common pleveling methods

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common pleveling methods

Postby kiryan » Fri Jul 28, 2006 8:52 pm

----plevel methods

friendly KS

In most mmorpgs if you do more than 50% of the damage to a mob, you get the kill and exp. Here you can do 99% of the damage to a mob then let a lowbie get the kill stroke for mega exp. At least make it so that you get a % of the kill based on the contribution of damage. So if you do 99% you get 99% of the exp and the lowbie gets 1%.

CLARIFICATION: if your group does 99% of the damage to a mob then the exp should be split with your group. If your being pleveled and you/group is only doing 1% of the damage you should get 1% of the exp.

Also consider giving "points" to spells cast on mobs so if you have a level 50 enchanter casting major para on a level 20 mob maybe that works out to 75% of the "damage" to the mob... use a sliding scale based on level of caster, level of spell and level of mob. This could be as easy as simply saying a successful major para on a mob is worth 1800 points and 1 point of damage is worth 1 point so paraing a 200 hp mob parad would have 2000 pts against it, with 90% going to the para'r and 10% going to the killer.

spellup the lowbie

In a few mmorpgs, you have to be a certain level before a spell can take hold on you. For instance, why should dragonscales work on a level 1 character? You might as well just raise that char to level 30 because what exactly can he learn about the game when he is playing the level 1-10 game with a level 50 spell.

You could use the same "point" system i described above, make a dragonscale worth 2000 points, or a full heal worth 1000 points. If your using someone else's skills to do the majority of the work in killing a mob do you really deserve any exp?

cap the eq stats by level

Along the lines of the previous sentiment and level caps on item procs, why do level 1 characters get full bonus from eq they wear? A level 1 with -100 AC, 300 hps in eq and 20/20 is kinda silly. you are again playing the level 1 game with level 50 eq. Cap each stat by level, so perhaps for each level you can only apply 10 ac, 20 hps, and 1/1. So while you may be wearing -100 ac in eq, you might still have 90 ac at level 1.

play the game

why does what an enchanter do from 1-20 not resemble what they do from 21-50 in any way shape or form? The best way to level a caster is to melee from 1-20ish.

In other games something like an enchanter, a defensive caster, would get defensive spells at level 1 and get upgraded spells throughout their career. Now this would allow enchanters to mem an unholy # of defensive spells, but i'm sure a level 50 mob could straight up ignore a level level 6 stone a level 16 stone and probably even a level 26 stone... One thing that always boggled my mind was why a level 22 enchanter was "valuable" to a level 45 player fighting level 50 mobs... should a level 22 enchanter really be able to protect you from a level 50 mob?

Oh and cut those mem times way down so that casters can actually cast spells in lowbie exp. You really cant ask a group to wait 18 seconds for a level 1 cleric to pray a cure light.

Another idea from homelands, all mages start out as a generic mage and level to 10 then quest their class. This problem of playing the game affects the 1-20 caster game the most because of lack of keystone spells and group unfriendly mem times.
Last edited by kiryan on Fri Jul 28, 2006 11:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Latreg » Fri Jul 28, 2006 8:59 pm

Love him or hate him, he's got some dam fine ideas, sexellent post.
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Postby Pril » Fri Jul 28, 2006 9:29 pm

I hate him. And we'll stick with the hate.
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Postby Tasan » Fri Jul 28, 2006 10:28 pm

Pleveling is a means to an end. I would hope(and do) that the point of emphasis for 2.0 is going to eliminate the grind associated with experience so that things like this don't even really become a factor.

I personally do not like a lot of your suggestions, seeing as there are reasons that I don't play a MMO. I do however like the idea of specializing at level 15 or 20 if you are a mage or clerical type. I don't see level 20 and below spells being used very much at the higher levels, and perhaps the idea about giving spells early and having them gain power over experience is one w/ merit.
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Postby kiryan » Fri Jul 28, 2006 10:43 pm

Pleveling is a means to an end, its a means to get a char to 50 as fast as possible by eliminating interaction with other players, trivializing character value and disheartenting the newbie.

At what point do we say hey lets just start everyone at level 50 so they can play the game? Or at what point do we say, hey since you already leveled 3 chars to 50, lets give you one of every class since you already know the game and how to play every class?

Personally, I find that the game of doing the same 3 tier 1 zones and checking rares every boot quite tired already. dont you?

We need to make leveling part of the game, not further reduce its significance. We need to encourage more interaction and more low level groups.
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Postby Drache » Fri Jul 28, 2006 11:11 pm

It's funny you say that. Mostly because you have a lot of lvl kiry.x alts that were pleveled when I was around. So, you yourself avoided the grind by having others help you.
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Postby Minofagal » Fri Jul 28, 2006 11:11 pm

In most mmorpgs if you do more than 50% of the damage to a mob, you get the kill and exp. Here you can do 99% of the damage to a mob then let a lowbie get the kill stroke for mega exp. At least make it so that you get a % of the kill based on the contribution of damage. So if you do 99% you get 99% of the exp and the lowbie gets 1%.


ummm, that would screw us chanters. i like it the way it is. thanx for playing.[/quote]
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Postby Drache » Fri Jul 28, 2006 11:19 pm

kiryan wrote:It wouldnt be such a grind if there was a game to play between 1 and 50, not just starting at 50.
(from another thread) This would explain why you were p-leveling so now I understand what you're saying
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Postby Gormal » Fri Jul 28, 2006 11:28 pm

I don't have a problem with powerlevelling at all. The level cap thing seems to work well enough to make it more difficult to plvl... if trophy were altered a bit then these newbies who only get kill exp would hurt more. On the other hand, clerics, chanters, etc etc would get raped if it was based on damage exp.

Plus I gotta agree with Drache, of anyone in this game you should be complaining about levelling chars up the least.
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Postby kiryan » Fri Jul 28, 2006 11:45 pm

oh there was some confusion about what i meant by 99% and 1% on damage under friendly KS.

If your GROUP does more than 50% of the damage then your GROUP should get the exp. If your being pleveled and another person/group is doing all the damage for you, you should get a exp comensurate with the amount of damage your group did... 0.
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Postby kiryan » Fri Jul 28, 2006 11:59 pm

the exp level probably reduce exp a lot, but it really doesn't bring you down to a point where you level more slowly with a high level person than you do with a low level group unless the high level person is killing slowly.

Lots of high level fast kills will level a level 20 in a level 50 group plenty fast.
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Postby Arcelian » Sat Jul 29, 2006 2:20 am

While I respect you as a veteran player and an inexperienced nooblet like myself is probably out of line openly disagreeing, disagree I must.

With the pbase in its diminished state, I'm all for the lovely plevel staying. Finding people your level to group with is all but impossible for the casual player, and difficult still for the hardcore player....

It seems like the ones who want to make exp harder or more challenging are the ones who have already used and abused the current system and have an alt for every occasion. Of course they would want it more difficult, it makes what they've accomplished more valuable.

If there were a pwipe I'd be all for it, otherwise we're further widening the gap between current players and new players.
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Postby kiryan » Sat Jul 29, 2006 3:16 am

I'd be willing to delete all of my characters to get this implemented. I believe this idea will make the game better.
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Postby Disoputlip » Sat Jul 29, 2006 7:28 am

I agree with most of the proposed changes, but they should all be implemented, or none of them. If only the part where other help you is implemented then alts just deck out and solo.

About the memtimes then I 100% agree. A level 1 mage cannot kill anything with that 1 magic missile spell. The spell system is totally out of touch with reality the first few levels. I think a magic user should have aproximatly as much offense as a psi have on level 1. I also think a level 1 cleric should have around as much healing as a bard has.

These changes is not high in my priority though, but I see it as good feedback for when Toril 2.0 is implemented.
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Postby Jhorr » Sat Jul 29, 2006 1:04 pm

I like the idea of making the low end game more involved. I hope incorporating Feats in 2.0 will result in lowbie quests that require group play to achieve. In addition, adding quests to achieve certain levels could add a group play requirement to the low end game.

Of course, the Achilles' heal to this is: Would enough low level players be around to group with?
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Postby Ashiwi » Sat Jul 29, 2006 2:13 pm

Unfortunately, the largest drawback to any of these exp ideas is that unless all low level characters are basically forced to equip themselves, those who have higher level alts have no real reason to become involved in the low level game.
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Postby Lilira » Sat Jul 29, 2006 4:44 pm

Agree Ashi.. something I mentioned in another thread.

This mud is exceptionally top-heavy. Pretty much any time you do a who over 2/3rds the list is 46 and up.
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Postby kiryan » Sat Jul 29, 2006 11:48 pm

people who choose to level up new characters will be involved in the game where as now they grind it solo. I'll trade the few of you that help newbies out for requiring the rest of you who level up solo to participate. And you could still give a newbie equipment, they just won't be playing the low level game with high level stats.

And you can still mentor, you can still "help", you just can't "plevel".
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Postby Dalar » Sun Jul 30, 2006 12:49 am

pwipe
It will be fixed in Toril 2.0.
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Postby Minofagal » Sun Jul 30, 2006 12:57 am

i know this won't be a popular idea, but what about level restrictions on equipment equal to the minimum level required for that zone?
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Postby Arcelian » Sun Jul 30, 2006 3:10 am

kiryan wrote:I'd be willing to delete all of my characters to get this implemented. I believe this idea will make the game better.


Unfortunately most others aren't, and Shev has clearly stated that pwipe is not an option....

The idea is good, but as I originally stated, a pwipe would really be the only way to make it 100% effective....unless we have a massive influx of newbies to form level coordinated groups, those with high level characters will keep them, and those with low level characters will be at an even greater disadvantage.
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Postby kiryan » Sun Jul 30, 2006 8:24 am

You called me out saying i had a vested interest in making chars more valuable because I have a lot of alts. I responded by saying I was personally willing to delete all my chars (not pwipe) so that you'd understand it has nothing to do with what i would gain or lose.

while a pwipe would be the best thing to put everyone on a level playing field, its been said time and time again there is not going to be a pwipe. But as I said in the other thread, you don't have to pwipe to implement change, even change as significant as reversing the 10 year trend in exp/leveling. I'm sure a solution can be found to nearly any implementation issue, code or people.

Also, I think you understimate the # of people involved in leveling up new characters. Most of us probably are actively leveling an alt... most of us probably spend as much or more time exping/leveling alts than we do zoning. I think it would be great if there were actually low level exp and zone groups again instead of pleveling and solo exp.
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Postby Lilira » Sun Jul 30, 2006 5:28 pm

Nevermind. Kiryan beat me too it in the ideas thread.
Last edited by Lilira on Sun Jul 30, 2006 5:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Ashiwi » Sun Jul 30, 2006 5:31 pm

But the real problem with implementing any kind of code that gets players involved in the lower levels of exp is how do you invest them into the lower level game? Without the competition aspect that follows a pwipe, then your next best bet is the gain of rewards, and if your lower level characters are already equipped in top tier gear, that drive is gone.

Part of what drives the excitement and fun of leveling up lower level characters is the thrill of discovery and reward, the excitement of gaining that quest/zone item that gets you a notch closer to your goal, and maybe sets you apart from other players.

As much as I LOVE the idea of making SG give experience as a zone, what would drive players to do it as a zone in the lower levels if they receive no real gain from doing it, other than a little more experience? Do people want to be more immersed for the grind up from 1 to 50? Or do they want to occupy their minds on other things while the triggers do the work until they get to the point where they have to think to get farther than they've already been?

I'm still torn on the idea of a pwipe, but until we can answer the question of how to instill competition and adversity back into the game, there's still going to be a pervasive cloud of stagnation that hovers over ALL levels of play.

I never did care for level-restricted equipment, myself. If you implemented that, you'd just have higher level players farming the best lower level equipment for their alts. If that happened, you'd have to start implementing level-restricted zones, which would encourage people to find more creative means of getting around that issue. It's a snowball once you start it, and it won't solve the issue at its source.

Unfortunately, and I shudder to say it, one of the best short-term solutions is to have an "accidental" fire that burns down the Dead Orc Inn, and all its storage rooms. Combine that with a plague of rustmonsters and ravenous magical moths, and you'll have a lot more activity in the game.

In short... you people just don't know what fun is until you give "Nekkid Imphras Week" a go.
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Postby Lilira » Sun Jul 30, 2006 5:35 pm

Ohhh.. naked week. We need to do that again! Casters only get their spellbooks!!! (I'm SOOOOOOOOOO not taking the 5 hours to rescribe or paying the plats for the spells.. *gag*)
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Postby grundar » Sun Jul 30, 2006 9:35 pm

common pleveling methods:

enchanter major paralyzing mobs and rogue stabbing

botting smoke with a ginormous group 24/7

*cough*late but mighty!*cough*


btw naked week = ranger/dire/rogue/your mom being passed over for a vokermud :P or rather elem or illus who sport their own tanks :P
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Postby Drache » Sun Jul 30, 2006 10:10 pm

Kiry confuses me. I know he's virtually plvl'd by his friends regardless of the alt. So that tells me he could give a rat's ass less about how xp'g is now. I don't recall any time DnD'g where xp'g was a grind like it is in this mud. Slow, (yawn) and steady. I really hope it doesn't take nearly as long to max level as it does now when 2.0 is in. Xp isn't fun as it is now. I don't know if people really think about it. You have to xp for weeks unless you're HELPED. All that time sink just to zone. Ack.
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Postby Lahgen » Sun Jul 30, 2006 11:23 pm

Ashiwi wrote:In short... you people just don't know what fun is until you give "Nekkid Imphras Week" a go.


If it means lots of naked elves, I'm there. :p
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Postby kiryan » Sun Jul 30, 2006 11:32 pm

level restricted eq I think is a pain in the ass, theres a fight over whether it makes sense followed by a continuous fight over what is balanced for each level band...

i think its far better and more comprehensive to restrict the bonuses you get from equipment by level instead or to implement "suggested level" on eq where if a piece of eq is 100 ac and suggested level 50, when your wearing it as a level 1, you get a portion of that AC at a ratio of 1/50.

--

drache, i dont want exp to be a grind in the future, but the time it takes to get to 50 faster or slower DOES NOT MAKE it a grind The way we exp makes exp a grind. The lack of the lower level game makes exp a grind. How are you going to create more game in between 1 and 50 by making 1-50 faster? How does exp become less of a grind just because its faster to 50? It'll just be a 25 or a 50 hour grind instead of a 100 hour grind? Pleveling is grinding out levels, albeit fast, its purely a grind and can't really be more than a grind.

Sure eliminating pleveling, making exp to 50 take longer doesnt overnight eliminate the grind, but it creates opportunity for a game to be played between 1 and 50 where as today the game starts at 50. And there is still the character value problem, do you want EQ to be the only thing thats valuable in the game? Cuz a level 50 character (pleveled or not) is of trivial value because it takes trivial time to acquire it (predominately because of pleveling and yes, im probably the worst offender).

I want us to re-evaluate the trend towards faster and faster 1-50, something thats been labeled the "grind" and consider whether all the proposed solutions (which are nearly all on the side of making it even faster to 50) are really what we want. I asked this question sarcastically a couple times, but really, at what point do you just start handing out level 50 characters? Lets say it takes 100 hours today to get to 50, do you want it at 50 or 25? Either way, since you effectively can't start playing the game until your level 50, its asking a new person to waste x time getting to level 50 so that he can start playing the game.

With this opportunity to reinvent the game, I seriously question whether we should continue the trend towards devaluing "characters" and levels by making the "grind" faster. We should be looking for a way to make characters MORE intrinsically valuable, not less by virtue of further reducing the time investment to have one. Sure eliminating pleveling doesnt directly bring this about, but it might force people to spend more time in the low level game and create opportunity for us to have a low levle game.

I'm sure shev has a ton of ideas for making characters more value, probably some sort of continual advancement system that allows you to invest more overall time in your character, but I suggest that we also consider that we go back and FIND the 1-50 game that we LOST.

10 years ago, I did zoned regularly in Kuo-toa with 5 level 40s. sorcs used to be zonable at 38ish (globe of invulnerability) and ACTUALLY WERE INVITED TO ZONES... Where has all that gone? The grind came when the effective level required to zone jumped to 50 because getting to 50 is so easy.
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Postby Ashiwi » Mon Jul 31, 2006 12:14 am

Lahgen wrote:
Ashiwi wrote:In short... you people just don't know what fun is until you give "Nekkid Imphras Week" a go.


If it means lots of naked elves, I'm there. :p


Sylvos, you wanna field this one?
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Postby Latreg » Mon Jul 31, 2006 2:34 pm

The ideas for restricting and controlling people from leveling etc only serves to frustrate,annoy and make people bored. As have been said in sooooo many threads, there is no low level game. You want to level so you can go zoning, the faster you can level the sooner you can go. So rather than placing all these restrictions on people, give them something more to do. I do like the idea of making it so people don't gain the full benefit of uber gear at low levels. But what is also need is more level locked zones which you need something from so that at level "x" you quest for something decent. Some how we/you need to figure out something for the low level people to do BESIDES exp and something to gain that can't be handed down. It's difficult and complicated to be sure. But punishing players instead of putting things in to encourage them is really counter productive.
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Postby Lilira » Mon Jul 31, 2006 9:50 pm

Latreg wrote:Some how we/you need to figure out something for the low level people to do BESIDES exp and something to gain that can't be handed down. It's difficult and complicated to be sure. But punishing players instead of putting things in to encourage them is really counter productive.


The problem is, there ARE plenty of places for lower level chars to play and explore. They don't DO it cus 1) better eq from higher level zones gets handed out, and 2) they are encouraged to plevel so they can go to the "real zones" as soon as possible. What happens? They're relegated to CMs, DS or ship to begin the grind.

I was going to paste in a copy of the credits excluding hometowns, but there's FIVE PAGES of zones spanning all levels. There ARE zones for lower levels. The problem is, there is no need for lower levels, especially 1-20 with the addition of Scardale. (BTW, it is an addition I appreciate greatly due to its training value.)

There IS a game for the lower levels.. just not one that is needed or used, and frankly, until something occurs to clear the glut of gear from the mud or enforce the concept of level locked zones and gear then I honestly don't see the lower game coming back. No matter what you do with xp, its only going to change how people grind, not encourage them to get out and play. That is where the higher exp rewards should come from.

Sorry if I slid off topic a touch.
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Postby Ifin » Mon Jul 31, 2006 11:09 pm

People follow the path of least resistance. There is no better efficiciency for xp vrs. time besides DS/Ship/Smoke/CM, so that's why people do it. And because that's all they do, xp becomes a grind.

Ideas have been brought up in the past on how to get people to move around because they want to ie the trophy idea. And simply up the xp and/or cash on places like HP/IC/MS so it's *worth* it to xp there. That way it will be *worth* moving around and having variety at where you kill at.

And people like completing checklists/rewards - that's one thing I liked about lvl'ing in WoW. It's like you go around the xp zone killing stuff and you get xp. But sometimes stuff is on corpse and you collect x amount and turn it in and get a little bonus xp. It doesn't even have to be that much but then it's all about the carrots and xp'ing for even better incentives.

And then there was also the dumbing down some unused zones so that way mid-lvl'ers can actually do it w/little help. I'm not that knowledgeable about a lot of the zones designed for mid-lvl'ish that can be adapted, but I'm sure others are. A/V right now is the perfect example, too bad high lvl'ers twink it. Eq in these zones can also be upped so that war's get great AC (b/c at high lvl's you replace to +hps), and then can just add more variety on mid-lvl gear like AC3 +8 hps -2 sv_spl bracelets for mages etc. and priests I don't know so that way there is a decent influx of mid-lvl gear in these zones.

There have already been a lot of how to get the mid-lvl game going before, but I don't think drawing the xp rate longer really helps. If changes are implemented so people move around more, they learn more, and gain real experience at their class, and not just some number that they want to go up in score, and if that's the case, then xp can go faster and achieve better results.
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Postby Boboloppe » Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:31 am

honestly if you made people go to a specific zone to get an Item to let them lvl all you will do is cause people to grind do the zone thing with as much help as they can get and then grind again.

the reason our game from 1-49 is about dead is becouse most of us have been playing through 2 or 3 incarnations of this game and we have done high end zones and we like them. there is a finite abount of time that our area staff have and they use it to add to the mud the things we want. untill we show them that we want to ignore the uber zones and all make lvl 1s and group together and work up they will continue to add content to the end game not the early game.

most of the things I've seen suggested are massivly area intensive and we don't have that many staff in that sphere so unless you are willing to put your own time into making new zones it's moot.

also it seems that everyone is associating character value with the time you spend getting the char lvled up. I have played an enchanter for as long as just about anyone on this mud and I've done zones with most of the leaders who lead good races. if you ask anyone of them what gives Bobo his value and I'll promise you that the answer won't be he didn't plevel. Character value doesn't come from a number on your screen that says how long you have played or from your stats or even from how high your skills are. It comes from the person at the keys. if you know what you are doing you are valuable if you don't you eather try and learn or you choose not to. if you want to make the mud better and add value to the pbase talk to low lvl players that you don't recognize. ask them questions.

I have a lower lvl warrior he has eq that he couldn't have gotten at his lvl and I don't feel bad about it for a second. and guess what I do I grab actual newbies and I take them to zones to get exp. When I'm doing this I ask them about how they like the mud if they are having any problem understanding what there character can do. there are 4 newbies that have started asking how I'm doing and talking about what they are doing out of game. thats what makes this game great the connection between players when you look at the screen all you see of the others are there words. no computer generated image to shape your impression of them. you see there words alone and from them you form your own image of that person based on what they say.

to add a mid game aspect to the mud we only need to take the new players we find and mentor them no amount of coding restrictions or new zones is going to keep a new player here but a new friend will do it in a second.
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Postby Disoputlip » Tue Aug 01, 2006 9:16 am

I don't have a problem with the game starting at level 46. Until then players learn the game by xping etc.

I think it is fine as Kiryan suggested that a level 50 can't pword blind para a mob and let a lowbie do the kill. If something was done against that kind of pleveling then it would be ok to me.

Those that mainly will be affected by this are those that don't want to play anyway. Others will just xp as always, and almost as fast.
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Postby Latreg » Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:32 pm

If you want to slow down pleveling remove the auction, i buy stuff there for my alts, it's easier to make plats then get some of that gear. I think it would be fun to do low level zones as low level/nondecked out characters. But again that's not going to happen, there are not enough people who are committed to the mud, they are committed to themselves. They aren't going to get invovled in the small stuff because they could miss out on a muspel invasion etc. And like so many people have said they need nothing from these areas, so exp an alt that way you can use a needed class for invasions or whatever. Pwipe/gear wipe I don't think would help, I for one would find a different hobby. But if you can get 10 players for everyone that leaves, by all means go for it.

As was stated to give value back to these lower level items, somehow a system needs to be in place that if you put gear on an alt that is much higher than the alt level it actually hurts them. So say you have the armor of really low ac -75 whole body, you put it on a level 1 they only gain -10 ac. Or revamp the whole ac thing and make it a skill and the armor would add to that skill, some sort of balance could be worked out. Same would apply to weapons etc. This way you'd gain more benefit from gear closer to your level.

For those that don't know or have forgotten, I posted an idea about starting out drow in Menzo with no pleveling or gear handouts etc, it was fun for a while, but it fell apart. Mostly to the "exp group penalty". As far as learning and exploring, I would not want to try that now, I did way back when there were lots of people on and often need help for cr's. With the current base I would warn newbies against it. Global loads, dragons in deserts etc.
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Postby kiryan » Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:50 pm

bobo when i talk about value of characters, im not talking about how good you are as a player and how "valuable" you are to the group. I'm talking about how valuable the character is in itself. Lets assume Im a better player than you are, if i plevel up a new enchanter in 5 days my enchanter will be more valuable than yours? Thats the system you want to play under? The 15 best people who have 10 alts each are the most valuable to zone leaders?

Right now no character is worth more than probably 5 pdays because thats about how long you can plevel from 1-50. I'd say its quite common for a true newbie to spend 15-25 days getting their first 50. Come and join my community, I'll sell you a house for 400% of its appraised value and you can move in when you've paid it off. When you finally get it paid off you realize everyone else in the community has 10 houses. We ask newbies to spend 4x as long exping before they can play the game and when they finally get 50, they are just another 50 with no real value.
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Postby kiryan » Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:53 pm

What would be the harm in bringing greater parity to the leveling rates of "experts" and newbies? Other than pissing off "experts" who just want as many level 50 chars as they possibly can and feel like they should only have to level 1-50 once period since they can already play any char any class due to their "experience".

Why should you get experience for playing the level 1-20 game with level 50 equipment and spells?
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Postby Boboloppe » Wed Aug 02, 2006 8:39 am

actually Kiryan lets contunue with the assumtion that you are a better player than me and we will assume that you know the ins and outs of playing an enchanter. if that is the case then after 5 days of pleveling you have a lvl 50 chanter since you know the class so well you will know what you have to do to get your job done. you will work up the skills you need to have to get that job done. Now lets assume that you don't know the ins and outs of the class. You are truely new to the game and we have implemented some of these changes that have been suggested here.

1 You can't have any of the experienced people play with you and teach you as they help you becouse they can't give you scales and displace. They can't give you eq that is valuable at lvl 50 becouse the crap you find on the ground in zones . so you trudge along mostly alone becouse there really arnen't many people low enough lvl to group with you.

2 now in this version you have to do a quest to gain some lvls but you don't know exactly what they are asking you to do or you don't know where a certain item you need is or you can't get enough help to go get it becouse there aren't many people of low lvl.

3 now here you don't have to do a quest you have to notch a set skill group to a set lvl before you can lvl but you didn't know that your intellegence made you notch faster so you lvl slower than all the people around you and they move on to bigger zones that you haven't notched enough to do.

now I want to look at this in a scientific method. You want characters to have more value this inturn I beleave will make better mudders for the mud will anything that has been suggested actually do that? I don't see how it will. but do any of the above options lead to a player that has or knowledge and inturn is better for the mud.

some people will probly learn more this way but some will leave becouse they get confused or the progression is so slow. why not just mentor and teach then we all win,
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Postby Disoputlip » Wed Aug 02, 2006 11:31 am

I heard about a game, mabye it was EQ or DDO. Anyway, here you gain a modifier if you xp slow. So say you only have gained 10% xp the last week, then you would have a x2 modifier until you one day alone gained 10% xp.

I'm not sure if all that would do is promote leveling up a lot of chars, but I can see it implemented here, and old-timers wouldn't care about the bonus, but it would be awesome to new players.
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Postby kiryan » Wed Aug 02, 2006 3:36 pm

Bobo there is a hell of a lot of pleveling going on, but everyone does it by themselves in record time. There is a poll going on in the ideas thread where 50% of the 24 people who responded have leveled 3 more more to 40+ in the last year. There is a lot of chars being leveled.

If pleveling was eliminated, these people would be slowed down (so you might find someone around your level) and small group exp would return as a matter of necessity for most classes.

It is possible that eliminating pleveling might turn some people off and they would stop leveling new characters, but if they continue to level new chars they will with the rest of the community including the new players. More interaction with other players, especially the new ones, is a good thing.
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Postby Boboloppe » Wed Aug 02, 2006 6:09 pm

yes interacting with new players is a wonderful thing but you can't code it in changing the ways people can exp will not make them welcome new players it will not make them show new players what this great game of ours is all about.

and it will not change the fact that most of us have a set amount of time that won't change when we change the code to stop pleveling.

you can't make people help new players with code anymore than you could legislate people to smile and greet strangers on the streets of NYC.

if you make it so players can't plevel in the ways they do now they will find a new way. The best part of theis mud is you can do what you want when you are playing to a great degree. We should not try and force people to play the way we want them to becouse we think it's good for the mud. No one forced you to level the way they wanted you to so why make new people do it.

the fact still remains that 95% of the stuff that gets done in this mud is for 46+ characters the reason is 45% of us are 46+ characters. Untill the pbase wants to do more than just the high end zones slowing down exp will not make them do lower end things. You can't force people to have fun the way you think they should the Idea that you can make the mud different by forcing it to be is unrealistic at best. facts are facts the people that would rather do invasion than anything else will still not spend more time with new players they just won't.

If a change is to be made that involves new players it must be a volentary choice of the players that have been here for years Just as people have done for years. All of you can look back to when you started I promise that the thing you remember most isn't the code that was inplace that regulated lvling speed it was the person or persons that made you feel welcome here.
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Postby Dalar » Wed Aug 02, 2006 8:35 pm

Remember that time I got lvl 42 in less than a day. That was sweet.
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Postby Lilira » Wed Aug 02, 2006 10:36 pm

Boboloppe wrote:the fact still remains that 95% of the stuff that gets done in this mud is for 46+ characters the reason is 45% of us are 46+ characters.


Jump that up to 75-80% of us are 46+ and you'd be a LOT closer... the poll in the other thread shows players that have leveled three or more alts to 40+ in the past year to be at 52%.

It took me TEN YEARS to get my first level 50 character. I did it the old fashioned way without plevling. That first level 50 meant more to me than the other two level 48ths, the level 46th and the couple of other over 40s I have sitting around. Kiryan is right. To most people, getting to level 50 really means nothing anymore unless its your first. That's another reason I haven't bothered to finish up with the two I have close.

I'm curious to see if this will be solved with implementation of 2.0. :-)
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Postby kiryan » Thu Aug 03, 2006 5:59 am

I'd like to see someone find a new way to plevel with the status quo given the changes I suggested. Theres only 2 ways I can think of one is having someone else tank for you (i actually figured this would tie in along the same lines as damage exp/being spelled up, but didn't want to get into this detail) and the other is twinking a multiple per boot quest that nets great exp (doesn't exist).

I'm not trying to legislate that experienced players stop to help new players. Your absolutely right, no one is going to do anything they don't want to. Eliminating pleveling will cause experienced players to want to group with whomever they can find because its faster than trying to solo with your level 18 skills and level 18 equipment. Either they will seek out groups or they will stop leveling alts. My one fear is that people will lose interest in toril because pleveling alts is the only thing left they get off on, but I think those are a small number of players and the benefit to the newbie is substantial.

but lets stop arguing that, lets argue about this. why should anyone be allowed to play the low level game with high level equipment and spells. Why should you get any experience for clobbering a level 1 mob with 2 khanjaris and 40/60 while scaled and blurred? What does it teach you about playing your class, about playing the game? Seriously, hand out level 50 characters.

If you can justify that, then I might be able to change my thinking.

--

and sure, eliminating pleveling isn't going to give you more time to play and level alts, but I don't see how that is material. On the other hand, since you bring it up... how often do you, bobo, try to level your alt and find 0 people willing to group with you at your level or otherwise? Maybe if there was no pleveling and people actually wanted to group at low level, you'd actually be able to do someting remotely fun or at least with other people instead of watching everyone else plevel to 50.

Once we slow the 1-50 game down, I think we would find there is quite a lot of opportunity to refresh low end zones for the purpose of exp / low level eq. Why would any zone writer want to write any zone without level 50 eq?
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Postby Boboloppe » Thu Aug 03, 2006 6:26 am

well here is one possable result of the eq option that was proposed. player 1 wants to plevel an alt but lvl 50 stuff won't help him but ya know what the armor from area F will help me and I can get a weapon from area B and the Shield from area D is good for newbies I'll go grab them from my pile of extra stuff in my 50 bags. or I'll grab players 2-7 and we will twink them then put them on my alt and bam I'm set till lvl 10 when I can use stronger stuff and I'll have it too till I can wear my lvl 50 stuff.

Pleveling WoW style multiple sets of eq to keep top notch at each section of levels but here you can move the eq to another alt and level that one with the same eq

now lets say eq fix works fine but you have to deal damage to get exp lets assume that you work it so even clerics and chanters get the exp since they do low damage. hey I need someone to help me lvl up now a lvl 50 friend comes along and doesn't group with you but he hastes and stones you and another heals you all spells are available by lvl 21 so both should be fine for a low lvl to get so no red flag in the plevel check code unless you have it check the lvl of the caster.


also thanks lilira I meant that to be 95% the 45% was a typo


now to answer the question you put to me Kiryan I have yet to find a time (since I came back to the mud (about a month) when I was lvling the alt I mention that I couldn't get someone to group with me if fact I often have 2 or even 3 people with me when I exp him.



and here is my main issue with this whole thing if you find a way to slow down the leveling of experienced players that want to plevel what happens to the true newbies that lvl slow with the current settings if you slow down for the people that can max exp what happens to those that can't
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Postby Tasan » Thu Aug 03, 2006 7:07 am

kiryan wrote:I'm not trying to legislate that experienced players stop to help new players. Your absolutely right, no one is going to do anything they don't want to. Eliminating pleveling will cause experienced players to want to group with whomever they can find because its faster than trying to solo with your level 18 skills and level 18 equipment.


Band-aid solution to a huge problem, which probably wouldn't even fix it. Experienced players don't like to _always_ hassle with the slower play of new players. There are newbie helpers, and there are plenty of people who will help someone new to the game on their own. I'm sure most people here have helped someone at some point in time.

Experienced people will just do the same thing they are doing now in the new system, they will make small groups by themselves and level together, forgetting anyone else that's around.

As Ifin said, people gravitate to the most rewarding method vs. time. For as long as this game has existed, the mid-levels have really been a) slow, and b) worthless in the end game. Yes you end up with 5-6 utility spells that come in handy at the high end, but that's about it. I stopped memorizing ranger spells lower than 5th circle at some point. I'm sure clerics could do without much of their lower circles. Perhaps this will be addressed with the feats, perhaps not.

I honestly don't understand the real problem w/ pleveling. It seems to me that pleveling is a response to the game being ultra boring and repetitive at low levels to people that have already been there. If you've leveled one warrior to 50, leveling a new warrior to 50 shouldn't take just as long(and won't).

kiryan wrote:Either they will seek out groups or they will stop leveling alts. My one fear is that people will lose interest in toril because pleveling alts is the only thing left they get off on, but I think those are a small number of players and the benefit to the newbie is substantial.


I don't think people "get off" on pleveling alts. People want new things to do, and are tired of not being able to do other things. People level classes that are needed for zoning because there aren't a lot of people on nowadays. It makes sense for someone to have 2-3 zonable alts so that the people that are on _can_ zone. Zoning is the end game, which is somewhat disheartening to me. I've been here long enough to see all that and do all that. Now I want to level some new class I haven't played before in a zone. I don't think that's getting off, I think that's boredom and prudence.

kiryan wrote:but lets stop arguing that, lets argue about this. why should anyone be allowed to play the low level game with high level equipment and spells. Why should you get any experience for clobbering a level 1 mob with 2 khanjaris and 40/60 while scaled and blurred? What does it teach you about playing your class, about playing the game? Seriously, hand out level 50 characters.


What does killing a level 1 mob teach you about the level 50 game? I mean **** is this a bad example. I hate the idea of level restrictions on all equipment. I believe <i>some</i> equipment having procs based on level is a _great_ idea, but other than that I don't see why you'd devalue equipment just because it was placed on an alt. Why not just do-away with alts altogether or tie equipment to the looter then? Or we can just all go play WoW.

There is a huge disparity between what you do from 1-41 and after, and that is the major problem we all hope is being addressed. I realize you are talking about a "how the game is played" issue, but it's really a "how the game is setup" issue. If you want to talk about pleveling being a problem, I suggest coming up w/ something better than eq-restrictions.

kiryan wrote:Maybe if there was no pleveling and people actually wanted to group at low level, you'd actually be able to do someting remotely fun or at least with other people instead of watching everyone else plevel to 50.


Maybe if people were less selfish we wouldn't need to find alternative energy sources. Seriously...

kiryan wrote:Once we slow the 1-50 game down, I think we would find there is quite a lot of opportunity to refresh low end zones for the purpose of exp / low level eq. Why would any zone writer want to write any zone without level 50 eq?


Well, I'll tell you why I wrote my zone that was 35-41. I wanted it to be able to teach lower levels how to zone. It presents odd combinations of things to cause problems and cause thinking among the group to accomplish its completion. Did I succeed? I don't think so. Partially because of things that weren't changed when I asked. Partially because of the location, and possibly because there is just a general lack of interest in people of that level to do a "mid-level" zone.

Face it. Slowing down the time from 1-50 isn't going to keep players here. People have better things to do than type "kill orc" 10,000x. Experience should be MUCH faster at lower levels and much more difficult at higher levels(see zone xp zomg!). 1-11 should be done in 3-4 hours of time. If you can't hook someone by 11 levels/4 hours into the game, they aren't going to play here anyhow.

I'd suggest changing classes to spec at level 20ish, and focus on making the 1-20 game about learning the basic mechanics of the engine. Make it fairly quick and engaging. Make sure they know they are learning things they need to know later on etc. Right now, I think most people could sleep through the first 40 or so levels and start learning at 41 and do fairly well.

I'm rambling now so I'll end this post on two questions.

How do you take away the advantage of playing here for 10 years in hopes that newer players will benefit? Where's the value of a PLAYER if their knowledge is wasted when they start anew?
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Postby Naled » Thu Aug 03, 2006 2:17 pm

What's the point of making levelling to 50 harder? For most of us the game starts at lvl 50 (or 46 or whatever). So all levelling does is delaying people from enjoying the game. I know I hate it. The only fun part in building up a new character is learning how to play the character. But xp sure as hell doesn't do that. I've seen plenty of people who have lvl 50 characters but haven't got the faintest idea of how to play them.

Anyway if we want a solution to this we should start with defining what the problem is. I've read several problems in all the previous posts. So the problem with people getting to 50 easily is:

a) It took me a long while so it should take others a long while too.
b) People don't learn the game.
c) Gameplay from 1-50 should be a viable one.

Not gonna address a). I think I already addressed b). Mindlessly killing DS mobs hardly learns people the game. I think that since the playerbase mostly is comprised of people who have played here for a long while, so making mid and low level gameplay is useless. We're all here for the endgame.

So all the gameplay between 1-50 is is a way to prepare new character for zoning. So adapt it to that. I think xp should be dropped alltogether.

Replace it by an advancement system where people earn levels by doing quests that learn them aspects of their class or the game. Have like 5 levels or so (novice, apprentice, journeyman, expert, master). Quest for to reach novice level requires basic gameplay (movement, general commands etc. 15 mins quest). Quest for apprentice requires people to learn spells/skills etc (kill a mob or so, 60 mins quest). Quest for journeyman requires people to learn the gameworld. (quest takes you all over the place, take a couple of hours). Expert quest requires you to do quest spells or so, do actual zones (takes a bunch). Final test if you are ready for the end-game. Master quest requires you to do a bunch of high level zones or so. Rest of the game is zoning and questing.

Thinking of this there's only one problem with such a system. The penalty of death in this game is losing xp. Basically you risk having to do something annoying if you play the mud. Removing xp would mean we'd have to introduce another form of risk in the gameplay. I guess you could mix this system with the xp system, playing a game now that does that. You should make xp a lot easier then though.
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Postby Latreg » Thu Aug 03, 2006 3:38 pm

Again I think people are off focus, the slowing down of leveling, getting rid of pleveling is really to encourage/attaract and keep real new players. Now I really do like Teba and Pril and many others even though I poke fun at them, but I could care less if the game made it difficult for them to get another level 50 character. Lilira and many others have pointed out that there are low level zones that never get used. So the idea of no benefit from high end gear to low level players and an exp system that promotes grouping will help the player base, provided you get people to actually try it. If you don't attempt to make the low/mid level game worth a darn, instead of an exp grind, then just start everyone off at level 50 and remove all the lower and midlevel zones and replace them with more exp areas.
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Postby Boboloppe » Thu Aug 03, 2006 3:47 pm

I think that Nasad made a great point in regards to leveling a new character to lvl 20. he said it should be easy and require a small investmant of time. This makes sence since the more lvls a new player gains when they are testing out the mud the more likely they are to stay.
Now since we implementing a system for feats that supports unlearning and relearning them as you change what you want your character to accell at, why don't we make new characters pick there race then pick 1 of 3 super-classes Fighters, Clerics, or Mages lvls 1-20 you lvl quickly and have basic skills that will help any new person get a basic Idea of the class they want to play.

At lvl 20 you would pick what class you wanted to play and would then replace the basic skill and spell set you had with the specialized skill and spell set for the class you chose.

this method would do several things to help the mud.

1 it would remove alot of the slow useless lvling from 1 to 20

2 it would give the staff a chance to remove alot of the spells that really serve no perpose in the end game and replace them with spells that will actually be used by players.

3 it would also let the staff use scardale to teach new players the strengths and weaknesses of each class while the players are gaining experience so they can make an informed choice about what class they want to play rather than new players guessing only to learn all the work they put in already is wasted and they have to start over.

4 also with the changes going into the stat system even experienced players would appriciate a chance to test out the new stats to learn the pros and cons of high points in each stat

5 and lastly with the new feat system going in lvls 1-20 are a perfect chance to figure out just what path you want to take with your character.
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