Hello Imms and Players! First of all, it is a breath of fresh air in my life / gaming experience to be playing CF again. Fun new areas, some new twists to old areas, all-in-all pretty darn great.

I wanted to discuss for a minute the subject of edges. As a returning player, it is (very) difficult to obtain edges. Without going into too much detail, I've attained "legendary awareness" + role exp + imm exp and I can only have four edges (one cheap, three moderate) with pretty bleak edge prospects on the horizon.

Certain edges depend on having a combination. A good example is warrior's seasons/birds - they were always designed (I think) to be used as a pack of four. With the new system in place, obtaining these four edges would wipe out almost entirely the "edge points". (I want to take an aside - that perhaps I misunderstand the new system and am missing something.) (Suggestion - lower cost or "combine" into one.)

Needless to say, a lot of work went into creating fun and creative edges. With the new system however, I suspect a lot of the edges (which are sometimes for flair) will never be taken. E.g.: "Apt Learner" - in the past, it was a convenience edge... now, it would be very hard to justify taking it. (Almost curious if anyone's taken it in the "new system".)

I read the posts where the feeling was that edge taking was out of control. I suppose my response to that is "so what" that a player has 10-15 edges on a character - isn't that the point - it gives a sense of endgame progression - it utilizes a lot of great work that went into designing these edges.

Please note, this is not a complaint, but simply an attempt to share the experience of a returning (and certainly non-veteran) player on the new edge system.

I look forward to hearing your feedback on this.

- I think you misunderstood the warrior "season/bird" edges. They're lumped together thematically, but they aren't necessarily meant to be all-or-nothing. I wouldn't necessarily expect many warriors to have all of them, though I understand why many warriors would want all of them. Anyway, it's absolutely by design that having all these edges comes at fairly steep cost.

- There are 46 characters for whom the Apt Learner edge is available, and currently 5 characters who've bought the edge. I'm afraid I can't pull historical data on that, but it stands to reason the second number may have typically been a little higher pre-changes.

- In response to you question "Isn't that the point?", the answer is no, that never was the point. What makes that problematic is, as people often point out, (some) edges (can) have a significant mechanical impact on the game. They're also rewards. The last round of changes attempted to address both of those things by narrowing the gap between the average player and the people on the "edge leaderboard" so to speak and by scaling back the reward factor for things that shouldn't be (relatively) so reward-worthy. Data seems to indicate this has largely worked and subjectively, I agree.

- Your character seems to be on the right track when it comes to edges. You're doing most of the things that yield edge points, and indeed you have already spent more edge points than the average character between 41 and 51 ever earns. I think with a little more longevity you'll reap even more reward from the edge system and probably turn out to be something of a white paper for what we had in mind for edges all along.

Thanks for the feedback, and I'm glad you're back.

nt

Since Baer didn't answer my goodbye thread...

Was there some reason Corzu was immexp exempt most of his life? I was an align-changed gnome with a role contest win, Marshall, etc etc and I think I had 4-5 edges at the end because I only had 300immexp total.

I've had other characters with more but lately it seems that immexp isn't really ever handed out - and Corzu, despite being one of my better chars, had almost none. I only got the 300 for harassing Whisydan during one of his events. Before I grab a tinhat and think it's because they didn't want me in ST... any clue why this might be?

I'm not a casual snooper / character watcher, so while I was a fan of Corzu at a high level and know he was accomplished, all I can really do is make educated guesses.

It's possible there's a misconception at work here that being rewarded with something should come paired with Imm XP. You mention being made leader (which, FYI, yields edge points on its own) and having won a RC, which are rewards in and of themselves so not necessarily things I would expect an Immortal to give Imm XP for too.

Other than that, I imagine it largely comes down to where your priorities were and dumb luck. What I quite honestly just don't know is whether Corzu was consistently out there looking for and taking advantage of RP opportunities or simply hoping he'd get Imm XP for the occasional good showing during a raid or difficult PK.

To sum it up: I don't know. I don't see anything in Corzu's history that would indicate he simply wasn't liked, but I also don't see any specific commentary that leaves me wondering, "Why didn't they xpadd him for that?!". It's likely there were moments in Corzu's life that slipped through the cracks, as they there are for every character, but on the other hand he was a very accomplished and highly-rewarded character nonetheless.

I think you should feel good about Corzu, but I guess if one of your goals for the character was something like ST specifically then I can understand your frustration. But for what it's worth, I can guarantee that your tinfoil hat theory is 100% incorrect.

I'm pretty sure there was an announcement that said don't worry, we plan to offset the loss by giving out a lot more imm exp than we had been.


To be honest, I think you guys have been giving out less imm exp than you were before the change. I basically never had a time getting in silent tower, since the change I have maxxed role exp every time but no character Ive had has gotten over 500-1000 imm exp and those were the good ones. Not even close to the 2k requirement.


I'd be interested in seeing the numbers of how many characters that were rolled up *after* the change went live actually have 2k imm exp. I would be willing to bet you could count them on one hand, and maybe not take the whole hand.

Firstly, I guess I should clear up any misconception. We knew when we refactored edges and broke off Role XP that we would need to be more diligent when it came to being aware of reward-worthy RP and acting on it. I don't think we ever promised to offset the loss completely by giving out "a lot more", but if so that was a mistake. Our intention (or mine, anyway, as the primary coder involved) was never to implement a zero sum proposition where by things got shuffled around but nobody really lost anything.

As far as hard numbers go, here's what I took the time to look up. In the (roughly) 200 days since the change went live, Imm XP has been awarded 641 times. In the 200 days prior to the change, it had been awarded 396 times. I did not take the time to analyze the amounts given per time, but in terms of frequency of Imm XP being given out, we've nearly doubled.

I don't have the ability to satisfy your question regarding how many characters got 2k Imm XP before/after, but I can say that while I understand why that specific number might be a milestone for certain players, it's meaningless to us. I also understand that this might bother some people, but ultimately we're interested in rewarding quality RP and not stamping tickets to Silent Tower. For what it's worth, I think that bar of entry is now too high but it's not my prerogative to meddle with it. Again, not a particularly fun or useful answer, but my answer nonetheless.

edited: Meh, this is all been said before. I like ST, just wish I could have done it on Corzu.

I don't have a character that could or would go to silent tower anyways. Getting age killed as a lich at 300 hours sort of took the fun out of that area for me.

I do however, think nobody would give a damn about imm exp numbers if certain things were not gated behind them. Like the quest in Ysgraith, or the Silent tower entry. I don't have a good workaround solution for it, imo I liked it more when role exp numbers went towards it. It's not my game though and it's not my area, only Daev can make the area more accessible if he chooses.

Anyone else find it ironic that a few months ago in the code changes Daev said he reworked all the silent items to be a little less OP, and reduced the power of the archmages to be a little easier killed by smaller groups....and now nobody can get in to try? Such a tease Daev....such a tease.

I echo Torak's sentiment, imm xp adds havent equaled role xp. I also question how the edge points for 1500 role xp equate to previous levels of imm xp from roles? I was able to buy one edge(Ehren soul) with the edge points from 1500 role xp. Is that the intended result?

You replaced the role xp with imm xp, but didnt give any way for your fellow imms to know if other imms are watching a certain player. If a player had an ungraded/unexped role entry previously, I assume you had some way to know this. Now it's just hit or miss or <whatever is interesting> to determine if a player gets an xp add? Might it not help to automatically track for other imms via the who list "X hours since last imm xp" or "x hours since last imm comment", then ask imms "hey, if you watch a player tag him with a "." in his comments" so we know someones gave him a chance?

... is Corzu's problem was a mixture of the role contest + love from Baer translating in the opposite way - folks not wanting to play favorites. People thought I was "taken care of" from a reward stand point.

I flew too close to the sun Hopefully folks get I'm not bitching at all about Corzu's life, just wandered why I had no immexp (and mainly the ST requirement was the reason for asking).

I think it is because: Rangers are boring to watch - their combat is boring, and generally one sided.

I had a 10/1 ratio with Raeth, fought all the time, and had very little IMMxp

I recently played an Orc - Kobuk (less deathful overall 2/1 ratio) but I fought all the time, and I have to say Orc combat is WAY more exciting all around than a ranger hoping to hit snare/ambush etc.

I'd wager IMMxp flows with how exciting it is to watch a char.

Spamming "call lightforge talisman" for hours on end is pretty ####ing boring.

But it isn't just PK. I'd be more inclined to give out ImmXp for solid and consistent RP.

I'd also be inclined to make a note of players who are intentionally going out of their way to group with/help new players (preferably IC), especially at low levels. And we do have new players.

I had about 4x the IMMxp with Kobuk than I did Raeth.

I RP'd more with Kobuk, and again I feel this is largely a function of the build. Kobuk was visible a lot, allowing for more tells (Raeth was always hidden, and in fact I'd keep my presence unknown to cabalmates often).

As a ranger, and especially a reaver potentially hunting wardens you don't want anyone aware that you are around to maximize your potential. This is great "RP" for a hiding class, but at the same time it isn't such great RP.

People would talk to Kobuk all the time, and that would give me a chance to Orc it up to them, whereas my conversations with Raeth were usually extremely brief and usually involving someone who just ate an ambush/snare death.

On the note of helping newer players - I think a lot of us try pretty hard, I know I do. I actually stopped hunting one of them until he started getting more involved in cabal wars as Kobuk. There are times though, where helping is definitely "Breaking" RP. How does the staff feel about this? Example: Orc leading a warden to its corpse, or being overly nice because he knows the player is new.

...and I could tell he was super new.

I was chaotic evil...so after I told him how to get back to his corpse, I threw a couple of these out there.

"You don't even use those signet rings from Gharis near Balator. A wise choice, they would likely make you die less quickly, and then I wouldn't be able to defile your corpse"

"I suppose you were trying to feign weakness by wielding that plain steel sword. Smart. If you used a jeweled longsword from the Keep south of the crossroads I might have died"

"I suppose I'll have buy another returning potion from Keiiah in Hamsah....I seem to have spilled blood in it"

Etc.

It has a tone of sarcasm and condemnation (evil) while helping them out. I know I found that it was difficult when I played Helfinu to find a way to give people help while still being evil.

Great way of staying IC and still helping new players. Love it.

10 gold was too "heavy" for me so I decided to drop it but yeah.

I even said on newbie something along the lines of "hey new guy...my char's an evil prick or he'd help you more....good luck!".

And then I deleted the character because I'm a massive drama queen and I was mad at something stupid.

While it gets really difficult to explain some things in an IC manner, it is always preferable to do so.

Once the new player is outside the Academy or past the very basics of the game it should be a case of them learning the ropes and learning RP so you did a great job here.

I try my best to catch the new players and at least offer them the option of some help, at least early on. Some inevitably slip through the cracks (this MUD isn't for everyone, and that's fine) and others are just content to do their own thing alone.

Even so, I can't be awake, or online 24 hours a day so it's always great to see players helping.

Good job.

.

I appreciate you sharing the design vision regarding edges. It certainly helps me understand the system better and to also set expectations (and most importantly realistic goals) for my character.

See you all in the fields!

I bought it before the changes and would never spend edge points on it again. It is nice but with the playerbase so low in my hours I have time on my hands to spam. At the same time I had saved points for one or two really key edges that I am now stuck without. Eg controlling grasp, and to a lesser extent unholy slavemaster. So all the edges that just made life a bit more convenient (apt learner being one) would be cut if I was to do this again as a new character in the current climate, so that ones that make a difference for a long lived character could be picked. Spine of the akragaka would also be one I dropped because generally you don't need that (for a dark elf) very minor boost in ranking or the extra melee. The enemy is probably going to die anyway.