Explorer's Ranking

Syrennia

God-mono'd rooms also shouldn't count, yes.

Adrik

Certain God-Mono'd rooms shouldn't count. Others (like forays) should.

Torrent

I think House breaking should count if there was a reason to breaking. As it stands right now breaking into a House doesn't get you much of anything as either 85% of the items reset, you need it for explorers rank, or you like sitting around if the House doesn't have an exit. Breaking in just for the explorers rank loses its luster. Explorer ranks don't really mean much anymore when you have auto mappers and walkers to take you to every room in an area just by clicking it. Makes me wish the old days!

Silas

Syrennia said:

Silas said:

We have two active Worldwalkers at present, one of whom is a HL in a highly polarised faction

Uh. There's 7 active ones.

I agree with (3), (4) and (7) though. Because those really shouldn't count towards it. The others are fine.

Up to 7 now?

Even more evidence that it doesn't need to be changed then.

Axios2

I'd rather see old temples reopened. Having the gates be broken in little mini-events we could hold could be cool. For instance, Hashan raids Temple of Justice to steal a McGuffin and blows open the door, it's open forever thereafter. Or create new ways/quests to open doors if they require passwords...like, contemporary denizens who still worship the memory of their fallen Divine will help you get in if you help them.

Iocun

I don't really understand what the general complaint is in the first place.

Is it that the status quo doesn't allow many people to get 100% on every area or even just Worldwalker? Well, there's no way to get 100% of all the experience in the game either. It's a relative ranking, like most others. When the percentage of hard-to-get-into places used to be much higher than it is no (next to other differences to how the rankings worked), Worldwalker, or even several stages of Ranger weren't a thing, because it was simply not feasible at all to get to such a high percentage. Ranger was the goal to be and it was very hard. Having 99% of all rooms explored isn't inherently a greater achievement than having 85% of all rooms explored - it is only so in relation to what's currently possible/feasible.

Or is the complaint that the system currently unfairly favours some people? Sure, to some limited degree that may be true. Some people have temples that you can get in more easily than others. Some people may factionhop more than others. But that difference in fairness is much smaller than the levels of unfairness pretty much any other type of achievement in Achaea come with.

So, is it this perceived unfairness that's the problem here? Or what?

I mean, when people even bring up things like stockrooms, I'm really asking myself... do you really believe people were getting an reasonably big unfair advantage because they had access to one or two stockrooms no other person had? Really?

Atalkez

I don’t think faction hopping plays as much as a role as it’s being portrayed as. Outside of Order membership changes to gain access to Temples, Or House Halls, going from one city to another isn’t inherently going to give you more rooms you can explore.

Anything that’s accessible publicly can be explored anyway, and anything that isn’t public won’t be open to you right away. 

Iocun

Also, when you look at RANKINGS EXPLORERS, none of the people in the top spots strike me as excessive faction hoppers. In fact, there aren't all that many things those people seem to have in common (except perhaps a somewhat above average age and a somewhat above average level), which suggests there isn't any systematic bias that would unfairly favour some people very much.

Minifie

Just add an honoursline for Wwalker and then have it overwritten by rank 1, and something similar for xp. People like little badges of honour, and worldwalker is immensely more difficult than bopalopia ever was, or how many slaying X denizen before the buffs. 

Iocun

Wouldn't mind that, even though the value of something like Wwalker may change a lot over time, depending on how Achaea develops. Becoming a Ranger used to be extremely hard (when the world was a lot smaller, and there were more estates and temples at the same time), now it should be in the reach of anyone who's serious about exploring.

But sure, add a honours line. As you said, many of the other honours lines are a lot easier to get.

Gallida

Just reset the explorers' rankings every 100 years or so, give an honours line to the top 25 explorers per century.

Every century can have a gimmick:

1. Certain areas count double.
2. Cannot explore while incorporeal.
3. Stacking multiplier to explorer rating while intoxicated.

Iocun

Intoxicated is easy. Dementia is much more fun!

Paine

The crowdmap has created an overall net positive for the game allowing many geographically challenged players a better experience but it has diminished the significance of explorers rankings more than anything else mentioned in this thread.

With that said, thanks to all the admin who maintain the overhead maps. Bye bye pencil and paper.

Also, sounds like OP cares less about Actual exploration and immersion and more about instantaneous achievement.

Argwin

Paine said:

Also, sounds like OP cares less about Actual exploration and immersion and more about instantaneous achievement.

OP, as in Adrik, who's been working for as long as I've known him to earn his spot in the top 10 explorers ranking? Who got a Bakios card so he could explore the Great Hunt caves twice, because the admins erased GHC exploration progress, and has been offering to portal people into them so they can get the rooms too? Who's been slowly getting into every House estate and city resource hub? That OP? Try again, but this time know who you're talking about, because is one of the few people who knows exactly what he's talking about when it comes to explorers ranking.

Prythe

@Adrik I am confused. What does the Bakios card have to do with the caves? 

Austere

Argwin said:

Paine said:

Also, sounds like OP cares less about Actual exploration and immersion and more about instantaneous achievement.

OP, as in Adrik, who's been working for as long as I've known him to earn his spot in the top 10 explorers ranking? Who got a Bakios card so he could explore the Great Hunt caves twice, because the admins erased GHC exploration progress, and has been offering to portal people into them so they can get the rooms too? Who's been slowly getting into every House estate and city resource hub? That OP? Try again, but this time know who you're talking about, because is one of the few people who knows exactly what he's talking about when it comes to explorers ranking.

Yeah, @Paine, you really should learn about exploration before just mouthing off to someone.  Maybe check rankings explo....oh. Okay.

Iocun

Argwin said:

Paine said:

Also, sounds like OP cares less about Actual exploration and immersion and more about instantaneous achievement.

OP, as in Adrik, who's been working for as long as I've known him to earn his spot in the top 10 explorers ranking? Who got a Bakios card so he could explore the Great Hunt caves twice, because the admins erased GHC exploration progress, and has been offering to portal people into them so they can get the rooms too? Who's been slowly getting into every House estate and city resource hub? That OP? Try again, but this time know who you're talking about, because is one of the few people who knows exactly what he's talking about when it comes to explorers ranking.

While I highly respect @Adrik's achievements myself, I think @Paine is one of the few people who can rightfully make such a statement, being a consistently top-ranked explorer for as long as I can remember, with great patience and dedication - and having an insanely good memory of Achaea's geography without any maps whatsoever. If anybody may talk about other explorers seeking instant gratification, it's probably him.

Sobriquet

Argwin said:

Paine said:

Also, sounds like OP cares less about Actual exploration and immersion and more about instantaneous achievement.

OP, as in Adrik, who's been working for as long as I've known him to earn his spot in the top 10 explorers ranking? Who got a Bakios card so he could explore the Great Hunt caves twice, because the admins erased GHC exploration progress, and has been offering to portal people into them so they can get the rooms too? Who's been slowly getting into every House estate and city resource hub? That OP? Try again, but this time know who you're talking about, because is one of the few people who knows exactly what he's talking about when it comes to explorers ranking.

Appreciate the defense here, but you've kinda picked on the wrong person... 

Aegoth

when sticking up for your friends backfires

Paine

Let me remove the word instantaneous then and leave behind achievement. 

was trying to make a distinction between exploring an area for depth versus running in real quick to just "get the rooms" to gain rank. I've been guilty of that before, no doubt, and this is a huge topic with lots of heated opinions and not trying to touch on everything at once.
Not even going to touch the GHC situation.

I regret trying to make the second point since my first one about crowdmap apparently seems less interesting. Sorry for offending you, Argwin. 

Argwin

Paine being a great explorer himself doesn't negate the fact that he made a huge assumption about Adrik's intentions. An assumption that was incredibly wrong.

And Paine, it's a shame you spoke about Adrik and exploration. If you had criticized him in almost any other way I probably would have agreed with you.

Iocun

Well, let's get back to discussing facts and ideas, rather than people.

As for @Paine's point about the crowdmap: I agree that it has two sides. I think it's perfectly fine if a crowdmap helps someone to get from Shastaan to Jaru more easily, but sooner or later, there's always a point crossed when it acts as an "exploration cheat".

I don't really know how much the crowdmap currently does, but if it starts autowalking you through secret exits, or to places that are meant to be an exploration challenge (e.g. the Saar-elan adventure), then it certainly cheapens the value of exploration by a lot. But that's of course not a new issue, but is just a reiteration of the old concerns about public curing systems, especially such with extensive anti-illusion safeguards etc. I've long learned to accept that such things can't be stopped, even if I still hope that the people maintaining such crowdmaps are still conscious of those issues.

What I do somewhat regret however, is that all the new forms of speedwalking (whether through client mappers or the in-game WALK TO system) have led to much more lazy communication when it comes to geography. When someone asks "where can I find Indalacio", nobody still gives directions on which streets to walk and in which part of Cyrene you'll find him. They just say "WALK TO INDALECIO". This is partly because it's much easier, partly because some of the people giving said advice aren't sure of the geography themselves, and partly because they believe they're actually being more helpful. But this leads to many people no longer actually having an image of the world in their head, but just blindly stumbling through, following a series of commands, which let's much of Achaea's carefully crafted world design go to waste.

I absolutely believe the in-game landmark systems and such were great additions, but I still wish people wouldn't always default to them, particularly when openly talking about directions.

Adrik

I mean. I helped Paine get his Worldwalker back after the debacle with GHCs...

And helped Yen get #1 from the same (and getting her into some rooms)...

I don't want instant gratification. I just don't want to keep having to literally break into places over-and-over again.. die. gem past a locked door. discover 5 more locked doors behind that. so I have to break in again-- but wait. because I entered the room as a soul... I have to get someone else to travel to me in there. Travel out myself. Travel back TO THEM... to get the room.

I can defend myself though. I'll just keep breaking into places to get rooms.

Syrennia

Prythe said:

@Adrik I am confused. What does the Bakios card have to do with the caves? 

One of the effects transports you to a room you haven't explored? I think. Which counts great hunt caves.

Adrik

Syrennia said:

Prythe said:

@Adrik I am confused. What does the Bakios card have to do with the caves? 

One of the effects transports you to a room you haven't explored? I think. Which counts great hunt caves.

It teleports you to a great hunt cave. Not a room you haven't explored.

EDIT:

Bakios card also has the ability to:

Turn all says/whispers into yells (Raido negation / DUanathar negation. Mostly just annoying)
Turn off battlerage generation for something like 30 minutes.
Cause you to float like a balloon (damage if indoors).
WALK REAL FAST! No limit on rooms moved per second-- probably. Damage from room movement though.
Slow but sturdy. Perma mass? who knows
GHC Teleport
Nothing.

Prythe

Adrik said:

Bakios card also has the ability to:

Turn all says/whispers into yells (Raido negation / DUanathar negation. Mostly just annoying)
Turn off battlerage generation for something like 30 minutes.
Cause you to float like a balloon (damage if indoors).
WALK REAL FAST! No limit on rooms moved per second-- probably. Damage from room movement though.
Slow but sturdy. Perma mass? who knows
GHC Teleport
Nothing.

So it can be icky things? Hmmm.

Kog

Step 1: take over a House

Step 2: Expand the estate to be 5000 rooms

Step 3: Rule the explorer leaderboards with an iron fist

Rackham

The year is 2050.

The explorers rankings are led by people with enough expendable income to continuously expand their House estates.

Nobody cares about cities anymore, several cities exist in a state of anarchy within the House estates.

Khaibit is queen of everything with her expendable income leading to an MC Escher-style relapsing and self referential estate.

Rispok

If only there wasn't a hard cap on how many rooms you can have in a house estate! You should all thank the Merchants. We used some of our estate as a public area.