The New Group Level Limits? Confused?

[fusa]

My biggest concern is forming parties for sssy'is, dustbone, and illithiads. These areas are the best for xp, and ones that I try to join whenever I have the time. And the illithiads I probably wouldn't attempt with a character thats at least into its 50's anyway.

[FunkySwerve]

fusa said:

With the introduction of the random loot, if you are well equipped, and plan ahead, these tags have become a lot easier, pre immortal ac has reached immortal ac, elemental immunities are close to or better than post dach etc.

Sure, if you are a vet. You're forgetting the rest of the server. And even with all that added defense, you will still not have the dc or ab of say a level 50. Making the run safer for you but less of a leisure cruise. And this is all before the introduction of legendary spells and loot...
In any case, I'm not sure how scaling down experience in those areas would help the problems we're discussing. Care to clarify?
Funky

[fusa]

Maybe deterining the experience of a kill by the ll level difference between high and low. If there's a 20 level difference, the xp could be 40%. Within a certain range the xp would be normal. I don't think this would stop it but probably would encourage someone with an immortal to take their lowest since it be would the character that would benefit the most.

[sabregirl]

I guess I rather like Balduvard's suggestion but I'm not sure level is the entire problem. As already mentioned in the thread good equipment can almost put you on par with someone considerably higher level, with poorer equipment.

I've been on both ends of the "dragging around" type deal. Usually, at least in loth/immo runs, the people dying constantly, simply don't know where to get decent equipment. They've power leveled up to 40 but can't actually do much of anything due to equipment problems. And if nobody tells you what's required for some of the post immo runs before you go . . . well.

Anyway I propose - I don't know how hard this would be to script or do - that in addition to - or possibly a replacement for level limits, we limit tags to those that actually damage or hit the boss in question.
In a lot of areas no tag = no/or little usable loot. This would force some behavioral modification in the higher level people. I can't tell you how many times I had to fight Xul before I actually SAW her. The big/powerful people should step back and let the little ones earn their stripes. And if you can't damage the boss some way, why do you deserve the tag anyway? It does say "you have killed X" If you never touched the thing how can that be true? I suppose you could be just boosting everyone else and helping that way but seems like hitting/damaging at least once should be a requirement. I wouldn't WANT a tag for just standing there the whole time.

Also I've done some thinking about the "people not being kicked" points. There's probably two primary reasons for this

#1 people are simply too nice. You don't really want to kick that poor guy out in the middle of Loth/abyss/whatever and leave him for dead. (Unless he's REALLY causing problems)

#2 Parties cannot have true functional leadership due to the need for porting.

Lets face it, the crown gets moved around like crazy purely for porting purposes. So chances are if you are the "functional leader" you're not going to even have the ABILITY to kick someone when it becomes apparent they need to be kicked. There have been a number of times I have wanted to kick people that were clearly detrimental to a party - mostly due to disruptive behavior, but I've never had the crown to be able to do it. Half the time the guy that needs to be kicked will have the crown for some reason . . . So I don't know if the porting system could be changed or a secondary sort of leadership system could be implemented because really, I think giving the ability for parties to have a true leader would be a big help in the overall problem.

-S

[fusa]

For example..
Theres a LL party with the levels 41,45,49,55 and 60. They make a kill that normally gives 1000 xp. The 41-49 get the full 1000 xp, the 55 gets 800 xp, the 60 gets 400 xp.

[fusa]

For the xul, lolth immortal tags, if someone has a level 50+ character the xp could be reduced even more

[fusa]

Or the xp penalty could be shared between the high and the low, in a party of 41,45,50,55,60, the 41 and and 60 bother take a perctange of the xp. While the 45,50,55 receive full xp.

[Grogbot]

sabregirl said:

And if you can't damage the boss some way, why do you deserve the tag anyway?

I used think like this too, but
(a) if I buff everyone else so they can damage the boss; or
(b) I sit there and soak it so they can damage the boss; or
(c) I buff everyone so I limit damage from the boss; or
(d) I escape damage myself and sit there and rez everyone who is damaging the boss or otherwise buffing

...then I am playing a vital role.

Corollary: if no-one rezzes/buffs the damagers, where are we?

BTW - I hate leechers too, just pointing out a diferent PoV

Grog "Yes, I want GMW"

[fusa]

I agree with grogbot. A characters role in a fight isn't always to damage the boss, but to make the party able to damage him. In a dach fight with 2 clerics and one sorc, the sorc would probably be mostly just lowering the sr of dach while the clerics do the damage.

[calad]

fusa said:

For example..
Theres a LL party with the levels 41,45,49,55 and 60. They make a kill that normally gives 1000 xp. The 41-49 get the full 1000 xp, the 55 gets 800 xp, the 60 gets 400 xp.

This is actually a good idea except for 1 small problem. Considering how much xp it takes to get from 55-60 why penalize those who have done there time, ran through the lake of fire, and earned there lvls? Why not reverse what Fusa has suggested where the higher would get more xp. One run through ssyths and desert and you can jump from 40-50 easily under the current system.

As far as players being poorly equipped and not being able to handle harder areas, not much can be done about that. Thats the nature of the server and how it was designed in the beginning. Anyone can powerlvl to 40 then get dragged through Xul, Abyss, Dacky, Ssyths and Desert while causing people to waste 100's of rezzes on them.

Heres a crazy idea I have been thinking about. The Death timer. Normally its 2 min give or take a few seconds for a person to respawn. After lvl 40 usually its not a big deal till you hit ssyths and ithiliads. Lets make ssyths the lake of fire for poorly equipped chars lowering the death timer in half. A well equipped, skilled player can survive this easily with no worries, but someone who has equipment issues will not survive.

I know it sounds crazy, but heck even crazier ideas have passed and been implemented ;D
Calad

[Phantanya]

<<And if you can't damage the boss some way, why do you deserve the tag anyway?>>

Wow....brutal. If we did that then poor Trinny would still be mortal and probably deleted by now.
Some characters arn't designed for anything other than support. In my opinion they are a much harder build. Just surviving and being useful is harder than running up to something and hitting it. Try keeping a party healed,buffed and rezzed sometime. It is not easy without getting yourself killed.
Trinny has everything invested in theiving skills and I can not even count the number of times she has been caught flat footed and killed while picking pockets. She can't hit the broad side of a dragon to save her life. I like to think that she is useful though.

Peace,
Phantanya

[fusa]

The reason I suggested the highest level get the lowest xp is to encourage them to pick one closer to the levels of the party. But if the person does not have another one in the range then they are unfairly penalized. The reverse might be better then since its much less xp to go from one level to the next for levels 41-50, but that wouldnt do much to deter someone from taking a level 60 to help a level 41

[sabregirl]

Well I understand the idea of cooperation not always meaning damage - but isn't said sorcerer going to have hit with an IGM or two at some point? I'm not talking doing tons of damage or being the major contributor necessarily, just a point or two sometime during the battle to show some effort in that direction.

Meh, but you're right it could potentially screw some people over that are able to contribute in other ways. We had a party member the other day who was dying constantly in Loth but in the end he was the only one that could open the chest with the crown.

I do want to bring hiryuu's idea of a class based individual test up again. I know of another online game where the immortal quest equivalent was solo-only. Something like that either pre or post immortal (pre would probably be more effective) would be good for weeding out non-viable builds because I think no matter what ends up happening, so long as you have a party there will be potential for coattail riding.

I don't really like the "silent" vote idea, since it wouldn't be clear WHY the person was kicked from the party - if you want behavior modification I think you need specific cause and effect. Which I think means one person needs to do it.

"Stop running around spawning stuff"
"No"
"Stop now or I kick you"
"No"
*kick*

-S

[Balduvard]

fusa said:

But if the person does not have another one in the range then they are unfairly penalized.

That's why I designed my system to work from the highest level in the party down. One part of it was the XP progression, with the higher levels requiring more XP it wouldn't seem right to penalize them especially if they fall under the second condition. That being the fact that some people just don't have the time to create new characters or maintain a broad range of characters for lower levels.

Though I will admit, if you like helping out the lower level characters on the quests, the best thing for you to do right now is not to take many LL's. Since you would be spending your time helping those players, you wouldn't be going on the longer and harder runs that the LL's help you survive on. That's just how I see the current system working, though we could probably change that with a different system (suggestions on that?). So if I had to divide the server, it would be between those who do not have much time on their hands but still enjoy playing a challenging game, and those who have the time and want more of a challenge.

To challenge those who have time, the runs had to be made longer along with the enemies tougher, which in turn would require their use of LL. For those without time the LL's are not as necessary of a tool since they do not partake on these runs often. However for those without time but still with a desire for challenge, we do need some more LL areas (as previously mentioned) that aren't really part of any 'run' per se.

[FunkySwerve]

Some more really good ideas. I think it's clear that the root of the problem is that with the experience spread as it is now, the limits make it too hard to form a party. The DM Team has discussed dropping that xp req on and off, and it seems like thatwould help the situation, once it was in place for a bit. The problem then becomes, what do you do about people who already did it the hard way? A million or so xp over the new 60 mark wouldn't concern me, since people still playe characters after they hit 60 anyway, but more than that and it seems like invalidating a lot of their hard woork. So I'm also curious about ideas anyone might have re: compensating them for excess xp past the new mark. I'm thinking the new 60 mark should be 10 or 12M rather than 17.5. That aside it seems as if the server may not be ready for the limiting system.
Funky