FROM THE KICKSTARTER

I am saying, if you want to create pvp opportunities for lower level players, adding in a queue based matched pvp system that sorts by level on top of the existing pvp system would be one way to do that. As would having queue based group battles. The lack of full loot and being able to toggle your flag are parts of pvp that were already put it place to provide this balance. (I am not implying if these changes are right or wrong)

 

By saying it you are proposing it. By proposing it you are voting for it.
Connecting level to pvp doesn't work.
But you are of course right. The system stands at it is at the moment. But why work on a pvp system that only leads us into a dead end.

Ok. Will stay on topic now. I promise. I at least try to promise ^^

So, the grind. I really hope that, when all quests are done and in game, it won't feel like grinding.

 

That would be ideal and is my hope as well.

 

The biggest problem I see her is that it's fun exactly one time. If you are going to level up a second char it becomes grinding.

 

Simpel

Fine some one and pay him so he level up your charakter. Problem solved.
Maybe they include a pvp/xp system than you can start pvping all day long.

 

This counts for games that have broing combat mechanics.
If you have a combat meachanic that makes combat interresting thant you never feal like grinding.

 

You are right.
But do you have an example?
Even the witcher 3 becomes repetative.

 

Jiks. I am not against 3rd party services.
But leveling services leave a bad taste and violate every mmo Eula I know.

 

Does this mean that I get better by exploring, talking myself out of situations, doing quests? This would be awesome.

 

I dont think witcher 3 has a good combat mechanic. but yes if you do somthing over and over again it gets boring like every thing in the world.
And yes this counts also for sex.

 

Just some small notes here. The best way to get XP is not grinding but questing.

If you fill your pool through questing first, then do regular combat your skills will gain faster than if you spent the full time grinding.

You don't need to be level 70 to enjoy PVP. PvP is about risk and part of the fun is getting curb-stomped by someone better. The only way to counter that is to be prepared to be social and group up.

PvP should not be equal. This is not a FPS. Instead part of those 'choices that matters' is career choices and deck building.

So if you don't do much questing and you don't socialize much then if you only PvP to "win" then you will need to 'grind' XP and skills more than those who do.
That is also part of those 'meaningful choices'.

Flattening out the playing field too much and making it too easy to level up is actually counter to 'meaningful choices' since they matter less and less.

 

I couldn't agree less.

Your version of pvp is not fun. I believe that's why no one is doing it that's not higher level.

It's easy for people higher level to say what you're saying, it's super easy. Meaningful pvp does not involve being "curb stomped". If that were true, Darkfall Online would be the most popular MMO of all time.

 

I have an odd feeling @Themo Lock might disagree with you. I guess it depends on your level and how efficient you are at combat, but there's a point in time when it's a lost faster killing ten red spiders per minute then doing one quest per hour.

How so? I hope not to derail the thread (sorry if you feel like I would @Baron Drocis Fondorlatos), but that does not make sense from a mathematical point of view and it is at least somewhat related to the topic. The amount of experience you have in your 'pool' influences only the 'conversion per time', but not the 'conversion per experience' rate, right? Say if I have zero experience in my 'pool', gain and instantly use up 100000 experience, my skills would end up with 100000 additional experience by the end of my 'grinding'. If I have 1000000 points of experience in my 'pool', gain and use up 100000 experience, my skills would have 100000 additional experience and my pool would have a million. The time required for the conversation would have been less, but the total time of gaining the experience and converting it into skills would be higher.

 

This is a very important question. It's my understanding, based on other people saying this, that the more you fill up your exp pool the faster your skill points are added to your skill levels. At least that's what people have said.

So a person trying to get to 100 in bladed combat, for example, will do so faster with a full pool than not. Why? I have no idea, it's not intuitive. If it actually works like that (I have no idea I've never had a 100% full pool of EXP) it places an unfair advantage on group combat because that's really the only way I've seen that I could get my EXP pool to full at lower levels.

But whatever, it's boring and stupid either way. It's not fun which is why not very many people do it. It's also not what the game was supposed to be designed to do.

 

I think for all of us when something new comes online and it's disappointing, it's real easy for us to forget it's not final yet.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/q2-2015-schedule-update.23556/
"It is worth noting that we develop in an iterative fashion. This means we will often get systems and content in the game as soon as we can, even if they are only partially functional. In general until you see me say something is "final" you can safely assume we will continue to improve on that feature."

Even still, there's nothing wrong with pointing out the negatives about it, and trying to help get it fixed and balanced. Being silent and pretending they don't exist, doesn't help the game long term. Sure we may disagree with one another, we post that and leave it at that, instead of attacking one another, or put them on ignore if you like. Right now there's a bit of negativity toward the game from people that have bought and tried it, to long time backers we keep losing. There are legitimate problems, even after dismissing the troll opinions/reviews. Combat, the grind, small zones, the add on store, p2w, whale hunting, come up pretty often. They can't all be dismissed as simply "They're wrong" because they're talking negatively about a game we want to succeed. There's a lot that has to be tweaked to make this game better. Right now it's not fun, it is grindy. It's Pre-Alpha yes, but that doesn't dismiss legitimate problems. Most new people that come into the game aren't heavily invested in Sota like we backers are, so they will be brutally honest....sometimes that's what is needed to turn things around. I look forward to this next year, and hopefully watching Sota become an interesting, fun game we all can enjoy.

 

If i may, that's a derail i'm willing to participate in.

• The amount of xp in your pool determines the max amount of xp that can be drained from it when you use a skill. (the more xp you have, bigger is the amount of xp that can be "converted" into skill gain).
• The level of each skill determines the max amount of xp it can convert into skill gain each time a gain situation occurs (if i'm not mistaken, this amount is greater for actives than for innates).

The gains are limited by those two factors, so in a nutshell, the more xp you have in your pool, the faster you gain. Getting into the details the situations you can face are:

• Your xp pool is full enough to distribute among all the skills you're trying to raise the amount of xp the skills are demanding: this is the ideal situation.
• You have a certain amount of xp in your xp pool, but the skills you're raising' demands are greater than the max amount of xp you can take out of the pool at a time: reached that situation you should lock some skills and raise the ones you're interested in, while worrying about filling up your xp pool. (locking enough skills to make sure your xp is higher after killing a mob).

Easiest way to fill your XP pool is questing (i got to almost level 40 just by doing some quests). That's why Spoon says that the best way to get XP is questing, not killing monsters. And he's right. The second is AOE killing, but that's something only melee plated warriors can do efficently. That's also why Gustballing is unattended but inefficient (you're expending but not earning).

I got my xp pool to 200k by doing some quests. Not sure how xp is distributed among the party, but i've been on some group raids and i can tell you the gain is not overwhelming. As a matter of fact i can tell from the times i've been leveling up with my girlfriend that even with me being higher in level than her, at the end of the day i gained more XP than her, so i think it's safe to say there's some kind of anti-powerleveling-thingy there.

What really marks the difference is single player AOE killing, and the most efficent doing that are plated warriors... i'll let you connect the dots . I've seen mage builds devastating enemies en masse, but the survival factor is significantly lower.

I also think that all the xp pool - skill management is currently quite unintuitive and bothersome (i just enjoy understanding gaming systems so i take my time to). Probably some reinforcement on how theinformation reaches the player, as some simplifications in the interface can make this simple and understandable.

 

What are some examples of quests that get you to level 40? I really find this difficult (but not impossible) to believe. I have limited experience completing quests, but I haven't found them to be overly valuable to my experience pool. Certainly nothing that would lead me to conclude if I kept doing that I'd hit level 40. What's a short list of quests that I could perform that would prove what you're saying?

Also, I know you can't speak for other people. But you and Spoon are the only people I've heard suggest this. Everyone else that jumps on the "gaining levels is easy" train, just says it can be done fast. They never mention questing, ever. So why do you think there's a disconnect there? Are they just not saying it? Are they not doing it? And after level 40, aren't you still in the same grinding boat? Is there a quest path beyond level 40? If not, how is quest relevant to this conversation?

 

Let's see... all the Soltown quests, Braemar quests, Myron in the Clink, The dying guard in Owl's head, and tap stocked on both Braemar and Owl's head. Oh and bring Morton his ledger. I think some of those give xp and some not... but by the moment i ended all of these i was level 35-40, having the x4 bonus and getting distracted along the way (so there was some killing as well). Also, I'm not trying to prove anything nor feel as i needed to, just offering advice .

I haven't said gaining levels is easy; I said questing is better than grinding. Of course there are not enough quests so of course you're limited to kill mobs in the end. But i could say that gaining levels is easy, mostly because something being easy doesn't imply it's not tedious at the same time... and i could farm without much trouble with my current stats, but that's tedious as hell.

i mostly wrote that because i read "derail" and decided to clarify some concepts. I don't see the point about repeating myself all over again in another thread about the same thing because it's the same topic but from a slightly different perspective... but since you ask, questing is indeed relevant to this conversation (as read "we don't have enough player choices and discovery in game, how to make more of those?"); as I suggested it in previous Grind threads, a randomized repeatable system of quests can help to make leveling up a bit more meaningful, while rewarding discovery and exploration.

 

Ive stated this many times to you.

I know if I do most the quests which are pretty dang easy to do right now at lvl 5, I end up with like 5000g and about level 20(with xp boost)
that's a decent start.

No one wants an "easy mode" game that it seems you are asking for.

 

I'm not asking for an easy mode. Quite the opposite.

I'm asking for a game where a small number of people don't fly out into outer space obtaining levels that no one else can compete with. This isn't good for the game. It kills pvp and it makes the game more about grinding than roleplaying.

What I've suggested assumes that the devs will never make a game that can't be exploited by powergamers. So instead of trying, I think they should just cap power gaming so that normal people can stay relatively close. I'm suggesting that the playing field be flattened because it helps the average player (of which there will certainly be more of) and that's ultimately good for the long term health of the game.