This game has a lot of issues that are driving down the review scores and general perception of it I think, some of which are simply "It's not for everyone" issues, and others are genuine problems that need fixing.



1. Price point. The $1000+ bundles are going to drive a lot of people away, even if you don't actually have to buy them. There is simply a general sentiment against wealthy people and companies that charge a lot for entertainment these days, so the prices themselves draw the game into that realm of internet culture wars. Bottom line is, if you sell anything in a game that not everyone can afford and there will be people that see it as a sign that the whole company making the game is immoral. This is probably not something that can still change about SOTA (and not necessarily something that should change), but I think it is by far the biggest thing that makes people want to share negative opinions of this game.



2. Time investment. This game demands a lot of time from its players, and it demands constant commitment as well. For one, the game is pretty grindy. XP is a slow trickle unless you're already a demigod who can handle most content by themselves. Gold isn't exactly piled on you either. The upkeep for things like housing and the strong social element also make the game take a significant commitment. For people who want to play more than one game that quickly becomes a problem. This isn't going to drive negativity all by itself, but it is going to be a significant factor in making people quit playing.



3. Visual boredom. The game doesn't really have a look that draws people in. Of course the graphics aren't that great in general, but that's something a lot of people will forgive. The issue is more that the game tends to look incredibly generic. There are a few elements where you see some artistic vision poking through, like the various teslapunk automatons or Obsidian architecture, but most of the things in the game just don't look interesting, so when you see pictures or videos of it it doesn't really draw you in. This isn't saying the game needs to be full of crazy armor with spinny things and glowy bits and stuff like that either. Games like The Witcher show that a fairly grounded medieval fantasy setting can be gorgeous and visually distinct. A good example of a place that looks awesome is the monastary in Highvale Outskirts. When I was walking back toward that from the valley and actually looked up and got a good look at it nested on the mountain up there was one of the few times where I really felt drawn into the beauty and mystery of the place.



4. Bad balance. One of the primary appeals to a game like SOTA is "Be what you want to be". This game has a tendency to make a lot of things people might want to be very frustrating and weak. For example, let's say you character idea is "Elementalist mage", well, tough luck. Between attunement, specializations and relics being the biggest single source of added damage it's basically a losing proposition to not just focus on one or two spell schools. Let's say your character idea is "Platemail and shield tank", you'll very quickly find out that you simply can't hold aggro with how little damage you do, and you can also tank very well if you build for max damage and have death shield up. Want to be a conjurer? While there are a lot of conjuration spells in the game, there is no way to specialize in them at all, nor are any of them really all that good. Being a tamer is the best you can do. Skills that work alongside the teslapunk element of the game like engineering or gauss weapons don't exist at all. The melee trees being focused on weapon categories instead of fighting styles makes them weirdly exclusive to each other. If you want to be an archer who throws icefields on the ground you're in for a treat though. Point being, there are too many builds that should work that don't and that is going to frustrate a lot of people.



5. Lacking polish. There are just too many things that don't work, feel awkward to use, cause annoying bugs, or otherwise just make the game feel unfinished. Between your map loading for 20 seconds every time you want to know where you're going (if it loads at all), your compass being a perpetual sparkle party of broken quest markers you can't get rid of, and the NPC dialog system being obtuse and annoying to navigate even with all the keywords at the bottom there is just no denying that if you play this game for a week you'll encounter a heap of stuff that just shouldn't be there. Like, if you try to use Alt+# as keybinds you find yourself unable to move while activating abilities because the game thinks you're trying to press Alt-WASD which has nothing bound to it. Stuff like that is just... no! If there is nothing bound to a key + modifier key then disregard the modifier.



6. WTF is SOTA? People simply don't know what this game is even supposed to be. There are those of us who ended up with SOTA because we come from Ultima Online, but to the vast majority of people this game doesn't do a very good job explaining itself at all. It just goes: "Yea, this is like an MMORPG except without raids, and only very few quests, and it's really slow." and that requires a bit of explanation why that's a good thing and who that's a good thing for. This game will never be for everyone, so it becomes doubly important to let people know what they are getting into. Would be a shame if someone who would love the game never tries it because all they saw was bad reviews from people who didn't understand it wasn't for them.

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