I thought about putting this up given the recent threads popping up around the "fun" going away from CF. This isn't in relation to descriptions or rule enforcement but more to the tedious nature of the game these days. I'm going to quote something here from QHCF:

In all seriousness, though I agree. CF used to be a social game for people without great social lives. The only thing that mattered was to technically follow the rules, find a group (because you'd get slaughtered solo) and try to grind out some exp while dodging roving bands of murderous PCs that were also in a group of 3.

Now it is write a role, desc, pk 15 before 25, 35, 41, 50. Explore 5k before 30, 26k total, observe 10k before 30, 31k total, get empowered, earn 21k worth of commerce in tiny increments because buying in bulk isn't how you get good at "commerce". Suck up to various Imms and/or RP obnoxiously enough to get noticed for Imm XP. Practice skills in every increasingly annoying ways so that you can get those PKs. Gather wands, preps, and more preps. Oh, and then, when you've maxed your skills and gathered your preps and spent your gold and observed and explored everything you can for your level, then you need to go out and find 2 other people that aren't busy doing any of the above and go fight some mobs so you can actually gain exp. and levels so you can repeat the cycle above. Fun, right?

Now some quick points....

-Part of this decline in "fun" is because of the revelation on how far you can "maximize" your experience in CF by doing the mentioned steps. There's a lot of things that give you significant edge over your opponents in a PVP-centric game that take *significant* time. Most of this posts revolves around this and the effect on veteran and new players. There's also something to be said for people with not much playing time.

-Having things like practicing skills to perfection has always been there and I honestly don't believe this has affected a lot of the game - despite the removal of key practicing items and spots, a few still exist (level gains have helped as well). New players have no idea where these places and/or gear are at so it just really alienates them more from the majority of veteran players... and if these spots are removed continually, it's just going to create more tedious time spent off in the middle of nowhere which creates less interaction in the game as a whole. When you're in the mid ranks, it's not uncommon to have a few people in your range on "quiet" mode or saying "sorry, I'm practicing". I've got a suggestion to fix this below.

-People can also bitch about wands but I'm going to sidestep that because I've just stopped playing classes that use them Also, I've never really had a problem with writing a role/desc as I like defining my character.

-With the above aside, there are several aspects that are nothing but tedious and have grown a lot harder over time - mainly edge tiers for pvp and how obs/expl work.

-Edges are important as they allow you to specialize your character. Without them you are at a severe disadvantage. They've become equivalent to a "talent tree" of sort if you want to use World of Warcraft as an example, albeit probably less impactful but still important. Now to get these, there are several things you need to go through... usually involve running around zones you've already seen before or level-sitting to kill people - both of which are incredibly hard on new players if not impossible, while "grindy" for the veterans... especially if you're just killing easier people for a tally. Also with the recent exclusivity change to edges it makes it even more important to do your choirs and eat your vegetables or you can be a hero without almost no edges.




Folks can discuss if I'm completely off-base here but I've got some ideas. First up, practicing.

Let's just get rid of the idea that you need to run off to the middle of nowhere to spam some things instead of interacting with other people. It really helps nothing when something generally drives people away from each other. You can tell me until you're blue in the face that it's not required but every single major killer has done it. There's a reason Daevryn and other powerhouses usually have 100% in nearly every "key" skill (or like Daevryn, obsessive to have 100% in everything). I would absolutely love to think at level 15 that I can work on perfecting defenses while continuing ranking with people and not have to say "sorry guys, got to run and practice stuff".

How do we fix this? I think learning rates should be significantly increased while in a group with other people and moreso in a pvp fight. Think of it like pack sense for everyone learning since people can point out your faults/mistakes. Perhaps the way to implement this is while ranking with other players your "skill learn" can fire off on mobs periodically? Instead of a blanket increase, this allows for you to learn important things that you cannot do in a group (trappers, spamming word of recall, certain invoker spells, etc all come to mind).

To stop abuse for players fighting each other with "dueling" to get this increase, maybe if you kill someone your "skill learn" fires once and if you die it fires two to three times. Help the losing party out in a way that actually aids them. I'd be a whole lot less bummed out if I died at lower levels if I suddenly got 6-9% in some skills I need and it'll help the newbie defend himself better next time. You want to increase interaction between people across the board and all of this is the main goal.


Now on to edges...

Here's a pretty radical idea - make them standardized. Let's get rid of the idea that you need to run scripts or through a zone you already know to get points. You know how ridiculous it is to see so many people just sitting in the docks? Running every room in the high tower or mage warehouse over and over? The benefits of exploring are already apparent as you get gear and items that help you and increased learning from the above change - leave permanent character buffs out of it. Place edges into two pools of standard and special:

-Standard edges are ones that everyone has access too and they can choose one every few levels. That way at hero, people have the same amount of edges. For the sake of argument, let's say 5 or 6. This helps newer players and veteran players be on a level playing field and it makes leveling more fun. No more grinding zones, no more grinding people, no more waiting around when you want to level. If you want to leave the point system in so people can decide to have 2-3 more powerful ones or 8-10 more cheap ones then that's fine but the whole idea is that it is standardized. You won't feel cheated if you don't do the dirtywork I mentioned before, newer players will not be so heavily penalized and you won't blame advantages of this nature on how much patience/time a person has compared to you.

-Special edges are ones that require immexp or have special conditions like Murderous Reputation. The whole idea with recent changes was to make this "gift" more impactful on a player so keep only a very few away from the general populace to hand out. I personally feel this should only really be cabal edges plus a minor few. Again you can keep the point system if you want, so people can spend immexp to buy "standard" edges also but the general idea is to make that gift special so I thought of just separating them.

I know this was suggested by Lhydia for Santa Umiron but I think it needs to be brought up. No one enjoys grinding people for points or running over the same zones over and over again. With a dwindling playerbase you want to increase interaction, not increase tedium.



Lastly, there's power creep - this is a lot broader but I think it needs to be said that it needs to start being addressed. The difference between a fully prepped player and a newer or less prepared player is incredibly high. Every single zone adds some new prep, some new kickass thing, that ups the ante a little more. "You mean you didn't have aura/shield/fly/stone/resists/ward/etc before you died"? Power creep is a bit out of control at the moment as certain classes and combinations just absolutely wipe the floor with everyone else. People used to bitch about anti-paladins but honestly there aren't enough people in the game to make charges that scary anymore.... and that requires a TON of hard work and luck while the other power combos require much less. The game has become more about what you know and did before a fight, and less about the actual fight. Losing "preps" is one of the most rage-inducing acts in the game as it can take you real life hours to regather all the things necessary to fight people.

The only thing I can think of... is start removing things or toning them down. The powerhouse classes need to be looked over because powerhouse players don't need that much of an edge over other players. We don't need instant-kill abilities or such huge damage abilities that instantly kill you... a good player can chase and endure or force longer fights.



In general I think more just needs to be done to level it out a bit for newer players. We'll probably never hit the glory days but it'd be nice if a new player wasn't so overwhelmed and at such a disadvantage. I like to think of Dota 2 as a great example of a balanced game to everyone - where the good players use their skill to win. We'll never get to that level but if I had to grind for hours to get my "ultimate" or unlock the right to purchase an item, it'd never have done well.