Low Level situation in Cordor

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Void
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Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by Void » Tue Mar 24, 2020 4:46 pm

I think that low-level situation in Cordor is not very good.

What I mean is that there are a lot of low-level newbies crammed into same space, and as a result the area often resembles some sort of circus.

The area also could use more low level writs to spread newbies around.

The main issue is that "patrol the sewers" is commonly accepted writ, and as a result it is very hard to complete it. Because when you start patrolling, the area is pretty much ALWAYS wiped clean. The area is also part of the path to three more writs, and people heading that way often wipe out summons needed for the sewers patrol writ. As a result the sewer patrol writ is the most annoying one on the server.

On rare occasions I also saw people staying in area (perhaps in hopes that things will respawn), and that causing trouble.

I think it would be great if in addition to sewer patrol writ, there was another writ in the city roughly at the same level of difficulty that people could pick and that would be in a different zone. I'm not sure what it could be though.
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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by Shrouded Wanderer » Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:19 pm

Ive pointed out before that I think Skal is a much better choice for low level players.

As much as people hate skal for some odd reason, Cordor is both flooded with high levels and with writ level restrictions along with the low respawn rates in the area (skal can easily handle 45 to 60 active questers) Cordor is only a good choice because of the contacts you can make among high level PCs


Personally I think cordor should be re-organised into a mid level writ area a la Guldorand (14 to 20) and skal be made the default choice. This has an added benefit of new PCs meeting more people of different backgrounds in a lawless environment, but also lessens the chance of lowbees getting murderized by overzealous guards.

It also has the added benefit of forcing Low levels to develop on their own as opposed to attaching themselves to a group immediately.

Void
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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by Void » Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:27 pm

Shrouded Wanderer wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:19 pm
Ive pointed out before that I think Skal is a much better choice for low level players.
It's not.

Skal is RP-light environment. The isle itself is nice, and the areas are well designed (some are too large though), but the only place where I've run into people posting OOC with open text on arelith was Skal, and given that they seemed to be in ballpark of level 12 or higher, that wasn't very encouraging.

This kind of experience is not what I'm playing nwn for.
Shrouded Wanderer wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:19 pm
Personally I think cordor should be re-organised into a mid level writ area a la Guldorand (14 to 20) and skal be made the default choice. This has an added benefit of new PCs meeting more people of different backgrounds in a lawless environment, but also lessens the chance of lowbees getting murderized by overzealous guards.
That's not going to happen. Area around Cordor is low CR, while area around Guldorand is not.
Shrouded Wanderer wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:19 pm
It also has the added benefit of forcing Low levels to develop on their own as opposed to attaching themselves to a group immediately.
In my whole time on the server, I've never felt a need to attach to a group. You can solo all the way to 21, if you want. It is just low level exxperience (experience, not experience point) could use improvement. Cordor worked great when there were 35 people on C&P. With more, it starts turning into circus.
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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by Shrouded Wanderer » Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:35 pm

Void wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:27 pm
Shrouded Wanderer wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:19 pm
Ive pointed out before that I think Skal is a much better choice for low level players.
It's not.

Skal is RP-light environment. The isle itself is nice, and the areas are well designed (some are too large though), but the only place where I've run into people posting OOC with open text on arelith was Skal, and given that they seemed to be in ballpark of level 12 or higher, that wasn't very encouraging.

This kind of experience is not what I'm playing nwn for.
Shrouded Wanderer wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:19 pm
Personally I think cordor should be re-organised into a mid level writ area a la Guldorand (14 to 20) and skal be made the default choice. This has an added benefit of new PCs meeting more people of different backgrounds in a lawless environment, but also lessens the chance of lowbees getting murderized by overzealous guards.
That's not going to happen. Area around Cordor is low CR, while area around Guldorand is not.
Shrouded Wanderer wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:19 pm
It also has the added benefit of forcing Low levels to develop on their own as opposed to attaching themselves to a group immediately.
In my whole time on the server, I've never felt a need to attach to a group. You can solo all the way to 21, if you want. It is just low level exxperience (experience, not experience point) could use improvement. Cordor worked great when there were 35 people on C&P. With more, it starts turning into circus.
Skal is an RP lite environment due to the vast majority of players there being new to the server in its entirety and not following the rules or not knowing the server culture. This is easily remedied by the older players playing on new characters to balance out the Liteness NY providing an example for these new characters.


As for the guld/cordor thing as I said if the area and the city CR was raised it wouldnt matter. It would give mid level characters a good alternative to level at while they took pace with the rest.


Your time on the server is Anecdotal. Just because youve never felt the need invariably means that some have ONLY found the need to group. Simply put anecdotes dont matter to the general environment.


Now I'm not saying its a perfect solution, but Skal was designed to be a new player leveling area with a far better design than Cordor for new player interaction.

One of the biggest flaws with Skal isnt due to any choices the Dev team has made but entirely on the choices of older players refusing to go there.

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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by CptJonas » Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:36 pm

Void wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 4:46 pm
I think that low-level situation in Cordor is not very good.

What I mean is that there are a lot of low-level newbies crammed into same space, and as a result the area often resembles some sort of circus.

The area also could use more low level writs to spread newbies around.

The main issue is that "patrol the sewers" is commonly accepted writ, and as a result it is very hard to complete it. Because when you start patrolling, the area is pretty much ALWAYS wiped clean. The area is also part of the path to three more writs, and people heading that way often wipe out summons needed for the sewers patrol writ. As a result the sewer patrol writ is the most annoying one on the server.

On rare occasions I also saw people staying in area (perhaps in hopes that things will respawn), and that causing trouble.

I think it would be great if in addition to sewer patrol writ, there was another writ in the city roughly at the same level of difficulty that people could pick and that would be in a different zone. I'm not sure what it could be though.
Hah bro...did ya ever see situacion in UD? This is light tea again that dwarven spirit what we have down there...
This problem is in UD on totaly different scale? Like good examples : Bonefields, eight legs two arms, Grimlocks, Ice roads, Setlers,....
Imagine same problem as you have with sewers...but then you add that every UD character starts in same place and gets same writs form 1-21..... And nearly all those writs have portals.....and some areas of those writs give decent XP to even lvls around 25+ (decent XP is 20+ in my eyes).....Now you can once again have isue with surface where you have like 6 different writ agents, maybe 4 times number of writs, and 3 different starting zones.....

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Ork
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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by Ork » Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:45 pm

Skal is fantastic, and I honestly do think it is an insult to label it rp-lite, especially when you've failed to invest any meaningful time into the setting. I've played Skal for a long time, and value that leveling experience much more favorably than Cordor. With a few tweaks on writ yields, Skal is the easier leveling experience.

That said, I'd think Skal would be a great starting point for new characters. There are a lot more areas geared towards low level progression, and it would give time for characters to acclimate themselves before jumping headlong into city politics.

Void
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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by Void » Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:51 pm

Shrouded Wanderer wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:35 pm
Skal is an RP lite environment due to the vast majority of players there being new to the server in its entirety and ...
And I don't want to deal with this.
Because it often feels like same circus as Cordor at maximum beginner flood, only bigger and with snow.
Shrouded Wanderer wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:35 pm
As for the guld/cordor thing as I said if the area and the city CR was raised it wouldnt matter. It would give mid level characters a
They honestly don't need it. There are tons of alternatives including places it took few years for me to find. Most of the server covers mid-level with huge swathes of land suitable for it.
Shrouded Wanderer wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:35 pm
Your time on the server is Anecdotal. Just because youve never
Then your time on Skal is Anecdotal. Now what? Being dismissive is not the way to make other agree with you.
Shrouded Wanderer wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:35 pm
Now I'm not saying its a perfect solution, but Skal was designed to be a new player
At some point player stops being new, and they'll need a different starting area for low level players. And that's the crux of this feedback. Low level area for someone who isn't new. And that's cordor right now.

Sure, Skal has its uses for a introductory sub-module. But when you no longer need an introduction, then what?
Shrouded Wanderer wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:35 pm
One of the biggest flaws with Skal isnt due to any choices the Dev team has made but entirely on the choices of older players refusing to go there.
But "This is easily remedied by players playing on new characters to balance out the Liteness NY", like you said. Since it is easily remedied, remedy it. Make it a less of "lite" environment, people will flock there. Until that happens, there's no point in talking about it.

------
Ork wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:45 pm
Skal is fantastic, and I honestly do think it is an insult to label it rp-lite, especially when you've failed to invest any meaningful time into the setting. I've played Skal for a long time, and value that leveling experience much more favorably than Cordor. With a few tweaks on writ yields, Skal is the easier leveling experience.
My opinion is based on my experience. Change the experience, I'll change the opinion. Even with Cordor start, the meat of the experience is still going to lie outside of Cordor anyway.

Also, it is not about "easier" and "leveling experience" it is about RP experience. Starting with Cordor I have sufficient guarantee that people won't be playing this as mmo grindfest with OOC chatter in open.
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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by Ork » Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:55 pm

:lol:

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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by Void » Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:56 pm

CptJonas wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:36 pm
...situacion in UD? ...
I'm pretty sure if you want to provide feedback on that, you can start your own thread for UD specifically.
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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by Shrouded Wanderer » Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:00 pm

The point about making anecdotes is not dismissal. It's a logical fallacy.

It would seem from your responses that you arent looking for a possible solution.

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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by Void » Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:05 pm

Shrouded Wanderer wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:00 pm
The point about making anecdotes is not dismissal. It's a logical fallacy.
Don't use anecdotes, then.
Your entire opinion on skal is just an opinion/anecdote to begin with. Because it reflects experience that is yours only.

Also,
Shrouded Wanderer wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:00 pm
It would seem from your responses that you arent looking for a possible solution.
this is a feedback thread. So I'm providing exactly that - a feedback. Not for you, mind you, but to the dev/dm team.

And in situation where I already played Skal, made my own conclusion about the setting and atmosphere and then you arrive and say "But this area is great! You should totally start there!" my personal experience is going to have higher priority over your beliefs or claims, obviously.

People have different tastes, you know? I'm not you, and you, surprisingly, are not me. And if you enjoyed your time at Skal, cool for you, but that doesn't do squat for Cordor low level areas. "Oh, let's make it a mid level area! - No low levels, no problem" is not a solution either.
Last edited by Void on Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by Shrouded Wanderer » Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:07 pm

Void wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:05 pm
Shrouded Wanderer wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:00 pm
The point about making anecdotes is not dismissal. It's a logical fallacy.
Don't use anecdotes, then.
Your entire opinion on skal is just an opinion/anecdote to begin with. Because it reflects experience that is yours only.

Also,
Shrouded Wanderer wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:00 pm
It would seem from your responses that you arent looking for a possible solution.
this is a lovely feedback thread. So I'm providing exactly that - a feedback. Not for you, mind you, but to the dev/dm team.

And in situation where I already played Skal, made my own conclusion about the setting and atmosphere and then you arrive and say "But this area is great! You should totally start there!" my experience have higher priority over your beliefs or claims, obviously.

People have different tastes, you know? I'm not you, and you, surprisingly, are not me. And if you enjoyed your time at Skal, cool for you, but that doesn't do squat for Cordor low level areas. "Oh, let's make it a mid level area! - No low levels, no problem" is not a solution either.
Ive provided a solution as best as I could put it.

Your refutation was "I dont like that"


I provided no anecdotes until you did. But this has gone off the rails enough so I'll stop responding


Edit: I'm making an edit because I dont think I should bump this post any more than it has. You seem very upset in this thread and I dont think its condusive to effective feedback or conversation at all.
Last edited by Shrouded Wanderer on Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Void
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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by Void » Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:09 pm

Shrouded Wanderer wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:07 pm
Ive provided a solution ...
Your "solution" was "let's make it impossible for low levels to to use cordor as starting area".

I get that you like skal, but that does nothing about cordor sewer patrol writ.
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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by CptJonas » Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:11 pm

Void wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:56 pm
CptJonas wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:36 pm
...situacion in UD? ...
I'm pretty sure if you want to provide feedback on that, you can start your own thread for UD specifically.
Nice out of context quote - reply...

My point is...Surface is totaly fine as it is....there are few realy small problems but nothing major in general....
Especialy if you compare it to UD, you can see that this is fine...
And you totaly disregard other starting locations other then Cordor....
If you want point out that something is bad "Cordor start" You should look and compare it to other starts (UD, Skall, Brog)

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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by Void » Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:13 pm

CptJonas wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:11 pm
You should look and compare it to other starts (UD, Skall, Brog)
No, I shouldn't.

Because this is a feedback thread and because I play humans.

You, however, should probably start a separate thread for feedback regarding your favorite starting point instead of hijacking this one.
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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by Zavandar » Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:24 pm

Implying that older players have an obligation to start in skal to make it "better" is bad form.

skal is as it is because it's a hassle to go there. gating a settlement behind a 30 minute boat ride that you can only do certain times of a real life month means you are NOT going to see skal especially immersed in the rest of the server culture, especially since so many newbies go there.

would I like to go there more often? sure. But atm it's way too inconvenient, and when I do, it feels like I'm on a different server.

and having leveled all of my characters in cordor, I can say it feels fine
Intelligence is too important

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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by Void » Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:30 pm

Zavandar wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:24 pm
skal is as it is because it's a hassle to go there. gating a settlement behind a 30 minute boat ride that you can only do certain times of a real life month means you are NOT going to see skal especially immersed in the rest of the server culture, especially since so many newbies go there.
The funny thing is that leaving skal is instant. It also doesn't seem to have any sort of portal destination in it, otherwise conjurers would've been hopping back and forth all the time.

Seems like it was designed to be isolated on purpose, for good or bad.
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CptJonas
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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by CptJonas » Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:30 pm

Void wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:13 pm
CptJonas wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:11 pm
You should look and compare it to other starts (UD, Skall, Brog)
No, I shouldn't.

Because this is a feedback thread and because I play humans.

You, however, should probably start a separate thread for feedback regarding your favorite starting point instead of hijacking this one.
You should if you want to make objective feedback...

As I said...my feedback to this was "Cordor start is fine" "bcs this and this, and it isnt so bad"

Favorite...this isnt about favoritism...its simply about...If you say something is bad....You should no...bad? Why? in comparision to what?

From my standpoint cordor Writ start is second best in game...( 1) Brog, 2) Cordor, 3) Skall, 4) UD )
So I am making my feedback on you topic...And asking you...now...What is to bad about cordor?

Only thing I can see is...Lot of people start there...
Bcs...many people hate skall....Bcs Humans are moust popular/versatile/OP race....

If anything should be done to is to make separate elven start like small races have (brog), and then maybe remove other races from starting in cordor...make it so...for dwarfs its Brog or Skall, for elves its Myon or Skall, for humans its Cordor or Skall....

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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by Xerah » Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:33 pm

My main issue with Cordor is the patrol the sewers is always too full and often you can't complete killing 5 even in an empty area. I've not had an issue with anything else.

My initial impression of Skal was poor, so I never went back. I understand the RP situation is better, but I don't want to be gated behind an IRL 30-minute boat ride, so I'm fine with Cordor or UD.
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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by Void » Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:35 pm

CptJonas wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:30 pm
You should if you want to make objective feedback...
Give me a divine rank of six or more, and I'll grant you objective feedback. As humans are incapable of objectivity.
-------
Xerah wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:33 pm
My main issue with Cordor is the patrol the sewers is always too full and often you can't complete killing 5 even in an empty area. I've not had an issue with anything else.
Yep. Exactly. One of the worst writs on the server because of it. Having more quests in this range would help. Or having bigger sewers, but that's tall order.
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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by CptJonas » Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:45 pm

Void wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:35 pm
CptJonas wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:30 pm
You should if you want to make objective feedback...
Give me a divine rank of six or more, and I'll grant you objective feedback. As humans are incapable of objectivity.
-------
Xerah wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:33 pm
My main issue with Cordor is the patrol the sewers is always too full and often you can't complete killing 5 even in an empty area. I've not had an issue with anything else.
Yep. Exactly. One of the worst writs on the server because of it. Having more quests in this range would help. Or having bigger sewers, but that's tall order.
I would actualy do something different to help with situacion...Lower requirments on lvl for writs like coal mine and lost tunels and even goblinoid fortres...all are easy writs which are on locations where I still remember going for XP when writs didnt exist...
less lvl restriction would be good...too much handholding these days....I still remember solo XP on my monk/fighter lvl 5 in orc caves which is now location with writs for levels like 8+

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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by CptJonas » Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:47 pm

There should be recomended level for writ complition...not required level to take it...

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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by MissEvelyn » Thu Mar 26, 2020 11:10 am

Ork wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 5:45 pm
Skal is fantastic, and I honestly do think it is an insult to label it rp-lite, especially when you've failed to invest any meaningful time into the setting. I've played Skal for a long time, and value that leveling experience much more favorably than Cordor. With a few tweaks on writ yields, Skal is the easier leveling experience.

That said, I'd think Skal would be a great starting point for new characters. There are a lot more areas geared towards low level progression, and it would give time for characters to acclimate themselves before jumping headlong into city politics.
+1 Well said.

Skal is a fantastic setting, and as an older player it's so refreshing to find the hidden gems of new roleplayers on there.

As for OOC chat rule breaks, the last 4 recent times I saw it happen were on non-Skal surface lands, 2 of which occured smack in the middle of Cordor. To imply that only Skal has rule
-breakers is naive and extremely short-sighted.

If we keep alienating new players based on where they start for the mistakes of past newbie players, then we'll become the annoying elitists who no one likes and wants to play with.
Generalizing and putting an entire group of players in the same mold is not good nor healthy for he server.


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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by Void » Thu Mar 26, 2020 11:23 am

MissEvelyn wrote:
Thu Mar 26, 2020 11:10 am
+1 Well said.

Skal is a fantastic setting, and
No.

My experience and conclusions are valid.

Been there, didn't like it, probably not going back. The positives of the area were, for me, destroyed by RP-light environment with summons in houses, people running around with weapons open, ooc chatter and so on. Sure, there are gems somewhere behidn that, but the rest of the server matters too.

Also this is not related to the writ problem.

Why do you even take offence at rp-light? The introductory dialogue of the module itself labels skal as something along those lines. Action oriented, for new players.
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Re: Low Level situation in Cordor

Post by AstralUniverse » Thu Mar 26, 2020 11:53 am

If people continue trash talking the RP in Skal because it populates more new players (which, does not mean anything about the RP quality of the veteran players who like it there) then I'd rather see this thread locked.

Skal is a FASTER start to most. Writ rewards are higher. Much higher.

Cordor is more about connections with higher level characters via factions and whatever. It can, to some players, be a much faster start than Skal.

I think the most simple solution to this problem is to adjust the earliest writ rewards in Cordor to create more options for a first lvl 3 writ. Can also expand the cargo ships with the rats a little and turn it into a writ.
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I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


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