OFFICIAL NEWS

Revvy please read post #4 by Ulukyn- the aggressive and anti nation/cult tribes should now be a valuable source of negative fame and dappers for marauders. I would not be surprised if they are working with the marauders and may in the future shed their K/K protectors and reward Mara fame.

Well, 3 years after the launch of marauders gameplay project, there is still no changes (it has also been 2 years after a single event to make the change appears in-game). We are not hopping for anything anymore.

You should be able to work for those select tribes now and only lose faction/cult fame. Give it a try!

Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying there shouldn't be some effort required. All I'm saying is that there needs to be a decent effort/reward ratio. As for what is "decent", I feel that it should be high enough for even those who only play a couple hours a night to feel like they are accomplishing something but low enough that the rewards feel more like a payment than a gift, and they should not be so unbalanced that one feels forced to be K/K-worshipping nationalist.
Yes, but that was not what I was getting at. I feel any cooldown more than two Atysian days (2h24m RL time) should align better with RL clocks so they can be done about the same RL time every day (or every X days). For example, a mission that can be done every other day should have a CD timer closer to 1d20h or so. That way, it's easier to just shrug and find another mission without resenting the fact that you can't stay up/on long enough to do it two nights out of every three the way those without full-time jobs can. Think of it as marketing; even if it doesn't make sense in any objective manner, it is perceived as making a bit more sense ("Okay, I can do this every 2 days, that one every 3 days... round numbers are good!") and thus causes less unrest.
That glosses over the fact that NH was really the only way to get faction points (all-night-long package runs don't count), and that the *4 bonus that +100 fame got versus +50 pretty much made it mandatory to have an alt fence your goods for you. IMO, a better system would've been to have more missions with shorter CDs and smaller payouts so that those who didn't feel like forgoing all hunting or leveling simply to do a tour of the camps could still earn points at all. Based on parts of your post I didn't quote, it seems we agree there.
It seems to still have a lot of truth though. What you seem to overlook is that the world is not a homogeneous place with uniform styles and preferences. We have differing views of the level of immersion required before one should be driven/kicked from the game for not RPing enough (I've seen games where talking OOC would get you whacked with the Banhammer!), or whether an RPG should be more like an organic world full of "real" people or simply a MOBA with deeper character customization options. It's worth noting that some come here to stop playing a role for a bit, take a break from the immersion of being someone they're not because that's what society demands, and being themselves for a little while. In other words playing a different role IG than you do IRL is simply just a kind/style of RP.

Also, "You don't have to fight in PvP, but you can."; it's a choice, and whichever way one decides is equally valid. Yeah, those who want to should have more opportunity to do so than they currently do, but for this discussion, lets just say that whether or not to PvP should remain more a matter of personal preference than of mechanics.
The "Era a long time gone" you refer to is an era of segregation and isolation. Now that those cultures are sharing a unified server, the choices are to either respect the diversity or to pick sides and disenfranchise folks. I would prefer Atys to be a place where the "normal people in a virtual world" players could co-exist amicably with those that make Jared Leto's portrayal of The Joker look non-committal, and where there is less animosity between PvP aficionados and the less gladiatorial players. In short, I want an Atys that has something to offer for anyone who is willing to learn the mechanics and respect their fellow players.
I favor the latter option.

With the exeption of Lakes, Tour of the camps missions take at most an hour, I have tested this both with a master toon and a roughly level 30 one in all lands except tryker (don't like the swim ^^). Longest run was Fyros at 50m and it took longer because I didn't know the exact locations for the lower level camps.

On top of that, there are also the prospector missions for the camps, these are major civ point mines... having absolutely no cooldown/limit, you can easily get tons of points just with them without ever having to touch a mek or carry a package. Of course they require some dig skill (200 in any land for the highest mission) but it doesn't seem so bad to level up in order to be able to do something (see craft missions, PvP, PR, SN, OP and so on). I only wish I could do it too as myself (there is no such thing for marauders) ^^

Whereas I agree further adjustment is needed regarding the fame changes in the last Fixing Patch, we can't/shouldn't sponsor a mentality that level 1 alts should be our perfect inexhaustible sources of dappers and points. It's wrong.


P.s. Since many don't seem to know about this other prospector missions, you can spoil yourself and see them all listed here

Doesn't matter Placio, these factions aren't implemented like they should, only on the surface after 5 years.. even more :)

@Gidget: Too bad once again you did it.. so I just won't try to continue a previously interesting debat when you derivate in your own personal little fight about something irrelevant or that you have no clue about :)
Your comment still have a bit of value tho; that why it is even more disapointing.

Maybe you will learn a day.. or not.
Anyway try to report the CD to a GM or on RC, that can help :)

@Aleeskandaro - I'll have to time my next run, but I can say anecdotally that a Lakes run is usually about the only thing I can do in a night. Lakes has a lot of dismounting and going through portals, and (of course) a lot of swimming. There is one leg where I have been known to just hit Autorun and go AFK for long enough that it's ridiculous. But most nights, I feel my time is better spent doing something more rewarding than trading a few bales of forage for a pitifully small handful of points. And that is the real issue

Sure, I could earn much more if I decided to just min/max with zero regard for lore/RP, swap back to Karavan, and become a Matis Vassal. That alone means that the system truly is set up such that one is better off having their lowbie alt do the run for them. The same is true of the Prospector missions too; if you are Ranger/Neutral, then you're better off having your alt dig, and if you're Mara you have to use an alt. I feel that that is a bad mechanic unless it's specifically designed to force one to be a nationalist, in which case it's a horrid mechanic. Do we want to reward those who bring their character to life, or merely those who play a character that is mechanically optimal? IMO, the mechanics should reward the RP-er more than the min/max-er, but what do I know? :)

One possible solution I can see is pretty simple; add Marauder and Ranger/Neutral missions that give the same points as the racial ones to those of their respective nationalities, as well as matching merchants in their respective camps. It might give us Rangers more incentive to visit Almati more often!

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@Revvy - It's not personal, but most who share the views I post here do not come to these forums or even have Uni chat on because they don't feel like dealing with precisely the sort of smugly arrogant and disrespectfully dismissive attitude that you just displayed yet again. Simply put, I don't like seeing good players driven off or server population declining because they feel the game punishes them for playing like they actually have some freedom. I've seen too much of that already, and I would rather try to get the problem fixed than just cancel my sub and uninstall, no matter how much you want me to do exactly that and leave you to your lore-on-rails MOBA.

This patch did some damage as some feel it does punish them for daring to be something other than a K/K Patriot/Vassal/Citizen/Initiate. But even if the devs balance the fame/dapper rewards and CD timers in a revision of this patch, a major problem that this patch spotlighted will remain as it has multiple causes. I want the problem solved. If solving the problem means addressing those other causes then I really don't care if you think it irrelevant or not; it's still the same problem.

Maybe you will learn to not be one of those causes... or not.

Like said, I haven't ever really done the lakes run but for my civ points missions catalogue post and can fully agree its dreadful with all the swimming. The others however are incredibly fast to do once you know where the camps are and you have a mild sense of stealth (to sneak through aggro).

I don't understand your train of thought when you say working for a civilisation in order to gain civilisation points is going against RP/lore. It makes perfect sense to me, that if I work for matis, i get paid by matis, in this case with matis points.

Also, you don't have to swap back to karavan, since cult has no impact on civ point rewards from package runs and the respective prospector missions. And you don't even have to change your allegiance, since even at non-alligned states, rewards are decent (2255 points for running and 990 points for the highest prospector mission, which you can retake over and over and over and over, til you get tired of having easy points). Of course, if you want to be more effective at it, you "mechanically optimise" (allign) and get slightly more than twice rewards for the same effort. I fail to see how this encourages alt play?

If you are Ranger/Neutral you can still do these missions. In fact, if you have a points fever, you can do even an extra run/missions set compared to alligned toons who have one civilisation maxed to 0 fame, hence no possibility of doing it. Sadly, there is no way for marauders at the moment, but the great majority of people (at least judging based on forum posts) complaining about it isn't us.

Suddenly playing according to lore/RP became important? Let me laugh :-)

Can we please avoid turning an official post into a rp vs occ or Ranger vs Mara mudslinging fest?

If you have suggestions that may improve the situation that’s what we really need to present. In the case of the nation package runs and mission mat harvesting, should they only reward an increased amount of base faction points? We have plenty of ways to get dappers now, but few to get faction points.

Thats the point Plac, the current ways to make civilisation points seem more than enough. Other than the newly inability to use level 1 alts to produce them, i haven't read one argument to increase them. Why do we need an increase in points when people can dig all day and get 10k points at a time? Just for digging, just for having 1/4 surface dig skills at 200. I sadly don't have data on NH V.1 rewards, but it seems the TotC and dig missions are mines that people simply refuse to use because they're not available for level 1 alts (arguably, cause with some patience even a level 1 on a mount can do the tour).

Anyway, never meant for this to turn into a "mudlinging fest" as you say now. All I intended was to show there are ways to produce really large amounts of civ points for non-marauder people. Not sure when that turned into a "Ranger vs Mara mudslinging fest".

You weren’t quoted for my mudslinging example Alees :)

I suspect that no CD on a nation mission is probably a bug- I will test and report when I get home. The whole point of the patch was to reduce repetition and while we could do the same mission over and over, most don’t have the time for that.

Still, at 2520 points for a single mission wich requires only 360mats, what takes about 20mins of precious dig time (if you know where to dig and you are a fairly travelled toon with Tps), i stand up to what I said and hold that people can even after patch make tons of points if they so want it, provided they are not marauder.

The point about no cooldowns was addressing this:
When you test the missions, you'll notice a non alligned toon earns 990 points for the highest mission compared to 2520 for an alligned toon. Rangers can do this, and since there is no cooldown/limit, they can to it as much as they want to get the same points (or way more) for a little extra effort.

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I just asumed I was your target since you spoke of mara vs. ranger and afaik Victoria nor Gidget are maras x)

Also, how much points did people get using NH V.1?

One of my alts can get that; I can't.

I could get an RL job for minimum wage too, but I'd rather have one that earns enough to pay rent. As for "a little extra effort", I think the mismatch in rewards defies any reasonable definition of "a little extra". I'd rather not work ~135-140 hrs/wk for the same paycheck I get now, but that's pretty much what is being asked of Rangers.

As I said, folks are punished for not being aligned, there's strong incentive to use alts, and neither are good things.

Regarding a couple of your other points, I never said working for a civilization went against RP, only that those who feel the mechanics force them to play a character they don't want to play are unlikely to be into RP. Also, while cult alignment/fame does not affect race points rewards, Rangers have enough problems not related to those missions that, again, the mechanics give strong incentive to forgo RP.