PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Volki on January 28, 2014, 04:38:09 pm
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(Don't move this to Complaint Department, otherwise not enough players will see it.)
I want to know if I'm imagining things or if this game is really that impossible to play.
Been playing for years. Just recently I've been trying to level a new character. I've found it to be very difficult. I know how to rank up. I know how to get PP and money. I know the tricks. But they aren't enough. I am losing motivation to level this character, and I really don't see how an ordinary gamer is going to want to level up, either.
For four hours today, I've focused on this new character. His rank started at 2 in 3 different skills, one being magic. In four hours, I have only been able to reach rank 3 in each. I haven't had any trouble with money. The main issue has been PP and time.
Regarding PP, I will have to try something other than hunting. The creatures my character can kill right now do not offer enough PP as reward. The other creatures are too powerful, and although they reward more PP, it is not enough for the amount of time it takes to kill those creatures. Problem here is, my character is supposed to be a hunter. I guess I could change the character into something more profitable, like a smith or miner, but that completely changes who he is.
It didn't take too long to rank up in skills after buying them, but I know that it's going to get much harder later on. I feel like it already might be taking too long at the low level I am. That is very disappointing.
The only reason I continue to level this character is because I want his skills to match who he is in roleplay. If I weren't a roleplayer, there is no way I would put up with this.
Not looking for arguments. I want to see who else thinks this game is hard. In fact, I don't want to see anyone arguing that this game isn't hard, because I already know it is and you cannot change my mind or the minds of anyone else who thinks the same. This thread is for players to speak their minds. Those players exist, even though you may have not heard from them. They're always told, "You're wrong, you're not willing to try, you're criticizing what you don't know." Well, they do know. They're the players. So, listen to them.
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Everyone has said it before, and it needs to be repeated over and over: 3 years ago (back when I started, mind you), things were just fine. Combat, crafting, etc. It was both easy and hard enough, yadda yadda. The problem is that the learning curve has turned steeper, and the earlier stages of the game experience for a neophite are too hard.
Just my (http://planeshift.top-ix.org/pswiki/images/9/9c/Octa_icon.png)(http://planeshift.top-ix.org/pswiki/images/9/9c/Octa_icon.png)
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I've recently done the same thing. Once again, I gave this new character probably a million tria; if I hadn't, good luck! I found it impossible to generate PP without music grinding, which meant days of simply not playing and letting the music PP roll in until I was adequate enough with a magic skill to break that chain and go kill some trepors. (Trepors, by the way, are garbage. Don't grind them.) I can't even imagine trying to do any of this training without some sort of gold flow from another player or alt; the PP grind meant simply not playing the game until later, which is out of the spirit of everything. I sadly think that the first notion will be to remove music grinding rather than put in place an easier way to train PP; there are only so many quests, which will drive a new person away when they realize how long they have to run each pass, and how many times they have to risk dying to imagos and vilenauts or random fall damage until finding a decent path to deliver some carrot juice to somebody.
The game is incredibly hard. No, it's artificially hard, meaning it could be easier in these ways and harder in others (battles of attrition need to replace the glaring choice between being one shotted or tickled with a feather). Certain mobs, such as Ojaveda rogues, need their PP value reevaluated, as these mobs are clearly harder than the average rat, and should not simply give a standard 100 experience points.
Edit: I beg to differ about it being more balanced years ago. Years ago, we were able to grind mobs whose NPC server prevented them from attacking you; grinding anything was so simple because it was basically time-based revenue with risk factor. They've fixed that bug now.
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So as someone who does write, sometimes getting paid for it, and who has been considering this all from a PR angle (how to get more involvement for the project)...
I've written some of my gripes in the complaints department some time ago. I'll revisit this but will do so from a PR angle.
That said, let's say that the following are true: (1) We have a relatively small community of players, (2) We have a relatively small community of volunteers who keep things running.
The problems I see are echoed by others here, but from a PR perspective, I find it hard to sell the game even to friends because:
(1) Starting off is decidedly wonky nowadays, and balancing tria/PP for training is difficult. Meanwhile, with an upper-mid level character, I have more PP and trias than I can spend. So that scale needs to be readjusted - so that we *retain* players.
(2) The disappearing NPCs allegedly add realism, a point I will not debate (I am a stone creature that rides a fish - REALISM?), but a player who may have only 1-2 hours a day to play may simply not see some NPCs when they do play. That needs to be dealt with, or we can't really attract players so that they can sit around and be frustrated.
(3) Running. The quests require some silly amounts of running that used to be much more interesting with mobs attacking along the way. Going to Bronze Doors the first time, way back when, was a group adventure. Now it's a long solo run that would eventually bore even Forrest Gump. Getting people to the game so that they can press an arrow key for half an hour at a time isn't really a selling point.
(4) No spoilers vs. Reporting bugs: I've done at least a few quests where I thought I should get a glyph but I haven't. Is it a bug? I don't know. Honestly, I sort of gave up on that and I pity anyone that is starting off on the quest chain simply to get access to the Winch so that they aren't handicapped characters. And access to the Winch requires a level of potentially OOC decisions, as do some glyphs. "Sure, I'll run back and forth to Bronze Doors 6 times so that you can give me a glyph" is somewhat sadistic. Oh, and that anvil quest? With the newer system, that seems kind of silly (no more said to avoid a spoiler).
(5) Not enough characters for an ingame economy, and I'm not sure adding more characters to the world will help the ingame economy. We're top heavy with crafters who make 300q everything - and 300q almost never wears out! The ingame economy is wonky.
(6) Different mobs need to be added to allow for characters as they develop. Tefus to Ulbernauts is a pretty big jump, as an example, and the game is full of that.
(7) Empathy for mounts... c'mon. That forces grinding with the present algorithm. I recall Talad saying that there would be less grinding sometime in the past...
Now, these are all tough sells for a newcomer player. But then there's the newcomer volunteer: how does one know that it's worth volunteering if you may not agree with the general direction?
From a PR perspective, PS has a lot of stuff that really needs to be thought out - and that directly impacts attracting players, retaining players, attracting volunteers, retaining volunteers, and so forth. My 2 cents.
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For me, it's not that it's too hard to level, it's that leveling or training all skills is incredibly boring, repetitive, and too time consuming. I don't understand how anyone enjoys moving items from box to box to box for hours at a time to craft items. Casting spells or hitting things with a weapon thousands of times to rank up one level gets old pretty quickly too. Because of this system, I simply neither have the time nor the inclination to concentrate on leveling. I will never be able to compete using mechanics with other players who either enjoy the system, or suffer it, in order to reach high skill levels.
Would I like my RP character to have mechanical levels to match who they are? Of course! It's taken me 5 years of casual playing to reach the levels my present character has, including one summer in which I did suffer the system concentrating on leveling and hating every minute of it just so I could try dueling. Even after all this time, my highest levels remain mediocre at best, and I certainly am not thrilled by the prospect of spending another 5 years to get a second character to similar levels.
I think it would be fun to be able to do some of the things the advanced mechanics allow such as casting high level spells, being able to create crafted items, being able to fight well... but for me, gaining some of those abilities will take a hundred years, and crafting will never happen unless it becomes enjoyable.
I wish we were allowed to start a new character with a set amount of skills and levels which could be allocated as we see fit, rather than extremely low in all areas. I know players who have spent the time to raise their characters to high levels may be put off by this kind of thing.
A solution that would work for me would be an ability to create 2 kinds of characters. The current regular, and an RP only which gets player assigned stats and skills during creation, within limits, which will remain forever unchangeable. Possibly an option to assign a character as RP only and set levels could be made sometime after entering the game so as not to add confusion to the initial process.
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I started a new character about 3 months ago. Leveling consumes indeed quite too much time, especially the fighting and magic abilities, and it is quite boring as well.
I see the point that people with superhero abilities should be a exception; But leveling is still taking quite too long at low-mid levels currently. In fact I do much of the combat grinding afk. Otherwise I had probably already stopped my efforts to get my character to decent combat levels. Of course it doesn't work to only afk grind, because tria and PP is required as well.
Certain mobs, such as Ojaveda rogues, need their PP value reevaluated, as these mobs are clearly harder than the average rat, and should not simply give a standard 100 experience points.
for my nolthrir character it's not hard to kill cutthroats and he gets around 17 PP for each of it. I read somewhere that it is a good idea to focus on skills and not so much on stats, otherwise the issue of getting enough PP in fight is too big. Perhaps the formula which calculates the PP for each mobs needs adjustments if this is true.
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I wish we were allowed to start a new character with a set amount of skills and levels which could be allocated as we see fit, rather than extremely low in all areas. I know players who have spent the time to raise their characters to high levels may be put off by this kind of thing.
A solution that would work for me would be an ability to create 2 kinds of characters. The current regular, and an RP only which gets player assigned stats and skills during creation, within limits, which will remain forever unchangeable. Possibly an option to assign a character as RP only and set levels could be made sometime after entering the game so as not to add confusion to the initial process.
interesting idea :thumbup:
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A solution that would work for me would be an ability to create 2 kinds of characters. The current regular, and an RP only which gets player assigned stats and skills during creation, within limits, which will remain forever unchangeable. Possibly an option to assign a character as RP only and set levels could be made sometime after entering the game so as not to add confusion to the initial process.
While an interesting idea, I don't like it myself - because there's already an apparent separation between role-play and game mechanics. I'd like to see that separation become smaller and not larger.
I don't mind people RPing outside of the game mechanics, mind you, but allowing characters completely outside of the game mechanics doesn't seem like a solution to a game mechanics problem.
If the game mechanics problems were addressed, maybe this idea wouldn't be as appealing to some. In short, it seems like treating a symptom instead of the disease. "Yes, your cough is gone, but the lung cancer is still there."
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Probably I'll not be popular with this statement, but I think that the time required to level up it's not too much. I like the idea that just a small elite can max a skill, what for me it's not working it's the difference in damage dealt (thus the mob you can kill) per each level. For example rising a weapon skill from level 150 to level 200 doesn't make much difference so stopping to level 150 saves you about 75 hours of grinding. I believe that players complain about the time required for level up a skill because they think they need to max the skill to be proficient. That is partially true: even with a maxed skill, if you don't use q300 crafted weapons or some rare looted weapons, you aren't proficient and it's quite disappointing (from here the feeling of wasted time in grinding sessions). It's also true that if you stop at level 100 of a weapon skill you are almost out of play because you can't kill the mob that drops the best items (moreover the quality of the items is bond to the level of the char so this means yoy can't even have the chance to loot a great weapon). If the mechanics could be adjusted so even at level 100 of a skill of choice you can have "an easier life" probably this kind of discussions will be less frequent.
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completely overhaul the default controls for basic movement as well as taking care of the weird camera issues to instead use the industry standard setup and you will get a larger group of people that end up trying the game to stay at least a little bit longer.
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Good point. When I install PS for the first time, I have to edit the movement keys to the opposite: Every other game I know uses Shift as accellerator, left and right equally.
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The problem is not so much with being weak, but with not feeling any success or progress after training a level. When I buy skills, I want to feel the benefit. I want to see that I can now kill creature X with a little less effort. I don't want to discover that all my hard work was for virtually nothing.
Please, turn this "Awe crap, that sucks" experience into a "Dude, this is wicked!" experience.
As for PP shortage, would it be possible to factor in extra PP for weaker characters - knowing that they are quite possibly newer players who will make more mistakes along the way? This is less of an issue once you are able to hunt effectively.
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not feeling any success or progress after training a level.
I completely agree with this. In my opinion, this is because it takes 200 levels to max a skill, which makes each individual skill gain feel very unrewarding.
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I agree with pretty much everything that's been said already. PlaneShift's gameplay is not engaging or rewarding enough, so even if it WAS easy to build up a new character, I still wouldn't.
Now for the TL;DR part:
I like the loregasmic nature of the quests, but they need the aid of mechanics that aren't there yet - say, you get sent from Point A to Point B to deliver an item, and it looks like it's only going to take a minute to get there, but - GASP! - an mob ambushes you on the way there and steals your Shiny Dagger of the MacGuffin! You have to aim and throw a net you conveniently find at just the right moment to catch them and retrieve the item, and are given the choice of whether you want to spare the ambusher's life or send them to the Death Realm. Maybe it will effect something later in the quest chain, you never know. That's just ONE suggestion off the top of my head, based on quests I've done in other games that older players fondly reminisce about.
Zerxzz hits the nail on the head about the amount of levels - you know why ninety is the current cap for WoW? Because it can be done as little as a week, and maximum level is where the "real" game starts there.
I understand that as a roleplay game with actual focus on the roleplay, PlaneShift should probably be more about the journey. However it's a pretty lame journey if all that's involved to master swordplay is grinding out x levels in the arena and occasionally running to a merchant to sell your loot or a trainer to buy the next rank. My fix would be to make a few of those aforementioned engaging quests for weaponry and melee, similar to the Mage's Circles - maybe a few combat-realted minigames, and require those for access to the next trainers. One chain to kick off the "beginner" levels, then more quests - increasingly fun, engaging quests, mind you - for middling, expert, and master ones, too. Perhaps some dailies at the end that allow the experts and masters to help the lower-level trainees out.
Speaking of weaponry, combat is still pretty unengaging, too. I had to spend a lot of time hitting the same key over and over again before I could hop on a mount, rapidly get some distance, and shoot down a mob that's way stronger than my character that way. Even that gets pretty stale after a while. I don't know how that experience would change for a new player because I don't feel inclined to train another mage with the gameplay as it is right now.
I've never had a fight in PlaneShift where my heart was thumping against my ribs and I was fully absorbed in keeping my poor character alive - at least, not one that I remember. The fights like that that I do remember were in WoW or Neverwinter, and it's fights like that which often tempt me to leave PlaneShift and go back to one of those games instead. Compared to them, PlaneShift plays like RuneScape (given, I haven't played that in years).
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To the original question. No, this game is not too hard.
It is slow sometimes, but what is so bad about being slow?
I wonder why people want to make a new game out of this one? Like it, and play it. Don't like it, find another one. But this game has a specific character, and it would be a pity to loose that uniqueness.
My dreams:
I'd like more quests, more complicated ones, like Volki proposed (if this is reasonable possible), and maybe player guided quests. Masters who teach ways or crafting (Just the same as the npc-s do, not their own ones.). Maybe a player scriptable questing system (for the far future) with auto pp-s and rewards, or pps and rewards for the creator of a quest. And players can take these scripts and hand out the quests as their own. Rp in the game mechanics.
Npc fighting is on a good way, with mob intelligence rising and them being able to cast.
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Yes, training is boring. The boredom is more balanced, though, so at least you can advance in skills now that used to be practically impossible to master. For the games focus on RP, Dannae's point makes sense, and similar suggestions have been discussed a few times already. We should see what can be done about that!
Concerning little rewards for ranking up skills: I don't think it is a bad thing if there is no huge gap between advanced and maxed fighters. For other skills and activities than fighting, some rank ups can feel like quite an improvement.
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I've read over this thread and let me make some comments on the part of the game I have direct control over.
(2) The disappearing NPCs allegedly add realism, a point I will not debate (I am a stone creature that rides a fish - REALISM?), but a player who may have only 1-2 hours a day to play may simply not see some NPCs when they do play. That needs to be dealt with, or we can't really attract players so that they can sit around and be frustrated.
(3) Running. The quests require some silly amounts of running that used to be much more interesting with mobs attacking along the way. Going to Bronze Doors the first time, way back when, was a group adventure. Now it's a long solo run that would eventually bore even Forrest Gump. Getting people to the game so that they can press an arrow key for half an hour at a time isn't really a selling point.
(4) No spoilers vs. Reporting bugs: I've done at least a few quests where I thought I should get a glyph but I haven't. Is it a bug? I don't know. Honestly, I sort of gave up on that and I pity anyone that is starting off on the quest chain simply to get access to the Winch so that they aren't handicapped characters. And access to the Winch requires a level of potentially OOC decisions, as do some glyphs. "Sure, I'll run back and forth to Bronze Doors 6 times so that you can give me a glyph" is somewhat sadistic. Oh, and that anvil quest? With the newer system, that seems kind of silly (no more said to avoid a spoiler).
2 - After the last dev meeting I'd like to make the first 40 or 50 levels trainable at npcs which are persistent so new player always has at least one trainer available. Will have to wait and see how that works out.
3 - It has been asked we add a pterosaurs to the BD, which we are looking in to. But be warned, if we add this you will still have to run out there a few times before you are 'awarded' access.
4 - If you think you should have got a glyph file a petition which only devs/gms can see and I will look at it. But as it stands, if you should have got a glyph you would have. Many player use spoiler site which are well out of date and expect things to work/happen which have been changed. But when it comes to glyphs I have finished a project that complexly reorganizes all glyph rewards so every one is questable in at least 2 quests (this includes currently unreleased glyphs). Now some quests may be 'ooc' to do if you just go for rewards as its just impossible to make everything 'IC available' to everyone as there are just too many different possibilities. And before you ask many of the quests will be reset so that changed quests can be repeat by everyone.
There are a few comments about more indepth quests which take advantage of mechanics. We have some that start to do this and are already written and waiting to be released. They are not as complex as "you get sent from Point A to Point B to deliver an item, and it looks like it's only going to take a minute to get there, but - GASP! - an mob ambushes you on the way there and steals your Shiny Dagger of the MacGuffin! You have to aim and throw a net you conveniently find at just the right moment to catch them and retrieve the item," but they are more immersive. Being asked to poison food which involves you actually finding the right crate and clicking on it to replicate the act of poising it. And the comment about making a quest line for warriors similar to the mages is being worked on.
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[...] And the comment about making a quest line for warriors similar to the mages is being worked on.
Hey, that could bring lazy me back to actually doing some quest.
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Been reading this thread and I especially appreciate Candy's specific examples of what she means by engaging. At this moment, I have only one relevant comment, in response to the BD run issues.
Venalan, you said:
3 - It has been asked we add a pterosaurs to the BD, which we are looking in to. But be warned, if we add this you will still have to run out there a few times before you are 'awarded' access.
I suggested in gossip one night that a pterosaur flight to BD might be cued in to some other attainable achievement ig. I suggested that the only place to take a flight to BD and return to might be in the Winch, overseen by the pterosaur trainer there. It would offer an enticing reason to do all the winch quests.
Thanks,
RR
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Wow. Big YES to the impossibility of playing and having fun quickly. Quickly means within a day/week/month time period. Totally agree with Suno - I had a new character who dug dug dug dug and some extremely nice player gave her a million tria for what she dug up and a bunch extra. Just a super nice oldbie who didn't know me, saw a new char struggling and seriously stepped up.
With a million tria, still a giant drag to get pp and to feel a bit of strength and competence. It is honest to the gods harder than real life to achieve things in this game, and that sucks. It sucks because the land is awesome, the players are awesome (yes, even though I met many I didn't like, I met so many I adored, and that balance felt totally ok and good) the quests are clever (yes I am serious, I always liked them and did them) and I just like the whole scene, and it improves all the time. The mounts?? Love them.
Speaking of mounts, I cannot see how sticking a brontosaur in the Winch is going to make the Winch more enticing - good gods, everyone wants to get in there and badly, just so not to have to run around all the time.
Plus mounts are cute and fun. So sticking a bronto to the Bronze Doors Fortress in the Winch sounds cruel. Please don't.
Love Venalan's idea of making the lower level NPC trainers persistent, that would help.
The whole game is non-stop frustration initially, way to hard to level, way to hard to have fun by yourself while you are waiting to (or overcoming shyness to) meet people and roleplay. If the game had been like this in 2008 or so when I started, I would never have gotten into it, would have left.
I like to get stronger and accomplish things IG, effing life is a grind, it just is. Bloody hell I don't want to repeat that here.
When the player numbers were up, it was possible to max out before a RL lifetime. And we dueled and we warred and we rp'd the hell out of the taverns, for me this was awesome. Even the weird twisted rp's I fell into were funny and fine, even if I scooted out first chance I could.
I just fell in love with the whole world of Planeshift. I still am in love with it, would come back in a flash. :love: .
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With a million tria, still a giant drag to get pp and to feel a bit of strength and competence.
This has been discussed a few times, and I know that PP can be obtained in many different ways. Yet i wonder, could it help to have characters start with a few more PPs than they do now, maybe via even larger experience rewards during the tutorial?
By the way, oldbies can not only help with tria. I will gladly take an unexperienced character to a little hunting trip - just take care not to get hit, and it will be a rewarding experience ;)
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Questing should provide a good amount of PPs. But also another level of frustration: Most quests seem to be designed on purpose to run the longest distances between NPCs. And then they are asleep when you arrive, or unpredictably strolling.
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I have returned after one year gone. Many things that frustrated me before are not there, but there are equally frustrating and down-right discouraging things that exist now. I spent two hours looking for an NPC that should have been located in the BD fortress. I considered taking another year off again. Seems it is a wash between changes I like and new frustrations... I may need to take another year off. :-\
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You talk of frustration_s_, but mention only one and with a single example. What in particular are the problems? And as important, what in particular are the things that improved?
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The dark wanderer is hard to spot sometimes but he is still in the same place generally. If you see the gorweals (tree monsters) you are close. The BD NPCs do not move around or disappear.
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With a million tria, still a giant drag to get pp and to feel a bit of strength and competence.
This has been discussed a few times, and I know that PP can be obtained in many different ways.
None of the ways for new characters to get pp is satisfactory. There is no way to get enough pp to train within a reasonable amount of time.
By the way, oldbies can not only help with tria. I will gladly take an unexperienced character to a little hunting trip - just take care not to get hit, and it will be a rewarding experience ;)
My experience is that because my weak char does little damage, I get almost no pp. Maybe 1 pp. So going along with a skilled hunter - which a couple of different oldbies did for me (oldbies are awesomely helpful, did I already say this?) - did me no good.
Boni, did you have a different experience? Can you actually help weak chars gain pp in this way? I think the days of standing on...what's her name, Guile's tent while she get hit by rocks by strong chars and getting enough pp to hope to become strong yourself...those days are gone.
Correct me if I am wrong.
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You can get a fair bit of experience via the harvesting, mining, and fishing skills which give more pps each level up to about 20, I think. It is kind of boring though. Stop training them around 10 and the pps will accumulate. Giving someone a million trias is no favor I think as they will expect to train with it all at once causing this need for the pps that cannot be fulfilled. Don't train anything for a while but one of these skills and try different product as each particular type of produce gives a different amount of experience. For mining, the tin mine by the river or the copper mine by the outpost are good places to start as they have a fairly good success/reward rate. I am not as familiar with which herbs or fishes might be best but eyebright seems a good bet as it is among the most valuable plants, you can get rich just using /pickup when you get bored of /harvesting. Carp seems to be the easiest to fish but you might be better off somewhere there are no critters to harass you, you are unlikely to find players that will want to buy them regularly. The quests to get the cooking books are rather onerous and the craft itself is quite hard to master. Herbalism is easier to do but the most useful plants are among the least valuable to sell to npcs. I sell virtually everything I gather or make to the npcs.
Now that critters often have a range attack hunting is a more problematic way to generate experience.
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Roled suggests.. QUESTING! QUESTING! QUESTING!
Thank you for your attention... ::|
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+1 on questing. The glyphs you score can be used or sold - some for LOTS of money. You also gain knowledge of the game's settings and location of NPCs.
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Giving a million tria does not cause the pp crisis. Without the million tria, there is a tria and pp crisis. Thus taking two eternities to become strong and be able to fight/make/be what you would like to be. The million tria cuts this down to one eternity.
I'm gonna hop off this thread as the oldbies who love to say "there is no problem!" are creeping up on it. But as I mentioned before, quests do not give sufficient pp to level.
Let people who are actually making new chars and trying to advance them have a say here. Not oldbies who are quite strong and perhaps not sympathetic to newbs or psuedo-newbs who want to be strong, and neither oldbies who find it a BONUS that it takes an eternity to get strong because they are happy with one level per year (Bilbous :) ).
Anyway, cheers, love the thread. Hope it gets sorted sometime in the future, love the game.
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A little point about hunting to gain PPs. Do not do it grouped. If you are grouped and an older player does 99% damage and you do 1%, you get 1% of the PP. If two players go hunting and one player does 99% and then runs off, and you then start attacking and give the killing blow you get 100% of the PP. a newish character giving the killing blow to guile will get 150+ PPs. But its a little risky.
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I tried questing for my new character. It did seem like I gained a lot of PP from it, but it took a long time and the PP ran out surprisingly fast. I wouldn't say questing is even an option. The best you can do is what Venalan just described. I've been double-clienting and using my main to aid the new character. Unfortunately, I still haven't been able to get any skills to rank 10, and stats are a nightmare. I've given up. :/
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Got a secondary char (actually my first), and he learns quite ok and moves on doing quests. Herb and harvest at 9, plus a little knife and casting (below 5). But he died and didn't get to dr, so he must have few hours. Someone knows?
No help from Pakerl..
See ya!
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My experience is that because my weak char does little damage, I get almost no pp. Maybe 1 pp. So going along with a skilled hunter - which a couple of different oldbies did for me (oldbies are awesomely helpful, did I already say this?) - did me no good.
Boni, did you have a different experience? Can you actually help weak chars gain pp in this way? I think the days of standing on...what's her name, Guile's tent while she get hit by rocks by strong chars and getting enough pp to hope to become strong yourself...those days are gone.
Correct me if I am wrong.
I am glad that Venalan already answered this point for me, so I don't have to explain strategies that might be considered a spoiler :D
A little point about hunting to gain PPs. Do not do it grouped. If you are grouped and an older player does 99% damage and you do 1%, you get 1% of the PP. If two players go hunting and one player does 99% and then runs off, and you then start attacking and give the killing blow you get 100% of the PP. a newish character giving the killing blow to guile will get 150+ PPs. But its a little risky.
That summarizes it very nicely. So the idea is to help a trainee in the arena by creating a constant flow of critically injured beasties, while transferring mana to the young hunter so he can keep blasting them to death.
Conerning another issue, i could not resist to create a ticket (http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/flyspray/index.php?do=details&task_id=6331).
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The moving/vanishing NPCs are what bother me more than anything. It's either time-consuming or costly to get from place to place to quest or train, especially for lower levels, and to finally complete something and spend time or money to turn it in only to find the NPC of choice is MIA is screen-punchingly frustrating. I think quest NPCs at any level should stay put (not just the lower ones), and perhaps some "flavor NPCs" (ones that have no purpose other than to move around or talk about happenings) could fill in the void if the devs are aiming to make the world feel "alive". Moving needed NPCs is just straight up torture.
I'm not a fan of the PP system in general, but that's something for a much bigger discussion. At the moment, I think that quests should give out at least twice as many PP as they currently do, mainly because they are the primary source for new players, and while the community certainly presents itself as very helpful (kudos to everyone for that!), that help may not always be readily available, and because training itself is already a time sink, the increased PP may be a bit more encouraging to those starting up.
Lastly, I'm definitely for a Bronze Doors pterosaur. That run has always been monstrous, especially going back and forth. And unless things have changed drastically in my time away, I don't even recall using BD as much if at all once I got into the winch, so the flight would be infinitely more useful at the start. Perhaps it could be double the cost to go to the other cities, but I think players should start with BD flight, or just have a single quest from Krestal to see the pterosaur NPC in BD to unlock it.
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The mathscripts assigning practice points for every skill have been revised a few months ago, since then the practice time required for each skill is almost the same for every combat/magic/crafting skill, so the progression is overall balanced for every skill. Changing the amount of practice required means only changing a single number for each skill in the DB. I guess the biggest problem is maxing out a skill (any skill) requires about 200h of practice time...
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I think that you should be able to max out at least a couple skills within 20-30 hours of play. Doubling skills/stats to 200/400 max did not add to the game it just made it incredibly longer. It isn't all that hard to max out your stats because there is no practice time involved but skills are a bit ridiculous. If you could advance at a reasonable rate people would not fear a wipe so much and balancing new content would be easier to effect.
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I guess the biggest problem is maxing out a skill (any skill) requires about 200h of practice time...
this is true for Armor Making for sure... you should need less than that if you have load of steel and do not waste your time assembling patterns and then Strip... its very fast to train crafting using contenairs... Atm how many characters maxed out metallurgy ? it took me one week to max it out from lvl 150, It took me years to train those 150 lvl... Training with hammering is way longer...
But I can give 100 millions trias to the one who max any Magic way in 200 hours...
It should be possible if the enchanters would allows us to enchant many gems at once (like we drop many molten steel in the forge) but for now it take age just to reach realm 2, the required lvl for getting the quest for the enchanting room
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I guess the biggest problem is maxing out a skill (any skill) requires about 200h of practice time...
(http://i.imgur.com/Z5Q0a.gif)
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@ Mouli:
In this case, you are not playing the role-playing game, only the game-mechanics game. Which of them is PlaneShift? ;)
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@ Volki:
In this case, I completely agree.
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@ Mouli:
In this case, you are not playing the role-playing game, only the game-mechanics game. Which of them is PlaneShift? ;)
In which case ? just because I offer 100 millions...
I dont really get your point here, being old and rich, make me out of "your" game LigH ?
I'm really disapointed by your answer... but never mind this war, Player vs Rper has been around for too long and I'm very sad that you keep it on the table...
Cuz IMO its been one of the disease that reduced average player online...
Other all, Player or Rper, we are all testers here... no ?
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I'm really disapointed by your answer... but never mind this war, Player vs Rper has been around for too long and I'm very sad that you keep it on the table...
I think he was just making a joke. It is my feeling that we do not have this type of problem nowadays. There may be a few "typical" roleplayers or grinders, but most players I know just do what they like and respect others.
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I think that you should be able to max out at least a couple skills within 20-30 hours of play. Doubling skills/stats to 200/400 max did not add to the game it just made it incredibly longer. It isn't all that hard to max out your stats because there is no practice time involved but skills are a bit ridiculous. If you could advance at a reasonable rate people would not fear a wipe so much and balancing new content would be easier to effect.
if the project leader (Talad) agree it takes less than 5 minutes to reduce the amount of practice required.
But I can give 100 millions trias to the one who max any Magic way in 200 hours...
actually magic can be maxed in less time but you need to provide yourself a reliable source of mana, stamina, cast the highest possible realm available at your level and with the highest possible KFactor you can cast without failing too much spellcasting.
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@ Mouli:
Your disappointment may be based on missing the sarcasm here, or interpreting the "you" directed to you, not the one who powerlevels; I am not certain why.
My intention was to express that someone who powerlevels with such a speed (level 200 in 200 hours playing time) has no time to roleplay, no time to get to know other characters. And if I did not take my time to meet others, I would not play PlaneShift anymore; that's my personal experience. For me, as a player who persists so many years without a longer break, "the game PlaneShift" is defined more by the life the players generate with their characters, less by the game mechanics which are only a tool.
@ Eonwind:
I don't understand why 200 hours practice time are "the biggest problem of PlaneShift". Are they too many or too few? No, I don't see much problem in the practice time. I see the problem in the frustrating complexity and realism, if at all. I don't play a game that isn't fun; life is hard enough. Therefore I don't spend much time in leveling skills. But roleplay instead.
Not even german soccer team managers are as complex as PlaneShift, I believe. And you know, we germans are the clerks of the world. ;) ;) (More sarc marks?)
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To those of you complaining about how hard it is to level, please answer this: Why do you want to level up, especially to the max? Is it just a desire for completeness, or do you have a plan for using your skill?
Obviously, some quests require a certain level of skill or the money to buy the needed item. There have been a couple that I've found a bit of a grind (I've had the Forging Platinum Steel Blades quest open for months and still have a long way to go).
I've gotten to the point with my characters where I'm not sure there's much value in continuing to level up. I haven't made it past adept in any Way, I only have two crafting skills above 100, and my highest combat skill is only 32. I can already kill all the mobs I want to with magic, so there's little reason to level up combat. There's not much of a player market for crafted goods, and making stuff just to sell it to an NPC seems pointless. I've done most quests a couple times, so there's no strong pull to run a new character through them.
It's at the point where I feel I either have to get more involved in RP or quit. Perhaps this is the goal of the devs and they're just hoping I choose RP over quitting.
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It's at the point where I feel I either have to get more involved in RP or quit. Perhaps this is the goal of the devs and they're just hoping I choose RP over quitting.
I'll RP withya! :thumbup:
Seriously though. I think the leveling system is a bit time-consuming. But that is my only qualm about it. That said, I don't "grind" or what have you. I have about ten characters that I role play. And of them, I role play at least four fairly consistently. I do not have the time to grind that many characters in whatever various skillsets they may have, nor would I if I did, because I get no enjoyment out of it whatsoever. I like the loreside, the questing and bookreading and even reading what all the different plants do, but as to killing five dozen ulbernauts standing on a rock somewhere with CRYSTAL ARROW! I say no thank you, sirrah!
That is, however, ME. I have no issue with people who DO wish to spend their free time leveling or exploring the mechanics, or questing, or what have you. If that is fun, fantastic! To each their own as had already been stated, and speaking from experience, programming and quest scripting takes a lot of time and effort. Having people enjoy these aspects is vital to the game. There is no superior or inferior method of enjoyment and there are no "sides." I've found personally that so long as "non grinders" don't make their characters intolerable Demi-gods, people who are highly ranked will respect their strengths (and weaknesses!) when the proverbial role play paths cross.
I should like to also point put that not everyone is going to be a Yliakum version of Bruce Lee. Not everyone is going to be a MASTAH OF ALLLLLLL THAH THINGS. (Frankly nobody should probably be a master of every little thing, but I digress!) There is nothing wrong with having a character that is not as combat oriented. It all comes down to what sorts of RP you wish to explore honestly!
This has been my two cents for whoever gets bored enough to read it ;D
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With all due respect, 200 hours to max a skill does not sound right for DW.
At a little over 150DW, It currently takes me about 2 hours to train 1 level ( 1.5 enchanting diamonds, or 2 hours looting ulbers ). At this rate, it would take me another 100+ hours to train to 200 assuming that the rest of my progress follows a straight line and not a curve. That would mean that the first 150 levels could currently be acquired in 100 hours. I'm very skeptical about that number, but I cannot argue that point as the techniques and time that it has taken to train has changed over the years as the game has evolved.
If I were to try to train a new char to only 150, I would need to train about 1/3 to 1/2 as much AW and possibly some armor skill to at least 30 to 60 or so. Stats also need to be raise gradually so that you can carry more loot per trip and increase your mana and hit points. In the beginning, I would need to also train a weapon skill in order to loot for money and pp when mana was too low to cast. Add in too, the time that it takes to do the winch quest and obtain a mount. Without that mount, you need to factor in more time to run between the trainer and optimal training spot on foot. Finally, if training DW, you need to do the way quests in order to get better glyphs - otherwise, you are just wasting lots of time and will never get to your goal. With the way quests comes the need to find fellow players to lend you staves and things.
For a newcomer who does not know all the ins and outs and has no idea which quests he needs to do, it will take much longer.
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To those of you complaining about how hard it is to level, please answer this: Why do you want to level up, especially to the max? Is it just a desire for completeness, or do you have a plan for using your skill?
In no specific order:
1) Dueling
2) Access to areas with tough mobs
3) Roleplaying a character that actually has the skills and stats he/she claims or appears to have
4) Power
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With all due respect, 200 hours to max a skill does not sound right for DW.
Yes, I think Eonwind really only referred to the fraction of time spent that is used for calculating practice points. As he pointed out, there are other aspects that act as a bottle neck, even if you only look at the gaining practice part.
Linear or curved? For simplicity, consider that the effort to go from N to N+1 scales with N, then the effort from 0 to N scales with N². Let us further assume going from 0 to 100 took roughly 50 hours, then 0 to 150 would take at least 112 hours, and going from 0 to 200 would take at least 200 hours. So the ratio of your numbers seems realistic to me - although it probably takes even much longer :whistling: plus a few hundred hours running to the bronze doors and back X-/
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http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=41348.msg465752#msg465752
the difference between theory and Reality is so big...
A master mage (with his way boosted over 250), and with stats maxed & boosted (all around 440), can't even kill an onyx dagger or maulbernaut without having to sit down, and wait for mental stamina regeneration... of course you can use load of potions of regeneration, that give you around 200 stamina point (at 300Q) when your spell consume 400... so one spell = 2 potions... that gonna be very expensive...
@Jowifi, why training ?
-1 cuz I cant imagine RPing a mage that cant heal himself, a crafter that dont know how to use an hammer or a warrior who can't kill a rat...
-2 because Devs and teams spend so much of their free time working on PS, just ignoring the game mecanism, sound not respectfull to the Devs work,
Overall, Rpers or Players, we are all Testers here, and giving feedback of our game experience is just our duty...
this Thread is not really a complain, has been posted in general discussion... and in my opinion, this game being too hard in some ways, is a fact...
Now, Saying "Why are you complaining ? just don't train..."
I should answer "because we love PS, just because we love it"
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The mathscripts assigning practice points for every skill have been revised a few months ago, ...
. I guess the biggest problem is maxing out a skill (any skill) requires about 200h of practice time...
Ha, funny. If I could max mining in 200 hours, that would really be nice. On the other hand I've invested so much, it would be a pity if someone could max it in less than half of what I already put in...
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Just not to be misunderstood: Learning or even mastering a skill is something which should take years. I really don't mind. It is just a part of life, also ic-ly :)
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http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=41348.msg465752#msg465752
the difference between theory and Reality is so big...
A master mage (with his way boosted over 250), and with stats maxed & boosted (all around 440), can't even kill an onyx dagger or maulbernaut without having to sit down, and wait for mental stamina regeneration... of course you can use load of potions of regeneration, that give you around 200 stamina point (at 300Q) when your spell consume 400... so one spell = 2 potions... that gonna be very expensive...
I heard this argument before, however although nowhere close to this level with buffs ( 175dw, 430cha) I have not run into this problem yet. I HAVE found that not all spells can be cast the same way. Some are better when cast at a lower level - they drain much less mana and cast much faster, while others do well with a hefty amount of mana - they take longer to cast, drain more, but do more damage.
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I know Rigwyn but I was making reference to this statements
actually magic can be maxed in less time but you need to provide yourself a reliable source of mana, stamina, cast the highest possible realm available at your level and with the highest possible KFactor you can cast without failing too much spellcasting.
but for sure, Like Mariana said, I can stand on the rock down there and cast energy arrow for age and maybe kill one...
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Point taken.
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Yes, I think Eonwind really only referred to the fraction of time spent that is used for calculating practice points. As he pointed out, there are other aspects that act as a bottle neck, even if you only look at the gaining practice part.
Exactly this time is not comprehensive of the time spent questing, RPing, rising the stats or acquiring the resources (for crafting) or even walking to the trainer to learn a new lesson.
I've gotten to the point with my characters where I'm not sure there's much value in continuing to level up. I haven't made it past adept in any Way, I only have two crafting skills above 100, and my highest combat skill is only 32. I can already kill all the mobs I want to with magic, so there's little reason to level up combat. There's not much of a player market for crafted goods, and making stuff just to sell it to an NPC seems pointless. I've done most quests a couple times, so there's no strong pull to run a new character through them.
It's at the point where I feel I either have to get more involved in RP or quit. Perhaps this is the goal of the devs and they're just hoping I choose RP over quitting.
Yes we hope you choose RP over quitting. ;)
However I think you played out most of game content (or the game content you are interested in). Our plan is not to bore the player and we're working to expant content all the time adding new quests, new crafting, monsters. It's a lot of work but it's being added all the time, and it's ontop trying to fix as many bugs as we can.
@ Eonwind:
I don't understand why 200 hours practice time are "the biggest problem of PlaneShift". Are they too many or too few? No, I don't see much problem in the practice time. I see the problem in the frustrating complexity and realism, if at all. I don't play a game that isn't fun; life is hard enough. Therefore I don't spend much time in leveling skills. But roleplay instead.
Not even german soccer team managers are as complex as PlaneShift, I believe. And you know, we germans are the clerks of the world. ;) ;) (More sarc marks?)
I didn't mean practice time is the single biggest problem of PS, but speaking about the leveling system taking a lot of time I'm sure it's the single biggest "bottleneck" (I say that having an overall view of all the rules, mechanism, scripts involving all the system), and yes I think 200h are a bit too much.
Speaking about complexity it's something that could take a whole new topic but just to mention a few things:
1 - class free system (where you are not restrained to choosing a per-determined set of skill) meant to award more advanced "game actions" as the char grows in skill experience has some inherent degree of complexity (think about mechanic physic involving more degrees of movement of a body in space: it's surely more complex than studying a system moving on a 1-dimension spece);
2 - a good GUI can hide some layer of complexity to the end user (so he can concentrate on the action instead of the ui) and we're trying to improve it all the time
3 - some mechanics should be more transparent and written in the player's manual, that's why I started a "strategy guide" http://planeshift.top-ix.it/pswiki/index.php?title=Players_Guide#tab=Strategy_Advice (http://planeshift.top-ix.it/pswiki/index.php?title=Players_Guide#tab=Strategy_Advice) I hope both devs and players can improve over time.
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Too much complexity also increases the risk of exploits.
I remember that there was some slightly complex sword making in Gothic 1, where you had to heat, hammer, chill, and sharpen the blade. Each step was exploitable by repetitively trying it in fast pace. So with a little luck and quick fingers, you could receive more than half of the number of used steel as extra blades.
Gothic 2 turned it into one crafting step. No more exploit. Not much realism either, though. The number of steel you could obtain from NPCs per day was limited, though. In a single player game, you could at least sleep.
Every game has different goals, different aspects. What works easily in one, may not be useful in another, at least not without some adaption. Yet, it may point to a valid concept.
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Too much complexity also increases the risk of exploits.
I remember that there was some slightly complex sword making in Gothic 1, where you had to heat, hammer, chill, and sharpen the blade. Each step was exploitable by repetitively trying it in fast pace. So with a little luck and quick fingers, you could receive more than half of the number of used steel as extra blades.
Gothic 2 turned it into one crafting step. No more exploit. Not much realism either, though. The number of steel you could obtain from NPCs per day was limited, though. In a single player game, you could at least sleep.
Every game has different goals, different aspects. What works easily in one, may not be useful in another, at least not without some adaption. Yet, it may point to a valid concept.
Yep regarding crafting every game can have a different approach, some just require to provide ingredients and find a recipe them the actual crafting is all abstract, some are more realistic, other are in-between. Planeshift has a more realistic oriented way of crafting, someone can like it others not at all. At the moment one of the focus of the rules department is trying to improve data (when possible) so crafting a single item is overall less time expensive, like making it possible to process many items at time (bulk crafting). Engine side a way to make crafting less manual (like equipping tools and starting a process with a single click) is being thought out, this should improve the gameplay quite a bit.
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Firstly - I do not like the current stamina system. I had high hopes for it originally, but after playing with it for some time in game I got frustrated and annoyed. I had previously found 'grinding' way levels while sitting and listening to music or chatting to friends to be a quite relaxing experience. Not always an easy one for sure and I would need to watch my hp and pay some level of attention, but it was fluid and constant with no unnatural pauses. It was the right mix of attention and relaxation. Stamina loss introduced pauses that were, to me, very disruptive to this. I couldn't fall into the same relaxed state of mind that I had once been able to find while levelling. Something that had given me a little time to cool down and clear my head after a long day working had turned into something that I found stressful and unenjoyable instead.
As an alternative, I tried to enchant. I took a way from 184 to 190 by playing around with diamonds, but that was basically an exercise in moving something into a container then ignoring the game and doing something else for a couple of minutes each time. It was soul crushingly uninteresting. I got bored of it within a couple of levels, but pushed to 190 because it was a nice number. Then I stopped.
What did this mean? It meant I was no longer there paying attention to the game and therefore, when people I would otherwise have RPed with logged into the game, I wasn't there to notice them. I started RPing less and less, as I would log in, see no one around to RP with, have nothing to hold my focus while waiting for someone and so would just log out again or minimise the game and forget I had it running.
There are other factors behind why I went from being in game practically every single day to barely logging in of course, but I consider stamina to be the main reason I've not managed to change things since (though the so often absent NPCs also made me abandon an attempt I made at starting over on a new character as well).
One of the other reasons I stopped playing as much was because several friends in game all left at around the same time. Most of them specifically expressed frustration with stamina before doing so.
This brings me back to:
http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=41348.msg465752#msg465752
the difference between theory and Reality is so big...
A master mage (with his way boosted over 250), and with stats maxed & boosted (all around 440), can't even kill an onyx dagger or maulbernaut without having to sit down, and wait for mental stamina regeneration... of course you can use load of potions of regeneration, that give you around 200 stamina point (at 300Q) when your spell consume 400... so one spell = 2 potions... that gonna be very expensive...
Now in all fairness to the rules department, I think this is a bit extreme. I can assure you that my master mage can drop any creature in game without needing to quaff potions or restore stamina any other way midfight, even the lovely lavvar itself can't squish my claim to this but...
I worked hard to be able to cast r5 spells. It took me hours and hours and hours and hours and hours to get there. And it's basically pointless to use them. Two imagos while casting r5 spells = no stamina left. This is on a character with maxed mental stats and casting with skill levels in the range of 140 to 200+ (items used for the +).
I know stamina is being looked at and reassessed, but I worry any reassessment will not make a big enough difference and that, for some players, the damage has already been done.
(I also just want to acknowledge that my testing for stamina was done quite some time back - I do not know if there have been changes since, but the odd little bits of gameplay I've given myself since then haven't made it seem so.)
Now with that negative ugh all said and my ranting done, there are some real improvements showing up as well, so I'm certainly not abandoning all hope, but I really feel that stamina, NPCs who go walkies and a few other things really do need to be addressed.
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Learning or even mastering a skill is something which should take years. I really don't mind. It is just a part of life, also ic-ly :)
Reminder: This is a game. People play games to escape life. Players are not interested in games that emulate life with all the same difficulties.
it would be a pity if someone could max it in less than half of what I already put in...
I have spent far too many hours on this game, and I would not mind if newer players were maxing skills at a tenth of the time it took me. I think forcing others to go through the same as you did, just because it was unpleasant, is incredibly selfish. It may not be fair to us, but it is fair for the game and its potential players. And it gives me more people to play with. People who aren't always busy grinding.
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This game has been much harder in certain areas before. It's under continuous development and things do change greatly over time, if you have the patience to stick with it and watch it grow. Mind you I'm not saying it's perfect yet.
I want to see who else thinks this game is hard. In fact, I don't want to see anyone arguing that this game isn't hard,
I don't see the point in opening a discussion thread if you are only after getting your own preconception confirmed, and you discourage anyone who is of a different opinion to add theirs. :-X
Honestly, what's the point? - Oh wait that was a rhetoric question; there is none, I do know already.
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@Eonwind: Sorry, I messed up. 200 hours to max is a good number also for mining. I re-evaluated my times, and pure digging does it. Sorry for answering too fast, and for answering by feeling instead of numbers. I still had the previous timing in my mind....
Thanks to everybody who cares for the game!
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:thumbup: What Volki said.
:thumbup: What Taya said.
:sorcerer:
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Honestly, what's the point? - Oh wait that was a rhetoric question; there is none, I do know already.
The point was stated in the original post.
Before I posted this, there was a discussion in the global chat about the difficulty of the game. How hard it is to rank up, gain PP, acquire money, and how bad it is for new players. It was obvious that there were many people who had major issues with the game, but most felt it was pointless to do anything about it, since Talad doesn't seem to listen to the players very often. I also received /tells that some players were afraid to speak up about it because they had been punished in the past for doing so. There are a few players who will protect the state of the game at any cost, and they can be pretty vicious. I'm not sure if they are afraid they will no longer be the elite when casual players can achieve the same levels, or maybe they feel emotionally attached to the game. Either way, those players are discouraging to the majority, and I couldn't care less what a minority of elites has to say.
The other reason I posted this was to get the developers' attention. They always claim that this is a beta/alpha, and they say we are the testers, but they seem to forget that we are also here to make observations and criticisms. I would like to see more people playing the game, and I know that isn't going to happen the way it is now. The game will not survive in its current state.
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I also received /tells that some players were afraid to speak up about it because they had been punished in the past for doing so.
You can tell them they can speak up their mind as long as they want, we're not going to bash anyone provided the speak politely and respectfully, not just because we're devs but because it's due to anyone no matter what (Volki you're the first in need to remember this :P).
The other reason I posted this was to get the developers' attention. They always claim that this is a beta/alpha, and they say we are the testers, but they seem to forget that we are also here to make observations and criticisms. I would like to see more people playing the game, and I know that isn't going to happen the way it is now. The game will not survive in its current state.
before saying silliness like we (the devs) don't accept criticism (as the forget verb seems to imply) you should go back and read previous posts of this topic, read previous posts of other topics then make up your mind, and restart the process again at least a couple of time... you should practice more to process informations :P
Personally (and the vast majority of current devs) I gladly accept constructive criticism, and whenever it's supported by data, instead of only feelings, all the better!
This does not automatically mean the complain is deemed true, if it is the problem will be dealt with but maybe not in the way you're expecting, but I can promise the complain will be (and was) evaluated and if possible fixed. Also consider the fix must account for: global overview of the game development, free time available to the dev, actual availability of engine/code features (and eventually asking for a new feature and waiting for it to be done) and last but not least what a dev may like to work on, because never forget we're doing it on our free time and it's important for anyone to enjoy what one is working on.
I can make a random list of problems pointed out by players for which a fix was provided, there are a lot more and they're not even sorted for importance:
- bug in the combat system making HA wearers invulnerable
- armor making transformations changed to shorten the game time required to craft them
- aggressive arangmas in the forest outside hydlaa
- no delay between consume food/potions
- ... ... ...
I may end pointing out the game has gained players lately but I prefer to end with a suggestion: bring up this issue to the Dev Q&A meeting every two weeks, Talad is present most of the time and while some of the issues haven't been listened to others have been in the past.
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That post was not directed at you or the developers (for the most part). And there have been many developers before you.
If I implied anything, it's that there is an elite class of players who want to remain elite, and that developers tend to forget that testers are meant to point out problems with gameplay, and you're meant to fix the problems. At this point, my issue is with Talad insisting the game should be "realistic" (in other words, no longer a game).
I don't like to imply things. I make my purpose obvious. So, no, I was not implying that the developers do not accept criticism. I was saying, pretty obviously, that they (or Talad) ignore criticism.
Also, this thread doesn't have to be about how I'm a terrible person in need of cognitive therapy. There are plenty of other threads about that.
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I admit I find this thread very interesting, it reminds me this definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusory_attitude (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusory_attitude).
[...]
Personally (and the vast majority of current devs) I gladly accept constructive criticism, and whenever it's supported by data, instead of only feelings, all the better!
[...]
I totally agree here with Eonwind, the more specific we are giving informations about game's flaws the more probability we have to address devs in the right direction.
This doesn't mean that players that speak about their feelings are wrong, but those feelings need to be the starting point to gather more objective data.
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... And there have been many developers before you.
... I was saying, pretty obviously, that they (or Talad) ignore criticism.
I have the impression that the current devs on the settings and rules side are much more open to suggestions and discussions than it was ever the case during the previous five years or so.
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There are a few players who will protect the state of the game at any cost, and they can be pretty vicious. I'm not sure if they are afraid they will no longer be the elite when casual players can achieve the same levels, or maybe they feel emotionally attached to the game. Either way, those players are discouraging to the majority, and I couldn't care less what a minority of elites has to say.
Care to name a few?
Who the hell is this elite class of stuck up players who seem to ignore everyone, defend the game, and god knows what else? I've heard about this for years. It seems to be more of a strawman argument than anything else. If people are being a-holes, then point it out and name them.
As for the progress made in the game, those of us who played before 0.5 will recall going for years without any noticeable changes to the game. Since 0.5 or so, Venalan and Eonwind have been both providing feedback on the forums and making considerable changes. Since I joined in late '07, I don't recall ever seeing this much involvement with the player community.
Yeah, it may be harder in some ways, but at least its improving and for once in the last X years, players are actually heard.
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http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=41348.msg465752#msg465752
the difference between theory and Reality is so big...
The message you link to appears to have been a bug related to wearing armor while casting that is (or was) fixed.
A master mage (with his way boosted over 250), and with stats maxed & boosted (all around 440), can't even kill an onyx dagger or maulbernaut without having to sit down, and wait for mental stamina regeneration... of course you can use load of potions of regeneration, that give you around 200 stamina point (at 300Q) when your spell consume 400... so one spell = 2 potions... that gonna be very expensive...
I'm not sure what you're doing differently, but I have two mages that are Level 75 in different ways. One has Int up to 300, but all other mental stats are 160 or lower. Either can take out an Onyx Dagger without any trouble.
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Just for the sake of throwing my two tria in...
There seem to be 2 relatively unrelated issues being addressed/argued here.
1. The game is too hard for new players starting out.
2. The game takes too long for people to max their skills
Problem 2 seems to be what's under debate, and that's fine. It takes a very long time. A lot of people think it's too long, others are ok with it. Personally I don't see the big deal with "maxing" skills anyway. Unless you're doing PvP (which doesn't seem to be the majority of players) then skills in the 100-150 range seem fine for most purposes. In my experience you only need ~100 in a crafting skill to make 300q items regularly (correct me if I'm wrong, I've only done a few skills). Some people have reasons for wanting to max, and I understand that. Whatever.
Anyway that's besides the point. However you fall on issue #2, I think it's universally agreed that issue 1 should be addressed. Current "oldbies" are starting new characters and having a hard time leveling them up, and these are players who already have extensive knowledge about the game world and mechanics. For someone just starting out, who doesn't know where anything is or how to do anything, it's even more frustrating. I think this is the problem that should be focused on first. If we can make the starting out process less painful then maybe player retention will improve.
The new tutorial is a good start. Maybe to help, we could do something as simple as double the starting skills you get from character creation. Make new characters just a little less pathetic at the beginning. Make the first ~15 or so levels take less tria/PPs to train. Stuff like that? I don't know, I'm just throwing out random ideas.
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There are a few players who will protect the state of the game at any cost, and they can be pretty vicious. I'm not sure if they are afraid they will no longer be the elite when casual players can achieve the same levels, or maybe they feel emotionally attached to the game. Either way, those players are discouraging to the majority, and I couldn't care less what a minority of elites has to say.
Care to name a few?
No. Daevoarn might count, with his attitude, but I don't know who he is. Naming players would only make it worse.
Who the hell is this elite class of stuck up players who seem to ignore everyone, defend the game, and god knows what else? I've heard about this for years. It seems to be more of a strawman argument than anything else.
If they ignored everyone, how would they jump on other players for thinking the game too hard? If you've never interacted with these players, then that's great. They're typically grinders and people who have never touched another MMORPG. Luckily, most of the ones I've met have left, but that doesn't mean they haven't negatively affected other players.
By the way, that's not a strawman fallacy. I never made an argument.
As for the progress made in the game......
This thread isn't about comparing the now to the past. Do you think I would bother posting if I knew they would not see it? The purpose of the thread is to convince them and Talad that the issue of difficulty needs to be addressed. This has been a growing problem for years, but it's only gotten worse. Someone had to do something.
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ill-considered treacle infused pompous pontification removed
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... And there have been many developers before you.
... I was saying, pretty obviously, that they (or Talad) ignore criticism.
I have the impression that the current devs on the settings and rules side are much more open to suggestions and discussions than it was ever the case during the previous five years or so.
:thumbup:
As for the progress made in the game, those of us who played before 0.5 will recall going for years without any noticeable changes to the game. Since 0.5 or so, Venalan and Eonwind have been both providing feedback on the forums and making considerable changes. Since I joined in late '07, I don't recall ever seeing this much involvement with the player community.
Yeah, it may be harder in some ways, but at least its improving and for once in the last X years, players are actually heard.
:thumbup:
We have a series of changes which address a number of the more frequently commented on issues which players have told us about. The next update should be very pleasing. I had more to say but comments bashing devs don't go down well so don't want to put the effort in to saying more here.
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Care to name a few?
No. Daevoarn might count, with his attitude,
???
but I don't know who he is.
::|
Naming players would only make it worse.
;D
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Naming players would only make it worse.
I said that only because I've heard so much about these "elite" and "snobish" players, but I never hear names. Without names, it has little merit. Its just another complaint about "Them", "They" or "Somebody."
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@Bonifarzia, there is no point in hiding the name of someone who has made their opinion loud and clear.
@Rigwyn, I don't try to interact with them. I don't know who the players are that other players complain about. I didn't ask. Besides, most of them are long gone, and I really don't care enough to look through my logs and convince you of this. Maybe I would be more inclined to do so if you made your position more obvious.
We have a series of changes which address a number of the more frequently commented on issues which players have told us about. The next update should be very pleasing. I had more to say but comments bashing devs don't go down well so don't want to put the effort in to saying more here.
I never bashed the developers. Not once. Eonwind's post was completely off-mark. When I speak about developers, I'm talking about all the developers that have shared my time in this game. I do not know who is currently a dev and who isn't. So I'm not speaking directly about you or Eonwind. And my issue with the "elite" does not include developers.
Not once have I denied that changes have been made. Although you have improved the game in many ways, people aren't going to want to play it if it remains this difficult. That is why this thread was posted. To bring attention to a specific issue that is being ignored.
I feel like my words are being twisted so there might be an excuse to avoid this thread.
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Missing/Sleeping NPCs: looks like this could make it easier to play the game for everyone http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/flyspray/index.php?do=details&task_id=6331 (http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/flyspray/index.php?do=details&task_id=6331).
As you can see - even after a long time - the issue was acknowledge and Talad approved the change, so why not trying to ask him about lowering the amount of practice required as I suggested before?
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I think this game is not too hard, but its sometimes very frustrating wich makes it hard to play.
The most frustration is caused by the Quest-System.
Somewhere in Hydlaa: You got a Quest. Please go to an npc at Eagle Bronze Doors then come back to me \\o//
Asking around :detective: The Answer: You have to go through the Forest, passing two maps and at the end of map 3 you'll find it. :o Passing bdroad1 ... bdroad2 ... finaly at the npc you realize that you have to go the whole way back >:( You think about using the DR as shortcut :whistling: but than struggle under the weight of your inventory X-/ Back at hydlaa you can't find the npc... ::| Someone tells you that the npc is "in bed" you have to wait some RL-Hours :( You quit the game cause you don't have the RL-Time to wait :surrender: Another Day, you can find the NPC, he tells you that you have to go to someone in Ojaveda to finish the quest :-\ but hey there is a pterosaurs \\o// it costs 1500 tria you don't have the money so you run again... :(
some days of questing, training and leveling later you met someone with a mount who tells you where you can get such a mount \\o// you go to the npc, he gives you the quest (you have the ring of familiar quest already done because the pets are so are so cute :love: ) again running around.. but then you have to find someone named datal ??? he can be found in the winch :@#\ many frustrating and annoying quest later you can give datal the letter \\o// but hey he is busy with a plague and can't help you :o :'(
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Hey Volki, don't take my last post too serious. The part i quoted justlooked really funny to me in that sequence.
Eonwind, I am very happy to see that my ticket on flyspray stimulated some reconsideration. Thanks \\o//
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First, thanks Venalan for describing the proper way for newbs to be helped to gain pp by oldbies, I had no idea it was the fact that I was grouped that made the pp gain impossible. Grazie mille.
Loved Boni's statement, "I have the impression that the current devs on the settings and rules side are much more open to suggestions and discussions than it was ever the case during the previous five years or so" because I agree here. Much work has been done with the tutorial to help newbs, and this thread is proof of how open and awesome the devs are to making the game more fun and gaining more players again, hopefully far surpassing our old numbers. I'm very happy with the thoughtful responses and ideas, from everyone. To me it is very clear we are all on the same page as far as the goal, wanting to get more people here to play and to stay. It's an awesome world.
Tman is dead on with attending to "1. The game is too hard for new players starting out." before anything else. Excellent post.
Sajut too, excellent.
Male Nolthrirs are darling, speaking of improvements. Just fought against them in the arena, it's nice to see the Nolthrir couples together there.
Nothing new, just to say that I'm playing a bit now, and will be extremely happy to see the updates that address some of these issues, the ones we can deal with. Big :love: everyone.
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Hi all
As a new player with a new char I'm probably best placed to decide if this game is too hard for newbies. But I already got lots of advice from other players so my first advice to newbies is: Talk to as many people as you can. The community - at least those whom I encountered - is generally nice and helpful to new players and will involve you in RP as well which actually is fun!
After playing only a few days I can say I enjoy the game and don't mind the grinding - up until now. I've taken up baking and will take up herbalism to get a nice stock on Trias and PP's before starting off hunting - I've realized that killing rats gives very few of both, not enough to pay for training. What I can't imagine is how you get to develop a hunter-only char without massive help from oldies?? That should be possible for those who want it. I'll keep you posted on any problems I'll encounter as I advance through the game.
Thanks to all the nice people I've met and still are to meet.
PS: Sorry, I've put in my real name as I registered for the forum instead of a fantasy one and know there's no way of changing it - hope it isn't a problem.
PPS: Forgive any english mistakes, I'm not english-speaking.
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take up leather working and armor making. the boots, gloves etc give 2 skills practice and experience.
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Thanks Bilbous, I'll go for it - as soon as I'm able to kill riverlings since this is a requirement as I gathered from gossip ;)
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I'll keep you posted on any problems I'll encounter as I advance through the game.
Thank you! That's very helpful and appreciated!
Thanks Bilbous, I'll go for it - as soon as I'm able to kill riverlings since this is a requirement as I gathered from gossip ;)
No! don't go kill riverlings :) ... suggestion: find a hunter or a merchant able to provide you what you're asked to provide bu the quest, that's the best way to get you started with leatherworking imo ;)
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It's nice to see the dev's care about the players' opinions :thumbup: You're welcome Eonwind. I think this game is unique in RP and probably also in crafting complexity (though I haven't played enough games to be sure about that) which is something I personally like. I already care about it and will do what I can to help.
Thanks for the advice: I'll try to find someone willing to hunt down some riverlings for me.
One thing I noticed in baking: I'm able to make q300 sand cookies now (not something I'm proud of, mind) but in order to make Trias out of it I can't buy training everytime I rank up. I think that's a pity (even though I'll admit you have to balance money vs XP in most games I encountered). I'd like to see my char (it's Ylyana, btw) advance to higher lvls even as she gains Trias.
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One thing I noticed in baking: I'm able to make q300 sand cookies now (not something I'm proud of, mind) but in order to make Trias out of it I can't buy training everytime I rank up. I think that's a pity (even though I'll admit you have to balance money vs XP in most games I encountered). I'd like to see my char (it's Ylyana, btw) advance to higher lvls even as she gains Trias.
thanks for telling! we would like the players to be able to gain enough trias and exp by practising the skill. For exp and practice it should be quite balanced, as for item prices it's harder to find the right balance :)
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Not sure if this is a bug, but training empathy is nearly impossible now. (Not exaggerating). You only gain experience from summoning a pet, and then you must wait several minutes before being able to gain experience from summoning again. Pet follow no longer awards experience. I trained my empathy up to rank 27 before the update, and have since not bothered to train it any further until recently. I haven't made any progress, as far as I can tell. And I summon my mount fairly often. Please tell me this was not purposeful. :[
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have you tried any of the more advanced commands like /pet attack or is that not implemented yet?
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have you tried any of the more advanced commands like /pet attack or is that not implemented yet?
The pet refuses....
(at emp 41)
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I think /pet attack and /pet assist are refused when the target is too powerful, unless your empathy is high enough to force the poor pet to do something really stupid.
I admit, I have not trained any empathy for years and won't do so until my feature request gets implemented. :lol:
(http://psps.psde.de/images/boni.yulbar.thumbnail.png) (http://psps.psde.de/images/boni.yulbar.png)
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I tried the empathy training some days ago. I discovered that you get experience only every 110s. It doesn't matter which command you use.
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In my opinion empathy should be eliminated. And as a side note the mounts should have an fixed (and quite high) endurance not dependent from the character's level.
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Empathy was the only skill whose practice and experience system wasn't touched at all in the overall review I did some months ago, the reason being its system hardly match the criteria used by other skills. In the end it's the most difficult and slowest skill to train. About /pet attack it should work at 41 and I think I've been able to use it at 10 (but I will check again) but to use it you need first to select a target and use the /pet target command only at this time the /pet attack command will be correctly delivered to the pet.
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Empathy is a kind of odd skill. There are, obviously, two types of pet: the two mounts and the other kind. Time spent mounted really ought to count toward empathy practice, it is the single-most frequent use. Perhaps the other kind of pet could /mount as well, but rather than the character riding it, it would ride the character. Who wouldn't want to see a kran with a yulbar riding on its head?
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Empathy was the only skill whose practice and experience system wasn't touched at all in the overall review I did some months ago, the reason being its system hardly match the criteria used by other skills. In the end it's the most difficult and slowest skill to train. About /pet attack it should work at 41 and I think I've been able to use it at 10 (but I will check again) but to use it you need first to select a target and use the /pet target command only at this time the /pet attack command will be correctly delivered to the pet.
Eonwind, the 13th July I started a new char for testing purpose (i.e. testing the difficulty from the noob's perspective) and if nothing was changed from that date, I can say empathy is for sure the fastest skill to develop: in a matter of minutes I'm gone from 0 to 20. It's just a matter to find a smart way.
P.S.: I want to highlight that I didn't cheat, it's really possible without breaking rules!
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Empathy is a kind of odd skill. There are, obviously, two types of pet: the two mounts and the other kind. Time spent mounted really ought to count toward empathy practice, it is the single-most frequent use. Perhaps the other kind of pet could /mount as well, but rather than the character riding it, it would ride the character. Who wouldn't want to see a kran with a yulbar riding on its head?
Empathy is also used to control charmed mobs.
Empathy was the only skill whose practice and experience system wasn't touched at all in the overall review I did some months ago, the reason being its system hardly match the criteria used by other skills. In the end it's the most difficult and slowest skill to train. About /pet attack it should work at 41 and I think I've been able to use it at 10 (but I will check again) but to use it you need first to select a target and use the /pet target command only at this time the /pet attack command will be correctly delivered to the pet.
Eonwind, the 13th July I started a new char for testing purpose (i.e. testing the difficulty from the noob's perspective) and if nothing was changed from that date, I can say empathy is for sure the fastest skill to develop: in a matter of minutes I'm gone from 0 to 20. It's just a matter to find a smart way.
P.S.: I want to highlight that I didn't cheat, it's really possible without breaking rules!
oh well ... it's true you can gain practice by repeatedly hitting a shortcut, you're right (and it's not illegal afaik). But if a player tries to raise it's empathy only using it when "needed" I doubt he would be able to raise more than just a very few points.
Ideally the objective I would like to reach is being able to train it without having to rely on shortcuts.
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The 'shortcuts' no longer appear to work.
I can trigger three 'you gained some practice points' messages by summoning each possible pet in a row, but then that's it.
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To answer the topic questio... maybe. hthough i haven't been in in a while.
But compiling it sure is hard.
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"Empathy is also used to control charmed mobs."
Are you saying that there's a way to cast a spell on a mob/npc like an ulber or something, and then make it attack another npc or player? That would be wicked if that's what you meant.
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"Empathy is also used to control charmed mobs."
Are you saying that there's a way to cast a spell on a mob/npc like an ulber or something, and then make it attack another npc or player? That would be wicked if that's what you meant.
Yes, as of now an AW spell already in game allow the caster to "charme" for a given amount of time one monster at time and control them using the pet interface, the systems is experimental but works and you can make an NPC attack a target by using the /pet target and /pet attack commands.
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only if /pet attack actually works, but perhaps it requires more than 30 empathy. If that is the case then I shall really regret not spamming /pet stay when the staying was good!
I certainly wasn't able to get it to work.
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Arrows are too heavy.
My poor Nolthrir arrived at Hydlaa with only 40 strength and found she was hardly able to carry enough arrows to train ranged properly... You'd probably expect a strong Kran or Stonehammer to wield an axe or a broadsword and the rather weak ones to choose a bow and arrows over a heavy weapon... generally speaking. I didn't plan to train her strength much, she's supposed to be a light, agile, persevering huntress, but I eventually shall have to if I want her to be able to carry her loot in addition to potions and arrows.
Sorry to complain... I still love this game :love: and I'm grateful to all dev's and volunteers for bringing PS this far.
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Carrying around hundreds of arrows as you have to do in this game is unrealistic. Of course, the wholesale slaughter that is the combat training system is too. To be a hunter in this game is to be a buffalo soldier, killing whole herds for their skins and leaving behind the bulk of the carcass. Such activity could even be considered the capital offense of polluting as so many carcasses get left to rot. I suppose that is what the consumers are for, but one wonders how they can keep up. Isn't it also a capital offence to kill consumers? Good thing the Octarchy is so corrupt.
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Also takes too many arrows to kill anything... One should do the trick.
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I think the arrows have a proper weight if you compare with the real ones (0,075 kg each one if I remember correctly). What is wrong here is the number of arrows needed to kill even the weakest mob. Then there is another problem you'll face while training ranged weapons (at least at the beginning): the mobs that you can kill don't give you enough PPs, so you could try to switch to stronger beasts finding that you can't neither make a scratch to those. This makes ranged weapons a lot harder to try compared to magic for example. With a low level character you can cast a spell and deal some damage even to strong beasts (even if it takes quite some time) earning a lot of PPs. With ranged this isn't true, at the beginning you have to stick with rats and tlokes... ???
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Get yourself a weapon buff spell such as electrotouch and you can fight better monsters with archery.
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Carrying around hundreds of arrows as you have to do in this game is unrealistic. Of course, the wholesale slaughter that is the combat training system is too. To be a hunter in this game is to be a buffalo soldier, killing whole herds for their skins and leaving behind the bulk of the carcass. Such activity could even be considered the capital offense of polluting as so many carcasses get left to rot. I suppose that is what the consumers are for, but one wonders how they can keep up. Isn't it also a capital offence to kill consumers? Good thing the Octarchy is so corrupt.
No. Hunting and killing monster (not even consumers) is no offence and it's neither forbidden by the law, ICly it's considered a useful and necessary activity to keep their numbers low and produce whatever it's necessary for the people of the dome (like meat, leather, ...).
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It appears the Octarchal decrees have been revamped since last I consulted them. I believe it used to be that consumers were protected due to their role in recycling. It wasn't even so much the act of hunting I was suggesting was illegal as it was the scale of the slaughter and the likely improper disposing of the carcasses which would be subject to article 36. Given that the carcasses are not in evidence for more than a minute due to the game mechanics it isn't a real issue.
I apologize to anyone who may have thought my posts were meant to be taken as anything more than thought provoking.
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I think the arrows have a proper weight if you compare with the real ones (0,075 kg each one if I remember correctly).
And what is up with iron arrows? That sounds more like bolts for crossbows to me. It would be nice if one could craft wooden arrows with perhaps an optional metal head so that noobs could spend time instead of tria tooling up for a hunt.
@bilbous : Your buffalo allegory is spot on.
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I'm pretty sure "iron arrow" means an arrow with an iron head.
Ideally, if crafting is available you'd be able to use many more metals or even gems to make arrows that tradeoff durability, damage, weight, enchantability, etc.
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I'm pretty sure "iron arrow" means an arrow with an iron head.
The graphics look like one solid piece of iron to me, not just a little black spot at the end of a piece of wood.