My struggle with XP lockdown

[Garage Trashcan]

This always comes up every so often, and there's an important point to elaborate on that Edge briefly mentioned.

This has not always been how XP progression has worked. In 15+ years of server history, we've gone through baker's dozen iterations of the implementation. How fast you earn XP, how much, how high you can level without it, etc. This has all been tried, tested, tried again, altered, tweaked, and has become the best "balance" of how do do things, if imperfect, but it's how it's preferred to be done by the staff here. At the end of the day, it's not for everyone.

And this was all before we had an incredibly active DM staff. We had to implement ways for multiple events to be run simultaneously in a smooth way because there was literally not enough room on the calendar anymore. New events have to get scheduled 6+ weeks out sometimes. The daily RPXP is supposed to be "supplemental" with DM events being the "primary" source of XP, but in practice this is actually the opposite and, as an old fart, I think it should actually be slower. The New Player Race to 20 breeds burnout IMO and, once you're 20, there's no new content for you to do.

Take your time and enjoy the ride.

[sneakyone]

Kudos to Philosophy and Aliana, very interesting points and ideas.

Personally I sort of like the idea of longer perioid buffer for XP, at least for me time goes so fast that week isn't too long at all. However for me it's not just about getting xp, like I said I kinda dislike getting it for free. When I log in I sort of like to have even a vague plan what to do if there's no instant interesting RP happening. Maybe that's just my weakness but I like to do stuff and have challenges. If there was a weekly cap on XP and maybe weekly resetting bounties, I'd trade my free ticks into that option immediately. However I doubt that kind of option is possible?

[The Red Mage]

Weekly caps or resetting bounties are counter intuitive to creating roleplay to me. I'd rather people be on doing little to nothing everyday and be available than grind a weekly once a week or twice a week.

This server may not be set up to reward player initiative very well or player created content, but at the same time, if you're not worried about the reward, or want to be rewarded for other things, then perhaps a perspective change?

If you log in, take initiative to create the RP atmosphere and opportunity you'd like to see and would like to get rewarded for, then the same ticks will do just that for you.

[Wolfgar]

Week is way too long time period, I fully agree on that. 2 or 3 day buffer now that sounds actually great. Same progress speed we have now and the system I enjoy but without the stress of having to get to the cap daily, juggling characters and feeling guilty when I miss it. And yes I absolutely know I shouldn't worry that much about it but tell that to my weird brain. With like three day buffer I could take a day to focus on one character without worry I'm missing on another and focus on them next day whithout creating the "long pauses" that had been main argument against weekly xp. Or you can keep getting your daily 300 as you're used to.

Question of course is how hard would it be to script something like you get 300rpxp daily and they stack up to the cap of X but with Fox magic everything is probably possible. That is of course if admins might like the idea enough to consider it.

[Nokteronoth]

I would like to note, off hand, that we keep very good track of all events run, all XP handed out, who signs up for events, who participates, and who is quested most often. There are spreadsheets upon spreadsheets upon spreadsheets of data on every little thing, and we try to spread out questing and actively discourage people 'hogging' quest spots most often, especially with locked rosters.

~BR

[Edge]

Yep. It's why in many quest sign-ups you'll see the DM say something like "I reserve the right to alt players who are highly active" - this means removing players who are in a lot of other events from the sign-up list and putting them in a backup/alternate (thus "alt") slot, rather than wherever they would be put under the normal first-come first-serve signup system.

Simple solution.  Ignore the numbers.

[Aliana]

Dec 22, 2021 21:11:53 GMT -5 sornduskryn said:

Simple solution.  Ignore the numbers.

How droll. Perhaps there should be a hard mode progression for players that find numbers to be an unwelcome distraction from their more rarefied immersion preferences. Then we may cease to debate whether is is a good thing to be rewarded with experience or if the correct approach is the stoic indifference of a Marcus Aurelius.

More in response to Belladonna; I can understand that from the perspective of the admin staff that it may be assumed that players will remain for 3 or 4 years to 'get there in the end' or 'savour the journey' when it comes to progressing multiple characters but as someone that finds exploring different backgrounds, dispositions and philosophies there is a very tangible feeling that i'm playing the server wrong when I have to spend 9 hours a day to keep progression within the 2 year box.

[The Red Mage]

Dec 22, 2021 21:42:52 GMT -5 Aliana said:

Dec 22, 2021 21:11:53 GMT -5 sornduskryn said:

Simple solution.  Ignore the numbers.

How droll. Perhaps there should be a hard mode progression for players that find numbers to be an unwelcome distraction from their more rarefied immersion preferences. Then we may cease to debate whether is is a good thing to be rewarded with experience or if the correct approach is the stoic indifference of a Marcus Aurelius.

More in response to Belladonna; I can understand that from the perspective of the admin staff that it may be assumed that players will remain for 3 or 4 years to 'get there in the end' or 'savour the journey' when it comes to progressing multiple characters but as someone that finds exploring different backgrounds, dispositions and philosophies there is a very tangible feeling that i'm playing the server wrong when I have to spend 9 hours a day to keep progression within the 2 year box.

As someone with dozens and dozens of characters, I can sympathize with this. The last part. The best advice I can have is enjoy your characters and your time. Please don't feel compelled to cap every character or even one character every day. With this system, progress is inevitable if you put in the time. And it'll always be there waiting on you, at least, in tic-form if you can't make events. I've retired four epics now since 2019, and I've still two in my vault and lots of higher teens. It'll come. But please, enjoy yourself, and do explore those different backgrounds and narratives if that's what drives you to make compelling stories for others to share in. It'll come--and if it doesn't, epics aren't a big deal anyway. As others have said, the real meat and potatoes of the server is from levels 13-19ish. 

[Edge]

Dec 22, 2021 21:42:52 GMT -5 Aliana said:

More in response to Belladonna; I can understand that from the perspective of the admin staff that it may be assumed that players will remain for 3 or 4 years to 'get there in the end' or 'savour the journey' when it comes to progressing multiple characters but as someone that finds exploring different backgrounds, dispositions and philosophies there is a very tangible feeling that i'm playing the server wrong when I have to spend 9 hours a day to keep progression within the 2 year box.

As someone who likewise plays a ton of characters, that sounds about right. 2-4 years to get a character from creation to level 20, playing them most of the time with a few other characters interspersed. Hells, I've been here since the server was started and I still don't have a single level 30, and only a small handful of epics.

Obviously goes much faster if you play solely one PC or prioritize one until they hit epic or some other cap of choice before playing another. If you're wanting to hit 30 in 2 years, though, that's basically the only way to do it.

[vorpalspork]

Just one comment since I noticed that it is tracked who signs up for and attends events. Just hope it isn't used as some sort of metric about how active or involved someone is. I would attend events, but they are not held in my time zone. Doesn't mean I'm not trying to be active and involved. A side note to this is that for the minority of odd time zone players who never get RP xp from events, the system makes progress even slower. However, I don't think it's possible to make a system that works perfectly equally for everyone, so not suggesting any changes. Seems clear that you want it to take years to hit max level, and this system does that.

[Fire Wraith]

The thing to keep in mind, too, as has been stated here, CD isn't a server where you need to be level 30 to tell your character's story. If anything, a lot of the action tends to focus on lower levels, and the level 30s are often something of an afterthought only called in for the most dire of circumstances. While we're working to address that, the point is more to say that oftentimes level 30 is the end, rather than the beginning, of many characters' stories. Your story is told over the course of your level progression, rather than occuring only at the maximum level (which is the case on many servers).

For instance, Edge has played any number of characters over the past decade and a half, none of whom have reached level 30, yet he's still had some amazing and engaged storylines and character experiences/participation. Level 30 wouldn't have made things any different for any of those characters. No one is going to be threatening to PVP you if you're not rushing through levels. And while there are a few things that are level limited, they're set that way to ensure that people still have interesting/rewarding content to run with dungeons, and don't just wind up immediately decked out in the best gear.

Dec 22, 2021 23:40:29 GMT -5 vorpalspork said:

Just one comment since I noticed that it is tracked who signs up for and attends events. Just hope it isn't used as some sort of metric about how active or involved someone is. I would attend events, but they are not held in my time zone. Doesn't mean I'm not trying to be active and involved. A side note to this is that for the minority of odd time zone players who never get RP xp from events, the system makes progress even slower. However, I don't think it's possible to make a system that works perfectly equally for everyone, so not suggesting any changes. Seems clear that you want it to take years to hit max level, and this system does that.

To remark on this - no, we don't punish people for it. That's partly why we have systems in place to make sure you're not completely SOL if you're playing from an unusual time zone (and are working to recruit and train up worldwide DMs as best we can). About the only thing we'd really ask is to demonstrate character roleplay and growth for eventual advancement, and that can be done via forum and IC actions, too, even if it's not as immediately rewarding. Furthermore, even participation isn't some guarantee that someone roleplays well either - we've had cases where a player would sign/show up, and then be an absolute bump on the log remaining silent throughout the entire quest. That's not ideal, and we'd probably raise eyebrows if that's all we saw from someone, etc.

[Nokteronoth]

Our tracking XP and the like is also part of making sure that DMs don't show particular favoritism to any player or group of players, either in the way of XP or items.

~BR

To roleplay out situations, emotional journies and histories and so on through conversations, discoveries, and quests(When they happen) is really what this whole thing is about, if the numbers are focused on the whole experience is downgraded as a result.

And really that's what I should've said, but eh.  I realize not everyone plays that way.

[forsetis]

Just an idea here. But I think it would be nice if after the tik hit 300, it switched from 15xp, to 1xp. That way if you're on and playing, you still experience forward progression for your roleplay/activity.