Here is my case against the recent exp increase with the most recent patch (18th Dec).

I'd like to keep this thread clean, no flame wars, no insults. I'd like this to be an informational read for anyone who wishes to explore this aspect of the Nord Invasion Mod.

Background
Okay, so I was grinding away for the last 2,000 experience points to tier up to heavy cavalry when I finally broke the mark! Glorious 40k experience, and I took a loan from a friend and got myself a respec so I could eventually go full knight. 38,800 was the total gold I spent on the respec.

However, I didn't see the heavy cav tab light up for a while, and I was positively baffled, going so far as to drag one of the mods onto the IRC channel at 3.30 in the morning.

As soon as he asks me the first question about my issue "mounted soldier, right?" I realize that the experience requirement for the cav had DOUBLED to a requirement of 80,000 experience. The mind positively boggles.
~

The point being
While I realize that this change was to balance the fact that people had experience coming in faster than class points, I feel that this change has been a little too drastic for most. I'm sitting here with 12 class points and 40k experience, and really nothing to do with it. For a long, long time.

The prospect of getting this far had me in the grips of excitement to level up and explore the rest of my options when I increased my skill class. So, as you can expect, finding out that I had to pretty much grind out the same number of points that I just slayed for kind of puts me out, really.

But besides my feelings being hurt, here are some actual valid reasons that the 3rd tier classes should be reduced:

~
+Cookie cutter soldiers
With so much more exp to grind out, and with people spamming the bank with forage sales, people are going to get stupid amounts of money. 3 of my buddies have gained 20k just by mass selling their forage items to the database. I realize the items will be implemented later on, but the fact remains that these guys are getting an essentially "infinite" source of money in extremely short amounts of time (they made their fortune in one night).

What I enjoyed about this mod was the fact that money was tough to come by, and you really had to srape together gold for your next purchase, and everyone thought their purchase through. Now, with the stupid amounts of money pouring into pockets, I find that everyone of each class is wearing the same gear, always top tier, always heaviest.

>>> There is little variation in the attire that the fighters wear. And frankly, the human team is starting to look more and more like another NPC team that's just smaller and swings with a little more desperation. With the current class experience requirements in place, everyone will be using the same gear sooner rather than later, and it's going to be a looooooonnng grind to the third tier.

~
+Frustration
As I've already expressed in the background, I was disappointed when I found out that all the time I worked for was for naught. However, finding out that the experience requirement had DOUBLED simply shot down my drive to play the mod. I realize I'm only one person, and these are 16-person servers.

BUT.

I've been playing the cRPG mod for a year and a half, and I've been most of its phases of development. The grind isn't what lost the mod a large section of its playerbase; it was the length of time it took for people to level to something refreshing and exciting.

Frustration sets in after a while. The monotony of doing the same thing over and over leads people into a sort of boredom that bears maps exclusively designed to grind and level up faster, sacrificing fun and turning everything into pretty much a shitfest of text (people get bored, and start attacking each other over the server chat etc). If I already feel that 5 days into this mod, I imagine many others would feel it as well.

Simply the connotations that the word "DOUBLES (40k -> 80k)" brings is enough to put me off playing this otherwise great mod (except for mountain pass, that's still a nick in that armor). I realize and understand that yes, perhaps the devs see valid reason of increasing the XP requirements, but incremental increases would be much easier on everyone, really.

It was nicer when people told me "Oh yeah, you need double the XP from Cav2 to Cav3," versus the current "You need 5x more XP to go to Cav3." "Basically, you're saying I need to do the same shit  4 more times?" It's just so disheartening to hear that.

~
+Superclasses from pre-patch fighters
It was exciting to see Mounted Cav running around on coursers and I would think "Shoot, I'm going to be doing that." However the bridge between that is staggering, really. Realizing that some of these people put a fraction of the effort for equal payout is demoralizing, really.

But more importantly, it puts the vets at a serious advantage over the not-so-new-but-kinda-still-starting-out guys. We see superclasses from people who have simply grinded more than we have, and are demolishing the entire NPC team before we can even get there. They're not necessarily better fighters, but they have an advantage in gear that is not available to your average joe.

Yes, it's fun to see the superclasses carry a team. But when they're fighting alone, for the umpteenth time, long after everyone has gotten bored of seeing their fruitless struggles repeatedly, it just gets annoying. The only person gaining any experience on the server is the guy who really doesn't need it.

>>> The implementation of the massively increased experience point class requirement will increase the gap between the old fighters and the new fighters, where old fighters will continue to reap experience that they don't need, and the average combatant will be left with nothing but a red mark on the roster, with all the other dead guys.

~
What I'm really trying to say:

I think that it's great that the devs are working to balance the class requirements to make it more even for the game as a whole. However, the recent patch (as of 19th Dec 2011), the XP requirement increase is far too large to implement in a single bound, and should either be reduced to a more enticing number (ie Cav 60k) or incrementally increased (ie Cav 60k to start 80k later).

While I make my point regarding my current position at the level and class upgrades, I do this because I'm trying to give you insight to how it feels to be at this stage in the character development, and poof, let's just make this a lot harder out of the blue.

Bear in mind that I have 12 class points that I don't know what to do with, because with the current level cap (I understand it to be 42), speccing into anything else will stop my future plans for knighthood. The same could be applied to Tier3 -> Tier4, really, now that I look at it.


~
This whole post in a nutshell :
Holy butts XP requirement 2nd -> 3rd Tier mang, crazy stuff.
~

Please discuss this with the civility and respect befitting of a mod and community of this quality. And always remember ;

Spoiler

[Image: 7634585.jpg]

edit; changed font, size and color to make for easier reading

(20-12-2011, 09:17 AM)dexxtaa link Wrote: +Cookie cutter soldiers
With so much more exp to grind out, and with people spamming the bank with forage sales, people are going to get stupid amounts of money. 3 of my buddies have gained 20k just by mass selling their forage items to the database. I realize the items will be implemented later on, but the fact remains that these guys are getting an essentially "infinite" source of money in extremely short amounts of time (they made their fortune in one night).

(20-12-2011, 09:17 AM)dexxtaa link Wrote: What I enjoyed about this mod was the fact that money was tough to come by, and you really had to srape together gold for your next purchase, and everyone thought their purchase through. Now, with the stupid amounts of money pouring into pockets, I find that everyone of each class is wearing the same gear, always top tier, always heaviest.

(20-12-2011, 09:17 AM)dexxtaa link Wrote: +Frustration
As I've already expressed in the background, I was disappointed when I found out that all the time I worked for was for naught. However, finding out that the experience requirement had DOUBLED simply shot down my drive to play the mod. I realize I'm only one person, and these are 16-person servers.

BUT.

I've been playing the cRPG mod for a year and a half, and I've been most of its phases of development. The grind isn't what lost the mod a large section of its playerbase; it was the length of time it took for people to level to something refreshing and exciting.


Frustration sets in after a while. The monotony of doing the same thing over and over leads people into a sort of boredom that bears maps exclusively designed to grind and level up faster, sacrificing fun and turning everything into pretty much a shitfest of text (people get bored, and start attacking each other over the server chat etc). If I already feel that 5 days into this mod, I imagine many others would feel it as well.

(20-12-2011, 09:17 AM)dexxtaa link Wrote: +Superclasses from pre-patch fighters
It was exciting to see Mounted Cav running around on coursers and I would think "Shoot, I'm going to be doing that." However the bridge between that is staggering, really. Realizing that some of these people put a fraction of the effort for equal payout is demoralizing, really.

But more importantly, it puts the vets at a serious advantage over the not-so-new-but-kinda-still-starting-out guys. We see superclasses from people who have simply grinded more than we have, and are demolishing the entire NPC team before we can even get there. They're not necessarily better fighters, but they have an advantage in gear that is not available to your average joe.

Yes, it's fun to see the superclasses carry a team. But when they're fighting alone, for the umpteenth time, long after everyone has gotten bored of seeing their fruitless struggles repeatedly, it just gets annoying. The only person gaining any experience on the server is the guy who really doesn't need it.