Arelith

where you took like years to reach level 30 and this made those who were level 30 special.

Anyone that knew the server and had a group to grind with could hit epics and 30 in a month or two depending on how dedicated they were. Sometimes less. Xp is xp.

As for wanting to level slower on a personal level

In Sorrow We Trust wrote: Sat Mar 06, 2021 2:14 pm I don't find getting to 30 that hard personally. It's just a thing you do. I've been 30 on 6 characters and on a few of them i never even took writs. The scale from 1-20 is completely different, and cuts a lot of options.

I agree with this. In fact, once you know the layout of the server and how to get good/fast xp, its hard not to. I have made plenty of characters with the intention of playing them slow and hold off on grinding etc. to build up a meaningful story. 9 times out of 10, I find myself at level 15-18 after a week, without even trying.

Pvp is not fun cause you need to tweak your character with consumables which is a chore and with items which trivializes your class as someone who just have to hit and crit and chase with haste unless you're a dex build. And the ab bonuses for some melee classes need to be on par or equal and should also be permanent so they can compete with fighter and rouge or monk. Because why do they get to hit me while I have to use true strike

So, in most cases, PVP would be a last resort, only for IC reasons, and not a go to for every conflict.. Any player who is high level, and in constant PVP, for the simple lack of anything else to do, should seriously consider retiring.

You have reached a place where adventuring is no longer fun, and you are obviously bored with RP.

I understand wanting to build your character so powerful that you can literally go anywhere and beat everything. At some point though, unless you have some high level government responsibility, or a long running shop owner (more like NPCs) by all means... keep playing your roll.

I am speaking only of those who have nothing better to do but flex their power to other players.

Even IC it is just annoying to those who have no chance to defend themselves. I have seen some lame reasons for PVP in the past... be it in game or here on the boards.

However, there is no way to police this without someone getting upset, or for the whole PVP taken out.... which would suck.

I just wanted to chime in as the player of a notorious chaotic evil wackjob.

Spontaneous PvP is fairly rare. Even a monster like me will often use tells as a situation is deteriorating to ask my opponent if it's okay for things to get violent. There are rules against griefing, attacking without a character justification, etc. and most people like Arelith enough that getting banned is a serious disincentive against willy nilly murder. I have to wonder how and why you seem to keep running into PVP. You may be provoking people, rubbing them the wrong way or hanging out in a violent area. I knew a guy who was pickpocketing and regularly faced retribution for it, and I've seen players deliberately ignoring or being rude to other players which made them unpopular.

I'm not accusing you off anything, but it may be time to ask yourself if you're in the right area or comporting yourself properly. Playing a good or neutral alignment and being friendly may help you a great deal. Do the opposite and, well...

Check whether or not you have -adventure enabled or not. If it’s on, it’ll halve your gains in combat (you’ll get it back overtime) but it can make grinding tedious IMO.

Here’s some suggestions if you’re not enjoying the PvP side of the house. These are things you have control over.

1. Theres forums and channels dedicated to build mechanics. Learn how to build and how to PvP from people who do it well.

2. If you’re not any good at it, avoid RPing in such a way that’ll get you punched in the face.

3. Avoid traveling alone, especially in areas known for high PvP encounters

This is still civil, but naturally I have to keep an eye on these sorts of threads.

Ultimately speaking you have to accept the following on Arelith:
PVP is allowed. PVP should only be happening after the appropriate roleplay is had. Violations should be reported.

Beyond that everything does become about subjectivity. There are ways to equip yourself to be ready at a moment's notice, you can certainly adopt habits that can improve your chances of survival or victory. Winning isn't everything, losing isn't the end of the world. And there can be, but doesn't have to be, additional roleplay avenues when it comes to PVP. As you play more you'll find new classes, new techniques to further advance your understanding and skill level. But even with all the preparation in the world it just take a string of bad luck for all the experience/skill/preparation to go south and end in defeat.

I have some characters that are designed to be good at PvP and others that are the opposite.

If anyone really wants to avoid PvP on a certain character but still contribute wholly to a faction/settlements/or their adventuring party, there's a few tips I can give that I've found super fun and effective.

Make a character that has a lot of supportive skills that can do things other than kill. Examples are characters that can conjure, open portals, ward areas. Things that can help tremendously and don't really require you to run around in the thick of things often.

Skill monkeys like rogues or bards that can help with most things and support a group. Healers too. Crafters and feats of craft wand, scroll, potion. You can help so much by just helping create a powerful community/economy.

Obviously there's no guarantee you can avoid being drawn into a fight. It will happen eventually.

I just find building your character around your playstyle to be really sure-fire way to enjoy your time on the server.
Making a PvP-optimal build if you don't really enjoy PvP can leave you burnt out or not having a great time.

Waldo52 wrote: Sun Mar 21, 2021 8:57 pm I just wanted to chime in as the player of a notorious chaotic evil wackjob.

Spontaneous PvP is fairly rare. Even a monster like me will often use tells as a situation is deteriorating to ask my opponent if it's okay for things to get violent. There are rules against griefing, attacking without a character justification, etc. and most people like Arelith enough that getting banned is a serious disincentive against willy nilly murder. I have to wonder how and why you seem to keep running into PVP. You may be provoking people, rubbing them the wrong way or hanging out in a violent area. I knew a guy who was pickpocketing and regularly faced retribution for it, and I've seen players deliberately ignoring or being rude to other players which made them unpopular.

I'm not accusing you off anything, but it may be time to ask yourself if you're in the right area or comporting yourself properly. Playing a good or neutral alignment and being friendly may help you a great deal. Do the opposite and, well...

Honestly it can be as simple as:

1. One side of the equation is a summoner of fiends or undead

2. The other side is Good aligned clerics/paladins/druids

3. Neither side wands to back down

Either that or party of Radiant Hearts bumps into a party of Drow in whatever place.

This almost always results in PvP. There are ways to downplay it and resolve it peacefully but a lot of players and or characters either are not willing to do this or perhaps don’t have a good strategy as to how to de-escalate.

Not to say it should always be de-escalated. A party of elves who bump into a party of Drow should probably PvP.

Yes, deescalating a situation can be sometimes very tricky - especially when considering encounters between ideologically opposing characters. It's not impossible, but can be difficult.

On the other hand, recognizing when a character is outmatched and running away (or surrendering the road) is also an option.
Personally I don't find characters who'd rather die than lose face very compelling - while respawns are a thing, I don't like it when they are being acknowledged or even relied on IC.

-XXX- wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 8:10 am I don't like it when they are being acknowledged or even relied on IC.

Honestly I still haven't figured out how to handle death in character and in narrative terms. Obviously we need respawns and they need to be supported by the story, but the institution of respawning does somewhat dull the emotion and lower the stakes in PVP.

Waldo52 wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 1:24 pm Honestly I still haven't figured out how to handle death in character and in narrative terms. Obviously we need respawns and they need to be supported by the story, but the institution of respawning does somewhat dull the emotion and lower the stakes in PVP.

Good stories rarely require a spelled out exposition dump (actually, most stories are better without it) and not all stories need to offer the protagonists some sort of closure. Same applies to respawning, I think.

Not all instances of character defeat offer some epic narrative building up to a grandiose character resurrection.
Sometimes the character gets just unceremoniously backstabbed and mugged by bandits in a dark back alley or something like that.

Depending on the circumstances it's good to consider just waving the entire respawning thing. The character can simply have no recollection of what happened and just move on - or even build a storyline where they are trying to figure out what happened to them and why they can't remember what went down the day before...