I would suggest next time to put more food in containers to reduce lag, but it otherwise seemed like a great event.

I have to say, after trying to get back into this game again, I also find the long grind very discouraging. I'm not sure how I had so much patience back in the day. Even getting into the 60's for a skill is excruciatingly slow, not to mention there's more than 100 levels to go after that. Maybe if the skills capped at 100 I'd be okay with it, but this is too much. I have played many games with hard grinds such as Wurm, but I wouldn't hesitate to say Planeshift might be one of the grindiest.

I understand the intention might be to make capped skills rare, but that's disappointing for people who want to finish their characters, and not feel like the cup is left half full if you know what I mean. All of the important fights are done via roleplay anyway, where winning is not only unimportant, but determined by the story and imagination. It's for this reason I miss the days when the caps were lower. It meant less time invested in grinding, and an overall simpler (and fun) leveling experience. But now I think the game has become bloated with grinding, especially for combat which seems to be nearly impossible to level high without devoting months of time doing lots of clicking, which can even be physically harmful. Some skills like miscellaneous crafting skills might not even be useful enough to grind. So not only does the grind deter players, but it prevents you from experiencing certain content and testing it. Something you should not want as an alpha game developer if you want new players to stick around, especially with how few players there are right now. And I would rather have an easier game to get into than have more time to level, because even if you had maxed all of the skills you want, you can still settle down and roleplay, finish all the quests, make a new character, or start a business which are all probably more interesting anyway.

This is because the grind is one of the least interesting parts of an MMORPG. Planeshift's forte is quests, exploration, and roleplaying in my opinion. So why is there so much emphasize on grinding? You should be able to sell to players, explore most the content, and fight tough enemies without having to pass a long grind first. And with how slow the leveling is, this also means that old players are going out and doing all of those things successfully, not you. It rewards the old players while giving the new a lot of trouble. It use to not be this way before, and all you needed was a good weapon, but as of the combat update it seems to be much more of a problem.

If it wasn't for the lore and roleplaying in this game, I would have quit long ago. I'm not young anymore, and I don't have the time to waste auto-attacking training dummies all day, and I imagine the same goes for most of you other players. I personally have tried introducing several people to this game, and they all quit. Do you know why? It was because of the grind, and that sucks, especially since they were interested in the game but the grind got in the way from what they wanted to do. It's stressful, both mentally and physically. And as we enter an age of games that are more streamlined and less 'hardcore', I fear that Planeshift will fade from disinterest with the coming generation of gamers if this state of the game persists, so I speak for a lot of gamers when I'm saying this. There's nothing wrong with a hard MMORPG though, don't get me wrong, but there's no difficulty involved leveling a skill high in this game. It's easy but is lots of time you're willing to do the same thing, and it's not just that I don't have enough time, it's also not fun to do in the first place. Gaming is my hobby because I want to enjoy doing something interactive in my spare time, not work more, which is basically all I'm trying to say. 

I implore you developers to reduce the amount of time training takes. I like Planeshift a lot, and I have a lot of fond memories with it, but I don't know if I can enjoy it much longer with how much of a boring timesink it has become. However, if that timesink were more interesting things, that'd be great. But unfortunately, it's the skill grinding I am talking about. We are just testers after all, and the game is not released yet. So do not be afraid to change the experience rate, we are testers and we are giving you feedback, so this is exactly something you should be tinkering with.

Some other ideas I have are for quests to level certain skills (possibly repeatable), increasing skills increases their associated attribute, or the use of training weapons that are fast but very weak. Also, the cap for skills could be lowered, but in turn each level would be more important than before.

I am aware of this, I first played Planeshift back in 2006.

Now good luck with your issue.

Well with all those complaints, I hope the Planeshift team does something to address this...

The skill counts need to be optimized if they hope to create a professional game.

It does...

Sounds like a perfectly balanced curse to me, then.

Quote from: Zoomzoom on July 28, 2012, 08:52:26 pm

EDIT: The thread "Winch access... The Never Ending Frustration" is a good example of others who dislike having to quest. It should be optional.

This one I would let slide as everyone is told up front it's not for every citizen. It's actually only for merchants, so any of us getting in there is pretty good. But having merchants sell stuff that can only be gotten in the winch is and things like the mount quest are harsh. There should be places to get them outside of them. Not everyone even has an RP reason to go to or be in the winch.

They could make it so you have to bribe the guard each time to enter.

One of the last times I played Planeshift, I read that the cap for Attributes was raised from a nice and simple 100 to an irritating 300 or so (this number could have been changed since I last played).

Why such a large number? First of all, people were already able to farm Ubernauts, and they were actually provided them with a buff? Uncalled for, attributes were fine as it is. If players are going to be so powerful, then there will also be no motivation for them to work together.

Secondly, the cap for Attributes in most RPG's has always been a nice 100, only buffs ever pushing it further. If the developers believe 100 is really not enough, then at least make attributes more powerful and more expensive rather than lazily increasing it by a few hundred. I and other players don't want to travel across the world numerous times searching for trainers, paying untold hundreds of thousands of tria we grinded for, just to max our attributes. Please leave such tedious things for the Korean MMO's.

I don't know what the limit for skills are, but I hope they are all 100, or else there is no balance. Some skills wouls be longer to train than others! And again...the number differentiation just gives me an OCD attack.

And personally, I believe attributes should be increased by performing tasks, rather than paying a trainer (or maybe even both)...but that's a suggestion for another time.

Does anyone else feel the same way?