I started playing CF way back in 2002 I think with Zendaranth. I stopped playing in 2008 and started back again a year ago. I have been reading the forums the past year and often see much heated discussion about edges, and edge points etc. I was wondering what CF would be like without edges, and what the other players thought about that? I would think it would be more about class vs class , skill vs skill, race vs race. Rather than using edges to change the way your skills work, or making your foes skills work less against you. Just wondering is all.

Edges were created for two reasons. First, to allow further customization to classes which everyone likes and second, to provide rewards for various things which seems to be where most of the contention comes into play.

Seems like a simple solution would be to keep edge points as a reward system, but minimize the upside of that reward system (which appears to have already been accomplished).

Next, give enough blanket edge points to all characters at level 25 or 30 to allow for some customization without obs/exp/imm xp. Maybe even give some at 25/30 to everyone, and then give some more at 51 (and remove that strange criteria that you have <100/<300 xp penalty). Maybe between the two bumps enough for 2 or 3 mediocre edges or 1 expensive edge.

I know there will still be some who are unhappy with this solution, but seems like it would make the greatest number of folks happy.

nt

People who can invest time say "give us more ways to earn edges", people who can't play a lot say "oh let's make everyone equal".

Who would've guessed?

I disagree edges are a great addition to cf and gives us diversity in our character builds. I do think we need a better way in which edge points are handed out. Cabal/age/level/imms edge points are fine but when people are writing and probably sharing scripts to get their exp/obv something has to be changed. You could keep and should keep the role xp and immxp points as they are and just change the obs/exp/comm points. Either hand them out as others have said evenly every 5 levels increasing until hero so you still need to gain them other ways to get the expensive edges or find another way for them to be given that can't be exploited. I think you should return points for pk wins regardless of level at 10, 25 etc and total solo pk wins at 40 and 60. Just remove tier pk wins as that just promoted pk farming. I would add only if u killed someone more than once it doesnt add to pk points.

I believe if this is fixed cf will return to as it was before a fun place where people logged on and joined up in groups, went hunting for pks solo and in groups, engaged in cabal wars and yes explored but you will see no more pk farming nor script exploring and that is what we all want.

This conversation should happen and I encourage good discussion on why things should exist and shouldn't. Edges are a mixed bag. And I don't think if we should have them or not should be the conversation at the moment. However, what we could do to improve the system, I am all ears for. We like having players opinions on gameplay things. That does not mean we are going to jump on your idea by any means. But it does give us perspective on where you are at. If you give us constructive and civilized feedback, we are glad to listen and see what you can bring to the table. A good and healthy discussion is never a bad thing.

I guess what I am getting at is I like playing CF, and before I could come home from work and play 5-6 hours if I liked and play on weekends too all day. Now I am only able to play for around an hour or a bit more during the night time 4 to five nights a week. I feel that if I spend that time trying to find edge points then I am missing out on the game that I really enjoy. I have seen on the forums someone had an idea of removing observation and exploration points and just rewarding them during the life as the character gains ranks. I think that is a good idea. It would promote just playing the game and interacting with other people, rather than spending time alone looking for observation and exploration. The main problem with the game everyone says is that not enough people play. I like the idea of the edge points that promote interaction, like Cabal points, Pk points, Imm reward points, etc. The imms that watch players I ask you, do you see people looking for observation points and exploration points, do they do it alone, or with other players? If they do it alone, why not change it that you get the rewards automatically as you gain ranks, with other players? I do understand that you are trying to promote new people looking around and exploring etc. I am sure that people that know what they are doing, are able to get the required amount of exploration and observation points easily as they know exactly how to do it.

players who invest time. A no-life who can play 16 hours a day will always have more edge points than you, will play better than you (due to more practice), will generally be a powerhouse.

It's life, just concentrate on other aspects of the game if you don't have masochist personality.

I for one try to play OP combos exactly because I don't have a lot of time to play, so I try to compensate lack of edges/experience with stronger character combos. That's another way of doing it.

In your case (as I see it), you play underpowered characters for less hours. There's no way you could get satisfactory results if you concentrate on PK aspect of the game.

Thank you for your comments. I appreciate what you are saying, respect your ideas. You are right about trying to play power combos, I should try that rather than trying to play half good race/class combo's that only work in certain situations. What got be back into playing CF was buying a second hand book from the Icewind trilogy. and then going to the library and borrowing all the Drow trilogy, and then the following 10 or so books with Drizzt in them. Anyway I was toying with the idea of doing a Wolfgar type character in CF one day. Would be a Human Str Warrior Mace spec with cry of thunder. Would that even work? What are your ideas.

But if you're going to hero-range (and I guess you do) better do Drizzt type character, drow STSF sword is so much easier both PK and exploration-wise.

So I'm new to CF but not to muds and said something more or less the same as this a few weeks back. Since then I sort of doubled down on exploring - created a new character this week and blasted out the 5k/10k that I'd been complaining about and actually had a great time doing it. Violet Woodlands and Loch Grynmear are amazing areas, some of the best I can remember exploring in 20+ years mudding, up there with high end areas on my last mud just in terms of the attention to detail and problem solving they encourage.

The conversation around this topic has really got me thinking about the old Bartle test. From what I've seen from this community it seems like there is the normal small 100% Socializer crowd, the 2016-normal tiny psychopathic/antisocial/troll 100% Killer crowd, then a really really huge Achiever crowd - which is interesting. Achievers who lean Explorer are rewarded the most by the edge point system (after the recent changes), while Achievers who lean Killer are probably the most disappointed.

I'm sure there's not a right answer for everyone re: edge points for pk, but I do think removing incentive to sit and multikill all comers at low ranks is a good thing. I wonder if offering some edge points for PKs made at level 44/45+ (or whatever level it is that a human is going to end up in a giant hero's range) would be something worth considering?

>So I'm new to CF but not to muds and said something more or
>less the same as this a few weeks back. Since then I sort of
>doubled down on exploring - created a new character this week
>and blasted out the 5k/10k that I'd been complaining about and
>actually had a great time doing it. Violet Woodlands and Loch
>Grynmear are amazing areas, some of the best I can remember
>exploring in 20+ years mudding, up there with high end areas
>on my last mud just in terms of the attention to detail and
>problem solving they encourage.

I hope you wrote a script. This won't be nearly as much fun the second time you do it, let alone the 30th time.

Haha. Fair enough .

I guess the community reaction itself is quite the marker

Is an all or nothing equality situation.

Everyone gets the same amount of edge points, and edge points are given a numerical value like thief points are.

Then you unlock edge points as you level. The first at 15, some every 5 or 10 levels after that.

Easy system from there. Everyone gets the same amount of points to spend but you can spend them as you level and see fit on edges. Everyone gets some edges and nobody can complain about an unlevel playing field other than gear, which is part of the game.

Only thing needs to be done is figure out the numerical values of what everything would cost and how many edge points you got at what level.

NT

To be honest with you guys I played two Rangers to hero and all I wanted to get was the Expert Herbalist edge to see how the cure poison worked. Well I did not try and farm the early edge points for OBS and Exploration and did not manage to get the edge. Perhaps I should have not chosen the envenomed arrows edge, which I chose because I had herbs at 100% but could not even chose the Herbalist edge, stupidly thinking a mariner might not be able to be an expert herbalist. So this time around playing a non ranger I thought I had better give it a go, so I logged in my level 19 non with the sole idea of trying to get some Observation and Exploration experience. No intention of grouping, ranking, or skill learning. I went to the hamsah docks, looked at all the people there, the things I could see in the dock masters room etc, then went to outlying villages for a quick look around there. I also did travel around a bit looking for items I could trade for coins. All in all I spent my hour long session with not interacting with anyone and all I got was 50 Exploration points and 50 Commerce points. I would have rather spent my time having fun with other players than trying to find elusive edge points. I dont know how you guys do it. I do not want to farm edge points and I am not playing a Assassin, and never have. But when you see the Master Throw edge being used in low levels to kick butt it makes me think I have to get edge points at low levels to see if I can get an edge at low levels. One if my last characters Jemald, I had awesome fun as usual, and did not even discuss with the guild master until I got to near hero, as I wanted to chose an edge late in life when the low exp penalty might give me good edge points. Thats how I usually play, not bothering about edge points.

The things that give edge points are often worth learning anyway.

For example, hamsah docks has boats that dock for limited times. They have all kinds of useful stuff so are worth you learning about anyway. That's what gives most of that areas obs and explore exp.

Is it's very much an 'in the know' sort of thing.

When I was actually new, and actually eploring to find out where things were and what was where, I wasn't getting a lot of explore/observe for it (like, outlying villages are simply not going to be worth your time. I know this, a newbie who didn't know what was there wouldn't, just like I didn't know what was up silverpine road as a newbie and didn't get rewarded with meaningful amounts of observe/explore when I found out for myself). You have to be 'in the know' to go about getting the stuff remotely efficiently. i.e. look round htos/planar sanctum before you hit level 15, look through organia at level 30 (not a level before or you won't get your points, not a level after or you'll miss the bonus). But be sure you're actually *exploring* the place yourself because you need to know how to navigate it - if you don't, just ask someone who does who is going through to get the edge points themselves. Go to the jade vaults, but for gods sake don't go there to actually explore, nasty things will happen to you there - get someone who knows the place to show you round. Similarly to Trothon. If you want to actually explore go to strange island or arial city, lots of things to see there (not much obsservation/exploration exp though - but don't worry about it, you grind the same area explores on every character for that). Observation is an exclusive club too, because you have to know the things you're looking for, and it also helps to be in areas that are rich in this kind of experience (which again, you have to build up a knowledge of over several characters).

I really hate grinding out observation/exploration and I'm a consistent 500 with my roles so I've always tried to earn my edge points in other ways, i.e. PK, cabal retrievals, etc. I just know that in a quiet moment hitting up trothon/jade vaults/organia/k'tengs laboratory/veran etc etc might net me an edge. I've also gotten edges from being taken through places like aran'gird, maethien, dragon lairs, kuo toa lair, coral palace, etc which is sort of real exploration but for the fact that if you're going there you're usually in a strong group and there's usually someone who knows the way. Underdark sea is probably the only place I've been to not knowing what was there and methodically poked around trying to figure out, and actually survived long enough to figure anything out (dragon tower was just pain and death).

It was only after I started reflexively grinding out observation exp in Skyrim only to realise it doesn't exist there that I realised how magnificently perverse it was to incentivize that sort of behaviour. Observation/exploration edge points need to die far more than PK edges did (and honestly only the 'tiered by level' PK edgepoints needed to die at all).

Commerce edge points would also need to go if the playerbase at large figured out how to earn them effectively but from what I can gather most people are as bad at earning them as I am at earning observation points. It was a happy side effect of the gold farming change that I was forced to alter my playstyle to one which accumulated commerce exp much faster.

Also I tried telling dios this but I think they missed the point, cabal retrievals were always among the best ways to earn edge points, with obs/exploration nerfed, and PK nuked, cabal retrievals and commerce are the only things players can do themselves with haven't been squashed. And of the two, retrievals always yielded far more edge points.

Really though, observation edgepoints need to go (mechanical rewards for doing it would still exist in the form of improved consider etc), the pre-level 30 bonus on observation/exploration really needs to go (anything which makes a player say 'sorry I'd love to rank with you but instead I have to do something annoying/tedious or I'll lose potential edgepoints' needs to go - the PK-by-level-tiers thing was this, and I assume that's why edge points for PK are gone). Exploration is less problematic, at least it encourages people to go to difficult areas together and doesn't have the retarded immersion breaking 'look at the smoke, crack and seal' or 'make sure I've looked at the elemental before you dismiss it' shenanigans.

I mean as much as I think going nuclear on PK edgepoints was brash I can accept it, but if you're using scorched earth tactics you should follow through and take out everything that's tedious, counterintuitive and throttles interactions.

It would be like call of duty without downloadable content.

and not being able to choose your classes.

It'd be a free ride when you've already paid
It'd be the good advice that you just didn't take
It'd be a traffic jam when you're already late
It'd be a no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It'd be a black fly in your Chardonnay
It'd be a death row pardon two minutes too late
It'd be like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
It'd be meeting the man of my dreams (no homo)
And then meeting his beautiful wife

And I'm not even being ironic.

NT

Couldn't find one, because all you found was ten thousand spoons, and therefore you couldn't do whatever it was you needed the knife for. Then the next day it turns out that a spoon would have done.

gr

...is like a samurai with one, but only without one.