The first step is to manage to convince the 'infallible' devs that they've actually made a mistake, or at least taken a suboptimal approach to something they've perceived as a problem. This requires constant berating to pound it through their thick skulls.
Oh my fucking god. That is all I can say. If you took ONE minute out of your day of bitching on the forums to join the discord, or even just shoot me a message on steam, you'd have found that I'm normally very receptive to input. But no. You had to bitch and bitch, and guess what? That's doing more to kill the mod than anything else, because that sort of shit ruins the incentive for us to actually keep working on the mod.
Don't you worry, I'm a stubborn shit, so I'm not done working on this game yet. But just know that your behavior is fucking awful.
Couple of points to be made here.
The new level system has a few flaws.
1) Skip the fun (level 31) *zero grind* has at most 2 attribute and skill points less than a person that spent years and years grinding XP. It make's us oldies a bit sore when we look at this way (4 years of grinding XP) vs (1 click of a button) benefits? - 2 attribute points and skill points over the (click of the button). So, all in all, we could have all been retiring for 4 years accumulating more and more looms and that would have been more logical *if this XP system remains unchanged*
2) the soft cap is a bit too extreme if you create a line-graph that compares the 3 sets of xp systems you'll see that the new one escalates very rapidly in an unrealistic manner that makes it leveling past level 31 basically out of the question. There are no real benefits from this course of action anymore and everyone is better off retiring/ skipping the fun.
3) I too feel the soreness of Ashram's/Jona's argument as I am in the same boat. *not that we can't adapt or alter our builds of choice*
Years and years ago probably 2013 I made the choice that retirement was no longer relevant to my character and the only way to continue with a sense of progression was to go beyond level 31 (retirement level) So I did just that. At the time the Patch of destiny came out I was level 35 and shot up to level 37 nearing level 38 (nearing as in like half way there lol) Now I was never a fan of having all of those extra skill points and always viewed it as a mod breaking thing having SO many extra points to play around with. So I definitely see what you are trying to do with this new XP system and I am not opposed to reducing the total amount of points a build can utilize.
That is a good goal to have; though with that said the majority of us are not new. The majority of us have made specific decisions regarding our characters many years ago and this system is effectively punishing those choices we made many many years ago I could understand why that would make the oldest of us a bit frustrated.
I suggest the following:
1) slight alteration of the XP system meet us halfway. I think it's a good idea to not do a full revert to the Pre PoD XP system. Right now level 32 is pratically the old level 35 because you need 209 million xp to get to 33. As a comparison, it required you to have 180 million XP to be level 35 previously.
Make it so the levels are structured a bit more fluidly 32 being the most achievable with 33 being possible but unlikely for someone that is just starting out. 34 being the hardly obtainable level and 35 being the "how the fuck did he make it to that level, level." While 36 being out of the question.
8,735,843 -lvl 31
29,119,477 -lvl 32
97,064,922 -lvl 33
323,549,741 -lvl 34
1,797,498,560 -lvl 35
6,986,103,109 - lvl 36
Look at this instead. This is an example of constructive criticism, with ideas. In fact, I'll probably implement something like this.
So in general, Jona, you'll find people are more open to suggestions when you aren't behaving like a cunt. Try to get that through your thick skull.
