Regarding quest experience

[Kvator]

How about this suggestion then.
Let it roll under a testperiod, like 1st July to 31th December. If people can't differ between their chars, abusing the system etc then the CLONE and the MAIN character will be deleted. Then people know what they have to deal with from the beginning. People(read rotten eggs) will sort themselves out.

And how will you define it? How you will measure 'ppl inability to differ between chars'? This would lead to penalty system based on AoP (or other wizard) whim.

[Zugzug]

Nice to see this discussion going.

Also, why do people think that creating alts is good? If you are a gladiator and you think you may want to change career to a mage, then *do it*. If you are a knight of solamnia but realize that your heart lies with takhisis - then roleplay your way there.

Having too many alts, a "finger in each pot" so to speak does absolutely nothing good for the game as a whole, especially since a lot of people have a hard time separating their alts from one another.

I really think that the game should instead limit the number of alts you can create, and if you want to go over some limit, then sacrifice (i.e. erase) one of the existing toons.

[sylphan]

Just for the record, I think the idea that a new character automatically just gets quest experience, because another character played by the same human on the nether side of a computer screen already has that quest experience, is hugely stupid. New character, new experiences. I'm neglecting all the finer points because they're irrelevant: the idea as a whole is dumb.

[Drazson]

Also, why do people think that creating alts is good? If you are a gladiator and you think you may want to change career to a mage, then *do it*. If you are a knight of solamnia but realize that your heart lies with takhisis - then roleplay your way there.

If you don't know what is there in game that's stunningly frightening. You just won't do it unless it was a walk up and join kind of guild, thenw whatever (unless you spent a month grinding the money for merc skills or something...), you might just waste your good progress in a guild for testing if something would work well.

Also, I just don't want to betray X guild for Y enemy guild but I really wanna go through their roleplay. I actually did that with rangers and MM and I created a new character to try it. It was A-W-E-S-O-M-E but I wouldn't have done it with my main character for both RP reasons and meta reasons, I didn't want to lose my character's progress and friendships.

[Zhar]

Another interesting idea is complete removal of quest experience. This would alleviate all allegations of illegitimately gained qexp, caps and what not.

But for that the entire experience system would need an overhaul. Getting rid of brutality entirely for example. Here's how other LP MUD offshoots have handled it:

- quests are still present but instead giving qexp they give general exp. Exp gain from them has been significantly increased to make questing a worthwhile path of character development.
- combat exp system reworked to give experience based on player's overall strength relative to their opponent, with exp factor dropping steeply for weaker enemies (instead of brutality, when you get too big you get almost no experience from killing mobs because of size difference).

Personally I find such changes intriguing, as they solve a lot of problems while still giving players options on how to proceed with their character development (and people who hate questing are no longer penalized, opening the door for more players).

[Kvator]

- quests are still present but instead giving qexp they give general exp. Exp gain from them has been significantly increased to make questing a worthwhile path of character development.

It didn't stopped playerbase decline when it was implemented + from what I've heard (I've never died with my char created post this change lol) there is some kind of qexp equivalent that's rising through idling (with 100 days cap or something).

- combat exp system reworked to give experience based on player's overall strength relative to their opponent, with exp factor dropping steeply for weaker enemies (instead of brutality, when you get too big you get almost no experience from killing mobs because of size difference).

This is just the cherry on top of completely different combat system.

Imho it would be better to try to copy some ideas for combat itself from this mud (because xping there is more 'interactive' and fun) first - because this xp system in current Genesis environment would be disastrous.

[Zhar]

- quests are still present but instead giving qexp they give general exp. Exp gain from them has been significantly increased to make questing a worthwhile path of character development.

It didn't stopped playerbase decline when it was implemented + from what I've heard (I've never died with my char created post this change lol) there is some kind of qexp equivalent that's rising through idling (with 100 days cap or something).

- combat exp system reworked to give experience based on player's overall strength relative to their opponent, with exp factor dropping steeply for weaker enemies (instead of brutality, when you get too big you get almost no experience from killing mobs because of size difference).

This is just the cherry on top of completely different combat system.

Imho it would be better to try to copy some ideas for combat itself from this mud (because xping there is more 'interactive' and fun) first - because this xp system in current Genesis environment would be disastrous.

I know it's not just that, but I think that some changes could be beneficial. Right now Genesis is a bit too chore-based (chore to do questing, chore to grind) and not enough rp-based in my opinion. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if quest rewards actually reflected the effort required to complete them. It's pretty disheartening to see insignificant progress after spending several hours on a quest. Getting rid of qexp and upscaling the rewards on all quests would actually make it a non-issue. The problem now is figuring out how to properly implement such changes since this would require tweaks to multiple systems within the game.

[Kvator]

I know it's not just that, but I think that some changes could be beneficial. Right now Genesis is a bit too chore-based (chore to do questing, chore to grind) and not enough rp-based in my opinion. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if quest rewards actually reflected the effort required to complete them. It's pretty disheartening to see insignificant progress after spending several hours on a quest. Getting rid of qexp and upscaling the rewards on all quests would actually make it a non-issue. The problem now is figuring out how to properly implement such changes since this would require tweaks to multiple systems within the game.

btw - just checked that death-penalty was removed completely in this mud we're referring to (and even easier version of 'death recovery' is in place now).

So there you go for "hardcore" muds

Nevertheless grinding should be something to focus atm (imho) - it's totally dull atm and it's the bigger one of 'chores' ('questing' can be finished pretty quickly by experienced players and for newer ones it's like the best tutorial - even/especially with solutions available).

[nils]

Ya'll need to calm right down and think about what makes Genesis Genesis.

In Genesis you used to lose up to 1/3rd og 1/5th of combat experience upon death with no recovery. There weren't any safe rooms and the lag-monster was real.

In Genesis you needed a guild to put your stuff when you quit - This has been changed in fear of new players leaving while ignoring the warnings from a playerbase being quite loyal for almost two decades. It has turned away a lot of regulars already, and I fear more are on the fence.

In Genesis you have a system where quest experience and combat experience are linked. Do you really want to change this too? Really?

Too many half-cocked decisions have been made by people who stopped playing games when Duke Nukem was around to kick ass and chew bubble gum. Genesis is a hard f'ing game. You don't turn Duke Nukem into a non-binary millenial with pronoun "lovemoon" and expect people to play, do you?

[Kvator]

Ya'll need to calm right down and think about what makes Genesis Genesis.

Too many half-cocked decisions have been made by people who stopped playing games when Duke Nukem was around to kick ass and chew bubble gum. Genesis is a hard f'ing game. You don't turn Duke Nukem into a non-binary millenial with pronoun "lovemoon" and expect people to play, do you?

1 - Noone's playing Duke Nukem today so dunno what's the point in that comparison.
2 - Genesis is pretty easy game actually. It's hard to learn but super easy to master - the recipe for success is usually other way around (League of Legends for example). Making Genesis more accessible is by no means a bad thing. It's lack of late game challenges that makes Genesis kind of scripted-grind-fest-routine.