Grouping, Leading, Chopping.

[Dragoth]

We all know that all those things together lead to great exp.

But i wanted to raise a few issues.

1) We all know that Lyme continent offers the best exp in the game, that was the main reason why it was limited to 3x40 only players in previous versions of the game. And that is why people strived to be 3x40 - that first chopping group after you hit 3x40, remember how special and awesome that felt ? It was one of the most desirable experiences in the game, to get your 3x40 item and to chop some heads off for some amazing EXP for very little work.

Lyme is the Exp go-to continent, whether that be blast, stab or chop - that is where you go to get serious exp for expensive levels, that was always the case, until aged exp and kill history came in, but we’ll talk about it later.

So if you take away the level restriction, what would people do ? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out, that everyone would flock to the best rate of exp that they can get. Why would you work at a place that pays less for more work ?

Oh yeah, Immortals try and invent reasons to make other continents appealing, that is why they try and balance it with aged exp and kill history and while it had limited success with solo exp (for some people) it just never worked so well for the group exp.

People would rather follow a 3 hour chop group, grab all the aged exp, split up, then try again 3 hours later.

The only real reason for the existence of off-lyme exp groups, was that people who werent 3x40 would lead exp groups on various continents, so that they could become 3x40 and join chop groups!
As long as there are no restrictions and the exp on Lyme is as easy as it is now, off-lyme group exp areas will be just sitting there, empty, taking up precious disk space, until someone lends us a grenade.
And you can nerf chop exp to the ground and people would still chop, because it's effortless, blind blind, assist, that is it (can do that while watching tv or sitting at work, right ?)! For twice the rate of any exp group on another continent..

And that leads me to my second point: Leading

2) Immortals try and do everything to get us to group. And because groups get you alot of exp, they also make everyone interested in playing and they get people active and that’s what we want, an active mud.
However, leading is becoming a lost art, there are about a handful of people on the mud now, that have the ability and even less people who actually want to lead. Why is that ?

Well, as a person who is no stranger to leading, I will try and explain my position.

a) I have to spend certain amount of time, learning the maps and learning the mobs to actually know which area and which mobs correlate to which group size to maximize our efforts and increase our reward
b) I have to pay constant attention , to watch group’s mana, to check maps if needs be and select correct targets for our group to hit at a certain moment of time
c) I have to pay attention to every member’s grouptells to see if our healer just went afk, or our tank’s tea just spilled and keep in mind that he cant rescue people from agro mobs or whatever.

Meanwhile, what do other people do ? 90% of followers just pick their noses or watch TV while their scripts autoblinds and autoassists, certain healers have to pay attention to XXX IN FOR HEALING messages and come alive once that message hits, so they can start healing and then go back to picking their nose again.
So, why should I choose to become a leader instead of that other guy ? For 10% more exp and gold ? Or for the world fame and recognition as a good leader ?

I’ll tell you a little story..
The other day I was leading a chop group and one of our players asked me if he could join a group, well that’s fine right ? But that same player was just botting for 3 hours+ in a previous group who another player has led, so I ask him about that botting incident and he explains to me that he fell asleep, which is fine and well, can happen to anyone, so i tell him to wait until we get more choppers (we were really low on pre 3x40 choppers) and we never got the chance to get those choppers, but we kept growing cause 3x40+ people kept joining in and we had plenty of 3x40+ choppers. So about 30 mins later, that same guy just starts spamming me with messages about how much of an elitist asshole I am and how much he hates me and how I should kill myself because my group kept growing and i never told him that he could join in.

I mean, seriously, I do 90% more work that I could’ve been doing if I was following, instead of leading and I get to have those nice people to get mad at me for no reason and all for the sake of 10% more exp and 10% more gold ? Well, no wonder no one wants to lead anything these days. Top managers do not become Top managers, just because they want to be called a top manager and have 90% more responsibilities, just to get a pat on the back and a 10% pay increase.

SO, to recap

You want people to lead groups and deal with all that crap? Make the rewards more appealing, as far as I can tell, there is about 90% more work and skill involved in leading than it is, in simply following someone.

You want group areas on other continents to be run when we are not given a grenade and make people work twice as hard for less exp ? Invent some other incentives (like locking Lyme again) or double the exp or invent some other stuff, but do something please, it reduces our options and leads to boredom.

[*juggleblood*]

I hear ya. You're raising issues that have been around forever.

I dunno about locking Lyme. So often there's some new person trying to participate in the mud, but he's not allowed to go to where the people are. It just doesn't jive with our core statement, which nicely sums up the point of the entire game. It's on the login screen:

"This game enables you to be online, in a game communicating with one another, having fun."

It doesn't say ', unless you're new, in which case you have to learn how to play before you can join us. Everything you need is in the help files. Have fun.'

This is a hack and slash, non pvp, mud. It's even named Sloth. So yeah, players pick their nose and watch tv while they're basically botting. The game can't be won. The interaction is all we get out of it.

So the question becomes why lead big chop groups? Either because you enjoy it (within limits). Or because you're power leveling.

There was a point at which I was a power player. I got my warrior up to 5x40 at a fast rate and then got a mage/cleric up there as well. But I surely didn't do it leading chop. That would have driven me mad. What we did was 3-5 man LOCKED group. It's fun. It flows. No frustration. Awesome xp.

Will people call you an asshole for locking them out? Absolutely. At the time me and Surfnazi were considered two of the biggest assholes on the mud because we were constantly clearing out Lyme 3 man. But turn off your channels and turn on notell and believe u me brother, you will have a pleasant gaming experience.

Chop is not my favorite aspect of the game. To me, the bh / ss exp runs are exactly the same as chop. But not everybody is going to really master the game and be able to go out and power level. Chop groups and off lyme xp are a good relaxing no-brainer experience for many people. For the leader, it's often a huge frustration. People have to lead because they want to. There's no amount of xp we can add as a bonus that will change this.

Who knows why the heck people do what they do? Why does Shyla designate herself head of the world educational system. Why did KJ write a ridiculously complex astronomical system for us? Why did Splork spend so much time making our mobs have artificial inteligence? Why does Toxis invest so much time in cultivating players and groups? Why is Anrok level 6x20 or wutever? Is it because the game is broken? no.

I do think there are ways we can improve gameplay. Right now I am very focused on gameplay at the newbie level and it's given me some real revelations about would could be done to expand the playable world (versus the non-playable) without just adding more zones. It's too much to get into right now, and some announcements are pending neway.

[Dragoth]

Hey, thanks Juggs, appreciate walloftext to walloftext replies.

however, I do not agree with this particular statement of yours - " People have to lead because they want to. There's no amount of xp we can add as a bonus that will change this. "

There should always be an incentive, there must be, unless you want this game to be a hippy-fest, i mean, it's all great that we have certain "interesting" individuals with certain personalities that can do something for basically nothing, but wouldnt it make sense to encourage that kind of behavior, if it is desirable ?

I mean, if you want someone to try and jump a hoop 10 times, wouldnt you want to give him some sort of reward for doing that, instead of relying on his own competitiveness or personality traits or whatever, especially if that action benefits the whole game ?

[*Splork*]

We are quite generous already with lead and point exp/gold. The numbers on those leading clearly shows that. I really do not see us upping this reward any more than it already is. We are not going to see any results unless we grossly overdue the bonuses, and that we will not do. The same people will always lead, its always been like this.

This same complaint came up years ago, for which we added some bonuses. Then the complaint came up again, so we increased the bonuses, on and on and on.

As for groups, they are as easy as you want to make them. I have no issues with closed or smaller groups. It forces other people to step up and if they don't want to, so be it.

This is a group mud and we do plenty to encourage groups but we are not going to go overboard. Its something we need to look into though.

[*Idjit*]

I have to say one of the biggest reasons I don't lead Lyme is so that there is at least one offlyme leader.

The stacked continent bonuses calendar is having the desired effect, I find, if not as dramatically as was hoped. I've seen some very effective SS groups happen lately (The groups that had Evie and Ferb in them) when -no one- was previously leading SS before those bonuses were aligned to all hit on the same continent the same day. Enjoy it while it lasts because these things do change.
--Zuzu

[*Splork*]

I would be willing to drop Lyme leader and point bonuses which were added on
viewtopic.php?f=26&t=3312
and add that difference to off lyme leading and tanking...

[Ker]

[quote="*Splork*"]I would be willing to drop Lyme leader and point bonuses which were

added on
viewtopic.php?f=26&t=3312
and add that difference to off lyme leading and tanking...[/quote]

This would definitely result to more leading/tanking out of lyme but exp will still be

better on lyme. Why? It is a whole lot easier to maintain a group on lyme(chop exp)

because the weapons do basically all the damage, all there is to do is just keep the

tank alive. No matter what class prime you are, you're in for healing. That's where all

the mana gets dumped. It is not the same anymore back in 04-07 where you have mages

running around on the offense. Players are so used to mainstream leaders that it gets

monotonous and hence, let the triggers run.

Stun wrote a limb/head counter which tracks on the chop count for each player in a

group. The results would trigger at the end of each kill. While I was leading, I only

then realized everyone was prompt and attentive to the group because they could see some

sort of performance or some comparisons could be made to promote interaction, which in

the end resulted in more fun and an enjoyable experience for everyone and as a result :

a more lively group. Stun also realized this and is planning to write a debuff counter

so everyone knows whats on track(Damnation,blinds,weakens etc). All the teasing, poking

and fun begins

Could we look more in depth with this concept perhaps? A more just and fixed idea into a

group, besides player's ideas. As of now what is automated is lead exp and point exp

which is passive when a group consists of 4 players. Point is to create some passive

incentive for followers of a group to gain something based on their role in a group.

Dr

[Dragoth]

We are quite generous already with lead and point exp/gold. The numbers on those leading clearly shows that. I really do not see us upping this reward any more than it already is. We are not going to see any results unless we grossly overdue the bonuses, and that we will not do. The same people will always lead, its always been like this.

This same complaint came up years ago, for which we added some bonuses. Then the complaint came up again, so we increased the bonuses, on and on and on.

As for groups, they are as easy as you want to make them. I have no issues with closed or smaller groups. It forces other people to step up and if they don't want to, so be it.

This is a group mud and we do plenty to encourage groups but we are not going to go overboard. Its something we need to look into though.

There are nearly no leaders left on the mud and you have to rely on those certain individuals goodwill to make the mud experience better for everyone.

You need an experienced and a specific person to lead and because more and more people play casually, people who play from iphones and they play from school or work and there is no way a casual player like that will ever lead groups, because it takes too much work, it requires a proper PC or a big laptop and possibly printed out maps and it requires time, there are fewer and fewer of such people around and you give them nothing worth leading for.

And once those few people who still lead, get the exp they require, or get sick of abuses or just run out of steam, they will no longer lead and then group exp becomes a non-issue altogether.
Are you sure that doing nothing and being conservative is the right approach here?

[Dragoth]

Also, it's not always about EXP, exp and gold is too conventional, why not go for something more interesting?

As a simple outside the box idea

Make an all-time leadership board at the recall points which will track everybody's lead exp. Inspire some competitiveness, maybe make a leader eq temple of some sort where top 2 leaders for the month can get awesome temp items.

[*Splork*]

I would hardly call the bonuses conservative and the majority of those receiving them would not either. We have addressed this issue in several ways but continually adding to the bonuses is not ideal. Honestly, I probably never should of given in to the players continually asking for lead and point experience on Lyme but I did and now here we are. Mostly because everyone will always lead on Lyme, that is how good the experience is.

Adding leader and point boards is not what I would consider thinking outside the box, as we have already used this concept in other places in our game and that data as been readily available on the website for years now but adding them in-game is a decent idea.

Limb/chop counters and other creative scripting has been around for 15 years. It does make the game more fun but those are not the responsibilities of the mud developers( even though we have actively helped in this area ). We give you tools to do this, such as the recently added MSDP and ATCP.

Lyme experience is always going to be better, there is no way around this. We have cut down the difference and given much more incentive to move continents recently but it is not perfect.

Again, you guys are not going to like my answer for this. We are not going to amp up 300 areas experience to even out to the 25 Lyme areas. Just in the same way we are not going to up the 300 areas gold to equal that of Lyme.

I am more prone to lowering Lyme advantages so that the rest of the game is brought more in-line such as lowering chop rates and possibly adding some experience to off Lyme continents. Make sure its still fun but not 10x better rate than the rest of the world. Lowering one continents exp and bringing up the others is something I would strongly consider, simply upping everything off Lyme is something I will not.

I realize there is a huge grind in this version but its been 4-5 years and our numbers are much better than those at the end of S3 where we were averaging 12 players a day.

Keep the ideas coming and we can make a collective agreement on the matter but simply raising everything is not going to happen.

Splork

[Dragoth]

Well, maybe its not completely outside the box, but at least its outside the exp box.

Again, if you are set on homogeneity and not willing to close lyme down to lower level people (which is really not such a stupid idea, if you think about how much more exp high level people need and how boring it is to grind that exp after you get all the fun levels out of the way, having an awesome high level exp continent is a pretty smart way to cool things down) then we need to use our collective minds to think of something else.

If you reduce chop exp, two things will change,

1) People will whine for awhile, but will still choose chop over any other group exp, because its the easiest way to bot your exp up.
2) Chopping groups will become more scarce, because people with great solo exp rates wont bother to join or lead.

[*Splork*]

Another thing might change:
3) more off Lyme groups because the experience would have been raised for all continents off Lyme and the difference between the two made much smaller?


Closing Lyme is not a bad idea at all. As Juggle mentioned, it just works against how we would like things to be. It really did work nicely before because it pushed off-lyme groups however closing it and only allowing 4x40 and up on would cause an incredibly amount of disharmony on the mud.

One fun idea might be to start rewarding weekly leaders in regards to tanking and leading while OFF lyme with Drachma. However, this would almost certainly lead to disharmony between clans/players also.

Just can't win:)

[*Splork*]

Listen guys,


This place is for fun, debate, and constructive criticism. I have said this dozens of times but personal attacks are not going to happen here. If you want to abuse the rule you will find yourself without access to the site.

[*juggleblood*]

Any time a mortal asks for assistance in game my first action is to snoop them. Well I overheard more discussion ingame about this leader xp bonus.

Let me say, we are not begging anyone to run off-lyme xp. We are not going to crank up the leader xp until we see the desired size and number of group. Please let it go. If you are frustrated by leading, don't do it. It really is that simple.

Sometimes people start to overestimate their importance to the success of the game and start feeling like their contribution isn't being rewarded enough. Well the contribution is the reward. You get out what you put in. I am ingame many hours every day, and I don't get a single point of xp or drachma. I don't yell at Splork and demand that I be compensated ingame for the frustration the players put me thru.

I like you a lot and hope you stick around. Not because you're such a great leader, but because you often have something interesting to say. But we're not going to have anyone try to extort favors. Sometimes you just have to accept policy decisions and move on. Spreading negativity ingame over this issue isn't fair of you in my opinion.

[Dragoth]

Thank you for compliments Juggleblood,

I am really not demanding anything, i never have and never will .
I do however make suggestions, not because i care too much and not because my life depends on anything that is sloth related, but because that is the way I am. If i see something that can be done better , or if something just plainly doesn't work (in my opinion of course), i'll let responsible people know.

I do try and get my point across, but if the other party thinks differently and doesnt agree with my position, then i'll let it go. I have made many suggestions, both privately and posted here on the boards and most of them are left unanswered, do i cry or throw tantrums about it ?

Again if we come back to the point at hand;

Am i going to be the only beneficiary if for example: the exp bonus for leaders went from 10% to 30% ?
Or is it the mud as whole that is going to benefit, if suddenly more people decide that they want to lead groups because they get such a great bonus out of it?
What are the drawbacks of bigger leadership exp bonuses that you forsee, that make you so afraid to bump them up ?

Why do i care so much ? Well its certainly not because i will suddenly start leading groups 24/7, get my 8x40 and leave in a hurry.
It is simply because i see a problem: very few people can lead, very few people who can lead want to lead and very few people will actually want to lead in the future, because it's hard and it doesnt pay well. Does my life depend on it ? No, i'm not really bothered with whatever happens with this issue, but that is what i think and that is what i want you to think about as well. I am not pushing that issue because i want more exp out of this for myself.

Ok, next issue: OffLyme groups, why do i care about them ?
Again, i am probably more worried about tomorrow's weather, than i am about this issue, BUT i see group after group of endless chop. Its not bad for me, in fact i love chop and i will not benefit much if its exp is decreased or access limited to 3x40 only (because lowbies dont sponge too much exp and provide precious chops which equals to more exp). So why do i advocate things like that ? Because i feel that its wrong that there absolutely 0 exp groups on other continents (why bother making group exp areas on continents other than lyme at all?) and i feel that it is wrong that newbs can access the best exp that SlothMud has to offer from day 0.

Why do i waste all this time arguing points that have very little importance in my life ?
Because i love sharing ideas, i love making or participating in making things better and at the moment, i do not have better things to do.