The Clan Lord Sentinel

About 11 months ago I started a noob just to see if my decade-old memories were still accurate. Game play is still pretty much the same with of course a smaller population. It wasn't that hard to farm vanqs close to town and run back for healing. 1st to 2nd was kind of fun. The gap between 2nd and 3rd is very big and because you're training for 3rd, your kill rate goes down and it's harder to rank.

Most of the character's experience has been from the base library. Just from guessing, I'd say he's a month or two short of 3rd circle.

I think a year or so is too long.

You can't count on being escorted to the bonus experience spots, there aren't many undine hunts to be had, and while a solo game can be found, there's not enough there there.

Bump the library experience for <5th circle by 2x and see how that flies for a year.

A must.

Is this real life?

Maeght, are you saying that it takes too long to "catch-up"?

That there is no functioning low-level community?

That mid-high level players aren't always readily available to help low-level players?

That a solo game isn't viable?

Daimoth, did you know any of this?

I don't want to increase library experience I just want to increase my characters experience with everyone else staying the same. Can we put that in?

All time units in RL units.

I'm not saying it takes too long to catch up. I'm saying it takes too long to get from 2nd to 3rd.

I promised I wouldn't get myself involved in this kind of argument. However, there is a sweet sense of irony

Sonny has been 3rd circle for maybe 3 or 4 months now. Ironically a healer that I created just after Sonny is circle 4. This is not my 'best' healer but I had some amazing luck with the test (the maha and boloks ran away from him).

If library experience was increased then obviously this would benefit me and I'd be supportive of this.

Edit:
Not gonna happen but an idea I've had is that houses could give higher exp than the library (based on how much rent is paid) and could cost nothing for the user. The cost would be paid by the clan (or home owner), so n00bz wouldn't have to find huge wads of cash when starting out (and exp players could be encouraged to share the wealth so that their clan can rank up quicker). Just an idea...

I'd much rather they gave us the reflecting pool or something that would perform a similar function while encouraging people to play the game at the same time, but frankly, I'd be all for anything that would help newbies get caught up...

Wait wait wait

So wait, maeght is finally admitting to something he's denounced for years, and his solution is to reward NOT playing the game to fix it?

Wait

What

Daimoth wrote:Wait wait wait

So wait, maeght is finally admitting to something he's denounced for years, and his solution is to reward NOT playing the game to fix it?

Wait

What

Interesting. Mr. "Extreme level disparity is community disparity." objects to a suggestion that would decrease level disparity.

Most characters get most of their experience from the library. Level 2 to 3 is the biggest gap for fighters with the greatest reward.

I think the maths are easy to do here.

Daimoth wrote:<says stuff that's funny and accurate>

More incentive to not actually play is bad. I agree that newbs should catch up faster, but as soon as people get more by not playing than they do for playing then it's a bad idea.

Mac wrote:...as soon as people get more by not playing than they do for playing then it's a bad idea.

Most characters, even mains, have gotten most of their experience by not playing the game. It takes a ridiculous amount of intensive, optimized play for this not to be true for a given character. The longer the character has been around, the more likely this is true.

Without the library, this game would have been over long ago. It's the reason people can take long breaks and come back.

All the suggestions of increasing experience for play reflect a severe lack of doing the math. Anything times zero play is net zero experience. All that's left is which mechanism you decide to use to give out the free ranks.

The conclusion I have come to is that nothing is going to change. The best I can do is setup LOTS of shelf characters and hand them on to the (very few) n00bz who sign up. Without passing any circle tests, I think that giving somebody a blank character with 1000 ranks will provide them with either:
- A fighter with acceptable base stats who can focus on subclassing.
- A healer who can get a pet and decide what style they want to specialise in.

Oh and they'll likely have the means to coin panthers/arataks/boloks if need be.

IMO the REAL fun started when my healer got a pet (500 ranks) and I got about 200 BB ranks (this allows me to solo the undine because they are all 1 hit kills and REALLY slow... so the game is a bit like daleks... I walk around fooling undine into getting stuck in places they don't want to be). Sure I shouldn't double click... but a healer with an olay pet allows me to keep the main entry room secure. To me having a 'base' to return to and heal up is a big thing.

While I'm not strong, on a few occasions I have been able to help n00bz with their hunts (using my healer), rescue stronger healers who are down and collect fallen mystics. IMO there's a point that is so weak that it's frustrating and when you get over that bump the game becomes a LOT more creative/enjoyable.

Sonny_Bill wrote:The conclusion I have come to is that nothing is going to change.

Tada!

Daimoth wrote:Wait wait wait

So wait, maeght is finally admitting to something he's denounced for years, and his solution is to reward NOT playing the game to fix it?

Wait

What

I find myself generally conflicted on the whole subject...

On one hand, I understand that the GMs are people and have lives, responsibilities, etc. and many of them may in fact be horribly burned out on even working on CL.

On the other hand, having to explain to a new player who genuinely enjoys the game that they won't actually be able to play with the rest of us for years and years is literally painful for me, like, I felt a pain in the pit of my stomach when Yokaru (sic, I can't remember his name ) asked me how long it would take him to get up to speed with the community.

I had no good answer for him. I had taken him to every exp spot I could reach, hunted with him as much as I could, but I would literally have to spend 2-3 hours a day just following him around, healing him, in order to keep him in the game, and I would still need to do this for a year+, at any point during which he would very likely give up and quit the game anyway.

It's expected that MMOs will have a bit of a grind in them before you can get to "current content", but CL's grind to get there puts every Korean "pay-per-hour" grind-a-thon that I've ever played (or read about) to shame.

And the inaction on the part of the GMs to rectify this is extremely frustrating. We all seem to agree that new players need a break (we've been agreeing on that for 10+ years now), yet ranks spots are all we've seen to help alleviate that and they're barely a drop in the bucket that needs to be filled to catch these players up. They're a fine idea otherwise: experienced players can help new players get experience and help them explore the world at the same time. They're just not enough to even begin to bridge the gap between FOTB and current content (and it's not successfully bridged until a new HEALER can do it, too).

Here's an idea: just make rank spots reset every week. It'd be next to nothing for older players but newer players would see some massive benefit from it. Plus, you'd have a parade of players logging on once a week to run around to get them. It'd probably start a lot of impromptu hunts.

Either way, I just want them to do something, ANYTHING, to give new players a fighting chance in this game (especially the ones that actually enjoy games like CL and STILL wind up quitting).

Bring on Gloria's prefab characters, even. I just don't care anymore...