Stop Punishing People For Being Level 10

Cojak81

Buckle up, this is going to be a long one!

I've reached the "dizzy heights" of level 10 twice on this server and actually only been there for probably less than 7 days combined due to dying shortly after.

My observation during that short time however was that it's very obvious that the server does not want you to be level 10 and does everything it can to bump you back down ASAP. This is why I think that:

You get cut off from all the "easy" 4-9 quests. This massively reduces your gold earning potential and leaves you out of quest runs with others. Everyone loves ants and ogres. Lots of people don't like a lot of the 7-10 quests and a two person party can't cope with most of them. My last fall from level 10 was caused when I did a 7-10 quest with just one other person because there was only two of us on. Also you can't solo anymore and there are many times where I log on and no one else is online.
Death is crippling. When I died and respawned I was over 2k XP away from level 9!!! It takes me months to get back to level 10. The worst part is you will struggle to get enough gold for a raise because of the reduced earning potential stated in point 1. The only way to reach level 10 is to never die at level 9!!!
Nothing new opens up. What about a level 10 only quest for experienced adventures with good loot and gold rewards? Yes it would hardly ever be done but a large proportion of the 7-10 quests are not done very often because they are "not worth it".
Risk vs Reward imbalance. This phrase is banded around a lot and let me tell you, at level 10 the risk is ALWAYS more than the reward! Quests are only low risk at level 10 if you have a party of 5-6 people with the ideal split of classes.

"So why do you want to be level 10 if it sucks so much?" I hear you cry. Well, if you give me a scale of 1-10 in power I want to eventually be a 10. DnD is a power fantasy, I want to feel powerful. Also my current PC has a fairly big power spike in level 10 due to his build. This was not intentional, it just worked out like that in the end. It's not like I can solo dragons or TPK half the server at level 10, two level 8 PC would still take me down quite easily I'm sure.

So here's my suggestions on how to make level 10 feel good without needing too much work.

Change all level 4-9 quests to 4-10. Let level 10s be able to solo ants and ogres still, it's really not going to hurt anyone and gives us something to do when no one is online.
Change the XP loss for higher levels (probably needs a separate discussion) because if the reason for it is "we want death to be meaningful" then it's not most of the time because death is pretty meaningless at levels 4-8. You can get the lost XP back in a day. It is crippling to level 10 and as a result they are very risk averse.
Change one of the harder quests to level 10 only (maybe that bone tribe one or one of the ones in the frozen kingdom) bump up the gold reward considerably (1k at least) and add in some decent loot, including blur and barkskin potions!!
Award a capstone ability feat at level 10, have some generic ones and also some class specific that only pure class characters can choose from. I am happy to help come up with specific suggestions if this is something you would like to implement.
If you don't want people to get to level 10 too quickly put other restrictions in place to stop it (e.g a timer that tracks RL and slows xp gain down or even stops it if you earn "too much too quickly" I believe Ravenloft does this. Although I will say that others levelling quickly does not impact my enjoyment of the server. Razz Grizz is well known for it and I even joke with him about it but he adds to my enjoyment of the server massively with RP and questing. I really don't care if his new PC becomes more powerful than me in a few weeks! Some players will always level quicker, that's fine, being level 10 is not a sin. Being level 10 does not make you a God and be able to crush everyone else.

Making it very difficult for me to get to and keep level 10 and also making it suck when I'm there however is not adding to my enjoyment of the server. Make it feel epic please, not like something you need to desperately try to hang onto despite all the odds because everything is built to pull you back down again.

O-louth

@Cojak81
This actually goes well along with some of the recent balancing ideas I have been toying with. Because I agree with you. Balance wise, nothing significant changes from 9-10 in terms of crushing quests solo. If you were lvl 9 and could solo Orgres, you likely can do it at 10 as well. Not a huge difference.

The second part is about a low server population. I would suggest that all quests, 7-10 + 6-9/10, are opened up for 4-10. Why? Because it makes no difference really, in terms of balance - If you want to level fast at lvl 4, it does not matter whether you do ants or Lizard men - You will still get insane amounts of xp.
((at lvl 7, you can get around 5000-7000 xp from the Orc cave alone, if you go with a decent group and dont get the minimum spawns)).

We want more INCLUSION and not exclusion on the server.

Also, since I hear rumors of maybe one day opening level 11 - Id suggest that all the current 4-9 and 6-10 are opened to 4-10 - and ALL 7-10 are opened up to lvl, if we are fixing stuff.

As a final side note: we once had an EPIC quest for pure sorc, ranger and barbarians. It could only be done ONCE - had to be soloed, but it gave a solid piece of loot if you survived. -Id like to see more stuff like that.

Cojak81

@O-louth yes good idea about opening the quests out. New PCs shouldn't have to just hide away soloing starter quests until they hit level 7. They can just hide at the back with ranged weapons while the big boys n gals do the fighting.

O-louth

@Cojak81 precisely.

Zolm

Lv10 is the endgame where there is no endgame. There is only idling and making your own fun by trying to pull in other adventurers to your plotlines with...

Gold you don't have anymore. :(

Mr.Moloch

@Zolm

Zolm nailed it. Level 10 is the endgame in a game with no endgame. CoA never developed a real philosophy for what high level characters should be doing, and always seems to kick the cap down to deal with the symptom but not the problem of what happens when you become the most powerful the server can handle (when it was level 20, we capped it to 15, then 12, then 10, then back to 12, and now back to 10 - but caps don't fix problems).

CoA took the idea of basically being a level 4-10 server, there are pros and cons to that. But the biggest pro is everyone can basically do the same quests because its easy enough to balance quests in a range of about 4 levels (and most players will be 6-10th level.

There's no reason at all to cut off level caps at 9th level though in this scenario and with a reduced player base. 9th to 10th level isn't even a major power shift in 3.5.

Death penalties, on that topic, don't just punish 10th level characters - but rather are an impediment to casual players who can't regain lost levels and power as quickly as people who play full time. A problem exacerbated by the reduced player counts these days.

My take, if CoA wants to lure new players and returning players; the focus should be on casual roleplayers rather than hardcore players.

lunatichigh

@Mr-Moloch

Haven't played in a while, but I've consistently hit 9-10 on most of my characters.

Being high level is nice and all, but it sometimes can be a pain in the ass when you're trying to group with other people to do quests. I think I've pitched this idea once before, and I'll pitch it once again:

If CoA will continue to be capped at level 10, make the starting level 8 and then open ALL quests to these levels or rework them to be 8-10. This makes it so no matter who is online a party can be formed and can quest together in a reasonable fashion.

Two levels is plenty for character growth IMO. The XP values to get to 9 and 10 to can be tweaked to take a little longer if the team is worried about people leveling too quickly. And I assure you, with death penalties, people will drop back to 8... right back to where the average character is supposed to be in the current iteration of the server.

I'm a little burnt out on doing quests to level(even if it doesn't take THAT LONG)for the 50th time.

Anyway, my 2 cents. No refunds

Zolm

@lunatichigh Imma ask for refunds anyway ;)

Echo

@Mr-Moloch said in Stop Punishing People For Being Level 10:

CoA never developed a real philosophy for what high level characters should be doing

We have always said that high level characters should be pushing plot and involving other people in the stories that are being told, helping other people to get started, offering sponsorships and training and whatever else that can be offered in game.

Darlene Te'len

pushing plot points and other things is good, but during times when maybe only one or two people are on, what can be done by the player? keeping in mind in game events which have coloured the player as well as the character.

sometimes events do feel like the character/player is being punished when others are on and are found by the players and the DMs for well planned events, which target the contact starved individual making them a rather easy target (without going into details no one is interested in or want to hear about again)

have this happen enough and two things are going to happen, 1 if the player decides to stick it out, they will lose trust in the DMs as well as the other players as a whole or 2 they will simply leave

Mr.Moloch

@Echo Well, yeah. I know. I even wrote the post about the team expectations for 10th level characters about 15 years ago. Though it seems someone deleted that. :)

But by end game, we never had a philosophy of how to walk the characters off-stage. We just get people to ten, and stop offering rewards (level advancement, even really equipment advancement after a point) and instead ask for that pushing of plots and involving of other players.

I think a lot of players would like to see cool retirement opportunities, memorable death scenes, etc. As in "end game" rather than "high level responsibility".

Dire Rabbit

I've never seen level 10 as anything more than a temporary status, because it can be revoked in hilariously stupid ways. Bad pathfinding, bad luck, a misclick, a faction bug...

It's a number on a sheet, it'll change.

I've always thought that a long term character deciding when is right for them to step off is sort of the goal, and helping them do it if it's something that'd be enjoyable for all parties involved.

That said, I've also run level 4 paladins into unwinnable fights against the BBEG of the month and died then and there-- not because I was stupid, or the character was, or the person killing this character was a bully- they weren't! We talked about it in tells- but because that made the best sense for that particular moment in time.

Everyone has a time to go, and that's fine, but an arbitrary number is really not a good measuring stick. I say that not having to balance encounters or fights against those numbers, though.

Echo

you can now do all the quests at level 10 except the 4-6 ones.
death is still under discussion
as for th 7-10s not being "worth it" -- please post here for each quest what is needed to make them 'worth it' https://nodebb.cityofarabel.com/category/379/suggestions-quest-tweaks-and-feedback

Cojak81

@Echo awesome!!