The Grind

Oh, and I am a healer as well JUST LIKE ALL OF YOU!!! No wonder there are no hospitals in rpgs lol

 

That's a great question.

It's because I write most of what I put on these forums for the Developers to consume as feedback. Even the long discussions like this one are designed to defend my point of view against any manor of attack to show the logic and legitimacy of my arguments. I would rather be playing the game, but I can't help but think that now is the time to give feedback, not after the game has been designed, developed, and tested. I'm simply trying to do my part to make this a better game.

As far as my POT goes, it's one of very few places that I believe I'll have an opportunity to find the kind of PVP I truly desire. PVP linked to roleplaying and story, PVP that has meaningful risk vs. reward. In short, if you want something done right, sometimes you have to do it yourself.

 

That's not exactly what I was trying to say. I'd be happy if we could just get in the same ballpark. Right now there are clearly "best builds" that people are following, and have been following for many releases. Although the attunement system does a lot to help that situation, it's just a first step towards the type of balance I'd like to see.

The greater problem that the OP is trying to address is the need to level up using crazy amounts of time as the qualifying factor to success. While some players seem to be capable of performing this leveling in a much shorter window using group play, xp modifiers, and min/maxing techniques, I believe those players are few and far between and that the average player playing an average amount of time will not be able to compete. This prevents those players that enjoy PVP and RP from really getting into the game and having real fun because they're so busy grinding.

 

I found Soul Tap to be a very good spell that I would highly recommend to any Death Mage. Having the ability to convert health to focus is a big deal. More so during PVE, as you can tank mobs using a summoned skeleton or lich and then augment their attack with your own. As a death mage you also have the ability to regain your HP using a variety of spells, so any HP lost using Soul Tap is quickly regained, assuming you're not losing the DPS war at the time.

 

I actually found Death Magic to be great vs. PVE, and before I deleted my character at level 42 I thought it was scaling very well and would be powerful at much higher levels. The reason for this was the attunement system. I had a 45+ in death attunement, and ZERO in life magic. What this meant was that I could do major damage against anything with low death attunement, or high life attunement...and let's face it since everyone in this game spams healing, the likelihood that you'd find players (in PVP) with high life attunement was pretty good.

Because death magic is also giving players back HP, the power output is not as high as other spell schools on the offensive side. But that's not a bad trade off to have as you don't have to heal yourself, it just sort of happens as you cast your spells. I liked the simplicity of this arrangement and was looking forward to using it in PVP at higher levels.

But that's the problem, as I went past 40 I lost my 4x xp modifier and the level grind became 4 times harder. It was painful and I just got bored out of my mind (even though I was already bored to death - pun intentional). So I made a new character that I'm working on that has a different path.

Anyway, I also didn't use weapons, healing, or armor (beyond cloth) and I did just fine. I couldn't leveled that character forever and eventually (many months from now) been PVP "ready". But back to the point of the OP, I don't think that's fair - having to wait that long to do something that other people are doing in 3 weeks or less. I think that's bad game design.

 

@Baron Drocis Fondorlatos , we may not agree on everything, but I am leaning more toward your point here. On the issues of balance and Role Play, I would like different builds to balance also. I think there should be choices available that do not lead to the cookie cutter build and leaving everyone pretty much to be virtually the same person with skills and stats. I would also like the journey progression to be meaningful while leveling instead of everyone just racing to the end. In a single player game that you can explore and adventure with your friends should not mean you have to grind all day in constant pursuit of levels. I do not like handholding either. I like the version of Richard when he in the kickstarter stated how this game will not be hand holding. Now we have spiked heads to let people know zone levels. We have tutorials and walkthroughs and people on skype telling people how to play. I am not saying any of that is bad, it just promotes handholding. I don't know why but Richard changed his stance on handholding and now even promotes it, but I digress.

 

I think overall this is still a very difficult game for new people to master on their own. For example, many of the tour guide quests seem almost impossible to me, without first watching one of the walkthrough videos.

I think the heads on spikes were a good addition to a bad overall game design. The problem (for me) isn't so much that the game has heads on spikes as much as it's level gated very similar to what I'd expect EQ or WOW to be like (I've never played those games because that's not what I'm in to). When we transfer this system to PVP, the problem extends to the very ability of the player to PLAY THE GAME at all, which to me is a horrible byproduct of this level based system.

I understand the want to stay away from "handholding" by giving players so much information that they can sleep walk through progression, but I'm not sure the average player is going to devote enough time to this game failing all the way without this kind of help. I mean that goes directly to my original point in this post, grinding isn't fun for most people. It's a means to an end. And let's face it, players can go grind in just about any game. So what's our competitive advantage here at SOTA?

 

you have a good point on the hat quests. What I say to that though is usually they have a month to get it done. It does not have to be done on the first day. I think part of the objective for it is two fold: Testing the journey and the system on getting there, finding bugs along the way, and also as a reward for doing so. I believe in the original version of the game was to force people to make decisions, to explore, fight, or run if you have to, to learn and grow by the challenge of the game. It is a niche game and was billed on these principles. I fear though that I find it getting watered down, people do not care about role play, they just want to min max, best character build, and get to the "endgame" in which there really is not one. I can see the competitiveness if this was a PvP based game, but its not, its a rpg with pvp elements. I fear that the pvp is breaking the Role Play aspect of the game. In other words, it should be hard, it should be niche, and it should stay away from feature creep that detracts from the original intent of the game.

 

A lot of people don't care about RP and a lot of people don't care about PVP (as long as they don't have to participate in it). But we knew that coming into this game. That's kind of what the MMO culture is all about. I would say even the single player culture is like that, as it's really hard to RP well when you're by yourself. It's like saying you're playing chess with yourself. Ok, sure, but you know it's a game for two people right?

I also feel that PVP was a part of the original kickstarter from the beginning, and some of the stretch goals that were met during the kickstarter expanded the scope of PVP. So making PVP viable seems like something we should collectively be trying to accomplish. I totally agree that SOTA is a niche game, and PVP within SOTA will be niche. I don't think that means we should ignore or care less about SOTA PVP though. It's an important reason why I'm here, and although I don't expect to be part of a huge segment of the playerbase, I think there will be enough people that try this game and want meaningful pvp to make it as good as we can make it.

 

I agree, I am sorry if it came across that pvp should not be good. I think it should be great, but in the context of the game, not as a min max element. I think various builds should be available and competitive not just the everyone can do everything thing.

 

@Chris... end this with some R23 stats please: Time played vs Level Achieved
I'm still willing to bet that < 10% of the R23 player base made it past level 45 (not saying that's a bad thing, but it does seem like PVP is a > level 55+ activity)

And yes I'm still promoting this idea:
The ONLY way were we are going to have significantly more PVP occurring in the game, especially at lower character levels and among more casual gamers, is to allow them (us) to set a range + or - range for opponent level that can engage them in PVP. If an opponent attempts to attack you and it's outside of your personally set engagement criteria, the combat attempt would fail and the player would be sent a standard PVP duel request.

If it's within the engagement criteria, PVP combat would occur normally. The engagement criteria would of course be null and void within dedicated PVP areas and towns.

Getting ganked by multiple players that are around the same level as me, fair game in my eyes. Getting ganked by even a single player that is 20, 30 or even 40 levels higher no thanks...Sadly I'll keep my PVP flag off, I don't want to but I also don't want to be a constant victim, I want competitive PVP that's appropriate to my power level.

Bottom line, allow the player to set the amount they are willing to be "victimized" and players will turn on their PVP flag from day 1...I know I would.

 

So far from my experience with tour guide quests is that i decided to learn some stealth skills in hope of being able to reach the tour guides easier

 

Theoretically we could make more balanced scenarios for PvP by instancing it with some help from NPCs. I was thinking about this topic yesterday and it seems to me that while hardcore PvP players *mostly* enjoy the openness and risk/reward aspect of open PvP the way it is now, those looking for something more like an e-sports type of PvP could easily be accommodated with instances and 'game rules'. I'd make it like some kind of regional "PvP Gym".

The hardest part about the whole idea would be actually developing some kind of matchmaking system for players to just que up over and over again, so I'd like to hear from @Bzus @Chris and @DarkStarr if that's even viable.

 

The hat quest was super easy with the stealth skills, and I'll be using them in the future to get my hats! It was a perfect way to avoid all the mobs that may have been to hard or ganged up on me otherwise.

 

In the past for the hat quests, I'd have to spend a few weeks grinding (I do not level up very efficiently) and then head out in my heavy armour and hope I could handle where they placed the tour guides.

 

I'm going to confess and pledge guilty. I've only made it to page 3 of the thread so far, but, given that I'm not sure I'd go and make it to page 12 before the next hangout, I'm going to do something I normally don't and post before reading all statements. Please bear with me, should I repeat something that others have outlined already.

I am aware of your problem, I understand your motivation and I share part of the concern, but it't not as easy as you make it appear @Baron Drocis Fondorlatos.
First of all, I appreciate that you're trying to roleplay, far too few people do. But, you seem to only accept the 'positive' side of roleplaying and not the negative side. You mention the 'PvE grind' not having anything to do with getting better in 'PvP', but if you are truly roleplaying, then yes, they have a lot in common. While your tactical (and IRL physical) abilities are getting trained due to PvP, your character itself is receiving little training through approaching an enemy. Long term repetitive actions (PvE) are a roleplaying version of increasing your in-game character's abilities (the 'boxing training example' @Themo Lock mentioned would be your character lifting weight over a long period of time to gain strength, working on a punching-ball, the real boxing fight is the last step you are taking).
Now to the actual problem. You are worried that you'd get into a fight against your odds. Then again, that could happen anyway, simply because people could always 'team up' on you. It's one of the issues with open world PvP. There are going to be unfair fights. In order to even the odds a little, Portalarium initially had intended to include player level in their relevance algorithm for selective multiplayer, which is exactly why I'm pushing for the relevance algorithm as much as I do (and I seriously wish others would as well and I'd much appreciate a +1 under the question!). In this scenario, it doesn't matter if there's a hundred level 150 players roaming the lands, simply because you are in a scene with players in your range and do not even see the player 50 levels higher than you.
Additionally, Chris had mentioned 'gaining skills' from PvP in his first explanation of the used based system. Most unfortunately, this topic has ceased and I was one of the very few people trying to raise issues with this (and would have suggested solutions and benefits). IF they would implement a small 'penalty' of say 12 hours natural skill decay for the person loosing the PvP fight, it would be possible to grant the winner to GAIN 75% of that loss. That way, you could do exactly what you've been saying, rise through the levels entirely through PvP.

 

Well then obviously you haven't been grinding enough to be in this conversation. See what I did there?

I think it is actually.

Here's what I'd do. I'd cap the amount of XP any player could get in a single day. I'd make that number approximately 2 hours of NORMAL game play based off of current server levels. So go out and grind all you want, you're still only going up so much XP per day! And all the people in the game, if they play for 2 hours a day will only go up that amount per day. Just like the Tour Guide Quest, some players would miss a day or two here or there. But people that were committed to play every day would be as high of a level as they could be and there would be more people at the top than we usually see in an MMO environment like this.

Most importantly there would no longer be the same "grind". An average player could keep up with 2 hours a day. It wouldn't kill people, but it would be challenging over the long haul. The people that would hate it would be the power gamers, because now they have to find something else to do (like Roleplay, or PVP, or Crafting). But that's good because we need more of THAT and less of "grinding". Grinding doesn't make anything fun for social, killer, or explorer types. It only gives achievers a carrot to chase at the expense of other play styles.

EASY. FIXED. LET'S DO IT!

The only problem with this is we have a lot of power gamers that have been conditioned to believe that it's healthy to go out and farm as many levels as you possibly can. Some people are even building their entire persona around it. And this is bad for roleplaying - standing around killing the same thing for hours. It's also destructive to the PVP environment because you eventually have 3 pools of people. Those that can stomp on just about anything that moves. Those that are trying to get to that point. And those that are doomed to be the bugs that are forever squashed by the boots of the two other player pools (this is the largest pool by the way).

There are all kinds of people that go to gyms and "box", it's a different story when they actually put on gloves and go toe to toe with a "fighter". We shouldn't be confusing the two. We shouldn't be rewarding the guy in the gym by making them the best fighter because they hit a bag on nights and weekends.

I understand the want to make add match making mechanics, but this too impacts RP in a negative way. What we really want (what I want) is a world where everyone is encouraged to interact with each other. The more we segregate the game because of levels, the less RP will be possible.

 

If limiting it so 2 hours worth of experience is what you would gain, a lot of people would start working on alts to.

 

This idea, while not bad at all, only takes into the account players starting out all at the same time. When and if Captain Jack pledges later on when and if Ships are available, then he has a very long road indeed to catch up to all of you. That really makes the idea and theme of what you may wish to accomplish counterproductive, no?

 

Only if we say that those starting in Episode II have to start from scratch. I don't see why we'd do that to people. Again, this game is not supposed to be about grinding, it's supposed to be about roleplaying and meaningful PVP. Neither of which happen when you're out grinding.

This game only has 40 hours of content, so in theory people should be able to finish this game after about 40 hours of playing. I know I'm no where near being able to do that playing solo. I think only a small handful of people in the game could do that and they're all basically using similar builds and strategies.

As I've tried to level my character over the last few months I've come to realize that this game is EXTREMELY unbalanced if you're playing solo (right now). I have concerns that this is a much larger balancing issue than just PVP. I think solo players are going to get the shaft if we're trying to balance this game based on the same feedback from groups of power gamers. Don't get me wrong, their feedback is valuable but it's overly optimistic about the ease at which the average person should be progressing.