You're wasting it!

[Dope]

This doesn't go in the Brainport, it's just a statement, an observation if you'd like.

There's a chunk of vocal players that talk about how all anyone wants to do is sprint to cap. They suggest the "best way" to play is to pound through the lower level stuff, race up to cap, then play PVP/OP raids. That's cool and all, there's some fun stuff there, but what about the rest of the world?

Neocron is pretty big. I rode a speederbike all the way up to DoY last night and tripped around inside a little. (DoY beggars, rawr!) This world has so many places to go and things to see that, if anything, we should be taking our time leveling up, traveling around the large and diverse world and maybe even getting into scraps with rivals over our favorites, or having to find new ones when the guys at our fav. spot are too rough.

As it stands it seems like there's a sort of well-trodden path from Newb Apartment over to Mil Base, then over to ASG for a Rhino/LE combo. I think it really cheapens the experience. I know I post the comparison a lot, but the reason I quit playing WoW was that the linear-world-progression model bores the fuck out of me. Neocron was specifically designed to not have this problem, there are far more places to level, mobs are not normalized to level (as they are in other western mmos, forcing you to fight what the devs want when the devs want), and there are systems very clearly designed to build player interaction into the game (consider that the best equipment is always player made, repairs are only player available, and pokes as well) In short group play in Neocron is mandated, not opt-in. The two game-styles are based in very different basic paradigms (in WoW et. al. you are never made to interact with others, according to their core values that would be gauche. All group play is opt-in.)

In short, Neocron was not meant to be played like WoW, and by doing so, I think you're wasting it, and robbing yourself (and those of us that don't want to simply ding and be done with it) of an awesome play experience that cannot be found elsewhere.

Also, are any of the old design docs still around sopping up coffee spills or anything?

What was the originally intended average time-to-cap, I wonder?

[Arcaine]

I Think one of the problems is, the fast lvling players are oldschooler.
They've seen every corner of the game, and don't need to explore new territories to find a new lvl spot, they know how to do it fast and don't want to waste time.

the second one is, most of the players are PvP based....so they don't want to stuck in lvlin anf gearing up, they want to fight.

the third problem is the fucked up balancing in most areas:
Swampcaves are Suicide, even if u have 5 PPus with you .... - needs to be fixed

Ceres Labs are Suicide, except you have some kind of AreaDamage.....and even if you have, you still have to "exploit" doin damage "around the corner" or through the wall - other Option: Face the Enemy and take the GenRep - Needs to be balanced

El Farid - Nice experience level, but overflooded with Law Enforced Droners camping down there for about weeks - we need more Dungeons like El Farid

Viper King Grave - Impossible if you're not a droner - needs fix

Worm Tunnels - nice until you get to the Boss...impossible to do Solo, exceptional Hard to do with a nice team

Crystal Caves - =Swamp Cave

So the result is, everyone is lvling inside Regants Legacy or the 3 Chaos Caves

At the current Game State, the game is not "designed" for gettin a nice experience in hunting and lvlin with others,

To answer your question.

I lvled my Tank in the fast way ( ~3 Days from beginning to WoC] and my Private Eye in oldschool mode ( 3-4Weeks from Full Cap to WoC 1) with an average playtime of ~3hours a day
so i think the originally intended average time to get to cap was (once upon a time) ~a month


my suggestion:
the game don't need little patches, fixing a few problems of the past 10 years.
it needs a hardcore overhaul....changing and balancing the game, get some new content.
Im going to write a Thread about this in the Brainport, the upcoming days.

[yavimaya]

my suggestion:
the game don't need little patches, fixing a few problems of the past 10 years.
it needs a hardcore overhaul....changing and balancing the game, get some new content.
Im going to write a Thread about this in the Brainport, the upcoming days.

You mustnt have played much in the past.
Big overhauling patches is all they have ever done with balancing and its created a worse situation each time, why?
Because balancing must be done slowly, with proper testing, not this see-saw balance and over balance crap that big patches brings.

[Dope]

Yeah, for what it's worth, I am old school. I've been all corners of this big ol' world...

But I still feel as I do. This game is way more than stats and levels, and there is a ton of wasted space that could be awesomesauce adventure, but isn't even populated.

There is a format within all kinds of great RP and adventure could occur that is just being ignored and skipped over. I am certain that NC was designed as an RP world with a spectrum of players at many levels, and not as a "capped player OP war".

[Arcaine]

You mustnt have played much in the past.
Big overhauling patches is all they have ever done with balancing and its created a worse situation each time, why?
Because balancing must be done slowly, with proper testing, not this see-saw balance and over balance crap that big patches brings.

Nice one, but i think i have more playtime allone, than the other 8-15% on Terra/Mars together.....(and I'm not proud of it)
For myself, I've balanced a few games too on private servers (e.g. Ragnarök Online)
I agree, that Balancing has to be done slowly yes.... but only the fine tuning.... neocron, dont need fine tuning.... first it needs an overhaul, ander after that... comes the finetuning ...

I dont know how much playtime you've invested the last 10 years, but at the moment, the whole game concentrates to a handful zones, while most of it ~65-70% of the gameworld is unused/useless to most players, and thats the point.

The problem is, they're focussing the balancing atm to PvP, with 30% PvP player and 70% Trader/PvE player online .... in my opinion the wrong way... if we want to keep the 40%+ ....

[Britney]

Ya'll probably havent even seen the big yellow ball yet so no reason to talk.

[Nsomnia]

i don't see why kk doesn't try to utilize all the wasted space in the game. simply adding mobs ( not low lvl stuff )to all the empty zones would be nice..

[Netphreak]

I would ust like to point out that the volunteer devs are well aware of the balance issues and also the amount of places for possible content. (e.g. DoY)

They have stated that they are still working on the balancing project and that it is a HUGE task due to how much 2.2 messed everything up.

They have also mentioned in one of their posts that they are running a new story line (powder keg I think) that is leading up to adding of content to some zones (possibly DoY) that are currently going largely unused.

So I would have to disagree and say they aren't wasting it, they are resurrecting the great game that is NC from the fallout that was the Ion nuke weapon explosion that was 2.2.

I would suggest, that any particular/specific suggestions you have to make the game better and/or better use of certain zones, you post the details in brainport. The devs do read there, and you'll get the feedback from the community as well.