The Sooner we stop getting 4x Exp and starting bonuses the better

I am sitting here listening to Guildies talk about Skills, HP, Str . . . .

I started with a new char w/o the 4x exp. And there is NO way I could have accomplished ANYHTING close to where they are level / skill wise.

The longer you keep giving these boosts to players the harder it will be (that is if you actually plan on starting that way) to have players start from scratch.

You will get so much backtalk when game launches you will cave. I would seriously consider to just start all players as you are going to at launch from this point on.

Or even better yet - just allow us to actually play like we are testing and let us pick skill levels and such at will and be a blunt as possible to players that when the game launches we get bubtkuss.

 

Wouldn't hurt to begin preparing us for reality.

 

Disagree. Without the 4x or whatever XP buff I wouldn't even mess around with game testing each new release. I can't grind again for the 23rd time in a row. I just can't.

Whereas I look FORWARD to a slower grind when we launch, because the time spent adventuring, harvesting and crafting will actually mean something. It'll be slower, and it'll be fine.

The system is fine the way it is IMO, generally speaking.

I do think that magic needs some work because gains are painfully slow even with the 4x XP buff. Presumably the devs will sort the balancing out by the time we launch.

This part I do agree with: "Or even better yet - just allow us to actually play like we are testing and let us pick skill levels and such at will ....."

 

Exactly @Budner. There's no way I would have been playing/testing as much without the 4x XP

It goes *poof* once you have caught up to previous level too. Mine went yesterday, although I was only around 5 weeks old at time of wipe. But I did put some serious play time in and bug reports for various spells & NPCs

 

The exp bonus came at the request of non-retired non-power gamers so we can play test without devoting our soul to wipe after wipe of endless grinding.

The QA should let you build your character with the max exp you have acquired. It would be a great draw to use the QA and to pledge up to QA level.

As an adult I'll just deal with it when I don't get modified exp gains at launch

Not sure how others are going to deal with not getting handouts!

 

I agree with Budner, there is no way I'd be grinding it up from scratch again except at Release. I'd actually prefer if they just started me at lvl 50 but I'm happy to do some of the starter stuff each time at an increased speed.

 

I am with Budner. I see this period as an opportunity to help out with the creation of an awesome game. Being able to contribute to this project is a real treat in my eyes. Hopefully when I look back on these developmental years I will be happy and proud to say, that I was a part of the development of SotA in some small way, and it truly was a special time in my gaming career.
I don't have the desire to recreate each release from scratch for sure. Yet I do have a desire to try and help and test things when possible as well as have a little fun along the way. Nice thing so far, if you look for it, each rebuild of my character has been different and an opportunity to test out different features and builds. That information, plus the xp of running through these early level quest will be a nice little edge to have against all the first timers that will surly be flooding the game upon release struggling to find their way.

 

I think we should be able to set skills however we want with a /set command.

Yesterday I wanted to test a few things but all the places I used to go "grind" were all about 5-10 times harder... so my meager 4x bonus actually meant nothing...

it was boring, frustrating, all I could kill were a few skeletons and zombies and mini wolf spiders and I even caught the zombie plague...

I spent like 3 hours in game and managed to get about 200 gold and a few useless loot... not even enough to buy me a few skills.

Honestly I was about to rip my hair off my head... can't imagine how a new player would feel, especially since its an alpha...

 

@Wiens201 arnt you the one the devs where giving extra free material to craft with? and now you say they shouldnt give us any bonuses does this include your free material?

 

I don't mind having skill gaining really hard.......... but seriously leave that for the game launch.

I don't know about anyone else but quite frankly i'm so bored of the game right now.....its not because I don't like the game......its because I can't justify spending time leveling up a character, finding the skills are bad, waiting for a fix, getting wiped and going through the whole process all over again.

Seriously if the game needs testing we need the tools to do it........grinding isn't a good tool for testing (unless we are testing skill progression)........a good tool for testing would be to let everyone set their own skills (in whatever template they wish to build) and have the ability to reset and try something else.

I mean I haven't even tried crafting properly.......simply no longer have the enthusiasm.

 

@Chris @DarkStarr Please?

 

I don't really understand what you're proposing, but here's my dream solution:

1. Take whatever the AVERAGE amount of EXP earned in 2 hours of time is and cap that as the most you can earn in a single 24 hours.
2. Then pump up the level modifier to allow for roughly 2 hours of earned experience to equal 5/10/20/30/40/50/60/65/70/75/80/85/90/95/100 in adventurer levels.

What's this mean? I means that after 15 days anyone that grinded for 2 hours a day would be level 100. It means that no one could get to level 100 faster than 15 days.

I think that would give you all kinds of testing data that you've never been able to capture on a large sample size. It would also give people an incentive to play deeper into different aspects of the game because they'd no longer have to spend all their time grinding.

And let's face it, not everyone has the opportunity to spend so much time standing around killing the same thing over and over again. I have a wife, a job, four kids....this is the only way I'm ever going to have an opportunity to test high level stuff.

I think right now we probably have 200 people grinding their way to level 70 something. If we did what I'm proposing, I think we might have 2000 people playing much longer and doing more things than we've ever had before. I think that's worth giving this a try.

 

Just start slowing down the experience gain rate once we near launch. That will acclimatize players to a slower pace gradually, like a sprinter who walks around after finishing a race.

 

@Chris I truly understand your dilemma and the desire for progression data, but I also know that those without extra time (like me with young kids) cannot really help test for you the mechanics without being able to ruin real tests with quick results. May we have this ability in QA? Progression tests in Rxx, but mechanics tests in QA?

 

I think it could be worthwhile to just set skills initially so people can test the higher end and newer skills. It also shows which skills are the ones least used/most avoided. This would potentially assist for creating skill trees that are more likely to be used, and provide the question of "why do people avoid these specific skills and what can we do to entice people to want to use them".

I do agree that its important to see the progression, but the only reason I touched purify burst or quick swapping was to unlock rez and the focus/fizzle reduction. This will show up as me actively using those skills when in truth it was just me wasting time until I could get what was actually desired. A lot of the lower level or oddly placed skills in the trees are going to be getting grinding time because the needed skills for a specific build are locked at the moment, which will make it look like there is more interest than there really is.

I would be interested in seeing if you all might be interested in doing GreyMouser2's idea with the QA server. I know it isn't great as that's a smaller sample size than live, but it would at least allow both sides of skill testing to get a work out. Doubly so if QA server is only limited (as usual) so you don't have to worry about people avoiding the main server.

Another alternative would be maybe umpteen freebie points at character creation (say 20-30) to level up skills, then progress from there. I know that won't help with the current intention to test the creation Truth, Courage, Love design, but its a thought (not necessarily a well thought out thought...)

One thing I would absolutely love (not sure how hard it would be to code) would be a way to set a specific level to take a skill to. Then have it use exp to keep it at that level (offset drain once implemented) but not waste exp once it hits the target goal. i.e. healing touch unlocked (full xp gain by use), healing ray cap @ lvl 40, healing burst cap @ lvl 10, rez unlocked, life attunement cap lvl 25, etc. etc. I know we currently have locked, unlocked and maintain, but it would be nice if it could be set in advance. Obvious disadvantage of this is min/maxing a build from the start as opposed to min/maxing during game time.

 

TY Brink and I have not asked for any materials as I am testing gathering as well as leveling, Just like I have done for the last two release. And when we get to R25 I will send a message out again telling how much success we have had and how much we have been able to make. And I WILL ask for items to make me a bunch of Taming collars so I can test easier.

But my point is if we are not weened off this bonus player are going to complain upon launch that they cannot gain as fast as they have been.

As for the request about skills setting I still think it would help with testing, I understand chirs response.

 

Or have a few releases focused on specifically testing the GM levels of skills.

Crank up exp gain to x8 for everyone and x2 per use gain on skills.

Does that 5 GM subterfuge build you have been eyeing work? Test it out!

 

I'm happy to stop getting 4x experience when the game launches - not during the testing period.

 

Maybe let us set how we want to test the game:
1. normal skill progression, just like launch with no extras or benefits.
2. (normal skill progression, with a bonus of gold so you don't have to grind and die more than just to gain the exp needed to get new skills. (so many get the exp, but still don't have enough gold to skill up, this alleviates that [alternatively, just make skill advancement cost 0g for this group]).
3. (fast skill progression, no gold bonus).
4.(No skill progression - just pick and choose skills as if you had all the points you needed to fill out the character how you like).

Then, if you want, you could start grouping testers together based on which type of testing they are doing. all 1's will see each other in the world, all 4's will see each other in the world, etc.

If you aren't getting enough 1's, you could add incentives that won't disturb the natural game progression you're trying to observe. Maybe let 1's test out add-on store items without purchasing them (these are all decorative only, right? and shouldn't disturb natural game progression) So 1's get to 'try-out' add-on store items, maybe 5-10 of them of their choosing, in exchange for playing in normal mode. etc.