Hows the game these days

[Nebi]

<Vintage> is recruiting out the ass and is a great place to meet people or get gear/groups. Nebi makes a new progression guild like every 6 months, kiss his ass till he loves you.

Nobody has to kiss my ass at all. Hell my outlook for this guild has been 100% different than my prior SOD experience. I previously disliked many members in this guild but i found out its because i didn't really know them in game and went by their terrible forum personality.

There are very few requirements to be in <Vintage> and we just do not accept EVERYONE. Yes I will invite anyone and give them a shot but if you're a general shitbag / not a cool nerd then WE as a guild do NOT want you.

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And let me add.... I dont make these newbie progression guilds because I like being in the low tier. I'm 100% doing this to help out the server. There are people who need this type of guild to have fun because there isnt anyone filling this void.

If another guild were to come by and want to do it better than me I will step back and retire for the 200th time.

 

[Chiifin666]

The charm thing does kind of suck but it is totally achievable, coming from someone with a lot of beef with this server right now and only two 226k charms, with 30+ tomes on each character. Charms don't need to change, though if there were a price cut, I wouldn't complain..

I don't know too many people that 2 box to farm plat, much-less, that don't invite others... Heck, I got an end-game cleric and tank but I'm certainly not motivated to 2box often because the only content I WANT to do would take too long. If I were able to 3 box, I'd be in /ooc 4 days out of the week looking for people to fill 3 extra group slots for the exp bonus.

They really should allow 3 boxing right now IMO

Also, I logged in last night and I /who all... There are a good amount of new players on the server, I was impressed with the number of lowbies... Who knows, maybe the game will just be focused more on them... "our children are our future"... They'll be the new high-end characters as we have all quit. IF/when I'm happy with the server, I become a recurring donater again.

 

[Ludovician]

I got to tier 10 on a 100k charm. Charms are for min-max nerds.

Speaking of min-max nerds: That's one reason it's hard to find a group. The long timers on the server (a lot of them) will literally fomelo you and tell you you're not good enough to join - or at least that used to happen to me a long time ago.

The low tiers are definitely a struggle, but you can make friends with people going through that same struggle and show all those high tier dudes that you're a badass too.

Lol, the irony of your post Ezera, is he's in Vintage. And not even 65 yet. I don't even know how to take this guy seriously at this point. If you just wanted to do adepts, cool, but don't act like this server is a barren wasteland when you just did every adept in like two weeks? and have stood in Athica like a bump on a log.

This post from the guy who just said earlier that the server is less hostile...

Some encouraging words go really far with new players: "There's groups, you just have to dig a bit to find them" would have been fine. "I can't take this guy seriously" is a pretty jerk thing to say so now he thinks the population isn't just all min-max nerds trying to poopsock platinum dollars - he thinks they're jerks too!

 

[Chiifin666]

I think the game needs more worthwhile exp sinks (not tomes)

How about epic weapons that take multiple raid forces to get and are expable like cop1-10! I've been longing for a better bow! Better than drakes/spires and easier to obtain than Blazewind

 

[Pecannius]

I wouldn't think of tomes/charms as something you need, but as a way to continually progress your character. Sure, progression when you get higher is slower, but just moving forward towards your tome/charm total feels nice to progress. I've been playing this game with 1 toon primarily for 5 years and I'm still progressing my tomes. Granted the tomes I'm working on now aren't super game changing, but progress is progress.

I would say charms/tomes don't really matter until early T10 or so. To break into T10/11 stuff, I would say to be on tier you would need ~10 tomes and a 226k charm for most classes. Going from 226k to eternal > supreme are very good, but with the exception of like rangers/rogues, the 226k charm is the biggest deal. I know Resurgum has a policy where after you've been here for a while the guild bank contributes ~10% towards your next charm upgrade. I have personally gone through seasons where I offer personal plat for a certain period of time for hitting the 226k charm. But that's not to say you need the big charms. Resurgum raids on average maybe have 1/2 the people on teir or above with really good charms/tomes, 1/4 the people that are somewhere close to on tier and 1/4 of the people that are nowhere near on tier. For certain bigger fights we will ask the less mature toons to play bigger characters, but not primarily.

I do agree a problem (of which I have no feasible answer at all to fix) is the difference between a fresh toon and a 5 year mature toon. Like Ezie3205 said, joining a guild is huge. What happens most of the time though when Resurgum takes someone under our wing is we gear them up to almost on tier and then when they're not getting 3 upgrades a week anymore, they burn out / quit because loot isn't being thrown at them and grinding a charm/tomes can be a daunting task.

I really appreciate Nebi making a strong attempt at a guild that actually progresses through the lower tiers. I think seeing the T1-7 content that is skipped so much is fun to do, and makes newer players appreciate when loot is getting thrown out and not burn out when the loot pinata runs dry. SoD is a slow-paced, grindy, but rewarding game.

Also forgot to mention, find Irelc in game. Irelc is some super-human whose seemingly sole purpose in life (or at least in SoD) is to backgear and help out newer players. He's done more backgearing for new players than you can shake a stick at.

 

[Tevinter]

How about epic weapons that take multiple raid forces to get and are expable like cop1-10! I've been longing for a better bow! Better than drakes/spires and easier to obtain than Blazewind

epic weapons are not great game design imo, and are very very tricky to balance(i could make an entire post on this alone). I was thinking expable things that do not make your character "better", because then it just becomes another "requirement" to have. I was thinking of a system where you go talk to some quest NPC and they give you a "relic of the past, whose magics have been lost with time" to choose from, and you have to "harvest the essence of your slain enemies" to re-enchant the item. Have it be non-gamebreaking, but nice rewards like instant click self only SoW, group wide invis clicky, maybe worn illusion augments (this would require adding a new aug slot type to charms or something like that), gate neck to certain wizard ports, instant click food/water that summon stacks of 20 at a time, a levitate clicky, etc etc.

 

[Kait]

This post from the guy who just said earlier that the server is less hostile...

Some encouraging words go really far with new players: "There's groups, you just have to dig a bit to find them" would have been fine. "I can't take this guy seriously" is a pretty jerk thing to say so now he thinks the population isn't just all min-max nerds trying to poopsock platinum dollars - he thinks they're jerks too!

I said it was less hostile. He's talking about things he's not even experiencing, since, he's level 53. He did adepts, awesome! Then he's stood in Athica. And you don't know what I've talked to him about IG. I actually sent him tells letting him know there was necro spells on vendors he was looking for, & the water clicky bracelet from OG. I looked for him ALL DAY when I was running a leech group so big we had to raid people in & had people sending tells for invites hours after I ooced the first time.

Standing in Athica, not oocing for a group, not soloing, not talking to your guild (he joined right as I did, and I'm on ALL THE DAMN TIME), is a problem, imo. He has a good presence already, which he made himself, what does he want, a crew to follow him around like *Insert Celebrity of Choice* getting him exp & charm money? JFC. I'm genuinely sorry if I was a "jerk" because I said something that is true. I can't take someone seriously who talks about things they've not experienced. All they've done is GOT GROUPS for the adepts the last 2 weeks, look at his thread.

But I get it, more hand holding, more flowerly words of encouragement, that will fix it. So here I go: You are SOOOOOO welcome to join my group anytime you want! FTR: this is basically what I say anyway, just "I'm not going to babysit you b/c I'm boxing, so don't die, if you just want to leech at the zone that's cool" HOW AWFUL OF ME.

 

[Nebi]

you want to know how to trash can a thread? this is how you trash can a thread?

 

[Ludovician]

you want to know how to trash can a thread? this is how you trash can a thread?

Nebi made me bow to him when I was a noob he promised to shower me with exp and loot but then he just joined my guild on all his alts and when I wasn't on he got them into high tier raids when I wasn't lookin then linked me all of his loot that he got that I would never get.

I still cry Nebi. Late at night.

 

[Nebi]

Nebi made me bow to him when I was a noob he promised to shower me with exp and loot but then he just joined my guild on all his alts and when I wasn't on he got them into high tier raids when I wasn't lookin then linked me all of his loot that he got that I would never get.

I still cry Nebi. Late at night.

90% OF THE EXP ON YOUR CHARACTER WAS IN ONE OF OUR GROUPS!

Adopt a newbie today.

 

[Melodico]

What we need is a 5 mil charm, how many supreme alts can a guy have?

 

[daenar_sod]

How many alts does Baxters have? That'll be your answer.

 

[odizzido2]

I am quite happy to invite any player into anything I do as long as we can handle the content. Unfortunately I have already capped my xp and any questing I have left is off specific rare mobs, things that require raids, or things that are not group suitable.

If for example PoE salves dropped in a 65 xp zone as a super rare drop you can bet I'd be killing mobs there. When I was farming the other vah drops I was grouped with a number of 55+ players. I don't care what class you are, what gear you have, or how much xp you have.

I can't imagine that I am the only player in this situation.

 

[Expletus]

Population used to be great 3-4 years ago, we had 250-300 active characters online every night during prime time, guilds were strong, groups were every where and then a few "balance changes" happened and about 50-80 people left the game. Chaotic Wind, one of the major guilds at the time was abusing ramp or was it rip?, hell i cant remember but that nerf along with the item nerf (crystallis, 4.3 items, and the other misc items) also caused a good amount of people to quit and don't try to tell me that "80 people didn't quit when those nerfs happened" i can name off 40 people at the bare minimum. Do you remember the reason we got for the item nerfs? because i do and i remember when they said "we had to nerf 4.3 items for future progression", well i wonder whatever happened to that future progression? Seems like its just been turruj, sanctum, blazewind for years. I have also personally seen the staff (well 1 person in particular) train a newly formed progression guild for "shits and giggles and because she didn't like the person forming the guild" and i won't even get started on the rules and policies, thats an issue for another day.

While Shards of Dalaya is a great experience, there are just better ways to spend your time these days.

 

[Kapitol K]

Chaotic Wind, one of the major guilds at the time was abusing ramp or was it rip?

riposte on all mobs instead of just your target, just imagine how much they could have abused that if their tank had a 4.3 robe instead of their druid

 

[Melodico]

I have also personally seen the staff (well 1 person in particular) train a newly formed progression guild for "shits and giggles and because she didn't like the person forming the guild"

Was it exiled norathians? Because that would be hilarious / justified.

 

[Ludovician]

It was the riposte nerf that made me quit. I think it was targeted more at the Spirit Harvest warriors who could so 20 mobs by living off of the 100% proc rate and ripostes.

It wasn't CW alone who was abusing it. Anyone who had access to a high tier warrior with a scythe was "abusing" it, if you'd call it that. The cleric Cella or Crystalis or whatever nerfs were done in the name of "balancing future content" and not trivializing content that already exists which is what really started the ball rolling on the mass exodus. Riposte nerfs were just the last straw.

Slaar made it clear that he didn't want content trivialized, and to that people said "what's the point of progressing if I can't feel powerful" and neither side budged so people just decided to spend their time somewhere where progression was more gratifying and where they didn't have to worry about it being taken away.

Any new cutting edge content is going to be gatekept by 4.3 gear and Jyre tanks I don't think any other items would really have made a difference.

 

[Tevinter]

i exped today and it was fun, game seems fine

 

[fuwok]

It was the riposte nerf that made me quit. I think it was targeted more at the Spirit Harvest warriors who could so 20 mobs by living off of the 100% proc rate and ripostes.

I'm going to weigh in on this even though I think I quit before this happened.

Nobody would do this anyway if it wasn't necessary to endlessly farm platinum for charms. Content wouldn't be trivialized, high tier players wouldn't go lower in content if the rewards for higher tier content were on par with farming low blues for pp/xp etc. The idea of charms as a platinum sink is insane when, instead, platinum is being generated only to buy charms.

Do I really want to sit alone in lowtierzone X pulling the whole zone and looting on some boxed cleric? I'd much rather be in a 6 man group and see a 30k share of a split. That isn't how it works though.

 

[Ludovician]

I'm going to weigh in on this even though I think I quit before this happened.

Nobody would do this anyway if it wasn't necessary to endlessly farm platinum for charms. Content wouldn't be trivialized, high tier players wouldn't go lower in content if the rewards for higher tier content were on par with farming low blues for pp/xp etc. The idea of charms as a platinum sink is insane when, instead, platinum is being generated only to buy charms.

Do I really want to sit alone in lowtierzone X pulling the whole zone and looting on some boxed cleric? I'd much rather be in a 6 man group and see a 30k share of a split. That isn't how it works though.

Exactly. In my opinion a tier 12 warrior with spirit harvest should be able to tank an entire low tier zone. It's the perk of spending 2 years raiding and grinding and farming. You get to be godly.

When zones like the OG's Hard Section and Citadel get xp and loot nerfs because they're "too good", you drive the players to more efficient low tier content.

Then you say "oh no no no you shouldn't be trivializing this content" and kneejerk nerf the method they're using. How could you ask for a mass exodus of high end players more clearly?