Repeating writs changes

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Sea Shanties
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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Sea Shanties » Thu Jun 06, 2019 6:20 pm

Hauling stuff for settlements is about as far from "adventuring" as you can get, though. We could have a citizenship bonus or something as well for people active in their settlements and do things like supply materials and hold positions I suppose but that ain't "adventuring."

Maybe this wouldn't sting as much if there were a lot more writs. How about letting the community submit writs and if the devs like them they can add them to the system? Maybe some creative players could come up with writs about doing more than killing x amount of monsters-- not that I'm complaining about those, but there could be some more story-based missions as well or chained series of missions.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Cortex » Thu Jun 06, 2019 6:39 pm

Worst case scenario you just toggle -adventure mode, you lose no EXP from it (you get full value of the monster EXP as adventure EXP, and half as immediate EXP, netting you a 1.5x gain if you spend the adventure EXP). If you'd rather spend most of your time RPing, just keep -adventure mode on while you do quests.

This change is good, it had become a joke that when getting to epics, people would have enough adventure exp banked to level all the way to 30 through RPB+adventure exp.
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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by MissEvelyn » Thu Jun 06, 2019 6:44 pm

Sea Shanties wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 7:21 am
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.
I feel like this would be a fair compromise, which would benefit everyone; both the far-traveler and the homebodies.
And to quote Gobbo Champion:
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.
This could and would encourage players to explore more as well. Rewarding will always be a better approach versus a punishing one.


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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Subutai » Thu Jun 06, 2019 6:51 pm

Cortex wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 6:39 pm
This change is good, it had become a joke that when getting to epics, people would have enough adventure exp banked to level all the way to 30 through RPB+adventure exp.
While I did like doing writs, and look forward to a wider variety of them, I'm not sure why having enough stored XP to level from 21-30 while RPing instead of grinding is a joke. Arelith is an RP server, isn't it? It seems like a positive thing that people would rather stop grinding and start RPing sooner rather than later.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Cortex » Thu Jun 06, 2019 6:53 pm

Subutai wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 6:51 pm
Cortex wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 6:39 pm
This change is good, it had become a joke that when getting to epics, people would have enough adventure exp banked to level all the way to 30 through RPB+adventure exp.
While I did like doing writs, and look forward to a wider variety of them, I'm not sure why having enough stored XP to level from 21-30 while RPing instead of grinding is a joke. Arelith is an RP server, isn't it? It seems like a positive thing that people would rather stop grinding and start RPing sooner rather than later.
Arelith is a PW where roleplay, adventure and PC conflict are all interwined, one isn't exclusive from another, and while you can focus on any of them you still can't ignore the others. That's how it's always been. Majority of the module areas are dungeons.
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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by xanrael » Thu Jun 06, 2019 7:26 pm

Sea Shanties wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 6:20 pm
Hauling stuff for settlements is about as far from "adventuring" as you can get, though. We could have a citizenship bonus or something as well for people active in their settlements and do things like supply materials and hold positions I suppose but that ain't "adventuring."
Are you hung up on the name or don't like banked XP for those things?

If the former we already have crafting items granting adventure XP and that's not adventuring either.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Subutai » Thu Jun 06, 2019 7:36 pm

Cortex wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 6:53 pm
Subutai wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 6:51 pm
Cortex wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 6:39 pm
This change is good, it had become a joke that when getting to epics, people would have enough adventure exp banked to level all the way to 30 through RPB+adventure exp.
While I did like doing writs, and look forward to a wider variety of them, I'm not sure why having enough stored XP to level from 21-30 while RPing instead of grinding is a joke. Arelith is an RP server, isn't it? It seems like a positive thing that people would rather stop grinding and start RPing sooner rather than later.
Arelith is a PW where roleplay, adventure and PC conflict are all interwined, one isn't exclusive from another, and while you can focus on any of them you still can't ignore the others. That's how it's always been. Majority of the module areas are dungeons.
That's very true, but they generally don't offer all that much XP. You could do all of the generally accessible (surface for surface characters, UD for UD characters) epic-level dungeons one time and end up with what? 2-3 levels, tops? That still 5-6 levels to finish after you've already experienced that majority of module areas.

The thing with having a ton of adventure XP isn't that it decreases going out and exploring (people who want to see those areas will probably go, anyway, XP or no). It's that it decreases the need to grind. During my late-evening PST hours, it can be very hard to find groups, so it's often just me, or me and 1-2 others. That means most of my non-Adventure XP comes from repeatedly doing the Battlefield or the Black Orcs, neither of which are really any fun anymore. They're just a chore I have to do to get XP. When someone comes along who's willing to RP during the trips, instead of just run from spawn to spawn, they can still be fun, but that's from the RP, not from the grinding.

I'd be more on board with the idea if there were more late-game dungeons catered towards builds that aren't optimized to solo, or 4-6 person balanced groups. Fun adventures turn into tedious grinds very quickly when they're the same areas over and over again.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by JubJub » Thu Jun 06, 2019 7:44 pm

Honestly what was bad with a person doing the same writ a few times a week? Also encouraging people to group and the ability to find a group are two different things. Maybe fix some of the writs instead, many of the tomb writs in the desert pay well but I don't know man people who enjoy the hassle of them. Really not sure why this was implemented.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Subutai » Thu Jun 06, 2019 7:55 pm

JubJub wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 7:44 pm
Also encouraging people to group and the ability to find a group are two different things.
I'm not sure if you meant it, but the ability to find groups is my primary issue, and why being able to redo writs for full XP is generally so important. There are a lot of varied dungeons for the writ levels, but they're often somewhat exclusive towards different abilities. Weapon Masters and rogues, for example, are going to struggle more against golems and undead because they're crit and sneak attack immune, meaning that while WMs and rogues can do them as part of a group otherwise geared towards those areas, they won't necessarily fare well if they can't find a group, or if they can only find isn't right for those writs, either.

In those cases, being able to redo writs that they can handle is important. Sure, it's easy to say "they should find a group", but that's often easier said than done. Before my WM managed to find a couple of consistent leveling buddies, I'd often spend half of my 2-3 hours each week night just looking for a group, because I often can't play until close to 10PM EST, which is when most of the eastern timezone players drop off, or start to, followed soon by CST players. I could do a few writs solo, so I often did them over and over because it was a better use of my playing time to grind through the same writs than to try to get together a group and do new exciting ones, since by the time I got a group together, I'd barely have time to get started and then I'd be off to bed.

I guess if there's a time, like 5-6 EST, where tons and tons of players are around, getting together in a big group and heading out to do all new writs every day would be fine, but for people in most other timezones, this doesn't seem like it's nearly as workable as people are might think.

Sea Shanties
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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Sea Shanties » Thu Jun 06, 2019 8:13 pm

Epic writs could mitigate this. Of course they would have to be much more difficult, perhaps could only be done one time only, but maybe the point at 21 where writs abruptly stop doesn't have the rule.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Seven Sons of Sin » Thu Jun 06, 2019 8:17 pm

Honestly, if this is the response, I'd encourage irongron to go even further. There is never any obligation to grind. There is never any need to put getting xp/loot over RP.

I can't believe that's even being raised. You're not required to do any sort of adventuring what so ever.
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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Ebonstar » Thu Jun 06, 2019 8:33 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.
simply do the courier writs if you cannot group up

and storytelling experts imo do not pay attention to the git gud mentality
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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Subutai » Thu Jun 06, 2019 8:46 pm

I wonder if this topic is going in the rather wrong direction. What people (including myself) are really unenthused about isn't having to do different writs, or about not getting XP fast. It's about the prospect of even more post-20 grinding. Maybe there are some people who legitimately enjoy spending dozens of hours fighting the same spawns and doing the same dungeons repeatedly to get from 21-30. That's awesome for those of you like that!

A lot of us, though, hate the grind. I love RPing, I love taking my character to new places to explore new dungeons and fight new enemies. What I don't like is going doing those same dungeons over and over for hours and hours just to get a relatively small part of a level. Grinding really just isn't fun for a lot of people, and the idea that they're going to end up at 21 without much extra adventure XP just means they're going to have to do more of that. The proposed solution "go out and grind using -adventure mode" doesn't help, because they're just saying "If you want to avoid grinding, go grind".

Instead of saying that we want more adventure XP, maybe a better way to take this is "We don't want to have to grind so much once we hit 21". As evidenced by the many players who would happily go from 21-30 just on adventure XP, getting from 21-30 fast clearly isn't a huge priority for a lot of these players. The priority is getting from 21-30 without doing days or weeks of what feels like dragging, tedious work.

How can we solve this?

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Sea Shanties » Thu Jun 06, 2019 9:02 pm

Seven Sons of Sin wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 8:17 pm
Honestly, if this is the response, I'd encourage irongron to go even further. There is never any obligation to grind. There is never any need to put getting xp/loot over RP.

I can't believe that's even being raised. You're not required to do any sort of adventuring what so ever.
People are politely expressing reasonable opinions in the forum section that specifically asks for feedback.

I'd like to think we're all mature members of a community here and have the ability to discuss and even express dissatisfaction about a big change like this. Irongron is a very reasonable person and I would certainly hope his attitude wouldn't be to punish us if we do so. He's not daddy and we're not bad little kids if we say "wait, can we talk about this?"
Last edited by Sea Shanties on Thu Jun 06, 2019 9:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Ebonstar » Thu Jun 06, 2019 9:06 pm

Subutai wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 8:46 pm
I wonder if this topic is going in the rather wrong direction. What people (including myself) are really unenthused about isn't having to do different writs, or about not getting XP fast. It's about the prospect of even more post-20 grinding. Maybe there are some people who legitimately enjoy spending dozens of hours fighting the same spawns and doing the same dungeons repeatedly to get from 21-30. That's awesome for those of you like that!

A lot of us, though, hate the grind. I love RPing, I love taking my character to new places to explore new dungeons and fight new enemies. What I don't like is going doing those same dungeons over and over for hours and hours just to get a relatively small part of a level. Grinding really just isn't fun for a lot of people, and the idea that they're going to end up at 21 without much extra adventure XP just means they're going to have to do more of that. The proposed solution "go out and grind using -adventure mode" doesn't help, because they're just saying "If you want to avoid grinding, go grind".

Instead of saying that we want more adventure XP, maybe a better way to take this is "We don't want to have to grind so much once we hit 21". As evidenced by the many players who would happily go from 21-30 just on adventure XP, getting from 21-30 fast clearly isn't a huge priority for a lot of these players. The priority is getting from 21-30 without doing days or weeks of what feels like dragging, tedious work.

How can we solve this?
I hate the grind, on my current toon if this had been in effect prior he would have half of the bank he does which at level 22 sits at 123k so lets say 60k to be simple.

still level 22 still have 60k banked.

still hasnt gone totally through black orcs, or the lost desert itself, or the entire jungle areas, or north of brog, or north of guld, or the entire swamp, or on any ship to outlying islands or heaven forbid the UD, or any planes save one.

so that is thousands more possible bank xp not even touched which means you can take the 60k away and he will still hit 30 without a grind, just visiting all those places he hasnt seen yet.

And I know I cannot be the only one with the situation like that.

and no one has mentioned the courier writs too. of which even if you dont get xp banked each time is easy coin and still work as such after level 21

More ideas for writs, utilize the npcs at the castles, for destinations delivering documents like the bendir to brog one, brog to darrowdeep or cordor to myon or bendir to gloom etc.

make writs for finding a specific item that only spawns when you take the writ.

mentioned was players abc have done writ q and def have done writ p and not being able to do the other writ when grouped, is wrong, it means the group that has gone already can be a guide to the other. which creates more rp.

tired of the grind, maybe the devs can put random traps and spawns so you dont know where everything is everytime.

same for speedies, why cant they get different packages to other places.

plenty of options and ideas, not everything is end of the world
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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by JubJub » Thu Jun 06, 2019 10:09 pm

Subutai wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 7:55 pm
JubJub wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 7:44 pm
Also encouraging people to group and the ability to find a group are two different things.
I'm not sure if you meant it, but the ability to find groups is my primary issue, and why being able to redo writs for full XP is generally so important. There are a lot of varied dungeons for the writ levels, but they're often somewhat exclusive towards different abilities. Weapon Masters and rogues, for example, are going to struggle more against golems and undead because they're crit and sneak attack immune, meaning that while WMs and rogues can do them as part of a group otherwise geared towards those areas, they won't necessarily fare well if they can't find a group, or if they can only find isn't right for those writs, either.

In those cases, being able to redo writs that they can handle is important. Sure, it's easy to say "they should find a group", but that's often easier said than done. Before my WM managed to find a couple of consistent leveling buddies, I'd often spend half of my 2-3 hours each week night just looking for a group, because I often can't play until close to 10PM EST, which is when most of the eastern timezone players drop off, or start to, followed soon by CST players. I could do a few writs solo, so I often did them over and over because it was a better use of my playing time to grind through the same writs than to try to get together a group and do new exciting ones, since by the time I got a group together, I'd barely have time to get started and then I'd be off to bed.

I guess if there's a time, like 5-6 EST, where tons and tons of players are around, getting together in a big group and heading out to do all new writs every day would be fine, but for people in most other timezones, this doesn't seem like it's nearly as workable as people are might think.
I agree, that was what I meant. It's easy for people to say just find a group, but it can be nearly impossible to find people to actually group with.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by theCountofMonteCristo » Thu Jun 06, 2019 11:44 pm

After reading Irongron's response, I want to suggest a small change to writs:

Remove the upper level limit if you've never completed the writ.

Reasoning: I know I'm not the only one that plays mechanically inferior characters, and by allowing a higher level inferior character to do Writs that they have surpassed, will allow them access to that adventure exp. So even if a PC can't find a group to do one, if they outlevel it, the adventure exp isn't 'lost' forever, you can go back and get it when you are strong enough to do so alone.

Once you've done the writ one time, then I'm all for putting the level cap back onto the writ.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Bibliophile » Sat Jun 08, 2019 2:53 pm

The character I'm playing has perhaps done 10 writs in their entire career and most of those were the scouting ones, the ones that give the least amount of xp. She has also gone out maybe 5 times to the epic level dungeons. Until level 27 -advent wasn't turned on because I honestly had forgotten about it. I have been able to play her just fine and gain levels without an issue. I think the issue is that people don't want to wait to gain the levels. It can take me 1-2 weeks to get a level when many are not happy if it takes more than 2 days for their level.

Is it really punishment to revert back a tiny bit on this change? We used to never have writs. We used to never have adventure xp. Leveling now is more the joke than people wanting to rapid grind to 21 "before the rp starts" (note quoting anyone in particular). Yes this change will slow you down just a tad but it will still be far easier than it used to be.

Only one person so far has offered a suggestion and it was met with someone instantly saying why it was bad. How about more suggestions?

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Chosen Son » Sat Jun 08, 2019 4:25 pm

A question for me is "Why does leveling need to be slow?"

After doing 1-30 several times, the novelty of most of the early/mid-game content has long since worn off. Making leveling slower just prolongs a process i've done before several times before on other characters. The game is simply funner for me at low-mid epics, then it is in lower levels. And more fun still at lvl 30.

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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Kuma » Wed Jun 12, 2019 3:30 am

theCountofMonteCristo wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 11:44 pm
After reading Irongron's response, I want to suggest a small change to writs:

Remove the upper level limit if you've never completed the writ.

Reasoning: I know I'm not the only one that plays mechanically inferior characters, and by allowing a higher level inferior character to do Writs that they have surpassed, will allow them access to that adventure exp. So even if a PC can't find a group to do one, if they outlevel it, the adventure exp isn't 'lost' forever, you can go back and get it when you are strong enough to do so alone.

Once you've done the writ one time, then I'm all for putting the level cap back onto the writ.
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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Reallylongunneededplayername » Wed Jun 12, 2019 5:52 am

Hello everybody!

So, I am an RP person, I make RP builds.
They often are horrible.
I always need folk to venture with and often stop with xp farming at level 16. Including writs, cause at that point I just cant get a party togetter (EU player btw) and most writs get to hard at that point for me to do alone. And doing that one I can over and over just won't do it for me.

Adventure xp has alwas been a great boon, I just cease being an adventure, and get a job. Be it soldier at Darrowdeep or trade minister in Myon or a freelance smith. By this, suggestion 1:

-retirement. You go to the agent, you tell him you quit, you now no longer get xp from anything but you do get 60 on top of your rpr.

That said: sugesstion 2.
Apply as worker, You get xp for work, every cp you spend equals xp. No xp for other thing.
(Maybe xp for delivering resources?)

This opens up so much RP and makes so much more sense than running circles like lunatic murdering stuff over and over so you got enough to RP for a few hours.
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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by CosmicOrderV » Wed Jun 12, 2019 6:49 am

I get the impression, with stuff like the courier quests, we'll get some non-combat stuff like folks have described here, to generate EXP. And it coming at the cost of being able to do writs might seem reasonable. Could be cool to see custom crafts (like maybe a special workbench where unique courier packages can be crafted) such that they require resources one grows/mines/harvests, to make. One then takes these somewhere and they grant exp upon delivery. It ties in farming and crafting, for a less combat oriented exp route.

I think it's probably important to mention, though, an odd line of thought presented. Intentionally making poor mechanical choices, then expecting to be mechanically enabled, doesn't make sense. What do I mean? How does crafting and farming grow one's class abilities? There is no farmer class. No artisan class. Those might be cool, as a custom class, sure? But they're not something the server gives much mechanical depth to, at the present. So feeling entitled to gain levels for doing those things, seems a bit odd. RP is everything. It's the crafting. The travel. The combat. The social interactions. The classic weapon-master is a 'role play' build, so long as one tries to portray the class' aspects in their character. Let's not get it too twisted, and ruin our expectations in the process.
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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Reallylongunneededplayername » Wed Jun 12, 2019 9:04 am

It might be everything, but I dont have time for everything.

I am 36 now, my time of 15 hours a day and late nights are behind me.
And when it comes to all arelith has to offer, I rather give up the xp hunt than the Roleplay and the fun of making stuff.

And yes, I would still like to make progress with my character, cause craft is wired into it with skill and feats.

And yes, weaponmaster is a roleplay class, but you still gonna dip those three rogue for skills.
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Re: Repeating writs changes

Post by Aftond » Wed Jun 12, 2019 1:12 pm

How about increasing the amount of adventure XP you get from that first turn in just temporarily, while other adventure XP gain systems are still in the works? An increase around 25-50%?

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