Solo Surges?

[flom]

Well this depends on 2 things... whether it's codeable and whether or not it sounds like a good idea. To encourage/reward playing, maybe if someone's the only one logged in (except imms) a surge initiates until someone else logs in?

Would make being the only char logged a bit more useful & would make others want to be around to try to not let that happen..

[Davairus]

We already have that, its called guild reward.

[Ergorion]

Nah. Guild reward is a very mild version of what this guy is suggesting.

Guild reward is a personal surge that you can use once every three days. So you only get one hour of surge every three days and it's open to everyone regardless of whether they play peak times or not. So it doesn't provide any more benefit to the player who plays at way off-peak times than the player who plays at peak.

This suggestion would benefit the player who finds him (or herself) playing in those real slow times like 6 - 9am EST. An interesting suggestions. I think it would be a bit much to implement a full surge for a true solo player because the training that they could accomplish would be ridiculous. Though letting someone who's the only one online get 1.5 times experience from killing mobs might be interesting.

[flom]

Yeah, i was going for something that wasn't dependent on anything besides being the only bastard logged in. Doesn't necessarily have to be full reward, could be anything. Double coins, an affect that grants some benefit... anything

[Davairus]

So you are saying you want to reward low playerbase. I think that is the wrong thing to build for. Rewarding something kind of begets it. We want to think about the converse and approach it that way instead I think. For example, it makes sense to multiply the training rate by the number of possibly hostile people in PK range. That's representative of the risk involved in training skills in that timeframe, as opposed to the current less-people the better. The exp bonus then starts to make sense from that perspective... maybe we want to give better exp when you're behind in levels on your current PK range.

[Dispater]

Here's a wild one! How about just give everyone level 50 instantly with no effort required?

Sounds like a solid plan, because it seems fun, right?

[flom]

Actually I was hoping it'd do just the opposite... Encouraging people to be around to make sure noone's getting an easy leg up.

[Dispater]

that's what you have level 10 DKs for!

[Erlwith]

More surges = a large showing at first, less people in the long run.

this is just a random thought but different surges might make a difference. Weekend surges starting friday morning and ending sunday night at midnight. the first few hours will grant a slight exp bonus and the last few hours give the same bonus as a regular surge. i see this as slowly pulling people in at the beginning of the weekend with the big finale coming at the end of each weekend and hopefully the influx of players sunday night will spill over into the week as well.

The timing of surges kinda sucks. I have a full time job, and a social life, essentially I'd have to choose to be anti-social just to make it to one of the 2 surges I'm even available for. i haven't thought of all the pros and cons of this, but I'd actually thought about it a couple times in the past. Should make surges take place during times when most people are available. just something that has floated through my head before.

[flom]

The reason we have the surge schedule we have is so that they're at completely different times on different days so ppl in different time zones will be available at some point for at least one per week. I'm on a timezone somewhat similar to yours... so I never hit friday evening surge either. Choose life over AR!

[Vevier]

I think the idea is coming from the right place, but like Dav said, it supports the wrong thing. It's the sort of thing that would encourage people to play on off-peak hours when we want them to be around during peak times. The game doesn't suffer much if there are a few hours when no one plays as long as people are playing during more common times.

As for the surges thing, yeah it sucks that you have to choose your social life over surge. I ranked up a character or two recently and I actually made plans around surge, then my friends seems put out so I skipped it, but in high school, I hit 1 or 2 surges a week. I think the times are fine, as long as you don't go out when they were scheduled to be most beneficial to you.

Basically: See Flom's most recent post.

[Vanisse]

i wonder if randomized surges would be better than regular ones. people logging in more frequently and sticking around longer on the off chance of catching a surge, no feeling like one's being penalized for having a social life (i mean honestly... that's just silly lol).

[Andrael]

Or add like 2 or so more surges? you know, never can get enough grinding done.

[Ergorion]

[Xenyar]

man...reading this stuff hurts my eyes sometimes..... I remember ranking in the old days.... as many of the vets do too. No ranking potions, no rewars/surges/no new group stuff/etc...Taking almost 2 hours just to get from 49 to 50 is what I remember. Ranking is sooooo fucking easy anymore it's crazy. I say we don't do anyrthing else to make ranking any easier.

[Xenyar]

[Dispater]

Threadjack woohoohoo!

Edit: Who was this cocky bastard who had balls to edit MY post into this??? I demand heads!

[flom]

Idk about the randomized surges.. while I see your reasoning, it'd just lend itself to getting lucky. I don't think anyone's going to keep a char logged in on the off chance there's a surge. That would in turn cause there to be fewer people around for the surges, completely disrupting why there were put there in the first place (ostensibly to concentrate the pbase and increase pk/ranking/whatever interactions)

[Erlwith]

Why don't you make it so when you reach 20 (or a random number?) people logged in you get a surge.

[kammkala6]

If the goal is to reward being online perhaps add a bonus to the character who has been logged on the longest. Meaning the guy who is at the bottom of the who list, meaning his current logon time is the longest gets a modest 10-25% bonus exp and/or same modest percentage to training speed.

This idea could also be given a spin in many different ways. Like if the guy with the bonus gets killed his place is reset as if he had quit and relogon. So the number 2 guy could kill the number 1 guy (if they are within eachothers pk ranges) and get the bonus to himself...also this would discourage afk training with the bonus...

Or make this current logon time bonus exp only (or training only) and add another bonus from this months longest hours played as training (or exp). Some people would surely try to log on more, to get the bonus, the list would ofcourse get reset every month.