short rant

Danhalen · Post by **Danhalen** » Wed Aug 25, 2004 2:21 am

sorry, i just have to rant for a bit. i'm tired of walking into a place to hunt and having a lower lvl character tell me to get out, 'cause i'm stealin' their kills. i let them have the area if it's same faction as me, but screw 'em if it's a different faction. if you don't want me in your hunting ground find a way to kill me or get someone else to do it for you. i'm not leaving. higher lvl characters are allowed to get xp too. i won't attack you if you tell me to get out, but for f**k's sake quit whining about it.

Brennan068 · Post by **Brennan068** » Wed Aug 25, 2004 9:58 am

I agree that they should not be whinging about it. However, just to be the devil's advocate here... As a high level character, you have effectively unlimited hunting grounds where the lowbies do not.

I know that the upper level characters are hunting the lowbie areas so that they can take advantage of the minimum exp per kill and get exp faster off rats and such than they would off of tougher mobs that slow you down. I understand and I understand why upper level characters are doing it.

However, I'd suggest that if you are hunting a lowbie area and a lowbie is trying to get his/her character going, be a human and leave the area to them... go find an area that they cannot get to or even just go to the mid level areas for a while. I mean, for a 20+ level character what is the difference between a mob of rats and a mob of bandits.... really? Once in a while a bandit may survive to the second round of combat? That's just the NS example, every faction has a "1-step-up" area between the lowbie level area and the great wide world.

It is sad to see that this community is going to fracture violently before it gets out of beta. The high level players forget what it is to be a low level and don't show common respect or basic manners to fellow players. New players are going to give up and go elsewhere. A lot of old players seem to be doing the same ( or maybe everybody is just getting ready to go back to school? )

Danhalen · Post by **Danhalen** » Wed Aug 25, 2004 10:31 am

just to clarify, i do stay out of lowest lvl areas. i do understand that lvls 1-5 need to kill rats more than i do. i am talking about mid lvl areas, such as the mummy area in withering forest or minotaurs. i agree with you though.

Wolfarus · Post by **Wolfarus** » Wed Aug 25, 2004 11:00 am

The down-turn in community attitudes has a few factors contributing to it, i think.

1st one being the apparent stagnation of NS 4 developement. I wont get into the stale details here, everybody pretty much knows the whole issue. I can only imagine how the people who donated money early into the beta must feel.

2nd is the lack of high lvl areas. Once you get past lvl 22, there really isnt anything worth fighting anymore. You can still go raid the tougher faction cities, (AO, TC ect) but the xp you'd get really isnt worth the risk of dying. So the high lvl's are begining to take their boredom out on the lowbies.

3rd is the lack of on-the-spot rule enforcement. I know that the DM's say that issues are delt with behind the scenes, but from the communties point of view, nothing really happens. There never seems to be a DM on at the time to deal with trouble makers, the punishment (if there really is any going on.) is always handed out after the fact. How many times have people gone into avendell ( a supposedly neutral, attack-free city) only to be pk'd or messed with by certain okies, slaves or the more notorious lone pk'ers?

As for the bulk of our community members leaving, they are most likely in Antioch or NS 3.5. If NS4 ever gets rolling again, im sure we'll see more familiar faces coming by again.

Brennan068 · Post by **Brennan068** » Wed Aug 25, 2004 11:02 am

Danhalen wrote:just to clarify, i do stay out of lowest lvl areas. i do understand that lvls 1-5 need to kill rats more than i do. i am talking about mid lvl areas, such as the mummy area in withering forest or minotaurs. i agree with you though.

Ok, that's fair then

By the time you can do Morsatai's tomb, withering forest and the Mino Lair you can get to other midlevel training areas (if you have any balls at all). If you are whinging about someone being in those kinds of places, you need to go explore a bit.

So, to extend my statements in the earlier post. Be a human. If you are low-mid level and someone higher level comes in to train there too, tell them that you were there first and ask politely if they can go somewhere else for a while. If you arrive there and they are training in the area, ask them where else you can go for your level to get similar exp. To the high level characters who get asked these kinds of questions, please help out the low and mid level chars too. Answer their questions and give them reasonable directions to alternate hunting grounds.

Anybody who arranges for someone to go elsewhere because they were 'there first' should also show some manners when they log out and send a quick tell to let that person know that the area is up for grabs again.

Brennan068 · Post by **Brennan068** » Wed Aug 25, 2004 11:15 am

Wolfarus wrote:2nd is the lack of high lvl areas. Once you get past lvl 22, there really isnt anything worth fighting anymore. You can still go raid the tougher faction cities, (AO, TC ect) but the xp you'd get really isnt worth the risk of dying. So the high lvl's are begining to take their boredom out on the lowbies.

I agree that the lack of high level areas is a problem; however I think it is sad that a high level character feels that the xp reward is not worth the risk of dying... your character is nothing but 1's and 0's and a little bit of imagination. Death is not permanent in this world and if you've worked your way up the ladder to that point and are afraid now of dying

So, again in the spirit of the conversation, rather than take out your boredom on the lowbies, temporarily retire the high level character and become a lowbie again. Go through the struggle with another build in another city (or the same build in the same city if you like) and try to provide the devs with useful feedback. Your exp rewards will once again be "worth the risk". When the high level areas are opened, you can bring your high level character back out of retirement and actually test levelling in those areas... assuming the devs don't wipe the vault before opening the high level areas.

Wolfarus wrote:3rd is the lack of on-the-spot rule enforcement. I know that the DM's say that issues are delt with behind the scenes, but from the communties point of view, nothing really happens. There never seems to be a DM on at the time to deal with trouble makers, the punishment (if there really is any going on.) is always handed out after the fact. How many times have people gone into avendell ( a supposedly neutral, attack-free city) only to be pk'd or messed with by certain okies, slaves or the more notorious lone pk'ers?

I also strongly agree with this sentiment. Punishment needs to be publicly delt out as currently it really does appear that the dm's are favouring certain groups and allowing them to break the rules.

Spura · Post by **Spura** » Wed Aug 25, 2004 12:59 pm

you forget that it is not only the risk of dying but also the exp. I kill all goblins in a huge area just by pressing f7, that is curse song. And to kill one melencia or NS guardian it takes me quite a few rounds. Lowbies complain all the time about cities being raided anyway.

Brennan068 · Post by **Brennan068** » Wed Aug 25, 2004 2:03 pm

I don't forget that you lose xp with death to mobs, and if you read my first response to this thead I believe I made it clear that I understand why and how the higher level characters hunt the rats and gobos and bugs. My statement still stands that it is sad that fear of death (xp loss) is keeping high level characters from fighting tough mobs especially if it is leading them to harass the lower level characters.

It seems to me that most of the lowbies that complain about their cities being raided are trying to rp the faction war in a limited way. They are just uncomfortable with calling for help within the context of the war (in character). The obvious exception to this statement are those who are complaining about the loss of the job bosses (which is a fair complaint really.) There've been several suggestions on how to deal with that... but they are outside the scope of this conversation.

To take your comment regarding killing all goblins in a huge area with one button push into this conversation... that nets you what? ~100 xp? ~200 if you are lucky and catch a big spawn? That's what? .1% of the xp you need for your next level? For the first level character, those gobos are most of the way to second or even all the way to second if they are lucky and catch a big spawn. You are focused on your characters needs and that is fine, but do you remember getting that much xp that you could level in 2 screens? Do you understand why they are whinging now?

SmurfZG · Post by **SmurfZG** » Wed Aug 25, 2004 2:38 pm

Brennan, the thing is that the high lvls, 25+, get the same amount of exp for killing a rat as they get for killing an alliance defender. and it takes way more time to kill the high lvl mobs than it does to kill rats, and there are also way more ratspawns than there are high lvl spawns.
But I don't understand the point in killing a zillion rats just to get to lvl 40, when you can easily kill everything at lvl 25

Brennan068 · Post by **Brennan068** » Wed Aug 25, 2004 3:16 pm

I know that; I have several 20ish level characters.

The problem here is one of fairness. That 25+ level character can go anywhere in the world to level while the 1st - 5th level character can not. I am aware that there is risk to fighting alliance defenders instead of rats, but what are you playing for if you are afraid of some risk? For your 25+ level charater who is getting the same xp for a defender as a rat.... you also get the same xp for bandits (where it is not safe for 1st - 5th) for no risk and at the most 1 more round to slaughter as many. Instead of going after the gobos when lowbies are trying to hunt them, go kill some bugbears.

I'm not saying don't hunt them if the area is empty, but show some basic courtesy and let the low level characters train in their areas when they are there. To many people are hung up on their own characters and are not seeing that other people want to play in the sandbox too. If you get kicked out of the sandbox often enough, you don't come back.

Post by **TheBestDeception** » Wed Aug 25, 2004 4:09 pm

SmurfZG wrote:and it takes way more time to kill the high lvl mobs than it does to kill rats

I suppose that depends on how well (or poorly) your high level character was made. Mine certainly can deal with Defenders nearly as quickly as goblins (and all else of weak fortitude).

I don't know about ya'll, but when I hunt goblins near Daeron and come across an NC lowbie, I try to help them in any way possible. Not only will I move on (as a high level should), but I give them gold, buffs, etc... Turns out that this speeds up their leveling, resulting in 2 notable effects: 1) they get out of the area quicker 2) they become powerful quicker, thereby becoming an asset to teh factional war.

This is not to say that if you come across an enemy lowbie that they should be killed on sight. In this case, refer to Brennan's last post on being unselfish.

-=Mushra=- · Post by **-=Mushra=-** » Wed Aug 25, 2004 7:54 pm

just curious....."not worth the risk"??? wtf are you people a bunch of softie and silly sods all together? there aint no bloody risk when your are 25+ and you are killing city guards. if you do got risk id remake your char. and if another player kills you there is no xp loss so whats the big deal?

Throst54 · Post by **Throst54** » Wed Aug 25, 2004 8:27 pm

it might hurt some1's feelings...

Alatar_Locke · Post by **Alatar_Locke** » Wed Aug 25, 2004 9:35 pm

I think some people just play under the standard Internet RPG/MMORPG code. Courtesy takes a back seat to the almighty XP per [time] equation.

I remember in Asheron's Call, we'd rate dungeons based on how many XP per hour we could amass. Certain areas would have player-run "waiting lists".

In AC, the maximum number of players in a group was something like 9 or 10. In high-XP dungeons, one or two fellowships would run the entire dungeon, killing everything over and over. At the dungeon entry, there would usually be a group of people waiting in line to get in a fellowship. When someone was ready to log out, they'd leave and the next person in line would join in.

If you decided to go in alone or with a group of your own, you'd often get blasted by people waiting in line, and the fellowships already inside would follow you around, killing everything you fought, just to run you off. It wasn't a pretty sight. (It was a non-PvP world so they couldn't kill each other)

What we see here on NS is just a very minor example of the same thing. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be near as extreme as what I'm used to.