Onigiri's Sustainability - An Analysis of Playerbase Decline

[Ryxa]

On a side note... those names are all nicknames and inside jokes. They're not intended to insult anyone and not a single one of those names are anywhere near our in-game names.

Edit: I sniped Rhythm's thread.

[SupremeTentacle]

Hi everyone,

The below is mainly something that I hope will reach admin ears, and be passed onto developers - as it basically concerns this games survival. What is posted below is a compilation of ideas and discussions that a few friends and I have thought of and discussed. Note that, although I won't list people who participated in this discussion, they were all players who've dumped at least a hundred gameplay hours into the game, and cleared all of the content currently available. Some of the players continue to play, but others are not nearly as active, and may not log in anymore. The paragraphs below will mainly address reasons that they quit, problems with the current systems, and ways to maintain player interest in the future. We hope that this is taken seriously by the administration team, and that other players pitch their opinions in as well, as naturally, ours may be lacking in some fashion, and will not cover every single base, nor will they cover the needs of each individual.

-- Note: Halfway through the discussion, we switched to an audio recording, and naturally we posted it. The text below explains some of the ideas, because we didn't want to delete it. The full analysis should be in audio though. Feel free to comment in this thread~ --

Full audio link: http://www.twitch.tv/rhryxa/b/571604515
NOTE: PLEASE IGNORE EVERYTHING UNTIL 1:55. We were kinda messing around until we verified everything was set up.
OTHER NOTE: The people you see are
Xavier Loh = Siennan, wiki admin, typical helpful guy
Single Grandma "Julie Da Go" = Akats*ki Kai/MrsC*te = Wand user || Names censored upon request
Carpet Loving Crazy White Boy = Freesia
Fefe, Level 90 Grand Master Magician = Rhythm. (Not related to the player fefe in any which way.)
Last person is Ryxa.
Note that some others not in the call may have contributed ideas.

[End Game Content]
First of all, there's an issue with the lack of end game content. We understand that the game isn't even close to complete - but, there's really not much to do once you've cleared the story line. All that's left is to grind, farm, and hang out with buddies. Seriously - that's basically all there is to it.

The only real thing that we have implemented at the moment for players who are done the story to do, besides grind, is challenge themselves in Aramitama - Juncture. That is, they can attempt to clear C$'s attempt at a raid. Now, what's wrong with Juncture?

Well, more like, the only thing that's right about it is that its difficult to clear - and something that all the end game players are seeking to clear at the moment. That, in general, is a good thing. It feels more rewarding when players finally beat the dungeon, after all their hard work and coordination has paid off... if the raid is a typical MMO raid. That is - normally, in raids, completely new bosses and gear sets are introduced, and every single miniboss, and even some of the regular rooms have to have a set strategy implemented, so that they can be beat. In Juncture - all of the monsters, literally every single one, can be found outside the dungeon. This includes all of the bosses, with the only difference being that the tiamats in Juncture are smaller than the tiamats outside, and that there's multiple of them. This basically implies that players don't really have to learn many new skills in order to easily clear.

For Benkei, you just have to stand a set distance away, and guard when he's about to attack.

For Tiamat, you just have to try and keep him in melee distance.

For both of them, you basically lure one away while you maul the other one.

In all honestly, this boss reuse leads to a huge lack of coordination and extended player interaction. It's literally - "I'll lure", and you move onto the next floor. Sure, sometimes they one hit kill you, but you already know their patterns from previous experiences, so you can pretty easily figure out how to fight them without getting hit. What's more, both of these are easily resettable, and you can have the lure just sit afk while the bosses constantly teleport back to spawn - and then chase the same person. They'll literally repeat this forever.

Nyaruko isn't much harder either - you just have to stand behind her, and dodge the satellite cannons. Players who run fated contractor, and chian, can sometimes even tank the satellite cannon, depending on their build. No one really has to pay attention to the tentacles at all either, especially if they're geared enough - and that's the disturbing part. Its possible to get geared enough - like right now. Players are able to get 20k hp quite easily, and tank like everything ever without getting one shot. Add a +100 weapon, and enough crit rate, and you can do Aramitama without too much of a problem, as long as you have people who know what they're doing, and spec to do the dungeon.

Later on, players are going to be even stronger, and the only constraint, which is dps at the moment, will be completely negligible, and an average party will be able to clear it npnp. Other than the aforementioned boss rooms - the only challenging rooms are 88 and 93, which are ice Toudaiki and 3 Eyed Sumashi respectively. The trick to one is having the person with the highest hp hold guard, while the other is easily done by simply playing more careful than usual.

In general, action games have had a hard time implementing true raids lately, as they can't make them just the right difficulty - so that players will gradually be able to clear them as they become more used to the dungeons, and gain a greater level of personal skill.

On top of that, the way Aramitama is structured is extremely repetitive. Let's not even take in the reused monsters into consideration. It's like... there's nothing that really separates it from a regular dungeon. The higher level rooms would also be more fun if they were more challenging, however, quite often, really easy monsters like daruma get used on the higher floors...

Also, since the prize is distributed on floor 50, many people find it pointless to keep going in Aramitama - as well... its not all that fun. And, after you get the weapon recipes, there's really no more reason to keep going. After you clear it once, you cannot get a second setsuna. There is literally no chance of it dropping. There would be more motivation if there was more aramitama-related rewards. But, clearing floor 100 a second time only nets you well... another recipe. And, let's be honest. If a player is strong enough to make it up there, that recipe is probably useless to them.

Basically, raids in this game should well.. not be aramitama like, but rather, have new monsters, and be more challenging. It would be nice if they also implemented something like traps, and very specific methods and requirements to beat bosses, like having a piece of its armor broken (which later is replaced and you have to break it again before attacking, etc) - like the old action games. Of course, that was merely a poor example - but mechanics like that would make this game much more entertaining.



Other end game content ideas - besides raids, would be things like minigames. Haunted house was honestly a really good idea. Things like it would be great too, like a survival game that spawned more and more mobs as time passed, etc (and you can't attack or guard). This game has a large potential for minigames, in my opinion. These would attract both new players, and keep old players around once they get bored of farming. Other non-grind related activities would be nice too. Another option would be pvp - though, that would require a huge amount of work due to class unbalance.

[Stat Point System]
The biggest problem with the current stat system is that it seems like its honestly designed for a level cap around 100 or 105.

Starting at Lv 101, you gain a decreasing amount of status points. That is - you gain 30 status points from 101 -> 105, and then 20 for 106 -> 110. The reason behind this is pretty simple - if you tried to give players more status points, they'd end up maxing like all their stats, and well, that would be really pointless, wouldn't it? Naturally, I agree with the dev's decisions here - allowing us to add more points would honestly be pointless, especially since stats cap at 100.

One of the first things that we thought of was well - let's raise the cap! That way, we can add more stats, etc. But then, we realized that, due to the number of points that's required, and the cap on other stats like affinity, as well as the removal of secondary effects past a certain amount of total status. This would allow some classes not to go hybird, but instead, purely focus and specialize. However, that goes and contradicts the system that the game has in place - where players can be more free with their stats. But normally, in most games, going hybrid has some sort of sacrifice. However, this game doesn't really have that fully implemented properly, due to mixed magatama, etc. Some hybrids are super effective, and allow players to hyper benefit. In addition, some stats are really overpowered with secondary benefits - such as dex.

Like basically everyone gets dex after they've capped their affinity - as it gives both cool down and crit. The current stats system would be better if the secondary effects were moved around, and stats became less overpowered. One example would have the cooldown from dex moved onto wis, and have the attack speed from power move onto dex - then give power something new. That would be one way to effectively balance out stats. There's no real point to having power as a secondary stat - so the affinity to other weapons should probably be removed. The stat that, in our opinion, should be given to power would be crit force, and crit force should have better scaling, as opposed to its current flat scaling.

However, what if we were allowed to start adding points into different things? What if - the player gained more benefits at higher levels, so that they could add things into a secondary status set, or unlock another set of status to add points into? We started to think about things like this. So - let's discuss something that is a little bit of a mix of the two.

What if, like other games, the player was allowed to progress? We're not talking about a full out class system, or something like that.

Other things that were talked about were
- targetting system
- general skill and weapon balancing

[Leobreaker322]

+1 and thumbs up to all of these suggestions here. I hope the developers and higher ups will consider looking into this matter and help the declining playerbase and fix other things which were discussed here. However I would like to add one suggestion here, if you will allow me #SupremeTentacle

[SupremeTentacle]

Sure, pitch your ideas away. It would be great to get insight from others too, as they could end up as great ideas.

[Leobreaker322]

so heres my idea I wanna put forward:

NPC fighting ability fix


You all know about the 8 partners you love. Despite their other abilities off-dungeon which help us, their fighting abilities disappoint me. Nothing unique or interesting about them in dungeons when they fight. In spite of Susanoo's passive ability which improves defense of your partners, doesn't help much. and you feel like forming party with friends as better option for exploring new areas and dungeons. So. improve the partners AI system. Make them smarter, when fighting, skill usage and ougi usage(RNG based). Dodge/block as their ability too. And other powers for them which make them stand out in the crowd and makes them unique and fun to use when you sumon them in fights

I can describe what powers to add in their fighting abilities for each partner in my next post. First need feedback about my idea here^

[Lynneth]

-ranting begins-

All those suggestions are okay for all the higher level (lv.80/90++), non-staff and non-wands player.
If you want some challenges, try wand/staff beating the time of spear/sword player for best time clearing dungeons. I can guarantee you, you won't beat especially skilled spear player which has all the useful/SP-efficient and effective, effective area of attack.

-ranting ends-
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'New Ideas' to refresh this game :

1.Give new variation of the monsters i.e.:
a.New Sprite for New monster in different areas. (some already done)
b.New Attack Pattern, new Skillset for similar monsters in different areas. (some already done, some are remotely similar)
c.Give some attack variation to Boss Monster and new skills ONLY for Boss Monster.
d.New and different item drop for enemies, normal mobs, special mobs and Boss Monsters.

2.Give variation to Dungeon Layout and World Area
1st question : Is it possible to make a random-generated dungeon? with random-generated layout and random-generated enemies adjusted with the dungeon?
a.Gives some new ways to complete the dungeon, for example, you can choose your dungeon route which has different boss and sets of enemies.
b.Gives some traps to hamper players or new rewards for completing dungeons with different ways. For example :
-> Use only wand weapon to clear dungeon
-> Use only staff weapon to clear dungeon
-> May not use item to clear dungeon to get prize
-> etc etc.
c.Treasure boxes when opened can become : Mimic monster, Bombs/explosion or lots of ryous/magatamas/weapons/etc.
d.World Boss is good, but the way it is implemented sucks with this game mechanic.
e.Make a new mechanic for World Boss, so that EVERYONE CAN GET the Loots, so everyone can work together to beat it.
f.Make new dungeon difficulty level : Expert, Extreme
For masochist people.

3.Give variation to how the party works.
a.Create a new RAID party which consist of 7-10 people, 15 people, 20 people.
b.Create team attack mode
c.Create a time attack mode for each dungeon, along with achievement to highest level people.
d.Create a survival mode party, longest time party can survive with more and more enemies and harder/harder enemies with more time spent in that dungeon.

4.Weapon Attack/Defense Style Variation
a.Japanese Game without Kunai/Ninja Dagger/Shuriken? It's a shame . Dual Dagger/Throwing Dagger with focus on poison/dark magic/assassination skills. Kind of true ninja, that can hide and vanish into thin air and stab from behind.
b.Gun-type weapon, just like Kaguya with all the skills.
c.Scroll type Item.
d.Gives all weapon attack/accuracy-additional skills, defensive stance to block and gives all weapon option to fill SP.
e.PLEASE GIVE A WAY TO FILL SP QUICKLY and new Dark Gate which is really disappointing, especially Wand. But this is really sucks, even with total 120 WIS you will almost always run out of SP, especially 5-man dungeon Hell.
This is not a problem for Spear, since they have a very wide Area of Attack, High Attack, and High Survivability.And their SP Consumption is minimal.
f.Gives Attack / Defense Stance
g.Double Jump, double roll, running, strafing to left upper right, or right downard left
h.Crouching Stance.
h.Redo all the wrong HITBOX of attack magic/skills.
Example : Fireball -> Hell inferno HITS all the enemies when travelling to the target.
The game mechanic RIGHT NOW, IT DOESN'T. It only hits ONE TARGET and will MISS if the enemies teleported to back.
Especially annoying with the teleporting enemies or buried enemies.

5.Accessories
a.Gives option to recharge expired accessories
b.Gives option to trade-in/out expired accessories
c.Gives option to remodel or do something to accessories, like adding options (Enchant magatamas).
d.Gives option to change the additional stats or upgrade the accessories, much like upgrading weapons.

6.Costumes
a.Gives truly different costumes, at least, not only the colors -_-, the way it is right now the difference between the similar costumes are only the color.
Actually you can make it unique, so that every costume is unique, different pattern for example, or different texture, etc.
b.Gives option to exchange costume to another costume for some oc.
c.Gives option to sell costumes to player directly without rolling nyankoropon
d.Gives option to buy costumes from other player directly without rolling nyankoropon (minus accessories).
e.Gives option to re-color costumes according to player's taste for some ryous.

7.Partners
a.Gives useful skills for partner, Player can set AI skills freely, more SKILLS are unlocked with more intimate player with the partners.
b.FIX AI of partners to NOT STUCK attacking at one place. Gives some 'default AI' work, such as, only support skill, full attack, full defense (help player def boss) for example.
c.Give partners some SUPPORT SKILLS to support player, actually no need for NPC join the attack (their attack are measly anyway for the same/upper level).
d.Even more better, make a combination skill between partner and player so that Partners ARE MUCH MORE VALUED.
e.Make Partners can wear different costume, equip another weapon, accessories, magatamas, besides present from players.

8.Magatamas
a.Gives SP-Refill when CRITS happen. Very useful for mage/archer which almost always deplete SP quickly.
b.Gives Durability-Refill when CRITS happen. Very useful in longer/higher level dungeon.
c.Adds ONE more slot magatamas for more combination/variation.
d.Adds even more magatamas for many type of builds.

9.Weapon and Skills
a.Give another one weapon slot in the center for unarmed or one more arsenal weapon.
Even better, make it 8 weapon slots.
b.Gives more skills for each weapon type, new attack skills, combo skills which chain-skill bonus.
For example : Lightning Blast -> Lightning Arrow -> Dust Storm Blade (chain skills)
c.Gives one more skill slot for additional skills and one more Ougis slot.
d.Make more ultimate skills for Ougis for each weapon, for defensive/support and attack

10.Skill Cards Slotter/Ougis Slotter and Skill Customization NPC.
a.Make a new NPC that can help put cards into the desired SLOT, with some compensation of course to the NPC.
How confusing and angry would the player will be when 4 skill level 7 is inserted into the weapon into the same slot?
b.Make a new effect to the skills, and perhaps permanent slot.

I experience this myself when want to create 'ultimate' wand and ends up SPEND ALL THE LEVEL VII SKILLS INTO WRONG SLOT Is this intended? No wonder your player leaves you.
You make a system that is good for adding $$$ to company, but NOT ENJOYABLE to players. Why not make a system that benefit both?

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Why the game is boring? Because in higher level everyone will use the same attack skills to kill the same type of enemies. No variation, no customization of skills, no different enemies skill between low level monster and higher level monster.
The only difference would be the upgrade level, skill level and how often the player will play.

Spear will ALMOST ALWAYS use Water Dragon Spear, Ice Blossom and sometimes Intimidate/Devastation Slash with all the Area of Attack Ougis
Wand will depend on Ice , Hell Inferno, Earth Grave and all the Ougis except Dark Gate (which is one of the worst Ougis)
And Twin sword would be Lightning Demon ???, Axes, Bows and other weapon users are I think the same pattern.

Give Wand melee skill please? You can do it to Bow which has melee attack, why not wand? Especially attack type skill and can evade the enemies too?

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I want to suggest developer that to rebalance classes, especially wand with ridiculous SP consumption with the effectiveness of all Ougis/the delay and casting time and cancelled spells when you got hit.
And Staff to give them attack Ougis and more Area of Attack for staff, especially Holy/Water/Lightning based attack.

Add more variation to attack skills/defensive for all the classes and give that to monsters too.

And also please return Ressurection Skill from staff which is removed from US version.

And make non-cash player can still play and enjoy the game.

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Proposition :
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To make each character/player unique the dev can give 'Talent' that gives a more customized stats, additional aura and specific skills for specific talents. (besides Title, since Title is limited to 'xxx amount' of people)
Example : Swordmaster talent : gives +%x skillforce using Sword, gives 'Sword of ' etc..

[Firon]

hmm, tbh, this suggestion doesn't really affect me (only 6k hp -.-") but iirc, you said something about the game getting too easy when you lvl a lot and have everything with good ornaments. Well, my suggestion would be to add an hp cap.

[Mahou•Shoujo]

I agree with Lynneth-san!

Wand users need some love!

Also there are not enough gold wands at high lvls

[Tekato]

I agree with Lynneth-san!

Wand users need some love!

Also there are not enough gold wands at high lvls

Same goes for twin swords highest lvl is 86

[Lynneth]

Soul Strike is truly a lame melee attack for wand.. just the same with Soul Strike with Staff...

It's very slow in animation, becomes sitting duck for enemies, can you really cancel it midway and get full MDEF- and full attack from this skill? The area is very little and well, not worth it.

Its function is only for support, since you can practically one-hit enemies at endgame with fully-upgraded endgame weapon, except bosses.