Increase level cap on a few 3-7 quests?

[Brimstone Sermon]

That wouldn't happen, because it's simple to prevent.

I'll admit this wouldn't have worked a while back for that exact reason, but the L8 XP drop specifically prevents that. We'd have a two-tier system where it's possible to coast up to 8, but then the XP gain of anything but hardcore quests or DM XP is insufficient to take you further. All that's necessary is to keep 3-8 quest XP below the level where a L8 gains anything and there won't be a horde of L9s.

[GoblinBones]

Still don't like the idea of level 8 crushbots going around with unlimited supplies. Having played quite a few level 8 and higher pc's on EFU:M i can assure you it is not as impossible to get supplies as you're making it out to be.

[Nihm]

What he's saying is that these are recent changes, so however many high level pcs you had before them doesn't matter, they had access to those quests still.
 
You might have to go out on a limb and do the harder quests. If you die, you can again return to the other ones and gain more supplies, solving the problem.
 
People aren't as unwilling to do them as you think. You need to approach their pcs properly and try to barter and flatter for their help. Few people go for a personal approach. It's always "Come with me doing this, stranger, and you can have a share of what's found." You have to give something up to get something. You're not asking people to clean the granary anymore, you're asking them to do something truly dangerous, so change your approach.
 
As for worry about Pvp, if you're worried about losing, avoid it. If you like Pvp for itself, then it doesn't matter if you lose, you had fun even if being beaten. If you don't like it, why worry about amassing supplies for something you actually don't want to do and should be avoiding?
 
Don't have enough supplies for a Dm event? Just say so and skip it. Ran out of supplies partway through? Then just explain why and leave (if possible).
 
To gain supplies, look for employers who want something done and are willing to pay part upfront in supplies. Try to hire yourself out to a brewer for instance.
 
Finally, I've seen many instances where a high level pc is out of supplies yet steadfastly adamant about never parting with any of their loot.  Yes, loot can be traded for potions, gold and wands too.  If you're really thinking of giving up on the character anyway, due to lack of supply, then part with something.

[Mort]

Nah. Going above level 8 requires walking the harder parts of the server if you want to reach it solely with scripted quests.

[Arch Rogue]

For the record those people stating if you want to get beyond L8 you need to get goals done, join factions and meet people ETC, this is completely untrue. The vastly more efficient way to get past L8 is grind higher level quests and/or get lucky and go on a DM quest of some sort.

Goals and roleplay do not pay any real RP dividends sadly.

[Jayde Moon]

YMMV

[Vendayan]

Never played to L8 myself, so my opinion is more or less shot from the hip here, but past experience tells me that part of the problem has involved players who simply want to rocket their way to L8 in a month by arranging a rapid questing schedule with a familiar party.  Only then, when it's as safe as it will ever be, will they attempt to really get their hands dirty with plot and goals.

I can give some credit though to players who complain about the difficulty of staying well geared for the inevitable PvP struggle which comes along with high level plotting.  However, I've always found the enormous level of consumables to be an incredibly unbalancing part of the game to begin with.

An endless supply of consumables allowing any class to create nearly any spell effect has led to far too many fights where L8+ clerics, druids and wizards have been brought down by L5 bards who walked into the fight with the greater capacity to use 3rd and 4th level spells.  I would actually find the fights to be entertaining if hording such an arsenal was a long term goal for those characters, but unfortunately it's too quick and easy for a 5-7 compared to an 8+

[Brimstone Sermon]

I think most of the last few posts have the wrong end of the stick. To clarify again, this suggestion's about modifying or introducing quests that can not be used to take a PC above 8. They would allow resupply, to avoid the situations mentioned above where your only choice is to run like hell every time and take no risks because an OOC system has backed you into a corner supplies-wise.

Why? Because that is really boring especially as I have very rarely seen a reward given to a PC that backed out halfway through after doing all he could. Therefore players push on in the expectation of a payoff and console themselves that even if the PC dies, he might be able to stock up again. This level of OOC bullheadedness is a bit wierd for RP, and promotes bad decisions. Nihm's suggestion to sell your loot actually underlines the issue. If your PC has to literally sell the shirt off his back because of an OOC system, something's amiss as the character has become a victim of his own success. If you're down on your luck you'll take any old job to get yourself back on your feet, but of course you can't IG.

@GoblinBones:
Supplies are not impossible to get hold of at higher levels, however there's a much greater supply gap lately between powerquesters and anyone else. Whereas on a 2-7 PC it's simple to pick up a quest run and hit up things in a short time frame, on a L8 you can get the same or even better payoffs, but only by hitting the big stuff. The long stuff. The stuff you want your IC right hand man to do with. The stuff that takes 2-3 hours. What this does is drive a wedge between a L8 PC who got there the long way and the one running with a crush team that is doing exactly what Caddies mentions and has bags of supplies anyway. You need organisation, preferably on an OOC level so that your team is all logged in at once.

@Nihm:
You need supplies even if your PC doesn't go out their way to get involved in  PVP or epic stuff. When that comes to you, you need the consumables to  either drop your attacker or get clear. The only exception other than an ascetic like Mororn would be an incredibly dull PC that never does anything where a fight might occur anywhere near. The big mistake a lot of people wanting to play their idea of an "RP character" make is to decline useful potions.

If there were shorter quests, these would be unattractive to a crush team going for the biggest reward. Doing a longer quest would net you far more when you factor in travel time and lack of kick-ass end loot. They would however let a non-crush team get themselves consumables or money, albeit of a less spectacular nature. It shouldn't be necessary to sign up with a faction/association to get by, even if wages were that good. If everyone's in one, there's no space for PC initiatives.

tl; dr

• Crushbots currently have stupid supplies and a good shot at L9.
• Adding quests that won't let you get to 9 from them won't change that, they'll be off crushing the ones that do give XP.
• Persuasive badass or not, your PC isn't doing the tough quests without the right sort of PC logged in to talk to. That's out of your control unless you're in an organised squad.
• Adding quests that are not optimal to smash but are quicker to finish will mean that these crushbots can be challenged by PCs with fewer supplies, but still sufficent to do the job.
• Short quests are good, you don't have to plan an evening around the things. However this tends to be ignored as a feature until you end up busy and wish there was something you could do on EfU in an hour or so's playing other than campfire RP.

[MirrorMask]

I agree heavily with the short quests for higher levels point.  I have a strange schedule that usually only allows me one evening a week where i can play for more than 1.5 hours.  Aside from that, it;s usually very little time in the early morning or late evening (GMT -6).  Now that my character is lvl 6 edging towards 7, I see my options drying up.  I am considering an alternate character, but many I've spoken with say it;s very discouraging to other players with extended rp, which is a different issue entirely.  just my 2 cents.

[One_With_Nature]

There are short/medium level 8 quests out there. I can think of four of the top of my head, all which offer pretty good balance/reward. You just have to go and look for them and stop hiding and take some risks for once.

I can't remember the last time i saw anyone do one of the high level quests. IMO people need to start taking more risks and do more exploring etc, go see more of the server theres a lot of cool places out there that people proberbly don't know about. Its not too difficult to put together a little party and go searching where you wouldn't usually go.

Alot of the arguments you bring up brimstone just seem to be your personal experience and what seems to be poor fortune on your part.

[Brimstone Sermon]

Of course they're off my personal experience, so is everyone's accounts except DMs (who can see the entire module), including yours. They're off my experience of everything from running a L10 PC in EfU:A and spending all my XP on brewing, to burning out on a Mistlocke one because I felt stuck in a cycle of grinding Hive after any event or spice. It was all that the team I had could really do at that point.

Oh and my PCs don't "hide and take no risks". I played a stealth PC last and went walking all over the server for a couple of days looking for new stuff when LPFF mentioned new quests. It's a bad idea to make assumptions like that about peoples' experience of EfU, they can be wildly wrong. As for poor fortune on my part, that's another stab in the dark. Everything I said is based on IC or OOC evidence that PCs are often stuck in a rut at 8. From having to arm up a faction buddy after a DM event wiped him out of potions and he couldn't quest with us, to chats in tells trying to work out what quest we could do with the people we had and the lack of time.

In the case of exploring, it would help if you name them at least in part, missing off any location cues. The quest name is no spoiler in most cases, it won't help you find it IG. It will however check if there are more than either of us think. For all I know, this suggestion has already happened to a few quests I haven't done recently. I can also think of 4, but 2 of them have some extra restrictions that get in the way and some have quite the long travel time, especially to fight there. As for high level quests, you won't hear of it as much as PCs tend to hit it with their optimal team. In many cases advertising makes it harder because of scaling.

The existence of these is good, yes. it's not an argument against there being more of a good thing. I can never understand the attitude of many EfU players that making the game less of a timesink is A Bad Thing. It means that we get more people on and active because there's always stuff to do even in short sessions. EfU is great, and the biggest reason people take breaks isn't something negative about the game. It's that they can't afford to take an entire evening to play it. Right now, I'd rather play some Dungeons of Dredmor and leave the game when I want, without letting anyone else down. EfU:M is supposed to be fun. More questing options = more fun if you like that kind of thing. The only issue is balancing things so as not to introduce an expressway to 9, and that's just a case of controlling XP. Consumables should balance out anyway as shorter quests=fewer drops.

[Wrexsoul]

I can never understand the attitude of many EfU players that making the game less of a timesink is A Bad Thing. It means that we get more people on and active because there's always stuff to do even in short sessions. EfU is great, and the biggest reason people take breaks isn't something negative about the game. It's that they can't afford to take an entire evening to play it. Right now, I'd rather play some Dungeons of Dredmor and leave the game when I want, without letting anyone else down. EfU:M is supposed to be fun. More questing options = more fun if you like that kind of thing.

Very much this. As one with spells of very limited play time, I can honestly say there are many times I've wanted to play EfU in my short bit of spare time, but have ended up playing a console game or similar instead just because I haven't had the time to make EfU "worth it" in the short window of time I had. This isn't exclusively related to quests, of course, but anything to make the game easier to play in shorter intervals too would be a very welcome addition, for me and likely very many others in my situation, no matter how small.

[Anon]

To up the ante, i'll say that i rarely have time to play or lack motivation to even do any questing, ie rarely getting above level 5 on any of my characters.

I think in vein of the recent slowdown you should crank up the roleplay xp maybe up to level 9 and raise the overall amount, maybe from 40 to 100.