Obscenitor
Dalayan Elder
I think you missed the part where people are saying to increase XP gain.
Codex of Power Revamp
- Thread starter Waldoff
- Start date
I think you missed the part where people are saying to increase XP gain.
Daffie
Dalayan Pious Diety
Obscenitor said:
Didn't miss that part and I agree with it, but I was referring to this:
For the amount of benefit you get from essentially 550 more AAs, it's not a wall, it's a huge leap forward. 20% increases in nearly everything a character does is really a lot. That being said, it's a time sink for the people that like to have those kinds of things in their MMOs, so all the goal-setters and min-maxers have something to pencil into their future plans.
It's a shame that it's become a de-facto requirement for raiding, but with the recent complete evisceration of the high-end raiding scene, perhaps there's room for those perceptions to change. Goon Squad did quite a bit with only a few characters that had finished CoP5.
Moraelintz
Dalayan Elder
This x 1000. There are so many more important things that should be looked at. For instance diety quests, upper thaz, etc.
If you want to reduce the burden increase the rate at which exp is earned, and it won't feel so bad. AA's will come faster and will still be the 'extended' feel of the gring but the thing about the COP's that are unique is they add incremental power increase as they are leveling. You see partial effects while grinding the tome.
cian2
Dalayan Master
your posts scream "agenda" and it deserves a new thread, but rohk book, and many other items: crystalis, cella, sharn'ree verdict, xi valla kah, custo sword, caster haste items, blazewind gloves, am i missing anything? went into the "Fuck It" category. after a few attempts to balance them (or none, tbh), they were simply cast aside and left in a state somewhere between undertiered and completely useless. I feel your pain on this, trust me, I do. On this item specifically I think the main problem with it was the very way expable items are designed: they can only improve by +x FLAT per level or +x PERCENT per level, and with each successive level the experience required goes up exponentially. So even though it took whatever billion exp to level to max, by 1/4 of the exp, it had already gained over 50% of it's stat bonuses, and quickly surpassed higher tier range items. When you have to stick to such a strict guideline, the line between overpowered and useless becomes real thin.
edit: not really relevant, but for the record, i personally still consider rohk book to be slightly overpowered. it's obtainable at tier 10 and i use it (at lvl 19) over plume of rebirth, from t13.
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cian2
Dalayan Master
edit: woldaff deleted his post to reedit it. I responded to the one below.
i think we are all well aware that you are going to do whatever you want, regardless of what the players say. you asked for opinions. my opinion is that you need to stop clinging to whatever idea of progression you had 5 years ago, because it is dead and gone and ain't coming back. doubling exp drops the wall in half and allows people to enter the raid game, providing fresh blood which the game desperately needs. focus on the strengths of the game.
i think we are all well aware that you are going to do whatever you want, regardless of what the players say. you asked for opinions. my opinion is that you need to stop clinging to whatever idea of progression you had 5 years ago, because it is dead and gone and ain't coming back. doubling exp drops the wall in half and allows people to enter the raid game, providing fresh blood which the game desperately needs. focus on the strengths of the game.
The whole "Devs have better things to do" argument is not going to get you very far. We know how much time things take, while you have very limited information about what takes what. Fixing the CoP to either of these solutions is a one or two night job. Deity quests are days and days of planning and implementing.
And even if you did have perfect information about what each thing takes, what we do as volunteers in our time is not something up for general discussion. While I try to appreciate all good faith opinions, saying "Why are you doing THIS when you should be doing THIS?" whenever a balancing discussion thread is posted you do not like is not a legitimate response. These threads are narrowly tailored for a reason.
As for the suggestion of "just increasing exp", ignoring the fact that we increased base exp rates more in the last patch than we have in server history, it does nothing to solve the impact there is on new players from a huge blob of experience needed to progress that is boring, demoralizing and psychologically imposing. The stories of lowbies who avoided the CoP despite being harangued by guildmates well outlines the non-exp problems with the CoP.
And even if you argue that lowbies are unaffected by CoPower and they are not a block to new players specifically, I think it is hard to argue that the raw amount of time it takes to get a player "up to snuff" for raiding or hanging out is not. CoPower is absolutely not a requirement for most raiding (although the high end has been balanced to it). Still, CoPower are powerful enough that at the very least the *perception* has become that they are required for a large swathe of the raid game.
If leaving the CoP is a high wall, lowering its requirements are only slightly smaller wall (depending on how much you mean by *less* exp). Proposal 1 is a shorter wall still, while proposal 2 is removing the wall. The question becomes how much disturbance is warranted to take out how much wall. Leaving the wall up in its entirety is not an option, as I stated in the original post.
And even if you did have perfect information about what each thing takes, what we do as volunteers in our time is not something up for general discussion. While I try to appreciate all good faith opinions, saying "Why are you doing THIS when you should be doing THIS?" whenever a balancing discussion thread is posted you do not like is not a legitimate response. These threads are narrowly tailored for a reason.
As for the suggestion of "just increasing exp", ignoring the fact that we increased base exp rates more in the last patch than we have in server history, it does nothing to solve the impact there is on new players from a huge blob of experience needed to progress that is boring, demoralizing and psychologically imposing. The stories of lowbies who avoided the CoP despite being harangued by guildmates well outlines the non-exp problems with the CoP.
And even if you argue that lowbies are unaffected by CoPower and they are not a block to new players specifically, I think it is hard to argue that the raw amount of time it takes to get a player "up to snuff" for raiding or hanging out is not. CoPower is absolutely not a requirement for most raiding (although the high end has been balanced to it). Still, CoPower are powerful enough that at the very least the *perception* has become that they are required for a large swathe of the raid game.
If leaving the CoP is a high wall, lowering its requirements are only slightly smaller wall (depending on how much you mean by *less* exp). Proposal 1 is a shorter wall still, while proposal 2 is removing the wall. The question becomes how much disturbance is warranted to take out how much wall. Leaving the wall up in its entirety is not an option, as I stated in the original post.
If you think I am going to do whatever I want regardless of what anyone says, then it is pretty clear that you do not need to be a part of the discussion.
I am not even sure how this relates to CoPower at all. Doubling all experience is a very hamhanded way to make the game easier for new players which has collateral effects that the developers simply do not want. You do not take into account, or even address, how "doubling all exp" will cause effects throughout the game that differ from changing CoPower. And you do not address two out of three of the arguments for why taking the CoPower out or revamping it is warranted.
I asked for opinions on a narrow subject, and "I think it is fine as is" would have been relatively on subject, although I said that was not on the table. Bringing in other items unrelated to the discussion, and shitting up a thread that was actually bringing about good discussion and player opinion with "my tier items are worthless and devs should focus on other things why are they doing this thing" is completely different. Nwaij may have had an agenda, but at least the idea of making a forever expable item answers one of the questions I asked.
It is extremely ironic that many of the people who call for more dev interaction with the player base can not stay within the basic frame of discussion, and instead have to continuously complain about things extraneous to whatever thread they post in. That is the reason many devs feel these threads are a waste of time, and is why I am not allowing it in the balancing discussion boards anymore.
If anyone wants to continue the discussion, and possibly even let me recover my wager that this thread would not devolve into whining and complaining about unrelated things, I would love to hear your opinion.
I tried to solve this fact with breaking them up so that you are completeing the tomes in what seems faster (quoted right below here).
However, I realize this is not very exciting since I have maintained the wall and just changed the face of it.
^ My wife and I fall in this category.
This lends to the idea of Proposal #2 (which I think is a good idea). However, Proposal #1 does this well and it gives (I'll use a monk as an example) a monk the ability to hone their healing abilities via another tome. So, I still root for #1 over #2 because I feel people like to complete things (which was at the heart of my 20 CoPs idea).
However, I will attempt again at a different proposal just as an idea...
Edit: Idea was terrible. I have nothing at the moment.
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I was not really responding to the schewed tome exp idea with that Breigon, but the "double all exp everywhere" idea.
The idea of skewing the exp rates so that the first tomes are much quicker then the last does help the problem, no doubt. Similar to the first proposal, it would let people get into the raid game faster and become perceived as "legitimate" faster, while making maxing out the character still take a long time. On one hand, this addresses the problem with the 3 tome solution where some classes need more tome than others. On the other hand, the last 5 or 10% of a current CoPower is still much more relevant then say a nuke tome for a paladin or a heal tome for a mage. I worry that it might still have the same "big boring blob of exp" problem, although granted it would be much lessened.
Something to think about at least.
This was more Raxton's idea. Mine is basically faking someone out to feel that they are finishing the CoPs faster while not really doing anything to speed up actually getting the same power that is relevant for a particular character class. So, the wall was unchanged just rebranded (which is not what I think you guys wanted).
However, I should say that one reason I also favor the tome idea over the spec idea is that it doesn't create another thing for a new character to learn. We have all the Ikisith tomes/Emberflow tomes so the CoP (or what they turn into) would be just tomes from a different source.
Edit: Since spec would act two different ways: 1 way up to 200 then 1 way after 200 vs "oh, different neat tomes.. ok"
Totally speaking out my ass in this next sentence but it seems when switching to SoD 3.0 and changing the tomes to AAs would be *easier* than figuring out how to make the spec proposal work in SoD 3.0 but like I said I have no idea in terms of that.
Edit again: fixed my terrible wording.
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3.0, which we are hoping to start serious work towards again soon, opens up a huge array of reward vectors that do not consist solely of "more power!". If we were in 3.0 today, I would almost assuredly push for dismantling the tomes in entirety and reimbursing the experience, as players would have a smorgasbord of places to put that reimbursed experience to buy convenience options and abilities that cost AAs per use.
Although I have high hopes of getting back on track (and we have actually gone a lot further than we thought after accounting our progress at our most recent meeting), 3.0 is 4-6 months off at absolute best. I think we need a good solution before that. Further, getting a solution done now prevents us from having to port over the old system only to revamp it soon after.
Sorry, I need to proofread better. I meant to say "but it seems when switching to 3.0", changes the context completely I think. I didn't mean to change to 3.0 first before finding a fix, I was looking from the other direction of porting the fix to 3.0. Sorry about that.
Moraelintz
Dalayan Elder
Here is my biggest complaint with that mindset: What is the point of getting better if it isnt to hang out and exp with friends? I dont care that it takes longer to fill some books than other, that is the point they are better and should take longer. Also, some people quit playing when they run out of things to do and reducing the time it takes to do these tomes could potentially just reduce the longevity for some people.
Again to my point:
why do we raid - to get better so we can exp more easily and hang with friends and to hang with friends
why do we exp - to hang with friends
why do we 6 man - to get better so we can exp more and hang with friends and to hang with friends
So what I am trying to say no matter the exp numbers are it boils down to hanging with friends for longer or shorter amounts of time to fullfill whatever short term goal you set for yourself. The COP are really not that bad, I had regularly gotten 15-20% tome exp over the week fairly causually playing before the nerfs (this was also just doing the entrance to citadel and upstairs) back before the exp nerfs.
If raiding and getting to 100 tomes is your goal you will get there if hanging with friends is your goal imo you will have a much more enjoyable time in the game.
How would this effect level locked 55s or people that get AAs starting at 51 rather than 65?
Edit: I did bad & terrible math, took section out.
Seems this could deter people from locking at 55 I suppose. Just a question I had rereading this proposal.
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I do not think anyone is arguing that hanging out with friends is not a prime motivator for SoD.
Lets assume that we want lots and lots of experience before maxing your character so you can hang out with friends. Even then, the way the CoPower is implemented is a generally uninteresting and boring way to go about it. Hanging out with friends is great, hanging out with friends progressing your character in interesting ways is even better.
Taking out "Generic Exp Blob For Power" has two effects on this front. First, it might lower the amount of time it takes to do higher content, catching up to old friends or allowing you to meet new friends. This means you can get up to "legitimacy" quicker, even though it may take the same time to max your character out. Not everyone comes into SoD with a group of friends - and for many of those people hitting 65 is a harrowing experience to try and make some. This does not prevent that problem, but it should help mitigate it somewhat.
Second, it lets the devs put in experience avenues that are more interesting and engaging. Right now the CoPower is almost a requirement before going on to a bunch of more interesting tomes, and is also a reason more tomes are not put in.
So although I agree with you when you say that lowering the amount of time to hang with bros could be detrimental, I do not think removing the CoPower would necessarily lower the amount of time you have to hang with bros. Even further, I am not against replacing it with some other type of sink (which is why I asked for suggestions on that front).
Daffie
Dalayan Pious Diety
What about turning CoP into CoP + quest stuff? I don't think the quests should be super hard because you want all tiers of players to have access, but this could help make things more interesting. If there is a quest farm for drops/faction this could be done while XPing the CoP. This could shorten the length of time it takes to do each CoP in a jazzed up way. Maybe a couple group encounter type things could be added, and a chest could pop at the end in order to give other incentives to help the guy who spawned the encounter.
One example of something like this that was already implemented is the oggok newby/faction quest where you have to xp an item in order to progress to the next quest. The quest is given by the head ogre guard guy on the second floor of his building. While you xp the item, you can farm drops for the next quest turning.
One example of something like this that was already implemented is the oggok newby/faction quest where you have to xp an item in order to progress to the next quest. The quest is given by the head ogre guard guy on the second floor of his building. While you xp the item, you can farm drops for the next quest turning.
Tevinter
Dalayan Pious Diety
I think most people already hate all the questing it takes to get a main, not to mention an alt, up to par, having to do more quest to get their CoP done sounds awful.
Daffie
Dalayan Pious Diety
How do you suggest spicing up 550 aas worth of xp after already leveling to 65 and putting in 500ish aa points? A very large portion of SoD is built on questing... If people hate it so much, maybe SoD isn't their type of game...
'Quests' is a pretty open term btw. The quests could be fun and different. I enjoyed hiding in the boxes of the iki entry quest and doing some of the althuna quest aug line. Some of the vah has been enjoyable thus far too.
Tevinter
Dalayan Pious Diety
Adding more interesting and fun exp zones with useful items and effects to low level players. Exping in zones like Citadel and CMal are some of the funnest places to exp because you cant auto attack and /afk through every pull