Shattered Kingdoms

It wouldn't really hinder people to actually do this. Every five levels, they would have to take ten minutes and do something other than grind and maybe have to interact with someone else other than the kill command. I fail to see how making people interact in a role playing mud could be viewed as a trap, to be honest.

Those two sentences - due to the part I bolded - are in direct contradiction with each other.

There are different types of people who play rpgs and game for different reasons. If someone wants to grind for 50 hours, I see no reason why they couldn't, or shouldn't. If someone wants to sit in an inn and fountain rp for 500 hours, I also see no reason why they couldn't, or shouldn't (just so long as I don't have to be near them, haha). Unless you were going to force fountain rpers to take hours out of their time to go and grind mindlessly to fulfill the tactical portion of the acclaimed creed, the former is hardly fair.

Forcing people to do something other than what they choose to play for is a bad, bad idea. PK/grinding, Questing, socializing, exploring - these are all different and unique aspects to RPGs - if someone wants to quest, they shouldn't be forced to pk/grind. If someone just likes exploring, no one should have to make them sit down and socialize.


EDIT: By the way, I only said it was a trap because we had started talking about traps.

From how I understand things -- which could be wrong -- there are already incentives to take a break from the grind, relax, and vary up your play style.

From the inn recovery rates to the quests out there for Cool Stuff, there's plenty to do other than type 'kill' which could attract players. But, importantly, this movable feast of a game is served a la carte.

If I were to make any single suggestion to give grinders more incentive to abate the grind every once in awhile, or even for all players to be able to enjoy more aspects of the game, it would be this:

Quest reward items should not be limited in their availability. There are many cool things I would love to get my hands on, but as it stands, all things being equal, I'd have to lootkill someone who finished the dash before me to get my slice of the pie.

Rare items are called rare for a reason. But if there are rare quest items, like it seems, there should be some manner of compensation or fair warning that you won't get what you've been hinted at receiving if you do the work... and not for any fault of your own, either.

.. It would also make leveling easier, and stuff, so I'm not derailing the thread. Honest.

Do I hear a wimp asked for, for the removal of all rare quest items that have limits? I'll happily oblige! Just let me go get the nerf foil I know and love. Hi-ya! Take that, and that, and that!


EDIT: No in-game objects, quests, or areas were harmed in the making of the above post. Really.


If you run across a quest that doesn't warn you (and I think I know which one(s) you're referring to), log it, and we can always write that in sometime as an extra disclaimer line from the NPC; most quests that give out rare items do.

The above, however, makes no affect on levelling - since of course, xp isn't a rare, treasured, and tangible ware. Or is it? D'oh, ho ho ho!

EDIT: I decided to save the lives of some commas and do a wee bit of grammar neutering to my post.

Firstly:You're doing it wrong, and not just a little wrong. I'm talking VERY VERY WRONG.


Secondly:

I personally feel as if leveling has taken an overall downturn since I started playing five or six years ago, mainly because A) It takes longer overall due to the recent code change, and B) All of the deathtraps that I recall back when I first leveled were removed, so now leveling is not only longer, but even more boring because there's zero danger unless you're playing a warlock. (And that's only by choice if you want to be a pro while you're leveling.)

Outpost NPCs? Seems like they've all been given sedatives. Dryad XP got nerfed hardcore, but they also got turned into something slightly less dangerous than pond scum that doesn't even cast spells. Even the trolls are laughable now, and they used to beat your face in if you crossed them.
Fytrysks? They hide in their own hole, three to a room now. Unless you're -looking- for them, you won't find them. I personally loved them because it forced people to actually learn to *gasp* look ahead of themselves before they went off stumbling around bumping into walls until they found something killable.
Hold Person? NPCs no longer cast it.
Confusion? Removed as well. Only one area has NPCs that cast chaos now, and they've been moved to mood defensive (longer cast time) and aren't even grouped anymore. Melee classes can easily two-round them as well, making any offensive spell a non-issue as they all take over a round to cast.
I mean crap, the mummies in Morea don't even CAST anymore, and they used to cast EDRAIN!!! They just sit there and do laughable damage until they die, they're practically walking XP factories: Good thing only 5 spawn at a time or they'd be actually useful for leveling.



For me, leveling's "challenge," if you can even call it that, has shifted from "Oh, I better be careful or I might die" and has become "Oh, if I time it right I can sleep in between all of the ticks and save myself a minute." There's zero danger, zero risk, and it's coma-inducing. Part of that has, of course, come with my experience with the game, but a large portion of it has come from leveling being castrated and turned into a big easy boring snooze-fest, to the point where now, killing NPCs that are too much higher level than you (Which used to be a viable way to level) actually returns a signifcant portion -less- experience. It's as if we're being punished for trying to find some sort of challenge in things. Making leveling both easier and longer just makes everyone that much more bored out of their skulls. WoW did this with Wrath of the Lich King, and I couldn't even make myself get to 80 because while the quests were passable at best, there was absolutely no challenge: It was no longer a question of "can I do this?" It instead became a question of "How long will it take to do this?" Boorrring.

I find it odd that all of these 'deathtraps' that existed in well-known leveling areas, like fytrysks, hold person, confusion, etc. were removed, but there are still DI,DH, aggro, spellcasting, armed, tracking imps that spawn on the road northeast of Teron, which any newbie could end up walking into if they were just exploring on a mount at level 15. I mean, at least turn off the track, or the detections. Geez.

I actually liked those best when they were actually killable at like vet/expert if you were beastly enough, or just grab one or two people to kill them. When they turned uber and still wandered around that's when they sucked.

Csikszentmihalyi once did a very clever and, in hindsight, intuitive case study.

It dealt with how much time people could spend on a task versus the difficulty of the task.

The results give three conditions: If the task is too difficult for the person's abilities, they become frustrated and productivity stops. If the task is too simple for the person's abilities, they become bored and productivity stops. If the task is just right for the person's abilities, they are engaged and in a state of what was called "Flow." Analogous to being "in the zone," persons who were found to be in Flow were engaged without noticing fatigue or the passage of time nearly as much as those who weren't. In other words, if you're in flow, the grind is well-oiled and a smooth ride. Applied to everything from factories to games, its become quite a trendy concept in our modern world.

There's more stuff that could be interesting to think about with regards to death traps, like the Zone of Proximal Development or even Comprehensible Input, but the main point I wanted to grasp for with my reply is that the same grind is never the same grind for long.

It either feels easier with experience or instruction and eventually gets boring (WotLK, I played a hunter. Snore,) is made easier to accommodate frustration (American university system,) or is continually updated to stay challenging (best practices in music, language, and so forth.)

If and when I get bored with the grind, I'll simply set my own goals to make it more challenging. SK takes a Sandbox style approach, and its always important to remember that part of the fun of a sandbox, as opposed to a grinding quest-driven game, is that you get to achieve your own goals rather than being told to fetch 20 fresh, local bear butts. Or creeper ichor.

So... what do you think about leveling in SK?

The same thing I think about growing old in real life: good parts, bad parts, but overall, what you make of it.

There's an expression about getting off the pot, and I think it applies well to the post expert level situations. Do it, or complain, but its not going to be enjoyable if you choose to do both.

When it can, leveling should be a learning experience for the player, as much as the character. Danger is an excellent teacher. Edoras brought up a few examples of this.

Danger I like: Fytrysks

Call me crazy, but I, too, loved the wandering fytrysks. It taught a few of the most important skills in the game, such as looking wheretf you're walking, and how to run away as fast as possible. The thrill factor of the OH FUUUUUU-- when you're trying your damndest to escape is great. They were in an area that wasn't too low, such that true newbies weren't likely to to be turned off by getting stomped in the face. Finally, it provided a tangible measure of strength - most classes could handle them at mentor, granting a pleasant feeling of achievement over a challenge that once rocked your face in.

They had their problems, too; sometimes they'd block off huge portions of the area, and having one sitting over your corpse was a pain. But that also provided the opportunity to go rassle a pair of high-level characters to help you out, which (imho) was fun. Pros and cons, as always.

Danger I hate: Status effects

Poison, plague, paralyze, confusion, hold person, blindness, deafness, etc.. Thankfully these have been toned down, but some of my most frustrating experiences have involved being stuck in a remote area waiting to die because of something 90% out of my control. Great, my pet failed its bash and now I'm blind, stuck doing nothing for ten minutes. Fantastic, I failed my trip and I got hit with confusion, killed my pet, ran into a group of aggro NPCs and now I'm dead. The only thing I learned in these situations is that I should go level somewhere else.

My complaints here apply primarily to leveling below mentor, however. My issue with these spells has been, primarily, placement. Leveling at journeyman should not be more challenging or dangerous than at master. I would have no problem with seeing these spells on typical NPCs above level 40, provided the rewards were increased as a result. It seems backwards to me that leveling on the priests in Tlaxcala was less risky than everything I did at initiate and apprentice.

I think this cuts to the core of the problems with leveling in SK. I've been playing through Diablo 2 again recently, and its progression struck me as being precisely what I want from an RPG. The first twenty levels are a breeze, and the only time you'll die is from exceedingly stupid mistakes. Then, just as you've become comfortable with the game's mechanics and you've picked up your basic combat skills, it ramps up really consistently. You find yourself chugging health and mana pots, then a few levels later you actually have to run away from battle now and again. Then running in and out becomes a necessary part of your routine, but it's fun because it's challenging and screwing up means you die.

Point being: I wish leveling at 40+ were harder, not in that it requires more exp or goes slower, but in that it requires significantly more strategy and preparation. Imagine, oh my god, having to enchant your gear and bring heal vials. If you want to make GM a noteworthy status, the solution isn't just to make a giant, giant grind, but to demand significant preparation and a change of strategy to attain it. As is, the characters at GM exist only as a product of dedicated grinding.