Death Shouldn't Feel like a Punishment

[Ronan]

We don't have a lot of level 1-2 content, and what we do have is not a whole lot of fun to play (delivery quests and other sorts of grinding). On BG there are a few quests I'd probably bump the CR up on, but I don't think we'd need to touch the spawns anywhere. TSM has a lot more low-level content, especially around Rivermoot.

If the idea is to narrow the PC level range I don't see the starting level ever exceeding level 3.

[kid]

People seem to think it's easy to join a group...
When it's not.
It's damn hard.

Finding people you can reasonably tolerate is difficult enough,
Then you have time zones, Free days where life won't get in the way, Servers you may be DMing on, and a few more hiccups

Then on top of that you add the level range.

Sense I doubt we can do much about the first bunch of issues (Well, I suppose you could change the DM-play-server rule, but i'd be against changing that one), providing more options for start level may be helpful.

I'd be against an X level start (be it 3 or whatever) because starting at 1 may fit a certain group of players and I see no reason to take that away from them.
(Lets say I want to start a game with a bunch of farmers in a village or what not where all are fresh noobs).

Just providing a wider range of options for DMs to choose from as a starting level might be helpful.

[Zelknolf]

Let's keep in mind that most of ALFA doesn't get DM time, and that telling DMs who isn't getting DMed makes no measurable impact on this problem. DM-dependent solutions haven't in the past and won't in the future solve problems for most people here.

[Twin Axes]

Let's keep in mind that most of ALFA doesn't get DM time, and that telling DMs who isn't getting DMed makes no measurable impact on this problem. DM-dependent solutions haven't in the past and won't in the future solve problems for most people here.

Ok, that said, DM's at least have the ability to affect the level spread. This would by my proposal for the least intrusive solution:

1. Give the xp reward for a bio at level 1 (why was it limited to level 2?)
2. Have DM's give extra XP to low levels, with a declining scale as a PC progresses. For example, divide the XP by PC level (or half level if that is too drastic).

[Zelknolf]

I'm not sure that covers our problem; the 4-6 PCs a DM reaches also separates that group from those who aren't being reached. I still think we need to provide content, and ideally would make that content more diverse/ less predictable/ more interesting. Make logging in to have fun a viable way to get into stride with existing games.



Of course I'm not about to claim that scaling XP by the levels of PCs within an event is inherently bad, because I totally do it myself (usually with the risk knob-- but I also tend to have wiggle room there because I take the evidence that I've killed one PC ever as a sign that my events are relatively-low risk [after all, they don't kill people], so prescribing that would probably require norming of risk settings that is unlikely to happen); I just don't think it really fixes our problems. That said, I might dig up my old proposal to adjust 10% per level you're off from the party average when getting DM awards (so a level 20 and a level 1 in a group are average level 10.5; both are off the average by 9.5, so level 20 gets 5% XP from the event and level 1 gets 195% XP from the event-- lowbies catch up and highbies only really advance when they're in events for highbies. In isolation, it's just justified as relative risk-- people who die in mixed-level events tend to be lowbies caught in AoEs-- in long-term patterns, it's pressure to normalize levels of regular groups). Was supposed to be connected to a UI upgrade, as rewarding a group is a pain unless they've miraculously all RPed exactly as well as one another and endured the same level of risk. Died off when the mechanics died off, because the total utility of the project was less.

[Castano]

number of people requesting content > number of people building content by an order of magnitude.

I suggest we focus on recruiting people who mod NWN2 into ALFA.

[Heero]

Castano is right. We definitely need to attract some builders to spruce up the place.

[Zelknolf]

Amusingly, there seem to be more people wanting to attract more contributors than people attempting to make ALFA attractive to contributors.

[Heero]

Rainbows and butterflies from me here on out.

[boombrakh]

I'd be against an X level start (be it 3 or whatever) because starting at 1 may fit a certain group of players and I see no reason to take that away from them.

That's like making everyone eat vegetarian just because there is one guy who doesn't eat meat at dinner.

[kid]

No, that'd be like having meat, vegetarian and vegan food on display for everyone to choose what fits their liking.

[Brokenbone]

No, that'd be like having meat, vegetarian and vegan food on display for everyone to choose what fits their liking.

Each group reserving the right to criticize the choices of the others

[shad0wfax]

No, that'd be like having meat, vegetarian and vegan food on display for everyone to choose what fits their liking.

Each group reserving the right to criticize the choices of the others

"I like pizza."

[Rumple C]

This thread feels like a punishment.

[Xanthea]

This thread feels like a punishment.

It is. If ALFA had good rules it wouldn't need to be punished like this.