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Post by condude on Dec 4, 2017 1:27:07 GMT
Maybe make a tag like -Helper- that you can add in your character's name (a la -HC- tags) that lets them start with a bound TA, beaker, Rod of Rez, Sapphire, etc. but also makes it so that character can't progress past 40? I have no idea how hard that would be to code, but if it's doable, it might solve the problem? This is a pretty neat idea. You could make the toon receive enough XP for Level 40 upon creation (so players could level them to the desired Helper level and then stop), and be barred from reincarnation or receiving the Immortal tag. I think it would definitely be helpful, but not exactly 'solve' the problem; it is not really an incentive to play lowbie toons, it just makes creating and playing a helper less cumbersome. What about incentivizing the -Helper-s getting tags in parties? Maybe they get 1 transferable XR token (the thing you need 200 of to get a book) for every 3 (no idea if that's the right number, just spitballing) tags they did in a party. A couple other restrictions on that, like "Only 1 helper/party" and "You can only do a tag again for the credit after you've done 5 others" might be helpful too. That would make it not remotely the most efficient way of getting loot (3 lowbie tags take at least 15 minutes, assuming someone's exploiting this ruthlessly. Compared to Limbo, not as much XR credit, with no BURs or anything either. plus a lot duller if you're cycling the same three tags over and over.), but still give a reward for helping out lowbies. In addition, it gives lower powered players a slow way of getting XRs - help out enough newbies, and you'll eventually end up with one!
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Post by chirality on Dec 4, 2017 1:50:38 GMT
I was considering a similar scheme tbh. I think carrots could be pretty big and tasty without unbalancing anything, and carrot needs to be something valuable enough to create true incentive for players that have no interest in lowbies (or anything much at all for that matter--xr/Cano rate still needs some tweaking to re-incentivize even limbo but that's another topic). Imo token/exchange-based loot could be a pretty powerful and flexible tool, and with the introduction->precedent of limbo/XRs there's potential for exploration.
Ofc any such system would be vulnerable to abuse and it's worth keeping in mind that the cost of zots required to prevent/punish exploitation of "big tasty carrots for lowbie helping" could outweigh benefits
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Post by manuka on Dec 4, 2017 1:53:01 GMT
Jeez i just made a new toon and setting them up with potions is so boring. Give new toons a item which insta buffs them with stone skin, neg protection, haste and all the bulls str kinda spells. +noobs wont even know where to buy the potions
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Post by FunkySwerve on Dec 4, 2017 1:58:37 GMT
Maybe make a tag like -Helper- that you can add in your character's name (a la -HC- tags) that lets them start with a bound TA, beaker, Rod of Rez, Sapphire, etc. but also makes it so that character can't progress past 40? I have no idea how hard that would be to code, but if it's doable, it might solve the problem? This is a pretty neat idea. You could make the toon receive enough XP for Level 40 upon creation (so players could level them to the desired Helper level and then stop), and be barred from reincarnation or receiving the Immortal tag. I think it would definitely be helpful, but not exactly 'solve' the problem; it is not really an incentive to play lowbie toons, it just makes creating and playing a helper less cumbersome. Agreed. Interesting idea, but I really want to focus on incentives. It helps that most vets will probably not be as stone-cold bored with those areas as they were a few years back, but more is needed. Not ruling out some kind of Helper tag, though; it's similar in concept to the 'sacrifice' model I mentioned. Funky
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Post by FunkySwerve on Dec 4, 2017 2:15:03 GMT
Another idea would be to use the shackle mechanism (not sure if possible) to go from this range to the previous one (1-40, limiting URs/set loot). Quests could be focused on completing certain low level dungeons whilst in party with low levels. This would create a better flow of players on the low level areas, as well as give some incentive to helpers. This idea intrigues me. To understand the reason for that gap, you have to look at HG's history. When each new set of levels came out, there were a lot of players who had stored up a lot of loot, ready to tackle that tier. When created, the expectation was that newer players would spend some additional time building up gear before proceeding. That just isn't happening, because they rush to get to the endgame. We can debate whether or not that expectation is realistic, but the fact remains that their experience of the server has not been like mine, and that feels unfortunate. Creating reasons to revisit prior areas could be fantastic, though we would have to watch the level limits issue closely. It's hard to code a check for 'decent gearbase', though I suppose we could recruit players to come up with a list of items players need before X area, and reference that. In turn, we could then offer quests with added incentives. Another possibility is new toons getting one or more items of greatly increased rarity and quality, but which will not unlock until they have all/some specific subset of tags. Like a 'family heirloom'. Could give additional incentive to replay low levels. The nice thing is, we don't have to rely on just one or two incentives. Ideally, we want to make running all areas fun for level-and-gear appropriate toons (I could just say 'level', but we would probably have to seriously retool a LOT of areas. One area we just discussed doing that is Harbinger's. Any area where a lot of dragging is going on is a natural target for some edits. I will note that making useables useful later in game drop has been done (in Feywild). It has met with some success, but doesn't provide enough incentive on its own. Funky
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Post by desocupado on Dec 4, 2017 2:34:43 GMT
1-40 Maybe weapon buffs is being more of a hindrance than a boom early... (how about better earlier weapons?) Maybe the difficulty is tailored to spending much more time farming than what is feasible... (perhaps a more gentle XP curve) Maybe tags as objectives are too overwhelming... (what about making them bellow the level granted xp instead? while removing level cap altogether) Maybe xp and drops are low... (could the xp formula increase more if under-leveled?) Maybe there's too much % physical immunity or massive AC/concealment (I don't see a good reason for having more than 90% phy with 0-) Maybe Common, uncommon and rare items are already trash at the appropriate levels (and should upgrade faster and become non-existent after a certain level) Maybe reincarnation should be way less restricted (even more so because new people tend to make mistakes and need room to fix it) Maybe veterans want to actually play their higher level characters
41-60 Maybe helping a tagger could grant additional XP (i.e. if someone tags, everyone gains a significant XP chunk) Maybe Bards, Clerics and Druid are too efficient at dropping stats (and enemies should lose some of their defenses) Maybe appropriate gear should be more abundant (i.e. URs and rings, not those common-uncommon-rare trash)
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Post by tega091 on Dec 4, 2017 2:43:20 GMT
I think one very underused tool that noone uses is the practice arena, a lot of what new players are missing in reguards to most of the end game runs simply require knowledge(which for the most part can be acquired either via wiki or posts of the forum). One big thing maybe to keep in mind is maybe encourage new players to use practice arena if they are not able to go exploring? I know this wont tell them spawn combination or mob priority but if they see mobs in the arena they may not atleast feel overwhelmed when they are "random" spawns or when they feel that a spawn is starting to become uncontrolled. Just a thought, one thing multiboxing has aloud me to do is go into zones on servers that will reset soon knowing full well I cannot complete said run but can get a feel for it(moving at a slow pace and control spawns experimenting with spells on mobs, learning their damage resistances and specials by simply reading the combat log post pull). New players may not have this tool available and the practice arena can be a close second and with literally nothing to lose but a little bit of time. ~~Another opition is encourage those that can handle these areas to take them their to show them the area as people have also done for me in the past(raj in ness b4 my first ness run or manuka in limbo are perfect examples). Doing this will not make them a "god" in said run next time they do it but it will atleast allow them to understand pulls/mobs and properly prepare. I think with extra incentives those that can handle X run may feel even more excitement to help said people with run.
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Post by desocupado on Dec 4, 2017 2:53:53 GMT
The only loot ever worth to loot is the one that allows you to progress or that has any market value. 1-39 gear gets obsolete quite fast - 3-10 levels. Forcing repetition is grind and basically Fake Longevity. Now only if we only knew someone that was doing speed runs and knowing all relevant info about this content.... Maybe the said items should be the regular drops? While level requirements are the restriction - you know leveling up is a quest in itself. Hit those 100% Imm and massive damage resistances... Consumables are delicate - if they are powerful but not mandatory - it sort of feels like a waste. "Should I use this force cage on that Raja?" "I knew I should have saved it for later". But there could be more tank consumables - like weapon buffs.
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Post by Test on Dec 4, 2017 4:20:25 GMT
When each new set of levels came out, there were a lot of players who had stored up a lot of loot, ready to tackle that tier. When created, the expectation was that newer players would spend some additional time building up gear before proceeding. That just isn't happening, because they rush to get to the endgame. So introduce iLvl - like Warcraft has, and just add an iLvl check via an area variable to the Onenter scripts for LL and above areas. Honestly though, I would hate this. I have in the past dragged a second toon in boat clothes up to and including Malad. It would however be such a simple fix. Instead of exact iLvl use a minimum rarity of X items check. Another possibility is new toons getting one or more items of greatly increased rarity and quality, but which will not unlock until they have all/some specific subset of tags. Like a 'family heirloom'. Could give additional incentive to replay low levels. Like Warcraft's Hierlooms? You could make these even more grindy by linking Hierlooms to CD Keys! Hierlooms would slightly devalue Saphires, but, it would also boost the chance of people being willing to make more lowbies. Once again like Warcraft, you could then have Limbo secrets and massive amounts of gold be required to raise the rarity of the Hierloom. So, on recieving the Hierloom it scales to Rare level. Take it to forge, pay a gazillion gold and hand over 1 secret, it becomes UR. Pay another 2 gazillion gold and 2 more secrets, it becomes BUR. The bonus properties of the Hierloom item switch off when equipped by a toon above the expected level band for the rarity of the item.
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Post by evildeath123 on Dec 4, 2017 4:28:01 GMT
Lurker...blah blah blah... haven’t played in ages... blah blah blah...
But...
It seems to me that there’s no reason for vets to do lowbie areas, they want loot and xp for their paragon toons, only available in end game areas. So give them loot and xp for doing lowbie areas. As a noob, something that kept me wanting to progress/hang around was the ability to use level restricted uber gear that I saw drop and was occasionally lucky enough to win in split (yes, when I started lowbie runs were often split at wyrm because we were running in 10 man (no bot) parties and whenever someone had to leave we weren’t at 9 for long before there was an invite request to join, there was no randomisation, Hells+, etc., and some lowbie rare items were sought after as end game items).
If bur gear dropped in lowbie areas, in a rate commensurate to party level/size, etc. (obviously not a free for all, it would need restrictions of some sort on vets to stop power gaming) I’d imagine a lot of vets would level new chars. It would also be good if vets were encouraged (carrot or stick?) to teach end game etiquette and strategies in the process to help prepare noobs instead of just dragging them.
It seems to me that tweaking loot and xp by whatever variables would be a lot less zots invested than some of the other proposals (even if it meant multiple tweaks to get the balance right) to both encourage vets to head back to lowbie areas and retain new players...
Flame on!!
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Post by sabregirl on Dec 4, 2017 4:50:21 GMT
I was thinking along the lines of things you could earn helping/playing lowbies. - personal short duration bonus XP item. Gives 50% bonus XP to the user for a set period real time. Could make another version that's party wide . . . - Tank buffing items seem like a nice perk also, though I think the lowbies themselves need them - for a much bigger investment - writ of passage. Basically Time for time. Perhaps something similar for abyss? - a certain number of special items are given, these items are consumables for opening special quests/boss fights - the "missing" abyss bosses say? - lowbie tokens allow entry into a special store for consumables, weapons etc. Sells any of the above ideas using gold or the tokens as currency. Initial random thoughts -S
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Post by Test on Dec 4, 2017 4:53:33 GMT
It seems to me that there’s no reason for vets to do lowbie areas, they want loot and xp for their paragon toons, only available in end game areas. So give them loot and xp for doing lowbie areas. Perhaps this could be an addition to both the Canopic and Proxy systems that are already scripted. Upon completing all preLL tags on said lowbie-of-mind-numbing-wrist-slashing-misery you talk to the barman, as you would for a Proxy. The barman would now give two new options as well. Firstly, to trade the experiences of the toon for a 'Bane Gem' (hehe). The Forge master could then sell random Abyss set items and BUR subbys for X Bane Gems. This would not work though due to multiboxing - if implemented watch me log in 20 bots to tag them simultaneously. So some other restrictions are needed here, like a player can only earn one Bane Gem per week maybe? Secondly, to trade the experiences of the toon for a 'Rod of Sigmar' (hehe again). A 'Rod of Sigmar' can be used, like a sapphire, to gain XP. However, it can only be used by/on a Paragon character. No comment on how much XP - once again, remember the 20 box party scenario.
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Post by diemex on Dec 4, 2017 7:01:05 GMT
Upon completing all preLL tags on said lowbie-of-mind-numbing-wrist-slashing-misery you talk to the barman, as you would for a Proxy. The barman would now give two new options as well. Firstly, to trade the experiences of the toon for a 'Bane Gem' (hehe). The Forge master could then sell random Abyss set items and BUR subbys for X Bane Gems. This would not work though due to multiboxing - if implemented watch me log in 20 bots to tag them simultaneously. So some other restrictions are needed here, like a player can only earn one Bane Gem per week maybe? It's a neat idea. But getting all the tags is a bit of a chore and could take a while... especially those level 40 no immo tags... and if someone messes up and doesn't get one tag... oh oh. Why not have something like a X% chance to get a gem into your backpack every time you achieve a preLL tag, adjust the prices accordingly where the gems are spent. Allow them to be tradeable and you now have something paragons want and lowbies can get, lowbies can trade them... or save them for themselves down the road. Tagging is incentivized (well more than it is already) and paragons may want to roll up lowbies and play them within the tag restrictions to get gems if not enough are available for trade. Also a quest timer like you said... 1 per week would be a good idea, keep tagging if you like.. but slow your rate of progress if you want gems... if gems are not your focus... then truck on the harbinger awaits.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2017 11:22:01 GMT
It's cool to see that this thread has taken off, though I think many of the ideas are a bit overambitious. We should try to stay practical and keep in mind that the HG Team has always been very busy, and will be even more occupied than usual with the actual upgrade to EE. Rescaling significant portions of the 1-60 areas, coding in mercenaries and buff items, heirloom items... I think these are all neat ideas, but it seems unrealistic to expect them to be in the game anytime near EE's release. Some general comments:*A lot of the focus in suggestions is being placed on 1-40, when 41-60 is just as much of a drop-off point. Restricting party level ranges reduces dragging *if* there are enough players in those level ranges, if not then it kills the experience even more since instead of being dragged, they will now be alone. There ideally needs to be some incentive for existing players to genuinely level up new toons for their own use (not just coming briefly as helpers), but with big vaults and reincarnation available I'm not quite sure what that could be - though I suppose that's what we are trying to get out of this thread. *Endgame items dropping in lowbie areas (whether BURs, Canopics, Forge secrets etc) is very finicky to do correctly. If they're transferrable then nothing stops them simply being bought off new players instead of actually joining them with our own toons; if they're non-transferrable (acquiring them would have to be a script which drops them straight into inventory?) then the only way to benefit in the endgame is to continue playing that toon all the way...? Would have to be something extremely juicy. Maybe I'm just an elitist, but something doesn't sit right with me if Canopics for XRs are dropping in lowbie areas. The rates are also very difficult to get right, if levelling a toon from 1-60 gives me fewer Canopics than a single Limbo-P1 run then it isn't particularly appealing; if it starts giving enough Canopics to consider rolling a new toon as a farming method (instead of farming Limbo itself) then it's too much. I'm not sure what the best way to determine a sweet spot would be, and again they will probably just end up being bought by Paragon players. It seems like a good way to make new players wealthier (think Limbo farmers trading BUR books for Slave Waystones) but in my experience, too many freebies make the overall experience feel less rewarding and can drive players away. *Personally, random consumable items aren't a good hook for me. I can't speak for anyone else, but I always tend to want to "save them for something that matters" and then end up forgetting about them. I have a couple of bank chests full of them, but I don't think I've ever used them apart from Div Draughts (for PWK on Paragons in the Abyss). A good example are the 'consumable chests' that were added to most bosses, from what I have personally seen most players don't care much about them - I usually don't bother opening them. If they're able to be purchased (and so I can load up on them to the point where I can use them liberally) then this is somewhat alleviated, but it kind of defeats the purpose of being 'consumable'. New types of consumables like increased drop/XP rate items seem pretty nifty, but once again if they would probably just be traded instead of encouraging people to make new toons. *Nothing suggested so far really addresses the multi-boxing issue, in fact many of the 1-40 bonuses suggested would actually encourage running multiple toons (more toons = more bonuses to transfer). In particular, wouldn't endgame benefits that are obtained from tagging encourage speedrun-style play (even faster for those multi-boxing)? I'm not sure how much benefit would end up being seen by the new players. ----- Overall, it does seem like a very difficult problem to solve with a limited timeframe/zots. I absolutely understand the reasoning behind not wanting to induce a server split, though at this point it just seems to me that a drastic change is the only thing that could have a significant impact in time while being viable from a development point of view. Maybe I just need to be a little more open-minded Perhaps the best path forward will become more clear during the initial EE testing. Recalling Acaos' words: And while it's still in the air whether or not we will offer vault transfers to the Enhanced Edition Higher Ground, it's very likely that the initial testing phase will be run on a completely fresh vault (porting over the player vault will be a very time consuming project for a number of reasons). I can also say with confidence that there will probably be at least one wipe of HG Enhanced Edition during the testing phase (because we'll likely be giving out easy experience boosts and gear so we can test all areas on HG) It seems like there will be a formal server split at this point (HG EE vs HG 1.69) which could give us an opportunity to observe the repercussions. Will the game be dying on both servers? Or will HG EE attract players that weren't on HG 1.69, letting HG 1.69 continue at similar levels? Or will everyone migrate to HG EE and love the fresh start? I think at that point it'll be clearer whether an idea like splitting to HG-Port/HG-Fresh could work. Also, don't forget that the HG-Port/HG-Fresh split could ideally be undone relatively easily by merging the character/bank vaults. So the 'worst case scenario' is that we would end up with a full port as originally planned. The split could even be planned to only be a temporary measure from the start (eg: aim for an X month timeframe (eg: 12?) on it before completing the merge), with adjustments to that plan being made as we go.
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Post by chirality on Dec 4, 2017 18:30:08 GMT
If they're transferrable then nothing stops them simply being bought off new players instead of actually joining them with our own toons; if they're non-transferrable (acquiring them would have to be a script which drops them straight into inventory?) then the only way to benefit in the endgame is to continue playing that toon all the way...? not sold on the concept itself, either (just an interesting idea that could have some merit to brainstorm), but just to point out there's already a script in place that would work, asmo ammy one's; bankable/xferrable between toons but bound to account. as for getting the right amount of reward, shouldn't be much harder to do than tweaking cano droprate atm. i don't see a problem with making it compete with limbo as "token" source, after all what benefits server more, playing lowbies with noobs or playing limbo in tiny farm parties with the other few ppl that ever play there? could assign a capped value per timeframe to prevent farming abuse, maybe you can get similar reward as limbo farm but, so after u hit the cap u lose the incentive to help more newbies but at least there's some motivation to do that once a month or whatever. anyway for possible "lowbie helper/re-play token" reward, canos is definitely touchy issue but just to say there's workarounds prolly. if not canos maybe boss-chest random%-improved BURs.
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