Biggest problem in Cantr

[Jos Elkink]

I would like to know what people think are the biggest problems in Cantr. Perhaps I can turn this into a poll later on, but I first need to know what should be on that poll ...

There are always players leaving the game, but in recent months I have the impression we are particularly bad at keeping players, even enthousiast/active ones. So there are issues, be it the violence system, the skills system, or whatever. So what do you think are the main issues?

But first some rules for this thread, otherwise it becomes useless:
1) Post only one post in this thread per person, and put only one sentence summarizing the main problem;
2) Do not respond to others or start a discussion - if you want to respond, start a new thread;
3) Be as clear as you can what exactly the problem is - just one word like 'skills' will not explain much (but still in one sentence, though );
4) Do not hesitate to repeat what others said - I want to get an indication whether it's one or many people thinking this;
5) Post only one problem - which one is for you the most important?

If you think there are many people in your language region that do not check the English forums, feel free to translate this post and put it in your language as well, and then add them in English below ... Thanks .

[ChillFreeze]

From looking at the amount of posts of a person, i am guessing that many of the people that have been playing, have been playing for a long time, so after a time people lose iintrest, or their real lives take over, and to the people who are just joining, the slow startup getting into the game process scares people away.

[Missy]

There isn't one problem, there are three and they include skills, repairs and the road naming change. All three, I am capable to endure, but others are not and if I had to choose one in particular to get rid of it would be repairs, but I'd say it's all three that scared so many people away, having made the game hard for both new and old players on the same level.

[Kreed]

Just recently my life took over and I had to cut back on game time, it was very difficult to get back into it, my gripe is that all my nine charries spawned and live in urban areas, just not easy to get to a frontier.

[SekoETC]

Ok maybe this isn't the biggest problem but it annoys me that the manufacturing system is so strict.
- Currently you either have the tools or you don't, if you don't then you can't work. People can't assist with incomplete tool sets.

- Example 1: If one person was sawing something, having another person holding down the something (provided there's no work bench, or even if there was) would help.

- Example 2: You should be able to use a carving knife instead of a bone knife and it should work even better (though maybe not as well as a steel knife). But the quality and speed of work should depend on the quality of the tool.

- Example 3: You should be able to knock on a chisel with tools other than a mallet, maybe even with a cooking stone, but harder objects would make it deteriorate faster.

[nitefyre]

The repairs debacle. I know this will be the reason why I will stop playing my last two remaining characters, Angus Tarbh MacGregor and Thomas Hobbes, once their stored gear and collections starts to deteriorate. I'm not going to be spending my life finding an army to repair. I could better understand that raw resources deteriorated when not used, whereas manufactured items remain the same, to provide proper incentive for sound economic principle (via scaricity in the right places) in promoting production. This current system was poorly thought out; fixing the "bug" (as it has been unduly called) will be the last straw.

Unfortunately, I will not be departing immediately in a storm of fuss and drama since I promised GAB a year of CD/Zine work and I do not break my word.

[Black Canyon]

Hmm. This is a tough question and I took some time to consider it rather than list my trivial gripes. My first thought is that there are not enough players for such a vast area. That is the short answer. A lack of players means a lack of activity. A lack of role-play opportunity.... and a lack of accomplishment. So.... my short answer is that we do not have enough players.

That begs the question of why. Why are older players quitting and newer players not sticking around? This is a much more difficult question to answer. Like Missy, I believe that a variety of factors are to blame. It has been mentioned before, but I think it has to do with a reduction in "fun factor". Our attempts to make cantr more realistic may have resulted in a reduction in "fun factor". There has to be a balance. For every increase in difficulty or tedium added..... an increase in incentive or "fun factor" needs to be added for balance. If life becomes too tedious and mundane and mired down in the details that make our real lives a struggle.... what is the point? If the fun is too hard to find, who is going to wait around for it...especially as a brand new player? The argument that cantr is a society stimulator and characters need to work together in order to make things happen assumes that there will be enough active characters to accomplish that.

As a player I definitely see the decline in activity in the game. Although it can be argued that cities tend to rise and fall, I don't believe that explains the overall decline of activity in general. And in looking back.... did we truly not have examples of large groups working together to achieve greatness? And how have changes since brought us closer to that goal? Repairs? Now not only are tools and weapons hoarded, but they also require constant babysitting. Less likely will leaders and businessmen travel to interface with other towns and leaders when they need to ensure that their livelihoods won't be a crumbled pile when they return. Hire a repairman? Sure... if you can find one who wants to spend his life sitting inside and still remain alive and active to actually work. But then again..... what were we trying to accomplish? It was my understanding that the goal was to reduce these mountains of treasure that older characters so selfishly hide away all to themselves. Well.... guess what? Most of those older characters are gone now. How many bastions of old dictatorships still exist out there? I bet not too many. And if a few are still around...... so what? I understand that there should probably be some sort of gradual wear on tools and weapons, however it is a big cantr world out there. It will take quite some time to reach a saturation point when it comes to equipment.

Perhaps the question should be asked if the combination or changes..... repair rates, increased food requirements, town and road amnesia, skills, and tiredness have resulted in an imbalance of difficulty versus fun factor. Each individual change likely would not do it, but taken as a whole maybe it is the case.

I realize that many will not agree with me at all on this, it is only my opinion. And I did kind of ramble on, but......pffft.

[Redbeard]

This request is going to result in very personal answers... I know what I find wrong with Cantr II personally, but if I had more time available to devote to playing then the list would be different.

What is wrong with Cantr II is "expectations"... when you join first you expect things to happen much faster than they do, then when you become established and your real life calls, it is hard to slow down because other players expect you to be available and active.

[Elros]

Why do people play games? They play games to get away from their normal lives for a little while and have some fun. So with that said, when the "game" is as difficult and longsome as real-life then what is the point of playing it?

I completely agree with Black Canyon, and with Redbeard. For new players the game takes to long and is to hard to advance in. Projects take a long time, gathering resources and making such materials as steel and iron ect.. take forever. That is what scares the new players away and causes them to get bored and seek a more active game somewhere else.

[Nakranoth]

As a relatively new player, my opinion is almost definately completely opposite of many of the older players. The Dynamics of the game don't change fast enough to suit the demands of the players.
Example: Repair. It's been "implemented" for as long as i've been playing, and unbalanced for as long. Now, it's getting extra flak because it's going to be fixed, but the counterbalance (decay durring repair) got more advertising than the balance (adjusting of decay/repair rates). So older players are irritable becase they think all their things will fall apart and newer ones are freaking out because the older ones are.

[Nixit]

The sleeping sickness is the biggest problem in this game. Obviously, this is caused by other problems, but that is what turns me off the most.

[Elros]

Sleeping Sickness?

[viktor]

i find that the reapirs take up too much of a character's time simply reducing rot and speeding repair would fix this problem and give back characters more time to.... not being bogged down with repairs. (trying to make the game more realistic indeed is good but realistically we still have swords hundreds of years old that have never been rapired and are what cantr would call old but not crumbling)

[Phalynx]

For me it's resistance to change in that people have become very attached to their old and valuable characters and fear anything that makes life difficult for their characters - I dream of a (perhaps mythical) time when all the players were prepared to risk things on wars, conflict and exploration.

[The Sociologist]

I dealt with a wide range of issues here:

Essay on Motivation

It is difficult to sum it up as just a single point. If I had to, I would say it is the skills system in relation to combat and repairs.

1. Combat is too unbalanced to be workable apart from dragging, and the skills system randomly gives an overwhelming advantage to a handful of characters, namely those who can drag others single-handedly. Dragging does not seem to cause tiredness whereas hitting does, which adds a huge further imbalance. In other words, you can hit someone and then drag them single-handedly because your tiredness does not appear to impact your ability to drag, or at least the damage done to the victim outweighs any other factor. This makes the perceived risk of combat too high and has driven most strategy players from the game long ago.

2. Repairs. I had two characters start out the same time, both following similar paths in the same region. One flourished and the other failed. Indeed, one now has a bike and by the time he arrives in town all his items are sparkling brand new. The other struggles into town on foot, hungry and with all his tools crumbling. He has not managed to make himself a bike yet although he has the iron and steel. It's taking him forever to get to the nearest town with rubber. What is the difference between these two? One is expert at repairs and the other is awkward.

That does not mean that repairs should be done away with. But as I put in the Essay on Motivation, it would be better if they required addition of resources or else maintenance materials like the suggested "tool oil". This could allow for a radical reduction of the time taken. Currently the time factor is too high, and in combination with poor skills the result is catastrophic for the game.