Goblin Squad Member
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In Alpha 8, the one escalation I took part in (one party) was dropping the level of the escalation for completing missions (the x's: killing priests and killing commanders); each completed mission bumped the escalation down something like 3% or 5%.How do you see what the missions are in a hex?
You can expand the achievement tracker in the upper right corner (the small triangle in a circle) to show you escalation missions as well as progress you're making on other achievements. Escalation missions are completed on a per-hex basis, not per-party or per-character.
(I'm not sure how the related achievments are awarded. Do I get the achievement just by being in the hex when another party kills the last elder priest or whatever?)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think they will admit how small the population actually is. I think we are sitting on close to 30 alpha invites, and we can't even give them away. I had suggested the alpha server has maybe 500 unique players, but that number might be overly generous.I'm curious how many will show up when they open alpha to all kick starters.
I think it's closer to 1000 and I'm the father of conservatism when it comes to this stuff. 90% is just playing very casually because, you know, it's alpha.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@T7V Yup. 1/2 to 2/3 of the players I know are interested in PvE or PvP and are only sporadically logging in to Alpha. After learning the interface they aren't actually going to advance their characters, so they may as well do something else, if they don't want to test something particular.
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The escalations have been designed so that a party of 4-6 characters can drop the escalation strength by one phase (usually about 20%) in 2-3 hours of dedicated play. That assumes the party is strong enough to clear even the large encounters reasonably quickly and without constantly taking losses. Most new escalations start out at about 20% strength, so a party should be able to wipe out a fresh escalation in one evening. If the escalation reached 100%, it should take 5 times as long, or 5 parties spreading out the work.
The numbers seem to meet that goal in the early stages of an escalation, but are getting out of whack when escalations hit 100% in lots of hexes. I'm reviewing the reinforcement numbers to bring things back in line, hopefully without slowing the spread of escalations too much.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I don't think they will admit how small the population actually is. I think we are sitting on close to 30 alpha invites, and we can't even give them away. I had suggested the alpha server has maybe 500 unique players, but that number might be overly generous.
I'm curious how many will show up when they open alpha to all kick starters.
I offered all of my invites on www.jeuxonlines.info, the French biggest MMORPG community. I've succeeded in distributing 15 over five weeks, no more, I ended up with spares...
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the rate of escalation clearance will change when EE starts. The same way that people have little inventive to use the AH during Alpha, they have little reason to fight escalations. Nothing that happens right now will outlive this month, so there's no urgency to do much. I'm confident that when EE begins, more people will start playing, and with a lot more purpose.
Addressing one of Bluddwolf's points, three of us from Tavernhold tried fighting an escalation a couple of weeks ago. We definitely spent more time crisscrossing the hex looking for escalation event groups than fighting them. Plus, it seemed like whenever we'd start to make some progress on one escalation event, groups for that event would dry up, and groups for the other event would start popping up. It got really frustrating when we got close to finishing one quest, only to have it expire before we could turn in the items to the quest-giver.
Basically, we concluded that three people can hold an escalation within a pretty narrow percentage range, but just aren't enough to do more than that.
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Addressing one of Bluddwolf's points, three of us from Tavernhold tried fighting an escalation a couple of weeks ago. We definitely spent more time crisscrossing the hex looking for escalation event groups than fighting them. Plus, it seemed like whenever we'd start to make some progress on one escalation event, groups for that event would dry up, and groups for the other event would start popping up. It got really frustrating when we got close to finishing one quest, only to have it expire before we could turn in the items to the quest-giver.
There's an issue right now with the event encounters not spawning until some room is cleared for them. We hope to address this by removing existing out-of-sight encounters as necessary, but until then it's important to be clearing out non-event encounters of all sizes to make room available.
Fortunately, while dealing with events is the most efficient way to lower an escalation's strength, just plain killing escalation monsters is pretty effective on its own.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Complaining about a 1-3 person groups ability to take on an escalation seems premature at best. Try it with 6-10 people and if it takes more then a few hours you may have a point.Current server population does not support this. I doubt there are much more than 500 people in alpha. Of that number, most are in towns (crafting) or out gathering near towns. It is rare to find anyone else in an escalation cycle, unless they are just passing through.
Even with a large group of 20+, and being guided by GW Bonny, it took around two hours to complete an escalation. In that group almost everyone had T2 gear and Bonny was frequently in God Mode.
Escalations need to be tailored to smaller groups and a shorter time investment required. At the very least add more mission objectives on the map.
Are you saying this would be good to test escalations? Or you think the game should be tailored more to small groups based on the alpha population?
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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The escalations have been designed so that a party of 4-6 characters can drop the escalation strength by one phase (usually about 20%) in 2-3 hours of dedicated play. That assumes the party is strong enough to clear even the large encounters reasonably quickly and without constantly taking losses. Most new escalations start out at about 20% strength, so a party should be able to wipe out a fresh escalation in one evening. If the escalation reached 100%, it should take 5 times as long, or 5 parties spreading out the work.
The numbers seem to meet that goal in the early stages of an escalation, but are getting out of whack when escalations hit 100% in lots of hexes. I'm reviewing the reinforcement numbers to bring things back in line, hopefully without slowing the spread of escalations too much.
That feels about right from my experience. One problem is that several of the escalations I have seen have been impossible for any party to complete reliably without dying or becoming more skilled and better equipped than XP allows.(Ustalav invaders, Undeath squads, Skeleton rangers)
Would it be unreasonable to have/modify an escalation so that the typical large spawn is about as difficult as one of the large spawns of bandit( recruit)( archer)s without a bandit captain, or the goblin spawn with a bomber, a shaman, and a subchief? Players used to theme park mentality will have the idea that if they are allowed to attempt something, they should probably be able to do it.
Maybe I'm being a little bit selfish as well; having a paradigm where players can learn the basics of communication and gameplay where learning is positively reinforced is part of several of my plans, and a noob escalation hits several of those wickets.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't really understand what I should be doing to improve my character. I keep improving achievements which in turn allows me to train feats. I get that. But I don't really have any screens that clearly show me my improvements or stats. I'm increasing feats just because I think I should be.
This is my biggest problem by far, information being given in confusing and near useless form. There are lots of highly necessary improvements that we need to the interfaces before EE to present relevant information in a way which is usable. The most basic thing is having tooltips that do not run off the sides of the screen. I have not been able to read most of the stats for the rogue defensive slot feats because the beginning and end are cut off.
I will be returning to the game closer to or during EE when the population density of players is enough to sustain a community and an economy in game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...before EE...
Remember that part of Goblinworks' definition of Minimum Viable Product (MVP), is that Day One of Early Enrollment isn't intended to be ready for all players, but only for those willing to put up with and work around limitations in game systems, including the interface. The fact that they're putting out the info contained in the tooltips in publicly available spreadsheets, and that those spreadsheets are then massaged by players into the wiki, appears to obviate the need to make all data available in-game as part of MVP.
I've no doubt that the tooltips will improve when they have the technology to do so, but for right now the fact they exist at all is a blessing; they were copy/pasted by hand, hence the difficulty in improving them.
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One problem is that several of the escalations I have seen have been impossible for any party to complete reliably without dying or becoming more skilled and better equipped than XP allows.(Ustalav invaders, Undeath squads, Skeleton rangers)
I've got the Ustalav Invaders turned off for the moment, since players won't really be ready for them for a while. I'll look at adjusting the percentage chances for each of the remaining escalations so that the initial spawns will lean toward the easier escalations, then I can pretty easily rebalance to a tougher mix as players are leveling up. That will lower the variety around the map a bit at first, but will hopefully mean that at least one escalation near each settlement is a bit on the easier side.
Would it be unreasonable to have/modify an escalation so that the typical large spawn is about as difficult as one of the large spawns of bandit( recruit)( archer)s without a bandit captain, or the goblin spawn with a bomber, a shaman, and a subchief? Players used to theme park mentality will have the idea that if they are allowed to attempt something, they should probably be able to do it.
Something like this would probably make the most sense when we have monster home hexes and can guarantee that a starter escalation like that is always available and always running near the starting points for players. The amount of work to temporarily rebalance existing escalations, and then rebalance them later when the player base has advanced a bit, is currently prohibitive.
Fortunately, the player base should advance fast enough that even though the map will largely be taken over by escalations during the first week, players should be able to start pushing the escalations back after a week or two (once the latest changes to reinforcement percentages roll out).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Are you saying this would be good to test escalations? Or you think the game should be tailored more to small groups based on the alpha population?Complaining about a 1-3 person groups ability to take on an escalation seems premature at best. Try it with 6-10 people and if it takes more then a few hours you may have a point.Current server population does not support this. I doubt there are much more than 500 people in alpha. Of that number, most are in towns (crafting) or out gathering near towns. It is rare to find anyone else in an escalation cycle, unless they are just passing through.
Even with a large group of 20+, and being guided by GW Bonny, it took around two hours to complete an escalation. In that group almost everyone had T2 gear and Bonny was frequently in God Mode.
Escalations need to be tailored to smaller groups and a shorter time investment required. At the very least add more mission objectives on the map.
Yes to your first question, testing is always good. As to the second, concerning population, I think group size should be tailored to population regardless of whether it is alpha, EE or OE.
I have nothing to base a belief that population will dramatically increase come EE. I guess current pop to be about 500. One person projected 1000. I don't see it hitting 5000 in early EE. But even if that is the case, your typical online population is about 10% of the total subscription population.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I guess current pop to be about 500. One person projected 1000.
Are those guesses based on anything other than ancedotal experience?
Forgeholm has actually increased in active members since the start of Alpha. (note, active members.. we still have people that voted for us in the Landrush that we've never had any active contact with.)
And, I've heard from a number of folks that don't want to bother playing when there is an impending character wipe, so we'll pick up quite a few more when EE officially begins, even if the state of gameplay doesn't significantly change.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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The 500 players guess on Xeen's part is just a guess. And not a good one.
There are 2,300 people who have access to the Alpha. Of those, over 1,000 are people we have directly invited so we know they're not alts of each other. I suspect the number of alt accounts (two or more accounts controlled by the same person) is less than 500.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The 500 players guess on Xeen's part is just a guess. And not a good one.
There are 2,300 people who have access to the Alpha. Of those, over 1,000 are people we have directly invited so we know they're not alts of each other. I suspect the number of alt accounts (two or more accounts controlled by the same person) is less than 500.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The 500 players guess on Xeen's part is just a guess. And not a good one.
There are 2,300 people who have access to the Alpha. Of those, over 1,000 are people we have directly invited so we know they're not alts of each other. I suspect the number of alt accounts (two or more accounts controlled by the same person) is less than 500.
1000 direct invites does not equal 1000 players actually active in game. We have sent out quite a few invites that were not activated.
The point really isn't so much, how many are there, but more so..... are there enough to build up and sustain the various systems that are population dependent?
The 500 players guess on Xeen's part is just a guess. And not a good one.
There are 2,300 people who have access to the Alpha. Of those, over 1,000 are people we have directly invited so we know they're not alts of each other. I suspect the number of alt accounts (two or more accounts controlled by the same person) is less than 500.
1000 direct invites does not equal 1000 players actually active in game. We have sent out quite a few invites that were not activated.
The point really isn't so much, how many are there, but more so..... are there enough to build up and sustain the various systems that are population dependent?
Yeah, I think a lot of people play it a little then stop. I agree with less than 1000, easy.
If we're talking about people who actually play, it may go much less. Maybe 100-200. I know I always saw the same people.
I've sent our some alpha invites but of the people I know, none of them are interested in it anymore. Two of my friends who have EE packages are sharing my disinterest.
now, there isn't much that can be done in the game... no pvp is gonna make less people play. Unless you are crafting and farming, there's nothing to do, and pve is bare bones at best.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree with the OP's points.
I was going to post something more elaborate in more detail but realized that going into more detail is impossible for me without turning this into a non-constructive rant.
To be short and blunt, I currently believe the game is failing on pretty much every point and if they go into EE as scheduled I don't see how they can fix the flaws, many of which I believe to be fundamental to the design, AND PROGRESS THE GAME in time to avoid the crash and burn when the prepaid time from the kickstarter expires and everyone needs to pay out more money to continue.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The 500 players guess on Xeen's part is just a guess. And not a good one.
There are 2,300 people who have access to the Alpha. Of those, over 1,000 are people we have directly invited so we know they're not alts of each other. I suspect the number of alt accounts (two or more accounts controlled by the same person) is less than 500.
Wasnt my guess btw, you will note I said 1000.
and of those 2300, how many have played more then once? how many have even played in version 8 much less 9?
I have 3 accounts active myself, I know Cheatle has done the same, and I have met more then one in game with multiples.
The only place I have come across anyone is in towns, mainly TK. For 3 days I have been looking for someone out and about with no luck.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Are you saying this would be good to test escalations? Or you think the game should be tailored more to small groups based on the alpha population?Complaining about a 1-3 person groups ability to take on an escalation seems premature at best. Try it with 6-10 people and if it takes more then a few hours you may have a point.Current server population does not support this. I doubt there are much more than 500 people in alpha. Of that number, most are in towns (crafting) or out gathering near towns. It is rare to find anyone else in an escalation cycle, unless they are just passing through.
Even with a large group of 20+, and being guided by GW Bonny, it took around two hours to complete an escalation. In that group almost everyone had T2 gear and Bonny was frequently in God Mode.
Escalations need to be tailored to smaller groups and a shorter time investment required. At the very least add more mission objectives on the map.
Yes to your first question, testing is always good. As to the second, concerning population, I think group size should be tailored to population regardless of whether it is alpha, EE or OE.
I have nothing to base a belief that population will dramatically increase come EE. I guess current pop to be about 500. One person projected 1000. I don't see it hitting 5000 in early EE. But even if that is the case, your typical online population is about 10% of the total subscription population.
Makes sense. Wouldn't it be nice if the server altered escalation difficulty dynamically and automatically.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am enjoying the loneliness now, once EE starts and all the PvP mechanics are being implemented I think I will become very paranoid with every white dot that is appearing on my minimap. :O
When I look at what I am currently carrying in my Inventory, I may as well paint "Kill me" on my forehead.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I've run across a number of other folks on my journeys, mainly see them on the weekends though. Usually only 1-3 of them as I pass through a hex. Some towns I stopped by had no one in them, some had a couple of other folks working on crafting or some such, based on where they were standing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The Concerned Citizens' De-Escalation Committee sallied forth from Alderwag last night to beat down a 100% escalated hex. Sack upon sack of dark onyxes were returned to the Loitering Wizards, and after many hours of glorious combat and heroic retreats, victory was declared when the escalation was reduced to a paltry 97%. Huzzah!
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and of those 2300, how many have played more then once? how many have even played in version 8 much less 9?
Would it matter if we had a number?
I'm not at all disappointed at the state of alpha, pretty psyched about EE starting in a few weeks, and yet I'm still barely playing right now.
Why is that?
I mainly tried to get into alpha to learn how the game worked, not to test stuff. If I'm needed to test/break things I'll happily contribute, but until I get a call to action from GW I'll assume they have enough people trying things out.
So, I play a little here and there. But I have no intention of spending hours a day farming stuff and crafting stuff, when it's all going to be wiped very soon, and features are continuously being added.
I suspect a good percentage of these other alpha accounts are being used in a similar manner.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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I agree with Doc 100%. Most people with Alpha access who have logged in have probably not spent any material time in the game. Most of them just wanted to see it and take a look around. They're not interested in putting in any serious time because it will all be wiped out.
There's a small number of people who are "playing the Alpha" just because they enjoy it. That's cool. A small number of using the Alpha to test strategies they intend to use in the live game, that's cool too. Every week due to Alpha invites being distributed we welcome a number of new players to the Alpha and they're likely showing up for an hour or two to check it out. We typically send those welcome messages on Thursday or Friday so that has an impact on when those people give the Alpha a spin.
When we start the Stress Test, we'll multiply the number of people who have access by 400%. Population density should be markedly different for a while afterward, but those people won't stay logged in either for the exact same reasons.
Low population at this stage is not concerning to me.
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The Concerned Citizens' De-Escalation Committee sallied forth from Alderwag last night to beat down a 100% escalated hex. Sack upon sack of dark onyxes were returned to the Loitering Wizards, and after many hours of glorious combat and heroic retreats, victory was declared when the escalation was reduced to a paltry 97%. Huzzah!
My guess is that this was because the hex was being reinforced by neighboring hexes that were also at 100%. If that's the case, you'd see steady progress, but then every hour on the hour, the escalation strength would go back up to about 100%. I've reduced the reinforcement numbers pretty drastically, so this should get better in an upcoming build.
That said, picking the best hex to attack will always be an important part of defeating an escalation that's managed to spread out. If you can bring overwhelming force to bear, it may be best to attack the source hex, regardless of how many reinforcing neighbors it has. The regular reinforcements will make that hex harder to beat, but once you beat the boss and clear the source, the remaining hexes will have lost a major source of reinforcements and cleaning them up will go much more quickly.
However, if you only have enough forces to whittle away at the escalation, you may be best off finding the hex that has the least sources of reinforcements, so that your contributions aren't being overwhelmed by the reinforcements each hour. You might even pick a hex that's under attack from a neighboring escalation, where the reinforcements are balanced out by the attacking neighbor. These types of tactics will slowly remove hexes from the escalation until the source hex is isolated and vulnerable.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am so going to miss the fact that I got almost all the important +2 recipes already.......
+2 Steel Plate, +2 Hemp Wire, +2 Weak Varnish, +2 Steel Ingots, +2 Basic Hide Sheet, +2 Basic Strips.
/cry
/strokes his +3 Longsword. (who put that on the Thornkeep AH?)
Oh well. :)
Me :)
Have Basic Strips +3 and got lucky and had a +5 come up. Combined with some +1 ingots that I bought and voila, +3 weapon.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Bob,
We didn't really expect that we'd be able to nullify the escalation or even make a huge dent in it, as you're correct that some of the neighboring hexes were pretty well infested themselves. We just wanted to see what we could accomplish if we focused our efforts on a single hex. Turns out not so much!
The lesson we took away was that the escalation was rebuilding as fast as we could knock it down with the group we brought, and that better results could only be obtained by fielding a larger force, ideally split into multiple strike teams.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am so going to miss the fact that I got almost all the important +2 recipes already.......
+2 Steel Plate, +2 Hemp Wire, +2 Weak Varnish, +2 Steel Ingots, +2 Basic Hide Sheet, +2 Basic Strips.
/cry
/strokes his +3 Longsword. (who put that on the Thornkeep AH?)
Oh well. :)
Me :)
Have Basic Strips +3 and got lucky and had a +5 come up. Combined with some +1 ingots that I bought and voila, +3 weapon.
Awesome, thanks. 10 silver was a steal, you are too nice. :) I *love* that system where you can mix and match different tiers of "+" refined goods to get the most bang out of your buck.
It must be great to see a +5 refined goods appear in your Inventory. This system totally appeals to my Lottery weak spot.|
Goblin Squad Member
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@Bob,
One thing I don't understand. How do you determine in game by looking at the map or at your surroundings what is a "main escalation hex" and what is a "surrounding escalation hex"; and which is effecting which?
The "main escalation hex" is going to be the Monster Hex (with a lion) or Monster Home Hex (with a castle) on the Land Rush Map.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I keep forgetting, to get the most out of that +3 Longsword, I need to increase my Longsword attack Feats to at least level 4, right?5.
At level 4 you get access to the major keyword (which matches T2 and allows the better roll). The last minor keyword is at level 5.
Ah, now I understand why it was only 10 silver. No way to put the last + to use. :D
I do not have 11 Str yet so can not even upgrade to 4....
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Goblin Squad Member
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The "main escalation hex" is going to be the Monster Hex (with a lion) or Monster Home Hex (with a castle) on the Land Rush Map.
@Nihimon,
I can't read the LR map, the colors blur and confuse me. Harad's excellent terrain map is a joy to read, and my main reference.
Ryan posted a new PFO World Map in the Alpha forums, and that is the one I see when I hit "m" in the game. On THAT map, is to what my questions to Bob refers.
Same thing with the "mini-map". There are these symbols on the upper left corner that change every time I enter a hex, I have no idea what they mean. How do I understand those symbols so I can figure out what is a "main" escalation hex and a "secondary or reinforcing" escalation hex. I am trying to use in game tools to understand the information.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Giorgio,
I don't believe there's anyway to know in-game (right now) which Hex would be the main escalation hex.
There are two icons that appear next to the mini-map (in the top 1/3 of the map, anyway).
The left-most is always present at around 10 o'clock on mini-map, and indicates Hex Type (not Terrain Type). I believe the background color is also meant to indicate the "challenge level" of the Hex, in essence telling you how tough the mobs there will be.
NPC Hexes are usually grey with some broken lines on them.
Wilderness Hexes are usually green with a tree and a hill on them.
Badlands Hexes are usually checkered green and light green.
Escalation Hexes are usually yellow with three lines that remind me of hills.
The other icon represents an active Escalation, and again the color indicates the challenge level.
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Goblin Squad Member
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(insert link here)
As you wish....
Note that downloading it using the download button gets you much greater detail than the preview shows
How do you determine in game by looking at the map or at your surroundings what is a "main escalation hex" and what is a "surrounding escalation hex"; and which is effecting which?
Yeah, the older maps showed the lion symbol on the source (monster) hexes, but the new prettier map doesn't include those. The longer-term plans for the map call for it to give you access to a variety of information, but for now it's pretty limited.
Meanwhile, you can sort of spot the monster hexes if you look closely. If the road goes around the edges of the hex instead of through the center, it's probably a monster hex.
Once you're in a monster hex, the symbol beside the mini-map will be yellow with three lines like hills on it. Basically, it's showing the hex type, as Nihimon said, but it's using terrain symbols as placeholder icons. Not exactly intuitive ;)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I consider EVE's system to be flawed. The fact that you can just pay for training, logging in increasingly infrequently as you train skills that have longer and longer windows, and doing nothing when you conduct those periodic logins to reset your skill queue is, in my opinion, bad for the game.
In fact, the reason that EVE did not even have a skill queue until Apocrypha was because the designers understood that forcing players to log in regularly was a necessity to keep them engaged with the game. The compromise for the current skill queue design was hard fought and many people still think it was a mistake.
Did you see that Eve is upgrading their skill queue to an unlimited time now? Still 24 hours for trial accounts, but unlimited for paying customers.
Apparently they have seen that people who walk away from the game, but keep their characters training are more likely to come back... and keep paying for their accounts. Just a thought for you to consider.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As my Make Meaningful Achievements, so I can Make Meaningful Choices seems to have died without any response, I'm hoping I might get one here from Ryan and the devs...we were batting around ideas for alternate Achievement gates in that thread. I am certainly in the "this game is a grind" camp right now, but I hope it's largely because the choices I have are so limited. Can you provide any real insight into the future of the Achievements and Gates, specifically in how they might expand to become "meaningful" for those of us that want to play a role other than "kill it, take its stuff" or Crafter? I very much intend to be a support role, both in exploration/combat and in my settlement, with a goal of Aristocrat and perhaps Bard. Can I safely assume that I'll be able to advance those paths without having to go out and shoot dozens of goblins in the face so I get the kill shot? I don't need specifics, though some general plans would be appreciated. I just need to know that you guys have a plan for this.