Daz's amazing lootfest extravaganza

[Egon the Monkey]

Ideas for how to make EFU less require less time are welcome.
                                                     

Since I do enjoy logging in for short sessions, I'll chuck a few out. I love the random events system, as if I'm only on for a short while I can explore in the hope of finding one and hit it solo or recruit a team depending on its nature. They never take long, and they are often a nice compact mix of combat and traps. I would enjoy seeing random event frequency upped, but with more minor ones added to balance that out. You wouldn't be expecting as much reward, but more chance of a novel challenge.

In fact, on that line, would it be possible to script a couple of short, level unrestricted random *quests*? The random transition would lead to a "lobby" map with a questgiver and another transition into the QA.

Love the idea of skirmish areas, although friendly NPCs could turn it into an invis loot farmign zone. I would suggest really increasing the frequency of attacks on claimable areas, adding a couple more claim points and makign the rewards obvious. Also make the system clearly indicate it's a reward for protecting the area, not "claiming" it. Then people aren't worried a major faction will stomp them for claiming "their" area, and it becomes a small PVE challenge not a conflict generator.

[Drakill Tannan]

I would like skrimish areas as well. The loot reward from this areas should be low, as should the XP one, (the XP should be nearly none, or they become level up areas). To avoid invis-looting one could place a few archers with high spot/listen and see invisibility, allowing stealth and invis to be soemwhat effective to escape or sneak, but not to do so permanently.

[Caster13]

The problem with any server--or game, rather--that has such a huge social component to it will always be the lack of interaction do to fluctating playerbase and timezones and such.
 
Any sort of "single player" aspect in the server would have to be very carefully planned ahead to avoid exploitation. Royal Dragon comes to mind, something to do, but just as well something that could ruin you (financially).

[VanillaPudding]

A few months ago, everyone was complaining there weren't any plots and our factions sucked. Now we undertake what was a pretty massive project and its the wrong thing to do. :(

I believe what people may try to disagree with is that PC efforts have been getting pressed aside to make way for DM plot efforts. A little more touch of the efforts that have been made by players in new implementations that are similar  would be nice. (The conclave, The Sons, Red Star Demon, ect) While those factions are wonderful they could have certainly taken on some aspects more fitting of player organizations that came prior to them I think. The Red Star Demon is another fork on that path but, from what's known, no one involved was working towards the ending that happened there and in fact were working for the opposite.


There are a ton of good options in this thread and hopefully it helps the DMs along as they create. I think the primary concern of mine is for people to stop comparing our current world to things that are long gone, stop comparing characters to the greats of old EFU or having nostalgia about an environment that was different  and perhaps more fun for yourself at that time.

  This goes alongside the suggestion to ease off of the expectations a bit and try to enjoy a wider variety of characters. I have had successful and unsuccessful characters myself and I put nearly the same amount of effort into each of them. Very few people (outside of like Howland) can create something amazing nearly every time and that shouldn't be the expectation, but something to aspire towards.

[Figaro]

I think, in terms of reducing time, a very good thing to do would be to make lower level quests and ways to get involved more clearly visible and flowing. It might just be because my memory's imperfect, but the amount of lower level quests you needed a team in both Upper and Lower seemed much higher than here on EfUA.

It would encourage lower level players who know their way around to find other low level players and do stuff with them. As it is, I tend to find the majority of low level quests are basically soloable or too difficult for a bunch of new characters to do. Some like Boggs or Bat Tower that require multiple low level PCs and are right where you start would be what I would want to see on the server, in the Colony and the Docks.

[Kotenku]

Ideas for how to make EFU less require less time are welcome.

Relax the XP penalties on dying.

[TheImpossibleDream]

Relax the XP penalties on dying.

How would that make efu require less time? You'd spend just as much time and just be higher level for it >_>

[derfo]

i lose less exp when i die guess ill log on more

honestly i think it's up to the player how much time they invest. of course those who invest more time will get more out of it, but that's just the nature of the game.

[FleetingHeart]

Ideas to make EFUA take less time:

[LIST=1]

• Don't kill your rivals at the first opportunity. Murder should be a -last- resort. The longer you let a rival live, the less time that rival has to spend re-establishing his next character!


• Be more involving of new characters. I don't just mean let them into your quest train. Spend some time RPing with them in some significant way. Get to know them. Get to trust them, then let them in on your goals/plots/secrets.


• Stop making 'throw-away' characters whom you lead into certain death situations. Try a little empathy. This ties back into point number 1.

If more people could accomplish these simple things, then the level spam becomes much less important. Leading to more time for RP. You'll spend less time trying to prepare for that inevitable FD because you insulted badguyA's sister's dog and more time planning and participating in truly enjoyable play.

In short? STOP TRYING TO WIN.

[derfo]

while those are cool ideas fleetingheart, i have no idea how they make you invest less time

eventually any worthwhile pursuit is going to want power, either political or mechanical, that's sort of inevitably going to take some time. i think it'd be cool to have some things be pushed faster but i think that only really goes as far as dm/player interest goes unfortunately

[Egon the Monkey]

I think that some of that could be accomplished by DM help in making guard factions effective. If you look at the arrest rate for ganking, it's not that high. Half the time, a simple disguise means nobody knew whodunnit. I like the idea of the Sons rather lax laws because it should drive PVP conflict in the docks that doesn't come down to "stab him inna kidneys", providing the two laws they have are heavily enforced. If people are more worried about the guards than the target's level, and the guards "have too much on their plate to pursue trivial brawls" but are shit-hot on murderers, then that encourages longer-running conflicts.

A lot of the time, players can want to avoid conflict or spam up levels because the consequences for losing get out of proportion. For example: One of my PCs was involved in a brawl outside Kingsmans. Him and a PC, "Legionnaire" got drunk, had an unarmed spar at Noble's Gate, and then starting mocking another PC. Legionnaire then gets a DM and punches the other guy, whose response was to chug haste, bark, blur, DF and counterattack with a scimitar.

The point of this story is that there'd be less of a feeling of "need to spam" if players would have their PCs bring fists to fistfights, knives to knifefights and guns to gunfights as it were, and the default assumption wasn't "gunfight". So IMO, IC efforts to relax penalties for unarmed assault (by making it not count towards Persistent Criminal Activity), and other ways to encourage fightfights and sabotage etc over Keg Of Potions Duels. Let's see those unarmed barbs who spend every Friday in the drunk tank. :D