New Method of Leveling//No EXP

[Sphire]

This is in relation to the idea that we're sticking to a leveling format from the previous //Echo site, rather than 95% of other RP forums.. and not have it. And eliminate any sense of progression.

How it has always been done was simple: the amount of experience one person would have would scale to the person's level. So if Player A has 50 EXP and Level 2 requires 50 EXP, Player A is now Level 2. The player's post count=EXP. So posting=+1 EXP and GMs/Mods/Admins with power could add posts to a player if they had beaten monsters, finished quests, won a contest, event, etc.

The problem was finding an acceptable leveling curve that would both act as a timesink for player's to focus on fairly, yet not have it overly cumbersome to where it annoys people simply by looking at it. This also created work for people whom managed the quests: how much is this monster worth in EXP and modifying post counts. It's basically a hassle. And new players may be discouraged upon seeing player accounts with +thousand posts.

---->TL;DR (Too Long;Didn't Read) <-----
Suggestion Starts Below.

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Okay, that was the OLD way. Here's my suggestion:

Leveling=Questing. Leveling=/=EXP

Player A starts at Level 1.
Player A starts and finishes a Quest. Player A is now Level 2.

That's it. No calculations involved, no pausing midway through battles to add exp to people's accounts. Finish Quest, you get rewarded.

So basically, eliminate EXP. Eliminate required posts needed to level. It's just a number, an indicator of how long someone has been here and/or how active someone is. That's it. So with this comes Pros and Cons.

[/b][/center][li]It's easy. Easy for players to figure out, easy for moderators to check what level someone is. No more lengthy discussions on EXP/Level Charts.

[/li][li]No more Grinding. That's essentially what having EXP in any video game is, but more so on a forum where action takes more than a couple of seconds; rather minutes, hours, even days. You finish a quest, you level up.

[/li][li]Progression. People may actually strive for & actually become Level 100. With EXP this would've otherwise been a daunting task and taken years. Unattainable goals are no bueno.

[/li][li]Something different. Veterans of .hack sites and similar sites have been consumed with the idea of EXP for months, years; it's probably a reason why they gave up on RPing in general. Break the pattern.

[/li][li]Consistent Activity. What if someone becomes active, gains a lot of posts, and is suddenly at such a high level compared to everyone else? They will feel discouraged. With my suggestion, people can catch up with ease. So active people stay active.

Cons

[/li][li]It's different. Some people hate change/want to feel familiar with the system. This is not familiar. No other logical explanation.[/li][/ul]
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That's my pitch. Vote!

[Lein-A746]

There are more cons to that idea that you are missing out on.

Account A has been here for 3 months and is only level 3 cause he spendsmost of his time in Mac anu.

Account B has been here for 4 hours and has completed 5 quests and is now level 5...or 6....

See what I mean by it?

If you do it by what you suggest then people can just quest all day and be at max level within say a month.
I'd rather have the exp=post count cause it means I actually have to bust my ass to earn each and every level.

Gives it much more meaning when I see my post count hit 100 and my character is finally level 2. When my post count be say 5 and I'm level 2.

[Lineaux]

Isn't post count how most sites do it? because of time spent waiting for posts, it can take months to do what it would normally take 5 minutes to do. In that spirit, post count leveling assumes that you're actively adventuring outside of the RP. Off-screen you might say, so that you are whatever your level is in your first post for the thread that your in (or event if it takes more than one thread) and in the next thread you're whatever level you've become. this way, post count becomes a gauge of seniority and time spent on the site, and that determines the level of your character.

I know for a fact that you can get code so that only certain forums count towards post count, and that admins can change the post count of members at will. So this isn't really an issue. The question is how many posts equal what level. There are more complicated methods, but post count is, in my opinion, the most fair, effective, and un-complicated system.

Actually, as long as it's brought up, I wanted to say that I don't think it should be like it was at Echo. cuz the post count required to level was so ridiculously high that you could have hundreds of posts and still be a noob. I think it should be a lot more accelerated than that. Perhaps we use post count, and then if you take a GMed quest or event, you get bonus EXP (added post count.) or something? that way if all you do is hang around Mac Anu, you still level, but if you take GMed quests and participate in events you grow faster.

That's my suggestion to merge these ideas into a more comprehensive system. It's up to you guys though. This is where my vote sits.

[Lein-A746]

Most .hack rp forums I've seen have it were at 99 posts you hit level 2. At 199 you hit level 3.

And there is a code so that say only the Delta server would give a post count.
I think I have it on my old forum. I'll check.

[Lineaux]

haha maybe I'm too giving with levels then. XD I mean even playing the game it never takes too long to get that high up. even if you're simulating an online game atmosphere it seems a bit extreme to me. but whatevs XD the consensus is what's important.

[Gretelle]

Oct 3, 2010 3:19:23 GMT -5 Lineaux said:

Perhaps we use post count, and then if you take a GMed quest or event, you get bonus EXP (added post count.) or something? that way if all you do is hang around Mac Anu, you still level, but if you take GMed quests and participate in events you grow faster.

I agree with this suggestion! While I like Sphire's idea, I also like using post count to represent EXP, so I think if we can find a way to merge these two, we can create a pretty good system. After all, while questing is really fun, there are also players that prefer to play with the other aspects of The World aside from the battles, and we want to make the site a welcoming place for everyone to enjoy. What about giving players bonus EXP for undertaking a quest, and then giving them another bonus when they complete it?

[[Head Server]]

I'm going to go ahead and let you guys keep battling this one out. My opinion on this will stay silent until later I would like you guys (and the other members floating around) To have a chance to post here and decide what it is they want to do with leveling.

[Lineaux]

Actually, I'm a nerd like this and sometimes makes myself time for things like this, but on my other forum I actually made 150 member ranks, each with the necessary post count to be that level. It took a while to do, but it ended up making everything very easy in that nobody had to think about it. If you are interested, once we figure out what we're doing and if we do decide to go with post count, I can make that list to the specifications that we eventually decide on.

[Sphire]

Oct 3, 2010 2:15:17 GMT -5 Lein-A746 said:

Account A has been here for 3 months and is only level 3 cause he spendsmost of his time in Mac anu.

Account B has been here for 4 hours and has completed 5 quests and is now level 5...or 6....

See what I mean by it?

If you do it by what you suggest then people can just quest all day and be at max level within say a month.
I'd rather have the exp=post count cause it means I actually have to bust my ass to earn each and every level.

Gives it much more meaning when I see my post count hit 100 and my character is finally level 2. When my post count be say 5 and I'm level 2.

That's the grind that I was talking about. I see it as an advantage when people want to quest, become Level 2 within a day (Level 5 or 6 in a few hours is impossible), as compared to someone who's been here a week and is Level 1. And what's wrong with reaching max level? I've never seen it happen. You create experience points as a means to an end, but people over do it. They really over do it (I agree on your next post), people become discouraged at being stuck and find no reason to continue.

Some people who RP don't care about levels, questing, or fighting. They just want to RP. Those who RP and want to be at a higher level: how does it make any sense if you haven't fought any monsters, bosses? etc. As for Quests it can be set-up beforehand. It takes forever to finish one quest; usually a week if everyone's active right? Be honest. >.< To make it easy, make Quests more entertaining. 2-3 fights with strategy involved or just a puzzle excursion. Then BAM! Level up when done. It needs to have more immediate gratification because interest is lost after some time has passed. Some time=days, weeks.

Adding Quest Exp to your post is how its always been ^^.
I'm arguing against exp period.

Plus we can incorporate this into other things so it's not just questing. Winning a Contest grants a Level Up! If we introduce RP games like fishing; hooking a rare fish grants you a level up! etc. RPing can come with its own rewards in the form of posts like Spray said with member ranks. Can use posts as currency even. More times you RP, more money you get.

[Lineaux]

I agree with a lot of your points, Shire, I don't like EXP either. I'm just not sure that it can be as simple as quest = level. Post count really isn't EXP, since you can gain post counts for posting anywhere on the board. And my argument for the ease of it is that Post count counts itself.

If you layout post count levels graciously, then it's easy to get levels as fast as you want to. You just have to post. If you were to do a week-long quest, then you might level as many as two times within the quest, depending on how much you post in and OUT of the thread. see what I mean? the time you're posting out of the thread can cover for the time between your quest and the next RP thread you participate in. -shrugs- It's like a time lapse. Player A is doing said quest, but was also posting in the board games board and the BBS, and gains enough experience to say that he gained a level between that quest and the next one without having to RP every single Log in or EXP-giving activity inside of The World.

What you're proposing is that you only gain levels after completing threads. This doesn't account for dropped threads or time that isn't RPed. That's my argument towards Post counts.

[Lineaux]

However, I do like the simplicity of your Action-based model. Perhaps if you combined it with another system of EXP-less leveling it would balance out.
For instance, what if you gain a level a week regardless, so long as you post enough to be active? combined with action-related leveling, it may cover the things that Post count does.
And on top of that, the difficulty of the mission factors in as well. for instance, a field a few levels higher than you would give you two levels after completeing it instead of just the one. this could also apply to puzzle events and things that take longer to complete.

[[Head Server]]

Spray, why can't it be as simple as quest= level?

Think of it like this (if I'm understanding Sphi right)

we could easily say mac anu has 4 quests

A) find the field that has this Item

B) Answer this riddle this NPC has.

C) This NPC is sick, find a healer

D) THis kitten is lost, give it to it's NPC owner.

(or..what have you)

Upon competing each one they'd level up. Simple as that.

In all honesty I am starting to agree with Sphi, how do you 'level up' without actually ever fighting anything? I mean Kagallie was what.. level 17 and all she did was tackle people in fields? yep.

[Lineaux]

well, I do agree that people need to do stuff, however, what I take issue with is the amount of time that it takes to do stuff. And if what about loner characters who like solo quests and solo adventuring just to go level up? do we really need Rp stuff like that. In the end I'll go with whatever you guys decide, I'm just not sure it's as simple as it sounds.

[Kagallie]

Thats the thing, the 'time it would take to do stuff' would depend solely on the player, since it would be individually based. I mean we'd have to do something liek "Post here if you've completed the quest" so that people actually /had/ to do them but... yeah -rolls-

I dun know what im saying anymore so someone else take the floor.



Something else I can do is just throw in RPG codes and then the computer will do all the work.

[Iblis]

Voted yes for the reasons everyone else has put up.