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"No experience" mode

Discussion in 'Release 46 Feedback Forum' started by brhanson2, Oct 13, 2017.

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  1. brhanson2

    brhanson2 Avatar

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    I have heard people talking about not wanting to explore higher level/dangerous zones due to the experience loss that one may incur.

    What about the ability to turn experience off completely? Meaning no experience loss and no experience gain. Sort of an "exploration mode".

    Just a wild thought I had :)
     
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  2. Trihugger

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    Y'know... that fits with the KISS (Keep it simple stupid) philosophy and would in effect work... You'd have to put something in there as to how bosses work to keep a modicum of risk involved and not just let people go willy nilly group farming content and not having any death penalty while still getting drops.
     
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  3. liz_the_wiz

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    What if you were in that mode completely neutral and unable to fight anything in game - so all you could do was explore.
     
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  4. brhanson2

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    I like that idea as well. Would get people off the beaten path.
     
  5. Trihugger

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    This I'm hesitant about. A lot of the appeal of some of the areas is the mob population at them. Like the high level ruins/nifty secret alcoves with high level mobs lose all their sense of danger etc. if you're not going to actually fight them. There's no risk anymore, but I feel like a pure observer mode would be ... idk too boring? I know I didn't explain it well but you could keep the "Man I got wrecked exploring that place" kind of impression instead of simply "Oooh pretty."
     
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  6. Gix

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    I realize this isn't your point but I wanted to inject the idea that the problem isn't that exploring higher level/dangerous zones is risky, it's that it's practically a death wish.

    The question is hardly "will I come out of it alive?" but "how many times will I die?"

    I'm a bit on the fence on this. One one hand, I want to explore and enjoy the cool locations the level artists have done, on the other, the whole point of adventuring is dealing with obstacles. Exploring is almost the reward itself. The problem here is that the most effective (if not only) way to overcome these obstacles is to grind...
    ... which the XP system is throttling...
    ... which pretty much guarantees that we're farming low-level content.

    From my own personal experience, I can dominate nearly any area I find where the enemy is labeled as green and I, on the offset, get dominated in nearly any area where the enemy is labeled as yellow. I can "do" one-on-one combat against a yellow enemy, but that hardly ever happens. There's no sweet spot.

    I find that indoor "dungeons" are the best locations for me because the walls act as cover from the dozens of archers and mages.

    I think the best solution is to keep it simple and just tune the difficulty curve. One could argue that not flagging for PvP is the "exploration mode" :p
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2017
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  7. Lord_Darkmoon

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    I like the idea. Assassin's Creed Origins is doing this.
    Many games offer a "story mode" with extremely easy combat so that players can enjoy the story and just explore the world.
     
  8. Quenton

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    Gix hit the nail on the head, and while I don't really agree that a "no experience mode" is the way to go, I do remember enjoying the fact that in Ultima 7, the trudge that was combat in other games was swiftly dealt with by pressing C and hoping for the best, which would be over a few seconds later.

    I'm a pretty big advocate of SotA going UO-style over Ultima-classic style, but with where things are at (especially considering someone posted a thread like this), this isn't an outrageous ask anymore.
     
  9. Barugon

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    I really feel that offline mode should have an easy setting.
     
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  10. Elwyn

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    This. Offline mode is clearly the way to go if you just want to wander around to explore areas, and since it has no effect on the multi-player economy, you can give it tweaks to make things less hard. Maybe even add a "super-easy" setting. QA multi-player is also an option, but it can't have an "easy mode", since the point is to test things before going live.

    Will people play through stuff in offline mode to figure out how things work, then switch back to online once they know what to do? Probably, but so what?
     
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