The State of Leveling

[Rain]

People would not be doing all these exp calculations and speed runs strategies if there was more agency on world building and effecting the world. This whole conversation stems from the fact that RPing requires too many stages of ‘processing’ from the team… Not to mention I know people in the server who have been doing developmental RP for years but just never cared to put it in the fourms so by that stance non of it counts because many of us know you cant just RP in the game in the moment… you have to summarize everything you do and put it on this forum which is great for those people who are creative but terrible for the people who just want to keep their RP effort IG.

Process for your RP to be legitimate:::
Submit a request(5-7 days before you get a reply)
Plan out request with DMs (if you have a guild this could take 7-21 days to find a time where everyone can group.)

At minimum when putting in a request you’ll likely never push towards it for around 2-3 weeks if your a guild… and considering that DM events come in stages you will rinse and repeat this cycle many time for events even as simple as spending 1 hour talking to an NPC… the time spent getting to that point was not worth it and could have been done the same day of the request if you realistically think about it.

[Steve]

There was a quick discussion on Discord yesterday on the long standing BGTSCC paradigm of Level progression throttling.

It has never been published by whatever Staff is in charge, but we all know it is in effect.

And that relates directly to this thread, in that what is the Appropriate Rate now, what SHOULD be the Appropriate Rate, and THEN how can Areas and Content be (re)designed to support that KNOWN rate of mechanical progression.

I personally think it should take at least 1 year to level to 30. That opinion is formed from knowing how desperately BGTSCC needs activity at all Levels/CR, to support a growing playerbase.

There are other options, however.

For one, the Server could opt to remove the XP penalty between far ranging Levels in a group, allowing epic leveled toons to adventure with lowbies. However, this is already possible now, just simply don’t join into the Party together, and XP gain won’t be effected.

A second option is to wildly increase XP gain, but install role-play based approval stages for Leveling. For example, one can grind levels 1-10, but Level 11 requires approval based in RP. Then levels 12-20 can be grinded, but Level 21 needs approval based on role-play. Etc etc.

Perhaps also at each approval, PCs gain some customization!

A third option is to put in place XP grinding gain of diminishing returns. Yet still, someone must decide the “appropriate” Rate of Leveling.

It’s obvious many do not want limits. It’s a game and they want to maximize fun and returns, progression and reward in the most direct, tangible means possible for their RL time investment. I do to!

But on a role-play marketed server, the reward for role-play should ALWAYS be the greatest payout, regardless if that is mechanical XP/items/etc or storybuilding/character generation/world changes.

I’ll say it again: leveling should absolutely NOT be a requirement for fun and engagement on this server. If it is, then the basics of server design and operation need reevaluation.

Climbing the pyramid eventually only leaves room for one person to stand.

[Rain]

Oh god… we already have to wait months just for character development request… waiting months to now be ‘blessed by the almighty DM overlords’ for the privilege of being higher level? Sheesh…

Also a year to reach level 30… you know… I would be on board for this if I wasn’t a working class citizen in real life already. The only way making it take a year to get to level 30 would work is if BG wiped everyones characters and started clean. (Just to clarify im not advocating a server wipe.)

[DiceyCZ]

There was a quick discussion on Discord yesterday on the long standing BGTSCC paradigm of Level progression throttling.

It has never been published by whatever Staff is in charge, but we all know it is in effect.

And that relates directly to this thread, in that what is the Appropriate Rate now, what SHOULD be the Appropriate Rate, and THEN how can Areas and Content be (re)designed to support that KNOWN rate of mechanical progression.

I personally think it should take at least 1 year to level to 30. That opinion is formed from knowing how desperately BGTSCC needs activity at all Levels/CR, to support a growing playerbase.

There are other options, however.

For one, the Server could opt to remove the XP penalty between far ranging Levels in a group, allowing epic leveled toons to adventure with lowbies. However, this is already possible now, just simply don’t join into the Party together, and XP gain won’t be effected.

A second option is to wildly increase XP gain, but install role-play based approval stages for Leveling. For example, one can grind levels 1-10, but Level 11 requires approval based in RP. Then levels 12-20 can be grinded, but Level 21 needs approval based on role-play. Etc etc.

Perhaps also at each approval, PCs gain some customization!

A third option is to put in place XP grinding gain of diminishing returns. Yet still, someone must decide the “appropriate” Rate of Leveling.

It’s obvious many do not want limits. It’s a game and they want to maximize fun and returns, progression and reward in the most direct, tangible means possible for their RL time investment. I do to!

But on a role-play marketed server, the reward for role-play should ALWAYS be the greatest payout, regardless if that is mechanical XP/items/etc or storybuilding/character generation/world changes.

I’ll say it again: leveling should absolutely NOT be a requirement for fun and engagement on this server. If it is, then the basics of server design and operation need reevaluation.

Climbing the pyramid eventually only leaves room for one person to stand.

From experience, implementing a system that requires second person/system to approve your leveling only works as deterrent to play, not a leveling slowdown. Especially if the approval was to be done by DMs, this is not meant to be accusatory, but it would take forever and add strain on other DM activities. BTW this allso applies to something like say having required amount of RP XP to be able to progress per level. That was still detrimental even if made on HCRP server where people could enjoyably make money and XP through RP alone. Whenever it feels like you "must" do something to level up, it removes enjoyment.

But you are right that if we decide we need RP to make sense on low lvl, then leveling should take a lot longer. To the point that levels feel as unattainable as to stop worrying "how many XP did I get today", a year is a good start. That still leaves the fact that big chunk of community has RCR ready roster of lvl 30s with shared/cummulative wealth. Which reliably could only be stopped by removing RCR and outlaw and place systems to stop gear/money transfer between characters of same player.

As for XP limit between wide spread lvls, yeah, that's not ideal, admittedly been a while since I attempted it, but if it stayed the same and you still get almost nothing on both sides when players are too far apart, then that's really not great. If there is a wide lvl difference I'd say best would be to let the high levels get XP as if the lowbies were not there and lowbies should get XP as calculated at their CR, with small detriment. After all getting "carried" isn't exactly domain of low lvls, support casters gett pulled through stuff all the time, if nothing else a lowbie can be a loot carry or something else that makes them valid part of the party etc. RP-wise, just because you have minor role in the group, shouldn't mean you don't go through the same adversities and learning experience.

And back to prolonging leveling, I have seen something like simply increasing XP amounts required for each level to have a pretty good impact, definitely better than artificial stopping points, or XP recieved lowering (psychologicaly speaking low numbers are not as "sexy" even if they have exactly same impact). For example, rather than requiring certain amount of RP XP to level what works simply better is start with high PVE XP gains and some baseline RP XP gain, then gradually as level gets higher, lower PVE XP gain by a bit but increase RP XP by a bit. Low lvls having harder time grinding but their RP not being as impactful while high lvl having somewhat easier grinds but RP being more impactful, for example.

[DaloLorn]

Oh god… we already have to wait months just for character development request… waiting months to now be ‘blessed by the almighty DM overlords’ for the privilege of being higher level? Sheesh…

Also a year to reach level 30… you know… I would be on board for this if I wasn’t a working class citizen in real life already. The only way making it take a year to get to level 30 would work is if BG wiped everyones characters and started clean. (Just to clarify im not advocating a server wipe.)

The system would be automated, so it would be more of a dev blessing.

I've floated such systems both internally and externally on occasion, though I'm not sure it's ever had widespread buy-in from either the team or the playerbase. I never really understood why: Setting up limits (whether soft or hard) on how much XP (except RP XP, would be my suggestion... but there's valid arguments for both sides) you could gain over a certain period of time would allow us to frontload more of that XP, reducing the grinding while still keeping leveling to a more reasonable pace. Of course, my only frame of reference for this sort of mechanic is Ravenloft, which eventually had to go for a hard cap because people still tried to push as hard as they could...

The same principle also applies to loot, though it's a little more complicated to control that. By reducing players' capacity to mindlessly grind for loot, we'd gain the opportunity to let them get the good stuff more often without risking flooding the market with epic items.

[Rain]

The system would be automated, so it would be more of a dev blessing.

The system should not be a -blessing- at all… I don’t need a system, a DM or a dev telling me when, where how and why I should take my character levels.

Im an American. I know my rights.

[DaloLorn]

The system would be automated, so it would be more of a dev blessing.

The system should not be a -blessing- at all… I don’t need a system, a DM or a dev telling me when, where how and why I should take my character levels.

Im an American. I know my rights.

Okay, first of all: It's a joke. A whimsical way of pointing out the DMs would not be involved in any of it.

Second: You clearly don't know your rights half as well as you think you do, because the only rights you have are either the ones granted to you by the server staff, or the right to leave. Now, it just so happens that we would prefer that you didn't leave, and that's an important factor in deciding what other rights to grant you, but aside from that, it wouldn't matter if you were an amoeba, the King of England, or the Second Coming. As far as our decision-making is concerned, you are first and foremost a willing participant in this community, and an American second.

Third: Are you seriously defending your right to torture yourself with 24/7 grinding? Are you kidding me?

[ILLY]

My favorite part is how we're still talking about leveling as if that would be the magical solution to player retention and engagement, when it has been pointed out repeatedly that there are more complex and underlying reasons. That the complaint about leveling is just a symptom of that.

[Steve]

DMs are both gatekeepers AND gift-givers. One should be asking them to participate MORE in our PCs role-play, than pushing them away.

I’m not asking anyone to become some arse kisser. Any approval system out in place to leveling would have to be strict and public, much like Rules for Guild Halls.

Again, leveling is mostly done OOC anyway. Grinding lootz is such a majorly OOC activity. Yet players are more or less railroaded into it because it has the BEST payout.

What I’m doing throwing out ideas, even wild ones, is how can leveling be made fun (or faster for the junkies…) AND support role-play, which as I define it is character development and story building and just 1/3 mechanical progression.

[DaloLorn]

My favorite part is how we're still talking about leveling as if that would be the magical solution to player retention and engagement, when it has been pointed out repeatedly that there are more complex and underlying reasons. That the complaint about leveling is just a symptom of that.

I guess it's because the conversation has mostly been between players and devs, so both sides gravitate towards discussing how devs can treat... if not the problem itself, then at least the symptoms.

[Rain]

The system would be automated, so it would be more of a dev blessing.

The system should not be a -blessing- at all… I don’t need a system, a DM or a dev telling me when, where how and why I should take my character levels.

Im an American. I know my rights.

Okay, first of all: It's a joke. A whimsical way of pointing out the DMs would not be involved in any of it.

Second: You clearly don't know your rights half as well as you think you do, because the only rights you have are either the ones granted to you by the server staff, or the right to leave. Now, it just so happens that we would prefer that you didn't leave, and that's an important factor in deciding what other rights to grant you, but aside from that, it wouldn't matter if you were an amoeba, the King of England, or the Second Coming. As far as our decision-making is concerned, you are first and foremost a willing participant in this community, and an American second.

Third: Are you seriously defending your right to torture yourself with 24/7 grinding? Are you kidding me?

Woo….. I guess you don’t really have a good sense of sarcasm. You misunderstood the joke behind the American line but… I realize it’s a forum its hard to catch exaggerations.

It’s a joke bud.

[Rain]

DMs are both gatekeepers AND gift-givers. One should be asking them to participate MORE in our PCs role-play, than pushing them away.

I’m not asking anyone to become some arse kisser. Any approval system out in place to leveling would have to be strict and public, much like Rules for Guild Halls.

Again, leveling is mostly done OOC anyway. Grinding lootz is such a majorly OOC activity. Yet players are more or less railroaded into it because it has the BEST payout.

What I’m doing throwing out ideas, even wild ones, is how can leveling be made fun (or faster for the junkies…) AND support role-play, which as I define it is character development and story building and just 1/3 mechanical progression.

Players are inclined to more OOC avenues on this server because 90% of the time it is the ONLY payout not because it is the best. I Guarantee you if there were more DM’s AND players constantly adhereing to the world and player decisions in the world (not on this fourm) people would have less complaints about OOC systems and more enthusiasm trying to adhere to rules and regulations against OOC systems.

As if stands now though OOC makes up the majority of BG experiences unless your a campfire RP lover or have an already established presence in the server already.

Since world building here is as slow as RL construction people will often try to find something to pass the time but still offer them improvements for their next chance to RP thus here we are with people grinding millions of gold in the off chance they can use it for some event 2 months down the line.

[Steve]

DMs are both gatekeepers AND gift-givers. One should be asking them to participate MORE in our PCs role-play, than pushing them away.

I’m not asking anyone to become some arse kisser. Any approval system out in place to leveling would have to be strict and public, much like Rules for Guild Halls.

Again, leveling is mostly done OOC anyway. Grinding lootz is such a majorly OOC activity. Yet players are more or less railroaded into it because it has the BEST payout.

What I’m doing throwing out ideas, even wild ones, is how can leveling be made fun (or faster for the junkies…) AND support role-play, which as I define it is character development and story building and just 1/3 mechanical progression.

Players are inclined to more OOC avenues on this server because 90% of the time it is the ONLY payout not because it is the best. I Guarantee you if there were more DM’s constantly adhereing to the world and player decisions in the world (not on this fourm) people would have less complaints about OOC systems and more enthusiasm trying to adhere to rules and regulations against OOC systems.

As if stands now though OOC makes up the majority of BG experiences unless your a campfire RP lover or have an already established presence in the server.

Totally agree. But with this topic on our plate, one can discuss more than just mob population rates for determining/gaining progression.

Imagine if DMs has license and motivation touts drop 1k XP on PCs at random, who are both IG and on the Forum making RP happen? Make it 2k XP!

Or what if even DMs could give a WHOLE LEVEL at a time, for those PCs that are promoting RP? Your own PCs have fully qualified for your player effort, in the past, Rain.

Leveling is OOC. Progression and experience in character development is IC. Best rewards should come from the latter, if you want the latter to really be “the name of the game” on BGTSCC.

I think you—and all—get my point. I can probably STFU now, lol. Cheers.

[Rain]

DMs are both gatekeepers AND gift-givers. One should be asking them to participate MORE in our PCs role-play, than pushing them away.

I’m not asking anyone to become some arse kisser. Any approval system out in place to leveling would have to be strict and public, much like Rules for Guild Halls.

Again, leveling is mostly done OOC anyway. Grinding lootz is such a majorly OOC activity. Yet players are more or less railroaded into it because it has the BEST payout.

What I’m doing throwing out ideas, even wild ones, is how can leveling be made fun (or faster for the junkies…) AND support role-play, which as I define it is character development and story building and just 1/3 mechanical progression.

Players are inclined to more OOC avenues on this server because 90% of the time it is the ONLY payout not because it is the best. I Guarantee you if there were more DM’s constantly adhereing to the world and player decisions in the world (not on this fourm) people would have less complaints about OOC systems and more enthusiasm trying to adhere to rules and regulations against OOC systems.

As if stands now though OOC makes up the majority of BG experiences unless your a campfire RP lover or have an already established presence in the server.

Totally agree. But with this topic on our plate, one can discuss more than just mob population rates for determining/gaining progression.

Imagine if DMs has license and motivation touts drop 1k XP on PCs at random, who are both IG and on the Forum making RP happen? Make it 2k XP!

Or what if even DMs could give a WHOLE LEVEL at a time, for those PCs that are promoting RP? Your own PCs have fully qualified for your player effort, in the past, Rain.

Leveling is OOC. Progression and experience in character development is IC. Best rewards should come from the latter, if you want the latter to really be “the name of the game” on BGTSCC.

I think you—and all—get my point. I can probably STFU now, lol. Cheers.

I appreciate the appraisal, Steve. This is one of those times where I will also end this by saying… it’s great that we can discuss and share our opinions on this stuff but for all we know nothing could change due to these 9 pages of passionate players voicing their comments and concerns. If the devs actually learned anything from this thread…


I’ll believe it when I see it.

[DaloLorn]

The system should not be a -blessing- at all… I don’t need a system, a DM or a dev telling me when, where how and why I should take my character levels.

Im a god dam American. I know my rights.

Okay, first of all: It's a joke. A whimsical way of pointing out the DMs would not be involved in any of it.

Second: You clearly don't know your rights half as well as you think you do, because the only rights you have are either the ones granted to you by the server staff, or the right to leave. Now, it just so happens that we would prefer that you didn't leave, and that's an important factor in deciding what other rights to grant you, but aside from that, it wouldn't matter if you were an amoeba, the King of England, or the Second Coming. As far as our decision-making is concerned, you are first and foremost a willing participant in this community, and an American second.

Third: Are you seriously defending your right to torture yourself with 24/7 grinding? Are you kidding me?

Woo….. I guess you don’t really have a good sense of sarcasm. You misunderstood the joke behind the American line but… I realize it’s a forum its hard to catch exaggerations.

It’s a joke bud.

Okay, yeah, that's fair. Wonderfully ironic, failing to detect humor in the same post in which I call you out for not understanding my own...

For what it's worth, though, I do think your subsequent conversation with Steve demonstrates the real core of the issue. It's just... not a problem I can help solve as a dev. (Might be able to ease it a little as a player, but we're too many timezones apart to interact with each other with any frequency, so you're personally more likely to see the consequences of my efforts as a dev than as a player. )