Exp curve

[Derpella]

Current exp curve grows geometrically, I think it should be a lil' bit more arithmetical, with complete exp from 1 to 99 staying the same. Why?

-new players would stay longer in a content-rich, interesting levels, doing some grinding and some quests
-levels would have a bigger value
-smaller inflation- less resources on free market
-high level players would be able to enjoy getting new levels instead of participating in Hurnscald-Hat-IRC
-it is kinda easy to implement

I remember when I played few years ago: I only got to level 47, but I was proud of it. Now, getting to this level is one-two days of grinding, and all of fun quests are made so quickly one can not enjoy them. And after getting to 50-60, it's all just 3 places: GY, terror cave, yetis. It's pretty nauseous.
Complete exp would stay the same, so I think there would be no problems with "oh noes, now everyone is level 99".

OK, devs of The Mana World, now explain to me why this idea sucks

[o11c]

It would be nice to have a quadratic total experience curve (linear per level), but that won't work unless we regularly reset character levels.

[Billr]

I tend to agree a bit about the levels. I've heard complaints that the devs must be masochistic to make it so hard to level when you get past level 80. It's hard to get past the desire to level and just socialize, but that's about what's needed if you're not going to get frustrated. It takes a transition to see the game not as a game to beat but as a game to just play, socialize, and d**n the levels.

[Hello=)]

Current exp curve grows geometrically, I think it should be a lil' bit more arithmetical, with complete exp from 1 to 99 staying the same. Why?
[skip... ]
OK, devs of The Mana World, now explain to me why this idea sucks

Well, can I do it instead? I'm remembering time I've been a noob in TMW. It's most boring time I ever had.
1) There is no action at noob area! Absolutely.
* There are no epic quests in desert.
* There is no any team work as it's not needed.
* There is no magic.
* Almost no trade and other related activity.
* All life revolves around Hurnscald who is the true capital city of TMW
2) Grinding? Well, as for me, it's the worst part of TMW at all, ESPECIALLY at low levels. Because efforts to reward ratio in TMW completely sucks. You have to kill dozens of weak monsters to level up and drop rates are unpleasant enough to make this job fairly unrewarding, especially for noobs who can't kill tougher monsters. Say, most of commercial RPGs are giving loot for virtually every monster. Sure, it usefulness may wary but it's so bad to kill monster just to have nothing except 0.1% of XP
3) At my taste, TMW's start is much harder than it should be. If you do not have high-level friends and do not read wiki (which is somewhat "cheating" and should not be mandatory), you would be annoyed on how hard it could be.

In fact, few of my friends left the game at the very beginning due to lack of action at noob level and excessively long and boring grinding at this phase of the game.

As for me, if someone wants people to stay longer in noob area, (s)he have to rework it to add some epic quests, more action, more danger and reduce boring grinding, Else it will lead to players frustration at begin of the game and abandonong the game.

[Jenalya]

In fact, few of my friends left the game at the very beginning due to lack of action at noob level and excessively long and boring grinding at this phase of the game.

As for me, if someone wants people to stay longer in noob area, (s)he have to rework it to add some epic quests, more action, more danger and reduce boring grinding, Else it will lead to players frustration at begin of the game and abandonong the game.

I'm working on some new quests to make the starting area more interesting: http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopi ... 13&t=15368
I'm happy about any feedback and suggestions.

[Hello=)]

I'm working on some new quests to make the starting area more interesting: http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopi ... 13&t=15368
I'm happy about any feedback and suggestions.

Thank you very much for your efforts.

I'm not really ready to give a really good suggestions since I haven't tried to organise them or evaluate full consequences. But I will try and you can see if some of these ideas are useful. TMW has been 1st RPG I ever played. But since these ages I played bunch of other (MMO)RPGs as well so now I can compare them and get idea how various ppl are doing the (more or less) same things.

I can suggest at least the following:
1) Monsters system isn't very great at the moment. I can suggest to increase drop rate for some low-level monsters/make them drop some useless stuff (which can be sold) more frequently. At least this will allow to sell stuff for money. It's frustrating to kill 10 monsters and have no loot at all. Commercial RPG makers are well aware of this fact and usually give something as reward most of time. Even if it will be useless and can only be sold for little money, it makes game to feel more comfortable. Maybe it could be good idea to make monsters harder but increase rewards&loot. Fight should be a challenge rather than boring job. Look, mage vs few jackos/yetis. It's hard. Couple of mistakes and you're done. But it's fun and that's qute challenging and it's so nice to get a proper reward (in the case of success ). Something like that for noobs? As for me, I would prefer to fight challenging monster for 1-2 minutes, trying various tricks until I'm almost dead but get a (nearly) warranted reward rather than grind for hundreds of monsters almost without chances to die and very low chance of reward. As a side effect, if this logic happens to be implemented game-wide and XP reward adjusted in the ways where it becomes pointless to kill "weak" monsters at all, this makes XP grinding bots pointless since to get significant reward you should always fight challenging monsters and have a real chance to die. One of best ideas I seen in RPGs is to grant XP based on difference of player and target levels rather than on some fixed value. If you kill "relatively hard" target, good XP. If you kill "relatively weak" target, bad XP. Since bots are bad in handling "rough edges" where you have to make decisions and change tactics if needed or make some key decisions, this could virtually eliminate leveling bots "by design" and keep players seeking for challenging targets (if they want to improve their levels). After all, I can see some logic in this approach: even If I smash million of maggots, obtained skills will not help me too much against bunch of angry lions .

2) I would really like more "artifacts" in game. Even for noobs. Even almost useless ones . It's about reward to efforts ratio again. And it's a fun to improve your char even a little bit. Even for noobs. Even if you'll obtain better items later. Improving char is a part of RPGs . And it is hard at low levels and there are quite few options. To be honest, TMW set of weapons is not very huge at all. If I will take a look further, I can also admit that each and every high-level warrior looks like fallens (which is offtopic so I'm better shutting up ).

3) I can suggest to add some really dangerous/challenging quests. Maybe some boss monster which needs team of several players to handle it? For example Khafr beer stories about desert worm or desert temple full of gold. It could be not a bad idea. Or maybe dispatching dangerous bandit in exchange for some useful artifact like weapon/armor/etc he had? It could be, say, team job, so ppl will also learn basics of how to play in teams (and maybe even some basics of creating parties?). Interaction with other players is a part of MMORPGs, after all. And if someone wants newbies to stay longer in desert city, it could be nice thing to learn, isn't it? Also it can give ideas of game mechanics and that there is penalty

4) Actually in TMW there is almost no crafting by players. I guess there is lots of room to improve it. This could be fun (for some players) and some profit as well. Not everyone likes it. But some people do. Also seeking for some rare resources in dangerous places of the world to create good item could be some fun as well. I see nothing wrong in learning newbies to create simple cheap items on their own in desert city.

5) Some scheduled attacks of aggro monsters on cities could be funny to my taste . Scheduled also assumes that players are warned before event and can prepare city defense and take part in event. Right now all such events are "ad-hoc" and irregular and their frequency and time are not anyhow deterministic at all so it's not easy to take part if you can't play the game on 24/7 basis (and nobody can play 24/7, hehe). Not to mention that events almost never take place in newbie city at all.

p.s. those are only ideas and I can imagine other people may have different views and/or ideas.

[Jenalya]

You have some interesting thoughts, some ideas are similiar to things we're already working on, but you have to understand that all of these things take a lot of time to implement, especially for a free voluntary project.

It's frustrating to kill 10 monsters and have no loot at all. Commercial RPG makers are well aware of this fact and usually give something as reward most of time. Even if it will be useless and can only be sold for little money, it makes game to feel more comfortable.

Adjusting droprates would require a lot of changes in other areas as well, the value of each item needs to be re-thought and the quests would need adjustment as well. This kind of changes can have a huge effect on the entire game, so it's something that needs to be done carefully. We're working on the balancing in slow steps at the moment. The next release will bring in a new skill, which is intended to bring some compensation in the big difference between the classes at the moment.

Maybe it could be good idea to make monsters harder but increase rewards&loot. Fight should be a challenge rather than boring job. Look, mage vs few jackos/yetis. It's hard. Couple of mistakes and you're done. But it's fun and that's qute challenging and it's so nice to get a proper reward (in the case of success ). Something like that for noobs? As for me, I would prefer to fight challenging monster for 1-2 minutes, trying various tricks until I'm almost dead but get a (nearly) warranted reward rather than grind for hundreds of monsters almost without chances to die and very low chance of reward.

I think it's interesting to have some very hard monsters, but making all of the monsters that way would create boredom in another style and also might create the need to rest after each fight to recover (if there's not a healer available).

One of best ideas I seen in RPGs is to grant XP based on difference of player and target levels rather than on some fixed value. If you kill "relatively hard" target, good XP. If you kill "relatively weak" target, bad XP. Since bots are bad in handling "rough edges" where you have to make decisions and change tactics if needed or make some key decisions, this could virtually eliminate leveling bots "by design" and keep players seeking for challenging targets (if they want to improve their levels). After all, I can see some logic in this approach: even If I smash million of maggots, obtained skills will not help me too much against bunch of angry lions .

I like that idea, though I don't know how much work it'd be to implement that in the server. We have only one active server developer at the moment. o11c, what do you think about this idea?

2) I would really like more "artifacts" in game. Even for noobs. Even almost useless ones . It's about reward to efforts ratio again. And it's a fun to improve your char even a little bit. Even for noobs. Even if you'll obtain better items later. Improving char is a part of RPGs . And it is hard at low levels and there are quite few options. To be honest, TMW set of weapons is not very huge at all. If I will take a look further, I can also admit that each and every high-level warrior looks like fallens (which is offtopic so I'm better shutting up ).

The new quests in the snow area (in the next release, but also projects that are still being worked on) will add some new items which are also for middle level players.
For Thermin there are a lot of crafting quests for various levels planned.

3) I can suggest to add some really dangerous/challenging quests. Maybe some boss monster which needs team of several players to handle it? For example Khafr beer stories about desert worm or desert temple full of gold. It could be not a bad idea. Or maybe dispatching dangerous bandit in exchange for some useful artifact like weapon/armor/etc he had? It could be, say, team job, so ppl will also learn basics of how to play in teams (and maybe even some basics of creating parties?). Interaction with other players is a part of MMORPGs, after all. And if someone wants newbies to stay longer in desert city, it could be nice thing to learn, isn't it?

Do you mean especially for Tulimshar or in general? The Giant Cave Maggot in the Underground Palace in the desert is already a rather difficult monster intended to require teamwork.
In general, we plan to add more boss battles, similiar to Candor, Yeti Battle and Rossy quest. But these quests need a lot more work and testing than usual NPC scripts.

4) Actually in TMW there is almost no crafting by players. I guess there is lots of room to improve it. This could be fun (for some players) and some profit as well. Not everyone likes it. But some people do. Also seeking for some rare resources in dangerous places of the world to create good item could be some fun as well. I see nothing wrong in learning newbies to create simple cheap items on their own in desert city.

As I said, a lot of crafting quests are planned for Thermin. Regarding a newbie-crafting quest, maybe I can see if I can think about something in relation to the new quests I'm working on for North Tulimshar.

5) Some scheduled attacks of aggro monsters on cities could be funny to my taste . Scheduled also assumes that players are warned before event and can prepare city defense and take part in event. Right now all such events are "ad-hoc" and irregular and their frequency and time are not anyhow deterministic at all so it's not easy to take part if you can't play the game on 24/7 basis (and nobody can play 24/7, hehe). Not to mention that events almost never take place in newbie city at all.

Do you mean using a script or as gm events?

[o11c]

One of best ideas I seen in RPGs is to grant XP based on difference of player and target levels rather than on some fixed value. If you kill "relatively hard" target, good XP. If you kill "relatively weak" target, bad XP. Since bots are bad in handling "rough edges" where you have to make decisions and change tactics if needed or make some key decisions, this could virtually eliminate leveling bots "by design" and keep players seeking for challenging targets (if they want to improve their levels). After all, I can see some logic in this approach: even If I smash million of maggots, obtained skills will not help me too much against bunch of angry lions .

I like that idea, though I don't know how much work it'd be to implement that in the server. We have only one active server developer at the moment. o11c, what do you think about this idea?

In the abstract, I would prefer to give exp based on levels, and have a quadratic experience curve. But, overall, I think the current method (constant exp per kill and exponential exp curve) isn't that bad, and changing it wouldn't solve any problems.

If you (or a bot) kill a "hard" monster for your level, you gain more towards your next level. If you kill an "easy" monster, it's pretty worthless. At level 86, I can kill anything all day, but the only things that help me toward my next levels are skeletons, terranites, and Yetis (with my build Skulls and JackO's aren't feasible).

The correct thing to do would be to make it so botstacks can't grind levels on skeletons. This requires nerfing armor, which is the #1 priority for rebalancing. Not sure if anyone's actually working on it - it will be a lot of work to get right, and even then players will complain a lot. I'm still not sure how it will be done without making warrior completely unfeasible; it will definitely involve changing how stats work and probably skills too. As "cool" as skills are, as a developer I definitely wish they hadn't been added.

---

Plus, there's the issue of transferring existing characters ... although from what I can see of the future, my task is like this: rewrite servers with 100% logic compatibility, then write a new map-server to change how calculations work.

[Big Crunch]

The correct thing to do would be to make it so botstacks can't grind

There are no botstacks anymore