MP-Level as upgrade requirement

[(Zl-eye-f)-nea]

[quote name='Udgard' timestamp='1294475799' post='77102']
I'm merely checking if I have the same definition of discussion as everyone else have, since I'm being used as an example to say people should be discussing, when I thought that was exactly what I'm doing.
[/quote]

I never actually said you weren't having a discussion so I'm not sure if you just don't understand my sentance structure or...well I won't go there. As it has been glossed over in your retort let me say it again in another way for you: I said people should be discussing with the people who actually matter, as in on the topic of how to help them, which we arn't, instead said people are being told what will help them and then when they oppose it being told that their opinion lacks validity.

We are discussing on Burn's topic. The topic of a suggested 'percentage of MP5 supported' implimentation, the reason for which has changed many times now during this discussion. We are not discussing directly with newer players as to what could be done to make MD a more hospitible environment for them, what issues they do have that are getting up their noses and what their feelings about the dreaded MP5 are and why, and then with that knowledge trying to find a solution.

We are discussing in a fashion which lacks any inherant value for the purpose for which the discussion was started, unless of course the purpose is not what it was stated as, and seeing as the purpose has changed more times than a babies diapers maybe there isn't one anyway.

[quote name='Udgard' timestamp='1294475799' post='77102']
I'm quoting it again since it seems that my statement didn't come through clearly. I said it is just an illusion when people think [b]all mp5 want is for mp3/4 to move up so they can pound them down[/b]. To which you said you think they're right and you've done testing on it. How do you do tests on that? Give a questionnaire to mp5 about what they want? Observing and trying to read their minds? I don't think that's what you mean, so of course I think you were talking about something else here? I'm not saying that all their opinions are just deluded illusions, but I do think that the whole sentiment of "[b]let's not go to mp5, everyone there is just a monster waiting for us to click the wrong button "advance to mp5" so they can eat us up[/b]" is just an illusion. One that is constantly reinforced by people keep that keeps saying mp5 is a hell that fresh mp5s will never ever be able to survive and going there is the end of your character's career, thus leading to the thought that if people are trying to suggest something, it is just so they can get new food.
[/quote]

Your statement came through perfectly clearly, and what I said still stands. In fact, now you are negating you own arguments. You yourself claim that your 'testing' shows the opposite to mine, well if I can't do testing then nor can you.

Of course we can't know what all MP5 want inherently, that is ridiculous, so how does such a statement come to be do you think? What reinforces it? Come on. This constant twisting of the issue only makes people even less enamoured with MP5, or as I'm going to start calling it soon, spin city 5. What is the point of the relevent group discussing with MP5 veterens at all if all that happens is they get told they are wrong by a group of people who arn't actually experiencing the situation they are talking about. Whats the point? Would you listen to people doing that to you?

[quote name='Chewett' timestamp='1294437812' post='77068']
You cant chastise someone for not knowing something lol. The bigger issue is then that these mp3/4's are being taught to not go to mp5, and specially train certain things up without learning why. Which is something i would say is encouraged by some mp4'sThe whole learning process is screwed up when people sit in the dojo complaining about each and every loss, while being told what to train and not learning about the rits. This is much more important than preventing alts.ANY mp4 can survive at mp5 whatever the stats/crits as long as they have the basics of ritual making, including some decent "ve protecting, crit protecting" rits.
[/quote]

The latter might be the factual case, but clearly not knowing how to do this negates the usefulness of that case...and falls into the irony category, see further down. I also think that in general people will of course ask what are the best ways to do things, in any game, and will try to take shortcuts to success.

It sort of goes back to what Kaf said in post #27: "Seriously, who is it that tells us that mp5 is hard? Who is it that posts here that mp4 and mp3 is being abused by alts using whatever means" and later in another post "who is giving this people those tips? I don't, none of the real mp3s or mp4s could"

It again goes back to an attitude change from the Mp5s as a solution.

[quote name='Burns' timestamp='1294438615' post='77071']
Absolutely. No need to drag the same issue down to MP3 and 4, too, is there?And there are far, far too many 'monsters' who were created solely for the purpose of showing off with their monsters. And if you annoy the wrong persons, they bring them out, just for the sake of hurting you. Or, in some cases, just because the can, with no reason whatsoever.
[/quote]

There is also no need to penalise the MP3 and 4 when the issue clearly lies at MP5. It is filtering down, not up. Penalise yourselves.

Monsters at low levels arnt actually the issue. MP5 is the issue. The sheer amount of forum posts regarding the MP5 situation also supports this.

As I said, if you can show me the evidence for the poor newbies leaving because of these monsters it would be a start, and if that tiny population is the issue at all and it is alt abuse causing it, then we should start penalising the people who do it, not penalise all of mp3 and 4. Start a forum thread and name and shame them - but if this is a money or a skill issue, or if it isnt actually MP3s and 4s who have the issue, I won't accept it...and then there is the irony Kafuuka has mentionned:

[quote name='Kafuuka' timestamp='1294439122' post='77075']
Ironically, if we take the same argument but substitute mp3 for mp4 and mp5, they can survive against the horrors which Burns wants to protect them against.Let me put it this way: there is no mp4 conspiracy to make mp5 suck more. I would start one, if there were a need for it, but it seems to me mp5 are already doing good enough a job by themselves. Just take a look around: messages on the mood panel like 'please level up faster and become my punchbags' or private logs stating 'you're too weak to be mp5, go back to mp4' etc. Don't tell me those were ironic statements by those people.
[/quote]

Z

[Kafuuka]

[quote name='Pipstickz' timestamp='1294471139' post='77098']
Kafuuka, what is your suggestion to counter Burns'?
[/quote]
In the post directly above the one I'm quoting, I gave nine objections to Burns and co. And that's the ones I remembered from the other two pages of debate, near midnight on a Friday... I won't say they are all the same quality. Personally I don't believe in quantity as a good norm either, so let us consider this from a scientific and logical viewpoint:

Burns' argument boils down to the following logic:
1. There is a problem on mp3 AND mp4.
2. Burns' proposal will diminish the problem.
=> We should adopt Burns' proposal.

Such a kind of argument becomes void if either premise 1 or premise 2 is refuted.
I have from the beginning refused to just believe in premise two and gave what I consider to be good examples of why it will not work. Since support for this idea seems to persist, I decided to be more thorough and also attack premise one, even though logically speaking I do not need to.

In this topic we currently have four people who are or very recently were mp4 with their 'main' and who tell us they never experienced the alleged problems. If you claim that we are too old to be true mp4 and thus to be reliable sources of information, then sadly nobody on the forum, except for one guy who immediately got neg repped and patronized, qualifies to speak about this.

If this is not countering Burns', then please tell me what is? And what do you mean by suggestion? An alternative proposal? I am trying to prove that not doing anything is better than accepting the proposal, hence 'not doing anything' is my proposal. Once again, I am in no logical terms obliged to do better than that. Certainly, if I would do better, it would be easier to persuade people but this is a debate, not a popularity poll. And in fact, my proposal to hunt down the culprits instead of make live 1% more difficult for them, was shot down as too difficult. I do believe it is a lot of work indeed. I also think it would actually work.

[Kay Ingild]

I didn't have much trouble at mp3… didn't get crushed except when I took a chance against players I was already sure were more powerful than me; found players I could beat; never minded being attacked or defeated, whether people asked or not. I can't remember anyone telling me to get an angien or mentioning knators (only advising against relying too much on aramors). Maybe I just logged on at the "wrong" time of day for all of that?

Can't say much about mp4 yet, as I haven't fought much at this level (except against the Loreroot guards), but I certainly haven't been crushed yet… while wandering around for over a month now I've hardly been attacked at all.

Obviously I have far less experience with the fight system than anyone else who has posted in this thread, but here's an alternative proposal: how about "too-powerful" creatures simply refusing to fight against "too-weak" players? (However those two criteria are determined... Any creature, or upgrade level of a creature, with stats "too high" compared to the normally-available creatures? Any player with active days under a certain number, or wins or stats relatively too small, or who does not own any such super creatures, or some combination?) Then true newbies could not be attacked with super creatures, but players could still gain and upgrade whatever creatures they liked, and use them in appropriate circumstances.

[Curiose]

Kay, they are speaking about people like February, and Nadrolski* who are mp3/4 and are over powered, Including some alts that I do not know of.

They basically grind, and attack younger players.

*[size="1"]I am not entirely sure if the two have moved or not yet. but last I saw, Nads was mp4[/size]

[No one]

[quote name='Ravenstrider' timestamp='1294402159' post='77024']
About stats... You can gain them much faster with tokens... ^.^ A fully tokened rusty with 1k wins gives A LOT of stats...
[/quote]
No. That fully tokened rusty give lost of loses ... to others.
[quote name='Ravenstrider' timestamp='1294414727' post='77036']
Anyway, I suggest that all of you make an mp3 account and get it to mp5, isolated from your main, from people you know and see how it is... I've been recently been doing some fighting with an alt on mp4 and the first thought I had when I got out of story mode was: Hey, I don't remember that fighting was this hard... Yes, the alt has no shop creatures and I haven't done any of the training with a plan, but still...
[/quote]
I did that 2 times last year, just to see what are the problems there. There is just one problem : the big difference between players.
[quote name='Kafuuka' timestamp='1294428439' post='77047']
@Burns: Once again I reiterate that I do not think your proposal is effective to stop or even diminish the pwning of noobs. Alts have access to better training schemes, better ritual knowledge and better creatures.
[/quote]
And this is one of the sources of the problem: [b]training scheme[/b].

[quote name='Kafuuka' timestamp='1294428439' post='77047']
Patronizing eh?
[/quote]
Sorry, my ignore button failed fot this.
I will not even try to answer you directly. Instead try not to post the answer to this :
If a ... child, for which you are 3-6 times his age (lets not bring infants here), tries to tell you that he is correct and you are wrong ... what do you do ? how do you do it ? how do you tell him ? for how long ?

[quote name='(Zl-eye-f)-nea' timestamp='1294437440' post='77067']
But this thread isn't about extreme stats. It is about high level creatures and alt abuse. It is, in theory, about a particular suggestion which intends to help keep players. Is it that you think that this suggestion will also help protect against extreme stats at low levels? If so could you please elaborate (explain how)?
[/quote]
I just checked, I guess that one of my early posts didn't got edited in first place so I'll add here:

The creature limit is usefull in balancing players but it is not complete without balancing stats.
So, after the creature limit, the next limit would have to be the stats limit. For example: mp3 would have to have a max of 300 total stats, MP4 a max of 1500.
This is not extremely high but it would be fair to most normal players but I know they are really difficult to get them without being a grinder.



As for crits limit, why do you all care about the limits ?
Because you limit the creatures ? so what ? all that new MP3s will know is that they have access to only those creatures.
And making older ppl the only one that know their NEW restrinctions and thus making new ppl feel uncofortable with restrictions.

But this is not quite like that.
There are ppl in MP3/4 that will be impacted by this measures but they enjoy how they are now. So, this fight on this topic is actually for their position there.





By the way, look what I see in chat:
[quote name='chat']
kxttie: we all need loses you dork
[/quote]
he is standing in The Marble Dale Park, hmm, interesting character, he got my attention (not just because he directed that to me)
[quote name='chat']
kxttie: not for me right now, I need some xp to level up my trees, but I need single wins with no xp for other creatures, so I need either or.
...
kxttie: I need a few wins mates. and an angien if anyone so hospitable would care.>)
[/quote]
And I have to mention that he has ONLY 7 ([b]SEVEN[/b]) days.
How does he have trees in 7 days ? how does he know that much ?

I would be really interested in his creatures & stats


And ... because of ppl like him I want this limit imposed.
MP3s should not have Loreroot creatures, it is not normal. It was not intended to be like that.
Or ... who does remember how it was when you got your own bird ? When you upgraded it ? I certainly struggled with it a lot.

I.m.o also creature transfer should be banned for MP3.


[player]kxttie[/player]
[quote name='FYI']
Regeneration : 3
Energetic immunity : 3
Trade sense : -1
Briskness : 6
Initiative : 1
Defence : 2
Attack : 4
Luck : 0
Power : 1

He has 7 days and he has:
lore archer
tree lvl 2
tree lvl 1
elemental 2
water 2
bird lvl 1 (egg)

This is not an ordinary player
[/quote]

[apophys]

^ Something tells me that's an alt.
If the problem stems from alts, then why don't we just limit accounts that have alts? It'll be a nice discouragement from creating them in the first place.


[quote name='Curiose' timestamp='1294516292' post='77135']
Kay, they are speaking about people like February, and Nadrolski* who are mp3/4 and are over powered, Including some alts that I do not know of.

They basically grind, and attack younger players.

*[size="1"]I am not entirely sure if the two have moved or not yet. but last I saw, Nads was mp4[/size]
[/quote]

Nadrolski told me that he can't see the mp5 advancement in story mode. I don't expect that to get fixed anytime soon.
When I was mp4, he was not terrorizing younger players.

[Kafuuka]

[quote name='No one' timestamp='1294530188' post='77144']
And this is one of the sources of the problem: [b]training scheme[/b].
[/quote]
I agree with that, but ask you: how does Burns' proposal change this?

[quote]
Sorry, my ignore button failed fot this.
I will not even try to answer you directly. Instead try not to post the answer to this :
If a ... child, for which you are 3-6 times his age (lets not bring infants here), tries to tell you that he is correct and you are wrong ... what do you do ? how do you do it ? how do you tell him ? for how long ?
[/quote]
So you defend your patronizing attitude with more patronizing? Next time you choose an allegory, how about you choose one that does not intrinsically insult people? There is no evidence that all new mp3s are the mental equivalent of a teenager. There is even nothing that states a toddler cannot be right and an adult cannot be wrong. It happens less often, like if you take a hundred statements by teenagers and a hundred statements by adults, one would hope that more of the adults' statements are correct. I wouldn't go as far as saying I'd expect it to though.
As a child I loathed people who thought they were right just because they were older. As an adult I still won't stand for such retarded behavior, but to humor you, I have decided not to answer your how questions.

[quote]
There are ppl in MP3/4 that will be impacted by this measures but they enjoy how they are now. So, this fight on this topic is actually for their position there. [/quote]
Very smart. Of the people who will be impacted, you refuse half the right to talk, and the others you claim have things to loose, which is of course a tautology. You forget however that it is not the last group who is the reason that there is a problem. And that you yourself implicitly admitted that Burns' proposal will not work. And that some mp5s have admitted liking this proposal for selfish reasons. That probably wasn't the best move ever, but at least it was honest.


Neither kxttie's stats nor creatures are outside of any of the limits proposed in this thread. That includes the 300 stats limit you proposed, No One. Even if you ban trading, mp3 can still use shop creatures, they can still win quests and get wish points, they can still walk into loreroot without a training scheme, if they make use of a certain feature that was available a few weeks back. What do you suggest? No Loreroot at all, no shop, no wish shop, no trading, no birds... how about no mp3?

[Curiose]

Ah, okay.

It's just I saw a Newbie complaining about him attacking them once, I think, which is where I got that from. I wasn't trying to incriminate, but rather try to give an example.

[Luke27]

So I think I'll post something here because this is supposedly will help us(MP4/3).

If I understand correctly:
1) This is to prevent the overpowered characters that stay at lower levels.

- To be honest when I was MP3 about, 2 months ago, I never really indulged in the fighting system and stat system. So I never really cared about all the fighting because I can't seem to win because I got no information on the fighting system whatsoever and not because of the overpowered characters and I don't know what I have to do to increase my stat so I just ignored it.

- At MP4 I understood more about the fighting system but not much on the stat system. So I got every creature I can not caring if it was useful or not I just want to collect them all. After maxing some of the creatures I have that's when I actually tested my build and unfortunately all my builds are still not good enough.

- Note that I never asked for help but I did some quest that helped me understand more about the game and no one said that I should get a specific creature... well I guess the only creature that was referred to me was the elemental and nothing else.

2) To repopulate the MP5(not sure just my intuition).
- I would actually go to MP5 eventually, to be honest maybe next week or so. I'm not scared of MP5 because I know I could survive with what I [b]know[/b] and not with what someone told me to do.

- To be honest I can't see why would you want to repopulate or increase the numbers of MP5. I thought that MD is not all about the fighting. So why would you "force" us(MP4/5) to go there if we don't want to? If you guys want us(MP4/5) to go there don't let us be astray. Just guide us [b]not[/b] spoil us. I know some of you do that best but what about the rest? They just attack and not care? I don't want to seem insensitive but we are just starting and you are all veterans. Would it hurt if you helped us a little?


This is just all based from what I read and from what I think. If I offend some of you well I'm sorry I just want to help. There's nothing wrong with that is there?

May all of us be guided.

~Luc

[Rumi]

I am going to give my voice to reiterate what it seems [b]ALL[/b] of the younger players are posting here. I think the proposed solution is much worse than the problem.

I have only recently moved to mp4 after over 100 days mp3. I spent a long time in mp3 because I was working on Mya's wonderful mp3 tutorial quest, which took me a long time to complete well. I have not ever been overpowered nor have I abused the little power I had.

I did not spend a whole lot of time at MDP after the first few weeks, and I know that is the most likely place an mp3 will run into this kind of trouble. I can say one thing with certainty. After over 100 days, I only was attacked twice by brutal rituals (with drachs and the like) and both times, I contacted the attackers and asked them if they would let me run healing rituals on them, and both agreed. Additionally, I was able to observe these kind of rituals and learn some things about battle mechanics (ie: tokens) that I had no knowledge or concept of.

Frankly, I think this problem of mp3/4 alt abuse has been blown out of proportion. I may not be the veteran that new players speak to about their concerns, but I don't think this is the main reason new players don't stick around. We all know MagicDuel is not for everyone. Those who will stay will stay and those who will leave will leave. This form of abuse happens just as all other forms of abuse happen from time to time. Maybe the best thing we could do is simply advise new mp3 players to get out and explore the world instead of spending all their time in MDP. I think this would signicantly reduce the chances of experiencing this kind of abuse.

Veterans, please consider that all the younger voices here are saying the same thing. Our experiences were not hindered by mp3/4 alt abuse.

[Maebius]

While much of this conversation is above me, I have only felt bad after seeing an overly "God-Alt" player attack mine once. It may just be me, but I'm not concentrating on the fighting aspect of the game.

I also, without knowing how "bad" it appears to be, received a Remains as a gift after a lovely chat. I am not an alt, and figured it was a nice creature, but in no way meant to gain it as an attempt to be Overpowered. I'm also in no hurry to level up to MP4, myself, generally because I'm taking my time, and exploring the Story more than the combat system.

With that in mind, I see how Burn's suggestion originally might make sense, to prevent alt abuse. I would only recommend that instead of a MP-limit, where such creatures would be impossible to get, why not make them "capped" until a certain MP level is reached.

Thus, in my case, the Remains would stay a lvl 1 Remains, gaining no XP until I reach MP4 (assuming that is where I would legitimately be abel to access "Remains creature" myself in-game?) This would let us "newbies" who manage to get things as gifts play with them and learn how they work in Rituals, but otherwise not be too overpowered after a few days of "levelling them up" and remaining MP3 ourselves?

Interesting to read the thread here though, to see what sorts of drama I can expect later.

[Kay Ingild]

Maebius, you're certainly not the only one who is concentrating on things other than fighting As to your suggestion, I think that "capping" as you describe it was also part of Burns's original suggestion.

Unfortunately, Rumi, there is a potential confound... all of us mp3/4 players who have posted here might simply have had atypical experiences that made us more likely to stay. I don't think this is the case, but it is at least a possibility.

[Maebius]

Ahh, re-reading Burn's original, yes, it appears that he said to cap the upgrade.
That's what I get for checking the forums LATE at night before bed and having a brain frazzled from esoteric study.
Maybe you are right. Those of us who stick around are the ones who passed the "filters" of MD itself and are atypical. Hmm....

[xrieg]

It seems the idea died together with the discussion about it. Still, as a month old mp3 (planning to move mp4 after I finish Mya's quest) will support a few arguments already raised in this thread:
1. uniformity and even chances cannot be achevied in people controlled game (I would not consider it a balancing feature); alts, people will md friends and given mp veterans will most probably have advantage over complete noob long enough that the noob goes to the next mp - the question is: whether they would exploit the advantage spoiling the game for other players
2. my a month-old mp3 experience: no massive beefed-up abuse; I was attacked but a few times by some killer squads - much more annoying were elemental attacks I got quite a few times (I do not think accidental, learned how to deal with these); if people want to be ugly in a world with few rules, they will (and as far as gameplay is concerned, they are more deserving to be banned than just mp-semigods, just sitting around)
3. as for ultimate fighting in MD... my attraction to MD is a complex world with puzzles to figure out and people to interact... it's nice to collect trophies (crits) but as far as fight go MD is average, to put it mildly - would not expect many people to play the game for fighs alone
4 finally: I suspect that quite a lot of people leave the game as before they start reading and drop pre-existing typical game concepts they go mp4 and rules/ world they did have time to begin to understand get more complicated and a cushion to fall down - harder (and: they have already lost an opportunity to learn basics of tutorial quests); maybe some more effort and safeguaerd should be implemented to protect new players from their own initial conceptions
I do not own any unit upgraded high enough to matter here and plan to move up before it would matter - but even though my interest is not immediate I wouldn't consider it to be a major problem

[dst]

It seems that the idea was implemented after all. We'll see now what will happen next. I am really curious.

[MoM]

I guess Mur never did care to give us his attention ^^ and as for me, well I have no idea what to make of this situation we'll wait and see...

[dst]

What are you talking about MoM?

[MoM]

[quote name='Burns' timestamp='1293664614' post='76324']
I just asked Mur to take a general stand. Because i want to know if he finds such account inappropriate or not.
[/quote]

Burns asked Mur twice if he could give his stand and what he thinks I was just saying that it seems he didn't really answer... though his opinion is quite clear by his actions

[Curiose]

Then you sure as hell don't know who Mur is.

He is a BUSY man and just because he cannot respond to something DOES NOT mean he doesn't care, or that he's so up his own arse to give two fricken licks on a dead... rat. But my point is, assuming things like that is very stupid.

He'll get to it when he can, and hey, he might not even REMEMBER that this topic was in place and that he was asked for his opinion.

[MoM]

=( I said he [u]DID[/u] give his opinion, obviously, cz he changed it... I just said he didn't reply as a joke... I know Mur is busy, and he works a lot, and he's doing gr8 at that, just didn't know why you got so aggressive :'(

'though his opinion is quite clear by his actions' I already said that, and it shows that he did care ^^ oh well no harm done... I think