VT Group Briefings

<About Playing

This thread will not be up-dated further after 13th May 2020.

Introduction:
Current Members of the VT Group: Remix and Hawkmoon

Hello everyone,

We thought we should start a theme of community feedback and 'direction' and hope to give monthly/six weekly updates on how things have progressed (or not) and what’s going on in the game.

The volunteers (myself recently becoming one again) and GM's have the very best intentions of the game but as people will tell you, nothing is that simple to do in Soma from a administering and development perspective. We are, as always mostly dependant on Finito and there's a fine balance between enthusiasm and pushing for things, it's something we're all learning to keep in check. Then of course people have real life and jobs to get on with.

Most suggestions these days are spoken about in Discord, whether we see them on the forum or in Discord, some of them turn into a discussion others don't get very far. That isn't that they are not important, we try to listen to everything and everyone but it becomes very consuming. When bugs are reported, a item is wrong or something isn't quite right, we'll report it and ask for it to be fixed with as much information as we can but again, it can be a full time job and somethings (like publishing multi monitor fixes) maybe wont ever be properly fixed without external help.

All of the above really should be a reminder that it’s a volunteer thing done by enthusiasts. We're really trying to also stay away from guild bias or people with obvious non-neutral perspectives, again, its quite challenging at times. (edited)

iSylver himself commented that we all need to just focus on one thing at a time rather than save the world in a day but that can be difficult when we're all passionate about Soma... We're trying.

13th April 2020: Wiki VT Group Briefing
. Following on from the last up-date, I can now tell you that the following things have been achieved in the interim:

1. The Quartermasters have arrived in the Throne Room and are trading for some really nice stuff.

2. The lack of availability of Scrolls of Valour has been mitigated a little with the introduction of Scrolls being rewarded to those individuals who activate the crystals to open Negas’ domain and a couple of scrolls quests have also been added. More ways to gain scrolls are in the melting pot……….

3. A 100% all-new CTF map has been introduced to replace the old one.

4. A teaser showing of another completely new map was also shown and the development of the purpose this is on-going.

5. Several new quests have been added for both races.

6. Drop rates were increased to x1.5 for a couple of weeks.

7. The Level Cap has been increased to 125.

8. A “Support the NHS” Homelment  was added to the donation store – with all proceeds going to the NHS. There has been a really great response to this and their sale ends Friday 10th April.

9. A few naughty people have been given amnesty – welcome back – try and be good :’)

10. A double drops and double exp event combined in with Easter Event will start at 00:01 Friday 10th and go on for two weeks. We like to think that the Easter event will be at least twice as good as last years too………..!

11. We hit just shy of 300 people on-line at the same time recently! I’m waiting to see what Easter brings – +300 maybe………….?

12. As always Finito is currently working hard to improve server reliability and stability and is currently into significant up-grades towards this end – some having already been rolled out and more imminent!

In addition to the above, the below things are under discussion too:

1. Adding new spawns of some existing mobs into Conti to try and ease the anticipated numbers on-line for the Easter x2 event

2. increasing the size of existing spawns.

3. The use of the teaser map is being discussed – although Easter has got in the way of this a bit.

4. Botters and cheating in general is under a bit of a spotlight atm too……

5. We are also looking at the feasibility of introducing new short-term buffs to supplement the attack and defence ones already in game now.

6. New weapons and armours are on the list too.

27th January 2020: Recent changes / fixes
-Anvil now has +1 and +2 upgrades guaranteed success, a much wanted change by the community and an attempt to draw two extremes of player’s closer together (casual – hard core). We brought this change in through a thin set story with a build-up and contribution event. (Something I think we will do again). Big change for everyone that plays the game.

-Mag Fragment drop rates have increased by 50%

-Fixed a couple of incorrect upgrades / quest texts / bugs. Please keep reporting them!

-Released Heroic necklaces

-Updated some 10 unpopular gathering style quests to make them more likely to be completed or ‘worth doing’.

-We practically finished the "extension" of Soma map but it needs "a reason to exist", if it will ever, as iSylver privately said, so realistically it can't and won't be used at least until we have an expansion or something to really make use of it.

-We also finished another map for another specific "purpose" (Requested by GMs). -We've created a couple of brand new art assets we hope one day will be used "somewhere" in the game. ---

Plans

We're hoping to release rewards for the particles people gathered for the King.

-We’re hoping to release something unique for high end crafters.

-We’re hoping to release “other accessories”

-We've been working with iSylver on   we can't talk about but let’s just say it will break up the grind for people and will be a challenge. Part of the work has been done to implement this but there are other aspects that need to be done. We're all a bit excited about it but I won't expect   to be released for a month or two or even three.

-We've started a discussion about mages, how they get locked out in group play (The sister argument being about bow, they both push each other "higher"). How archers dominate "everything" in Human soma, the variety of solutions on offer. We have plans on testing privately "recoil" of Mages, which we know is possible to alter but also the repercussions of that change. Would it / should it mean becoming less of a glass cannon, reducing proc damage / max number of procs. That plus how it affects other 'weapon types', in Devil Soma as everyone is class locked we can be precise in how those outcomes look, in Human Soma it’s  more difficult with diversified character builds and "play styles" and ability to swap weapons. (edited)

-We've talked about giving mages more utility/support tools so that they have a second dimension of play style in mind of the above. Are things like “HoT” (Heal over time) and a MD/DF AoE buff possible? Chojine offered to create new spells for such things. Amazing…

-As above, we talked about how making other melee weapons more relevant / more opportunities to use them but really it comes down to those two classes / weapon types above being fixed first, we think.

-We talked about possible new mage armour and even about splitting MD/MA up into their own stats (Human Soma, that bit).

-We talked about how "somethings" in the game right now can't be fixed at least until the next cap raise and for that we want it to actually have new tiers of stuff to go with it.

That would be the time to actually release entirely new weapons - not re-coloured, we’re talking brand new looking weapons - something the game hasn’t had in years. That work has partially already been done by Chojine but it’s a long process – we had intended to hint, even briefly show one at Halloween but things just didn’t work out that way, sorry about that.

I don’t think any of us would disagree saying that we think "with our help to the GM's we are super ambitious and want to bring in the most packed expansion possible". That may not be something in our favour in reality.

-Briefly talked about Resurrection Scrolls (see forum thread) and I mentioned that inventory space is very precious these days, multiple gear setups and weapons plus needing space for drops. Making them stackable sounds sensible but would suggest weight being a feature. Encouraging players to come to town for resupplies is important for economy/interaction/community. But at the same time, don't suggest we limit how many you can carry too harshly.

-Suggested the party ability of /roll be usable in normal chat as well (but with a cool down) for more public open air events.

-We talked about and it was unanimous between the volunteers that people running the crystals for Negamare should have a repeatable quest to encourage people to do it and compete.

-We talked about and agreed that enhancing the Party interface (between the VT group at least) that being able to assign 'roles' within a party would be a good thing and one more step towards creating team based hunting/grouping.

-Several months ago it was talked about being about to "raid" dungeons as a party, team effort based. Very loosely as an idea by iSylver in recognition by the lack of a "draw" to grouping is a big deal.

-We talked about Devil Dungeon amongst ourselves and if we could expand it in some way. Right now it feels like 200 monsters just on top of each other and a boss spawn. We think it should be more than it is.

-As Volunteers, Unvmeh, MickyC are singlehandedly doing Facebook streaming / story settings to try and keep things visible and moving forward. I and the others are actively trying to encourage a healthier community through other events, streaming and immersion of stories/Wiki. Something that we'll keep doing and we feel is important right now. We want to get to a place where people feel able to play the way they actually really want to then be hemmed into "I must PVP" or "I must troll someone because I’m frustrated". We get it, it’s a game and we want it to be fun and "Shit talking" will always be an aspect of Soma but so will other parts of it too and it’s important that each area is ring fenced and protected from another. People should feel more at ease of saying "Hey I'm going on an adventure to D4 but I'm going to walk and kill everything in my way, want to join?". That’s how Soma was built originally and it’s a play type that’s important to be encouraged to continue to exist.

I hope this all gives you something to chew on. I just realized there’s a lot about Mage here but it seems to be the topic of choice at the moment, and is also a forum thread too.

I'll try and write another update beginning or 1st of March about how things have developed since then.

P.S The plan section isn’t to be taken too literally, there can be any number of reasons why any or all of these things may not happen, be it someone’s time, or the practicality of how the game works. Or simply GM’s saying “no”. The hope is, if we bring you regular updates, you’ll see which things are moving and which aren’t and new things too as well.

Comments below from Finito this update

"https://voca.ro/1T3skQ7zQ9N "

Be well, Somarians!

Volunteer Team