Time to have a discussion about a few things currently in game that I personally don’t participate in, but I know countless other players do.
#1 Cheesing Purges in the Volcano. It’s not fun. There’s no effort involved. You’re literally cheating a broken system. How people do this and say they are playing fairly is beyond me.
#2 Leveling up your Thralls from killing the Golems from Purges. Yep another broken Purge Mechanic. It’s definitely a bug and it shouldn’t work. Our Thralls shouldn’t be able to level by doing nothing.
#3 Players gaining levels by crafting Stone Golem parts. Yes you can gain an insane amount of experience by crafting stone golem parts. This is a bug and I see it mentioned in other forums from time to time. You shouldn’t be able to gain ANY levels from crafting golem parts.
My honest personal opinion is all of these methods take the fun out of the game and they shouldn’t be allowed.
Depends on the server owner, they’ll have rules about this normally. If its a FC server, its just clever use of game mechanics, and the exp rates are high enough that it probably doesn’t matter anyway.
I ask myself: does it affect me or does it have the potential to. If neither, I don’t really care.
If we’re talking purely vanilla here’s what I think:
#1. There’s so many ways to get most of the stuff available from purges it’s pretty much a non-issue aside from the very few recipes and components. Certainly not game-breaking. Especially now that you can knock out and purchase tavern patrons and rescue thralls on EL. If we’re talking loot, meh. I can come out of Warmaker’s with pretty much the same amount of armor mats and about 75 DP.
#2. This is certainly a bug that is being exploited but does it really matter in the end? Same in Kurak’s dungeon.
#3. Definitely a bug and again is being exploited. But I have to wonder what it matters? There’s no incentive to “taking it slow” or a level contingent system, really. If I spend the extra 1-2 hrs I’m at level 60 regardless, whoop-de-doo. It’s just so inconsequential as a whole.
And I’m looking at this from a PVP perspective where every minute and choice potentially count.
I’m not making excuses for any of these as I agree they should be mitigated, addressed or removed. I’m just not going to point fingers about what I think people should be doing or not - especially in consideration of “fun” when it doesn’t impact me. My fun is probably not your version of fun or most others.
Most of these are shortcuts to inconsequential end goals. Fair? That’s not really a problem.
Now, if you were being critical of game design and quality, I’d be nodding along. Except you seem more concerned with it taking less time, effort and your viewpoint of what is considered “fun”.
My viewpoint on this comes from a PvE perspective of earning everything that I have by playing the game and taking the time to level a thrall legitimately.
#1 Is certainly an option and “it is what it is”. Not my cup of tea and if you choose to cheese the purge then cheese on.
#2 & #3 are exploits and or bugs, I hope Funcom fixes them.
At one time I thought things needed to be a certain way and even felt it necessary to tell those who strayed from my ideals.
Like on PVP solo nomads; hard to find them, hard to fight them in a way that had an affect. I could go into all the itty bitty nuances but suffice it to say that many view it as an unfair playstyle.
I realized I couldn’t stop people from doing this. Nor could I police them either. I tried it out too, not my cup of tea but I get why they do it and for some it is incredibly fun.
So now I adapt or ignore. Feels better.
I wouldn’t call 1, 2 or 3 particularly exciting or playstyles but it does get some, largely viewed as boring and sometimes laborious, parts of the game out of the way to have fun.
The level 60 thing out of all 3 is the least problematic IMO. I’m often surprised by those who complain about it on Officials. There’s always some way to get to 60 quick and golem parts are the third (most well known and easiest).
You main play PVE you shall stop caring about what other people do if it dont affect your gameplay and of cojrse someone doing purge in volcano or leveling thralls in golems doesnt affect your gameplay.
Theres so many way to cheese purge you can make a purge base in the great dam inside the small hole or even make purge inside the ice cave and watch the big rocknoses destroy the entery purge.
And about leveling thralls right now thralls are one HUGE WASTE of time , in pve they are garbage die easy , bug many times and you need to babysit for they dont die and in pvp players never use it.
And about leveling characters you can get to level 60 naked just farming black ice any pvp player know about it and yes it much more easy over learning golem recipe farming blood crystals and making stone golem heads leveling using stone golem heads just get best when you are in one clan with the items ready to use or when someone drop it to you.
Again play your game and stop caring about what other players are doing if it doesnt affect you and for sure from all the bugs in it game the “bugs” you showed here are in the bottom from what people want really fixed.
They are all bugs, personally i use the 1 and 2, i was all into battling purges by myself, but then they had the brilliant idea to add meteor and golens to purge that gives a lot of damage an ruins our bases and we have to spent much more resources to repair it than the purge rewards worth. And lose a lot of time hammering things. So if they want to step into the lava to reach my base, i admire their loyalty to their commander. Second, leveling thralls in purge wh golens is the only thing that make purges worths, im not in spending all the day killing whereapes to lvl thralls. Purge mobs should give more xp, so we would have a reason to battle and kill purge mobs. So battling in some purges should lvl up you or your thralls. Actually killing mobs in a purge is way
inviable to lvl up anything.
another great idea was the living settlement now crafters leave their station empty and are practically living at the bar, where they are not needed, and if you want a blacksmith hammering at the station you need to put a warrior there. Had to lock they all in a room to not lose them.
I have been running level seven purges on one particular server, trying to rescue Kolvrik The Blade in The Exiled Lands, and have been getting this level of purge down to a science. Only the golems are a threat to my purge defense squad, so I tend to lurk within sight of the Stygian camp’s entrance and wait for the Golem maker to run from the camp, so I can stalk him or her with the intent of killing them as quickly as possible. Everything else, are not a problem for the named fighters they rush to meet.
I’m always keeping players tracked in how fast they are leveling on the player log. If I’m seeing 10 levels in 10 minutes, I know they are pros and start prepping the server for action.
Leveling is a tropenthat shpuld have been removed. I can get to level 20 crafting build hammers as i go to collect my golem stone crafting mats.
On my map mod I am doing i seriously leaning towards no attribute leveling, but instead a quest style system to unlock the perks. Basically you start with you 60 attributes, but perks are greayed out and must be unlocked doing simple quests for perk points. Theae are spent to unlock the perks in order. Just dont know if i can do it yet lol.
edit. The perks will still be onlybusable if you spec up in attributes, just not available until you unlock them