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Post by boroie on Nov 17, 2020 9:36:50 GMT
The items can be collected from a lot of the trash LL runs. Dulv, Loca, Beholders, Rona, mayby throw in Elysium. Bringing these items unlocks the light. Done. Runs for players, wins for veterans, all around happy. Make the items guaranteed drops so 1 run each. Boom boom. I like the idea of set item drops from LL runs, or Nessus or something that could potentially help newer players experience some content they otherwise may not, however the worry there is you end up with a power train of boxers grinding it until they have 10 bankchests full of the required item then never do it again. Tags per character may be better, like the immo tags but less of them. Eg Dulv, Arcane Archive, Myco, etc - the runs that don't give something special like artifacts, epodes, PH, etc.
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Post by chainlink on Nov 17, 2020 12:49:56 GMT
Anybody not playing -HC- mode only needs to start with one non-BUR race character, make a Yuan-Ti Sorcerer (15% xp bonus if you get all the accomplishments), get it to 60 then trade or buy as many BUR books as you can, make characters with these then when you get the books you really want reincarnate to that race as a sideways swap. At the end of this the only character you will need to reincarnate using two books is the Yuan-Ti and even then you can potentially do it with a non-tier 1 but usable race like Cambion until you get Radiance Genasi (or in fact Half-Celestial) tagged to your account. You will likely want to end up with more than one Sorcerer anyway to use in different areas.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2020 12:53:24 GMT
Tags per character or items with just as well. The point is we need an adjustment.
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Post by chainlink on Nov 17, 2020 13:01:18 GMT
Tags per character or items with just as well. The point is we need an adjustment. Is that the royal we?
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Post by chirality on Nov 17, 2020 13:25:17 GMT
I like the idea of set item drops from LL runs, or Nessus or something that could potentially help newer players experience some content they otherwise may not, however the worry there is you end up with a power train of boxers grinding it until they have 10 bankchests full of the required item then never do it again. Tags per character may be better, like the immo tags but less of them. Eg Dulv, Arcane Archive, Myco, etc - the runs that don't give something special like artifacts, epodes, PH, etc. Very insightful. There's certainly no small amount of similar history repeating itself in this regard. In fact, the speed by which you have grasped this danger should only illustrate precisely how clear the risk and implications are when anyone runs the simple thought experiment through to its natural conclusion. We know from years of watching players with enormous amounts of playtime available, and the resources to complete endgame runs at their own pace--be it an army of bots, a streamlined well-organized guild that shares the same general playtime availability windows, or a 2-3 person core crew of proficient boxers--that certain facts remain true in spite of any well-intended changes: 1) The game generally requires more grind time than the average player can afford in their life, establishing a long-lived continuum of progression for the vast majority of player careers 2) Some players have far more available time for playing than the average, and are limited only by a) gatekeeping mechanisms and/or locks that limit progress; b) their own proficiency and aptitude at mastering the game and exploiting/abusing available mechanics for speed and efficiency of progression/grind/advancement 3) The most elite players are not limited by any factor (save their own burnout/enjoyment level) and will progress to maxed-out status regardless of the development environment 4) The players who advance the fastest and farthest always wish to have lesser players progress at an increased rate to match their own as much as possible, for both the companionship and enjoyment of sharing experience, as well as the inherent increases in grind efficiency/rewards that are built-in to the foundation of the game itsel). By "lesser players" I refer to both those with less available playtime and less technical expertise/skill; it's lonely on top of the mountain, and it's in the top-tier's interest to improve the QoL and pace of progress of those below, because while HG development or balance can never increase a player's available playtime, it can increase how much a player can accomplish in their available playtime 5) Over and over we have seen the process repeat of players cycling through the game at various speeds and either burn out or not, regardless of anything except their own motivations, desires, and "gamer archetype"-based satisfaction index. Just some food for thought. As for BUR books and LL run set drops, it's an interesting twist to see this mentioned, when it's been years now since BUR books were added as (guaranteed) set drops at various LL runs (especially those perceived as being less-popular or in need of extra incentive [or, conversely, reward]), which I can recall from personal experience and shared anecdotes to have at least a noticeable positive impact on proliferation and access of BUR books for the ever-costly and ever-depressing double-book requirement; this was particularly nice in the time of stark population decline and a mass migration to preparing/grinding/outfitting bot army accounts. I'm sure several players could speak on getting multiple RG and HC books from the set book drop on such runs around this time. Which is to say, of course, how far into a revolving door of debating grind economy and time efficiency and LL runs vs hell cycle vs abyss cycle vs limbochore can any such thread get before we're merely retreading the exact same ground covered years prior? Yet sometimes it seems as if no band-aid is enough to ever satiate the ever-decreasing available time for players and the ever-increasing risk of boredom/burnout/giving up? I'm all for "easing things up", so to speak, but I'm not convinced that anything will ever be "enough" when the game is built to have such a long-term career lifespan that grind and account progress is intentionally measured on a scale that insists there's always something you don't have yet waiting around the next corner--and once that is no longer the case, you are done with the game. For instance, if BUR subraces are attainable for new player reinc in (let's say) 50%, or 30% (?) of the current average required grind, then how long before the same must be done for XR subrace acquisition? There is no slippery slope argument here, per se, btw; I'm not conflating very real numerical issues such as L70 vs L80 (simply massive difference--reducing XR level to 70 would not be unreasonable); I'm merely saying that if 2x books and L60 for a reinc is too expensive in time and grind and money and xp for a BUR, then why should XR not soon be grumbled about in the same way? Lastly, as is almost always addressed in these subrace/progression/newbie retention/career advancement threads, at what point does UR and secret races simply go from "almost-obsolete" (as now) to "completely obsolete"? Literally, what's the point of even having them in an environment of new player expecting to reasonably have a BUR toon in a shorter timespan than now (which is, by standards of last 15 years, miraculously short)? Again, not to say that "this is all useless since we can never make new players happy", but rather to say, isn't a lot done already? This isn't to say "it was easy as X back in the day so Y should be good enough for you, let alone Z!" but more like "I know Y seems bleak, but then again, we went from X to Y, Z seems a bit much to change now after so long of Y". I don't think any vets at this point really would feel very hurt or disenfranchised by well-meaning changes that dramatically boost the enjoyment of new players, regardless of deflating their past grind investment, but at the same time, a lot of these metrics are so much a part of the game's infrastructure that redoing them now essentially invalidates the entire theory of player career evolution upon which the game was based. If two books is too much, and should be done away with now, are we admitting that it was always nothing more than a completely arbitrary and punitive measure used to restrict advancement, when playercounts were so high that it didn't matter if we lost new players to the same frustrations as expressed now? I wouldn't be salty about it if so, but it does seem to set the stage for a strange future when the newbies of today hit another (even worse) grind wall later on, and were preconditioned to expect something far faster and easier than what the game was originally intended for.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2020 13:57:43 GMT
I think your point here Chirality captures a lot of very valid things. I think a lot of this argument is very real for the XR tier and not at all for the BUR. You’re very right that a lot of my books came from Aboleths and Shedaklah Part 3. You can literally grind 1.5 maps of abyss for a book. Both have guaranteed BUR sub drops which in my opinion alleviate any issue at the BUR tier. I think part of the perceived problem at the BUR tier is due to min max players being the vocal midjoirity and perceptions skewing to that train of thought.
Given the scope of the game dramatically expanding with Limbo and soon Mechanus, I think it does invalidate some of the lower tier stuff though. Not in the sense that you can’t make abyss or hell work and do really well, but as mentioned, players want players to play with meaning those players need more initially to get there. That isn’t bad either though.
I think for veterans there are real issues at the XR tier and the players who have done the Limbo grinds know it. For the players who have dabbled or just bought stuff with other resources, likely not but that’s okay.
You need help at the XR tier. And because the complaint matches up with the problems at the XR tier it’s kind of all bled together. Or that’s at least how it appears it’s gone, partly my fault.
Solutions: Players at the BUR tier need to just do Shed and Abo and you’ll get all the books you need in a very quick time frame. Luckily a lot of the top tier books all go 1:1 so isn’t much trouble swapping any of that. The runs can also be low manned, especially Shed with minimal investment.
Adjust XR subraces to 1 book required. Adjusting the level required to 70 would go a long way too, but I would start with the single book reincarnations.
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Post by woqued on Nov 17, 2020 16:58:01 GMT
It would simply provide a better continuity to character progression to have built-in ways to upgrade your race tier on a character via attaining either tags or a BTC drop from a level/subtier -appropriate run.
Some points from a fellow player who wished these mentioned in the thread: 1) Reincarnation was only implemented to fix broken toons, and it did well at that goal. 2) Less people are playing lowbie areas because they are waiting for their next book to upgrade. 3) Removing cost of upgrading race tiers would provide leverage to further lessening the costs of reincarnation by removing exp drain "time spent on toon and all that".
I'd like to counterargue: 1) Makes perfect sense. 2) Makes perfect sense; yet, if there was no cost upon getting books and lower cost on books we'd quicker gain access to subraces to level those new characters of classes/character types we do not yet have. so technically in that way the book cost is detrimental. 3) This is a wild one. There would be elaborate somewhat potentially complicated fixes to this. A simpler one would be keeping them in place; if you wanna change builds, a cost is good. If a reincarnation was done with the item, for first time, upgraded to a new race tier; could be exempted from reincarnation XP penalty. I think it wouldn't be too bad tbh. Exp penalty and time restrictions are important to somewhat limiting gaming the reincarnation system, but if the subrace upgrade was devved into the game with that purpose in mind (again, to improve continuity of char progression and have clear goals that you can achieve on your own or with a party, outside getting lucky in trades/beggary/INFINITE farming of canopics) you could have the upgrading itself for a one-time only deal upon upgrading race tier, if you go Open => Bur => XR, then two times to get it without XP cost.
I still think one-time Upgrade Sub deal (no xp penalty or anything if you upgrade tier) from Tags would be the way to go. Demigod for BUR, X combination of LL runs for UR - such as Dachy + Myco + Tragidore or any some such thing; Whatever is the cool beans boss that fits in Mech for XR sub upgrade. Amanuator? Primus? Utu? Something. But if that isn't cool for some reason then a farmable BTC drop would do too.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2020 17:14:48 GMT
It would simply provide a better continuity to character progression to have built-in ways to upgrade your race tier on a character via attaining either tags or a BTC drop from a level/subtier -appropriate run. Some points from a fellow player who wished these mentioned in the thread: 1) Reincarnation was only implemented to fix broken toons, and it did well at that goal. 2) Less people are playing lowbie areas because they are waiting for their next book to upgrade. 3) Removing cost of upgrading race tiers would provide leverage to further lessening the costs of reincarnation by removing exp drain "time spent on toon and all that". I'd like to counterargue: 1) Makes perfect sense. 2) Makes perfect sense; yet, if there was no cost upon getting books and lower cost on books we'd quicker gain access to subraces to level those new characters of classes/character types we do not yet have. so technically in that way the book cost is detrimental. 3) This is a wild one. There would be elaborate somewhat potentially complicated fixes to this. .. Accidentally pressed post, so editing some stuff to 3. Ongoing: 1) Makes sense. And agree. It’s definitely grown well past the intended scope. Not a bad thing though, in fact quite a huge win for the server and a draw. 2) I agree that this is happening but feel this change would help fix that. Needing one book would mean I would have way more new toons, more frequently, that even I likely wouldn’t be able to do what I currently do of having everything prepped prior to diving in to the cancerous lowbie experience. Quicker access to subraces means starting new toons, trying new ideas, etc all come more frequently. 3) I think removing the cost of the Second book and the XP penalty are different things. To me the XP penalty makes sense and is appropriate. It’s a reasonable cost that players can control. They choose when they reincarnate and can see what the cost is to do so at any given point. Players can not control when they obtain subraces. They can control how quickly runs are completed to have a chance at the drop / currency needed to obtain them... but that’s it.
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Post by xakila on Nov 17, 2020 18:11:37 GMT
I see what you're saying chain, the work around. But even using your example, it feels like it's basically a lot of pregame warmup to avoid the stall down the road. Go through all those hoops to get into the real game instead of a linear development progression, or pay for it later.
Grinding to achieve the right bur is good and rewarding, but double the grind because you started fresh as a noob isn't a cool feeling, neither is shelving or stalling on that toon if you built it relatively right from the getgo. Feels like noobtax, which after overcoming is irrelavant until xr tier. And reinc timers to do the race shuffle is very daunting when you're just starting out, cause you know your char progression is gonna stall for months, and you haven't even been playing for months, nor do you have other chars to switch too that you arent going to have to shelve or pay extra to upgrade either. Looking at the system from the ground up, its like saying you have to play for x amount of time til you really start playing or yer gonna pay for it.
It works sure, but does it add fun? For some maybe, for some it's the opposite. The hoops make it more of a timesink to play what you want, rather than starting as a base of what you want and a smooth linear transition into your desired outcome imho. Starcore put it more elequently than I for sure. Wouldn't be an issue except for the time investment getting through the hells and abyss on your first char, until you have a feasible chance of getting burs without being gifted them. But I do see if your main goal is to keep the value of the subs up it works, if it wasnt for the reinc timer it probably would't feel as daunting if the market is more important than fluidity.
Plus, if you want to start as bur to cut out the extra costs you still have to obtain the books to get to that tier at 60 before you start playing what you want to play with sometimes a worse sometimes a slightly better but less optimal race just to bypass the arbitrary tier component.
In your example say starting as a noob, it would require the new player to understand the workaround from the beginning, which even having read up in the beginning I didn't as a new player grasp how it would feel til I was at the point where it impacted...and either grind or beg for any BUR books to be able to start the toons they'd want to play if they didn't want to double the upgrade costs down the road. Doesn't feel as linear as it could. Linear progression for players like me is much more appealing than restarting. And paying the same cost twice to upgrade rather than restart the same toon feels like buying a car without wheels to paraphrase boroie, or buying that porche then you have to pay the same price for the keys.
The suggestions people have about a set item or tags feel better and give a sense of accomplishment and linear progression, and are much more appealing than obtaining a second copy of an really rare book. But requires more work on the dev side than removing the part of code requiring the second book, which would make the gameplay experience better for players of all levels.
The intent of the OP was to share from a newer player perspective that the double cost in upgrading after investing for a bit feels bad and is a turn off to at least some new players. It seems like an uneccessary function that once you've played long enough to bypass becomes irrelevant, and detracts from the main game experience. And I feel it puts off many of the newer players the intent of the system is in place to retain, so is at least partially counter productive to have a system you have arbitrary hoops to work around if you want to start on the right foot rather than redo the same effort down the road (either start over or obtain the same item twice). Just my opinion and observations
Change or not hg is an awesome server.
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Post by desocupado on Nov 17, 2020 19:18:58 GMT
The server also had a level 20 then 40 cap - The time commitment from back there is very different from the time commitment for each character now. I think tag bound subraces would make more sense for progression. I agree with chirality in the sense that the time commitment for this server is very unrealistic from my perspective. I had time to get hooked to these when I was a none. Nowadays I look at this as fake longevity, like forced level grinding, random drops, damage sponge bosses, marathon levels, forcing you to play levels over to use an upgrade. Incidentally the server do have enough content for this to not be an issue. I think I said something to this effect once - I do feel there are different "games" inside higher ground. 1-20 feels like mostly vanilla solo module nwn experience. The 1-2 player experience. 21-35 feels like a challenging nwn mod. Here is where I'd go with 3 people optimally. 35-55 feels like the party based mod of big sessions. 4-6 people party. 55+ feels like a more modern mmorpg where everything is a big full man party raid.
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Post by chirality on Nov 17, 2020 22:20:14 GMT
Grinding to achieve the right bur is good and rewarding, but double the grind because you started fresh as a noob isn't a cool feeling To be fair, it's definitely not double the grind. There's no easy way to quantify top-tier BUR book acquisition, considering the many factors (market, trade, luck of the draw on popping from a chest, rolling on the split, etc), but I don't think getting a second book is nearly as hard as getting "a" BUR sub toon in the first place. It's nitpicky, but just to point out that every incremental career milestone (in terms of powercreep) makes grinding the same thing a bit easier and makes upgrading gear and subs a bit easier. In other words, before you have 1 RG book, it is likely going to be a huge investment to obtain that 1st one; after you have one, it should be somewhere in the spectrum of "much easier" to "a little bit easier" to get a second one. This is simply because the grind associated with going from newbie lacking RG book -> guy on his way with on RG book in the bank, definitively marks a transition in power. Savvy traders may even be are traditionally able to, in time-honored fashion, pivot one BUR book they have their heart set on for 2 of another one, and leverage that toon to a more effective use of time investment. "Delayed gratification" is not necessarily a bad thing, even in a video game that's meant to be fun and not a "job"/real life. The fact is that things like gearing up a sorc from 0 - BUR endgamegeared-up is a very, very, very big commitment and investment. Two books, paltry % chance at winning a tia staff per run, the fairly exorbitant value of a shield pandect--these things are not felt as harshly for all classes, and when it comes to two books, it's really only particularly painful for the most valuable and preciously-hoarded subraces. New players have been told for years to "make a yaun ti sorc" or "make a druid or bard" for a reason. Shard is still far more valuable than most BURs, but it's also literally order(s) of magnitude less valuable than RG. In a game filled with ridiculously-rich vets, there has never been a time that a new player begging to get their hands on x2 shard books so they can bard for <insert vet player/guild/crew here> can't make that happen extremely fast. The beauty of HG's gameplay is that even bot-armyers who don't "need" someone to play a core, are generally more than happy to enjoy more/work less by reducing their multiplaying taskload by 1 toon, and this has also never changed. I don't see the double book cost as an obstacle to success or enjoyment of the game, anywhere near as much as the reincarnation timer/xp loss itself. Here's a question we could all ponder: if yeou could choose between either reducing the cost of subrace upgrade to 1 book, or removing the timer, or removing the xp penalty, which would you choose? Let's say per toon, even. Maybe combine the timer/xp into one option, so it's either don't burn a book, and suffer standard reinc penalization on "playtime", or burn the second book and then be able to reinc again immediately and lose no xp? (The point isn't to game the system, because obviously we'd pick the book for the best subraces/cores/new toons, and pick the xp/reinc for "finished" BUR+ elite toons--it's just a thought experiment). neither is shelving or stalling on that toon if you built it relatively right from the getgo. Definitely painful. This is an issue that needs to be resolved and addressed in the opinions of many (or may be viewed as a nonstarter by others). Shelving toons is a true funkiller and break-forcer for some people, whereas others don't mind, or even enjoy the endless cycle to some extent. Feels like noobtax, which after overcoming is irrelavant until xr tier. The double book cost? And reinc timers to do the race shuffle is very daunting when you're just starting out, cause you know your char progression is gonna stall for months, and you haven't even been playing for months, nor do you have other chars to switch too that you arent going to have to shelve or pay extra to upgrade either. Looking at the system from the ground up, its like saying you have to play for x amount of time til you really start playing or yer gonna pay for it. I completely respect the summarization and I understand this is a painful aspect of the game for many people. However, I also think "putting all your eggs in one basket" is a poor approach to enjoying an RPG, especially one where there is so much fun to be had with so many different classes, and so much to learn at each step of career progress that new things remain to be discovered for several playthroughs of a given level range/zone/etc. I agree that it sucks to put so much effort and thought and investment into a thing and then feel totally stalled and unjustly roadblocked by a punitive mechanic, but then again, is it really the end of the world? Placing yourself in a self-defined box of "I only want to play this" is a guaranteed way to burn out or hit a roadblock eventually regardless. What happens when you only need one H-C book to upgrade your precious ploder, but then you can't manage to get a wis arti for months? Or your sorc can't get a tia staff? Or your battlecleric can't get a TA? What about PW rings? Or MFs? True, these aren't artificial absolute walls in the way that double-book upgrade is, but the takeaway is that you will always have an enormous uphill battle of grinding before your toon is "complete"--and, whenever this historically has been untrue, it's a source and cause of extreme resentment and negative feedback cycle, with salty vets and burned-out newbs. If single-book reinc upgrade is a solution to a problem, the problem can essentially be stated as: the game requires too much grind. I think objectively speaking, things like XR subraces, and xp to L80, is really the bigger foe to be conquered first. BUR subraces are just kind of inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, honestly. If it's this big of a deal, occam's razor would indicate (to me, anyway) that the simplest and most effective way to remove this issue for new players is to simply allow the first BUR upgrade of any toon to only require 1 book. I'm sure this has been suggested multiple times over the years, honestly. I mean, look, if the problem is new players are turned off, there's the fix: nothing fancy, just bam, once-off freebie upgrade. I suspect, however, that even reducing the cost of upgrading a sorc from x2 RG, to x1 RG, would simply end up with new players still turned off by getting that first RG. Shrug. However, this wouldn't allow anything to be gamed, or benefit unfairly anyone. Get over the initial BUR hump, there you go. I can only imagine the response if this was suggested for XRs, though... Anyway, from my point of view, manipulating items or creating additional content/items is a lot less difficult than directly providing a solution to this problem. If this is really a big enough deal to warrant it, just let every new player reinc free once per toon. Maybe 1/year, each toon can reinc with no xp loss or timer, once having achieved L70 and x2.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2020 23:43:50 GMT
Players can grind Shed 3 endlessly, 1.5 maps for a guaranteed BUR done multiple times a day. There isn’t a BUR sub issue that’s real. The guaranteed drops of Shed for sure, and to a lesser extent Aboleths fixes this and is in large part how I stocked my army. Anyone can do this. This can also be done low-man. If you're new, go slow. If you need advice on how to kill what, ask. There are so many resources to navigate and work within the BUR tier that this isn't a thing. No one would be upset about XR subraces if they could grind a boss which dropped guaranteed subs.
The issues are on the XR tier. The BUR tier has the options available to self resolve and quickly.
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Post by yune on Nov 18, 2020 1:04:54 GMT
I vote for milestones letting you reinc to higher tiers. Immortal for secret/UR, demi or prince win for BUR, p2 hard for XR. The big deal with the current setup that I think people are missing is that it isn't two books to tier up, it's two of the SAME book. That's a massively higher requirement. I'd be happy with upgrading making you burn any book of that tier instead of the specific one.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2020 1:11:50 GMT
Thanks yune for a fantastic suggestion.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2020 5:45:18 GMT
The issues are on the XR tier. The BUR tier has the options available to self resolve and quickly. XR books are supposed to be hard to get...hard to fathom when canos were pouring out of Ssssendem.
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