PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: zanzibar on November 23, 2008, 12:55:07 pm
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The way I remember it, some people were upset that particular skills could be maxed out after a couple weeks of play. Maxed out characters were not entirely uncommon, although maxing out magic didn't mean as much back then as it does now because there was only one spell per way.
So leveling became harder, and more expensive. And still people would max out their characters - although fewer than before. And now it's even harder.
Am I remembering it right? Is this a good thing? Or a bad thing?
If playing the game means leveling your character, it's a good thing. But with everyone (well, not everyone, but a lot of people!) leveling their character all the time, doesn't that mean they aren't doing other things? When I think about what those other things are, I think of the different ways players interact and connect with one another. Helping each other out, exploring the game together, etc.
When you're distracted by leveling your character, are you less likely to help new players?
These are just my thoughts of right now.
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The way i see it is that becuase being maxed is something that almost everyone wants to be, and becuase getting the levels is so time consuming that people dont bother spending time Role Playing and helping others, becuase they are so focused on maxing a skill.
Maybe if it became easier then people would level quickly and then have time for other stuff
It takes 45 minutes of running to get from Oja to BD for strength training, some people run that distance just becuase of training, but others dont go becuase they cant be bothered.
SO in my opinion.. Leveling is good becuase it makes people travel around the world, BUT it can be bad when people focus on it to the exclusion of everything else.
[EDIT: Im not feeling too good so my post is just a random collection of jumbled up thoughts]
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We all want to be the red queen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Queen
People want to be the best so they train and train their skills, while others see that they are training so much and therefore they feel they must train even more if they want to be better than the first person who then sees this and feels they must step up their training in order to be better, who causes the other person to train harder who then causes......
I think you get my point.
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I basically stopped playing because it became too tedious to advance my character. Perhaps it was because I tried to train too many things but there was never enough money and a year later I was fighting the same gladiators/rogues because I could not kill anything stronger. Perhaps if I had acquired better weapons, the best I could make were around q150, I might have been able to fight other things but it got to the point that if I couldn't 1-hit kill them they did me. I suppose I should have spent more time training up my heavy armor but I had so many levels invested in light armor (80 or so) that it was hard to abandon it. The invested levels were also a factor against starting a new character, typically I like to advance a character as much as possible before advancing another but as I get older I have less time or inclination to do so.
As far as magic goesI never got too far because it seemed to me the only real way to level it was to cast pointless spell after pointless spell. For example, standing around casting rock armor repeatedly and never getting into a fight where it might do some good just so I can level brown way. There is far too much repetition in this game. Doing the same thing over and over should have diminishing returns as it does but there should be increasing returns for changing factors. For example metallurgy skill: the metals you can smelt at low levels ought to give practice at a base rate as now of one pp/successful smelting. When you advance to the point where you can smelt something new and you need much more practice to level smelting the new item ought to give significantly more practice than smelting the original. The way it works now it just takes longer and longer to advance anything. There does not seem to be much balance between how long it takes to learn anything and how much benefit it gives you.The difference between level 80 and level 81 in terms of ability is insignificant -- I defy you to notice it -- yet in terms of practice it is huge.
To answer the op's question, I believe it was made such a grind so more people would give up levelling in favor of role-playing. I may be mistaken but that is how I see it. Really the two should go together like peanut butter and jam.
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It should not matter how skilled you are, but how much fun you are getting from advancing. I believe that currently there are not enough competing activities and the main activity is solo fighting the mobs. It is the best way to advance.
IMO fighting needs to provide worse gains by making it less repeatable, while working in groups should provide better gains than working solo, because it produces less repetation and makes different activties more interesting.
Now, excuse me if i'm talking with generalities, but i'm not intending to create another lengthy post, like i and others did a lot before.
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We all want to be the red queen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Queen
People want to be the best so they train and train their skills, while others see that they are training so much and therefore they feel they must train even more if they want to be better than the first person who then sees this and feels they must step up their training in order to be better, who causes the other person to train harder who then causes......
I think you get my point.
Reading about the red queen's race, are you saying that PlaneShift is trying to "keep up" with the levellers?
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This is a testbed. More grinding means more testing, means more bugs found. PS is not a 'game' yet any more than a test rocket engine bolted to the floor for study can fly.
The grind will become less eventually.
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It should not matter how skilled you are, but how much fun you are getting from advancing.
Yes. Behold the fun I have in advancing!!! ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz
If it wasn't for the rare newb asking for help, then I would fall asleep mid grind - That is if my wrist doesn't strain first from training met.
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well I do enjoy finding bugs, a lot of time it makes my session if I can find something to report. Just today I found something to post on the tracker despite having said farewell to it :) looking at something else too. Of course my old bugs keep sending me email updates.
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Reading about the red queen's race, are you saying that PlaneShift is trying to "keep up" with the levellers?
More so that the people who spend all day long grinding away at levels when there are others things they could try out, simply for the fact of wanting to be the best, and in order to do so they feel they have to level more than the other guy, and that guy feels the same way. Therefore they level to be better than each other, and in the end, they stay the same.
PS, the game, does not necessarily revolve around 'the level grind' concept to me. Sure you can skill up various stats and abilities, but there is no set this lvl can't possibly hope to beat such and such level as other games like WoW have it set up to be. It's those players who "want to be the best" who do nothing but grind away all day long.
In time, as other aspects of the game develop, there will more than just the combat system as being one of the biggest parts of the game to be mostly developed. And even the combat system now still has many tweaks and updates to go before it is solid.
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I want to try out the new spells, but I don't think I'll ever be able to train magic enough.
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Sure you can skill up various stats and abilities, but there is no set this lvl can't possibly hope to beat such and such level as other games like WoW have it set up to be.
That's very odd... when was the last time you played planeshift?
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World of Warcraft is extremely easy to level in. PlaneShift, on the other hand, is even worse than most Asian grindfests that are released on the market when it comes to leveling.
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Sure you can skill up various stats and abilities, but there is no set this lvl can't possibly hope to beat such and such level as other games like WoW have it set up to be.
That's very odd... when was the last time you played planeshift?
As examples:
In WoW, a character level 10 will never beat a lvl 70 character. The combat mechanics are designed so that a mob that is over 10 levels to your own level is basically un-hittable, that is, no matter what you do using any ability, range or melee, physical damage or magic based, the attack will never land and all you get is a 'miss' in the combat log.
In PS, as it is designed to be, no character levels, just skills. Depending on surroundings and other factors, a person with a skill level of 1 in sword combat can still defeat another character with a sword skill of 9000, if that person is proficient in another type of combat skill.
Unbalanced game mechanics currently favor one type of combat based skill over others and those that train that skill typically dominate, but that is simply due to things being unfinished and unbalanced.
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Well, I have been around since February of this year, and I am nowhere near maxed out on anything.I was not around before a lot of the grinding stuff was added, but here are my thoughts on the current implementation:
I like the system in place for training. Find a trainer, train, practice, lather, rinse, repeat as desired. I do not like systems where you can simply respec your character and have them be awesome with a hammer, after only using a sword for the last 30 levels. I don't really know how I feel about the whole progression points thing, as the best way to gain them are from fighting, and after a month or two, you have more pps than you will even use.
As to the training itself... it is boring and tedious at best... and painful and costly at worst. I can finally smelt plat, which is nice, and is one of the few skills that will pay for itself rather quickly. However, my wrist hurt quite a lot after the week spent gaining the last 20 levels required to do this task. I tried stopping when I could smelt gold, but nobody was mining gold regularly, and so it wasn't helping me earn trias at that point. So I borrowed trias from a friend, learned to smelt plat, and was able to repay the loan quicklly as there are always people at the plat mine. *** side note, I am continuing to train plat and noticed that I only get practice points when I melt the ore, not when I cast the ingots... but I still get practice for both melting and casting steel ingots... I have to assume this is a bug and will be checking the bug tracker later today ***
I have yet to see a single level of magic be able to recoup the cost of training it. I agree with prolix here, the benefits are so limited that unless you recite a low level spell countless times to progress, you are not likely to do anything significant.
I have also taken up crafting of weapons... which again... has yet to recoup the cost of even a single level. Nobody wants to buy the lower quality weapons, but this takes the longest to train of anything I have tried to date. I end up giving away most of my weapons to new players just to give practicing my skills in crafting a little meaning. If i have to buy steel ingots, usually costs around 1k trias for 1 steel stock. A sabre requires 1.2 steel stock to make... but I can only sell the finished product to a NPC for 168 trias... I cannot even recoup the cost of materials, let along training this way. The last level I gained in sword making (lvl 14, so relatively low level) took me an hour and a half to train. I set vlc to always on top and watched a movie while mindlessly clicking the anvil to train. I do not know if this is a chicken and egg problem, but nobody engaged me in conversation for that time either. I kept and eye on my main tab every time i gained some pps, and would have been grateful for some conversation to break up the monotony...
As to travel, I couldn't agree more that it is long boring and tedious... and does not allow someone to chat... except maybe via tell, group, or guild chat areas. Unfortunately, every time I have tried to suggest speeding up of travel, in almost any way imaginable, I get told by other players that it is a settings killer or no. Devs have not really chimed in on these discussions, but questing takes an insane amount of time, as does training at higher levels because of the distances involved to fulfill the current demand.
I am not asking to be able to be the best <fill in the blank> in a few minutes of game time, but I do ask that as things progress, that there is more concern given for wear on the players wrist/mouse, and that training tasks are not so mundane and monotonous.
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I used to train a lot when I first started, but then I realized the grind sucked and the quests were crap, so I stopped. Plus, I got stuck on a quest because there was no effing way to figure it out by oneself. PS is definitely made by amateurs. Grueling grind not good. And I have a hard time believing the "grind to find bugs" thing. All this leveling makes people want to quit, not look for glitches.
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Thanks for your input. We are continually working to make the flow of the game better and to make the quests less "crap" (more than you can imagine). And I assure you the team is not solely made out of amateurs. Try to go for more constructive criticism though ;)
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It is such a jungle up there, very discouraging to do anything at all to be honest. Barely anyone knows anything at all. From one side you hear the grinding is there to find bugs and then you hear it is not and the team is trying to make everything more fun instead. Then you feel even more uncertain, because you hear some words on how it is in game currently.
You can't say how devs are doing, what is their plan and if they are amateurs or not. If they are trying to make the game fun right now, or in 2 years when some unfun testing affecting all the players will be over.
Although i'm 100% sure the game has to develop in a way to be fun, eg with constant attempts to balance all its features, I don't know if there is any point to tell about it, because devs may already know it, or simply don't agree, what leaves me comletly powerless, leaving the ame unfun for the years to come.
In effect i don't know if there is any point to post, unless you want to come into argument with someone like you or read some idiot completly misunderstanding you, who create even bigger fuss
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Well what kind of quests do you want to see?
In most other MMOs, quests fall into two or three categories with the first one always being "go kill 10 of something". I've seen games where "questing" and "horrible grind" are synonymous: Most quests will ask you to go kill 20 buttmonsters, with the next quest being to go collect 20 butts from buttmonsters.
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I used to train a lot when I first started, but then I realized the grind sucked and the quests were crap, so I stopped. Plus, I got stuck on a quest because there was no effing way to figure it out by oneself. PS is definitely made by amateurs. Grueling grind not good. And I have a hard time believing the "grind to find bugs" thing. All this leveling makes people want to quit, not look for glitches.
I think on test servers for other games, you grind less... mobs give 1,000 times the experience, etc.
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PlaneShift: Made by amateur Devs for amateur players. And a few immature ones as well. ;)
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In PS, as it is designed to be, no character levels, just skills. Depending on surroundings and other factors, a person with a skill level of 1 in sword combat can still defeat another character with a sword skill of 9000, if that person is proficient in another type of combat skill.
Hmmmm. A lvl 30 sword fighter vs a lvl 30 axe fighter. Wait a sec? A lvl 30 fighter vs a lvl 30 fighter?!?!?!? Believe it or not, there really isn't a difference between Character lvl and skill lvl; when I go to mine, I consider my character an X lvl miner, when I go to fight, I consider my character an X lvl fighter when using X weapon type.
Also, PS requires a short grind to complete some quests. (IE: crafting books - steel stock, lvl a combat skill to get X animal part)
As far as questing, It would be nice if there was some way to indicate that an NPC has a quest that you have NEVER done befor - I have done quite a few quests and now I find myself repeating a few and its hard to find new quest content when/if its added.
That active spell quest requirement thingy still dose sound neat though. \\o//
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First, I'll explain how I play, to give a perspective from my character, that will be different from that of a leveler for example: I try to find a place in Yliakum's society (basically, a trade). I quest a lot, for the fun of it (the quests are far from crap; I can see how they are evolving, and it's going to be great). And I RP constantly (meet people as you meet your townsfolk in RL, and see where it leads).
I do need to train skills to achieve that. Since my character creation main skill is not implemented, I have chosen to repair weapons, because I found that not many people do so. And I also keep practicing mining. I therefore grind rather slowly, not focusing on it for too long at a time. For example, I stop by a gold mine each time I travel near one and to a town; for the sake of grinding, I could just dig iron, as it is much faster for some reason. I did it once, as an OOC testing session.
By training slowly and intermittently, I don't find grinding boring and I think that the progress pace is rather good. Except for combat: I once gave an alto 30 levels of both sword and armor in 1 game session. But for other skills, I find it ok.That is because I don't spend my time only on training. Roughly, I alternate chatting, questing, mining and repairing (although the latter is 99% fighting to damage weapons). I find the training extremely unbalanced, but that's another story, that doesn't affect the answer to the original question. Limit yourself, and not only does the pace feel right, but also things are not so mindless and repetitive. For example, I try to always have a magical armor when I travel in the wild, but I don't cumulate the spellcasting (unlike I did for my first levels). I stopped metallurgy at steel stock level, so I do need to meet people to deal with my gold; and yes, considering my time zone, that means that I do sell it to Trasok or Harnquist sometimes, since their places can be very empty.
As I ran out of quests, my routine has been more centered on training lately; but I won't spend hours doing the same thing, so the only result is that I play less, give myself excuses to change town, and revisit all the NPCs one by one. I don't think a MMORPG is the kind of game designed to be played 12 hours a day for 2 weeks anyway; more like once in a while over a long period, and even with breaks.
So, no, I don't interact less while grinding. On the contrary. When I interact less is when I'm running between places and when I'm focused on the NPC chat tab. I chat the most at mines and smiths, and sometimes when meeting a resting traveler.
Now, when I'm at a mine (mostly Oja gold), or at a smith, it's often all silent, even when it's crowded. I always make some noise, but rarely get an answer. People always answer a call for help on the other hand, proving that they are not deaf. Well, if it is that boring, and if one can watch a movie at the same time, I'm starting to understand. Indeed, the issue is fun, and that's not an easy one to solve. I've also heard, and experienced to a degree, that a lot of windows need to be open, which keep crafters isolated in their bubble. Maybe working on that aspect would help some of them, give them more PlaneShift immersion than GUI immersion?
My point of view will never match that of a pure leveler. There's no way a system can provide the same pace for a mechanics-bound RPer like me, and for a duelist (RPer or not) who wants to quickly boost his skills to have fun with PvPs. This doesn't affect the old characters interaction issue anyway. Grinders can chat as much as anyone else, if they want to. And for the one who doesn't want to, it doesn't matter if he is digging plat or cooking apples; leave him be.
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From memory most other MMORPG's with a medieval setting have bosses, EQ/FF/WOW/LOTRO etc... So why don't we have bosses..With phat loot? That would add another dimension to the game. Make another town where there is a cave nearby where a giant <insert creepy thing here> is reeking havoc on the town. Do that and you will probably halve the amount of people at the platinum mine. (hey you could even use the instance thing you talked about in the google tech talk).
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Maybe if there was a realistic way to do this. I've seen games where boss mobs are named and are set on two hour timers, they drop unique items, and killing them is required to complete quests. What happens is that people farm them and camp their spawns either to make money or to grief, and then others get frustrated when they can't find the items or complete the quests they need. Also I just think it's unrealistic for a named NPC to be killable every two hours. There is Brigand and people camp his spawn and kill him over and over again.
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The grind in PS does not bother me, with the exception that it goes straight up with no opportunities to choose abilities that further customize your character as you progress. And the infinite diminishing returns as you go further and further. Insofar as the monsters in PS are unique from spawn to spawn, we already have bosses. Some give one type of loot, et cetera. Eventually all the monsters will move, the tribes system will be working, and we will have monsters that appear at certain dates and times. Until that time we have placeholder mobs that stay in one place. Yes, of course people are going to camp them. What should they do, ask them out to a movie and dinner?
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PS does have bosses, they just arent named. In the past Ulbers were the "Boss Mobs", most needed groups or considerable skill to kill one, but since skill caps have been raised they are no longer a concern to most and became a simple mob to be killed. Dlayo was the replacement "Boss Mob" I believe, and im not sure if these are being farmed as much as Ulbers were, maybe its because they are faster and grouping to kill doesnt work as well.
I would love to see instanced dungeons worked on for PS, some that functioned in much the same way WoW uses them. Just a portal/door you enter, get moved to your own instanced dungeon and then require a group of others to help. I find the lack of group challenges a major down side of PS, and it's inclusion would be a major boost imo. There are some limiting factors, like mobs killed in PS instances being killed in all other instances (Fixed?) and the lack of a more comprehensive Threat Dynamic for mobs, plus a lack of suitable healing spells for such a thing.
Anyway, im sure someone can come up with better ideas for these things than myself. Maybe we should have an instanced dungeon thread?
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I thought I read in a Talad interview somewhere that instanced dungeons were not planned.
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The problem with instanced dungeons is that quests may require you to go into the instance and get the "head of badguy x", when so many other people have already done the quest, gone into the instance, and killed the same person. People won't be able to resist roleplaying that they killed the same person as you.
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No Instance Dungeons = No Boss Mobs
If something drops good loot it will be farmed for eternity. As you stated, it already happened with mobs in the game. Those that are relatively easy but give an unbalanced amount of EXP compared to their dificulty. Not having Instances is an odd idea imo.
@Shaman:
I would never suggest that a Boss Mob would be called "Invar The Plunderer" or some such thing in PS, but Ravenous Ulbernaut, only reachable by killing your way through the Instanced Dungeon. That would validate it in RP terms. "Go forth to the caves near the Bronze Doors and bring me back the Egg Sac of a Queen Trepor" or whatever
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Pizik, that sounds a lot better. I just hope everyone's on the same page. ;)
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This is already in-game in a way. Not sure if "peasant woman" qualifies as a "boss" but the mechanics are just as described by Pizik.
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No Instance Dungeons = No Boss Mobs
I beg to differ on that point. There are many ways to make 'bosses' without having them instanced at all. In fact, I dislike the thought of instances for the simple fact that you know exactly where the 'boss' is, what its stats are, what kind of group it will take to kill it, and what l00ts it drops. They are not really bosses at all, but big, lame targets that mean nothing to the game. So what if no one goes in and wipes out the 'boss' or not?
@ Dajoji: ;D
Also, that can only be used for single players, not 'raid' *shudders at the term* groups.
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I beg to differ with the idea there are no instances in the game every creature you meet is the current instance of that object type. Not exactly the same kind of instance you all were talking about but an instance no less. You are using c++ aren't you? It seems to me that if the mobs in your area instances are being shared between all other similar instances there is something wrong with your class constructors. I never could grasp Object Oriented Programming very well though.
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Not every rat in the game has the same stats, boy.
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Q: "Can someone remind me why we added such a grind to PlaneShift?"
A: Because misery loves company? Gives everyone something to complain about in game and we all come together and share our pain in stories of grinding. :)
It'd be an interesting test to max everyone out for a few weeks, make all glyphs available, max every skill that is useable in game, and see what everyone would do. I thought everyone may get bored or stock up on trias, crafted weapons and pps, but who knows.
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Well, the ones who know why they're training to begin with would roleplay, which they don't get much chance to do when they have to train their stats up in order to DO the roleplay (according to some select people). The ones who train for the sake of training, would easily quit.
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Dalyo hunt just isn't as much fun or as good to RP as the old Ulber hunts used to be. It was a group activity that was both gameplay AND Roleplay. Just MHO. :)
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First, I played a game that didn't have instances. It had groups of hundreds people trying to kill a boss so that they could finish a quest. It is not feesable to have them in anything but an instanced dungeon or area. Death and RP aren't a problem as you die and come back to life all the time, so do the mobs.
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Dalyo hunt just isn't as much fun or as good to RP as the old Ulber hunts used to be. It was a group activity that was both gameplay AND Roleplay. Just MHO. :)
Like Apnew said, I think what made ulbernauts fun was just their sheer size. Grouping up to fight gladiators that not only are a race that can't wear plate armor, but are the same size as us, just doesn't make sense. You look at a dlayo and it doesn't look too intimidating, but you look at an ulbernaut and you turn around and run back the direction you came.
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Not every rat in the game has the same stats, boy.
So what makes them different? a different constructor or a different class? Does that make any difference they are still of class rat even if they are sub-class weak-rat or flatulent-rat. I do understand a bit about OOP and inheritance Are you trying to tell me that PS doesn't use objects? Or perhaps that it doesn't instantiate them?
Anyway getting off topic I suppose, sorry.
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PS does have bosses, they just arent named. In the past Ulbers were the "Boss Mobs", most needed groups or considerable skill to kill one, but since skill caps have been raised they are no longer a concern to most and became a simple mob to be killed. Dlayo was the replacement "Boss Mob" I believe, and im not sure if these are being farmed as much as Ulbers were, maybe its because they are faster and grouping to kill doesnt work as well.
I remember the days when I would gather people at Harnquist until we had a party of 10-15 players (or more!) then we would head out to the ruins. Several of us would die along the way from fall damage. Those who made it would encircle an ulber, then on 3 we would all attack it at once. Of course many would die... it was very exciting and a lot of fun, and a good way to meet other players.
Now, everyone solos everything, including the Dlayos. Why work with others when you can use hit and run tactics and keep all the loot for yourself?
For bosses: Have a clacker near the rats, have a trepor near the clackers, have a tefusang near the trepor, have a rogue near the tefusang, and so on. Call those bosses, and have them give extra EXP compared to other mobs of the same species.
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You have to use hit and run tactics against a Dlayo, otherwise everyone dies and dies quickly. The mechanics just aren't there yet to fight in groups and have fun in PS without GM intervention. It is much more fun to take 1000 hits to take down a boss and be able to take 10-15 hits yourself before you have to retreat to heal. 15 hits to take down the "boss" and only 1 to send you to the DR, gets old quickly, especially if you trekked out to BD to "hunt". Having a range of different types of fighters is fun, too, support characters, archers, mages, etc. Plus, you get few advantages in grouping in PS since monsters have no trouble hitting you with their back turned, even though we "have to be facing the enemy". Plus, the loot is pretty crappy, no one wants to fight over a dagger and share 40 pps. Killing a Dlayo on your own is fun since you've grinded for so long and feel you have accomplished something in your training.
Now when GMs do an event, the group hunt is fun because it has that sense of RP and community accomplishment, but that's a lot of work. Though wouldn't it make PS one of a kind if it let approved players take control of monsters when they wanted and do a spur of the moment monster raid or boss roleplay... Sure would get rid of the need to try and develop better monster AI.
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It seems those who took part in Ulber hunts all shared the same enjoyment I found in them, What change in the game mechanics has caused this to stop? I am guessing it would be the change in the stats, making them unbalanced so that you would need a massive amount of Heavy Armor training to even consider "Tanking" a target. With 'The Hunts' anyone could join in, maybe not physical combat, but they could always cast attacks in support of their group members. It is entirely possible im wrong, it could be that Mobs can now run, and because of the poor threat mechanics change targets too rapidly.
I'm straying too close to the "things were better when....." line of thought so maybe I should stop because im not a fan of that.
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An interesting discussion, and I think a useful one. Thanks, Zanzibar.
I have a different perspective than some, I think: This is the only MMORPG I've played, though I play a lot of other kinds of games. From my perspective, grinding is just silly. It's not fun, so therefore it has no place in a game of any sort. It seems to me that planeshift wants to have a roleplaying focus. Levels make a certain amount of sense as game mechanics, but I don't think they need to be in conflict with this. So.... What I'd like to see is this:
Multi-person quests that provide experience in various skills and stats, and also PP. Right now the PP you get from most quests is the equivalent of killing a single mob. The mechanics appear to be in place to allow advanced quests that would provide experience points that make sense for high-level characters. That would allow a way to advance your character through role-playing rather than grinding.
Taking that further, the next thing would be multi-player quests. Quests that required you to interact somehow with multiple other players in order to complete them. That would require new mechanics to be supported, but it would mean that role-playing becomes built into the game and integrated with levelling, in a sense. Ipso-factso: a game with an even greater role-playing focus, less grinding, less conflict between role-playing and power-levelling: more fun.
Perhaps this has all been thought of, of course. The quests have improved dramatically over the two years or so I've been playing, and the faction system is presumably going to assist. I'm hoping this is where they are going, and I really look forward to seeing it.
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To me, grinding is just another way to explore the game - when I do a quest, I do it to find out whether I can do it, if I do grinding combat skills I'll find out which mobs I can kill. Also, it feels like grinding only when it is done in a boring way.
Regarding the mobs being all the same and no bosses, when you are the right match for the thunderclacker group, you'll quickly find out that not even the clackers in this group all have the same stats, so there's already a natural kind of boss there. (My only gripe with thunderclackers is that the group is too small - the animal book says they live in larger groups.)
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On the fundamental level little has changed to make ps more of a grind. We gave the possibility to train your skill levels higher and placed more glyphs that had already been designed in the game. We have actually lowered the cost of training twice in the last year.
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On the fundamental level little has changed to make ps more of a grind. We gave the possibility to train your skill levels higher and placed more glyphs that had already been designed in the game. We have actually lowered the cost of training twice in the last year.
I'm probably remembering back to before you were introduced to the game. It used to be that every level required the same investment in terms of progression points and trias (and possibly experience / executions of the relevant action, I don't remember). It was changed so that every level costs exponentially more, without there being an exponentially greater benefit.
If I advanced one level in red way every day, I'd max it out after 4 months. However it's going to cost more and more as I get higher in rank, and it already takes around 7,000 trias (which I get by camping gladiators in the arena without using magic), then I sit around and cast flaming weapons repeatedly (which I do using a hot key). And it takes more and more practice to advance as you gain levels. So really it might take twice that long.
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You might find it a little more reasonable to camp the rogues in there using your magic, at least you will not be wasting your mana completely. Perhaps the rewards are not great enough, I cannot fight the tank glads very well myself but the rogues are just fodder.
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It was changed so that every level costs exponentially more, without there being an exponentially greater benefit.
Well that makes sense, doesn't it?
Getting better and better at something takes time while not making you significantly better, whereas beginners become significantly better in a short time. Ideally, time should be the relevant issue, so that caps would not even be needed anymore. The tria issue is very different: paying for trainers is a very 21th century western concept, and even then, having to pay more and more for higher levels can't make sense. There would surely be more immersive ways of learning from teachers, none of them easy to design and implement.
Why not "join" a master for a while, past the beginner stage? Only one master at a time, or a pre-determined group of masters with complementary skills in certain cases (like the Arena). That way one doesn't grind in all skills at once? And learning would not be achieved by clicking and spending, but by interacting with the master (dialogs, quests, practice in his vicinity). Even getting accepted by a master shouldn't be easy (specially when there will be several concurrent teachers in the game). Some masters can ask for money, others for something else, or for nothing but spirit. There could be a mention on the students' name tags, such as "Trasok's apprentice", so that they recognise each other. For learning, instead of spending tria, one clicks and a progression bar appears. It takes X minutes to reach 100%, more or less according to Intelligence. And it is interruptible. It would be even better if learning and practice were intertwined.
But do grinding people want a more immersive grinding?
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Iḿ quite fascinated by the responses here. Do people actually enjoy the grind? If so, please tell me why. If not, why do we have it in the game at all?
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It was changed so that every level costs exponentially more, without there being an exponentially greater benefit.
Well that makes sense, doesn't it?
Getting better and better at something takes time while not making you significantly better, whereas beginners become significantly better in a short time. Ideally, time should be the relevant issue, so that caps would not even be needed anymore. The tria issue is very different: paying for trainers is a very 21th century western concept, and even then, having to pay more and more for higher levels can't make sense. There would surely be more immersive ways of learning from teachers, none of them easy to design and implement.
Why not "join" a master for a while, past the beginner stage? Only one master at a time, or a pre-determined group of masters with complementary skills in certain cases (like the Arena). That way one doesn't grind in all skills at once? And learning would not be achieved by clicking and spending, but by interacting with the master (dialogs, quests, practice in his vicinity). Even getting accepted by a master shouldn't be easy (specially when there will be several concurrent teachers in the game). Some masters can ask for money, others for something else, or for nothing but spirit. There could be a mention on the students' name tags, such as "Trasok's apprentice", so that they recognise each other. For learning, instead of spending tria, one clicks and a progression bar appears. It takes X minutes to reach 100%, more or less according to Intelligence. And it is interruptible. It would be even better if learning and practice were intertwined.
But do grinding people want a more immersive grinding?
It's more of a 16th century concept than a 20th one. Although you could go back as far as ancient Greece.
Iḿ quite fascinated by the responses here. Do people actually enjoy the grind? If so, please tell me why. If not, why do we have it in the game at all?
I think it's there because other games have it.
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If would be very easy to gain levels in whatever skill you want, everyone would be an expert in crafting all weapons, all magic ways, and be as strong as possible. No need to interact with anyone if you can make the weapons you need yourself, kill all anumals yourself, find all the materials you need. Making it more time consuming makes sure that most players will not be able to be masters of all crafts. Someone grinding a little a year long may become the smith everyone buys his/her weapons from.
Of course there are those that just skip the interaction and grind all day for a few months and still are master of all. However, they do not get into play for those who prefer to buy from someone who is a smith, as the powerlevelers will not have time to interact anyway :)
I guess the solution is to do not have the grind, and still make it impossible to master everything. That means changing the whole skills/training system. I have seen some ideas for that in the forum before, so maybe one day that will change.
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Every mmo's main goal is to keep people playing as long as they can, Grinding is just the generic way to approach this.
and you thought it was different...
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Or just stop treating stats like skills. Problem solved.
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If would be very easy to gain levels in whatever skill you want, everyone would be an expert in crafting all weapons, all magic ways, and be as strong as possible.
Unless you make it so that you can only have X proficiency in Y skills.
Besides, that's already the way things are. You need to be an excellent fighter to do anything else. Then you become an excellent miner in order to make money. Some people bother with magic, others don't. A lot of people do crafting.
Or just stop treating stats like skills. Problem solved.
We're talking about skills. Skills have stats. :P
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I think the grinding is perfect as it is. It should be very difficult and time consuming to max skills, because that's the way it would be if the game were real (see my post in the RP Covenant thread)
There is no reason grinding should be considered OOC or non-RP friendly. If someone wants to RP their character who is so focused on gaining power to the point where they exclude themselves from all social interaction, that is perfectly suitable.
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It should be very difficult and time consuming to max skills, because that's the way it would be if the game were real (see my post in the RP Covenant thread)
There is no reason grinding should be considered OOC or non-RP friendly. If someone wants to RP their character who is so focused on gaining power to the point where they exclude themselves from all social interaction, that is perfectly suitable.
Perhaps, but it´s NOT real, it´s a game. Games are above all else supposed to be fun. I´m not saying it shouldn´t be difficult and time consuming to level up: I just think there should be a fun way to do it. I also think you should be able to do it through role-playing, not only laborious mechanics. That´s why I suggested advanced and multi-player quests for this in my previous post. I guess I´m alone on this one, but I really would like to know what people think of this idea.
To say more about it, here´s a possible example.
Player 1 to NPC: I need a quest
NPC: (checks that the player has a certain amount of factions and skills, then): Thank the gods you´ve arrived. The upper guard chamber has been sucked into a mysterious dark vortex. Help us find out what it is and stop it.
Player 1 asks around and another NPC tells him what it is and that it can be stopped by several high-level crystal mages working together. Maybe they have to do some other quests to get particular glyphs and spells or whatever.
Players 2-4, being checked for particular factions, stats, etc. join the quest. (This could be done now I think, by simply giving player 1 a bunch of quest items to hand out to the other players. They could perhaps get a different, connected quest if they have that item.)
Players do whatever they need to, and present their proof to the NPC(s). All the players now get a reward, possibly including: enough money and PP to actually level up by one when you have a high level, OR a level increase in something particular.
Since low level-characters wouldn´t get the quest, you don´t need to worry about giving them a disproportionately large amount of money or PP. Basically, the reward scales with the level of the character, not like now. The multi-player aspect means you have to role-play, and provides a great storyline and pretext for doing so.
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I think the grinding is perfect as it is. It should be very difficult and time consuming to max skills, because that's the way it would be if the game were real (see my post in the RP Covenant thread)
There is no reason grinding should be considered OOC or non-RP friendly. If someone wants to RP their character who is so focused on gaining power to the point where they exclude themselves from all social interaction, that is perfectly suitable.
I guess it depends on what kind of game you want.
Maybe we can have different servers for two different versions of the game? One server can be dedicated to extreme grinding. The other server can be the opposite, allowing players to max their characters within perhaps just a single day.
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I think the grinding is perfect as it is. It should be very difficult and time consuming to max skills, because that's the way it would be if the game were real (see my post in the RP Covenant thread)
There is no reason grinding should be considered OOC or non-RP friendly. If someone wants to RP their character who is so focused on gaining power to the point where they exclude themselves from all social interaction, that is perfectly suitable.
I'm not saying I'm for or against what you say, but if everyone did this then there will be no endgame. Once you are done "gaining power" there's really nothing to do with it because then everyone else will be busy "gaining power".
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Skills have a value. Skills don't have stats. Characters have stats.
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skill abilities are modified by the stats that are programmed to be relevant to them. Fighting is affected by strength for example.
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I think the grinding is perfect as it is. It should be very difficult and time consuming to max skills, because that's the way it would be if the game were real (see my post in the RP Covenant thread)
There is no reason grinding should be considered OOC or non-RP friendly. If someone wants to RP their character who is so focused on gaining power to the point where they exclude themselves from all social interaction, that is perfectly suitable.
I'm not saying I'm for or against what you say, but if everyone did this then there will be no endgame. Once you are done "gaining power" there's really nothing to do with it because then everyone else will be busy "gaining power".
I said it was plausible if some people do it, not that all people should do it :P
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Skills have a value. Skills don't have stats. Characters have stats.
My red way stat is in the low 30's.
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Your Red Way magic skill is in the low 30s.
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Your Red Way magic skill is in the low 30s.
statistic
n.
1. A numerical datum.
2. A numerical value, such as standard deviation or mean, that characterizes the sample or population from which it was derived.
3. One viewed as a nameless item of statistical information: got laid off and became another statistic in the slumping economy.
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What concerns us here is the definition of it in PlaneShift. Enough posting on this, please read the game information.
http://www.planeshift.it/guide/en/guide-stats.html
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Stop squabbling.
Each Way has a color and a mental stat associated. The color gives an indication of which of the realms that Way is closer to. The mental stat will give bonuses to the casting of spells that pertain to that Way.
http://www.planeshift.it/guide/en/guide-magic.html (http://www.planeshift.it/guide/en/guide-magic.html) THe other skills are affected by stats similarly so it is proper to talk about a skill's stats being those that are associated with it.
:@#\
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PlaneShift terminology isn't exempt from the reality of language. When I use the term statistics to refer to the stats of my character, meaning all the statistics including those of skills, then that's the sense I am using statistics, and I am right in doing so. When you use the term stats to refer to body and mental stats (except for body development and empathy, which you consider to be skills and not stats), then you are right in doing so - although you leave yourself open to being misunderstood unless you explain yourself.