Now Discussion of "Test Avlis XP and Loot"

Jaybob · Post by **Jaybob** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 8:47 pm

Marleh wrote:Yep, and I can't wait for the new code to go live so I can drag Bern back in there and glower some more.

heh. he carries around no fewer than 20 invis potions now, after that. He does frown everytime he tips over that canteen you gave him, and all that comes out is dust...

Jaybob · Post by **Jaybob** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 9:32 pm

is there a target date for implementing the new system on all the servers, or is the team waiting for the feedback to roll in?

spool32 · Post by **spool32** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 9:53 pm

We've got to look at all the good feedback first. The more testing we see, the faster it'll go live.

-spool32

DoomsDay1000 · Post by **DoomsDay1000** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 9:53 pm

why should the lower level even get any exp if the higher level player is doing all the work?

your going to have more people (higher level) taking lower levels out to places they shouldn't even be in and stand there or using a bow. And if there are using there sword what are they going to learn when they die in 2 hits, or can't even hit the monster?

Xp should be base on what the player kills or does himself, not what other poeple kill for them, it doesn't work like that, people aren't going to learn watching other people kills things , they themselves have to work to get it.

Chasnor · Post by **Chasnor** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 10:01 pm

We're waiting for feedback and solid playtesting. We want to make sure it works as intended. (Which is to say noone can level the way they want to, RPers get screwed, PGers find new loopholes and level faster than ever, and Monk/Psion/Crafters/Changelings still pwn everyone.)

Once the Team is comfortable that everything is right and we like it, we'll go live, not a minute before. This change is not yet even a foregone conclusion, it is a playtest. We've had some very positive opinion support, we just need more positive test data.

On a side note, while discussion is healthy, some of the opinions expressed in here seem unduly jaded and upset. Please, before you shoot off with your 9 million ideas on why this won't work and is the stupidest thing ever, try it. Log into normal Avlis and hit a dungeon. Then log into the test server and hit the same one with the same party. 30 minutes of your time may change your mind and will provide us solid factual information on the success of your system.

Jaybob · Post by **Jaybob** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 10:01 pm

DoomsDay1000 wrote:why should the lower level even get any exp if the higher level player is doing all the work?

a valid point, which is why the XP system we have in place ATM is the way it is. However...

DoomsDay1000 wrote:your going to have more people (higher level) taking lower levels out to places they shouldn't even be in and stand there or using a bow.

But Bern is a longbowman...

DoomsDay1000 wrote: people aren't going to learn watching other people kills things , they themselves have to work to get it.

not so. many creatures have weaknesses that only a skilled whatever-hunter is going to know how to exploit. The best way to show a person how to hunt is to take them hunting. I submit that the person learns quite a bit, even if they never fire a shot.

Darkfire · Post by **Darkfire** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 10:13 pm

DoomsDay1000 wrote: your going to have more people (higher level) taking lower levels out to places they shouldn't even be in and stand there or using a bow. And if there are using there sword what are they going to learn when they die in 2 hits, or can't even hit the monster?

Xp should be base on what the player kills or does himself, not what other poeple kill for them, it doesn't work like that, people aren't going to learn watching other people kills things , they themselves have to work to get it.

You know better then that, we've went on many adventures together where all you could do was stand in the back and safely shoot. If something got close to you, they would knock you too bleeding in a flash. Before your PC got better at archery, when he was still running around with 5ab... the point isn't to be useful, but to be interacting with the group in some form. Healing, ranged shooting, gathering loot, what ever. If the point of having people adventure with me was to have them be useful, most dungeons I wouldn't need any help with. But that would suck and be very boring.

I love the idea of the new system, I'll be able to go on adventures with people without the fear of annihilating their XP. Even if they say they don't care about that (and actually mean it) I still feel bad, making the adventure not near as fun as it potentially could be.

This unlocks a lot of potential. I can actually play a mage instead of a steelcaster, go to a lowbie dungeon (like the minotaurs or something) and stand in the back, give a few buffs, etc. When the group starts to die because they are getting overwhelmed, I bust out with some magic spells and help them through the difficult group, etc. I miss doing stuff like that, and there is a lot of other things that can be done now too while interacting with lower levels while adventuring. *cheers*

DoomsDay1000 · Post by **DoomsDay1000** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 10:13 pm

yes they learn that they have the weakness but does the player have the skill to hit that weakness?

But Bern is a longbowman...

you are still getting XP for the higher levels kills you may have fired off what 10 arrows in the group that the HIGHER level have killed and in them 10 arrows you may have miss 8 out of 10 of those arrows. The lower level is still being puted by the higher level.

Jaybob · Post by **Jaybob** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 10:22 pm

DoomsDay1000 wrote:yes they learn that they have the weakness but does the player have the skill to hit that weakness?

But Bern is a longbowman...
you are still getting XP for the higher levels kills you may have fired off what 10 arrows in the group that the HIGHER level have killed and in them 10 arrows you may have miss 8 out of 10 of those arrows. The lower level is still being puted by the higher level.

well, Bern's not the greatest bowman, but he can hit better than 20%. It sounds to me like you would only award XP to people who actually "kill" the monster. What about people who, as Darkfire said, do the buffing and healing? What about the guy that does a ton of damage to a creature and then another guy delivers the final blow? It seems to me that adventuring is a team effort, and XP should be doled out to everyone who participates, which is what the new system attempts to do.

I don't want to sound like I know all, cause I don't. And I want you to know that I understand the side you're coming from, Doomsday, I really do. I'm hearing your complaints and alternatives, though, and they don't seem to add up to a better soultion than the one that's being proposed.

DoomsDay1000 · Post by **DoomsDay1000** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 10:23 pm

go to a lowbie dungeon (like the minotaurs or something) and stand in the back, give a few buffs, etc. When the group starts to die because they are getting overwhelmed, I bust out with some magic spells and help them through the difficult group, etc. I miss doing stuff like that, and there is a lot of other things that can be done now too while interacting with lower levels while adventuring. *cheers*

this is the way it should be.. the higher level standing in the back doing nothing but give a few buffs to help them along... then help them in it get to tough for them but when the higher level helps theys couldn't get as much XP because the higher level actually helped. (which in the XP system now you have to be unpartied to do this)

darthmullet · Post by **darthmullet** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 10:24 pm

All your xpses are belong to us!!!

darthmullet · Post by **darthmullet** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 10:27 pm

help them in it get to tough for them but when the higher level helps theys couldn't get as much XP because the higher level actually helped

When you write the code that can take the hundreds of ways a character can be effective, and is able to dole out an amount of experience to accurately reflect that, let me know.

aquasoup · Post by **aquasoup** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 10:38 pm

itsabughunt wrote: Aquasoup, seriously can you explain why is this such an issue for you?

I've seen it done, is why, tight hard caps per week introduced into a mature RP server. This may be informative reading or not, my experience with this may be worthless or not, you decide, I'll try to avoid replying again after this.

Nearly everyone thought it would be great, alot of powergamer problems would go away, vets loved it because it seemed like a good buffer to keep them vet, low playtimers loved it because now they could catch up with all those highplaytime folk they envied, and highplaytime folk who objected simply got stigmatised as powergamers and drowned out if they dared to complain (almost none did publically, both a smart personally and a dumb serverwise move, as it turns out, thought plenty were vocal to staff in private). off course that's the truthful sub-text, everyone was ~all~ about the RP worthiness in public.

What actually happened wasn't quite the second coming everyone expected. Now that everything after, often the first couple of hours of adventuring per week accrued no xp, changes started to kick in.

As party adventuring beyond a weekly minimum investment was null xp, it started to change people's adventuring habits, those most attached to their mains drifted into more solo activities that produced XP, but alot less RP.

Highplaytimers in particular began to build up a stable of alts, cycling between them because psychologically having a game mechanic dictate, you shouldn't be doing X, made them feel like they shouldn't be doing it, so alot of core well recognised character mainstays of the world became second fiddle to people running a variety of characters not a main recognised one.

Socially this destabilised everyone, particularly affecting guild and plot prescence and politics and event running, the officers positions of player guilds were increasingly unmanned because everyone was playing their low level alts. All indians no chiefs, or the chiefs had tobe logged in, in an increasingly OOC fashion to "turn up".

Low playtimers didn't benefit as they thought, because the jealousy of the highlevelled transfered to the fact the highplaytimers could now pick and mix from their stable of characters to suit the situations. Same undercurrent, same target, new reason why.

The powergrinders everyone thought would be defeated by this, did what with hindsight they always do, they shifted to the most efficient next rung down, it was actually more boring for them, but slightly faster to level, and because alot of highplaytime Rp-ers were lowbie alt-ing the powergrinders prescence in many ways became more obvious.

Situation vacillated and spiralled downward for a bit, eventually it was decided from painful experience, that actually 10hours per week adventuring had to be worth more than 2hours for everything to work better, but it didn't have to be necessarily 5 times more worthwhile, so sliding soft caps got introduced. Once people were advancing their mains again even if it was like 3xp a kill at hour 20 where it might have been 100xp a kill at hour 1 that period, things started to pickup and got back on track, people focused more on their main character RP overall improved, the low level hunting cycle lessened considerably and hunting overall dropped giving more time to Static RP.

As for the powergrinders, well they were outmanuevered in a way that wouldn't exactly work here, caster buffs are simply to strong in relation to gear - over there many factions would as soon start a bonfire with a cleric or mage as party with one, so buffing was less important plus magic was quite customised and far more personal only. The main player factions were given really strong gear that increased with rank, (monster threat was bumped up) now getting to top rank in a PC faction required a year or two of quality and dedicated RP, and only those consistantly and currently putting in good RP would maintain the positios on the whole. It started to matter less about who was what level and more about who was what rank for most RP and even for hunting.

Because those totally focused on advancing their character now had to focus on providing good RP in order to work their way up the power heirachy, alot of them essentially became retrained - it may surprise you to know that being character advancement focused doesn't actually make you genetically unable to RP, it just means some don't bother and get to see it's worthwhile until it really counts for their characters progression.

That sort of gear makeover is a big deal, especially as monster threat has to go with it, too impractical for Avlis especially seeing as caster buffs are so god-inspiring here, they make alot of gear redundant, a naked mage still wipes the floor here to an extent.

However you could if you wished develope a soft cap for what level you are, based on which rank you've achieved in certain approved guilds (certain amount of Dm oversight, trusted players leading factions etc, it's probably been running fine that way for years here) becoming high in the Gorethar Order or ACE or PsiCorps or whatever the highest achieved could be used to mitigate a natural law of diminishing returns applied to all XP gains (bar dm of course).

I assume it's no snap to reach high rank in say the Gorethite order. So in effect your RP displaying character will have a benefit to their levelling speed in a more complex system - and nameless the solo grinding monk, for example, well his life will actually be considerably harder if he never advances in a player faction. It might make zero difference at levels 1-5 to him, but it will really bite in hard never getting off trial rung with a faction when he's trying to do his 30's levels.

If you want to sum up the suggestion, think of it as Andrinor's mark, but for everyone, with lots of levels of marks, and them applyig a sliding lessening of xp penalties as high level brackets are reached. In effect no1 is ever entirely stopped dead, it is just made vastly more useful for people to focus on good RP and advancement by it in whichever factions you recognise as upto the task of sensibly awarding those "marks".

If you didn't read any of that, I kinda said providing CARROTS FOR RP is better than USING A STICK ON XP.

yorlik · Post by **yorlik** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 10:47 pm

aquasoup wrote:I kinda said providing CARROTS FOR RP is better than USING A STICK ON XP.

I actually think thats the best sentence you have said in the entire thread.
I wish we had more carrots.

DanishPastry · Post by **DanishPastry** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 11:01 pm

aquasoup wrote:I kinda said providing CARROTS FOR RP is better than USING A STICK ON XP.

We're gonna need a bigger stick.

DoomsDay1000 · Post by **DoomsDay1000** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 11:26 pm

well, Bern's not the greatest bowman, but he can hit better than 20%. It sounds to me like you would only award XP to people who actually "kill" the monster. What about people who, as Darkfire said, do the buffing and healing? What about the guy that does a ton of damage to a creature and then another guy delivers the final blow?

the XP should be base on how much damage a player does to the monster and what player damage it when it is killed, and the level of the character.

expamle

player A and B hits and damages monster A (let say all the monsters in a cave give out the same Xp and has the same Hp lets say 100Hp) and player A damages it 60 damage and player B damages it 40 damage the Xp should be divided 60 - 40 between the player A and B ) the XP is divide between player A and B on how much damage each player actually does While player A and B are hitting monster A player C is hitting Monster B and kills him by himself player C should get all the Xp

now you have player D (way higher level) watching and when Player A, B and C are getting over powered player D jumps in to help and kills off Monster A and B equals in little to no Xp for player A, B, C, and D

lets take what i wrote(monsters Hp100) at the top. player A damages Monster A 20 and player B damages monster A 10 but Monsters A, B, C and D are over powering them and player D jumps in and kills them all. player A should get 20% of the Xp and player B gets 10% and player D gets 70% from Monster A and 100% from Momnsters B,C and D result lower XP for player A and B

and more Xp should be given out when a player damage a monster to near death and the moster use a heal potion and it is now uninjured it should give out more Xp because they had to damage it more.

Just trying to clear up what i was trying to say in the other post. i believe towing mean have a higher level char in a party doing all the work when the low level is barely doing anything to the monster and this will greatly increase when the new Xp system is put in to place because the lower levels get XP base on the soloing of the place and the higher level will spawn monster that will be too hard for the lower levels

sooo *shrugs* just my 2 cents

Jaybob · Post by **Jaybob** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 11:32 pm

DoomsDay1000 wrote:
well, Bern's not the greatest bowman, but he can hit better than 20%. It sounds to me like you would only award XP to people who actually "kill" the monster. What about people who, as Darkfire said, do the buffing and healing? What about the guy that does a ton of damage to a creature and then another guy delivers the final blow?

the XP should be base on how much damage a player does to the monster and what player damage it when it is killed, and the level of the character.

expamle

player A and B hits and damages monster A (let say all the monsters in a cave give out the same Xp and has the same Hp lets say 100Hp) and player A damages it 60 damage and player B damages it 40 damage the Xp should be divided 60 - 40 between the player A and B ) the XP is divide between player A and B on how much damage each player actually does While player A and B are hitting monster A player C is hitting Monster B and kills him by himself player C should get all the Xp

now you have player D (way higher level) watching and when Player A, B and C are getting over powered player D jumps in to help and kills off Monster A and B equals in little to no Xp for player A, B, C, and D

lets take what i wrote(monsters Hp100) at the top. player A damages Monster A 20 and player B damages monster A 10 but Monsters A, B, C and D are over powering them and player D jumps in and kills them all. player A should get 20% of the Xp and player B gets 10% and player D gets 70% from Monster A and 100% from Momnsters B,C and D result lower XP for player A and B

and more Xp should be given out when a player damage a monster to near death and the moster use a heal potion and it is now uninjured it should give out more Xp because they had to damage it more.

Just trying to clear up what i was trying to say in the other post. i believe towing mean have a higher level char in a party doing all the work when the low level is barely doing anything to the monster and this will greatly increase when the new Xp system is put in to place because the lower levels get XP base on the soloing of the place and the higher level will spawn monster that will be too hard for the lower levels

sooo *shrugs* just my 2 cents

okay, i'm following you, but what about the guy that buffs the group, making an impossible monster possible, or the guy that heals people, making them last longer in the fight than they otherwise would have? do they get XP?

your system sounds fair and fine (assuming everyone involved in the fight is actually fighting), but I have no idea if its possible to code. anyone with Coding experience want to chime in on this?

-J

DoomsDay1000 · Post by **DoomsDay1000** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 11:37 pm

i didn't think of that.. i get that you are saying.

Deider · Post by **Deider** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 11:41 pm

Jaybob wrote:your system sounds fair and fine (assuming everyone involved in the fight is actually fighting), but I have no idea if its possible to code. anyone with Coding experience want to chime in on this?

It's impossible. And while we're talking about adding 'realism' to XP, can someone raise the horsoliches of letting rogues get XP for using rogue skills and casters getting XP for casting spells?

Has anyone here actually played D&D PnP? All these systems you propose calling for 'realism' in combat... have never existed in D&D. And the designers knew what they were doing when they did that. XP really shouldn't be called 'experience points' because it confuses the hell out people. It's sure confusing the hell out of most of you. It should be called "wickity-bams" or 'hoovilsmuggins' or anything that will make it plain that it's simply a way for people to advance their characters. HOW they do it... it's not that big a deal, because this is a freaking ROLE-PLAYING game, Mortal Kombat. All these task-specific XP proposals make my balls hurt, and if Gary Gygax were dead he'd be spinning in his grave so fast as to power a turbine that could light New York for weeks.

Tangleroot · Post by **Tangleroot** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 12:00 am

Carrots, you say? Sticks, you say? Hmm.

DoomsDay1000 · Post by **DoomsDay1000** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 12:14 am

yes this new system is great but i am trying to point out something that is very simple thats going to happen... low level characters are going to be towed the XP now by higher level characters
all you are going to need is a high level friend to take you to a simple place he can do and towe in the 7k/exp a week very fast, when in fact that the low level character basically didn't nothing to get the Xp. then you can go off and do Rp get more cookies , or now go ahead and do all the quest you can find, and craft to get more Xp.

Katroine · Post by **Katroine** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 12:19 am

I took a lower level out on the test server and I got the usual, as did he. Nothing strange there. If he wasn't with me, it would have been more for him so I don't think it will be such a big deal. It just allows higher levels not to give everyone 0.

Levis Pie · Post by **Levis Pie** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 12:37 am

DoomsDay1000 wrote:low level characters are going to be towed the XP now by higher level characters

that happens now anyway.

if people are abusing this new system then they will be caught eventually. if there is an xp cap per week, then they'll hit that cap every single week and level up appropriately for copap's standards. if grinding monsters and hitting their cap and then going crafting/questing to get as much xp per week as they can is the only way for them to have fun, then that means they most likely wont be rping much, so let them hit level 40 as fast as the cap will let them and they'll soon grow bored and leave since no one will want to play with them.

PlasmaJohn · Post by **PlasmaJohn** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 12:39 am

DoomsDay1000 wrote:yes this new system is great but i am trying to point out something that is very simple thats going to happen... low level characters are going to be towed the XP now by higher level characters
all you are going to need is a high level friend to take you to a simple place he can do and towe in the 7k/exp a week very fast, when in fact that the low level character basically didn't nothing to get the Xp. then you can go off and do Rp get more cookies , or now go ahead and do all the quest you can find, and craft to get more Xp.

I see where you may be confused. Towing is bad under existing party based xp awards because the lowbies reduce the average for everybody which raises the amount of xp that the nosebleed-levels get. Under the new system, the lowbies (potentially) get a really nice amount and the nosebleeds get what they'd get if they solo'd. In other words, it takes the advantage out of towing.

badjabadjabadja · Post by **badjabadjabadja** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 1:39 am

people wrote:stuff.. & carrots..

root vegetables aside, has whoever-it-was tried being the archer at the back? The only thing monsters hate more than an archer.. is a sneaky archer! I spent ages running in circles while this mad minotaur with a flaming axe tried to decapitate me! It totally ignored all the higher lvl Rha'ghullites I was with!

At the other end of the scale, I've guided a lot of lowbies about, usually to look for reagents, or to help with a quest, & often it's come to the point where I'll say ~best ye invis here & heal me if it all goes horrible~ (Wilds, Ganoom bandits) or ~best we turn back.. as it gets really bad further, & I'd not be able to protect you~ (also Wilds, a certain cave with smelly ore)

If someone's where they shouldn't be... in my experiance.. they die. Actually this happens to me with normal spawns in various places, unless I'm really focussed

The only time a lowbie has a fair chance of surviving in the Bad Places, is with a large organised group, in which case as long as they contribute something then they deserve the XP they get for being there.

Oh, & I agree with Marleh way back on page 7 (3rd post up from bottom)