urgthock wrote:

Lodrelhai wrote:

As it stands now, however, MY dirge, who is only lvl 79 despite having been at level cap prior to RoK launch, who's last raid was a pickup raid of the Labs over a year ago, who almost never groups outside of once or twice a month with guildmates - who has, in short, done almost NOTHING towards her progression - will get those EXACT SAME FOUR SPELLS Bluedego has been working off his posterior for, in the exact same amount of time it will take him.

You may end up taking this question as an attempt at a slam at you. That is not how it is intended I assure you. Are you really "playing" your dirge? From your description it doesn't truly sound like you are. And I hope you can be realistic and not argue semantics such as "Hey, I logged him on and ran an instance a couple of times last month". Are you really and truly "playing" your dirge?

I read that to believe he has a main already mastered out, so use of the RA would fall to his rarely played dirge.

Now, I read it that way, cause the RA will let me master out my 6th toon, my inquisitor, that I only occasionaly duo with the wife.

Atan@Unrest wrote:

urgthock wrote:

Lodrelhai wrote:

As it stands now, however, MY dirge, who is only lvl 79 despite having been at level cap prior to RoK launch, who's last raid was a pickup raid of the Labs over a year ago, who almost never groups outside of once or twice a month with guildmates - who has, in short, done almost NOTHING towards her progression - will get those EXACT SAME FOUR SPELLS Bluedego has been working off his posterior for, in the exact same amount of time it will take him.

You may end up taking this question as an attempt at a slam at you. That is not how it is intended I assure you. Are you really "playing" your dirge? From your description it doesn't truly sound like you are. And I hope you can be realistic and not argue semantics such as "Hey, I logged him on and ran an instance a couple of times last month". Are you really and truly "playing" your dirge?

I read that to believe he has a main already mastered out, so use of the RA would fall to his rarely played dirge.

Now, I read it that way, cause the RA will let me master out my 6th toon, my inquisitor, that I only occasionaly duo with the wife.

 

Actually my dirge is my main - Kariah on Crushbone.  My next highest level character is my necromancer, currently level-locked at 56, but I have a full roster of alts I like to switch between.  I log onto my dirge the most, and what I consider "playing" may not be what others do.  My "play" is things like rping with guildmates, filling crafting requests in the serverwide TS channel, debating lore in the worldwide Lore channel (Befallen.Lore if you're interested), testing UI changes, sneaking into zones I have no business being in just to see how far I can get, doing some writs, decorating the guild hall, updating the guild roster and dues records, mentoring friends' alts, harvesting, and soloing either current content solo quests or older content grey heroics which the guild never got to.

So yeah, by a lot of people's standards I'm not "playing" this game.  It's more a social and rp network for me than a game to beat.  And that's fine by me.  My playstyle does not require phat lewtz or full Masters, and I don't begrudge the folks on the leaderboards one bit - they, like Bluedego above, have worked their tails off to get where they are and deserve every bit of the rewards they have earned.    I have not.

But with the RA, I can get those Masters anyway.  The developers will assume I have - why wouldn't I?  They're free!  And next expansion, they will balance the easy, solo content - my content - based on that assumption.  We've already seen the escallation happening - RoK solo and group content is significantly more difficult than EoF, even on Kylong Plains.  TSO is is worse - my little guild can't even clear Scion of Ice without mentoring someone's alt to get the zone level dropped significantly.  I deal with these things as I can, but the higher the baseline goes, the less I can do to manage around it and still play the game my way.  The casual game is going to suffer the most for this change.  That's what I'm trying to prevent.

Mijrk@Valor wrote:

Sziroten@Valor wrote:

Well everyone is just posting his opinion and I'll see a faster progress in such a "giving free" things and even if it will happen I would like to keep it away as long as it is possible.

Argument why it should have a cost because right now you have to work for charlvl/crafterlvl getting Items, Master etc. so the RA would stay in the current system.

I counter that argument with: There should be no cost because then it would add a completely new way to acquire masters. (I don't say it's a good argument, but I'd say it's as good as yours )

em.. that you can get master from a npc is a completly new way but with costs it stays in the current (work - get) system.

urgthock wrote:

Lodrelhai wrote:

As it stands now, however, MY dirge, who is only lvl 79 despite having been at level cap prior to RoK launch, who's last raid was a pickup raid of the Labs over a year ago, who almost never groups outside of once or twice a month with guildmates - who has, in short, done almost NOTHING towards her progression - will get those EXACT SAME FOUR SPELLS Bluedego has been working off his posterior for, in the exact same amount of time it will take him.

You may end up taking this question as an attempt at a slam at you. That is not how it is intended I assure you. Are you really "playing" your dirge? From your description it doesn't truly sound like you are. And I hope you can be realistic and not argue semantics such as "Hey, I logged him on and ran an instance a couple of times last month". Are you really and truly "playing" your dirge?

This is an interesting question...

He is not playing his dirge in a manner that progresses him in any reasonable manner. I am not sure why this is a question you would ask, as it just further highlights why the RA is a bad idea overall.

On one hand you have this level 79 dirge that is being used for guild hall decoration, RP, mentoring others, harvesting and other less than challenging endevours (not having a go at people that do this, as if that is what you enjoy doing in game, go for it imo). On the other hand you have a level 80 dirge that has been raiding end game content and running end game instances since the level cap was set to 80.

These characters will get the exact same rewards from the RA, in the exact same amount of time, for the exact same cost. To me, this does not seem balanced at all, and is really just a different example of the whole "player logging in just to set the RA" that people have been slamming.

Edit: this post gave me an idea for my new preferance of "cost" for the RA, and its fairly simple.

Double the time the RA takes to complete, this is the first step, and is fairly easy to do. Next, look in each level range at the named solo, heroic and epic mobs avalible. On killing a named mob, the RA gains bonus research. There should be a limit to this so that solo can not speed research up more than 12.5% (52.5 days instaed of 60), heroic mobs can not add more than 25% (45 days), and raid mobs no more than 50% (30 days). In order to advance the RA, you would need to kill mobs of the same teir as the spell that is being researched, or higher tiers (ie, if you are researching a level 35 spell, any T4 or higher named mob will count towards the RA, if you are researching a level 75 spell, only T8 mobs will count).

In order to get the full bonus of each content level, a total of 30 mobs would need to be killed.

While this will no doubt get slammed by non raiders, it addresses a few issues. First of all, it encourages people to go out and participate in the hardest content they feel confortable with.

Second, it continues the trend in game now of raiders having easiest access to masters, with groupers having the next easiest, and soloers having the hardest time to find them. At the same time as maintaining the status quo, it also undoubtidly gives players access to masters they did not have access to before, but again encourages them to work for them.

Lastly, it maintains a rarity on masters that really should be kept. Masters are as good as you can get, and even though I don't like the idea of handing them out once every 60 days for no effort, the fact that people that put in effort are able to get them faster does make that pill a lot easier to swollow.

I'd love to hear peoples thoughts about this, as even though its not perfect, I consider it better than a flat 30 days with no cost, and better than a plat cost (and quests have been ruled out since a few days after the RA was announced).

Sziroten@Valor wrote:

Mijrk@Valor wrote:

Sziroten@Valor wrote:

Well everyone is just posting his opinion and I'll see a faster progress in such a "giving free" things and even if it will happen I would like to keep it away as long as it is possible.

Argument why it should have a cost because right now you have to work for charlvl/crafterlvl getting Items, Master etc. so the RA would stay in the current system.

I counter that argument with: There should be no cost because then it would add a completely new way to acquire masters. (I don't say it's a good argument, but I'd say it's as good as yours )

em.. that you can get master from a npc is a completly new way but with costs it stays in the current (work - get) system.

... and without cost it leaves the current system (thus adds a new system). So what? That's just a description of what we get, no argument for or against it. Neither adding a new system nor keeping a current system is good or bad by itself. You'd have to point out why staying in the system is better than leaving it, then you'd have an argument. But I can't think of any argument for or against that is not highly subjective in this particular case.

Mijrk@Valor wrote:

Sziroten@Valor wrote:

Mijrk@Valor wrote:

Sziroten@Valor wrote:

Well everyone is just posting his opinion and I'll see a faster progress in such a "giving free" things and even if it will happen I would like to keep it away as long as it is possible.

Argument why it should have a cost because right now you have to work for charlvl/crafterlvl getting Items, Master etc. so the RA would stay in the current system.

I counter that argument with: There should be no cost because then it would add a completely new way to acquire masters. (I don't say it's a good argument, but I'd say it's as good as yours )

em.. that you can get master from a npc is a completly new way but with costs it stays in the current (work - get) system.

... and without cost it leaves the current system (thus adds a new system). So what? That's just a description of what we get, no argument for or against it. Neither adding a new system nor keeping a current system is good or bad by itself. You'd have to point out why staying in the system is better than leaving it, then you'd have an argument. But I can't think of any argument for or against that is not highly subjective in this particular case.

ok.. let's get more detailed..

current system is working -- getting with a luck factor and a uneven droprate

now the RA is itself a new system but to stay in line with the thought.. you have to do something to get it.. RA needs a cost (Quest, playtime, platin.. whatever there are so many ways)

Staying in the system is better because it keeps the people away which get used to the "get best stuff 4 free" so they will ask for more and since they are outnumbering every other playerstyle sooner or later SOE will bring other things like raiditems etc.

Andok wrote:

The devs are clearly seeing the RA from the perspective of the entire game, and not just an individual, isolated addition like the vocal minority here. 

As much as I respect the developers, even they'll be the first to admit they're only human.  Just because they may think they've got it figured out doesn't mean it's figured out.  Update 13 happened because the developers thought they had the game's major combat and progression mechanics figured out - that they thought they were "clearly seeing...from the perspective of the entire game" and then less than a year after the game's release, they had to gut the combat and progression systems and start over.  Obviously, they'd made a mistake.

This sort of thing happens all the time.  The developers don't intentionally set out to make mistakes.  They're just human.  Gear being altered...raid encounters being altered...priest balancing and rebalancing...rangers being changed...pets being changed for summoners...soft caps and diminishing returns being altered...the entire tradeskill system being revamped...and now the complete overhaul of the proc/trigger system.

Trust me, the developers make mistakes.  What's more, every one of the situations I mentioned (and the ones I didn't) had posts like these on the forums in advance from players who warned about the exact problems we ended up seeing.  That same "vocal minority" ran the fighter/hate revamp off the rails when it realized problems that the developers had not been "clearly seeing...from the perspective of the entire game. 

I have a lot of respect for the developers.  I consider many of them to be friends.  I just don't believe they're infalliable...and frankly, neither do they think so of themselves.  Don't assume that the developers have it right just by virtue of the fact that they are developers. 

Noaani wrote:

Edit: this post gave me an idea for my new preferance of "cost" for the RA, and its fairly simple.

Double the time the RA takes to complete, this is the first step, and is fairly easy to do. Next, look in each level range at the named solo, heroic and epic mobs avalible. On killing a named mob, the RA gains bonus research. There should be a limit to this so that solo can not speed research up more than 12.5% (52.5 days instaed of 60), heroic mobs can not add more than 25% (45 days), and raid mobs no more than 50% (30 days). In order to advance the RA, you would need to kill mobs of the same teir as the spell that is being researched, or higher tiers (ie, if you are researching a level 35 spell, any T4 or higher named mob will count towards the RA, if you are researching a level 75 spell, only T8 mobs will count).

In order to get the full bonus of each content level, a total of 30 mobs would need to be killed.

While this will no doubt get slammed by non raiders, it addresses a few issues. First of all, it encourages people to go out and participate in the hardest content they feel confortable with.

Second, it continues the trend in game now of raiders having easiest access to masters, with groupers having the next easiest, and soloers having the hardest time to find them. At the same time as maintaining the status quo, it also undoubtidly gives players access to masters they did not have access to before, but again encourages them to work for them.

Lastly, it maintains a rarity on masters that really should be kept. Masters are as good as you can get, and even though I don't like the idea of handing them out once every 60 days for no effort, the fact that people that put in effort are able to get them faster does make that pill a lot easier to swollow.

I'd love to hear peoples thoughts about this, as even though its not perfect, I consider it better than a flat 30 days with no cost, and better than a plat cost (and quests have been ruled out since a few days after the RA was announced).

I think this is a very interesting concept. But I wouldn't be myself if I didn't have some objections .

First: Doubling the time is imho a good idea to start with. That way most players would still get access to the most important 10-12 masters during the cycle of a tier. (Well, based on the assumption that in future the max level will be increased every 2 years as now.)

Adding a way to reduce this waiting time a bit is ok with me, too. Killing nameds seems to be a good requirement for this reduction. There would have to go in some thoughts about camping nameds and availability of nameds (mainly for solo nameds that are in the open world). And I think there should be some mechanism that prevents players from killing the same named over and over and getting this bonus every kill.

But where I totally disagree with you is the point, that different playstyles should lead to different possible reductions. Especially with such drastic differences. I don't see why a raider should get more benefits there than a grouper or a soloer. (And the same for grouper vs soloer). Raiders will always have the easiest acces to masters, independently of how the RA is implemented. They will continue to buy their spells from the market. I don't think that there has to be another mechanism that helps them getting full mastered even faster. The RA by itself will be a big enough help there (by making the rare spells available). And the same is true for groupers. They will still have better access to masters than soloers, as masters will still drop more often from heroics than from solo mobs.

I know you want to encourage people to go out and play the game. But I don't think that this works. Those who are willing to invest time (or effort) to get their masters are most likely already playing and either farming plat or doing heroic content to increase their chance for a master drop. I don't think this would activate more people to play.

Then a thought about the rarity of masters: I do agree that masters should be rare. But honestly, with any kind of RA implemented, rarity of masters will decrease anyway (and noticeable). RA's are "master creating" NPC's by design. Masters won't be rare anymore in a year, because everyone will have access to a master creator. 
The only proposal I saw until now that would prevent masters from getting less rare is the "master exchanger". The supply of masters would be the same if you'd need to give an existing master to the NPC to get another one in exchange. Every other form will make masters more common.
Even with your suggestion here, every player will be able to have at least 6 masters after a year. That's nowhere near rare anymore. 

Sziroten@Valor wrote:

Mijrk@Valor wrote:

Sziroten@Valor wrote:

Mijrk@Valor wrote:

Sziroten@Valor wrote:

Well everyone is just posting his opinion and I'll see a faster progress in such a "giving free" things and even if it will happen I would like to keep it away as long as it is possible.

Argument why it should have a cost because right now you have to work for charlvl/crafterlvl getting Items, Master etc. so the RA would stay in the current system.

I counter that argument with: There should be no cost because then it would add a completely new way to acquire masters. (I don't say it's a good argument, but I'd say it's as good as yours )

em.. that you can get master from a npc is a completly new way but with costs it stays in the current (work - get) system.

... and without cost it leaves the current system (thus adds a new system). So what? That's just a description of what we get, no argument for or against it. Neither adding a new system nor keeping a current system is good or bad by itself. You'd have to point out why staying in the system is better than leaving it, then you'd have an argument. But I can't think of any argument for or against that is not highly subjective in this particular case.

ok.. let's get more detailed..

current system is working -- getting with a luck factor and a uneven droprate

now the RA is itself a new system but to stay in line with the thought.. you have to do something to get it.. RA needs a cost (Quest, playtime, platin.. whatever there are so many ways)

Staying in the system is better because it keeps the people away which get used to the "get best stuff 4 free" so they will ask for more and since they are outnumbering every other playerstyle sooner or later SOE will bring other things like raiditems etc. 

*cough* You're saying that adding RA's without cost will lead to a flood of players who want to get everything for free? I mean, they'll outnumber everyone else? Then I'd say: Good for us. That would mean masses of new players (as I don't see such an enormous number of such people now) who pay a monthly fee and make it possible for SOE to hire more devs who create way more content with many more nice features. Isn't this a good argument for no cost?

Sorry, I don't see that happening.

Mijrk@Valor wrote:

*cough* You're saying that adding RA's without cost will lead to a flood of players who want to get everything for free? I mean, they'll outnumber everyone else? Then I'd say: Good for us. That would mean masses of new players (as I don't see such an enormous number of such people now) who pay a monthly fee and make it possible for SOE to hire more devs who create way more content with many more nice features. Isn't this a good argument for no cost?

Sorry, I don't see that happening.

Bigger doesn't mean better...else we'd be having this conversation on the World of Warcraft forums.

I didn't sayed that there will be new player.. I sayed that there will be more people asking for free stuff. There is allready a shiney/resources npc where you get stuff for free, there will be an RA (since no dev takes that amount of pages serious enought to answer one of the questions), why should it start with that?

If the developers think that player need free master for NO reason, it's not that far that someone might think that player need their choosen fabled gear to make it more fun for casual player which don't have the time or mood to join a raidguild.

It's not that it's not allready happen, it's just another milestone into the "login, set lvl, set gear, play" corner.

Mijrk@Valor wrote:

Adding a way to reduce this waiting time a bit is ok with me, too. Killing nameds seems to be a good requirement for this reduction. There would have to go in some thoughts about camping nameds and availability of nameds (mainly for solo nameds that are in the open world). And I think there should be some mechanism that prevents players from killing the same named over and over and getting this bonus every kill.

But where I totally disagree with you is the point, that different playstyles should lead to different possible reductions. Especially with such drastic differences. I don't see why a raider should get more benefits there than a grouper or a soloer. (And the same for grouper vs soloer). Raiders will always have the easiest acces to masters, independently of how the RA is implemented. They will continue to buy their spells from the market. I don't think that there has to be another mechanism that helps them getting full mastered even faster. The RA by itself will be a big enough help there (by making the rare spells available). And the same is true for groupers. They will still have better access to masters than soloers, as masters will still drop more often from heroics than from solo mobs.

These parts I had addressed, though not as well as I should have done. The reason to implement it in a manner that "raiders" ge more than 'groupers" who get more than "soloers" is three fold.

The first reason, as I said, is to encourage people to go off and try new content types. Instead of looking at it in a manner where raiders get more, I look at it in a manner where a soloer that goes out to join a group gets a guarenteed reward for doing so: progression on their RA. The same for a grouper that goes off to join a raid. Even if absolutly nothing drops for them, assuming the raid kills a named mob, their RA gains progression that it would not have otherwise obtained.

The second reason is to prevent raiders from camping solo named mobs in T8, preventing non raiders from getting advancments on their RA. if all mobs were to provide an equal amount of bonus research, totally independant of mob type, you suddenly gave raiders a reason to want to kill solo named mobs all over the world. Assuming the logical step of limiting the RA bonus to once per cycle per overland named mob, it would mean each raider in the game would want to kill each solo named mob every month, and this will make things hard for soloers wanting to kill the same mobs.

Once they have killed those solo mobs, raiders will go off to heroic and epic instances, getting further progression on the RA that the soloer is unable to get. Basically, reguardless of the system used, raiders are at an advantage over non raiders, unless a specific penalty for them was coded in (which is decided not a good idea).

Instead of incouraging raiders off to solo content to get masters faster, and thus possibly preventing a true soloer from ever being able to get kills in to advance his RA, the idea was to make it so they can get all the progress they are able to get in raid instances. This gives them no additional reason to want to kill solo named mobs, as they essentially give raiders nothing, at at the same time it gives soloers more room to move.

While the exact numbers can be played with a lot, the general idea of raiding giving more research than heroic which in tern gives more than solo needs to be followed if you are to give everyone a fair shot using the content they wish to play with.

Noaani wrote:

These parts I had addressed, though not as well as I should have done. The reason to implement it in a manner that "raiders" ge more than 'groupers" who get more than "soloers" is three fold.

.

Noanni,

While your idea is technically sound, it is too complicated to simply communicate in game.

It would be better if these mobs dropped some tangable that had a reduction value.  Each spell would have a total number of points and these tangable's would lower the point cost when turned in to the RA.  They can be lore/no-trade direct drops, whatever.

Also, the different types of nameds (solo, heroic, epic) could drop different versions with different amounts, but all players should be able to earn the same reduction, you'll just have to kill alot more solo nameds to get the same reduction as an epic named, etc.  Maybe a solo named would reduce 50 progress points, where an epic reduces 250.  Of course adjust the numbers as appropriate.

The RA would then make x points of progress / day, you could check back with him on how many points are left, and keep your notion of the maximum number of points that can be reduced.  I personally think 90 days raw with the ability to reduce it to 30 days via effort.

Sziroten@Valor wrote:

I didn't sayed that there will be new player.. I sayed that there will be more people asking for free stuff. There is allready a shiney/resources npc where you get stuff for free, there will be an RA (since no dev takes that amount of pages serious enought to answer one of the questions), why should it start with that?

If the developers think that player need free master for NO reason, it's not that far that someone might think that player need their choosen fabled gear to make it more fun for casual player which don't have the time or mood to join a raidguild.

It's not that it's not allready happen, it's just another milestone into the "login, set lvl, set gear, play" corner.

Oh well. Then add your cost. What will it change? There will be people with the attitude that the best things in game should be sold by a NPC for plat. Is that any better? Would you be happy with NPC's selling the best stuff for plat? I don't think so. There's basically no difference between giving it for free and giving it for a cost.

Atan@Unrest wrote:

While your idea is technically sound, it is too complicated to simply communicate in game. 

No harder than trying to explain mitigation imo... but altering it so instead of just advancing the RA it instead provided you with a heirloom item that can be handed in to the RA to speed things up is a fine idea.

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Also, the different types of nameds (solo, heroic, epic) could drop different versions with different amounts, but all players should be able to earn the same reduction, you'll just have to kill alot more solo nameds to get the same reduction as an epic named, etc.  Maybe a solo named would reduce 50 progress points, where an epic reduces 250.  Of course adjust the numbers as appropriate.

This is something I am not at all against, I can just see the complaints from soloers now about how raiders are consistantly kill-stealing all their solo names (and if someone is able to progress via killing a mob, it is not zone disruption, as the mob is fair game - though many will try and argue this fact).