Who are we, mainly?

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gorboth
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Who are we, mainly?

Post by gorboth » 15 Nov 2017 20:01

Hello all,

Numbers have been excellent in the last few weeks, with peak hours drifting above 90 on the who list for long stretches. In fact, the last few days have even seen things peek briefly over 100 players now and then.

I figured I'd do a quick snapshot of how things line up, so we can think about what the playerbase looks like in such times:

Code: Select all

================================================
Novice               6
Greenhorne           7
Beginner             4
Apprentice           3
Wanderer             2
Adventurer           5
Adept                4
Great adventurer     4   (35 below veteran)
================================================
Veteran              0
Expert               1
Rising hero          0
Hero                 0
Titan                2   (3 vet through titan)
================================================
Champion             6   (25 champion and above)
Legend               5
Myth                14
================================================
Average stat of all mortals = expert level
================================================
Pretty interesting. We have a bi-modal distribution, as they say. Lots of players on the low end, and lots of players on the high end, with very few in the middle. The "expert level" of our stat ave does not at all mean that most players are of that middle area.

This isn't too surprising. Lots of players find the game now, and so we naturally have many who are very small and then see them growing up through the early ranks. Probably quite a few of them don't manage to like the game well enough to keep going, so we see a dropoff. The ones who do last are fewer than the many who keep coming, so we see a small number keep going through the middle ranks. But the players who do keep at it outgrow the middle areas and progress to the endgame levels, where we see our Champions and higher. The "myth" rank is twice as numerous as any other mortal level.

Food for thought as we continue to develop the game into the future.

G.
Mmmmmm ... pie ...

mallor
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Re: Who are we, mainly?

Post by mallor » 15 Nov 2017 20:26

With the size of people lately, it would make sense to add 3 more categories: myth+, myth++ and morrison :D

Draugor
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Re: Who are we, mainly?

Post by Draugor » 15 Nov 2017 20:31

mallor wrote:and morrison :D

Aka "Nope" size : ]

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Cherek
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Re: Who are we, mainly?

Post by Cherek » 18 Nov 2017 06:33

gorboth wrote: Pretty interesting. We have a bi-modal distribution, as they say. Lots of players on the low end, and lots of players on the high end, with very few in the middle. The "expert level" of our stat ave does not at all mean that most players are of that middle area.
Interesting stats, completely expected that it looks like this since we have a bunch of really old, and a bunch of really new players these days, but I am a little surprised that the gap is THAT big. In a perfect world, I think the game would probably benefit a lot by having the opposite distribution of players. That is, the majority of players in the middle. That would probably encourage more players from "different generations" teaming, and also make PVP a lot more fun for everyone. Although considering the game is growing, perhaps we should not touch anything.:)

Draugor
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Re: Who are we, mainly?

Post by Draugor » 18 Nov 2017 08:41

Cherek wrote:
gorboth wrote: Pretty interesting. We have a bi-modal distribution, as they say. Lots of players on the low end, and lots of players on the high end, with very few in the middle. The "expert level" of our stat ave does not at all mean that most players are of that middle area.
Interesting stats, completely expected that it looks like this since we have a bunch of really old, and a bunch of really new players these days, but I am a little surprised that the gap is THAT big. In a perfect world, I think the game would probably benefit a lot by having the opposite distribution of players. That is, the majority of players in the middle. That would probably encourage more players from "different generations" teaming, and also make PVP a lot more fun for everyone. Although considering the game is growing, perhaps we should not touch anything.:)
The gap is quite large indeed, quests ensure this :P

sylphan
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Re: Who are we, mainly?

Post by sylphan » 18 Nov 2017 20:46

I think Draugor is right. For me, RH is when things started getting tougher, quest-wise. As in, I reached very brutal, and even extremely brutal for a while, so growth was slow, but I needed to grow in order to do a lot of the quests that remained. Or figure them out (e.g., Kendermore stone / rat, ribbon quest, Tarshir's joy of light quest, etc.). Or find players who A. I know well enough to ask, and B. Are willing to help, and C. Are actually able to help (e.g., I know zero mariners / pirates well, so a couple of bigger maritime quests - I think - are still out of reach for me). And on the question of getting help on quests, I have two comments:

1. I've heard conflicting reports about the consequences of getting help. As in, the game wants us to team, so it's a good idea, vs. Many quests punish you (significantly less xp, according to some rumours) for not doing them solo. Or for using invisibility. When one reaches this stage, where things get tricky, such contradictory info. can make one hesitant, unsure of what to even attempt. Or it did for me, anyway.

2. When I was very little, I was offered help by many larger players (now I'm at Heroine, the offers naturally have dropped off). But that help was always offered in two forms: coin and hunting. Never, and I mean not once, did a larger player ever ask if I'd like to go questing. I have asked for such help, and received it occasionally, and now I offer it. But I find it odd that most players assume what little ones most want / need is a bunch of combat xp all at once. Maybe it's just more attractive to the larger player - simpler, or more fun (most seem to feel this way, though I quite like questing) plus the helper gets xp too.

None of this is a complaint. I really love this game. I'd curse, to emphasize how much I love it, but I know that's violating forum policy. But as I see it, these are some of the issues determining the distribution of players across the spectrum of character sizes.

Greneth
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Re: Who are we, mainly?

Post by Greneth » 18 Nov 2017 21:27

sylphan wrote:I think Draugor is right. For me, RH is when things started getting tougher, quest-wise. As in, I reached very brutal, and even extremely brutal for a while, so growth was slow, but I needed to grow in order to do a lot of the quests that remained. Or figure them out (e.g., Kendermore stone / rat, ribbon quest, Tarshir's joy of light quest, etc.). Or find players who A. I know well enough to ask, and B. Are willing to help, and C. Are actually able to help (e.g., I know zero mariners / pirates well, so a couple of bigger maritime quests - I think - are still out of reach for me). And on the question of getting help on quests, I have two comments:

1. I've heard conflicting reports about the consequences of getting help. As in, the game wants us to team, so it's a good idea, vs. Many quests punish you (significantly less xp, according to some rumours) for not doing them solo. Or for using invisibility. When one reaches this stage, where things get tricky, such contradictory info. can make one hesitant, unsure of what to even attempt. Or it did for me, anyway.

2. When I was very little, I was offered help by many larger players (now I'm at Heroine, the offers naturally have dropped off). But that help was always offered in two forms: coin and hunting. Never, and I mean not once, did a larger player ever ask if I'd like to go questing. I have asked for such help, and received it occasionally, and now I offer it. But I find it odd that most players assume what little ones most want / need is a bunch of combat xp all at once. Maybe it's just more attractive to the larger player - simpler, or more fun (most seem to feel this way, though I quite like questing) plus the helper gets xp too.

None of this is a complaint. I really love this game. I'd curse, to emphasize how much I love it, but I know that's violating forum policy. But as I see it, these are some of the issues determining the distribution of players across the spectrum of character sizes.
The reason no big players want to help the smaller ones with quests is, most of them fucking hate quests and would rather listen to Beiber on repeat then do them over for no qexp.

There are old wizfiles that float around which specifically state that you will get less qexp. For example I know of a few in Krynn that were on those old files and one a wizard many many years ago shared with us. Whether things have been changed now I highly doubt it since if it isn't broken it doesnt get fixed. Quets like the Disks quest, you get less exp if you are not the one to kill the dragon. Or the Qualinesti Prisoner, if you skip the steps of finding the injured elf in the forest and not speaking with the dwarf merchant you lose exp.

So that to plays a big part in why people dont team for quests, no one is exactly sure how the flags work but we know that doing things in a team CAN hurt you so players tend to not do it. Most of us have no problems giving you a walkthrough or any info/advice we know though.

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Cherek
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Re: Who are we, mainly?

Post by Cherek » 18 Nov 2017 22:13

To my knowledge the majority of quests does NOT punish you for not doing everything yourself.

But as Greneth mentioned, Krynn seems to be a hotspot for these types of punishments. (Unless Arman has made any recent changes) At some point in time this was standard way of doing quests there. I actually made a quest myself as part of my apprentice project long ago, which has a variable reward. (The Toron Standard Quest) At the time I did not think that much of it, as it was the way I was taught. However, I did make it very clear to the player that they will get less XP. The quest NPC gives you an "Are you sure? You will get less XP" question if you try to finish it without doing all the parts. But since then I've realized that I don't like that way at all, even with such a warning. I think it should be either full amount or nothing. Anything else just causes uncertainty and annoyance. Much better if the quest NPC simply refuses the XP and tells the player what they did wrong, so they can try again later. The quests who do that, do it right I think.

Now, on the other side of the spectrum, there are plenty of quests in other domain that are simply too easy, where you don't have to do anything but turn over the item required, no matter if you did ANY part of the quest at all, or were just handed the item. That's kind of silly too.

Anyway, slightly off topic that, but I agree. I think new players more than anything need help with quests. Handing them a big pile of cash or taking them on an XP-run with text spamming the screen and they have no idea what's going on, and then are dropped off being extremely violent, does probably more harm than good, despite the good intention. So, I also vote for more quest help and less grind help. But, I am one of the players who think questing is a lot more fun than grinding too, so easy for me to say.

So, my solution is: Take new players to play Fireball! A team quest that gives quite nice quest XP the first times you do it, and then keeps giving pretty nice general XP each time you do it. And everyone has to be attentive. And it's not a very hard quest at all, just need four players, which should be much easier these days than a few year ago. It's the perfect way for players to bond really. So, go play fireball!:)

Greneth
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Re: Who are we, mainly?

Post by Greneth » 18 Nov 2017 22:57

Cherek wrote:To my knowledge the majority of quests does NOT punish you for not doing everything yourself.

But as Greneth mentioned, Krynn seems to be a hotspot for these types of punishments. (Unless Arman has made any recent changes) At some point in time this was standard way of doing quests there. I actually made a quest myself as part of my apprentice project long ago, which has a variable reward. (The Toron Standard Quest) At the time I did not think that much of it, as it was the way I was taught. However, I did make it very clear to the player that they will get less XP. The quest NPC gives you an "Are you sure? You will get less XP" question if you try to finish it without doing all the parts. But since then I've realized that I don't like that way at all, even with such a warning. I think it should be either full amount or nothing. Anything else just causes uncertainty and annoyance. Much better if the quest NPC simply refuses the XP and tells the player what they did wrong, so they can try again later. The quests who do that, do it right I think.

Now, on the other side of the spectrum, there are plenty of quests in other domain that are simply too easy, where you don't have to do anything but turn over the item required, no matter if you did ANY part of the quest at all, or were just handed the item. That's kind of silly too.

Anyway, slightly off topic that, but I agree. I think new players more than anything need help with quests. Handing them a big pile of cash or taking them on an XP-run with text spamming the screen and they have no idea what's going on, and then are dropped off being extremely violent, does probably more harm than good, despite the good intention. So, I also vote for more quest help and less grind help. But, I am one of the players who think questing is a lot more fun than grinding too, so easy for me to say.

So, my solution is: Take new players to play Fireball! A team quest that gives quite nice quest XP the first times you do it, and then keeps giving pretty nice general XP each time you do it. And everyone has to be attentive. And it's not a very hard quest at all, just need four players, which should be much easier these days than a few year ago. It's the perfect way for players to bond really. So, go play fireball!:)
Fireball was removed or at the very least isn't on the orbs anymore, maybe hidden but the consensus was it was removed.

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Arman
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Re: Who are we, mainly?

Post by Arman » 19 Nov 2017 09:08

Greneth wrote:
Cherek wrote:To my knowledge the majority of quests does NOT punish you for not doing everything yourself.

But as Greneth mentioned, Krynn seems to be a hotspot for these types of punishments. (Unless Arman has made any recent changes) At some point in time this was standard way of doing quests there. I actually made a quest myself as part of my apprentice project long ago, which has a variable reward. (The Toron Standard Quest) At the time I did not think that much of it, as it was the way I was taught. However, I did make it very clear to the player that they will get less XP. The quest NPC gives you an "Are you sure? You will get less XP" question if you try to finish it without doing all the parts. But since then I've realized that I don't like that way at all, even with such a warning. I think it should be either full amount or nothing. Anything else just causes uncertainty and annoyance. Much better if the quest NPC simply refuses the XP and tells the player what they did wrong, so they can try again later. The quests who do that, do it right I think.

Now, on the other side of the spectrum, there are plenty of quests in other domain that are simply too easy, where you don't have to do anything but turn over the item required, no matter if you did ANY part of the quest at all, or were just handed the item. That's kind of silly too.

Anyway, slightly off topic that, but I agree. I think new players more than anything need help with quests. Handing them a big pile of cash or taking them on an XP-run with text spamming the screen and they have no idea what's going on, and then are dropped off being extremely violent, does probably more harm than good, despite the good intention. So, I also vote for more quest help and less grind help. But, I am one of the players who think questing is a lot more fun than grinding too, so easy for me to say.

So, my solution is: Take new players to play Fireball! A team quest that gives quite nice quest XP the first times you do it, and then keeps giving pretty nice general XP each time you do it. And everyone has to be attentive. And it's not a very hard quest at all, just need four players, which should be much easier these days than a few year ago. It's the perfect way for players to bond really. So, go play fireball!:)
Fireball was removed or at the very least isn't on the orbs anymore, maybe hidden but the consensus was it was removed.
Fireball needs to return. I would love to see a Fireball league! With magic maps, it could even be a cool spectator sport!

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