Repeating writs changes

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Babylon System is the Vampire
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Repeating writs changes

Post by Babylon System is the Vampire » Thu Jun 06, 2019 2:12 am

As someone who has tried to do each writ only once on my last two characters, I can tell you already where some of the holes are. If you are just starting out in Cordor its going to be difficult not to repeat some of the lowbie quests since the options are limited when you haven't made a group of friends yet. And level 18-20 on the surface is also going to be hard to not repeat at least a few because the xp comes so slow at that point. Level 6 through 17 I think I only repeated two quests on my current character, and feel confident that I could have not done that were I not lazy.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by MissEvelyn » Thu Jun 06, 2019 2:24 am

Keep in mind that you are still gaining experience points and gold. Only the Adventuring exp is exempt - and at that point it's assumed that you already have accumulated a pool from writs and slaying creatures between writs large enough that it wouldn't matter much. There's only so much adventuring experience points you can turn into real exp between each ticks.

If anything, I feel that this change indeed encourages grouping up with others and trying out other dungeons.


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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by TimeAdept » Thu Jun 06, 2019 3:25 am

Literally an awful change. Revert it. Writs allows people to have stockpiles of adventuring XP such that they could feel comfortable about not needing to grind for days or more at a time while still continuing to progress their character.

Double the number of writs in existence and you might have something.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Babylon System is the Vampire » Thu Jun 06, 2019 3:50 am

MissEvelyn wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 2:24 am
Keep in mind that you are still gaining experience points and gold. Only the Adventuring exp is exempt - and at that point it's assumed that you already have accumulated a pool from writs and slaying creatures between writs large enough that it wouldn't matter much. There's only so much adventuring experience points you can turn into real exp between each ticks.

If anything, I feel that this change indeed encourages grouping up with others and trying out other dungeons.
I agree with everything you are saying except the adventure xp being useless. My last character had 173 thousand xp at level 21 because I deleveled back to 13 at one point, and she used every drop by 29. Politics is a hell of a drug.

That being said, if the point is to try and get people to do a wider variety of writs then I was just pointing out where the holes will pop up for surface guys. I don't know the underdark or skal at all.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by ReverentBlade » Thu Jun 06, 2019 6:08 am

Terrible change. I play during euro times where grouping up is difficult, let along grouping up with characters that are "compatible". The number of writs I can do solo is very small. Please stop punishing casuals and people that prefer to RP over grinding and powerbuilding, please please please.

The number of writ bosses with a phylactery is also legitimately silly. I avoid those like the plague. To say nothing about the endless monster power creep.

If you can't tell, this has me -extremely- frustrated. I've been working like hell to try and get some very casual players to come back to NWN RP. I told them they could mostly get by with adventure XP, and now I'm having to walk that back. These kind of players are excellent storytellers, but they aren't going to be content with level 3 forever. Please stop chasing the "git gud" curve, Irongron. Its not good.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Drowble Oh Seven » Thu Jun 06, 2019 7:01 am

Just as a preface; I appreciate all the work the team's been putting into updates lately, and it's super cool to have a server that's still developing and changing.

That said I'm curious as to the rationale behind this change. I'm worried it might be punishing PCs that don't necessarily roam as widely, and are more interested in putting down roots in a particular area. If I want to play a paladin that spends her early levels gathering noble adventurers to help control the plague of undeath in Cordor's graveyards, I'll be worse off long term than if I'd decided to go wandering about - even though that feels like a perfectly legitimate character path.

I appreciate the idea of adventure XP rewarding players for exploring, but I'm uncertain that every PC should be encouraged to subscribe to the 'My work here is done, and now I must move on' wild-west gunslinger archetype. Arelith needs its homebodies, too.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Iceborn » Thu Jun 06, 2019 7:10 am

TimeAdept wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 3:25 am
Literally an awful change. Revert it. Writs allows people to have stockpiles of adventuring XP such that they could feel comfortable about not needing to grind for days or more at a time while still continuing to progress their character.

Double the number of writs in existence and you might have something.
I wouldn't call it awful, and there's still dozen of ways to get adventure XP and stockpile it like crazy.
But I'd take roleplay to level up with time over grinding any day of the week.
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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Sea Shanties » Thu Jun 06, 2019 7:21 am

I can live with it but if the regular XP rewards from writs follow suit I'm dropping out. Being able to repeat writs and level at a decent pace is wonderful and I can't go back to grinding for everything, I'm not getting any younger and my play time is getting less and less.

Maybe with the adventuring XP, the limit on repeating could reset weekly instead? Seems like a fair compromise that would reward people who find a new dungeon every day while still letting weekend warriors get some adventuring XP when they repeat writs if they have less time and can't find a solid group.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by ReverentBlade » Thu Jun 06, 2019 7:43 am

A weekly reset would be a much more stomach-able compromise, but I'm not sure what problem is trying to be addressed in the first place. Too many people actually sitting down and RPing? Jeeze.

Sorry if I come off super aggro on this issue, but the writ system is literally the update that allowed me to develop an interest in the server. My previous attempts had been too grindy and I passed Arelith up for greener pastures. Nerfing it really really makes me concerned.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Gobbo Champion Inc » Thu Jun 06, 2019 8:07 am

Writs allowed you to stockpile adventure xp so when you hit lvl 21, you could rely on the stored xp to carry you to 30 with only occasionally dungeon running, instead of having to go through a hellish grind.

While I wont get overly dramatic over this change, and certainly wont quit or anything, I will state that I worry this will have the effect of decreasing the amount of roleplay, and exploration, not increasing it. As well as make it harder to get people to do certain writs that they have already done, to help out others who cannot do them without help.

That said, I very much like the idea behind the change. To get people doing more then just a handful of writs. And to see more of the beautifully crafted, and designed server. An idea might be that instead of penalizing players for repeating the same writs, there might instead be an increased reward the first time you do each writ, and subsequent times only providing the normal rate.

It would also serve to help more casual, and rp oriented players, who do not have the time, or interest to repeat the same writs again, and again, and who level at a more casual pace, doing a writ or two a day.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by monkeywithstick » Thu Jun 06, 2019 8:36 am

I think people who don't want to grind and rp instead might just want to turn on adventure mode.

It's not a full replacement and I do appreciate it's a downgrade for folks, but for me when I ran out of adventure xp in epics I just went and refilled out with adventure mode and then went back to politics. If your adventure xp empties it's basically just a 50% xp bonus in the long term.

The usual advice has generally been "don't use adventure mode", this change probably alters that.
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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by ReverentBlade » Thu Jun 06, 2019 8:42 am

I'm frankly just inclined to grind the few writs I know I can do alone all the harder to get as high as I can before my adventure XP runs out. I want the largest pool possible when I hit the writ cap because I simply don't grind once writs are unavailable. I am actually setting aside the various IC relationships and storylines I've been working on cultivating and having to use my time to focus exclusively on leveling since my adventure bank is now a much more finite resource. It is actively encouraging the very behavior is it hoping to curtail.

Please, please reconsider this. I'm frankly confused as to why we are taking steps backward in accessibility.

If certain writs are getting ignored in favor of repeating other ones, that should be an indication that their risk/reward/time equation is sub-optimal. That isn't our fault tbh.

(And adventure mode needs some serious love if its meant to be a viable option for casuals. It nerfs the monster XP just way too hard for what you get. I was getting single digits for level appropriate stuff.)

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by naturaly » Thu Jun 06, 2019 10:57 am

Adventure XP was always for the first time doing something only.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by InformationActionRatio » Thu Jun 06, 2019 11:32 am

I am in agreement with those who think this a bad idea. It does punish the casual player or those in sub optimal timezones. I don't have endless hours to play the game, why shouldn't I be allowed to grind the same writ if it's an enjoyable expereince and fits into my hours of play?

I like the idea of larger rewards for those who wish to explore new areas for the first time. Rewarding those who do explore other areas is a better idea than punishing those who don't. The carrot is always better than the stick.

The writs made grinding bearable. Grinding is the most mind numbingly, boring thing I could possibly think of doing with my character. As someone earlier said, characters shouldn't be forced to explore new areas all the time. It makes no sense for some characters to do so. My character is a merchant and is rich enough to pay someone else to get whatever reward is at the end of that dangerous new dungeon. Why would he go do it himself? The only reason he ever leaves Andunor is to gain EXP because my adventuring bonus has run out.

I'm not trying to sound pompous or arrogant but there are times when I'm online that there would be no possible way to level without adventure exp due to the fact I am involved in so much rp. RP is the important thing isn't it? Being rewarded for such with adventure exp was a brilliant concept and it is a shame to see it being taken away by limiting our choices.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Skald Haldi » Thu Jun 06, 2019 11:41 am

This is an interesting topic and I'm torn both ways.

What is the purpose?

1) Discourage the "three-quick-writs and logout" power-level scheme. (sounds good)
2) Encourage people to see more of the content (sounds great)

Problems:

1) Discourages casual players
2) Discourages RP players who aren't power-grinding
3) Writs are not balanced by level - repeated character deaths is not good immersion, especially for RP players
4) Some writs require either prior knowledge or certain skills (locks, traps, spells, tricks) to survive / complete
5) Some writs are confusing - I can't even find the right zone without wandering around a long time
6) What about de-leveling and re-leveling? Will the writs' completions be reset? Or are we discouraging that RP too?

One of my main complaints with Arelith is that it heavily rewards the "git gud" power gamer. At the same time, it describes itself as an RP server. Which is it? For example, just look at the 5% mechanic and explain how this mechanic better rewards people who AREN'T power-grinding their characters to 26 and rolling.

As a compromise -> instead of removing adventure XP when repeating writs, DOUBLE the adventure XP and give ZERO direct XP. In other words, move all direct XP to adventure XP. This reduces the speed of power-level-grinding AND encourages people to spend time RPing and/or exploring/adventuring together.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Jack Oat » Thu Jun 06, 2019 12:04 pm

ReverentBlade wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 6:08 am
Terrible change. I play during euro times where grouping up is difficult, let along grouping up with characters that are "compatible". The number of writs I can do solo is very small. Please stop punishing casuals and people that prefer to RP over grinding and powerbuilding, please please please.

The number of writ bosses with a phylactery is also legitimately silly. I avoid those like the plague. To say nothing about the endless monster power creep.

If you can't tell, this has me -extremely- frustrated. I've been working like hell to try and get some very casual players to come back to NWN RP. I told them they could mostly get by with adventure XP, and now I'm having to walk that back. These kind of players are excellent storytellers, but they aren't going to be content with level 3 forever. Please stop chasing the "git gud" curve, Irongron. Its not good.
I agree with the overall sentiment here about how this punishes casual players. It isn't even a "git gud" thing, it's just... Silly.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Irongron » Thu Jun 06, 2019 12:42 pm

Obviously I was aware this change would not be popular, but as we keep increasing the number of quests I do feel it was necessary, and preferable to all quests being changed to 'one shot' (as with pirate quests - something that has repeatedly been suggested)

Adventure XP was always intended as something to be gained from doing something for the first time, be it visiting a new area, crafting a new recipe, killing a certain kind of monster for the first time, activating a new portal, etc. It was at the very centre of the principle of the idea.

The addition of vast amounts of adventure XP for writ completion (and 'adventure mode') had pretty much negated all those other sources, making them largely meaningless. Since its introduction the amount of adventure XP people were able to bank had become vast.

This wasn't about punishing players, casual or otherwise, but something I have long itended as we gradually populated the game with more quests. The removal of adventure XP, as someone mentioned above, will help to highlight at what levels quest content is missing.

More quests will be announced very shortly, this was a project always intended to run for many years. New quest types, class, guild and location specific quests. All of that work of course is simply not worth the development time if players instead choose the same 3 quests repeatedly throughout their adventuring career, and this, I know, really does happen. It is absolutely the nature of players to choose the option which is the least effort for the greatest reward. The whole principle of writ quests was introduced partly due to that. The gold it offers helps compensate for creatures that carry little of it, the XP reward is balanced around the overall difficulty.

And those rewards (gold and conventional XP) remain very high - those quest options have not been removed.

What would be helpful at this stage is to suggest more sources of adventure XP (originally some of you may recall it was only areas and portals), and locations where more dungeons could be added.

Just over a year ago it was normal for people's adventure XP pool to empty quite regularly, recently it has become the norm for it to reliably full until epic levels. This didn't just undermine the whole reason for its introduction (rewarding players for trying new things) but became, very simply, a flat level progression boost irrespective of player actions.

Finally I just want to pick up on this whole 'punishing players' point, that comes up repeatedly when changes like this take effect.

When we do to reward actions, as in to give players something extra for doing something, it routinely gets inverted as us 'punishing' those who do not. In these cases nothing was taken away, only added. I have tried to make that my design philosophy as much as possible - aiming to reward certain actions rather than punitively punishing others. No harm, no foul. Adventure XP was very much done with this in mind. Rather than punish people for 'circle grinding' or only visiting the easiest locations we offered a little extra to those who did not.

So here are some suggestions that we could consider...

1. Increase the adventure XP reward for quests to help compensate for this reduction
2. Suggest new ways to earn Adventure XP
3. Add recruitable henchmen to the module (rogues especially) that automatically spawn when numbers dip below a certain point.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Shadowy Reality » Thu Jun 06, 2019 12:51 pm

I don't know what everyone else's experience is, but mine has gone like this:

Start a new character. Do writs until 21. What I have found is that I basically have Adventure EXP stockpiled for eternity. I dont think I ever ran out before I hit the cap or retired the character.

What this change does it that that stockpile might actually run out now, you still get that instant EXP which is the most important part anyway, I don't think for most people this is going to change a thing before hitting the later epics.

Edit: I have recently brought a friend over to Arelith, and we have been playing very casually, basically doing a few writs during the weekend only. We have not repeated many Writs and I think we did each at least once. They are all perfectly doable with 2 people so long as you dont have terrible terrible builds. Our Adventure EXP stockpiles are enormous. In fact Adventure EXP matters very few for casual players, they are online the least to drain that stockpile.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by ReverentBlade » Thu Jun 06, 2019 1:37 pm

I guess my situation is a little unique when you put it like that. I have plenty of time of my laptop and tablets where I can sit and do social RP, but less on my desktop where I can actually do combat stuff. Adventure xp is amazing for me. The few hours I can get at my desktop I just try to knock out the easily repeatable writs.

Babylon System is the Vampire
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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Babylon System is the Vampire » Thu Jun 06, 2019 1:56 pm

I personally think there is a lot of overreaction to this change going on in here. As long as the up front xp remains the same, you are still going to get to 21 as fast as you are now. The only difference is that you won't have the stockpiles of adventure xp (I'm usually between 120k and 150k when I hit 21 with a 20 rpr, which means I will still have 60 to 75k even if its cut in half) to let you sit around and do nothing while it slowly ticks you up to 30. While that sucks for characters that can never get out anymore because they are so knee deep in politics even though they want to go out and bash things, the reality is that the only thing stopping them is themselves. Sometimes you just have to tell people "sorry, time for me to actually play the game". Everyone else should be getting out and adventuring at some point or another. And even if you think the high level stuff is too hard, you can always slow down your gain to 21 by turning on adventure mode and just sit through the epics still.

The one point I didn't think about (mostly because I haven't met a writ I can't solo yet) is what gobo champ inc brought up, that it might make it harder to group if you start to find people who already did x y and z and you have already done a b and c, making groups even harder to form. How big of an issue this will turn out to be only time will tell, since its hard to say how much people will value more adventure xp over getting together in a group. But beyond that, I think every other negative comment is just a knee jerk reaction to change.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Seven Sons of Sin » Thu Jun 06, 2019 2:24 pm

I think this change is good. There was something gratuitous about the writ system that I couldn't put my finger on.

One thing I think could be beneficial is receiving a bunch of Adventure XP when you fulfill all the Writs of a given area. Or a certain amount of each area.

Like Paxton says, "Awesome job, John Evillord, you've done the vast majority of the contract work in Cordor. Here's the Registry's 'Adventurer of Cordor' badge of service. Well done."

John Evillord gets a big chunk of AXP, no gold or normal EXP. John Evillord feels rewarded for having completed the Cordor tract of the writ system.
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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Brandon Steel » Thu Jun 06, 2019 3:51 pm

I feel like there needs to be more ways to get adventuring xp before this change happens but maybe that’s just me.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Subutai » Thu Jun 06, 2019 4:01 pm

My concern is that this is going to force people to find a group at early levels and stick with them, without variation, all the way to 21. When writs could be done multiple times, it was easy enough to hang out by the registry agent and form an impromptu group from the people who showed up for the same. Now, that's going to be out the window because everyone will have done different writs, and they'll have to spend a long time figuring out which writs all of them haven't done, and of those, which ones they have the party composition to do. It makes a hassle out of what should be a simple process.

I'd really rather see the quests rotated out than just piled on. How many times does the Guldorand vampire den need to be cleared out? Maybe it's a writ for a few weeks or months, then it's swapped for something else. That would force players to experience different areas and do different things without stopping them from being able to get adventure XP from redoing writs.

As for adventure XP, I can say that, while most people have an endless supply, some don't. One person I constantly level with ran out at level 27, and it's terrible. While everyone else feels happy hanging out and RPing while reaping adventure XP, they have to go out and grind and grind and grind, falling further behind either in terms of level, or in terms of RP.

I totally understand wanting to get people to do more and different writs, but I don't like the idea of cutting off adventure XP when a writ is redone. Why not just rotate the available writs out from time to time?

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Seven Sons of Sin » Thu Jun 06, 2019 4:29 pm

Sidenote, there is no such thing as "falling behind in level."

I don't know what that means, but it really shouldn't matter. Once you arguably get past level 7 or so, lower level characters can definitely team up with higher levels. You don't need to be all the same thing. It can actually be more when its not.
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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by xanrael » Thu Jun 06, 2019 5:29 pm

Irongron wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 12:42 pm
What would be helpful at this stage is to suggest more sources of adventure XP (originally some of you may recall it was only areas and portals), and locations where more dungeons could be added.
1. Settlement rewards for materials. If you pick donate instead of trade you get adventure XP based on the item type. There is also cap placed on the quantity per material type that resets every "tax year" so people can't convert infinite gold to infinite adventure XP but are still encouraged to contribute to the settlement's needs every year.

2. Doing "class" related things. A wizard learns a new spell from a scroll, a holy type holds a ceremony with a large amount of participants, someone wins a gladiatorial bout, an assassin completes a contract, someone learns a new -stream, etc. Whether these are finite, decrease value over time, or are infinite, dunno.

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