A Short Analysis on Levels and Layonara

[Polak76]

I feel we are over-complicating an already enjoyable world.  You've got to remember that this place was created by a person who invested alot of time and resources to make this available to us all.  The way I see it is that we're all guests and should appreciate the hospitality rather than knit-pick over its details.  Some of us are more than guests and equally spend much time and resources developing the world to where it is now.

If people level in a manner that is unacceptable by the team I'm certain they will be found and dealth with.  I've seen it happen before and on each case it was correct.
Therefore I dont feel anyone should worry about the next person, how fast they gain levels, how many good items they have..etc  (without being a hypocrit it used to bother me once but that was a long time ago).  

So now i simply enjoy the escape. I also second Ionnarin's earlier comment - basically stating my thoughts.

Cheers,
Polak76

[Eight-Bit]

I still think this is the best post ever.

[Eorendil]

There is no doubt that this is a very well though out and analytical post. Very enlightening, thank you.
  Chongo, you do an exceptional job in expressing your ideas and opinions.
  Me, personally, I can't imagine putting a hard calendar restriction on people's advancement. I mean, technicallly, humans are like the bottle rockets of the fantasy genre.. they burn bright and fast and explode in a brilliant display. How would we take into consideration that bit? I don't honestly know. You know, I've gamed online for a considerable length of time and I used to feel cheated in games where people would rocket past me and control the upper end content but those that advance faster than my characters on Layo can't really do that because that's not what the world is about. It isn't raids and high level content. I've also simply let go of any feelings of envy. My characters will get where they are going and they'll get there in the time I have to invest. I can't begrudge someone who spends six or more hours a day playing. In a way they're investing their time in the game and while quality here is often more important than quantity, quantity is still a factor.
  Just my rambling 2 truth..

[jrizz]

Chongo
What this really comes down to is what you do with the time your play time. I will state this in my own opinion and based on my own differing play styles over the last 16 months. If the player that spends 30% to 40% of waking hours were to spend 70% to 80% of that time in prue RP, They would most certainly create a deep impact on the server (even if their calendar time were short). There have been times where I spent upwards of 80% of my play time in pure RP. This showed in how many characters knew and had well formed opinons of my character (talking of Glenn). When I played Glenn it took 12 months to get to level 15 and I dare say that I was putting in a lot of time, I am sure the upwards part of your numbers. When I lost Glenn and switched to a secondary char that was level 7 at the time I switched my play style by dedicating a higher % of online time to bashing. The result, faster leveling but less known and less impact on the world. We cannot all be WLs, there has to be someone to lead and fill in the color of the world, but we can all make an impact. I have seen, over the time I have played here, high level characters that I looked at and said to myself "who the heck is that". If a great number of players have that reaction to a high level PC then there is a issue. So here is my solution that needs no new rules or code. Players act in a way that fills the world with color, leveling fast and amassing a huge pile of gold does not do that. Spend a large % of your online time in pure RP and helping other PCs, by large I mean upwards of 75%. If the player that spends 40% of waking hours spent 75% of that time in RP they would be well known indeed. And now with XP given for RP you even get a little reward for having fun. So in the end you are right it is about play style if you are spending more then 40% of your online time bashing (or in hunting parties) then you are just not spending enough time coloring the world.

[LordCove]

I am a firm believer in two things, based on them I fully agree with Yllyrryon about the raised issues.

A) People should receive only what they have earned!

If a person can dedicate more time to play online it is only just that he receives more benefits, denying this or resticting this ability would cause many players to leave. People play to gain, to win so to say, if you continually restrict their ability to "win" you cause the game to loose its purpose and appeal.

Based on this I disagree with all sorts of Xp restrictions or system which allow people to level without actually playing.

B) Normative rules make matters only worse!       ----  as said by AR7   -----
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Basically sums it up for me.

However, the WL XP wand could resolve several issue's here. Those who do RP much more than others, when noticed, could receive the benefit of the Magic RP wand. Not sure how of course, as its unlikely WL would want to hang around Hlint all day looking for good RPers.

[Harlas Ravelkione]

Good RP is not necessarily performed by chatting on the benches in Hlint. I know that my characters almost never do that. That is not what I enjoy or have fun by doing. Personally I prefer RPing on the run - during adventuring or in the wild/dangerous places of the world. Good RP is not defined by talking to the most people. Good RP is also the use of your skills, your general behavior in battle, facial expressions and sticking to your character's bio, alignment and deity relations.

[miltonyorkcastle]

I think I just killed twenty minutes of my life on this thread that I should have spent writing discussion questions on 19th century France... 0.o

[SquareKnot]

I agree that people should receive only what they have earned. And all that they've earned. I'm opposed to a system that caps or limits experience based on accrual rate unless it's set so high it's impossible to hit without cheating.  I also think that standing around talking in Hlint isn't necessarily great role play. Maybe, maybe not. It may or may not be "earning" anything. So I'm opposed to a system where I push a button and start receiving some RP XP/minute.  But I do think players should receive all that they've earned, not just all that they've killed. There has to be a way for hard core role players to earn experience without going on killfests. Quests are part of the answer, but they have many limits. WL/GM XP wandings are part of the answer, but that has many limits. Constantly directing hard core role-players to these systems just leads to resentment. The community doesn't need more threads that say "Q: I want to role play and level. A: Role players don't need to level, and besides, just go on quests."  That's why I proposed another way for role players to earn XP here by being their character, role playing deeply, and increasing the imersiveness of the world. It's not the solution, but it's, again, part of the answer. It's essentially a mix of GM quests and "RP wandings" that's low overhead for the team, moderate overhead for the player, and a win for the rest of the community. Personally, I think very few players would ever use it, but every little bit helps.  If role-play-only-er's can level, albeit slowly, there will be a lot less resentment about other playing styles and the rate at which those characters level.

[Chongo]

Of note is SquareKnot's recent post in the suggestions forum.  I encourage folks to read it.

http://www.layonaraonline.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=31243&posts=1&start=1


This idea addresses the concern that is repeatedly brought up regarding means of gaining experience.  Not everyone is a barbarian that would primarily advance through the over-mentioned 'bashing'.

Without curbing Square's post off track, another suggestion that I would offer in this train of thought is a Vives-type system.  Now bear in mind that when I say Vives system, what they have is a conglomerate of community scripts and old ideas on a variable xp system.  

It works on the premise that bards, mages, fighters, rogues... they all learn differently.  Experience is gained in a few different categories:  Questing, Combat, Magic-harnessing, ability usage, and crafting.  Every class is given a percentage on each of these categories that they will gain in an event applicable to the given category.  For example, a pure fighter has the settings of combat 100%, discovery 30%, ability usage 30%, magic harnessing 5%, and crafting 50%.  So when they achieve an event in that category they get that % of the normal experience gain.

The experience is set up so that finding new areas (for that character) would yield experience in discovery, ability usage like bardsong is set up with an equation like: XP-Rewarded = Square(#PCsBenefited) x #BardLevels x PercentageBardSongRemain.  PercentageRemaining is persistently stored in DB, and is decremented by 1% on each use, down to 5%.  And so on for the different areas.  A general overview can be seen:  http://vives.dyndns.org/vives/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1084

It was a neat idea.  I'll be the first to say that from my limited experience on that server, it did not work perfectly and probably was wrought with loopholes.  I'm not really sure if Vives is running these days, they always struggled with their playerbase and didn't quite have the support and organization Layo has.  But I do think good ideas like this should be noticed.

I see some neat systems popping up on Layo that mirror some of these variable experience ideals, like the exploration/ history flags.  And I'm thinking that in regard to the varying character types, that it might be interesting to entertain systems that pursue calculated rewards for things outside of killing.

A bit off track from the initial intent here, but obviously a point of concern regarding the many posts.  Harlas had it down in his response.  Roleplay does not equate to dead time.  It is something that's just always there.  But, character styles and character themes don't all fit the same profile in how they theoretically learn, so maybe variable systems are a good idea.  I dunno.

[jrizz]

SquareKnot has hit the nail on the head! I second that anyone interested in the topic of XP for RP must read this post:

http://www.layonaraonline.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=31243&posts=4#M200709

In one of my earlier posts I said that it is up to the players to find a way to meet this challeng and I think SquareKnot has provided a great solution. This will end the debate on XP for RP and put the owness in the hands of the players. Lets all get behind this one.

I think this is so important that I am going to put a pointer post to it at the top of the heap.