Whats wrong with valrei

[blayze 314]

Valrei
 

I would like to take some time to point out some things about the Valrei mission system. The idea of scenarios and what you can get from it is a great one but just needs to be tweaked a bit. I'm just going to bring up what's wrong and try keep out my own personal ideas until the second post. This information is from what I have gathered and not from directly Rolf or a dev member so the results may be off.

 

Demigods and godhood

This idea is great and it allows a kingdom to try to rally behind that person to become a god. The downside is that it is almost not statistically significant for a person to become a god.

 

The first requirement is to get the key to the heavens which is extremely rare in its self.

 

The second requirement from what I have seen is that a demigod has a chance to become a god during a few select scenarios. During that select scenario a message is given when doing sermons saying that the demigod can ascend to become a god. From the time that Nathan has become a demigod this message has only showed up once.

 

The third requirement is that the god who ascended the demigod has to win.

 

If both requirements are met then there is a chance that the demigod can become a god.

 

So if you break it down.

 

Nathan has been a demigod for around 8 months now.

The select scenario has come up 1 time (about 5 months after he became a god).

We will assume there is a 25% chance for that god to win.

 

So from this we can say the average amount of time it will take with a 25% chance is..

 

1/(0.25) * 5 months = 20 months or 1.66 years on average

 

If on average this will take 1.66 years and if there is a chance for that to happen then it will take even longer to become a god. This also excludes the chance for a person to get the item to become a demigod.

 

Missions

Missions are often unreliable and unbalanced. The unreliable comes from bugged missions and what kind of missions are given. Unbalanced comes from the a large variance in work done to finish the mission.

 

Unbalanced

 

Each mission always gives out a total of 1000 karma and 1000 scenario points independent of the amount of work done. A person who cuts down a tree (can take as little as 4 minutes) will get the same reward as someone who builds a pylon. Also note that only the person to finish the pylon get the reward for completing the mission.

 

If you break down what it takes to make a pylon we get.

 

1000 bricks

2000 clay

1000 brass lumps

150 slabs

 

Now lets find the total amount of rock shards needed.

1000 bricks * 16.5 kg (stone used per brick) =  16500 kg of stone

150 slabs * 88 kg (stone used per slab) = 13200 kg of stone

(16500 + 13200)/ 20 kg (kg per shard) = 1485 shards of stone

Now for the brass

1000 brass * (1 kg zinc per lump) = 1000 zinc

1000 brass * (0.15 kg copper per lump) = 150 copper

Now lets find the time needed to get all of these.

Assume that it takes 2.7 seconds per mining action and per digging action

(1000 zinc + 150 copper + 1485 shards + 2000 clay)  * 2.7 seconds = 12514.5 seconds or about 3.5 hours just to get the things needed (does not include moving, smelting or time between actions)

Now the time it takes to attach each part

(1000 bricks + 2000 clay + 1000 brass lumps) * 4 seconds = 4.4 hours

 

It takes a minimum of 8 hours to make a pylon not including moving, time to regain stamina or having lower skills.

 

Unreliable

 

Missions such as the cut down some tree in some location has been known to often be bugged where the mission can not be completed and a gm can not help fix it. Other times tower missions towers are in the middle of some town, walled off, or on top of one of the largest mountains on that given server which makes the mission near impossible. There is also the chance of getting a pylon mission on two servers at the same time.

 

Lets take a look at how much faster one god can move than another.

 

The time it takes for a god to move is about a week assuming that no missions are done and the minimum amount of time it takes for a god to move is somewhere around 6-8 hours. Now lets take a look at what would happen if a given god (A) had missions on each server which could not be completed and a different god had quick and easy missions to complete ( .

 

Lets look what could happen in 7 days.

 

God A = 1 move

God B = (3 moves per day) * 7 days = 21 moves

 

Keep in mind that the map is only 9 tiles tall and wide.

 

A god can move 21 times faster than another god if there are missions that cant be done. This can also keep continuing as long as one god keeps getting mission that can't be done.

 

The reward?

Its really hard to bring about all of the downfalls of the rewards without giving out the buff debuff and spells so I will use general examples and ones that have been made public. In general most of the rewards that we have seen only make an account worse. Some of the spells do almost no damage or have little benefit at the cost a large amount of karma. The other downfall of the rewards is more often than not given to a person with little scenario points instead of someone who has a large amount of points.

 

Lets start by looking at the red cherry which was made public. It makes the user take 30% more physical damage, allowed them to deal out 50% more poison damage and gives a spell that does almost no damage. A difference of 30% damage is huge, its more than enough to guarantee you loss when fighting someone who is not new to pvp. Poison is almost never used in fights, for reasons of its own, making the buff ok but at least this one is usable. Other publicly known buffs have been to increase acid damage.

The spell does a small amount damage for 1000 karma. 1000 karma is not something that can be thrown away like favor, it does not regenerate itself. That part alone makes the spell not usable, the price to cast the spell is the same as the reward for building a pylon. I can not see why anyone would want to throw away that much for one spell that does so little damage.

Other debuffs can be to almost anything including elemental damage which is also a big part in pvp.

In general most of the rewards given out for spending countless hours on mission only make a given account worse. That is not a reward it is a punishment.

Edited February 26, 2014 by blayze

[blayze 314]

What I suggest

 

Take a look again at how long it should take for a person to become a god. I do not believe that it should take 1.6 years for a person to become a god no matter how much work they put into becoming one.

 

Change the missions so that they have a difficulty level for each one. Pylons are the highest and should give a reward proportional to the work put into them. Something like cutting down a tree should give a lot less. Missions with a higher difficulty should also benefit the god on the map differently than a mission does with a lower difficulty.

 

Have it so that there are multiple missions of varying difficulty per server for a god. This will prevent people getting stuck and having to wait a week without being able to do anything. It also allows for a more players to be able to do the missions.

 

Take a good look at debuffs and the cost to use a spell. They need to be balanced and actually be reward instead of a punishment.

Edited February 26, 2014 by blayze

[thenewcndo 528]

ok +1

[Hubert 143]

-1 

 

The Valrei system has a lot of unknowns and I don't believe JK needs or deserves 3 Gods whilst everyone else has 1. Becomming a God is not meant to be an easy task, otherwise we'd be having many Demi-Gods which would ruin the idea behind Valrei. There also needs to be consequences and possibility of your demi-god being killed and therefore perm death in game since the rewards are huge if he does become a God.

 

PS: I voted no on your poll because whilst I believe Valrei need to be fixed, the ideas you suggested are not the same solutions I agree with.

Edited February 26, 2014 by Hubert

[blayze 314]

This is not about jk getting another god. Its just about the total time needed to become a god.

 

I do agree with you on the idea that we do not need a lot of demigods running around but the post is about the time needed to become a god.

 

If you consider the amount of time for another key of a the heavens to be given out and the time needed to become a god then I do not believe we will ever see someone last long enough become a god before they quit the game or the game is self is no longer around.

 

 

Also the poll is not about my suggestion at all. Its simply asking if valrei needs to be fixed

Edited February 26, 2014 by blayze

[Gregory 573]

+ 1

And someone get this man a drink, looked like thirsty work posting all that!

[Kagrenac 812]

The thing is, having 3 gods is massivly overpowered.

Being able to get 3x the karma and having 3x(more like 10x if nathan becomes a god, nothing can ever kill him) the chance to win the scenario.

 

For the unreliable part, go do other missions, go build that pylon, go do one on an enemy home server.

Getting bugged missions on 3 servers has pretty much never happened, only ones not counting/getting reset.

If you want your god to win, you go and do those missions, (if missions actually mattered)

 

The real issue is doing missions having pretty much no effect on the chances of winning, not your points about the missions being "too hard", or imbalanced. Everyone gets easy missions, and everyone gets hard missions.

 

Valrei needs to be fixed, but the points you mention are the least of the issues with it.

[merce 135]

An issue also is that libila was nerfed from what was it.. 12/12?  And then magically a new demigod came in with 11/10 and wow what happens then? libila is nerfed so that nothing can kill the new demigod that is supposed to have  5/5 at most.

[blayze 314]

The thing is, having 3 gods is massivly overpowered.

Being able to get 3x the karma and having 3x(more like 10x if nathan becomes a god, nothing can ever kill him) the chance to win the scenario.

 

For the unreliable part, go do other missions, go build that pylon, go do one on an enemy home server.

Getting bugged missions on 3 servers has pretty much never happened, only ones not counting/getting reset.

If you want your god to win, you go and do those missions, (if missions actually mattered)

 

The real issue is doing missions having pretty much no effect on the chances of winning, not your points about the missions being "too hard", or imbalanced. Everyone gets easy missions, and everyone gets hard missions.

 

Valrei needs to be fixed, but the points you mention are the least of the issues with it.

 

 

Doing missions directly affects your chances of winning. The first two missions that are done can knock off 5 days or more of move time.

 

Having multiple bugged missions or missions that are not able to be finished happens a lot more than you think. These can come from kill (x) traitor that located (in you enemies back yard) and find out that it was killed in under an hour. Also cut down (x) tree that is located (again in your enemies back yard) and then go over there to find every tree within 200 tiles cut down. Along with the ones I mentioned above.

 

As for the go do the mission in the enemy home server. They often spawn inside peoples walled in deeds or in the middle of the server on top a huge mountain. Which still puts that god in deadlock unable to move.

 

Also again i'm not taking about jk having 3 gods. Go put put fo, vynora or nathan somewhere else for all I care. Its about the time needed to become the god from the time that any person needs to ascends.

 

 

An issue also is that libila was nerfed from what was it.. 12/12?  And then magically a new demigod came in with 11/10 and wow what happens then? libila is nerfed so that nothing can kill the new demigod that is supposed to have  5/5 at most.

 

 

So the demigod should needs to last 1.66 years but the second a god steps on the demigod's tile the demigod dies and is no longer a demigod? Now how many times has Nathan fought a god in the past 8 months?

Edited February 26, 2014 by blayze

[Kagrenac 812]

Doing missions directly affects your chances of winning. The first two missions that are done can knock off 5 days or more of move time.

 

Having multiple bugged missions or missions that are not able to be finished happens a lot more than you think. These can come from kill (x) traitor that located (in you enemies back yard) and find out that it was killed in under an hour. Also cut down (x) tree that is located (again in your enemies back yard) and then go over there to find every tree within 200 tiles cut down. Along with the ones I mentioned above.

 

As for the go do the mission in the enemy home server. They often spawn inside peoples walled in deeds or in the middle of the server on top a huge mountain. Which still puts that god in deadlock unable to move.

Doing missions just makes your god run in circles faster.

 

Kill x traitor or cut x tree missions being able to be prevented is a good thing, and you still have 3 more missions that are possible.

 

I would say 1/20 towers are in a deed or on a mountain. And even if the tower is on a deed, its generally a deed that is easy to break into.

MRH and BLH have some of the nicest towers to do missions on, JKH loves to have centereast tower missions in the sprawl right outside strongbox.

[Enzius 485]

I'm not going to plus or minus anything, but I do want to suggest avoiding the demigod thing entirely for now. Try to make a fix that doesn't involve Nathan and then decide what to do with him after. 

 

I'll give my reasoning: Nathan was spawned by a broken system. As it stands he has a 100% chance of god hood since nothing can kill him. ON THE OTHER HAND, if something was strong enough to kill him, that would pretty much be the end of his chances right there. As the system stands, any change will lead to a dead Nathan or a god Nathan.

 

What should be considered is how best to make it so having an extra god, whether they be BL or WL or MR, or whatever, would be a smaller advantage, and how battles on Valrei can be more varied.

[merce 135]

So from your ideas and responses nathan and every demigod that will sprout up should have a 100% chance to become god, because that is how it is now.

[blayze 314]

So from your ideas and responses nathan and every demigod that will sprout up should have a 100% chance to become god, because that is how it is now.

 

I't not saying every demigod should be a god. The stats on valrei are based off of Nathans body stats in game so someone with a bad account has no chance. Personally I would like to see it easier for him to die but not take multiple years. As of now the only way that anyone could last multiple years there and still become a god is if no one could kill them because a god seems to fight him about once a month.

Edited February 26, 2014 by blayze

[merce 135]

I't not saying every demigod should be a god. The stats on valrei are based off of Nathans body stats in game so someone with a bad account has no chance. Personally I would like to see it easier for him to die but not take multiple years. As of now the only way that anyone could last multiple years there and still become a god is if no one could kill them because a god seems to fight him about once a month.

If he had every skill at 100 10/10 stats could be a possibility, however since libila was nerfed when nathan got stats that is higher than any god (what a shocker that this happened at the same time) he can't die, rolf seems to have intervened here for some reason. Why nerf libila in the first place when she had won so many scenarios and deserved those stats?