What are things that make LS harder to play than DS?

... sit down, kick back and relax, and talk about anything that doesn't belong on one of the other forums.
Skylan
Posts: 26
Joined: Sun Nov 21, 2021 3:11 pm

Re: What are things that make LS harder to play than DS?

Post by Skylan » Sun Dec 25, 2022 1:32 pm

I played back in the mid 2000's and took a pretty long break until last year. As I've gotten back in to it I've tried PKing a bit more than in the past, so happy to list some thoughts out from the perspective of someone who is rather green to the world.

I started a troll to learn the northern zones a bit back. Could be completely wrong here, but Orchard / Kajin / Blight zones feel so safe on the DS perspective. Even new to the zone it feels relatively easy to get back to safety in RK, or play around mob support. Beyond that, as many others have mentioned, the community is just so good. If there isn't a full set of equipment already laying around, everyone is willing to help you out in getting set up quickly. People actually chat with each other even if nothing is going on. Gotta be honest, I love playing that side.

LS.. well, as a newbie, it can be rough PKing up north. The PKer's obviously have more experience + zone knowledge. On top of that - unless you're familiar with the Who list, it's very difficult to determine who may actually come up to support your fight. I have little to no idea on LS who likes to PK, or who is busy smobbing, or statting, or some other mysterious activity. Meanwhile - you know if anyone logs on to DS during a fight they could be down in an instant to join in.

I will also say - LS has some incredible folks online that are wonderfully helpful. The problem is - you log on to DS and anyone on the who list is likely ready to join you in any adventure since it's oriented toward the same goal, mostly PK. With LS half the time I log on I don't recognize the names, no one is chatting, and so I'm not as inspired to stay on.

Some ideas so I'm not just ragging on things.. and I have no idea what is possible or what would be imbalanced..

Companions are pretty light on activity these days. I'm sure there are other clans like this as well. R8 needs some bonuses. Or maybe R9 should be more attainable & provide something unique.

Let R7 & R8 (or just R8) take on mentorship roles. Perhaps just one "squire" at a time, but as that squire climbs up to R7 they gain some sort of bonus for each rank climbed as well. That way they have a reason stay involved with the new recruits & actively seek more. Whether this can be automated or through posting logs to the clan forums & awarded them, it would be a neat way to grow membership with growing bonuses. R1 to R2 might be a few QPs, but R6 to R7 could be a bigger QP bonus, like 50 or 100 QPs. Or potentially a unique equipment chit that could be used for something. Getting to R7 then feels like a big moment for both parties.

LS noobs shouldn't have to over-worry about whether or not they're going to walk directly in to a DS group on major roads between centralized cities. Thinking Caemy - TV or WB, etc.. Should be a mob that gives a scouting report at the gate. This would probably be difficult to implement & don't want to screw over DS rogues who are out solo, or just solo / duo groups, so ideally it would only report on groups of 3+. Just seems wild that noobs can get ambushed by big parties while traveling through the heart of the LS country on a main road.

Engage the Who list! Maybe a new forum category should be opened up for adventuring logs. Would have to be on the honor system, but open up rewards for folks who are showing others the ropes, or bringing people along to learn new things even if they are oldies. Arston took me out and showed me mining, crafting, & those odd little variable quests or whatever they're called. Took a considerable hour or two out of his time and was awesome, but the only reward is my thanks. Again, half the time I log on LS I wonder what the heck everyone is doing when there is no PK. Especially if it doesn't look like a smob group. Are they just out solo doing mining / gem farming? Are they exploring? It'd be really cool to log on and see what's going on and have someone say "Hey, this is what I'm up to if you want to join" and they get something out of it too.

Back to PK & being a companion - oof. I expect to RIP, and don't care that much about EQ. I try to keep a set stored in FD & TV, but if I don't I've gotta start back at Illian before trekking back up north. Then I have to head back south if I'm successful to trade in the scalp. If I RIP - it costs 3 QP to issue a new coat. Would be nice if that was only 1QP as a newer PKer under R5. Horse hopping up and down isn't that bad, but could be better. Fast transit to TV would be nice since, as far as I know, there isn't any entrance to the Ways nearby.

I don't know enough about clan bonuses to say what is actually available for WB, Lancers, or Warders & what not.. but seems like these distant clans from PK should get something that is worth joining them for new & old players. Not sure there is much of an incentive to join Companions at the moment, other than our wonderful charm.

I think that's all I got.

Fuujin
Posts: 390
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2015 9:54 am

Re: What are things that make LS harder to play than DS?

Post by Fuujin » Sun Dec 25, 2022 4:51 pm

There are already some fantastic posts here that I am not sure that I will contribute much that hasn't already said, but I will offer my perspective as someone whose almost exclusively played LS

What are things that make LS harder to play than DS?
1. Too much freedom, too few choices.
If you want to live in the world Jordan created, Light Side is the place to be. You can be from anywhere, join a wide variety of clans that embody different aspects of the books. Unfortunately, because this is a PvP game, not an RPG, there's actually very few choices that are anything more than flavor. The only distinction between the majority of justice clans is their location. Because this is a PK mud that rewards you far more for PKing than doing literally anything else, joining a clan that doesn't have PK related bonuses is a waste of time. As it stands, aside from Aes Sedai and Borderguard, all the other clans that offer PK related bonuses are gatekept behind systems which require you to already be good at the game or have some seriously good connections in order to get in. This further widens the gap between the average player and the good ones in an area which this game is centered on. I love DoTS with all my heart, but with the current state of the game (esp with sameside being all but dead) joining a clan like DoTS is a handicap. Even if you really want to join DoTS for the flavor, if you want to make decent progress at ranking you end up needing to be a foreign exchange soldier with no bonuses.

Contrast this with DS which is more akin to a teambased FPS. Regardless of what clan you join you are all on the same team with one mission: kill the others more than they kill you.

2. Progression/Late Game part 1
Light side's progression is, IMO, extremely slow and the late game is non existent. If we look at other MMOs, SWTOR being my favorite, once you complete the story and achieve max level you still have the ability to follow a particular game play loop which can be both single player or multiplayer (but which isn't competitive) where you can steadily but almost assuredly progress your gear, abilities, bonuses, etc. And every so often they increase the level cap which further raises the ceiling for late game progression. LS doesn't even have remorts. It used to be that achieving master was a significant achievement, it took work but was achievable, and the bonuses were PK bonuses even for those who weren't that interested in PK. Now you get a title, which may not actually be relevant to your roleplay, a mob which is practically useless for anything except as a pack mule, and a few points of variable ob/pb which seems hardly worth the time investment.

Compare this with DS which has a late game consisting of remorts. Not everyone may want to acquire these bonuses, but they exist and they are not insignificant compared to what LS has.

3. Progression/Late Game part 2.
Unless you are good at PK and participate in it, progression on LS is a long and tedious affair. If we look at sources of QPs that aren't tied to pk you've got:
Clan dailies: Variably soloable, but limited to 1 qp a day. If you do this every single day it'll take 3 years to achieve master

Heralds: Not soloable and limited to 2-3 qps per day. Assuming you can always get the appropriately sized group, it'll take you, on average, 15 months to achieve master.

Random smobbing QP: not soloable, awards 1qp. Idk what the % of acquiring them is, but I've been doing all of the Holidaze smobs at least twice a day since the 18th and I don't think I've made more than 10 qps. I don't know the exact mechanics of how/when/where you get the random qp, but this averages out to nearly 30 smobs/qp. My current output is not sustainable for me at all, but even if someone was to keep this up it would still take many years to master off of.

RP logs: Variably soloable, variable awards. If we look to Callesa as a prime example of someone whose really put in work towards RP logs, across her 21 "Tales of the Brown" stories, 18 of which have currently been awarded, she's earned ~71 qps. That's an average of 4 qp/log. At that rate it would take someone 9 months to master . Not actually that bad, except that 1. If you're writing stories on your own that's a rather significant time investment 2. You need other people to actually RP with. 3. You'd need to do this every single day. Again, if we look at Callesa as an example of someone w/ a high output, she's earned those 71 qps over 2 years. At an average of .01 qps per day, every single one of us would be dead four times over before you achieved master (~273 years to master, for those curious).

Council Quests: a maximum of 156 quest points per year (based on the current rules of 30 qps of tasks per 6 months, 5 bonus qps per month, 3 treasurer qps for point). These are variably soloable, some of which may actually be tied to PK (such as the bonus qps). It would take over 6 years to achieve master doing all of these.

If we add all this together and you're doing everything you can every single day, it's a full time job and then some over a long period of time that is reliant on other people's play times. And good fuckin luck getting the groups necessary to get significant amounts of QP to RP/Smob if you're not active during the right times.

Compare this with DS where everyone is doing the same exact thing towards progression, there's a strong team based element to DS to achieve their specific goal, bonuses reflect their specific goal, and as long as you participate in PK you will get scalps and make progress towards further bonuses. And yes, to remort you do need more than just participating, but that's late game progression and arguably fair considering its a side completely oriented towards PK.

Progression/Late Game: Part 3
LS has no late game. If achieving master is difficult, achieving R8 is three times that, and the PK bonuses do not reflect the time investment IMO. There are no remorts for LS, so there are very few reasonable goals for anyone to achieve once you've mastered. And again, this is a PK mud, but only DS can work towards more PK bonuses after mastering. Unless you're willing to swap to another clan post-mastering for PK oriented bonuses (assuming they'd take you) you've really peaked at master and that's the end of the road for you.


Solutions

In my opinion, a year of active play time should be enough to achieve master in a clan. You should be able to do this solo and achieve it more quickly if you have a group. My ideas for improving progression on LS:

1. You should be able to do all 3 dailies every day and they should be worth 2 qps each. Doing all of this every single day will master you in a year
2. Be able to do all heralds per day. If you do 5 heralds per day, that's 2-3 months to master. With the barriers to achieving this (group, play times, etc) its unlikely you will be able to do that in that time.
3. Council quests should be monthly and have increased maximums: 75 qps per month + 15 bonus qps + 10 treasurer qps (or some combination of numbers). 100 council qps a month puts master within a year. With council quests being so variable in terms of difficulty, soloability, and even availability (dependent on whether a clan's council actually makes quests) I don't think it would be unreasonable to increase the max awards further.
4. Significantly increase the %chance that qps are awarded. (Based on my numbers from earlier) you should get a lot more than 1qp per 30 smobs. Maybe this can't be used to achieve master within a year, but it should be a decent supplement to other activities. WRT to the "Local" smob qp you can get, considering how difficult it can be to find a local clan member, the awards should be increased. Everyone should be able to get the qps, none of this 'masters may not' nonsense. They participate, they should be awarded. Furthermore, get rid of the 20 crown load that you can sometimes get instead. Unless the argument is that 20 crowns is the equivalent of 1 qp (it's not) either that amount should be much higher or it just should be QPs all the time. Note: the chance to split decent gear should be considered entirely separate from the chance to get QPs. Smobbing for gear is a group effort, but progress is individual (even when dependent on a group). Whether you get QPs during smobbing shouldn't be dependent on how good/bad a smob can load.
5. RP logs - double the base QPs. As is it's not an efficient way to achieve progress, despite LS being an RP side. Even with double or triple the awards, its not feasible for someone to reasonable achieve master in a year (as is my standard here). Still, LS players should be awarded for RPing and it should be significant. 2-12 qps is a far more fair range for the effort IMO.
6. Remorts. LS needs some form of remorts, some form of late game progress for those who don't wish to seek R8 after mastering. There are a number of lore based things that LS remorts could be rooted in such as blademasters, sniffers, or even talents for channelers. I think LS would also benefit from having Ogier and Aiel, not as late game remorts, but as alternatives to being human offering a somewhat different playstyle while still requiring the RP that is integral to LS.


Conclusion

WoTMUD is a PK mud. A lot of us come here for RP, but this is not an RP mud, at least not the way it's currently set up. However, the way the sides are set up, DS is a PK side and LS is not. The majority of clans on LS that are oriented towards PK have a high bar of entry, Aes Sedai and Borderguards being the exception. Progression and bonuses are only one aspect of the game, but when you add that with all the other difficulties LS has (esp all the ones that amount to maluses for PK) LS is much harder than DS. IMO we should continue to look at other MMORPGs for ways in which to improve the LS experience, making it more in line with them in terms of progression.

Eol
Posts: 704
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 10:34 pm

Re: What are things that make LS harder to play than DS?

Post by Eol » Sun Dec 25, 2022 11:32 pm

1. Agree with Kendall that people need to talk more. Silence doesn't build a community. What I'm not sure about is - and its been going on for at least a few years - why there isn't just casual banter on chats. Is it all taking place on Discord? The game started to feel too quiet to me years ago.

2. My personal opinion. Human clans need to suck it up and create a liberal system for pardoning and clanning Seanchan with qps intact. Poor summary, but years ago when a prior discussion about "light side should be for actual humans" came up I said - just merge the Seanchan into human clans. My memory is the Imms said that in general when they asked clans to do this, most were very hostile to it. Pretty sure that infact Lancers voted against it. Light side doesn't function when its divided. Sorry sociopath clans and Seanchan. Seanchan is a failed experiment. Take the villains off the who list, rehabilitate them as members of your clan.

3. Not sure if smob loads and things helped with this, but I wish there was a reinvigorated focus on plain old main continent smobbing. Not sure exactly how this would work since everything the Imms put in gets abused, but when I think of myself - a person who will only ever have very limited playtime in the future or when I think of new players - I just cringe at having to go off to some gosh darn island only reachable by boat or waygate or whatever. Whenever I'd sign on in the past and someone says "Iomm" I just think ... cool, ugh - somewhere an hour in I'm going to need to rent or my wife is going to start giving me ugly looks and its just going to keep going on and on for 4 hours. I get it - the loot is great - but those trips are not for people who can only play for 1.5 hours. Roland->Ragnor->PM->KP->Paishain->Smitty ... Oh, sorry guys. I need to rent. Have fun doing stupid brigands.

4. Horses. I'm reading back on what I wrote the other day and Naerin wrote etc. Its funny - obviously the game is playable. We've all put up with horses. But they really are a source frustration and strength. Can't live without them. Try signing on somewhere random and running to a horse load only to find out it isn't there. Hope you've got time to rest. Me personally - I use to feel Caemlyn was a horse desert. I ran up TV road so many times praying I'd find a dun somewhere. I know the Imms felt some zones were ridiculous awhile back but horses at times are feast or famine. Anyway, random thoughts I had:

-Should more cities have some sort of process for making a horse ie. horse breaking nearby. Is that just a nuisance though ie. a time killer when in fact humans are utterly dependent on horses so just give them a horse already?
-Coding: allow lead horses flee with you. Obviously that would be a big change since people sometimes flee from their horse on purpose.
-Coding: allow lead horses to be mounted in combat but it costs a round of lag.

5. Appreciate Aureus' comment concerning unknown darkfriends. My idea about getting rid of all darkfriends probably was never going to stick.

6. We should keep in mind that unless they've removed it the human exp trainer is pretty cool, but darkside exp is still very compelling.

7. Assymetry of information gathering is going to keep coming up.

8. In regards to Sarina's 2nd idea. I think we need to be careful about "guaranteed, coded, unbeatable" detection. On one hand I wish humans had more information but I'd also say that almost nothing was worse then when Imms gave Seanchan/CoL direct reports on human smobbing.

My terrible ideas that require coding:
-Warriors can hear combat in a zone - "You hear the clash of battle nearby", "You hear soldiers fighting", "You hear villagers fighting" - who knows how specific it could be but zone echoes only heard by warriors. Theoretically even trolls warriors could hear these.
-Hunters could in some way hear when animals in zone are startled by spawn on a % chance ie. you see a started flock of birds take flight ie. a zone echo that only hunters can hear. Perhaps level or survival based.

Flaws with these ideas apart from them being coding and therefore never going to happen - unblockable information giveaways. Slight positives - not guaranteed. Can fail / not necessarily going to be generated. Not just spamming where - limited potential helpful information is generated and you have to be there to hear it.

9. Human bonuses in general. When I saw the list of clan bonuses my eyes rolled back so hard I saw my brain. Forget Warder/Fades/Sedai/WB for a second - it was just a list of garbage giveaways that should have been torn to pieces long ago for several clans. Hps regen for known darkfriends? Are you kidding me. Kin with DB/hps regen - a player explained this to me but its still blah. The benefit of being Kin is weaves. I still remember reading the Imm response which to my memory was "yeah, we need to look at bonuses for other clans but it will be awhile". I disagree. A handful of "people/organizations" have clearly spelled out special abilities in the books. Can't stop Gaidin from being uber. Almost everything else needs to be stripped. Future generic bonuses should simply be class & rank based. It makes things so much more equitable, resolves a lot of the ridiculous gamesmanship and exploit chasing and - boom, no future new coded bonuses needed. There's already a bunch of bonuses that can just be stripped and divided up amongst other clans and classes. Even better - it spreads perks across large swathes of the game population instead of the usual special people. Think back to how great the rank damage change was - previously if you had a master you were a fool not to be playing them. Masters were just so much better than everything else. Now if you spread yourself across a few characters and get them rank 5-6 they are barely behind masters in a lot of ways. The game benefits when perks are equitably divided across a larger group of people. People should choose clans for their roleplay, their geography, etc - not for their bonuses in the majority of instances. I sadly previously selected some clans based on their "free clan practice". Seriously. If I'd made Sedai I was going to pick my Ajah based on clan practice. Not joking.

*All that said. Not the time or place. Warders and Wolfbrothers are abominations. Wolfbrother should probably be a rank 8 "remort". Rank should earn you bonuses - you shouldn't earn them by just being in the most bonused clan even if it is hard to get into and elitist. Even better, this creates a path for people to aim for and takes voting out of it. I don't actually have a solution for Gaidin - kind of seems wrong to receive almost fade level perks at rank 5 but maybe I'm so out of the loop I don't know what I'm talking about.

*Kin is also terrible. I've written about this elsewhere. The game wastes some of its best opportunities and then has to contort itself justifying bonuses for people. I like a lot of people in this clan but I would fundamentally change it in a heartbeat.

10. Feel Fuujin concerning guard plans having a tendency to just be location based. Don't have an answer for that. I've already expressed my feeling that the further south you are the harder the scalp game is.

11. Feelings of progression and remorts - Coming up with a balanced human remort probably wouldn't be that hard if the coders hadn't botched fades through the years with so many bonuses. When I started here - fades rode shadow stallions, had fear, used gleamings, had good practices, and that was about it. Literally at one point you could only fade from certain rooms by kneeling. And then it never stopped and the bonuses kept on coming.

Small side note though - everytime someone says - I don't have anything more to play for anymore. At some point you just gotta love the game - if it ain't enough, if you've achieved everything - move on. Additionally, at some point the Imms have to stop giving people things just because they kept turning in more scalps.

Anyway, as I described above - create some actual class bonuses so everyone feels slightly more power. And then - and I'm proposing tearing the game down here - take back Wheel of Time's bigggest attractions and make them things anyone can achieve rather than ensconced fancy people stuff. Reclaim blademaster. Make it in some way a remort/rank 8/whatever and do the same thing for wolfbrother. I don't even care what the bonuses would be. That's for someone else to work out. The game should use its best most marketable aspects. People join this game wanting to be those things. Create a path to acquire them through achievement.

The focus on secret stuff has been detrimental to the game.

We've obviously covered a lot of things here that aren't necessarily part of what Aureus is initially discussing but its interesting to me how people connect different parts of the game and culture together.

Merry Christmas!

isabel
Posts: 1713
Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2016 5:19 am

Re: What are things that make LS harder to play than DS?

Post by isabel » Mon Dec 26, 2022 2:23 pm

I think especially for LS an "heirs" system would have been fantastic to continue both roleplay lines and some kind of perks that make the game less tedious at an individual level without creating imbalance. We are talking about players who have been playing for over a decade or two or maybe three. Of course the bonuses will stack up. But if you could bequeath some to a fresh character who can start over on the same playing field but with a little family perk, it would be fun. Maybe a prac bonus, a family emote, free weapon honing (blacksmith owes your family a debt), ability to use a clan's carriage (your father was a borderguard captain ;), limited issue of fireworks (your uncle was an illuminator!) And so on..

People are quite sentimental like that and love to have a little tweak that endures. But also because people get bored and want to try new things. I think it would mean something to people if their hard earned qps / time spent for ages actually got them something small but endruring - a special room, ability to issue a free vial on a trolloc once every reboot or whatever because their uhh "raw material" was a wisdom master who was eaten by trollocs.

Of course it's convoluted to keep track of but our imms don't seem fazed by detail oriented stuff!

One of the nicest things about the game is that you can start afresh and learn a new terrain or side. But the deterrent is having to do it all from scratch when you already put in a great deal of time.

isabel
Posts: 1713
Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2016 5:19 am

Re: What are things that make LS harder to play than DS?

Post by isabel » Mon Dec 26, 2022 2:32 pm

Lots to read on the thread but the thing about active socials and clan dynamics really stands out.

Earlier I think clans had a sense of camaraderie overall.. like the red eagles brotherhood or of course queens guard. That was part of the fun of LS. But with dfs and I think lack of any real support within clans (like a clan chat channel). Like clan masters having no real power besides what clan mates gave them (see what happened to BG clans) in a bid to democratise democratise or whatever. Clans need leadership and leadership needs a free hand!

I get that WBs come across as elitist (and I don't have a WB) but it was always a really fun thing on LS that they existed as a secret thing to aspire to. Where it really hurts LS is when nothing else besides Gaidin and WB feel appealing. People on LS Loved their clans - didn't matter if it was DoTS or RE or a prc like Charging Boars. WB was just a mysterious clan to run into once in a blue moon kind of like an easter egg in the game. What made a clan great was the time they spent together.

You have to give people a free hand with their clans and let them build a clan culture. You have to let leaders emerge and let them have some power. The strength of LS was their leaders - Muntson, Landon, Verania (funny all legion players:)) and they all had a vision for LS, they all dedicated time and selfless effort to the side. And they never did it for any game benefit but the game always took that for granted. Verania would probably have had five Rank 9 characters with the smobbing qps in the current system.

Anyway, words in the wind.

Tusty
Posts: 27
Joined: Tue May 05, 2020 3:42 pm

Re: What are things that make LS harder to play than DS?

Post by Tusty » Tue Dec 27, 2022 8:45 am

Agree with everything Eol said - especially the wife giving ugly looks to get off the game! Happens all the time. I've said this before, so I'll say it again except the short way: This game doesn't need to have instances where some people are playing on "All Madden" and others are playing on "Rookie". Currently if you're one of the majorly bonused characters then you are playing on "Rookie". The LS newbs are all starting on "All Madden". Fades are so ridiculously powerful that even those who aren't good at PK can seem amazing at it. There are only a handful of LS counters to them, mostly unattainable by casual LS players.
The rank bonuses to clans were a great addition because it evened the playing field some, but I think as Eol said, there needs to be a bonus overhaul entirely with stripping away some of the "cheat code" bonuses and more evenly distributing bonuses as unique clan perks.
Solution that some would hate but would help in the long run:
* Allow SS to transfer to LS clans without penalty - one time transfer that doesn't need a vote and then close off SS :( hurts to say it.
* Allow "dead LS clans" to transfer without penalty without a vote - the game should be passed the days of needing to screen jerks - if theyre a problem then just declan them. Then close off said "dead clans", no need to have so many clans - smaller focus = bigger picture = more unified LS.
Then if the numbers grow back, slowly start to reopen some of the things.

Callesa
Posts: 517
Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2015 2:45 pm

Re: What are things that make LS harder to play than DS?

Post by Callesa » Thu Dec 29, 2022 6:09 am

Since I've returned to the game, I've been noticing huge improvements exactly in some of these things that make LS harder (or more discouraging),even though some stay the same.

Overall, LS is still meant to be the nurturing side for newer players (not just statters. but the low intermediate, who has barely learnt basic commands, one set of skills and eq, and is exping their way up for the first or second time), and the game works well only when LS is more numerous. It is simply not much fun, when you have 10 LS, 6 of which are statters, and 5 DS (those not statting/lowbie/online.

Since I've returned, the numbers have been less of an issues, as LS is less fragmented. There are times with SS on and without SS on, there are significantly fewer known channie DFs active, it's again a reaonable balance between nothing being totally safe, which would be boring and not really this game, and everything being doomed to end in just pk without original goals ever achieved (which was extremely frustrating and discouraging).

Some of the "quality of life" changements are great, autodiscarding the right burnt out light, or the horse coding changes, I love that. It also makes leading newbies around easier, and is nice for smobbing.

I am overall pleased with the smob changes, as it now feels more rewarding, even if it is always riskier than on the DS (this is one of the huge "what makes LS harder" things. A player with limited time is much more likely to get their smobbing trip destroyed on LS than DS, and eq is not extremely fast to get for everyone. While we definitely need opportunities for solo smobbers-stabbers, we shouldn't be in a situation, where the common advice "you need gear=alt to a stabber" discourages from other options. And is useless to new players btw).

I really like the dailies and also fixed heralds, as they promote playing, they promote playing various characters, and they promote smobbing with a group. And they give awards even to masters.

Because that has been the biggest problem for ages. People were growing up and being lowbies, intermediates, and improving on LS, and then moved to DS as the logical next step, therefore there were more leaders, more competent pkers, etc. I think the incentives to keep playing a master, to get rank 8, to get small awards for doing stuff, for leading something or just participating, are the key to the LS survival. I am happy to see them in place. Cannot tell, whether it is enough for the super great players, but it helps me feel progress on my master (which is as it should be. While I see clear opportunities for Callesa to rank 8 with RP points and dailies and heralds, I can at the same time fulfill the role of a more advanced co-player for others. It's not "you're master, now remort or stagnate")

About clans: I think LS is now doing quite well, with spikes of activity in various clans. After some months of very active SH that I saw before my break, I now see a lot of DotS and Forester activity, and so on. It is only natural that we cannot have all clans superactive at all times, but if we manage to keep interest in them, and see stuff happening in several active clans at once at all times, it is wonderful. Yes, LS clanning is overall harder, there is RP (which is an advantage, but for some people hard), and so on. But I see improvements on some of the stuff. There could be auto ranking in some less active clans, to keep people interested, even if they happen to be alone as active members (as they can attract more players). Probably not auto-clanning for most.

I don't think we should ever close "dead" clans (even though transfers in such situations should be supported, to let people evolve). Even if just one player gets their feelings hurt and investment lost, it is far too much more damage than they should have gotten (I always remember the removal of the Seanchan Army Regiments, that killed off my interest in really playing the side, even more than loss of continent etc). What we should encourage are changing "phases" of activity. Let's find ways how to keep four or five clans active at all times. Partially from within the clans themselves, perhaps with some imm incentive too. Why not give PK bonus qp and a new daily to two or three selected clans every month? We will never again have enough players to have 20 active LS clans at a time. So it is simply dishonesty to present closing clans like "we'll reopen, if we get the numbers again", we all know it's not gonna happen. But we do have enough players to have 3-5 active LS clans at all times. So, people will switch between two or three main alts each year, and after an Companion-Wall-Forester January, we will have CW-Cavalry-RisingSun February, and so on.

About the teamwork culture people mention: I totally agree. I think we are very slowly rebuilding it on LS, and we'll see how it goes. It would still help a lot to not share narrates with Seanchan. But overall, the bit less pressure through DFs and similar overgrown problems is bearing fruit. My tiny piece to do with this is carrying stuff from smobs to either barrels or selling (not just letting good eq lie in the wilderness, where no lowbie or cashless can profit), getting even less experienced people smobbing, helping newbies, and encouraging them to keep asking for help whenever they need with whatever they need. We need this. While there is a certain RP aspect of being always in danger and not trusting people (that's what WoT is a lot about), we cannot have a paranoid playerbase on LS, while DS just profits from it. We need a more cooperative side, and no amount of excellent npc additions can replace that.

About the zones: I think some of the changes in the zones are very good, even though I hate relearning them and cannot have an uptodate map on my old mudlet on my old ios. But they are overall not bad. But again, my problem is, that there are many of them, and they discourage older LS players from going to the zones, smobbing, etc. We need to keep the older and more advanced players playing LS. I've heard a few people lately like "nah, I don't know the zones anymore, not going there" and it is sad. Don't get me wrong, I think some of the zone changes are excellent. I like exploring them. But it will take a LOT of time, before I lead an intermediate group there again. A partial solution would be the community putting more up to date maps on the wikia, to let people prepare, and so on. Not sure. But it will still discourage some of the older players.

Diotima
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed May 24, 2017 2:30 pm
Location: Kansas City

Re: What are things that make LS harder to play than DS?

Post by Diotima » Thu Dec 29, 2022 1:58 pm

Why not simply lean into the fact that DS is easier for new players than LS? Frankly, I don't see any way to really change that without radically changing both sides, in ways that could have huge unintended consequences.

The simple fact is, this is a PK-RP game. The roleplay of the game is founded on the potential to PK and be PKed, almost anywhere and at almost any time. Moreover, roleplay is a bigger, more complicated, more personal (and more personally frustrating) thing than it seems a lot of people are giving it credit for. Particularly with player-run clans. With all the things for a new player to learn, from figuring out how to move around and talk to NPCs, interact with mobs, where important locations are, equip and maintain gear, log out, and interact with other players, and then you throw in trying to develop a role play, or trying to cater to the role play of other players they don't know at all, while still trying to figure out how to wear their first gold crown, it's all too much.

It seems to me that both sides and the game as a whole would be more benefited by simply bowing to reality, rather than continue to fight the tides. Reconsider role play to be mid-game/end-game priorities, to be pursued once the early-game tasks of getting down the fundamentals are finished. And familiarity, if not comfort, with pk should be considered a fundamental. Put the "Recommended for new players" tag on Darkside.

Look, I understand the impulse to want to onboard new players into Lightside. More than likely, they're gonna be WoT fans, and so they're gonna wanna visit those places and see those NPCs that they know from the books. They're likely coming in with starry-eyed hopes of roleplaying a Warder or a Wolfbrother or an Aes Sedai or an Ashaman. Nobody wants to potentially dash the dreams of a new player, and possibly run them off. They're looking to be immersed in a lively multiplayer Wheel of Time themed world, and nobody wants to tell them that they need to wait until they've figured a few things out first. And that among the things they have to figure out is how to roleplay in this game in the first place. Because they might be the best roleplayer ever, coming from ttrpgs or other online roleplaying games, but WotMUD roleplaying is unique, in terms of its potential and how it uses various game mechanics to accomplish it, its requirements in terms of successfully using those in-game mechanics, as well as out-of-game resources and communication, and its responsibilities, in terms of how progression is gated through player-run clans, requiring players to respect each other's roleplay while also policing each other's roleplay with respect to the clan's and the game's roleplay as a whole.

Onboarding new players through Darkside is not only simpler and easier for the player for all the reasons others have already listed, but it's also better because it's simpler and easier for the player to learn the roleplay, the player-run clan system and progression as a whole. Lean into that. If you want crazy, wild-eyed ideas, make FCs a stupid easy DS remort. Turn in a city-head on a troll, and the next time you log in you can make a LS FC. FCs are the most important character types to roleplay well on, both in and out of game. Communicating your meta-goals and being able to at least ask for help achieving them, behaving well enough in-game and out-of-game to get a group together that can take out a city head, should be a bare minimum demonstration of the kinds of competencies needed to successfully play (read: roleplay) an FC. Make MCs a somewhat harder DS remort, like mastering him. Then make both Warder and Wolfbrother Lightside remorts and grandfather in existing members.

Atienne
Posts: 397
Joined: Fri Oct 14, 2016 12:25 am

Re: What are things that make LS harder to play than DS?

Post by Atienne » Thu Dec 29, 2022 4:08 pm

I don't think LS is harder than DS. I think the notion is silly.

I think a lot of it has to do with the way people communicate nowadays. I think a lot of it has to do with the number of players and their availability to play. This is going to be a theme throughout this post.

You see a lot of people using Discord to coordinate gaming in general. I'm not sure how much of that is done with WoTMUD, but the chance is it is a non-zero percentage of the time. You have players who can only play during the day (like me) when they get a lull in work, and have to leave at a moment's notice to take care of something. I can't play during the night much due to family obligations. Same thing for the weekend most of the time. I am sure a lot of us are in the same boat, and with people all over the world from the eastern US like me, to out west like some others, all the way to Australia, then Europe, and back to the eastern US, it can be difficult to line up play times.

The threat of darkfriends is definitely something I've noted people being worried about as of late. Some people prefer to arrange groups via tell instead of globals, out of the fear that someone will tip off the other side and ruin the trip. I think the idea of revamping the darkfriend system and moving away from that style of play is a good thing. We need more reassurance from staff that this is definitely not the kind of behavior that will be rewarded. Outside of that, I think the only other thing to do would be to actively discourage that sort of behavior, but by what means? I don't know the answer to that one. Do you want to set the precedence of punishing people for being dicks?

Lightside Remorts would be cool. I think they would probably give a spike in activity, especially for people who are Rank 7+. Depending upon the requirements, I think we could see some trouble along with it, or otherwise some kind of stagnation. If it has a lot to do with acquiring more PK scalps, then there will be much fiercer competition.

What could a Lightside Remort be? I remember a post some time ago that discussed the idea. I remember a post by Razhak in particular that gave an example for Darkside Rank 8 Remorts (in lieu of fading). I don't remember if he posted equivalents for Lightside, but someone did, if memory serves me correctly.

I don't think Lightside is any harder to equip on than Darkside. I don't think Lightside is any more difficult because of horses and lanterns. I think people are overplaying these things. There is a smob near Fal Dara that you can hit to get pretty much full abs plus top end weapon. I've soloed that smob on my channeler. I'm sure with two kitted players, you can have a set of equipment easily. The problem is finding the players to help you hit it. I think it would be smart to add or change some smobs around Caemlyn/Tar Valon to be like the Fal Dara smob. It's more likely you will find a group of players around Andor as the Queen's Guard is one of the more active clans, with Tar Valon being a close second for activity with White Tower and affiliated clans. Oh, and you can also straight up buy equipment and weapons in Lugard, if not from weary merchant, the Lugard Market Hall (although the LMH is dependent on someone stocking your equipment).

There are some good ideas in this thread. I like the idea of giving warriors and hunters a small chance to sense if spawn is in zone by way of zone wide emote echos. I think it should be tied into level and practice in certain skills, perhaps survival and or wisdom lore for hunters. For warriors, I am not sure. Maybe use survival, or more likely, weapon skills and bash. Perhaps by practicing several different weapon skill types, it makes it easier to hear the fighting. The problem with this is it will get spammy, so it would be necessary to avoid that. The messages should be vague enough to hide exactly who and what it is, but not too vague that you cannot make any sense of it.

I don't really think Darkside outnumbering Lightside is a problem recently. I have seen times where a group of four or five are raiding and destroying everything in their path. I have seen giant Lightside groups sitting in Ruined Keep destroying everyone on Darkside, too. I think it just depends on how things line up with the numbers. More often than not I experienced Darkside having one or two other players on. Yes, they will generally help you immediately and it is more difficult to get that group together on Lightside, but I think the problem is on both sides.

Something I have struggled with recently is trying to acquire QPs. I need about 500 more for my Sedai to master. I've worked on her since 2019 as a novice, raised up to a full sister sometime in 2021 (took a year off in between), and more recently playing pretty active for several months. I agree with Fuujin in that someone should be able to expect to master within about a year's time from clanning to gaining 1,000 QPs. The problem with this is what quests you get to do, what you're allowed to do, and how much you gain. It scales up to the next ranks. If you use the numbers Fuujin gave, just from dailies, it becomes crazy in my opinion. Being able to do all three daily quests, and get two QPs per each, gives you six QPs a day. Doing that every day for a year gives you 2,190 QPs. That equates to rank eight within 18 months.

For me, on a good day, I might be able to get ten from a scalp, one from a daily, and two from a Herald and two from Baerlon if it's held by Darkside/Seanchan side. That's 15 QPs. If you can do that everyday, good for you. You will get 1,001 QPs within 67 days. I don't get a scalp everyday, though. A more realistic goal, especially with more limited playtimes, you might have a day where you get those 15 QPs once a week. In which case, that would take you 67 weeks. That's about 15 months of play. That's actually not so bad, except not everyone is good enough at PK. Furthermore, in my opinion, the opportunity for PK has been lacking as of late. During my playtime, when I was able to divert just about full attention, I have struggled to find PK since at least the beginning of December.

Now that you see those numbers, it doesn't really seem that bad, except that not everyone can get a PK scalp every day, or even every week. Three QPs a day, everyday, for a year, will give you 1,095 QPs. This is plenty to reach master. There are issues though. This depends on several things, which I will list below.

The problem with counting on Baerlon is that it is not every day that you will be able to get three people together to hit it. More important, the city has to be taken by the opposing forces. In the case of one of my characters, I can only hit it if it is held by Seanchan or Darkside. Now, it often goes back and forth, especially when Blodfest is near Baerlon. As long as you have enough people you can usually hit it and get the QPs quickly.

The problem with counting on Heralds is that again it is not every day that you will be able to get three or four people together, and get them to commit to smobbing for an hour or two. Sometimes, the Herald will give a less than ideal quest. For example, one time, I was playing a channeler, had two other channelers, and one basher in the group. Two of the Heralds gave us the list that includes Gholam. We ended up doing Cairhien, but that was still a pain in the ass because it was the one that includes Renegade Aiel, so we had to spend a bunch of time in the Aiel Waste. I have also experienced issues with Heralds not working. One time we did it and did not get any quest points because of a bug involving the local clan quest.

I don't think allowing people to do multiple different Heralds each day will change anything. You will still need to get a group, and a favorable list of smobs to hit for the Herald. It would be a start, though.

Or open up the daily quests. Allow people to complete each different daily quest once per day, for a total of three QPs. This will satisfy master within a year without involving dependency on PK scalps or grouping for Baerlon/Heralds. This does not solve the grouping issue, however, and it may even encourage people to log on, do the dailies, and log right back off.

How do you get more people to play, especially new blood? It is certainly a difficult question. Attention spans seem to be shorter. Smartphones with mobile games, with pretty good graphics, are ubiquitous.

I think it would be a good idea to look at the average length of playtime for people as of late. I have seen some characters where I will log on and play for 10-15 minutes, and others where I might be on for about an hour. This is if I'm not sitting around AFK all day while working, waiting for something to happen. I think if people could log on, and whether solo or with one or two other people, could complete some kind of meaningful goal within the span of a 30 minute lunchbreak, that might help some. I like many of the additions to the game. The idea of prospecting for gems is neat, crafting weapons and crafting jewelry are good ones too. Some of these activities are quite the time sink, though. They are good some of the time for solo play, but it takes so long. As we get older, we have more responsibilities and obligations - we cannot put as much time into it. Include these bite sized amounts of playtime, and maybe you will see some more people come back to check it out, and get more people in general to log on over the course of the day? These bite sized tasks need to stay fresh, though, so it will require innovation over time to keep people interested.

It could be as simple as adding some more dynamic quests, maybe with branches like a pick your adventure book. A task to find a man's missing wife could end with you finding her corpse somewhere, and you find the wedding ring to bring back to him. But what if you keep it? Maybe a pawn dealer will give you some coin for it. Maybe he will rip you off when you sell it to him? Maybe the man will give you even more cash when you give him her ring? Or maybe he will just thank you and you will be on your way? Scripted, but with chance for random variability - to avoid the minmax approach to things where you do the same exact steps over and over again every time.

Oh, and two things have been bothering me lately. Shops are just so broke all the time, except Tear and Illian Exchange. Gold is already easy to get, why not make it easier? This will help people with their cries about being unable to re-equip. Why is the Herbalist in Caemlyn so broke? I sell one herb, get four gold crowns, and he's suddenly out of money. Also, some smobs are just useless, and never get hit. Maybe it's time to shake things up and look at what smobs load what and shift things around. One thing I often do (after much convincing of the group) when I hit Paishain and need to regen is suggest hitting Illian Brigands. No one ever seems to want to do it because the load is always junk. What's the point of having a smob in the game if there isn't a chance it could load something neat? Otherwise, that one usually gets skipped over. I guess there isn't anyone rich to rob along Illian Road, huh?

TL;DR There are not enough people, I think people lack the time to commit and the attention span, competition with mobile and other forms of gaming vs this archaic format, need more bite sized things you can do in 30 mins, change dailies to 3 qps per day up until rank 7, add lightside remort options at rank 8 with some other prereqs, continue to overhaul darkfriend system and staff reassure that players making game crap for others will be dealt with in some manner, make gold even easier to get to address complaints of basic re-equip, rework smobs and their loads

Atienne
Posts: 397
Joined: Fri Oct 14, 2016 12:25 am

Re: What are things that make LS harder to play than DS?

Post by Atienne » Thu Dec 29, 2022 4:38 pm

And here is the post Razhak made that I was referring to: you may notice that some of the things he mentioned have been addressed, while others are still being discussed and or debated here! The people have spoken! Power to the People!

Atienne raises his fist in Lea and Zarth's direction

viewtopic.php?f=74&t=14403&p=124154&hil ... ol#p124154

Locked