Open Beta - playing or testing?

powerferret · Post by **powerferret** » Mon May 03, 2004 2:06 pm

testing the PvP is part of the game dude, its part of testing the balance between characters. no matter how much people complain they arent going to turn off PvP, and im glad.

sep caldessian · Post by **sep caldessian** » Mon May 03, 2004 2:10 pm

powerferret wrote:testing the PvP is part of the game dude, its part of testing the balance between characters. no matter how much people complain they arent going to turn off PvP, and im glad.

im not asking for it to be turned off. i was explaining that for me, its hard to test things when you get killed all the time.

AuTEC · Post by **AuTEC** » Wed May 05, 2004 3:44 am

Yeah, you never know whats gonna happen.

I've been playing NS4 alpha/beta for about a year now or more, I don't really remember.

Just play, have fun... Do your best to find things to fix... Make as many useful suggestions as you can and be patient with us while we continuously improve the mod.

-AuTEC

Lunas · Post by **Lunas** » Fri May 07, 2004 6:20 am

well there are also suspicions going around that people have used a certian bug to level super quick as there are people going from 13 to 17 in less than a day and there are people who seem to have gone to level 23 in a day so i think once that bug is fixed we are ready for our first wipe :twisted:

Billiard · Post by **Billiard** » Fri May 07, 2004 11:13 am

Lunas wrote:well there are also suspicions going around that people have used a certian bug to level super quick as there are people going from 13 to 17 in less than a day and there are people who seem to have gone to level 23 in a day so i think once that bug is fixed we are ready for our first wipe

Ah don't fix the bug - just tell everyone else so we can all get level 40s for testings! Then wipe it after we figure our end-game builds! j/k

Anyway I think that a lot of people are playing and PvPing under the pretext of testing, but if a bug comes up they exploit it rather than report it. People are getting pretty serious about that faction warfare and such, which is what the devs want, but don't lose track of the purpose of this open beta - it is to identify things to be fixed!

TastyTreat · Post by **TastyTreat** » Fri May 07, 2004 11:47 am

Billiard wrote:Anyway I think that a lot of people are playing and PvPing under the pretext of testing, but if a bug comes up they exploit it rather than report it. People are getting pretty serious about that faction warfare and such, which is what the devs want, but don't lose track of the purpose of this open beta - it is to identify things to be fixed!

Very good point, lets not all forget the REAL reason for an open beta is to help the devs make NS4 better by finding bugs and such. Yes playing NS4, even in it's beta stage, is fun and planning out your future builds is also fun. Also, exploiting bugs instead of reporting them is just plan wrong. Others will find the bug and it will eventually be fixed. By not reporting it immediately you are just delaying the process and making everyone wait even longer for the beta to end. Please do not loose sight of the big picture here.

Lunas · Post by **Lunas** » Sat May 08, 2004 3:56 am

TastyTreat wrote:
Billiard wrote:Anyway I think that a lot of people are playing and PvPing under the pretext of testing, but if a bug comes up they exploit it rather than report it. People are getting pretty serious about that faction warfare and such, which is what the devs want, but don't lose track of the purpose of this open beta - it is to identify things to be fixed!

Very good point, lets not all forget the REAL reason for an open beta is to help the devs make NS4 better by finding bugs and such. Yes playing NS4, even in it's beta stage, is fun and planning out your future builds is also fun. Also, exploiting bugs instead of reporting them is just plan wrong. Others will find the bug and it will eventually be fixed. By not reporting it immediately you are just delaying the process and making everyone wait even longer for the beta to end. Please do not loose sight of the big picture here.

all the more reason to fix the exploit and wipe the servers i think there should be a wipe now because people are grifting low level people

JesterOI · Post by **JesterOI** » Sat May 08, 2004 9:47 am

What about testing all the areas that those lower levels can't go?

Billiard · Post by **Billiard** » Sun May 09, 2004 3:37 pm

[/quote]all the more reason to fix the exploit and wipe the servers i think there should be a wipe now because people are grifting low level people[/quote]

I don't think we need a wipe if people who know of bugs report them rather than try to exploit them. We'll get wipes eventually, but I agree that we need to test some higher level stuff as well.

LadyCheron · Post by **LadyCheron** » Sat May 15, 2004 7:38 pm

Given that the areas for epic-level players aren't in the module yet, there's really no point in pushing characters up to level 25 or 30. One thing the Devs are looking for is feedback on the newb areas from players who have made characters in multiple factions. Is it easier to get to level 5 in AO than in SL? How about MA as compared to TC?

Pick two factions that allow the same character class, and make essentially the same character in both of them. Keep track of the amount of time it takes to get to level 2, 3, 4, and 5. The more data of THIS type that we can get, the better we can balance the starting areas.

If your character is over level 20, consider making another one and doing this kind of testing for us.

Thanks!

Morpheus · Post by **Morpheus** » Tue May 25, 2004 3:33 pm

Is it easier to get to level 5 in AO than in SL

No, SL has a lot of tunels with rats and fire beatles.

Sara Tonin · Post by **Sara Tonin** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 9:11 pm

Starting Areas I tried:

Last Alliance. Is pretty good mostly. Some of the sewers tend to be a little rough on non fighter classes as you enter and 6+ assorted beetles charge at you, and heaven help if a stink beetle is there. Perhaps a tunnel entrance near the barracks with a toned down area (basement?) A lot of new folk tend to get confused about moving from the start to the barracks, dont read the text I suppose. When I made my first char there and was told to see Pepin, was kind of confused when he wasn't where he was supposed to be. Some more variety in messenger quests would be good too.

Northern Coalition, seemed good and balanced - a little more direction on where to go would be good, found it a little sparse after 3.

Sleeth was alright, the pk guards with breath attacks were the most annoying thing. Little sparse perhaps.

AOO. Was a horrible area to start, at least as a rogue. The newbie fields were alright, but moving on the mobs were either immune to sneak attacks or given devastating attacks with fortitude / will saves.

Circle, tended to be gang attacked by goblins and then have a really long run to the zoneline. The guards seemed pretty innefective at dealing with level 1 mobs.

Tygur · Post by **Tygur** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 6:24 am

IMHO I think we cant really test leveling right now due to lack of animal companions/familiars and such. They need to be re-implemented, I don't really see why they were taken out in the first place, it seriously degraded about every aspect of playing and of beta testing.

kgb · Post by **kgb** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 8:24 am

LadyCheron wrote:

Pick two factions that allow the same character class, and make essentially the same character in both of them. Keep track of the amount of time it takes to get to level 2, 3, 4, and 5. The more data of THIS type that we can get, the better we can balance the starting areas.
Thanks!

In reply to this comment I would like to say that I have made multiple characters in all factions including non-ECL, ECL 2 and ECL3 ones.

I would rate the following factions in this order for levelling from 1-5

1. Mystral Ascendancy
2. Shadow Legion
3. Ancient Ones
4. Northern Coalition
5. Last Alliance
6. The Circle
7. Ragnar Kin

I am sure others have had different experiences as I'm not a level "freaker" so have not perfected the art. I have however played close to a dozen characters all around 4-6 levels with just the one at 11 (soft spot)

My reasons are so:

MA: has the widest variety of monsters to attack from the lowest rats, beetles to pygmies, lions, grizzlies etc and then the caves with mephits, kobolds and devils not forgetting the awesome formians

SL: Is a little repetitive with the beetles and kobolds but it does have access to some nasty undead in the catacombs early on like mummies, vampires, wraiths, wights etc which a low level can access easily this leads you out to the suface to meet more undead and then into the badlands to face off against bandits.

AO: Has the rats everywhere and killing them ad-nauseum is easy enough for you to get to lvl 4 before heading down Melencia Pass to take on the goblins and forest folk (dryads, nymphs, pixies etc). You also are nice and close to the Ancient road which is an excellent hunting ground for xp once you get to 4/5 lvl to take on the gargoyles but is tuff solo with alot of grizzlies and "dire" boars wolves - it also is nice and central so easy access to ogre pass and then giant mountain and avendell. This would be my favourite starting city just for the sheer access to other factions.

NC: The undead rats ravens etc are tough for a low lvl soloing but are good xp. Helps being a cleric here for sure and probably the only faction along with the SL Catacombs where being a cleric helps

. To be honest only made the one char here.

LA: Whilst it is close to Avendell the commercial hub of NS I also found it hard to get out of NS playing solo which is how I play due to time constraints. I dont group up often as I dont like playing for an hour or two and have to leave others in the middle of nasty spot. Not fair. There are the Black Hills and the Bandit camps which are fine but tough. There are the gobbos as well but for a low lvl can be tough as the goblin warriors pack a bunch especially for a mage which is what I made there

The Circle: is hard to play because there are heaps of forest creatures but they are "friendly" aligned so if RPing you don't kill them because there your kin folk. There are the gobbos and some other creatures like leopards etc but you need to get onto Ancient Road to have some decent xp but that is hard when there is such a jump between gobbos and then up to Bugbears and then onto grizzlies and dire creatures. Maybe it was just me but the restricted classes in the first place did make it harder for me.

RK: The one dwarf char i made here was ok but i found the tunnels a pain and the xp not enough. Go out and take some orcs on and then head out onto silver road. I may have missed an opportunity to travel elsewhere such as underdark etc. Maybe someone else can explain the way to me

So there are my choices and my recommendations are:

5,6,7 need more balance between low, med and high xp for chars from 1-4,5-8 lvls and I would also add that SL needs some tweaking as it is quite a leap from beetles to the adjoining catacombs taking on skeletal warriors, mummies, wights etc. If it wasnt for my healing domain and the damage i could do i wouldn't of been able to see the warriors and mummies off.

Don't know how a mage or thief or straight fighter would have gone in there with the threat of lvl/ability drain ever present.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

KGB

bionic22 · Post by **bionic22** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 10:54 am

so when may 2 comes what happends then ?? will there be any down time or will it just switch straight to the proper version of ns4? :shock: