May be a good idea to change adventure levels

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Arkah EMPstrike, Apr 11, 2019.

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  1. Lord Tachys al`Fahn

    Lord Tachys al`Fahn Avatar

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    Ah... thank you. I had forgot about the lute. That brings total possible adv lvl increases to 19 points.
     
  2. Arkah EMPstrike

    Arkah EMPstrike Avatar

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    Oh and the warlock necklass was added before the change too. I suppose alltogether its like 40 hp and 40 focus

    Id say bring it up in chris’ stream maybe he will change all adv lvl buffs to something else
     
  3. Lord Tachys al`Fahn

    Lord Tachys al`Fahn Avatar

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    Nah, because at that point, it it a choice between the warlock chain and necklace of civility
     
  4. Arkah EMPstrike

    Arkah EMPstrike Avatar

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    The main reason for this suggestion is every new person i talked to in game thinks they have to be certain adv lvl to do stuff, veterans tell them to be a certain adv lvl, but at the same time they suggest turning off all skill gains and other things that make people confused about why lvl 50-70 content “slows down”. One post i saw in the newbie forum said they didnt like that this was a level grinding game instead of a use based skilling game which it IS

    People, even veterans, have alot of trouble seperating the two so id like to see it integrated as a passive skill that looks the same as other passive skills
     
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  5. redfish

    redfish Avatar

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    Lol yea you're right, I didn't know they got rid of the hit chance calculations? I wouldn't have noticed since I was already high level and low tier stuff feels easy either way.

    The whole focus on tiered content to begin with creates the feeling that the game is about leveling though, whether you're talking literally about adventurer level or about skill levels. I mean, whether you're talking about a 1-120 level ranking or a 1-10 ranking, the game gives players a structure where you're fitted into slots and encouraged to grind at your level. The conning system does that, too; tells people to always grind at their level, never above or below. So, yea, literally this is a use-based skill game and believing anything else is a misperception, but when you have that post complaining about "level grinding" I'm guessing that's also part of what he means, and putting more outward emphasis on "skill grinding" vs "level grinding" I don't think would challenge some of the misgivings people have.

    As long as there is a heavy emphasis on tiered content the way it is, people are going to want to pay attention to level. Not sure it makes sense to reduce it to a 1-10 scale, because then people will just feel frustrated waiting for a long time for a 3 to turn into a 4, or whatever tier they want to get up to.

    @Vladamir Begemot so you mention guiding players to Upper Tears. One of the reasons I've seen that players like Upper Tears is because its a good place for high level and low level players to party and fight together, because it creates reasons for them to group together. Of course, there are other reasons which I consider more frivolous, like being able to do hours on end of XP farming. But the fact is people like grouping this way (and people like open world gameplay in general where they don't feel level gated) and the way the tiered content is set up frustrates this. So telling players they're spoiling the early content is missing the point.

    Yea I don't like it, and don't like how the game has become basically a few scenes that everyone feels they have to grind (which in turn helped undermine regional gameplay, because people want to teleport there). But I'm just saying the problems here are much bigger than whether the Adventurer Level shows. I mean lets say you remove Adventurer Level from displaying, or turn it into a passive skill. People will still want to know when they can do Tier 5 content, and be frustrated as they try to grind to that point, and still try to find easy ways to boost XP like UT.

    At any rate, I think when you're talking about whether Adv Level shows or not its not scratching the surface of the deeper problems, and the solution to move it to a passive skill feels like a bandaid to me. Maybe in some ways it might clear confusion but not totally help. Nor would more tutorials, which a lot of people would just skip. The deeper problem is the game is more about numbers than role-playing. Ultima was level based, UO was use-based, but both felt more about role-playing than numbers.
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2019
  6. DavidDC

    DavidDC Programmer Moderator SOTA Developer

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    Some scene are adventure level capped, pvp use advent level for tournement. It also give an idea how strong a character is, its the only measurement.
     
  7. Weins201

    Weins201 Avatar

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    and this is your answer all that needs to be put out there is that THIS is how ADV level is applied.

    IF you are correct. It is simple just change the mouse over to show this.

    that change is not hard, and if players still refuse to ack it ah well too bad.,


    PLAY THE GAME STOP GAMNG THE PLAY.

    said that soo many times it is hilarious but if you want to game the play then put a little effort into understanding what you are doing.

    Players all just want to play this game like they pulled GI Joe out of the box and he can figh cobra commaner 1v1 and win.

    this game has a learning curve, and even thow it appears the dev team is trying to kill that and create a game we can play out of the box it is not.

    Sorry but need to stop "hand holding" payers who want to do nothing and get everything (exp, skills, items, houses) LMAO

    every player that backed this game and plays it is just being insulted and made a fool by all the new players getting all crap.

    ONLY PVP in the Obs Trails. do not try and tell new players they can only go certainplaces they can go anywhere except the Obsidian trials. NO OTHER PLACE IS RESTRITIVE.
     
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  8. DavidDC

    DavidDC Programmer Moderator SOTA Developer

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    Well weins... you are WRONG. ;)
    Some (maybe 1, maybe 15, i wont tell you) maps are level capped exactly for the new people to be able to challenge higher player in there.
     
  9. redfish

    redfish Avatar

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    Hey Weins.

    Creating a game that you can play out of the box is not a problem, that's what the Ultima games and UO did. In those games, there were not massive learning curves, but neither were you given the impression that as a player just dropped in the game world, you could beat a dragon.

    I like the "don't game the play" philosophy, but I don't think this is an issue of blaming players and chastising other players for not getting it, its a game design issue and SotA sets a lot of the wrong expectations.
     
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  10. Arkah EMPstrike

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    Ive been making on and off attempt to point this out for a long time, even made that video where i set my character to adv lvl 1 and went and killed my way through berdantis mines and up to the mage room in the rise.

    But the ideal that high adv level means high power, coupled with the almost global advising of building you xp pool to a million or more, leaves these folks hitting higher adv levels than they can handle and the game telling them a tier 5 zone is yellow to them, yet they cant do the content there, then they have to ask why thier character feels weak.

    All im suggesting it taking the adv level, pop it on a skill tree somewhere and have it represented as a skill showing the actual stats it gives u like all the other skills do. Then new folks will pay more attention to thier skills and stats, which is where the actual power comes from
     
  11. Arkah EMPstrike

    Arkah EMPstrike Avatar

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    Just asked chris in the stream and confirmed it only affects health and focus AND summon pet power? which i did not know
     
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  12. Rook Strife

    Rook Strife Avatar

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    Use based skill system??????

    How is this a use based skill system? Maybe when they put in weapon affinity you might see something like that.

    Right now you get Xp in any manner you like then waste time bashing a training dummy because use based skill system sounds good to people.


    Adventurer level matters greatly and new players are right in thinking they have to grind.

    Many new players are not going to be content to slap on a polearm or be forced into whatever build of the day to do all the content they want to do.

    That means grinding out other skill trees as well as whatever they chose.


    The concern should be fixing the combat system not trying to hide things.
     
  13. redfish

    redfish Avatar

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    @Arkah EMPstrike

    What would the skill even be called, though, just Adventurer Level? Could you untrain it? If its just the Adventurer Level skill and you can't untrain it, then you'll still have some veterans telling newbies to look at the Adventurer Level skill, no?

    On the other hand, if you could untrain it like any other skill, we already have a Health pool skill and a Focus pool skill and some taming skills, and there's no need for an Adventurer Level skill at all. Its just redundant.

    The best side of it may be it would tell players what's going on in a tooltip like the rest of the skills, which is the point of Weins' suggestion.

    But I still think this is just scratching the surface of a bigger problem.
     
  14. Weins201

    Weins201 Avatar

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    Ok I will attack this from another POV, as I have stated I do not see any validation for this.

    SOO now I was looking at the actual game page yesterday and in the window for Chris Live Stream I saw someone looking at a Player doing Torc, One char was dancing around Torc going in circles and the other players was just standing there and either cast on torc and / or healing the player.

    So in essence if you are just on the cusp of being able to Solo Dance with Torc (or any other) and need a healer one can easily have a second account running and just cast heals over and over and then run the "Live" char in the dance.

    This is pathetically easy to set up.

    Can be done almost anywhere and I know UT is used for Unattended Exp gains.


    This game was meant to be played and has about 60 hours of game play in it if you do ALLLLLL the quests.

    After that you are just repeating whatever you have already accomplished.

    Now higher tier stuff is HARD to solo BUT giving any player more than 10K is pointless, there is no need for 100+ in any skill and therefor no need for more exp given out.
     
  15. Spungwa

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    While I agree adv level does not equal strength.
    Your numbers are off here. Adventure level does means little. HP helps but skills and gear can increase that more significantly than adv level

    But

    Level 80 focused Vs level 100 "jack of all trades" is not equal. 100 is like nearly 4 times the XP invested. With diminishing returns 20 levels is significant, and more significant the higher you get.

    So as long as they did diversify to more than 4 builds that don't over lap at all, and completely ignoring resistance from attunement they would be at least as good.

    Edit Sorry all the 4 should be nearly 8, about double XP per 7 levels....


    Regards
    Spung
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2019
  16. Arkah EMPstrike

    Arkah EMPstrike Avatar

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    Yea just leave it as Adventure level, but show it as a skill instead of a seperat entity. Put it ont he skill tree and give it an icon. No you cant untrain it, it only cosntantly goes up, and it has a tooltip that shows you "+300 health, +300 focus" like the other skills do, so they can see thats all it does.

    The idea is to brign attention to the SKILLS and not the adventure level.
     
  17. Arkah EMPstrike

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    hte xp pool is a middle man to keep you from training usign the dummy. You will train a skill faster training it on monsters and killing them with it.

    The only purpose of the pool is to prevent levelign all your skills in town before even setting foot into an adventure area. If your not training combat skills while fighting monsters, you are not training them as quickly.

    They have to grind to get their SKILLS up.

    You've been fooled by it too and thats my point. You are under the illusion that adventure level Is the overarching governing power stat for your character and are passing that info on to any new person you tell it to.

    The facts are, Adventure level is not part of any hit, miss, damage, or defense calculations outside health and focus and its drawing attention away fromt he fact that you have to use your XP to get strong, not just earn it.
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2019
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  18. Arkah EMPstrike

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    I think its a waste to have to explain that to a newbie than to say get your deck GM and learn to use it. Adv level should have to be the confusing thing there to explain when it matters so little.

    Its like explaining to someone trying to read a book that the thicknes sof the book is a relative estimate of the ammount of information it contains but can vary based on several variables
     
  19. Weins201

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    Whaaa, I am sorry but this is not quite right. You Gains skills s fast as you use them when you have enough exp in your pool to allow gains. The pool is / was designed to allow you to train skills more efficiently AND to allow for what they called a "Soft Cap" with decay.

    You can most definitely train skills 10x faster when you have a large pool and just whack away at a dummy or gust ball. since you do not have to worry about using any other skills.
    Players have stood behind Port since the beginning trying to bolster this stance, it is a lie.

    Efficient Training is done best by increasing your pool as much as possible then standing at a dummy and focusing on one skill at a time PERIOD.

    While I agree that ADV level is not as important as players make it out to be this statement again hits on more fallacies.

    STR / Dex / and Int also have an affect on hits / misses / bocks / dodges / crit / . . . . . . . It may not me much but it is there. Since these are affected by Adv level they in turn affect everything else.

    TRUE is is not that much of a change but it is there and when you get over 80 the increase starts to be less and less.

    Adv level still does have a affect.


    You point in the OP is valid Adv level needs to be more defined as to how much their affects actually are and how little it really maters, BUT ADv level does affect a lot of aspects in the game.
     
  20. Arkah EMPstrike

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    These are not affected by adv level. Hits and misses do not exist anymore and your dex ( int if your a mage) determine if you dodge or are dodged. Str dex and int are not affected by adv level at all but are increased via 3 innate skills associated with each.

    Adv level litarally has zero affect on that stuff, its your stats and skills that do it.

    When they first changed from having a 5-level cap on skills and changed to the use based skills, chris talked about puting the xp pool in place to ensure you have to go out adventuring to train skills, and it ensures that.

    If you lock your blade skill, go out and hunt monsters for half an hour and get 500k xp, then go home, unlock your blade skill and hit a practice dummy forhalf an hour to raise blade skill, you’ve wasted time. If you leave blades trainingand hunt monsters for half an hour while blades is training, it trains while you kill stuff, and after that half hour you may already have 300k of those xp in blades.

    Locking combat skills, killing stuff with those skills, then going home to spend the xp on those skills is a waste of time. The only time it makes sense to do that is if you already gotOTHER skills leveled to kill stuff.

    If you’re a newbie, you dont have other skills to lock that kill better than what you’re using. It’s terrible advice for somone just starting.
     
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