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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2013 5:14:30 GMT
10 billion gold cuts the reincarnation timer to a flat 2 weeks period.
Assign a free BUR race depending on class as a tag, not an item, to players. Even if you're giving someone the best race, with the server bleeding population and new players a lot more uncommon due to the changes, regardless of who you are, how long you've been here, or your opinions of loot you NEED to give incentives to new players to keep them happy, interested, and progressing.
The impact BUR subraces have on a players progression as a toon, and the options for gear should not be understated and is a legitimate and fair reward given the circumstances the NWN world, not just HG has been placed in with the server changes... add to that the smaller population HG already has and you should be looking to keep people, even if it means letting someone do things quicker than you did when you played.
Match the BUR subraces to the class, so one of the builds most commonly used by the dominant class can have an option for it... a lot of people will scream unfair, overpowered, or anything else... but enable it for all and just enjoy it.
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Post by condude1 on Jan 25, 2013 5:21:29 GMT
@ KnightErrant By the way, this is not a "Whine over not having the best gear/races" thread. This is about trying to retain server population. I have yet to see one person complain about not having a good enough subrace. I for one have played here for 5-6 years and have many "uber" races and gear. In the end this just comes down to an option that will make newbs have a goal to try to reach (level 40, level 60, Demi), and once that goal is reached, give them a chip in the game. This is, after all, just a video game, and one that is struggling for players. I don't think any of us would like to see all of those hard-earned BUR books and uber gear meet cybernetic oblivion.
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Post by KnightErrant on Jan 25, 2013 7:05:50 GMT
trying to retain server population.... at all costs ? Reasons I have seen for players leaving that I can recall of the top of my head...
When I first came here one of my best buddies quit as soon as he realized Devastating Critical was disabled as it was written in the regular NWN game.
When the other servers I played a lot on shut down a buddie came here for a few days and then quit cause I couldn't help level his level 2 toon to level 40 in a hour or so with my level 40+ toon like we could on every other server we played on together.
Another friend I played with a lot that had very limited playtime per day quit after he was here a year or so after he had saved up enough gold to buy a Koly race book from the Wyrm chest-(3+ Billion iirc)-and was completely disheartened to find out that even with all the uber stats and free feats he couldn't even solo all the pre LL accomplishments...
A player whose name I can't recall !runmsg shouted 3 times one night that "He had been here 2 months and he wanted to play a Half Fiend"...."If someone didn't give him one or sell him one for the 300 million or so he had managed to save up he was quitting"... I never saw him logged in again.
A player named Grateful"something" managed to get get demi'd with his RDD after playing here one whole week...wrote a really really nice post thanking everyone for their help in showing him the mod and helping him complete it...I don't recall ever seeing him logged on after that.
A guildmate who had NO INTEREST in playing anything but Barbarians complained after healing paragon mobs went in that "He was done playing until they made a way for Barbarians to change weapons that wasn't such a pain in the arse"...I don't recall seeing him play ever again.
Awhile after Limbo loss wasn't permanent a player I partied with a lot said he was "done with anything but HC here cause there was no longer any risk associated in failing a non HC run"....He would occasionally play his non HC toons but very very rarely.
I could easily write up many more of these types of stories...
So according to just the ones i mentioned the server MUST IMMEDIATELY !!! reinstate vanilla NWN Dev Crit, allow hi level toons to level low level ones to 40 as fast as possible, make the content easy enough to be solo'd by uber race toons, give anyone whose threatening to quit whatever race book they're asking for, not drag new players along on end game runs until they've been here "x" amount of time, make Barbarians able to swap weapons while not uneqipping their shield and reinstate permanent limbo loss of items....Yes this is all a little bit silly.....but the fact remains all these players did leave for these reasons....heck at some point EVERYONE will leave for "some" reason...
How many "freebies" should the server have to hand out to entice players to come or stay ? (Free sniper rifle or Half Mr. T "I pity the fool !" toon with a $20 donation ? ) How many "concessions" should it make to the long standing rules that were "good enough" for everyone that's been playing here awhile already ? (+2 to stat of choice for 1000 hours played ?) What happens when XR races and gear go in ? If your new here after XR's go in your looking at level 70? (39.5 Million xp) 75? (70.25 Million xp) 80? (125 Million xp) to use a XR race that will only drop on runs that you have to be level 70? 75? to go on... Will we have to listen to endless posts of "I've been here X amount of time and I don't have a Chosen of Shar XR race with +8 Charisma +6 Dex and free GSF in 2 schools".... "how am I supposed to be able to play here with my pathetic Radiance Genasi Sorcerer that only has +6 Charisma and +2 INT/Dex/Con ?"
I'm not trying to sound like an ass--(honestly!) but how easy does HG have to become for people to enjoy it these days ? When I started here the thing I loved the MOST was that it was a freaking challenge to succeed...you needed a good build with good gear to play in the endgame areas and that stuff wasn't handed out like trophy's in peewee soccer....you had to actually spend time and effort to get it and there always seemed to be more better stuff to get even after you'd been here a long time....not the usual I've got every item on the server after playing here a few weeks or a month like I saw on pretty much every other server I played on.
KE.
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Post by Enius the White on Jan 25, 2013 16:52:38 GMT
KE, your entire post is really summarized in your last paragraph: "When I started here the thing I loved the MOST was that it was a freaking challenge to succeed...you needed a good build with good gear to play in the endgame areas and that stuff wasn't handed out like trophy's in peewee soccer....you had to actually spend time and effort to get it and there always seemed to be more better stuff to get even after you'd been here a long time....not the usual I've got every item on the server after playing here a few weeks or a month like I saw on pretty much every other server I played on"Like you, I was one of the early "Buffalo Bills" riding through the fabulous new land of HG. No BUR subbies, brand new hells, no demi stats, no vestments, no uber-randomized gear, no level 80... the list goes on. Together with our bands of 6-shooter wielding gouchos, we sure tore up that wild west. We continually demanded more, bigger, better, stronger from our world, and we got it. That wild west is gone now... With all these great improvements, HG is now modern day LA. Can we really ask new residents to trot down Hollywood Blvd on their fine steeds as we drive alongside in our Pink Cadillacs with 50cals mounted, M16 in hand? New cowboys in town will at least want a moped and Beretta as soon as possible, so that they can share the road with us without getting continually honked at when stopping to pick up horse shite. Food for though.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 25, 2013 17:44:08 GMT
That seems really exploitable. Say I was a new player. I would create 1 account, level up a toon to lvl 40-60 take Rad Gen. Then just create another account for a 2nd character and take Half Celestial. Would seem to greatly diminish BUR books in value. That sounds exploitable, sure, but it isn't what I suggested. Did you miss the 'random' bit? Funky
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Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 25, 2013 17:55:55 GMT
With all these great improvements, HG is now modern day LA. Can we really ask new residents to trot down Hollywood Blvd on their fine steeds as we drive alongside in our Pink Cadillacs with 50cals mounted, M16 in hand? This is the fundamental vet-newbie tension in a nutshell. My answer, were I to continue the metaphor, would be something like: no, but neither should we give them mazzaratis and mortars. They can start out slinging dope on the streets. Less cheekily, we want to cut a compromise between giving them not enough and too much, to keep them interested without allowing them to do it all too quickly (or what they consider to be 'all', anyhow'). I think bonus subs dangled carrotlike at certain points might well do it, so long as we don't create any incentives that are too whacky. Chief among those is, as the poster in my last reply suggested, the risk of making them create a ton of accounts, which isn't helpful to anyone. Sadly, telling one user from another is still a hit-or-miss proposition, even if you go by cd key or ip, so there's always going to be a minor risk of that. The randomness of the system offsets that somewhat, which is why I suggested it, but you'd still have a pretty good chance of getting new subs on your second, third, and fourth go-round. It'd get tedious once you had about half, I imagine, but it's still not an ideal situation. Why is distinguishing users problematic? IPs are shared, often with spouses or kids who play, and cd keys are cheaper than dirt these days. Funky
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Post by desocupado on Jan 25, 2013 18:06:10 GMT
What happens when XR races and gear go in ? If your new here after XR's go in your looking at level 70? (39.5 Million xp) 75? (70.25 Million xp) 80? (125 Million xp) to use a XR race that will only drop on runs that you have to be level 70? 75? to go on... Will we have to listen to endless posts of "I've been here X amount of time and I don't have a Chosen of Shar XR race with +8 Charisma +6 Dex and free GSF in 2 schools".... "how am I supposed to be able to play here with my pathetic Radiance Genasi Sorcerer that only has +6 Charisma and +2 INT/Dex/Con ?" While not the exactly the topic, I agree that creating a new tier of subraces (and items) will increase the Power Creep even futher. And that will make the experience even less appealing for newer players. (check the video about the topic if you want) Old Devastating CriticalWell, Assassin's and Rangers have exactly that - maybe these new players just needed guidance in this regard. Players leaving soon:Well, which experience does the mod gives to the players? - Sense of accomplishment - after defeating the last boss/clearing new areas
- Hoarding items - getting powerful item after powerful item
- Immersion - seeing several areas, facing the story/bosses
- Challenge - building a powerful character build to defeat foes
- Social interaction - talk with other players, joke about stuff
Well if you are into following the storyline, defeating the boss, you play once and are done with it. Some people will just move from game after game. People like myself, like having different build options and ideas. I'm not a grinder so I'd probably have left if i didn't get the tools for some variation soon enough. So I'm having fun while I explore build and new strategy options. Some people are the opposite, not into building but just sticking to some class/strategy. And trying to optimize gear-build for it. Some people are attached to their collection of virtual items and never quit because they invested too much time in a game. Well one thing that moves powergamer is somewhat frequent patch tweaking the best strategies (even creating new unbalances and flavor of the Month builds). I'm pretty sure many of us feels that some class strategies are clearly much more powerful than others for over a year. This video explores the notion of imperfect balance.
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Post by sirivor on Jan 25, 2013 18:46:55 GMT
As a new player, I feel like contributing my two cents here. I just finished my first drow matron/lloth run yesterday with the help of another new player and some vets. Needless to say, I was pretty humbled. I dealt by far the least damage and my strategy for the Lloth fight was bascially 'GSanc and try to not get killed'. That said, the veteran players were nothing but helpful, telling me and the other new player what to look out for, where we could find loot and giving us tips on areas and general info about the server. They were also very patient with my (numerous) deaths and lack of damage and everyone seemed to be having quite a bit of fun.
By the end of the run, I definitely felt that I needed some better gear to improve my character, but I didn't feel that I had wasted my time making the character the way I had (I had followed the Redeemed of Tyr build on the boards, so I suppose that helped allay any build-related concerns I might have had otherwise) and I look forward to getting new loot that will improve the character.
In terms of the BUR/UR race books, I obviously haven't found one, but nor would I expect to have one at reaching 40 with my first character. There are plenty of good, varied builds that I can make with just the standard races (in fact, I'll be working on a Yuan-Ti caster next). The nomenclature of something being 'Ultra Rare' or 'Beyond Ultra Rare' to me signifies that it'll likely take a *lot* of playtime to get one, which is fine with me so long as there are other things to do. I personally think that the game itself provides plenty of incentive to get to level 40 and/or 60 by making your character more powerful and giving you new feats/abilities as you level up, so I'm not sure that handing out UR/BUR race books at level 40/60 is necessary to incentivize new players.
What does strike me as being a bit of a problem is the huge amount of gold everyone seems to have. I would guess that having new players and new characters accumulating gold all the time without having too much to spend it on has resulted in a fair bit of inflation. Perhaps adding incentives to spend gold on other useful items, as others have suggested, would be a good way to combat this?
In any case, those are just my $0.02 from the experiences and expectations I've had. I'm sure that other players (both old and new) will have different expectations and opinions, but given that the discussion has been about old v. new players, I thought I'd chime in here with my thoughts.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 25, 2013 21:00:06 GMT
We've been toying with gold sinks for quite a while, and I have a few ideas in that regard. I'd like to keep that issue separate from the subby one, for the purpose of this discussion, though they ARE definitely inter-related. Anyway, I appreciate your input, and I'm glad to see the perspective you have as a new player - it sounds like you have the kind of outlook suited to a longer stay on HG, which is always nice to see. Funky
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Post by laserpointer on Jan 25, 2013 23:50:09 GMT
That seems really exploitable. Say I was a new player. I would create 1 account, level up a toon to lvl 40-60 take Rad Gen. Then just create another account for a 2nd character and take Half Celestial. Would seem to greatly diminish BUR books in value. That sounds exploitable, sure, but it isn't what I suggested. Did you miss the 'random' bit? Yes, I apologize, some posters above yours were not clear on that aspect and I was referring to them. If new players want BUR rewards, I think they should be playing in the areas that give them or be prepared to trade something valuable. I don't really think a free subrace tag is necessary. Players should be encouraged to upgrade UR/secret subraces which are generally pretty accessible when they just hit 60 (or even immortal/50). They then can work towards a BUR subrace at a later time. Should we be judging the time it takes a new player to get the BUR Subrace of their choice by the amount of hell runs they have to go on before it drops and they roll high? Or is it still feasible to trade for them if offering proper items? I am not entirely sure, but I have a feeling the market for them still exists just people aren't offering much of equal value. Most of the time I see people trying to trade for BUR subraces they go around offering something like 2 billion gold (at most), a crucible, wis arty, portable hole, or some undesired BUR Subrace. Many set items like charisma artifact, amnesia ring, PW ring, wrap of the dark prince, ulith/serpent's blood, strongheart, pandect of shield/disarm, min weapons, tia gear are still highly valued by many experienced players yet they are much easier to obtain than some BUR subrace you want in a farming group of 3-5 players. Also, going on 100 tia-min runs and complaining about how a BUR subrace doesn't drop isn't really a good sample. Places where you WILL see BURs drop in sizable amounts are Malad, Cania, Nessus, Abyss p3 runs. If you like to run LLs with the very infrequent hell run in a 10 person party then more power to you, but you won't be getting any valuable BUR subrace of your choice anytime soon. In that last thread that cropped up 1 year ago I was the "new player" with these "extremely low drop rates" that was new to endgame areas. I've seen at least 100 BUR subrace books in the past year. It's not the horror story that the OP thinks it is. But with a small player base it will become harder and harder to trade for one you want, and with the introduction of a host of new subraces the chance of seeing any one particular BUR sub drop is pretty astronomically low. I do feel the drop rate is a tad too low due to these two issues.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 26, 2013 0:28:25 GMT
Interesting. How many BUR subs do you have after that year, out of curiosity (sorry if you said it earlier and I missed it)? I don't think we've changed the droprate during that period, though I could be mistaken, since Were has made some edits. I may start up a poll, since I'm pretty out of touch with the current drop rate.
Funky
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Post by condude1 on Jan 26, 2013 0:31:41 GMT
trying to retain server population.... at all costs ? I wouldn't really call this "all costs". Giving newbs a reasonable way to get their first book won't decrease anyone's power nor increase the power creep. Adding 10 levels to the time of getting the first tag (UR at 50 and BUR at 70) would give newbs that can't solo Hades/Rona..., Can't play for long enough to go on a run, and don't play at a peak time a reasonable chance at getting a BUR book after playing for a long time amount of time. I know that you were so hard done by having to get a book for yourself at a time when rates were much higher, but, come on, with server population at an all time low, we need to make some sacrifices.
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Post by laserpointer on Jan 26, 2013 0:42:28 GMT
Interesting. How many BUR subs do you have after that year, out of curiosity (sorry if you said it earlier and I missed it)? I don't think we've changed the droprate during that period, though I could be mistaken, since Were has made some edits. I may start up a poll, since I'm pretty out of touch with the current drop rate. Funky Including the ones I used to tag my account, it would be 39-42, depending on a certain few subraces I can't remember if I bought or found. I would also estimate I played around 3 times as much as some of our more casual players during that time.
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Post by tank on Jan 27, 2013 18:38:43 GMT
oh wow, this thread has gotten a lot of attention since the last time I saw it.
As for everyone who has posted, lots of great ideas - the idea about getting a random BUR subby on 1xdemi once per account to me seems like an excellent idea, it gives enough playtime to know what's what about the mod, without having to farm for years to find one.
To Errant, I understand that you enjoyed the difficulty of the game your first play through, but I'm pretty sure the drop rates were not what they are now, let alone the population. From what I've gathered, the best place to find BUR books is in the lower levels of hell and the abyss - which are run how many times per month? the population is dwindling, and it seems that there are not too many new players left, just long time vets that enjoyed the mod when it was in it's prime.
I was not on a rant about how I want a BUR book immediately - it would be nice, but I understand that it's Beyond-Ultra-Rare. But does that mean that it should be so rare that you'd have to play for years before seeing one, when you would be able to get a group to run lower hells or abyss each day, perhaps even multiple times a day? You just don't see that kind of activity anymore. Hurray for the old days, I'm sure it was amazing, only because of the stories I've heard, and seeing the capability of the mod so far - but times have changed, at most there are 30-40 people on, and that's pretty rare. About 10 of those are HC players, and even a smaller portion are players capable of running lower hells or abyss.
Anyways - I started this thread in hopes of finding a solution to newbies getting bur books that wouldn't take 3+ years. It's one thing to have to farm, but that's one hell of a commitment, and I just don't see new players doing it.
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Post by KnightErrant on Jan 28, 2013 2:31:48 GMT
I have to admit I was quite surprised when chatting with you today that you've already managed to get tagged for Kolyarut.
It would seem that new players CAN manage to trade for top shelf BUR books even after only playing here 3 weeks.
Congrats by the way ! Koly tagged in 3 weeks of being here is quite a feat.
KE.
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