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

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

Post by R0GUE » Thu Jun 14, 2018 4:13 pm

My opinion is that while I see the reasoning behind why this was done, I tend to side with those saying this is bad if you just want to group and RP with minimal ooc talk. Also, I think it punishes classes that are oriented toward party-play like the cleric, the rogue, the bard etc. I know I've gone along on writ-adventures with higher level groups, but I was contributing despite my lower level, because my bard song was generating extra hps, an imbalance of Attack Bonus vs Ac, etc. Clerics, regardless of level are ALWAYS helpful for their healing spells, and you can always benefit from having a rogue around to get through traps and locks even if they are lower level. This system implies that killing things is the only way PC's are beneficially aiding the party, when in fact, support characters can be a help to much higher level characters in a more indirect way.

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

Post by WinkinBlinkin » Thu Jun 14, 2018 4:19 pm

I don't like this change either. Some people power level to 30 in 3 weeks. Most don't. Writs are a nice alternative to three hour patrols. To get to lvl 21, the level writs stop, you need:

3+4+5+...+21
= (3+21)*0.5*19 = 228
3 writs a day is max 4.5k a day.
228/4.5 = 51 days to get to lvl 21 entirely through being levelled by a higher level person.

To be honest, I don't think 51 days to 21 is extreme or game wrecking. And if the person is getting lots of xp on top of the writ xp, then they could easily get the writ xp without help anyway.

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

Post by Cortex » Thu Jun 14, 2018 4:22 pm

Liareth wrote:
Thu Jun 14, 2018 11:52 am
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.
These two work very differently. An epic babysitting lowbies through a quest takes no effort.

Meanwhile, epics bringing lower levels to epic dungeons won't make it anymore easy (it might even be harder keeping the lowbies alive), the lower levels aren't getting anymore EXP than they would in a level appropriate dungeon for them, and overleveled characters aren't flooding low level dungeons.

@Wytchee, you're not taking into account the EXP you would get from monsters/bosses, assuming you do it the 'correct' way without a high level dunking the EXP to single digits. Or RPB.
:)

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

Post by PinataPlethora » Thu Jun 14, 2018 4:47 pm

Cortex wrote:
Thu Jun 14, 2018 4:22 pm
@Wytchee, you're not taking into account the EXP you would get from monsters/bosses, assuming you do it the 'correct' way without a high level dunking the EXP to single digits. Or RPB.
Even if you only have a 10RPB, that's still an extra 300xp/hour with a decent adventure XP pool. It really makes a difference.

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

Post by Liareth » Thu Jun 14, 2018 5:12 pm

Cortex wrote:
Thu Jun 14, 2018 4:22 pm
Liareth wrote:
Thu Jun 14, 2018 11:52 am
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.
These two work very differently.
True, they are a little different. It is (depending on the dungeon and build, of course) challenging for the high level, or at the very least, level appropriate. But on the flip side: the high level isn't doing anything out of the ordinary, they are just doing what they always did; the high level gets full exp, and in fact more exp for the low level's presence. You can (and many people do) just shove a few low levels in a high level group so that everyone levels faster, assuming the low levels know how not to die.
Cortex wrote:
Thu Jun 14, 2018 4:22 pm
An epic babysitting lowbies through a quest takes no effort.
Indeed, but the high level gets no reward. If you consider the scale of time investment vs overall reward for the group, low levels joining a high level group makes everything more profitable for everyone, and everyone gets full return; a high level boosting a low level through their quests gets nothing for their time investment. In terms of overall reward at the end of the trip, the low level into a high level group scenario provides a much greater return than the high level boosting a low level through a quest scenario.
Cortex wrote:
Thu Jun 14, 2018 4:22 pm
the lower levels aren't getting anymore EXP than they would in a level appropriate dungeon for them
This isn't quite true. Getting boosted by a competent group of high levels is much faster than doing a level appropriate dungeon. The time per kill is much lower in high level dungeons and the mob density is much higher. High levels tend to have less downtime between pulls because they have greater access to consumables and longer lasting buffs. Also, the exp gains tend to be higher per kill, because it's easier for high levels to do dungeons that they are underlevelled for compared to very low levels doing the same thing.

I think the only real valid point here is "high levels flooding low level dungeons". I don't quite know if this is a real issue or overblown because I haven't played a lowbie in a while.

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

Post by JediMindTrix » Thu Jun 14, 2018 5:22 pm

Damn. Haven't seen this much near universal bite-back since the grindscript.

In regards to the change, I just don't see what possible point this could've served.

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

Post by WinkinBlinkin » Thu Jun 14, 2018 5:27 pm

I mean, I am seriously POO at this game, and I can make 2500 xp a day soloing a rogue. If I don't need help getting writ xp, no-one does.

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

Post by WinkinBlinkin » Thu Jun 14, 2018 5:33 pm

Sorry, that wasn't clear. What I mean is, if I am travelling with a higher level player, I'm doing it for the company, not the xp, because I can get the xp easier without them. And I am -seriously- bad at this game.

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

Post by Pakito » Thu Jun 14, 2018 5:35 pm

Yeah this is a terrible change for a roleplay server. I don't think we've seen a more anti-RP oriented change before.

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

Post by Dr_Hazard89 » Thu Jun 14, 2018 5:38 pm

Rwby wrote:
Thu Jun 14, 2018 12:00 pm
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.
I agree with this. ^
MissEvelyn wrote:
Thu Jun 14, 2018 2:10 pm
Kriegos wrote: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.
Rwby wrote: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?
TimeAdept wrote: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.
And this. ^

There are other changes that have been made long ago and more recently that I am opposed to for basically all those same reasons. Just came here to RP in a 3.5ed based world (as advertised). I don't like the immersion being broken. This isn't one of the changes that bothers me especially, but I very much understand the concerns of those that are bothered.

There are already so many aspects of Arelith that either break immersion or encourage OOC communication, it would feel wrong not to speak up each time I see more coming. So far I haven't seen any of the undesirable changes (that I've noticed) altered or undone to address this issue, but I genuinely care about this server and so I want to openly voice my support for the ideas that I think are 'good'.
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Re: "A member of your party..." (Writs feedback)

Post by Cortex » Thu Jun 14, 2018 5:40 pm

Liareth wrote:
Thu Jun 14, 2018 5:12 pm
True, they are a little different. It is (depending on the dungeon and build, of course) challenging for the high level, or at the very least, level appropriate. But on the flip side: the high level isn't doing anything out of the ordinary, they are just doing what they always did; the high level gets full exp, and in fact more exp for the low level's presence. You can (and many people do) just shove a few low levels in a high level group so that everyone levels faster, assuming the low levels know how not to die.

...

Indeed, but the high level gets no reward. If you consider the scale of time investment vs overall reward for the group, low levels joining a high level group makes everything more profitable for everyone, and everyone gets full return; a high level boosting a low level through their quests gets nothing for their time investment. In terms of overall reward at the end of the trip, the low level into a high level group scenario provides a much greater return than the high level boosting a low level through a quest scenario.
EXP only increases if people joining the party are of equal or lower level to the highest level, and begins to decrease when there are 5 or more people in the party. Low levels do not increase EXP any different than someone of equal level. The high level character is also earning something from it, they get EXP just like the lower level and also gold (unless they're level 30 and just give away all the gold, at which point nobody is forcing them to do it, and dungeons with worthwhile EXP with a level 30 are very... limited and dangerous). Not to mention... this increase in EXP is literally 1 per kill. It does not compare to writs.
This isn't quite true. Getting boosted by a competent group of high levels is much faster than doing a level appropriate dungeon. The time per kill is much lower in high level dungeons and the mob density is much higher. High levels tend to have less downtime between pulls because they have greater access to consumables and longer lasting buffs. Also, the exp gains tend to be higher per kill, because it's easier for high levels to do dungeons that they are underlevelled for compared to very low levels doing the same thing.
That only applies to single digit level, and even then, some Cordor dungeons have such great EXP that it's a better rate than a lot of epic dungeons(20 to 40 EXP depending on ECL). And getting to 2-3 APR is really quick with the writs and high EXP some of the early dungeons have, and a very select few builds struggle at that level range. 11 onwards, meleers have 3 APR and mages have access to elemental summons, which speeds up clear speed significantly, you only level slowly if you're solo with a poor solo build.
I think the only real valid point here is "high levels flooding low level dungeons". I don't quite know if this is a real issue or overblown because I haven't played a lowbie in a while.
I ran into multiple overleveled people carrying lower levels in a rush through quest zones in my last character, to a ridicule point of a 8 ish sized party that reduced my EXP from 20-30 to single digits. At that point I just eat pant because they're not going away and most of the time they don't care about you and keep on trucking.
:)

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

Post by WinkinBlinkin » Thu Jun 14, 2018 6:00 pm

But that 8 person party isn't there for the XP, surely? If they were, they would be kicking the three least xp optimal people from the party. I cannot think of a group of even the 5 least optimal characters that could not, without assistance, complete ANY writ available to them all, and would need to bring in high level ringers to help them out. So these people are there for rp reasons, which should trump your desire to grind because this is a roleplay server, and 8 people roleplaying should outweigh the desires of 1 person grinding.

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

Post by Sockss » Thu Jun 14, 2018 6:02 pm

> XP gain is based on the difficulty of an encounter or quest. (Obviously this can fluctuate by some margin depending on player skill and type of build but it's a good estimate)
> Difficulty is set to 0 if someone exceeds the recommended level of a quest by 6 levels.
> XP gain should subsequently be 0, because it's effortless. You don't gain XP for waking up in the morning or tying your shoelaces.

"But it's roleplay destroying" doesn't seem like a valid criticism. You can still continue to breeze through content with a band of under-levelled characters if you wish, it's just back to the efficiency it was pre quest system. The XP gain simply reflects the fact that it's effortless. The real issue here is XP gain, which I'd argue is much better reflected for RP purposes by being minimal, when in the presence of a near-deity superhuman carrying you behind through a rag-tag assortment of goblins.

If you want to 'mentor' a character, or help them, there are still methods of doing so that don't involve questing for them. I use "for" very deliberately because by exceeding that margin, you're not questing "with" them - unless they're a massive outlier.
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Re: "A member of your party..." (Writs feedback)

Post by Sockss » Thu Jun 14, 2018 6:02 pm

WinkinBlinkin wrote:
Thu Jun 14, 2018 6:00 pm
But that 8 person party isn't there for the XP, surely? If they were, they would be kicking the three least xp optimal people from the party. I cannot think of a group of even the 5 least optimal characters that could not, without assistance, complete ANY writ available to them all, and would need to bring in high level ringers to help them out. So these people are there for rp reasons, which should trump your desire to grind because this is a roleplay server, and 8 people roleplaying should outweigh the desires of 1 person grinding.
If the 8 people there are only there to RP, then the writ change doesn't affect them at all. The writ change only affects them if they're there for XP.
Thankfully this team is no longer being used.

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

Post by WinkinBlinkin » Thu Jun 14, 2018 6:06 pm

Let's imagine, you are the head of the melee magthere, and you see a group of lowbies heading out on a mission.

Are you more, or less, likely to tell them you want to accompany them to assess their potential if you know none of them will receive any xp whatsoever if you do?

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

Post by Cortex » Thu Jun 14, 2018 6:09 pm

WinkinBlinkin wrote:
Thu Jun 14, 2018 6:00 pm
But that 8 person party isn't there for the XP, surely? If they were, they would be kicking the three least xp optimal people from the party. I cannot think of a group of even the 5 least optimal characters that could not, without assistance, complete ANY writ available to them all, and would need to bring in high level ringers to help them out. So these people are there for rp reasons, which should trump your desire to grind because this is a roleplay server, and 8 people roleplaying should outweigh the desires of 1 person grinding.
That's all very presumptuous. I'm not going to criticize the party because it's not something to be done in a place like this, but I was not impressed (you also would be surprised how mechanically inept some people can be). They weren't there for the monster exp, but for the quest exp... just like if a single epic helped a single lowbie through a dungeon getting 5 exp per kill, to help the lowbie get 1500 from the quest.
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Re: "A member of your party..." (Writs feedback)

Post by WinkinBlinkin » Thu Jun 14, 2018 6:12 pm

Is it wrong to want xp and rp at the same time? Are the two really mutually exlusive?

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

Post by Sockss » Thu Jun 14, 2018 6:18 pm

EDIT: Hell, just don't join their party.
Last edited by Sockss on Thu Jun 14, 2018 6:27 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: "A member of your party..." (Writs feedback)

Post by Jagel » Thu Jun 14, 2018 6:23 pm

No, they are not mutually exclusive but we already have the rpb-system for small ticks of xp while rp'ing without trucking through dungeons at the same time. Way back before the rpb was implemented you made a choice between rp'ing and grinding (unless you chose to comobine the two, hooray). These days we have both rpb and the adventure xp systems to siphon xp while not doing the normal killing for xp thing.

As for the change to writs I'm a bit torn. On the one hand I like the fact that rp across level ranges is encouraged and this change does feel like a limiting factor. On the other hand there's a zillion things high and low lvl characters could be doing other than writs while still experiencing progress lvl wise. I mean... we have been doing it for 15 years or so until this recent writ thing.

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

Post by PinataPlethora » Thu Jun 14, 2018 6:54 pm

WinkinBlinkin wrote:
Thu Jun 14, 2018 6:12 pm
Is it wrong to want xp and rp at the same time? Are the two really mutually exlusive?
I agree it's a mild inconvenience, (which I really don't mind, because I understand its purpose) but how often are people actually running into this restriction?

I've only seen it once, and I honestly didn't care, because my party was still getting mad XP gains. I was far more annoyed by the constant warning messages.

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

Post by Richørd » Thu Jun 14, 2018 7:23 pm

PinataPlethora wrote:
Thu Jun 14, 2018 6:54 pm
WinkinBlinkin wrote:
Thu Jun 14, 2018 6:12 pm
Is it wrong to want xp and rp at the same time? Are the two really mutually exlusive?
I agree it's a mild inconvenience, (which I really don't mind, because I understand its purpose) but how often are people actually running into this restriction?

I've only seen it once, and I honestly didn't care, because my party was still getting mad XP gains. I was far more annoyed by the constant warning messages.
On Skal? All the time.

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

Post by PinataPlethora » Thu Jun 14, 2018 7:47 pm

Richørd wrote:
Thu Jun 14, 2018 7:23 pm
On Skal? All the time.
That's where I ran into it, too, which leads me to believe that it's more an issue with Skal's lack of higher level quests, limiting lingering characters to parties with an increasingly wide level gap. It also doesn't help that its population is significantly lower than Arelith's.

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

Post by Xarge VI » Thu Jun 14, 2018 7:50 pm

The only thing that irks me about this writ update is that pirate quests can not be abandoned like the normal writ quests can.
So I'm stuck getting the "A member in your party..." Message every time I go through an area transition because I never got around to finishing one low level quest.

Other than that, it makes perfect sense. Epic heroes, mercenaries and what have you do serve the society and themselves better by focusing their efforts on chasing epic murderlords & ladies and dragons rather than average bandits.

You rarely read about king of Far-Far Away land sending his best knight to defeat common brigands. That's because they need to be ready when the next dragon swoops down.

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

Post by thingsicantdo » Thu Jun 14, 2018 9:20 pm

i like how it's "detrimental to RP" that low level characters can't gain stupid amounts of XP by watching someone else do something they agreed to do

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

Post by Gnarh » Thu Jun 14, 2018 9:25 pm

C'mon y'all. Seriously.

This comes down to one thing - you've got to trust the Dev's. This decision would be based on two questions:

Firstly, "What is best for the server?"
Secondly, "Is it based on evidence."

The only reason changes like this happen is because the playbase has been actively observed in behavour assessed as detrimental to the server. It may not be what you've done specifically, but there's enough players doing it. So the Dev's have decided to act. If the behavour changes in game they may change it back. Complaining about it on the forums isn't going to do anything.

If you don't like it, don't play.

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