Shattered Kingdoms

So I made a character a few days ago, since the big SK meeting in the 'Boro made me feel all nostalgic.

And of course having not played in a few years, I noticed many new features. One of them being how familiar you are with an area when typing worth.

I understand the more familiar you become with an area the less exp you get from killing NPCs. So my question is, what causes you to become more familiar with an area? Simply spending time in the area? Or after you gain a certain amount of exp in that area? Or a combination of the both?

I ask this, since it seems after rolling a couple of characters, I always seemed to "need to go out and explore new areas" after gaining roughly 5 levels in the Ayamoan outpost. Which lead me to believe it might be experienced based.

Whichever it is, what sort of impact does this have on staple leveling grounds such as Morea? I used to level from like apprentice all the way to Expert in Morea, since it had plenty of NPCs for all of those levels.

Now do you simply nerf the hell out of the exp you gain in Morea spending time, or your 5(ish) level limit getting from apprentice to journeyman, and get to make no use of the priests/mummies/fytrysks for higher levels? Or has this been taken into consideration.

It would be very annoying to have to switch leveling zones every 5 levels. I honestly can't even think of enough leveling zones to get a character from amatuer to mentor if that is the case.

Here's how it works.

It's based on exp gained.

You never actually have to ever leave a leveling area. Even when you get the "you should get out and explore" message, you don't stop gaining xp in an area, you're just getting about a 1/3rd less xp per kill.

if you just recently discovered an area, you get double xp. If you are familier with an area, there is no xp mod, positive or negative. Once you know it like the back of your hand, there is a small negative bonus to xp. Then the last message which is a larger negative bonus.

If you type 'area all' it will show you pretty much every area in the game that is within your level range, although it is not divided into aura appropriate areas so you might want to ask around since there have been quite a few places added to the game since you were last around.

An example for a darkie leveling scheme would be like this.

Create in nerina.
Level newbie grounds 1-4.
teron newbie school 5-7
maze 7-11
skybolt - 11-14
chibunei - 14-18
bakemono caves - 18-22
salvarian caves - 22-25
garazul 25-29
chancel 29-34
torrum arcana 34-38
tlaxacala 38-42
circle of the holy 42-44
cain techt 44-46
wastelands 46-48
temple of murder 48-50

is this the best leveling scheme for a darkie? No, it's just an example of a pattern someone might use who switches leveling areas ever 3-5 levels.

Now to reflect the need to not leave a leveling area I'll use my lighty merc's leveling scheme as an example.

nerina 1-6
goblins - 7-8
outpost 9-11
skybolt 12- 16
bakemono 16-25
chancel 25-35
tlaxacala 35-43
temple of murder/wastelands 43-46

I never finished leveling him but as you can see I spent j5 through expert 5 just in the chancel. And it was so easy leveling in tlaxacala that I spent until master 3 there.

So you really don't have to switch areas, it just might seem to take a little longer. The returns are diminishing, but the returns never go away.

So many areas....I haven't even heard of Garazul, been so long. :\

Man, what ever happened to like.

Create in Taslamar.
Nooby school 1-5.
Caverns of the Undead 6-15.
Morea 16-35.
Wastelands/ToM 36-50.

That's my idea of a leveling regimen right there. *chuckles*

you can still do that if you want to.

It does take some getting used to and becoming aquainted with the system, but I assure you that its actually FASTER this way than it was before.

I mean come on man, you got a new area, you get a mini enlight for discovering it, then you get double xp off of every NPC there for about 2 levels. If they are opposite aura NPCs then you're getting almost 4x expees per NPC.

Once you get it in hand, you can power level like a mad man.

unless you're a priest...it's still a [REDACTED] to get priests to vet. Thats the only reason mine is stuck at level 6

While we are on this topic, in case someone 'up there' reads this thread, can we please have some kind of 'cooldowns' for area familiarity?

Every week gone by IRL area familiarity could move down one (1) notch. Down to +1 from never been to the area. Take it as though after one year IC it takes time to familiarize with areas again.

This gives casual to average players of SK a chance to level up in time. As it is, coupled with dwindling player base, since many changes including NPC AI were to encourage grouping, SK can be difficult.

Personally, I think part of the familiarity should be on NPC type. Caves of morea being a perfect example. So I fight and kill lurkers / rats / worms there for a few years as a teen and then return some 10-15 years later to take on the mummies, maybe the Fyrtysks (sp?) and yet "you know this area like the back of your hand." Great... save for the fact I have never ventured that far into the caves before, netherlone faced such creatures. Just doesn't make sense to me.

A problem with changing the granularity to NPC type is some areas have just a couple types of NPCs occurring in great numbers, while others have lots of different NPCs in relatively few numbers. In other words, there's been no building standard with respect to numbers and variety of NPCs. (I'm not sure there needs to be.) Refactoring existing areas to take this discrepancy into account may be time prohibitive, especially compared with simply attaching a cool-down period per area.

Also, it might be a lot of data to keep around, to keep track of a familiarity with each NPC for each char in the game? Even if you factor out the majority of NPCs the char has never interacted with, it still sounds like a much larger cross-product than with areas alone.

A cool-down period would be more of a catch-all, requiring little to no builder effort. That's a good thing. This concept has been detailed at length in another thread.

Peace,
Bux

Lighties/darkies have it much easier to level. A lightie I've levelled has gone the following pattern of levelling:

1-6 Pens
6-18 Outpost
18-28 Bakemono caves
28-36 Chancel

As long as you kill something of opposite alignment, it pretty much negates what you lose due to familiarity, so you really do not have to move until the NPCs are a perfect con or less. Grey auras have to move around a lot more than the other alignments, from my experience.

I would also like to add to the idea that it makes it very hard to plan out where you want to go and where you could go or directing others where to go when you cannot look at the entire area list.

Once you are out of the range, you cannot look at the various areas. It causes a bit of trouble with helping others, getting out and exploring once you are a higher level, and causes the players to have to memorize the entire area list.

Perhaps once a mentor, you can see all the areas again? Or some such.

I just gmed a paladin in under 50 hours. *shrugs*

Granted, paladin/hellions are absurdly easy to gm.