Snookery Dummies

[Mele]

Waterdeep is a pretty common starting place. Recently creating a new alt there I've run into two "problems":

1. A player will sit in the room with the huge dummies, set a pose that allows them to ignore others and only camp those dummies.

2. Being in the room with huge dummies, a second player can run around and kill all the other dummies leaving you bound to this room.

3. I've actually been pestered about my being in the huge dummy room, even though I'd just entered and all the other dummies were dead. Huge's are seen as the 'best' and 'fought' over.

Suggestion: Make double/triple rooms of large and huge dummies - these are where the exp is at come only a few levels in. Usually being in the Snookery means you're brand new, and you're probably not quite ready for roleplay yet or just hoping to mindlessly train up. It's not very fun to be pestered over what you're killing, or to have someone who refuses to move around etc.

[Zubaran]

I think that it is really a good idea.

Perhaps it could be added another level down the snookery full of huge dummies.

[Baeus]

Isn't there an exp bonus for grouping? Also, what happens when the second or third room with huge dummies get fought over as well? If these are actual new players to the game it seems to me that this is also a good opportunity to group up for the first time, while mindlessly killing training mobs. Ready to role play? This is an RP enforced game. Wouldn't it be better to get some experience with this during the downtime between respawns?

[Rhangalas]

From what I've seen, I think a lot of it stems from not wanting to "look like a newb". Not just here, but in other games as well I have seen this. Instead of grouping with other new players, they avoid all contact and usually camp to speed-level passed this perceived range of "uncoolness". Or are able to grind enough coin to change out of the stock gear.

Once they reach the desired level of "cool" only then will they attempt to debut their character socially and will often do this throughout the entire leveling range of the character. Instead of role-playing along with sessions of group leveling, they simply solo-grind to endgame, then RP.

While more rooms would probably help, I agree with Baeus that it would eventually just become a fight for 3 rooms instead of 1. Something like what SOI uses might work. When you train in SOI against dummies or targets, it gives you a certain amount of sparring time or targets "defeated", then you get set with a "craft timer" that prevents you from training any more until it expires. The timer is usually about an hour real-time.

Maybe the reverse would work for FK. When you enter a training room it sets a delayed transfer which will move you out of the training grounds once the limit has been reached. There would probably be a need for a qbit of some kind so that they can't simply re-enter, but I'm not sure.

They could probably still quit the game and come back in an hour. But they wouldn't be camping rooms so it would solve that problem at least.

[Mele]

There are plenty of newbie areas with adventure and quests for low levels to group and roleplay at when they are ready.

In general, people at dummies are less than an hour to a few hours into the game - and if they're not ready to roleplay that alt it's no one's place to force them to, to elude poor behavior because of it or otherwise. It's perfectly fine to want to gain a few levels under your belt before running into a group expedition.

Just because we're roleplay enforced doesn't mean we force people to come in, create, and run into roleplay. People want to learn some mechanics first, perhaps learn the city what have you. We want people to learn these things at their own time and in their own comfort so they feel welcome when they begin FK, not like they're forced out of creation into groups and roleplay before they even know how to colour code or what an smote is vs an emote etc.

We're talking about an area of dummies. Where only levels 1-9 can access. 2-3 players is the common amount if there are multiple people - and for the amount of rooms there are there it is not equal to the amount of lowbies who can wander in. However, there are very rarely enough below level 9 alts to make adding a few more rooms still not be enough. With the flow of 2-3 average adding another room or two of two types of dummies would amend any issues.

From what I've seen, I think a lot of it stems from not wanting to "look like a newb". Not just here, but in other games as well I have seen this. Instead of grouping with other new players, they avoid all contact and usually camp to speed-level passed this perceived range of "uncoolness". Or are able to grind enough coin to change out of the stock gear.

Once they reach the desired level of "cool" only then will they attempt to debut their character socially and will often do this throughout the entire leveling range of the character. Instead of role-playing along with sessions of group leveling, they simply solo-grind to endgame, then RP.

I'm not readily sure how "Can we get some more dummies?" came to this but for what it's worth I can assure you that the variety of levels online at any given time are next to never mostly level 50. In fact, to find more than 3 or 4 at a time is extremely rare.

I can also assure during the many roleplays I have run, they have not been comprised of solely level 50's but a good variety of levels, even including level 10's. This also goes for who is taking and roleplaying tasks on the adventurer's board.

Just thought I'd clarify this, as it is not the impression I'd like to leave for a new player browsing - especially over something as trivial as a room with four dummies. :)

[Harroghty]

The scarcity of dummies was part of the plan originally. The idea was (and is) to get people out of the training area and into the world.