Ryzom

Levelwise everybody are already clones, basically the only real difference I can see is the players/chars personality, what they do and say and what they do with their skills (secret recipees etc.). There is more fun to be had in games than levels.

The reason for the xp crystals is for new players to get a chance to get to a level were they can PvP, and for new guilds/players to participate with all the "old multi level 250 guilds" (with all due respect).
The way I see it is this, new guild manages to get a q50 outpost. Now they have a chance to work on their skills to be get a shot at a q100 outpost, and so forth. Also the only way to get in on the PvP action (I don't PvP at all, so I could be very wrong, but I have talked with players already who have left the game because the grind to "PvP level" was to long to be fun) as it is more or less level 250 with supreme boosted equipment.
I have to say that AFAIK WoW got it right with PvP, you can go to the PvP areas that fits your level and combat others at an equal footing. And if you like take the chance out in the game world with raids etc.

As for the crystals themself, I would have liked that they didn't include it in the game, but they have.

katriell wrote:I like crystals because they get "the grind" done and out of the way faster.

... and then we get lvl 250 noobs running around getting themselves killed by pack of yubos. fun indeed

main char levels meant experience (not xp). now, they [levels] worthless.

Even before crystals, there were plenty of people who grinded their way to 250 without ever seeing more of the world than a little corner of GoC/Void.

I like the crystals themselves because they provide us more flexibility in training our skills. Someone who just wants to rush to 250 elemental can do that even faster and get less brain damage from killing thousands of plods. Someone who wants to level multiple skills, say 2-handed sword and autolauncher, can choose to spent all their crystals on the skill that's harder to level. This partly evens out for the fact that some skills are far more difficult to train than others.

But, I do not like them as outpost rewards. It creates too much of a gap between those who don't have them and those who do have them (the latter still mostly being the ones who just happened to get to the outpost first after the patch). Plus the being forced to participate in PvP to obtain them.

So reformulate the poll question as "Should exp crystals exist as outpost rewards?" and I'll happily vote no.

I really like crystals, i'd much rather spend 2 months getting a 250 than 4, i don't think the gameplay experience for players is really any different, that all down to the players and guilds themselves. If you nurse guildies and show them the best xp spots, most economic mobs, safest routes it doesn't matter if there are crystals involved or not. Due to the wealth of info from higher level players and websites there is a far shorter learning curve for new players, that just come with any established game. The crystals literally take the god awful sense of grind away.. or atleast reduce it. And the process of crystal aquisition, whether by conquest or trade add a dimension to the game previously not there.

only being able to play at night (lowest player count) I was able to get 2 lvl 201 skills and a 250 in alittle over 2 months WITHOUT crystals once you learn how/what to hunt its an easy task ....Granted it takes time but its not so bad...
What I see know is high lvl noobs running around not knowing anything..
Thats a shame...The hardest part was finding a team ..but now thats even worse ...because someone who plays 1 more hour then there freinds will now out lvl them twice as fast ... once everyone is maxed then what ?PvE becomes less interesting ...unless in a big event ...PvE is a large part of the game without it no way id still play...

I vote no to crystals completly other the event awards

I too voted "other", because I´d like a chance for smaller Guilds to get their Hands on Crystals without having to rely on the friendlyness of others.
Mind you, there are many friendly people out there (on Lenaon and I´m sure on the other servers too) but I´d like the possibilty to realy gain i.e earn these things by doing a deed that´s worth the treasure.

For example if these things were dropped by Bandits, or whatever...
Okay, sounds lame and WorldOfWhatever but well... it would equal the whole issue a bit IMHO.

Just my 2 cents.

Edit: And I definitely agree with raven above!!!

Acridiel

BURN THEM!

Actually I think they have their place, but that's not as an outpost reward. They made sense as a beautifully flexible compensation for the grind that was the Temple building. They would make sense as something that can be earned in Ring scenarios where you cannot earn XP, although then I think they should be skill specific to avoid exploitation.

Well, I voted other. Zok admits to using crystals, but only for my secondary branchs in a skill-tree.

I've been playing for well over a year now and have still not got to lvl 200 in any skill (nearly there with my desert forage). I play for the fun, not the grind although hitting my first kitin for 1000 damage last week was fun.

I would vote for crystals to be much more difficult to obtain, not just churning out of the ground if you happen to have an outpost. Maybe have them as rewards for doing missions that would need you to aquire a lots of exp doing them anyway. Or more long events such as the temple building (I'm using my temple rewards for focus picks btw)

REMOVE REMOVE REMOVE!!! what a nice word
or:
1)give a honor points for PvP then buying in the temples, as at EP2
2)reward for quest (is good idea too for ppl who dont like PvP), but we have not intresting quests but its another story.

PS you can buy xp cats but you will never buy a real experience

I think XP-crystals are ok - but there are too much of them per OP. The level 200-OP my guild owns (Leanon server *g*) fills our guildhall with crystals every night to 10,000/10,000 bulk... (Ok, the growing flowers also take much space)
Maybe it would be wise to reduce the total amount of crystals per day a guild gets from an OP. At the moment, every member of my 30-homin-guild gets two stacks of crystals (Q200) per day. (Of course these 30 Members are not online simultaneously to ask for crystals *g*) But two stacks are enough for a newbie to level very very fast. Some already start to try to get away from these "level-drugs" because they say it kills a little bit the game experience or the good feeling they have about a new title they earned after "hard work".
So my suggestion is to decrease the amount of crystals per day so they stay something valuable even for OP-guilds.

PS: I voted for "other"
PPS: Hey, my first posting in the english community