What Happened To You Today?

Iaxus

Eryl said:

It really does not sit well with me that the vocal minority who has the "Admins vs. Players" mindset tries to cast such a negative light on the game they love.

I can only speak for myself on this, but I have no issue with specific admins. I do have issue with the pricing scheme of the game, but I'm aware enough to realise that Nicola, Makarios, Ictinus, etc, do not set the pricing. My issue is more with people who have deluded themselves into thinking this price scheme is okay, normal, or god fucking forbid "generous" when it is not.

Eryl

Iaxus said:

Eryl said:

It really does not sit well with me that the vocal minority who has the "Admins vs. Players" mindset tries to cast such a negative light on the game they love.

I can only speak for myself on this, but I have no issue with specific admins. I do have issue with the pricing scheme of the game, but I'm aware enough to realise that Nicola, Makarios, Ictinus, etc, do not set the pricing. My issue is more with people who have deluded themselves into thinking this price scheme is okay, normal, or god fucking forbid "generous" when it is not.

At no point did I claim their pricing scheme is fair, appropriate, or generous.  I have feelings on this matter, but they are irrelevant to my claim that the admins have proven they are listening by offering us a means of earning enough in-game currency to thrive in any avenue of the game without spending a cent.

To head off any misquotes, yes I did say they are generous.  However, I specifically said the generosity I refer to has to deal with them fixing problems that I have created for myself due to carelessness, even though I agreed they don't have to do.  I also referred to them as generous for implementing the system that allows us to earn a truly meaningful amount of credits without having to spend money.

Cooper

Iaxus said:

Cooper said:

Do you participate in any other activity that is competitive? If yes, were you instantly able to compete with the very skilled people? 

I do savage raiding in FFXIV (second highest tier activity in the game for those that don't know). 
My raid team last tier consisted of not one, but two people who bought the game and started playing < 2 months prior. 
How long would it take for a fresh character in Achaea to be able to do the second highest tier content (PK or bashing, pick your category) off dcr? Or, to even it out, even if they spent as much as the equivalent FFXIV characters.. $60 for the game not on sale is around 200cr, plus another $15/month so.. 40ish credits per month? How long would they have to play, and how much would they have spent at that point to even reach the lower end of the highest tier?

tl;dr: your analogy is bad. Might have been okay if this was a sport, or something where it takes more than swiping a credit card to become skilled.

False equivalence going on here. I specifically asked about competing with other very skilled people, not simply being able to complete almost endgame content.

To compare how well they are doing you would need to compare them to the top savage raid teams in the world.

We have a true new player in Mhaldor now who created a character around 3 weeks ago. They currently join us in forays and honours mob bashing, which would be the equivalent of your savage raiding. As far as I'm aware they haven't spent any money on the game, but have been steadily earning credits through renown and bashing.

A lot of people playing Achaea think that tons of artefacts are required. They are not required to compete at a high level with a couple niche exceptions.

Mathonwy

I guess I am struggling to understand the level of what I would view as entitlement going on in this thread. Somebody please, help me understand: there are plenty of other games that have a hard lock between content you pay money for and content you don't, where if you don't want to spend money you don't get access to the goods. So isn't it actually generous to be able to earn credits just through completing content, period? (This is an honest question, I promise.)

Also, having watched that video that Minifie linked earlier, I don't really see the connection between a lot of the shady practices and what actually happens in Achaea. You can buy artefacts to help you, but contrary to what the speaker in the video said, none of these are 'hot' purchases; they all engage the analytical side of your brain, put distance between you and the purchase, which, according to the speaker, makes you less likely to purchase. He also says that you shouldn't make your game too skill-based, and in the ten years I've been playing, the skill ceiling has only gone up.

In fact, based on that video, if Achaea had shady business practices, I'd expect to see the admin offer the ability to pay credits to 'continue' immediately once you died (like arcade games), or buy experience outright (versus experience boosts, where you still have to grind for levels). I'd also expect to see announcements about who bought credits or promo items as a global or city-wide announcement, and none of those things happen.

So, again, please help me understand: how, exactly, are this game's business practices shady or shameful?

Minifie

- no brainers get your foot in the door and the initial investment purchase

- promotions with gambling incentives to continue spending or that one more hit

- making you work/log in daily to get that next hit of slow accumulation to make mtx more enticing

- having items that exist to make things easier/show of actual gameplay additions to entice players to spend to also have said tools

- keep credit prices raw higher so deals look a lot more enticing because of them setting your anchor price

I think there is more but I’d have to rewatch (and the video itself is disgusting already). If you can’t see them it’s because you are allowing yourself to justify for your bias. 

Ginarrbrik

I have only been back for less than 2 IRL months and have already farmed over 200 credits in game, through forays and house/city creditsales exclusively, I am completely unartied at the moment and am still able to farm enough gold to clear out the creditsales the second they reset and I have like a quarter million gold I could dump on CFS. 

Never understood why people compare this to modern games where you pay $60 dollars for 22 hours of gameplay and then drop it off at Gamestop, never to be thought of again.  Achaea is more like a hobby where you invest over time while enjoying the roleplaying and making lasting friends.  We didn't have no Forays or Renown back in my day either, feeling pretty spoiled to be honest.

On topic though, Ginarrbrik got to drink a bunch of peoples blood and enjoyed a top notch Sermon with the rest of Mhaldor last month. The Master's city just plain kicks ass, as is tradition.  You guys rock and I'm glad I came back to Achaea to be a part of it.

Iaxus

Cooper said:

Iaxus said:

Cooper said:

Do you participate in any other activity that is competitive? If yes, were you instantly able to compete with the very skilled people? 

I do savage raiding in FFXIV (second highest tier activity in the game for those that don't know). 
My raid team last tier consisted of not one, but two people who bought the game and started playing < 2 months prior. 
How long would it take for a fresh character in Achaea to be able to do the second highest tier content (PK or bashing, pick your category) off dcr? Or, to even it out, even if they spent as much as the equivalent FFXIV characters.. $60 for the game not on sale is around 200cr, plus another $15/month so.. 40ish credits per month? How long would they have to play, and how much would they have spent at that point to even reach the lower end of the highest tier?

tl;dr: your analogy is bad. Might have been okay if this was a sport, or something where it takes more than swiping a credit card to become skilled.

False equivalence going on here. I specifically asked about competing with other very skilled people, not simply being able to complete almost endgame content.

To compare how well they are doing you would need to compare them to the top savage raid teams in the world.

We have a true new player in Mhaldor now who created a character around 3 weeks ago. They currently join us in forays and honours mob bashing, which would be the equivalent of your savage raiding. As far as I'm aware they haven't spent any money on the game, but have been steadily earning credits through renown and bashing.

A lot of people playing Achaea think that tons of artefacts are required. They are not required to compete at a high level with a couple niche exceptions.

I can see why you'd say that, but the difference is savage raids require a full team of competent members for new content. Forays do not require a full team of competent members - people can, and frequently do, get carried. I've been carried in forays myself. Also, forays scale. Savage raids do not. If you bring not-max level characters into a savage raid, you will be wiped on the first mechanic, regardless of how good you are, since almost every savage raid literally starts with a raid-wide hit.

So to rephrase, how long would it take for a team of 2-4 true-noobs to get dragon and then successfully complete a difficult foray? That's a more accurate similarity.

Keorin

Mathonwy said:

I guess I am struggling to understand the level of what I would view as entitlement going on in this thread. Somebody please, help me understand: there are plenty of other games that have a hard lock between content you pay money for and content you don't, where if you don't want to spend money you don't get access to the goods. So isn't it actually generous to be able to earn credits just through completing content, period? (This is an honest question, I promise.)

Personally, my issue is largely with the amount of initial investment it takes to seriously take part in some game systems (in particular pk, especially 1v1). These days, most classes simply require tritrans or close to it to even have access to your kills, and a large percentage require artie weapons before you have the offense that your class is balanced around. And that's before we get into defensive artefacts, which you will often simply explode for not having.

I'm not really concerned about my own ability to earn currency or participate in things (even if losing fights in heavy part because of artefact differences is common and frustrating). What bothers me is when I have to tell someone that they're simply going to have a hard time trying a game system without substantially more credit investment, or when someone asks what they could have done to avoid losing a fight and there's nothing I can really tell them, because they just never had much of a shot because the other person has better artefacts.

Renown helps with this a -lot-, by making it feasible to get credits without turning to straight bashing. But we still have one of the stingiest systems in IRE's stable of games, a system which heavily relies on finding experienced players to run you through things and which heavily prioritises a handful of profitable tasks that do little to take roleplay into consideration (it's hard to justify going up and attacking an embassy in Cyrene, after all, which means we're stuck deciding between rp identity and the mechanical need for currency). The system needs work, and I suspect that a lot of truly new players aren't exactly drawn in by knowing just how much money or time they would need to put in just to get the basics.

Kzir

Ginarrbrik said:

Never understood why people compare this to modern games where you pay $60 dollars for 22 hours of gameplay and then drop it off at Gamestop, never to be thought of again.  Achaea is more like a hobby where you invest over time while enjoying the roleplaying and making lasting friends.  We didn't have no Forays or Renown back in my day either, feeling pretty spoiled to be honest.

That's how I see it.

I do want to do some roleplaying and making lasting friends.

I don't totally get Mhaldor for making friends, is it just rough until you get a certain rank? I feel like I'm just not allowed to talk at any time unless it is directly related to tasks I'm supposed to work on. Just not sure how to find my place there and everyone says it is awesome. 

Cooper

You can't speak publicly much as a slave, but after that you can speak wherever. People are always willing to help you out privately, and the MCI city clan is great for asking questions and getting help.

Ginarrbrik

@Kzir I can see where your coming from for sure.  Getting used to being called a Slave and having to really prove yourself to those around you can be daunting at first.  It can be hard to get into the mindset needed to succeed in Mhaldor. But that's kinda their thing, just reading the Seven Truths and Catechisms alone will give you an idea of whats expected of every Mhaldorian.  Once you are able to prove yourself through your tasks, reach Troni and show that you are worth investing time into, I suspect you will find your place and many friends in the City.

Even though we play Evil, I doubt most of us are really as terrible as we pretend to be in game. I have myself found help is always available if you seek it out from even the most intimating characters.  Don't be afraid to reach out to your city mates at all.  Almost all of them will drop whatever they are doing to help you out at any time, just stay off CT until you are a Troni, and don't take it to personal if you get beheaded from time to time, it's just tradition.  I'll take you hunting any time, just send me a Tell!

Keorin

For what it's worth, I had a very similar experience with Mhaldor years ago (not helped by my being a naturally anxious person). In my experience though, the people there are usually pretty dang nice behind the characters, and always happy to have new players around, especially the ones who get involved and show a bit of interest in things.

Saonji

Cooper said:

The goal is not to "catch up"* to people that have played for years. That is an extremely unreasonable metric. Do you participate in any other activity that is competitive? If yes, were you instantly able to compete with the very skilled people? Of course not, and Achaea is no different. It takes time and effort to learn the game and earn credits.

Renown is 20 credits per day. It does not take long to max. Utilize the whales in your city to help the newbies out. This is a generous system, and you disagreeing is irrelevant.

I'll bite, as someone who Mythic raided in WoW for years, and did very high level Mythic+ I also got 2400+ rated multiple seasons, which is about the top 5% of players in PvP. Both of these are significantly harder than anything in Achaea.

Spoiler because this got a bit long, sorry.

A new player capable of basic researching (raid mechanics, learning to play their class, etc) can reach level cap in about 3 days /played. A bit less if they're running dungeons between questing. An experienced player can do this significantly quicker. This is the basic requirement needed in order to start working on end-game stuff. Achaea doesn't have anything like this; you can be carried in forays technically from level 1.

After level cap... Someone who's able to effectively use their class (which can easily be learned in the time it takes to hit level cap), and joins at least a semi-competent guild (using artied city members as the fair comparison here), can expect to be raid-ready in about a week of farming gear if they're doing the same 3-4 hours of daily playing that is expected for renown/gold grinding here. You can jump into Mythic raids/very high Mythic+ after about another week. This is the apex of PvE in WoW, in which you can also compete at very high levels of PvP if you've been putting in the effort needed to learn to play.

Sorry, but a genuine new player isn't even gonna hit Dragon in that time, outside of being generously carried on a daily-basis for hours while someone like you, Proficy, Minifie etc are hunting. Which if you got in WoW (by fair comparison), you'd hit level cap in less than a day of /played time. They're certainly not going to be competing in high level PvE** / PvP*** in anywhere close to that time.

Points, also spoilered-

* Tagged part of your quote for the purpose of saying that you'd be hard-pressed to find any other multiplayer game (with character progression), that doesn't have some way for newer/returning players to be able to get up to a high level of competitiveness quickly (with a modicum of effort). Most companies realise this is probably the best way to keep players active, and coming back.

** Achaea doesn't have high level competitive PvE so the comparison is immediately flawed. At best you could use Great Hunts. Forays aren't competitive, they certainly aren't comparable to Mythic raiding (or Savage/Extreme/Ultimate in FF14). Trying to make the comparison just shows you haven't done them. When you can complete those raids at level 20, then you can compare them fairly.

*** You can probably beat lowbies/incompetent-but-artied people in that time. You're probably not even gonna be competitive with people like Iaxus or Jomi in that time, though. (luv u) - Certainly not gonna be capable of having even close fights with someone like Proficy, or Atalkez, or Seragorn etc.

Kzir

Joined Mhaldor. Unsure what to do as an Apostate, but enjoying the brief moments I had with people. Got 10 credits for following directions, heh. 

Saonji

Didn't you just buy a Lv3 mace like 3 days ago.

Tianondria

You call out "Fire!" and release the mechanism on a ballista. 

A heavy wooden shaft streaks from "Storm's Fury" toward a colossal kraken, burying itself deeply in its side. 

 A colossal kraken is defeated and begins to sink to the depths. 

 With the completion of your adventure, you feel your renown grow to new heights! (You gain 500 Renown.) You receive 5 bound credits. You just received message #6745 from Achaea. 

 The kraken looses one final, defiant screech before its titanic form slumps over and begins to sink beneath the waves. 

 A wave of psychic energy overwhelms you, the final, defiant screech of some ancient entity assaulting your senses. 
 In the beast's death throes, the crew manages to hack off a piece of the legendary creature, the fleshy mass dropping to the deck. 

 As a colossal kraken slowly sinks to the depths below, the crewmen swarm over the remnants, retrieving a great coil of tentacle for safe keeping on the ship's deck.

Yay for lucky shots!  

She triumphed over the salt and spray of an unforgiving sea, felling the Kraken Primordial.

Garros

I have three major issues with most of the conversation here.
* Achaea is a long term play roleplaying game. Things like dragon are supposed to be rewards for players who are good at the game, not the metric for being ready for things, especially sense we now have level 99 health at level 80.
* Achaea combat is nonlinear, meaning, it is not like a lot of games where you trade off hitting each other until one of you is dead. If Achaea was one of these games the arguement that you need artifacts for pvp would make more sense, but as is you can do a lot better based off of skill and practice than off artifacts. If someone like Prof took off all his artifacts and gave them to me, he would still kick my ass.
* <person> has this so I should be able to get it without spending the same effert working for it. I am not going to put my thoughts on this one because I am not sure how to make it not be harsh.

Minifie

Your inability to read is duely noted and ignored.

Saonji

Minifie said:

Your inability to read is duely noted and ignored.

Gotta agree. All 3 of your 'issues' are wrong. Especially the second one; if Achaea combat is nonlinear, so is every other game that's been discussed/compared to based on your logic.

Meriet

This isn't rants. Please.

Minifie

It isn’t, and no one is ranting, these are legitimate concerns that continually get ignored in a vain attempt they will disappear. If you love the game and all its failings, cool, no worries, go consume. Throwing it into rants just reinforces the, “ignore it until it goes away” mindset that is pervasive in the game, especially up to the top of IRE.

Kresslack

I think the point was more towards an attempt to get back on topic since this has been fully derailed, and people are trying to get it back on the tracks, only to have it kicked off again like an angry toddler kicking a toy train set over.

Saonji

It's completely on-topic.

What happened to us today? We shitposted on the forums.

Kresslack

You do that every day.

Minifie

I'm always up for a good shitpost, but I legitimately have issues I would like to see addressed, at least acknowledged or some dialogue opened. I don't mind opening another thread, but like the IR elite thread and what not, they seem to just. . . fucking die and nothing gets addressed outside of initial distraction .

Saonji

Kresslack said:

You do that every day.

That doesn't make my post untrue.

Ryssa

I actually got some wins in tonight's Rampage! Glad to see I'm improving, though at times I'm struggling to remember my alias, heh. Aaand I need a quicker way to target adventurers. Just hitting tab made me attack my servitor T_T 

Meriet

Ryssa said:

I actually got some wins in tonight's Rampage! Glad to see I'm improving, though at times I'm struggling to remember my alias, heh. Aaand I need a quicker way to target adventurers. Just hitting tab made me attack my servitor T_T 

Nexus is pretty bad for that but you can 'st Adventurer' to target them, e.g. 'st Ryssa'.

Vhaynna

I killed like seven people in raids today. That is, they raided us and we killed them. Because when we went to raid just.. I'm not even gonna.

Kudos to Mhaldor for not being Targossas. 10/10 would defend against you guys again.

Edit: Not just cause I got kills. Just cause you're better to fight than Targossas.

Archaeon

Why?