Bigger Picture Thoughts

[rodgrodgrodg]

Some thoughts on what makes NS4 a great server and how it could be even better...

First what I think are the best things about the server:
1. A big, interesting, well-developed world with a wide variety of areas to explore and conquer.
2. Balanced equipment, classes, feats, spells and abilities to enable an almost limitless range of tactics and strategies.
3. A large community of players to party with and compete against.
4. A dedicated group of developers and dungeon masters.

Most of us are hooked, and spend a good deal more time here than we probably should. Most of my suggestions go towards making the time spent here more interesting and stimulating, rather than mind-numbing and time-wasting.

My personal ideal of how it should be:
You log on, quickly find a well balanced party of 4 to 6 different classes in the same level range, head off to an interesting and challenging area and work together to strategically conquer the monsters there. Intelligent play should yield great rewards in terms of XP and gear. Poor or mindless play should yield little or nothing. The world should always be evolving and changing so that there are always new things to discover and do.

What I don't like to see:
1. Buffed runs where parties level far too quickly without risk of death or much thought involved.
2. Solo grinds when people can't find parties and slowly hack away at ogres or ice trolls.
3. DM events with rapid leveling and easy XP without any real investment of time, effort or thought.
4. Parties pumping and running the same easily conquered, high XP areas over and over again, instead of exploring the huge world and challenging themselves.
5. Individual players focused on building just one toon at a time, rather than having many toons available to party with anyone at any level.
6. Abuse of the shout channel with taunts and self-aggrandizement that hinders communication within parties.

Sometimes I think I'm alone in wanting a server where skill, intelligence and dedication are valued and rewarded instead of players seeking instant gratification from easy exploits. Sometimes I think that most people really would prefer it the way I see it, but just go with the flow because that's what the system promotes.


Some ways to build upon the strength of the server and promote intelligent, challenging and interesting play and discourage time wasting, mindless activities:

1. Spontaneous small scale DM events where a party of 5 or 6 is given the challenge of conquering a difficult area over the course of a couple hours. For example, a DM shout could go out recruiting two tanks, 3 casters and a sneak, levels 13 to 14 with the challenge of clearing the main Amazon maps and defeating the queen. A good sized group of 5s to 7s could be given the challenge of playing through all the bandit dungeons, leveling along the way. An epic level party could be tasked with taking down Ragnar. After an hour or two of play each player could be rewarded with an item based on their individual and team performance.

2. Reduce the drop rates and raise the difficulty (increasing variety and density) in areas like Ogre Pass and Ice Efreets. Raise the drop rates, improve the accessibility and lower the difficulty (thinning out spawns) of areas that are rarely visited. Efreets and Ogre Pass/Mountain Trail are crowded too often and it gets really boring for me personally when parties want to do them over and over again, pumping the map to exploit the system. Trolls on the mountain and the boss on the 2nd efreet level add more variety, but most parties choose to avoid them because the risks are too high, the drops aren't good enough and/or the xp is too slow.

3. Add more variety to mobs where variety is lacking. Strategy comes into play more when there are many different types of monsters within a given spawn and different spells, different attacks and different toons within a party need to be used selectively to take them down.

4. Instead of nerfing powerful builds to make them weaker, find ways to make the less popular builds stronger. Intelligent building is punished whenever a powerful build gets nerfed. Sometimes that may be unavoidable but it would be better to improve other types of builds so that people can creatively come up with ways to counter strong builds in PvP. Sub-races that are hardly ever chosen can have abilities added to make them more desirable. Classes that are rarely chosen could receive incremental improvements. Mobs and areas could be altered to make certain classes more desirable for their ability to perform well in those areas.

A very slow ability/skill/feat inflation would lead to stronger toons over time. It would help newer players with little accumulated gear to compete against established players with well endowed PvP defenders and raiders.

5. Promote and encourage Weekly Scheduled Leveling. I tried to promote the idea over the last several weeks of having most people on the server leveling multiple toons within the same range within a given week. It has done a lot to make finding a party much easier and increase the number of leveling toons out there. However, one big problem has been that most people haven't been patient enough to stick to the range, choosing to grind ahead with one toon on their own instead of starting multiple toons and always being able to participate in a party. Official recognition of scheduled leveling and small scale DM events within the range would do a lot to make the server more fun and interesting for people who want to find parties to level in.

I scheduled the leveling around 1 gear based range per week, thus the first week was 1 to 5 leveling, week 2 was 5 to 9, this week is 20 to 25. When a toon reached the top of the range, it dropped from a party, re-geared and was parked until the next week. That worked better at low levels when it was easier for someone to start a new toon and catch up to the range. That's not really an option now in the 20s, though, so the number of toons within the range has dropped off considerably. With official support, we could have 2 or even 3 different level ranges going at a given time and it would be relatively easy for toons outside the ranges to conform.


That'll have to do for now. I'm looking forward to hearing thoughts and opinions with regard to these suggestions,

Monkey

[Jmana]

I really like your post some of the ideas are mirrors of my own feelings. I too get kind of bored with going up and down the mountain over and over, follwed by efreets etc etc.

The problem being is its just not an option i would consider to go somewhere else, reason you already touched on it: you can't beat the XP vs time rewards by going anywhere else. There are as im sure many will point out other places to go but normally the risks are way higher for less XP, low lvl amazons screens where they crit for over 100 just cant compete with the mountain.

I would love to see as you suggested a change in the xp of some of these alternate places or better item rewards in those areas. I would also love to see more DM involvement at lower and mid lvl ranges, 90% of which seems to be at the 35-40 lvl bracket.

I Like your idea of improving less used builds and classes as well, it all gets a bit silly when you can hit top end areas and every party is kind of the same pure bard, pure cleric a couple of pure fighters to kd token trumpeters etc. I think if you look closely there is slim variation in party composition in these runs.

All and All though this truly is a great server, but IMO it just needs some tweeking of areas/mobs maybe new areas in the 9-16 range and a real hard look at what classes builds races just arent really being utilized.

Nice post and thanks for sharing

[Daral0085]

I think it would be nice to see CR increased in Air plane, water plane. These two are perhaps two of the most unbalanced planes on the server right now, compared to earth/fire. In short, KD aura = auto-wipe. I also think forest home could use some tweaking, maybe add a few drops that are actually worthwhile. As it stands now, forest home is only really an XP run, and even there it can be pretty tough because of the hipsers, casters, etc. For the same CR, most people prefer molemen, dwarves, etc for good reason.

At low levels, IMO it's fairly well balanced between mezzos, giants, gnolls. Giants are without a doubt the safest, but if you have a solidly built group you can get faster xp from mezzos or gnolls. I think perhaps mezzos could afford a slight nerf though, because from what I've seen our groups tend to wipe there really easily so mezzos are only worth fighting if you have a high level cleric to rez your group in case everyone dies.

Perhaps an area that could use a CR bump or monster nerf would be south road tower. I've only once seen a leveling party go there, ever. From what I understand (without ever bothering to level there myself) it's a pretty tough area for its CR.

I think the low level areas (CR 2-5) are fine. Most people just go to the areas around their city, so the only reason bandits are neglected is that LA is gone. If LA were still here, there would be more people in the south road, icy coast areas.

Perhaps an area that should be altered is the old wyrm road/southern pass. Right now there really isn't any reason for anyone to ever go there unless they don't have money for a dragon or they are trying to relic run using an unconventional path. I'm not sure what sort of changes would be suitable though as I personally spend almost no time in those areas myself.

IMHO most maps are pretty well balanced, it's just that there's no reason whatever to go to incredibly dangerous maps (amazons) when there are very safe maps (skara) in the exact same CR range. Why face ritualists and lanceresses when you can face archers and rogues?

[mining]

1. Buffed runs where parties level far too quickly without risk of death or much thought involved.

I personally never buff my toons unless they can't handle anything close to CR appropriate, i.e. dex based builds with low AC before they get weapon finesse.

2. Solo grinds when people can't find parties and slowly hack away at ogres or ice trolls.

I personally solo grind a lot. Not just because I can't find a party, but because I enjoy the challenge.

3. DM events with rapid leveling and easy XP without any real investment of time, effort or thought.

Gotta say, I love these, because it means I get to have a build fighting in PVP or PVM at 40 sooner.

4. Parties pumping and running the same easily conquered, high XP areas over and over again, instead of exploring the huge world and challenging themselves.

Amazingly boring. 1-5 is always factional areas, 6-10 is basically always ogres, blah blah blah.

5. Individual players focused on building just one toon at a time, rather than having many toons available to party with anyone at any level.

Guilty. I like having more 40s, not lots of toons I can't use in PVP/M.

Alternatives that are equal to these:

6-9 - bandits, sometimes Formians, Minotaur Crypts
10-13 - crypts, haddon mirk especially, low level Amazons, Duskhaven, and those areas.
13-16 - Sunken Isle, Haddon Mirk, Mezzoloths, Gnolls.
17-20 - Sunken Isle, FD Crypt, Skara, factional areas! (I like to kill Neversummer Guards on shifters)
21-25 - Skara, Amazons, IoD, Forest Home (animal empathy required)
26-30 - elemental planes (except water), HoK (if careful), DE (if skilled) dwarves (if careful), Forest Home.
30-35 - HoK, DE, Dorfs, Molemen, Posi (if careful) Elysium (if careful) Upper DE (If you're Sancreed ).
36-40 - Anywhere. I tend to farm epic planar areas or form up with parties at this stage.

As Daral was saying, CR increases in some areas would not go astray, notably: Water, Air.

South Road Tower isn't very hard. Its a good spot to level, but you need to be the right class.

OWP is good for levelling, its just hell out of the way. Its around the same as giants.

[Bargeld]

I think these ideas do well to replicate the ole PnP feel for the game... Scheduled play times and level ranges, DM involvement and quests, etc. I always liked that aspect of PnP... but at the same time, I (and many like me) prefer the instant gratification of having an hour or 6 to play spontaniously and jumping in to see what is happening. Sure, sometimes there is nothing, and how it is handled is where I see that the server has an obvious split in playerbase. The casual players that don't have much time, gear, high level toons, etc. are probably more likely to leave and come back at a later time. The more serious player would have a number of options from leveling a crafter solo to sorting out gear on mules or running to sell junk at the planar store, or even just farming for gp or books.

These 'more serious' players are more likely to be in a guild where gp and decent gear are more easy to come by than the casual player who is unaffiliated and may have to rely on the random 'friends' he makes or the helpfulness of other established, 'serious' players (Twig is known to further the cause of TC through these types of actions).

On the flip side, the descriptions and play that you are considering is also very friendly and goody goody. It really goes beyond the alignment/faction system that NS4 has. Us established and evil players are less likely to group with random players out there because we are snobs. We prefer to keep to our shadows and brothels and usually only step out in force to raid or level amoungst ourselves or do epic planar runs (again usually within our groups). I would expect that the suggestions you make are less appealing to many of the evil folk.

I think these ideas cater well to the casual to moderately-serious player, but are less interesting to the more serious players that may outpace this system.

Just a couple direct comments here...

What I don't like to see:
1. Buffed runs where parties level far too quickly without risk of death or much thought involved.
2. Solo grinds when people can't find parties and slowly hack away at ogres or ice trolls.
3. DM events with rapid leveling and easy XP without any real investment of time, effort or thought.
4. Parties pumping and running the same easily conquered, high XP areas over and over again, instead of exploring the huge world and challenging themselves.

...

2. Reduce the drop rates and raise the difficulty (increasing variety and density) in areas like Ogre Pass and Ice Efreets. Raise the drop rates, improve the accessibility and lower the difficulty (thinning out spawns) of areas that are rarely visited.

...

Efreets and Ogre Pass/Mountain Trail are crowded too often and it gets really boring for me personally when parties want to do them over and over again, pumping the map to exploit the system. Trolls on the mountain and the boss on the 2nd efreet level add more variety, but most parties choose to avoid them because the risks are too high, the drops aren't good enough and/or the xp is too slow.

You hit the nail on the head here... players do what nets the best gear/xp/gp for their current goals. If its powerbuffing or running the same maps for a certain level range, you go where the spoils are at. I think the things you don't like conflict with the goals at hand in some cases. Which brings me to my next point:

3. Add more variety to mobs where variety is lacking. Strategy comes into play more when there are many different types of monsters within a given spawn and different spells, different attacks and different toons within a party need to be used selectively to take them down.

Frostdale is a good example of variety, IMO. Trolls, efreets, giants, and crypt. These are all areas that cater to one party or another... clerics go to the crypt, evasion toons hit efreets and then move to giants, depending on the party mix. Trolls are for SDs and casters (wailers and death spell clerics). Players will go where the xp flows the easiest.

5. Individual players focused on building just one toon at a time, rather than having many toons available to party with anyone at any level.

...

I scheduled the leveling around 1 gear based range per week, thus the first week was 1 to 5 leveling, week 2 was 5 to 9, this week is 20 to 25. When a toon reached the top of the range, it dropped from a party, re-geared and was parked until the next week. That worked better at low levels when it was easier for someone to start a new toon and catch up to the range. That's not really an option now in the 20s, though, so the number of toons within the range has dropped off considerably. With official support, we could have 2 or even 3 different level ranges going at a given time and it would be relatively easy for toons outside the ranges to conform.

...

However, one big problem has been that most people haven't been patient enough to stick to the range, choosing to grind ahead with one toon on their own instead of starting multiple toons and always being able to participate in a party.

DM Kim once suggested to me that I focus on one toon at a time, rather than have 5 toons at a bunch of different levels. After comtemplation and real-world application, I have found a great medium between the two. It's relatively easy to get a toon to about level 32. After that it takes forever. What she meant was for these levels. Once you hit 32 and the xp slows down, you get much more instant gratification with a lower level toon, as you can gain 5 levels in a good session from 1-5 or 6-10 etc. But you will simply end up with 5 toons at lvls 32-35 and you will never realize and finish any of them. Her point was to not lose sight of the passion behind the toon when you made it. Stick with that toon and see it through to the end... it's worth it.

A very slow ability/skill/feat inflation would lead to stronger toons over time. It would help newer players with little accumulated gear to compete against established players with well endowed PvP defenders and raiders.

If you are serious about it, make a mule and/or join a guild. This is one of the reasons why.

[Ajantis.]

Seems to me that Giant Mountain is popular because everyone likes it best. Its centrally located for people to group up and get quick XP. Personally, I haven't been there in awhile, but rumor has it, that its the most likely place to find books (although I don't believe it). If you go anywhere often enough as people seem to do there, you'll find a book.

95% of my toons are made in NC, so I can't say how other factions level progressions might go, but here's mine:

Levels

1-5 - Daeron Outskirts and Arnoth Mountain

4-7 - Withering Forest and to Eyrie Lake Road (at night)

6-9 - Elven Mummies and Duskhaven (Daytime)

8-12 - Minataur Lair

12-16 - Duskhaven (at night) and beginning areas of Amazons


Certainly there are other options, I know Haddon Mirk is popular in NC as well, as its a short ferry ride there. Also, I've found books in all these locations as well, especially Duskhaven (at night).


I do agree some areas could be better utilized if the CR was raised. Snake Pits and Water Plane come to mind. South Road Tower is a good example as mentioned before.

[mining]

Snake pits is unfeasible to do without UEF, .

[Amoenotep]

some of those "hard" areas also depend on what kind of char you have...some chars do awesome while others flounder.

[Rufio]

Some people (me) get the most enjoyment out of high level pvp and pvm. It seems like what you are complaining about is the experienced player who has been everywhere in the low level areas and wants to hit 40 because they want to experience the challenge of higher levels where everything is about playing skill, tactics, and building ability. At 40 there is no such thing as a cleric buffer or power leveling and grinding, just tactical fighting with rewards in gear that are rare and useful that can't be farmed. They want the exact same thing you want at low level, just at level 40.

Also, when your scope is level 40, but you don't have much playing time (me), it can take an excruciatingly long time to level up a toon. Aside from the marathon event, I haven't gotten anything to level 40 in over 8 months, and I only ever focus on 1 toon at a time. I did level something to 33 and scrap it in that time period, but leveling is something that I want to go by fast. It took me 2 weeks just to hit level 10 with my marathon build so I could read books on it and de-level it, and I even got cleric buffs from time to time.

There also would be more incentive to go to new places at lower levels if the was a need for drops, but store bought gear is almost just as good as any drop at those levels; you quickly move on to the next tier of gear, making your things obsolete anyways; and unless you are brand new to the server, you can always take a 40 and go get some particular piece of low level gear with little effort.

I wouldn't mind cr or power adjustments to mobs, there are definitely some unbalanced things out there:
Icy crypt - overpowered even more than before, I've had 40's die in there when I wasn't paying enough attention

Mezos - fast exp really, they can be killed somewhat fast, but incredibly strong offensively. They can wipe a party really quickly.

Ogres - very easy for their cr, they probably just need more ab, they are very easy to tank, especially since all they do is melee.

Ice Giants and ice Efreet boss maps - The bosses are way more powerful than the standard mob and wipe parties very quickly, especially since they always have a large amount of normal spawns near them.

Gnolls Pits- their power-to-cr ratio is fine, my only problem is that there is a huge jump in power once you leave the fort and reach the gnoll pits. High level parties don't want to go there because it is a long run and the exp is bad before you reach the pits, and the pits are only 1 map anyways, and low level parties don't ever go past the fort because the pits are a sure wipe.

Sunken Isle - This is the one place where gear drops that is useful even into high levels, and it can get you exp at a decent rate because the mobs generally die quickly, but they are so powerful offensively and are so numerous that they will kill a party in no time, especially once you run into the casters.

Water Plane and Air plane - as already stated, very difficult for their challenge rating, and while the bosses drop some useful stuff, the normal gear gets outclassed by level 30, so they aren't places you really want to go for gear either.

Haddon Mirk and South Road Tower - Accessible, but no one ever goes to these places. With all the saving throws the mobs force people to make, their cr's could use a boost. Those areas would be nearly impossible to level in without a cleric of some sort to make sure everyone is restored when needed. (and not talking about a level 40 buffer here)

Sanke Pit - Good exp, but also very difficult without a cleric or something to remove poison.

Neversummer City - Good location close to ave, but the mobs are much stronger than their crs indicate. They are in-line with other faction city guards, but the other faction cites are inhabited by PCs, so no one is going be grinding out levels there. With LA vacant, might as well make it a spot to visit for leveling.

There are some good leveling spots up around NC as some of the NCers have pointed out, but they are very long runs for anyone in ave.

[rodgrodgrodg]

Good thoughts and perspectives all. I hope the discussion continues.

Ajantis makes a good point about the appeal of Ogres and Giants being located close to Avendell. In my view harder to access areas should yield greater rewards. Books should be eliminated from the Ogre/Giant drops and increased in other areas.

Another reason Ogre Pass to Giant Caves is so popular is that the difficulty progression is ideal. You can start with a level 5 party fighting ogres on the bridge in Dark Forest (especially if you have a cleric to inflict serious wounds) and go all the way to Grezor around level 13 and do well with all levels in between. It would be nice to see other areas expanded to allow a similar wide range of maps with a natural progression to the CR ratings.

Frost Dale is a nice area for 16s to 20s to gather, and as people mentioned, different party compositions can specialize on different dungeons. Adding more levels or branches to the dungeons and a variety of monster types would make it more interesting and put more of an emphasis on tactics instead of just pumping, buffing and mindlessly hacking away on the the first efreets level.


PvP is a big part of what this server is supposed to be, and lot's of people like it, but I'm turned off by what often happens. Too much name calling and taunting on the shout channel... Too far to run to get to relic battles... Too much waiting around for players to get to the battle... Too rare that the battles are actually balanced and fair...

Lots could be done to promote PvP at all levels, including scheduled battles between factions... i.e. a party of 5 level 16 TC/NC toons vs. 5 MA/SL toons vs. 5 AO/RK toons on a Saturday at the end of a scheduled 13 to 16 leveling week. Then a similar scheduled battle for level 20s at the end of 16 to 20 week. Unique mid-level 16 or 20 gear would be great prizes for such mini-events.

To Daral's point: "IMHO most maps are pretty well balanced, it's just that there's no reason whatever to go to incredibly dangerous maps (amazons) when there are very safe maps (skara) in the exact same CR range. Why face ritualists and lanceresses when you can face archers and rogues?"

Personally, I play for the challenge and fun of playing, not to build a toon for PvP at level 40. Amazons are one of the funnest areas for me because of the variety of units and large number of maps. I wish more people would want to go there, which could mean improving the value of items dropped there or creating a quicker route there.


To mining: I've got great respect for you as a person and player but don't want to see you or anyone else get to level 40 easily. IMO, that cheapens the server and takes away from the accomplishment of people who've earned their 40s the hard way (yes, I know you've already earned many the hard way). One major goal with this thread is to find ways to make the leveling more fun for all. To me the journey to 40 is more important than what you do after you get there because (like most people) I'll spend more time leveling a toon to 40 than I'll ever spend playing it as a 40.


To Bargold's point: "On the flip side, the descriptions and play that you are considering is also very friendly and goody goody. It really goes beyond the alignment/faction system that NS4 has. Us established and evil players are less likely to group with random players out there because we are snobs. We prefer to keep to our shadows and brothels and usually only step out in force to raid or level amoungst ourselves or do epic planar runs (again usually within our groups). I would expect that the suggestions you make are less appealing to many of the evil folk."

Factions used to be a lot more hostile toward each other and more senseless and annoying PKing went on. A lot seems to have changed since the wipe. There was a period there where not many people were online and finding a party was almost impossible. People started doing more cross faction adventuring out of necessity. I think it's a lot better for the server and healthier for us as human beings to be able to do cross faction PvM for leveling and polite but competitive PvP for another type of challenge. The server is better off without the type of people who can't keep it friendly and all in perspective.


In response to Bargeld's other point "It's relatively easy to get a toon to about level 32. After that it takes forever... Stick with that toon and see it through to the end... it's worth it."

Those 30+ runs are the most fun on the server if you can get a good party together. That can be done if enough people level together up to the 30s. It's also good for some people to have a variety of classes to choose from in a given level range so that a better balanced party can be formed to take on the tougher challenges. Prior to the wipe it seemed like most nights there'd be a good high level party of 8+ toons going with reasonably fast leveling. I think we're slowly getting back to where big 30+ parties will be possible on a nightly basis.

That brings up another point. To me, a well constructed 6 person party is usually more fun to play in than a 14 player mob that just swarms over an area killing everything in its path. IMO the XP formula should take into account the size of the party and reward more for smaller parties. It should still encourage people to level together, but XP should reflect the real challenge level. The formula also seems to penalize players too much for being 3 or more levels below the party high.


Rufio did a nice job outlining a lot of different areas. In my view knowing which areas are best suited for your particular party and what spells and tactics to use in those areas is a large part of strategic play. If everything was balanced better for risk and reward variety could still come in terms of the types of strategies that worked best in each area. Every unique class and sub-race should have an area where its talents are best suited. Every weapon, spell, skill or feat should be useful in several different corners of the world.

During 13 to 16 week we had some great runs through the Mezolith caves. Harming Rogues, Archers and Guardians with clerics and druids and quickly hacking up Wizards with the tanks made for some very successful runs. There were a couple of wipes when people rushed into crowded areas foolishly (getting knocked down by guardians and iced by 3 wizards at once) but many more successful runs when people played well, we leveled very fast and picked up lots of good low level gear. That's exactly how leveling should be in my view - play well and be rewarded for it or play poorly and get wiped.

[weasel423]

Adding more levels or branches to the dungeons and a variety of monster types would make it more interesting and put more of an emphasis on tactics instead of just pumping, buffing and mindlessly hacking away on the the first efreets level.

Maybe make the door into efreets a 1-way door like the ice giants lower levels... keep from pumping and force the party to either recall and run all the way back, or to go completely through to the 2nd level. Maybe make it so once you clear the lower level (or open a chest, or pull a lever), the boss and x number of creatures appear, that way you don't have the boss AND a randomly very full map.

[Alkapwn]

Pre-epic leveling is fun and easy. Usually takes me a session or 2 to get to FD. It's gratifying to speed a toon along like that since we are supposed to be building for Epic levels and not for grinding CR 8-18. Given my knowledge and experience (the right gear,build,buffs) its still quite enjoyable pre-epic. I've never been much of a mountain leveler , maybe one run up with some newbies for fun , then off to more lucrative areas. The where's and how's i'll keep to myself as I do like having the run of areas without having to worry about killing some goodnicks and dragonhumpers.

Soloing can be very gratifying too,(wow i can't beleive how badly i'm raping these mobs,muhahah!) Exploring and experimenting in different areas is a big appeal to me but is far from the reason i keep building.

As far as the meta-levelers go which i may be recently guilty of aswell due too mostly that there usually only a handful of people playing when i'm available, i don't really worry about them. Maybe sick some of my dogs on them if its really concerning me but what other people are doing usually isnt a big deal aslong as its not getting in my way of enjoying my server time.

I do think Water and Air plane are more effort then they are worth and probably could use a 1-3 CR boost in some cases.

I like the idea of Level X battle events. I think we as players could easily arrange for those events to happen. If the DM's would like to contribute aswell all the better.
Rodgrod, you can PM if you want to start aranging some sort of start up for it. I'm probably the best goto guy for evil aligned factions (private forum access and player knowledge).

I've always wanted FightClub to take off but the interest kinda wavered. It'd be much more interesting these days with Skara and IOD addtions. oh can't find the thread ... maybe disappeared with DCN's category. anyway His Name was Robert Paulson!!!!

[Rufio]

Ive always wanted to see organized 5 on 5 (or X vs X, the number doesn't matter) faction death-matches and such. No relics, just one map until one team is dead. We did it once impromptu, TC/NC, vs AO/RK in the arena one day, and it was fun, but short lived. It would probably have to be the best out of 5 matches or something. Monkey did have a point that PvP a lot of time is determined by how many people you can round up at any given time.

[Twiggy]

Would be nice if cr lvls where changed on some mobs. On giant mtn Trolls are way to hard for the crappy xp they give and no loot. Either lower difficulty or raise cr.

Some of the beginner giants on giant mtn give same xp as ogres. yet are 2x harder. raise the beginner giants some or lower difficulty.


would be nice to see some more drops in some areas and cr balanced out. Efreet boss is unideal since noone wants to do him and can't solo him until higher lvls and then your only going for boss cause xp from base efreets stink. I havn't fought him for over a year cause no one wants to fight him and by the time I get strong enough I have moved onto other areas. (although this is mostly cause I was gone for a year, but w/e) Although I have been contemplating taking my wiz there soon.

I'll start making a log of cr's and amount of xp/areas where people avoid.

Also going through south road tower when going to dwarf home I noticed how easy It would be to lvl a pally there. Though my pally's are made in NC and It's closer and better xp to take on undead things around there.
Also mino lair has a boss of cr 25. while the little people around him are cr 13.

[mining]

Ajantis makes a good point about the appeal of Ogres and Giants being located close to Avendell. In my view harder to access areas should yield greater rewards. Books should be eliminated from the Ogre/Giant drops and increased in other areas.

Eh, books drop fairly randomly. Just people spend a lot of time on the mountain.

Another reason Ogre Pass to Giant Caves is so popular is that the difficulty progression is ideal. You can start with a level 5 party fighting ogres on the bridge in Dark Forest (especially if you have a cleric to inflict serious wounds) and go all the way to Grezor around level 13 and do well with all levels in between. It would be nice to see other areas expanded to allow a similar wide range of maps with a natural progression to the CR ratings.

Quite true. However, arguably, I level in ogres only up to when I can handle other maps. The mountain bores me, so I seek Gnolls and Mezzos to while the time away. Also, I build toons that can often deal with stuff a few CRs above it. So yeah, giants is boring :p.

Frost Dale is a nice area for 16s to 20s to gather, and as people mentioned, different party compositions can specialize on different dungeons. Adding more levels or branches to the dungeons and a variety of monster types would make it more interesting and put more of an emphasis on tactics instead of just pumping, buffing and mindlessly hacking away on the the first efreets level.

Eh, maybe. Its a small time of levelling, and it suffices nicely. I think that it has been improved since a while back a ton.

PvP is a big part of what this server is supposed to be, and lot's of people like it, but I'm turned off by what often happens. Too much name calling and taunting on the shout channel... Too far to run to get to relic battles... Too much waiting around for players to get to the battle... Too rare that the battles are actually balanced and fair...

No comment .
I love hard planar PVM more than PVP, though epic PVP is always great.

Lots could be done to promote PvP at all levels, including scheduled battles between factions... i.e. a party of 5 level 16 TC/NC toons vs. 5 MA/SL toons vs. 5 AO/RK toons on a Saturday at the end of a scheduled 13 to 16 leveling week. Then a similar scheduled battle for level 20s at the end of 16 to 20 week. Unique mid-level 16 or 20 gear would be great prizes for such mini-events.

5v5s are great, but we always win :*(.
Maybe 5v6 would be balanced.

Personally, I play for the challenge and fun of playing, not to build a toon for PvP at level 40. Amazons are one of the funnest areas for me because of the variety of units and large number of maps. I wish more people would want to go there, which could mean improving the value of items dropped there or creating a quicker route there.

'Zons = Skara for toons with high AC/HP/DR. Its not too much harder, crits just hurt more.
Night Skara is painfuller than Zons, just zons is more likely to get you dead.

To mining: I've got great respect for you as a person and player but don't want to see you or anyone else get to level 40 easily. IMO, that cheapens the server and takes away from the accomplishment of people who've earned their 40s the hard way (yes, I know you've already earned many the hard way). One major goal with this thread is to find ways to make the leveling more fun for all. To me the journey to 40 is more important than what you do after you get there because (like most people) I'll spend more time leveling a toon to 40 than I'll ever spend playing it as a 40.

Way I see it is that earning a 40 the hard way or the soft way, I'd rather there be more 40s on the server (more variety at 40) and more time for people to level. Best of both worlds.

Factions used to be a lot more hostile toward each other and more senseless and annoying PKing went on. A lot seems to have changed since the wipe. There was a period there where not many people were online and finding a party was almost impossible. People started doing more cross faction adventuring out of necessity. I think it's a lot better for the server and healthier for us as human beings to be able to do cross faction PvM for leveling and polite but competitive PvP for another type of challenge. The server is better off without the type of people who can't keep it friendly and all in perspective.

Thats largely because PWnD hasn't been around in force (i.e. the darker elements of PWnD) recently, as far as I've seen. When I first came to the server, Giant Mountain was my tertiary levelling spot because of the common PKing around it by PWnD.

That brings up another point. To me, a well constructed 6 person party is usually more fun to play in than a 14 player mob that just swarms over an area killing everything in its path. IMO the XP formula should take into account the size of the party and reward more for smaller parties. It should still encourage people to level together, but XP should reflect the real challenge level. The formula also seems to penalize players too much for being 3 or more levels below the party high.

The formula probably kills XP for lower levels because its really really easy to get powerlevelled by someone 2 spell levels higher than yourself.
Sometimes large parties are the only way to get effective XP, and they're tons of fun when you've been grinding for hours and hours to get an ECL 3 dexxer to 35, and there is an eternity to go.


Also;

That's exactly how leveling should be in my view - play well and be rewarded for it or play poorly and get wiped.

Thats exactly high level PVM. If you make one wrong move, the whole party will die, and you'll wipe, in seconds.