Tell us what you think of the Allegiance XP changes -- live.

[Ibn]

Now that the allegiance XP changes are live, please let us know what you think of them in-game.

[Jenikin]

All I know is that it's bringing me (and 3 other people I know) back to AC after a 18 month hiatus. Well, actually it's the allegiance XP AND the new server... but they kind of go hand-in-hand.

I look forward to the non-XP chain server.

[bobjava]

Why ask when it is obvious nothing will be done with the responses. The chain nerf was not well received before the patch
and with the amount of negative feedback should have be delayed at least.

Why insult people with your "tell us what you think" and then ignore the thoughts. Most people do not enjoy being patronized, and that is what this is.

If you really cared an open discussion before the decision was made would have taken place. At this point you seem to be just hoping for some justification for something you have already done and giving the impression what anyone may like or dislike matters.

It's your game, do with it what you will, just don't try and tell anyone what they think is important.

I hunted for most of my xp's so won't affect me much, just makes it harder to level mules.

It will make it harder for new players and this makes me worry about the future of the game. Perhaps that is the point.

[-jz]

People who cry and yell about something they DON'T like is never an good indicator of the actuall overall public perception of said thing.

The people who are happy with it tend, generally, not to speak up.

Just because someone is outraged, and makes lots of noise about it doesn't mean they're right!

I'd be willing to bet money (if there was some way to reliably prove), thatthe majoritty of the player base is actually happy about the changes, at least in concept -- that is to say, providing they work as planned.

-jz

[Toxeus]

Okay Ibn, I'll post my thoughts again, since you've moved the thread over:


I'm one of the silent mass of folks in this game who have never chained and never really was that concerned about those that did. My highest level character is 100 and I've played 7 or 8 characters over 50 and three over 80. It has never bothered me that there were folks running around that had virtual levels of 200+. They weren't my competition, and I always knew that if I really, really wanted to be like them, I could. Now I know that definitively, I can't. In effect, you've widened the gap between the "haves" and the "have nots."

By removing allegiance passup, you've stopped my trade mules dead in their tracks, and effectively widened the gap between the chained characters with their max tinker mules and their 126+ characters and folks like myself who play the game for the challenge of doing it all ourselves. To add insult to injury, you continue to add newer, higher level hunting grounds and new quest rewards and items that can only be obtained and used by those very people who chained in the first place. I know there are many, many people who got to 126 the "old-fashioned" way, and kudos to them and those who were smart enough to chain while they could.

You (Ibn) then go on a thread about skill sellbacks and how you can create huge bonues of experience by selling back maxed skills and state that "It's okay" not even realizing that you are again rewarding those who took advantage of chains and praising them for using the system to their advantage while taking away any possibility of that advantage for the rest of us.

I still think this is one of the greatest games ever made, and I will continue to play, but I'm tired of these sweeping changes from time to time. Just because you now have the keys to the car, doesn't mean you have to drive it off a cliff. I certainly hope that remains strictly metaphorical, but in my honest opinion, you're not off to a happy start.

Another in the long list of "closing the barn door after the cow is gone" fixes for Asheron's Call.

My very specific question: Why make such drastic changes more than 4 years after release?

[Ibn]

To all:

If you can't express your opinion without being insulting or disrespectful, you are not welcome on these forums.

Regarding feedback -- many of the changes that were made to the system prior to implementation were a direct result of player feedback. And we do listen to your feedback.

That said -- this is not a democracy. We knew that a LOT of people would be upset by this change, but we still believe that it is in the best long-term interests of the game.

Which is the answer to Toxeus' question: Because we believe that is in the best long-term interests of the game. 4 years may only be the first TENTH of the lifespan of this game -- time will tell.

[Bruiserk]

Originally posted by -jz
People who cry and yell about something they DON'T like is never an good indicator of the actuall overall public perception of said thing.

It is if enough people complain. What do you think street protests are all about? Letter writing campaigns, petitions and such. They're all about people that want something changed voicing their opinions in the hopes that it will make a difference. Do you think the civil rights marches, and Vietnam War protests in the 60's and early 70's weren't a good overall picture of how the public felt about those things?



The people who are happy with it tend, generally, not to speak up.

It all depends on the situation. This change hadn't been implemented in the game yet, so the general population may not have known what was coming. You may see even more complaints about the changes now that more people will know. This may have been what Turbine had intended. If it is, then why did they bother to seek opinions before hand?


Just because someone is outraged, and makes lots of noise about it doesn't mean they're right!

No, one person screaming about it doesn't mean they are right, but a majority of people screaming about something means that whoever is making the decisions should step back and reconsider what they are doing. Maybe offer alternative plans, and seek feedback on them as well, before making a final decision.



I'd be willing to bet money (if there was some way to reliably prove), thatthe majoritty of the player base is actually happy about the changes, at least in concept -- that is to say, providing they work as planned.

One person making a lot of noise because they think something is right, doesn't make it right. You have no way at all to back up your statement, and Turbine has no way of knowing either. The best tool they have are these forums, and the majority of posters on the thread they provided said they weren't happy with this change.

[Action]

Originally posted by bobjava
It will make it harder for new players and this makes me worry about the future of the game.

How does the new distribution of XP within allegiances make it harder for new players? Is this statement supposed to suggest that a new player would be able to hop right into an XP chain (if chains still existed)? If so, how?

I, for one, reject the implication that you can't enjoy the game unless you're getting a ton of unearned XP from your allegiance and that the game is somehow less because other people have something you don't.

As was pointed out in one of the other threads, the only situation in which you need to care about your power relative to another player is if you are PK, and that's a vast (albeit annoyingly loud) minority. Other than in a PK situation, how does it hurt you that someone else has better stats/skills? How does it hurt you that you'll have to work harder than someone else did to get to the same level? If you like the game, then you like the game. Why would you care if someone else is level 200+ and you're not?

The only problem I see with this change is that I do believe that people need a realistic alternative (not trophies, not post-creation template changes via skill sellback) to level non-combat characters. Other than that, I like the changes quite a bit.

[Bruiserk]

Originally posted by Action

The only problem I see with this change is that I do believe that people need a realistic alternative (not trophies, not post-creation template changes via skill sellback) to level non-combat characters. Other than that, I like the changes quite a bit.


That has been the single biggest complaint about these changes, and why I feel that Turbine jumped the gun by implementing these changes before coming up with an alternative plan for trade mules. I've been playing since April 2000, and there is no way I can move any of my other characters beneath my trade mules because of the level gaps.

My biggest problem is that there wasn't a response to all of the criticisms of these changes, and no delays to consider the alternatives. Just a worthless thread that, although may have been read by Ibn, really amounted to nothing since the complaints were ignored. The only response was, you can level up and untrain, or you can use trophies to level. Which does nothing for those of us with established mules that can't go out and fight, or need an outlandish amount of XP compared to what trophies provide.

It just seems like a nice big kick in the teeth for four years of loyalty.

[thomas144]

Originally posted by Action
How does the new distribution of XP within allegiances make it harder for new players? Is this statement supposed to suggest that a new player would be able to hop right into an XP chain (if chains still existed)? If so, how?

For example, I run a buffbot on Darktide for my monarchy. It's worth it to me to do this because I know that it attracts newbies to my clan, and by buffing them and their levelling, my characters get XP. I really don't have any incentive to do this now. In fact, I don't see why buffbots will exist at all. Maybe that's not a bad thing, I don't know, but with a buffbot it's pretty easy for a character to level up very quickly and get into a chain above the additional newbies who are attracted to the buffbot.

I'm quite aware that my monarchy exists because it's run by a buffbot. Or I should say, it did exist.

There's a lot of competition out there for online gaming these days. Turbine may be right about what's best for the long-term outlook of the game. It's not something I am going to worry about. :-)

[luthien256]

I for one am looking forward to these changes. I don't really benefit from them but I think they will improve the game rather than detract from it.

As for not being able to level your mules... Am I one of the only ppl playing AC with one account? With one account you could never level up your mules without using trophies anyway...

In short, the changes are good from my standpoint. I just can't wait to see what they're like */em looks at watch.*.

[thomas144]

btw, what are trophies???

[luthien256]

thomas, trophies are the things you can give to a collector for xp, like wasp wings or golem hearts, etc.

[thomas144]

I just checked on maggie - couldn't think of what people meant by "trophies" - a complete waste of time. It's much easier to level a mule by fellowing with it while it is sitting in your villa at Olthoi North!

[Bruiserk]

Originally posted by luthien256
I for one am looking forward to these changes. I don't really benefit from them but I think they will improve the game rather than detract from it.

As for not being able to level your mules... Am I one of the only ppl playing AC with one account? With one account you could never level up your mules without using trophies anyway...

In short, the changes are good from my standpoint. I just can't wait to see what they're like */em looks at watch.*.

I had a friend's characters between my mules and my playable toons. Now that friend hasn't played in a while, and my other toons are leveled to high to be able to move my mules around. So, now they are practically stuck where they are.


I just can't believe this thing was implemented after all of the complaints without taking them into consideration.

[Kilmor]

Only that this is no longer possible with the fellowship xp changes.

[Zero_Washu]

Does not appear to be exactly 25%. I suspect that we are passing up 25% of unassigned experience?

I rolled two new characters up and that was my guess.

[Action]

Originally posted by thomas144
For example, I run a buffbot on Darktide for my monarchy. It's worth it to me to do this because I know that it attracts newbies to my clan, and by buffing them and their levelling, my characters get XP. I really don't have any incentive to do this now. In fact, I don't see why buffbots will exist at all. Maybe that's not a bad thing, I don't know, but with a buffbot it's pretty easy for a character to level up very quickly and get into a chain above the additional newbies who are attracted to the buffbot.

My monarchy runs 3 buffbots, and all are available for free to anyone who wants to use them. Maybe there's some shameless self-promotion there, but we don't harangue people into joining the monarchy just because they're using the buffbot. We do it because we like to help people and because the game is so rediculous for a character under level 50 (especially untwinked).

Besides, you didn't answer my question - you talked about how you personally didn't have an incentive to run a buffbot (and I offered proof that your lack of incentive wasn't universal) and that without buffbots, the game is harder for new characters. My question was how the new XP system in allegiances makes it harder for new characters, and I still haven't heard an answer.

[Bensam]

We had (or didn't have if that is how you see it) our oppurtunity to comment on the allegiance exp changes before they were implemented. Like them, don't like them, think they are good for the game, think they are bad for the game, don't understand why Turbine thinks they are good for the game, etc, etc. Lots of philosophy, lots of gloating, lots of complaining, and lots and lots of flaming. But those "discussions" were all conceptual because the change had not been implemented.

Well now the change is in. It is no longer conceptual, it is reality. To continue posting "Yeah, I like it. About time." and "Bah, you just ruined the game" seems to me to be pointless. How about commenting on the reality of the change. Are the skill curves for leadership and loyalty too steep or shallow? Does the time sworn bonus require too many or too few hours?

Look, like Ibn said, Turbine knows that lots of people are very unhappy with this change. It is a change that only has negative short term consequences: those who chained (for mules or exp) have lost something concrete and measurable right now; those who didn't chain have gained nothing right now, just the promise that the game will be better in the future. Why don't we all stop both the gloating and the complaining and see what the future brings?

[bobjava]

That said -- this is not a democracy. We knew that a LOT of people would be upset by this change, but we still believe that it is in the best long-term interests of the game.

I would be very interested in how this is best in the long-term interests of the game. I may have missed something or just be slow in seeing it. The philosophy behind this would be enlightening.

[thomas144]

Originally posted by Kilmor
Only that this is no longer possible with the fellowship xp changes.

are you sure about that? I noticed the other day that I couldn't share fellowship xp if I was really inside the villa, but it was still possible from within my patios (I hesitate to mention this in case turbine thinks it's a bug).

[Gafoon]

As far as being able to level trade characters with trophies and gambling rewards, did anyone at Turbine actually sit down and calculate how long it would take to level a level 70 trade mule even one level with the amount of XP you get from the rewards at the casino?


Fortunately for us, our trade mule has one active character pledged directly to him, so we'll be able to continue leveling him, we'll have to see how well that plays out in real life.

It would be nice to be able to get the other of our active characters under the trade mule so the trade mule would get XP from BOTH of my wife and my characters, but...

And I'm not willing to expend the energy to turn Higgledy Piggledy (a level 89 battlemage) into a 4 skill trade/tinker mule and to change Ninny Trade (a level 70 4 skill trade mule) into a battlemage - the changes would simply take too long and render BOTH characters unplayable during the transition, so swapping skillsets for the two characters isn't really an option.

[thomas144]

Originally posted by Action

Besides, you didn't answer my question - you talked about how you personally didn't have an incentive to run a buffbot (and I offered proof that your lack of incentive wasn't universal) and that without buffbots, the game is harder for new characters. My question was how the new XP system in allegiances makes it harder for new characters, and I still haven't heard an answer.

I'm not sure how I can make this any clearer. I don't have any incentive for running a buffbot, which is mostly beneficial to new players, because there is no allegiance XP.

I certainly hope there are people who still enjoy running buffbots, and I hope they have PayPal accounts too! :-)

There aren't a lot of free buffbots for newbs running on Darktide, believe me.

[Bruiserk]

Originally posted by Gafoon
As far as being able to level trade characters with trophies and gambling rewards, did anyone at Turbine actually sit down and calculate how long it would take to level a level 70 trade mule even one level with the amount of XP you get from the rewards at the casino?


Fortunately for us, our trade mule has one active character pledged directly to him, so we'll be able to continue leveling him, we'll have to see how well that plays out in real life.

It would be nice to be able to get the other of our active characters under the trade mule so the trade mule would get XP from BOTH of my wife and my characters, but...

And I'm not willing to expend the energy to turn Higgledy Piggledy (a level 89 battlemage) into a 4 skill trade/tinker mule and to change Ninny Trade (a level 70 4 skill trade mule) into a battlemage - the changes would simply take too long and render BOTH characters unplayable during the transition, so swapping skillsets for the two characters isn't really an option.


Exactly!! This is the kind of thing that Turbine ignored even though there were plenty of posts like this one. I could understand if there were only a few complaints, but the thread was 58 pages or more, and most of the posts were about how do we level trade mules after this? There should have been a plan in place to take care of that problem BEFORE making the change.

I can't believe Ibn actually came out and said to use trophies or respec. That was almost an insult.

[thomas144]

Originally posted by Bensam

Well now the change is in. It is no longer conceptual, it is reality. To continue posting "Yeah, I like it. About time." and "Bah, you just ruined the game" seems to me to be pointless. How about commenting on the reality of the change.

I took the point of this thread to be: "now that the game has been ruined, what are you going to do with your lives?" The posts that pertained to that question have all been deleted.

[Munjed]

ibn..... please check pms... with that said...
I dont know about the xp changes yet.... Ill come back and post tonight... but I must say..... I love this game.. and Im glad you guys care about makin it last.. I wish everyone on this post and boards could see it is in the best intrest for Making this game last... and get enjoyment out of it.. for years to come!! :)

[Bensam]

lol, Thomas, it's not that bad. It's bad mind you, but not bad enough to make you quit.

[Meri]

All I can say at the moment is... "Madness of Men" just seems like such an appropriate title for this patch...

Turbine's absolute stubborn insistance on implementing these sweeping changes is truly "mad."

Let the chips fall where they may... my time for "discussing" was before you implemented this insanity. You didn't listen then... I don't expect you to listen now.

[rschroe]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ibn
[B]To all:

That said -- this is not a democracy. We knew that a LOT of people would be upset by this change, but we still believe that it is in the best long-term interests of the game.


I am glad to know that i pay for 3 accounts and that i don't get a vote or voice in what goes on in the game. Now that i know how Turbine is going to go about with changes to the game you have helped me even more towards what to do with my extra accounts.

[Lutieus]

I'm not sure how I can make this any clearer. I don't have any incentive for running a buffbot, which is mostly beneficial to new players, because there is no allegiance XP.

I certainly hope there are people who still enjoy running buffbots, and I hope they have PayPal accounts too! :-)

There aren't a lot of free buffbots for newbs running on Darktide, believe me.

Most bot programs have the ability to specify users, so that only people on the user list may receive buffs. If it's a big deal, require that newbs swear to certain chars to be put on the list. That way you get your xp, your clan is more secure because you won't have as many stray newbies, and the newbs get their buffs. Considering two-thirds of DT newbies either break from their bot clan or soon quit the server, they might as well pay their dues in the meantime.

Frankly, it's probably a good thing there aren't many free buff-bots on DT. =P

[Bruiserk]

Originally posted by Munjed
ibn..... please check pms... with that said...
I dont know about the xp changes yet.... Ill come back and post tonight... but I must say..... I love this game.. and Im glad you guys care about makin it last.. I wish everyone on this post and boards could see it is in the best intrest for Making this game last... and get enjoyment out of it.. for years to come!! :)



Just because YOU think it is in the best interest of making the game last, doesn't make it true. Even if Turbine thinks it is in the best interest of making the game last, that doesn't make it true. Not everything they do is perfect, or correct. Look at how bad they screwed up with AC2.

[thomas144]

Originally posted by Lutieus
Most bot programs have the ability to specify users, so that only people on the user list may receive buffs. If it's a big deal, require that newbs swear to certain chars to be put on the list. That way you get your xp, your clan is more secure because you won't have as many stray newbies, and the newbs get their buffs. Considering two-thirds of DT newbies either break from their bot clan or soon quit the server, they might as well pay their dues in the meantime.

Frankly, it's probably a good thing there aren't many free buff-bots on DT. =P

I've thought about things like that, but the combination of the XP changes and the price increase have already lead me to look at alternative uses for my entertainment time and money. I've already mentioned my alternative on this thread, and had my post deleted. :-)

[Robz]

Crossposted from the Patch thread as I didn't see this one right below it:

I usually hunt with 2 active vassals in a fellowship (we're all 126+).

Both vassals had 220+ base loyalty (they're mages) before patch. My character had/has untrained leadership (a melee).

Before patch, when they were making 9 mil/hr, I would make 13-14 or so.

Now, after patch, they only have ~140 base loyalty, and I have 0 base leaderership, but as they're making 9 mil/hr, I'm making 18 mil/hr.

So, XP passed up to me directly went from 25% to 50%, or thereabouts.

Within 5 days, I'm going to untrain healing (I have a *very* extreme template) and train leadership.


-Rob

P.S. Obviously the bad part is that we would also pass up millions of XP per day to a 15 char chain we have above us, but that's gone now. Oh well, they're all between 140 and 160 I think.

[Bruiserk]

Originally posted by Robz

So, XP passed up to me directly went from 25% to 50%, or thereabouts.



That's all fine and dandy, but my trade mules are still screwed.

[Robz]

Yeah I know.

Best thing you can do is pair up with a friend who also has a trade mule.

You swear to his mule, he swears to your mule.

This doesn't work well if your mule is sub 126, though, because I imagine that you wouldn't be able to stick your main under your mule.

-Rob

[HeXt]

Good job, Turbine, just keep an eye on things now and make sure they don't get exploited again.

[sindyr]

Hext has spoken in favor, now we KNOW this is a bad patch.

:p

-Sindyr

[Bruiserk]

Originally posted by Robz
Yeah I know.

Best thing you can do is pair up with a friend who also has a trade mule.

You swear to his mule, he swears to your mule.

This doesn't work well if your mule is sub 126, though, because I imagine that you wouldn't be able to stick your main under your mule.

-Rob


Yep, under 126. That's why they're screwed.

[KF_AC]

These changes don't bother me personally.

I made a reroll to test, placed it under a toon with no Leadership. So far he is passing up 50% of the xp he is earning. I guess with "time" and higher loyalty he will passup more.

If this was a year ago before the UCM ban, I would place both toons in a fellow and have them pharm tons of xp.

So as far as xp goes, these changes could open the door to extremely fast leveling. Which is good for those who need xp.

For the crowd yelling about their trade mules: get a clue, use skill sellback. Turn your hunter back to a tardesmule when has enough xp.

[Bruiserk]

Originally posted by KF_AC
These changes don't bother me personally.

I made a reroll to test, placed it under a toon with no Leadership. So far he is passing up 50% of the xp he is earning. I guess with "time" and higher loyalty he will passup more.

If this was a year ago before the UCM ban, I would place both toons in a fellow and have them pharm tons of xp.

So as far as xp goes, these changes could open the door to extremely fast leveling. Which is good for those who need xp.

For the crowd yelling about their trade mules: get a clue, use skill sellback. Turn your hunter back to a tardesmule when has enough xp.

My trade mules are already made. Do you know how long it will take to turn them into hunters and back again? What am I supposed to do without their services during that time? Someone needs to get a clue alright, but it's not the people complaining about not being able to level their trade mules.

[Benny]

my xp passup is screwed. my highest char is 115. i don't combat macro and never will. i have this thing that prevents me from lvling all my chars, a JOB. i liked the lil passup i received from my char to maybe raise my tinker a lil or get my alchy/ fletch high enough to not fail. i think its too late, the people they made this change to affect, don't need it, because everything is maxed out already. as for vassals, i have some, but my schedule is different than others. i can't dedicate 5 hours to hunt. i love this game, but they make it hard sometimes.
i like the aspect that i can talk to other people, hunt and quest, but i am a loner and i like to hunt alone. i don't like to rely on other people. that is one reason i liked this game.
^i posted this on the other board^. i bought my 2nd acct just so i could get the lil extra passup. something is just rubbing me the wrong way in general. it sucks that the people that get hurt by this aren't the ones who caused it. now i have to rely on someone who macroed or whore chained to do my tinkers for me.

i am at a loss:confused:

[Cuttler]

You know Alex, I really don't know why I am bothering to type this when it is clear you are not listing to your player base. So you decided to not show our birthdays, I say big deal. That fact never mattered to me anyway. I didn't chain to 126 but have run a small monarchy for nearly 2 years, which did assisted me in getting there. However, none of my other 14 characters are even over 100. The fact is that a lot of the people in the small monarches you proclaimed to be assisting with your changes hated your idea from the start. You said you listened to all the people who said something had to be done to the chains. I'll agree that is true. But your approach, as ill though out as the /house available use idea, only harming those who did not exploit your system from the start.

As I stated in my other post, where I asked you a direct question and you neglicted to answer me, you are hurting the smaller monarchies more with these changes than the large chaining allegiance. Once again I will say to you that they will just rearrange themselves, assuring that everyone has the promice of a certain number of vassals. The smaller monarchies just dont have the numbers to exist within your new system.

Everyone has told you already that trade mules are hurting becuase of these changes. We are angry that we have to drop good friends just to play within your system. Casual players are no longer wanted by greedy patrons. Monarchs, who put there neck and name on the line, and have to listen to tells from strangers about this follower or that, are now receving little xp. Oh but thankfully you are going to be so generous and give me some nifty featurs in the future. Gee thanks. I'll take what little xp my non-chaining, poorly organized, monarchy was passing to EACH OTHER. Thank you very much.

I logged in said monarch character after playing another for 1 hour. I had at least 5 character (one mid 20's, one low 70's, one mid 90's and two over 126 actively hunting during that time. I logged into a wopping 38,344 xp. After about 3 months of that I just might be able to afford that addtional point of melee defence. Yesterday I'd have probably made 700k. Not much by chain standards but it was certainally better to me that 38k. One of my followers logged his trade mule into 8 points. Yes this xp was though another player but, as stated eariler, you are hurting non-fighting characters greatly. But yep, you're right. This is going to secure the future of this game into the next decade.

You know why I hated xp chains. Becasue they were designed to make some people feel inferior. If you couldn't keep up with your pass up requirements you were told to hit the road. This was a nasty way to treat people. But that system was developed by the player base. Instead of fixing such a system by rewarding long time bonds (chain people frequently change patrons, traditionally monarchies did not), you turn the tables the other way and now casual players will be the one's being told to take a hike because they will affect over all xp. The worst part about this is, however, is that Turbine employees are the one's responsible for the feelings some people are going to have to endure now. But casual players still pay you the same monthly fee irreguardless of how often they log in. Their money is still just as good as the person who plays all day long becasue they have no outside responsibilities pulling them away. Yet your new lovely system is going to single them out as worthless to have hanging around.

If you are going to claim you are listening to us Alex, than listen to us fully. These changes will widen the gap between those who chained and those who didnt. I'm still trying to get my trade mule to level 88 so I can put his grand vassal under him because the person in the middle no longer plays. I asked in the pre-change thread how you expected me to do that with trophies and the fellowship changes and you decided not to answer me. Which just proceeds to just make me laugh when you say you are really listening to us. No you arn't, you are going to do what ever it is you want to do no matter what we say. Oh but you will toss us a minor little bone every now and than to make it LOOK like you are listening, but my momma didnt raise a fool.

[lashmage]

Im not sure yet about the xp pass up, but as a monarch, I dont like it. Corse , you knew that.

[Toxeus]

Originally posted by Ibn
That said -- this is not a democracy. We knew that a LOT of people would be upset by this change, but we still believe that it is in the best long-term interests of the game.

You're right Ibn. This is not a democracy, it's a business, and as a customer, I do not have to tolerate anything and can simply stop participating and paying for the service you provide. It certainly doesn't inspire my confidence and trust in the AC franchise when you make a statement as inappropriate as this to your customers.

Customers like myself, who have been paying the $9.95 per account (I myself have 2 accounts) for over 4 years ($358.20 for me) have helped create the longevity of this game. To state this more clearly, when I first came to the game, there were over 2000 people per server every time I logged in, and since then I have seen a steady decline in server populations. That means that AC has attracted very few new players (and don't tell me it has, because I've been here to see for myself) and is being supported by older players with multiple accounts. When you make a statement that implies that we don't matter, then it makes me very inclined to find somewhere else to spend my money.

The essence of a democracy is that people have a voice in the process, and by implication, the right to choose how to spend their time and money. All I see are angry posts this patch, and very few supportive posts and it reminds me very much of the AC2 message boards right around the time I lost interest in that game. My suggestion, as your customer, is that you remember the first rule every teenager is taught during his first shift on the job: "The customer is always right."

Thanks for responding to my previous post. I'm sorry to come across so strongly, but I'm very frustrated with the changes to this game that I truly have enjoyed. I'll be here for a while longer, but to be honest, after seeing that I had little reason for hunting anymore, I logged off. That's not good.

[KF_AC]

originally posted by Bruiserk
My trade mules are already made. Do you know how long it will take to turn them into hunters and back again? What am I supposed to do without their services during that time? Someone needs to get a clue alright, but it's not the people complaining about not being able to level their trade mules.

That's your problem, tradeskills in AC do not generate xp. Find another way than free passup.
Oh wait, you could always swear a reroll under one, or have a friend swear their reroll. But you gotta have a clue to think of that.

Btw Ibn, if you check the various troll boards you'll see this patch is bein called "macro love".
I wonder why.

[Chromium Golem]

The xp passed up from vassel to patron is greatly improved.
Even though my leadership dropped the xp passed up to me by a vassel who has been sworn to me since day 1 is awesome.

This particular vassel had always complained that his passup was too low. Tonight he played for a few hours in a fellow and passed up about 40 million to me. My vassel is thrilled and so am I. Thnaks Turbine for fixing the vassel to patron passup.

[Jet-eye-nite]

I myself do not care for the changes ,as I had myself setup I was able to make smalls gains for my trade chars .But since some took full advantage of a process you setup, you felt it time to curb for all . Its your game (not a demoracy)

[MIdnightFire7]

Originally posted by Ibn
That said -- this is not a democracy. We knew that a LOT of people would be upset by this change, but we still believe that it is in the best long-term interests of the game.


I think you give us no credit. We know its not a democracy, but we can choose to rid ourselves of this game. I really don’t like the changes, but I am going to wait around a few more months and see if anything is done. If you knew a LOT of people would be upset why make such changes? It really hurts those of us who have trade mules. It hurts those of us who may not even know 4 active people. I am being penalized for keeping a sometimes non-active friend. How is it better in long-term if you have made everyone get rid of their friends just so they are penalized for keeping them?

[obie]

I liked the changes to the XP passup.

You could not tell that because I cancelled 3 of 5 accounts, partially due to the raise in rates, but mainly because there was no way to pump up those characters with the new system. I was going to settle with two accounts with one crafting mule and use my adventuring characters to pump xps into that mule.

The loot system however changed that. I will be watching as a former player for a month or so. I will be back when the new server opens, maybe.

[Rhysem]

Dislike the changes. I certainly used the system to my own gain -- I have five level 100+ mules who I wouldn't otherwise. I didn't "Chain" however in the usual sense of the word.

Reguarding whoever said it's their game it's their choice: hardly. This is a democracy and people vote with their dollars. They've already spoken about AC2 compared to Turbine/MS's expectations.

I have hope for the future. Sorta. Copper peas in DV are doing a good job dimming that hope.

The theory that "it'll be better soon!" is great and all.. until I look at my comps and realize I burned more plats in DV in an hour than I made looting, and I looted everything.

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

4 years may only be the first TENTH of the lifespan of this game

40 years? LOL... well, that'll make me 88 years old when the game finally ends. Hmmmm.. I'll likely see the end, before I see the end. :eek:

I rather doubt we're looking at a 40 year lifespan here, that's far too egotistical a prediction. BUT, for now, I'm very content with the changes that this patch ushers in. Yes, I may have 1 or 2 of those "uber" characters that make it appear the changes don't affect me, but they still do, and in more of a good way... which I won't go into, because it involves others and for me it's a personal thing which makes me happy that the XP basically ENDS here.

I'm just very happy that now the game will function like it always should have.

There's a few chat problems already, but for the most part it's getting better with each new patch, so keep up the good work!

[Askani]

If this is based on player feedback, I don't know which players you spoke with cause the vast majority that I have spoken to (granted, this is on MT only) were not happy and are even unhappier now that it is here.

On a scale of 1-10, I rank the change as -5.

And since my mules are going no place fast, I have stopped it for them to resubscribe. If you won't listen to how many of feel, then maybe money will talk. I don't know but with the changes and "rebalancing" I am not happy and quite disappointed to be losing my place to relax and be with friends.

I understand some of the reasonings, but not all of them and yes, I have heard the rhetoric about these changes being beneficial to the longevity of Dereth. I hope it works and I guess only time will tell but at least it will be cheaper for me at this point.

I have gone through many changes with AC, have seldomed complained and strived to go with the flow but this change is not a welcomed one and I hope someone has sense to fix this lastest change.

I will give the change a little time, but I don't like what I am seeing. I have been here since August 99, so am not new to watching the rebalancing but this move seems very wrong now as it did when we first heard about it.

[epicac-hg]

I created my first character in July of 2000 and have spent years watching the evolution of the game, the emergence of the xp chains, the flight from AC when the "next big things" started coming out and now this. When I started the game, level 50 was Godly. Chain-fed griefers killed the joy of awesome levels like 60, 70, and 80 for "old school" players like myself who long-refused the instant gratification and chose to spend days and days exploring the game and the high-minded goals of the original allegiance system because by the time I and my friends got to 70, 126 was commonplace. I persevered and have maintained my accounts, with brief periods of absense, for years, eventually chaining up my toons as I realized that it was truly the only way a player like myself who does not level 24/7 would ever reach that elusive 126. I tried my damndest to find the waning periods of joy in a game that I now know has seen its fall from glory. This change puts my level 85ish main so far out of reach of 126 that it is not even funny and virtually eliminates the chance that I will ever have a mule with respectable stats beyond the level 75ish cook that I have now. And what are we told? "Oh well, all the level 200, 180, 180, 126, 110 accounts are gonna stay right where they are and screw you, you will never get that high." Well I built my home on HG years ago and if I know that I have been cut off at the knees with no way to ever compete with the likes of Alliance, you can keep it and I will keep my 30 bucks a month. Half the joy in playing AC was the sheer magnititude of what you could accomplish, the freedom of a world where you can run for hours and not explore a tenth of the landscape, the mystery of knowing what the next level had in store. Now that mystery is gone, guaranteed to only be enjoyed by the "fortunate" chainers who made their billions before ol' Turbine decided to make a fundamental change to screw the rest of us who did not jump on the bandwagon sooner. See ya and good luck with the "future" of AC.

Epicac

[GraceMolloy]

do I like the changes? not really. but after 4 years in AC college/marriage is starting to suck the free time out of me like a crack addict anyway so I may/maynot be around much longer regardless. Saddly I haven't "played" in 2-3 months. and by play I mean actually look at the screen to do anything but chat and tinker for friends. even then it's short lived.

couple things to respond to

one .. incentive .. I run a fairly popular buffbot on TD with my 2nd account and that may/may not change. Reason? incentive. Help my fellow players by offering the service or save $13(plus electricity) bucks a month and disconnect an account that I don't really use but for storage and buffing. She used to get something for her time. XP in this case. Cash is really a moot point as once you have 40-50 mill in notes/plats does cash really matter? not particularly.

Bad thing is since I'm the mod/xml monkey for the Castaway team I kinda need to keep it open for testing. so that is still in debate.

Two .. Leadership should be a Free skill.

Turbine took something from us (YES, the allegiance system Was, IS still FAR FAR FAR from perfect) but regardless something was taken from us, be it for the common good or not. And that act should be repayed somehow. nothing spectaular perhaps but something needs to be done.

Three .. just a thought .. Your move was very very poorly timed guys & gals. I'm sure you know that. perhaps you buttered us up with dreams of expansions and getting rid of the "evil M$" to soften the blow. but maybe, just maybe those "idiots" over at Microsoft know something. Sweeping radical changes can be a Very bad thing. And maybe you all are just cleaning house before you release the game back to the world in hopes of upping that server pop. heck we might see the 2K mark again. been a LONG time folks.


and please .. don't think I'm saying you at turbine are evil or out to get us or malicious. SOMETHING needed to be done. but this is a bit drastic. And many (I'm hesitant to say Majority but it's likely the correct term) of us who have been around a long time feel pretty much slapped by the lack of acknowledgement of our feelings on this matter, and it's not just the anti's. But your minds were made up before this even began.


*Praying for a Miracle*
Grace Molloy

[AzraelTheLost]

My 4 accounts are canceled until further notice, I doubt losing $40 a month is going to directly effect turbine, but I hope Im not the only one. This game has gotten disgustingly hard to play on DT with these changes. EVeryone is back to nodrop armor pretty much, and swords kill you in like 3 hits in it. Chains are what made DT go around, along with high value loot. Where has the fun gone? Hunting for 60 hours a week for 2 years to get maxed? No thanks. I can see this xp change for the new server, that would be alot of fun, I would actually consider starting a charater on that server and Ive been on DT for over 4 years now. You should have left chains on DT, and we need a fix with this look situation, the only armor I can get to tinker is c6 20k al 200, how can i cover this with the new system?

[HerkJones]

I think these changes are good, but I would also really like to see leadership trained for free just like loyalty. Mabye a system that auto trains leadership if you are a patron, and mabye change loyalty to only be trained when you are a vassal.

[Preka]

"Which is the answer to Toxeus' question: Because we believe that is in the best long-term interests of the game. 4 years may only be the first TENTH of the lifespan of this game -- time will tell."

Making changes to the game based on the possibility that 4 years might only be the first 1/10 of its lifespan is like going out and buying a luxury yacht based on the possibility that you might win the lottery tomorrow.

Your current players are you biggest assets. Many, possibly most of us are die-hards that started playing before there were dozens of MMOs.

For every 5 players you lose due to stupid changes that most of us don't want, you'll be lucky if you get ONE new player to the game.

[Zharina]

As a monarch, the change in passup will be radical for me and a lot of players in my group. I don' t live for XP and don't mind hunting for it, but it seems to me that there should be some reward for the huge hours that I spend organizing, leading quests, crafting, tinkering, equipping, buffing, and generally assisting the players in my clan.

As for the big improvement in vassal to patron passup, I'm just not seeing it. I'd surely like to know what the new secret formulae are. I've done some testing with another player in my clan, and with a long-standing vassal-patron (no leadership on the patron & 155 base loyalty on the vassal), we saw a 31% passup...about the same as it was prior to the change. On a newer patron-vassal (leadership spec'ed on the patron at 250 buffed and 175 base loyalty on the vassal), we saw a whopping 34% passup. I was hoping that the supposed boost in the direct relationship would provide some new ways to patch losses to tradesmen/tinkers, but what I've seen so far is very very discouraging.

The thing that frightens me most about the change will be the shuffling in allegiance ties that will occur to maximize the new point passup. I'll be scrambling to maintain all the rank ties that I have and shore up the gaps that will certainly occur.

I pray and wait for the day that Turbine will implement some sort of incentive for players to hold rank, aside from owning a mansion. The tinkering rank req's off of items pretty much nerfed that incentive. Apart from cross server trades, this task would be all but impossible for moderately sized monarchies. Or make requirements for owning a mansion size dependent vs. rank dependent. Help!

[Totally-Sober]

not like these changes even matter tho sorry, they will just be exploited differently to max character's out so they dont matter honestly, but im glad they tried to do somthing fix the loot tho i think its a bigger issue?

[Mistress]

I'm sure these concerns have been brought up thru this thread but I am at work and do not have the time to read all 4 pages.


Me and my husband are not too happy about the changes. We have a level 113 tinker / trade mule. Trade skills where they are, are fine. It's the tinker skills that need to be higher. It's costing 25-30 mil a point to raise a skill. If we ever want to have something tinked 10 x's, more xp will be needed than what she is going to get now. (Yes I am aware there are people out there with maxed tinker skills that can help, but we play on DT and finding someone you trust is hard to find. Although our monarchy does have some tinker mules that could help, me and my husband hate having to rely on others and like doing things for ourselves when we are able - not when the other person is able.)

I hear people talking about trophies to turn in- you know how many 7,500 xp wasp wings would have to be turned in to get 1 point of a tinker skill! :p Now if I am missing some sort of trophy that gives out thousands of xp (and easy to acquire for a mule).....please....by all means let me know! :)

Also, my main has never been part of a chain. We do have a mini-chain for our smaller chars, so that's will be a pain to level them up now.

I did see someone mention that leadership should be a "free" skill. I have to agree.

[Myk]

simple and to the point

Your changes suck

and here is why

1. Im a loyal patron, meaning I dont drop vassals who are semi or inactive. I drop whatever I happen to be doing to help, hunt with or just chat with vassals.

Because of this im penalized because my vassals dont have a million in game hours. That reduces the XP I get from my 1-2 active vassals.

2. Now im forced to take leadership if I want to get back to where I was XP wise. Well thats dandy now I have to redo my template and give up a combat needed skill. My only trade skill is item tink ( im aluv and paid for it)

So your FIX was worse than the problem to me. Why didnt ya just nerf pass through instead? If you made the max pass through 10-25% that would have brought down chains

Your FIX brought down chains but it also hurt the non-chaining loyal patrons and vassals even more


Thanks for borking

[thomas144]

Mistress, I couldn't even figure out what people meant by "trophies" - the idea of is so ridiculous.

I'm using the rollback "apology" to pump up my trade mules.

[Phil the Archer]

The changes were very much needed..

However they are too extreme IMO.

My main charaters (P) is sworn to (E now a trade mule) each other both have aprorximatily 200 buffed leader/loyalty each.

P logged in to 1.8 million xp
E logged into 16,000 xp

Too much of a hurt

Insted of 10% being passed up, 25-30% max should be a better number. But, I cant see the future of the game aparantly.

[Mars-Hill]

A statement and then a couple of questions.

You changed the leadership / loyalty dynmaic so that it no longer matches what was documented in the original player guide. Furthermore, you have not provided players with any information on how to optimize their characters given the change. Players have optimized their characters using the old forumla and in many cases have run out of skill points to train new skills. It's the mature / developed players that are established as monarchs and quest leaders that are most affected by these changes and it is these very same people which attract and encourage players to stay in game and continue paying that montly subscription.

With that said, players are very confused about how to optimize their characters for maximum patron / vassal passup, and until they figure it out I think your going to see a lot of players complaining about the new dynamic. With the previous foruma being made available to players in the original player guide, I dont understand why Turbine has chosen to remain secretive about the new passup formula.

If the questions below are unanswerable given Turbines position on divulging such information, would you please explain why Turbine has opted not to share this information given that it was once documented for all to see in the player guide?

Is max leadership a number lower than the physical maxed out number of points invested into it?: < 208.

Is max leadership a number equal to the physical maxed out number of points invested into it?: 208.

Is max leadership the physical maxed out number of points plus level 7 buffs?: 248.

Is max leadership the physical maxed out number of points plus level 7 buffs plus major leadership?: 263


Regards,

Mars-Hill
Level 194 Swordsman
http://www.applepuppy.com/ac

[Myk]

Leadership should be either

1. A free skill

2. combined with loyalty and cost 2 creds to train plus 2 more to spec

3. cost 2 creds to train

4. Give free to Aluvians so they have a useful racial skill.

[Mars-Hill]

Leadership "should" be a free skill given the change so late in the game. It puts mature players (LONG TIME SUBSCRIBERS) at a serious disadvantage in that they must now untrain skill(s) in order to train something that they didnt have to train in order to become successful for a four year period.

[Mistress]

I plan on using my 3 free levels for xp Thomas144 but with the amt I will get, I can only raise anything 7-8 points. Ok for now, but going forward, now what?

I read comments on the leadership as a free skill. Couldn't agree more. We are now forced to buy this skill to get any kind of XP. Now skills have to be given up to make this change. More of a hurt IMO.

[unregistered]

no one has to get leadership as a skill, i thought it was stated that minimum passup from vassal to direct patron was going to be 25% regardless of having leadership or loyalty?

if u don t like having to work for something , quit

:D

[Myk]

that statement by unregitered is dumb and here is why.


I do the following

Quest with my vassals
Hunt with my vassals
Chat with my vassals
Help them with equipment
Help them tech issues


This all points to me "working" for the XP they pass up. So please before you make statements like that please think ahead some.

[Mistress]

What Myk said.

[Preka]

Regardless of leadership/loyalty/whatever...

Everything about this change is flawed in essentially every possible way.


Turbine has essentially dictated that no (or extremely few EXTREMELY hardcore) new characters will ever be able to reach the levels that characters reached under the old system.

Simply not good business.

[rschroe]

People are missing the point of these changes.

Yes Turbine is looking to the future, THE NEW SERVER.

With all these changes that they are doing think about the new server. With the allegiance paasup the way it is it will be hard for anyone, but macroers, to reach the 126 mark in a matter of months or even a year for that matter. With the redistribution of loot it will be hard to get rich or even get armor and equiptment that would make give you a great advantage over creatures your lvl. The Fellowship fixes will make it so you can't spread out over the beginner towns to maximize xp.

As someone stated before: People will flock to the new server with the thought of being equal or having same advantage as others. As more people move to this server other servers will become less populated. Therfore by our free will we have moved to the new server giving them, Turbine, the opportunity to close down old servers for lack of population.

IMO Turbine is looking into the future and financially it would serve them better to run less severs.

Just my 2cents

Oh, and by the way i do not like the new allegiance xp changes, I logged off for about 30 min and logged back on to 1xp of passup, Thanks for the reward.

[Lutieus]

[thomas144]

interesting theory rschroe. maybe they will start charging us each $300/month and create a new server for every subscription.

I hope they name my server "Idaho". I'd love to have my own private Idaho, providing it's a pk server.

[KPD157]

Well I got to fully Testing the Passup from my Vassal who hunts with me and my patron who is a trade mule :) Seems like I get just as much with only buffed Leadership no skill than I had before the patch. So I won't be needing Leadership training :) As for passup I passed up about 900 K to my patron her patron got about 25 K and her patron's patron got almost 800Xp I think it was quite sad above the Grandpatron but got worse after the Great-Grand patron :) But the Patron got much more than before and I like the way things are set up with XP passup ;)

Keep up the Good Work Turbine and Don't Listen to those who are going to quit. ITs just a plea for help cause they cannot live without the game :)

Loyal Fan of AC and willing to support AC with 2 * 12.99 a month ;)

[Picasso2177]

I came back to AC after 2 years away. What brought me back was the community and NEW content every month. After being back 3 months now I am considering leaving due to the changes this month.

I have never used "XP Chains" but now I will never be able to play any new content. It appears to me by Turbines actions that they only create new content for 126+ characters. I for one do not feel like playing for a year or so just so I can start exploring the new content.

Also I bought a second account so I could level my trade mules my self. This ability has been diminished significantly.

All servers should have been left alone as far as the XP pass up. The new server should have been the only one affected. This way players had a choice in choosing whether or not they wanted to have this change.

A good solution would to at least leave it so that people who have purchased two accounts in order to level mules can do so affectively. Instead of allowing decent XP pass up to only the Patron, it should also pass up decently to the Grand Patron. This way mules can be leveled easily.

Also lessen the qualifications for reaching max XP pass up. Reduce the amount of in game and real lifetime required. Drop the number of active vassals needed and lower the max on loyalty/leadership. There was no need to make this so stringent now that "XP Chains" have been nerfed.

[Mars-Hill]

No, it's not flawed in every way....

A lot of this is good, but it should have been done in smaller steps. Entire guilds (including traditional guilds) have to reorg if they wish to be successful. Leadership must now be trained, and players that have spent all of their skill points on other skills must now untrain what used to be a freebie.

[kfin]

well I have talked it over with my buddies who I play with and we are collectively pausing our play for a few months.

See ya in a few months

[Ambersun]

"You may have picked up on the “upon first login” part of this. Unfortunately, we don’t have the information we need to make the adjustments until you log in. What does this mean for abandoned or inactive characters? Until these characters enter the game, their in-game time sworn is not adjusted and their real time sworn is left at 0."

Given the fact that a server between my home and your game servers (currently looking to be the AT&T Servers outside your datacenter) are crapping out and not let me get access to my characters - this stinks...

but then who knows maybe someone will look at getting it fixed (LAUGH), but I don't hold out much hope since "it's nobodys fault", not turbine and not my ISP...

[Incoherent]

I like it. Good Job Turbine 80)

[Clav]

To say that I'm less than impressed would be an understatement. The manner in which the changes were made only benefits those that have already maxed or near maxed their skills.

Who can afford to max leadership? High level characters.

Who can afford to max Loyalty? High level characters.

Who least needs to level crafter/tinkers? High level characters.

There were so many other ways these changes could have, and should have, been implemented. Ways that were expressed in previous threads and that would have much better accomplished what Turbine has purported to want to accomplish.

I didn't like the changes as proposed and my opinion hasn't changed either way. They've worked just as I've expected them to work, no better, no worse.

Nothing will convince me that these were best changes that could have been made. Loyalty and Leadership should simply have been done away with. Then a sliding scale should have been implemented with the % of pass up higher for lower level characters (as they usually require more of a patrons time). The pass up % should have slowly been reduced as characters rose in level and capped around level 100. Few level 100's need the constant help of a patron.

Pass through should not have been reduced so much. You've created an elitist class of tinkers and crafters that few will be able to reach now unless they're willing to devote huge amounts of time and go through skill/attribute sell backs so they can give the character sufficient skills to level, then to change back.

A 30 day moratorium on pass up when one pledges to a new patron would have worked well to shut down chains as any time someone left or swore in the xps would stop at that point, hamstringing the chain.

In my humble opinion the changes inhale profusely.

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

It seems I spoke way too soon:

but im glad they tried to do somthing fix the loot tho i think its a bigger issue?

They did something alright, and it's all BAD. A couple of vassals mentioned that maybe the Devs were stoned or drunk or both when they revamped the loot system.

Telumiat Hollow Minions, very hard to kill for the vast majority of players. Only easy for those with ultra high melee def. Therefore the previous sing drop rate was fair, even though still low. Now, I'm finding a few sparse copper peas (WOWEE), they used to drop a fair bit of granite, didn't find even one piece last night, and the sing drop rate has dropped so low it's barely worthwhile spending the time on what was already a boring task. Thanks Turbine for screwing that one up... really makes those of us that are already bored, even more depressed. There goes trading down the drain... only available now to those who acquired thousands of sings pre-patch.

Gotrok Titans and Cabalists were the big Major drops... now they drop total worthless garbage.

Swarm Mutilators amongst every other bug type used to drop siks a lot, as well as very nice loot and a horde of peas. Now they're only good for salvage. Again, a waste of time.

Then there's all the new weapons, like bows etc with 115% mod that require the same 270 skill that a 120 mod had pre-patch. Those kinds of changes are a like a kick in the teeth.

Too many sweeping changes that most people dislike, at the same time you nerf XP. I dunno.. I think that's too much to expect people to swallow in one patch.

At any rate, we'll see how it pans out overall, but from how it looks thus far... I'm not a happy camper, loot wise. You claimed it was gonna be better, and all I see is a lot worse than it ever was.

:mad:

[Gafoon]

Mars-Hill,
I'm coming back to this thread after many posts so...

I suspect that Turbines answers to your questions on the previous page (about how best to exploit the system) are basically:

Higher Loyalty-> More pass-up.
Higher Leadership-> More pass-up.

The exact formulas don't matter, that's why there's no need for optimization.

Oh, and while more vassals help you with the "Higher Leadership" part of the discussion, only up to 4.

There's a factor of 10 divisor applied to pass-through XP. So if you vassal passes up 10M XP, you pass-through 1M XP to your patron, and the pass-through stops there.

I'm not sure I agree with limiting discussion to this level of details, but I think they may have a point - leadership and loyalty are now sort-of like mana conversion - the higher your manac, the better it gets, up until it caps...


As long as everyone's level 126, this is pretty easy to manage - just find 4 friends, have them swear to you and you're good to go - you'll probably get about half the XP they earn right off the bat (that seems to be the number I keep seeing passed around).

If you want more than half the XP your 4 friends feeding you earn, increase your leadership, or convince them to increase their loyalty, either one will increase your pass-up.

My gut feel is that this will encourage flat-ish monarchies, but I don't know how it will play out in the long run.

I do know that my wife and I have already dismissed all my "leadership" mules on all of our active accounts because they're going to be an active drain on our pass-up (and they no longer help in pass-up since they're not active).


Also, my personal take is that this change will tend to hurt inactive players, but...

[Quetozin]

I dislike the changes enough that I have cancelled one account, have immediate plans to cancel another, and will possibly cancel my third and final if the next patch doesn't fix a lot of sore feelings.

I put up with a difficult month of adjusting to the /a channel (introduced without an effective filter). I have been a Monarch for three years, and in that time we have never had a chain, and we've gotten rid of macros where they appeared. We're mostly hunters and questers, and have managed to attract enough people through our actions that we are the second largest allegiance on Frostfell. At this point, most of the people in the allegiance are in turmoil over the loot nerf--we don't have all the higher levels that chains spawned. The casual hunters are complaining, and the hardcore ones don't get it because their loot is still the same. One thing is for sure--the only ones still having a lot of fun are those who just like to sit around and chat at the mansion.

I am not an experience hound, but it's still quite a shock to see my follower experience decrease to 0.5% of what it was. Yes, that decimal point is in the correct place. I have 12 vassals who have been sworn an average of at least two years. Most of them have gone on to rerolls, yet when there are special events and quests they get on the players that the entered the allegiance with (we have many roleplayers). Your comment to me was, "If you don't like it, reorganize." I would like to have a little more respect for history than that! No, I don't need the experience. However, it was a nice to say "Ok, this is why I put up with it" every once in a while. I don't see the incentive to be a Monarch at all, unless you require it for ego purposes. That's hardly the formula for a good allegiance system, is it?

There were other ways to address chains. There were other ways to address what you felt were the loot problems. I believe you when you state that you are doing this in the interests of the long-term future of the game. However, I no longer believe that those interests are my interests. The game is now much more about hunting and leveling than it ever used to be. Rerolling is not really encouraged like it once was. Wield requirements are good but there are still balance issues until everyone's very high level, and it almost seems that the solution has been to make it easier to get there.

All this, and you've raised the price by 30%.

I'm sorry, I just don't have enough faith in what you've been doing to justify three accounts. You haven't lost me yet, but you're close.

[Tjene]

One word: EW

I hate vassals. Back in the day I used to love them... But they really put a drain on me...

"Can you powerlevel me?"
"Um don't you have any better armor than this?"
"I need money"
"I need plats"
blah blah blah


So I decided to hate them, and all they are worth. When I log on I want to play and have fun, not put up with endless hassle. (Being a tradesmule should satisfy any requirements of servitude or community dedication.) Now thanks to some "clever" xp changes, I am being forced to have evil vassals again, or to reactivate some accounts.

I am now a student making minimum wage at a local video store. Yeah $12.95 * 3 (or 4 or 5) adds up! I also don't have as much time to play as I have in the past... So, how can I be a good patron to the demanding player of today? I mean those gripes above were the gripes from vassals of eld! I can't even imagine what today's n00bs want.

My roommate just bought Dark Age of Camelot. It's looking kind of interesting. Perhaps its time for me to have my leave of AC. The price increase AND the xp changes may very well be enough for me to cancel. I have not yet decided.


I do have one question for the devs etc: Can you share with us your problem statement for the xp changes? I would like to know what you identified as the problem that justified these fixes. With all the xp chain gripes and exploits of passup etc, I just can't see how this implementation ended up being the "best" solution to the stated problem.

- Tjene

[Emmy]

I like it very much :)

But i dont like that turbine still hides the exact formula for the passup.

Its not a great job for the players to obtain the formula by tests, but this needs boring data investigation.

To make this precise:

After 2 hours hunting, Astral Dominae and i obtained the following first rough approximation for the passup (assuming at least 4 vasalls with maxed average rl timer of the vasalls, which seems to be less than 1 year):

................................................

Formula of Astral and Emmy :


a) xp passup from the loyality of the vasall

= 25% + 22.25%(buffed loyality)/291




b) xp passup from the trained /spec leadership of the patron

= 42,5%((buffed leadership)/291) A ,

where A = (average vasall ingame time in days)/ 30 ,

but A is capped by 1


Now add a) and b) for the total passup.

..........................................

Example:

buffed loyality of the vasall : 210
buffed leadership of the patron: 235

Patron has 5 vasalls which have a totally ingame time of 93 days,
i.e. average vasall ingame time in days = 93/5 = 18.6

a) 25% + 22.5%(210)/291 = 25% + 16.24% = 41.24%

b) 42.5% (235/291) (18.6/30) = 21.28 %

a) + b) = 62,52%


If the average vasall ingame time is maxed (at least 30 days), then A = 1 and

a) + b) = 75.56%

.............................................

This works very precisely for our few tests but of course it is a first conjecture and only one possible starting point for further investigations.


Since Turbine does not publish their original formula, we easily obtain the following second



Conjecture of Astral and Emmy:

Turbine is prepared to modify the formula without any discussion with the players.



I dont hope so, but i would like to hear a comment of Ibn.

Thank you in advance :)

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

and the hardcore ones don't get it because their loot is still the same.

Oh you think so eh? lol I got news for you... loot has been severely nerfed across the board. Even the high level stuff drops junk that, for the most part, the high level toons are not interested in.

Nah, they need to fix this obvious goof-up, because it's a real slap in the face joke, when you take into account we were told it would be better. It's NOT.

[Ross]

I don't like the exp change at all. My old patron WILL NEVER PLAY THIS GAME AGAIN. This leaves my Mule out in the cold. My experience I'm getting is nothing. I just accedently did a trade potion twice and I died. Now I got vitae big time and it is going to take me weeks to get it off.

THIS MULE CAN'T FIGHT, and it will be impossible for me to find antother vassal.

I hate these changes.

[Myll]

Okay, I'm keeping in the same theme as other posts of mine on this update, focusing on Perspective:
Now that you've changed the way in which Loyalty and Leadership are factored, I will not argue that portion of the change.

Here is the real issue though, why are you making it hard on yourselves by using the wrong perspective in the factoring of passup experience?

If Loyalty is the skill that measures how much a vassal provides to his patron, then that should be the only statistic used to factor the passup.

Plain English, Increasing Loyalty should increase the percentage passup, up to a stated maximum.

If a Vassal breaks away from a Patron, then there should be a penalty for not being Loyal, right? In fact, if you choose to not be Loyal, your skill should be penalized (maybe for a 2 or 3 week timer or maybe reset to the bottom), then allowed to rise again.

Leadership: Use the same Perspective. The more Leadership skill one has, the better the passup, up to a stated maximum, period. There should be no other factoring based on time sworn, etc., and possibly a bonus is given for achieving Vassal numbers at certain levels. For instance, at 10 vassals a +5 bonus is assessed, etc. but again keeping the same maximum.

Look at it from a Real World perspective- a manager (Leader) at a fast food restaurant with good leadership skills can get productivity out of either a brand new employee or a veteran employee. The time that the employee has at the restaurant may help improve their experience level, but only if they're willing to learn and be Loyal. A Leader may have to fire employees who are unwilling to be Loyal and learn, but this doesn't affect the good employees who are Loyal and learn. Also, an employee that has no Loyalty and moves from job to job rarely has the ability to learn new skills fast enough to be productive.


Think about it.
Myll

[henico]

Ibn posted (http://forums.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=32790#post32790):

> I will admit that I completely failed to adequately communicate the ramifications of this month's changes, and how they relate to the long-term vision. This is 100% my fault and I apologize profusely for it.

That's nice I appreciate it.
Now it's good time for revealing remaining passup secrets:-)

Here (http://vnboards.ign.com/AC_General_Board/b5141/64858100/?18) is very good summary what information is missing.

" What remains unknown at this time?
What is the amount of online swear time I need to have to cap the benefit from it?
What is the amount of real time swear time I need to cap the benefit from it?
How much effective leadership do I get for each of the first 4 vassals?"

This information is pretty hard to discover.
If there is same cap like before patch and let say average player is playing 1 hour per day it takes 240 days for him to find out where is cap!
And of course it's very complicated if you have more active vassals. Passup numbers in client's allegiance menu are bugged,
real XP numbers for lvl 126 is not displayed!
So normal player has no chance to experiment with passup without special plugin.

Ibn Why don't simply give away exact formula ?
Thanks.

[henico]

Yet another unrevelead fact about this patch:
They changed max.stats for almost every weapon!
Did anybody see any information about it in Letter to players/Rollout article/Dev's notes ? I remember patch when they changed weapon stats last time. They wrote max.damage + variance for every type of weapon in Dev's notes.
We don't deserve same information now ?

[MIdnightFire7]

Originally posted by henico
Yet another unrevelead fact about this patch:
They changed max.stats for almost every weapon!
Did anybody see any information about it in Letter to players/Rollout article/Dev's notes ? I remember patch when they changed weapon stats last time. They wrote max.damage + variance for every type of weapon in Dev's notes.
We don't deserve same information now ?

It seems to be part of this so called better loot. So we didn’t need to know. I noticed this had changed. Guess the less we know the sooner we quit and lately I wonder if quitting is what they want us to do.

[Picasso2177]

^^I'm starting to wonder the same thing.

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

lately I wonder if quitting is what they want us to do.

After 4 years of dedicated service to the Zone, and having my MPlus token removed recently, just prior to patch day, I'm also wondering the exact same thing. It's starting to feel like a conspiracy even. :mad:

At any rate, I had a 2-account mini chain setup on MT and ran a little test. Here's what I found:

Main playing character - Level 49 Archer
Spec Loyalty 120 base, 160 buffed
4,602,008 needed for next level.
2,215,012 needed after 45 mins hunting
2,386,996 Total XP earned

Patron had 8,428,150 XP passup prior to hunt
9,938,598 XP after hunt
1,510,448 difference shown as passed to patron, as shown on Main character allegiance panel.

When logging in Patron, the numbers were identical as listed above, before and after, YET, he received only 970,108 XP. Patron has Spec Leadership 120 base, 160 buffed. Should've been an equal share passed up and received.

Had he received the stated 1,510,448 as listed in both Main and Patron's allegiance panels, it would've been 63.27%. But, having only received 970,108 upon login, it dropped to 40.64%.

What happened to the other 540,340 XP, or 22.63% ??? Who got that? No one, so the formula Turbine has devised doesn't even work as stated.

Grand Patron - 0 base Leadership, 65 base Loyalty - 105 buffed. Received 12,279 (1.27%) of what Patron got.

Great Grand Patron - 0 Leadership - received 234 (1.90%) of what Grand Patron got.

So there ya have it. Only the direct patron benefits. All others after get pretty much zero, and what you hunt for only 2/3 of it actually gets seen by your patron.. while the other 1/3 gets lost in the system somewhere, showing that, once again, not surprisingly, there are flaws in whatever logic/illogic the Devs have come up with.

Then to add insult to injury, the loot system stinks. Oh, and they're charging us more money. LOL

Yep, for the first time in 5 years (this april), I've contemplating leaving, when only a month ago I never would've entertained such a thought.

It's mainly due to when you GIVE of yourself as a volunteer, only to get shafted without so much as a thanks for a job well done, that kinda makes you feel why should I continue... and so maybe I won't.

Good luck to you all.

[Ross]

All I want is my Mule to get exp. Is this so much to ask?

If any Toon that has speced in Cooking or Alchemy, or Fletching. Give that toon the old Exp. Or just put back the old system.

But under current system you have made having Trade Mules a major pain in the butt.

[LAD WILSON]

:confused: I CAN FIND NO REASON TO TRAIN OR SPEC LEADERSHIP NOW. I AM A MONARCH ON WINTERSEBB ONE OF MY FOLLOWERS WAS HUNTING AND MADE 40 MILL XP I LOGGED ON TO FIND I ONLY GOT 117 PASS-UP POINTS. BEING A MONARCH DOESN' LEAVE MUCH TIME FOR HUNTING ON MY PART. I HAVE A FEW PLACE I CAN GO TO TO GET AWAY FM THE RESPONIBILITIES FOR A SHORT TIME AND TRY TO GET THE MONEY AND WRIT ITEMS TO PAY FOR THE MANSION. BUT NOW ALL THAT HAS CHANGED. I HAVE TO KILL MORE TO GATHER ENOUGH LOOT TO GET THE MONEY TO PAY MAINT, AND IF I HADEN'T SAVED WRITS BEFORE I WOULD BE AT A LOSS AS TO GETTING THE 10 I NEED FOR MAINT. IT WOULD ONLY SEEM LOGICAL THAT IF U REDUCE THE REWARDS U ALSO NEED TO REDUCE THE COSTS. I ALSO SEE NO INCENTIVE FOR PLAYERS TO GET VASSELS AND INCREASE THE SIZE OF THE MONARCHY IF XP IS NOT PASSED UP TO THE MONARCH. I REALIZE THIS IS A LOSING CAUSE AND THAT I AM TALKING TO A WALL ON THIS MATTER BUT I HAD TO VOICE MY DISPLEASURE WITH THE CURRENT SITUATION.

[Hamlit]

Originally posted by FmrSentFlatfoot
lately I wonder if quitting is what they want us to do.

Think of it as a way to reduce all the lag. The forumla is as follows:

More $ per account - accounts cancelled = close to the same amount of revenue as before with the end result being le$$ lag.

[Hamlit]

Originally posted by Hamlit
Originally posted by FmrSentFlatfoot
lately I wonder if quitting is what they want us to do.

Think of it as a way to reduce all the lag. The forumla is as follows:

More $ per account - accounts cancelled = close to the same amount of revenue as before with the end result being le$$ lag.

[RedSeptember_WE]

I think a bonus in XP passup for monarchs should be considered, Unlike a chain member or a person with multiple gererations of vassals under them a Monarch has responsibility to more that just those directly below him, he has expectations from everyone & there for, I belive is deserving of what the old xp passup system allowed.

Im not nessisaraly saying bring back the old system for Monarchs only but perhaps some type of half & half between the old system & the new charecters who have no allegiance above them, & maybee fit rank into the math as well.

[thomas144]

Originally posted by LAD WILSON
:confused: I CAN FIND NO REASON TO TRAIN OR SPEC LEADERSHIP NOW. I AM A MONARCH ON WINTERSEBB ONE OF MY FOLLOWERS WAS HUNTING AND MADE 40 MILL XP

dude, I feel your pain. they (turbine) have made some vague promises of new stuff in the future that will make being a monarch worth it, but if it's anything like the so-called "uber" loot they gave us on DT as an apology for the rollback, I figure the new stuff for monarchs will be like, um you can hang not one but TWO chalk boards.

with the price increase and the changes to allegiance XP I have been planning to cancel my accounts for about a month now - I am just trying to decide what the best way to go about it is. I had decided to do this before the changes to loot which will make it impossible to continue play anyway.

it's clear to me that the developers simply don't play the game the way we addicts do (how could they? they have jobs!). the hysterically bad "apology loot" on DT is a sure indication that they have no idea what "uber" loot would be.

[Vlad Morbius]

Nevermind wrong thread

[ember]

First you nerf my xbow toon, now you nerf my full trade mule tinker what's next. You raise the price to play but who on earth can play anymore with all the nerfing? My husband and I were trying to lvl her but now she's nerfed. As far as an article I read, it said there are trophies to use on your trade mules. Well as far as I can see they have to get to the places to turn in the trophies and most are worth 500xp, what good is that? I think you need to rethink what you are doing before people get really mad and leave. She is a FULL trade mule tinker with no fight so I guess now I'm forced to delete her like my xbow. They are totally useless

[kgober]

by 'trophies' I think they mean that you should do the gromnie tooth thing in Glendon Wood every week (one week timer). the top two are worth 100K and 25% of the xp-to-raise-skill.

assuming that I can acquire a sufficient reserve stock of gromnie teeth, this should net around 500K XP per week on my cooking/alchemy/itemtink mule (380K to raise alch, 282K to raise cooking one point), and 250K XP per week on my fletching/magicitemtink mule (615K to raise fletching one point).

of course, that xp goes directly into cooking/alchemy/fletching, rather than the tinkering skills I really need it in. so, assuming that I can survive the trip to the Temple of Forgetfulness (actually I can't, without either an escort or buffs) this means I can raise my item tinkering skill one point in three weeks (1.3M to raise), and I can raise my magic item tinkering skill one point in six weeks (6M to raise).

my armortink and weapontink mules are well and truly hosed. they have very little xp in cooking/alchemy/fletching (so they'd get perhaps 110K per week), and they're over 200% bu *buffed* so they can't do the untraining quest anyway (can't jump).

drop the burden, you say? that's a whole other story, with a whole other complaint to go with it, that doesn't belong in this thread.

-ken

[Brother Tempus]

It's a step in the right direction, but the passup system is inherently flawed.

I understand it's part of the system but it's something that just too easily exploited and takes too much precdence within a guild.

[Fiction_LC]

people who complain about this seriously wth. Get into a place and hunt. We all had to do it you can do it to. I was never in a chain and im lvl 160 why cant you do it? and yes i do have a life.

[kgober]

Originally posted by Fiction_LC
people who complain about this seriously wth. Get into a place and hunt. We all had to do it you can do it to. I was never in a chain and im lvl 160 why cant you do it? and yes i do have a life.

a very good question. perhaps you could help me out. here are my magic item tinker's stats:

spec Alchemy, 164 base, 33 to raise
spec Cooking, 169 base, 82 to raise
train Creature, 208 base, 81K to raise
train Fletching, 278 base, 615K to raise
train Healing, 233 base, 21K to raise
train Item, 197 base, 36K to raise
train Jump, 180 base, 178 to raise
train Leadership, 132 base, 25K to raise
train Life, 206 base, 69K to raise
train Loyalty, 156 base, 147K to raise
train MagicD, 68 base, 178 to raise
train MagicItemT, 395 base, 5.9M to raise
train ManaC, 163 base, 44K to raise
train Run, 220 base, 198K to raise
train UA, 122 base, 178 to raise

can you recommend a good place to hunt where I can make decent XP with 122 UA skill and no armor? since I'm a tinker *and* a pack mule, I'm at 189% bu (without strength buffs), so please, don't recommend anywhere where I have to wear heavy armor. a buffed robe I can manage.

now, if I had known that this situation would arise, I could have planned for it. but now, because of level requirements, this character is too low a level for any of my wife's mains to swear to her. and of course, because passup is virtually nil beyond your direct patron, I can't effectively pass up to myself by making this mule a grandpatron to one of my mains.

it's not the change itself that's upsetting. it's the major impact this change has, and the fact that there is no effective way to deal with it at this late date short of deleting characters and rerolling. which I'd sooner quit the game than have to do.

we were told the rules of the game, and we made our plans accordingly. now the rules have changed, yet we have been given no way to change our plans. *this* is what has people like me upset.

-ken

[Bruiserk]

I'm in the same boat as you kgober. The worst part of it was when Ibn told us to use trophies.

That single statement showed me how out of touch the developers are with this game.

[Picasso2177]

Trophies?!!! I never read that post. Are you kidding me? I’m sorry trophies give **** xp compared to what I use to pass up to my mules with my main.


Turbine please please please have a few of your Devs start to play the game. Pay them to play so they can make informed changes. Its obvious none of your Devs play otherwise you wouldn't make such statements as "use trophies".

[Askani]

The main thing I have figured from all of this, Turbine is not listening and either we hope for the best in the future and make the best of what they have offered or we go away.

I am so totally confused with all this now. I look at the boards and hear the complaints and can relate to them. I don't like how my play has been changed but then again, am I ready to walk away yet? I don't know.

Do I miss the XP, yes. Since the first day of logging onto AC, I have received XP of some sort. I did join a chain later in my life but would have made 126 (I was at 120 when I joined a chain, and that was well over two years ago) without the chain. The total lack of XP now is rather overwhelming but my friends are more important in the long run.

I miss that competetive and I won't advance at this point but I think I will give Turbine a chance to try their little experiment and hope for the best. I did cancel two accounts for the time being and will wait and see what the future holds. I hope it holds something worth waiting for because currently, I have very little desire to log on except to visit with friends and many of them, I now visit with on messengers.

[Dread_DT]

I think it's a great idea, however, I think it's much too late to implement such a change.

I think the main problems with the -overpowered- superchar's came from the fact that.

- Macro'ing wasn't stopped, and even when it was quasi-stopped it was much too late.

- Char's being allowed to spend XP after 126.

I can understand the logic of the XP changes, I just think it was a few years off in the implementing of it.

In any event it isn't a game killer like some of the other much more distinct issues like the server lag, and cheats. :)

[Picasso2177]

^^ Have to agree with everything but that its not a game killer.

[Clav]

Well, let me jump on the band wagon.

As of tonight one account cancelled. I see no reason to keep active crafters/tinkers that will never be levelled again.

[Dom on TD]

I have friends sworn to me, and they have active vassals. I take care of their vassals while they're offline, and I play my characters sworn under them. Altogether after 2 days of not logging my main which is at the top of this, I logged in to a whopping 95 xp. I immediately untrained leadership. Thanks for the 4 credits back. I would rather get passup from followers that I lead quests for, outfit, and give money to, but I guess that would hurt Turbine's feelings too much to let us enjoy the fruits of our relationship with our followers.

[Dom on TD]

Originally posted by Picasso2177
Trophies?!!! I never read that post. Are you kidding me? I’m sorry trophies give **** xp compared to what I use to pass up to my mules with my main.


Turbine please please please have a few of your Devs start to play the game. Pay them to play so they can make informed changes. Its obvious none of your Devs play otherwise you wouldn't make such statements as "use trophies".

I think they do play. They just leveled their toons already. That's why the changes are so late.

[Ryori]

I am a multi account uer. That is important because right off the bat I have multiple legs up on those that do not.

Most of my toons have been mini-chained and have been in place for a long time. This will make leveling my trade toon a snap. By the time my macer PLs the UA I moved under him, the UA will be ready to make 15-20/hr. One thing many people forget is that the faster the noob levels, the faster they'll get to the point where they can generate lots of XP.

So, sorry, Mike - I was already setup to "exploit" the new system before it came live. This is part one of why I do not like the changes, even though they'll make things easier on me XP wise. Multi account users have a huge advantage here.

Next thing I don't like is the unbalance. There are some friends in a little mini-chain. The XP was not much.. a couple million here and there. I play the most so what I send to my friends will be very disproportate to what they send. Basically, I've become the "patron" of the three of us even though I'm the bottom of the chains. Eventually this will get bad. The ratio won't change, but 1 million to 3 million gets ugly when it goes to 3 million to 9 million. (% the same, but diff goes from 2 to 6 million).

I still do not see how this improved anything. In every aspect I see bad things here. More focused XP means less inclusion. Higher passup means seeing vassals even more as XP machines.

As for the formulas. I haven't figured them out yet so I can't comment. Right now Leadership skills really flaky to me. I wish we could see what our effective score is.... in my test runs, it seemed more inconsistant than the vassal passup.

[Desert Jade]

Your Vassals have produced experience points for you. Taking your skills as a leader into account, you gain 24 xp.

Thanks :(

What did I do yesterday for XP? Well I logged on to help a friend get through the Thieves Den. He is trying to get an alloy machine put together and got lost. Then I helped some allegiance members get their Refulgent bracelet, which I already had. Then I helped them get a Sanctuary recall Scroll, which I already had. I then logged off my main and hunted my crafter for an hour so that she can work towards her goals. After turning in all the trophies she could and hunting for the balance of her buff round, I logged her off with about 800k in xp to spend... and that includes the xp she started with (a couple hundred thousand)

I have several vassals, 4 of which are over 100 and active. Another is a mule and 4 more are absent friends who I do not have the heart to break from. They have been with for more than 3 years.

We chain whores really never deserved the XP we got because you know we were selfish and destroyed the patron/vassal relationship :rolleyes: but is there some kind of balance between too much and nothing?

[nofeir]

Ibn,

How about providing us with some method of actually seeing the percentage of passup that a patron gets from each vassal and even better (as long as we're wishing) would be a way to tell what the vassal needs to improve to raise that percentage. Maybe some kind of bar graph that shows the vassals loyalty, time sworn, and your own leadership so you can see how far you have to go to max each. Another graph to see how far you have to go to max your own loyalty would also be welcome.

Next on my wish list, ;) would be a major change to trade skill experience. Since we can no longer promote pure non-hunting trade mules except with "trophies", a concept I find less than amusing, shouldn't the trades produce significant xp? (Yes, I know, you can have a really good active hunting vassal, but who has one of those? Only the lucky few, imho. Most have outleveled the trades mules, and can't swear to them.)

You should get really good xp when you successfully complete an imbue because it's so hard. Like killing a high level critter. Less difficult trade skills should produce less xp, but should reward you EVERY time, no matter how long it's been since you did that skill. At lease you could promote your trades by USING their skills, just like everyone else has to. Getting nothing, or nearly nothing, isn't fair to the skilled trades.

Anxiously waiting for de-borking (new word I just made up),

[DarkMarcsun]

Personally, I would have rather seen the passup decreased along the ENTIRE chain slightly than have it raised tremendously for direct vassal/patron relationship, and almost eliminated in terms of passup to your grandpatron. Rather than eliminate the "harm" done by xp chains, you've actually made the whole xp passup thing worse than it ever was, even BEFORE chains.

[Cuttler]

Originally posted by DarkMarcsun
Personally, I would have rather seen the passup decreased along the ENTIRE chain slightly than have it raised tremendously for direct vassal/patron relationship, and almost eliminated in terms of passup to your grandpatron. Rather than eliminate the "harm" done by xp chains, you've actually made the whole xp passup thing worse than it ever was, even BEFORE chains.


I AGREE 100%!

[satansmurf]

To answer the original question...

I cancelled 5 accounts.

I think that about sums is up :)

~Solclaim
~Dizmizzle (119), Mizmizzle (103), Joe Strummer (101), Joey Ramone (90-ish), Chloe-Anne (90-ish), Aria-Elise (50), Mental Altercations (89), Lifestone Specialist (83)
~Retired

[Tanaga]

Love the changes.

Rewards a strong patron-vassal relationship while crippling the plague that saw so many lvl 126+ noobs.

Being lvl 126+ might actually mean something on the new server.

For the "OMG" crowd - just have a friend push your mules and you push theirs. Of course, owners of two or more accounts have nothing to complain about, as the new rules actually increase the pass up.

I have had one account for years, but will be grabbing at least one more next week.

Hands down - love the changes and the new direction - kudos Turbine.

I am guessing that many folks who left last year because they were fed up with the script kiddie/exp chaining paradise will likely come back to fill the shoes of the folks who now feel the sky is falling.

[Cuttler]

Originally posted by Tanaga


For the "OMG" crowd - just have a friend push your mules and you push theirs.


And that is easily possible with the old "you must be lower level than your patron when swaring" rule how? That has been a major complain of the "OMG" crowd. That and moving people potentially distroys rank for the mansion owing guilds.

Before you make such brash commants, understand that friends cannot automatically help each other because of other game rule restrictions.

[Tanaga]

Cuttler

the second sentence after that one was....

"I have had one account for years, but will be grabbing at least one more next week."

Had you gotten two sentences farther into that thread - you have your other option. To spell it out - you can get another account.

The third option, with rerolls in the game now a day - you could have a level 40+ in 2 days - without exploiting, macroing or chaining. Two friends could due this to help each other out.

The fourth option is to develop mules that can gain exp in anger - (what a revolutionary concept). With the spec and de-spec skill quests that option is there.

The bottom line, IMO, the Exp Chain neuter was long overdue and the melodramatics seem a little over the top.

Quoting out of context is really not the most credible way to try and prove your point - sems a little brash in itself.

[XviiX]

PROPOSAL
positivie feedback for once IBN
now that you have what you call the masses wanted in allegiance passup, here is something that can at least
HELP those that are woefully hosed in leveling their mules.
I say help, because in able to compete with those on DT
other than blood or AOW we have to tinker some items,
and tinker them all the way up.....
let the PURE tinker/alchy/cook mule what ever level be granted the chance by letting any char level under them
that is the way it is in AC2, and that sure is exploited
I watched a lvl 1 char make it to lvl 50 in 10 yes folks count them
10 days
these mules wont ever play, we just need to be able to compete by using thier skills on the characters who actually do play
or

actually make some way to level them via thier skills
you mentioned this before, but lemme ask you
how many dark rev thigh bones does it take to take strength or weapon tink from 250 base to 251?

[Cuttler]

Originally posted by Tanaga
Cuttler

the second sentence after that one was....

"I have had one account for years, but will be grabbing at least one more next week."

Had you gotten two sentences farther into that thread - you have your other option. To spell it out - you can get another account.

Quoting out of context is really not the most credible way to try and prove your point - sems a little brash in itself.

Tanaga

To spell it out...I already have THREE accounts. I do not wish a fourth and after the price change on top of xp changes I am considering closing down one or two of them. And the fact that I could get an additional account was never an issue. You blatelnly stated that all one had to do was "this". Well it is not always that easy to just do "this" and therefore I found your statement offensive. Everyone has a different situaiton.

Go read ALL my posts to Ibn. I have been trying to get my trade mule to 88 so I can put another of my characters under him since he no longer has playing vassals. I have been asking Ibn how I'm to do that with some of the changes that have been made to the game along with the one that hasn't and needs to be made (that being sware requirements). Furthermore, I don't chain. I run the same smaller type monarchy Ibn has been proclaiming their changes are aimed at helping. Well they don't. They hurt us more than the chain monarchies. Everyone in my small monarchy is upset over them because instituting the changes that Ibn wants has us dishonoring friends and losing rank to hold our mansion. So NOONE is getting any deceint xp passup much less the crappy passtrhough now in place.
Finally, why can't my family do what you claim is the solution to the problem and help me out by putting a character under my mule? Because they are all in the same boat. They all need help now with a mule or two. They all have full slots they do not wish to reroll and the majority of my them already have multiple accounts and do not wish to sink anymore money into this game with the state it is in.

[wu hung lu]

Well all i can say about the new changes to the way that Xp is passed up now is WOW.

By that I mean I am more then a little happy with how I can now super power lvl a toon that is over the lvl of 50 by tieing him/her to below my 126+ war/life spec mage and working out in the dires and making a fellow I can make 10 million plus per hour for the lvl 50 and make like up to 19 million per hour (if and when I meet the requirements) with the BM ??? and this is all with duel logging between my own accounts I leave the lvl 50 in a relatively safe spot so he is not involed in the combat just got to remember to ymca him now and again.

So is this going to make me a more friendly toon to my vassels hmmm yep and will I take more care of them hmmm yes. but is this going to make me take a more active roll in finding new vassels no. I play online with my accounts and my sons both join me and we hunt together but I do not love the interactive roll of having to deal with other vassels as in the past to many of them have been a lot more work then they are worth. So no matter what carrot is dangled in front of me I will stick to playing the game as I have always played it and that is to work solo or with my sons. I do play an active roll in my guild but not to the extent that it effects my time for doing my own thing.

The only other thing about the changes that do worry me a little is the possiblity of the break up of the guilds as who will want the hassle of looking after the day to day running of a mansion/guild with out receiving an kind of a reward and please do not tell me to serve others should be reward enough. Is there no possiblity for the head of the guild to receive some form of an extra pass up as I am sure they will be spending there game time on obtaining items to pay for the mansion and helping others with quests, body recoverys etc so should they not get something for it in return ?

Keep the faith :cool:

[Tanaga]

Cutt,

You find it offensive that some in game have found multiple ways to handle changes and all some others can do is say "I can't do anything"?

You apparently missed:
The fourth option is to develop mules that can gain exp in anger - (what a revolutionary concept). With the spec and de-spec skill quests that option is there.

This fourth option is not restricted by patron-vassal level requirements nor does it require friends to make sacrifices nor does it throw mansion qualifications in jeopardy.

So far, that makes at least 4 options to deal with the Exp Chain neuter.

Despite your responses, you could still do what is listed as option 4, if you were so motivated. The options are there for you - should you choose. I am guessing there are still more constructive options out there....

There is a fifth option: throw up the ol' arms and say "the sky is falling" and blame game restrictions that are not necessarly restricting in this context.

As you are the one who has introduced words like blatant, brash and offensive into this discussion, I am sorry you are so bugged about the Exp chain neuter, I honestly am. It is pretty unfortunate that this has gone in the direction it has. It has not bothered my character's development in the least - and I only have 1 account (with 2 mules) - no 3 account luxury here, at least not until next week. :)

On a more constructive note - lowering rank requirements on mansions, from 6 to say 5 - I would think would be a completely reasonable suggestion - specially in light of the vassal changes and some folks voluntary difficulty in dealing with it.

[HeXt]

I enjoy the changes very much, I actually get exp from my vassal now hehehe :)

[Jaul]

I have to say, the new passup works great if ya have a playing vassal. Was kinda nice though playing my mage and my main gaining good xp from that with just one char in between then. Oh well, I don't run the show, just take up the tickets.

[Forgetmenot]

I'm willing to withhold judgement on the new xp passup system until i see how it affects our game. So far all i've noticed personally is that it's taking me forever to get to 126. My monarchy has never used chains but i did lvl faster when the whole was passing up xp. The thing i've really enjoyed the most as far as recent changes go is the new /a allegiance channel. Wow! has it ever helped stay in touch with the whole monarchy!
thank you for that!
We're still having fun doing the new quests......you guys do a good job on that. Am truly hoping AC lasts for many more years to come. We've all met some really interesting people through this game. It's the best game ever!:p

Oh i do think you should make it easier to get a mansion...my monarchy runs out of a villa because it's easier all the way around.
We have 709 peeps, but the stress of hanging onto a mansion is more than we care to worry with.

[4theluvofAC]

I believe this was a step in the right direction, however certainly not perfect.

The ones really getting the worse end of this, is the monarchs.

Maybe they should get a percent of their active followers xp, even 1% would seem more appropriate.

[Bleys Icefalcon]

Well, due to "The Folly of Turbine, February 2004" update, something good has happened!

Both of my active vassals now have Cottages from the ones abandoned by those people who have deleted their characters and discontinued their accounts over this!

Ok, I was being a smarty pants, sue me.

Now, on a more serious note - for you devs out there: "What gives??!?!"

1. Sing Troves. Please excuse me, but I do not understand the reasoning for so totally devaluing the Sing Key. I tested this, and the loot is now either equivelent or WORSE than old school SIK chests? Why? Why oh Why punish the people who have hunted or traded their way into Sing wealth? Spite?

2. The EXP Nerf. Ummm, we have a monarchy of 4000 people and the only reward for all of the pain of running that large of a monarchy is "This character is a Monarch" - pleeeeaaaaase - our Monarch logged into 7 points of exp the other day. What the heck is that? I personally went from anywhere from 3 to 20 million a day, and that's NOT in a chain, to if I am lucky 300k passup daily. I thought before the nerf this would adversely effect casual game play. Now that I am experienceing it first hand, I was wrong. It SHUTS DOWN casual game play. Shuts it down cold turkey.

3. Loot Generation. Ummmm, I used to get better loot off of a Drudge Prowler than I am now getting off of things like Peerless Drudges. Is that a factual statement, no not really, but Nerfing loot as badly as you did? And what gives with the Minors, COUNTLESS Minors on pieces of armor I would have not considered keeping four years ago, much less now?

4. Loyalty/Leadership? Well, it has been hashed out sufficiently for about a gazillion pages now. Lets just say, templates anyone?

In a nutshell, I have always been a huge fan of AC - in fact I was labeled a "Fanboy Troll" of AC1 by the AC2 community (Hence my AC2 character named "Fanboy Troll") - but for the first time in 4+ years I am seriously upset about one of your updates, to the point I really do want to "shake my head and walk away". These changes while good for a VERY few people who didn't like how OTHER people were playing the game - dramatically and adversely effect the game play and style of the bulk of your player base. I guess the part I understand the least is why you feel it is appropraite and conscionable to so toally alientate your long term, loyal player base? Are we really that disposable in your eyes?

[Phreaker]

my opinion on xp changes.

im a monarch and i pay for 4 differant accounts (2 buffbot accounts, trade mule account, main account)

i spent a lot of time setting up a chain that would actually make it possible for my buffbots to level (slowly, but still) and be an active bot at the mansion (for free of charge).

since the patch i have goten 2 people to sware to the buffbots each and 2 people to sware to the trademule. they passup about 47% of the exp that they earn each.

i think no matter what you do with the %s and how they are passed up, people will still find a way around it (im still getting about a level every week on the bots, like i was before at level 109), Just before they had 1500 followers instead of 2 each.

I have no complaints with the xp changes, i for once sorta am glad that most of the "hardcore chainers" are quitting and letting other people hunt for a change. thats the nicest part about this patch.

[IsawaTomo]

Thank you Turbine for doing the only thing that could have saved AC in the long run. How people dont realize the damage that XP Chains had on the long-term health of the game amazes me. From the 1st day that I heard about the xp gains that could be made through these chains, I knew it woukd ruin the game for me.

It did. And now that you have gotten rid of what was broken about those vial XP chains AND are starting a new world, my friends and I will be reactivating our 5 accounts. The 65 dollars we will be giving you is well earned; Microsoft would have never stepped up, nerfed chains, and taken all the **** from the newbs who need their chains.

I salute you turbine and I only ask now that you get the new server online ASAP. I can't wait much longer, it is all I can think about.

[Razel]

Tell us what you think of the Allegiance XP changes -- live.

Personally, i think if you keep making the sweeping changes you do without first talking to the customers this game will be (DEAD)

It gives the impression you dont give a flyen rats butt what they think.

[Ahlotta]

At first, personally I was bummed about the xp thng because I have toon with an "offensive name" And consiering I did not take her into"public places" after we began recieving complaints it was the only way she got xp was through our chain. However, Now with the new news of having the option to have her name changed, I really think that the xp thing will make the game a little more fair.:)

AV

[Jaul]

Is there possibly anyways we could get leadership as a *given* skill? Seems possible to me, and it's somewhat a pain to train something like that. 4 credits isn't a terrible amount, but kinda hate having the toss-up between arcane or leader. Just a suggestion to you guys; increase the monthly fee, and at least let us have leadership as a free skill ;)

[Sabu]

Kinda annoying for mini chains. I can see why this was needed though. Maybe letting a tad more passup go so it can flow better from the vassal to the grandpatron. Good work on the whole .:)

[Ariella]

I like the changes, and I think they are a good thing for the game overall.

As for my trade char., she started with 100 coord. I sold back life magic and picked up crossbow. She has MD trained, although it's low. Quickness started at 10. She's huntable, so that's what matters.

No, she can't go hang in lacuna, or the assailers for that matter. But I can take her out here and there and make her some xp. :)

[Powr]

First, I have no love for xp chains and I thoroughly detest the elitest attitudes behind the hardcore chainers. By hardcore I mean those who set or support playtime/passup quotas and penalize those who fail to meet them - those who treat other players in the game as commodities to be used only for their own gain. It has been my experience that those who ascribe to (and are now whining about the loss of) this type of play are ego-driven miscreants trying to be something in "make-believe" that they have failed at miserably in rl. From this perspective I see the changes to xp passup as a VERY good thing. If they scream "that's the last straw, I am cancelling my 15 accounts today!" - GOOD, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

BUT...

...As a member of a small Allegiance that maintains a solid nucleus of genuinely good people from around the world (heck, we have members in the UK, Canada, all 4 time zones of the U.S. and one of our clan even lives in China and plays some very odd hours just to be on with us) I see some very real negative impact in this change. My main is actually going to turn 126 tomorrow when I turn in some swords after 4 and a half years of play. A number of my friends in-game will be there to witness the event - not because it is a "unique server event" or because there is anything in it for them (most of them have already gotten there with at least one toon) but because we genuinely care about one another as friends - and I do not know another person in rl that plays this game, so these bonds of friendship were developed strictly as a result of the forum that AC1 has provided.

Now a chat forum such as this one is never going to come close to receiving the view of the majority of the player base so those making claim as to what "the majority of the players want" is absurd. And as you stated "this is not a democracy" so the obvious aim of a forum such as this is to elicit feedback to fuel some thinking on your end as to where to take your game now and in the future. I am not so naive as to think that all the respondents have done so honestly. There are certainly some who have leeched on to some legitimate arguments against this system not wishing to state openly their exploitation of the system prior to the change. Shaekespeare comes to mind here "Methinks thou protesteth too much!"

That being said it does not negate the legitimacy of the arguments against this new system. The smaller allegiances are most definitely hurt by this as they do not have the luxury of numbers to rearrange their membership to maximize passup in the new system and still maintain rank for the mansion. And those who are trying to advance their trade mules have been shackled by this. Using trophies and turn-in items is good to about level 20-25 and then there is nothing in-game that is giveable or attainable at that level to provide the amount of xp that would make this process a viable one. Thus you are hurting the very people you stated a desire to help by this change.

Now this view may be short-sighted as in the long run I believe this to be a good thing for the overall game and its integrity. So as I see it the issue really comes down to now providing a solution to those of us who are trying to advance Trade Mules and a means by which the smaller and mid-sized allegiances can benefit from the play of the membership without shredding its rank chains. Moving forward I believe this is where you need to focus your development (with a greater emphasis on the former - i.e. advancing Trade Mules).

Either way I will continue to enjoy AC1 as I always have. I actually know of a large number of people who are anxiously awaiting the new server who will then sign back up. This group consists of people who played right out of beta (several were Monarchs of fairly significant allegiances). Each has indicated that they were excited to get into an environment free of the xp-chains where everyone is on an equal footing...now if we could only get rid of the UCM's without nerfing all the plugin's, eliminate server lag forever...heck, we could tackle world peace next!:D

[Bruiserk]

I agree with powr to a certain extent. I don't mind that they closed off the chains, but they really should have allowed more pass-up to grand patrons to facilitate the smaller monarchies, and trade mules. There were plenty of people that complained of this before the change was put into place, and Turbine should have held off on the change until they could have addressed those concerns.

I would like to know if they are at least considering alternatives for trade-mule's to advance?

I still question the dev's own knowledge of the actual workings of the game when they suggest that we use trophies to advance trade mules. I guess the same thinking that went into that statement is also the thinking that went into the loot nerfs.

Hey Turbine, you didn't even buy us dinner before buggering us. Instead we have to buy you dinner with a price increase.

Well, after 4 years, with no chains or such, just me passing XP to my trade mule through a clanmates mule, I'm just getting all of my 7's on my main toons, so I'm not going to re-roll, and if there isn't a solution that I'm satisfied with, I guess I'll be cancelling as well.

Guess I'll have to change my signature back to what it was with a new twist.

[Insane Kitty]

one way trophies can be usefull for trade mules is to make *ALL* trophies givable. (including mnemo's etc that give decent xp on turnin)

Remove the restriction on g-man swords and make it so anyone can use it to get the xp (even if they haven't done the quest)

just then, MAYBE we can level mid-high level trade mules with this xp nerf.


Or just change the xp passup so you only passup 50% of what you make/get from vassals as the max. 10 mil made will passup 5 mil, then 2.5 mil, then 1.2 mil then 625k, then 312k, then 156k, then 88k, then 44k then 22k then 11k.

10 mil after 10 stages of passup is only 11k, it would permit people to still somewhat chain, but w/out the major xp passup of before. This more then likely would have pleased more people then the present solution.

With the present solution, I have a dungeon I can macro 2 chars that can make 4 mil an hour, my main who has them sworn under him makes 6.4 mil an hour atm just sitting there. Thank you Turbine, you gave me a great way to power level my main. (when my main joins them in fellow, I am making close to 10 mil an hour in an easy dungeon).

[StarchaserX]

It's like the Bush Admin:
First, make your decision, then find evidence to justify it after the fact.

Ibn made no comment on an easier system:
(slightly modifified and streamlined but basically the same)

25%min-50%max vassel to patron
grand patron can earn 25% of patron's vassel xp.

Every starts at 25% and increases at 5% a month till max.
It's based in RL so there is no xp to put into it and it cannot be player modified. Breaking/releasing resets at 10%.

*remove* leader/loyalty, refund all xp and 2 skill credits.

So, yes, the chainers still get rewarded by freeing up all the xp put into loy/lead. But at the same time, the 2 skill credits would essentially advance a character 10 lvls in development, sans xp.

Making it solely based on RL time without the ability of players to modify pass-up in any way, puts everyone on equal footing.
And everyone maxes in 5 months, without having to put xp into it.


The 50% patron and 25% grandpatron= 75% of vassel xp as compared to the maxed 99% of vassel xp (90% patron+9% grandpatron).

My plan cuts xp by an almost additional 14% but still lets mule level through an inactive link(think friends trading characters). The chain xp works out the same as Turbines plan though.

And none of this vassel average, active/inactive whatever.

So simple, and everyone gets something for their trouble.

[StarchaserX]

Turbines: 90>9=99% from vassel
Mine: 50>25=75% from vassel

Turbines in chain:
1. 99>9
2. ......99>9
3. ............99>9
Summary: 108%

Mine in chain:

1. 50>25
2. ......50>25
3. ............50>25
Summary: 75%


At max is reduces the effectiveness of chains,
but at the same time, still allows a trade mule to be leveled
either directly, or with a link inbetween the playing character and the mule. This is due to the 25% pass-thru vs. the 10% pass-through of the current system.

And Tanaga, you sound so excited to give Turbine more money for what used to be for free.

All they had to do was cut-off xp pass-through after the grand-patron and it would have been fine.


In order to level my mules, I can either *trust* somebody else to do it, while I push theirs. (Trust broken is for more plentiful than trust honored)

*0R* I can pay an extra $156.00 a year because of these changes.

Both of those options have left a bitter taste.

OR, I can let my sub expire.

I like none of these options to level a tinker/trade mule.

And yes, I only have 1 account. I play late night when even fewer people are on. Are there people I can play with?
....sure, usually a macro fellow in the Phyntos Menace.
Usually one of two people live. It's easier to get to than AL and now I can make salvage and 10 mill an hour.

If I play for about 100 hours, 5 hours a night(I no longer macro, haven't for months). With 10% pass-thru, I think I will be able to raise armor tinkering 1 point.

Really makes me think about macroing again since the 10% pass-thru is ****.

[ember]

the problem is my trade mule if you read my reply correctly can NOT fight. She has all trades spec and all tinks trained. So please before you yell at me READ my post! Another thing I am NOT In a clan xp chain. My husband and I were the only ones feeding MY trade mule xp. Now she's ruined like many other things they've nerfed

[Mystech]

IBN,
I'll start by letting you know I respect and appreciate the job your doing. :)

You had said previously that the changes in the game are done do to player feedback. I guess I missed the majority on this. I can't recall.

1: How many have complained about UCM versus player percentage and accual player accounts?

2: How many said fix the EXP system again the percentages.

3: How many said oh lets nerf the loot.

I have read that we will be getting am official response. Seems to me that there is more negative here then possitive after the fact and possibly somethings need to be removed or changed back.

We seem to spending a whole but of time on "Balance" and getting away from what has made this one of the most popular games online in the last 15 years.

Ive said it before, when AC2 came out the servers lost a bunch of players do to anticipation of the this great new game. I was one of those that spent $52.00 on the game to only play it for a few days. I wasted the 52$ I am on Disability and really couldnt afford to through the money away. Point being it was nothing like the hype and nothing remotely as an upgrade.

I enjoy the housing, the new items that come with each patch that I can display. New quests I love as posted in another thread
I do not like useless trophies when the quest is so hard to do.
Example I used was when the renegade weapons 1st came out.

Maybe we are making too many changes too fast and completly changing the course of the river before we have to navigate it.

I could never understand why Ashrons Island was closed it was a very good addition to the landscape, fun quest, and the island was a great place to hunt.

in the last few patches, we have changed EXP, Changed the loot
Nerfed the Archers, folks talk about balance. I still can't figure what thats all about.

Mages have kicked butt since I 1st started playing then archers was a good character to make, Sword, Axe, Mace. The only thing I see really out of wack is the UA. But its good for PvP.

I know im not the only one that has complained about the lack of bows being found vs xbows, swords and maces or even axes.

too many changes too fast based on minimal player useage of these boards vs accual player content.

Mystech
(disabled, playing 14-16 hours a day for over 2 1/2 years)

142 mage
135 archer
107 mage
107 UA
105 sword
98 Alchemist
97 Tinker
93 Axer
2 low level Mules level 50

and no I dont UCM and they dont bother me either the damage has been done let it be. As someone posted the old saying if it isnt broke don't fix it.

[Pureblade]

My experience thusfar has been mixed. Leveling my buff-bot character has been made easier, as her direct vassal is slowling becoming my main, and the bot has leadership trained.

My high level archer, however, has started receiving exactly zero xp from his vassals (we are not in a chain, though several people below him are avid hunters). While once I had the luxery of taking him to help out on quests, now I've starting hunting more for XP (since the current loot profile for high levels is complete garbage).

I can't say its been unpleasant for me, as I certainly do enjoy playing the game. However, when I hunt I tend to do it solo or with my patron, so others in my monarchy haven't seen much of me lately. So its something of a mixed blessing. In more social, non-chained monarchies the xp-nerf has had a somewhat detrimental effect in player-to-player interaction. I'd once held hope that perhaps I might reach 126 with my archer, but now that is unlikely. He is a bit gimpy and I rarely have enough time to play him. Feh, oh well.

[Ziggy al-Zog Jr]

http://classic.zone.msn.com/asheronscall/news/ASHEletter0602_2.asp

I would like to hear from some one at Turbine concerning the above article, specifically the portion about xp chains.

What I would like to know is what made you disregard the above mentioned survey?

What changed in the game that made Turbine come to a different conclusion now versus the conclusion made then?

Why was another survey not taken to see if players attitudes had changed concerning xp chains?

I'm just trying to understand why Turbine felt the need to change something that MS/Turbine didn't feel was needed almost 2 years ago.

Thanks!

[Meri]

Thank you Ziggy! I've been wondering where the results of that survey were... and yes, they actually uphold what I long-believed....

XP Chains

The use of the Allegiance system in Asheron's Call 1 to form “XP chains” has long been a subject of much discussion. “XP chains” are specially crafted Allegiances in which upper members rapidly gain levels without earning much if any XP on their own. The results of the poll showed a very even split between those who do not like this practice and those who do. We have been giving a lot of thought to the subject at well. For Asheron's Call 1, we plan no changes made to the way XP passes up through Allegiances. (However, as the benefits of combat macros are reduced, we predict that the benefits of XP chains will also diminish.)In other words... actually removing the UCMs first would have been the "smart" thing to do. If they'd consistently followed up on that premise for the past year and a half, we wouldn't be in this situation now. :mad:

[Bluefang]

What do I think about the the Allegiance XP chain change...

When it was first announced I was thoughtful on it.
1. I thought a good idea to cut it back some.
2. I thought back in late beta testing that this was brought
up and was announced that no changes would be made
because of being to difficult to do.
3. I thought after all this time since released and now gonna
make this change when it should of been done along time ago.
4. Would it make much difference now after all this time? No.
Unless Turbine had a was to get a mass influx of new players.
Then it might, but at same time, it might just very well widen
the gap between all these newbs and all the old toons.
5. Would it affect me or monarchy much? Didn't think it would.

Well after awhile of trying it out and seeing the results, I think it hurt more than it helped. This monarchy was created to get away from xp chains and all the BS that went with some monarchies. It was created by a small group of friends that wanted pretty much the same thing. A good trustworthy group of friends that like doing similar things.

As good monarchies do, they grow in size. It is roughly 1200 toons in it and made up of about 60-80 players with one or more accounts. Quite a few are MIA from AC for about a year now.

Being near the top of it and having a tinker chain under me, I placed a toon at the bottom to level tinkers. All toons have leader and loyalty, except main toon at the top which did not have leadership.

From top to bottom we are talking approx. 8-10 toons. Last toon made 20 mil one day. Next toon got a descent amount of xp.
All following that was pretty much nil. When logged main toon on, Vassels produced 6xp.

I was for this xp chain change, but I think this was a bit drastic.
As for my main toon, I care less about xp passup really, but it is hard to come up with 100+ mil to raise a point of something.

The tinker chain, now that hurts. Don't get me wrong I do pass trophies on to them. that where I started them to begin with.
But once they reach about level 30, you can keep turning trophies in till your blue in the face and it doesn't make a dent.

I think the xp chain needs some more tweaking to it to balance it out a bit. Seems to me in the end you went from one extreme to the other.

Besides rank or friendship, the only other reason to take on lowly newbs and to give them stuff to help out was xp passup.

I am not saying revert it to the way it was, but there must be some sort of compomise that could work for both cases. I have played AC since back in v. 65 beta or so. Have seen many changes come and go. Some good, some bad, some that matter very little.

Trying to balance the game is a good idea, but always seems to go to much to the extreme.

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

In other words... actually removing the UCMs first would have been the "smart" thing to do. If they'd consistently followed up on that premise for the past year and a half, we wouldn't be in this situation now.

I agree whole heartedly concerning the UCMs. But you have to stop there and realize Microsoft was pulling the strings then, not Turbine. Now they are. There's the big difference.

I think the changes are good, but maybe a tad too heavy handed.

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

2. I thought back in late beta testing

Please define "late" beta testing.

I have played AC since back in v. 65 beta or so.

Please define v. 65, and most especially the "or so".

An enquiring mind would like to know. ;)

[StarchaserX]

All the multiple account holders will realise the best way to max xp is thus:

1. Acm and park character(mule) to be pushed in a safe place,
mule runs tradebot or other login program, gets patron xp and fellow xp.

2. If you have multiple accounts, sworn to each other, then you also have Drakiers dual client. Acm 2 at a time in windowed mode.
(admins will have to tag team duos to counter, maybe a waste of resources having 2 admin to test 1 macro person)

Also, being a single account holder, the only way to effectively push another character without trusting someone else, is to get a second account and do one or both of the above.

Why would I get a second account and macro?
because I can no longer push my tinker/trade by myself.

Also because in a 'let's push each other's tinker/trade mules, the lazy person *always* wins.

This change of course was to reduce chaining/macroing, and possibly future changes to reduce the use of 3rd party apps, due to concerns by the anti-macros.

Imho, I see it increasing because of the changes.

What will this do for the new server and potentially the new people coming back that left because of chain/ucm?

Well, if they log in and see little 2 man macro/fellows everywhere,
they probably will not be staying too long.

If Turbine had truly thought this out, there would be a .5% monarch xp bonus from followers, and there would be a way to level mules that by definition, do not make good fighters if most credits are devoted towards crafting/tinkering/buffing.

Or, maybe it is thought out, and they'd rather see little 12 person monarchies that are villa based.

Maybe they'd rather see single account holders by a second account to push.

But with the changes, I see that 90% pass-up+ 10% pass-thru as great incentive to macro 2 accounts.

A little self-defeating, no?

It would have been far better to *lower* the vassel to patron xp
to decrease chaining and better to raise the grandpatron xp so that mules are not stuck.

[StarchaserX]

Send e-mail to their venture capitalists.

They gave Turbine 18 million to develop with.
I am sure they'd be interested in how the subscribers feel about all these changes.

[Bruiserk]

I would send an email to their VC's if I knew who they were, and where to send it.

[Pessimist]

one word
****

[Tas]

XP changes live...Ok, I gave it a shot....and

still sucks, but I think most have come to realize this won't change -

the boards are here so that we can vent - obviously feedback doesn't help, even when there's a ton of it... most of it negative...

I've done what I said - I'm a 4 acct holder, canceled 3 of them.
( 2 accts were plain, low level mules, 1 acct was the secondary acct I used to provide passthru to my trade mule on my main acct.)

For now, my 1 acct is surviving - but that may depend on the "loot changes".

Wish I could see subscription numbers, but it's mostly morbid curiosity - just to see if the subscriptions have dropped since this last patch. I've seen a few "I just may have to come back" messages, but I believe I've only seen one "I have come back" message.

My rating on this xp nerf (1-10, 10 being great): -5 Poorly designed unless it was truly made to make everyone get rid of "excess" accounts. Turbine gave NO thought to monarchs NOR those who use a 2nd acct to lvl up a tradesmule.

[Tesuji Aji]

I think that Ibn has a very unrealistic view of trade skill mules. It would be intresting to see him attempt to lvl a trade mule to say 120 using the items availble in the game w/o hunting.

[Mystech]

I know this was asked earlier but I haven't seen a response or missed.

Under the new CoC then I can't take my trade mule fellow him on my other account and let him stand in a safe place to get him xp through my own fellow?

He would'nt be UCMing just leeching xp I am making for myself on another account that I am paying for. How can this be a violation.

I do this so I can tink or dye to help other members out in the monarchy. There is no way at this point he can get xp without a direct vassel.

Mystech

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

He would'nt be UCMing just leeching xp I am making for myself on another account that I am paying for. How can this be a violation.

It isn't. As long as your mule etc., is just standing there doing nothing (I.E. Not killing anything), then he's not breaking any rules. It would be the same as your main just standing idle while you're AFK, not killing anything.

[ember]

IMO I think they are trying to turn us towards AC2. If that's the case then I'll be unsubscibing. What you are doing is crazy. This is more work than any job I've had. This is a GAME not a job. We are supposed to have fun and use to be enjoyable in the past. You hike up the price then distroy the game? Where is the logic in that? I'm not happy with the way you are turning this game into a chore. I think the days are numbered for either AC or AC2. Which in the case of AC2 I threw a hundred dollars in the trash. (2 accounts). Good luck to you in the future if there is one.

[Gordian]

This change really messed up my own little mini chain. It was non-harmful to anyone but the change ruined it and in the process ruined a lot of fun.

3 things could be done to help IMO.


1) Allow characters on the same account to swear to each other. Previously I had a dead account to link toons together. Now with the changes those dead toons suck up almost all of the XP I generate on the live toons.

2) Allow a higher level toon to swear to a lower level toon so people can level mules. Even if imposing a 10 or 20% maximum difference it would sure help. How can I level my various mules if they are all lower than my playable toons?

3) expensive, gambling related, XP rewards to help level mules between 45 and 125. The current gambling rewards can't really help level mules beyond lvl 45. Making mnemosynes mule-able would also help. The gromnie teeth rewards really only make sense at the highest levels where a mule is close to maxing out trades or tinkering skills.

[JustaGuy]

My ? is if self nolonger counts in to this skill anymore. Why not give the skills free to all players and give me my 8 skill points back. I would like to see self count for them again. I just logged in game with new patch and WoW. Lot has gone on when I was away =(


Would like to see some feed back on the skill point issue.

Thx

[Bleys Icefalcon]

OK, maybe I'm not the brightest candle on the cake, so bear with me here...

Please someone explain to me, using small words so I can understand, HOW MY play style effects......ANYONE elses? If my goal is to achieve astronomical skills through relentless hours hunting in an EXP Chain - I cannot comprehend how what I am doing within the guidelines of the rules is in any way shape or form ruining the game for any of you. You play it the way you choose to. Hoorah for you. I sincerely applaud you. You have every right to enjoy the game any way you choose fit. I do not have any right to dictate to you how you will enjoy YOUR AC1. But the part I need a little clarification on is this: WHAT IS IT ABOUT EXP CHAINING AND TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE (PRE) EXISTING GAME MECHANICS THAT HAD PEOPLE SO UPSET? It's how the game was designed. Getting mad at people for taking advantage of an obvious benefit is, well, rather mean spirited, don't ya think?

Several people are upset about the back to back Uber Nerfs for a very valid reason: We are losing our game play and style. In many cases entire allegiences are coming apart at the seams. At this age of a Game, any Game, you don't suddenly make sweeping changes like this. It's irresponsible to try and turn AC into a different game alltogether, and not expect the core of the player base to rebel.

Game balance is all well and good, but the changes that have JUST happened, and those delineated in the March letter - make me wonder if a few of the people on this thread are right, that Turbine is no longer concerned with their long term player base, and are just going to drive the game towards a new player market and all us old foleys be damned.

Am I going to quit over it? Honestly, undecided. I am going to hope that someone realizes that these HUGE changes are hurtful to a BULK of the player base, and that the needs/wants and desires of that loyal community are not outrightly ignored. I love the game, and am saddened by all of the "Goodbyes" and "Unsubscribes" I am seeing. If anything else, these changes HAVE made a difference to other titles, such as Horizons and the upcoming WoW - it's driven several players away - towards them.

When I heard that Turbine was taking over autonomous control of AC I was thrilled.

This has turned into mortification.

[StarchaserX]

Highland Capitol Partners
Polaris Venture Partners

Look it up on google.

[Iceness]

Ty for nuking teh chains but you might want to consider toning down the vassal to patron max passup... its a little much at 90%

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

Getting mad at people for taking advantage of an obvious benefit is, well, rather mean spirited, don't ya think?

The vast majority of players are mid/late teenagers. It's a well known fact, kids in general, are mean spirited. That's just the way it is.

[Powr]

A state of equilibrium or parity characterized by cancellation of all forces by equal opposing forces.

The power or means to decide.

A stable mental or psychological state; emotional stability.

A harmonious or satisfying arrangement or proportion of parts or elements, as in a design.

An influence or force tending to produce equilibrium; counterpoise.

The difference in magnitude between opposing forces or influences.

I have read the majority of the responses here as well as Turbine's stated intentions and direction and what I have seen is basically 3 schools of thought:

1. Leave it alone: XP Chain is good and hurts no one. Gives ability to advance non-fighting mules and Trade Skill characters. Gives smaller allegiances ability to compete with the big ones. Provides incentive to take on newb's and help them advance.

2. Love the change: XP Chain is bad. Puts everyone on equal footing. Makes each character have to earn its own way. Places emphasis on direct relationships and increases motivation toward group play.

3. Split the difference: XP Chain is neither good nor bad (or is both good AND bad) it is the people behind them that determine the ethical character. Changes go too far and nerf players ability to advance non-fighting mules/Trade skills chars. Hurts small allegiances that will be unable to rearrange to maximize passup.

Turbine is standing in the midst of this triangle with the stated purpose of "Balance" - yet there must be a standard by which balance is measured and thereby achieved. Now in a situation where everthing is weighted equally this is a simple matter - Turbine stands directly in the middle and voila'...balance!

BUT...there are more forces at work here and as Ibn stated from the outset "this is not a democracy". Each person weighing in on this has had a particular perspective built upon their own vantage point. Turbine has probably the best scope of the situation since they can see the viewpoints top to bottom AND they can see the bottom line - the profit margin AND they know what is planned for next month, next year, etc.

The wide disparity between the opposing views makes it even harder - no, impossible to find a common ground where all are satisfied (that will never happen - it is simply not life!). So Turbine has to determine the standards by which "balance" is measured. The problem I see in the most extreme and passionate player responses here is that each is weighting their own position differently and therefore "balance" for those in group 1 above is quite different than for those in group 2 or 3 and each group tends to discount or dismiss the view of those farthest in opposition to them in either direction.

Let's face it, we all play AC1 because we enjoy the arena it provides on some level or another - I mean no sane individual will continue to pay for something they truly hate doing (that only happens with taxes). So we each have a point at which our personal standard tips to either playing or not playing - and those standards are different for each individual - they can be similar, but no two will be identical.

Turbine is a company in business to turn a profit. It is responsible to its investors to show a reasonable return and its developmental decisions in the end, must be based upon sound fiscal principle or else they fail as a company and we all lose our arena. Thus the standards by which they measure "balance" in the game to a great degree has to be directed by the effect on the bottom line - subscriptions and profitability.

Are Turbine and its investors going to be swayed by a one month dip in subscriptions? Two? Three? Six...A Year? At what point does a single decision in game development become THE single reason for a dip in sales? All that have argued that this change has hurt the subscriptions (even if you personally cancelled 10 accounts and you know of 5 others who did the same) you are still making this argument based on emotion and speculation, certainly not fact - unless you work in accounting at Turbine or sit on the Board or are in some other way privvy to the actual numbers.

So many hot-button issues have come up over the life of this game that would most certainly "ruin it" and bring about its demise almost overnight - if the most vocal critics were correct. Let's see, there was Decal, Lewt vs No-Lewt, Thieves, Grieffers, GEAR, Server Lag, Loot Rebalance I and now II, Creature Rebalance I, XP Chains, UCM's, Housing, Niro and his EBay Villa sales, Trade bots, Portal Bots, Buff Bots, ElTank...shall I continue? I read posts regarding each of these items that adamantly decried "IT" [place your personal favorite here] was the beginning of the end of AC1 - OMG, even AC2 was supposed to cause the collapse of AC1!

Yet it is still here. If a particular element became a true detriment to the game then a means was found to stop it. Did the "fix" always go in overnight? No. Some of the "issues" were not issues at all because the long term plan of the devs either made the point of contention moot or eliminated it altogether. Others required the feedback of the players to bring about a solution.

The other point I think is being missed in all of these arguments that take such a strong opinionated stand one way or the other. Turbine has never told the players EVERYTHING that is in the pipeline. These guys are not living from month to month going "Gee Whiz, what should I write into the game this month?" We have been given broad brush strokes at times - but the mystery of what is coming next is part of the allure of the game and therefore a boost to the bottom line for Turbine! It the ever changing landscape that makes this thing tick and brings the challenge to the player base to "improvise, adapt and overcome" (to borrow a line from Clint Eastwood). There are plot lines and story arcs drawn out for years of development. Does that mean it is etched in stone? Not at all. They have demonstrated over the years their ability to switch gears when they hit upon an element that works or something fails miserably. It is again, this ability to adjust, this very fluidity that keeps the train rolling.

This all being said, as I indicated in an earlier post, I fall in with the group that feels the changes were too drastic. In an effort to "correct" what was perceived a problem they have swung too far to the other end of the spectrum. But this opinion is based only on what I know and cannot account for everything "they" know that I am unaware of (either by my own ignorance or that it has not yet been revealed.) I am certain however, that it will balance out over time as we continue to input relevant and rational argumentation both for and against these developments. Will I join a letter writing campaign to the "investors" to try to force my view? No. My "bottom line" is this is a game - entertainment, and as such it is counterproductive for me to invest negative emotional energy by trying to steer policy in an arena where my stake is so minimal and my scope is so limited. The game is what it is and will become what it becomes - when the cost (emotionally and financially) exceeds the percieved return to me I will move on to other things. That is the way of capitalism. In the meantime I will continue to enjoy it as I always have and find the content that appeals to my senses.

[Setolc]

My main character will reach her 4-year birthday at the end of this month. I have enjoyed and continue to enjoy AC these past 4 years. I have never participated in a traditional “xp” chain. That said I do have a concern about the allegiance changes.

I strongly believe that the effect upon monarchs is unduly harsh. I do not know what mechanism is available to the developers, but I think an increase in passthru to the monarch should be considered.

I have read those who post that a monarch should simply move up the line the playing characters to gain from the allegiance changes.....

Our allegiance is formed of mini-clans. The characters tied to the monarch, with the age of the game, are ones that are not played routinely. In my particular case, its because I enjoy playing a mage and UA’r on occasion. Both of these secondary characters have been tied to a tinkerer that cannot gain experience directly through traditional (combat) means. So I am taking advantage of the allegiance changes to improve our tinkerer’s skills. The impact is that my monarch sees no xp benefit when I play these characters – but still has all of the work to arrange quests and events for my characters.

In addition, we tied our characters in a manner that provides the rank to enable us to keep our mansion. So we cannot simply move playing characters up to the monarch to benefit his progression.

I do not even want to think about the changes that were made to Villas and the disparity of maintenance between a Villa and a Mansion… <sigh>

I have seen those that say, to paraphrase, being a monarch is its own reward, why are you concerned with experience?

I would respond that being a monarch takes a lot of game time and as such, takes away from the ability of the monarch to play and advance his or her character. Just because someone chooses to take on the responsibility of an allegiance does not mean that they should simply become a servant to that allegiance.

In summary, I still enjoy this game, but I believe that the impact upon monarchs was unduly harsh and would recommend that the developers reconsider this impact.

[Xada_SC]

This game has always been an exercise in flexibility and adjustment to change, the monthly updates have been good and bad, double edged swords if you will.

All changes have had their supporters and detractors. You can't please everyone.

To Turbine management, I must say this, as a business person, and I still assume you view this game as a business, you must consider the ROI your changes will provide.

I believe this change will result in a negative ROI.

You have a loyal player base, you have income, you just made a change that will result in a decent percentage reduction in account renewalls.

Why?

The majority of players I know, have UCM'd, they have Chained, they have done what was allowed to level quickly. They played the system within the framework provided.

...and they are spoiled.

This change serves to remove the last bastion of hope at leveling in a reasonable time, for the most loyal players, the long-standing players, who have played the UCM/Chain game that Turbine gave us, many of us quit UCM'ing when you outlawed it, I was one.

I think to alienate such a large population now, is dangerous to the health of the game. In coming months I believe you will see the populations decline.

The hope of bringing new blood to the game is false. The game simply doesn't offer the eye-candy required to draw an average main-stream gamer into the intrigue which lies below the clunky GUI. And as you have said, some things can be done, but not much to improve the existing GUI, certainly nothing on the order of AC2 or the latest 1st person shooter of the month.

So we have the negatives of removing a major leveling aid at the high levels so many of us have reached, and provided nothing to supplant that, resulting in a net loss of enjoyment for many of us.

Such a loss will cause some people to leave

There is critical mass at which point many people will begin to quit playing because so many of their friends have left, they have nobody really that they love to spend time with.

Whats sad is the harmful pain you will have caused to real people through a change in a virtual world. Real people, who live real lives look to this game as an escape, a way out of RL that isn't so black and white.

Over the years, I've felt loss several times due to the sweeping changes introduced by Turbine under the banner of "balance" and "fairness", many real people have felt real pain, the pain of close personal friends quitting, losing touch, the loss of many who chained, some who UCM'd, and even lately some who quit because of the fundamental loss of PK to the costless play of PKL.

I'm sorry to see the changes, because I don't want to loose contact with more of my friends, but...its already happening. Its hurtful, its similar to when a RL friend dies.

I have friends who I've never met in this game, and I've lived through harrowing virtual experiences, great accomplishments of skill, and teamwork. Many of them have been so saddened by the change, that I don't see them more than once a week now.

I log on now out of habbit. But the continual pain will change that in time. I'll see it as a more painful experience to logon than to stay away.

Perhaps I should step back, and thank you. I'm sure my Wife would like to.

You're right Ibn, AC is not a democracy, but neither is my Dictatorship control of the decision to send Turbine my monthly Credit card payment, and neither are the decisions of all your paying customers.

I respectully recommend that Turbine focus on the business of providing a virtual world that provides more enjoyable reasons to play, not less.

Thank you for the opportunity to express my feeble opinions on the topic.

Respectfully yours,

Brad

[edited for clarification]

[Bluefang]

Originally posted by FmrSentFlatfoot
2. I thought back in late beta testing

Please define "late" beta testing.

I have played AC since back in v. 65 beta or so.

Please define v. 65, and most especially the "or so".

An enquiring mind would like to know. ;)
---------------------------------------------------------------

Late beta testing...as in prior to AC1 going retail. I beta tested AC1 for around a year.

v.65 ...as in back in beta, each new version of game update had a version. v.65, v.66, etc....
Last beta version I beleive was somewhere around v.95, give or take a few.

or so.... as in plus or minus so would be like: I played beta AC since version v.60 to v.67 uptil it went retail and then since it went retail.

[Bluefang]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Xada_SC
[B]The majority of players I know, have UCM'd, they have Chained, they have done what was allowed to level quickly. They played the system within the framework provided.
...and they are spoiled.


Ah speak for your self. I have NEVER UCM'd and most of the p[layers I know have not. There was a few caught doing it in the monarchy and they were booted out as a Monarchy rule that UMC was not allowed.

So don't try to lump most everyone into it.

[Xada_SC]

Please do not take my words out of context.

I believe my statement was "the majority of players I know"...

The population you are familiar with is obviously a different group of players, I did not refer to "everyone" or "all people" or as you said "try to lump everyone into it".

If I was unclear with my speech I appologize, it was not my intent to offend anyone.

I simply have an interest in the preservation of this game that I love, and feel an obligation to express my opinions when I feel the actions of the developers threaten the long-term stability of this game and the friends in its virtual world that both have I grown to love.

[ABushDT]

IBN, I think that changing the system this late in the game is horrible, i've recently returned to ac and im a level 81, and I play darktide and only darktide, I love to pvp but with these new changes it's making it impossible since everyone that I see pvping is 126+ Most are 180-200! how do you expect me to enjoy my time in game, Level? No..ive been doing that since my return...and im already getting "burnt out" and ready to quit. People don't play darktide to level, and yes I also want a level 200 other people have them..and how hard did they have to work? Not very hard all they had to do is be in a chain and or macro... if this post doesn't get a decent reply and not a beat around the bush one...(for instance...get some vassels to help you level..that doesnt work on darktide...if I help vassels I will have less time to level myself which is what im constantly doing..) I will be cancelling my account, these changes are not fair

[mellow cat]

The general description of this change sounded good: make treasure and scrolls more appropriate for the level of the characters. But it isn't working that way in practice for me. I'm finding that where I used to get lev V and VI scrolls I'm finding level III and IVs. Plus the value of the treasure I find is way way down. Since most of my chars are learning lev V and VI spells, I used to loot all I found. But now they're just junk and I can't find any monsters I can touch that drop the scrolls I need. And the rate at which I can gather treasure isn't enough to pay for buffs, so my rate of getting exp is going down really fast.

If the goal of the change was to make chars more dependent on their patrons, I supposed its succeeding, but its for me its just making the game boring, since all I can do is grind away at killing the same mobs trying to earn pyreals.

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

Late beta testing...as in prior to AC1 going retail. I beta tested AC1 for around a year.

I see. Interesting. A friend and I started the very first influx of closed-beta players, April 1999. AC1 went retail November 2/99.

Not sure where you think you were in Nov. '98, but thanks for the clarification. :rolleyes:

[Bleys Icefalcon]

Ok, I have ranted, and likely won't stop any time soon, but, this said:

IBN - Why punish the Monarchs? I understand the reasoning behind the exp changes, to kill the evil spawn of the devil chainers who must all burn for 1000 years - but your nerf virtually erradicated the Monarch's received passup as well. Let me explain. My Monarch has all of his Direct Vassal slots filled. Of those only FOUR play, and only two frequently. The rest are in key positions holding down rank and such. The way the game was designed, he WAS rewarded for all of the work invloved with being a Monarch of 4000+ toons by receiving that Passup. Now, all he gets is the pirvilege of saying he's Da King and has some rank. The /a Thing took away the nifty "Allegience Speaker" thing. Ummmm - he didn't do anything to deserve losing his Passup. He earns every single point of it. Now he no longer gets it. Both of the players who are active beneath him play multiple toons on their accounts. So he doesn't get that passup very often.

So - again - why hurt the Monarchs? Why hurt my king? Is there an active plan in the works to repair this? To allow people with the "monarch flag" of sufficient rank to warrant some kind of kicker? Or is this intended to tear the big monarchies apart, force a reorginazation? That's what it looks like to me.

He logged into 7 Exp the other day. His was one of the very first characters created on Harvestgain. The Golden Elm himself has been ever a kind, honorable, good guy as long as I have known him (like, since we both started). Thick and thin he has stayed the course and been a defender of the land of Dereth.

That 7 Exp was like the Devs reached through the computer and slapped him in the face.

So, again, I pose the question - Why punish the Monarchs?

[Sho Nilrem]

hm at first pass i was unconcerned about this but have had sometime to live with it now and all i can say is MISTAKE

not only do the monarch's get nerfed but also all the non chainers that have worked hard for years to build up rank and develop a group (sub-clan if you will) of freinds and vassals

i findmyself in the horrible place of thinkiking about resturcturing my sub-clan in order to cut out those toons as only play once in awhile or like my main vassal is on vacation for another 3 MONTHS and i have toons that i often play under her which would passup xp to my oldest toon now well over 3 yrs old.....


yep my feelings are now very clear

YOU NERFED IT

[Shidoshi]

My opinion is you still haven't gone far enough. Anyone who can log into multi-millions of expereince without having played/ logged/ or killed a single monster is still in need of serious work!

To promote the Allegiance system where is the reward for staying with the same patron since day one? I would like to see a LOYALTY bonus.

Forget the whiners on these threads, who can't go out and earn their own exp, I would love to see ZERO passup of experience through the allegiance system, and maybe come up with another reward for loyalty.

How about a server of our own for the MANY that feel the same way as I do. Zero passup server, non-chain!

[Bleys Icefalcon]

Ummmm,

When my monarch DOES log in he ends up helping everyone and fielding questions and running quests and buffing people, or meeting with people or working trades/issues/disputes and any of a billion things inherent in running large clan.

He doesn't get to log on for hours on end.

He doesn't get to go to the high end EXP Dungeons for mad fellow exp.

He doesn't have time for that.

How we all wanted to GIVE him his exp, how he EARNED his exp WAS by being a GREAT Monarch and Friend. Byttaking care of his clan and the people in it.

Passup, like it or not, want it or not, was - and continues to be an integral part of the game.

Maybe YOU don't think he earns it. Glad your not in our clan.

[Bruiserk]

There's no reason to be a monarch anymore. Just like there's no reason to own a mansion anymore.

Based on recent updates, there's no reason to trust them when they say that they'll make owning a mansion worthwhile in the future.

I'm still fuming over the fact that I can't level my trade mule anymore. No planning on how to level trade mules before the changes. Not a word on any plans for leveling them in the future.

Ow, my ass is still bleeding.

[LeifThorssonJr]

Originally posted by FmrSentFlatfoot
The vast majority of players are mid/late teenagers. It's a well known fact, kids in general, are mean spirited. That's just the way it is.

i would be willing to bet ALOT of money that most of the super-anti everydanged thing people are in their mid thirties or older...

i'd bet most of them have decent to well paying jobs, that bore the **** out of them, and where they have no real power... so they come here to force SOMEONE to something they want.....

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

LeifThorssonJr: I beg to differ. It's only logic that most players are young kids, by how they talk and behave in general. All one really needs to do is go peruse VN Boards (especially Leafcull server section) and see the outright neverending childish banter (Moderators included) that makes up for 95% of the posts. It would be shocking to imagine 30+ year olds acting and behaving like that.

The 30+ year olds are usually the laid back, mostly quiet ones who just want to hunt and have fun with their friends. Very few exceptions.

The Ayan Lifestone is a great place to prove that "young teenagers" are what make up the majority. Adults in general aren't going to waste their entire $13/month chasing other players around for hours on end, day after day, month after month just to get one measly kill, and especially not those who are killed 40 times a night and the instant they are, are "looking for a fight" again. LOL Talk about B-O-R-I-N-G! Reminds me of a production line, and the automaton humans slogging away assembling the same piece for weeks on end. That's not a life... that's drudgery, but associating that scenario to AC, the kids LOVE IT! They think it's the best thing since sliced bread, proving that they truly are kids and don't know the difference, because they haven't experienced real life yet. :eek:

In my case, well, hehe.. I'm almost 50 and very laid back. I want no part of PK, I find it a big turn-off, plus the last thing I'd ever allow is to be stereotyped as just another potty-mouth punk who thinks he's real K00L by telling others things that as a kid, I would've had my mouth washed out with soap for saying! This is where I'm hoping the +Envoys start dishing out bans... because these kids have done it for so long now, they figure it's their god-given right! The CoC? Bah! I don't have to obey those out of date foolish rules (they think), I can do and say anything I want with impunity. I sure hope Jessica was serious about putting a STOP to that stuff, or AC will remain a 3rd rate game to the adult population.... those same adults with kids that would love to play but won't be allowed unless Turbine cleans out the Trash first.

[Quetozin]

Well, after the patch has come and gone, I can say that two of my three accounts were cancelled, and I decided to give my allegiance up as well. Frankly, I think Ibn's comments were a slap in my face when he said that they never considered the experience chain an exploit. It left me wondering what the point of working so hard to keep them out of my allegiance was.

Another problem is the lack of experience I got from followers. I'm not saying that I need more, but it's a rather extreme drop. A few months ago I generally logged in for 3-4 hours a night and would spend two of those easy on allegiance matters. I rarely got a chance to hunt in peace, and although I felt the numbers were extreme it was nice to at least feel like I got some reward for my efforts. Now there's no tangible benefit to being a Monarch at all, nothing but ego. If I don't like it, it's been suggested that I rearrange my allegiance.

So, we have the statement that chains are not an exploit. We have the attitude that we should rearrange things to maximize experience. Clearly what we do NOT have is any demonstrated respect for the allegiance system--the spirit of which so many of us faithfully adhered in the face of the chainers and macroers. Once the allegiance system was a tool of polite society--the closest thing to a judicial system that AC had. Chains and macros severely undermined that, but there were still many of us who felt that it was worth saving and worth supporting. Unfortunately, none of the decision makers seem to think our efforts made a difference, or were even warranted.

There is no respect for history that I see. I have some--I maintain no illusion that Turbine will even consider that they may have made a mistake. They've completely reshaped a game dynamic, annoying those who they ostensibly targetted (the chainers) and alienating the leadership of the traditional allegiances. It looks like the only group that did benefit were the solo hunters, but their days look numbered as well with the advent of fellowship restricted quests.

I sincerely hope that someday a group of enterprising developers comes out with a game that captures the spirit that AC once had. I remember when the monthly event was more about quests and storylines than nerfs and plans. What has been done is just not fun, and I haven't felt the desire to log in throughout the last month. The few times I have forced myself to, I have noticed numbers significantly lower than those I remember--750 to 800 versus over 1000 regularly as little as two months ago. I doubt my observations mean much, as success is measured by active subscribers and not active players. Still, it's a shame that it's ending like this. At least the person to whom I gave my allegiance who will likely do a better job than I did in running it.

[Cuttler]

Originally posted by Quetozin


So, we have the statement that chains are not an exploit. We have the attitude that we should rearrange things to maximize experience. Clearly what we do NOT have is any demonstrated respect for the allegiance system--the spirit of which so many of us faithfully adhered in the face of the chainers and macroers. Once the allegiance system was a tool of polite society--the closest thing to a judicial system that AC had. Chains and macros severely undermined that, but there were still many of us who felt that it was worth saving and worth supporting. Unfortunately, none of the decision makers seem to think our efforts made a difference, or were even warranted.



whole heartely agree and I coudn't have said it better myself!

[TRuthSeer]

Altho the Allegiance chain changes have effected me little (I had to arrange a couple people around my mules so I can keep lvling em), that was a great post m8. You are dead on about the spirit of AC and all the hard work of being a monarch (I was one for a couple years and stoped when the only way to compete was those darn chains). Good job toughing it out tho.... and your reward is? Hopefully as you said someone will capture the spirit again....

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

If AC had been created without the possibility to have the insane XP Chains we've all been used to since the start. If the game had operated exactly the way it has been changed to just recently; that's the only system all of you ever would've known, and you ALL would've accepted and lived with it the same as you've lived with the way it's been for the past 4 years, until now.

Monarch's still would've taken on the same responsibilities and spent the countless hours/days/weeks/months on building their respectives guilds. Everything that you've ever done since the start, you still would've done under a system like we have currently.

So what it boils down to, and why you're all fed-up, depressed, and cancelling your accounts and leaving AC, is the mass XP you got on a daily basis. Sad but very true. You're all leaving because you won't be getting anymore days of logging into 100+ Million XP. That's it in a nutshell. It's all about points, it's all about Ego of being Uber High Level.

The thought that you'll actually have to WORK for your XP now is too much for you to bear. The only reason you stayed and helped other players get ahead, was for the XP you'd get in return. So then the help was not a giving of yourself so that others could have fun... you came to expect a reward for all you ever did for others.

Well, fine... enjoy yourself in some other game. Those of us who will stay, will continue to help people out who need it, and not for the rewards of mass experience points, but just because we enjoy having FUN and helping others for the sole purpose of helping others.

I'm so happy they've finally removed the GREED factor. Now maybe this game can work like it should've from the start. All about friendships, questing, and just plain FUN.

Good luck to all you who are leaving and left... may you find something you can be happy with. You'll liklely never find a game anything like what AC used to be ever again, but good luck trying. ;)

[Cuttler]

Sorry Flatfoot, I never logged into 100 million + in my life and I still don't like these changes. Most I ever saw was about 40 million after being off line for 2 days, but that was enough for me. Now when I'm off line for two days I'll be lucky to log into 4 million. My SMALL monarchy, which this change was intended to HELP OUT did not chain. We DID NOT maximize xp, we simply put our characters where they could help each other based on the current system. And we, the SMALL monarchies, are feeling the pain of this change more then the larger monarchies who have the numbers to rearrange with in the new system guidelines.


You are exactally correct that if the system had been this way from the start no one would be complaining. But we would have built different monarchies from the start as well. It is just not possible to "rearange" to how we would have been built this late in the game. And seeing xp taken away is NO DIFFERENT than someone who had to take a pay cut in their job. You are expected to do the same job for less pay. Well now monarchs are expeced to do the same work for less reward. Same difference and it not very satasfying. But the monarch of the guild is not the only one who works for it. I have several followers who run quests and events and they are getting **** for xp rewards as well. I have never denied that SOMETHING had to be done to break the chains, I did not like them either, but I think the choice made to do so was a poor one. The xp reward (and that is what it was, a reward for giving assistance) should have gone though to at least the grand patron, probally the great-grand patron, and than stopped completly. And the monarch should have received a small % from each follower as well.

[Tas]

Originally posted by FmrSentFlatfoot

So what it boils down to, and why you're all fed-up, depressed, and cancelling your accounts and leaving AC, is the mass XP you got on a daily basis. Sad but very true. You're all leaving because you won't be getting anymore days of logging into 100+ Million XP. That's it in a nutshell. It's all about points, it's all about Ego of being Uber High Level.

The thought that you'll actually have to WORK for your XP now is too much for you to bear. The only reason you stayed and helped other players get ahead, was for the XP you'd get in return. So then the help was not a giving of yourself so that others could have fun... you came to expect a reward for all you ever did for others.



Obviously you've never been a true monarch, I was one for about 2 months then gave it up - I would stand for hours without EVER moving simply answering /tells from vassals, then after the /tells were done, had to do bod recoveries, then when that was done, plan the quests, and after that, finally, if there was any time left, try to spend some time with my vassals... and I wasn't even a large monarchy at ALL... Those that do this for months and years on end deserve kudos and a lot more than a few experience points. Too bad turbine doesn't see this.

Also, if you've noticed, most people haven't "left" they've retired mule accounts just as I have.

[Xada_SC]

After all the grief we gave Ken Karl for his changes....

lol... I bet he is laughing his tail off at all of us now 8)

I wish he'd come back.

At least he appeared to research and take a long time before he changed things, he seemed to have an insight into something we are all just now coming to fully realize.

Don't change things until you fully understand the impact the changes will have.

Study, study, study, and when you are sure u understand, think about it for another couple months and study some more....

KK, COME BACK!!!

SAVE AC BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

Tas: Sounds to me, for as much as you think you've been a better monarch, that you went too much overboard with the help, denying yourself to get any hunting in. It's okay to be helpful and stand around all day and do nothing but answer questions (I've spent a LOT of time myself doing such, being that my main is 7 months old (game time)). Have you ever maybe thought about finding out if anyone else would be interested in HELPing out and doing some of the menial chores you do, even maybe taking turns and then delegating the appropriate people? That's how an organized monarchy survives.

Those that do this for months and years on end deserve kudos and a lot more than a few experience points.

Sorry, I don't agree. You do it because you WANT to do it out of sheer helpfulness for your fellow man, and not because you will profit. If you want profit, why not tell all your new recruits that there is a mandatory MMD Charge per week allowing them the privilegde to stay in your monarchy, to help pay for everything the monarch needs. Do that and you won't have any followers. Asking your followers if they wouldn't mind helping to cover costs of things to keep the ship afloat is whole different thing... let THEM choose when and how much they'll donate, and when they do, say THANKS! :)


Cuttler: Some clans have gotten 100+ Mil/day, some hardcore chains have even gotten 300+ Mil/day. Yes, that's total lunacy. But 40+ Mil/day is also nothing to sneeze at. You can still level up real FAST on a consistent 40 mil a day. Even 40 mil every two days.

I'm not going to beat around the bush, I got used to figures of 100-150 mil/day myself, on two seperate characters. I thought it was great at first, and yes I allowed it to forge onward... hard to stop when you get used to it, it becomes like a narcotic addiction, you want more and more as time goes on. Some people even started to believe they deserved it for all they did. That was when I put my foot down and said WHOA! This is crazy now... the people who were used to that kind of XP on a daily basis were now thinking they deserved it? Hell, they didn't spend hours every day helping, they helped yes, but not continuously. So while all the lower levels were out slogging away to earn their levels, these big cats sat at the top sucking in all this XP for basically no output. Not fair! Situation is out of hand.. we need a change! So thank you Turbine for changing it, even though it took years for it to happen.

Why would you have built different monarchies? You say that now because you know that non-active vassals can harm your throughput. But my view is, who cares about throughput if you can only truly benefit the one character above you? I'm doing this now.. my Tinker Mule is the Monarch with myself pushing direct to it. Yes I have two others who are also sworn direct, but then the tinker benefits everyone, not just myself. Then, the tinker mule also has about 8 more non-actives sworn just because it's always been like that. Am I gonna drop them so I can maybe make an extra 2% XP diff? Not on your life, and not going to drop any vassal off my other characters. I don't care about seeing 90% passup from a vassal... 60% is quite sufficient, which is far better than before.

Comparing playing a game to a real-life job, is talking apples and oranges. The two do not correlate one bit, so don't even attempt to give what happens in a GAME the same credence as what you go through out in the real world. Jeesh!

You keep talking about reward this, reward that. Who cares about rewards!? Are you playing this game to have fun with the friends you've made, or are you playing this game for the rewards to your character, so you can grow by leaps and bounds for the menial little things that you ocassionally do? It's a GAME, nothing more, nothing less! Real Life has Real Consquences, a GAME does not! Real Life Achievements deserve rewards, GAME Achievements do not! What's the problem here that's so difficult to comprehend?

Do it because you WANT to do it. Do it because it's in your makeup to be helpful to others. But if you do it ONLY for that reward, then you've missed the whole concept and you've been playing the wrong game for the past four years.

If you see a person laying on the street, bleeding to death from whatever injury, is it in your makeup to try and help that person, or are you just another rubberneck that passes by, looks, and continues on like it doesn't matter? If you're the rubberneck type, then Asheron's Call is the wrong game for you. You should be playing first-person shooters all day where people laying on the ground bleeding to death are a way of life.

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

Xada_SC: ROFL! Ken Karl come back? No thank you very much! Stay away is more like it! It's because of Ken Karl that this game was turned from a clean family oriented game, into the gross cesspool stench that we find it in today!

He was the one who single-handedly removed the entire Volunteer Team that made this game work properly, and kept everything in check, just due to the sheer number of volunteers that gave their ALL to it, for FREE... never expecting a penny in reward.

What Jessica and her team is doing is FAR FAR more competant than ANYTHING Ken Karl ever did, period.

You don't know, because you never got to see behind the curtain what kinds of things went on. I did.

Anyway, that's all I'm gonna say about it. KK Ruined this game, and now hopefully Turbine can clean up all the trash he left behind from all his stupid decisions which pandered to all the troublemakers.

[Heideggar]

For the strict view of patron-vassal relationship, I think it works out well.

For a monarch-vassal relationship, it doesn't work out well.

For a patron -vassal's vassal relationship, it doesn't work out well.

Your rewards (xp) doesn't get to monarchs or patrons who help people more than one level down from them, essentially anyone who's a vassal's vassal's.... vassal's vassal.

No monarch is going to tell their friends to restructure for them to get more xp, nor break up patron/vassal ties to get optimal xp.

You could have done things to make this system smoother and make more people happy by allowing xp to pass up more tiers (2-3). Nothing was commented on this from all the posts I've read. I'd love to know the reasoning why something like that couldn't have been put in.

Also, monarchs get pretty shafted. Though, you had said you would be putting things into the game to help monarchs. I don't wanna put words into your mouths, but I had interpreted some responses by the Devs as saying you would be putting things into the game to make up for the lack of reward(xp) for helping followers.

However, that has been quite some time. I'm beginning to think you've implemented the allegiance xp changes without having the WHOLE plan ready to be put in step-by-step. We saw the changes in January (right?), and it will be 3 months from that time until the next patch. I'd like to think you will be putting in the rest, and final part of the allegiance xp passup system in April, but I think we all know that you aren't.

I have little optimism for you guys putting ANYTHING into AC.

Patches are pretty buggy, but you guys had SOOO many bugs in this last patch. Then problems with the AC:DM keys ? I guess Jessica helped resolve that problem, but I get the feeling that things aren't going so well. Seems to be digressing over at the office.

I haven't seen anything in the past several months that would make me think otherwise. Even your attempt at letting us know about future plans has fallen short. Our feedback, imo, holds little to no weight with you guys, when you've insinuated that it would.

I kinda got off track there.

XP-allegiance changes are fine, as long as you don't expect there to be any sort of Monarch who helps people, or patrons who help everyone in their branch of the monarchy.

[Cuttler]

Heideggar i agree with your post 100%. Unfornatually the "nifty" gifts to monarchs will be like the ablity to block people or accounts from swaring into your allegiance. Although I agree that that is a nice ability, I'd rather have the xp bonus over something so easy as logging in and typing /allegiance boot *******. Nothing else has been promised in the way of xp bonuses, however. They are most certainally finished with this topic despite the large amounts of negative feedback both before and after the change.

[embien]

xp for trade mules

My allegiance trade mule, who has been three years in the making, is sufficiently skilled to make any item in the game (at least any that I have been called upon to craft).

However, tinkering is a whole other game. You just can't have too high a tinkering skill, I'd imagine, else your allegiance mates are going to be unhappy when their items get destroyed (sometimes that 5% chance of failure is going to bite you).

With the XP system the way it is now, my trade mule logs on to find 10,000-20,000 points of XP passed up. This is a laughable amount when it costs 30 million XP to raise a skill one point.

Since every ounce of XP this toon has garnered over the years has gone into increasing skills, his fighting ability is negligible (I think his dagger skill is like 74 LOL). He's perpetually overburdened with comps (as are all trade mules). There is just no viable way for him to get XP. So, what is he to do? He can't hunt for XP, he can't get significant XP by crafting items, the proposed "trophies" XP looks to be insignificant, as well, and now he gets virtually no XP passed up from others in the allegiance (we're not talking chains here, we are a small allegiance that was never specifically organized for XP passup).

The game sure is a lot less fun the last few months and getting less fun each and every day. I've been playing since beta and have always loved AC, but the recent changes have not helped the game IMHO. What do I care if someone else participates in an XP chain? I don't PK and I don't hunt, so someone else's XP gain doesn't affect me one iota.

I wish I could level my trade mule.

[TRuthSeer]

2-3 tier exp thing might work, also more unique loot for different ranks might help also. Perhaps titles and subguilds would help add a more 'nation' like feel.
Would have been nice if Turbine had implemented more Monarchy love as a whole first b4 changing the underline structure of it.


FmrSentFlatfoot I agree whole hardedly, that KK should not only never come back, but turbine should put out a restraining order to never let him near anything AC related.......

[Kyayote]

I think it's good. It'll bring back the closeness in clans I would hope.
Kya

[Cuttler]

How is that going to happen Kya? The only person with insentive to help a person is the direct patron. No one else in a monarchy benifits from the xp bonus.

[Kyayote]

I guess all the more reason to do more clan activities. Not being in it just for the xp's.
Kya

[She-Nyyx]

Originally posted by Action
How does it hurt you that you'll have to work harder than someone else did to get to the same level? If you like the game, then you like the game. Why would you care if someone else is level 200+ and you're not?


Excellent point!

I lucked out in my vassals (most of whom I have because their creators wanted to swear into our guild and I was the toon that happened to be on :cool: )

If you really need to level your tinker/trade mule, why not get some of your friends to go hunting with you?

[StarchaserX]

The % should be changed though:
from vassel to patron: min and max: 25%- 50%
from vassel to grand-patron: 12.5%-25%
.5%-1% to monarch depending if loyalty trained or spec.

Remove the loyalty skill altogether and make it time based:
everyone moves up 2.5% or 5% a month pass-up/pass-through
until it reaches max.

Mulitiply xp for trophies depending on the level of a mule:
a gold letter will bring in more xp to a lvl 50 mule than a lvl 1 mule.

In order to receive the multiplied xp, you must have the following skills trained:

Cooking, Alch, Fletch, and all 4 tinkering skills.

If at anytime, any of these skills are not trained, *ALL* trophy xp
is removed from the character. To prevent abuse.

That way no one can pump a mule character with xp that muliplies the higher level you are, then untrain all the skill and keep the xp.

[Patty]

At first I didn't think it would hurt me much, since I never Macroed or was in a chain. But my loyal vassls (direct vassal) that swore new rerolls to some of my vassals a while back, which I encouraged to keep us all together and woven, tight clan... well I don't get much in passup now. And my vassal that was directly sworn to me, now plays a toon that is sworn to his wife's toon, to help her level... so now I don't get vassal points from him either. :mad: Some of my other vassals play every now and then, they have families and jobs, which I understand, but get some points, not much.

So, not happy. I wasn't a exp hog, now I wish I was and kept all their rerolls sworn directly to me. I worked hard with clan and vassals and now, sigh should of just did fellow hunts all the time, and exploited like the rest.

So far the recent changes keep discouraging me from playing, my husband went out today and bought another online game, he hasn't logged much lately, and I'm logging less and less.... and get board, friends not on either.... sigh. A couple of days I thought the clan died, no one on the allegiance chat or friends list, its close but not dead yet. :eek:

Oh well, another one bites the dust. :rolleyes:

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

embien:
This is a laughable amount when it costs 30 million XP to raise a skill one point.

Okay, I'll take a stab at this.

My tinker mule is also at the stage where points cost 30-40 mil a point, which puts him nowhere near max skills. In saying that, there is one particular tinkerbot at Marketplace that does have all skills/attribs maxed (character is level 215+). Do you know that after many tests and calculations, apart from item tinkering, my tinker mule ALWAYS comes within 1 and "maybe" 2 tinks of that totally maxed character.

You know what I say? All those billions upon billions of extra XP, is a total waste. If I get only 1 armor tink less than he does, is that extra AL20 that he gets, going to save my butt? Not even close.... so that's what's laughable here. Who cares if my armor is AL384 or AL364? It's not going to make one bit of difference to my survival.

The same holds true for Weapon Tinkering. If I'm able to 10-tink a bow and make it 162 mod instead of 166 mod, is that extra 4 mod going to kill a monster any faster? Nope, not at all. So your tinker mule that's like mine, is every bit as good as one that's all maxed out.

All I can say is, I'm thrilled to have the personal access of such a useful toon that not only benefits myself, but my allegiance members. :) Mine is level 137. That's sufficient. Oh, and he can self buff with 7s, plus he has a base, spec Xbow skill of 380, and a buff melee def skill of 372. Not great, but not bad either.

What more do you need? Even if he never gets another point of XP, he's more than able.

[Xada_SC]

LoL.

A few of you may have noticed, but to me the statement Ibn made that "this is not a Democracy" was like a lightning bolt hitting the ground at my feet. Being a self-proclaimed American patriot, I find such a statement alarming under any circumstance.

It struck me today, how strange is the idea of an MMORPG and how it is a microcosm of RL society at large in some respects, and totally dissimilar in many others. But, something came to mind remembering undergrad school being forced to read some articles written several years after the United States had become a free nation.

The articles came to be known as "The Federalist Papers", and they were written mostly by a couple of guys named James Madison and Alexander Hamilton.

One thing that I did take from those articles was reading about an idea called "factions" and how dangerous their effects could be.

A "faction" is basically "a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest"... who's actions are directed negatively towards... "the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community. ".... Federalist Paper #10.

Basically the paper goes on to suggest, that such "Factions" were usually responsible for the unrest and rage, and endless repetitions of the "revolution" theme which were witnessed to be bad points of having liberty in the known republics of the age...

In fact you still see the influence of factions today, our Democratic and Republican parties, Al Qaeda, many communist parties leading other nations, the "Moral Majority" or the Nazi party. There are a thousand I don't know or haven't mentioned, but you get the idea, they are groups who desire to make decisions designed to exert their own will upon the masses, sometimes in ways that the masses do not appreciate.

The governments controlled by factions that provide no means of expression of personal liberty or freedom to speak out on one's own behalf often give rise to dissent, despair, anger, and ultimately revolution.

Think we have any factions working in our Game? In our Developer? Think there's any possiblity there could be truth to this idea that majority or minority groups exerting their influence over the masses is a bad thing? Could these dangers be shared by a large society of Gamers and that Game's Developer?

Well, don't feel too bad everyone, even our founding fathers here in the US knew about the dangers of factionalism IRL society, and while they have done the best yet at taming its influence within our Government (just remember that we have succeeded in peacefuly evolving our government without revolution, thus far), the US hasn't eliminated the effect of "faction" yet.

However, to our form government's credit, there are systems in place to combat "faction" without completely destroying "liberty". Its also noted in Federalist 10 that the ability to express one's own "liberty" is the double-edged sword our society which gives rise to the opportunity for "factions" to grow, and yet gives us the opportunity to impact our own destiny.

Without checks and balances (such as our US government's executive, legislative and judicial branches, as one example) society is subject to anarchy and revolution periodically as one faction grows to sufficient power to dominate the masses, and this process is repetitive as other factions grow in power and overthrow their predecessors.

The choices to combat factionalism are to totally eliminate the opportunity for it to arrise (eliminate personal freedom) or to put systems in place to try and provide both liberty and systems to control the effects of factions so that they don't grow to dominate the entire society.

Of course as Ibn so aptly put it "This is not a Democracy", while to be more accurate nor is it a Republic, or any other form of representative government. At this point, the Developer of our game behaves more like an "Oligarchy" or an "Authoritarian" system of control.

The most respected system of "factionalism" control without total loss of "individual liberty" is through representative government.

Perhaps player representation into the decision making process is not such a crazy idea?

I'm not saying this is the solution, I'm simply requesting that Turbine open the dialog and perhaps develop a system whereby the players DO have a voice, maybe not fully equal with the Developer, but a system where we know our voices are heard, where we know we at least have representation, this message board is not meeting the need.

What I would think is that a formal system of representation, be put in place to give AC gamers a voice into decisions that are made.

Let Turbine be the executive branch. With ultimate veto power over decisions, but I believe they also will be the source of most ideas brought forth for discussion.

Give each Monarch with 250 followers or more (just as an example) a vote (similar to representatives of our states).

And let all the gamers elect a single "Server" Senator with a single vote.

Limit the use of these votes to ideas that are "game dynamic" or "play system" changing events. Keeping with the idea that the system be put in place to limit the effects of faction or the effects of changes that are game-wide-system changing decisions.

I know this sounds crazy. But unless a sytem is put in place which limits the insanity of factionalism to a reasonable level of influence within the game, then we won't see a revolution within the game, we'll see a death of the game.

IMHO.

Ty for allowing me to express my opinion.

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

Xada_SC:
There are a thousand I don't know or haven't mentioned, but you get the idea, they are groups who desire to make decisions designed to exert their own will upon the masses, sometimes in ways that the masses do not appreciate.

Yep, just like pretty much how every monarchy and/or fellowship decides how they'll perceive what rules the game should operate under. You'll go into some dungeon, and you go around killing critters (which under Turbine's rules, everyone is entitled to do for the monthly fee), yet the fellowship in there will start trying to impose upon you that they OWN the place, and you are interferring with their XP, and if you don't stop, and stand around doing nothing and wait your turn to join the fellowship, they'll not invite you in when a spot becomes available. Hence, they are a "faction", unto themselves, treating you negatively unless you conform to their desires. Every Monarchy has their own set of imposed rules that their followers must learn to obey, or they won't be welcome to stay. They are a faction unto themselves that many in other factions won't get along with or see eye to eye as their rules and outlooks are different. In most or all cases, these factions go totally against the "actual rules" as imposed by Turbine. It's like deciding to play a game of Monopoly, but using entirely different rules that the game designers made. No longer is it Monopoly (or Asheron's Call), now it's some other game with only the appearance of the original.

Think we have any factions working in our Game? In our Developer? Think there's any possiblity there could be truth to this idea that majority or minority groups exerting their influence over the masses is a bad thing? Could these dangers be shared by a large society of Gamers and that Game's Developer?

Yup, what the developers are doing is no different than ALL the rest of humanity do, no partiality.

However, to our form government's credit, there are systems in place to combat "faction" without completely destroying "liberty".

How unfortunate that it doesn't, never has, and likely never will work.

At this point, the Developer of our game behaves more like an "Oligarchy" or an "Authoritarian" system of control.

Welcome to the human race! We're ALL Oligarchists, every last one of us in our own right. Can I walk into your abode and expect that you should have to hear my ideas on how you should run your household, and you should be expected to listen and conform to and compromise rules that I can be happy with? No! Your home is your home... instead, you'll go get your .45 and instruct me to leave, or shoot me for trespassing, or call the cops, or all three. lol It's your home.. your rules, your faction. I have no right to interfere. By the same token, Turbine owns Asheron's Call, it is their property to which they have full rights to do with, whatever they choose without you trying to impose your ideals on how they should run the show. Remember, you are RENTING the right to use the product, but you own NONE of it. Don't like how they're doing things? There's the door... no one is forcing you to stay. No one is holding a gun to your head to swipe your credit card. As an Oligarchist, you have the sole right to choose how you govern your finances.

Perhaps player representation into the decision making process is not such a crazy idea?

No it isn't. That's why Turbine sifts through what everyone says and picks out good ideas and eventually implements them. Not everyone who has an idea for change will come to see it. That's just not possible. Can't please all of the people all of the time. I think they do a pretty good job from month to month. It must get pretty boring and they must get stumped an awful lot about what to do and/or change. I certainly don't envy the Turbine Team(s). Rome wasn't built in a day, and Turbine hasn't even had total control of AC for ONE whole month yet. I say give them some time and I bet things will shape up trememndously down the road... that's providing you can learn to survive hunting for your OWN XP, and not expect it handed to you on a diamond-encrusted platter each day that you log in.

[Heideggar]

Cuttler, I appreciate your comments. I agree, that even with negative feedback by many before and after, there is little that will be done in changing what they've put in. Look at the luring aspect they just put in. hehe, I just read a post on the vn-boards (Morningthaw) by MiniMage complaining about being lured by a monster. I wasn't aware that some monsters were doing this already, but I can't wait until more monsters do this and people start understanding that PvP dynamics can easily be put into PvM. Anything a character can do, a person can do. I kinda wish that was the same way with monsters/NPC though. I'd love to say NO-Words when casting, throwing out spells as fast as wisps, etc. lol. Anyways...

The XP is nice when compensating someone (patron or monarch) for their duties. People who are vassals will see that their monarch or patron is, or isn't, doing their duties and decide to leave or stay upon those acts, thus dictating how much xp they receive. Inactive patrons and monarchs lose vassals because they aren't helping in some fashion, or have mucho sucky vassals, so it evens out.

The ability to ban accounts is nice. I know several monarchies on MT that have been waiting for this for some time. It sure gets rid of headache type people who harass people when the monarch can't be on... I hear they have to sleep... eh, they're weak! if they have to sleep : ) However, I've been fortunate and never had that problem. I run a smaller monarchy, and we're pretty selective about who joins. We all know that xp is pretty easy to gain, and since everyone helps everyone, picking up vassals for no reason isn't worth it.



Embien, I'm confident in saying that there are many people who understand your situation and are in the same boat as you. I personally have two accounts, and chained them together to level trade mules for myself, but mostly for the allegiance. My tinkerer (91) or Tradesmule (89) (Pusher (118-119) -> Tinkerer -> Tradesmule: mini-chain) have never seen combat (Skills costing 18-30 mill/point). I can't really ask for people to move from their patrons to a tinkerer. As nice as a tinkerer or tradesmule is, it's not greater than a friendship that you will find between patrons and vassals. I mean, who's there day in and day out to help as much as they can? The patron or monarch is, not the mule character. It was stated that the Devs would be implementing new and interesting ways to level trade mules... well, when that is going to happen has always been my question. Again, this was put in during the January patch, and April will be at least 3 months down the road. Of course we could use those items that you can turn in to get xp. I'm not sure the Devs understand that those things only give 1-15k xp, some of them, like G-man swords, are based on the percentage of xp of the level, sure, but going that route is astronomicly tedious and time consuming. It'd be nice if they would concentrate on the finer points of their bigger implementations first before they put in all these differnt, unfinished, aspects.


Thanks Truthseer, I appreciate your comments. Before the implementation of the new allegiance system I had suggested a 2-3 tier modification because really... 2-3 tiers, up or down from someone, encompasses A LOT of those they interact with. This may, or may not, include the monarch, but when I was thinking on this I looked at other patrons that run around doing stuff. Really, I don't see people in a traditional allegiance doing that much for people more than 2 MAYBE 3 tiers down. I'm at the bottom of a couple allegiance on other servers (7-9 tiers down), and didn't get help from anyone but the monarch, patron, and my patron's patron (2 tiers & monarch). When I was several ranks down in some MT allegiances I got help from my patron, and the monarch. If someone has info. as how 2-3 tiers does not encompass nearly all who help them quite often, please post and let me know. I find 2-3 tiers of passup to be workable.



StarchaserX, you bring up some nice input.

"Cooking, Alch, Fletch, and all 4 tinkering skills." -StarchaserX

I'd personally rather that be "Cooking, Alch, Fletch, OR all 4 tinkering skills." That's me though. I don't think that changing the wording slightly would change the fact that the skills would dictate a mule character, but it'd still allow for two different types of mules: Tinker Mules and Trade Mules. Let me know if that works.

I like the xp percentage changes you presented, that being, it's based more on xp of the level instead of a base xp. Also, that you have to have certain trained skills (at the least) to get that bonus.

"If at anytime, any of these skills are not trained, *ALL* trophy xp is removed from the character. To prevent abuse." - StarchaserX

I like it, but it might be hard to do. I'm not sure if keeping track of xp from trophy items is something that the Devs can do, nor take away xp from someone. It's harsh, but it _does_ prevent people from exploiting this feature you propose. What worries me is when someone picks up a sellback gem and it's the wrong gem. Hey, I drink, I've done it lol. Maybe a small timer (2.5-3 weeks) to correct a mistake. If someone wants a trades mule, they should try to dedicate someone to it.

As it is right now, I can only think of like 4 ways to level trades mules (tinkering or trades).

1) Xp-reward items
2) level a regular character and on the way pick up sellback and specialization gems so you can turn your lvl 180 CLaW into a tinker mule.
3) Allow for mules to be in your fellows to get xp.
4) Somehow get people under your trades/tinker mule to pass xp. This could be done out of ordering people to do it, persuading them, or buying xp for your mules.

1) doesn't work for anyone higher than lvl 40, well, at least not well enough to be worth the time. Might even be lower level than that.
2) I find that this promotes macro'ing more than xp passup. Who wants to play a guy to a high level just so they can make a trades bot and have to play a differnt character? Not myself, maybe others?
3) I've even done this myself, and seen others do it too. Not sure if this is against the CoC... !? If I do it, I tell people before they enter my fellow, but it's one of the only ways I can get xp to my tinker mules without direct vassals.
4) It sounds easy, but it's not. Maybe I'm the only one. I will never ask my friends to swear to a trades mule. Would I pay for someone to swear to my mule? not sure, but is that what is needed !? I'd rather not think that's what is needed.


FmrSentFlatfoot, you bring up a good point. The difference between maxed skills and high skills isn't _huge_. I find that my lvl 91 (maybe 92?) tinker mule, with his set of majors and moderates, can do 7-8 tinkers where someone with maxed skills could get 9-10. Anything craft 4 or less is a given 10 tinks. 5 can get 10 with a bit of luck. 6 can get 8 tinkers, 7 can get 7-8 tinkers... I don't do 8-10 craft stuff much if ever. As you said, the difference isn't huge, but I think you'll find there are people out there that are under the belief that "every bit helps". I'm fortunate to have a decent level tinkerer and trades mule. People just joining the game will find it more difficult to reach those "descent levels" where their skills will be, as you implied, where they won't make a huge difference if billions and billions of xp were added.

You're very fortunate to have a lvl 137 tinker mule. I myself, have a tinkerer similar to your setup. I have to do some skill sellback and specialization, but he can buff himself and equip pretty much any major. Not nearly as combat ready as yours, which I'd like to have some day : ) I'm not sure that new players (new server coming out) will be able to have that kind of fortune. Do you think they will? I've personally heard of new monarchies being planned out for the new server, and the monarch being a trades/tinker mule. I'd rather an active monarch be there instead of a mule. Not sure of Turbine's view on that I guess.

[Heideggar]

Xada,

I liked your insight into the means to put forth representatives to give players the voice in the development of the game. I've read Federalist #10. I have a book with it, and other papers by people of that time. It's worth reading for sure.

Giving the players a voice in the game development seems to be something the Developers wish to have. Having representatives would be nice, but the way to go about it would need to be defined, or rather, refined from your proposal. Cross server mule trading could give people voting rights, and even then, the server representative may have alterior motives, much like that of today's political structure.

Though, it may be easier to "run" for election for the server without there being the monetary aspect that is associated with needing to run for real life government positions.

I personally feel that the desire for feedback from the Devs is a means to give the players the feeling that they have a voice in the decisions of the progress of the game rather than having a real impact. This keeps players paying for the game when they'd leave if they knew their opinions didn't matter. With multiple occurences of people giving majority feedback in one direction, and it being unpersuasive in decisions, makes me feel that way. The allegiance system is but one of the decisions that has occured this way.

I understand that the majority giving feedback in one direction to something may not necessarily mean the best result for the future of the game. Without knowing all the details of a long term changing, it's hard to feel otherwise.

The Devs want to put in all the positive and fun aspects that present themselves in this game, and enhance on them, which makes perfect sense. However, how long is that going to take? How much will people have to put up with before the Devs get most, if not all, of their plan into the game? These questions put me in a prediciment of whether I should be paying for this situation, or not. It's clearly unoptomistic for me by the letters given to us by the Developers.



"That's why Turbine sifts through what everyone says and picks out good ideas and eventually implements them. Not everyone who has an idea for change will come to see it. That's just not possible. Can't please all of the people all of the time. I think they do a pretty good job from month to month. It must get pretty boring and they must get stumped an awful lot about what to do and/or change. I certainly don't envy the Turbine Team(s). Rome wasn't built in a day, and Turbine hasn't even had total control of AC for ONE whole month yet. I say give them some time and I bet things will shape up trememndously down the road... that's providing you can learn to survive hunting for your OWN XP, and not expect it handed to you on a diamond-encrusted platter each day that you log in." - FrmSentFlatfoot

A couple things I'd like to touch upon:

1) Turbine sifts through what everyone says and picks out the good ideas and eventually implements them

I'd like to think that, but I've seen _awesome_ suggestions, that worked with the game dynamics, and would work through future changes, but weren't put in. I can't expect turbine to be perfect, but at least giving players some feedback on good ideas, whether they'd be feasibly worked in, or not, would be nice. I suggested the 2-3 tier passup before it was put in. I never saw a post by a Developer saying it wouldn't work out with their ideas of improving the allegiance xp passup system.

2) Can't please all the people all of the time.

You are right. Some people want to have everything without any effort.

3) I think they do a pretty good job from month to month.

I'd like to think so too. I'm a software developer myself, and I understand how the game plays out. It aint' easy for the chicken feed they get : )

4) Boring and are stumped at what to do?

I'd _hope_ that was the case, but it's not. It's _so_ not the case lol. I could make a list of at least a dozen things the Devs could work on just off the top of my head. They use the term "We have lots of things on the table" so to speak, as a response to new tech and changes. They have a lot to do, but they have to prioritize, which means they are busy.

5) Yeah, they haven't had control for that long, and if you look at it that way, we shouldn't assume the world right away. I'm sure the switch over from Microshaft to Terdbine (lol) is still providing challenges. I don't envy these changes for those that have to fix them so they go smoothly (Jessica?).

6) I can wait for changes. I don't mind it. As long as it's not that long. I'd like to think I have relatively good patience, but that patiences doesn't extend for months and months. Especially if I'm paying for it. The Devs have a plan, and I really hope it's a good plan, because I really dig this game. Hell, I can run this game on a 1942 vacuum tube computer as long as I've got cable or DSL. Really, I have no problem hunting for my own xp. However, when I'm hunting for xp and a vassal send you a tell, "Sorry to bother you, but could help me get 4-5 bods?" or "Some time, could you help me get <insert quest item>? It'd really help my setup. Jake McGutter said he needed it too! : )", what are you suppose to do? say, "Sorry, I'm hunting for my own xp, I can't help you." !?!?
Of course I'm going to help them with their desires, I'm a good patron and monarch. But, why should people be neglected the compensation for their efforts because they're good people when Turbine says that's what they want to do for people?

The current xp-allegiance passup system is half implemented, which puts it at half-a**e* for me. That goes for everything else. I could name a couple other non xp passup changes that fit this same bill.

I'd just wish they'd focus on one, do it really good, then move on.


Ex. Heideggar's Letter to the Players:

Dear Players, over the next several months we'll be implementing new changes to the game.

First will be the allegiance xp-passup system

Second will be creature and chest loot changes

Third will be new PK dynamics.

With the allegiance passup system we'll be trying to ween people from the chains into a more patron-vassal relationship will still trying to incorporate benefits to monarchs who help vassals, and patrons who help vassals 1-3 tiers down. We'll give you guys better specifics what we have in mind before we add these changes to allow for player feedback. During this phase we'll put in hard changes during the patch, and two weeks after (roughly) we'll tweak the system based on our numbers, your feedback, and how we want the allegiance system to be run.

During the creature and chest loot changes we will be changing the loot and chest loot to better suit those players that fight in those areas. To better understand who should be fighting what, and where, solo, please look at our map of level fighting areas <link>

We'll be doing the creatures first, so if there are bad parts to the changes, at least chests will allow for salvage and cash. Likewise, we won't change chests until creatures are done, so always there's a flow of funds for the players and it'll be less likely to interupt the playstles of people. These changes may take some time, as we estimate them taking 2-3 months. During this time, like the allegianc exp-passup changes, we'll be putting in hard changes during the patches, and tweeks to those changes about 2 weeks afterwards based on your feedback, our numbers, and how we want the changes to go.

Lastly, we'll be changing some PK dynamics. The concepts won't start after all these other changes are put in. Rather, during all those changes we'd like feedback on how you, the players, would like to see the PK environment change. Things we're looking into: debuffing armor, modifiers on casting devices, missle weapons, and melee weapon, housing barriers being brought down or fightable, etc. etc. Again, feeback is a must here, as we'll be throwin around ideas and numbers quite often. The sooner we, and you, are aware of these changes, the better suited the PvP'ers will be to adapt to the new changes.

As always, we'll be trying to fix, or rather less, the effects of lag, bugs, etc. that we have control of.




^^^ ya know.. something like that, but actually do it.

I've been trying to help with scroll drops and low level loot changes with the Devs, and it's taking a bit of time. More time than someone at that level could spare. It'll be good for new players and people going to the new server though...

[ember]

I totally agree with Bleys Icefalcon. The monarchs can't play at all they are to busy helping whiners. I for one have never been in an xp chain nor would I ever want to. I don't macro either. I earn ever bit of xp I get myself! I also pay my 12.95 a month to play the way I choose. Should Dereth be a dictatorship? Dictated by the many whiners? I think NOT. We all work hard for everthing we get. As far as xp chains go, those who were in one paid they're 9.95-12.95 a month to play the way they wanted to. In that case what business is it of others to force people to conform to their NEW idiotic rules?

[Evoker II]

Simply the Xp flow and pass up should work like so


Patron 90% Max Pass up
Grand Patron 45% Max Passup
Great Grand Patron 20% Pass up
Great Great Grand Patron 5%
Anything higher get Nothing except monarch

Monarch Roughly .03- .05% of the guilds net xp gain(Number is not definate, testing is needed)


The New system in no way shape or form, attracts or gives incentive for a player to become a monarch for the new server. The new world when brought up will favor the monarchs vassals who'll have the status, and at the same time fraction of the resposibiliy of the monarch. They'll still have players looking to swear to them instead of the monarch who's busy with the guild and can't give them the attention required.

It also denies the relation between Grand patron and Great grandpatron, which in my past experience has been a great relationship. When I was not a monarch I always looked out for my Grand vassals and Great Grand vassals, heck I would take care of anyone that had my name above them. If they were a follower of mine then I went the extra step to help em.

Otherwise whats the reason for even putting in the alleg tab, the amount of followers one has?

I'm looking from a point of view as an experience monarch looking at the new server that will be opening and new players also partaking in this games adventures. I can see it someone saying, "Well I don't get any passup from him so I don't care".

Yes it is a selfish way to think. I agree totally on that. Fact is this game is full of selfish people, so you gotta meet half way. If this world was filled more with the folks who's attitude was they didn't care of what they received xp wise and helped others anyways, then it would be a MUCH better place then what it is now.

[Phosphine]

Alex, I hope this does not get lost in the length of the thread.

First, about the anti democratic comment: bad choice of words. In America, there are two things consumers can do to show they feel, vote with thier feet and thier dollars. TE should be customer driven lest the first tenth of AC be the last tenth. :)

Second, on the amount of time to max out the xp yield: having the xp yield as a multiplier seems excessive. Lets say that you rearrange the allegiance structure --- everyone has had to do so -- and that leave your computer up for a few weeks 24 x 7. Does this come close to a third or a half way of what your max xp yield? For example, if you are passing 70% at max, and your IG time is 100% (assuming its 240 hours, like before), and your RL time is 5% (assuming the RL timer is months), does that mean you are getting .7 x 1 x .05 = 3.5% of vassal passup? Is there a floor that you can't drop through? If the floor is 25%, how long will the typical player have to wait for the xp to increase past the floor? Weeks, months, or years?

My point is: the multiplier effect will greatly decrease the xp passup the smaller the values are, assuming there is no minimum value. If this is true and the timers are months, then you are discouraging vassal patron relationships just when allegiances are being reconstituted. Although this may theoretically have beneficial long term effects, the reception and reaction by your customers may have unintended consequences.

I think that TE needs to explain the new allegiance system more. What I get out this is: rearrange your characters, have them spend ~3 weeks online continuously, and then check back some months later to see when the xp pass up increases from single digit percent (or floor) yields to previous values ~35%.

Respectfully submitted,

Pho

[Ogmosis_FF]

I am a retired player, and think these changes are great. I left AC in Dec 02, and am planning on coming back when the new server opens.

To see people whining that they can no longer log onto 150-200 million xp a day makes me choke. At the point when I left, the most hardcore macro chains were only seeing 20-30 mill a day pass through their non playing chains.

So the way your trade mule is positioned now he doesn't get AS MUCH xp. Big deal. My friends who still play tell me that they can take new characters to 50 or 80 in one weekend. If you desperately need a new source of xp, create a reroll (or use an existing one), and swear it directly to the mule. Better yet, have your friends do this too. I'm sure they wouldn't mind if they use the trade mule's services. With mid level characters making 10ish mill xp an hour, the mule should level along at a healthy pace, especially if it has leadership. Show some freaking adaptibility.

I swear, every time a change is made in AC, everyone starts running around screaming, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" People need to calm down. This isn't the end of the world. I can't tell you how many times after a big patch everyone threated to quit, or said that they were canceling all their accounts. These changes should have been made years ago. Better late than never.

Props to Turbine one some great changes. I can't wait to start playing on the new server.

[Bleys Icefalcon]

You said:

I swear, every time a change is made in AC, everyone starts running around screaming, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!"

Umm, this ISN'T STICKY MONSTERS!

This isn't nerfing Dagger toons.

This is shutting down the play style for the VAST MAJORITY of the player base. You know, the one that DIDN'T leave?

The sky ISN'T falling on AC. it fell.

[ember]

And what about full trade mules and tinkers...wasp wings dont' get it, especially at lvl 40 or higher. They forgot there is such a toon out there. My trade mule can NOT fight at all.....you people love to have a good tinkerer well? how are they supoosed to lvl if not in a family chain say me and my husband under her? Oh I know I should just plain forget it and rerole again and again to try to second guess all the whiners out there that get their way and forget the rest of us that PAY OUR 12.95 a month to play eh?

[Heideggar]

Ogmosis, a lot has changed in the nearly 2 years that you've been gone.

While you may think the current changes are really not that big of a deal... they probably aren't considering the state of AC back in 2002.


I'd suggest spending some time in these people's shoes before you go on about things being great. You aren't even playing to know if it is good or not.

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

Ember: Actually, what you do, see... is you make a Tinker character, you spec Bow and Melee Def, train Fletching, Healing, Item Enchantment. Then, with the help of some friends you get powerleveled to around 15-20. After that, you use the services of a buffbot, and in a ROBE.. (yes a robe) and a decent no-req AR Bow and some Greater Blunt arrows, you head into Olthoi Arcade. Within a couple of weeks, you're around 50ish or better, and now you go to Monkey Heaven and kill Slaves or Guards or Silvers etc., etc., etc.

One day, when you're up at 80 or 90 and even 100+, you THEN use all those skill trade-in gems you've been gathering for months, and you use them all at the same time and convert your tinker character into a full blown tinkerer with DECENT skills.

Doesn't take long. One month? Two if you like to take it easy? Bingo, everything you always wanted, and more... and you did it ALL by yourself! Imagine that. No vassals, no chains..

No pain, no gain. If you're not willing to take the bull by the horns and DO IT YOURSELF, then don't whine about how impossible it is until you TRY.

That's how I made my tinkerer. No vassals, no chains, up to 110... THEN I put him in a chain.... but even under this new system, level 110 makes nice skill, which can tinker right up there with the best of them.

Initiative is the KEY to success!

[Meri]

You asked for feedback... we've given it to you. To paraphrase srand: you've said that you're going to communicate with us more, and listen to us better, and this is an excellent opportunity for you to put your money where your mouth is.

Step in and respond to the concerns of the players who have replied to the numerous threads about this subject.

[MsTaterHed]

Well, I am glad that the umc macros are pretty much shut out of the game... however, those of us who worked to raise our leadership and loyalty skills using attributes and are 100+ are pretty much shut down as far as passup. I for one, am tired of going into a hunting ground, such as Tusker Pits, and finding a fellowship of macros taking all of the kills, and you're lucky to find one person actually online at the time to talk to. So, we'll go back to hunting our hearts out, since raising leadership or loyalty at +100 levels is akin to pulling your own teeth with pliers, and do it the old fashioned way... we'll EARN it ;)

[Willow]

Call me a noob at level 62 if you want to, but until this recent XP stuff, I never even knew what an xp chain was. I've played the game, hunted, gained vassals, leveled and died by doing the unheard of! I simply played. I guess then that this change won't affect me, but I have to wonder why people are so upset that they are (in a sense) being asked to just log in and PLAY. Why cheat the system?

I don't mean to offend, especially if I'm just not understanding properly how chains work, but to me it's just rolling with the punches.

Now take away the settlement portals and I'll be pissed! lol!

[Arch Magi]

I left Alliance of Harvestgain almost 4 months ago to form my own guild. I went from level 1 to 96 without ever being in an XP Chain, then upwards of level 97 to 155 or so in an XP Chain and hunting. I got about 3-4 levels by doing the "Tessera Trick". Now at level 165, I have noticed the following with the XP Chains.

In my new guilds "meek" XP Chain, some days I get 1 or 5 XPs. Some days I get 137. Sometimes I get a million or 2. The highest I ever got was 8 million. These are POST CHANGES.

In the exact same chain (again, this is a friendly guild of FRIENDS), I used to get 3-10 million a day.

Not a big change, but still one that I notice. Most of our people use the chain for Rank, not XPs. Granted, I am right under the monarch, and I don't have alot of active people DIRECTLY under me (my character IMO is basically done).

I have noticed that lower down in the chain ... say my level 104 Archer, who is sworn to the toon that will become the "figurehead" of our guild, I am passing up about 50-52% XPs. I have Leader and Loyalty trained, and so do the other toon. But since neither of us have put 4 BILLION XPs into leader (the receiver) or loyalty (me), I know there is no way that I'd hit ANYWHERE NEAR the 90% passup that some people thought would happen.

All in all, in a "non-XP chain" type guild. XPs to our people have gone DOWN ALOT.

[Sing]

Why Now?

I think it is too late... the damage has been done.

There are hundreds of level 126+ characters.

All this change has done is forever increase the level gap.

[disgraced]

I originally made a gimp characterwho was patron to my wife's toon...only I didnt realize he was a gimp until level 70 or so.....Then you instituted the retrain option and suddenly it seemed I could make a tinker of this guy....so I rerolled a mule, swore to my wife's character and began the dismanteling (untraining ) process, while at the same time rerolling a new uber toon having learned all my mistakes. The new guy was my main playing focus and the xp engine behind making my future tinker through pass up. (any of this sound familiar?) Well he is dead in his tracks...the tinkeror that is...as daily passup is kinda lame due to the fact that I outplay my wife 10-1 and the nerf of grandpatron passup. I do feel that it is akin to closing the barndoor after the cows are long gone. This is not going to fix the complaints that supposedly prompted this change. I dont doubt that the devs intentions are pure.....trying as best to fix what was a divisive issue at best between those that earned and those that recieved for free. I only wish that you had made a sliding scale od passup that allowed for less of an abrupt cut off. Who has not benefitted from people higher up the family chain?Why should that relationship not also be recognized and rewarded? IF the plan was to reward the patron for vassal interaction and assistance then please understand that relationship could and should recieve passup. An improvement in the grandpatron passup would alleviate my suffering and the suffering of many like me who used the system to merely raise mules and tradespeople to a useful level.

[ember]

FmrSentFlatfoot my full trade mule is already lvl 47, I don't want to delete her and start all over again. I have been trying for a long time to get her lvl'd. I don't want to run to that god awful place to get tons of stupid gems to store until I can untrain and spec and back and forth. I want to lvl the one I have. She, if ever will be able to do all trades and tinks. A lot of work went into her already just do delete her? Then the devs will have a change of heart again and the next one I get will be useless again. I can't second guess what they're going to do every single day of my life. I have a life outside of dereth. But thanks for your thoughts I really appreciate it. Please don't take offense to my opinion.

[D X Mage]

This just sucks. It is much harder now to lvl peeps in the clan. I don't really feel all that motivated to work on my lowbies now.

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

ember:
Please don't take offense to my opinion.

I'm not offended.. heh :)

Just that level 47 could be done, well.. pretty quick. A high level mage could probably get you to 30 within a day or two, and you could get back to 47 in another 2-3 days. Would be so simple, and then you could keep building from there, even WHILE having a normal life outside of Dereth. 2-3 hours a day.. poof! Done deal. :)

Anyway, good luck to you, whatever you decide. ;)

[Heideggar]

Yeah, just make sure it's your direct patron, someone who you're paying for the leveling, or someone real nice. Because for sure, no rewards will be going to anyone else in the allegiance to help.

Grandpatron wants to help his vassal get a tradesmule, great. What xp reward does he get out of it? NONE, which is what the devs want to promote. Does the grandpatron feel good about what they've done, probably.

Certainly is asking for something without giving much back, isn't it!?

XP was one of the few ways to give something back to those helping you. Hard doing that now eh? hehe.



A suggestion to help the mule leveling aspect due to these changes, that in itself, doesn't work well with the intended ideals of the changes. If that doesn't say something's wrong, I don't know what else does lol.

I hope that makes sense hehe.

[Kossuth]

Ok to quantify things I have 2 active accounts. I can live with the changes because I have been lucky enough to be playing AC since the start and I have 3 126+ chars. My mains's received xp has gone up as I am lucky enough to have a very active vassal. My other slots are filled with vassals who only play occassionally but who are friends and I am not going to drop them just because of this change. Besides I don't want vassals unless I have known them for a long time as I have been screwed over by 90%+ of the vassals I have had over the last 5 years who turned out to just be interested in powerlevelling and "uber" equipment. Not ready to start that **** again.

I started converting one of my 126th level characters to a trade/tinker mule last night even though it will take 36 weeks to move my self to co-ordination and endurance to strength. The skill changes will take less time but that doesn't really improve things much.

My real problem with this is that I need to break with my monarch/patron of 2 years even though I am currently his highest xp passer up to re-swear to my morphing tinker/trader.

I feel a real sh*t about doing it but I have only actively played the one character for a long time and it is therefore the cold hard and logical thing to do. The only salve to my conscience is that this will be one of the monarchy tinker/traders for the more european/timezone based players that we have. So several of our players will benefit. I already run a quest a day for low level players and that is another contribution to Leafcull and my monarchy.

It doesn't stop me feeling guilty about screwing my friend though and leaving him in the lurch after all these years.

[lop-ibn-sung]

You know, I'm kind of amazed that many of the people who are for this change (and brag about never having particpated in chains) with level 80 or 100 characters after 4 years of playing, tell other people to go level their trade mules the old fashioned way.

Well, if not being part of a chain is the old fashioned way, then in about 4 years your should have a decent mule. Unfortunately, not everyone has the ability or desire to hunt and play AC for 8-10 hours a day on a MULE! I dare say most people have never or rarely hunted on mules...they are usually filled to the brim with armor, weapons and trade goods. The templates aren't designed for power hunting and if it took non-chained players 4 years to get to level 100, how do you expect the average player to do it in less time?

[Ashida Kim]

I, for one, am happy with the changes. Between Chains and UMC, ALOT of damage was done to AC. People would get to high or untra-high levels and then whine that there was no content, so content was added. Then some of the have-nots would jump on the bandwagon and want a method to deal with that content, so more Uber items came out. Rinse/repeat.

Unfortunately, there is not a way to undo the damage short of switching to the new server. I think Turbine's timing on being the new server out is absolutely perfect in that regard.

I have been playing since Beta, and have seen alot of changes come and heard the yelling and screaming, as well as all the cheers for those changes. Only time will tell what this change means for the lifetime of AC.

To those of you complaining that now you do not have the ability to catch up to the chain leveled toons, I say, so what? I am in the same boat as you. I am a casual player who does not have a toon over level 100 yet. But there are allegiences for those things. There are people who do have them who don't want you to sell your soul for them to help you. Interact with the world around you folks. While I understand people like to solo, and love to do thing things on their own, in any community environment, you are going to be doing it the hard way for all time if you do not at least interact with other from time to time.

As far as people complaining about havign no way to level mules. I think you are mistaken. I saw a few arguements made saying that mule templates are not made for levelling. Ok, fair enough, but keep somethign in mind. You can make a toon made for levelling, get them to 50 in about two weeks without a huge amount of effort, and I guarantee you that they will be alot more effective than the level 1 you have sitting around. Even playing casually, it does not take long at all to get your first 30 - 50 levels taken care of. Between EXP rewards and places like olthoi arcade, getting mules levelled to a decent level where they can carray ALOT more than your level 1 is not hard at all, just make sure and built the toon around the fact that you will want high strength. ie: I would not suggest magic to level them. Go with melee, and I would recommend UA with Melee def and healing just so you can save as many skill credits as possible in case you ever want to reconfigue the toon to something more to your playstyle.

Again, this is just my 2 pyreal, so take that for what you will.

[Rakulp]

Greetings,

For those who are seeking a remedy to the "haves" and "have nots" of the current worlds in AC...fergetaboutit.

Your only hope is to jump on the new server, where everybody will start at level 1. Chains will have to consist of PLAYING characters to be effective, as passup no longer exists.

Macroing may still exist on the new server...but hopefully, as Turbine starts digging in their heels, it will be as little as possible.

Most people won't want to trade in their "gimped" high two digit characters that were never chained and just were played and enjoyed over the past few years. For those who have the fortitude to start over, they will know that the population of the new server will have achieved their levels the old fashioned way...they eaaaaaaaaaarned them.

[Meri]

Hmmm... "eaaaaaaaaaarned them?" I feel that I earned every level I made. Not all of the experience in my total column came directly from hunting... but I still earned it. How many people can say that they "earned" every point of their experience in direct solo hunting with no vassals and no fellows?

This is not a slap againt Rak's opinions, since he didn't really mean "everyone"... but trying to differentiate between what is "earned" or not can start all of the old arguments about "cheating," etc. :(

[Juzam]

History:
I started playing 3/00. I am a monarch on TD. I have 1700 followers. I have been a monarch for two years now, since 3/02. I do not now, nor ever had an xpchain in my monarchy, nor were any of my chars ever in one. I do have 3 level 126+ chars out of 10 which I freely admit I have only because of monarchy xp passup. I have an 8-5 job, a wife who is in her last year of the RN progarm, and a 4 year old son to watch after, so my playtime is definately limited. In the two years I have been monarch I have NOT logged into AC for a grand total of 21 days, of which 13 of those days were when I was attending a real life gathering of some form to meet my followers.

I have spent two years devoted to a very loyal clan that has grown from 350 people to 1700. It has grown because of the people in the clan, we are very adult oriented and very active. I have always believed that it did not affect me one bit that there were xpchains, and if there are people out there level 200+, it made no difference to me. XPchains had NO affect on me, nor my 1700 followers until you decided to nerf them. Now I have tons of complaints to listen to, even though I cannot do anything for them, I listen to the complaints and try to be positive. To be fair, there are a few people in the clan that praise the new changes but I can count them on one hand.

EVERY day I log in, I have tinkering to do, at least one quest to lead, organizing body recoveries, answering many questions from people about how things work. For two years now, I have not taken on ONE vassal, always stating that I am way to busy being monarch to be a good patron, and then I found the new person an appropriate follower to swear to. I HAVE NOT HUNTED IN 2 YEARS. Then closest I ever get is when one of my followers is closing in on 126, I go out to VoD, or wherever, and join the fellow so that I can get a pic of them levelling.

I am rewarded for all this positive game cultivation how? The only personal reward was great friendships formed, which are very rewarding, and decent bit of xp (25-30 mil a day). Now, thank god I have my friendships, as I get 25,000 xp at most a day. My toons are done levelling. No maxxed tinkers or trademules for my clan. Thank god most of the chained tinkers belong to really nice and trustworthy people on TD.

IMO you screwed the pooch on this one, and Im getting really tired of barking. Bad, Bad Turbine.

[Rakulp]

Greetings,

My comment had nothing to do with those allegiances and monarchs who have been the backbone of this game since it started.

Rather, I was trying to address the fact that there is no current solution to the "haves" and "have nots" on existing servers.

Those who start from scratch on the new server will pass up experience mainly to their patron. Chains will not be able to accumulate much experience unless everybody plays. In the past, in macro chains, one character could drive a multitude, if structured properly.

Sorry for the misunderstanding :(

[Phosphine]

I just wanted to say that, based on the articles posted on the TE website, the IG algorithm is passing up significantly more xp than I expected, 37% vs an anticipated 25%. Very strange!

[Bleys Icefalcon]

Unfortunately the poster above me brought up a sad point. Now, in Marketplace along with the bot selling this and that you have the Exp Hawkers, and we've all seen it. It started just before the update, and now it's a full fledged business - people offering to sell re-rolls or their mains to other people as vassals for exp passup - no loyalty, striclty business, "X" amount of passup for "X" payment.

Sooooooo, not only is exp passup traditionally and chain wise nerfed, we've created a whole new mercenary caste.

I undertand that there are a few people on this thread that think all is well in Mudville have Turbine up on this make believe pedestal where they can do no wrong - and feel it is their need, right and duty to point out how everyone who DOESN'T agree with these changes must somehow be dysfuntional or is nothing but a whiner. And guess what? You're right, it IS your right - just as it is MY right...

To say that in my opinion it was a shame that a chain nerf had to nerf all passup except direct passup. People are now being forced to re-organize clans, traditional clans that have been in existence since the game went retail. Forcing people to question loyalties to friends - said loyalties that would never have been brought into question before. I think it is a shame that the wants, needs and desires of a majority of the posters on this feedback forum are only being allowed and avenue to vent - without any response or feedback from the people who have made and continue to make these drastic, total-game altering changes to a game we loved (except earliy on in the threads) - and being given no hope that things will be balanced in their favor. I think it is a shame that it is even being considered to do away with Housing Portals. If we wanted to run all over creation, we wouldn't be using them in the first place. But we are, and making the game more difficult - ummm, why? One of the reasons we like AC is it isn't the most difficult on the planet. I think it is a shame that for a toon to have 6 vassals, and only 3 of them active, then he is now penalized for having three inactive. I think it is a shame that the hoards of people who are un-subsribing all of their mule accounts, and the lost revenues involved isn't seen as something important to the developers of this game. I think it's a shame that people complain that my play style is "ruining" the game, where in truth it's doing nothing to the game, or to you. You play it your way, I'll play it mine. I once saw a person level all the way to 126th without using magic of any kind, inlcuding weaponry. In fact he would only wear and use armor and weapons made from creature items (Hides, Pinchers, etc). He could have been godly, but chose a difficult route. HIS choice. I have NO RIGHT to lambast it. I think its a shame that I am losing scores of friends to other games out the the deep sense of betrayal over the recent changes to this one. I think its a shame that I am considering leaving for the firts time in nearly 5 years of loyal time spent in Dereth. And finally I think its a shame that a few of you will attack me for sharing my views.

I still play, but nowhere near as much and with nowhere near as much fun or loyalty. That loyalty has been betrayed. And the fun is being taken away and replaced with something called "work". If I wanted to "work", I wouldn't be playing a game, I'd be at work - working.

I might have one, possibly two updates left in me. Unless things change for the better, I'll be joining the bulk of my friends in Horizons.

It's a shame Turbine could care less.

[xanth]

I am all for the allegiance XP change as I personally believe you should work for what ya have.
Maybe this will make players who have spent their play time working on tradeskills saught after by others making it more worthwhile to do that sort of thing with your main character.(atleast on the new server)

I for one am really looking forward to the new server going online so i can switch, all the whiners that cant handle actually working for their XP can stay on the old servers as far as i am concerned.
My biggest hope is that turbine can manage to figure out a way to get rid of the macro apps etc befor opening the new server.

As for the monarchs whining here, seems to me if your only in it for yourself maybe you shouldnt be running a monarchy anyway, allegiances were not intended to auto level your characters, they were intended to be an incentive to help new players and let friends form up etc.

[MisatoX]

i don't have any vassals or anything so it doesn't really effect me too much.

i just know a lot of people that are pissed cause they can't level their trade mules anymore. and my monarch, who spends all her time helping us, doesn't get hardly any xp anymore :(

[TyrGrim]

I feel this change was too little too late.

if anything it should have been made into a special rule on the upcoming new server instead of the older established servers.

[Heideggar]

"eaaaaarrnn your xp"

"work for it"

So, a patron or a monarch who leads quests, settles ingame disputes, helps level rerolls, gives out equipment, advice, retrieves corpses, takes people on hunting trips, tinkers all sorts of items, creates trade goods, and things of this nature don't "earn" any of the xp passed up to them?

If you had 3-4 hours a day to play AC on average, how time consuming would these activities be?

Saying that doing these things for an allegiance, or a plethora of vassals (who might not be directs), doesn't merit the reward (xp passup) then this whole system they've put in should be looked at because the xp passup is the reward, the compensation if you will, for the time and effort spent by these great people. This relationship of helping for a certain amount of xp is what Turbine's Developers feel will promote a healthy and good allegiance system.

Conceptually, it's a good idea, and at the patron-vassal relationship, it works. When encompasssing the whole allegiance, and the many roles people can take on to help vassals who are in a great many places in an allegiance structure, this conception to promote a healthy and good allegiance structure fails. There are more relationships than just the patron-vassal one that make a monarchy a monarchy. It's like a web of relationships from my view of it. These changes are narrow to one aspect, and are suppose to help the entire structure, but they don't.

[Roadkill]

I have a mule thats lvl 51 or 52, not really sure which...I've been playing my mage lately. Anyways, I didn't use trophies with him, nor did I 'push' him...I got him to that level by fighting (with the aid of a buffbot ).

This is just a suggestion to anyone who wants a mule and is having difficulties...

I made him Sho to get unarmed without using any credits. UA uses strength and coordination. The tinkering skills use focus and either strength, coordination, or endurance. The tradeskills use focus and coordination.

I put nearly all of my experiece into strength, endurance, coordination, and focus. This raises all of the mule's skills (melee won't see as much of an affect since it also relies on quickness).

My mule is spec'd in UA, trained in all 4 tinkering skills, cooking, fletching, alchemy, healing, lockpick, item enchantment, and melee defense.

I was lucky enough to get someone to land a Bludgeon Rending on a cestus for me...that helped in addition to the buffbots. I primarily fight bugs with him...he killed his first eviscerator at lvl 38.

This setup works quite well for me. He has all the mule skills and is also quite playable.

Hopefully this will help some of those who are having difficulties leveling their mules.

[ArtilexOfDarkti]

I like the changes to the XP passup system. thought I never got to reap the full benefits of a being in an XP chain since I was always to low. Now with the changes I found leadership to be worth taking and I enjoy the 50% passup I get from anyone who swears to me :)

-Artilex

[enoch_VN]

well...

I don't like it and I know a great many who do not either. It appears it may take an eternity to gain max exp passup now. Also a great many toons will have to rethink their character developement to take max advantage of the new implementation. IMO, nothing was broke so why fix it. If people wanted to chit chat and have vassal/patron relationships then thats cool have at it. If people wanted to participate in a chain then thats cool too have at it. Now everyone is forced to work alot harder and sacrifice skills to generate extra exp but whatever I'll roll with the puches. I still love this game and will continue to play it as it seems that Turbine really wants to make it stand alone when compared to other of its genre. I just feel that too many people complain way to much and this may inadverntantly lead to game changes that aren't at all too popular.

[Desert Jade]

It is a moot point. Can you hear the silence? The devs don't care whom they have hurt in this process. We were expendable.

I hope that those who benefit from these changes do as much for their fellow man as we did, people like Meri and Emo, Rosso and me. The game will be so much better when we move on, won't it?

I know I am hanging on, trying to justify playing, but it is already the end for me. I have had 2 weeks off from work and didn't even bother logging on most of the time. The spell is broken :(

Once I heal from this knife wound in my back, I will be looking for a new home. Thankfully, I have family and friends who are likewise searching for a new home so I won't be alone out there.

To the devs, thanks for the responses you have given both here and in PM. It was nice to hear from you about why this was better for us and what hope there was for people like me.

/sarcasm off

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

The templates aren't designed for power hunting and if it took non-chained players 4 years to get to level 100, how do you expect the average player to do it in less time?

Because one would think that after 4 years of slogging it out, should've taught you HOW? lol :D

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

Bleys Icefalcon:
You play it your way, I'll play it mine.

It was a good post, but the line above (even though I still agree with it to a point) is wrong, because then (as I stated in another post or thread), ones like yourself could decide to play a game of Monopoly or any other type of game and by your own admission, you should be allowed to change the game rules to suit your own desires?

Sorry, it doesn't work like that, and shouldn't work like that. If you changed the rules of Monopoly and the others who played with you wanted to play by the actual rules that the developers wrote. You'd have quite a conflict, wouldn't you? You sure would! So by the same token, you cannot play Asheron's Call by YOUR rules. You have to play AC by Turbine's Rules, else you're in violation of the Rule and the Code of Conduct.

That's why games have rules. That's why there are cops patrolling the streets in RL, to enforce the rules (laws). You break em (via playing by your own rules), you face the consequences.

[Bleys Icefalcon]

Hehehe - I did not name names of those who Turbine can do no wrong on purpose....

As others have posted: moot. it's all moot. the game is no longer the game we once had. some of us will adjust. many will leave. this change was to deep into the very fabric OF the game.

I like monopoly.

I liked AC - quite a bit.

Bleys Icefalcon (108th my 3-School Tank Crossbowman) spent the vast majority of his game life Chain and Vassal Free, by MY choice.

On the other hand Bleys (126+ 3-School Sword) only MADE 126th due to a chain (A Mini one, but a chain nonetheless).

My play style unfortunately IS only able to be on 1-2 hours a day, and not every day. A father of two, active duty US Navy, I go to sea with infuriating frequency. At one point I went more than a consecutive year not being able to log in due to a major deployment and time spent in and around kosovo. So MY play time IS premium. Like many I had and still HAVE goals on game. The Chain allowed me to achieve those goals and not be totally outstripped by my peers. It was NOT cheating, it was not even an exploit. Itw as how the game was designed within the framework of it's conception. I do not have the luxury, nor the time of creating a new account to swear a new toon to my trademule so he can get exp. Some people do. I don't. And I am not alone in being that casual player who no longer has a means of achieving any palpable goals.

This all said I have a group of friends that I play with that when I did finally log back in I simply could not hang out with. Bleys was 27th level. His Patron and all of his co-vassals after a year were understandably MUUUUUCH higher. Their idea of a fun quest wasn't haging out at the Pre-Patch Lugian Mountain Citadel outside of Qal. They were fighting things like Drudge Raveners and stuff. At the time, I didn't even believe that "High" level drudges existed - the highest one I had ever seen being a Prowler. There was so much content that I had missed, heck, I was lifestoned near Arwic. Boy was I surprised when I went into town to find nothing but a Crater.

I NEVER understood why people quit. But they did. I never understood why people got upset at some of the changes they made in game. Not until recently.

You can like everything Turbine is doing and support it with all of your heart. Again, that's your right, and I applaud you for it. I really do. That used to be me. I was the guy telling the people in my allegience to calm down, give the changes a chance every time a controversial update hit. But this one not only hit me HARD, it hit hard virtually everyone I know. Very hard. Quite a few people on this post are so convinced that receiving passup is some form of evil deed, who knows, to a degree maybe they are right. If it were NEVER a part of the game, things would be different, and I would not be nearly as vocal on this and other threads as I am. Unfortunately - passup and the allegience system and how it worked WAS what made Asheron's Call unique and different than virtually every other game out there. And like it or not, was a keystone to this game. Was. The people on this thread thumbing their noses at the people hurt the hardest by this change - The Monarchs - clearly have no appreciation (my opinion) of the amount of time it takes that person to run a Monarchy. My King logs in and fields questions and talks and works out disputes and basically does 99% administrative stuff when he does log in. And while HE has not complained excessively about this, I am pissed for him. For all of the work that he does holding our band together, he EARNS every single point of passup he ever gets. Now he simply doesn't get any. And that's plain wrong.

Go out and earn it.

Sigh.

He does earn it, each and every day by his actions. He has Directs who are strategically placed for Rank. Of the 12 vassal spots he has, one is open, 4 are active, and of those four only 1 of them is the always played main. For him to break everyone else is like asking a father to give up children. Be honest people, in a close knit family type clan, and it HAS happened to some of you - it really REALLY sucks to log into "Your Allegience to so and so has been broken" - it happened to me while I was gone for that year and it just sucked. My King won't do it, and be honest here, he shouldn't have to, he shouldn't have to betray loyalties that are four-five years old, but now if he is to have passup he has no choice but to break people or ask them to leave - or do something drastic and very painful, totally re-arrange the clan, which will be nearly impossible. We are 4700+ strong. Many of these accounts are INTENTIONALLY inactive, activated ONLY for moving purposes, others are inactive as people have moved on - no way to move them. We have people who are on during each and every time zone. People who live in New Zealand, England, Canada, throughout the United States, Japan and Australia - and that's ONLY OUR RULING COUNCIL. While it would be possible to move as many people around as we could to try and retain as much Rank for our King as possible, likely he would no longer be King and our numbers will dramatically shift downward. Instead of a King, he's now a Duke, instead of 4700 followers it's now 800. All to break the evil horror of the EXP Chain. It will simply not be feasable nor realisitic to rearrange a clan our size under the new rules to maximize any semblence of passup. The Logisitcs involved are simply staggering to think about much less try and do.

To the purists out there. How pure are you? You've never, ever had a vassal, nor received a point of exp in passup? You've never ever used a plug in? You've never, ever gone to a fan site such as Jackcat or CoD? You've never accepted a piece of armor or a weapon as a gift from a guildmate? You've never been helped on a quest? Ever? You've never asked for, nor received advice ona template? You've never earned a single point of exp in a hunting fellowship? You've self tinkered each and every tinkered item you possess? You never traded for anything? Please, please please.

Rofl - I submit that your elitist purism only extends to picking and choosing what forms of "not earning" what certain people have accomplished, that fits your own little comfort zone.

Jealousy over people who used the existing framework of the game to rapidly gain accomplishements that for whatever choice on your part you did NOT again, is mean spirited. Calling a chainer an exploiter or cheater is simply wrong. They did what they did within the rules and design of the very fundamental fabric of the game that they paid their ten bucks a month for, just like you. They and I have every right in the world to be ticked off when our form of play style in our viewpoints is unjustly taken away.

Yes it is a game. But the nice thing about this game as to a degree it has always been our game. Yours, mine, everyones. Sadly, that may be going the way of the dinosaur.

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

Bleys Icefalcon:

Heh... well, you and I have a similar history. There are a couple of differences, but the end result is somewhat the same. I am pushing 50 retired Military, perm injured (we'll skip the heroic details, okay? lol). So in that sense, I obviously have had a ton of time on my hands to devote to the game... BUT, for the first 2.5 years, I was involved with the Microsoft Zone Online Team, which you can probably figure out by my Handle here. FmrSentFlatfoot = Former +Sentinel Flatfoot.. duh. :rolleyes:

Prior to +Sentinel, I started out as an Advocate. So the time you spent away from home, I spent at least an equal amount of time on duty for the game, as a volunteer. Therefore, as my in-game friends were levelling up, I stood outside an Advocate Tower in Yaraq with one of those cool looking Turquoise Aegis', helping new players understand the game better, to the best of what my training could offer them.

A short while later, I joined the +Sentinel Team, and when I had completed that training and became a full +Sentinel on my own shift, I wound up becoming so dedicated to the job, that I would give two to three times as many hours to the job, all for free. So obviously, now my friends were taking off by leaps and bounds and I got left waaaaay behind in their dust. I think they were approaching level 50ish (which was HUGE in those days) while my main was around 17? lol So, time went on and my friends were getting into their 70s, 80s plus... then Ken Karl opened up a private server for off-duty Volunteers, and gave us enough to equal a level 57 character. So guess where I ended up playing? lol

We knew full well that for test purposes those characters could be wiped out without consent at anytime, but it was still fun for the times. Meanwhile, character back on retail server was still around 20? Anyway, you get the drift.

Only when the Volunteer Team got the Shaft, did my gaming time increase 100-fold. To make a long story short, I took full advantage of the chain system, but not until maybe 18-24 months ago. For the first year of constant playing, it was basically learn all the things I missed out on, because I GAVE of all my time freely to help other people, earning a slap in the face as my reward.

I now have my main (the character that replaced my Sentinel slot), he's 3-school Archer, level 207. I also have a 165 UA, 137 Tinkerer, 105 Sword, 100 OG Battle... etc. and some mules over 3 accounts. Yes I squeezed every last drop out of the chaining system. Why not? It was there and it was designed by Turbine.. and they allowed it to flourish, so did I cheat? Nope, I just used what was supplied. I feel no shame nor guilt.

Do I think the current changes are good? Yes I do. Sure, call me a hypocrite and it's okay for me to say passup should die, now that I'm all set up with God-Like characters. But it was getting so far out of whack. If the old system had been allowed to continue, eventually everyone would be level 240 and have every Attribute and Skill maxed out. Can you imagine how boring that would be? It's already boring with as many maxed out characters as there are! There's really not enough fun-quotient to go around... that's why so many left to begin with, even before these drastic (so called draconian) measures were implemented.

Maybe they did too much too fast, but ultimately I think it was all good. Let's change the way things work. Let's TRY and go back to the old days.. at least TRY to see if maybe people will (save their godlike toons) but still reroll another and see if we can revive the game somehow. The new server is gonna be fantastic! It's not ever going to be plagued like all the rest have been. Maybe in time, people might see how much more fun they're having on the new server, that people may vote to wipe the character databases on the other worlds and start over the way it was meant to be? I dunno.. I'm allowed to dream in technicolor, aren't I? lol :p

In regards to your King deserving whatever XP he can get, I have to disagree in principle. I am now a Monarch, but even when I wasn't I still always bent over backwards to always DO for others, answer questions, give advice, corpse recovery, hunt for stuff so they could be well outfitted, have cash, give them sing keys for trades they wanted to make for some item they needed, etc., etc., etc., and as a monarch now I still do this. I spend way more time for others sake than I do for myself, and I do it FREELY without expecting anything in return... I even sometimes refuse when my vasals/followers offer to give me things.. I tell them, you keep it for someone else or maybe if you need it later on yourself.

I don't care about XP... what's it going to do for me at my level? Even when I was level 100, I earned my own way (until I joined a chain around 110). Now, mind you... I started off as a Volunteer, so my outlook was in helping others for no pay.. no reward whatsoever... so obviously that mindset has stayed with me ever since. Why should it change?

So, not to carry this already large essay sized reply into the range of a novel, you stated:

Yes it is a game. But the nice thing about this game as to a degree it has always been our game. Yours, mine, everyones. Sadly, that may be going the way of the dinosaur.

A phrase pops into my mind, something my parents said often enough that it stuck with me. "Nothing is constant, but change."

If your commanders order you to do something that you think is crazy and archaic, but you have to because there's been a policy change, you DO IT. Well, Turbine has changed things from what they were before. We must learn to adapt, or move on.

Nothing is Constant, but CHANGE.

Good luck to you. :)

[lop-ibn-sung]

I'm just a little curious, do any of the posters in favor on the experience changes have any items that were tinked by a trade mule that was leveled under the old system....you know, a max skilled tinker type? If you have armor tinkered more than 8 times, I'm guessing you did...

If so, would please salvage those items immediately or give them to a local town crier. These items were probably created by an exploit and as such have no place in game.

[BuddingBower]

Well I am not in a chain and I have noticed that my passup from my vassals has fallen off tremendously. Is this affected by this change?

[BuddingBower]

Originally posted by enoch_VN
well...

I don't like it and I know a great many who do not either. It appears it may take an eternity to gain max exp passup now. Also a great many toons will have to rethink their character developement to take max advantage of the new implementation. IMO, nothing was broke so why fix it. If people wanted to chit chat and have vassal/patron relationships then thats cool have at it. If people wanted to participate in a chain then thats cool too have at it. Now everyone is forced to work alot harder and sacrifice skills to generate extra exp but whatever I'll roll with the puches. I still love this game and will continue to play it as it seems that Turbine really wants to make it stand alone when compared to other of its genre. I just feel that too many people complain way to much and this may inadverntantly lead to game changes that aren't at all too popular.

I must agree with you on some points...I have not seen the numbers go past 600 on the Solclaim server in months. There was a time before all this hoopla where you could see 1200 + on this server just during the week. It is sad for a great game.

[bobjava]

Be Carefull What You Wish For.

It started with the drain nerf, moved on to the low wm, high al nerf, continued with banning of UCM and was kicked into a higher level with the loot and xp chain nerf.

Where were all the complainers when these other things were happening?

I don't care whether you agree with these things or not, but look at the number of people logging on. It is dipping faster than baseball players into their chew.

Where are all the players that were coming back because (draining, ucm, uber loot, insert flavor of the month gripe here), has been changed.

Every time something gets nerfed players are lost. People hate to have something taken away from them. When was the last time you had a reduction instead of a raise at work. Companies will do almost anything to keep that from happening.

Stop the monthly patch downgrades and start giving something positive.

And by the way, this is a game. I do not want to "work" for anything, I am here to play. I have a job, a family, a mortgage and lots of real life work. Guess what, I come here to PLAY.

Sometimes something for nothing is fun.

When the game was wild and crazy and open to everything,
PEOPLE WERE PLAYING.

If I want someone to tell me what to do, how to act and think, I will ask my wife, not PLAY A GAME.

Stop banning, stop nerfing, stop worrying about how high levels some people are. Just play the game.

You don't like chains, don't get in one, you don't like 3rd party apps., don't use them.

Keep telling others how to play and you will soon be playing with yourself.