Can someone sum up all the outpost stuff?

[jamela]

Some people just don't have the kind of time it takes to grind grind grind grind to a reasonably useful skill level.

Catalysts don't have the ability to differentiate between players that do have time to grind and players that don't. Umm, do WE have the ability to differentiate between players that do have time to grind and players that don't?

I hate grinding. A lot. So I'm biased. I usually get bored of training within an hour or so.

If it's no fun, why do it? Do you want POWER without effort? Or ability wthout experience?

For the original poster, Kali put it all very well, and it's too early for me to precis her reply.

[katriell]

If it's no fun, why do it? Do you want POWER without effort? Or ability wthout experience?

I don't call running to a pack of kirosta, grabbing one, running back to the healer, smacking the kirosta until it falls over, then repeating the process ad nauseam...effort, or experience. I call it a mind-numbing waste of time...

However, I do have reasons for wanting a powerful character (or characters, considering my alts). The more powerful I am, the more helpful I am on treks and such. Ergo, the more useful I am in helping others.

[sehracii]

My little tidbit-
Leveling, crystals or not, does not a competent player make. Most leveling is not dangerous and consists of standing around and hitting the same buttons or couple of buttons over and over.

Without ever using a crystal, players can:
Mastere harvest, skipping lower zones, only learning one dig spot, never hunting excellent mats.
Master craft, never bothering to look at material stats or identify good recipes
Master melee, without learning opportune times to use auras and special abilities, or how to set up different attack stanzas for different situations.
Master elemental via only a couple hunting spots, not knowing the protections of various creatures or how to travel alone

Crystals mean these players can master it quicker, but I don't think it breeds ignorance in general. With or without them, it takes a concious effort of boss hunting, trekking, experimentation, general exploring and purposely teaching yourself the above things to actually be capable with the skills you earned grinding.

It could be argued crystals give you more time to learn your skills after you get them

[aardnebb]

My opinion:

Outpost: Big rewards for PvP lovers.

Everyone else: take part in PvP or be forced to rely on charity and (generally expensive) trades.

Quite a few people tried to avoid PvP while holding an Outpost. A significant proportion of the PvP crowd with their favoured battlecry of "if you dont like it: dont take part" attacked anyway. This lead to bad feelings on both sides.

So yeah, people who don't like PvP are feeling left out and annoyed because the PvPers that attacked them care more about their own enjoyment than that of others, and the pro-PvP crowd are upset about being labeled selfish/greedy etc and being complained about on the forums.

Erm, thats about the whole of it as a summary unless I missed something.

[iphdrunk]

Erm, thats about the whole of it as a summary unless I missed something.

pretty much ok, I agree:

In summary, I would like devs to add means for non op owners to get xstals ( they are there, but unused, from EP2 ) thus no begging, no expensive trades, just do stuff, spend time get honpoints and get xstals (I wrote extensively about this in other posts).

One problem then: how to make OPs worth having? (a problem nevrax spent quite some time thinking about) OP mats and xstals. Since OPs are mainly PvP oriented some players will not mess with them, but they still would like "teh goodies" (zysha wrote about this), and this is where the bad mood comes from. One would ideally state that the OP should be fun and worth having per se -for the fun of PvP as some can tell-, but the idea of rewards is at the core of a skill / level mmrpgs.. so, why not add PvP-oriented rewards from something that is PvP oriented? non PvPers would not be interested in OP rewards, lessening the problem (provided ofc that OPs remain pvp)

There is still an issue with this. During EP2, xtals were somehow a "trade-off": we worked thus spent time in an activity (temples) and in exchange we got sxtals we can use in other things. To me, a perfect solution, since one may spend time doing "other stuff" as someone put it and use the xstals in mind numbling actions. This is what non OP owners would end up doing -- the question of other activities is related to lack of content, mission, rites and out of scope of this post --

BUT with outposts xstals are "generated in the background" and this is something I really don't like (make op owners do the house keeping?)

This suggestion would be a balance:
- ops are still worth having for, for PvP players
- everyone could benefit from xstals, but, *since the main argument for them seems to be the annoying, repeating part of leveling* then provide more flexibility to do tasks less mind numbling and, on average, require the same play time

yours,

[kyesmith]

gratz to Kali for what i think is the world longest post

[varelse]

gratz to Kali for what i think is the world longest post

I had thought the orginal poster would want to know hard facts about how outposts work and what rewards they give, so I posted all the relevant information provided by the devs that I could find.

[rundll32]

Wow kali that is a long post though well researched and I think exactly what was required.

[cyrish]

Correct me if I'm wrong then, this is what I've gotten the impression of from the thread...

Outpost give you really nice rewards (new skins for stuff is a very cool reward, forget about crystals )

However, in order to get those rewards you have to work for them. The method at the moment is that you must risk your life and fight against your fellow player...

But, there are people who want the rewards, without having to follow the path to get them....

So there is conflict because people want the goodies, but they don't want to deal with PvP. And they don't want to pay for them through trade or humble themselves by "begging"

Honestly that sounds pretty silly to me. What's the big deal about PvP anyway? Why don't some people like it? (This is a question I've always had, its no different than fighting a mob with really good AI - unless the other person is cheating.) The only reason I can really think of is that the winners lord it over the losers and harass them - but with the customer service I've seen here I don't really think that's a big problem. I mean, no one likes to lose... but I've never met a person yet who didn't come to love PvP once they actually started to try it. It's a new level of challenge that you don't get from fighting your standard mobs.

Now, that being said, I do agree with a post from another forum that it'd make more sense if the PvP rewards were PvP related and didn't apply to PvE... BUT, the rewards from PvPing are not required for PvE either. The crystals can actually be thought of as a "payment" for taking the time out of grinding and skilling up and exploring to attack or defend an outpost. If you look at it that way, it actually gives a big unfair advantage to players who don't PvP, but still get the crystals.

Think of it this way, when you PvP you lean more about your character an the skills they have and how to use them and how to fight. The crystals allow you to level on more or less the same pace as other players who don't PvP. Both players are getting about the same experience in terms of how to play their character. The one who doesn't PvP might know his way around a little better though. Now, if the person who doesn't PvP uses crytstals, they're short changing themselves because now they kow their way around as much as the PvPer, but they can't play their charater as well because they've had much less time actually using it.

So I think that XP Crystals as a reward for PvPing is a fair and balanced idea. Could the rates of Xp bonus be adjusted? Maybe. Maybe double XP is too much, maybe not. You also have to consider how often people who PvP actually have those crystals. If they don't hold the outpost, they don't have the crystals. No one's gauranteed to hold the outpost. It sounds ike some people think the crystals are automaticly always there...

Now, the new crafting patterns and skinns and materials... those I can't really justify as being a great reward for only PvPers.

What I think should be instead (maybe its already this way, I don't know.)...

The area around an Outpost is a PvP Free zone. In that area, you can prospect these new materials and dig them up freely. The catch is that if the OP owner doesn't want you there they can kill you for tresspassing on their land. Consaquently, you and your buddyes could defend yourselves and steal away, raiding the OP owners resources. That would allow everyone the new materials, in a pretty fair manor. If you don't like to PvP, maybe you can work something out with the OP owner and get premission then not have to worry about it.

The new plans and tools... to make those easily accessable to non PvPers, I don't really see a problem with providing an NPC who sells/trains them to everyone at a price set by the OP owners. If you don't PvP you can still get them, you just have to pay a sum of money. I don't thinkt he playerbase is so big you have to worry about someone charging you a totally rediculus amount.. word would get around too fast and the OP owners would be shunned. Really you could allow the raw mats to be sold too.


So... in short, I think the basis of the argument is pretty silly. Granted, outpost rewards could be implemented a little better... but I don't think the situation is nearly as bad as people make them out to be.

The XP Crystals are sort of a counter balance for the time spent PvPing and not playing normally... and everything can be bought and traded for, and I don't really see an issue with that. If you don't want to PvP but still want the goods, that's fine. You aren't PvPing, you have more time to make money, so you can trade with the PvPers for the items you want.

Maybe the community just needs to make a decent price list for the items...?


I mean, if you KNOW that outposts are PvP related... and you hold an outpost and honestly think you can avoid PvP... you're just deluding yourself. It's risk vs reward. It's like joining the army for college money and then end up being upset when you get sent to Iraq and shot at. You knew what you were getting into before you started, so you really have no right to complain about it.


And Kali, that was a great post you made.

And on a final note, regarding XP crystals, the dev's have said multiple times they're tossing around ways to maybe give them out as tradeoff for playing in the Ring. So I'm pretty sure PvP won't be the ONLY way to get them. It's just the only way at the moment. It'll just take time for that to change... you all can wait, right?

[sprite]

The only reason I can really think of is that the winners lord it over the losers and harass them

Of course, there's always the situation where the losers vilify the winners and try to make their lives hell, thus enraging the winners to fight more, etc etc, ad nauseam