Concerning Character Wipes After Beta

[GodBeastX]

What we will be doing is an automated cleanup that will refresh inventories of players leaving them similar to a starting out character. The fast coin acquiring was due to unbalancing of the vendors with their buying rate. Allowing people to get 2000 coins frequently for sells. This is being corrected and players should get the value for items we intended soon.

Also being added is an exp moderation script. The functionality will be based on what I call an experience curve system. I don't want to go into too much detail, but suffice it to say those grinding their eyes out will get much less experience than those who take their time to level. We feel this is the best course of action since we only want to crack down on those bending the rules. Being in a party with someone who has lower experience gain will not affect your personal experience gain. One person in the party might get 120 while another might get 10. We are still deciding on how low and high we want the thresholds to be.

However, DM's will still be watching the activity on the server and this isn't a green light to go farm dungeons.

Another issue being addressed is the green item drop rate. I did extensive testing and calculations and I have it set -way- below the intended drop rate. This will also be corrected. Green items were meant to be dropped about 1 out of 50 kills on general creatures and sell for 100 - 500 coins. Currently, I estimate they are dropped at about 1 out of 500 kills and 1 out of 10000 for a green ring which explains why no one found one.

The issue being with this is green items aren't planned to be the best drops and the other items, blue, red will be in ratio to the green. If greens are 1 out of 10000 reds would quite literally wind up 1 out of 1000000 or worse

I also will be adding more properties to the green sets. While the average "power" of a green item will remain the same, some with obviously lower quality will drop.

So to summarize, rebalancing, and treasure wipe. I apologize to those who did not exploit that it has to be this way, but sorting through players would be a very very daunting task.

[Revil]

I think wiping inventories and resetting the amount of gold, but letting people keep their levels is a fair way to do it. I mean it's called a beta for a reason and we all knew this was a possibility from the start.

[Clutch]

Never said you didn't get your gold honestly Earind, but if you make 27.000 within 3 days because the loot/merchants are not finetuned or bugged then it's all the reason there is for a item/gold wipe.

[Maxx Powers]

Personally, i am all for a wipe. Dragoncleric, i understand where you're coming from, but restarting Valen shouldn't be such a big ordeal. But thats not my point.

I think we all agree that any exp gained by quest rewards, boss battles, and dm-given rewards should be unlimited. What makes farming/grinding so bad is the people that just beat up the small stuff constantly.

Perhaps there should be a daily exp limit on normal enemies. This limit should ONLY apply to random encounters that are not quest-specific. Maybe a cap of one-half the experience to the next level, or maybe a one-level-per-day rule.

Under this system, someone could go adventuring for a bit and gain fighting experience up to that limit and do a quest or two to get additional rewards from the DM's for the maximum experience-per-day, in any order. Yes, it would still be possible to get to level 20 without doing quests, but people that did that would be greatly discouraged.

[GodBeastX]

We don't want to punish anyone for our mistakes, however, it's hard to ignore a level 7 character with 30,000 coins. I'm sorry it's viewed as punishment, but our hands become tied at that point since it's way above our expectations.

There's also been methods of acquiring items that were not intended to be acquired. We're looking into this as well. Players should not have a +4 or +5 item unless DM given from quests or otherwise. You won't find them in any drop table and if they were on a merchant it is an oversight. +4 and +5 is intended to be rewarded as the server progresses.

[Paerin]

From my perspective a wipe would be appropriate. The point of a Beta is to detect imbalances and correct them. So far we are doing that rather admirably.

The next step would be to wipe everything and start again clean with the aforementioned imbalance corrections in place.

Granted, I have only been playing casually (although I can sometimes be a bit of a power gamer) and am only level 4 currently. However, even if I were level 20 already I would want a wipe all the same.

The only mistake you made in this situation was initially saying there was a chance there may be no wipe. Those of us who are interested in roleplay experience and have experience with beta testing should not be opposed to a character wipe.

While I certainly feel for those who are honestly caught up in this, and have spent 10 hours a day grinding exp. The fact of the matter is that you shouldn't have been grinding anyway (server rules), and because you found the bugs and imbalances you have provided a better play environment for everyone.... after a wipe.

IMHO if you only wiped gold and items you aren't really accomplishing anything. Gold and items come and go, but levels are obtained by having those items.

Example: The person who bought +5 Plate was probably able to cut through everything currently in the game without taking damage, allowing them to gain more experience at a quicker rate. The item/gold exploit enabled the levels that you don't want to strip...

Once the server comes back up after the item/gold wipe. This person will be in a much better position to simply go kill things again and re-amass their items because they have the benefit of superior levels from the outset.

Enough of that.

[Corran]

There is a lot to say about wiping everything and starting with a clean slate once the beta has finished. People who start the game right after the beta period might feel penalized for not playing the beta (and thus be much lower level than others) and might therefor decide not to play at all.

The difference of course is that PWs are a much more fluid thing. There is no release date as such and there won't be hordes of players all starting at the same day, so this is likely to be less of a problem.

I do agree with players that you can't 'restart' a character. If there would be a wipe the only thing to do would be to start a new character. But perhaps that's not so bad as you might think; I would assume the beta's going to be here for quite a while yet. When the wipe comes the characters could be around 20th level and ready for retirement anyway.

I fully agree about wiping money and items at the very least; due to all kinds of bugs (such as the +5 full plate I noticed) that would be a good idea indeed.

[Earind]

Example: The person who bought +5 Plate was probably able to cut through everything currently in the game without taking damage, allowing them to gain more experience at a quicker rate. The item/gold exploit enabled the levels that you don't want to strip...

That is simply not true.

My druid has an AC of 28 without any kind of magical items which already renders him unhittable. Using only +1 items it will jump to 32 and with the +3 bracers to 34. I don't use the full plate mail.

Loot imbalances have not had any detectable impact on the level progression of my char.

[GodBeastX]

While I tend to agree Paerin, once the experience system is in, those who did spend 10 hours a day grinding will find that their exp gains in the future will be muuuch worse, while yours will be easier and easier.

Before release we discussed this a great deal with experience and the wide open exp gain was a test case to see how players would react to it more than an oversight. If players refrained from heavy grinding then an exp system would not be required to moderate gains.

The discussion followed the concept that we wanted to allow players who spent most the time interacting with the world and making an impact with their character, whether obvious or not, not to have to worry about killing and still progress. I know that if I spend 4 weeks without killing because I was roleplaying, I'd still like to progress. So this system is meant to allow players who fall behind the "curve" too far to be able to progress with slightly more ease.

On the same note, some people love to kill kill kill kill. It's a fact of life. Even blood thirsty marauders are a part of IC player. It isn't even against the rules for people to want to be in a dungeon more frequently than the average player (Constantly is though). However, we don't want these players to substantially outgrow the levels of everyone else. With this system, they are still able to outlevel others, and become stronger, but with the system in place they will face a harder pace than the ones who take their time.

Another benefit of this system is it's easier for us, as DMs, to track the rate of Experience gain for characters. If someone has a gain percent much below the threshhold, we know their rate of killing and know they have been doing such in a great excess of intent for dungeons. We can then take action to deal with the player, whether it's a simple matter to correct or not depends on that player. However, it also means we don't have to worry about those power grinders reaching level 20 and saturating the server before we even realize what they have done.

So the entire system is for the benefit of everyone in the end.

[Dragoncleric]

*sighs*
IPerhaps this thread should just be closed.
We're all gettgin heated about this subject.
Some of us dearly love our current characters..others grind...others suck up and agree with someone else...others view things differently.
Bugger all.

This is the problem with having an 'open' beta.
Just do whatever. I'm tired of seeing arguments over this and no one here will be statisfied with anything. Just as one side is causing the problem, you can't make everyone happy.

So I just want to say now, thank you players. We really know how to fudge things up eh? ^_^

[Grigori]

Ok... I've read the entire thread and have a few things to say to all of you, and please, don't take any of this personally, I'm just going to be up front about a few things.

First of all, I've beta tested over a dozen games. I've been in 5 closed betas (invite only) and am pretty much familiar with almost every online game out there. Never, in over a dozen games, have I been able to keep my character from beta. Never. I may have gotten a small experience gift, or special item, or first crack at reserving names after the beta, but there is ALWAYS a character wipe after a beta test is complete to allow for a balance across the server. So for those of you worried that you are going to lose all that you worked for... you worked for ensuring that this server had a good beta test and got all the kinks worked out before going 'live'. That should be reward enough knowing you did a job well done.

Secondly, if you feel this is going to harm your character's relationships, then to me it sounds like you are not willing to put forth the effort to retain those relationships after beta is over. You make the exact same character, you get back in the game, you meet up with the exact same friends, and you move on as if nothing happened. You are the same people, the same characters, you are simply a few levels lower than you were before and aren't wearing the same gear. What is the problem? I've watched several players who were WAY too high for the foothills go through and completely wipe out all the enemies in that area 'just because they could' without any sort of consideration for those of us that were of lower level, grouped, and roleplaying. I even tried to talk to a few of these people and from one of them I got the reply, 'What? Enlgish? No Sorry...'. I'm sorry if anyone is offended by this, but if you don't speak English well enough to interact with other players, what in the nine hells are you doing on a ROLEPLAYING server??? I am sorry but that is just assenine. Don't try and use the MMORPG tactic of 'no english' as an excuse to ruin another player's fun while you amass personal fortunes and experience.

Lastly, I tested the wealth bugs. I sat at my computer for FIFTEEN MINUTES and amassed enough wealth to purchase the Capuut Mortuum (scythe worth over 120,000 gold), +1 Scale Mail, and several other magical items. If I was able to do this in the matter of a few minutes, imagine what someone else could have been doing over the course of a week... Think of the major server imbalance that would have caused? This wipe is for the better of the entire server and all players as a whole. Please look at this as a BETA TEST. This is a testing phase that ensures everyone will be on equal footing when it's time for the real storylines to be implemented and all of the areas to be released. If you look at things in the negative, you will always be in the dark. If you try and look at the positive, you will have a much better time with the world and will be less stressed out alltogether.

[GodBeastX]

Alright, I think my last post and Cleric's (and now Grigori's) about sums it up. It is a beta. We did mention before opening if loots were too crazy somehow, we'd be wiping them so everyone could expect it.

*Click*