cRPG

cRPG => General Discussion => Topic started by: //saxon on July 01, 2014, 04:18:17 am

Title: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: //saxon on July 01, 2014, 04:18:17 am
Urgent change is needed, read below!

OK so there has been a dramatic increase to the new player base on EU side atleast and while playing, the new players have some things to say about the mod and i think we can learn from these comments and make it a more new player friendly experience.

see this screen shot
(click to show/hide)

Some of the new players are finding it very hard to stick around when all they do is run and die round after round, with no chance of reward.

We need to change this fast or else these players will give bad reviews on the mod and new comers will be rare, lets make the mod more friendly and rewarding
while we thrive in visitors!


let this be another thread to support the new comers and make cRPG have a bigger family.

see POLL above Title. You can choose 5 options, you should be able to change your votes, although im not sure, but i did tick the box to allow it.

thanks,
kind Regards

Saxon.

visitors can't see pics , please register or login



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Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: DrTaco on July 01, 2014, 04:20:32 am
Well we could quit being assholes to each other. But that isn't any fun.

EDIT:

The main reason they leave is because they just get killed over and over without any sort of hope. And level 30 builds suck compared to 33+ we see all the fucking time. 30 isn't going to help.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: //saxon on July 01, 2014, 04:26:22 am
Well we could quit being assholes to each other. But that isn't any fun.

EDIT:

The main reason they leave is because they just get killed over and over without any sort of hope. And level 30 builds suck compared to 33+ we see all the fucking time. 30 isn't going to help.
any idea's that could help improve the mod for the new?
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: HappyPhantom on July 01, 2014, 04:34:34 am
Level 31 STF.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: Sari on July 01, 2014, 04:43:21 am
first character, first gen should start at lvl20 or something
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: UnholyRolyPoly on July 01, 2014, 05:05:35 am
first character, first gen should start at lvl20 or somoething

I agree.  I would even go as far as to start them at lvl 30.  Make sure it's just one character per key. 

Most clans have weapons available so Looms aren't that big of a deal.  It's just the fact that they A)don't know how to build a decent character and B) they start at lvl 1 and completely suck.  The grind to lvl 30 is nothing for an experienced player.  But it's enough to make new people quit on the spot. 

Give default builds with gear included..... 

Agi 2H
-18-21 Build
-Gear including Bastard Sword, Light Kuyak, etc etc

Str 2h
-21-18
-Gear including Sword of War, Heavy Kuyak, etc etc

etc etc etc

It doesn't have to be complicated.  And it doesn't need to be min max builds either.  Just your basic simple builds which they can tailor on their next gen.  The biggest problem facing new players is build design.  They don't know to build at 30, 31, 32 etc.  They typically make shielder, thrower, archer, 2h hybrids on gen 1.  They have no idea how much WPF is needed.  All that is available in the forums but we could make it a lot easier.  The gear set needs to be affordable but decent.  Nobody is crying over a bunch of Kuyaks.  It's not that much money.  And they can easily buy their own gear after a few days. 

Not to mention the fact it's only 4 mil to lvl 31.... they can retire and loom their first item.  That's a big one for new people. 
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: HardRice on July 01, 2014, 05:10:30 am
I only agree with the last option.

I always hated when games added restrictions in the beginning rather than just letting me do whatever the hell I wanted and learning that way, I don't believe forcing players to have this much gold or a level 30  char without freedom is a good idea.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: UnholyRolyPoly on July 01, 2014, 05:16:28 am
I only agree with the last option.

I always hated when games added restrictions in the beginning rather than just letting me do whatever the hell I wanted and learning that way, I don't believe forcing players to have this much gold or a level 30  char without freedom is a good idea.

You can always allow them to customize their own lvl 30 build.  I'm just saying give them basic options centering around 21-18 and 18-21 etc.  Give them something to look at before they make a shielder, hoplite, 2h, cav, HA, Crossbow Hyrbid.  Just add an option to customize their own build.  It still gets the point across and gives them a basis.  Most new players aren't coming to the forums.  And most don't join clans right away.  So their first and second gen are horrible builds and they quit. 
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: Sari on July 01, 2014, 05:16:41 am
I agree.  I would even go as far as to start them at lvl 30.  Make sure it's just one character per key. 

Most clans have weapons available so Looms aren't that big of a deal.  It's just the fact that they A)don't know how to build a decent character and B) they start at lvl 1 and completely suck.  The grind to lvl 30 is nothing for an experienced player.  But it's enough to make new people quit on the spot. 

Give default builds with gear included..... 

Agi 2H
-18-21 Build
-Gear including Bastard Sword, Light Kuyak, etc etc

Str 2h
-21-18
-Gear including Sword of War, Heavy Kuyak, etc etc

etc etc etc

It doesn't have to be complicated.  And it doesn't need to be min max builds either.  Just your basic simple builds which they can tailor on their next gen.  The biggest problem facing new players is build design.  They don't know to build at 30, 31, 32 etc.  They typically make shielder, thrower, archer, 2h hybrids on gen 1.  They have no idea how much WPF is needed.  All that is available in the forums but we could make it a lot easier.  The gear set needs to be affordable but decent.  Nobody is crying over a bunch of Kuyaks.  It's not that much money.  And they can easily buy their own gear after a few days. 

Not to mention the fact it's only 4 mil to lvl 31.... they can retire and loom their first item.  That's a big one for new people.

why 2h, couldnt there be and option to pick a class to start with with pre-applied gear?
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: StonedSteel on July 01, 2014, 05:42:43 am
Like i said in another thread, mod is actually dead this time. ( well, this actually only applies to NA, EU looks alive and well )

a big reason is maybe the most unlikly but imo, its DTV...

you lvl 32+ \ gen 16+ lads who havent retired in ages have no idea how frustrating this game is....shieeet its frustrating to fight someone lvl 34 even when ur in the late 20's

and with sooo many high lvl players, you dont really get decent until 30\31. There has to be somewhere else new players can lvl up, without it being utter hell for them. I had ALOT of fun on DTV and it was a fun \ relaxed environment. The first 100-200 ( no joke, im serious ) times jumping on battle \ siege were a disaster and i rage quit multiple times, but DTV and the friends i made on DTV kept me coming back.

I have been playing M&B since the original, i was a very dominate player on Native servers for years...the differences between the smoothness \ animations of native and CRPG are VAST, this games swings still feel screwy to me. If it wasnt for DTV i wouldnt be here, it allowed me to relearn the swings and blocks and animations ( the fucking turn into ur enemy longsword stab was completely alien to me ).

So basically, without somewhere fun and relaxing to learn the game ( the swings \ blocking \ timing ) i highly doubt we WILL get any new players. Its not just the swings either, if you dont think loomed gear affects your performance your just nuts...and coming in knowing your way behind compared to everyone else?

I got to skip that feeling for the most part. when i went on siege \ battle, i was bitter \ always getting into it with clans ( hello Remnants, we get along nowadays...now that i also have +3 sets huehuehue ) , but at the time DTV had plenty of people just like me, new, with no gear, no idea how things work, no hope on battle or siege.

We are at a point where the mod has no growth, only declines, now when new people come, they have no where to go, noone to relate to, they are alone and scared in a cold vicious mod.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: HappyPhantom on July 01, 2014, 06:17:16 am
Couldn't agree more with Plumbo - I spent ages learning on DTV before moving into Siege, and then Battle. Battle is one of the worst places to learn as a n00b (compared to DTV and Siege which IMHO ar both less competitive more relaxing, and have fewer trolls).

DTV was just a chill place to hang out and get used to things. If I had to start playing again, forever dying to goddamn ninjas in DTV, which is relatively empty these days in comparison to old days, no Siege as an option (RIP it's deader than DTV) and Battle being my only other option, I really can say with 110% certainty that I wouldn't have kept playing.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: Voncrow on July 01, 2014, 06:45:52 am
Give every new player a free donkey, we should all be allowed to worship chadz equally.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: korppis on July 01, 2014, 07:20:00 am
If there is enough new players, they would get better start at EU5. Just increase the level cap to 25 or even 28, because anything below 30 is dead meat on EU1 or EU2. I'm sure they would have much more fun and actually learn something when playing against their own level guys.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: Eugen on July 01, 2014, 07:25:21 am
Advert the mod and give presents to new players:

Opt to start with:

- one level 31 prebuilt and well equipped char to choose from all classes: 2h, shielder, hoplite, pole, archer, x-bow, 1h-cav, lance-cav or even HA and thrower) with forced clantag: Recruit_...

No STFU - No Upkeep and No retiring for first two weeks. After first month clantag Recruit is gone, upkeep kicks in and retiring is possible forced (no level up possible!)

or
- insta level 20 with 80.000 Gold (and points free to allocate however)

or
-regular peasant with quadruple XP for first Gen and double XP for second Gen.

Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: FRANK_THE_TANK on July 01, 2014, 07:32:32 am
All things end, accept the end, accept the fragility of existence and go find someone to have fantastically violent sex with.


or feel free to


If you can't find anyone to smack you in the face in that special way.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: Vovka on July 01, 2014, 07:39:56 am
W I P E !!!!
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: Dexxtaa on July 01, 2014, 09:25:25 am
Here's something I posted a while back. I think it's a better idea for peasants to experience the thrill of combat while trying to participate in a team environment, versus this shitty tick system where they just run around aimlessly.

An advocation for reinstatement of cRPG’s proximity XP/Gold gain system (http://forum.melee.org/suggestions-corner/an-advocation-for-reinstatement-of-crpgs-proximity-xp-gold-gain-system/msg944220/#msg944220)

Naturally, I was met with "official" responses regarding an XP/Gold system that was under development that would replace our current system (and of course, it was coming out Soontm)
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: bagge on July 01, 2014, 09:37:31 am
Sorry for double posting, but I have to before I forget it:

There are two new players on the server (Eu1) at the moment, and both can not register in this forum because of bugged captchas. They say they typed in the captcha dozens of times, but it will always say it's wrong.

I don't even have any captchas in this forums, but it's not the first time I hear this from new players, in fact, I heard it several times before.

This surely is an issue devs/admins/mods? have to deal with.

I know Fjell has the same issue.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: Torost on July 01, 2014, 09:39:30 am
maybe instead of the shitty gear you get as peasant you could give new players some good gear that is useful even at low level.
Maybe tailor a package just for newbies.

Shield + Spear + crossbow + bolts + donkey ?

This will lead them to try classes that are easy to survive and feel like you are helping the team out.

block and poke style or camp-shot-hide-reload.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: bagge on July 01, 2014, 09:44:36 am
Crossbow as default equipment? What a nightmare :|
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: Mr_Oujamaflip on July 01, 2014, 10:18:40 am
Why not just remove levels 1-20 and have everyone start at level 20 but call it level 1.

With the amount of XP available now getting to level 20 can be done in a few hours anyway, it's just cutting out the shit part.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: Herezy92 on July 01, 2014, 10:22:40 am
I saw interesting ideas here.

For me, this is how i see their start :
---------------------

Having a welcoming POP-UP when they join for the first week, explaining where to play :
"Welcome to cRPG, we have detected that you just started, we advise you to play on EU7 (DTV) or EU2(Siege) to level up and have a good entertainment of this mod. Moreover, remember to use the forum if you have any questions."
(The forum must be easier to see on website)

About their first character :

The new players must have a level 30 at start with 60K -80K gold.
The stats must be 18/18 (with some free points that they can manually add, so they will start to be used to the system)
The WPF must be set at 1.

Starting at level 30 will allow them to help a bit their team.
Yes of course they wont match an experienced player, but support / backstabbing can help. (More than being an useless peasant, bouncing all the time...)
Moreover, they will have some time to improve till they reach level 31and make their own "real" first character.
Of course, if they don't have enough time to play, they can still enjoy the mod with their main as casual players by not retiring.

-------------------------
When you begin in this mod, starting as a peasant is just aint fun at all.

So guys, what do you think ?
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: Lennu on July 01, 2014, 10:40:21 am
I wouldn't mind giving all accounts a once in a lifetime chance to lvl up one of their characters to lvl 30 and get 40k gold. This free lvlup can only be used as long as they have no characters above gen 1 or something. And a pop-up message about the free level up that tells them to check out this thread http://forum.melee.org/beginner's-help-and-guides/solid-builds/ (http://forum.melee.org/beginner's-help-and-guides/solid-builds/) so they won't fuck up this chance.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: illogical on July 01, 2014, 10:55:48 am
I think need start from level 15, 0 experience, 10k gold, 1 free respec to level 29.
its easy start and 1 chance to make a mistake.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: Kalp on July 01, 2014, 11:05:47 am
W I P E !!!!

Quote
speed is unbalanced
blame Tydeus...
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: no_rules_just_play on July 01, 2014, 11:57:23 am
I am for allowing players to start on a decent level, I think however lvl 30 or even 25 is too high. Give them lvl 20 and quite a bit of gold, this will allow them to enjoy the game without losing the addictive grind.

Also, feel free to put some weapons in the peasants united armoury, no need for them to be mw.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: Riddaren on July 01, 2014, 12:13:19 pm
EDIT:

Why isn't there links on c-rpg to help sites such as character builders and Zagibus character gear viewer?

Instead of forcing new players to have default builds that cannot be changed it's better to just  help them in the right direction.
Because it will take away a bit of the fun if they can't change their builds themselves.

The complexity of this games and the learning curve is not only a bad thing. For me, I like those kind of games.
If a games is simple and easy, it's boring and I eventually stop playing it (not cRPG though because I still can't block).

Anyway, you could just mirror the character build page with preset builds below somehow.
Just put a dropdown with various preset builds (classes) and see how the points should be distributed, at each level.

Even better would be to make all level 30+ builds with over 500 kills public, together with K:D and other stats.
Then you have real data to work with. Then you can make a seperate page displaying all those builds in a table together with columns and filters like:

Class (determined by WPF)
Level
Strength
Agility
Every skill

And the possibility to order by any column, defaults to K:D ratio etc.

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Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: ecorcheur_brokar on July 01, 2014, 01:01:34 pm
When you begin this game, you have no idea where to put the point, and what points spent in each skill really represent (even for experienced players, when you change class, you dont really know what 100 wpf represent for a thrower for exemple).

So they should receive an STF character with all the points already spent and some gear.

I think the best build to begin with is shielder/1h, it's in melee but it's not difficult to block. Plus, you can slowly learn to do directionnal block each time your shield breaks (that's how I learnt to block without doing boring lessons on eu3 or DTV).

Also the welcoming message from herezy is a good idea:
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: Micah on July 01, 2014, 01:07:28 pm
I dont agree, that making everything easier for newbees at start is the way to go. Its sounds to me to much of a desperate move of adding some crutch, to prolong the mods life.  I dont believe thats the solution on the long run. I disagree that the skill and level gap nor the equipment difference are the real reason behind aparently fading community life or gameplay fun.

I believe, people should think back and remember of which where the reasons that kept them playing and stay when they started playing. Because, thats the real attractive strenghts of the mod upon which we should build. And also think about the reasons and changes, that might block these positive aspects now. I doubt that its simply the skill and level gap because the mod was totally shitty and much harder in many aspects compared to now and still was fun.

I agree that our current "Boot-Camp" mechanics could use a overhaul. Right now we have introductions and explanations for the game in forum, we have DTV which is a nice practising ground, we have recruiting clans, that are mostly welcoming new players that might join their ranks and help people out. I miss the duel server activity and strongly dislike, that its still no own server, but the Strategus server still - where i could test and improve my fighting techniques.
Perhaps something like monthly BootCamp events for new players could add to the accessability of the mod.

I think, one of the things that changed, are the players themself and their expectations. At times, a new player might experiance some degree of unexcitement, rage ... bad moods in general. Also very few cooperation cues, and lacking hierarchy transparency are visible for new players ... Unanswered questions like: Who is the commanding player/group i can follow? Where am i supposed to go? What am i supposed to do ? ... causing disorientation and uncertainty about whats going on, resulting in loss of playfun. RPing players, which at least have some immersion are basically disappeared from the battlefield.
Sadly commander-chat - which could add a great structuring and immersive element to the gameplay - didnt really work out yet, and i must admit, that i doubt it will ...
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: Grumbs on July 01, 2014, 01:16:46 pm
Why not just remove levels 1-20 and have everyone start at level 20 but call it level 1.

With the amount of XP available now getting to level 20 can be done in a few hours anyway, it's just cutting out the shit part.

I like this idea. Make the game level 1-10, with level 1 having as many skillpoints/stats as the current lvl 20. This way you still get the grind but you start with 2/3 of the power of a lvl 30. Personally i'd make lvl 10 the max level too, or make high levels get no stat increase like Tydeus said
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: Switchtense on July 01, 2014, 01:17:57 pm
I think the biggest problem is that nowadays every game you buy is dumbed down to the max. You start the game and tooltips tell you to breath in and out, set one foot in front of another and to chew, chew, chew and swallow.

cRPG is a whole lot more complex though. It requires you to register on the website, different gamemodes, forums, loads of small mechanics, looms etc etc.

In other words: You have to think. That is a rare thing in video games these days. And I am sure that puts quite a lot of people off who try it for the first time.


If somebody decides to give it a go there is the effort of actually understanding it all, to get into everything. And that is quite a lot of work in the beginning. Information overflow.


That all makes it a given that only a small amount of players who try cRPG will actually stay. Before you have set everything up you cannot play really. And the majority wants to launch the game, play a few rounds and they are happy. Not many can be arsed to actually put a lot of "work" into a game before being able to play.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: NJ_Legion_Icedtea on July 01, 2014, 01:22:40 pm
Simple idea, not sure if anyone has suggested it yet.... but

New players and low levels tend to play and enjoy DTV more than any other mode. The reasons: can be easier to increase levels faster and also what I believe to be the most important one THEY ACTUALLY FEEL USEFULL

Could EU5 be brought back with bots?
Either like in DTV bots vs players or even a few bots on each side, low levels would actually find it easier to get kills and the x1.5XP would mean faster levelling up to lvl 20 or maybe even mid 20's.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: Herezy92 on July 01, 2014, 01:57:08 pm
(click to show/hide)
That is an excelent idea !
Add some bots, it will attract new players on EU5, and then, EU5 will live again :)
New players never join EU5, because it's always empty, if you add bots in both team, it wont be empty !
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: zottlmarsch on July 01, 2014, 02:06:48 pm
Don't worry peasants, when I return later this week i'll just be running around naked with no weapon spamming the new voice commands. Free kills for all of you!!!  :mrgreen:
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: //saxon on July 01, 2014, 02:08:05 pm
ok i went through all the comments and got all the new ideas and added them to the POLL, please help yourselves and choose some

you can choose 5 options! (votes can be changed)

i see a good future for this mod, these idea's are great we need a developers attention now.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: F i n on July 01, 2014, 02:08:14 pm
Eu1 just isn't the place to have a warm welcome.

The max lvl 20 Server should be renamed to "Training server" -  a duel / battleserver with double xp and bots - only joinable by players with lvl 20 or less - OR Skip the fun characters (to actually train).

Best case scenario would be, that new players get x2 xp as soon as they're joining, and a multiplier for every enemy they kill. Your Enemies get stronger, everytime you've won - (x1 = fighting 1 bot, x2 = fighting 2 bots, x3 = fighting 4 bots, x4 = 6 bots, x5 = 8 bots..) - not to mention NO CRUSHTHROUGH or KNOCKDOWN weapons for bots or players.

We need a place where new guys can train in peace - at their own individual way. IF we'd get a few "Veterans" to create Trainer-STF, that are on the server, answering questions etc (and maybe reward them with x2 gold / Tick), this might actually work out pretty well for everyone. 

DTV isn't the place to actually get better - those bots are just... :D too many. I don't see how a new player would learn anything there - except for spamming.


Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Switchtense on July 01, 2014, 02:51:58 pm
DTV isn't the place to actually get better - those bots are just... :D too many. I don't see how a new player would learn anything there - except for spamming.

Oi! That's where I have learned to play D:
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: F i n on July 01, 2014, 03:14:59 pm
Oi! That's where I have learned to play D:

U mean that's where you've learnt to spam, then later realized it's not working on eu1 and then started actually working on your build and style?
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: //saxon on July 01, 2014, 04:18:46 pm
U mean that's where you've learnt to spam, then later realized it's not working on eu1 and then started actually working on your build and style?
we all have some bad habits  :) but that's what makes us unique?
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Kato on July 01, 2014, 05:14:15 pm
Some good suggestions.

This is my...

Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Aprikose on July 01, 2014, 05:57:42 pm
The level is not the problem...rather the skill. U could enable Autoblock for new players hahahah
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Penitent on July 01, 2014, 06:00:06 pm
Should be a poll option for "none"

Learning curve should be challenging, it's what makes it rewarding and fun.

They will be stronger people because of it. 
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: no_rules_just_play on July 01, 2014, 06:17:47 pm
Scrapping all levels from 1-19 will totally kill the grind. This is a good idea for the first gen and maybe free respecs until lvl 30, but I actually liked to play as peasant and the grind is just extremely rewarding. It's the reason I stayed.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: //saxon on July 01, 2014, 06:31:57 pm
i selected the option to be able to change votes but i myself can't change my votes, so im just wandering if anyone else can't, if not something is broken with the POLL.

god dam..

Anyway, i would really like to be able to just use cRPG to train the new players that actually need help with blocking and basic movement and feints. that would be cool for me. Might have to hang around EU_3 abit more and offer some helpful services.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Turkhammer on July 01, 2014, 06:37:08 pm
Why not just make just make everything equal with no looms, levels, perqs or any of that?  That way only experience and skill (with twiddling a mouse) will count.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Penitent on July 01, 2014, 07:02:53 pm
They will be not playing this mod because of it

Well, we are playing this mod (and I am playing because the challenge and fun hooked me in) so I'm sure we'll keep a good number of quality players without having to appeal to the lowest denominator like so many other less-fun games do!
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: no_rules_just_play on July 01, 2014, 07:03:35 pm
Why not just make just make everything equal with no looms, levels, perqs or any of that?  That way only experience and skill (with twiddling a mouse) will count.

this kills the grind

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Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: Dexxtaa on July 01, 2014, 07:35:38 pm
But guys, I wrote a thing

Here's something I posted a while back. I think it's a better idea for peasants to experience the thrill of combat while trying to participate in a team environment, versus this shitty tick system where they just run around aimlessly.

An advocation for reinstatement of cRPG’s proximity XP/Gold gain system (http://forum.melee.org/suggestions-corner/an-advocation-for-reinstatement-of-crpgs-proximity-xp-gold-gain-system/msg944220/#msg944220)

Naturally, I was met with "official" responses regarding an XP/Gold system that was under development that would replace our current system (and of course, it was coming out Soontm)
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Eugen on July 01, 2014, 08:26:11 pm
Hey guys! Just give new players the option to play with good equipped level 30 chars for a while - just to show good will and cut some QQ-ing.

I really take my hat off to new players who dont give up on c-rpg inspite of so many high level, overloomed and super rich veterans with honed skills who never retire anymore.

To grind with gen1 in an enviroment like ours, where most of population are more or less veterans really must be a challange. You cant compare c-rpg for newbies now with how it was five years ago.

Therefore new-players should really get some benefits - next to a warm welcome and a helpful community (feel the irony!).
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Thomek on July 01, 2014, 08:45:46 pm
The main problem is the very very high general skill of our veteran population. We would kick their asses 100 times even with as low level chars.

They also somehow need to understand that levels and looms don't matter that much...

I'd say give them awards as they go, at lvl 10 loom smth, (not point, but ability to loom), lvl 20 second loom ability, lvl 30, 3rd.

That way they can feel progression and have achievable goals. By their first gen they can then have an unsellable +3, +1 loompoint to spend.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Switchtense on July 01, 2014, 08:55:00 pm
The main problem is the very very high general skill of our veteran population. We would kick their asses 100 times even with as low level chars.

They also somehow need to understand that levels and looms don't matter that much...

I'd say give them awards as they go, at lvl 10 loom smth, (not point, but ability to loom), lvl 20 second loom ability, lvl 30, 3rd.

That way they can feel progression and have achievable goals. By their first gen they can then have an unsellable +3, +1 loompoint to spend.

Problem with that is, who of us tried a weapon for the first couple levels that they used in the end as well? I bet all of us used something we would not really use now.
So if one of them looms something it might be worthless to them later.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Patoson on July 01, 2014, 08:57:29 pm
Give everyone max gen xp bonus from the start (http://forum.melee.org/suggestions-corner/faster-levelling-up-for-low-gen/).
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Eugen on July 01, 2014, 08:59:55 pm
@Heskey:
Shure this is true if you compare to someone who has played native. But someone toatally new to this will be... fucked. And also Native-Veteran-Players who join c-rpg are at a sever disatvantage becouse of level, generation and loom-gap. Not to mention they need to adapt to c-rpg battle style.

EDIT:

or

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: HappyPhantom on July 01, 2014, 09:27:22 pm
DTV isn't the place to actually get better - those bots are just... :D too many. I don't see how a new player would learn anything there - except for spamming.

I think that was our point; When they broke (changed) DTV - they made the game much much more difficult/demoralising for new players.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Kato on July 01, 2014, 09:43:52 pm
I dont think anything can really return that sweet 2010 newby gameplay.

When you as peasant just followed heroes and stay alive as long as possible (that was great fun for me).

And around level 25 you could easily contribute, because only few people could block.

I actually didnt see enemy peasant until level 30(they already were masacred by our 40 level heroes when i get to their hiding nest) and most of my kills were tincans and cav, that was very satisfying(love awlpike with shield :P).

Huge thing for me as newby was Phaz and his commands in public chat, I could felt like in real battlefield (no random deathmatch server) and that was awesome.

Today only most determined can get over skill gap. Thats fact, sadly.

Other than some popups windows to navigate people to tutorials and newby server...
I think increasing max level in newby server to higher level (27 maybe) and for gen 1 players to not have any equipment restriction there could help.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: F i n on July 01, 2014, 09:46:26 pm
The higher your gen, the less xp you gain (but more gold - old ppl are rich and stupid IRL)

The lower your gen, the more xp you gain (less gold - young ppl are poor IRL but learn faster)




---> new players join clans to have access to good gear (active help from the community), and they level up much faster - however to be rich, you have to increase your generations. And Veterans are able to help newbirds financally. Peace and love all over the place.


Krems clan best clan,

Fin

Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Micah on July 02, 2014, 01:14:33 am
Huge thing for me as newby was Phaz and his commands in public chat, I could felt like in real battlefield (no random deathmatch server) and that was awesome.
Yeah, well, agreed, you might have a point ... we all miss our gone heroes. But we are also behaving like sad, old vet-farts, sobbing and crying about everything and everyone in forums and in game, while perhaps we should realize , that we are the ones supposed to fill exactly those gaps, left by the ones we mourn all day instead, for the ones we want to keep in the game.
 And why we want this anyways ? Why we dont want the mod to die really finally? Because there is something we had here that seems worth to pass on to others? Something, that we suffered and fought for, for a long time?
We really should stop complaining and start doing what we are supposed to. This game is not supposed to be easy. Its supposed to be unfair and hard ... its part of us, part of what makes this mod epic and great and immersive ... and worth spreading.

Fuck fairness, fuck equalizing-balance and btw, fuck native-elitism ... Welcome poor peasant slaying, welcome OP gear, welcome heroes ...

I suggest, to make special OP commander gear available for a chosen commander. This would benefit gameplay in multiple way:
1) Commander-Poll wouldnt be only an useless trolling tool anymore and people might actually want to become commander
2) C. would be better distinguishable on the field and thereby increasing epicness of gameplay (a soft version of "defend the commander" gameplay component would be added to battle/siege)
3) C. would be epic hero figure for noobs and something to look up to, while getting humiliated and r*ped all day by vile knights and horny heroins
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: ecorcheur_brokar on July 02, 2014, 01:39:52 am
Should be a poll option for "none"

Learning curve should be challenging, it's what makes it rewarding and fun.

They will be stronger people because of it.
Even if I wouldn't vote for it, the poll has no meaning if there's no option " change nothing".

The main problem is the very very high general skill of our veteran population. We would kick their asses 100 times even with as low level chars.

They also somehow need to understand that levels and looms don't matter that much...

I'd say give them awards as they go, at lvl 10 loom smth, (not point, but ability to loom), lvl 20 second loom ability, lvl 30, 3rd.

That way they can feel progression and have achievable goals. By their first gen they can then have an unsellable +3, +1 loompoint to spend.

To take pleasure in this game, you don't have to kick everyone's ass. You just have to feel usefull. I joined this game kinda of late (i think 1 year and half ago), I realised i would not help my team by killing people (cause I was simply not able to do it), but I focused on protecting good players (*) and I felt usefull for this, that's the point where I began to enjoy playing. Plus I can tell, you can learn more quickly than you think to play this game properly.


-----------
*: One more reason to give a pre-made shield build to new players, it's the best to learn to teamplay and feel usefull by protecting others (also you might get greetings from veteran and lord knows how it is rewarding when chase tells you "good job boy!" and pats you on the head  :lol:)
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: darmaster on July 02, 2014, 03:32:50 am
Level 31 STF.

support this man, please put level 31 STF, I see no reasons for not doing it and many to do this
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Malgalad on July 02, 2014, 04:12:49 am
 :| Make all level 30+ builds with over 500 kills public?

Forget that please.
Forget KD.
Forget battle server.
Join the siege,you can do this:

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

 8-) war save the mod, and I love peace.This is not contradictory .
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Joseph Porta on July 02, 2014, 12:13:55 pm
Hmm, what about the first character you make your hero gets prompted to 4.1m XP? (30)

Btw, sqying level 31 STF is just fucking retarded, new players want looms, not some fuckwit char thats not even rewarding them for their time played.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: //saxon on July 02, 2014, 01:22:26 pm
new players want looms, not some fuckwit char thats not even rewarding them for their time played.
they need love and care, we should protect them at all times
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Joseph Porta on July 02, 2014, 01:37:18 pm
they need love and care, we should protect them at all times

PROTECT THE NOOBS!

We should gather all the oldies sometime and solely protect the weak, just imagine the feeling theyll get when all the oldies help them out! They will never leave c-rpg again!
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: //saxon on July 02, 2014, 03:01:18 pm
PROTECT THE NOOBS!

We should gather all the oldies sometime and solely protect the weak, just imagine the feeling theyll get when all the oldies help them out! They will never leave c-rpg again!

would be glorious
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Riddaren on July 02, 2014, 09:44:54 pm
:| Make all level 30+ builds with over 500 kills public?

The point of that would be to make a public database of builds.
Then everyone could browse all builds of real existing players by class, level etc.

That would give new players ideas of what builds are good for each class.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: bleedingface on July 03, 2014, 01:26:45 am
Hello

Started like a week ago. Speaking from the perspective of someone who hasn't played this TYPE of game before (or, like native); Blocking is super freaking hard. Also everyone who plays crpg has played for like 1-3 years and are godlike compared to scrubs. That's one of the things that makes this game awesome. But I think even with MW eq on 31+ character a newcomer would get so rekt.

I think giving advertisement to tutorial material like the melee guide and tears' guide + some strategus guide would help new players alot. Realising why they die and that it's a complex and interesting action game augmented with RPG on top of Strategus will be a very different experience from what their eyes tell them on first sight. Which is basically alot of overpowered speed freak ninjas and fully plated maulers onehitting them and being invincible.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Riddaren on July 03, 2014, 02:10:27 am
Blocking is super freaking hard.

I felt the same way before. This helped me:

- Always zoom out from third person when you first join a server by pressing "-". It gives you a better perspective.
- Play witn a very high mouse sensitivity. If you are not able to do a 360 between attacks/blocks it's too low.

These two things are just settings but helped me more than 2 years of practice.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: kwhy on July 03, 2014, 02:46:52 am
PROTECT THE NOOBS!

We should gather all the oldies sometime and solely protect the weak, just imagine the feeling theyll get when all the oldies help them out! They will never leave c-rpg again!

I'm not for getting rid of the grind, but maybe more ideas about giving something for low level players to do while contributing to the team other than just fighting.

here is a brainstorm idea...

how about round start drop 1 flag per side at spawn.   Anyone under level 20 can pick the flag up or have it just automatically assigned to lowest level player on the team (random).  Allow them to fight while carrying flag.  no stf players.

While carrying the flag and the player is alive the team gets extra exp per tick along with bigger bonus for the flag carrier.  If the flag is still flown at the end of round then the flag flyer gets an EXTRA multiplier ontop the win and maybe even give an EXTRA multiplier to team for keeping him alive.

no multipler if both team flags are still alive at end of round due to MOTD capture or maybe the flag carrier has to be on the MOTD in order to get that bonus and the team.  Maybe even give some gold bonus.

This gives lowly peon something to do and incentive for the team to try and keep that player alive rather than just run off.   

would this work?  I dunno, but just trying to think of some ideas for low level to do rather than just bypassing the low levels.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [Give Idea's] Includes new player comments
Post by: UnholyRolyPoly on July 03, 2014, 05:52:17 am
why 2h, couldnt there be and option to pick a class to start with with pre-applied gear?

Of course.  All classes should be available.  I was just offering examples. 
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: F i n on July 03, 2014, 08:54:54 am
Hello

Started like a week ago. Speaking from the perspective of someone who hasn't played this TYPE of game before (or, like native); Blocking is super freaking hard. Also everyone who plays crpg has played for like 1-3 years and are godlike compared to scrubs. That's one of the things that makes this game awesome. But I think even with MW eq on 31+ character a newcomer would get so rekt.

I think giving advertisement to tutorial material like the melee guide and tears' guide + some strategus guide would help new players alot. Realising why they die and that it's a complex and interesting action game augmented with RPG on top of Strategus will be a very different experience from what their eyes tell them on first sight. Which is basically alot of overpowered speed freak ninjas and fully plated maulers onehitting them and being invincible.

That's quite interesting. Anyone here with some video skills, who wanna make some tutorial vids? I can help with prof. Voiceovers and music / sound. If so, PM me.

I'd love to have some veterans explaining the game, in audio/videoform and some direct info (like a popup on c-rpg.net, that these vids are available).


Thank you, bleeding face, for sharing your opinion. Do you have other friends who started with you? If yes, try and collect some ideas and things, like what you want to know, what you think might make your game experience more enjoyable and pm me those.



As a hotfix: try to join a clan, ask the members on ts if they can help u training - you'd also gain access to much better gear, and if its a good clan, xp propably. (Clanmembers usually get switched to the same team). Also never underestimate the use of all the non-fighting skills! You can be of great help for your team just by picking a pitchfork and stopping horses - or warn your mates about incoming foes.

For me, as an almost 4 year-addict, teamwork is much more important than duelling skills. So you might wanna start there and build your final build and skillset around what you'll learn from it.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Herezy92 on July 03, 2014, 09:48:13 am
(click to show/hide)

Hmmm, my video-making skills aren't that great, i think tueten could be a much better choice.
You should ask him.
If you find no one, and you still need someone, i can capture videos for you.
But first of all, before starting the vids, we must define, of what we want to speak.
And how the videos will be used.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Strudog on July 03, 2014, 09:53:56 am
for me the game starts at lvl 24, when i get a 15/15 build, this is with any type of class i am going for. New players MAINS (not alts)should start at lvl 24 and with 20-30k, this would make people stick around.

After they retire then they drop down to lvl 1. This would give them a taste of what the game is really like and help start them on their merry way.

Also they should have to have a tutorial before they are able to choose what stats they choose. I.e. showing them the core of c-rpg so they understand.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: F i n on July 03, 2014, 09:54:24 am
(click to show/hide)
But first of all, before starting the vids, we must define, of what we want to speak.
And how the videos will be used.


That's the part where i think, WE should listen to the new players - and just ask them.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: bleedingface on July 03, 2014, 01:08:51 pm
I felt the same way before. This helped me:

- Always zoom out from third person when you first join a server by pressing "-". It gives you a better perspective.
- Play witn a very high mouse sensitivity. If you are not able to do a 360 between attacks/blocks it's too low.

These two things are just settings but helped me more than 2 years of practice.

Thanks, I actually figured these out recently myself and it has indeed helped tremendously. This, and the melee guides + just hanging around the duel server with some friends. After realizing the complexity if the fighting system the game grew a hundred times in my eyes. Something I wish all newcomers would experience.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Herezy92 on July 03, 2014, 01:40:35 pm
- Play witn a very high mouse sensitivity. If you are not able to do a 360 between attacks/blocks it's too low.
Not that much. No need super high sensitivity, or he will be lost in the fight.

Look am i super high sensitivity ?
I think not :
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: KingBread on July 03, 2014, 01:43:20 pm
Thanks, I actually figured these out recently myself and it has indeed helped tremendously. This, and the melee guides + just hanging around the duel server with some friends. After realizing the complexity if the fighting system the game grew a hundred times in my eyes. Something I wish all newcomers would experience.

Yes. The melee system is deepest and most complex you can get nowadays. You have move for every situation. Kick when you are attacked by facehugger with a shield, nudge when you are surrounded by slow enemies or want to break in protected gate, or throw somebody down from walls. Chamber block for super pro moves. Noob macro feinting that will make whole community cry and force you to post videos of your mouse movements and many many other details that makes this mod deserve


                                                 BEST MELEE SIMULATOR 2010-2014.
                                                               AWARD
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Gurnisson on July 03, 2014, 01:55:30 pm
Noob macro feinting that will make whole community cry and force you to post videos of your mouse movements

 :lol:
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: no_rules_just_play on July 03, 2014, 02:22:33 pm
Stop killing peasants and new players in obvious samurai + european gear Herezy!
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Teeth on July 03, 2014, 02:31:12 pm
I wouldnt recommend high sensitivity to newer players. Just put it to a value where you can comfortably keep your opponent in the center of your view. High sensitivity requires you to have very good accuracy with your blocking movements, which newer players will not have. They will probably overturn all their blocks as well and become spazzy and sloppy. Once you get better at blocking you can turn it up higher.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: korppis on July 03, 2014, 02:35:32 pm
That's quite interesting. Anyone here with some video skills, who wanna make some tutorial vids? I can help with prof. Voiceovers and music / sound. If so, PM me.

I'd love to have some veterans explaining the game, in audio/videoform and some direct info (like a popup on c-rpg.net, that these vids are available).


Thank you, bleeding face, for sharing your opinion. Do you have other friends who started with you? If yes, try and collect some ideas and things, like what you want to know, what you think might make your game experience more enjoyable and pm me those.



As a hotfix: try to join a clan, ask the members on ts if they can help u training - you'd also gain access to much better gear, and if its a good clan, xp propably. (Clanmembers usually get switched to the same team). Also never underestimate the use of all the non-fighting skills! You can be of great help for your team just by picking a pitchfork and stopping horses - or warn your mates about incoming foes.

For me, as an almost 4 year-addict, teamwork is much more important than duelling skills. So you might wanna start there and build your final build and skillset around what you'll learn from it.

How about this?

Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Joseph Porta on July 03, 2014, 02:36:12 pm
Id say just keep increasing it every now and then by a few %, so youll gradually and naturally get used to it.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow! [New POLL options, change please]
Post by: Joseph Porta on July 03, 2014, 02:36:43 pm
How about this?


Thats the vid that learned me everything :P
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: F i n on July 03, 2014, 03:10:31 pm
No. I meant crpg / cummunity specific tuts.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Herezy92 on July 03, 2014, 04:58:02 pm
Stop killing peasants and new players in obvious samurai + european gear Herezy!
:cry:
But but  :( i luv it !  :twisted:  :twisted:
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: bagge on July 03, 2014, 05:06:12 pm
Personally I've always found competitive game play most interesting, with the exception of cRPG (only took like 3 years, but now it's on-going at least) :P

Official cRPG 5v5 EU Tournament (http://forum.melee.org/official-crpg-5v5-eu-tournament/) could get some more advertisement and it might attract more players and motivate them to stay.

Then again, the grind is a fucking pest in the beginning so it might scare new players away, and since 90% of the player base now have access to fully heirloomed equipment it makes life even more unfair for new players.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Corsair831 on July 03, 2014, 05:07:13 pm
give new players a level 25 build and an untradeable 40k gold the first time they join, that way they'll be more tempted to stick around (level 25 is when people consider it to be possible to fight back)
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Tydeus on July 03, 2014, 05:15:46 pm
Add the option "Lessen the Valour requirements from 2.8x to 2.2x for low gen accounts" to the poll.

This was Aldo's idea, which I find innovative due to the fact that it addresses the immediate rewards players experience.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Corsair831 on July 03, 2014, 05:16:07 pm
also, what does he mean by speed is imbalanced? movement speed, weapon speed, time to level up, what? :D

or just speed in general. EVERYONE SHOULD MOVE AT 1 MILE PER HOUR. NO EXCEPTIONS.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Teeth on July 03, 2014, 05:18:59 pm
What happened to player progression being so important for the experience? What happened to levelling being fun?

All this talk makes me wonder why we don't just remove levelling and looms and give everybody a level 35 character that he can freely respec.

Add the option "Lessen the Valour requirements from 2.8x to 2.2x for low gen accounts" to the poll.

This was Aldo's idea, which I find innovative due to the fact that it addresses the immediate rewards players experience.
What about level 36 players that are gen 0? Besides, it's about making the experience noticably nicer for new players, nobody is gonna be aware of this. Most new players won't even ever get close to 2.2x the average before they ragequit.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Switchtense on July 03, 2014, 05:21:25 pm
What happened to player progression being so important for the experience? What happened to levelling being fun?

All this talk makes me wonder why we don't just remove levelling and looms and give everybody a level 35 character that he can freely respec.

People want to be instant level 36, but they want everybody else to be level 30 so they have a huge advantage. Giving everybody a level 35 character would make them whine even more because they will keep getting oneshot by Mauls, Awlpikes, Long Bows, Steel Picks and Flamberges.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Varadin on July 03, 2014, 05:25:49 pm
People want to be instant level 36, but they want everybody else to be level 30 so they have a huge advantage. Giving everybody a level 35 character would make them whine even more because they will keep getting oneshot by Mauls, Awlpikes, Long Bows, Steel Picks and Flamberges.

No they will get one shot by me :D
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Tydeus on July 03, 2014, 05:27:48 pm
What about level 36 players that are gen 0? Besides, it's about making the experience noticably nicer for new players, nobody is gonna be aware of this. Most new players won't even ever get close to 2.2x the average before they GTX.
For anything like this we'd cap it at level 32(because retiring at level 32 makes more sense than retiring at level 31).
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Switchtense on July 03, 2014, 05:34:58 pm
For anything like this we'd cap it at level 32(because retiring at level 32 makes more sense than retiring at level 31).

So which gen would be the line for you?

When I reached gen 7 I was still incredibly awful. I would be happy to get one kill on Battle or Siege since I only played DTV before.

Now I am gen 8 (With my retired char) and I am doing alright. Not awesome, not bad.

My main is gen1, would I get easier valour on that as well?

What if somebody comes from Native and is insanely good and farms valour every single round cause its easier for him?

If someone who has less points than me gets valour and I dont I will be pissed, what do you do about that?


Nice suggestion but needs to be worked on quite a lot since loads of things would either have to be thought through intensively, or completely changed.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Jacko on July 03, 2014, 05:45:41 pm
We were actually discussing the removal of high level benefits (33 and above) the other day. Would mean that there would be no stat gain above that, only visual stuff. Of course any such dramatic change would have to be discussed with the community first.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Switchtense on July 03, 2014, 06:06:40 pm
We were actually discussing the removal of high level benefits (33 and above) the other day. Would mean that there would be no stat gain above that, only visual stuff. Of course any such dramatic change would have to be discussed with the community first.

Gaining no benefit after level 32 is a bit too drastic in my personal opinion. You have no desire to actually level up further. I think level 34 is definitely not that difficult to reach so maybe cap it after 34? You cannot reach it within 2 weeks but at the same time you do not have to grind for years.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Grumbs on July 03, 2014, 06:09:05 pm
We were actually discussing the removal of high level benefits (33 and above) the other day. Would mean that there would be no stat gain above that, only visual stuff. Of course any such dramatic change would have to be discussed with the community first.

Game will be balanced better for sure
People who are 33+ because they want a competitive character won't lose out so much by retiring/respecing. You could respec without losing any stat/skill points.
People at 33+ who are levelling for the grind can retire and grind to their hearts content
More people will retire so the servers have fewer high level characters - faster and more fair fights
People wouldn't be able to hybrid into different classes as effectively as they can now
Game testers could test builds easier with STF's, as they don't have to consider lvl 36 builds

If you do this maybe change the respec system a bit so you don't lose 50% of your XP, maybe 25%?

I'd probably retire my 35 :) . How about more rewards for high level characters retirings?
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: MrShine on July 03, 2014, 06:18:32 pm
Removing high level benefits would only have the potential of disrupting a bunch of players who are already established.  That's not really going to impact new players, only give us a chance of losing old players.

On topic: I don't see what the problem is with STF.  STF level 30 alts to test builds and be competitive are already in the game and are what I recommended to all of my friends when I was able to convince them to at least try cRPG.  Then if they enjoy the idea they won't feel as crummy starting a peasant, and then they can also switch to their level 30 from time to time to blow off steam (die slightly less often). 

My next cRPG video I'm working on will be focused on beginners, so maybe they'll find it helpful when it's done.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Grumbs on July 03, 2014, 06:23:33 pm
Removing high level benefits would only have the potential of disrupting a bunch of players who are already established.  That's not really going to impact new players, only give us a chance of losing old players.

On topic: I don't see what the problem is with STF.  STF level 30 alts to test builds and be competitive are already in the game and are what I recommended to all of my friends when I was able to convince them to at least try cRPG.  Then if they enjoy the idea they won't feel as crummy starting a peasant, and then they can also switch to their level 30 from time to time to blow off steam (die slightly less often). 

My next cRPG video I'm working on will be focused on beginners, so maybe they'll find it helpful when it's done.

I think we will see who the level crutchers are if they quit. It will definitely help newbies since the difference between high level vet and average player will be smaller. There will still be a big player skill gap, but  why do you need large character bonuses on top of that? If people just want to grind that can still be there
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: MrShine on July 03, 2014, 06:44:08 pm
I think we will see who the level crutchers are if they quit. It will definitely help newbies since the difference between high level vet and average player will be smaller. There will still be a big player skill gap, but  why do you need large character bonuses on top of that? If people just want to grind that can still be there

I don't think it's a good idea to encourage an already small population to grow any smaller.  It might help newbies face less competition, but it doesn't matter how appealing the servers are for newbies if no one else is playing.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Jacko on July 03, 2014, 06:58:50 pm
The question is rather, should the game be for the old guard, or for everyone? Currently it's very much catering to the few rather than the many. There is no way for a noob to compete on the same level, even if he spends 200-300 hundred hours. If the difference would be only in skill, it would be fine, but should old players have the benefit of both superior skill and weapons and stats? Personally, I think not.

Obviously we'd need to put other things in place for the grind.

I don't think it's a good idea to encourage an already small population to grow any smaller.  It might help newbies face less competition, but it doesn't matter how appealing the servers are for newbies if no one else is playing.

The intention would be to grow the community, not alienate old payers. Would people actually quit if they couldn't grind to 35-36?
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Grumbs on July 03, 2014, 07:01:24 pm
I don't think it's a good idea to encourage an already small population to grow any smaller.  It might help newbies face less competition, but it doesn't matter how appealing the servers are for newbies if no one else is playing.

If everyone 32+ loses a few levels noone really loses out - no one will have any advantage over you. You just have less advantage over people that don't level crutch. If anyone quits because of that I expect they will head to an MMO to outlevel people

On the other hand the game will be healthier - more people will retire and try different builds so they don't get bored. Gameplay will be better balanced. There will be a smaller range of character power etc
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: no_rules_just_play on July 03, 2014, 07:28:02 pm
If everyone 32+ loses a few levels noone really loses out - no one will have any advantage over you. You just have less advantage over people that don't level crutch. If anyone quits because of that I expect they will head to an MMO to outlevel people

On the other hand the game will be healthier - more people will retire and try different builds so they don't get bored. Gameplay will be better balanced. There will be a smaller range of character power etc
I am so close to level 35 and I have had to offer my soul to get there, this would be a huge loss for people like me because my montsh of progress would have been lost. I didn't just add 3 points of str/agi, my lvl 35 build is specifically made to add an extra 8 riding on top of  my 8 athletics. Lowering my level will basically put me back on the point where I started.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Teeth on July 03, 2014, 08:59:13 pm
I could probably record a video explaining some of the combat mechanics. My intention is to have it go beyond 'up block blocks overheads' and talking about sweetspots, fancy moves, combat rhythm and general tips and tricks, perhaps even on a per class basis. If anybody has any specific things they feel newbies have to know please tell me, it's hard to think of the things a newbie needs to know with 3000+ hours under the belt.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: San on July 03, 2014, 09:11:58 pm
Edit: Whoops!

A video of what not to do would be nice. I often find new players waiting too long to strike after a block, for instance.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: korppis on July 03, 2014, 09:17:16 pm
We were actually discussing the removal of high level benefits (33 and above) the other day. Would mean that there would be no stat gain above that, only visual stuff. Of course any such dramatic change would have to be discussed with the community first.

That's both good and bad idea.
Good thing is that it would balance pure builds. Bad thing is that it would hurt hybrids.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Tydeus on July 03, 2014, 09:52:30 pm
That's both good and bad idea.
Good thing is that it would balance pure builds. Bad thing is that it would hurt hybrids.
Indeed, it's one of the downsides. There are things that can be done to remedy this or at least work towards such, of course. The most obvious of which, would be making respecs free.

Edit: Also, anyone thinking that level 33+ doesn't grant any real benefits, is either naive or ignorant (sorry, that's just the cold hard fact.) If you have a level 35 character for instance you can get 2 more PS than a level 30, that's 16% damage. But wait, that's not actually the end of the story. Normally when you compare something like 18/21 to 24/15, you have a trade off here, one gains ps and or IF, the other gains athletics and or WM. In this situation though, you're not losing anything, so you actually have to calculate the additional damage with the same amount of wpf that you had before, so that 16% damage actually goes a lot further than that, and might end up more like 20%. But then you also have to realize that that person with 2 more ps, also has access to higher athletics than what a level 30 would, so he can actually reach a higher speed bonus with that amount of PS than anyone else, further increasing his possible damage output.

And still, this isn't the end of the discussion for what the difference is between a new player and a veteran, because there's still heirlooms there. Weapons tend to gain around 6.5 - 10% damage (based only on the weapon stats). Armor gains from looms are anywhere from 300% to 12% increase armor value. Consider the fact that you can have that on both your gloves and your body armor for a stacking effect, then have a weapon loomed as well, and have the above advantages from levels, there's really no good argument that can be made to try and trivialize the differences.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Grumbs on July 03, 2014, 10:12:33 pm
Indeed, it's one of the downsides. There are things that can be done to remedy this or at least work towards such, of course. The most obvious of which, would be making respecs free.

Edit: Also, anyone thinking that level 33+ doesn't grant any real benefits, is either naive or ignorant (sorry, that's just the cold hard fact.) If you have a level 35 character for instance you can get 2 more PS than a level 30, that's 16% damage. But wait, that's not actually the end of the story. Normally when you compare something like 18/21 to 24/15, you have a trade off here, one gains ps and or IF, the other gains athletics and or WM. In this situation though, you're not losing anything, so you actually have to calculate the additional damage with the same amount of wpf that you had before, so that 16% damage actually goes a lot further than that, and might end up more like 20%. But then you also have to realize that that person with 2 more ps, also has access to higher athletics than what a level 30 would, so he can actually reach a higher speed bonus with that amount of PS than anyone else, further increasing his possible damage output.

And still, this isn't the end of the discussion for what the difference is between a new player and a veteran, because there's still heirlooms there. Weapons tend to gain around 6.5 - 10% damage (based only on the weapon stats). Armor gains from looms are anywhere from 300% to 12% increase armor value. Consider the fact that you can have that on both your gloves and your body armor for a stacking effect, then have a weapon loomed as well, and have the above advantages from levels, there's really no good argument that can be made to try and trivialize the differences.

And thats just looking at someone playing one class. You can go lvl 35 and hybrid so that you have as good melee capability as lvl 30's while having good ranged capability. Especially if you use a xbow with no skill sink except option WPF

As lvl 30 you have to sacrifice one thing for another. As lvl35 you can be great as cavalry and lose nothing in melee, or ranged with melee
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: San on July 03, 2014, 10:33:35 pm
+16% raw damage usually translates to at least double that for final damage because of how damage reduction works.

To me, builds attainable at level 33+ are just much more fun since you can push the boundaries of the game easily. I would prefer to have that higher level be the norm, but I could see how some possible solutions mentioned above would be easier and more stable. Getting unique level 30 builds to work is also quite fun.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: rebbrown on July 03, 2014, 10:45:47 pm
Do you want a fair battlefield with a progression that caps out at an attainable ceiling (lvl31) OR do you want this to be the next incarnation EverQuest where only the time you can invest matters? On a theoretical basis I don't mind people going beyond 31, but newbies are already behind in gear and raw skill, and putting another layer of unattainable stats on top of it just means that you have 'the old guard' who play their own game and the rest.

Maxing out at 31, perhaps even removing any stat bonusses that 31 gives, seems to be the way to go.

Heirlooms are a nuisance by themself (playing cavalry without a loomed horse will show you the difference looms makes immediately), but adding another level of veteran bias on top of that makes getting into the game for newbies very very difficult. Skill and looms are more than enough to create a gap between old and new players.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: no_rules_just_play on July 03, 2014, 10:54:09 pm
Maxing out at 31, perhaps even removing any stat bonusses that 31 gives, seems to be the way to go. .
31 is attainable indeed

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Grumbs on July 03, 2014, 11:57:21 pm
(click to show/hide)

The devs already said you will get some different kind of rewards so you might find you still want to grind for high level. If not well try to enjoy the gameplay and forget levels

I think you should look at the bigger picture. You're always going on about helping newbies, well OP high level chars is inconsistent with that. Its selfish actually. The high level issue has wide ranging negative effects on the mod. People don't retire as much and they won't respec. This can mean people get bored and don't play and the people who do retire or newbies are at a big disadvantage. High level characters are OP especially if you hybrid across different classes with master of all trade builds. Item balancers can't balance properly with STF's.



Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: no_rules_just_play on July 04, 2014, 02:20:01 am
The devs already said you will get some different kind of rewards so you might find you still want to grind for high level. If not well try to enjoy the gameplay and forget levels
I don't care about any kind of rewards, I want my fucking hybrid I worked for since 2011. I think being able to have 8 athletics and 8 riding isn't too much asked considering I fucked up my first year at the uni because of this game?

Seriously, if you really wanna fuck up the game go on, but this is just madness. I love this game because of the grind, it's an exponential curve ffs. The people that have one single fucking powerstrike point more now have had to grind ages for it, I didn't even make my build stronger I just made my build so that I could play mutliple classes and enjoy myself on multiple builds.

Kinngrimm was lvl 37, I don't believe his epeen did improve very much after he played a full year or more to get from 35 to 37. Give new players a more equal base to start on, but don't take away their long term goal. I know games without long-term goals and I rarely play them, my character is finished anyway so why would I take the time to grind it to higher level?

EDIT: these 'different' kind of rewards would in my case probably make me more effective against new players than I am now, atm I'm just a combination of two lvl 31 builds which I can't use at the same time obviously. I either spawn in cav gear or in infantery gear. Plus, capping the stat gain would lead to more people respeccing, you can say goodbye to your lvl 35 players with only a loomed weapon or armour. They will have everything +3 now.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: korppis on July 04, 2014, 07:16:26 am
High level characters are OP especially if you hybrid across different classes with master of all trade builds. Item balancers can't balance properly with STF's.

I disagree with this. IMHO high level chars are acceptable if they are hybrids. It's more game breaking when you use all those extra points to max out one skill and ability through the roof. Being hybrid means that your stats are more balanced and closer to that of level 30. It's just a 2-in-1 build, not one uber specialized build. Also hybrids are really fun to play... I wouldn't want to lose them.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: San on July 04, 2014, 07:47:31 am
This might sound a little extreme, but I would be completely fine with wpf that's simply "melee" and "ranged"; hybridizing would involve skill points and the interaction between the melee and ranged split. This would also allow the WPF+WPP system to be much simpler so you wouldn't have 184->180 ranged wpf giving you a good amount wpf in melee. You wouldn't have to sacrifice points on your build just to use alt modes. I feel that the slot system is already sufficient for what items can be used in conjunction with one another.

Being adept at 2 out of cav, infantry, and ranged is the type of hybridization that should require extra work to achieve, while I see little problems having options within each archetype. This would safely allow a max level decrease as well, since IMO pure builds are too good at high levels.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: KingBread on July 04, 2014, 08:34:55 am
I don't care about any kind of rewards, I want my fucking hybrid I worked for since 2011. I think being able to have 8 athletics and 8 riding isn't too much asked considering I fucked up my first year at the uni because of this game?

Seriously, if you really wanna fuck up the game go on, but this is just madness. I love this game because of the grind, it's an exponential curve ffs. The people that have one single fucking powerstrike point more now have had to grind ages for it, I didn't even make my build stronger I just made my build so that I could play mutliple classes and enjoy myself on multiple builds.

Kinngrimm was lvl 37, I don't believe his epeen did improve very much after he played a full year or more to get from 35 to 37. Give new players a more equal base to start on, but don't take away their long term goal. I know games without long-term goals and I rarely play them, my character is finished anyway so why would I take the time to grind it to higher level?

EDIT: these 'different' kind of rewards would in my case probably make me more effective against new players than I am now, atm I'm just a combination of two lvl 31 builds which I can't use at the same time obviously. I either spawn in cav gear or in infantery gear. Plus, capping the stat gain would lead to more people respeccing, you can say goodbye to your lvl 35 players with only a loomed weapon or armour. They will have everything +3 now.

I would quit also when benefits will be cut off. I see no reason to not give this 16% more damage to a guy who played for 3 years to achieve this. Im lvl 34 now and 19/24 build. So in your calculations you can say that any new player can easly go 24/12 and have more dmg than me (i have looms he not) heck he can even go 30/12 within a week. And he will be able to 1 hit me in my legs cos i have only 17 armor there(this actually happen to me recenlty) but he will still be infuriated not becouse he deal less dmg or he cant tank more dmg than i. He will be infuriated cos he cant block 90% of my attacks. Good argument in this disscusion is also the diffrence i had when i were a noob when people can get lvl 45, plate armor/archers and i stayed cos i find myself a nice goal to achieve and when i first killed one of those players i felt happy i felt i achieved sth not only by skill but also by making my char able to deal dmg, then i set another goal. Now i also have a LONG TERM goal which will give me 8% more dmg and 4 hp if you want to take this goals out of players and dump down lvling to lvl 31 that can be achieved in a week then you can remove xp and gold just allow people to play with STF.


TL;DR;
I can see that mind set of san/tydeus/grumps is going to a dangerous direction simmilar to what native multiplayer developers went. It will take RPG from CRPG.

Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: korppis on July 04, 2014, 09:05:31 am
Another thought about removing level bonuses after 33... how about if we only remove attribute bonus, but you'd still get 1 skill point each level?

That would lower the min/max gap a bit, but would also leave much needed skill points for hybrids. Or is that too subtle move?
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Eugen on July 04, 2014, 09:35:24 am
No, dont catch the nerf train again!

Shure we have a gap. But the idea was (imho) to buff new players not to nerf old ones!
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: no_rules_just_play on July 04, 2014, 10:51:29 am
Another thought about removing level bonuses after 33... how about if we only remove attribute bonus, but you'd still get 1 skill point each level?

That would lower the min/max gap a bit, but would also leave much needed skill points for hybrids. Or is that too subtle move?

That still won't leave room to put those points into skillpoints. A cap just isn't needed at all, not lik 3 more str and 1 more ps makes such a huge difference...

I don't know what's going on lately, but I'm extremely concerned about the current developments:

* throwing lances had a dmg reduction and you now have more of them. Really? Instead of killing 4 tincans you can now kill 10 fucking peasants.

* there are ideas to cap the levels, yep kill the grunt guys! Now new players will certainly want to play this game! And don't bother about the hybrids, it's not like they are the only players left who care more about fun than epeen.

* There was a proposal to rhe dev team by san, without the community knew, the change the armour stats and difficulty. The idea that this was need was based on some guy (panos) who thibks 18/21 makes you an agiwhore. Good idea guys! Buff the STR players, it's not like they are the bigfest peasant slaughter mschine right? Good grief, there is nothing thst needs a fix here.

MY SUGGESTION (AGAIN): allow the new players to start out at lvl 20, NOT higher and not with any more advantages. We NEED grief in order to keep people playing, both the old guard and the new guard get addicted to this because they have a long term goal they wanna play for daily. Each kill.makes them believe they are one step closer to beating thst shiny knight on his horse.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Grumbs on July 04, 2014, 10:53:10 am
I disagree with this. IMHO high level chars are acceptable if they are hybrids. It's more game breaking when you use all those extra points to max out one skill and ability through the roof. Being hybrid means that your stats are more balanced and closer to that of level 30. It's just a 2-in-1 build, not one uber specialized build. Also hybrids are really fun to play... I wouldn't want to lose them.

Being strong in melee as well as ranged results in shit tonnes of ranged, kind of like it is now. If you want to play melee you should have to take a melee orientated character, not left click on guys from a distance and then do melee when you already softened them up. Players need reasons not to play a ranged character, especially with the way ranged is countered in the game (mostly by other ranged)
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: no_rules_just_play on July 04, 2014, 10:57:20 am
Grumbs, what level are you? Do you really believe a high level ranged doesn't want to be ably to go a bit more hybrid.and put some points into melee? It's not like 3 ps and <100 wpf is such a big deal, all melee wpf influences the other but this slready doesn't count for ranged.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Grumbs on July 04, 2014, 11:04:44 am
lvl 35. If I wanted to I could put points into PD instead of shields, and my build would be practically as effective as now in melee + i'd have a bow. Why defend against ranged when I could simply shoot them, along with any other class I see? My abilities in melee won't change, I'll take a 2 hander with plenty of WPF and i'm not suddenly going to forget how to play melee.

Or even better, forget putting points into PD. I'll convert more stats and take a xbow with a 1hander (which are very good by themselves)
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: korppis on July 04, 2014, 11:34:01 am
Being strong in melee as well as ranged results in shit tonnes of ranged, kind of like it is now. If you want to play melee you should have to take a melee orientated character, not left click on guys from a distance and then do melee when you already softened them up. Players need reasons not to play a ranged character, especially with the way ranged is countered in the game (mostly by other ranged)

We have shit tonnes of ranged only because people want to play ranged. Nerfing hybrids will just end up with equal amount of pure archers.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: jtobiasm on July 04, 2014, 12:00:38 pm
lvl 35. If I wanted to I could put points into PD instead of shields, and my build would be practically as effective as now in melee + i'd have a bow. Why defend against ranged when I could simply shoot them, along with any other class I see? My abilities in melee won't change, I'll take a 2 hander with plenty of WPF and i'm not suddenly going to forget how to play melee.

Or even better, forget putting points into PD. I'll convert more stats and take a xbow with a 1hander (which are very good by themselves)

Off topic but, do you know that most good archers who are level 35 can probably get the same score even at level 30?
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Riddaren on July 04, 2014, 01:13:31 pm
Off topic but, do you know that most good archers who are level 35 can probably get the same score even at level 30?

It's the same with all classes. But with some more than others.

Level 14:
12/12 great lance + 4 riding 1PS.
That level and build is sufficient for me to be effective.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Tydeus on July 04, 2014, 02:40:18 pm
Off topic but, do you know that most good archers who are level 35 can probably get the same score even at level 30?
Do you know that archers gain more than any other class from leveling past 30?
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Switchtense on July 04, 2014, 02:50:43 pm
Do you know that archers gain more than any other class from leveling past 30?

On paper that might be true, but I would say which build profits the most purely depends on the player.

For some levelling an archer past 30 has the most advantages, but for somebody else the benefits of levelling eg a 1h past 30 has way more advantages.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: jtobiasm on July 04, 2014, 03:22:56 pm
Do you know that archers gain more than any other class from leveling past 30?

And your point is?
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: korppis on July 04, 2014, 03:33:35 pm
And your point is?

Means that the difference between level 30 and 36 archer is bigger than level 30 and 36 melee guy?
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Tydeus on July 04, 2014, 03:42:00 pm
On paper that might be true, but I would say which build profits the most purely depends on the player.

For some levelling an archer past 30 has the most advantages, but for somebody else the benefits of levelling eg a 1h past 30 has way more advantages.
I was mostly referring to horse archers, but ground archers would fall into second place anyway, so making the distinction wasn't really important. In the case of a Horse archer, you have lower damage, higher penalties and greater requirements(to be effective, not use an item) than any other class as well. I don't mean to say that they're "underpowered", just that when you think about the damage they do after armor, in some cases they simply can't do damage to plate unless they have the right bow or build, it's clear that there are significant barriers to be broken through by achieving higher levels. Move to a level 35 character and unless the HA is still only at 4 PD, he's now capable of damaging anyone with any bow at just about any distance or he can now double as a fully functional ground archer (now able to get athletics).

PD provides 14% damage with each point, unlike PS which is only 8%. Just think about that for a minute. Every point of PD is nearly twice as effective as one PS and weapon damage values aren't necessarily lower for bows than melee weapons (the longbow has that of an awlpike). Normally we don't think about it like this when creating an archer build for level 30/31, but as stated in a previous post, that's because we're making a different comparison entirely. The question is no longer "whats the most damage I can do while having the accuracy I need" and is now simply "What will provide my current build with the most benefits", which assumes a certain degree of effectiveness has already been reached. Meaning that most people agree that 6-9 WM is sufficient for an archer, but whatever your preference, you're able to achieve that with ~30% more damage than were you level 30.

It's not just some dumb theory crafting bullshit.  :P

And your point is?
Kind of depends on what your point was, but basically that you've missed the entire point of this argument to begin with. While some archers may be able to top the scoreboard still, it cannot be argued that they would be able to do the same at equal efficiency, and certainly not every single round. Perhaps it's easier to imagine in terms of average score per round?

Bagge with his current archer may be able to average 25 score per round now, but with a level 30 build, it might be closer to (and this is just a random number, because obviously we haven't had bagge test this) say, 20. Topping the scoreboard would still be well within his capabilities at that point. He'd get valour about 1/2 as often as he does now though. If we went one step further, we'd say that he saw a 20% decrease in his effectiveness with only a 5 point reduction in his average score per round, something so small that most people probably wouldn't actively notice.

tldr; There is a difference, stop kidding yourselves. A skilled player can make do without looms or levels, but he'll be better off with them. Furthermore, skilled players are the least of our worries, and are NOT the focus of this topic.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: no_rules_just_play on July 04, 2014, 03:45:05 pm
Well I think that currently it's better that archers need to grind to high level to become strong rather than everybody picking up a bow at lvl 30 and fucking up everything that comes close (or far).
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Enver on July 04, 2014, 04:29:57 pm
skilled players are the least of our worries.

Actually skilled player are the primary reason that new players will leave. If every new player that logged onto EU1 was faced with other players with low skill level just like them then BOOM problem solved, they start to actually get some kills and have some fun.

Think about it. Your average new player is facing a horde of skilled veterans that can block so well it makes it look they use auto block while the new player is lucky to block maybe two hits in a row. Many of these skilled players are lv 35 with fully loomed gear that know the game inside out. They have a skill advantage, a gear advantage, a knowledge advantage and what does the new player have?... about 1000 hours of playing ahead of them if they want to even begin to compete. And naturally this daunting challenge causes most people to leave, with only the extreme grinders with hours to kill being left which is maybe 1/100

Right know CRPG only caters to a very dedicated type of person who is willing to invest huge amount of hours into the game.

so Tydeus, Skilled players are our PRIMARY concern were the interest of attracting new players to CRPG is concerned.







Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Thomek on July 04, 2014, 04:31:23 pm
Maybe make a server for people only under a certain number of hours?
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Teeth on July 04, 2014, 04:45:27 pm
Actually skilled player are the primary reason that new players will leave. If every new player that logged onto EU1 was faced with other players with low skill level just like them then BOOM problem solved, they start to actually get some kills and have some fun.

Think about it. Your average new player is facing a horde of skilled veterans that can block so well it makes it look they use auto block while the new player is lucky to block maybe two hits in a row. Many of these skilled players are lv 35 with fully loomed gear that know the game inside out. They have a skill advantage, a gear advantage, a knowledge advantage and what does the new player have?... about 1000 hours of playing ahead of them if they want to even begin to compete. And naturally this daunting challenge causes most people to leave, with only the extreme grinders with hours to kill being left which is maybe 1/100

Right know CRPG only caters to a very dedicated type of person who is willing to invest huge amount of hours into the game.

so Tydeus, Skilled players are our PRIMARY concern were the interest of attracting new players to CRPG is concerned.
Ban skilled players, they're a bunch of assholes anyway.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: darmaster on July 04, 2014, 04:48:06 pm
it wouldn't help crpg to grow but it would help me could you please add to the poll a "level 31 STF", possibly before this tournament starts? really it would mean a huge change for us respeccer, and it wouldn't hurt anyone.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Radament on July 04, 2014, 04:57:51 pm
it wouldn't help crpg to grow but it would help me could you please add to the poll a "level 31 STF", possibly before this tournament starts? really it would mean a huge change for us respeccer, and it wouldn't hurt anyone.

like this?

Level:           31

Strength:         9
Agility:         33

Skill to attr:   12

Athletics:        6
Power Draw:       3
Weapon Master:   11

Archery:        198

with tatar bow , bodkin and felt hat?
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Tydeus on July 04, 2014, 05:07:19 pm
(click to show/hide)
This is why I hate tldr's. I was talking about new players, meaning a new player that is skilled versus a mediocre/novice one, not a skilled veteran. Clearly a skilled vet with looms and levels will be harder to kill than an unskilled vet and thus poses more of a challenge, thereby increasing the height of the "hurdle" one has to overcome. I thought this had already been established.  :oops:
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: darmaster on July 04, 2014, 05:07:30 pm
i'd rather use arming cap or woolen cap but seriously, every build is complete at level 31, gief level 31 STF at least for the tournament
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Enver on July 04, 2014, 05:09:18 pm
Ban skilled players, they're a bunch of assholes anyway.

Or lock them out of EU1 and make a new elite server for skilled players. (you could measure it by k:d ratio or hours played but neither are ideal)

Whatever happens. Skilled players and new players have to be seperated effectively otherwise new players will just stop playing
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Grumbs on July 04, 2014, 05:09:52 pm
Actually skilled player are the primary reason that new players will leave. If every new player that logged onto EU1 was faced with other players with low skill level just like them then BOOM problem solved, they start to actually get some kills and have some fun.

Think about it. Your average new player is facing a horde of skilled veterans that can block so well it makes it look they use auto block while the new player is lucky to block maybe two hits in a row. Many of these skilled players are lv 35 with fully loomed gear that know the game inside out. They have a skill advantage, a gear advantage, a knowledge advantage and what does the new player have?... about 1000 hours of playing ahead of them if they want to even begin to compete. And naturally this daunting challenge causes most people to leave, with only the extreme grinders with hours to kill being left which is maybe 1/100

Right know CRPG only caters to a very dedicated type of person who is willing to invest huge amount of hours into the game.

so Tydeus, Skilled players are our PRIMARY concern were the interest of attracting new players to CRPG is concerned.

In order to have a game that people want to play the skill side of it can't really be touched too much.

Alternatively we can do a shit tone of things to level the playing field. Artificial difficulty is the issue, whether the game is made artificially easier for some people or harder for others. At the same time some people need a sense of progression to stay interested in the game. Its a judgling act that favours the old guard too much atm

Oh and there are a lot of things that make the game simply less fun to play than it ought to be. Random projectiles flying around that insta kill, unlimited kiting while shooting, having your cake and eating it (shooting then doing melee, or riding around then being a strong melee player etc)
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: jtobiasm on July 04, 2014, 05:11:13 pm
Oh and there are a lot of things that make the game simply less fun to play than it ought to be. Random projectiles flying around that insta kill, unlimited kiting while shooting, having your cake and eating it (shooting then doing melee, or riding around then being a strong melee player etc)

Hahaha, you really do hate range don't you.

Keep mirin brah
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Grumbs on July 04, 2014, 05:20:09 pm
I don't like people artificially making the game easy for themselves. HA/HX especially just leap frog over anything people learn in the game and just left click while go karting around

Same with foot ranged (except the genuinely good ones). They make the game easy for themselves and still want to have good melee capability. And they do it while knowing how unpopular they are because that just makes it more fun
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: no_rules_just_play on July 04, 2014, 05:20:46 pm
There seriously is no need to seperate new players from old players or to take down old players to the level of new players. As everybody already mentioned a 100 times, we didn't keep playing this game because it was easy and because we could fight off people that have been playing for 4 years easily. We kept playing because one day we wanted to be one of the skilled players.

cRPG is known for it's "elite players", and sure there is a bit of level crunching in there but I couldn't even block when I came from native to cRPG. I was absolute shit and staying in native wouldn't have thaught me anything because everybody there was like me. The current 'vets' didn't learn from fighting fair fights, they learned from falling and getting up again. Learning from your mistakes.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Enver on July 04, 2014, 05:39:59 pm
The state of the game was completely different 4 years ago to what it is now.
Very few new players are going to invest the years required to get good in 2014 into such an old game.

You can talk all you like about CRPG being an elite game for skilled players and all the grinding you
did to get good but I'm telling you, that's exactly the reason why its player base is not growing.

These are the facts. You can deal with them or you can continue to see no growth in CRPG.

Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: karasu on July 04, 2014, 05:51:20 pm
cRPG identity crisis 3.0
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Jacko on July 04, 2014, 05:54:34 pm
Seperating the playerbase with servers is not the solution. Skill will always be a factor, and should be. That's part of the appeal. But grinding levels for OP abilities shouldn't.

People seem to be under the illusion that a level 36 is balanced just because you can grind to it. It is not, and was never intended as such (it was considered unattainable initially). There has never been a long term balance goal. The mod has just happened. Do we want to keep going down a slow spiral of decline, catering to fewer and fewer players, or do we want to pull it up and admit that not all previous game design decisions were good?

Anyway people, keep in mind that all of this is only a discussion, we have not made any decision either way, and any dramatic change will go by you guys first.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Teeth on July 04, 2014, 08:20:41 pm
The state of the game was completely different 4 years ago to what it is now.
Very few new players are going to invest the years required to get good in 2014 into such an old game.

You can talk all you like about CRPG being an elite game for skilled players and all the grinding you
did to get good but I'm telling you, that's exactly the reason why its player base is not growing.

These are the facts. You can deal with them or you can continue to see no growth in CRPG.
So the playerbase is not growing because the game has a very deep and skill heavy combat system that is incredibly hard to master, and you want us to make the combat system more shallow so the game can grow? I am not sure you comprehend your own point here, because the implications are pretty dumb.

One thing to not forget is that even though it took me a good two years before I got decent at this game, and the top players have been slowly pushing the boundaries for 4 years, I have seen new players learning the game much faster than the time it took us oldies. I have seen new players reach the what was the average level of 2011 in the space of a few weeks. Simply because what they experience on the server is a much higher level and they are forced to pick it up at a much faster pace. In short, you cannot compare the slow increase of skill that many oldies have had over the space of 4 years to the process that newbies have to go through, they won't need 4 years themselves due to wholly different circumstances.

In any case, all the ideas in the poll suck. You really want to touch the ridiculous advantages you can still attain after like 200 hours of gameplay up until 5000 hours of gameplay. Glad the devs are thinking that way at least.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: no_rules_just_play on July 04, 2014, 10:14:35 pm
Seperating the playerbase with servers is not the solution. Skill will always be a factor, and should be. That's part of the appeal. But grinding levels for OP abilities shouldn't.

People seem to be under the illusion that a level 36 is balanced just because you can grind to it. It is not, and was never intended as such (it was considered unattainable initially). There has never been a long term balance goal. The mod has just happened. Do we want to keep going down a slow spiral of decline, catering to fewer and fewer players, or do we want to pull it up and admit that not all previous game design decisions were good?

Anyway people, keep in mind that all of this is only a discussion, we have not made any decision either way, and any dramatic change will go by you guys first.

The reason people are getting to lvl 36 and 37 is because they actually kept playing. The reason why they kept playing is the grind. I think grind is such an important factor that I'm afraid that Peasants United actually does more bad than good. Maybe I make tons of new players lose interest because I took away the awesome feeling of buying your first real weapon or armour, I really fear that possibility.

Why would anyone keep playing to get nothing extra for it? I like to have fun trolling around a lot, but the main reason why I don't just play this game once in a while is because I still haven't reached my goal of lvl 35. This started when I was lvl 1 and I wanted to get to lvl 31, from there to 32 and so forth. It kept me playing with each generation I did, each loompoint I so badly wanted to get a new weapon. I think there isn't a better feeling than having something new every once in a while, either a new loomed weapon or a new addition to my build.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Grumbs on July 04, 2014, 10:26:25 pm
People play for the game mechanics..you know the actual gameplay. There are many many grinding games out there, this doesn't need to be one too. I'm 35 because I CBA grinding characters, especially when I know I will lose so much character power if I retire

I do agree that progression is a factor for a lot of players though, just the type of progression doesn't need to be character power. It can be all sorts of things that you grind for that don't make you artificially more capable at killing players

My progression when I started was as you say - being bad and learning how to not be so bad. That doesn't need to have anything to do with grinding for more levels. In effect it actually detracts from your real achievements because you don't know how much better you're getting as a player than if the playing field is more level for everyone
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Enver on July 05, 2014, 12:59:52 am
Separation of skilled players and new players is also known as matchmaking and its been a staple feature of many modern multiplayer games for quite awhile now. But alas, If the developers do not condone separation as stated above by Jacko then the next solution to make the game more accessible to new players is to cap max level at 30

With a capped level of 30 you take the painful grind away from crpg and even the playing field significantly for new players.

level 30 still takes over 20 hours of playtime, you can beat most games in 20 hours. That's still a significant time investment for anyone
and allows players of all ages and lifestyles access.

Looms will still provide players a reason to level characters over using STF even with a capped level of 30
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: jtobiasm on July 05, 2014, 02:27:52 am
#RemoveLooms
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Eugen on July 05, 2014, 08:52:42 am
Turning back the wheel of discussion:

C-RPG players want to attrackt fresh blood - new players (advertisment on gaming sites was done):

Some new players will come and try the game. Most of us (I blieve) dont want to change the game much, becouse we like it as it is in most aspects.

What I thought this was about: Give new players a peepshow how fighting can be when fully levelled and equipped for a timespan of about one month. Then set them back to grind from zero.

I think something like a sneak preview can be fine to get new players attracted. Nothing more. We would have some noobs run around with high level chars doing bullshit. But I think we could deal with that.

Only thing to think about is how to implement this "sneak preview" without possiblity of abooze. But there shure is a way to make it foolproof for our experienced developer staff (no irony), if they want something like this.

Its all just about PR imho.
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: no_rules_just_play on July 05, 2014, 02:07:11 pm
Give new players a peepshow how fighting can be when fully levelled and equipped for a timespan of about one month. Then set them back to grind from zero.
Giving them such start will probably lead to boredom pretty fast if you ask me. What will they do when their sneak preview ends and they suddenly have nothing left? I don't think many people will stay, I don't even think people will join in to the servers every day to finally try out that new weapon if you give them all they want from the start.

I really am more for doing something like giving the first generation free respec and the ability to start at lvl 20 with quite a bit of gold. When they retire and want to go for loompoints, the grind will restart from level 0 this time. I love that shit anyway, being level 2 and fighting with a dagger and a crossbow, sometimes having a lucky kill :)
Title: Re: Help cRPG grow!
Post by: Riddaren on July 05, 2014, 11:17:40 pm
Seperating the playerbase with servers is not the solution. Skill will always be a factor, and should be. That's part of the appeal. But grinding levels for OP abilities shouldn't.

People seem to be under the illusion that a level 36 is balanced just because you can grind to it. It is not, and was never intended as such (it was considered unattainable initially). There has never been a long term balance goal. The mod has just happened. Do we want to keep going down a slow spiral of decline, catering to fewer and fewer players, or do we want to pull it up and admit that not all previous game design decisions were good?

Anyway people, keep in mind that all of this is only a discussion, we have not made any decision either way, and any dramatic change will go by you guys first.

Really nice to hear this from a developer.

What about the following. It could be done fairly easy and I think most would agree to it.

Solution for loomed items of which the difference between +0 and +3 is currently unecessary big:
If unloomed items had stats similar to +2 items it would be sufficent. It's still possible to have various improved stats for +1, +2 and +3 since there are several stats of an item.

Solution for high levels which takes too long to grind up to.
Difference between 30 and 36 is for example +6 strength, +2 power strike, +2 power draw +2 ironflesh (+10hp extra).
That's quite a lot but still, we can have it like that if we decrease experience required to reach it.

So instead of setting a level cap at 30, we can set it at 36 but make it a lot faster to reach it.
Level 31 is currently 8,735,843. Just make level 36 reachable at 8,735,843 * 6. Simple.

The reason for having 36 as cap is that it's more fun with higher leves since you can make a more extreme build.
The diversity between builds will simply be higher. Also, all players who are now at 36 won't be affected (just a bit mad).

You can compensate people when you make this change by giving them loompoints or gold in relation to their current xp.