The State of Leveling

[ILLY]

I'm with Steve on this, TBH. Not all of our PCs start at the peak of their potential (despite your best efforts to singlehandedly upend that statistic )

You don't have to level fully if you don't want to. Pressing the level up button IS a choice too.

Also, it is worth noting that the leveling pace on BG HAS caused turn-over in the past (and even this year, I know at-least one person who left due to it and more than one persons who complain about it). People won't tell you either (you can't expect that); they'll just be gone.

I won't lie, the thought of quietly quitting the server because I find the leveling to be one of the most boring things in the world has crossed my mind more than once. What has kept me is the roleplay and faction stuff going on right now. Every time I think about logging on to just get some exp I rather go do the dishes or something.

[Almarea90]

Hi everyone!

Just a reminder to keep the discussion polite and respectful of other fellow players preferences. At the end of the day we are all together in wishing the server to be a better place.

Happy posting and be excellent with one another.

[Aspect of Sorrow]

Instant 30 doesn't solve the problem especially while we still have life after 30 problems too.

[metaquad4]

Instant 30 doesn't solve the problem especially while we still have life after 30 problems too.

Life after 30 doesn't impact issues related to XP/leveling; because there isn't any leveling after 30.

I won't lie, the thought of quietly quitting the server because I find the leveling to be one of the most boring things in the world has crossed my mind more than once. What has kept me is the roleplay and faction stuff going on right now. Every time I think about logging on to just get some exp I rather go do the dishes or something.

You wouldn't be the first - I poked one of my friends who used to play here to play in Jan and they ended up leaving for reasons related to the slow grind, lack of well done respeccing, etc. Not sure if they'll come back either, they were pretty frustrated.

I've toyed with the idea myself as well; I mostly just smile and bear it at this point though. It is 100% better with a group (plus you double up on RP XP that way if you are with the right people) tho too. I absolutely refuse to grind solo; idk how the madlads who do that stay sane.

[Józef Taktyka]

Removing the leveling experience would be a very bad move in my opinion. Simply because leveling is an essential part of this game and D&D in general. Not to mention that without it there would be even less things to do here.

Just yesterday I hit lvl 20 for the first time on this server, with my Durlog. It's been a long process but not to long. I believe the pacing is balanced well. However, when I hear how it's going to be painfull to reach lvl 30 I'm not sure I'll stick around here. And that's because there is nothing else to do here apart from going to FAI and talk about something. There is no main storyline, no global events, no nothing. If there is something then the leading DM is doing s*it job in making it known and global. No, doing quests for a small and closed group of players that affect the entire region or world is not a main storyline or global event.
From my experience the best storylines involved some sort of conflict/war but also engaged players in doing mechanical stuff.

For example (forgive me for a flat and dull story), a balor opens a portal and hellish army invades the Sword Coast. In order to close the portal, players must find pieces of an ancient artifact/spellscroll and put it back together. And those pieces are placed in loot chests in all of the dungeons so when players are grinding, they participate in the event at the same time. In the meantime, DMs organize some side quests.
Or a mysterious desease spreads in the region and infects everyone that comes in contact with the infected ones (that's an actual event from one of the servers I played on). The desease lowers some stats when a PC gets in close proximity to an infected PC and casting Remove Desease works only for a day or so.
The only way to cure it for sure is to search for a particular mashroom which again can be found in loot chests.

Apart from such long-term storylines there is need for some short and simple events like public execution of a serial killer, a mysterious fire in the docs, or a freakin shower of frogs above the BG. Anything. And no, not a pretty post in 'rumors' on the forum but an actual in-game event when a DM shouts on the chat and players rush in to deal with the crisis. Hell, the DM could even teleport them to the area so that they could participate.

Well, that's all.

[Steve]

Thing is, grinding to 30 would be enjoyable (enough…) if at 30, there was still much left to accomplish, at least in an equal measure to attaining 30 (which, yes, means a long road but an accomplishment nonetheless).

It’s much more fun for me as a player to push role-play AND have the chance for gain from Leveling, than to be on a level 30 toon and just be able to push role-play (cause grinding for loot is not fun).

Why is pushing role-play not satisfying enough? Because it is too hard to affect the environment, to see changes happen to the landscape as a result of player role-play action. I’m not saying it NEVER happens, because it does and DMs ARE active! I just think a better roadmap for how to get farther with role-play needs to be published.

The loot drop improvement last year WAS a good, noticeable things. So proof positive changes can be made!!

Many may not enjoy leveling, and I dig it, but what’s worse is Leveling to 30 THEN not having or knowing what to do.

There are simply far more games out there to fill players time, at this point in the BGTSCC experience.

[DaloLorn]

This is supposed to be a roleplay server, grinding to 30 can't be 90% of what makes up roleplay.

It's not. But adventuring is a part of many characters' pre- and post-30 experiences. Grinding isn't (or rather shouldn't be, not in the MMO-ish form present on BG), but if everyone is allowed to start at 30, and playing under 30 is purely optional, do you really think there'll be any opportunities for pre-30 adventure at all? It's already hard enough to find a decent group to travel with before epic levels, and letting people skip the progression will only make that issue infinitely more severe.

Steve and Józef (and the ever-laconic AoS ) continue to target other aspects of this discussion too, all of which I heartily agree with.

[Blackman D]

Thing is, grinding to 30 would be enjoyable (enough…) if at 30, there was still much left to accomplish, at least in an equal measure to attaining 30 (which, yes, means a long road but an accomplishment nonetheless).

in a lot of mmos you have the grind to max level and then the grind for gear at max level, then more gear is released and then you gotta get the new stuff and then the level cap is increase and now you doing the entire process over

of course the cap here isnt going pass 30 but something to do at 30 other than rp would be nice i guess, doesnt really fix the painfulness of getting to 30 but would give you something to do

[Rinzler]

Trying to get anything done on BG feels like your trying to get ‘corporate’ approval for decisions that could or should be able to be done in within a few days. BG these days feels like less of an RP game and more of a waiting simulator for XP (due to the retreat system) for RP (due to waiting weeks if not months for RP decisions by staff) and general FUN because of the lack of player v player conflict to keep things exciting because DM’s arent around most of the time.

I feel this.

This is supposed to be a roleplay server, grinding to 30 can't be 90% of what makes up roleplay.

It's a roleplay server based on dungeons and dragons, where rolling combat dice is generally fun in my experience. It should be fun to roleplay and fun to use your character mechanically. I have never agreed with the mutually exclusive point of view.

[Hullack]

I played for a long time on a different NWN2 server years ago (Sundren), and only recently came back to NWN2 when that server resurrected and the new project lead reached out to former staff. I installed the game just to run around in the old areas I'd built years ago and ended up here as it was seemingly the only server that still had people playing.

I'll agree with the sentiment that the re-designed city (while amazing) is frustrating to navigate. Its beautiful and adds a lot of RP potential, but it needs a city-map for usability reasons -- where when you hit an edge transition inside the city a map pops up and you select which district you want to go to. We had this on the other server and it worked well.

And yes, hitting level 20 does seem like a going from a jog to slow crawl in terms of character progression.

[blazerules]

I dont think leveling should be removed. I do think up to 21 it's somewhat decent. Get a bit of the awful taste towards 21.

Nothing forces you to get to 30 sure. But nothing is forcing the leveling experience on BGTSCC to be abysmal either.


But as an ideal it should be doing the same dungeon maximum 5 times. Because any more than that is frankly a failure of the server imho. (Common complaints I hear are leveling is too slow. It feels slow because you keep doing the same areas. Because the XP gain in them means you'll do then multiple times. And it's just not fun to do so at all. It's either boring or jarring for an RP server to have bad MMO leveling.)

I keep inviting people to the server who just cant get passed the leveling experience we have. I keep seeing people I like leave because it's awful. And yeah it is. And once again, for no good reason.

I still dont know why it's like this. Hells I only stayed despite absolutely hating it. Which probably wasnt too healthy.

Is the reason for having bad leveling really worth losing the precious few new players we get?

It's a roleplay server based on dungeons and dragons, where rolling combat dice is generally fun in my experience. It should be fun to roleplay and fun to use your character mechanically. I have never agreed with the mutually exclusive point of view.

Yes and no. I think a major part of the fun comes from the WHY.

WHY are you doing the fighting? What purpose? Fighting in an event is fun as you are accomplishing tangible RP goals. With XP and maybe money as a side reward.

Grinding dungeons your purpose is to grind that XP and the reward is XP. Or flip that to money.

The combat in NWN2 is not really fun enough to justify diabloesque dungeon gameplay loop without even a singular factor that makes it fun. Nor does it possess the appeal of tabletop or events. Nor can it ever I'd argue.

[Aspect of Sorrow]

I played for a long time on a different NWN2 server years ago (Sundren)[...]I'll agree with the sentiment that the re-designed city (while amazing) is frustrating to navigate. Its beautiful and adds a lot of RP potential, but it needs a city-map for usability reasons -- where when you hit an edge transition inside the city a map pops up and you select which district you want to go to. We had this on the other server and it worked well.

A complaint sent to us on staff for this was sneak follow potential; otherwise agreed.

465,000/41(avg) = 11,341 messages, 2/min rate = ~94.5 hrs if nonstop. Four days, but only Villame has that kind of ability.

[metaquad4]

Is the reason for having bad leveling really worth losing the precious few new players we get?

Either the journey from 1 - 30 is more important than more players, or people will leave if the leveling process is removed. Not sure about the latter, but I'm skeptical of the former.

[Endelyon]

Some of this feels a bit dramatized if I'm being honest. "Dozens of former players have told me in private that they quit because of slow leveling, I can't provide any evidence that's the case but totally trust me on it." We also don't have swaths of new players joining and quitting because the leveling is boring, aside from old players pretending to be new players I think we probably get 3-4 legitimately new people annually and probably 1-2 of them stay for some months or years.

I don't personally know of any NWN2 server where leveling feels super fun and I've played on all of them at this point (in fact it was Sigil's arcade speed leveling that turned me off about playing there, though I don't think comparing one server to another is particularly fruitful). Likewise, though Steve is the only one representing them in this thread, we have many players who feel like "all destination, no journey" is a bad scenario to reinforce. I myself also fall into this camp. That doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to make the leveling experience more fun, but I see DMs, devs and builders doing their best to make that happen every single day between the introduction of new dungeons and new systems and programs like the new biography rewards.

A lot of people have less time to play now and simply don't want to go to the effort of grinding as much anymore, and that's understandable, but let's also not pretend it's absurd to expect to spend a few months hitting the level cap in an online multi-player RPG.

Let's remember that many people on staff have taken effort and care to come to the best decisions that they can, and many of the things that have been said in this thread have not treated the intent behind those decisions in good faith. Everyone is working to make a more fun game, but what makes a game fun is different for different people and requires careful judgment and balance. Threads like these typically serve as an echo chamber that makes an issue seem far more amplified than it is and even the people in this thread advocating for some kind of change can't actually agree on what the change needs to be.

Player bleedout is caused by a number of factors, and though the mechanics is one of them, it is in my opinion is dwarfed by things like DM activity and wider community engagement. All of these are things that we need to (and will) continuously work towards improving in the coming months. I'm not trying to say that the sentiment behind this thread is wrong (especially those that have just genuinely expressed what would make the game more fun for you), I just don't see faster leveling as a magical solution to perceived population woes.

Though I seriously doubt we'll consider radical approaches like removing leveling (I for one don't want to redesign the whole module to accommodate this and don't think that's a realistic expectation to begin with), I feel like the changes made to the spawn system a year or so ago are really at the heart of this complaint, and in the spirit of compromise and fun I think we could look into reintroducing some light scaling to give back some (but not all) leeway that was taken away. This will need vetting by wider staff but I'll look into vetting that decision after some bigger fish are fried.

Other suggestions in the thread are also actionable, like having more public DM events to shake things up (which I notice is the feedback actually left by the legitimately new player). I've even seen the suggestion floated among DMs to go back towards having more of these in the very short time I've been admin again, so it's definitely on their radar.

I also don't want to stop the discussion by any means, I just wanted to provide some kind of response or insight to what's been said so far.

Happy gaming!

[Jepop]

I have multiple level 30 characters and a handful of 20 somethings, the majority of which I have solo grinded. While I seemingly have an uncanny ability to zombie out and grind for hours I completely understand why players despise it so much. Maybe, just an increase in xp across the board? Not Sigil levels of xp but something like Darkest Dream could be a happy medium.