follow, but to my surpise when i got back (like an hour or so later) i was dead in the same spot i was fighting and the half of a gold hp charm was gone. i didn't know what the hell happened. i let it slide and put on my plat charm the next day i found myself in a similar situation when i had to leave the computer immediately and ended running to a area where the mobs won't follow. when i got back my BRAND NEW plat charm was almost gone and my alt was still being attacked my a mob, stuck in a rubber band glich. seeings how my character is an archer, i REALLY needed the hp charm due to the fact that i play recklessly. i worked hard to get the coin needed for those charms and seeings how everything is inflated, it was a pretty penny. countless hours competeing with other players (who have fast mounts) for mats to make subs, stopping ALL questing to do so. it took me nearly a month of pure harvesting to get the mats i needed and nearly 5 days to get the subs sold. to loose them in such a manner was infuriating! since then i lost all drive to play really. now i do understand that fixing these bugs can be hard at times however with the expansion coming up, i think they could afford to stop adding new items and put more attention on the bugs. cos when THAT comes out i'm certain there will be even more bugs.

Thankfully that bug is finally FIXED...And they did not even mention it LOL. It got me killed as well because I COULD NOT fly away from magic mobs shooting at my BM...It was very frustrating and aggravating...

It does illustrate well though how those little bugs can become a big problem later down the road and imagine if they had not finally fixed that one...b:lipcurl

I cannot claim to know what sort of pressure the company puts on the Devs to release new material and it is probably the reason they have a hard time spending time on fixing bugs but the idea here is really more to TELL the company via our GM liaisons that we would really be cool with them getting off the Devs' case about making new stuff for a little while and let them clean the slate of the bugs from time to time.

Aquilonian - Dreamweaver

Just wanted to point out that there are other chinese MMOs that are just as good as PWI and their cash shop is the same thing. Exept significantly cheaper.

The ONLY REASONS I play this game more is becase I can be a man lion. So OP you are correct there. Also the grind here is gonna get legendary at 90+. werelion and grinding is what I like. One of the other games does have an option to show helmets wich is super cool and I have suggested PWE implement this feature.

There are tons and tons of free MMOs I had no clue about and some look like real gems, but guess what no werebeast. Well...exept for this new one my brother is gonna play in closed beta.

I think I am already discussing other games so I will stop. My point is the warebeast are what draws alot of players and OPs suggestions sound good. Although I dont want male venos or female barbs. thats just me though.

Hasukurobi - Heavens Tear

Aquilonian - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Just wanted to point out that there are other chinese MMOs that are just as good as PWI and their cash shop is the same thing. Exept significantly cheaper.

The ONLY REASONS I play this game more is becase I can be a man lion. So OP you are correct there. Also the grind here is gonna get legendary at 90+. werelion and grinding is what I like. One of the other games does have an option to show helmets wich is super cool and I have suggested PWE implement this feature.

There are tons and tons of free MMOs I had no clue about and some look like real gems, but guess what no werebeast. Well...exept for this new one my brother is gonna play in closed beta.

I think I am already discussing other games so I will stop. My point is the warebeast are what draws alot of players and OPs suggestions sound good. Although I dont want male venos or female barbs. thats just me though.

The one your brother is playing is probably the one I am thinking of as well...I cannot wait to see it myself because I would love to be Full Anthro Vixen myself.

Nothing wrong with Female Barbs and Male Venomancers. It seems likely that Barbs & Venos are different species to begin with and would need a male/female counterpart of the same species to reproduce. After all, how the HECK is it that Barbs are fully anthropomorphic animals but can breed with...Anime Girls who are pretty much human except that they have a few animal parts?