Leveling Caps Suggestion/rant

[The Red Mage]

Feb 4, 2014 15:45:48 GMT -5 Lumnakar said:

Feb 4, 2014 15:26:24 GMT -5 Yaldabaoth said:

... played here since 2009 ...

What a newbie...

Oh wait, I've never had an epic either. Let's be friends. Best friends!

On and off since rebirth. No epics. Mostly my fault, though. So many characters.

[Dismus]

It took me 4 years post rebirth to get my first epic. With only focusing on one pc for 3 years of that and it wasn't even that pc that got epic. The rate now is so much better and I will never ever complain about it.

[SOC_Tessa]

Feb 4, 2014 12:04:21 GMT -5 ThayanKnight said:

-Have a weekly maximum of DM XP. This would keep a nice balance. If you do a lot of quests, your fairy XP would reduce so that you can earn the same amounts through both avenues rather than them stacking so the ones who are in every quest don't rocket up.

-After meeting the level cap on hunting xp, all enemies that would normally give xp, give 1 xp just to have some gain, no matter how small.

I support both these trains of thought. I love quests, even just purely from the angle that you get to do something unique from the normal scripted dungeons and for story involvement, but it can be abused by hopping on the quest train constantly and gaining very quickly in addition to the fairy ticks. I like the proposal for making them a quicker alternate path than a boost.

Some sort of hunting incentive would be welcomed, if only to encourage and create more excuses to go do things instead of sit around the square. Maybe as Thayan suggests, a small amount like 1 xp per kill and capping it to the same auto fairy limit per day would ensure it doesn't get abused.

----

Those things aside, I've found levelling much more "faster" when you focus more about your character growth than achieving "level X". Might be a personal thing, but I've several characters and the higher level ones aren't there because I ground 300 fairy xp daily for five hours, but because I had fun playing them and all the XP gains were happening in the background without me noticing. There are ways to be involved that aren't level dependent.

[Vincent07]

When we put the server together, and I originally set the XP caps, they started at level 7.  The hard cap fell in at 13, and from that point on, there was ZERO XP gained from killing creatures.  It was all from DM quest events.  There was no auto faery.  Furthermore, passing level 20 required a DM run event that should have been sort of the culmination of your PCs journey to that point.  On occasion those events ended in a permanent death.  We set the system up in this way with the full expectation of a slow leveling curve.  Ideally going 3-20 would take 2-3 years time.

Obviously that has all changed over the years.  We revised the caps, allowed huntable XP beyond level 13, and have since revised yet again to allow more.  We added in the auto faery script, something we swore we would NEVER do, to compensate for players on when DMs were not, so XP gain was more uniform.  

But as it has been since the beginning, our system is reliant on DM activity and players getting involved in DM run events for progression. (Both in terms of XP gain and storyline.)  Under the current system, assuming you get all the huntable XP you can, it will take around 900 days worth of faery ticks to go from 3-20, as a non-ECL.  Given good DM activity, I've seen people shoot up to the 20 cap in 6-8 months.  Furthermore, as a general rule, we don't approve ascensions until a PC has existed for 8-12 months at LEAST.  This is to give time to develop a story, personality, friendships etc.   Time to impact the world.

The current system of 7k/level allows for a nice gradual curve up from 3-30, with a sanity check before epic levels are reached.  CD is a slower progression server, it always has been, and I have no further plans to speed it up beyond what it has been set to at present.  

[Masque]

Maybe this is off the mark but the main things I took from the initial post is the lack of perceived progression that is being blamed on the experience cap. My response may be controversial but I often see people attributing lack of progress to the rate upon which there character can grow in experience when it is actually the contributing factors that are causing the stagnation.

In this case - lack of people to roleplay with and lack of events to get involved in coupled with dungeons that may be above what your optimization level can effectively deal with can often lead to perceptions the server is against you. These are not very easily measured nor is there a an easy remedy for this.

To take an example I play this game to tell stories and play a hero or villain in a fairy-esque tale setting with goblins and dragons. Now if my character is engaged with these activities and these stories are tailored to his capabilities I am entertained. It doesn't really matter if you're level 3 or if you're level 40 because the stories will scale appropriately.

The issue on a PW with this however is that

A) Your personal preference may not be to play the struggling hero surviving by his wits and getting excited over a +1 longsword in this case a slow levelling cap frustrates people. On the other hand some people absolutely love this aspect and get bored at the higher levels and on the uhh third hand some people like both.

B) The story may not be aimed at your level range and so you are unable to contribute meaningfully towards it you are essentially relegated to the role of bag carrier in someone else's epic tale. Now the slow levelling cap will mean you're unable to get to a point where you can contribute for a long time and so get bored with this. This usually causes resentment and is a great cause of the new/old divide that can spring up on servers.

This is really an issue unique to PWs and isn't present in the traditional PnP campaign where the party is usually all of equal level (or there about) so it is understandable DMs struggle with mixed parties to an extent as the DnD ruleset simply never took the idea really into account.

Being a higher level wouldn't necessarily facilitate a solution to the primary issues you're having and believe me I do sympathise I have seen a lot of new players go through this.

My genuine advice would be to try and stick with it because the longer you play here the more people you will get to know and the more doors that will eventually open for roleplay.

[Yaldabaoth]

Feb 4, 2014 15:45:48 GMT -5 Lumnakar said:

Feb 4, 2014 15:26:24 GMT -5 Yaldabaoth said:

... played here since 2009 ...

What a newbie...

Oh wait, I've never had an epic either. Let's be friends. Best friends!

I...I thought we were? 

[Ebola Lola]

Thanks everyone for your input, I just wanted to know if there were options on changing the caps and what not. I would just like to feel like ive achieved something once in awhile with out having to rely on others all the time thats all.

[Not Batman]

Feb 4, 2014 18:15:43 GMT -5 Vincent07 said:

 CD is a slower progression server, it always has been, and I have no further plans to speed it up beyond what it has been set to at present.  

And with that put in mind, of all of the RP focused servers that I have played on, CD is a nice middle grade. Longest I've seen was Deepingdale Moonsea where it took me bloody like eight months to hit level 15, you can hit 20 in that time if you're lucky here. Roleplay servers generally are a nice bit slower than most servers, universally. Prisoners of the Mist was the worst system I'd seen, due in part mostly to punishing you for grinding, reducing your exp if you killed too many mobs. Looking at the other options, CD is pretty generous

[Edge]

Feb 4, 2014 16:17:24 GMT -5 Dismus said:

It took me 4 years post rebirth to get my first epic. With only focusing on one pc for 3 years of that and it wasn't even that pc that got epic. The rate now is so much better and I will never ever complain about it.

Know this feeling. I've got two or three floating in the mid-teens but Kestal is my only Epic, and only just barely.

[Fire Wraith]

I won't rehash what others have said, but should just add that in my personal viewpoint, levels really aren't the important thing - the story, and the character, are what matters.  That said, levels should reflect/reward participation and investment, and reflect character development.  I want everyone to be able to feel they can adequately participate without having to spend months and months, but I also want people who've been around for months/years to feel like the time investment means something.

What I don't want to see is lots of mindless xp grinding while the character/story gets ignored.  CD isn't meant to be a server where you power-level up to the level cap, and only then start actually playing the 'real' game.

I do sometimes feel like our current level cap is too high, and the gap in characters is too big between the initial participation threshold, and the upper ranges of epics.  This cuts both ways though - I find myself wanting to look for an excuse to delevel my level-capped main character, because she's too powerful to participate in most things without having to constantly find excuses for her to pull her punches.  That said, I think we've made a reasonable compromise in where the level cap lies, and how fast people can move to get there.  

Some will certainly level faster than others, but let me assure you, leveling is not a race - it's about what you do along the way.  The fun I've had with Eve isn't about the fact that she's level 30, it's all the stories and interactions she's had along the way, and hopefully will continue to have even though she's not going any further levelwise.  She'd be just as much fun if she lost ten levels tomorrow (possibly even more so, just because I feel like I'd have more opportunity to participate, and more incentive to do so).

[Garage Trashcan]

Since everyone else has said what needs to be said, I'll just throw some suggestions out there:

I've been in your place of being on 6-15 hours a day at times. It doesn't help. It drains you and makes you become obsessed with leveling (or you already were, and this is why you're doing it). It's how I forced one of my characters into epic levels after I'd pretty much long stopped playing him, because I felt he "deserved" it. It makes you bitter, depressed, and exhausted doing this. So here's my tips.

Don't get on if there's nothing to do. If you check the server and only see 3 (or even 15 people) people on, none of whom you interact with regularly, don't get on. Yes, sure, you're missing XP, but it'll be XP you forced down your own throat and not actually EARNED. If you're involved in great RP, you're not even going to notice the XP ticking in your chatbox. If you feel you'll be bored, you're just digging yourself into a deeper hole. Don't get on if you think it'll just be a snorefest. It's why when I'm on, I'm usually just OOC in tells because I'm either not motivated to RP at the time, or there's just nothing else to do. Read a book, stream Anime/TV, just don't force yourself to play because you want to "catch up" to everyone else. Catch-Up syndrome destroys you.

If you really want a faster leveling experience, take a look at Sigil: Planar Legends. I've looked at it and, personally, it's not my taste (in part because I'm so used to CD's system, I don't feel like changing). SPL has no caps until level 20, which you can reach in a few weeks of playing (and SURPRISE: People complain THIS is too slow). No one will ever be happy. I'm good friends with Raahnar and he's got a good head on his shoulders. He's done a good job with building the server back up. There are people here who play at both servers and a number of people who used to play here play there, and vice versa. You'll likely find a very similar community of people.

But most of all, focus on the STORY of your character, not the numbers on your character sheet. I've had a lot of interesting characters who I never bothered leveling because by god were they boring to RP for whatever reason. Play what you find fun. Play when you'll find fun. Don't turn playing into a job or a chore and you'll be much happier with yourself and your experience here.

[The Red Mage]

+1

[ThayanKnight]

Feb 5, 2014 1:55:52 GMT -5 Fire Wraith said:

I find myself wanting to look for an excuse to delevel my level-capped main character, because she's too powerful to participate in most things without having to constantly find excuses for her to pull her punches.

I certainly don't have any character's at the level cap, however I can understand the feeling. I worked (obviously not as long as some others) to get my one epic there and now that he is, he's not nearly as entertaining.

[DubiousScroll]

You kids and your not leveling fast enough.  In my day it took you a year and a half to reach epic levels and you LIKED IT.  

...In the snow, uphill, or something.

[Dismus]

Feb 6, 2014 1:51:31 GMT -5 DubiousScroll said:

You kids and your not leveling fast enough.  In my day it took you a year and a half to reach epic levels and you LIKED IT.  

...In the snow, uphill, or something.

If you where lucky.