This is why we can't have nice things.

[Rensvert]

50 minutes ago, Nekky said:

I don't disagree with what you're saying.

But to be fair, if you're talking about Nopesalot, based on his comments on Discord, I got the impression that what he was looking for in a MUD was something drastically different from FL on all levels.

He wasn't simply looking for FL with more focus on RP.

Nah I Wade was right as of at least a few days ago, nopesalot, was still in discord. Havent seen him post in a few days though so he might be gone as well. 

4 minutes ago, Erelei said:

You can play this game without PK. Don’t expect us to limit others who want to PK though. 

I'm certainly not asking for that. If that was the impression I gave off it wasnt intentional. I was more referring to the entitlement and mentality that some in this games player base has. And by my two cents if limiting pk of level 50s to others who stand by wanting to beat up on under leveled people who stand next to zero chance of winning, even if they lost internet the moment they attacked is "limiting their pk" I am all for it, game is more than a feel good pvp simulator. Or at least it can be and certainly was at one point.

[Archbishop Monk]

I, for one, tend to make more RP focused characters than I do PK.  For instance, a lot of newer players andd some vets don't know the benefit of having a weapon blessed and how much difference it makes.  Can they figure it out?  Sure they can.  But, where is the fun in steamrolling someone who doesn't even know how to prepare?  

Belsoqse barely attacked anyone unless they either attacked it or mouthed off.  I like PK, but it is not why I keep coming back to the game.  The environment and community is why I play.  The PK is just a bonus.

[Ulmusdorn]

I stand by my previous statement. If you roll a smurf, people will leave you alone. 

If you roll hardcore, expect to be treated hardcore. If you roll a standard character, also expect to be treated like a standard player.

The tiers aren't there for 'added' little bonuses to the power gamers. Its secondary reason to making life easier on some players is to indicate to other players their possible skill level.

This playerbase has come a long way from full looting everyone days. 

 

This player deleted because he took a pre-50 death. He probably would of deleted when he was decked and lost his key items of eq etc etc.

[Tantangel]

TL:DR

Before ruling out an RP only Tier, give it a try and don't just outright dismiss it because there's 0 evidence it will harm the game or even help it until it's actually done. Sack up or we can't complain about losing players because of PK reasons since that is the main reason outside of boredom that players have been seeming to leave including myself. Moderate/Ruthless Tiers = normal difficulty setting with Moderate being slightly harder because they can't wear a ton of rares. Hardcore is the hard difficulty but with perks that outweigh any of the downsides.

 

They would've 100% deleted because it's too common to see. And there are patterns players have whether they realize it or not. They'll all have a certain way of interacting with you from one character to the next without realizing it and can give a person away and it's true of their PK as well. I do use the secondary reasons for making life easier on me, but probably not in the way you may think either. Here's how I see the Tiers though:

Moderate: Normal game mode but without full looting. The limited rares to me actually add to the difficulty of the game rather than making it easier I think though. 60 lives. I've tried one, but got bored because the class wasn't for me. I didn't use it as a skill indicator but more so to see if I could deal with the lack of rares as I was thinking of trying out Crusaders. I played maybe 10 hours and just decided I'd invest my time on the Crusader instead and went Hardcore.

Ruthless: Normal game mode but with full looting. 60 lives. I see this as the origins story of the game, no bonuses really, no real drawbacks, all the rares you can want. I don't come close to losing enough lives before I delete though so this is an option I am stuck with if I go Adventurer first instead of just straight up hardcore.

Hardcore: Hard mode. 20 Lives but with small perks to training and CP gain. I usually choose this if I'm going to play a class that requires a ton of training time as I hate training, but enjoy it at the same time. I can literally spend 60 hours on training and not feel bad about it, but be super annoyed about the first few hours because that's usually defenses and I hate having to flee/sleep because I can't parry shit.

If a Non PK Tier was added it would be the true definition of Easy mode, even if they only got 5 lives. If no Cabals allowed it's still not a huge upset to the game despite the fact that allowing those two Cabals or even just Herald would have 0 impact on the game itself or hurt it any. Any Vet who were to actually play one would most likely get bored anyways and have to either delete or have secondary characters who would focus on PK more in order to scratch their itch on it. I have done this several different times, but PK isn't a focus for me ever anymore because I grew beyond that and found there's a greater richness in development of the story without a murder side to it than anything else.

The playerbase as a whole has come a long way from full looting, but it still happens. The main difference is that I'm sure the times it does it is only seen in Prayer or never mentioned at all because the person either deletes, or maybe just wanted to try a new combination of EQ out which is something I will do just to see if I can find the right balance of things. I have a specific play style that I require a combination of EQ that is a mix of top tier and moderate tier EQ because it works better for different classes.

What I see people leaving for more often than not is because of PK or perhaps how another player made them feel IG. We can do something about the first one by implementing something that is focused entirely on RP rather than get into the semantics of why this game needs to be PK too and thus an RP Tier would hurt the game when all the evidence points to the contrary of it. If it were implemented and the reasons shift to something else, then we can narrow it down to what else could possibly benefit newer players instead of a backwards thinking system. If another player is the cause of a deletion though, how many times is it because of what they said rather than them just killing them easily and then spouting shit off at that player after they stomped them? I'm thinking it's far fewer posts in Prayer about how X player said some crass shit to their character and they don't want to play anymore if that player isn't reprimanded. Maybe like 1 in every 100 cases probably? I couldn't say since I don't have access to it.

The game itself has come a long way and many of the players views on things have shifted over the years including Imms. For instance you don't need a PK in order to get Quest races anymore as long as your RP is good enough, yet it still remains in their help files that it's required. Rules have been loosened on many things too all because of fewer players and many other reasons. What we can't go in thinking though is that adding an RP only Tier would kill the game. We haven't tried it. Too many people would rather have those newbies come up and slaughtered easily because their malforms and such need fed so it doesn't benefit them to go in that direction by adding it. People are okay with it only if no Cabals  or Rares can be gained. Okay, at least they're willing to give that part a test run. But shutting it out entirely because the game itself was founded upon of an RP and PK enforced MUD is asinine to me. At best this game started off as more PK than RP and over the years has slowly shifted towards RP more, and that's obvious based on the RP point system. It's a natural progression of this game over the years. Whether it's implemented or not doesn't really matter though because I'll still play how I like to and that's the case for most others as well. I'm not going to quit playing because of it, but I'm at least willing to put forth ideas that are outside of the norm to see if it could bring in players who focus entirely on RP. It wouldn't hurt to try and that part of the code could easily be deleted if it fails entirely or someone finds a way to abuse it, but it would hurt us more by not at least attempting to try it.

[aaa]

Wouldn't the same reasoning of why heroes got canned also apply to a non pk tier? 

[Izzzzy]

Pkill exsists in the game because its fucking fun, and the people that are good at it love doing it.  Nothing beats going up against someone with the fear of death.  Now I personally frown on killing pre 50s when your decked, but when I roll a character and level.  I make sure when I'm going to pinn I am...

DRESSED TO DEFEND

Fully Practised to FLEE

HAVE A SHIT TON OF TELEPORTS to QUIT.  

 

There are classes that rely on kills to be successful and they need those kills.  Plus some of us role play really evil Characters.

 

Never ever will I even attack a smurf! 

[Mmm Coffee]

There is an RP only tier.  It's called Herald 

[Imoutgoodbye]

45 minutes ago, Mmm Coffee said:

There is an RP only tier.  It's called Herald 

I will find a way to smite you, heretic. 

[FatMike]

18 hours ago, Ulmusdorn said:

I stand by my previous statement. If you roll a smurf, people will leave you alone. 

If you roll hardcore, expect to be treated hardcore. If you roll a standard character, also expect to be treated like a standard player.

The tiers aren't there for 'added' little bonuses to the power gamers. Its secondary reason to making life easier on some players is to indicate to other players their possible skill level.

This playerbase has come a long way from full looting everyone days. 

 

This player deleted because he took a pre-50 death. He probably would of deleted when he was decked and lost his key items of eq etc etc.

Actually, you've got that wrong. When you want to know why I deleted, you can ask me directly instead of making assumptions.

[egreir]

lol the guy has never said why he deleted yet here's 2 pages of people debating something out of thin air lol

[Ulmusdorn]

10 hours ago, FatMike said:

Actually, you've got that wrong. When you want to know why I deleted, you can ask me directly instead of making assumptions.

Ok. Well in that case. We don't know why you deleted.

Good luck to you.

[Tantangel]

On 2/3/2020 at 6:24 PM, Mmm Coffee said:

There is an RP only tier.  It's called Herald 

I've seen people try to kill a Herald, but it didn't really do anything to the Herald since everything done to them can be remedied very quickly.

@Wade When were they scrapped? I don't ever recall them being done away with, but perhaps it was just something that wasn't needed any longer with dwindling players more than anything else? Or it was just a shift in mentality. A lot of the old things we had I kind of wish we could bring back, but sometimes it's for the best they don't too.

[aaa]

When? I'm not sure.

I've enquired about getting one in the past few years and the reasoning they aren't available was that it essentially fragments the playerbase even more which is a similar scenario to a non-pk tier.

[egreir]

Heroes have been officially unavailable for a long time @Tantangel

[Tantangel]

If anything I would imagine it would draw in newer players. The thought of getting to a point of becoming so good at a particular class or even combination and then getting to a rank that few ever achieve would pique my interest far more than, "Hey, we got RP and PK enforcement here, but since you're new, you're not likely achieve anything outside of getting better over the course of years."

It's the same with Imm Quests. You can PK any time as long as you can log on when others are online, but Imm Quests are very hit and miss.

We can't keep looking at it as fragmenting the Pbase because it means people are only willing to focus on the PK side of things as it's easier to code in a static change than allow in flexible changes. Mya said they doubted any Vet would ever play that kind of Tier anyways, but it's something I'd probably try out just to see if I could find bugs in them more than anything else. A level 50 can't PK a level 1, but a level 50 could definitely RP with a level 1 and vice versa. If you have two players online at the same time and they aren't in each others PK range, you've already got a non-PK Tier situation in that moment. Coding one in and allowing Heroes would have zero affect on the game in any situation like that.

I know PK geared players say they'd quit playing if something like that were implemented, but are they not already playing a game in which they either have no one to kill or a few people to kill at the best of times? If it were true that Vets wouldn't play the Tier anyways, and there's 0 actually playing the game except perhaps one or two we drew in to play, would they not be doing the same thing they already would've if new players were to come to the game anyways? In most cases Vets wont attack someone new specifically because of that fact. They'd group them and just show them around the game without ever killing them in most cases. Then you'll have someone who really wants to level their malform or such, and they'll kill them anyways and then something like it happens again which deters them from wanting to play. I see it as progressive and a way to open up new possibilities of players rather than harming the game.

Besides when people say they'll quit because of some new change, some may actually do so, but almost always you see them back again after a week or so.

[Mmm Coffee]

If someone wants to create a character for RP purposes only, then why can't they just create a level 1 and RP only?  Or create an Adventurer and stay at 30?  There's absolutely no reason to waste Erelei's time coding something you can already do.  This thread is silly.

[Tantangel]

2 hours ago, Mmm Coffee said:

If someone wants to create a character for RP purposes only, then why can't they just create a level 1 and RP only?  Or create an Adventurer and stay at 30?  There's absolutely no reason to waste Erelei's time coding something you can already do.  This thread is silly.

The purpose of it was to try and coax newer players over to the game while giving them the ability to explore the game as well without having to worry about PK in any way. A level 1 can't go anywhere, they can just RP. An Adventurer is forced to choose a guild after 80 hours I believe which makes it only ideal if you want to learn lower areas and not thing like Winter or Gear. The Non-RP Tier offers the full package with the only limits being you can't wear rares, no Cabal, and no PK. If you could do all of that with either of your two methods, yeah it would be a waste of time. Since it doesn't though, it's not a waste, especially if it works towards our goal of gaining new players.

[Tantangel]

@Mmm Coffee On another side note, it was mentioned in the thread would be to possibly extend Adventurer to 50 as well while giving them a few more skills/spells but reverting to a new guild would negate all learned skills/spells if people pushed passed level 30. Even if the 80 hour cap were to be removed, it would hold back the possibility of someone choosing a race/class combination to see if it's even viable for them as a player to learn which is another reason I felt that just allowing it to cover all classes in the game so no one is limited. A Halloween Madness of sorts that lets people figure out theory for possible PK abilities since they'd become familiar with those combinations, and they can then test it by choosing the non-RP Tier at a later time. Whether it works or not though we still can't say without actually trying it, but we have to get passed our base roots of the game needs to PK to survive, especially when people leave it's because of a PK situation outside of the obvious boredom, real life conflics, and/or harassment from other players that I've noticed over the years.

[Mmm Coffee]

You aren't learning if you aren't risking death to your toon.  Newer players have access to Journeyman buff, maybe that should be emphasized more.

[Tantangel]

To say you learn nothing for not risking death isn't true. You don't learn one side of the game which some players don't even bother with. I learn far less from PK than I do by doing things alone or going out in groups more than anything from the paths you need to follow to not die if you attempt to do something solo (Gear, Desolation, Discord, Offices, etc). You're basically saying that you can only learn something by getting slaughtered in PK by omitting everything else the game has to offer. Bluntly you can only learn PK by attempting to PK. That's it. You learn nothing else outside of timing of skills/spells while in combat, but you can still learn both of those though through basic playing of the game whether it's a non PK Tier or otherwise. The players we would possibly attract to the game by doing so would probably never bother learning that aspect either, but you're saying it's not needed because it's a requirement to learn despite the fact that that way of thinking is probably the main problem in attracting newer players. I know a lot of people don't want to see this change and it's very clear who those people are. I mention it to try and gain players who SPECIFICALLY look for MUDs that offer RP only avenues. There's still plenty of PK outside of that with other players, but if I were a new player coming in and just getting slaughtered if that part didn't appeal to me as much, I would've quit in the first week of playing.

You learn a lot more that isn't PK than you ever would with PK alone. PK is probably only about 5% of every 24 hours too. Ways I learned the game was through RP, travel, the forum, and at my early stages with people going OOC because I didn't know a forum existed. I learned PK through PK, but I learned theory of what would or would not work through ways outside of that. I've managed to catch people easily in the past simply by using theory alone, and I've got stomped due to not knowing EQ or weak strategy. With PK you only learn which theories work for certain where as you should learn the game through everything else. Adding the Tier only means we can possibly gain players with RP far superior than anyone else's, but because people seem to think that PK is a requirement or a very large part of the game (which it's really not) are going to hold us back. Journeyman buff is granted when Imms know a player is struggling, but if a player quits playing after taking 5 deaths to other players who want easy kills, they've become the very reason why we can't retain those players.

I know this Tier would never be implemented simply because of that. I do find it odd though that the issues that pop up about players quitting tend to stem directly or indirectly from PK instances when they're new. The Tier solves those issues while offering what we supposedly excel in as RP is mandatory. When I first played, one of the guys who told me about it ended up quitting a few months after because of PK. I didn't stay for either RP or PK, I stayed because I got hooked and that was nearly 20 years ago. I've seen plenty of people up and quit in that time over PK as well, and only a few in part to RP because of others completely forgoing etiquette and going full on OOC abuse or they were chastised for their RP style and it became not worth it.

If PK was more like 40% of the game, I would understand why the Tier shouldn't be implemented. But to say that you can't learn the game unless you do is like saying you can only quench your thirst by drinking milk.

[Mmm Coffee]

Ok then how does a non-PK tier dress that would allow them to survive end-game areas?  They going to be wearing blackwatch gear and onyx rings taking on the Refracted Horror?  😂

They allowed to wear rares?  This would never go over well.

There are already paths for learning PvE without much risk to PK if that's not your thing.  And if you are just trying to learn the game, and have created a forum handle, players are pretty easily going to take notice.  I know a new player almost immediately and I know others do too.  I don't think anybody goes out of their way to PK new players who aren't cabal'd.

 

[Tantangel]

EQ is already getting an upgrade all around, that includes non rares and not just rares in the areas that have already been posted. There's EQ out there better than those specific wares, it's just a matter of whether you choose to wear them or not. You have to learn those things if you play a moderate anyways, but the point of the Tier isn't so you can play them or anyone else who has already been playing for years to actually roll one up. I would purposely to try and break it so kinks could be worked out if it were implemented, but as I've stated several times before, it most likely will not because of the player base mentality and the head Coder stating it basically isn't worth their time either.

If we're a game that promotes Newbie Friendly environments, we would want to see more Newbie friendly ideas promoted, correct? That I believe we all can agree upon.

We also need more players which is a long term goal, but the game has a very steep learning curve when it comes to PK. I don't have issues with this as I've played far too long, and my last PK character that I enjoyed greatly had a mix of success and failure, but I did manage to take out a couple beastly characters too. The only people I have a difficult time against is usually the top 5 players in PK, but sometimes I get at least relatively close to winning depending on tactics. With a newbie that wont happen quickly and it may become frustrating as time goes on because of it.

RP Tier is literally meant for players specifically looking for an RP game though, not PK players looking for a PK MUD. It's there to try and capture players we miss out on because there is no RP only option. Yeah you can choose a combination that is survivable and you can go Herald or Merchant and that's going to be your least likely chance of dying repeatedly. The RP Tier though would offer those RP players the chance to play any combination they wish to try out and if they were to ever become interested in PK, they already have a race/class combination they're familiar with that they could roll up and try it out. At that point we gained a new player, and for all the PK only players out there, the possibility of new fodder if those players are enticed to try it out.

It's pretty easy to spot a new player for almost everyone. I've held some peoples hands practically and walked them through the game time and again, but that's not the sole purpose of the Tier anyways. It's there to grant an even Newbier level of Friendly that this game and most others cannot attain. It could bring people over to play that normally wouldn't because there's no risk of PK, but if we limit the lives of those characters to be between 5 and 20, it also means that every MOB death also is significant to those players as they will know their time is nearly at an end before they cannot play said character anymore.  It's an opportunity to try and keep the game going on for a few more years longer than it probably will. Yes, PK can be fun, but I can count on one hand the number of times I remember specific kills I had, yet RP experiences that are innumerable if it weren't for my memory and recall of specific characters interactions with me.

Whether people go out of their way to kill them or not no one can really say for sure. I can say from experience though that I can log onto a character I haven't been on in a while and if I'm traversing the world, instantly be attacked naked and weaponless because I was rare purged without having a single interaction with those characters. If I had been a new player what kind of taste would that leave in my mouth after reading it was Newbie Friendly? Not a very great one. That's what this is for. Not just RP Tier itself, but exploration, Newbie Friendly, attainable knowledge that reflects things learned without PK, and a lot of other things. I remember a time when using any means to talk to people outside of the game were considered taboo because they didn't want certain knowledge getting out. Yet here we are today where a lot of what was frowned upon is now openly discussed, we have a Discord chat, which I go on sparingly, fewer forum restrictions, and even a podcast. Going one step further to create a Tier that may actually benefit newer players or players who prefer RP only is at the very least a decent change compared to having skills/spells tweaked and players getting upset and deleting because it somehow "broke" the class. We have far more people invested in only the PK aspect of things, and a lot of players invested in RP.

Whether it would solve our lack of players issue or not though I cannot say, but I can say that I'm willing to give it a shot if it means bringing more players to us. Don't forget that RP points exist too, and if they're allowed to use the points to create wares and Imms don't make it rare specifically for those playing in that Tier, you can make similar EQ that are high end Rares with those points making characters longer lived as well because there's finally a reason to see them to completion. I'm adamant about it because I actually like this game and would like to see more players, but a lot of the time people oppose changes if it does not directly benefit them as you can see with pretty much every change suggestion ever posted about.