Why do we want to leveling to be faster?

[Durvayas]

Significantly fewer if you make multiple humility conlock goblins.

[Ambigue]

Significantly fewer if you make multiple humility conlock goblins.

I can see how grinding out a series of identikit XP-gain-optimized characters until killing one off dispenses the desired token could be a fun, rich, and rewarding RP experience.

This should prove adequate preparation for the challenge of playing a tiefling or good-aligned drow.

[flower]

I can just laugh. After five years here none of my toons ever reached 30rd level. My longest one had gone as far as 28th only.

While one day we grind with friends as hell, jumping from dungeon to dungeon, we usually only do a level or two and then half week just idly walk around chatting and stuff. The only motivation is usually some important feat, skill. There is always a certain point after which all important things are taken and rest are not that important to keep grinding for.

[Durvayas]

Significantly fewer if you make multiple humility conlock goblins.

I can see how grinding out a series of identikit XP-gain-optimized characters until killing one off dispenses the desired token could be a fun, rich, and rewarding RP experience.

This should prove adequate preparation for the challenge of playing a tiefling or good-aligned drow.

I never said it was ideal, but with how the system works, this has become the commonly known most optimal means of attempting to farm a 5% with the least difficulty.

[WhiskeyGuy]

Wait... let me wrap my head around this... the idea is you make several characters all with the intent of getting to level 16, sacrificing them and getting one of those rewards?

I hate to be a dick, but.. isn't that counter to what a roleplay server is intended for?

[Ambigue]

I never said it was ideal, but with how the system works, this has become the commonly known most optimal means of attempting to farm a 5% with the least difficulty.

That is correct. And also, I feel, very counter to the point of playing on an RP server.

Is the RP occurring on the server improved by a bunch of mechanically near-identical goblins who exist solely to be killed off as soon as they reach an arbitrary level? It might be, though I cannot imagine now.

But it IS tied to the leveling system and it is the only reason I have any issues at all with the pace that one can expect to attain new levels.

[JediZero]

Wait... let me wrap my head around this... the idea is you make several characters all with the intent of getting to level 16, sacrificing them and getting one of those rewards?

I hate to be a dick, but.. isn't that counter to what a roleplay server is intended for?

As much as I hate it: It's what the mechanics have incentivized. You want one of those cool cookies? Well, you *could* roleplay a character up, and give them an amazing epic storyline. . .

Or you could make a goblin with a gift of humility, run around and get up to level 26, then roll and hope you get something worthwhile to actually make a *character* with.

There is literally no incentive to play a character without those rewards. And much like some people feel like they can only really Roleplay at 30/full build because otherwise other higher level people can objectively counter their RP strictly through mechanical power, some people feel there's no point in making a character without these rewards.

It's one of those things where you can clearly see the intentions meant: "Hey, we think that your character is awesome, but if it's the same thing over and over again, it gets boring. Maybe it's time to retire that character, and to help you along we'll give you some perk points for that!"

Is it worth it? I dunno. Seems kinda silly to me.

But it IS tied to the leveling system and it is the only reason I have any issues at all with the pace that one can expect to attain new levels.

That said I will say I know for sure that having the level speed be abysmally slow is the best way to make sure people never retire their characters.

[Ambigue]

Optimal path mechanical fetishism tends to detract from RP more than it adds to it.

[-XXX-]

That said I will say I know for sure that having the level speed be abysmally slow is the best way to make sure people never retire their characters.

Well, for the sake of argument, I wonder how often do people who grinded meme characters to earn a reward actually retire the character they use it on.

[gilescorey]

What do you mean, JediZero? The rewards are only for "special" races (all of which are weaker than their base race, with the exception of Hobgoblins and Deep Imaskari; who are stronger than half-Elves but only because half-Elves suck), horses that don't do anything other than spam the server by way of idiots leaving their dumb animals all over the place, and negative ECL things that make levelling slightly faster.

None of which are mandatory, let alone close to the dirty and evil "optimal" as Ambigue puts it. There's no reason to GOHblin grind unless you really want to play an Ogre or something. You just don't get anything out of it beyond lame snowflake stuff, or the chance at a 5%. 32 SR gift hasn't existed for a long time.

Edit: With the new update, tieflings and aasimar have a slight mechanical edge, making the point of this post largely incorrect. I'm not sure how to feel about that.

[vaclavc]

I love slow leveling pace of Arelith. If anything, it is a tad too fast currently, with all the exploration/portal/lasso xp available.
Most of my characters end their carreers long before they reach 30. When and if they do reach max level, though, it feels almost like an achievement, which I like very much.
That being said, I never tried to level a character just to roll her at 26 for a reward.
-V-

[Iceborn]

Personally, I do like the balance of slow grinding/steady leveling that Arelith offers.

NOW, if only you could actually refresh adventure xp without lassoing every mob like a failed pokemon master, that'd be great.

[DreadKnight Cuddles]

Two cents from starting off here.

Short of servers where XP is controlled directly from the DM client and you get zip unless the DM chooses to give you some, Arelith has the slowest XP gain I've encountered so far on NWN. I've heard it was slower than this some time ago, and of course I only joined recently so I only get 10XP per tick which means I'm going to be among the slowest.

Now I've made a conscious effort to go to every single dungeon I can find, even after being IC/OOC warned that some of them are "bad" in that there's little gold to be had there and that it will cost me more gold to visit in supplies than I'll make from doing it, but for the sake of adventure XP I'm visiting them as well. Even doing that, I'm still finding myself running the same dungeons several times, doing the same stuff.

Maybe it's tolerable if you've got a party that day willing to do a circle over and over and can chat IC/OOC about other things, but so far while the first time is okay because it's fresh to me; by the fourth or fifth it's losing the spark.

TL;DR: Leveling is a chore, I'm finding myself bored already repeating the same dungeon several times, while I'm okay doing it first time round I can't imagine doing a second PC and doing it all over again. If anything, slow leveling makes me want to keep one PC rather than seeing the mines/wharftown boys etc over and over. It's actually a bit awkward to RP sometimes, when you've killed the King of Ghouls with your party again for the fifth time.

[WhiskeyGuy]

Well... try Prisoners of the Mist... I spent a week roleplaying and adventuring and never got even one level up.

That said...

IMHO, I find the median speed on Arelith to be appropriate. It's not so fast that 30 means nothing, but it's not so slow that it will take RL years to get there either. I have a pc that's only a week old today, and she's on the verge of level 9. Not too shabby really, and I do a lot of meeting people and crafting.

Just my 2 cents as a new player here.

[DreadKnight Cuddles]

Prisoners of the Mist is an example of that, I think it was changed some time ago that you could get a small amount of XP from killing things but it's not really viable to level with, in fact it's so strongly discouraged the DM team will dump high level spawns if they spot that.

I do wonder how long it takes on average to get to thirty here, I've spoken in tells to people who say it took them 1.5 years to get to mid twenties, and others who've supposedly done it in two weeks by silent grinding.

[Gods_Kill_People]

Well I have played Celor for about 2 weeks give or take, and I am lvl 14 now without constant grind.

[Ambigue]

None of which are mandatory, let alone close to the dirty and evil "optimal" as Ambigue puts it. There's no reason to GOHblin grind unless you really want to play an Ogre or something. You just don't get anything out of it beyond lame snowflake stuff, or the chance at a 5%. 32 SR gift hasn't existed for a long time.

Yeah, that snide, dismissive, and needlessly baiting response is pretty much exactly what I was talking about when I said "Optimal Path Fetishism tends to detract from RP".

Look, there's nothing wrong with seeking out the optimal path. However, there is tendency to disregard as worthless anything that doesn't mechanically optimize a character to increase their overall power. It's boring. It's unhelpful to anyone who isn't interested in that specific style of play and kind of pointless in any discussion that isn't about those specific things. Yet here it is.

Getting a chance to play something really unusual is a lot of fun for some folk, myself included. I don't care if it's mechanically gimped, necessarily. I enjoy the challenge. Crap, I've got a guy who's made it to level 10 without any equipment, gold, potions, or whatever other than a pair of un-enchanted pants. For me, it's not really about how tough my character is, it's what can I do within a given set of arbitrary limitations. The path to "BEST AND MOST POWERFULGAI" has been trodden so very, very often that it's boring at this point. It doesn't offer me anything compelling. So, instead, I seek variety, or ways to make the day-to-day experience of playing interesting and fun.

And, some of those locked-off options look really FUN. I just wish there was some way to access them besides grinding through characters as quickly and efficiently as possible.

[gilescorey]

Yeah, that snide, dismissive, and needlessly baiting response is pretty much exactly what I was talking about when I said "Optimal Path Fetishism tends to detract from RP".

It was a joke, dude. Calm down lol. Also, my joking on the forums has no correlation with my roleplay, sorry if that detracts from this weird narrative you've built =(

[Cortex]

None of which are mandatory, let alone close to the dirty and evil "optimal" as Ambigue puts it. There's no reason to GOHblin grind unless you really want to play an Ogre or something. You just don't get anything out of it beyond lame snowflake stuff, or the chance at a 5%. 32 SR gift hasn't existed for a long time.

Yeah, that snide, dismissive, and needlessly baiting response is pretty much exactly what I was talking about when I said "Optimal Path Fetishism tends to detract from RP".

Look, there's nothing wrong with seeking out the optimal path. However, there is tendency to disregard as worthless anything that doesn't mechanically optimize a character to increase their overall power. It's boring. It's unhelpful to anyone who isn't interested in that specific style of play and kind of pointless in any discussion that isn't about those specific things. Yet here it is.

Getting a chance to play something really unusual is a lot of fun for some folk, myself included. I don't care if it's mechanically gimped, necessarily. I enjoy the challenge. Crap, I've got a guy who's made it to level 10 without any equipment, gold, potions, or whatever other than a pair of un-enchanted pants. For me, it's not really about how tough my character is, it's what can I do within a given set of arbitrary limitations. The path to "BEST AND MOST POWERFULGAI" has been trodden so very, very often that it's boring at this point. It doesn't offer me anything compelling. So, instead, I seek variety, or ways to make the day-to-day experience of playing interesting and fun.

And, some of those locked-off options look really FUN. I just wish there was some way to access them besides grinding through characters as quickly and efficiently as possible.

You seem to be having a lot of fun as is in your own play style. Why not just stick to one character and play it out naturally? Even casually, you can hit level 26 (the minimum for the highest award table) in a few months time.

[Ambigue]

You seem to be having a lot of fun as is in your own play style. Why not just stick to one character and play it out naturally? Even casually, you can hit level 26 (the minimum for the highest award table) in a few months time.

I do! For the sake of variety, mostly. There are stretches where my main character doesn't have much to do other than grind, so I play other characters who's fates I don't care much about.

For instance, I'll take out my low-level necromancer, have him summon a zombie, summon his imp familiar, and then turn himself into a zombie. The imp gets disguised as "Imp Necromancer" and the character is some variation of "Zombie". Then I wander around the swamps hoping to make things interesting for some player characters. It's not happened yet, but I think it'll be fun for them. Like fighting a miniboss. I'm pretty sure they'll win and, when they do, they'll get the few thousand coin I keep on the character expressly to act as a reward.

Or I'll play a demented elf and just be as absurdly horrible as possible without actually being evil. Creepy, gross, off-putting, but not actually monstrous.

It'd be nice to do something similar, but with an Ogre, wandering around common hunting areas and getting into scraps, or doing some RP where the guard track him down.

Playing an Imp with a kind of suave malevolence, bargaining for souls, would be fun, too.

I'd like to try these things at some point. I just need to do something I haven't done in ten years: Get a character to level 26 before they're RP naturally leads them to an appropriate death.

[Black Wendigo]

Well, you can don "something similar" with any of the current monster races. I sometimes take my gnoll into areas near surface settlements and such just to see what RP I can ge tout of it. Even started a mini feud that way .