Leveling rates/ Highest Levels currently in ALFA/PrC's

[danielmn]

Sidebar:

I will be refusing to bite at any of these floating hooks. But please continue.

[t-ice]

Also I should clarify that quality of RP is not a concern. We have had fabulous RPers get strikes (and even bans) in the past due to how they chose to play after the DMs logged out. Even many of the recent cases have involved people who are really good RPers. Get a group and a DM around and they are great. It is virtually always the out of session choices that have led to issues.

This. The game we offer without a DM rewards powergaming static content with more XP, and people learn in response to this positive feedback. They play the game we offer them without keeping their nose to the rulebook like lawyers, and as a result they run smack to our powergaming rules and get hit by the strike/ban hammer. Flames and frustration ensue because the game at face value, and rewards therein, contradicts our rules.

Right now our players are punished in terms of XP if they sit down and chat to another player about their PCs and their exploits. You are punished with less XP if you bother to RP between hitting static content, be it quests or mobs. Regardless of this, most of our players will and do stop and RP at pretty much every possibility to do so, even with no DM on. Speaks volumes of our playerbase. But it doesn't mean our game and rules are designed well for its purpose. And the outliers in XP per time from static content prove this.

What we need is to give the same XP even if you do stop and RP between or during hitting static content rather than just grinding as fast as you can. This inevitably means a "speed limit" to doing statics, after which you no longer gain more XP per time. (Note that this wouldn't stop you from doing statics if you think that's RP appropriate and fun.) As this conversation goes on, I've come over to think the speed limit should consider both average static content XP per IG time and average static content XP per RL time. Neither of these should be strathospheric, let alone both.

We have such a huge swath of static content that we cannot rely on each one being locally set just right to moderate XP. Because XP moderation is not a per-content thing, doing chains (or loops) of statics is something no scripter or builder can prepare for, since new static content keeps on getting added. We need a global safeguard to static XP per time. It also makes building static content that much easier, since the builder doesn't have to worry about breaking the moderated advancement pillar.

[Glitterdust]

Sorry, but is there some kind of PvPing, loot-whoring and dungeon raiding content that I'm not keen on, yet? I'm literally at an end to imagining how there's any possible power-gaming and any power-players here. It's all for roleplay, in the end, isn't it?

[I-KP]

However what I find somewhat amusing is folks who've been around for a few months saying 'Don't you dare tell me anything about the 'spirit of ALFA' !' at the folks who've been around for years as DMs, admins, techs, etc. Not that seniority/being around long automatically means one is right (or the inverse, that new folks don't know jack), but usually it does not behoove a newcomer to show up to any community, run afoul of the rules or expectations of the community, then start shouting about the rules and expectations being dumb after they get busted.

(Not withstanding that history is replete with examples of energetic newcomers seeking to overthrow the incumbent regime, and thus it will ever be so...) Hear hear!

[Muse]

...
However what I find somewhat amusing is folks who've been around for a few months saying 'Don't you dare tell me anything about the 'spirit of ALFA' !' at the folks who've been around for years as DMs, admins, techs, etc. Not that seniority/being around long automatically means one is right (or the inverse, that new folks don't know jack), but usually it does not behoove a newcomer to show up to any community, run afoul of the rules or expectations of the community, then start shouting about the rules and expectations being dumb after they get busted.

Bravo sir Bravo!

[kid]

However what I find somewhat amusing is folks who've been around for a few months saying 'Don't you dare tell me anything about the 'spirit of ALFA' !' at the folks who've been around for years as DMs, admins, techs, etc. Not that seniority/being around long automatically means one is right (or the inverse, that new folks don't know jack), but usually it does not behoove a newcomer to show up to any community, run afoul of the rules or expectations of the community, then start shouting about the rules and expectations being dumb after they get busted.

This, plus extra credit for using the word behoove.

[FoamBats4All]

However what I find somewhat amusing is folks who've been around for a few months saying 'Don't you dare tell me anything about the 'spirit of ALFA' !' at the folks who've been around for years as DMs, admins, techs, etc. Not that seniority/being around long automatically means one is right (or the inverse, that new folks don't know jack), but usually it does not behoove a newcomer to show up to any community, run afoul of the rules or expectations of the community, then start shouting about the rules and expectations being dumb after they get busted.

I'm pretty sure Swift has been here more than a few months, though I do agree that all of you folks bitching about a non-existant problem to DMs and admins who have actually worked on this is in poor spirit.

Oh, wait. You meant me. I never told anyone what the spirit was. I said that the spirit of ALFA that he thought of and the spirit of ALFA that I've heard from others all contradict each other. ALFA is many things to many people, and what the admin and staff have made it is not what you and others think it should be. Either they'll change it, or they won't.

---

Anyway, done contributing to the cesspool. I'll go back to sitting and laugh at the forums like any sane person should.

[oldgrayrogue]

The funny thing is, it is always the players who know a long, long time before DMs about the individuals that choose to piss all over the spirit of ALFA and the idea that our progression is DM moderated.

Players always grumble when action seemingly takes forever against those that, to them, are obviously gaining XP in ways that are against the spirit of this community. Then again, we wouldn't have any of that if we never had players falling outside the standards we have set for ourselves and as Ronan said, the vast majority never fall foul of our rules and guidelines.

4 or 5 months to level 10 has never been an acceptable rate of gain in ALFA, even when it has come from mostly DM sources (eg Daggerford in NWN1 days). If all players want to do when a DM isn't around is farm up a storm, be it static quests or combat, there are hundreds of other servers out there where you can scratch that itch.

Players that excessively run statics or farm mobs will continue to feel the heat, because that is not what ALFA is about.

What, exactly, is the "Spirit of ALFA"? I can look at the pillars, I can look at the admins, I can look at the DMs, and I can look at the players, and find a hundred different "spirits" of ALFA, all of which conflict with each other. I can look at one group, who thinks that ALFA is a non-PW meant for campaign-style sessions with strict DM moderation. I can look at another group who thinks that ALFA isn't even about D&D, and is a platform for roleplay. Yet another group says that ALFA is a PW where the DMs keep a leash on things so it doesn't get out of hand.

All progression is DM or admin moderated. Just because it isn't the same moderation you or another DM would have given does not mean it is invalid.

What I find interesting is that "4 or 5 months to level 10". I will hit level 10 in about that time. But, here's the interesting part of it. I compared my play hours to someone who has played their character for 4 years, and by comparison, I have the logged hours of someone who has played for 2 years. That isn't farming. That's me being an active player. The only possible way you can stop people like me from earning more than people like you is by forcing us to not log in, or discouraging us greatly from doing so. And as I said before, if the Spirit of ALFA is to tell players to f*sk off because they play too much, well... ALFA has bigger problems than someone leveling too quickly.

The actually funny thing? The people who took 2 years instead of 6 months to reach level 10 actually made more XP per hour of play than people like me make. By actual hours invested, they level faster, because they're farming DM time and statics and log out, avoiding RP, when there's nothing left to do. There's this huge misconception that people are sitting there farming statics when they're logged in. Most of my logged in time is invested in inns and such, where there's actual roleplay to enjoy.

No one is going around farming up a storm. We hit the same statics you do, and it doesn't give us a single experience point more than you when you do it. Statics are finite, other than the repeatable. And, the repeatables (at least on BG) have a strict and scripted DM-sanctioned limit. There is absolutely nothing on BG that isn't DM moderated, in terms of experience gains (aside from mob XP). You do not like the amount, nor do others, but the fact is that it is moderated. As mentioned, the hole here is mob XP, which can be quickly sorted, and people with the highest mob XP percentages can be given a talking to. I promise you I will be nowhere on that list.

TL;DR: ALFA is moderated. There are just some anal people out there with harsher schedules and less free time than others, who disagree with the admins and HDMs on how moderation should be done.

The "Spirit of ALFA" is simple to understand and articulate. It is embodied in our pillars. ALFA's spirit is one of hardcore, story based roleplay, where choices and actions matter and result in consequences to the extent of PC permadeath. Farming and powergaming are also concepts that all of us as dedicated gamers know and understand. These are not vague notions being arbitrarily moderated by DMs and Admin. The core of the spirit of ALFA is dedication to in character roleplay. The format we use to express that is the closest approximation to PnP D&D rules we can acheive in a persistent world environment. A PW, however, unlike a PnP DMd campaign presents special challenges with respect to game balance, level and wealth progression, that again should be familiar concepts to most avid gamers. Unlike a PnP campaign where the DM controls all of the progression and maintains balance, making ALFA persistent cedes part of that control to the good faith of the players. Having some players -- who like all PCs in ALFA arrive in Faerun as neophyte level 1 adventurers -- far outstrip others in level and wealth advancement in a RL time frame simply because they have more time to play in RL serves to undermine the immersive experience of IC roleplay we aim for. Imagine playing in a PnP game where you arrive to your weekly game to find out the other players in the group have had countless sessions without you and are all far beyond you in level and wealth. There is and should be a limit to the amount of experience points that can be earned from even good roleplay -- whether it be in taverns, out doing dungeon crawls or behind closed doors between 2 PCs -- to preserve a sense of continuity and balance in the overall setting. More than this, blowing rapidly through all static content -- whether quests or mobs, is a grinding style of play more typical of those trying to "win" a video game than roleplay the story of a character. That is why level progression matters. To some extent if you permit those with more time to wrack up wads of XP, wealth and levels quickly, you encourage other players to do the same to "keep up" and the setting becomes a race to the finish line rather than an unfolding story. It can also be discouraging to the creators of that content -- and a disincentive to further creativity -- to see statics and other content they have invested time and effort in with the intent that it be a setting for story based roleplay to be blown through and ground up in a short period of time. This grinding style of play is pervalent on many other PWs -- at least the ones I have tried out -- and ALFA strives to present something different. We are not a pure campaign setting, but we try through moderation to provide the feel of an overall ongoinf PnP campain that is as balanced and story based as possible given the limitations of the setting.

To be clear, no one takes any issue with anyone's desire to play many hours on ALFA. The issues arise when it appears that the primary focus of that play is the rapid gaining of experiance, wealth and PC advancement rather than the development of story. If in fact people who play many hours a day are interested in primarily story and IC roleplay rather than level and wealth progression then in my opinion they should not take issue with a moderated approach to advancement. Conversely if it is your decision to "stop playing" once you can no longer earn XP and gold it speaks to motivations that fall outside of the spirit here. Controls on the rate of XP gains are an attempt to moderate this, preserve the "spirit" of the setting, prevent abuses, and foster an environment where the entire volunteer community can thrive. It is not a "witch hunt" devised by a few jealous players who don't have as much time on their hands. To characterize it as such is frankly a slap in the face to those who volunteer their time and effort to make this format available for our collective enjoyment.

[shad0wfax]

2.25 months of character life
650+ hours played
~2,000 monsters killed (in groups, solo, and in dm events, everything from CR 0.1 rats to CR 15 frost giant sorceresses)
(note that some horde spawns are 21 monsters in a single group)
41 XP/hour average
37% RPXP
15% DMXP
25% Static XP (no farming of repeatables, no static chaining, no abuse)
23% Combat XP (INCLUDING DM Combat encounters)

1% illicit gain XP and removed (made up for removed XP in 2 days of tavern rp, or by killing a single horde plot spawn on TSM during a random overland travel map encounter)

Ask an admin for your own breakdown and post it. Then let's talk about spirit of Alfa. Numbers do not lie, but players do.

Full disclosure and transparency, or your arguments are irrelevant. Let's see your values on your 2+ year old "slow leveling spirit of alfa" characters. I know some with 51+ XP/hour played.


I have every mail run on bg available. I'm not a postal courier, haven't done much in the way of mail runs on Talindra at all.

Low dmxp? You bet; Blame TSM.

I played on TSM after Viigas left. Heero would rather troll my character Bio than dm me (he's hated the character since day 1), Swift only dmd anyone once in the entire time I played (had fun though), roraxs "dming" consists of spawning a bunch of mobs, placing loot, and leaving players to kill them (increasing combat XP), had one great session (spread out comic book time over months) with OGR, and a couple of fun events with puny. Heero may spend hours logged in as a dm there, but from all I've seen, all he's doing is gathering player info and watching people. I've only seen him actually run an event twice. Rorax doesn't run events, unless his pal Kid is in the event. They do plenty of one on one dming for hours on end, but with anyone else it's mobs placed, loot placed, rumor thread posted, enjoy the grinding.

On TSM, after doing one delivery and one or two (different) patrols, there was absolutely nothing to do. If you got lucky, a patrol or delivery took you past a spawn of horde war plot price and ogres, and at level 6, you could earn as much as 350 XP from that single spawn. (By the way, that's worth about 1% in the statistics above, which ought to put the whole "slaughtering mobs endlessly for XP" debate to rest).

BG, on the other hand, has been full of intrigue and adventure, with no less than four dm plots that are involving nearly everyone on the server, in an indirect manner, and have been ongoing for some time. We are so busy dealing with plots there that we haven't even had time to do a mail run or go fight monsters at random, because the rp is too great.

And, the XP/hour on BG has been higher, due to dm events. I'm leveling even faster on bg with no statics or monster bashing at all.

Which server is in the spirit of Alfa?

Is it the faster leveling bg with dmxp and rpxp and so much plot rp that you don't have time for statics it mobs?

Or is it TSM, where the only thing to do is kill mobs or sit in an empty tavern while heero trolls your Bio, analyzes your stats, swift does nothing, and rorax is dumping giants in the newbie quest locations or doing one on one dm plots with Keren (kid's character)?

I find it funny that heero, kid, and swift are the ones bitching about level rates and the spirit of Alfa, considering their behavior (or total lack of involvement) on their part.

[Heero]

We cant please everyone.

[kid]

Thanks for your ongoing contribution to ALFA.

[shad0wfax]

We cant please everyone.

Let's see your XP breakdown and XP//hour for your last two characters.

Thanks for your ongoing contribution to ALFA.

Let's see your XP breakdown and XP/hour on Keren Horn. Be sure to include how much of your dmxp comes from your neighbor, rorax, compared to all other tsm dms.

You've no room to discuss fast leveling, or your supposed lack thereof, until you provide full disclosure.

[Glitterdust]

The core of the spirit of ALFA is dedication to in character roleplay.

The PA takes into account the player shows great rp in such instances, however this does not excuse static farming in any way.

RP is trumped by arbitrary rules, thereby declaring the latter as the primary spirit of ALFA.

[Heero]

The last one would be approx. 150/hour (~600 over 4 hours) as he was played in only 2, 2 hour DMed events which involved others killing high level crap that in one instance awarded me 103xp!

Id guesstimate the previous in the 20-30/hour range. I completed a couple mailruns (I have prayed for atonement for these sins) on him which would bump it up from the 15xp/hour rpxp.

Ive probably come close to 40xp/hour on one or two PCs that have seen a bit more DM time, but I doubt the majority havent been much higher than 25-30/hour, Id wager.

And didnt I say earlier that if you want to log so many hours, have at! I apologize for my occasional troll in chat, and I pledge to leave you be heretofore.

[Adanu]

You've no room to discuss fast leveling, or your supposed lack thereof, until you provide full disclosure.

Agreed.