End to gold sinks

[Zeltino]

We received an incredibly big influx of newbies after the steam sales and moddb appearance, but they have largely left because of all the tryharding, stacky party stomping and shitlordiness.
I think we should worry more about overpowering crutches rather than goldsinks.

There also needs to be some better way of introducing them into the game, since most of them join on a server with peasent gear and have no idea how to get new items and such.

[Leshma]

It's a weta. They make life in New Zealand pleasant.

They be big, but got nothing on bullet ants.

not the actual picture of bullet ant

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[Tore]

The playerbase declining isn't because the game is too grindy or whatever. Before cRPG was much harder to get into but it still had much more new players. It's declining because both Warband and the mod are pretty old now, and in most games, the playerbase decline over time. Making the mod "less grindy" won't do shit, it will just fuck up the loom prices.

[Kafein]

While I've always wanted this personally I'm afraid it would probably deter even more players from the mod. Pretty sure xp gain and loom accumulation is part of why cRPG has always been one of the most popular modules in WB.

I wholefully agree, and I think that has been true for the majority of the lifetime of the mod.

However, now that a significant part of the population consists of old players with extremely powerful characters, it's not fun anymore. I loved my days as a peasant trying to survive in an unfair environment, but I know full well that things are not the same at all for newbies today. All I had to do is stick with the one or two heavily armored guys on my side and avoid the ones of the other side. Now the playerbase consists of 99% of heavily armored guys or similar things for other classes. The unfairness had a sense of fun to it as long as a pyramidal structure was maintained : many peasants, some mid-level and few high level. But getting autokilled by everyone else doesn't sound like fun.

Sooo... you want to play native?

That was my argument against reducing the grind for a very long time, neglecting all the improvements of cRPG over Native in basically all areas. However now I do think the grind is secondary to the fun of actually playing the game and also is hugely detrimental to the attractiveness to new players.

The playerbase declining isn't because the game is too grindy or whatever. Before cRPG was much harder to get into but it still had much more new players. It's declining because both Warband and the mod are pretty old now, and in most games, the playerbase decline over time. Making the mod "less grindy" won't do shit, it will just fuck up the loom prices.

I'm sorry but that's not true at all. cRPG has never been harder to get into.

[[ptx]]

I too think that trying to make the game attractive to new players won't make much of a difference. I'm hoping for changes that would at least help retain the current community a while longer.
Having a more available means of exchanging heirlooms and doing full respecs would go a long way towards this, imho, because currently the loom system pretty much locks most people (or their chars, at least) in a certain playstyle - and you can only play the same thing for so long before you get bored of it. Being able to more easily exchange looms and builds would make people experiment much more with less common equipment and build options. I know i would want to try a fully loomed high-level "peasant" at some point, but i'm not masochistic enough to do it without loomed gear.

[Kafein]

I too think that trying to make the game attractive to new players won't make much of a difference. I'm hoping for changes that would at least help retain the current community a while longer.
Having a more available means of exchanging heirlooms and doing full respecs would go a long way towards this, imho, because currently the loom system pretty much locks most people (or their chars, at least) in a certain playstyle - and you can only play the same thing for so long before you get bored of it. Being able to more easily exchange looms and builds would make people experiment much more with less common equipment and build options. I know i would want to try a fully loomed high-level "peasant" at some point, but i'm not masochistic enough to do it without loomed gear.

Well that's my point. Replacing all chars with level 30 STFs and removing looms effectively means that everybody has unlimited free respecs and all the looms they want.

The only difference with the way you suggest to do it is that people with higher level chars and more heirlooms would still have an advantage. I personally think that this advantage has long overstayed its welcome.

[Gein]

As someone who just started playing this mod recently, I can attest that the progression is one of the most off-putting things about it to me. I honestly think that anyone who believes that this system is fine the way it is only thinks so because they've already finished the grind. When I see that I'll basically have to play for a bazillion fucking hours to acquire equipment that's on a comparable level to the players that are already dominantly more skilled than I am because they've inherently been playing the game for much longer, it makes it hard to want to stick around.

When I get beaten by someone because they're a better player than I am, I can happily accept that. It shows me what I still have yet to master, and I know that if I keep playing against them, I'll learn and become better at playing the game.

However, when I get beaten by someone because they have a +3 fuckhuge sword of murderization and a full set of armor of your-scrub-weapon-does-no-damage-ness, it feels shitty. There's nothing I can do as a player to combat the fact that the other guy just has a straight-up mechanical advantage over me, and closing the equipment gap feels like it'll take an eternity. I don't learn anything about playing the game when I'm constantly getting destroyed by people who just have bigger numbers than I do.

The biggest suggestion I would contribute to this conversation is make it possible to get on the same level as everyone else in an even remotely reasonable timeframe. Most people couldn't dedicate every waking moment of their lives to this mod even if they wanted to. It doesn't draw people in when they can't even participate in the economy without having played for an eternity. It doesn't draw people in when they finally grind on long enough to get a character to level 30 and think to themselves "Oh god finally just one more level and I can retire this guy" only to be met with "HA JK FUCKER DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN!" and "Okay, now you just have to do that two more times and you can have one piece of equipment that's as good as everyone else's!"

I really like this mod, but it's incredibly off-putting when you have to invest a huge amount of time to have stats and equipment that's comparable to the people who can already wipe the floor with you with skill alone.

[Tore]

Why grind then? After a few hours you are at 20+ and you can already fight the big boys, join a clan and use their armory if you need looms and don't retire.

[Gein]

Doesn't it seem fucked up that you even have to do that though? This is a video game for god's sake. A progression system should be fun. Building your character piece by piece should be fun. It shouldn't have to feel like a chore, but it does.

[Riddaren]

I would rather see everyone at level 36 than 30.

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 levels since you can make a more extreme build.
The diversity between builds will simply be higher.

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

[McKli_PL]

Well that's my point. Replacing all chars with level 30 STFs and removing looms effectively means that everybody has unlimited free respecs and all the looms they want.

The only difference with the way you suggest to do it is that people with higher level chars and more heirlooms would still have an advantage. I personally think that this advantage has long overstayed its welcome.

yeah most of nowadays builds would be destroyed eg: agi shielder not enough wpf, ath or loom armor to get protection, archer build not enough wpf to shoot efective on long/mid range no ath,
cav not enough points to get melee atributes when dismounted, it will buff probably 2h/pole 8/9 ps chars to the sky with high output damage berdish/poleax/gla 1 hit ppl with no If/no loomed armor.

[Kafein]

I would rather see everyone at level 36 than 30.

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 levels since you can make a more extreme build.
The diversity between builds will simply be higher.

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

yeah most of nowadays builds would be destroyed eg: agi shielder not enough wpf, ath or loom armor to get protection, archer build not enough wpf to shoot efective on long/mid range no ath,
cav not enough points to get melee atributes when dismounted, it will buff probably 2h/pole 8/9 ps chars to the sky with high output damage berdish/poleax/gla 1 hit ppl with no If/no loomed armor.

I said 30 because that's the current level for STFs but I actually agree that setting a higher level as the norm would be better.

[Aprikose]

I would rather see everyone at level 36 than 30.

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 levels since you can make a more extreme build.
The diversity between builds will simply be higher.

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

sounds akward

[Grumbs]

I would rather see everyone at level 36 than 30.

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 levels since you can make a more extreme build.
The diversity between builds will simply be higher.

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

Nah, its more fun when people need to specialise imo. It increases the need to work as a team to fill in any weak spots in your own build and abilities. All at 36 makes Cav more OP because they can sink points across more melee skills as well as cav. Similar situation with ranged.

Diversity won't increase, people will just be jack of all trades rather than specialised

[Camaris]

I like the idea.
Why dont put newbies in noobclan from the beginning and fill armory with lot of stuff.
They would stay there for 4 weeks and then get autokicked.