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

[Gods_Kill_People]

Different things.

Your warrior will no more learn from someone else swinging a sword than I've learned archery from playing Neverwinter Nights.

But I'll leave it at that.

Of course you havent learned Archery from the game, since you don't actually study the style of how someone holds the bow, loads the arrow or how the strength effects it, but go watch a real person, ask them to teach you a bit.

[flower]

Does the change apply only to the writ itself or to all exps for said mobs? Thus if PC has writ and is there with me, gets 1 xp or just blocked writ?

Because if PC would go without writ (unless something changed) then even with 7-8 levels difference would get a lot on the mobs i visit now.

[PinataPlethora]

Does the change apply only to the writ itself or to all exps for said mobs? Thus if PC has writ and is there with me, gets 1 xp or just blocked writ?

Because if PC would go without writ (unless something changed) then even with 7-8 levels difference would get a lot on the mobs i visit now.

Just the writ. All it does is keep you from completing objectives. Otherwise, nothing changes.

[MissEvelyn]

If you want to roleplay 'training', then do so in a level appropriate dungeon.

Actually, mentoring RP is and has been a thing for a very long time. And it involves having a high level walk with a low level, watching how they perform, explaining methods and techniques, and evaluating them. That's what active mentoring is.

If you instead want to hang in a low level dungeon with your friends, you're still welcome to. However, they won't learn much from it. Which makes sense. It's a roleplay server, right?

It absolutely makes no sense. The writ system is an NPC giving you a contract to take care of local trouble. The NPC has no way of knowing whether you, your mentor, or your high level friends deal with the source of trouble. How does that even make any sense to you?

It's indeed a roleplay server. Yet this change undermines IC interactions and roleplay. Instead it promotes OOC agenda, which shouldn't be a first priority on a server that claims to be under the Roleplay category.

[Rigela]

This just seems really counter intuitive.

Was it a big problem before of higher levels shamelessly grinding out lower levels with the best writs they could get? I know that many higher levels would accompany lower levels as mentors by not directly fighting, and simply being a mentor and providing RP. Giving them advice, admonishment etc, while still letting people complete their various writs. Something I certainly did when I could, and had others do with me.

Now, sure, you could probably do this anyway and do writs again later but I am not sure what it actually harms by letting it be done how it used to be. Seen plenty of RP being fostered by a higher level acting as a guide/mentor which many people are simply going to not do now, instead favouring the way that actually gets them XP to level for their daily writs.

We could say mages who just sit back and let summons do the work don't learn anything (as how does watching your elemental hit something teach you to cast meteor swarm) - it seems an arbitrary line to draw around the matter by saying you can learn from one thing hitting something, but not another.

Also issues of people who can't find people at their own appropriate level, so accompany others. Now they just suffer and will stiffle.

[Kriegos]

Okay, first this little tidbit before I add my two cents to the broad topic:

Your warrior will no more learn from someone else swinging a sword than I've learned archery from playing Neverwinter Nights.

I can pretty well guarantee that getting a personal lesson, in the field adventuring or not, from a world class archer would teach you more than watching an animation on a screen. The fact that you can't see that it's more than 'someone else swinging a sword', or even imagine that players would RP some training into the situation concerns me.

Okay, broad topic. I get the mechanical reasoning behind this change. They want to make it so people can't power-level characters using the writ system. Does Arelith have such a huge problem with people leveling quickly that this needs to be done? I'm not insinuating any particular answer, I'm actually asking. I was under the impression that power-levelers make their super-builds to be completely able to solo content, with anything else deemed weak or a waste of time, and that they don't give up their kill xp to get done slightly faster on a writ.

It's my opinion that this restriction makes very little RP sense. It stops you from getting credit for doing a contracted job because someone they wouldn't normally bother with it decided to help anyway. You know what an agent for an adventuring company would say if the person they hired to do a simple job showed up to claim their reward with Elminster in tow? After the long stunned silence, they'd say, "Thank you," and then they'd pay the person.

To echo the statement of someone above, it can be a bear to level certain classes that aren't solo-friendly, but D&D isn't about being solo friendly. It's about getting a group of people together and going on adventures. The writs give people a reason to get together, but even with them it can often be incredibly hard to find people to go on them. Sure, it's pretty easy in Cordor. Hang out in the Nomad for a while and you'll find a party in no time. After that? You can go a VERY long time without seeing a player by an agent. Cutting down a player's options here isn't going to do anything for the health of the community or the server. All this will do is entice players to build a character that doesn't need other characters.

My personal feeling is that the writs are fine where they are. They're limited to three a day, and the XP you get on completion is largely adventure XP, which is meant to entice people to RP in the first place. If something really needs to be done about writs, maybe consider cutting down the xp rewards slightly, or making it two a day, or narrowing the contracts offered to be more level specific, or... I don't know, anything other than putting a restriction that makes no sense in-character, and makes it harder to find a group. If you want perfectly balanced gameplay mechanics, D&D simply doesn't have them. The whole system was designed around playing in a group, and any changes that discourage doing so this heavily are poor changes to make.

Higher leveled people joining lower leveled ones already significantly reduces the amount of xp the lower leveled ones get on an adventure by making kill experience negligible. Is that not sufficient?

I joined Arelith because there are a hundred servers where I could make one of the super-optimal builds and murder-hobo my way through things, but only one that claims to be "The definitive online D&D roleplaying experience." With "...hundreds of players for you to share in the mutual enjoyment of collaborative storytelling and mutual expression." Arelith's website lead me to believe that roleplay and storytelling were the driving forces guiding the direction the server. I'm sure I'm not the only one, so don't be so quick to dismiss people upset about the RP repercussions of a decision. It's THE reason most of us are here, because that's what we were told to expect.

[Richørd]

Agreed with Kriegos.

'Nuff said, pls fixx dis admins.

[Cortex]

At least I'll maybe run into less epics 'carrying' their friends in areas I'm trying to get legitimate EXP.

And for all this mentor-student thing I keep reading... I cannot say I ever saw anybody doing that, even as an excuse for taking someone along.

[Kriegos]

Actually, mentoring RP is and has been a thing for a very long time. And it involves having a high level walk with a low level, watching how they perform, explaining methods and techniques, and evaluating them. That's what active mentoring is.

Agreed!

I'm just going to add that mentoring is something that is done on every single level of business, sciences, engineering, and work in general in some of the most successful organizations in the world. Those saying it makes no RP sense to learn from someone more experienced when they help you do something, well... that's just wrong. You can always, always learn from someone more wise and experienced than you, no matter how good you are.

[Kriegos]

And for all this mentor-student thing I keep reading... I cannot say I ever saw anybody doing that, even as an excuse for taking someone along.

I've done it a bunch of times in game, both as mentor and student. I can send you a tell next time, if you want.

[TimeAdept]

Not a decision I agree with. It's well documented by The Good Rungrinders that writs are already suboptimal compared to just running laps around the good places to go. So partying with a high level, losing the XP from the area, in order to get XP from writs that is already given mostly in adventuring XP, is even more less so than just doing the writ yourself, regardless of how good the writ is.

High levels will always be in low level areas, so long as needing to farm cheap mats is a thing. Anywhere a Noble Vein spawns, is somewhere a character will want to check on a regular basis, in case it uptiers into Adamantine. Anywhere Greenstone or Malachite spawns will be farmed, for spell components, regardless of level. Coal is always necessary, and to some degree, Iron, Copper, Lead, and Zinc (!) are needed for low-medium crafts that PCs often spam out to fill shops, like forging kits, temporary alch essences, lesser catalysts, and more. These characters are going to these areas completely agnostic of whether or not they're doing writs in a group and tanking their XP there and back for the sake of once in 24h writ XP.

This new change forces us to account for an OOC mechanic in our world exploration with no viable IC recourse. On that alone, it's a bad change.

[Cortex]

The Good Rungrinders

[TimeAdept]

Instead of taking three words out of my post, the very first line to essentially blankquote me in bad faith, it'd be appreciated if you at least pretended to engage the argument.

Writ XP vs non-writ XP and just doing laps is a topic that has been discussed both in the Discord and on the forums, with the consensus being that if you have the time, knowledge, and ability to sink into the raw rungrind, you're way up than having to figure out a path and do suboptimal areas for XP, including having to make trips to and from town to resuppy. Essentially: Writs are a massive boon for a more casual, less knowledgeable, or less willing to swiftly grind areas that may be overly competitive, which is fine.

If you like, you can pretend that paragraph replaced those three words, that way you don't feel a need to nullify an entire post because of a half meme half joke I made to put something into context at 4 AM.

[Cortex]

And I think you're wrong. Gg no re.

[flower]

There are both views which are right.

It was fine to také lower level along, and way how to help it level up while having X levels above.

But on the other side writs sped up grinding extremely much. Something had to come (nerf of kind). Here it is. No more epic buddy tugging you trough tree writs for 1000+ immediete xps.

The nerf could be bigger, larger, restriction harsher on writs. Be glad only above was chosen (for now).

Nohing prevents you to do standart grin in dangerous areas where your lower level would get still some XPs….and see the writs like thing to do when your higher levels friends for dungeons are offline.

[Richørd]

I feel like the two posts above me completely missed out on actually delivering any arguments with relevancy to RP.

[Queen Titania]

You can still adventure together, still mentor together, etc, you just can't do this in the form of writs.

It would be useful though, to have the level range displayed with the quest you are taking. This is so if someone says "I'm doing this", and you are a mentor X levels higher, you can make the branch decision of "I will protect you, pixie squire" , or "Good luck, don't get jarred, squire!", based on the memory of that information, so you don't have to do an awkward tell of "What level are you", and can make that information based on the name of the quest or the location they tell you, keeping things completely IC.

Another possible suggestion is to have new quests and dungeons added that is difficult enough to be flexible in its min and max level range, for those who wish to do this very thing, which I imagine is difficult.

[Cortex]

And that is just it, it doesn't stop you from doing anything you couldn't do before. Not a year ago quests didn't even exist. Quests are an extra challenge and a small boon for people who can't afford to grind non stop, and even then... this meme that grinding is better than questing only applies if you're willing to pour bleach into your brain as you mindlessly do the same dungeons for hours on end, which is something less than a 1% of the server population is willing to do, even the ones that have the time and mechanical aptitude. Nobody who does that is having fun unless they're doing something else, like talking with each other on voice about unrelated things, and doing minimum RP.

With that semi off topic thing aside, flower is correct that neither option is more correct than the other. I do, however, think the level limitation is better suited for Arelith. Regardless of "student mentor RP", or "RP integrity", or whatever, the writ/quest system wasn't designed with higher levels guiding lower levels through them. Nor is the mechanical limitation imposing any RP limitation.

Lastly, the "people can learn from other doing things" isn't entirely inaccurate, but people learn better doing it themselves, not to mention it's not a necessary aspect that needs mechanical reinforcement.

[Liareth]

High levels boosting lower levels has always happened on Arelith in one form or another. 20-somethings dragging level 3s through Kohlingden, or 15-somethings in the slime temple, etc ... it's what people do. Boosting writs is just a new form of this - which, imo, is a more realistic form that's much easier to digest from an RP perspective. I can see the logic in taking a newbie step by step through a basic quest to teach them the ropes. And arguably, they might learn more from having the personal attention and guidance of an expert adventurer than they would otherwise. Either way, it seems like a bit of a shame to me. I think systems that encourage high levels and low levels to adventure together should be embraced. Maybe a good alternative would be a mentoring system, which caps a high level's ab, ac, damage per hit, etc., to the party's average, so high levels can adventure with low levels and everybody can profit a bit.

[Rwby]

I object to any new mechanic which encourages me to communicate ooc with other players, or to have immersion shattering conversations with other players that suggest asking how many 'Seasons' they've adventured for, or hinting at what monster types they've fought so everyone can figure out each others level.

I remain firmly of the belief, however flawed that as this is a roleplaying server in which ooc communication is specifically banned [Abit, reduced to tells.] The game should be completely playable without disadvantage without ever saying a single word to someone out of character.

This is simply giving mechanical advantage to people who are willing to hang around ooc and discuss everyone's exact level and arrange things that way, and a disadvantage to people who might just naturally bump into each other in the game world and form a bond as characters, not as players.

[Crackle]

Really thought the system was fine.
I don't want my friends to have to remake new characters when I want to try a new concept, the system allowed me to try a few concepts, still hang out with friends in a safe environment for my level (where I feel useful) and get exp at the end of it.
Little sad that it's now mildly more of an inconvenience, and personally do not see the point in the change.

[flower]

As for mentor - student RP you can add later a command that if student stays in close proximity with teacher then would gain more of his stored adventure xps with each tick.

[Kriegos]

I object to any new mechanic which encourages me to communicate ooc with other players,

That’s pretty much the core of my complaint here, too. I’ll add this:

My evil characters already tell people to buzz off if they need help. My neutral characters evaluate what’s in it for them. My good characters warn people that they will not learn much if they come with, but they would never say no if the person still wanted help. Now for an OOC reason they have to do something that they wouldn’t, or I have to send a tell and break character. That in itself makes this a bad solution for an RP server. Let’s assume that high levels characters helping lower on writs is this terrible problem it’s being made out to be. Maybe this was the easiest change to implement, but surely it can’t be the best way to address the issue.

[MissEvelyn]

I joined Arelith because there are a hundred servers where I could make one of the super-optimal builds and murder-hobo my way through things, but only one that claims to be "The definitive online D&D roleplaying experience." With "...hundreds of players for you to share in the mutual enjoyment of collaborative storytelling and mutual expression." Arelith's website lead me to believe that roleplay and storytelling were the driving forces guiding the direction the server. I'm sure I'm not the only one, so don't be so quick to dismiss people upset about the RP repercussions of a decision. It's THE reason most of us are here, because that's what we were told to expect.

This pretty much nails why we're here.

I object to any new mechanic which encourages me to communicate ooc with other players, or to have immersion shattering conversations with other players that suggest asking how many 'Seasons' they've adventured for, or hinting at what monster types they've fought so everyone can figure out each others level.

I remain firmly of the belief, however flawed that as this is a roleplaying server in which ooc communication is specifically banned [Abit, reduced to tells.] The game should be completely playable without disadvantage without ever saying a single word to someone out of character.

This is simply giving mechanical advantage to people who are willing to hang around ooc and discuss everyone's exact level and arrange things that way, and a disadvantage to people who might just naturally bump into each other in the game world and form a bond as characters, not as players.

Not to mention that some of us may run our game with -notells on. It simply makes no sense whatsoever that the dead goblin didn't count as a dead goblin in my character's writ, because it was apparently slain by someone stronger than I. What? Don't you see how immersion-breaking this change is?

This new change forces us to account for an OOC mechanic in our world exploration with no viable IC recourse. On that alone, it's a bad change.

Again, yes and amen. If breaking immersion is what was intended with this change, then congratulations, you have succeeded.

To echo what others have already said, this is a terrible change to a roleplay server. The next step would be a LFG system akin to WoW's dungeons. Add that, and sooner or later people would ask themselves where would the line be between MMOs and Arelith.

[Miskol]

This, along with the recent changes to spawns in certain areas (ramping up their difficulty) seems to have the aim of forcing players to party rather than do solo play (in the case of writs, to find a party of similar level). I feel like this sort of imposition feels artificial and really just punishes the casual or nonoptimal character more than anything.