The Low-Level Characters' AP is Too Damn Low

[Alyss]

I've mentioned this a few times on servers before and gotten pretty much unanimously positive responses - why does AP scale with character level?

HP increasing with level - sure. Makes total sense, even if not on a class which contributes any natural endurance you've still got a slight leg-up. Likewise for MP. For AP, it's definitely unnecessary (due to the rate of regeneration being static on all characters, and of course that higher-levels get more bang for their buck with almost every type of action) and even comes across as a little mean-spirited.

In order to usefully use their AP, Mortals have to log-in at least every 12.5 hours - basically, twice a day. That's quite an uncommon ask for a MUD. The natural cap of 71 at Level 30's at a much more reasonable 17.75 hours. People have also talked about methods to be a bit kinder on potential AP wastage for players who can't get on every single day (or a little under a day, technically) without impacting raids etc. particularly. Personally, I'm totally down with many of those ideas as well, but we should definitely start by raising the basic AP cap for all characters to 71.

Yes, this would give lower-level characters a better potential raid contribution, so it is impactful to that. However, Level 30 and 30+ grinded characters are already able to use the AP they have much more efficiently. Also, I think it's pretty objective to say low-levels should be incentivised to come on raids, since it can be both solid EXP-gaining for them as well as really showing-off some of Nexus' best, more nuanced and most unique content (compared to other MUDs) - something that genuinely might help encourage people to stick around and see their results improve. It's not necessary and really, it's not very welcoming to new players to have them both be crap and have to show-up more often than high-levels just so they can use their less-impactful moves without them expiring; it's essentially doubly punitive in a game which is already pretty rough IC and OOC for new characters and especially new characters of new players.

[catvom]

I believe that this came about to offset the increased respawn cost of higher level characters. It used to be that the respawn cost was equal to your level, so any character would respawn and turn up with 40 - 49 ap (as long as they waited for full ap before respawning).

The respawn costs have since been halved.

Make the respawn cost the same regardless of level (with discounts for lvl < 10), and I would support making the AP cap the same regardless of level

Ie Lvls 1-9 respawn costs the same as level
Lvl >=10 respawn costs 10 ap
AP cap = Flat 60-70 (whatever is judged balanced)
_________________
Bob Ross | Feral | 3628 - Catvom | Feral | 3627 - Haldos Jnr. | RRF | 3659 - MonkeyDawg | PoR | 3631 - A Speciality Priest of Tempus | Lawful Good | 4489
Retribution | Eternals | 9134 - Minsc | Scales of Namm the Vigilant | 9008

[Kylinn]

I would support evening this out also. Sure, higher-tier character spend a bit more on respawn (if not what they used to), but I dare say that most characters don't need to respawn every day, whereas they will spend AP.

Plus T3 characters can get movement bonuses, which means that the mortal moving with a raid team of mostly upper tier characters not only starts with fewer AP, they also spend more just moving to the target.

[Alyss]

I don't think nerfing low-level respawn costs is particularly necessary personally, it mostly serves as a deterrent to new players (who're the most likely to rack-up a lot of successive deaths) - but to be fair, dying at low-levels (and as a new player) is nowhere near as punitive; more importantly, confusing, than it used to be now that low-level characters are spawned nearer to their strongholds. The lower low-level respawn costs used to be somewhat deceptive, given that with no travel skills and/or poor knowledge, they'd spend significantly more to get back to SH (as referenced by Kylinn with getting to raid targets also).

So it'd be, say, 5+16 travel as compared to 15+8 travel - the numbers aren't as far apart as they seemed. Now it's more of a 5+4, at least before T2. So I suppose there is an argument for it to be cut-down, but is it really necessary? The respawn location change is dis-applied (to the normal random spawn on plane(s)) at T2 and at Level 15 if they stay Mortal - it'd be a huge surprise if Mortals of any type started running around bopping everyone. They still have lower potential AP than some classes, and most of all use that AP so much worse than all classes, much moreso than other MUDs I've personally played which is a bit of a familiarity curve even for new players who know the genre.

[catvom]

Ooops, I didn't mean to nerf low level respawns, those figures were based off the pre halfed respawn (where respawn cost = level)

Basic idea still holds though. Level 1 - 10 respawn costs the same as it does now (1 - 5ap), then it remains at the lvl 10 cost (5ap) for the rest of the levels.

AP cap is set at a flat amount of whatever the admins think is fair. 55 if they want to maintain the concept of characters respawning with 50ish ap whatever their level. Or whatever is considered balanced.

That way new characters get a little bit of a bonus, but not massive.
_________________
Bob Ross | Feral | 3628 - Catvom | Feral | 3627 - Haldos Jnr. | RRF | 3659 - MonkeyDawg | PoR | 3631 - A Speciality Priest of Tempus | Lawful Good | 4489
Retribution | Eternals | 9134 - Minsc | Scales of Namm the Vigilant | 9008

[Alyss]

To be clear, I don't think changing the general AP cap for all characters (especially to lower it) would be a good idea. That would severely alter raiding, hunting, and also just make everyone have to log-in a lot more. I'm only saying it's a good idea for low-level and mid-level characters to have parity with their AP cap with max-level characters.

[GCP]

I also like this idea.

[Kandarin]

This is a pretty good point and worth considering, especially going into a breath change.

[SaltedSalmon]

Say, if we do this change, can we also make it so skills that increase the AP CAP also increase your AP gain, so everyone reaches the cap at roughly the same time?
For example, lets use Eternal Soldier. They reach the cap in 20.25 hours instead of 17.75. I believe the AP tick works in such a way that we can't speed up their ticks to 13.15~ minutes, but maybe gaining extra AP every X hours would work?

Of course, this is a weighty buff to Way of Vim/Master of Endurance (And any other skills that increase the AP cap)

[Kandarin]

This is being implemented in B5, so I'm going to tow this thread to the right folder.