Does Stick Online V2 hold up?

[Loksmith]

Hi, I am on old member and some of you might remember me.  I have a moderate interest in game design and development, and I will be analyzing Stick Online from both perspectives.  This is a bit disorganized but if you are interested in game design or want to read and discuss old SO2, then read on

First, I am aware of the following:

• Stick Online was a hobby endeavor, and by no means professional
• The game had a small team attached to it

However, it's still interesting to give a critical analysis on it.

The main topic will be, would the game hold up to today's standards?

If you go back to when SO2 was in its most popular time, quality free to play games were nearly non-existent.  I'm sure you can recall the countless terrible flash games on websites, some of which still somehow persist to this day.  At this time, the "free-to-play" idea was not really established.  Free to play games were, with a few notable exceptions, independent projects that weren't sold because there would be no market for them.  In this point in time, SO2 certainly was a standout.

Today, not so much.  Let's start with level 1.

The game, just like nearly all like it, has a "go right" goal.  Newer, harder content is always just one screen away.  While in a singleplayer game or even a "dungeon" level in a multiplayer game this works, in stick online it is rather disappointing.  While having rewards for traveling right is fine as the gamer's intuition usually says to go right regardless, having the world be more transverse helps with a rather large flaw of the game being isolated.  The first interesting aspect of the game, and nearly all MMO's, is seeing someone better than you.  As you are equipped with just your fists or even a branch at this point,  seeing someone swing a hammer is exciting.  If there would have been something to achieve by going left for higher level players, as well as some more interesting content, the starting area would be quite the intriguing area as an early level. 

As an anecdote to this, my first interaction with Lucifer was him near the spawn area, and I went up and hit him and he hit me with a hammer that knocked me so far away.  Low level players interacting with higher level players is something you always want in an online game, as it gives the player a drive to continue and look forward.

For example, you could have the rock area with the rock monsters to the left of spawn, and even perhaps use the mountain as a natural impassable terrain instead of an invisible wall.  Something like this would have created a lot more foot traffic which leads to a more active area.

Next up, from leveling up, I will discuss the intuitiveness of the game systems.  Initially, the UI leaves a lot to be desired as features that didn't exist were on there.  Some of these, like the hotbar, would have been quite easy to implement, so it's hard to say why they weren't there.  As for the things like spells, it can be misleading and confusing for new players to see UI elements that don't actually exist.  As far as the leveling system, it was a decent and simple system.  Since it didn't have restrictions, you could form what you want as you play and not be locked into certain elements, often leading into "new character creation addiction" of games with different classes.  To be discussed later, each attribute did lead into a distinct play style, which is always what you want.  Having a lot of seeming overlap often feels pointless to players.

The use of weapons is also good.  Nothing needs to be explained.  There was a somewhat useless feature I remember of punching and kicking, which leads me to believe that the weapon use could have been more interesting with an alternate ability.  However, the weapon cooldowns feel natural, but maybe having some sort of subtle indicator would have been a good design choice.  Some weapons are what feels like simply upgrades which is unavoidable in RPGs, but even so with the exception of the katana the swords feel like: Sword, better sword, better better sword, etc.  The hammers by far have the best interactions and room for counterplay, as there are both cooldowns and windups for it, and only in a certain area will it damage.  Considering how rewarding hammers feel to use, they could have definitely seen higher rewards for using them.

Traversing terrain is also self explanatory.  Basic jumps and obstacles to maneuver around.  While this game was by no means only a platformer considering is many cases player movement was pretty slow, everyone probably remembers pretty tense moments around cliffs and jumps.

Lets talk about the games design.

If you've played an MMO, you've played a game like stick online.  Mobs spawn in areas, special boss mobs sometimes spawn.  This is a tried and true system that works fine.  Nonetheless, the system is decently uninspired.  Because there are no quests, killing monsters is only for getting drops and experience.  There could have definitely been other systems put into place or more unique ways of getting the drops and experience.  The best example of this was bunny spawns.

In pre-desert, at the bandit camp, bunny spawns were more exciting than the bandit boss spawn.  While this is partially due to it being a rarer spawn (I believe), you actually had to work together to get the rabbit without chasing it off.  This actually creates a very dynamic situation if you think about it.  First you have to work together with other players in order to trap it.  Many times this involved launching someone with a hammer.  Then, you compete against other players to actually get the spawn, but again, not trying to let it escape.  Even after already acquiring the bunny ears, bunny spawns were still interesting because of these interactive mechanics, much more so than a stronger version of a bandit that moves faster.  A buffed up version of a monster isn't exciting or interesting, its just part of a grind.

As far as the level design, I've touched on it briefly before about it only going right.  Having good content on both sides in a game like this is always the optimal choice.  It boosts player action, and creates a sense of bustle.  Aside from that, the level design is somewhat bland.  The most interesting aspect of the terrain is when you can interact with it, like at the bandit camp, or the temple, or the small town in spawn.  In between those are good amounts of green or sand, and in fact I can hardly remember anything about those.  While some parts will always be more interesting than others, even having minimal interaction or a change in the level really makes the traveling feel less like a grind itself.  However, the change in these partitions is actually rather clever.  Instead of having an arbitrary "you must be level X" , the system in this game instead relied on you actually having enough jump to get to the next level.  This system could still be bypassed if you wanted by boosting someone with a hammer.  This doesn't feel cheating to the player as it creates a fluid way of blocking the way for weaker players.  I think it would have also been a really ingenious system to somehow restrict via HP or even strength.  Something like, a stone, inanimate guardian of the temple knocks you as you walk by, and if have too low HP you can't get through.  It would take some brainstorming to come up with solid ideas for those, but how it is limiting based on agility is good.

PvE'ing is simple, and can get kind of dull.  This is both because of the simple weapon system and the basic environment.  Since there isn't much room to "outplay" the mobs, you kind of just wack them until you are low, heal, repeat.  Having something like an alternate attack or a block would let the combat be more than just attacking, jumping to the other side, attacking, jumping, etc.  This previous combo is what 95% of PvE and even PvP boiled down to.

For PvPing, despite it being simple, was pretty fun.  This again doesn't come from interesting mechanics from the weapon choice, as mostly you would be using Great Sword and its variants, but mostly from the movements of the player.  The skillcap of PvPing was in how the player moved and timed attacks.  Something which really showed the lack of good design was again how there is no hotbar, so the optimal pvp was then with the use of a hotkey script to change gear midfight.  The fighting again would have been way better with some interesting, balanced mechanics besides attack and jump.  Fighting can still simple and intuitive with 2 attack buttons and some combos.  As far as stat attributes, I remember there being some optimal builds, but the player didn't suffer much if he wanted his own play style (lest for silly builds like all in agility).

The economy of the game was pointless.  Very soon into the game gold becomes worthless.  I imagine there was some legitimate plans for gold in future updates, but some ones off the top of my head are cosmetics, "tickets" to a in-game 1v1 system with an elo system.

The weapons in this game I feel like there was so much missed opportunity.  For the few weapons in the game that created a unique experience when using them, it is so unfortunate that often they aren't that good or rewarding, even if you use them expertly.  The game desperately needed some new mechanics that would make the weapons more interesting.  Whip reduced their jump height.  Dagger lunges you forward.  Scythe has a critical hit zone, but the animation leaves you vulnerable.  Anything after a couple days of brainstorming would be fine. 

The hats were good back then, and are still a decent system today.  Each hat has a different use, and while some are pointless after getting their upgraded version, that is fine.  Some hats are warn all the time for some builds, some are constantly switching, it was actually a fun system that made you actually think and plan out.  I think a lot of the hats were made obsolete when everyone starting getting the dragoon helmet, so maybe making the dragoon more specialized would have solved this, but that is kind of hard to do with limited attributes.  Still, a fine system.

I've kind of rambled, but I'll break it down into simply a few sentences.

While the game is easy to pick up and intuitive all around, it isn't that interactive and it leads to an isolated camp and farm style.  The mobs are generally uninspired but sometimes fighting them can feel rewarding.  The game has some pretty memorable level design while having many bland parts, but has a very good way of transitioning different difficulties.  Despite the weapons being pretty basic and not much variance, PvPing is a fun system but PvEing is pretty boring and grindy.  The hat system is probably the most balanced and best designed system in the game.

The verdict is, back then this game was better than a lot of others, but if this was released today it wouldn't stand up at all.  Here's to hoping version 3 fixes these issues.

[bubba]

Honestly you're completely correct about the old generation of the internet. It really was a different time back then and the lack of so many users meant so much less investment by companies to create games. There are a lot of F2P games these days that totally take people's time, League of Legends, Dota 2, TF2, all those Korean MMOs, etc.

But I think you miss a pretty huge point: if the game was released today it probably wouldn't last on PC. But holy crap would it be insanely strong on mobile. Think about it, there are 3 directionals (down left right), jump, sit, and attack. This is pretty strong for a mobile game, not gonna lie.

I really do think if V3 is on phones/tablets, it will smash. Heck if he even made a Free version and a $2 version with donator perks it would smash charts. SOv2 is easy on bandwidth so playing on a 3G/4G/LTE connection wouldn't be a huge deal for data caps either, and I doubt SOv3 will really change that aspect.

edit: Also yeah what made SO1 (and SO2 I guess) really good was there wasn't any competition really for a good multiplayer game back then (in terms of GMC relevant games). There were quite a few cool multiplayer games but none of them did combat even half as well as SO1/2 nor had nearly as much player progression. It's funny how a lot of those MMOs focused heavily on graphics but ended up kind of going down the drain gameplay wise.