Hold on for the ride...this is gunna be long.
So, I read the forums a bit to catch up and played a little bit of Mercs (which is pretty much shit). I think that the only reason anyone plays Mercs is because it is somewhat populated. Their website sucks, their build system is weak and it's just a bunch of terrible players crutching on plate. The good news is that it does at least show that people are interested in having their own special character.
I haven't really been able to figure out all the changes that have occurred in CRPG since I left, but what I do know is that we have lots of things going for it. CRPG has the best character generation system, strat (if it's working?), item diversity, etc. It still seems to have the tick-based xp system (don't know for sure, wasn't able to get in an actual game). I've never been a fan of the tick system and liked the old one better, but I'll get back to that. The obvious issue is that no one is playing it and how do we get people to play it in the short term, so we can have long-term growth.
One thing we really need is a way to jump-start server population. As it is, no one is going to join any server if they can't get anything out of it. Why wait around as the only person on a server just hoping that people show up? If anyone joins any they should be able to get something out of it. One idea that I have is to have bot-populated battle servers. Yes, bots are utter shit. But it gives a reason for someone to show up. Say every server had 3 bots on it when at 0 or 1 pop. As a new person joins, a bot leaves. That way a person can join, earn xp, blah, blah, blah and have a reason to be there.
Now, I don't know if the tick-based xp system is still the same, but I've always hated it and here's why:
Back when I last played, you got a certain amount of xp/gold for every tick. Every time your team won, you gained a multiplier. In the original system, you gained xp/gold based on proximity to fighting. That's where xp barn/xp bridge came from. In that system, you were rewarded more for your individual effort. In the newer version, you were awarded based on luck more than anything else. If you were lucky enough to get paired on the winning team (which happened a lot with clanstacks), you could roll an x5 for hours. This had a huge effect on xp gain. The rest of the people could be on an x1 for hours. It was great for the x5 people and shit for the x1 people. Eventually the balance was added to where the top player from the good team would get switched. Basically fucking you over for doing well. If you still did well on your awesome team, you could win valor and keep your multi, but if you got unlucky, fuck you. Often times, when people would lose their x5 they would just quit. No sense waiting around to build it up again. The multi-system just created a huge discrepancy in the game that made it much harder for new people to join.
Another side-effect was that it took a lot of the fun and wackiness out of the player base. If you were a good player and were fucking around, often times your team would get pissed at you for "ruining their multi". In the original system, since your xp/money gain was more based on your own performance you could decide how serious you wanted to take things and not worry about fucking over the rest of your team. Honestly, I always wished we had a combination of proximity-based gain along with individual damage-based gain. The more damage you do, the more xp/gold etc. Basing it on kills is kind of worthless because how many times have you beat someone to shit only to have someone on your team poke a guy once and get a kill.
This brings me back to the grind. Way back in the day when you were a peasant, you felt like a peasant and it was fun! Trying to hide behind the armored guys and get a poke in with your pitchfork was always a hell of a lot of fun. In the current iteration, being a peasant basically means nothing. It's more of an annoyance than anything, as depending on luck, you could be out of peasant mode in just a couple rounds. At least it forced you to play. Back when the tick-system was put in place, often times people would just rush in and die and do something else while they leveled their character. There was nothing to get them involved or to care. It was just something they did.
Some people may complain that they hated the grind. Well, isn't that what skip the fun is for? I think there's always been a bit of a negative connotation around skip-the-fun characters and most people just used them to test builds. But I think they could be more of an either-or option. Build up your bad-ass character from a peasant up to a knight, or just start as a knight. Whatever floats your boat.
I do think that the rewards for leveling up your character and/or retiring need to be changed, though. There are a lot of people who complain about looms and some people think (probably accurately) that it discourages people from joining if they are going up against fully-loomed monsters. I get that. My main is gen 26 and I have multiple full loadouts of +3 gear. I would like to see loom bonuses go away entirely, but something needs to be added in their place. Whether it's titles, different skins for armor and weapons, a discount on upkeep...whatever. They need something. Something that rewards people for going through the grind and gives them something for their dedication. We need ways to engage people and keep them engaged. A way for people to have fun with the build they want to play.
Anyway, I'd appreciate thoughts and feedback and let's try to get a good discussion going.
