Codex of Power Revamp

Tomes for 1 are a balancing Nightmare for developers. Tomes also create a wall between new players and old players . That wall also takes months if not years to get over and hurts both new and old players alike leaving the group/raid Tiers Empty.

There are only a few players screaming fowl about a change that would keep more players then it would lose.
 
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Titanas said:
Tomes for 1 are a balancing Nightmare for developers.
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AAs can be just as hard to balance for I would imagine. I do not dev but I don't see much of a techincal difference between a Tome vs an AA. You could have 1 "AA" that has 550 ranks that gives you 20% of overall power and call it the "Power Enhancement" AA. Devs can change AAs and Tomes to do what they want (obviously there are restrictions and I do not know if AAs have more/less/same as a Tome but it seems they are equivalent with the exception that some AAs like class AAs have timers).

Titanas said:
Tomes also create a wall between new players and old players . That wall also takes months if not years to get over and hurts both new and old players alike leaving the group/raid Tiers Empty.
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Walls kind of exist by the nature of the platform. You get exp to fill things (these "things" would be exp-able gear, tomes, AAs, possibly charms depending on how you look at it). Guilds/groups/content will usually have requirements, such requirements = walls.

To that, most of the time these "walls" are set by guilds or groups for other players they don't know mainly for the reason of being more "efficient" at exp'ing or raiding and breaking those other "walls".

Edit: I believe this is the crux of the CoP issue addressed in the OP.

I am all for making these requirements easier to attain for fresh players. I just don't see the current setup (of having Tomes) as an issue in that respect (other than say the rate of EXP for 100AA 65 and below which has/is being addressed via the recent new area bonus change and stuff).

There are two ways to fix the issue of the "wall" for new players because the longer an MMO exists the larger the wall since new content gets added (aka by design). (I can't think of a third way.)

1) You make new players go through the old content faster.
2) You leap-frog old content with "new" content designed to catch new players up.

Proposal #1 in the OP does what I listed above as #1.
Proposal #2 in the OP does what I listed above as #2.

3) Leave the walls and make new players suffer (not an option).

Titanas said:
There are only a few players screaming fowl about a change that would keep more players then it would lose.
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Removing all Tomes and by extension non-consumable AAs in general to start "fresh" just removes content that can be done and I don't get how that helps anyone.

No change is liked by everyone, someone is usually unhappy.



TL;DR - Tomes = non-consumable AAs. MMOs create walls by design. Players group themselves inside these walls and force new players to jump over those walls to hang with them. New players are cool dudes.

I don't mean to be aggressive if this post comes off as such. Apologies in advance if that is the case.
 
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Would it be possible to have it as an either/or situation? Like if you WANT to grind out 200 million exp to get your bonus, go ahead. Or, if you want to raid mobs and get bonus on kills, then do that.

Adding the bonus in to raid kills would be fantastic for active new players and would allow them to gain the 20% rather quickly. I'd wager that my enchanter would be almost done now even though he only has 180 AA's.

However, as mentioned above some toons simply cannot raid whether due to time constraints, being an alt, or simply not enjoying it. Making the bonus only available through raiding seems like a punishment to them. It would be nice to have the option to still sink a bunch of xp in to gain the 20%.

Edit: Just to throw another idea out there:
Reduce codex of power from 110 aa's to 40 aa's like most other tomes. Reduce the bonus given from 4% down to 2%. Then tie the other 10% into 6/12/18 man content as suggested earlier. This would encourage people to take part in all aspects of the game, without punishing anyone too hard.
 
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Waldoff said:
We are not saying to make the 20% be every mob in every tier up to 12. Giving people .1% for a mini, .3% for a boss and .5% for a zone boss would end up getting you the bonus pretty damned fast, and would be obtainable via pugs or 6 mans.
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Does this mean there is a possible (insert random number) 50% raw power CoP to get but it caps at 20% raw power? Meaning if I *only* did 18 man raids (assuming the numbers all add up, I didn't do a count) or *only* did T1-T5s and lots of 6 mans (assuming the numbers all add up, I didn't do a count), I could get my "CoP" done? That way there is many different paths to achieve the 20% raw power boost? Obviously, T1s would give less raw % than T11?

Just trying to get a feel for what you mean.
 
Suggestion 1
Decrease the xp required to fill a CoP to say one fifth of the current level

Suggestion 2
As for 1, but then decrease the xp earned by toons benefitting from the "short" Cop's by say 20% for the next n million xp for some suitable value of n.
 
Breigon its the nature of the MMO Beast Players want to play with their friends on even grounds if they can't they will find a game that they can. Games like LoL HoN DOTA are great for this.

When I mention balancing 90 some tomes a player can complete The hardcore players can do this and are more powerful then developers had intended.

SoD has a lot of separatism already between guilds and competition for content. Not to mention 13 tiers F'n 13 tiers of content for level 65 players that is more then any online game I've played. I love the fact that there is that much content to explore. But it comes a point when people don't want to dedicate 1-2 years to catch up.

There needs to be a balance between Level based character strength,Player knowledge/skill, Gear VS Content difficulty. (I've always been a fan of being able to throw more people at contnet like original EQ but that is just a personal preference so I'll leave it out of this comparison.)

TLDR SOD community is small don't spread it out any more then it already is. do what you can to condense it.
 
Titanas said:
Tomes also create a wall between new players and old players .
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There will always be a wall between new and old players in a game with that much content -
why this is a concern for new players I dont know,I see this more as a plus,greater wall hints
to that the game has a lot of content.
After ~4 years(with a few breaks) my best char just started his 5th CoP,looking forward to fill
all those tomes ahead (without leeching) in the next 4 years. :)
(Note,I am suffering from altitis occasionally which hinders progress :) )
 
I agree, there is nothing inherently wrong with the tome mechanic. The mechanic itself of getting an item that you xp and once you finish it you get the bonus is really similar to AAs just you need to get the item. Part of the problem is just that its such a huge jump going from AAs to going to codexs. By breaking the codexes down into the three parts or allowing that bonus to be gained from raiding and questing (or a mix) would both alleviate the issue of how long it actually takes to get the bonus done. Keep in mind you don't even need codexes to raid until you are like tier 10+ and even then they aren't as necessary as being able to play the game properly.

Also with the splitting the codexes into three parts idea, could always just make it so the codex of spell damage would effect combat ability moves like monk moves and rogue backstab if the idea of them only having to do the melee damage codexes is too much.
 
Ulandx said:
There will always be a wall between new and old players in a game with that much content -
why this is a concern for new players I dont know,I see this more as a plus,greater wall hints
to that the game has a lot of content.
After ~4 years(with a few breaks) my best char just started his 5th CoP,looking forward to fill
all those tomes ahead (without leeching) in the next 4 years. :)
(Note,I am suffering from altitis occasionally which hinders progress :) )
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This is how I see it too. I am a bit baffled by all these comments about how people think they need all these codex to raid. There are a lot more guilds than don't require full codex than the top 2-3 that do. Now it could be a problem if people expect to join said 2-3 top guilds soon out of DB without putting in a lot of work. But most of these top guilds also require relics and archaics too and I got my all my codex done well before I got my archaic on my cleric.

To me it's more of a problem with everyone wanting to be the top dog and skipping all the low/mid tier content to get the to the uber loot. I'm probably living in a cave but the people I see complaining are often those that can't wait to jump ship into a higher guild than do the raid tier climb.

Edit: Since you are determined to change things, I'd go with option 1. Split the tomes into three different types depending on function. That would at least give people more benefit in the short term. Although I'd be frustrated being a hybrid having to do all pretty much every tome vs most classes that only need one.

Option 2 is just begging for the PoLore quest fiasco again. Being in a Tier 5-6 guild at the time that hit, I can tell you it sucked. Most of what you'll see is high tier people wanting to get their alts the codex bonus for killing raid/6man targets and inviting the server to fill out the other 12 spots. So if you're fine with ringers dragging people through the lower tiers on the path to 20% bonus, definitely go with this choice. There are a few purists that want to kill things on tier with their guild, but like what you saw with old Thaz, I'd be very surprised if pugging for easy codex bonuses isn't the norm.

Cambrai
 
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I came up with another idea on how to abandon tomes but still keep xp useful. Set up a system like bounty hunting. You fill up tomes with xp, which you then can trade in for tokens. The tokens will buy you gear, which would have to be useful for everyone so it would need to go to T12 or whatever.

If you don't like that, then add a new aug slot(s) to all the armour in the game which can then take augs from these xp tome tokens.
 
Not sure why this thread turned into "get rid of all tomes" vs the revamp of the cops. Personally, I don't see why everyone is up in arms at tomes. Its not like you need to do all of them, or any of them really. It's a nice bonus to those that play a lot to still be able to upgrade their character, albeit at a much slower rate then aa's and levels do. Trying to get rid of these is just going to have more upset players, then happy players.

The cops revamp, I definately see going with option 1, although Cambrai is right...this isn't going to change anything for hybrids, thus getting rid of the same playing field cops did for everyone.
 
Well I guess you can look at it 2 ways you can make changes for your already existing player base. This is fine to continue making content for your patrons. The other end of the spectrum is being able to add new players into that group. How do you continue growing the project or at least keep it at healthy numbers. I'm just pointing out that every one that is posting here are SoD Vets that since they still play are obviously going to be ok with huge exp hills. I'm not hell bent on getting rid of tomes I'm just more concerned with the health of the game.
 
I brought up removing them entirely (as well as other tomes) because I did not see the option in the original post. The proposal's to dismantle it and the rate its generated to fill more tomes does not seem to address the big picture nor the future of SoD. I have not seen one good comment by the dev staff about tomes (CoP or otherwise). I do not see how they fit into the future of the game ( I am not a dev ) but it does not take being a dev to know that you begin to run out of things to introduce. To me it feels like raising the level cap but without actually saying you raised it. Instead of xp'ing to lvl 75 as an example , you dump all the xp into hard to find / get tomes and long drawn out process of toming up to compete for raid spots. This is why It feels failed to me. It fails everyone in the long run if the dev's cannot introduce new idea's for character development and content. At some point you do run out of ideas and I think a lot of them have been packaged into tomes ( which are not even completed yet , why? ) I can only think of one reason, they run out of ideas and how to implement them via tomes.

Whats left for the future ?

You want ppl on even ground able to enter raid game sooner, you get rid of tomes, reimburse players and get to work on the future of SoD. At the same time we free up a lot of room for dev's to bring newer better stuff in 3.0 or here. I have a lot to lose as I have bout 90 tomes done between my two mained toons but hey its gona come back in the form of cooler stuff (AA's , AUG's , Xpable items , etc , etc.) and I would not play any less if they went away and came back another day in the form of something better.
 
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How about this?

Just lower the EXP Requirements on the Codex of powers ... make it 80 like class tomes? Or whatever you think - as long as its less than current.

I love tomes, they're great. I just hope there's more to come! Once CoP is done, I'll start working on them again - I finished COP1 and then quit since I hated how slow the xp was going and wanted to do more fun things with quicker reward (class tomes, crit tomes etc)...

Thanks!
 
After we remove CoPs obviously we'll need to remove tomes next (thx Paxit) as the perceived barrier to entry will be whatever 5 cop exp worth of ikky tomes is. Once those are gone charms will need to go next. Followed by AAs.
 
Really think just lowering the amount of exp it takes to fill the codex of power is the most elegant solution to the "problem" that you seem to think the players created.
 
The issue isnt that guilds dont take people without codex because the persons dps/healing isnt good enough, its that they want dedicated players who will stay playing. Having codex done shows that you put effort into your toon and you'll be less likely to get fed loot and quit in 1 month
 
Tevinter said:
The issue isnt that guilds dont take people without codex because the persons dps/healing isnt good enough, its that they want dedicated players who will stay playing. Having codex done shows that you put effort into your toon and you'll be less likely to get fed loot and quit in 1 month
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This is a big factor.
 
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