New players vs low pbase/slow exp...

Feedback, bugs, and general gameplay related discussion.
Kenon
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New players vs low pbase/slow exp...

Postby Kenon » Wed Nov 22, 2006 6:14 pm

I'm pretty new on this mud, I've never had a lvl 50 char on toril. I've been
around since right after sojourn split though just been playing duris all
these years so I'm a pretty experienced player. I've exped to 56 through
insane exp tables as a drow mage in aggro scan tracking swallow proccing
giant purple worm hell where you'd exp a whole rl day for 1 notch then
lose it by insta dying to one of these mobs or pvp enemies twice your
level pk'ing you in a raid and with no chance of ress cuz nobody had a
resser yet. So hardships is no stranger to me, I can endure anything
thrown at me.

Well enough about me, I just wanted to state that this post isn't about me
personally but rather potentially totally new players.


Now I'm aware that exp is supposed to be harder (or should we say
more tedious/slower?) here, and that's fine, but with the current low
pbase I can sense a few issues when it comes to getting new players
to stick around.

When you log onto a game like this and see 90% of the who list being
lvl 50 you think "wow cool, I wanna be lvl 50 too some day", but then
you see that there are hardly ANY lowbie or midlvl players on the who
list.... If you then discover that exp is insanely slow you will most likely
be demoralized to keep on playing since there is so few people to group
with.


Me personally I've been getting alot of help from high level players and
been helped eq wise with some pretty good eq cuz I know some top players
here that used to play duris.


This is most likely not the case for your average totally new player however,
I'm sure there are dedicated high levels who help them out too, but wouldn't
it be better if these newbs could actually level a bit on their own without
being babysitted?


What I suggest is something like this:


Make exp tables a bit more newbie friendly from lvl 1-30.

Dunno if there already is one, but could put some priest mob in Scardale
that'd cast cure crits on the newbs in exchange for some coins. Would
make it a little less tedious for non healing newbs to exp when no other
lowbie healer on.

Maybe make some zones extra hot for lowbie/midlvl exp. I know HP had
its exp toned down alot before, perhaps make it a hot midlvl exp spot
again? (Allthough the exp issue would already be resolved by simply
making lvl 1-30 easier exp table wise)




I'm sure this great game would be able to keep even more of its potential
new players if they were lured to get hooked on the game by being able
to make a bit faster progress through the first levels up to level 30 or so.



P.S: Scardale and your newbie tutorial is EXCELLENT, it's the best I've seen
on any mud for a new person to get started, great work on that.
Kenon
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Postby Kenon » Wed Nov 22, 2006 6:59 pm

I don't think the high end levels is a problem of being slow, it's the lower
levels I'm concerned about. I've been trying to get more people to come over
here from duris but it's the low levels that's stopping them. They log on
and try a few levels then says "no way I'm not going through this again"
(duris has pwiped a million times and some wipes we've had exp as slow
as this on top of full pk/loot and insane aggros wrecking us)

If they only stuck around a few more levels, let's say to 30 it'd be a bigger
chance for them to realize how awesome this game really is and then the
chance of them deciding to go through the high levels slowly would be
bigger.
Latreg
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Postby Latreg » Wed Nov 22, 2006 8:10 pm

It's a complicated issue to be sure, from level 1-45 there really isn't anything to do except exp. I supose more level restricted areas are needed and/or group size limits as well. Certainly if someone wanted to organize a day so you could invite a bunch of people to try the mud and the exp for that time would be doubled or more, I for one would try my darnest to be on just to help. Yeah some of you greedy bastages would roll up alts and take advantage of it we all know that but if we gain and keep some players I guess that would out weigh the negative side of it. Special occasion things would be nice too, kind of like the old invasion things, Christmas elfs could invade soon-ish, too late to have a turkey invasion ;) well you get the idea.
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Postby Lilira » Wed Nov 22, 2006 8:59 pm

There are plenty of things to do before level 45.. the problem is encouraging people to go out and find them. Its easier to hang in CMs for the plevel groups. Don't get me wrong. As someone who has been playing here for years, those groups are wonderful... but its hard to learn how to truly play your class.

BTW Kenon, welcome. :-) In Scardale is the lovely casting fountain which does toss out cures, its just random. The biggest problem is it also happens to be a room where 4-5 of the biggest mobs in Scardale hang most of the time, so its not a good place to hang out at times.

With the introduction of Scardale, leveling 1-20 sped up QUITE a bit. Scardale is X2 healing if I remember correctly, so its not really until 20th you have to worry about slow-healing as a non-healer.

After 11 years I STILL only have one level 50 character. I have several 46th and above, all fully quested. Some of them I had help with pleveling. I really suck at playing them. Some of them it came in bursts and I feel like I've been stuck in the same dang level for FOREVER.

Toril 2.0 is in the works. We've all seen what Shev has been posting, and he's said that mindless xp days will go away, or something to that affect. If you haven't wandered over to check it out, look in the announcement forums and point your friends in that direction too. :-)

Latreg wrote:Special occasion things would be nice too, kind of like the old invasion things, Christmas elfs could invade soon-ish, too late to have a turkey invasion ;) well you get the idea.


Mmm... Tiabunny and the great easter egg hunt...

The zombies overrunning WD during Halloween...

Ahh the memories.
~\o--Lilira Shadowlyre--o/~

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Kenon
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Postby Kenon » Wed Nov 22, 2006 10:18 pm

By the looks of it so far, there are indeed plenty of places to go and stuff to
do before high level on this mud. It's just that it goes too slow cuz of
long exp tables. This mud has pretty good low/mid-lvl zones from what I've
seen.

If toril 2.0 is gonna erase the days of mindless exp that's good, but how
long is it till 2.0 is gonna get implented?


A temporary fix could be to ease up lvl 1-30 exp table wise, increases the
chances of new people sticking around instead of giving up during the early
lvls cuz they see so few people on around their same lvl to group with.
Ifin
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Postby Ifin » Thu Nov 23, 2006 4:00 am

IMHO a fix to newbie problems should have come before fixes here and there/Tiamat/2.0. We lose so many potential long-term players when we don't realize that small fixes/Tiamat/2.0 isn't going to solve our basic problems.

Well maybe 2.0, b/c I don't know how lvl'ing's going to be, but again we don't know how long that's going to be, but that's already a lot of players lost.

xp'ing/learning/mid-lvl game etc. has had sooooooooo many suggestions and sooooooooooooooo many possible fixes w/o intensive coding so far that hasn't been even been really thoroughly discussed by imms why it doesn't make sense or even need extensive coding like other stuff.

And ofc guild hall *policy* <- not even coding, would have spurred activity and older players staying, but oh well.

So to newer players I give you the ol' reponse of: Hey tough luck it's hardcore to lvl like this and 2.0 is coming in x time so just wait and *everything* will be solved.

Thread closed.
teflor the ranger
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Postby teflor the ranger » Thu Nov 23, 2006 5:18 am

Ifin wrote:And ofc guild hall *policy* <- not even coding, would have spurred activity and older players staying, but oh well.


For how long? A week? A month? A year? (then next year rolls around)

This thread has one thing right. TorilMUD was a different game when we all first hopped on, together when it first came back up.

Now it's another kind of game, and it's one that people aren't likely to actually want to play.

That's our reality now.
Teflor does. Teflor does not.
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Shevarash
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Postby Shevarash » Thu Nov 23, 2006 6:26 am

Hi.

The entire experience system in 2.0 will be new. There will be full details in an upcoming post, but for now I'll just say that the focus is on:

1) Making experience more engaging and less of a grind
2) Allowing viable solo exp when groups cannot be found
3) Encouraging group experience for even more efficient exp

No lame troph code or just tweaking out the exp table. This is being addressed, rather than slapping a band-aid on it. That means it takes longer, but the results will be that much better.

Thank you again for your patience.
Shevarash -- Code Forger of TorilMUD
Corth
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Postby Corth » Thu Nov 23, 2006 6:53 am

That was weak. The post you deleted was not insulting or inappropriate in any way. I merely agreed with the original poster that experience on this mud is tedious and boring. Thats pretty much par for the course for exp discussions. Often I can understand why you delete my posts, but this time it made no sense.
Having said all that, the situation has been handled, so this thread is pretty much at an end. -Kossuth

Goddamned slippery mage.
Kenon
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Postby Kenon » Thu Nov 23, 2006 7:41 am

Sounds excellent Shevarash. I'll prolly be able to get those guys that gave
up to try again at toril 2.0 then cuz they seemed to be attracted to this game
other than the tedious exp.
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Postby Malvareth » Sat Mar 03, 2007 12:09 am

Just throwing in my 2c, since I'm sort of in the same boat as the OP. I know these things have/will be addressed/fixed for 2.0, but there's no harm in discussing.

I'm not a high-level player, but I wouldn't consider myself an actual newbie either. My highest level character is 33, with a couple of 20ies as well, so I do have a decent grasp of the game and the code. I stopped playing for a couple of years and recently came back to have a look, and here's my general opinion:

As has already been mentioned, lower level solo-xp for someone without high-level equipment is painfully slow. My level 21 illusionist spent an hour of attentive grinding in SSC and got 10% xp. Easy/Fairly easy mobs that give 0.5% and actually pose a fair challenge with risks and downtime after each one. Soloing at this pace seems barely possible, it's the slowest I have ever witnessed in any type of level-up-game and it's extremely discouraging. It wouldn't be so bad if finding a group around your own level from 10-40 wasn't next to impossible, but since it is, I think a re-work of the xp system for those levels need to be reconsidered. My character actually has decent equipment for their level, but mostly just +hp that does nothing to the speed of leveling or the amount of resting I need. It's all hand-me-downs from other players, which brings me to my next point:

Either I haven't been looking in the right places, or equipment at these levels is almost non-existent. Once in a rare while I'll find a +5int item equivalent, but never anything that would actually be a noticeable upgrade. I'm not expecting fantastic gear around every corner, but I still find it a bit strange that none of my characters have ever found anything that was better than what other players had randomly given me without having been asked for it. Even if I hadn't been blessed with these spontaneous pity-gifts, I could easily see my characters reaching into their 20ies and still wearing half of their starting equipment and half tidbits with neglectible stat improvements or storebought armor with minimal ac upgrades. I know there are some quests here and there, but they seem hard to find and harder yet to accomplish by yourself, which is what I am practically all the time. Alone.

Since returning from my lengthy absence from the game, I have yet to see a genuinely new player. Everyone I've met are level 50 or obvious alts, often decked out in equipment that appears to come from end-game zones, and they seem to prefer soloing or getting power-leveled by their friends so that they can reach the point where the real game starts as fast as possible.

In other words, I see new players faced with two choices:
- Accept an unbearable slow leveling process and severe restrictions in where they can go due to the challenges of the game apparently being balanced around the concept of easily accessible groups.
- Constantly asking high-level people for help whenever they need to level, travel, explore, do quests or get new equipment. I don't know about you, but I don't want to need a babysitter around at all times. Asking for help makes me feel bad, and being forced to do it is even worse.

The other MUD that I play is in a somewhat similar situation regarding the approach of 2.0 - the game is lacking severely in the playerbase department, retaining only the veterans and a select few newer players who are leaving faster than they are replaced. I have two concerns here:
- Will the "new" game be designed in a way as to prevent the current problems? If the playerbase is facing the same shortcomings again a year or two after the overhaul, little has been accomplished and a lot of work may be wasted. Whenever people are faced with major change that may seem like a last ditch effort to keep a game alive, that change has to be for the better or it can easily spell the end of said game.
- It's easy to fall into a mentality of "why bother improving the current game if everything's changing in x months?". This is a great way of losing the last of whatever sparse amount of players a game has left, because people are still going to have to endure the current game for a long time yet, assuming that 2.0 isn't just about ready. If playing the game to pass the time until the next one isn't even worth wasting people's time on, they will leave, and then others will leave because of the diminishing playerbase, and others yet will leave because their friends left. Finally you may have a small percentage left once the new incarnation of the game is ready, and the chances of everyone returning aren't that good.

Just the concerns of a middle-ground player who has seen games in similar situations, with a less than desirable outcome.
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Postby moritheil » Sat Mar 03, 2007 3:56 am

Hmm. It's interesting that you mention invasions as a really fun thing that you used to enjoy. I haven't seen one in a long time.

I know that RPQ events are open to all, and they go out of their way to make them newbie-friendly, but it's also true that you can't expect to just show up whenever you have 5 minutes and find people to RP with. And, well, Turing tests aside, it's impossible to make mobs good enough to really hold their end of a conversation up beyond a few seconds.

Thoughts?
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Postby Tasan » Sat Mar 03, 2007 5:03 pm

Malvareth wrote:- Constantly asking high-level people for help whenever they need to level, travel, explore, do quests or get new equipment. I don't know about you, but I don't want to need a babysitter around at all times. Asking for help makes me feel bad, and being forced to do it is even worse.


My first question is, do you know there is a Looking For Group channel? LFGC has been spammed over the past 2 weeks that I've been "back" with lower/mid-level players(not necessarily below 20). I've regularly been including myself in experience with a group of people, who like you, have recently come back to the game. I've actually had a ton of fun leveling with them using 3 or 4 different alts of mine. I noticed you've been around(or are at least connected) at times that I am, yet I cannot remember you talking on lfgc. Maybe I missed it...


Malvareth wrote:- Will the "new" game be designed in a way as to prevent the current problems? If the playerbase is facing the same shortcomings again a year or two after the overhaul, little has been accomplished and a lot of work may be wasted. Whenever people are faced with major change that may seem like a last ditch effort to keep a game alive, that change has to be for the better or it can easily spell the end of said game.


If you've read up on the relevant material, you'll see many changes coming in that are only possible by a complete reworking of the code from the ground up. Many of the problems inherent in the system are due to kludged code intertwined so much that removing bits and pieces would cause serious gameplay issues. By working the code from the foundations, Shev is able to fix a lot of these kludges and introduce a higher level of OOP. With properly done OOP, changes to minor or major things can be done relatively easily because you've set it up to be that way. If a template for a mob AI needs a minor tweak, it should be easy in the new system, where in the old it will probably introduce more problems than fix.

Malvareth wrote:Finally you may have a small percentage left once the new incarnation of the game is ready, and the chances of everyone returning aren't that good.


There is some merit to fixingsome things in the short term, but I don't believe band-aids at this point are appropriate. There are many people who don't currently spend much time here, but are waiting for the changeover. Some might stay afterwards, some might leave irregardless.

I would suggest using lfgc when you are on, trying different times to play and moving around the game more if you are having trouble finding people to play with. I think some lower level people are afraid that someone a few levels higher than them won't want to group with them. There will be those people who just can't be bothered to add more people to a group because they have their head In a mess, but there are genuinely decent people here who value comraderie over straight numbers.

As proof of this, I've done experience with a group of 7 recently on pirate ship and we had a blast.

Tough er out. 20-31 is the hardest time of the game for me.
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Postby Malvareth » Sat Mar 03, 2007 5:22 pm

Our playtimes are probably different. There's usually less than 40 online when I am, and I use the LFG channel often but with little luck. I use 'who' often to see people around my level, from 10 below to 10 above, and there are rarely more than 2-4 online in that range, most of them alts who are being powerleveled or soloing because their level 50 equipment allows it.
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Postby Tasan » Sat Mar 03, 2007 8:22 pm

hrm... I'm on early mornings(am cst) until mid afternoon sometimes ...
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