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Comments
XP gain is actually a NFL because “negative” refers to the fact that, "a dynamic becomes weaker with iteration." For example, it's harder to get level 90 than level 80 and so on (you have to kill more things between each level).
But none of this has nothing to do with whether XP loss has a positive or negative effect on a player’s standing in Achaea has a PvPer. XP loss right now is actually quite beneficial at maintaining dragon as something that is a longer, drawn-out affair or end-goal for some players the way Elder Dragon has become for new dragons (and in the future they'll be something else to fill that need to quest toward something, I'm sure).
It may be frustrating to try to catch up with dragons XP-wise, but it isn't as though players don't have a chance to do so. That's just a perception and it fades somewhat the closer you get to the prize. XP gain and loss is pretty fair in my opinion - but I'm someone who worked her ass off for dragon and so I feel like anything that artificially intervenes to help others gain it now is something undeserved.
Of course, Achaea could test the ideas proposed here by simply turning off XP loss (from PvP alone, if that's possible) for a weekend. If people go hog wild and engage in PvP, maybe there's something to it, but that doesn't mean it won't have to be balanced somehow if introduced long-term as changing one thing will generally impact something else that's not been thought of yet -- For example, people leveling up purely through PvP (diminishing PVE all together) due to a lack of repercussions or people wantonly engaging in PvP despite guidelines for justification, etc.
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea
XP loss is lower than it's ever been, including for lower level people. I've played lower level characters, and death(in moderation) is pretty meaningless from 60-98, just like it is for dragons. If you PK responsibly, you should go up in experience, or at least not lose very much due to how much you'll gain from killing higher level people.
Bashing is easy and accessible to everyone.
The only perceived "problem" regarding the XP system in Achaea is lazy people who don't want to bash + suck at PK. The game shouldn't go out of its way to help people that don't want to help theirselves.
Lower level people complaining about how xp isn't fair is ridiculous. Everyone who is a dragon is there because they already went through that part of the game. It's not hard to level up. It's not hard to manage xp. Lower level people do not have it hard. They just have to put in the amount of work that everyone else did to get to a spot where you no longer need to worry about xp advancement. The only reason why lower level people feel their xp-loss matters more is because they're still trying to get to a goal.
Seems like the main problem here for most people is that you can't go up in XP by doing nothing. So we need to add some ways to go up in XP by doing nothing. I've played three different characters, and none of them had experience problems. You put in the work, you gain xp. If you don't want to play the game, then don't(and don't go up in XP).
Honestly, If xp loss for pk is removed, why not just make everyone dragon from the start. Seems like an easier way to quinch the thirst of everyone who wants dragon but are unwilling to dedicate themselves to the time requirements. I got news for you, if you are level 80 and crying about having to bash for thirty minutes because you died, you are not going to get dragon without a major attitude adjustment. Give up now.
ETA: Removing XP loss isn't gonna suddenly open the floodgates to dragon, really because you aren't losing levels upon levels per death. You're losing a few hours' work, I think, in most cases. People who still want to get to dragon will get there; you aren't doing anything except minorly inconveniencing them. Besides, dragon ceased to be an accomplishment so long ago now that there aren't even willing to entertain the notion of custom ceremonies. It's literally entirely automated (arguably like the process itself for a lot of people amirite).
The idea that dragon isn't an achievement is your opinion. The Garden, from my understanding, didn't automate dragon because it wasn't an achievement anymore - they did it because the admin had to balance things that they actually had to work on with each individual dragon's ceremony. When no one was around to do the ceremony, or if you wanted to wait for RP reasons to have a specific divine handle it, you had to wait around for it. That was inefficient and didn't make a lot of RP sense anyway.
Contrary to your opinion, that it will be much easier to get dragon because players won't have to face XP loss would be an undeniable result. True, not everyone will work toward it but that doesn't negate the fact we'd be lowering the bar for it through such a change. Having played one of the other IRE games where everyone is pretty much dragon-level, I can tell you from personal experience that there is no real accomplishment associated with gaining it because it has become a norm.
As one of the 300 people who put in the time and effort to obtain dragon despite XP losses, I would find that to be a gamechanger that would probably make me question whether I want to put anymore into 'achievements' in Achaea that were so easily cast aside to appease others' sense of entitlement to convenience.
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea
I mean seriously, this isn't the US congress. We can actually discuss solutions that both 'sides' think is productive without name-calling.
(Sarcasm)
My personal suggestion for EXP loss is thus:
1. Instead of losing EXP, you gain "negative experience," known hereafter as NXP.
2. Whenever you have NXP and are about to gain EXP, a fraction of that EXP goes to reduce your NXP instead. You gain the other fraction added to your EXP (as well as any left over from getting rid of all your NXP). We can dubiously put it at half for now, but a third, quarter, or fifth all work just as well.
3. Whenever you gain NXP, you gain a death point. These go away over time, and reduce all further NXP gains. Arbitrarily, we might say that they go down at a rate of once per six hours, and to keep the math down to something I know Achaea can do, cause EXP to go something like NXP`=NXP*6/(counters+6). Just an arbitrary calculation to show what I mean - not balanced or definite numbers, or even a suggested final formula.
NXP cannot make you lose levels, since it is not EXP. It just reduces your EXP gain until you pay it off. The only issue I see is that someone could accrue a huge amount of NXP and be stuck paying it off forever (insert student loan joke here), so maybe there could be some expensive or esoteric ways of removing it all at once. People'd totally pay credits for that.
The reason for #1 is so that you never actually lose something. Don't care about leveling up? You don't have to! The reason for #2 is so that a PvP failure never unduly punishes a PvE player, and so that PvE failures are not wasted time but merely obstacles that slow you down in the future. An economist might point out that it's still wasted time, but you still always advance. #3 is to encourage activity.
ETA: or introduce perks that are convenient but nonessential and have the ability to use those perks docked for X hours or Y experience or something.
It was just an estimate. It could be three hours. It could even be losing 1/5th your points (rounded up) every five hours.
Lost over time, gradually, in some way that (as mentioned above) encourages players to stay active rather than give up after a death, because player activity is important.
Cleaving people in a 10v10 or 15v15 fight.
Running in and trying to shin annihilate people into the city.
Running in and forcing people to leap into the city.
Going infront of mhaldor and trying to double block before they beckon.
Using my 800 credit artifact wings and hitting a totem+retardation everytime in clouds.
being a bard.
Those things are fun, and will generally get you killed alot.
Back in my day 1 moss would cost you like 40 gold. Which was personally a huge turn off to pvp because well 150 moss = 1 creditish, Nothing was cheap at all I think Moss and Ginseng was the top of the cost list with both being about equal.
So you know what alot of ther serpent playerbase did? Yeah they just kept looping Ginseng over and over and laughing because it costed so much.
That said, I've been suggesting for over a page now that dragon is an achievement in-game that people are erroneously trying to tether to PK barriers. Let me put it to you this way: If someone completes 2 out of 3 of Lorielan's mazes, should they get credit for all three? Or perhaps a better analogy: If the mazes are changed and made easier for everyone to make their way through, should they get the same honours line as those who went through before them?
Dragon and honours lines are obviously not exactly the same, but the basic proposition that I'm making is: Attaining Dragonhood is a lofty goal and a great prize for those who reach level 99. The notion that people can't get into PK because of XP loss - and then arguing on about how we shouldn't care how that impacts how quickly may gain dragon because who cares it's just dragon - is an exercise in circular logic. We don't care about dragon! It's not an achievement! We want to keep our XP so we can gain dragon too!
And around and around we go.
Death may be inconvenient, the added hunting when you die may be boring and frustrating, but dying adds meaning to the decisions we make and actions we undertake in Achaea. Games that have no real consequences are not interesting. They offer no opportunities to learn from your mistakes or the gratification that comes through rewards for your progression. Changes to the death mechanics in Achaea may revitalize it somewhat, but completely wiping away XP loss may also unravel it. This isn't WoW. We're not seeing a high enough number of new players every day to suggest that removing it would result in anything other than the majority of players at very high levels. If this is the goal, rather than the stated purpose of this thread, then I guess the idea is on-target.
There are benefits to death too that few people are talking about. Having to pray or wait for a resurrection, and then renounce grace offers a cooldown to conflict. It gives you a moment to regroup both mechanically in terms of where you are, what state your system is in, and also emotionally. There's also essence loss, as was mentioned previously, and death itself is a deterrent to bad behavior. Burn a forest, you die. Steal or harm someone, you die. Without meaningful repercussions, what will happen? People will become frustrated about new things, probably the lack of vengeance potential in the game for wrongful acts, and I'd guess we'd see a whole lot more issues.
I've already mentioned previously that PK events are not incredibly popular. When people join them, the majority of those who join do so and either a) try to outrun assailants or b) join just to freebie try to kill others, ignoring the basic goal of the game all together. It makes me wonder how successful negating XP loss all together really would be for lowering the barrier to conflict, especially since what seems to keep most people out are other things like lack of combat skills, lack of confidence in the abilities they do possess, and a negative attitude toward losing.
As for the concept of "negative experience" that's been proposed, you're basically asking for a cosmetic life experience bonus with "Whenever you have NXP and are about to gain EXP, a fraction of that EXP goes to reduce your NXP instead. You gain the other fraction added to your EXP." Death points? How would these be introduced in an in-character way? Thoth suddenly decided to throw out purposeful living and make living and dying a game?
Motivation to gain XP comes from within a person in the same way that overcoming losses does. Some people can pull from it, and some people come on the forums and start huge threads about how we need to change the death mechanics system so they feel better about dying.
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea
I want to keep my EXP so I can PvP, because levels are a prerequisite to not dying in PvP.
If I suddenly had a PvE HP, derived from levels, and a PvP HP, derived only from constitution (and artefacts and other health-affecting things, but not level), I would suddenly not care about levels much at all.
Being a dragon is unappealing to me for a multitude of reasons. The time it takes to become one is not the sole reason - there's a good chance I would just refrain from becoming one if I ever miraculously did reach the required level.
Anyway, I bashed all the way to dragon and it is hardly some sort of grand amazing achievement just at the very edge of what can be humanly achieved. It takes some time, sure, but less time than it takes (or took) to reach max level and get some decent gear in some of the popular MMOs out there. Granted, I did most of my 80+ levelling during an increased experience event, but I'd like to claim that the addition of these events have 'nerfed the dragon achievement by putting its acquisition on easy mode', without a negative impact on long-time players.
I suppose I just find it odd that the counter-argument to lowering the penalties of PvP are centered wholly around PvE. I think an interesting option would be to introduce PvP levels or ranks of some sort. Killing a person grants a number of points, while dying removes these points. As you level up, you earn new perks/benefits/health/artifacts/whatever. A lot of games have a system of this sort, but not Achaea.
Some crazy Thoth currency shop where you can buy temporary artefacts ala Link Between Worlds, but if you die, you lose a bunch. Some of the artefacts would be incomplete versions of the ones you can normally otherwise get (like maybe a veil piercer, or wings that only work for X time after someone else uses their own), some of them would be new things, and some would be one-use items.
This would be instead of gaining or losing EXP. You'd gain a basic one token plus a portion of your target's, and maybe extra if they're a mark to encourage killing marks.
I'm not super crazy about it, but it's a thought!
Nobody gives a crap about getting 5 gamerscore for turning a game on, but people would be pissed if it was changed so that the guys on the plane in the Mile High Club achievement had their guns switched out to nerf guns and couldn't actually kill you anymore, because that ruins the perceived value of the achievement to cater to the people who won't put in the effort to do it as it is now.
Dragon is that type of achievement in Achaea - increasingly so with the continued nerfs to reduce its actual value - and dragon (and level 80 for no sleep) is the real only allure in the grind for XP. The extra 50 health per level is not substantial enough to be its own reward.
This is also why I shake my head when people talk about end-game content for Achaea, as if Achaea is World of Warcraft and everybody should need to hit level 99 to participate in some part of the game. Dragon is not end-game for Achaea. There is no reason to make dragon end-game, or to continue to devalue it as an achievement for those people who care about it.
Leaving things as-is will not harm anybody. The mindset of some people, and the value they place on XP in Achaea when they have no intention of actually achieving dragon (which to me is just mind-boggling), is the problem.
That, and the general entitled whininess of some people who think everything needs to be made easier because they're too lazy to do things properly.
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One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important
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One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important