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Reduction to the 'time sink' aspect of the game.


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Hello, Thank you for reading this far.

 

 

Please reduce the amount of time it takes to gain experience.

Not in any extreme way.

Maybe not even at lower levels under ?70?

Overall the amount of time spent doing mundane tasks is a significant detraction to enjoyment.

That extra time I would like to spend developing more character classes.

I feel that the significant amount of time used to learn a limited skillset is a design flaw from the original games requirement to collect monthly financial dividends.

 

I am unsure how to implement, or even where to reduce the time sink.

I am sure that more experienced players know exactly where to remove time sinks for the effect of

saving time and not reduce the amount of skill learned, or detract from the sense of accomplishment after achieving the character loadout and skill set a player sets as a goal.

 

Nothing extreme suggested.

 

I have been in the emu for around a month, I previously beta the original, and played almost till the end. I really enjoy the game again. But at my age, I cannot justify so much time spent without equal gratification.

 

Thank you for considering my suggestion.

 

Have good games!!!

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I think that over the course of he game, as more content is added, that may help.  I doubt that the devs will agree to lessen the XP cost of each level.

 

That's not the only way to go about it. Though I do agree with your doubt on a general basis.

 

Personally I find the leveling system, as it is right now, largely broken.

 

1. Trade: The actual Trade-related activities (analyzing/building/trade runs/etc) earn you significantly less trade xp than combat and explore activities can with very little effort. (stackable loot/ores traded to a friend/alt ridiculously outstrip the combat/trade XP you earn getting those stacks)

2. Combat: Killing even-level mobs (1000xp per kill) starts to be [b]painfully[/b] slow around combat level 8, and arguably not worth the cost of ammo not too long after that (by the time you hit CL20, you're looking at 100+ even-level kills per CL). Combat jobs are mind-numbing, but actually tip the xp payout into the realm of reason (or somewhere adjacent to it).

3. Explore: If you're not a miner, your only real options here are a) hang out with miners a lot, b ) more mind-numbing jobs!, c) tours. If you are a miner, you can at least earn a little bit of explore xp while mining for trade xp. Also, unless you're giving or receiveing tours, the nav-discovery xp becomes irrelevant very quickly.

 

It's to the point where I've seen discussions about people getting to OL150 JUST from jobbing and/or trade running and letting overflow XP take care of combat/explore (trade runs) or combat/trade (explore jobs). I could never play that way, cause I just don't hate myself enough. Though it's still frustrating as hell how disjointed it feels when trying to gain EL or CL ends up giving vastly more TL than anything else, and yet doing trade activities achieves very little other than moving the clock forward (and in the case of building, draining you dry of credits).

 

And I feel it important to clarify this point: It's not that I think trade xp gains are too easy/fast. Rather, non-job combat and explore xp gains are FAR too unbelievably slow.

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I agree Yuritau, leveling explore especially on a non-explorer is a royal PITA.  The game simply doesn't offer a good way for non-explorers to do this, and there aren't enough navs to get you beyond mid 20s last I heard.   While one does get a small amount of Explore XP for analyzed recipes, it's too small to be substantial, I think that Explore XP should probably be rewarded in more of the game's missions, to help some.  Personally I loathe touring, and find the job terminals less of a PITA to do it.  The reduction; in XP for satellite jobs, and field clear jobs seems a bit painful,  IMO right now the best jobs on the terminal are diplomats/tourists trade runs.  I'd rather see the credit reward for field clear removed, if it means I can get more XP, since I'm already going ot get credits from selling the ores mined.  When doing jobs from Prasad with my JE, I don't even bother with the field clear ones, since I can get better XP by going to Tarsis, for tourists/diplomats, and dropping them off at Arx Spartoi in Endriago.  Being an explorer, it should be better for me to do field clear jobs.

 

Trade runs, I'd agree too.  Somerled to Fenris is a royal PITA if you don't have a toon with Negotiate & access to BBW.   I think that smuggling trade routes would be a nice addition for those who have RD faction.  There were a few in EnB Origins.  There was one that was Chernevog to Paren, where you needed +2000 before the Pirate NPC would even mention that he had goods to be smuggled.   The Chavez could have something similar since they're pirates too.

 

Combat, I do think that if we're going to group up, and kill over CL, we should get more XP/hour for doing so, than if we're fighting things our same CL or even one or two levels over.   I would imagine there would still need to be some type of level banding to prevent power-leveling, but other than that, I'm not sure how best to do it.  1000 XP for killing something your same level seems reasonable at lower levels, but when you're working for overdings, it's a PITA. 

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There was an omission in my little rant there, on purpose: Missions. I'm told there are numerous missions out there that can reward you quite nicely in terms of xp and items and such, but I have absolutely no idea WHERE they are, or WHEN I might have access to them. I'm not going to fly around to every station after every HU with each toon just to see IF there's a mission one of them can do now.

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To go further on the subject of smuggling, It wouldn't be unreasonable that even the "legitimate" factions sometimes need an item taken someplace, while being able to deny they did so.  It's another potential thing for future content.  You'd probably need a minimun faction requirement to do this, since a faction that doesn't trust you, isn't likely to let you smuggle for them.

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+1 on the issues with leveling explore. Why did they even change the xp given on explore jobs and instead give credits? Because it was that way in live? It was a waste in live and it is now. Who has a high level character that really needs the 6000 credits from high level explore jobs? All that xp/credit split did was make it even more painful to level explore xp.

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They changed it because a couple of players mentioned that in "Original Live" there was something in the "reward" box in addition to the payment for the job.  So the devs decided to cut the xp in half and give the same amount in credits.

 

How they decided that one xp was worth one credit escapes me.

 

I would gladly pay 1 million credits for 1 million explore xp.

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Hello, Thank you for reading this far.
 
 
Please reduce the amount of time it takes to gain experience.
Not in any extreme way.

 
 
By How much?  Wanna be 150 in what?  3 weeks?, 1 week?, 3 days?
Come on guys....stop whining!!

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I think that the level times over all are ok. What I would like to see however is a better balance between xp types. I have the following opinion:

Warrior Class,   Combat XP: Easy. Grinding solo or in a group I usually have the levels required before I have gotten the loot drops I want to analyze.
             ,    Trade XP: Hard. Painfully slow to get. Trade runs seems futile with the limited cargo space and no negotiate. Jobs are very slow.
             ,  Explore XP: Ok. Touring, leaching XP while mining and odd jobs seems sufficient, though not precisely easy to get. 
Explorer Class,  Combat XP: Ok. I usually group up with a warrior class for combat (my own usually).
              ,   Trade XP: Ok. XP from trading and refining ore supplemented with a few jobs and missions seems to keep my TL at a reasonable level.
              , Explore XP: Easy. Mining, touring and odd jobs and missions makes Explore XP very easy to come by.
Trader Class,    Combat XP: Ok. I usually group up with a warrior class for combat (my own usually).
              ,   Trade XP: Ok. XP from trade runs, and missions seems to keep my TL up with out too much effort.
             ,  Explore XP: Ok. Touring, leaching XP while mining and odd jobs seems sufficient, though not precisely easy to get. 

In conclusion, except for trade XP for warriors, I think it's ok. We don't need to reduce the XP need to level.
More ways to gain XP are always good though. If it were up to me, I would start with a better source for Trade XP accessable for warriors (or all classes). I would then move on to additional sources of explore XP and last combat XP.

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+1 on the issues with leveling explore. Why did they even change the xp given on explore jobs and instead give credits? Because it was that way in live? It was a waste in live and it is now. Who has a high level character that really needs the 6000 credits from high level explore jobs? All that xp/credit split did was make it even more painful to level explore xp.

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There was an omission in my little rant there, on purpose: Missions. I'm told there are numerous missions out there that can reward you quite nicely in terms of xp and items and such, but I have absolutely no idea WHERE they are, or WHEN I might have access to them. I'm not going to fly around to every station after every HU with each toon just to see IF there's a mission one of them can do now.

Just a thought...What about a NPC that all can go to that based on your race/class/level could direct you to "possible" missions?  Way back when, POTBS added something like this at each of the main ports of call.  It helped a lot when in a full on PvP game many areas were off limits (until the next port battle) for one to follow missions.

 

I wouldn't mind going to start area and getting a mission line.  I would always know where to go to get a "hint" of the next mission that is available to me.

 

It could be done in such a way that the missions could be given as hints rather than outright "go here".  

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There are some NPCs in various locations where you can ask if anyone nearby needs help.  Most I've seen are trade good vendors who have the dialogue option, but expanding on that may help. 

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We've heard this all before.

There are a group of gamers who want everything Now, Now Now!

 

They want to be instantly Level 150.

They want to be able to solo Raid bosses.

They want to have everything handed to them on a silver plater.

I'm not saying this is what you are asking for.

That's just how many of us see it.

 

This does not make for an interesting game.

The DEVs have done their best to make the leveling experience as similar to how Westwood intended.

Is it perfect? No. But that's ok. It keeps the game interesting.

There are already far too many "easy" ways to L150. An Example mentioned was Trade XP.

 

I do think a small problem is lack of direction for Quests, as you level up.

I for one am just as guilty at not working on these issues when I could.

 

There are a ton of fun and exciting quests for all levels.

Finding them can be difficult.

If anything, that should be the thing the Team works on.

 

Starting at level 1, ideally, you should be given direction to sectors, and missions available around your level.

Making this happen requires a tremendous amount of work; basically revamping every mission.

Seeing as it's a Volunteer Project, it will require a large amount of Content Developers to make this happen.

 

The best thing you can do, is send Kyp a PM, offering your help.

Also, making broad, general statements about the leveling system doesn't help the Team.

Offer smaller, concise, specific suggestions. I promise you they will spend the time to concider them.

 

Just remember: The DEVs all have jobs, families, and lives that come first.

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In response to Darkk's post... Missions (Quests) that are level appropriate... Why can't we have an NPC, or a racial NPC at each of the home stations, that can direct us to content... If you query the NPC it checks to see if you have run X mission previously, if you have the minimum required level, faction and pre-requsite missions and then tells the player simply.. "NPCx on station Y has a mission for you" or similar.. not new missions, just a guided push in the right direction... if you ask the NPC a second time immediately after accepting or refusing a mission he selects another that you are capable of...

Ideally when this NPC runs out of work for you to do, you've done every mission possible, at least once, for your class, race, level, faction ratings. 

 

In cases with faction it would also be nice if the NPC could inform the player "If you had more x faction you could perform x job for NPC y at station Z" or similar, so the player would know he has new content available if he raises a particular faction. 

 

The point of this being it would be great for when a new mission is made available as well as the dozens of missions that no one even knows about.  It becomes tedious to go to each station and talk to every NPC over and over in hopes of finding something to do. I would love to be able to level a toon solely on mIssions, it would take a long time, sure, but it would be fun...

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Good point, I remember in the patch notes a while back something about helping Antares 1 be completed, but have had no luck finding said mission.  Have looked with my JE & JT.  I don't know if I need a warrior instead.

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Basically, we are limited to the number of talk trees any one NPC can have.

It would have to be multiple query NPC's, based on level, spread out across the galaxy.

We're talking months worth of work.

 

I've made this exact same suggestion in regards to Agrippa Content.

 

It just can't be easily done, unless the coders come up with an alternative system.

 

We have some brilliant Programmers, but I don't see that happening.

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Darkk, I don't think everyone wants to be insta 150 (yes, you said that not everyone is like that). I know for me, when I'm on a warrior class, leveling explore after lv 30 is just...boring. A few classes are just a bit screwed when it comes to explore xp after a certain level. You can only run so many tours, or dump so many satellites/garbage around the galaxy. After a while, I just want to kill every Earthcorps I can find and get drunk on looted Yumm-o-beer to kill the pain. Back in the day it was not too hard to group up with miners who wanted protection from mobs as they mined, but the server population simply doesn't support that kind of gaining explore xp to any level. Here are a few suggestions that you can agree with or just tell me are stupid, or not doable due to programming/client constraints...

 

1. Specific explore missions where one is asked to drop a beacon at a given coordinate. This beacon marker will then show up on the user's map and becomes another nav point for that pilot only. Place a limit on the number of beacons a pilot can drop in any given sector. A sense of accomplishment is seen here, since a pilot is gaining nav points for each sector.

 

2. Specific repeatable explore missions where a non-mining class is able to scan asteroids in order to help miners find specific ores. The miners could get that information and mine the ores for the non-mining class, trade the ores to that class, and allow the pilot to deliver those ores to complete the mission. XP would be given for each delivery. The ores will be used as part of a building operation for a structure that can be placed on a planet or in space. Once all the material is collected (a lot of material, could be 100,000 of six or seven ores), the mission arc is complete, and each pilot who contributed a set amount of ores can have their name inscribed on a plaque for all to read (a la Glory's Orbit) once the structure is built.

 

3. A way to combine explore and combat xp is to receive a mission that sends a pilot to a sector to eliminate hostile mobs. No actual nav point or location, other than sector, is given. A pilot would literally have to explore the area to find the hostile mobs. Once the mobs are eliminated, the pilot records the approximate location, relays that location back the the mission giver, and receives explore xp for actually exploring the area.

 

Just a few ideas. I didn't want to complain and not have an idea or three waiting in the wings.

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Basically, we are limited to the number of talk trees any one NPC can have.

It would have to be multiple query NPC's, based on level, spread out across the galaxy.

We're talking months worth of work.

 

I've made this exact same suggestion in regards to Agrippa Content.

 

It just can't be easily done, unless the coders come up with an alternative system.

 

We have some brilliant Programmers, but I don't see that happening.

Not being fully aware of the limitations of the system it is very easy to over reach possibility... Then the only other viable option would be an external system, perhaps meshed in with Net-7.  One of the tabs on an avatar could be "Missions available" or something like that. 

 

The missions themselves must have some kind of table or database entry by which the system can check for missions completed and a table entry of which missions an avatar has not completed would be easy to extrapolate.  A couple of small queries should be able to spit that info out on the Avatar pages easily enough.

 

Personally having leveled up several 150s at this point I can say there are aspects of it that are tedious, but I don't think 150 should be easy, it should take work.  The easiest routes are not always the fastest but it is often very tedious.  The fastest routes involve grouped efforts and skipping a great deal of content.  My idea here is to setup a suggested path of development that is a mix of missions, jobs and good old group combat, tours and trade runs that will just diversify the activities of a developing player rather than accelerate their growth.

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Not being fully aware of the limitations of the system it is very easy to over reach possibility... Then the only other viable option would be an external system, perhaps meshed in with Net-7.  One of the tabs on an avatar could be "Missions available" or something like that. 

 

The missions themselves must have some kind of table or database entry by which the system can check for missions completed and a table entry of which missions an avatar has not completed would be easy to extrapolate.  A couple of small queries should be able to spit that info out on the Avatar pages easily enough.

 

Personally having leveled up several 150s at this point I can say there are aspects of it that are tedious, but I don't think 150 should be easy, it should take work.  The easiest routes are not always the fastest but it is often very tedious.  The fastest routes involve grouped efforts and skipping a great deal of content.  My idea here is to setup a suggested path of development that is a mix of missions, jobs and good old group combat, tours and trade runs that will just diversify the activities of a developing player rather than accelerate their growth.

 

 

Now that sounds like an excellent idea!

 

I do believe the Team could make that happen.

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Yup I am suggesting that the original configuration of specific 'time' consuming aspect of this game was a mistake added to a VERY playable RPG in order to make it MMO and return MONIES to the developer/distributor. The current developers are able to do something about this. The players who have 'endured' to achieve, have the disposition of spending a lot of time for something and I am saying they got robbed of their time, so of course they thread jack and delute the topic with great ideas for something not relative to my suggestion. That is a diversion used in debate by the opposing idealogy.

 

 

To the developers of the emu, and the delusional people who feel an over abundance of stature, "I am amazed, I really thought E Ya killed it. Your revival is nothing less then spectacular!, however E Ya is a beast of burden. Thank you so very much, I left something outside the gate to Centurai, and it was their when I logged in. Gratitude /honorablesalutation"

 

-69

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Now that sounds like an excellent idea!

 

I do believe the Team could make that happen.

Didnt you have an idea similar to this?  I know we reached an impasse on actually doing it (dont think any of the webdevs had the time at the time).  Ill plug the idea again though.

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