FROM THE KICKSTARTER

For one, all those "point of interest" areas within scenes that can be discovered should grant some exp maybe

 

SPO is an interesting problem to solve. You're online, yet alone. Perhaps meaningful NPC companions that can join your party?

That would certainly promote the "discovery" aspect. And while it can be divisive, achievements can serve this purpose too -- even if it's not some public / competitive leaderboard thing, although some like that aspect too.

Regarding the grind of gathering, refining, crafting a thousands times per day, or repetitive mob hunting/farming, perhaps, dare I say it, random fun and meaningful events / encounters that happen to break up the monotony? You may be presented with some event that would cause you to pause and think about continuing or diverting your focus to doing something else temporarily. And not just straight up random encounters like we have now, but some event or encounter that takes place right where you are, or just off to the distance, to beckon you away from the monotony, the grind.

There are more blunt ways like not respawning mobs or resource nodes on some timer, forcing you to move to a new scene. Which again promotes exploration and discovery, and the chance of those random/roving fun-yet-meaningful events/encounters. I'm sure we can think of a million ideas (that are even lore friendly) to make those activities feel less like a grind that promotes Exhibits A and B. But trying to boost leveling or progression or making it flatter or handicapping it, etc, etc, etc, is only a bandaid and doesn't address the core problem. You should be looking forward to every play session, not dreading it.

 

One thing i always thought would be great (but unlikely to get implemented) would be a roguelike (ie Nethack) style dungeon with randomly generated levels. The idea being that it we be designed to be impossible to "complete" due to it having 100 levels going deeper and deeper into the ground with each level scaling in difficulty. Assume each level is being pulled from a table with a rand roll and then seeded with enemies from a separate table. In addition to standard encounters you would have a chance of finding resource harvest levels, boss mobs, merchant NPC and puzzle type levels. Every time you went in, you would experience a different dungeon. Leaderboards could also be kept for deepest level reached and fastest times to get there.

For SotA i would call this the "Chaos Well" and explain it as a nexus of raw energy and chaos magic brought into being by the destruction of a great museum of magic and artifacts during the fall. This would not only make leveling interesting, but also provide potentially limitless content for both single players and parties that have completed the main quest lines (more and more levels and creatures/encounters could be added to the tables over time). *sigh* i would love that so much.

 

Make combat feel less grindy. Put less progression into passive defenses, and more into active skills that you actually have to use, so that even when you're fighting below you're level you actually have to do something to survive. Flatten the level curve. Re-spawn, but don't re-spawn to the convenience of grinders. Make the small scenes larger, so you aren't running around in a tiny circle.

 

I keep trying to draw an analogy here. So far, all I got is a high school football team. It is sad that every person sitting in the stands cannot compete (they would get their heads stomped). Should we spend hours arguing how we can slow down or limit the progress of the team so all can compete and have fun? We could suggest that some of the crowd could compete if they spent as much time training. Some of the crowd would never be able to compete due to physical limitations. We could restrict the team itself, by limiting or eliminating training. I bet that if all football training was outlawed, and everyone could only play tiddlywinks for an hour a day, the same group would end up on the field at the game. Some people are better at playing football, and some people will always be jealous of that fact. We know we are headed down the utopian path when trophies are not only handed out to the participants, but when we include all the fans as essential participants and give them trophies as well.

 

You're equating people that actually accomplish something (in football) to people that are just clicking their left mouse button a whole lot. The analogy is wrong.

If all you had to do to make the football team was click your left mouse button, then it would be a much better comparison.

 

Please don't make a game where Steam reviews will laugh at the four year dedication required for max level.

 

omg lol i am laughing so hard at the thought of out leveling Themolock by questing ... oh my lord ... my ribs hurt lol ......

 

Isnt there something that sort of resembles this ( waterted down alot of course compared to your example ) at Chillblains Compendium? and yes I would certain prefer your version but perhaps they could improve on this version

 

I do every quest each release also ^.^

 

I missed the other threads everyone keeps refering too so I don't know if this point was already brought up but I agree with Baron on some points. If you want to stay competetive in PVP in the current build grinding is absolutly nessisary. You can do every quest in the game but that will only take you so far, and because there is no cap on skills players who grind 12 hours a day will always have an advantage over the ones who don't . Perhaps statistacially that will only come out to a 5-10% better stats but in most cases that is enough to make the difference between a loss and victory.

 

Ah, sorry, you misunderstood me. I meant to express that 'questing' is by no means as fast a progress as is you with an optimal 'grind' schedule. 'Best' in this context (the OP wanting fastest possible grind time) refers to 'fastest'.

I'm sorry to sound like a broken record myself, but, despite you insisting that it's an obvious fact and that it would be explained in Themo Lock's leveling guide, I fail to find a mathematical, solid explanation of this claim. Maybe I'm blind and you could be kind enough to put my nose on that?

 

I still say If we have the skill/use system to get rid of exp and just have skill caps. Soooo much easier and balanced IMO.

 

I agree, why can't I just go out and use skills to get better at them? Why do I have to grind experience?

Why can't we just ban people that script and publicly post their character names?

 

now I'm picuring a bunch of micheal keatons from multiplicity takin' shifts at the computer

 

Because name and shame get you banned in almost every game forum.
And where is the difference in grinding XP for skills or grinding the skill gain?

 

I wasn't talking about players doing it. I was talking about devs doing it. Maybe if people know the end result is going to be the entire community knows they're losers, they will avoid doing it in the first place.

Right now we're doing both. It would essentially be half the grind. The XP pool part is much harder to obtain for a solo player than the repetitive use part.

 

Devs doing name and shame would be definitely no step in the right direction.
I mean what the hell?
Report them and let the devs take care of them.

Removing one level in the skill grind wouldn't make it faster. In the end the speed will be exactly as fast as the devs want it. Doesn't matter if there is XP gain involved or not.
That said: I would prefer a pure gain by use system as well. So would the bots.

 

I would say the bots are here regardless. Maybe do a ROT like siege perilous had?

 

A ROT?
No idea what that means tbh ^^