Forgotten Kingdoms Forums

I had an idea about new characters.

Level 1- 10 alows you to start exploring and learn about stuff in a relativly safe manner. You die and are reborn (naked though) and you have the ability of recall.

I propose a system, for those with a certin amount of hourse of course, that would alow people to create a character at level 10. This would alow people to join faiths start quests for classes (mages).

THis system would still require people to be held in a room, say a regrestration office or something, so names can still be approved.

Feat points ant stat points would be added accordinly without actually assigning them.

How about instead of auto leveling for advaced players we just lower the level requirements for faithing and guilding?

I would not mind either but from my perspective level does play a role in certain faithing and guilding quests. Though you can be successfuly faithed at the level of ten, you may have trouble doign a faith quest or guild quest at a lower level, requiring pc's to meet level requirements might keep them alive longer or show they have the ic experience to continue. Not all quests though rely on level but some do in these respects. So the option may work to auto to lv ten. One problem I see though is balancing the stats gained on the way to 10 and the loss of training one may experience.

It would be a choice of course.

1) Do you want to visit the newbie training grounds?
2) Do you want to enter the newbie temple

If player has +X(amount)hours then

3)Do you wish to go strait to the real world and bypass newbie hood?


Hows that?

I would rather remove the minimum level restrictions on being faithed/guilded then.

One of the (good in my opinion) consequences of slowing down the rate of experience gain is that gaining a level now really is an achievement, whereas the levels used to "fly by" till you hit 40 before. That also means that each level up from level 1, then 2, then 3, then 4, then 5, then 6, ... is a step in the character's life. Offering an option to bypass the first 10 levels would amount to making those 10 levels useless, that is, to go down from a 50-level system to a 40-level system. I would rather make each of those levels meaningful than go the other way.

I can testify that one can do a great deal with character development before reaching level 10...and that I wish I had done so on Raona, rather than rushing to get her up to a level where I could walk across the wilds with relatively little to fear.

Maybe I'm just odd on this, too, but most people seem to have an awfully large number of alts on FK...however do they keep all their stories, traits, and interactions straight?

That said, if people who have been around much longer than I and have a great idea for a PC want to cut to the chase, rather than grow them organically...perhaps an application with a kismet cost would be a better solution? Player provides a backstory, proposed stats and equipment, and how they will add to the game (if it is not obvious), and the PC is just "generated" at mid-life, or what have you?

Dalvyn wrote: One of the (good in my opinion) consequences of slowing down the rate of experience gain is that gaining a level now really is an achievement, whereas the levels used to "fly by" till you hit 40 before. That also means that each level up from level 1, then 2, then 3, then 4, then 5, then 6, ... is a step in the character's life. Offering an option to bypass the first 10 levels would amount to making those 10 levels useless, that is, to go down from a 50-level system to a 40-level system. I would rather make each of those levels meaningful than go the other way.

To be honest, at the moment the first 10 levels are useless. You gain most if not all of them in the Newbie Temple...which serves no other function than to get you those first few levels and get you used to combat and some basic skills. Which at present I don't even bother with those skills because it just means hours longer I'm going to spend down in the temple. And your interaction is somewhat limited, yes you can leave the Temple to go RP and whatnot, but that's not getting you any closer to lvl 10 and the ability to join a faith or a guild (which are large parts of your rp/character development), and you can't exactly group in the Temple unless their happens to be another newbie/lowbie on, since other players can't come in.

And I don't necessarily think lowering the level requirements for guilds/faiths would help. Because one, as Oghma said, it limits the ability of HP's/Deities to give you a faith quest, since pretty much anything they assign is going to involve you finding a high level character to kill everything for you, and as for guilds(and this applies to priests at well), joining a Guild doesn't mean a whole lot if you are incapable of training any of those new skills/spells.

I dunno, maybe adding some low level quests to the Temple, that give you some coin/xp as a reward, or something that actually makes the newbie temple and your first 10 levels mean more than mindless dummy bashing would help.

The newbie temple is a massive grind now to be honest, but I can't see any sort of easy resolution.

Generally i'm in favour of the changes to the way exp is gained.

Zilvryn wrote:The newbie temple is a massive grind now to be honest, but I can't see any sort of easy resolution.

Generally i'm in favour of the changes to the way exp is gained.

As someone who has just started a new character for the first time since the changes, I would have to agree. A lvl 6 character with 20 hours, more than likely at least 15 of those spent bashing huge dummies. For another perspective, that doesnt seem to really be encouraging to people completely new to the mud that it is a roleplay mud, and not a hack and slash one, does it?

I've seen new players getting frustrated when they can't join guilds/do basic lowbie quests because the mob tells them "they're not old/experienced enough." I'm inclined to agree that the exp gain rates should be changed back to what they used to be or something similiar, if at all possible.

I recall a time when new players would join a guild (say fighters) only to later discover another (say rangers) and ask if the fact that they joined the first excluded them from the second. I think by having a level requirement the players experience the game more, talk to others more and figure things like this out before becoming disappointed.

Maybe another solution would be to ensure that when people ask about joining a guild, they are told that they should consider all their options and that if they want to be a Paladin, a Ranger, etc that these options exist, or at least direct them to a help file about it. I recently created a newer character for the first time in a long time and I also found it a tedious mess. Generally below level 10, you're too low level to go anywhere safely. This limits any RP you get to generally hanging around a city striking up conversations. While there's nothing wrong with that per se, encouraging people to just chill in the Market Square isn't really my idea of fun RP, I like to be out doing things. Having had to spend something like 25 hours just to get to level 10, almost all of it spent repeat-killing the same dummies over and over and over was just mind-numbing. If I was new to this MUD and I thought that was what leveling was like here I never would have stayed.

Solaghar wrote:Maybe another solution would be to ensure that when people ask about joining a guild, they are told that they should consider all their options and that if they want to be a Paladin, a Ranger, etc that these options exist, or at least direct them to a help file about it. I recently created a newer character for the first time in a long time and I also found it a tedious mess. Generally below level 10, you're too low level to go anywhere safely. This limits any RP you get to generally hanging around a city striking up conversations. While there's nothing wrong with that per se, encouraging people to just chill in the Market Square isn't really my idea of fun RP, I like to be out doing things. Having had to spend something like 25 hours just to get to level 10, almost all of it spent repeat-killing the same dummies over and over and over was just mind-numbing. If I was new to this MUD and I thought that was what leveling was like here I never would have stayed.

Some forewarning I believe was implimented in the character creation "quest".

Saradin wrote:And I don't necessarily think lowering the level requirements for guilds/faiths would help. Because one, as Oghma said, it limits the ability of HP's/Deities to give you a faith quest, since pretty much anything they assign is going to involve you finding a high level character to kill everything for you, and as for guilds(and this applies to priests at well), joining a Guild doesn't mean a whole lot if you are incapable of training any of those new skills/spells.

A faith quest does not HAVE to entail sending someone out to kill someone or something. In fact, a "go out and kill this" quest wouldn't necessarily be the best solution for some faiths. All it takes is a little creativity to come up with an appropriate faith quest for the individual character, regardless of level.

Now, the only problem is the fact that you still cannot actually faith someone until they are level 10. If we are saying the lowering of exp awards is to allow more play and RP in the early levels, then we need to yank off the level mins to being faithed, because, in the tens of hours of play it can now take to pass the level 10 mark, one can very well decide their faith, in fact, sometimes it's already decided at the conception of a character.

There's no real reason that a character couldn't join their guilds at earlier levels than 10 either, if we'd take away the level min. Lathander's point about giving newbies time for "feeling out" their guild possibilities has its place, but also, quite frankly, a large number of new PCs are made by current players of the game who know well and good what guild/class they want to be. And again, I think the tens of hours it would take to even train to level 10 (11 hours of temple dwelling, with a 3 hour RP, and my newb PC is still only level 6) is more time than it's necessarily needed to "get a feel" for the possible guilds you can belong to.

What's more, the whole thing I agree with Dalvyn about, of having use for the lower level spells at these newfound lower levels, will have much more significance, when it includes the wizard's school spells, and the priests' domain spells.

1) We have 50 levels. I think it's not a good idea to just sacrifice the first 10 levels and make them useless. By "useless", I mean that they would go by quickly and have no real significance.

2) I agree that forcing people to grind their first levels for 25 hours is not a good idea. I would rather fix the "characters under level 10 can't go anywhere" problem than the "it takes too long to reach level 10" one. That means that I would rather - for example - increase the amount of move points given to low level (even increase it in a lot) instead of reverting back to the old experience gain system.

3) I would like to recreate the table-top feeling that, at some point, level 2 spells are your most powerful spells and you consider them that way. Currently, this is just a fleeting moment in the life of a caster, on the way to getting access to higher level spells.

Dalvyn wrote:2) I agree that forcing people to grind their first levels for 25 hours is not a good idea. I would rather fix the "characters under level 10 can't go anywhere" problem than the "it takes too long to reach level 10" one. That means that I would rather - for example - increase the amount of move points given to low level (even increase it in a lot) instead of reverting back to the old experience gain system.

I really like this idea, I dont necessarily think that the experience system needs to go back to what it was, but maybe as a suggestion to help newer characters along:

Cheaper training fees for lower level spells/skills, maybe even less experience costs for them as well. When a lower level character counts their wealth in silver and copper and not platinum and gold, it seems that 1 gold per training cost is quite expensive.

Anyways, I like the extra move points and believe it would help quite a bit

Feedback is always welcome,
Thanks,

Huzzah for move points! I would LOVE to see lower-level characters made more playable, and more simple quests opened up to them-- Express Deliveries, for example, which looks like it's supposed to help teach newbies about the quest system, might be made accessible to lower levels. If some kind of limit is still needed, maybe a level requriement could be put on gaining each rank in the company.

Glim also makes an excellent point about training costs for very low-level skills. While it shouldn't be possible to get really good at a skill easily, it should be possible to become proficient at it without too much trouble-- and since most trainers don't train beyond apprentice anyway, I don't think lowering the training cost of some basic skills would be unbalancing. This would, I think, especially help the spellcasting classes, who have not only their skills but their spells to learn. It would likely also encourage spellcasters to train more spells, rather than just the "staple spells."

I have made a new character since the new experience system came into play. I didn't really have a problem with having to stay in the newbie temple. I was bored until I got authorized but usually a person is authorized fairly quickly.

This new character travelled from silverymoon to waterdeep and back, alone several times before ever leaving the newbie temple. That was walking and not using the recall command.

I do not think that being under level 10 for so long is so horrible. If you are bored then it is your own fault you are bored. There is nothing saying that you can't go out and rp. The roads are fairly safe and you can look ahead for bandits.

I can see someone actually new to the game having problems with the bandits but then again they will start in waterdeep, there are usually people to talk to there and they can be warned about them. I really don't see the issue with this.

A suggestion might be to have the bandits not attack unless you are over level 10 so they can walk the roads safely and explore other cities while gaining their first 10 levels.

I do think that having a guild recruiter mention they could also be a ranger or squire etc... before joining is a good idea and to state that once they decide they cannot join another class guild.

Personally even if we had the option to skip the first 10 levels, I would not. Your skills would suffer, and you would miss a lot. You would also be more unprepared for mobs etc... if you just skip ahead without doing any of the work on your skills and stats. You miss out on roleplay in the temples and outside of them. I have had interesting relationships develop from meeting someone in the newbie temple and later on you can look back and say "Remember when we were in the temple together?" Like childhood friends.

I agree with lowering the level requirements for guilds and faith but other than that I would rather see things kept as they are.

edited to add an example

For example if character A has been autolevelled and character B has spent the time training in either the temple or the sewers etc... before level 10 and they both run into a bandit.
Character B will be fine, they've put in the time to make coin and get armour, their skills are half decent etc..
Character A has no experience to train skills, has no money and no armour because they have just been autolevelled. How well do you think they will do?

I do not expect the imms to give character A a handout of coins, armour and experience just because they wanted to skip levels.

On a side note, there is also nothing saying you *have* to train in the newbie temple under level 10, you can go to the sewers or go in a group to other low level areas.

Ok I'll shut up now *ends rant*

Making the bandits not attack people under level 10 is easy enough (and we can find an IC excuse for it too: "Bah. You worthless scum, get outta my way. I'm here to prey on grown-up" or something similar).

Just to consider the whole situation though, I'd like to point out that

1) It might give a false feeling of security. Then they might get a bad encounter with a bandit once they reach level 10 and get killed. And, naturally, to make it worse, since they are level 10, they don't auto-resurrect anymore!

2) I think that all levels should have appropriate challenges. For low-level characters, it might be bandits. Yes, the roads are not entirely safe. Yes, you might get killed by bandits. How to avoid that? Journey with friends! Teach the low-level good manners (i.e., taking people along) from the start!

A comment on opening the quests from Express Deliveries to lower level characters. We have had this problem before with some quests (Faerdale for example), so I'm not just being paranoid and always considering the worst case scenario. If we open up quests with interesting rewards to low level, we might soon see people creating loads of newbies just to do the quest and give out the rewards to friends.

As I pointed out above, it happened before with people creating newbies to go do the Faerdale quest and give the reward to some "friend". Express Deliveries quests are especially vulnerable to this: it would be easy enough to create loads of newbies, run them through the quest (have a quest make them fly so they don't tire too quickly for example) then give out the money to "a friend".

Dalvyn, you make me want to cry. Good gravy.

Honestly, I think the changes to the skill and XP systems discussed in another thread will make the current lowbie situation a lot more attractive. When you can actually advance by seeking out teachers and engaging in RP that isn't going to get you killed, the hours of grinding in the temple to get levels will likely no longer be an issue.