Maintaining average server levels vs max levels
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Disclaimer: So this is as much an informational post as it is a discussion post. It's not really aimed at any current change or anything, I just thought with V6 approaching this'd be something neat to talk about.
Subject: So the subject here is essentially to discuss tips tricks, habits and the general methods to try and balance/maintain a servers average levels, and how this is a lot different and more complicated than trying to maintain a servers max level.
I'll be starting it off by explaining the terminologies here so that everyone's on the same page.Server Maximum level: The server doesn't have an actual max level ceiling, you can always levelup further via dm xp and such, so the maximum level for the server isn't really determined by setting a straight up level limit. Rather it's maintained through the use of three caps.
- Soft cap: The soft cap on coa is currently level 7, it's when xp gains suddenly take a nosedive from the values they're supposed to be at, every level after 7 see's another nosedive in xp gains until you reach a tricklingly low amount of xp gains at level 9 and then hit the hard cap at 10. This is meant to slow down the leveling speed tremendously as you approach the hard cap, so that you don't just power through coa's levelrange then suddenly hit a window like a bird.
- Hard cap: The hard cap on coa is currently level 10, at this level you stop getting xp from killing monsters, which represents 90% of most xp gains anyone generally gets on coa. At this point you still get xp from turning in a quest, exploration nodes and some bounty monster turn-ins as well as dm xp. The hard cap is meant to illustrate the point that once you hit this level on the server, your priorities and focuses should gravitate less towards grinding and more towards doing fun things with people with said power your pc has (doesn't mean you can't still quest with people though).
- Quest level range cap: The quest level range cap is when you reach a level where there are no longer any quests who's level range you fit into, with some rare exceptions (like Nadie's kitten) which won't really make a difference for you. When you reach this level cap, which is currently sitting at level 14, you really don't have anything other than dm xp as a method of moving forward, which of-course only gets granted if you're doing cool stuff with players.
Server Average Levels: The server average level is the level at which most pc's in the server typically float around at, it's a lot more difficult for dm's to set and maintain an average server level. Because without xp loss as a mechanic, it doesn't become a matter of IF you can reach the level caps of the server, it becomes a matter of when. This means that character death and character retirement are typically the only ways to maintain a server level average, since the former is the only way one can lose xp, and the later is well.... you're not going to levelup a character you're not playing.
So over the years coa's max level range has been adjusted roughly two times since v2. But the level average has been something people've been struggling with figuring out how to set/maintain.
The latest attempt at altering the server average level was to alter the softcap and lower the hard cap, which leads me to think that maybe the distinction between average levels and max levels are a bit blurred.The original issue which caused that change was that the server's hardcap was at level 12, and the server's average level was supposed to be 7 or 8 but was rapidly closing in on the hardcap. If the servers average level reaches too close to the hardcap it forces the dm team to have to rethink the servers gamebalance entirely, which at that point may as well just warrant a Version change for coa.
Now since we're moving onto V6 and changing the servers max level caps, I figure we may as well talk about how to tweak average levels.Average levels can only be maintained by xp loss or character retirement, the later is not a viable way of maintaining average levels. And xp loss currently is only ever accrued through death.
While raising the difficulty of the game can lead to more death and affect the level average, I wanted to discuss the fact that there are several types of difficulty increasing mechanics and not all of them can lead to death.
For the most part increasing how much damage someone takes in a quest or how many buffs they need to have on in a quest only makes them spend more gold by the end of the quest or get fewer rewards. This doesn't really make people die more often, it just makes them have to grind more in order to get to their destination/goal.
Death in coa is usually caused by miscalculations and accidents, unexpected things, rng and recklessness.
If difficulties are increased in the forms of enemies taking longer to kill, or enemies doing more dps. All that'll happen is that you take more damage or deal less, it costs you more supplies to get through the challenge, everything feels more grindy and you get fewer rewards for your effort.TL;DR
If difficulties are increased in the forms of players having less hp, enemies having bigger damage bursts (higher crit chances or higher damage spells), or encounters having save spells/traps which can spell doom. Then it's no longer a question of muscling your way through everything through the power of Grinding. You actually need a degree of luck to reach the top in the city of Tyche.
That's my thought on the matter anyway, needing luck to reach the top has upsides and downsides, but in a game based around RNG I kindof think Luck should remain a big factor not just in plots/events but in standard gameplay as well.
If you've got thoughts on this, either a difference in opinions or additional comments. Feel free to add your 2 cents here! Just remember to be nice, we're all friends here.
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I was under the impression that the soft cap was at level 10 and hard cap was 11.
Given that you can get from level 2 to almost level 10 without needing a reset. -
I think at level 7 your xp gains are cut down from 100% to 20% (not exact numbers)
Then at level 8 they go from 20% to something closer to 5%, then at 9 it goes down somewhere around 2% and at 10, 0%Again, not the exact numbers, just approximate.
At 10 you get no xp from killing anything, you just get quest turn-in, exploration nodes, bounty turn-ins and dm xp, and while you get slightly less quest turn-in xp at higher levels than 10, it pretty much stays the same way up until you run out of quests that fit your levelrange.
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I'm sort of on the same page as ChinaTown.
Overall I've found its fairly difficult to die to "RNG" on a quest provided you understand that its better to lose 330 personal gold on that (massively overpriced)vendor displacement potion than to try to go toe to toe with a pair of angry elite orc warriors in melee.
Certainly you can get very unlucky, but my experience with questing has been more than forgiving with a few rare notable exceptions. Experience points don't really seem to slow down until nine and it only becomes really noticeable at 10. I've never spent more than a few hours at a time questing before taking a break to meet with some folk ig (though the two aren't mutually exclusive!)
I really don't think that coa in its current incarnation needs much luck. Certainly it factors in. You can be fortunate and unfortunate. Still I think it is more reliant upon the careful management of your resources. Which the questing system provides in abundance.
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Also was pretty sure the hard cap was 11. It's where XP take a real nose-dive.
Getting to 12 is like twice what you need to get to 11. Getting to 11 is easy as you still get like 400 xp from "To the rescue" and 700 xp from ashbies. A few days and you're good to go to 11.
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@mind-over-body said in Maintaining average server levels vs max levels:
Also was pretty sure the hard cap was 11. It's where XP take a real nose-dive.
Getting to 12 is like twice what you need to get to 11. Getting to 11 is easy as you still get like 400 xp from "To the rescue" and 700 xp from ashbies. A few days and you're good to go to 11.
To clarify what I said in the first post.
The hard cap is when you get no xp from killing monsters which starts at 10, not when leveling gets at its hardest (every level after 10 will see you getting less xp from turning quests in).
The soft cap is when the amount of xp from killing monsters starts to take a less natural plunge, not when that plunge reaches its lowest point. The plunge starts at 7 and ends at 9. -
There isn't actually any "Hard Cap" per-say, you still gain EXP from quest turn ins up through Level 12 (I am unsure if 13 is the same), by the time you are 13 the amount of quests you can do has dropped to near zero.
This however seems to be, in my opinion, something that should be changed. Since as far as I'm concerned if level 10 is the Hard Cap then it should be a Hard Cap, no exp (outside DM exp) should be allow at this level. Reason being: the average level of the server seems to sit around 9-11 and it's intent is to have people do fun things with others, but honestly 90% of what I see people doing is Spirmancing. A second contributing factor to this is the penalty from dying, if your PC is level 10 or 11 dying at that level then even being resurrected costs so much EXP this "penalty" starts acting more as a deterrent. Rather then put your PC in a situation where they could die and lose EXP without gaining some direct benefit, most simply seem to either A) do the same one quest, which they know can't kill them, repeatedly or B) Spiremance around.
TLDR: I feel the Hard Cap isn't Hard enough and that there should be more risks taken by people through either quests being far more threatening /or/ there should be some kind of need for PCs to put themselves in more danger.
Obviously: This all changes in v6 since the Hard Cap at 16 is a strict Hard Cap (looking at you Time Stop wizards) and that I have literally no idea how quests will work or how dangerous they are.
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Like the Level 7 Soft Cap is more of an annoying Speed bump.
Level 10 "Hard Cap" is more like a broken Stop light.
And the Level 13 is the DM's throwing down a police spike stop, you can still technically move forward but good luck.
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it generally takes me, playing about 2-3 hours a day, a month or more to achieve level 9. i dont have quest trains to go on, i try not to run through quests, i tend to do non quest related stuff from level 6 or so (exploration and adventure type stuff).
the caps actually work for me as they are, the server as it is (more or less) but i do see lots of mechanically competent players achieving high levels quickly largely because they are in groups that have synergy and as a result risk little but the occasional double crit death.