Level Inflation

[Rook 0]

I don't know if this has been talked about before but I think there might be a problem with our level gaps. Because there is such a large gap in player levels and no way for them to catch up quickly, the questioned has to be asked who boss fights and such should be designed around. Take the event boss for this month as an example, each of the two have 80 health while our max level players are going to have over 120. One or two of them would be able to take on the boss all by themselves. If however you raise the difficultly of the bosses to present a challenge for the max level players, it makes the event pointless for the lower level players to participate. This isn't horrible since there is plenty of other things to do on this board and a boss fight is just one thing in a long line of RP's players can choose to participate in, however it does present a problem in the long run. Right now if a player averaged about 15 posts per day it would take them 1 year to hit max level. As the game continues to progress that time is going to extend more and more. That means as max level players leave the board or get killed it could literally take a year or more to get a replacement for them.

 

In summary if the content is designed around the average level player it would be face roll easy for our max level players. If the content is designed around our max level players, we could see progression stop altogether as we inevitably loose some over time for a multitude of reasons with no one to replace them anytime soon. Like I said before, I don't know if this has been talked about before but I though I would bring it up since it was on my mind. I guess in the end it wouldn't matter if progression stopped for a long while since after all this is a message board and not a real death game and we would all like to see this last for a long time.

[Vashtor 0]

I'm not very good at balancing talk, don't have a good eye for fairness and the like, but I have two possible suggestions as a starting spot.

 

The first is just a straight up debuff. Suppose that bosses have a debuff that makes people's max hp lower to a certain amount but the regular players are naturally unaffected by it. I don't even know where to begin with the specifics on this one since it would need to be balanced boss-to-boss and maybe even by group size.

 

The other is a system a handful of MMO use to help high level players help their low level buddies, a mentor system! In several games a high level player could temporarily lower their own level to be in line with their friend's so that they are not simply cleaning the floor, and there is some challenge. This does pose the problem of PKing realistically since high level players would be weakened, but it's something that can be worked around via RP. This would also allow low level players to actually participate in combat RPs with stronger players, and gain loot. If a level 3 player meet a level 60, then he has to deal with monsters having a -lot- of HP if they want to gain anything reward wise from a fight.

[Rebekah 0]

This issue has been addressed in the past, but I want to bring up a few points:

 

Just to let you know, current levels are capped at level 60, (if you have more posts, you are still only level 60).

 

1) Boss Raids - They are suppose to be difficult for a reason, if even mid level players can steamroll past them, then we could possibly clear 100 floors quickly. There is a risk/reward factor associated with each of them, the reward is an unique item. Secondly, boss deal AoE attacks that ignore all damage mitigation, which makes it is best for every player before a boss raid to stack HP. The last few boss raids dealt a lot of burn damage over time, and almost everyone was hitting around 8-10 damage per hit, so the only tricky part is being able to sustain through the battle.

 

2) As for a mentor system, the problem is that while other MMORPG may have them, it is not cannon in SAO, so this makes it hard to implement something that was not cannon into this roleplay. As for that situation, that you speak of, it happens all the time, when the higher level player just tanks all the damage from the monster.

 

This was recently discussed earlier about having lower training bosses for lower level players, as I do not see a reason to punish people who have been around longer, and who have posted a lot more.

[Ethereal 0]

Perhaps there could be different tasks in the boss fights for different leveled players? Say that much like the hydra boss where there were multiple 'objectives' (aka. heads) to complete to beat the boss. There are several of these objectives per boss. Some objectives can only be done by players of certain ranks. This means while max level players are satisfying the damage requirement, lower level players may be saving NPCs for a bad example.

Point being, this method requires all levels and types of players to defeat a boss. This means max level players do not cause any redundancy of low level players - especially if there is some sort of time limit for example the boss regenerating if it isn't defeated within a certain number of turns.

[Mari 1]

Levels are currently fluctuating due to administrators fixing the algorithms. This has all been addressed in the past.

This has been discussed in the past and the solution would be to create quest bosses - one for each floor that pertained to that floors difficulty. 

[Rook 0]

As far as the level cap goes, it is capped at 60 now but as we move up the floors I'm assuming it will be raised to deal with the higher difficulty of bosses as we advance. The other question I had is how will enhancements and skills scale up as we progress as well?

[Vashtor 0]

Actually it was pushed up to 85 just a little while ago, but that's just me nitpicking.

 

Actually talking on topic though, I don't think the "This has been discussed in the past" mindset is a very inviting one, since it implies new players can't or have no need to bring their thoughts on subjects forward. Don't get me wrong, very valid points are being made as well, that's just the vibe I get from saying that, and I could be reading the tone entirely wrong.

 

I will concede I have no firsthand experience with the bosses here, but I like Ethereal's suggestion about other goals and options. To me it has potential for expanding bosses. Nothing wrong with adding complexity, it just means you need more teamwork. Kinda a central theme in MMO if you ask me! There was a time where you needed people to play supportive roles in MMOs outside of the holy trinity of tank, heal, and stab. Lots of MMOS rely on killing certain mobs within a set time or else a damage wave goes out, or even just having a second tank kite them around, or a tank intercepting a heavy blow on his own rather than having it spread out to the rest of the party. These are just suggestions, of course.

[Mari 1]

I never mean to imply that; when I say it has been discussed in the past; I make a point of staff are aware of this and understand it is an issue. Sadly Many staff are busy at the moment and we are a tad short handed, our top priority right now is this level fluctuation thing.

Then my priorities are ensuring the Floor boss and event bosses are handled efficiently; Journals, Evaluations, writing up a easy to follow site guide and working on the 10 quests I have drafted (one for each floor)

If the 'vibe' you got was that 'we are not discussing this anymore' than I apologize as I would like to hope that it never seems that way, members should never feel that they cannot approach staff, especially with valid opinions and thoughts that can bring more ideas to the table.

 

Unfortunately Etherals idea may sound good but it is very difficult to implement and keep track of; which is why at the moment, we will be making bosses for some floors, we already have ones like The wasp, and avalanche. But I am hoping to have a 'mini boss' for each floor, each mini boss will be a non repeatable quest, and offer a sufficient amount of SP and a perfect quality item/ potion etc. that varies from floor to floor. Naturally each 'floor mini boss' will have HP and hit points suffifient to that floor.

Floor ones mini boss would be suitable for those who are levels 1-3 
Floor 2 - level 3-6

Floor 3 - 6-9

etc. etc, I was also dallbing with the idea of each floor would be suited per five levels;

Floor 1: level 5
Floor 2: level 10
Floor 3: level 15

etc, etc, but depending on how the levels are finalized will depend on how I tackle it.

 

 

Naturally we cannot offer Unique items for these; (Unique items being really rare and at 4 slots) they will be for Floor bosses to clear the next floor only. And in rare circumstances, event bosses. This isn't excluding lower level players. This just means that players have an incentive to RP more to gain higher levels to be able to join boss raid groups and event raid groups. 

In the mean time they would have the mini bosses to tackle.


There are a variety of quests that make you need to go do certain things; for instance the Cerberus quest takes X amount of time to find the cave, and you ahve to fight X amount of dogs before the main boss appears.

We can also incorporate escort quests (but I think many people hate those! I know I do ahaha)

[Vashtor 0]

That was indeed the vibe I was getting, and I am sorry for misinterpreting your words! Also noted on the shorthanded side of things, I'll try to keep that in mind for the future. I can't deny that Eth's idea would be tough to implement, especially since it's just a concept now, no real definitives have been glued to the idea so far as I can tell!

 

And the miniboss idea sounds rather interesting indeed, though I am not entirely sure what to make of a non-repeatable quest giving a potion, unless it's a -very- strong potion, or perhaps it replenishes itself after a long time, and only lasts for a short time. Again, just supposition on my part, I'd happily do them without the item reward for the SP and the bragging rights, but that's just me! Everything else makes sense to me, certainly.

 

(And yeah, I tend to dislike escort quests. "Stop running that way! There is a monster standing directly in your path!" "Stop curling in a ball and fight back!" "What do you mean you are going to stand there until I kill all those mobs? There is a side path leading to the village IN FRONT OF YOU" but who knows, maybe you guys will change my mind! xD)

[Mari 1]

I don't mean just a plain potion; there are a variety of potions. Obviously we would not give a generic potion.

If you look at Cerberus; it offers something that helps mitigate fire damage for an entire thread which would be useful if you were fighting against an enemy that inflicted burn damage (or gosh forbid, Zelrius, who relies on his burn damage)

[Vashtor 0]

Oh yes, that would be very dramatic! "HA! Little did he suspect I knew his weakness all along! Go, McGuffin potion!... Wait, what do you mean his is still three times my level+?" But joking aside that sounds interesting, I'll keep my eyes peeled. Oh, and just so Rook's comment isn't thrown to the wind, it doooooes kinda have a good point. One that of course is a "eventually" problem and not a "IMMINENT DANGER" one, but still. About enhancements and such as we progress.

 

(Starting to feel slightly off topic now)

[Mari 1]

Eventually we will implement something like that yes; but as it stands it seems like the topic of the level inflation has been covered.
IF anyone else has any queries regarding the level inflation please do post them here.

[Klick 0]

So does my post counter under my name go up when I post in ooc threads like this one??

[Reusririasuir 0]

Yes Klick. And I used this post to confirm that too.

 

This is what Erroneous's post in the annoucement Fluctuating Levels thread says : 

 

"In addition, all staff sections, the introduction section, the anime section, the games section, the general section, the fan roleplay section, and the general unrestricted section do not contribute to your post counts." - So I'm not sure if that is supposed to include this section or not. If it IS supposed to include this section, then it's not working as of my post time. I 100% went from 243 posts, to 244 posts when I posted in here.

 

 

Edit: My personal opinion is that Support and Feedback should not be included in post count, as well as any OOC posts, for what I feel are fairly obvious reasons...

[Mari 1]

It's been changed again and may change in the future.
Posts in certain sections shouldn't reflect post counts. But that is subject to change currently.

It also means that staff are going to be extra vigilant when it comes to spamming; three strikes and you will have your posting privileges disabled for X amount of time.