The Grind

I opened up level0 file in notepad, looks like town data, probably for PoT's

 

On topic I hope that this game doesn't become an arcade game. It is an rpg game, and the reason I put my money down is because I want to be able to play a couple of years down the track and still be able to progress my character. Too many games are designed for people with a short attention span, and provide instant gratification with no long term gameplay plan. I expect to have to work towards my goals in an rpg.

 

I'm with you on that. I totally have no problem with meaningful progression.

But what part of standing in the same area camping the same spawns for hours (if not days) is connected to Roleplaying?

 

I'm okay with it taking a year to reach them and I want exactly what you want. The only difference is I'm thinking about 15 years of gaming here and not the first six months exclusively...

that said, I think in pre-alpha and alpha and beta we should see heavily increased leveling experience and time so... 4x easier right now... then 2x what it is now for alpha... and what it is now for beta... then make it 1/4 or 1/10 of that for release.

My two cents: I like progression but I don't like unbalanced. I think there needs to be a skilled reward and not a power reward for progression so if that gets adjusted for more flavors and not more pungent I think everything will feel nicer.

Also, it took me ~5 hours with @Themo Lock to hit level 40. I was estimating that to ~20 hours of play time. How many actual grinding hours did you put in? Do you know?

 

How you choose to play the game is up to you. You said you are antisocial and like to solo. Others might like to party up in a group and enjoy themselves while "grinding" by killing mobs.

 

That's a good question about the hours, I know it took me far longer than 5 to hit 40. But I don't know the exact number. I was solo the entire time, in cloth armor, using only magic. So part of my pain was that I wasn't using anything close to a "best build" to level up. That said, I'll estimate that it took me more like 40 hours of game play to hit level 40. I'd say 90% of that was actual killing stuff and not just running back to town to sell things or get new cloth armor.

 

Right, and I have no problem with how others play. To each their own.

What I'm saying is that we should all be able to play how we like and arrive at generally the same spot. I like how Duke Violation put it:

Right now I'm solo, killing the same thing over and over again. I'm getting EXP and pumping my skills up, but I die occasionally. This slows me down compared to a group that can just zerg mobs in 5 hours (for example). There's certainly a solo vs. group unbalance component to this, but it's more than that. It's an hours thing. We need a system that doesn't penalize people that are playing the game and having fun, but maybe not min/maxing their experience gain to the highest denominator.

 

Solo it takes me about 6 hours to hit level 50 and i usually call it for day 1. The next day i get level 60, the following day 70 and by the end of the week 80. Then it gets really slow and i don't feel the need to grind non stop. It not just time spent, it is HOW you spend that time. People overlook the reason why i level up, it is to test things at the top end so they can be adjusted, you can count the people doing that on your fingers. Come episode one i will be more concerned with crafting and questing.. but likely still moving at a faster pace than most.

 

Can I ask you BDF, why do you feel as though you should be able to compete against the top 1%, against the elite effectively, on an equal footing?

Because I'm sure that the majority of people in the game won't be double your level, and there would be plenty of opportunity for PVP with an equally levelled opponent?

 

How are you spending the time exactly?

 

Because PVE and PVP are (should be) unrelated. My playstyle is PVP and RP. So why do I have to do all this grinding to be effective at those two things? That's why. Because grinding doesn't have anything to do with being skilled at pvp. The "top 1%" of pvp players are 100% grinders because that's what you have to be to get to that level. So it forces my hand to be a grinder too, something I hate.

It's just like if I told you "sure you can go out and grind, but you have to PVP first". Would you like that? Would you think that was fair?

Actually I never meet anyone in the game that is my level that I can pvp with. I've played every release and it's always the same. People don't play PVP to lose, they play to win. Since you have to be high level to win, you grind or you don't pvp. Do you see how stupid that is?

 

killing stuff, crafting, killing stuff, organizing hometown project, killing stuff, managing a few towns, killing stuff, organizing a large guild, killing stuff, trying to stump Attenwood with new bugs, killing stuff, playing with abc files, killing stuff, doing all the quests, killing stuff, helping with events, killing stuff, decorating my house, killing stuff, fishing, killing stuff, writing in game books...

As long as the stuff you are killing is almost killing you but not quite, you are in the right spot.
EDIT: i will actually help you if you ask

 

Tell me if I have this correct. The as long as the pooled experience is going up, you're gaining EXP and you're (in the right spot)? Because I never run out of pooled exp and I have assumed that means that I can't go up levels much quicker than what I'm going because I still have to transfer that knowledge to the skills I'm using. Meaning for example, I still need to swing the sword X times to make it go up to the next skill level. So even if I'm level 70, I could still have level 10 skill if I haven't trained in that skill for very long.

I guess the only advantage I can see in grinding to having higher levels is that mobs start to miss you when you get to a higher level than they are. But that also probably lessens the overall exp you get that is put into your pooled exp.

I'm still lost how you could get to level 40 in 5 hours. There's something weird about that I'm missing.

 

Well, since you asked, I played vanilla WoW on Blackrock server, which was a pvp server with a 2:1 ratio of horde to alliance players. I was alliance, and the only way I could quest in the majority of the game was to enter pvp zones (most of the world was open pvp), where you guessed it, there would always be either:

1) Someone higher level than me
2) Someone better equipped than me
3) a 5 on 1 ganking

I became quite familiar with ganking, and it forced me to adjust my playstyle, forced me into a guild, forced me to quest in a group and forced me to quest in areas where their wasn't a horde majority.

In other words, I adapted my gameplay.

 

I would say you conformed your game play. I'm not interested in that. I feel like a solo player should have a degree of survivorability in this game. I'm not saying that I as a solo player should be able to kill off 3 players at a time. But I am saying that I should not have to join a guild just so I can have fun doing what I like to do. Adapting your game play should be more about knowing when to run, when to hide, when to fight, and when to talk. It shouldn't be about "we have 100 people and they only have 20". That's a very poor game design, imo.

 

@Themo Lock

If a player swings a sword at a Dragon, or swings a sword at a wolf spider, the skill level will advance the same right? The game isn't giving you a faster progression on individual skills because you're fighting larger mobs, is it?

 

Well for a start i have an exp bonus from doing it before, but i have fought everything in the game so often that i have a very good feel for where it is should be. As much as you like to put it into question, i am also quite good at the game and can handle some situations that many others can't. The advantage from punching above your weight is rapid exp income per hour. At the very start it is faster to kill many small things but it very quickly becomes more efficient to kill larger things 1 at a time until you can handle and second at once, then a third, forth and so on. As long as you can finish your targets reasonably quickly without constant death, its all good.

 

Actually it kind of is, the more you can cram into your pool, the more exp gets assigned to each active skill per use. More exp per kill (if fight is fast) results in the pool going up more as you fight, mobs too easy and it will deplete as you fight. Time vs exp gain just needs to be kept in balance as you progress.

 

Ok, that makes sense. What I was concerned about was that if I attacked a Dragon with say Fire Arrow, it would increase from skill level 50 to 51 in like one shot. Where as if I fought a gust ball it would increase the skill level incrementally and take 1000 shots. Or something like that.

I totally understand that if you kill a dragon and get the exp it's going to fill up your pool more than if you kill a wolf. And consequently that's going to raise your adventurer level. So that part makes a lot of sense. I also understand that as a solo player if it takes me 21 attacks to kill a skeleton, but in a group of 7 it only takes you guys 3 attacks each, you're all going to retain a much larger experience pool.

I guess I'm still wondering why you're able to convert skill points seemingly much faster than I have been able to over a span of 3 weeks. I can only imagine that it's hours of play time (or scripting) that allows you to have 5+ GM's. Is that correct?

 

Zero scripting (ask Chris how much i complained about it being possible lol). The GMs are going up fast because i keep my pool up around 250k exp. Yours will go up just as fast if you party with somebody like me and benefit from GM skill boost. That is the entire point of that feature, you don't need to be crazy, you just need a crazy party.