"A member of your party..." (Writs feedback)

[BegoneThoth]

On-topic, I entirely support the reason why this change was implemented, because it's super frustrating to go to a dungeon alone or as a group for some juicy XP, only to find that someone or several someones has their high level buddy blasting through stuff which would blast your XP gain down to a pittance if you stayed to do the dungeon. I agree that there can be some smoother implementations (The level 23 wanting to adventure with a level 19 for instance, since those are in a similar level range for a lot of content) but that's all a matter of fine tuning.

At worst, an IC problem that could be solved IC. A simple "I do not believe I am learning anything from simply watching your superior powers in action, Master Wizard." is all it takes. And that's assuming this is even a problem for everyone. Hint taken from this thread: It's not. Some people actually enjoy spending time together, regardless of how much their experience gets cut.

"I know you were here first and all helping your apprentice kill gnolls master wizard, but could you kindly bugger off so we could team up with your apprentice instead?"

Exactly, it makes 0 logical sense. See the example below.

You walk into some dungeon, and see some half-ork wearing the finest gear you've ever seen, killing the stuff inside in one swing. You ask him what he's doing, and he replies that at the end, there's some rare metal ore he wants and comes here often to mine it. He says you're welcome to come along on his mining trip, but he's going to kill everything in seconds on the way there, so all you need to do is keep up. You agree and complete the dungeon in only a few minutes, ork man gets the ore, and the party gets the loot and the quest com-

WELL MR. WRIT SMITH IS ONTO YOU PAL. HE KNOWS THAT WHILE THE ENEMIES HE SENT YOU TO KILL ARE DEAD, THAT SOME REALLY STRONG HALF-ORK DID IT INSTEAD SO PISS OFF AND DO IT AGAIN WITHOUT HELP THIS TIME.

And you had BETTER rp that because that Ork wasting all your time by foolishly being inclusive and asking you to join him was WRONG for doing that!

[Rwby]

I think following Nitro's example, instead of a mechanical barrier, there could just be an established courtesy rule like Be Nice about leaving a grinding area for lowbies if asked/going as far as offering.

I really, really don't think calling for rules that reduce roleplaying in order to mandate XP is a good thing.
That's so far away from [what I thought] the vision of this server is.

[Hexgoblin]

You guys are animals.

[BegoneThoth]

I just want to know if, since it's now in-game discouraged, so much that doing so blocks all progress, playing with someone higher level then you is against the rules or frowned upon.

I mean, if it's such a big deal that it blocks your XP, should I be doing it at all? Should I even be RPing with lowbies? Am I allowed to even help them? The quest system seems to indicate no, but my character is naturally helpful. What do I do?

Seeking an official answer on how to RP with someone that needs writ help.

[Liareth]

I just want to know if, since it's now in-game discouraged, so much that doing so blocks all progress, playing with someone higher level then you is against the rules or frowned upon.

I mean, if it's such a big deal that it blocks your XP, should I be doing it at all? Should I even be RPing with lowbies? Am I allowed to even help them? The quest system seems to indicate no, but my character is naturally helpful. What do I do?

Seeking an official answer on how to RP with someone that needs writ help.

I mean, of course it isn't. You're deliberately being obtuse here. Nobody has answered you yet because you're asking an incredibly stupid question. Why would high levels playing with lower levels be against the rules? The developers who introduced this change have made it clear that they did so because they felt that it was too easy for low levels to get boosted through their writs by high levels, thereby sidestepping the intended design of writs, which was to provide a significant exp reward for completing level-appropriate challenges - how do you reach the conclusion that low and high levels shouldn't interact with each other under any circumstances from that?

[Void]

A member of your party is 6 or more levels above the max level of one of your quest writs. You will make no progress on the quest "[Quest Name]".

Why was it recently level locked so that higher level people for specific writs can no longer help people finish their quests?

I am not entirely sure this was needed, mostly, because people will complete their writs eventually, but, now as someone who is higher level you can't really do this to help / or interact with people who are having trouble completing things. Mages, druids, clerics can still buff people... but mundanes can't even do anything at all now to help people they're associated with.

Now I get some folks might be using this to try and hyper twink their friends to the end game zones... but at the same time I don't really see how this hurts anyone or anything.

I feel this could maybe be reconsidered because all this does is stop people from being able to help new players as well as to further their guilds / factions / settlements.

This is a horrible idea and should be removed.

On arelith people shouldn't need to care about their levels too much.

[Jagel]

The immense concern over this shows that people do care about their levels. I do too, not trying to high horse anything here.

Maybe we could say that the concern has now been voiced and we let this play out for a couple of weeks and then look at it again?

[Durvayas]

I play characters that level slowly. I do a lot of RP, and even while I'm on a break, I can see where this new change is inherently cancerous. Enough so that I'm actually finding myself agreeing with several people whose posts I usually just gloss over as trolling.

If you are playing a low level character that may or may not be good at combat, writs used to be your "I can ask my high level friends for help with these" three missions for the day. You only get three, and you would go into them knowing full well you're probably not getting exp for the kills, but you could at least go on adventures with your really high level friends and have meaningful RP with them without really feeling the sting of an exp dock. The exp you got at the end, adventure exp at that, would make up for all the piss-poor exp you lost by partying with these characters to begin with; But the important thing is this literally facilitated and rewarded mentor RP, Military excercise RP, religious trial RP, "I need a vial of giant's blood for mad science will you help me get it?" RP.

Three times a day, it facilitated this RP without the inherent penalty that has always been a thing on arelith. The "Sure you can do this RP, but you're mechanically wasting your(due to RL, often really limited and valuable) time because you will gain 40exp for this entire trip due to wanting to RP with character 'X'". This penalty has, for years, resulted in people rejecting characters, or quietly encouraging them to kindly piss off, based on level because Arelith's grind SUCKS, and players naturally prefer not to run the same dungeons dozens of times. Having someone in your party that wipes out the group's RP is harsh on the players with limited time, and so for years, we've subtly, or not so subtly, encouraged people to avoid going on any kind of trip wherein the exp is going to get killed. I routinely ask people in tells how the exp is, because my main character is a mentor type. If the exp is bad, I have to come up with some excuse to piss off, or I'm being an active detriment to the other players because I'm wasting their time.

Three times per day...
Prior to the recent change. I, as a lowbie, could freely RP with higher level characters on dungeons, without shooting myself and my character progression in the foot.

Prior to the recent change. I, as a high epic, could freely RP with lower level characters on dungeons, without shooting THEIR character progression in the foot.

Post change, as it sits now, I, as a lowbie, need them to piss off, or I straight up WASTE one of my three daily writs.

Post change, I, as an epic, need to find an excuse to piss off, because I don't want to waste one of someone else's three daily writs.

My point is thus: Was something that could only happen three times a day REALLY so egregiously abused that there was really a need to take away the social tool that it provided?

This hurts all the wrong people, as anyone who may have been abusing this before is just going to go back to taking lowbies to high epic areas to lasso epic mobs, which was the ONLY way to meaningfully go on adventures with people of super disparate adventures before. A consolation prize at the end of the rope, assuming you didn't get it killed along the way.

[BegoneThoth]

I just want to know if, since it's now in-game discouraged, so much that doing so blocks all progress, playing with someone higher level then you is against the rules or frowned upon.

I mean, if it's such a big deal that it blocks your XP, should I be doing it at all? Should I even be RPing with lowbies? Am I allowed to even help them? The quest system seems to indicate no, but my character is naturally helpful. What do I do?

Seeking an official answer on how to RP with someone that needs writ help.

I mean, of course it isn't. You're deliberately being obtuse here. Nobody has answered you yet because you're asking an incredibly stupid question. Why would high levels playing with lower levels be against the rules? The developers who introduced this change have made it clear that they did so because they felt that it was too easy for low levels to get boosted through their writs by high levels, thereby sidestepping the intended design of writs, which was to provide a significant exp reward for completing level-appropriate challenges - how do you reach the conclusion that low and high levels shouldn't interact with each other under any circumstances from that?

I reached the conclusion after noting that characters beyond a three level range cannot aid with leveling content via a new mechanical obstacle. I want to know if I'm going to be accused of cheating or circumventing a shadow rule by doing what I have been doing, that is helping lowbies, by not being in their party when I do it.

Since it's very awkward to help someone while not being in their party or last hitting, I need to know if I'm breaking the rules by sidestepping a very clear and intended gameplay mechanic.

And if I cannot follow lowbies into dungeons and tank for them while not in their party, what can I do to help them with the writs that have rather intense difficulty spikes?

Is my proposed method of putting a lowbie on - guard and equipping non-enchanted weapons so I do as little dmg as possible allowed? Intended? Or forbidden? Am I cheating by helping people?

I do want to know because all the steps I have to take now to help a lowbie feel suspiciously like an exploit; using obtuse game mechanics (party system) to avoid intended consequences OF that system.

And finally, if that is allowed and intended, what was 'fixed' by the new quest level limit? What was the goal and was that goal accomplished?

[susitsu]

I think following Nitro's example, instead of a mechanical barrier, there could just be an established courtesy rule like Be Nice about leaving a grinding area for lowbies if asked/going as far as offering.

I really, really don't think calling for rules that reduce roleplaying in order to mandate XP is a good thing.
That's so far away from [what I thought] the vision of this server is.

I see this as a video game I get on to play and rp on. I do believe most people are on the game as well and in the realm of "good metagaming," it's good sportsmanship and emcourages the behavior as a whole.

I imagine the major reason this mechanic that bars higher level players from helping was for those who felt that their gaming and leveling experience were personally being affected.

A simple courtesy rule achieves the same result and better creates a supportive mindset as opposed the loosely defined nonsense thay fifty players look at and go "Well the rules don't say anything about this..." And then they very clearly don't break the rules, and no one's got anything to say about it.

We're playing this game with people, trying to run a server that bars OOC, and even goes as far as bars OOC considerstion for your fellow players is best left to all the other roleplay mediums that aren't a game, or even are and require no leveling to progress your character.

[Fionn]

I'm personally ambivalent about loosing the ability to "mentor" and get mentored. OTOH, needing to send a bunch of OOC tells to figure out everyone's level before I can RP to start organizing a group is seriously immersion breaking. It's been working out as 10 minutes of RP to get a group, then some/all needing to drop. I can imagine the frustrating if someone leveled just before the boss.

If we're going to keep the brackets on, can we add a hint to the Examine screen or the Player tool? Maybe +/- 5 levels from me shows a note before their description?

[Miaou]

I'm pulling the breaks on this. There is a lot of insulting, jabs, and implied harshness that doesn't need to exist on the forums. There has been actual feedback given and now that it has gotten to almost ten pages, I believe everyone's feedback is clear. There is no need to bite at each other for having different opinions, or them enjoy different aspects of something.