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Comments
The ability to enter the PvP scene without XP loss already exists, but people are conveniently forgetting it - arenas. I remember from when I played before my dormancy, there were arena events non-stop, restricted to house / city / order / etc that people used to get practice before fighting outside where there are risks.
If you're serious about getting into the PvP scene, start practicing in the arena if you don't want to risk losing the XP so apparently don't see the need to put any effort in to re-gain.
- Vaehl-tier combat skill,
-tons of time bashing,
- hanging on to top PKers coattails, or
- massive money investments
being our barrier to get involved with group PK (both in city and out), then nothing needs to change and this thread is pointless.
If not, and we would like to improve the number of people participating in group PK, or make PK outside of sanctioned raid defenses be more prevalent, then we need to look at changing some things.
First, it only supports reducing experience costs being less necessary, rather then supporting it being a bad idea. If people waited until they could ensure that they win more then they lose, then we just wouldn't have the problem. There's no reason that reducing loss, or at least making it easier to make up for, would be anything but a positive.
Further, it just means arguing for a high skill barrier. If no one should get involved in group pvp until they're consistently good at it, it's going to make intercity conflict a heck of a lot more dull, with only a small percentage of people able to participate.
Most importantly, though, it's just probably impossible. You can't guarantee that two groups will be equally artifacted or have equal numbers. Experience loss only exacerbates the disparities made by artifacts because it gives a large time punishment to losing or fighting a force with a higher monetary investment. Making it easy to regain lost experience would only make people who can't afford to do tons of damage, even if they are skilled, more able to participate. There's always going to be disparity between players in one variety or another, and making that less of an issue will only encourage participation.
You can practise combat without losing experience if you die.
You can acquire experience by bashing every now and again to give yourself some leeway if you die.
If certain people have already achieved combat skill, participation and relevance despite experiencing the same circumstances that others claim are setting them back and maintaining and even increasing their level of experience, then what's the difference between those two sets of people? I'm genuinely interested in what you think the answer to this question is.
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One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important
Maybe have PvP give exclusively non-XP related rewards of some kind (but also not have any XP loss from PvP). That way, no one can take away someone else's PvE grinding (because really, the XP pool is built up exclusively through PvE), and the people who are worried about people making dragon because of no XP loss won't have to worry about it.
I'd rather just do no XP loss, honestly, but just looking for something people might go for. That said, I have a feeling a fair number of people actually quite like taking someone else's grinding exactly because no one likes grinding.
EDIT: just to be crystal clear, not suggesting any change to PvE deaths, which would remain exactly as they are, because reasons.
Now, I'm the first to admit that this is largely a product of my casual approach to Achaea. If I had unlimited spare time to spend grinding, I probably wouldn't mind as much, but since my available time is at a premium, and because a fair portion of the time I do have is involved in org leadership, I end up fighting less because I simply don't have the time to spend regaining losses from fighting. Then the question is simply a matter of whether I am in the minority, or if I am in the majority. In case of the former, I just accept the fact that I don't have the available time to play Achaea as Achaea is meant to be played. (Which is essentially what I've done.) But if I'm actually in the majority of Achaean players, then I'd say it's completely justified to ask whether Achaea's PvP penalties are a touch stiff for the 68% that comprises the usual statistical bell-curve.
Though people being able to get a net increase is also helped by not everyone getting to that proficiency before getting involved. That's part of the problem, that if everyone did reach a certain, rather decent level of proficiency before participating, we wouldn't have a ton of participation.
But really, I'm hoping that you're right about
Jovolo said: I've been suggesting that it would be more productive to critique some of the proposed solutions that aren't just removing experience loss for pages, now. I completely agree that just removing experience loss from pvp outright is probably a bad idea (and removing the gain as well, while fixing the issues, would be boring as heck). It seems that there are a quite a few voices against any change to the status quo, however.
However that's just from my point of view, and people will have difference experience in the experience gain/lose market.
That said, 10 mins is a fair amount of time to me today. Other people may disagree, and three years ago I would have to because I would spend like 15-16 hours a day playing achaea, but these days (maybe 2-3 hours of time a day) it's long enough that when people raid and I know there is a high chance of me dying, I will quit and play something else because I don't want to be set back 10 mins when I could just not be set back 10 mins instead. Thus I have been prevented from entering PK because I know I will have more fun not entering PK.
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One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important
Lemme talk about entitlement, since a bunch of the arguments (not all of them, but I'm happy to hear and discuss objective arguments, this post is just not about that) against removing XP loss boil down to "you're whiny, entitled, and lazy."
Just about all of the people arguing this are basically dragons with some sense of entitlement that because they reached dragon, that achievement should never be "tarnished" regardless of the reason, who feel entitled to insult people who think otherwise or who even come close to thinking otherwise (most people have not even argued it should be easier), and feel that somehow, they're entitled to have their opinion outweigh others.
With these accusations, @Mishgul has now been called entitled and lazy. You know, the guy who helped a ton of people even get into combat via omnipave, who gave it out for free so people had a free alternative to SVO. He's lazy and entitled and needs to fix his mindset. That is what you are arguing.
Being entitled in a video game is par. Everyone expects it to be fun, because, get this, Achaea ain't the only game out there, or even the only free-to-play one. If it's not fun, nothing stops you from doing something else instead. It's not about entitlement, people are suggesting ways of making the game easier to enter and play because, get this, they want it to grow - or, at the very least, they want to personally be more part of it.
Insulting people for striving for something like that is basically garbage, especially with the quality of some of the players you're implicitly insulting.
Unsurprisingly, I'm still for regaining experience faster after it's lost. As @Jovolo and @Sena have shown, it's relatively easy to tinker with the numbers and specifics. Personally, I like it because it should provide no change for people who gain net positive experience in a fight, instead only helping the people who fell behind to catch up, which makes combat no more lucrative in terms of gaining dragon. Additionally, it maintains the feeling of loss, keeping the psychological factors of actually losing something from dying in play.
As for the topic of entitlement in games, the MMORPG blog had a recent article on this very topic, but it criticizes exactly what you're suggesting, arguing that "a large number of players feel entitled to being entertained, and this situation appears to grow larger as time passes by." While persons on this thread may not be arguing that they want to get something for nothing, there is the perception that they are complaining about having to work hard for something (and/or purchase artefacts, which is another hot topic, even though these actually support the game's maintenance and continued longevity).
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea
Class 1: Rock
Arguably the tankiest class, with special defenses towards cutting damage, rock relies on slowly wearing down the opponent.
Skills
Rock
Syntax: rps <player> rock
Effect: Rock instantly kills paper.
Class 2: Scissors
An agile class, scissors is especially strong against weak tier armor classes, but entirely ineffective against high tier armor classes, such as rock.
Skills
Scissors
Syntax: rps <player> scissors
Effect: Scissors instantly kills paper.
Class 3: Paper
A weak tier armor control class, paper is strongest against slow, tanky opponents. Instead of attempting to destroy its opponents with brute force, paper instead traps the opponent for an easy finish.
Skills
Paper
Syntax: rps <player> paper
Effect: Paper instantly kills rock.
Delete all other classes.
Of course, all that aside, focusing this on dragon is a bit silly. If the people who cared about pvp xp loss wanted dragon, they'd just get dragon so that they wouldn't have to care about it anymore. No one is asking for that achievement, we're just discussing things that could have an impact on it. I.E. it would be more productive to discuss changes that could lessen the impact then to argue that the only good answer is to not change anything for fear of tarnishing dragon even a little (which, again, everyone adopting the mindset that pve is cool and they should do more of it and getting up to dragon to cease their xp worries, as seems to be commonly suggested, would do anyways). Not to mention that the chances of a solution being so drastic that it would make pvp be more efficient at gaining experience quickly then pve are pretty low.
Honestly, I think it's more entitled to claim that an achievement that you earned must never become easier then it was when you earned it, even as a consequence of a change not directed at it. Achievements aren't always going to have the same value, and if a change to the game, intended to affect a different segment of it, just happens to alter the value of your achievement, that's probably the cost of an improving game. Or should we never have moved away from guilds because it was harder to gain skills back then and, consequentially, harder to get dragon?
(though again, the best change would have almost no effect on the thing, so it's a silly focus of complaint)
There are so many ways to change death mechanics that don't interfere with XP loss or gain in a way that would impact dragon achievement. Some of those discussed here have some potential merit. But none of them, so far, focus on the heart of what many posts have revealed about the initial push for this discussion: That people want to be more entertained by bashing and want to feel less frustration when they die in PvP. Both these things can be influenced by mechanics, but at the core of them both are perceptions and a mindset about the game that not everyone agrees on.
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea
Really, all anyone is asking for here is to to be able to engage in the fun challenging stuff without having to pay for that participation with as much of the boring, easy tedium. The admin have directly stated that pve is never going to be the focus of the game. It's never going to be as hard or as challenging or as unique as Achaean pvp is. All reducing the cost of fighting does is make it so people can play the hard parts more.
Cascades of quicksilver light streak across the firmament as the celestial voice of Ourania intones, "Oh Jarrod..."