FROM THE KICKSTARTER

I've suggested something like this in the past.

I think normalization of pvp could happen in the open world too. It's really just as simple as IF AVATAR THEN normalize stats (conceptually). I realize this isn't "simple" if you're the one that has to do it. I'm just talking about the concept. But yeah, this is something that would make PVP far more populated than it currently is.

 

Good god no!

But to stop everybody else in his/her progression isn't a solution either.

 

The ratio of xp is same as adventuring level and then is applied 10% bonus for each party member I think. well it is 10% for party of two in any case.

So, if there is 10 000 xp to split between level 60 character and level 40 character one gets 6600 (6000 +10%) and the other 4400 (4000+10%)

 

I've never advocated STOPPING progression. Just making it more flat.

I assume that power gaming is actually a form of exploitation. The game isn't DESIGNED for people to get to level 70 in a week. If people are doing that we need to DESIGN the game to stop it. It's really that simple from my point of view.

 

Heads up you are not going to get what you what out of this game then broseph.
This game is ment to be played for 5-10 years so... be prepared for long progression.

 

I haunt people in real life, what's the point of doing it when you're dead?

The game is going to be what it's going to be. I'll say my peace now, especially if when this game launches I'll need to be spending all my time grinding.

 

Any reason why you oppose?

 

Queues suck?

 

I agree that it could happen in the world, maybe if it happened in specified zones. .but I would imagine that zone would be occupied by either only people like yourself, or would be completely avoided by people who are against this type of thing.

 

Fair enough. .LMAO

 

I like the rest of your idea btw.
I maybe should have been more precise ^^

 

This is a rather complex issue.

The biggest issue is that any game with character skill will be affected by this most, because the fastest way to level will be always big advantage over someone just playing the game for story or roleplaying. Every time you walk at normal speed you are not getting xp fast enough, every time you do not use the best dps spell and buff you are not getting xp fast enough, every time you are not fighting mob giving most xp per second you are wasting your time not getting as much xp as someone power leveling.

Another issue is that some people just like to look around, explore, do quests, hang out with others, while others are maximizing their xp gains. You cannot really punish people for doing what they like even if it is maximizing their xp gains. Some people have more time to play, some people have friends that help them level faster... it cannot really be stopped. The thing is, every time you try to stop power gaming it affects everyone else as well. The fact that someone has more time to play should not be a reason for them to get less xp, that is not really a solution.

Of course using AoE on Vertas elves, red spiders, or killing ghost corpion over and over is grind that might be looked at. Another thing is all those high level PvPers using scripts to attack gustball so they use their xp pool to level skills without actually playing the game. any game that can be scripted so easily is dull and should not be in the game. Mindless clicking on the screen is (imho) not fun and people afk scripting it are proving it.

However the game is designed for normal player doing bit of this and bit of that. Some people spend 16 hours a day playing it and trying to reach the highest level possible, it is fun for them and well, sometimes you cannot compete with them, because they will always reach the higher level faster than you. I think the game should not be balanced because for them, they are really small percentage of players. Sure they will dominate some parts of the game, but it will be similar no matter how the game is designed unless everything is random, some people will always be better, whether because their skilld are better or their character is higher level. I prefer when player skill is the important part, but SotA is designed around character progression rather than player getting better. So leveling is important part of success, though I dare to say that the advantage will get smaller at higher levels (80+). Some will reach them sooner than others, but SotA is quite open ,so if your level is not as high as someone else's? Group with other players to beat them. Same if some monster is too hard for you at the time, you can group or wait till you reach higher level.

To sum it up, some people will find ways to power level no matter how the game is designed, I think it is best to just ignore them and do not worry about not being the top player Exploiting needs to be stopped, but just being good at the game and having more time does not justify nerfs.

 

It is, and your post shows a great understanding of the problem. I appreciate and respect what you said.

I disagree with this part however. If the game is not intended to be farmed, then we should stop the farming. If the game is not intended to be leveled so quickly, we should slow down the leveling. In a multiplayer game, we can't ignore outliers if they negatively impact the game for the masses. In the case of power gaming, I believe this is the case.

 

offline skill gain imho. When your character 'goes to bed' or logs out, what are you telling the game your character will be doing? If you're physically away from the game for several days, that could be months worth of time in the game, of your character doing absolutely nothing. Yes, some of your character's time might just be sitting around in leisure but not all of it. One of my old concepts is called Role Replacement where player characters can take the role of NPC's by taking their jobs temporarily. This can serve as a form of offline skill gain.

If you want to work on combat skills, perhaps your character will join the fight in an ongoing war against undead which requires hundreds or thousands of players. In these wars, active players can participate with offline characters (players that are logged out) which requires some bot/AI and takes the role of NPC soldiers or hirelings. These offline characters are drawn from a queue because offline characters only spend so much of their day fighting. So I guess this is a simulation concept but makes sense of skill gain for those players who are unable to play regularly. Perhaps to reduce the enmity of player interaction, an offline character can choose to participate anonymously or as themselves.

As an example: In this war against the undead, with no offline characters, an active player would participate in a Party with NPC hirelings. You would need to accomplish various objectives in these wars, and by doing so you would be helping your teammates. Some of these objectives or achievements can only be accomplished actively. These NPC hirelings would be replaced by other players who are participating in offline skill gain. For players who choose to participate anonymously, this would be a transparent process. Perhaps by participating as your character's real identity you get certain reputation bonuses. These NPC hirelings would have randomly generated names, so the same concept would apply if a player chooses to participate anonymously with their offline character. The reason this is important is because players may want to snub a particular player by dropping from his/her Party to prevent them from getting achievements or offline skill progression. Perhaps if you drop party too many times you're labeled a deserter?

Additionally, there would be PvP enabled wars and non-PvP enabled wars?

Offline skill gain doesn't fix all of the problems but might help casual gamers compete with power gamers. There is always going to be an advantage for players who spend more time actively playing the game, this shows up in the accumulation of resources, wealth, in-game achievements, more skill gain etc. But hopefully a system like this would bridge the gap a bit. Not so much that it's pointless to actively play, but enough that sleeping in a bed makes things interesting. Kind of like getting a present when you login.

When players logout at the 'bed' interface, they might have an option that shows them various XP costs for activities. "Join the War vs Undead" = 8500xp. Or something similar. Distributing your accumulated XP into offline activities. So while you're playing, you're trying to build up your adventurer XP pool then expending it while you're offline. I'm for accelerated skill gain. I guess I was spoiled by the 'free' Shadowbane era where it focused more on end-game content.

It would also be nice to transfer the real grind to an 'account level' vet rewards, virtue and achievement type of system instead of what is perceived as endless skill gain. Sorry for the wall of text!

 

The huge issue with that is that players joining later are left behind and they cannot quite catch up. Usually most people wil lget bored of the game till there is next major update or something and new players can catch up by going through existing content, with offline skill gains, they will be rather left behind. Again it has a lot to do with game using character skills rather than player skills. I would not mind if we could "train" skills offline using our xp pool though (instead of afk gustball hitting).

 

I think that's why they used level bracketing in WoW battlegrounds or whatever. Players of a certain 'level' compete against similar players. Could do that with the adventurer level in SotA but I think there should also be something that accounts for a character's equipment. It wouldn't have to apply to all combat environments...though that might be interesting. You're always fighting against competitive players?...but not realism either...hmm.

I guess offline skill gain might be easier in a system where all the skills go to 100 and it becomes more of a 'pick and choose' type of scenario where you can only master so many skills but you can still be average or above average in the others. With the softcap it's essentially doing that anyway though? Doesn't it become a hard cap at some point? What's the highest skill someone has achieved so far?

 

It's very hard to explain things when some people don't agree with the fundamental math we can see in the game.

Its also very hard to explain things to someone who only wants the game to cater to their specific playing style.

Let's try it again, maybe if I also do the broken record approach as well we might actually get somewhere.

You make the choice to grind more than you have to and we cannot balance the grinding in the game after someone who is making choices that leads them to grind more than they have to.

If you don't do quests then you WILL HAVE TO grind more. If you train on the gustball you will have to grind more.

It is not up for debate, it's a fact with the game as it works right now and where we are seeing the design going.

Your choice to not do quests leads to you having to grind more vs someone who does.

If you then complain about grinding too much then maybe you should consider the advice of players who knows the system better than you do?
So go and check out Themo Lock's beginners guide
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...what-is-going-on-a-sota-leveling-guide.41503/
It talks a bit about the importance of keeping a filled pool to make the most gain out of the do you get and why.
It also talks about the importance of limiting the current skills and most importantly the innates currently set to gain. So that you keep your pool increasing as you fight, and make sure it doesn't decreases.

If you follow such advice and start out R26 after the wipe by committing to doing lots of starter quests early you will note that you need less grinding to get competitive skill levels.
If you don't follow advice then that is your choice, a meaningful one with consequences.

I'm not at a higher level. Right now I'm about 40ish. I'm far too casual due to time constraints to be really competitive.

But I don't PvP in SotA to win necessarily, I PvP to have fun. Part of that fun is the risk of getting annihilated by those better than you.

If someone in a shardfall kicks my behind all over the place then I laugh about it, chat with them a bit and if I want to step it up I do it the Garriott way and call in some friends and overwhelm them by numbers.

Which is following the design as set up from the kickstarter onwards. I remember that Garriott and Spears made the analogy (I can dig up the links later if you want, it was in the kickstarter talks, then in the first PvP deep dives and then mentioned again by Darkstarr in a later PvP hangout) that a high level should be seen as an Olympian athlete or a pro boxer. A normal person (casual player like you or me) shouldn't be able to defeat them in a fair fight 1-on-1 but enough normal persons should be able to overwhelm a single Olympian (or in an unfair situation).

What they were opposed to were games where a single high level was simply completely out of reach if you were a couple of levels lower regardless of numbers or ambush etc.
Which seems to work as designed although some more balancing is required.

Now regarding the flat curve, this game has a relatively flat curve already with diminishing returns and all of that. It has gotten iteratively flatter as we have progressed. The new health and focus calcs in this very release flattened it out more. So Chris is definately looking at that already.
But since the use based skill system dictates that high skills will beat low skills you will still have progression as part of the design.

So it's not really my version of PvP, had it been up to me I would have done it very differently... Trust me on that one. Instead it's Richard's.

 

I actually don't disagree with spoon at all, i think it will be great when there is more quests and the main quest line to offer people an alternate method to gain exp. Already you can get a nice amount of starting levels (level 40 ish) without killing a single mob. I love quests ^.^ I grind because it is the only way to get a end game avatar to test with between 3 month wipes, it likely will not be how i play episode one.

 

This is the topic!!! ^^^^^

 

I would like to see how progression works in single player online. It is an option of gameplay and I wonder why it is punished without the 10% leveling bonus of groups. I also wonder if all the content will be able to be completed in single player online. Not just the story but all content.