Poll: Time to Grind

In UO we had a little notification that said, "your intelligence has increased by 1" or "you have gained 0.1 in magery" or whatever. I know we have similar notifications in SOTA, in the chat window, but these fly by too fast and get lost among the other stuff in the chat window like "you hit for critical damage" or a message from your guild or "you are terribly sexy" or whatever.

I always found the UO notifications highly addictive and a major reason for continuing to happily grind. I wonder if we could separate these from the chat window, make them appear somewhere else on the screen, and let them linger for 3-4 seconds, maybe in a color of our own choosing?

 

pointless, since leveling is using a skill and doing that can easily be done doing NOTHING. Gust Ball, Inanimate Target, or any other lame way you chose.
Now there are some skills that require a more focused approach, mining, and other crafting types, but they have other issues all together, and since this is mire likely not focused there at all . . . .

What you actually want to complain about is gaining the exp, but that also is a weak argument. As stated it seems Clunky and Grind. Time is irrelevant.

I understand this is the "I WANT IT NOW" generation but that just needs to go away.

As Chris Stated about some other post a while back - "go play the game" and from MANY leadership areas, if you have a complaint make a suggestion, if not you are just part of the problem.

 

That poll..

Too many choices.. not sure how to answer it lol

 

Fine, I'll stop telling you how sexy you are...

@enderandrew Totally agree, there is no reason to make the macro'ers life easy!!

 

You can choose multiple choices.

 

Leveling combat skills doesn't seem like too much of a grind to me because it engages my attention in a mostly fun and satisfying way. Note that I don't gustball grind.

Leveling mining skills (or any gathering skills) seems like a horrible grind to me by comparison. It is not engaging, fun, or satisfying. My attention goes elsewhere when I'm in a mine gathering ore; lately I've been reading the forums or catching up on my Xmas shopping online.

 

Don't hate me for what I'm about to say, I don't intend to make the deep change I'm about to tell, but at least I want to explain my answer.

Not fun.

In a sandbox game I don't understand even the idea of levels or progress. I understand it in games where you need to get stronger to go through the next door to face a bigger boss, etc.
But in a sandbox mmo (which actually is SotA online mode), it only creates a gap between players that is not a benefit to any of them. It also generates pointless grinding.
What would happen if you removed xp skills completely? Would you really miss it?

 

I don't hate you, but it's not a sandbox. There are also solo online and friends online mode.
There's a story.
There's also (sorry. work happened, and I hit enter when I should have finished my thought.)

 

Actually it is a sandbox AND all those other things you mentioned.

 

I have no problem the leveling at all........I remember taking 6 months to 7x gm my UO char..... had to start with swords to kill stuff and make money, then I used that to buy reagents to train mage.

If it doesn't take 6 months to get to high levels in SotA, I will probably be disappointed

 

Indeed. But if the story is gated by levels, then you can't leave them out, even if you're ignoring the story and playing in the sandbox.
However, I would not care if they tossed progression and gated the story with knowledge and talking to NPCs in the right order.

 

Good post. This is a 'must have' item. I agree that the skill progression text goes by way to quickly in default chat. I suppose a custom chat window could be created for this, but this shouldn't be hidden as much as it is.

 

This may be totally taboo in this community...I'm not really sure.
But, I can't stop comparing this game experience to other games I've played.

I much prefer the Skyrim skill system to what we have here (maybe because I was able to max out my character and enjoy being a super hero), but Baulder's Gate was pretty dang good too. I like having a limited resource in one play through. I could restart the game with different characters to try out different builds. I think that could work here too. I sort of wish this game was more of a mix between Baulder's Gate and Myst Online.
I don't really mind if there is a mix of ultra macro'd players and dumpy questers like me. When it comes to PvP something different should happen. WoW had a very vibrant PvP community (although I honestly haven't touched it in years). I appreciated that the PvP was divided into leveled tiers and being able to team up with some randos for a little capture the flag was an awesome social activity.
I also really like the way you can quest with different players and add friends very easily in the latest Diablo and the scope of possible character spec'ing and gear sets is pretty vibrant and fun. Diablo is very grind heavy but the grinding is really fun because it adjusts difficulty based on the player levels.

-just some thoughts

 

I got'a say, if you want to grind, more power to ya...

I prefer to just play the game, as a resource gatherer my main objective is to gather resources, so if there're critters I need to take out, I do that first and let their corpses lay while I gather... Then go back and strip them... This delays the respawn slightly... There comes a point when I just take what I need and leave the rest, which increases the respawn time a bit more... Moving to the next place, I find my levels going up quickly, I was adventure level 43 and the next time I looked, I had hit 47... When I'm over weight, I go craft, it breaks up the monotony...

You know what they say: "a watched pot never boils", so if you're trying to grind, it may take forever... or it just seems that way...

 

I appreciate this perspective. Too things you should consider. I can't PVP until I'm about level 70+. Let me know when you're at level 70+. You may not be watching the pot, but I am because I just want to PVP. Imagine for a moment if you could not craft or gather before you were level 70+. You'd be watching that pot too.

I've never gotten past level 49 in any release. I probably would've gotten into the 50's this release had I not deleted my character, but after I lost my 4x experience modifier the pace was so slow that it just didn't feel like a good use of my time anymore, so I created a new character that raised experience quicker and allowed me to try out new skills. I don't want to grind, that's kind of the point of the OP. Grinding isn't fun, but it's required if you want to PVP (which I do).

 

Here's my opinion..

For starters... don't look at it as a grind... when I play I don't think about how long it will take to become 'uber'... I do things that I enjoy.. like exploring, and quests sometimes... mostly harvesting and crafting for me... but the rewards I get from doing these things give my character experience.... and my character grows from there at a pace that I determine.. and when I need a break... I take one... and then come back after for more fun

~i

 

Yes, of course. And so you don't grind. But you don't PVP either.

I understand that you may not want to PVP, but I do want to PVP. It's one of the main reasons I play this game. So that's why I'm really upset about this, grinding is required to PVP. Imagine if you couldn't do the things you enjoy without grinding? No exploring, no quests, no harvesting, no crafting. Would you have a bigger problem with the grind?

 

I do PVP... apparently not as often as you... grinding is NOT a requirement to PVP however... but the more experienced you are the better your chances of survival - I agree.

but.. we do have to work to do the things we enjoy .. and it takes time... any MMO has the same issue... any game has that issue for that matter in some way or another... if we started at the top of the field... it wouldn't be fun to play

It would be interesting to hear how someone would be able to create a game that required no investment to play... but I'd find it boring

~i

 

That's why I'm hoping that we're going to see the Lua integration that Chris mentioned in one of the Hangouts. Once that happened, we can do that and a lot more ourselves (and for others) in the blink of any eye. 100% custom!

There's a problem to that, actually two. First of all, server-sided AI can never go past mediocre at best. Where you can spend a massive deal of computing power on AI at a single player game that runs on your PC, a server has to do that very same task (and more!) for hundreds if not thousands of players.
And even if you could have a somewhat decent AI, remotely close to the PvP kick BDF is hoping for, you'd instantly be at a different issue. People have very different skills, which is why you can usually choose between easy, medium and hard (or even more steps) in single player. If you go at a 'medium average setting', the very good players would still be bored by your AI and the rather unskilled players would feel like they stand no chance.

On the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'm going to say it again. If you can gain exp/skills through PvP and if they are going to use 'level' as part of the selection algorithm for multiplayer, you could easily 'PvP - grind' yourself to the top. Where exactly is the problem with that?

 

The problem is that you can't grind yourself to the top through PVP. No one is going to grind themselves to the top via pvp in the current system.

You ever hear of the saying it takes money to make money? That's what's going on here. If you have the levels already, you can pvp. If you don't have the levels you want pvp to get them because no one lower level than you is available to pvp with. You would be the wet stone used by other players to sharpen their pvp knives on.