Dark Legacy MUD Forum

i personally dont find any problems with what we currently have. grouping is what makes leveling fun. As far as experience goes, I think it is fine the way how it is. Sure, maybe an individual didnt do any hit, that individual is still part of the battle and learn something from it. When people go to war, not every soldiers will have the opportunity to shoot the enemy but they sure will gain alot of experience compared to someone who didnt go to war even if they didn't get to do squat in combats.

If you want to make things fair, i say we make monsters attack multimple players at once. That way, everyone share a bit of pain. Otherwise, no pain no gain. :p

What is the point of this, to make finding an epic group even harder than it is now?

Epic level doesn't equal strength, anyways, the vast majority of a player's power comes from equipment and character build. Equipment is capped at e500 anyways, and most players don't have jewellery over e250 or weapons/armor over e350 anyways....so why shouldn't an epic level 700 character be able to group with an epic level 1000 character? Chances are, there's no one else on for the epic level 700 to group with and there is definitely no one else on for the epic level 1000 to group with. They are probably very similar in strength and don't have any other options for grouping.


As for bringing lowbies along to epic giving better XP; that's not really abuse, that's compensating for a levelling system that's not properly designed to scale to the levels that some players have now achieved. I have to kill epic level 1000 mobs with mostly e200-e300 gear for a meastly 13 xp for the normal ones, 26 for the stronger ones, and 52 for the elite ones. While I agree that bringing lower-level characters along shouldn't grant more XP, high-level players shouldn't be REQUIRED to drag a lowbie along to level at anything approaching a reasonable rate. As it is, epicing with a lowbie gives me reasonable XP, still less than most people get, and epicing without one is futile. If you want to "fix" players dragging lowbies along to gain more xp, be my guest, but first make it feasible to level without them.

Suggestions/reply:

Crafts
The main problem I see is a huge huge variance between mobile and crafted eq. Most/all mobiles are balance for players who uses all mobile equipment. Craft >>>>>>> mobile eq + everyone craft = easy mobile. A possible solution has been mentioned above: make mobile eq on par with craft and increase mobile npcs drastically accordingly. *however, this is speaking from a meleer pov. Casters should also be taken into consideration to balance if the mobiles get more powerful.

A possible solution would be perhaps not enable enchanting pre level 40 eq.

And I think charm and elemental jugs are nerfed according to Cele in his post: http://forums.dark-legacy.com/viewtopic.php?t=1175

Much better response that I got some years back, good points people. Spliting the exp. for a group may be a little excessive, must have been some of my old killer DM slipping out. Quintos had a cool suggestion, full exp for the player that lands the killing blow and 75% to 90% of that amount for the rest of the party. That would slow leveling a reasonable amount. Lingolas also had an excellent idea, mobs with special attacks for groups, so that the party gets to share the pain, cool concept. Nuitari pointed out some things concerning epic level play that I had not thought of, as I don't epic. Thank you all for the posts.

Arureal
High Lord of Lowbies

Why are lowbie epics getting so much more exp than higher levels... Why does it decrease down to 1/10.

Start em out at like 75/150/300 and then drop it 25% per 100 epic levels.

This would help cut it down. Also Quintos's idea is good.

Torrim, you're a powerleveller plain and simple. Just because you came up with a cool innocative solution doesn't really changet what you're doing.

Edit: After further consideration the epic XP idea kinda sucks and really wouldn't improve things.

Because the idea is that it is harder to gain lvl at high lvls. Besides, you cant possible get much experience when you already have alot of experience right?

If you still dont understand then read on.

an analogy would be like learning how to ride a bike. You gain alot of experience the first few times you ride your bike as a child. Now as you ride your bike for the millionth time at the age of 21, you dont gain much bike riding experience. Not to confuse with how much biking experience you have TOTAL. It is just that you dont get any additional experience.

And you're a newbie with no manners, plain and simple. Unless you have an e1000 character hiding somewhere that I'm not aware of, you have no idea what you're talking about and it would behoove you to refrain from insulting people who DO know what they are talking about.

Thank you.

not allowing wide ranges of levels to group together can still work, if you give it a cut off point.

in my opinion, anything epic 100+ should be a fair cut off point

anything pre epic 100 should have rules (because theres enough people to do it)

level 40 grouped with a level 20, /i/ consider abuse.

just my stance, if a person does it, in my books they are a cheater, and an exploiter, and i have little use for them.

there are some rules on powerlevelling which can be enforced, like a level 50 powerlevelling a level 1 character... But personally, i would rather not have the rules there, and instead have some coded enforcement. (less rules = more fun in mud)

The cut off point is a good idea; levels mean a lot more than epic levels. I don't LIKE having code preventing wide-level-range groups, as there are legitimate situations in which a level 20 could group with a level 40(level 20/20/20 with great crafted gear and who knows the game well grouped with a level 40 single classed newbie using partial mob gear) and it doesn't make much sense for you to not be able to group together; but in this case I think that's a better alternative than letting cheaters run rampant.

You're right. Bringing a lowbie warrior to epic with a much higher level warrior after they subdue the mobs and then letting them do the killing blow so it results in 5x-10x the XP isn't powerlevelling at all.

You know I actually think that was Celeborn's intention.
[[ Edited out - we dont need this ]]

Newbie or not. Levelling like that isn't how it was intended.

Being one of only a VERY small handful of players(probably 2, not counting torrim himself) that have actually epicced his character at his level, i can safely say i don't fit into the category of "those that don't know what they're talking about" in reference to epic experience...

Here's a point everyone seems to be overlooking when dealing with Torrim's complaint about the experience gains at his level.

at level 49/49/49 and attempting to triav a char in arma, if i remember correctly your exp per kill is somewhere in the area of 47 exp.

If 47 exp per kill is what a level 49 triclass char is getting...WHY is it so hard to grasp the concept of a character 1000 levels higher getting "a measely 13 to 52 exp per kill"?
I think a drop of 5 to 34 xp per kill in exchange for 1000 levels is a pretty good deal

P.S.
Newbies are people too, and without them ANY game grows stagnant and dies.

one thing people are overlooking

13 experience in my opinion isnt reasonable, 50 experience is reasonable, maybe 75 on the top end (pushing it)

is that the only reason for select people wanting to be grouped with level nothing players?

and no, a level 20 player should not be able to attack a level 40 creature and survive ... IF, the equipment allows them to do it, then the system is broken, and the gear needs to be fixed, or mobiles need to be made stronger.

from levels 1 - 50, i believe you should gain a 'fair' amount of experience per kill, everytime, and, do so within a level range of maybe 5 levels.

i think damagereduction is the tool that could theoretically be used to handle this.

That's correct, that ISNT how it was intended. That's why I've been saying to fix the increased XP from epicing lowbies and increase the normal xp you get/give high level players the ability to get gear of their level.

The lowbies are a stopgap solution to a problem with epicing. As such, it isn't the best solution, but it's better than no solution, and removing it without putting a permanent solution in will stop high-level epicing in its tracks(even WITH it, very few people bother to epic far past e500).




That's correct, but the level 49 only gets that bad xp for one level(it's almost twice that for level 48), he has access to gear of his level/similar level, he can use summons/pets to help him level(those are useless in epics), he probably has people of his level to group with, and he's getting 47 exp per kill towards a REAL level, which is something like 30 epic levels in terms of complexity, 10+ epic levels in terms of hp/mana, and a lot of epic levels in terms of gear.

I don't argue that low-epic levels should be eaiser than higher epic levels, but the levellng system is supposed to be infinite and I think that the way it's scaling downwards now undermines that. I think the best solution is a cut-off point for XP and removal of the crafting level cap.




I get 12-13 xp for most of the mobs, 24-26 for the exceptional ones or whatever, and about 50 for the elite ones(which have about 5500 damage reduction and 26000-105000 hp). I don't get 75 XP for ANYTHING. With a lowbie, I get something along the lines of 70/140/210 XP, but I have to subdue them(no criticals or severs), the lowbie has to be able to damage them(a lot of them can't), the lowbies die left and right(slowing me down), I have to epic in spiders because my traps kill lowbies(so no gold, tomes, gems, wax tablets or anything; I have to sacrifice those to get XP), I actually have to FIND an appropriate lowbie who wants to epic with me(which doesn't happen very often), I have to do all the tanking, and I always have to lead(most players don't lead in epics, they just follow around afk and gain free xp; I EARN every single experience point I get).

EDIT: those numbers were for the spiders; dragons seem to be giving 12-14/37-38/77 for normal/exceptional/elite.




Yes, the XP is the only reason I drag lowbies along. They slow me down, force me to use subdue, don't help kill the mobs, die a lot, and force me to use the spiders(I use dragons or crytps on my own).

A level 20 killing a level 40 mob is and should be possible. There are little things called "skill" and "strategy" that make this possible.

A level 40 mob shouldn't be designed to be killed by a level 20 player, and in a good system the vast majority of level 20 players wouldn't stand a chance against a level 40 mob, but skill and tactics are as much a part of levelling as the mindless grind of killing thousands of mobs in a row.

Take, for example, a level 20 druid/mage pixie with level 20 crafted gear fighting a level 40 melee mob. The player can cast entangle on the mob, re-casting it when it wears off, while retreating and shooting arrow spells at it. The arrows aren't going to do much damage compared to the mob's hp, but the player can have a lot of mana on his gear, rgy runes in his spells, and mana-restorative drinks in his inventory. Chances are, it would take him a while to kill the mob and it wouldn't be worth his time to kill the level 40 mob in the same time he could have killed 10 of his level mobs and gained 5 times the xp he got from that level 40 mob, but he CAN do it.

Nuitari: Shhhhhh, you are giving away my secrets.

Arureal
High lord of Lowbies

Then you're a much better player than most of the playerbase these days.

We seem to have four kinds of players, when it comes to levelling:

1. those who grind through levelling using the most simple, obvious means and call anyone who does anything else a cheater

2. those who devise and use their own tactics to level more effectively

3. those who copy tactics made by other players, frequently taking them to extremes(they see a player using two charmies to help them level, they steal the idea and go charm twenty mobs to make levelling effortless)(abusers)

4. those who either grind or copy other peoples' tactics and use higher level players to help them(cheaters)


Unfortunately, numbers 3 and 4 are the most common, followed by #1, and most players can't tell the difference between #2, #3, and #4.