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Cairns

Jeremy SaundersJeremy Saunders Administrator Posts: 1,251 admin
edited March 2015 in General Discussion
Okay, so these have really taken off. It only took a year.

I do not want to stifle the enthusiasm about them. I think it is cool how much people are playing with them right now.

I am worried about a couple things.
  1. Giving out too much XP.
  2. Newbies shooting through a ton of quest levels. (I am pretty sure they can only get one real level from it, let me know if that is wrong)
Thoughts?
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Comments

  • MathiausMathiaus Member Posts: 1,039 ✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2015
    I think everyone is afraid of getting them nerfed since they do give so much experience, but it'll probably bet better if they did.

    I rebooted Heirdalis maybe a week ago from level 28 and now he is an aspect.

    With the amount of cairns we're producing, they could probably go down in how much experience they're giving. I believe the people who actually own the cairn should continue to get the same amount they are getting, since the endeavour does take a while.

    That being said, I also like that I didn't have to bash 100000000000000000 creatures to make aspect. I consider this a pk game, so whatever pushes me quicker to being able to pk is better imo.

    Edit:Side thought. Perhaps we could make defiling a channeled ability, where the owner of the cairn is alerted and given a chance to kill them? Make them work the higher experience.
    image
  • WysriasWysrias Member Posts: 410 ✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2015
    Each cairn can only give one overall level per sanctify. This means that I was able to gain 56 levels on an alt in 10 minutes by sanctifying 56 cairns. The second round got me to level 80.

    I don't think this is a problem because of two major reasons:

    1) The effectiveness of cairns is directly proportional to investment and interest. Maximizing your sanctification gains means doing as many cairns as possible every hour, meaning one token is consumed for each cairn per week. It also requires the entire playerbase to band together to make the gains really worthwhile. If interest dies out and/or there's no Selthis to keep an updated list ready, the whole benefit falls apart.

    2) Experience is worthless on its own. When you grind to 100 by bashing, you generate a LOT of gold, which impacts the market negatively over time. If someone powerlevels to aspect from cairns alone, they'll still only have the few thousand gold earned from the innate newbie system. Being aspect only really affects your PvE health pools, and let's face it - the only time bashing becomes even remotely interesting (and I do mean remotely) is when you're playing with endgame content. Nobody likes bashing 2-99 on alts because it's a massive timesink that hurts the game economy and removes you from player interactions.

    It's also worth noting that cairns also do not generate belief - the main reasons players bash nowadays are either for gold or for belief, and cairns affect neither of these. There's an argument to be made that someone could just powerlevel their experience pool with cairns and buy a ton of aspect perks, but honestly, if someone wants to drop millions of gold out of the game economy to maximize the value of their cairn gains? More power to them.


  • AleutiaAleutia Member, Historian Posts: 363 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2015
    So I talked with @Selthis about this a little bit and decided to go ahead and post. Are cairns giving too much xp? Quite possible. But at this same time, who is it really hurting? You missed out on some convoluted quests in the novicehood areas? You now have a ton of lessons to get a better grasp for a profession you might want to play? I don’t think that’s especially a bad thing. Getting to end level is very helpful in the game, but getting there is miserable. When I hit aspect on Aleutia I literally did not bash for an entire year. I did everything I could to avoid it.

    As to the xp generation thing with newbies and quest levels. I rolled a newbie the yesterday out of vast curiosity more than anything. The first round of sanctifying I went from 3 to 59. When I got a double xp bonus after that, I popped it. All told it took me 14 hours to get from 1 to 100 by logging in every hour to sanctify. These are the states of the character below.


    Overall Level: 100 (9.97%)   
    Bashing Level: 4   (37%)
    Quest Level  : 100 (6%)      
    PK Level     : 1   (0%)

    An odd quirk of this system is it wholly depends on the playerbase participating. I feel strongly the reason cairns weren’t used in the past is we couldn’t see the number of xp generated, so it was frustratingly hard to see if they were worth using or not. Now we have a plain and simple readout of how much xp we’re getting and how much it takes to get to another level. If the numbers are nerfed significantly, then people just won’t use the system anymore.

    I could be wrong, but I feel this will overall dwindle out in another week or so as people lose interest in leveling up their alts or new characters. I hope it stays, though.

                                                   image
  • MercerMercer Member Posts: 220 ✭✭✭
    The most minor thing for me, is that I was 10th in the questing rankings before this, now I'm in the late 80s, but that is a whatever thing at the end of the day.



    Don't really have the interest in running around the cairns every hour.  I'm just an insane person who likes bashing.
  • JulesJules Member Posts: 1,080 ✭✭✭
    Yeah, was tempted to take advantage with my two reserve chars, because let's face it, bashing up a second char is probably going to feel pretty cumbersome, but considerations of properly situating those chars in professions and circles before shedding newbie status (and also just taking your time with a new character once the time comes) overrode.  
  • Jeremy SaundersJeremy Saunders Administrator Posts: 1,251 admin
    Okay. I think I will leave it. That said, let's not pull real newbies into this as much as possible. I would worry about them getting out of their depth too fast.
  • KhizanKhizan Member Posts: 2,648 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2015

    I'm pretty sure the cat is out of the bag as far as cairns go and there's no real way to 'fix' them now. That said, these are the problems I have with them, for future reference:

    1. Owning a cairn is sort of pointless because the VAST majority of the benefit of a cairn comes from sanctifying/defiling. While sanctifying has to be worthwhile to encourage people to do it, there's no real need to actually buy-in to benefit. The only benefit from buying in is that hopefully the large amount of cairns will convince somebody else to raise one, etc etc.

    2. Everybody who uses a cairn benefits from everybody else using a cairn because when Khizan sanctifies a cairn, the sanctify count goes up and thusly the value per sanctify for everybody else goes up. Arguably, everybody who has cairned on more than one character violated HELP SECONDS in doing so; sanctifying Septus' cairn on my alt means that Khizan gains more experience when HE goes by and sanctifies that cairn.

      This is a problem because every alt who cairns makes cairns more valuable which encourages people to cairn up another alt which makes cairns more valuable which...

      This might not seem like much, but if I use just one alt, that's 1 sanctify each for 56 cairns, which I can do every hour on the hour. So let's say I do it three times a day. That's 168 extra sanctifies per day, and every single person in Imperian can benefit from them. That's huge.

    3. The cairns stack with the +100% exp bonuses from Champion and Achievements, so the values are basically double anything intended.

    4. Defiling's notable drawback isn't that much of a drawback; so many of these cairns are from non-factors in PvP and the statute of limitations on PvP reasons in Imperian is like 2-3 months for something minor, so defiling really has no real punishment. This is especially true of people who are pounding out levels on alts that they don't mind benching for a few weeks until all reasonable cause has lapsed on them.

    These are the fixes/changes I would consider. It's probably too late for anything like this now, because the not-Khizan playerbase would hate you, but it's something to think of in the future.

    1. Change sanctifying/defiling to a flat rate, maybe scaled by player level or cairn duration remaining but not based on total sanctifies. This will stop the "alts make cairns more valuable which..." loop and give you a reasonable expected exp-per-sanctifier value out of one cairn.

    2. Make sanctifying your own cairn give you a 'cairn attunement' buff which increases the rewards of sanctifying/defiling other cairns. This encourages buying in to the system and decreases the rewards for the Legion of Alts unless a token is invested in them

    3. Make the experience untyped, so that it doesn't artificially inflate an EXP category by doing nothing. I don't particularly care about quest EXP, but I would be fairly irritated if I found out that cairning dropped me from 5th PK exp to 35th entirely though people not PvPing

    4. Maybe reduce the time down from a week and raise the base value of the cairn significantly; right now the cairn itself is basically worthless; Selthis got like 198 million exp from it iirc, once it the bug was corrected, which sounds like a lot until you figure that I'm getting 7 million plus per defile every hour on the hour towards the end of a cairn's lifespan. 

    "On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."

  • KhizanKhizan Member Posts: 2,648 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I'd also like to add that I have no objection at all to ridiculous powerleveling via tokens, but I really think that the bashing area coins would be a better place for it. I'd have no problem with somebody going 80-100 in 10 tokens or so but I'd prefer it if those tokens weren't leveling up the entire world.

    "On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."

  • IniarIniar Member Posts: 3,213 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I really love that so many people walk around Caanae now.
    wit beyond measure is a Sidhe's greatest treasure
  • JulesJules Member Posts: 1,080 ✭✭✭
    People in this game have an incredibly more pragmatic/reasonable approach to everything than the other IRE games.  I hope this never changes.  A matter of fact conversation where people frankly and succinctly agree that almost no one actually enjoys bashing for RL days, but that yes, newbies in particular shouldn't be accidentally rushed out of newbie status, is pretty much unimaginable in the other games.  By the way, when I returned from sleeping most of my life, I had to fend off well-intended people intent on power-levelling me, something to keep in mind.  
  • KabaalKabaal Member Posts: 303 ✭✭✭
    My opinion:

    Cairns are more interesting than most of your other PvE formats. Generates PvP and social activity!

  • BathanBathan Member Posts: 1,056 ✭✭✭✭✭
    New, from Antioch! It's BUILD-A-HERO!
    ‘Least I won’t have to carry it no more. You see how bloody heavy it is?’

    ‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”

  • JulesJules Member Posts: 1,080 ✭✭✭
    edited March 2015
    In addition to what Khizan said, could place a limit on the number of times I can sanctify/defile a cairn every RL day (pick a number).  That way it's still a crazy nice buff, but people aren't sitting around for 12 hours a day (or more?) and power levelling in a way I can't even comprehend (or just can't even).  


    EDIT:  also I *love* the defiling message you see when you're in a room and someone defiles.  It's like they're kicking a coffee table they stubbed their toe on.  
  • IniarIniar Member Posts: 3,213 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I guess the one thing that this shows is how many people are interested in using alts, but haven't really because of how tedious bashing is.
    wit beyond measure is a Sidhe's greatest treasure
  • UltrixUltrix Member Posts: 288 ✭✭✭
    Iniar said:I guess the one thing that this shows is how many people are interested in using alts, but haven't really because of how tedious bashing is.

    I'm not sure that's an accurate representation of alt-usage though. I view this more as people see this as a good opportunity to
    make alts because everyone is figuring that in another week or so, this will die off and there will only be memories of how easy it was, back in the Land of Cairnae of March 2015, when you could powerlevel from newb to Aspect in about 3 RL days and with no bashing.

    But it's not as if I've seen these most of the alts do anything other than stand around in Caanae and walk around once an hour.
  • IniarIniar Member Posts: 3,213 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2015
    You're agreeing with me :s I didn't say use alts gainfully or use alts long-term or use alts seriously. All that it indicates is that people -are- interested in using alts, whether they be short term/long term/future planning etc.

    The alternative is that if people didn't care about alts is to singularly power-level their main character (and not deal with the frustration of logging-in-out). 
    wit beyond measure is a Sidhe's greatest treasure
  • JulesJules Member Posts: 1,080 ✭✭✭
    Iniar said:

    I guess the one thing that this shows is how many people are interested in using alts, but haven't really because of how tedious bashing is.

    I *really* hope this benefit is even some fraction of what it is right now when I'm ready to play with mine.  Imperian is already much more reasonable about bashing than some of the other games, but this would really take the edge off that drudgery with a second or third character.  
  • GeneveGeneve Member Posts: 15 ✭✭
    Lol, if these existed in Achaea, the players would riot.
  • MathiausMathiaus Member Posts: 1,039 ✭✭✭✭
    I disagree. I've been using my alts for combat. It's the only time people will fight me cause they're not too keen fighting a fully artifacted diabolist.
    image
  • KrysalissKrysaliss Member Posts: 374 ✭✭✭✭
    The only thing more tedious and dull in Imperian than its pve system is its usual method of handling quests. I'm all about this. Also, admin, take this as a giant, flashing red neon sign telling you that your core advancement mechanics need to be seriously examined. Cuz they do.


    Not even bitter this happened just after I finally bashed to aspect after a decade.
  • BathanBathan Member Posts: 1,056 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I think this actually just spells out that @Khizan was right all along in that Imperian should've had a relatively low level threshold as max HP/mana/aspect goes, so that could players could just hop right into PvP in a meaningful capacity without the nagging feeling of 'if I could just finish getting to 100 from 81, then I'd really be a credit to my team!'. You could've still had extra levels, but those would've just been for crazy people like @Shou.
    ‘Least I won’t have to carry it no more. You see how bloody heavy it is?’

    ‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”

  • IniarIniar Member Posts: 3,213 ✭✭✭✭✭
    You mean like GW1. (which I adored because I didn't have to sit for hours at a screen clicking at programmed bytes that represent a very shallow imitation of 'animation')
    wit beyond measure is a Sidhe's greatest treasure
  • KhizanKhizan Member Posts: 2,648 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Mathiaus said:

    I disagree. I've been using my alts for combat. It's the only time people will fight me cause they're not too keen fighting a fully artifacted diabolist.

    This has less to do with "artifacted diabolist" and more to do with "You were misreporting afflictions to Bellatores as your Diabolist alt and you were literally using clumsiness on every single deadeyes combination."

    "On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."

  • MathiausMathiaus Member Posts: 1,039 ✭✭✭✭
    Yeah, until beta is released to live, had to make do with what I had.

    Cairn's have given me a lot of people to fight lately. I love it.
    image
  • IniarIniar Member Posts: 3,213 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Two weeks ago I started at 500,000+ XP points and it took me the better part of 3 days to get to 550,000+ XP points.

    You currently have 1,103,170 XP points.
    wit beyond measure is a Sidhe's greatest treasure
  • ShouShou Member Posts: 205 ✭✭✭
    edited March 2015
    In relation to what @Iniar stated, I've been tracking xp gain for a bit of the cairn runs I do. My CMUD crashed and I lost a log of some of my more recent ones, but the total is at least 41 passes.

    First five:
    147849640 xp gained this run, totaling 147849640 xp.
    192898020 xp gained this run, totaling 340747660 xp.
    202786160 xp gained this run, totaling 740315930 xp.
    212981010 xp gained this run, totaling 953296940 xp.
    217028480 xp gained this run, totaling 1170325420 xp.

    Most recent three:
    398268930 xp gained this run, totaling 13547917480 xp.
    398729890 xp gained this run, totaling 13946647370 xp.
    379098850 xp gained this run, totaling 14325746220 xp.

    (You currently have 6834936 XP points.)

    edit: Also a thing to note: I haven't changed my xp bonus this entire time, the worth/amount of cairns have just increased that much.
    image
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