New Adventure XP Changes

[RUNGRIND]

I don't think the new adventure XP changes really benefit anyone.

Adventurers who do writs often have over 150,000 XP left over by the time they are level 30. So there isn't much of a benefit to this.

Even commoners gain a greater benefit from the slightly higher adventure XP gains to allow them to level a bit quicker. I've leveled six or seven of them at this point to know that it's a great benefit.

I'm uncertain who this is for?

[Void]

I second this. I never had a character who ever ran out of adventure xp. Usually at high levels you'll have at least 100k of adventure xp and you'll never have a chance to use it all. And that's cautious estimate. It is normall to have 200k, 300k, 400k by level 30 which will just sit there unused.

If the idea was to encourage being in a tavern, rather than reducing the Adventure XP drain a better idea would be to increase xp drip while in the right location.

I.e. when character spends 100 adv xp to get 100xp normally, then instead of spending 50axp to get 100xp in the tavern, a much better idea would be to have a tick take, say, 200axp to grand 200xp. Meaning higher drip rate.

--edit--

Thinking about it, it could benefit low level commoners, but even in that case, a higher drip rate instead would be a better deal.

[Ebonstar]

more tavern RP is always good

[Scylon]

Undead the ideas outlined above, I'd say the system should be expanded to include other communal areas. For example in Skal most natural RP happens around the fire out side. That is the sort of area where enhanced xp drip could and should occur.

[Ebonstar]

Undead the ideas outlined above, I'd say the system should be expanded to include other communal areas. For example in Skal most natural RP happens around the fire out side. That is the sort of area where enhanced xp drip could and should occur.

Undead ideas would be bad

and that natural RP in Skal might have been the catalyst of this, simply because in Skal you are on a glacier island in constant blizzard conditions, what adventurer not a zealot of Auril would sit and have a chat outside?
They wouldnt hence driving people into the Tavern where its warm and made for non adventuring RP. Afterall Taverns have been created for just this type of RP so why sit in an ice storm?

[ltlukoziuz]

Because it's tradition to sit by the campfire? There's plenty who spend their days sitting around Cordor's firepit too, should they feel bad for being there instead of going to the tavern?

[RedGiant]

I prefer the system we just had. For a brief, shining moment, you could make satisfactory progress if you only had an hour or two to play a day.

You'll never stop the sprinters with lots of time on their hands. If anything, I think we should cater to the former group, which is where most people live. As noted above, this style of play never can extract the actual value in benefit from the pool of theoretical value (kinda like bitcoin!).

Meaningful one-time writs was and is where we should be.

[Ebonstar]

Because it's tradition to sit by the campfire? There's plenty who spend their days sitting around Cordor's firepit too, should they feel bad for being there instead of going to the tavern?

one its not tradition, two cordor isnt in a constant blizzard, three its common sense to not sit in ice storms

[Aradin]

At the risk of derailing this thread a little...

...in Skal you are on a glacier island in constant blizzard conditions, what adventurer not a zealot of Auril would sit and have a chat outside?
They wouldnt hence driving people into the Tavern where its warm and made for non adventuring RP. After all Taverns have been created for just this type of RP so why sit in an ice storm?

Have you ever heard of the concept of 'desire paths'?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path

A pertinent quote from Wikipedia is this "The path usually represents the shortest or most easily navigated route between an origin and destination."
In my eyes, the Cordor firepit, the Skal bonfire, the Hub, and other places players tend to congregate are desire paths. People hang out there because they're central locations, have lots of foot traffic for easy roleplay/story/action opportunities, and are near the main settlement message boards. They're often not the developer-intended places to sit and chat (those beings taverns, where it seems the devs are trying to push people), but they're where players have chosen to sit and RP when they're not out and about doing stuff. I agree that it can be illogical - of course a tavern is warmer and cozier than some bench out in the rain - but there's the meta factor of those places being optimal to hang around when you're looking for something to do. It's not about what your character wants, it's about what's fun as a player.

I think that the devs should recognize this and instead of trying to push people into taverns, put in lore-friendly infrastructure to answer some of the logical questions that players like Scylon bring up. As one example, the villagers & adventurers of Skal see people congregating around the bonfire all the time - so why would those same people not put up a lean-to to protect themselves from the weather? Yes, players can put up fixtures, but we are limited in what we can place (we can't build any actual structures) and those things are subject to being bashed/stolen/etc.

Accept that players are going to be in those central outdoor locations regardless of how much you try to push taverns, and with that in mind put in lore-friendly reasons why those characters can be comfortable sitting in those spots. Marriage of lore + meta, you know?

[AstralUniverse]

Having to farm gold to get a decent gear after you're level 30, or just farming to 30 a bit slower... - personally to me it makes little difference. I'm all in favor of slower leveling personally, since it then feels more in line with progress of gear. There hasnt been much need to make mid-game gear for a while now, for better or worse (probably for worse, since what is it there for otherwise?) and I really welcome any change that puts a bit of breaks on the rush to 30.

As for adventure exp. I really like what they did there. Since the changes to 100 exp ticks, heavy city/guild roleplayers have been running out of their adventure exp pool and are forced to go out to do writs more than they intend. And if we're reducing the instant exp income we might as well move it indirectly to the more heavy city/guild roleplayers who already level slower than your average adventurer.

[RedGiant]

I feel your point on gear, Astral, but feel like this is a separate issue. High end runics have stabilized prices in the hundreds of k, since before the gold reductions. As a player with 1 to 2 hours a night, I have never completed a set of epic gear, not even on my 2 year old (irl) main. Part of the reason is I refuse to use my limited time to farm buckets of sellables every night, but also because prices are too damn high.

Behind the xp and the gold issues, I see the age-old problem of a minority of players with more time to invest/burn skewing the economy (of gold, of xp, of 'x' resource) for the majority with less time. If you just do the math on how long it would take to get to 30, even with the generous new rp pool drips sitting around a tavern, its quite obvious that this is not a healthy mechanic to balance the server around (...unless its called Pub World...bah-dum-tiss).

I prefer a server that balances meaningful progress with having a healthy life outside of game. We had that and this wasn't a 'rush to 30' for anyone but the minority who will always do this.

[xf1313]

I really don’t like removing first time completion bonus, and the XP deduction for being higher level is a penity for non-op builds. I can see people would prefer more high damage builds just to survive the writ. I have a dex rogue, Cordor crypt is the death of me although I am lv12.

that’s going to make solo difficult, being 5 levels above is normal for weak builds to survive difficult writs. Out of all the changes this one hurts me the most. Only kind of safe job left for my rogue will be patrolling or deliver packages. Stay hidden and waaaalk...

I second larger ticks for RP as well, makes rp more rewarding

[Curve]

Don't look at it as,

a healthy mechanic to balance the server around

Rather as a neat little bonus for partaking in a classic fantasy trope.

It is not that much xp. It's not that big of a deal. If you want to kick it in a tavern? Cool. If you don't? Suck it up and don't get the bonus.

As to the lessening of XP it's reasonable, it feels bad to have toys taken away but the DEVs were clear from the jump that the exact amounts were going to be adjusted.

Y'all undermine reasonable feedback by word vomiting your opinions on every single little change.

[RUNGRIND]

So I'm not sure how this got derailed so incredibly hard but I am hoping we can sort of keep things on track.

I'm not against the idea of RPing in taverns or even spending time there. The main issue is that like I said - I don't understand who this is for. I don't know who benefits from this mechanical change or structure. The people who are often out and about doing city RP, don't want to feel confined to just a single tavern establishment as they go about doing things in the city.

People who do rely on the XP ticks for gains, specifically commoners who objectively take more time than basically anyone else to level bar none (Again. I've leveled so many of them, I know) don't benefit from these changes either. Saving some adventure XP isn't really beneficial when the vast majority of people have so much of it that you can almost level to 30 with it from level 1 by the time you've maxed out your level.

This isn't a case of me saying they shouldn't change anything. I am just trying to understand the reasoning behind this change because it doesn't seem to help anyone. There are better changes that could be more impactful to help the sorts of behaviours or sorts of things you want to see from people. That's where my confusion is coming in.

The mechanic of gaining a bit more adventure XP in a tavern like environment has also been around for years at this point if I'm correct with when I first noticed it. So it's taking away something long standing - Which isn't inherently bad. Again. I just want to understand the 'why' of things. Which is something that really isn't communicated well.

If you don't agree with giving feedback or want to criticize people for giving feedback on new mechanics in a feedback thread then I encourage you to go out and look at the forums where feedback isn't the main goal.

[AstralUniverse]

I feel your point on gear, Astral, but feel like this is a separate issue. High end runics have stabilized prices in the hundreds of k, since before the gold reductions. As a player with 1 to 2 hours a night, I have never completed a set of epic gear, not even on my 2 year old (irl) main. Part of the reason is I refuse to use my limited time to farm buckets of sellables every night, but also because prices are too damn high.

Behind the xp and the gold issues, I see the age-old problem of a minority of players with more time to invest/burn skewing the economy (of gold, of xp, of 'x' resource) for the majority with less time. If you just do the math on how long it would take to get to 30, even with the generous new rp pool drips sitting around a tavern, its quite obvious that this is not a healthy mechanic to balance the server around (...unless its called Pub World...bah-dum-tiss).

I prefer a server that balances meaningful progress with having a healthy life outside of game. We had that and this wasn't a 'rush to 30' for anyone but the minority who will always do this.

I agree with you that the average prices runes have set on, as a result of player economy is not per se related here, but if I understand you correctly, you prefer leveling to 30 to be less of a time-sink and easier for the more casual players will less time to play. First, I cannot express just how much I'm with you on that "casual player, 2-3 hours a day, sometimes even in a week" but I think that since Arelith is a server that doesnt put any cap on how much exp and gold you can get in a period of time. It's a grindy server in that sense. It rewards time investment. If not for levels then for gold > items. The same equasion is still there. The other thing I can think of that doesnt reward time investment is the crafting system that just allows you to log for a minute every 2 hours and keep up with everyone else's efficiency. So my point is, it doesnt really matter how fast or slow the exp gain it, and to me I think the more important part is how the leveling to 30 flows for the individual player experience in regards to their gear, exploration, and just progress in general and I feel like it's silly that I'd actually solo a cleric to level 30 without investing a single coin into gear and then just make hard 5%s and it would be the most cost efficient way to go, because of how fast it is to level. That's why I appreciate a bit of 'breaks' on leveling speed to put it in line with gold income at the very least.

[RUNGRIND]

Things

So hey. This is super not relevant. Why are you derailing this? Please stop.

[AstralUniverse]

Things

So hey. This is super not relevant. Why are you derailing this? Please stop.

So hey. I think it's super relevant. Just keep scrolling.

[Queen Titania]

No need for snippiness at one another. Keep on topic and be on good behavior.

[Duchess Says]

I don't see why we ought to be pushed towards "tavern RP" like it's the gold standard when there are so many other interesting places to be like meeting halls and libraries and laboratories and government buildings and so on. Even sitting around the fire in Skal. Adventurers hanging around a tavern waiting to dungeon dive is an old trope and playing out old tropes is fine (though it kind of speaks to a lack of imagination when that's where an adventure starts in PnP or a single player video game) but what drew me to Arelith in the first place was the ability to push beyond tired old fantasy tropes and live out a full and rich life with my characters, most of whom aren't the type to hang out drinking all day.

The point is to get people to slow down and have conversations instead of grinding, right? Why not dole out the bonus 10 minutes after combat stopped or something regardless of where you are?

TBH I say this not really caring about the bonus itself which is pretty minor and won't steer me to do anything different, it's more the intent to suggest we play a certain way, which, yes, I am aware is not mandatory-- I will continue to do what I was going to do anyway and it will be fine, my comment is really just about why taverns are elevated in importance which I think speaks to something devs would like to see where players would probably generally rather have freedom and options.

A pertinent quote from Wikipedia is this "The path usually represents the shortest or most easily navigated route between an origin and destination."
In my eyes, the Cordor firepit, the Skal bonfire, the Hub, and other places players tend to congregate are desire paths. People hang out there because they're central locations, have lots of foot traffic for easy roleplay/story/action opportunities, and are near the main settlement message boards. They're often not the developer-intended places to sit and chat (those beings taverns, where the devs are obviously trying to push people), but they're where players have chosen to sit and RP when they're not out and about doing stuff. I agree that it can be illogical - of course a tavern is warmer and cozier than some bench out in the rain - but there's the meta factor of those places being optimal to hang around when you're looking for something to do. It's not about what your character wants, it's about what's fun as a player.

This has been the case on all 5 or so NWN servers I've played on and other games as well. People group up in maximum traffic areas where they can see who's coming and going and it's obvious why, so you'll have the most opportunities to run into people and chat up new acquaintances and eavesdrop and so on. It reminds me of being a kid going to the mall with friends and we'd always hang out in the same spot or two where everyone is guaranteed to pass by.

I've seen so many devs push against it and try to get folks into taverns and it never really works, if people want to RP a night or event at the tavern they'll do so when they are in that mood (and that activity is plentiful in certain spots on Arelith). The best workaround I've seen is putting a bar in the middle of the Hub though people still stand in a circle around the portal which should tell you something.

[Morgy]

Not a particular fan of standing/sitting around in tavern environments and I'm not sure why it should be more rewarding to anyone XP-wise than, say, sitting around a campfire outside or chatting in a market. I don't understand the benefit of this. Let people do their RP wherever, with the same benefits.

[Amateur Hour]

I admit I'm highly biased here, but one strength of the tavern XP update is that it inherently gives a bunch of different people of different classes and different races and different levels and different goals into the same space to provide opportunity for spontaneous RP that simply wouldn't otherwise happen. It is dead simple to come up with a reason to send any character into a tavern--everyone needs to eat and drink to stay alive. Most other places, there's one of two problems:

1) It's an area where few people, or only specific people, have reasons to go (e.g. libraries, the Arcane Tower, the Radiant Heart)

2) It's an area where people milling around can block access to important NPCs or shops.

[Svrtr]

I admit I'm highly biased here, but one strength of the tavern XP update is that it inherently gives a bunch of different people of different classes and different races and different levels and different goals into the same space to provide opportunity for spontaneous RP that simply wouldn't otherwise happen. It is dead simple to come up with a reason to send any character into a tavern--everyone needs to eat and drink to stay alive. Most other places, there's one of two problems:

1) It's an area where few people, or only specific people, have reasons to go (e.g. libraries, the Arcane Tower, the Radiant Heart)

2) It's an area where people milling around can block access to important NPCs or shops.

While it is fair to say this and understandable to find enjoyment in and a desire for more tavern RP, this change arguably does little to drive people to taverns, and arguably instead gets people further away from them. Where as before you would passively get 10 more adventure xp per tick, now you get the same xp per tick inside of a tavern and outside of a tavern, the only difference being that your adventure xp drains at half the rate.

But, when you have over 300k adventure xp stored up, why would you care if it drains slower and instead becomes effectively 600k adventure xp? This change doesn't incentivize tavern RP, but instead means that you make as much xp per tick inside of a tavern as well as out in the world such as grinding orcs. Increasing the drain rate inside taverns so they consume like 3x the xp per tick and reward you 2x the xp per tick, so you lose more adventure xp but gain more per tick, seems like it would be the best way to get people to do more tavern RP. (opening up more hub places like the theaters in various places as well to count for this also seems like a good way. Or the various arenas in the world as well for large rp events)

[Ork]

Because it's tradition to sit by the campfire? There's plenty who spend their days sitting around Cordor's firepit too, should they feel bad for being there instead of going to the tavern?

one its not tradition, two cordor isnt in a constant blizzard, three its common sense to not sit in ice storms

It is tradition. It has always been tradition. It will always be tradition.

[Void]

one its not tradition, two cordor isnt in a constant blizzard, three its common sense to not sit in ice storms

People will sit around cordor fire pit in any weather. Falling snow, rain, thunderstorm, etc - they're going to use it anyway, and not go into a tavern. That's how it always is. Even if meteorites were falling, a good chunk of them would likely continue to sit there and chat.

Campfires always work this way on any server.

I feel your point on gear, Astral, but feel like this is a separate issue. High end runics have stabilized prices in the hundreds of k, since before the gold reductions. As a player with 1 to 2 hours a night, I have never completed a set of epic gear, not even on my 2 year old (irl) main. Part of the reason is I refuse to use my limited time to farm buckets of sellables every night, but also because prices are too damn high.

I agree and that "20% of xp for every level above is adventure xp" is not helpful. After the writ change revisiting the old writs way below the level range was extremely pleasant. you got to explore the areas you never visited before, and there was a sense of progression with short sessions. It was also pretty much the only way to get stronger with an underpowered character (bowman rogue 30, for example. Managed to almost get killed and god saved in a level 9 quest by great grave worm in dwarf tombs).

With that being taken out, it'll be back to circle grinding again.

[MRFTW]

To answer OP's question, I guess it only really helps players whose characters don't do writs. Adventure XP for those can feel like a rat race, at times.