A heads up on the level cap changes..

[TheBlankStare]

No problem, Allielliot. It's true that I'm not much of a grinder. I do, however, enjoy seeing my characters advance. It's fun. My examples above do a good job of showing just how difficult it would become to play more than two or three characters and to have any hope of advancing them to Tier 2.

Thanks for the clarification on the way the cap works, Kael. It's good to know that things won't be totally hopeless for those characters that don't get much playing time . . . well, totally hopeless . . . eventually. I'd assumed that the rules were more draconian than they are. I thought that if you hadn't put in the time you'd not be able to advance through the tiers.

But multiple characters are already being devalued. Dayledose said, "As for playing multiple characters.. well I deleted all of mine except for those that have a specific rp connection to another. Well and my dwarf though he might go as well." Allielliot mentioned, "I'm one of those people with multiple pc, and this had made me want to start playing one of them more." That is my point exactly; playing fewer characters now has more value than playing several.

The system really isn't so unfair to players with multiple characters.. Only if you truly have to play 4 or more characters all for an equal amount of time, then you're likely going to have most capped at 11.

That's almost my point as well, Kael. If you have multiple characters you are being penalized and forced to pay a "Real Life Time Tax" in order to advance them at a somewhat reasonable rate. The time required to advance to the next level also increases as your level increases. I'm not sure how many people noticed that but if you put the data into a graph it's very noticeable. I'd be willing to wager that most characters are going to languish between levels 10 and 13 for quite some time before they realize what's happening.

My observations aren't about the fairness of the system. Fairness isn't something that anyone can agree on anyway. My observations are about what types of behavior the systems encourages and what types of behavior it discourages. By requiring ever longer amounts of time to be deemed "worthy" of attaining the next level this system encourages the playing of a single character. Even though "eventually" any character can advance the more worthwhile rewards are there for those who play fewer characters.

If the Developers and the Staff prefer that we all play one character and stick to it that's fine. Please just come out and say that. If multiple characters are something you don't mind seeing and are acceptable let's let them have the same amount of love that single characters get.

[Urithrand]

We are not stating any prefefence to how many characters you play, indeed playing one character only and ignoring all your alts can cause seriously stale RP. This system is still a work in progress, please try to avoid getting too worked up about it as it may well be changed if we discover that it's not working very well. Sundren is a beta, we know it's hard to remember that at times, but we have new things to try out, and they will always need to be tested and tweaked. Just sit tight guys, we're always collecting feedback and discussing these matters amongst the staff, so be patient and we'll get this situation to a middle ground that suits everyone.

Thanks

[Fezzik]

I just thought of something. We want to stop all the "grinding to level 20". I can think of another way of reducing that;

1) decrease the xp that people get for kills -- you might still have people grinding away, but it'll take them a lot longer.

1.a) to counter that slightly, especially for lower levels, make the party xp more and make the number of people in the party 3-8 maybe instead of 3-5. 3-5 seems to be, it might not be , but more of an artefact from PnP sitting around the table in the basement with friends.

2) maybe make the range a tiny bit wider (if it's within 4 levels now of CR say, make it 6 -- this isn't as effective as just reducing the xp you get though).

3) Make the tickle a bit higher, since the kill xp is lower, people might be more willing to sit around and RP.

4) More quests; there are a lot of quests for lower levels that give xp, but few for high levels -- 15th level Paladins still want to rescue cats out of trees!... err... nevermind, that's firemen.

5) Randomized tickle for dialogue -- I've seen it once with another server. If you just sit around and don't do anything while everyone talks, are you really rp'ing? Sure, it might be your char, but you should at least emote something now and again even if you're a social outcast .

My 2... umm... 5 cents.

Feel free to ignore me, I won't take it personally... much * starts getting ready to write down names for the hit list *

[Verrath]

This is not meant as a gripe, there has been enough of that, just an observation at this point.


SO!

What we have is this:

- the old cap system as sorf of unhinged by the sudden change that was the raising of the level cap - leading to people - perhaps understandably - wanting to gain those levels and fast.

- old characters who have spent relatively little time online - whether grinding or only RPing - whether they may have made an impact IC or not - had their cap substantially lowered, many times below their current level, and many times despite the fact that they were never meant to be PvE oriented.

So, we need to curb the struggle for level 20, but we don't want to alienate/frustrate the casual players whose characters have nevertheless gained IC standing.


How about this....


- keep the cap the way it was before, or tighten it slightly, especially for the higher levels, just keep the real time factor as opposed to the in game time factor. Perhaps even only increase the cap after an amount of time has passed after achieving the previous level. Meaning for example that your cap won't be raised to 11 until some time after you have actually reached 10.

- restrict the amount of XP one can gain per day. Either based on the current level, or by a total amount. That ought to slow down progression more for the higher levels, and keep it the way it was before for low to mid levels.

- DM-given XP and/or the trickle can override this limit, but that's already true now.


What say?

[GodBeastX]

The problem with your suggestion is it's not retroactive. Meaning Bob who took three months of effort to finally hit 15, making a difference and struggling online, and Tommy who just put his character in idle position within his vault took 2 weeks pops in and both of them reach 20 at the same time with Tommy sort of being a nobody.

Essentially the end goal seems to be that players need to be a better part of the world before they can reach a high level, not that Devs don't want people killing and such. I imagine if you find the magic formula of figuring out how much of a part of the world someone is, you'll figure out the answer the the experience situation, right now online time is being used (And has been tweaked already), maybe there's a better formula for detecting it. I mean, even if you can only get so much experience per day, what's stopping you from logging in, grinding it, then logging out and never interacting with the world beyond slaughtering it's mindless creatures?

[TamurtheLame]

I do not understand the system, which means this isn't a criticism, but merely a question.

I have one primary character that I have been playing exclusively and I have had him for a number of months, maybe six or more? He has been level 15 for awhile now and when I logged in, his cap is level 11 and it will take more than three full days of being online to go to level 12.

Anyway, I was just wondering why this change had to be made and why you couldn't grandfather characters that were already level 15? Maybe start them at level 16 and then have the ticker for higher levels? Or have them at least be at level 15 and have the ticker start then?

((I edited this to make it more a suggestion than any possible criticism. I do love what has been done to Sundren from the beginning - yes, I was here from almost the beginning. And, I thank all the developers for a truly beautiful world!))

[Verrath]

That's entirely possible, granted. Though I guess that also means this type of PC will NEVER interact becasue they are obviously not interested in RP. In which case they will bother nobody

Seriously though. I can see the charms of the in game time. As well as the charms of a real-time-based method. Perhaps there's a good way to combine the two.

I'll wait to see how you tweak it ( And hope my year old mercenary will be able to advance in her profession again after *cough cough*)

[GodBeastX]

Who says I'm tweaking it? I'm trying to make it so nobody gets experience ever again ^^ I figure if everybody is level 1 then there's no complaints right? Just have to make sure all DCs are 10.

[TamurtheLame]

Level 1, but with +5 Plate and a vorpal sword

[Phantom Lamb]

When everyone's special... no one will be!

[DurinRustbeard]

Hey guys, Here is an idea to mull over. Since everyone seemed to be happy with things the way they were when lvl 15 was the highest level you could achieve without DM exp.. How about this:

From Level 1-15 the old system is in place Yes it does allow for some folks to make that pc, and sit on it forever then go to grinding.. but even with that I don't see an excess of lvl 15's around. Its still pretty tough to level up to 15.

From Level 16-20 The newly adjusted requirements and calculations for active play time are required, thus keeping the upper tier that didn't exist really until a week or so ago still limited to those dedicated to logging on and playing. Except! now you actually have access to them outside of a DM rewarding experience, aka the 30xp ticker, and the eventual cap raising from being active and time passing.

What this plan requires is for you folks who had a brief taste of 20, and refuse to settle for anything less to just say.. "Hey, ya know we were capped at 15 forever, and now with this HYBRID system we can actually progress beyond 15! It may take a while, but now more options to get there are open to me! Yay!, thanks DMs/Devs! Oh whats that? I can level my newbs like I use to all the way to 15?! Sweet you guys are the greatest!"

[GodBeastX]

@TamurtheLame: I feel your pain man, I really do. The original system that got written ages ago was based on your situation. I always felt for the person who couldn't just be online all the time and had a casual play time (As opposed to aggressive where you're on quite often). The problem is the old system was severely exploited.

I don't think there is a dev who isn't trying to work out some way to make everyone happy, at the same time, I think everyone can agree that people shouldn't be able to just login, kill the dark advent over and over and high five all the level 20's around them in a week and have no impression upon the server.

The devs really like you guys (I'm not sure why ) so I think people should just be patient for now and see what comes of everything. There's a lot of systems that are being worked out and some might tie into this very situation, no idea what the end result will be or it'd be posted here.

[Verrath]

Who says I'm tweaking it? I'm trying to make it so nobody gets experience ever again ^^ I figure if everybody is level 1 then there's no complaints right? Just have to make sure all DCs are 10.

By the same token, if everybody is level 30, then there's no complaints either.

*runs for cover*

[TheBlankStare]

As our Leader has already stated, this is the reason the change was made:

Because a large portion of the player populace instantly started blatently and outright grinding to get to 20 since the cap change.

Was it a good change? Probably not. Will the system be changed? I see it being changed slightly but I doubt it will change much. By necessity these decrees are made behind closed doors by what we hope (as players) is a benevolent dictatorship. These types of gaming experiences demand that. We should feel at least some warm fuzzies that the Staff has taken the time to respond in this thread to our concerns.

That said, I've already put one fun-to-play-but-can't-sit-still-character on ice until some unknown point in the future. I've even decided that one is retired until her goddess starts paying attention to her again. Two of them I'm probably just going to delete unless something changes because they just aren't going to get played all that much and I don't really relish waiting around for them to catch up to any caps they might end up at. Rastellia is. . . well . . . bleh. Who am I kidding? I'm hardly playing right now due to the changes so she's not getting any better either.

TamurTheLame: Criticism is not bad! How you word your criticism can be but don't censor yourself or you're going to lose some credibility. (I'm a naturally snarky, snotty, and sarcastic person which is why I revise things quite often.)

About abusing the system though . . . Just like the old system the new system can be abused too. It'll just require a little more patience on the part of the abuser.

And as far as making everyone happy, the staff shouldn't even try. It can't be done. They only thing that they can do is figure out what kind of player they want to make happy and then go for that demographic. They'll never make everyone happy.

I'm off to play PnP DnD now! Toodles!

P.S. Not everyone is special but everyone has the potential to BE special. . . eventually . . .

[Saulus]

The level cap has been loosened without announcement of such, it should be more relaxed now. Specific details will not be posted.