Spawn Rates

[DM SummerBreeze]

That all areas should be equally productive and equally used is a new way of looking at things that, to my knowledge, is not something that was ever discussed. I would think that would be something mentioned to builders..

This is a discussion for the dev forums.

Telling the players they shouldn't race to 30, and then having every major campaign, story, and arc revolve around the same set of level 30 characters is a bit of a disconnect.

This is a discussion for the DM-Dev forums.

I disagree.

This server is a community. We all contribute, players and staff, in a shared vision of storytelling and fun. If there is a point to your changes, if there is a goal you are attempting to reach, the players should know what it is so they can decide whether they agree with it or not. That matters, right? That the players are having fun? Transparency is something we are supposed to be striving for here - and changing the goals of the server is something everyone should be aware of, not just those with dev access.

Our goal here should be to ensure that the players perceive their time here as fun. That's a measurement that is as individual as it is varied, but one we have tried to keep in mind for the last fifteen years. A backbone of our success, in my opinion. All the numbers in the world cannot measure player perception. But this thread can. Discord can. The players themselves can.

And, to me, it seems like quite a few aren't really enjoying this 'experiment'.

I have to agree with PH here. I was under the impression we were supposed to be heading in a direction of more transparency with players and including players at the table for discussion more often. Not only was a large portion of the staff left out of this discussion but all the players as well.

We should be looking at why players were enjoying those areas so much more often than other areas, and then make a plan to build up the lesser used areas to make them more viable, not remove the areas that people enjoy. We aren't going to stop the "rush to 30" mentality many players have, regardless of how much we nerf one area or another. Making good areas worse instead of worse areas better is a backwards philosophy to approach this.

Also the recent obsession with "collecting data" instead of listening to player feedback is similarly the wrong approach. Forcing players to find alternate avenues is not showing they are having fun. Feedback from people who are playing the game and their enjoyment is more important than looking at spreadsheets.

((I would love to personally see less of the "must be 30 to participate" but much of the server is built in this fashion. Almost every area has spawns. Most.players are level 30. It's just how the servers culture has developed over time and we're all too old to go back on it now. I'd rather see an easy road till about 20 and make the 20-30 slower, and have a 10 level spread so the level 20s still gain xp when partied with level 30s. But thats my 2 cents and my personal opinion. ))

[Rhifox]

Going to put in a warning here that people not use this thread to attack other players or staff, or it'll be locked. It's fine to discuss the changes, and we understand that players are upset with what was done, but that is not an excuse to attack people, and especially for staff to go at each other's throats.

Please understand that we all want to make a positive environment for the server, and that each of us have different ideas for how that can be done. And sometimes, we make mistakes. I am sorry for how this whole thing has played out, and we will endeavor to do better in the future.

[fedex]

[/quote]
((I would love to personally see less of the "must be 30 to participate" but much of the server is built in this fashion. Almost every area has spawns. Most.players are level 30. It's just how the servers culture has developed over time and we're all too old to go back on it now. I'd rather see an easy road till about 20 and make the 20-30 slower, and have a 10 level spread so the level 20s still gain xp when partied with level 30s. But thats my 2 cents and my personal opinion. ))
[/quote]

This.

I recently returned to play, so perhaps my opinion isn't as worth as who is in here from maybe 10 years, but i can assure that for low levels and especially new players it is hard as duck to get on going, then maybe interact with other players, i had my first interaction around level 8 and my first party at level 11...
Yet i see it is still a long long way to reach 30, which is where all the fun should begin, you can start focus on RP adventuring, loot runs, improve your gears, refine your build through RCR, DM events etch....

In my opinion levelling up this slowly, it is tedious and frustrating, other players told me the kind of content you interact with at lvl 15 and at lvl 30 it's the same, but i really don't think so, also if one wants to pvp, how is he supposed to pvp at low levels? That is already a big chunk of content that is not accessible until late to endgame

[FallingStar]

When even your own fellow devs and staff members can't support your decisions, it's about time time to abandon this ill-conceived project.

[DaloLorn]

When even your own fellow devs and staff members can't support your decisions, it's about time time to abandon this ill-conceived project.

For my part, I'm more worried about the way it was executed than I am about the specifics of what "it" was. There is a problem, and there was reason to believe that this might bring us closer to solving that problem. (Has it, in fact, done so? I don't know. While I had intended to try it out and get a feel for the new system myself, I never got around to it, so I can only go with my initial cautious optimism regarding the fact that disabling the CR scaling will make it easier for weaker builds to get half-decent loot.)

The part that has met with near-universal disapproval from the staff was Vale taking it upon himself to act on Ged's data with minimal staff-side discussion (or even just a warning that he was going to do it) and dropping the changes into the patch at the last minute. But considering the fact that even his fellow admin has publicly voiced her disapproval of the way he did it, I feel pretty safe in assuming it won't happen again soon.

[Theodore01]

While I had intended to try it out and get a feel for the new system myself, I never got around to it, so I can only go with my initial cautious optimism regarding the fact that disabling the CR scaling will make it easier for weaker builds to get half-decent loot.)

Go try it for yourself, the opposite is true. If you have a weak build that cannot handle its CR areas, you are double screwed now - if you need to visit lower CR areas (because that's all you can handle) you'll get worse xp now and still suffer from the downgrading chest loot system.

[FallingStar]

While I had intended to try it out and get a feel for the new system myself, I never got around to it, so I can only go with my initial cautious optimism regarding the fact that disabling the CR scaling will make it easier for weaker builds to get half-decent loot.)

Go try it for yourself, the opposite is true. If you have a weak build that cannot handle its CR areas, you are double screwed now - if you need to visit lower CR areas (because that's all you can handle) you'll get worse xp now and still suffer from the downgrading chest loot system.

So much this. The change hurts, and therefore discourages RP-focused builds.

[zhazz]

Going to put in a warning here that people not use this thread to attack other players or staff, or it'll be locked.

This entire thread is as close as an open letter to staff that we'll ever get. Usually any and all threads criticising staff are locked and/or deleted. Maybe that's because the poster is frustrated about something, and is letting emotions get into their writing, thus assaulting staff. Maybe it's because "arguing with staff will get you banned" is literally displayed in-game when logging in, and some staffers take that a bit too seriously.

If players have complaints about staff and/or staff decisions they need to be able to voice any such with a unified voice, rather than private messages from individuals that just get lost in the void. This thread is doing exactly that. Giving players a place to tell the staff that they dropped the ball, and that some members of staff are making decisions impacting the players, without involving the players.

Which segues into this:

This is a discussion for the dev forums.



This is a discussion for the DM-Dev forums.

I disagree.

This server is a community. We all contribute, players and staff, in a shared vision of storytelling and fun. If there is a point to your changes, if there is a goal you are attempting to reach, the players should know what it is so they can decide whether they agree with it or not. That matters, right? That the players are having fun? Transparency is something we are supposed to be striving for here - and changing the goals of the server is something everyone should be aware of, not just those with dev access.

Our goal here should be to ensure that the players perceive their time here as fun. That's a measurement that is as individual as it is varied, but one we have tried to keep in mind for the last fifteen years. A backbone of our success, in my opinion. All the numbers in the world cannot measure player perception. But this thread can. Discord can. The players themselves can.

And, to me, it seems like quite a few aren't really enjoying this 'experiment'.

I have to agree with PH here. I was under the impression we were supposed to be heading in a direction of more transparency with players and including players at the table for discussion more often. Not only was a large portion of the staff left out of this discussion but all the players as well.

We should be looking at why players were enjoying those areas so much more often than other areas, and then make a plan to build up the lesser used areas to make them more viable, not remove the areas that people enjoy. We aren't going to stop the "rush to 30" mentality many players have, regardless of how much we nerf one area or another. Making good areas worse instead of worse areas better is a backwards philosophy to approach this.

Also the recent obsession with "collecting data" instead of listening to player feedback is similarly the wrong approach. Forcing players to find alternate avenues is not showing they are having fun. Feedback from people who are playing the game and their enjoyment is more important than looking at spreadsheets.

Transparency between staff and players is paramount.

10 years ago, or maybe it was 15?, it's been so long. Anyway. In the distant past staff has been quite closed about anything and everything. It lead to decisions being made without player involvement, promotion of questionable behaviour, and promotion of even more questionable staffers to higher positions of power, leading to favouritism, nepotism, and harassment of certain types of players.

There's a lot of #2 going on on the server that I don't agree with. Both as a player and a tabletop DM myself. The promise of more transparency, however, is doing some good in alleviating those concerns.

Trust is a currency that is slow to earn, and easy to spend. Staff earns trust from the player-base at an incredibly slow pace. And all it takes it one bad decision to spend all of it, and go into a deficit. Transparency is one of the best ways to earn trust.

((I would love to personally see less of the "must be 30 to participate" but much of the server is built in this fashion. Almost every area has spawns. Most.players are level 30. It's just how the servers culture has developed over time and we're all too old to go back on it now. I'd rather see an easy road till about 20 and make the 20-30 slower, and have a 10 level spread so the level 20s still gain xp when partied with level 30s. But thats my 2 cents and my personal opinion. ))

Level 30 is not required to partake in events. Not at all.

However, there is a disease on the server that is spread by the constant use of Server Yells from staff announcing events. That disease being:
"I'm gonna join in, despite my character being too far away to know"

For small scale events it isn't such a big deal. Like when a DM decides to drop a NPC into an area, and do something for a small group of PCs already there. For big events, however, everyone and their mother come running from far away. Resulting in 40+ PCs all gathered in a very small area, with a level spread from 5 to 30. The DMs can't easily tell the 30s to go take a hike, without causing a #2-storm. And the level 5s can't compete in any meaningful way with the level 30s.

That's why, for a lot of players, their character doesn't start until level 30, when they can be relevant in events. Until then their level 10 character specializing in a non-mechanical skill will be outdone by a skill-monkey level 30 character that decided to dump a lot of points into the same skill because "why the heck not"?

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Going back on-topic, I'll add this:
Adding new areas, classes, and NPCs to the game is perfectly fine to do without much player-involvement. It's when changes are made to something already existing that players need to be involved.

As much of a mess as the loot re-balance thread was, it allowed players to give their input before too many changes were made. It was amazing, and we felt part of the decision-making process.

It was still a process, however, and I know some staffers are against processes and guidelines, because it makes their hobby of supporting the server with content seem more like actual work. That's another hurdle that has to be passed at some point, since shooting from the hip obviously won't work. This thread demonstrates that quite clearly.

[Bobthehero]

This is one of the things where you can make an argument that makes sense in either direction. Fortunately, we'll be able to get the answer with certainty once players have adjusted their habits to these changes, so such dialectics are unnecessary.

Right, dismiss the feedback regarding the changes from the player base. That'll go well, I am sure

I'm sorry, I think perhaps I was unclear. I absolutely care about how you feel about the changes. I'm just not interested in discussing (at this time) what the changes are going to do to the server. It is not an effective use of either of our time to speculate on its effects and try to convince the other person we are right, because we will have an exact answer once players have finished adjusting to the changes. Once we have a result, it may be useful to deconstruct it and understand why things played out that way. For now, I just want to wait for the result.

''Sorry you misunderstood'' isn't a super amazing apology. As for getting your answer, I am pretty sure the whole ass thread here is exactly that, and it's massively negative

[Kitunenotsume]

For my part, I'm more worried about the way it was executed than I am about the specifics of what "it" was. There is a problem, and there was reason to believe that this might bring us closer to solving that problem.

I am of a similar mind here - while as far as I can see the purpose was well-intended, the implementation is the point of concern and contention. Where other server-impacting changes have been announced weeks or months ahead of time with a "Coming Soon" publicly posted for discussion, the change to spawn rates is an example of a patch-note being reactionarily called out by a player to garner developer attention and discussion on the topic.

While I feel the experiment is valid (and an experiment it is, by definition), I oppose on principle the manner under which it is being undertaken, with minimal warning, on the live servers, with deliberate verbiage to quell participant voices of reasonable grievances.

My larger concern for the situation is that the course that has been taken, even if/when reverted, will result in further ongoing skepticism and inertia against any similar changes, even if implemented in a more transparent and methodical manner.

[Steve]

I myself wouldn’t say it’s all ill-conceived. The fact that for years, players knew exactly where best to farm XP from mobs, and avoided poorly designed areas, says something very truthful about the state of the Server design: not great, to say it nicely. At least, Areas have lacked attention for far too long, in all sorts of ways.

Some Areas, like Wyverns or East Cloakwood, are just phat XP cow farming gain hand over fist. And some bad choices added AFTER these areas were designed, just made the off-balance OOC XP farming that much more ludicrous.

It has nothing to do with whether you powerbuild or gimpbuild, since it was THE AREA that had a poor design, in terms of some form of XP gain ratio. Whatever that might be.

Imho, it is absolutely understandable that Admin chooses to flip the script for an Area, as they control the Server. It’s not a democracy on BGTSCC.

Unfortunately, the deduction “hurt.” Players feel stymied in their many years expectations and plans for leveling using developed OOC knowledge. And, they feel they did not get a something new or better to balance out the change.

More could have been done. More should have been done. But at the same time, literally, Valefort and Ged are asking us to give it a month to see the results. Is a month of faith too much to ask?

Spawn rates need adjusting all around the Server. However, imho, as I’ve said earlier, the “adjustment” of Scaling without more Balance, should have been better discussed. In public or private.

The BEST PART here is that everything changed, can be put back.

[DaloLorn]

While I had intended to try it out and get a feel for the new system myself, I never got around to it, so I can only go with my initial cautious optimism regarding the fact that disabling the CR scaling will make it easier for weaker builds to get half-decent loot.)

Go try it for yourself, the opposite is true. If you have a weak build that cannot handle its CR areas, you are double screwed now - if you need to visit lower CR areas (because that's all you can handle) you'll get worse xp now and still suffer from the downgrading chest loot system.

Soooo I ran my level 14 human WIS monk through a couple of maps for about an hour. Gear was decent by my standards, but nothing too crazy, and I was completely unbuffed. I was averaging 10 damage per hit (slightly more whenever I popped Fiery Fist as a panic button or in anticipation of a boss fight), with my highest AB being 21, and I died twice throughout the experiment.

At first, I tried the CR12 Cloakwood Hag Cave. Before reaching it, I got ~15 XP off the tasloi and 40 XP off the spiders. Not too shabby, considering I was never in any danger and just autoattacked my way through. Inside the cave, I got 49 XP off the hags and hagspawn, and was able to reasonably comfortably duel them... but as soon as I had to fight more than one, I fell apart, with a net loss of ~1000 XP and no loot.

Next, I downgraded to the CR8 Sharptooth Orc Cave. Outside the cave, I was getting 35-40 XP from various mobs. Inside, I was getting 40 XP from basically everything, got about 3-5k worth in loot... and eventually died to a combination of arrogance and bad luck against an orc mystic. Zero net XP.

However, I now knew I could reasonably comfortably handle the orcs. I went back and beat up some more orcs, reclaimed the lost XP yet again... nearly died to my arrogance again (my only source of healing was my regen cloak, so it eventually turned out I was one ill-timed group spawn away from disaster), but I managed to salvage that run and return to the FAI unscathed.

Only thing I spent during the run? One +1 healing kit I looted early in the orc cave. (And technically enough XP to get me over to level 15. )

It felt a lot less stressful, and my deaths were a lot less infuriating than before. I could actually conserve my dailies for critical moments instead of spamming them throughout the adventure. However, in anticipation of possible complaints that I wasn't quite weak enough (which I might even agree with), I'm going to go try one of my arcanists next time.

[MrSmith]

This is one of the things where you can make an argument that makes sense in either direction. Fortunately, we'll be able to get the answer with certainty once players have adjusted their habits to these changes, so such dialectics are unnecessary.

Right, dismiss the feedback regarding the changes from the player base. That'll go well, I am sure

I'm sorry, I think perhaps I was unclear. I absolutely care about how you feel about the changes. I'm just not interested in discussing (at this time) what the changes are going to do to the server. It is not an effective use of either of our time to speculate on its effects and try to convince the other person we are right, because we will have an exact answer once players have finished adjusting to the changes. Once we have a result, it may be useful to deconstruct it and understand why things played out that way. For now, I just want to wait for the result.

"[O]nce players have finished adjusting to the changes"... This causes me concern. I interpret this to mean - "time heals all wounds" and once people adjust to being caught off-guard, they will complain less because "adjust to the changes" is synonymous with "acceptance".

“[W]ait for the result” … also causes me concern. Here, I opine “result” means the players’ adjustment to, and ultimate acceptance of, the changes.

When even your own fellow devs and staff members can't support your decisions, it's about time time to abandon this ill-conceived project.

For my part, I'm more worried about the way it was executed than I am about the specifics of what "it" was. There is a problem, and there was reason to believe that this might bring us closer to solving that problem. (Has it, in fact, done so? I don't know. While I had intended to try it out and get a feel for the new system myself, I never got around to it, so I can only go with my initial cautious optimism regarding the fact that disabling the CR scaling will make it easier for weaker builds to get half-decent loot.)

The part that has met with near-universal disapproval from the staff was Vale taking it upon himself to act on Ged's data with minimal staff-side discussion (or even just a warning that he was going to do it) and dropping the changes into the patch at the last minute. But considering the fact that even his fellow admin has publicly voiced her disapproval of the way he did it, I feel pretty safe in assuming it won't happen again soon.

Actually, I’m okay with Vale taking the initiative to act on Ged’s data because this rationale is more palatable than the alternative, which I feared immediately after reading the Server Update notes that the spawn rates were reduced as a direct result of a different forum conversation between Steve, Snarfy, and me.

Steve wrote: For this, I think there are too many areas with too many mobs! Most dungeons give little to no time between the next spawn. And tactics for survival are moot besides building mechanics > mob stats.

MrSmith wrote: To Steve's point, an aggressive spawn rate when moving through a dungeon can detract from the opportunity to dialogue and develop tactics. Yet, higher spawn rates are preferred when running racetracks (Wyverns, Trolls, and Reaching Forest). What works in one area may not apply to another.

The timing may have been coincidental, but changing the spawn rates within ~24 hours of a forum discussion about the same gave me the impression Staff took the opportunity to implement something out of context. This is why I responded earlier with…

MrSmith wrote: I fear a constructive narrative on aggressive spawn rates when moving through a dungeon has to lead to a fundamental change on the server.

I sincerely hope three players chatting on the forum did not lead the Staff to take action – out of context – that led to a fundamental change impacting ALL players.

[FallingStar]

Well, it appears that they are dismissing the soundly negative feedback as "players just blowing it out of proportion" and there should be no room for discourse or pushback about this. Note the passive-aggressive tone in the public dev blog and the classic non-apology highlighted earlier on this page.

In what forum are we supposed to discuss this, then? Pie charts and graphs don't quantify fun. Feedback does.

[DaloLorn]

Right, dismiss the feedback regarding the changes from the player base. That'll go well, I am sure

I'm sorry, I think perhaps I was unclear. I absolutely care about how you feel about the changes. I'm just not interested in discussing (at this time) what the changes are going to do to the server. It is not an effective use of either of our time to speculate on its effects and try to convince the other person we are right, because we will have an exact answer once players have finished adjusting to the changes. Once we have a result, it may be useful to deconstruct it and understand why things played out that way. For now, I just want to wait for the result.

"[O]nce players have finished adjusting to the changes"... This causes me concern. I interpret this to mean - "time heals all wounds" and once people adjust to being caught off-guard, they will complain less because "adjust to the changes" is synonymous with "acceptance".

“[W]ait for the result” … also causes me concern. Here, I opine “result” means the players’ adjustment to, and ultimate acceptance of, the changes.

Precisely why this should have been announced as a proper, controlled experiment instead of being rebranded as such after the fact. But alas, it is what it is, and the team is now in the difficult position of having to balance genuine improvement (if it turns out this was at least a step in the right direction) with the PR impact of appearing to ignore feedback. Kitunenotsume's post pretty aptly summarised my concerns on that front.

That being said, last night's preliminary tests (see my last post) left me optimistic about the CR scaling. I might take my draconic evoker out for a spin, next; blasters usually suffer pretty badly in level-appropriate combat, so it might be more informative with regards to any discrepancies between my expectations and the reality of how these changes affect weak builds.

Theeeen I guess I'll have to try one of my epics after that. It's going to be trickier to get a good baseline, since the PCs that make it into epics usually have some kind of mechanical edge over the ones that don't... maybe Kana's mundane sword-and-boarding, or perhaps Vilmar's... oh, yeah! Vilmar's archmage stuff has historically been direly underwhelming without the benefit of a frontliner friend.

When even your own fellow devs and staff members can't support your decisions, it's about time time to abandon this ill-conceived project.

For my part, I'm more worried about the way it was executed than I am about the specifics of what "it" was. There is a problem, and there was reason to believe that this might bring us closer to solving that problem. (Has it, in fact, done so? I don't know. While I had intended to try it out and get a feel for the new system myself, I never got around to it, so I can only go with my initial cautious optimism regarding the fact that disabling the CR scaling will make it easier for weaker builds to get half-decent loot.)

The part that has met with near-universal disapproval from the staff was Vale taking it upon himself to act on Ged's data with minimal staff-side discussion (or even just a warning that he was going to do it) and dropping the changes into the patch at the last minute. But considering the fact that even his fellow admin has publicly voiced her disapproval of the way he did it, I feel pretty safe in assuming it won't happen again soon.

Actually, I’m okay with Vale taking the initiative to act on Ged’s data because this rationale is more palatable than the alternative, which I feared immediately after reading the Server Update notes that the spawn rates were reduced as a direct result of a different forum conversation between Steve, Snarfy, and me.

Steve wrote: For this, I think there are too many areas with too many mobs! Most dungeons give little to no time between the next spawn. And tactics for survival are moot besides building mechanics > mob stats.

MrSmith wrote: To Steve's point, an aggressive spawn rate when moving through a dungeon can detract from the opportunity to dialogue and develop tactics. Yet, higher spawn rates are preferred when running racetracks (Wyverns, Trolls, and Reaching Forest). What works in one area may not apply to another.

The timing may have been coincidental, but changing the spawn rates within ~24 hours of a forum discussion about the same gave me the impression Staff took the opportunity to implement something out of context. This is why I responded earlier with…

MrSmith wrote: I fear a constructive narrative on aggressive spawn rates when moving through a dungeon has to lead to a fundamental change on the server.

I sincerely hope three players chatting on the forum did not lead the Staff to take action – out of context – that led to a fundamental change impacting ALL players.

Nah, I don't think so. He'd have no reason to lie about it in staff chat, plus the change is a bit of a non-sequitur from the dialogue you posted. More likely, he correctly identified that the "racetracks" you mentioned were outperforming all other maps in terms of levelling, with a particularly strong emphasis on wyverns.

A more logical response to the quoted dialogue would have been to do something that's already been debated in public and private Discords (and forums) alike: Change spawn behaviours to favour slowly-respawning clumps of NPCs (at least in dungeons) instead of the current approach of rapidly respawning single NPCs. But that requires a good deal more work, which is why I don't think anyone's actually been working on it yet.

Well, it appears that they are dismissing the soundly negative feedback as "players just blowing it out of proportion" and there should be no room for discourse or pushback about this. Note the passive-aggressive tone in the public dev blog and the classic non-apology highlighted earlier on this page.

In what forum are we supposed to discuss this, then? Pie charts and graphs don't quantify fun. Feedback does.

Ged, Ged, Ged... That is so not helping anyone...