The Hidden Forest

Hello,

Just wondering if you have an idea of how you expect people to play on the server with the new content?

Some of the early indications seem to point to a person playing one or two characters within a group. This has caused some concern within our guild since we have 3 semi-active people playing with another 2 that play every so often. Everyone in our guild that has played on this server 5+ years has two main groups with another 1-12 random characters that can be played at any time.

I would guess that there is not more than 10 actual people playing on the server most of the time.

43 players on currently
7 in bazaar - trader mules
11 - Guild 1 - maybe 2 people
6- Guild 2 - most likely 1 person
6 - Guild 3 - most likely 1 person
6 - Guild 4 - most likely 1 person
6 - No Guild but named similarly, in same zone and same level, most likely 1 person.
1 - Guild 5 - 1 person

Most people on this server I would think run at least a group, if not more. It may be helpful to run a poll to see how many people do run nowadays as the last poll for that was 2013.

The concern is that the new content alienates the player base you have now.

For disclosure I ran 26 for the past 3-4 years so I had chars to loot things as I was the only regular player in the guild. I currently box 21.

regards,
niix

All of the new content was designed to be possible with a single player running mq2. I said this elsewhere but we're not trying to alienate the solo mq2 player when we design group or raid content to be fun for people who play together. We do that because we still think this is a sociable game and feel that at its heart it should be designed that way. There are still players who play together. Ignoring them because they might not yet be t9 isn't right. Much of the new content had some element of thought into making cooperation part of the challenge and I do not think that's an unreasonable mindset for a multiplayer game.

We'll always aim to make group content challenging for a group, raid content challenging for a raid and, soon we plan to have more solo content too. What I will repeat again though is that every event created was created with the solo mq2 boxer in mind. I made sure that there's a way to achieve success in every event with a certain strategy; it won't necessarily be easy and it will probably be easier with more than one player but I refer you again to my first point. Most events have been tested by us in a single group played by one player using mq2 and succeeded (admittedly not all yet but I'll cover that below). But we know the strategies.

This is the current top tier of the server (unless you're talking about cotw, we're not talking specifics yet). The complexity of some of the events might appear very tough but I think that should be expected. The end rewards include a few unique items (with more to come shortly). If we'd released T3 content, it wouldn't be the same. It'd be much simpler.

As I said elsewhere, there are plans for some more top end content that is just mindless tank and spank (essentially). Not everything planned has puzzle elements. But this content does and for specific reasons.

I said not all events have been fully "means" tested as a solo mq2 player running a raid or a group. That's where we need you the players to give us specific feedback. We can't know where things might be off unless you guys tell us. So if you are struggling with or not enjoying any specific encounter or quest then please petition about it with as many details as you can.

If you've not yet tried the ideal strategy, we'll let you know. But if you have and are still struggling we're happy to review the event. Nothing is set in stone.

Short answer to your question is: we expect anyone with an appropriately equipped group or raid in t9 to be able to enjoy all of the new t9 content, regardless of whether they play alone or not. Where you're finding examples that isn't the case, then please talk to us about it in petitions.

Hello,

I was not trying to ruffle any feathers here I was just wondering, considering some of the information I have heard about the content, if there was a determination to go a certain way with the play style of the server.

There are plenty of other stories I could provide about past quests/mobs/zones but it really makes no difference. You as developers have the ability to make things as you like. We as players have the ability to determine if we like what you are providing and willing to spend our time here. No matter what is decided there will be someone that is not happy and move on.

As I said, there's no specific single direction, except to offer as much varied content as possible to help lots of different types of players to enjoy the server. And everything is on the table for discussion about what you like to see more of or if you feel anything can be improved.

I think that's always been the goal of THF though.

I appreciate some of the new features aren't going to be what everyone likes. Specific feedback will help us with that.

Hello all,

I returned since the end of 2019 on this server, I was part of a guild at the time in 2014.

With my new character, I just played a lot with my pet and a Bot (like 70)
I actually found quite a few people who do Solo boxing.

but among them I also found people to help me and finally a new guild to play (which has players who use mq2).

My opinion the content is playable as much by a real guild as by soloboxing players.
It's just different ways of playing

Regards