The MMOisation of EFU

[SatelliteMind]

Fully agree

[HerDarkMajesties]

Quests are already harder in this setting by far than they were in EfU:M. There's been quite a lot of difficult spice lately too. This leads to lots of deaths, and lots of quest spamming in order to regain those lost levels. When you do these quests frequently enough, it becomes harder and harder to put in the effort to deploy good roleplay. This leads on to the MMOization, as DM's notice people just aren't putting in that effort. Which leads to DM's spicing them in order to induce some roleplay out of the players. Which in turns leads to death. Which leads to more quest grinding. And it quickly becomes a rather vicious circle I think.

Coupled with a much diminished tendency for DM's to liberally reward good RP / Plotting with XP and loot, it is tending to lead people to prefer spending a lot of time spamming quests in an attempt to get to their comfort level of XP and Supply, whilst not seeing plotting and conflict as a viable way to any material rewards.

The only sufficiently rewarding system in place right now seems to be the bounty system. Aggressively pursuing people who do cause conflict is by far the most rewarding occupation. While this is very much in-keeping with what one expects from a wealthy police state setting, it is still somewhat hampering to effective storytelling - and seems to teach new players that the path to riches and success is by not rocking the boat, and ganging up on those who do break from the norm.

Ultimately: players will only do what they're rewarded well for doing. If a player earns five times the XP he or she would get from another mindless run through Sahuagin for a decent bit of intrigue, they'll want to do that sort of thing more often. Arranging the assassination of political rivals / Catching notorious criminals / even writing an incendiary pamphlet on the forums should engender heftier rewards - especially if its done by a player known to shy away from such things normally - and perhaps a bit of custom loot in some circumstances.

Making progress on active DM plots should also ideally come with larger bonuses. I've found myself getting sprinkled with 20xp hits when making small contributions to such, and 200xp for earthshattering serverwide events that resulted in serious consequences. These numbers don't seem consummate with the gravity of what is going on. If people see this and think 'I could be earning three times as much exploring those abandoned duergar halls, and face much less danger', they would hardly be wrong, and may start to see DM plots and their attendant events as merely unrewarding things which will only increase their characters chance of dying.

In summary: The answer to this isn't quest take caps, or further reducing the already meagre rewards for questing - this are a recipe for misery. Merely greater DM attention and more liberal rewards for the behaviour they crave is all that is required.

[Ladocicea]

HDM, a reason which is often cited for RP rewards being so small compared to quest rewards is that often RP activities do not involve the kind of immediate risk to a PC's life, use of consumables, expense, etc. as quests do.

Personally, I believe in roleplay being an effective way to level up, but this reason has long endured as a potential motivation to make it less rewarding than questing.

[Kinslayer988]

Lado the people in the hubs who are plotting, who are trying to put up events, arranging murders, gathering parts for a ritual, making new laws, and acting mainly in the hubs are the people that push the server most and deserve experience. The people who dont go out to quest and focus on the town may not always invoke the same risk as the questers, but they are pushing the server and as is the common efu phrase,
"Making things happen"

[Stranger]

Questing, perhaps ironically, does not actually put a character's life at stake. True deaths on EFU are intrinsically connected to plot developments. Those who go out on scripted content are virtually guaranteed to be allowed to respawn. They are only risking the experience points they've presumably toiled to acquire... by doing other scripted content, most likely multiple times.

I sense an issue buried in this. I don't see a solution, however, and am doubtful there is one.

[Knight Of Pentacles]

The problem has been exemplified by trying to "fix" it with ineffective measures.  Quests were made more difficult, supplies and drops were decreased and all it has done is encourage people to grind harder and longer rather than pursue the story.  The problem was never having too many supplies or having too much XP, it was players who were getting these supplies and XP and either doing nothing with them or breaking the game entirely.  Just an example how a few bad eggs spoiled the entire pot.  But instead of punishing these guys, everyone was punished in their stead.


I would say now that this problem is even worse!  Because a well thought out, optimized group can gather tons of supplies and completely crush everyone who isn't optimized and doesn't always have a group of reliable players they can quest with.  I say this from experience and I don't see how it can be healthy to encourage cliques.  But as it is, cliques have a huge advantage over individuals.

[the gardener]

Almost all players like to see their PC's progress in levels and loot. Making quests harder/less rewarding just makes for more grinding.

I would 'up' the rewards for RP (loot and xp)

Particularly if that RP is risk taking (spying/betrayal etc.) but imo even if plotting, planning or hells even if it's just ruminating on a DM plot with a bunch of allies it should ideally be rewarded, and more so than is generally done at the minute.

Throwing rewards of +250xp around for RP more often would encourage it.

I would also perhaps be worth trialling RL time limits on quests. I've seen this done on other servers with some success. If a quest is limited to 24hrs RL it would stop the:

'Can we have a reset please so I can smash and grind some more please?'

[Verk]

From what I've seen the time limit system hurts more than it helps as people just don't log in at all since  they can't quest

I think the best way to promote good behaviour is to reward it either with increased xp rewards or even a vanity item occasionally

[Pentaxius]

Quests are already harder in this setting by far than they were in EfU:M. There's been quite a lot of difficult spice lately too. This leads to lots of deaths, and lots of quest spamming in order to regain those lost levels. When you do these quests frequently enough, it becomes harder and harder to put in the effort to deploy good roleplay. This leads on to the MMOization, as DM's notice people just aren't putting in that effort. Which leads to DM's spicing them in order to induce some roleplay out of the players. Which in turns leads to death. Which leads to more quest grinding. And it quickly becomes a rather vicious circle I think.

Excellent analysis.

As mentionned above, the solution to this is to incentivize Story. I fully agree that a well-done pamphlet on the forum should be worth more XP than a Sahuguan run. The former takes, in fact, more effort and contributes positively to the narration/conflict.

I would furthermore argue that, doing quests (non-spiced) do not carry much risk at all for a significant portion of mechanically competent playerbase, while an incendiary pamphlet could pose more of a threat to your character in terms of meaningful conflict escalation.

[SatelliteMind]

The thing is people have been questing for years, its the nature of the game. However something has changed apperentaly the question is what that something is.

[Spiffy Has]

Excellent analysis.

As mentionned above, the solution to this is to incentivize Story. I fully agree that a well-done pamphlet on the forum should be worth more XP than a Sahuguan run. The former takes, in fact, more effort and contributes positively to the narration/conflict.

I would furthermore argue that, doing quests (non-spiced) do not carry much risk at all for a significant portion of mechanically competent playerbase, while an incendiary pamphlet could pose more of a threat to your character in terms of meaningful conflict escalation.

[Maimed]

Questing is fun. Progress is fun. Making money, getting loot and EXP, these things are fun.

Dying is not fun, because you lose progress. The fun you previously had feels hollow and less fun, because you've lost what you had to show for it.

Natural inclination of people is going to be do more of the fun thing, so perhaps later they can do even more fun thing (plot, scheme, pvp, etc).

People are always going to minimize risk and power game from time to time, it's a human inclination. Max gain for min resistance. Now, INB4 a chorus of "but I-", yes, I should think we ALL strive to not power game, because we have a good community. However, we all have different definitions and tolerances, and sometimes even the most self-flagellant will splurge. I also urge against the inclination to lionize sado-maschism; we shouldn't be putting out "you should have less fun/be less optimal to truly be a good player and have fun," because then it becomes a contest of who can gimp themselves the most to appear the most RP-tastic.

IMO, if the balance of this occurrence is out of whack, we should brainstorm ways to make risk/dying less not-fun WITHOUT reducing difficulty/the prestige of success. Numbers will even themselves out over time.

Making DM EXP not vanish over death was an attempt at this, but as a result, DM's are now terrified of giving out large sums because it would skew the server balance - someone who has 1000 points of permanent exp that cannot be lost on re-spawn has a significant advantage, after all.

[SatelliteMind]

What about setting the base level to 5 to reflect the harshness of the world, should you lose a level you could go no lower than 5. Since someone mentioned the grind to 7 is difficult why not make that road less hard? Maybe increase the amount of XP people get automatically every 10 minutes as well.

[Maimed]

What about setting the base level to 5 to reflect the harshness of the world, should you lose a level you could go no lower than 5. Since someone mentioned the grind to 7 is difficult why not make that road less hard? Maybe increase the amount of XP people get automatically every 10 minutes as well.

Technically, if you know what you're doing/where to go lvl 4 is already the base level, as it can be achieved within an hour of creating a character. This may be different if you take the special hard-mode prelude.

I'm not sure this is the solution, though at the moment I do not have a counter-suggestion to make.

[Nights Bane]

Jeez.  You could have just private messaged me, Lado.  Sheesh!  Talk about airing your dirty laundry.    

All kidding aside I have done the whole 'Let's do X quest' thing in a pm, the rest I'm not guilty of and I actually abhorr it.  I know Mort would personally fry everyone's bollocks in hot butter for it(inb4 deep frying/scottish Lado) but is it really that bad if we are practiced roleplayers and simply roleplay the interaction properly?

To be honest, I think I only do it when I know I am not with a stranger too.  It's definitely stale as hell rp.  I never ever organise a quest ooc in IRC nor by private messages but you've got to wonder...

Is IRC the real culprit of that behaviour?

(All the rest of what Lado mentioned shouldn't even have to be mentioned frankly and I'd be pissed too if I was him.  )