I get aggrivated when trying to form a group and so many people are soloing trying to maximize skills.

People I power rank and all my defenses are 90 to perfected by rank 30. Same for my weapons kicks elbows and brawling scores.

I believe it was told to us long ago ranking in a group had a higher payoff in skill returns and I believe my results hold that up. At the very least I can show that solitary life isn't optimal for skill progression.

That said, I propose this. The longer a person is grouped the better he learns skills and spells. (I can think of several ic reasons how this could be explained)

Just like wilderness time it wanes when out of a group, or perhaps all benifit is lost as soon as a person leaves a group and is reset to default rate.

The icing on the cake for me was when a guy I was travelling with the otherday wanted to master ambush before travelling further. I mean really? I had it nearly mastered by normal use by 20 and did before 25.

Anyway. Just a thought.

>I get aggrivated when trying to form a group and so many
>people are soloing trying to maximize skills.
>
>People I power rank and all my defenses are 90 to perfected by
>rank 30. Same for my weapons kicks elbows and brawling
>scores.
>
>I believe it was told to us long ago ranking in a group had a
>higher payoff in skill returns and I believe my results hold
>that up. At the very least I can show that solitary life isn't
>optimal for skill progression.
>
>That said, I propose this. The longer a person is grouped the
>better he learns skills and spells. (I can think of several ic
>reasons how this could be explained)
>
>Just like wilderness time it wanes when out of a group, or
>perhaps all benifit is lost as soon as a person leaves a group
>and is reset to default rate.
>
>The icing on the cake for me was when a guy I was travelling
>with the otherday wanted to master ambush before travelling
>further. I mean really? I had it nearly mastered by normal use
>by 20 and did before 25.
>

What is really wrong with CF at this time, at least for me and those of my friends who quit as well, is that it has lost the draw of gaining knowledge and exploring. I finally figured out to rank in Arkham, where to practice skills in Ysigrath, how to rank up an evil/neutral in Tir Talath etc and poof there goes that bit of knowledge. CF keeps changing for the worse. Wands, haste items, ranking places, etc all becoming more tedious rather than enjoyable. I do not need to be impaled, whirled, bled, curse, plagued etc at low levels by mobs, thanks but no.

Shutting down explore areas is just as bad. You get a taste of an area and poof it goes away. Sucks to be you.

Now with respect to adding content without taking away from the old, the Cabal system needs some hugs. For example make a Cabal's power not only based on having their item but as well as maintaining shrines/altars throughout Thera. Gives players something to do as initiates in Cabals i.e. tend, repair, or hell even develop shrine/altar sites. Add something where it takes hero level cabal members to active a shrine you get some interaction between levels instead of everyone rushing to hero level.

There are simply too many games, movies to watch, MMA to enjoy etc that are way more fun than CF. Sorry Imps & Imms but the game is running down and with no new things to inspire the playerbase will dwindle slowly till it is basically a joke.

If you need examples look at the threads of the ilk "Thanks but I have had enough" from Vets and newer players alike.

>Wands, haste items, ranking places, etc all becoming
>more tedious rather than enjoyable.

Couple thoughts here:

1. Haste is actually way less tedious for most characters, since it is now mostly unavailable in potion/pill form and so is unavailable to those characters. So they don't have to spend any time gathering haste items, since there aren't any to be gathered.

2. Ranking. Sure, some mobs now do spec skills. But guess what? You're getting a 20-30% xp boost out of the gate most of the time now. And mob deaths don't hurt as bad. And there are arguably more places to rank now than there were "back in the day".

3. Wands I'll grant you. But this has the side effect of (arguably) making life less tedious for people who can't use wands, since now they have an easier time fighting mages. If you hate wands there's an easy solution: don't play mages.

>I do not need to be
>impaled, whirled, bled, curse, plagued etc at low levels by
>mobs, thanks but no.

Not sure where you're ranking, but I don't get any of that. I'm sure there are mobs that do that now; apparently I don't rank in those areas.

> Shutting down explore areas is just as bad. You get a taste of an area and poof it goes away. Sucks to be you.

I agree it sucks when an explore area gets shut down. But I can tell you it probably sucks a lot more for the area author than it does for me, to have all his/her hard work get yanked because some doofus published a walk through.

>Cabal's power not only based on having their item but as well
>as maintaining shrines/altars throughout Thera. Gives players
>something to do as initiates in Cabals i.e. tend, repair, or
>hell even develop shrine/altar sites.

That sounds boring as hell. As a cabal pledge I'd rather be killing my cabal's enemies. Or ranking. Not playing Tamagotchi with some automated shrine code.

>I get aggrivated when trying to form a group and so many
>people are soloing trying to maximize skills.

So you want us to create yet even more incentive to try and get those people to stop? I really don't see that as the right solution, since it's already heavily favoring people who do understand this.

>That said, I propose this. The longer a person is grouped the
>better he learns skills and spells.

So you get a bonus because you can fight harder things (which means you learn faster), and toss another bonus on top of that because you're grouped. I don't see it happening.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

I'll refrain from posting future ideas.

So excuse me.

I don't think he was trying to "down" you, he just happened to disagree with you.

I've yet to get a slap on the back and a "great effin' idea!", but you've got to be a little thick-skinned when ideas are getting batted around. I've heard some real stinkers on here; I'm sure some people have viewed mine as the same. Shrug it off and throw more ideas out!

"This isn't something I'd like to see implemented because..." rather than a sarcastic response?

I took the time to post an idea and was more or less attacked for it. At least that's how I read it.

>"This isn't something I'd like to see implemented because..."
>rather than a sarcastic response?
>
>I took the time to post an idea and was more or less attacked
>for it. At least that's how I read it.

I can play your game to. Next time I won't even bother responding, and you can continue to wonder why no Immortals are taking any time to give you feedback.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

dtyj

That's three words, how hard can it be? You don't have to spend time answering questions you don't want to, and everyone's happy.

>That's three words, how hard can it be? You don't have to
>spend time answering questions you don't want to, and
>everyone's happy.

Yeah...if I thought "Thanks, but no" would work better than ignoring the question I would have kept using it long ago. People rarely accept "No" without quickly following up with a laundry list of reasons why I'm a jerk, short-sighted, have no sense of balance, the end of the world is coming, etc.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

And didn't think you were a jerk until you responded in the above fashion.

I'm not "people who rarely". I'm me and I'm content to throw out an idea and let it float. I'm never content to let a slight or insult go without a response.

I wasn't expecting praise but I would expect to be treated civily even my idea was not deemed to have merrit.

>I'm not "people who rarely". I'm me and I'm content to throw
>out an idea and let it float. I'm never content to let a
>slight or insult go without a response.

You're seeing a slight where there isn't one, dude. Chill out.

I get the definite sense that Zulg sometimes gets annoyed with these posts. Might be wrong, but that's what the tone of his responses suggests to me.

Whether it's an accurate impression or not is another matter, but I can definitely see where Pro is coming from.

If you respond with "Thanks, but no nt" or "Thanks, but not going to happen nt", it should be clear that you do not wish to elaborate on the why, while responding in a civil manner. (If you do, you could put "Thanks, but no, and here's why", ofcourse.)

Personally I would be 99.9% happy with it (unless I posted a really long elaborate post, then I would expect a somewhat longer response ).

A civil response would be something like "Yeah, but could you elaborate on the why". If you really don't wish to respond, just don't. The point has already been made, no action is required from you.

If the poster flames/calls names, delete post/ban/imm curse him, whatever.

Yes, I know that for a game with a high average age (I would guess like 25 years?), posts are generally amazingly immature, but in reality it's not that bad, especially compared to games where the avg is like 13-17 years.

Generally it's just posing, the player behind the screen will typically grasp the hint. If not, feel free to ignore him to pieces, with my compliments (if you responded politely, ofcourse ).

Edited to add: PS: Personally I found your original response to Pro neutral. Not the best, nor the worst response, but I can see why Pro would interpret it as sarcastic, even if it wasn't meant as such. The follow-up response was horrible, that was basically piss-off. My 2 cents (and because of inflation, that's not worth a whole lot )

Geez. I can't imagine how you must have reacted to the socratic method.

It's where the teacher answers the pupils question with a question thus guiding the pupil to enlightenment.

It's not a sarcastic and hostile respose to a person making a helpful suggestion.

Please note, I started this thread with a suggestion that I hoped would lead to making the game more sociable. Now I am now being attacked.

A cautionary note to the new reader. This is typical of CF.

I, of course, have no clue how much the bonus is, but maybe if it were more noticible, then people would be more inclined to group up.

I'm going to echo Pro and say that I don't think you realize how you come across on the forums.

In regards to the topic at hand, his proposed change doesn't affect solo-rankers and skill-grinders in any way whatsoever. If that's what they want to do, they can still do it, at no cost. All the change does is add more incentive to group. How is that a bad thing, especially with the playerbase looking like it does these days? Finding a group is way harder than it should be (considering many classes can't easily solo rank), and I think all of us would welcome broad tweaks like this that would improve that.

Splntrd

>In regards to the topic at hand, his proposed change doesn't
>affect solo-rankers and skill-grinders in any way whatsoever.
>If that's what they want to do, they can still do it, at no
>cost.


Yes, it does. People practice key skills (note: I'm not talking about parry/dodge/shieldblock) because they want a competitive edge. If all these "groupers" are racing to 100%s in key skills, the solo rankers will find themselves behind the 8 ball. So, of course, it affects solo rankers.

Further, sometimes it can be hard to find a group. When I log on and have no one to group with, I have two choices: (1) solo rank and practice some skills, or (2) log out. When I choose option (1), it increases the likelihood that much more for the next guy who logs in to find a groupmate (me, because I stuck around). If I choose option (2), it decreases the likelihood of the next guy finding a group. So we want to keep people choosing option (1). If you make solo ranking virtually useless relative to grouping (which Pro's suggestion comes closer to doing) more people will choose option (1), Pro will find less groups, Pro will be even more sad and bitter, Pro will have an even thinner skin to constructive criticism. It's just a downward spiral, really.

avvaev

ss v vrafwea

When this was made an open forum, one of the rules outlined was " No douche baggery"

I just asked a question and I feel I am being unfairly characterized here and Bahlrad is in violation of those rules.

It is a somewhat hostile response, yes; however, it is also one that presents a reasoned argument against your request.

I'd prefer to see less of the former, but I still think it's a pretty good post overall because of the latter.

I second this. It was a pretty reasonable explanation of why one wouldn't want to make grouping overwhelmingly preferable to solo-ranking.

However, currently, I'd rather log out than solo rank. Which means that in order to keep me around during less-than-peak hours, either solo-ranking needs to get more fun somehow, or something drastic needs to change with the grouping system to encourage people to seek grouping more aggressively.

With low player counts showing few signs of improving, maybe the better solution is simply to find a way to improve the solo-ranking experience across the board, and to make it more viable for classes that are currently not so good at it.

Splntrd

And I apologize if I hurt your feelings.

I was explaining to Splntd how your proposed change (1) hurts solo rankers and (2) ultimately hurts group opportunities, as well as (3) expressing shock at your reaction to Zulg's constructive criticism.

As for the open forum, I think it is awesome. I have at least three accounts to these official forums (Balrahd, Tjok, Adhelard), and forgot the passwords to all of them. So I haven't been able to post until now.

Just sayin'.

.

I feel your pain.

I actually helpped rank him up to mid thirties with an invoker who's name I forgot.