c-RPG Pro-Database Wipe Assembly [No polls, written opinions.]

[Leshma]

Wiping out database without implementing SANE system is pointless. cRPG grind is complete madness, actual mechanism that was put to prevent grind just made things worse. Developer had logical idea that people will give up when they figure out there is soft cap on game stats, but people aren't behaving logically most of the time. Many of us see that as a challenge and instead of sticking to levels 30-32, we took grind seriously and tried to break past soft cap. Many succeed, reaching crazy levels of 38/39.

Donkey crew tried to remedy this by creating completely new game with system that implements negative effects for going overboard with builds but that game never became what we desired.

cRPG is beyond repair, no sane developer will wrestle with that codebase. Built on top of systems which are deprecated by their makers (Taleworlds), because those systems themselves were conceived in an insane manner. Layers of tangled code, no wonder every wannabe coder left cRPG after few weeks.

Only things we could is to wait for Bannerlord, but that wait is taking too long.

[Asheram]

If they do do a wipe they will have successfully cured me of my crpg addiction for good.

[Leshma]

Well I'm cured for a long time but somewhat interested in the dev side of things, but not under current circumstances. For anything to happen there are two separate conditions. One is release of Bannerlord or at least new module system to tinker with, which should be based on C# and not some weird scripting in house language compiled with python, so that itself guarantees ton of new wannabe coders to work on mods. New age devs are too flimsy, they don't want to work on messy/deprecated systems which means Warband modding scene is dying and will be dead soon. Even chadz had to give up after four years or so, he was a true hero up to that point along with cmp who tried to make Warband modding somewhat bearable (that's was idea behind WSE).

Other would be my personal fairy tale, opensourcing of current Mount&Blade engine so open source community could get it in shape or refactor in some other modern technology with clear coding guidelines and rules so it doesn't become spaghetti code in few years. But that isn't going to happen because that would put Bannerlord commercial success in question and in general game devs aren't open source friendly for various reasons, they are kinda bastards among programmers to tell you frankly.

[elvis1325]

I think wipe or no wipe I would do what I do after every update: Play for a day, tell other Yoshi's game is alive, one other Yoshi gets on, play for a week to a month, stop playing till next update. I wouldn't mind a wipe, but I'm biased because I never used a single piece of armor for more than a week anyways. I play crpg for the dress-up mini-game.

[Thryn]

So you can confirm that a wipe doesn't:

• put everyone on an even playing field
• recreate goals in cRPG
• let people experience peasant wars (especially cool for those who weren't around when cRPG first came about)
• attract players from other mods who won't play cRPG because they feel like everyone is years ahead of them in progress
• bring back old players for looking for glory days nostalgia

1) What does a true "even playing field" consist of? Do I have an unfair advantage over other players because I've got masterworks and they do not? Am I somehow some lightsaber wielding maniac who cannot be stopped because I've retired a few times? The answer is no. Masterworks only give slight advantages at high level skill points where a slight equipment value increase can give a player the edge. I'd even argue that whoever utilizes a better build has more of an advantage than whoever has more heirloom points.

If you want new players to be on an even playing field against veterans, me for example, the BEST thing you could do is give them autoblock. This will immediately increase their "skill" level so that I'd have a way tougher time killing them. Once again, a database wipe solves nothing other than pissing off half of the community because we take things that these players have earned under a scheme to try and bring in new players (that most likely won't work).

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2) What are the goals of cRPG? Once again, it's different from player to player. Some people loved playing Strat. Some people just loved playing the game. I guess some people enjoyed grinding looms. What good is it to wipe the database and piss off all of the players who want to keep the looms they've earned?

I understand why you want to wipe it. Fresh start, fresh game, everything starts to rebuild. Sadly, that won't work, especially in the current state of cRPG. The reason why cRPG can't retain players is because of one reason: IT IS NOT FUN TO PLAY. I FIRMLY believe that it is possible to win back some of our old playerbase. I don't remember how long it lasted (James can probably tell you) but for a little while, NA_1 was receiving at least 50 players, the vast majority of them old veterans. However, it did not last, and I remember so many of them complaining about the game. "I'm getting 2 shot, wtf" and "laggy broken bullshit" were several reasons why people didn't want to continue playing cRPG. If looms aren't the problem, then why take them away from players who rightfully deserve them? I know that I previously said looms don't matter in the grand scheme of things, but I think it's important to realize that taking looms away will do more harm than good.

Finally, how the fuck will touching looms do anything for new players? New players, to be frank, don't know shit about looms. They have to figure out how to earn gold and xp, purchase items from the website, and how to make a usable build. I highly doubt that looms are anywhere near the top of the checklist for noobs.

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3) Peasant wars is a gimmick. You can get out of peasant stage with like 5000 gold, so it won't even last more than a week. If there was a legitimate demand for peasant mode, well, we could replace rageball with a peasant server. Sounds good to me.

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4) Well, there's no better time than now for a new player. They get 3 heirlooms instantly, start at level 25, and have 3x gold & xp. Servers should be exploding with new blood. In fact, it did for a while. We just didn't seem to retain any of them (or any of the old players for that matter) because the game isn't currently enjoyable for anyone it seems.

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5) This won't bring back old players. Hell, we had old players come back and play for a little while.

If you want cRPG to come back for even a little while, we need to: revert the retirement system, fix strategus, and ban archers




tl;dr: i stole all of jona's points

[Yeldur]

I personally wouldn't bother grinding all over again, but that's the beauty of skip the fun characters, those who want to grind can grind, those who don't can skip the fun. I might end up starting a grind part time kinda thing but I'm lazy so would probably just end up leeching off of clan armoury looms like I usually do (obviously if/when they reappear)

Am I for the wipe? Nah.
Am I against the wipe? Nah.
Do I care if it gets wiped? Nah.
Would I vote yes for the wipe if it brought players back to the game? Hell yeah. I'd rather be playing a mod with players than a mod without players and all my juicy looms in my pocket.

[Leshma]

Original cRPG leveling and item system was pro grind. Fixed system which is what most people know as cRPG leveling and item system was fighting the grind. But grind was overly present in both systems because that is true nature of dedicated online gamers aka addicts.

In original cRPG you had boosters to leveling which rewarded those who wanted to grind hard, like Kesh for example. Famous gen bonus would turn leveling in meta game after initial struggle to get enough gens for system to start working. But grind was present in item prices, because rewards were low and prices were high. In fixed cRPG everything was trying to force you to give up on leveling, whole system was made to enforce even chances for all players.

Think that only way for people to come back to this mod is to re-implement old system. Because there will be grind in both cases, chadz's idea that implementing soft cap will create fair conditions for all players has backfired. But who can re-implement old cRPG?

No way in hell I would ever play current cRPG system from scratch. Old cRPG, especially if tweaked to give even bigger incentives over time and minimize time investment, who knows maybe I would give it a chance. Because main reason why people play cRPG has never been so much touted balance, but actually items and leveling. Balance has always been less or more crappy. Better than native Warband, but it was never in position where you could say yeh cRPG balance is good. Because it impossible to balance mod like cRPG.

[Farrix]

wipe is a desperate move. I trust what james has said (his dick tastes good too). Maintenance and advertising is a logical move, not a desperate one.

return to old leveling and continue patching and THE ADVERTISING OF SAID PATCHES!

[Gnjus]

No way in hell I would ever play

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[Gristle]

cRPG probably won't last too long after Bannerlord. There's no point in doing a wipe now. I'm not going to do the whole grind again if we only have a year left. I'd rather these characters be preserved as they are now, rather than stripped of all their belongings just before their death.

We once begged and begged for a "classic cRPG" server, where XP Barn would mean something again. Characters on that server had to start from scratch, so it was basically a wipe. chadz gave it to us as a christmas present. However, barely anyone played it after the first few hours. They didn't want to grind again. I'd say less than 20 players total cared to join at all after the first day. It got shut down within a week.

[Gravoth_iii]

With or without wipe, im not sure ill return to crpg after having gotten used to native. Its just far more enjoyable, much more casual competitive. Also it will probably translate much better into bannerlord. There would need to be quite drastic changes to crpg to bring it back to how fun it used to be, far bigger than a puny wipe.

[Jarold]

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Couple thousand times the launcher has been downloaded since we put the new one up on ModDB in June. There is actually a steady trickle of new players when patches and bug fixes are consistently implemented. I know as I have seen many of them, helped a bunch of them get set up, and answered many of their questions. These numbers get especially good when we have good pictures/videos/articles to put up on ModDB about patches/new items being added in.

During the summer when people saw active devs (before Dupre went MIA) population was good and only started declining after a month or so when it became apparent that Dupre had dissapeared and the patch people were waiting for wasn't coming. I agree that a new strategus coupled with good patches/bug fixes is definitely something that would give the mod a better chance at revival.

Bump

[Kadeth]

• No, it doesn't. The skill gap will always be the only thing that ever matters, unless we're talking about a level gap >10 or so. Looms are essentially irrelevant as thryn said.
• Not everyone's goal is to grind over and over with no end in sight. My only goal in crpg is to have a good time playing, something severely hindered by having no good gear and being level 1.
• There's a reason no one ever organized a peasant wars event where people sign up with new characters and peasant gear - they suck. Might as well have a duel with our high leveled characters holding the walk toggle the whole time, peasant wars are somehow even less fun than that.
• This is little more than a meme at this point. If this truly was the only reason newcomers stayed away from this game, they would have came rushing back when we last made adjustments to the starter pack.
• More players would probably come back if they had their looms/levels and we just reverted to the old system where everyone was level 30-36 instead of 35-38.

• Why would so many players work so hard for them if they were truly irrelevant? My guess, a lot of players want that competitive advantage even if it is small; but the advantages that you have with your level 38 character with a full loomed set over a level 34-35 loomless normie are significant, whether it's that extra IF combined with +10 body armour you might have to tank an extra hit, or just some shield skill for versatility that others might not be able to afford, I’d hardly call it irrelevant. Of course, player skill is more relevant. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Kaoklai join NA_1 and shit on everyone. Could he have done the same without the ultra high level build and all the looms? Definitely, but maybe not as effortlessly.
  
  
• And not everyone’s goal is to get to an optimal build and then stagnate forever. I’ve really enjoyed my time as a peasant in cRPG, trying to perform well with crappy stats and gear and slowly becoming more effective was always a fun challenge. But I also had hundreds of hours of fun with my pre patch of destiny level 35 min maxed polearm hero, which definitely felt OP at times. I think it was Gravoth who mentioned how it would recreate goals for people who want to have the first loomed weapon of its type, or to hit a certain level etc. I suppose everyone has different goals… but currently no one has any goals.
  
  
• With how easy it is to level now I doubt it would be that bad, after a few minutes you’d already be able to put a few points into athletics. Any change to the battle dynamics sounds exciting to me, considering how bland things have been for some time now.
  
  
• The starter pack is a joke. In a mod that’s all about customisation, let’s give everyone new to it the same few items! Yes, I’m sure the new players just couldn’t wait to come rushing to cRPG so they could all get the exact same set of looms. Too bad if you want an identity, new_player, go and farm for 4 years like all these other nerds have. Besides, I didn’t say it was the only reason people stay away from this mod, I’m just saying an event like this could attract players. Call it a meme if you like, but it’s based on my discussions with people outside of these forums, as I’m still somewhat involved in the native community and discussions about cRPG still come up all the time. I’ve consistently heard comments about how people can’t be fucked farming to get on the same level as the regular players. I have tried to explain that it doesn’t take long to be able to compete, but nonetheless it’s a misperception out there and I do think the idea of a clean slate would appeal to many.
  
  
• Hopefully the level revert happens soon so we can find out, I always preferred the pre patch of destiny system.

Can you confirm that a wipe won't scare off more players than it brings back? No you can't. We can all speculate as much as we want, truth be told it's pretty pointless to waste our time. That said, there are definitely more people strongly opposed to a wipe (read: won't bother playing again if a wipe happens) than there are those strongly opposed to keeping things the same. All this means to me is that we're guaranteed to lose players if we wipe, and not guaranteed to gain any by doing so. Keeping things the same/reverting to the old leveling system, we're guaranteed to get some people to come back without risking losing anyone.

I thought I made it pretty clear that I can't confirm shit when I literally said we aren't going to know what effect it will have without trying it. Whose time are we wasting here, other than our employers like usual? If Prof turned around and said it wasn't worth the time and effort then I'd let the topic rest, but he's considering options for it so it can't be too far fetched. Again, if it turned out that a wipe made more players leave than it brought back, restore the database to pre-wipe and leave things as they are. Otherwise we continue these pointless my speculation vs yours threads for god knows how long, they don't seem to be going away though.

And Thryn, I'm not replying to you because you're a fuckin' retard, kid

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just a prank <3 but yea u pretty much made the same points

[njames89]

I do support giving new players 1 or 2 heirloom exchanges to choose some of their starter looms. Not really fair to a player that wants to be archer or cav that they get only a 1h/2h/polearm/armour.

Better yet let's give all new players +3 camels and scimitars so I have someone to deus vult 

[Bronto]

I do support giving new players 1 or 2 heirloom exchanges to choose some of their starter looms. Not really fair to a player that wants to be archer or cav that they get only a 1h/2h/polearm/armour.

Better yet let's give all new players +3 camels and scimitars so I have someone to deus vult 

Just loom them full saracen gear so we know who they are when they join the server. OR, my personal favorite the armor of the noob, blue hose, strange armor, Nasal Helmet, and leather gloves. Normal carry would be a shield, crappy sword, crappy bow, and barbed arrows. This seems to be the typical I'm new to the mod set up.