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Post by maarius81 on Nov 12, 2017 7:13:26 GMT -5
I thought about creating a challenge for myself with the goal to make it a fun experience from 1 to level cap. Iron man is definitely too hard for me and I don't want to skip quests or talents. The challenge should make questing items desired, without allowing me to mindlessly use everything, so when I got 8 questitems I'm allowed to take 1 of them and destroy all the others I have in my inventory. It costs a part of your soul (extra life) though - hence the name "Soulsearcher Challenge". I also wanted a very immersive experience which also would make things a bit more difficult. Addons help me with that. Currently I'm at lv.30, it's definitely fun for me, but as I'm eager to complete all zone quests I'm leveling a bit too fast. As I've heard of the changes to scaling I will pause this challenge and continue it with 7.3.5. This will definitely be more challenging then. It's not really a challenge you can monitor, it's all about discipline. The Soulsearcher ChallengeEdits/changes are shown in boldbefore (optional preparation)-) make UI invisible, even the nameplates & player Information (Addon: moveanything, KUI nameplates) -) you are allowed to show the level of the mob -) no help from others or yourself (Auctions, Mail,Heirlooms,...) -) no Minimap, no Questtracker -) no Player-arrow on the worldmap; use this command: /script WorldMapUnitPositionFrame:SetAlpha(0) -) set Weakauras to soundclues when losing health & hurting enemies - that's my only indicator of my own health -) if possible, purchase inky-black-potions from the Darkmoon Faire (later in the game / exception for mailing rule). I use one potion once every night, so it's dark for 2 hours. -) use the dark-nights addon -) play with actioncam on (/console actioncam full) -) total rp3 extended to create quests and items (like a diary where you write down these rules) -) addon "catch the wind" or "storyline" for immersive questtext -) ambiente sound much louder than the rest -) addon "dicemaster" to make extra lives visible Extra lifes (B) and charges for an extra life container (A) - visible with the addon: "dicemaster" in the game I toggle the visibility with a simple macro. I can't get rid of the dice ui, but I only toggle it on if I lose a heart or gain a charge. Rules -) crafting is allowed -) crafted gear is BoE, so it underlies the same rules as BoE items (equip at any time) -) you may NOT sell the crafted stuff / anything in the auction house-) you must not use free flying in any way (except the zone doesn't allow otherwise) -) flight paths to another zone: YES -) no riding until you earn it for each zone: get 4 BoE mobdrops which aren't for your spec (e.g. cloth-pants on a warrior) when you die...-) you lose one life -) destroy all green/blue equipped items-) 0 lives = delete every item on you AND your bag AND "lose" your money (you basically lose everything)
-) the money you lose is sent to a low level player / random player in your zone -) gain back your last life The core concept/TLDR: -) only wear gear you can see on your character (no rings/amulets/trinkets) -) only wear BoE drops OR -) 1 Soulbound Item from 8 in your bag, choose one - destroy the others (costs life) -) earn extra lives through killing rare mobs -) minimize the UI((Edit 28.12.2017: streamlined the rules: rule changes with crafting tokens, death-penalty, riding ))
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Xaya
Community Moderators
Posts: 1,665
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Post by Xaya on Nov 12, 2017 8:07:30 GMT -5
a little bit too complicated for my taste...
Xayawarroir lvl 45 nightelf warrior (alive) Wyrmrest Accord Xayahunter lvl 91 nightelf hunter (dead) Wyrmrest Accord Xayamonk lvl 110 tinman draenai monk Wyrmrest Accord Xayapaci lvl 36 pacifist gnome rogue (alive) Wyrmrest Accord Xayahorde lvl 20 bloodelf rogue (alive) Wyrmrest Accord
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Post by 'Ster on Nov 12, 2017 8:21:21 GMT -5
Some interesting concepts. That's the beauty of the challenge, you can tweak some elements to fit a play style you enjoy. You mentioned ironman is too difficult and you don't want to skip quests or talents... I find the 1-60 pretty straight-forward, especially since I've done it a bunch. My play style is that I do quests that I enjoy, and skip the ones I don't like. For example, I skip all Nestingway "kill a gazillion animals" or any quests like kill 10 x dudes, 10 y dudes, plus 1 named guy for one low XP quest reward. Too grindy for my tastes. And, doesn't matter in the long run that you skip quests, plenty of points to get you leveled. As for skipping talents, doesn't matter which class you pick, you'll find you only use a small handfull of attacks/defenses. All those extra talents are great when you're in a group/raid, but not needed for solo ironman.
Of all the things you mentioned above, the empty/naked user interface was the coolest.
: -)
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Post by maarius81 on Nov 12, 2017 8:32:36 GMT -5
a little bit too complicated for my taste...
Xayawarroir lvl 45 nightelf warrior (alive) Wyrmrest Accord Xayahunter lvl 91 nightelf hunter (dead) Wyrmrest Accord Xayamonk lvl 110 tinman draenai monk Wyrmrest Accord Xayapaci lvl 36 pacifist gnome rogue (alive) Wyrmrest Accord Xayahorde lvl 20 bloodelf rogue (alive) Wyrmrest Accord
In the beginning it was hard for me to remember my own rules, so I created an ingame codex (the picture might not be accurate anymore) The core concept/TLDR: -) only wear gear you can see on your character (no rings/amulets/trinkets) -) only wear BoE drops OR -) 1 Soulbound Item each level (costs life) -) earn extra lifes through killing rare mobs -) minimize the UI Basically it gives me some excitement when choosing which soulbound item I choose and each mob drop may be really valuable. Thanks for your opinion
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Post by maarius81 on Nov 12, 2017 8:41:40 GMT -5
You mentioned ironman is too difficult and you don't want to skip quests or talents... As for skipping talents, doesn't matter which class you pick, you'll find you only use a small handfull of attacks/defenses. All those extra talents are great when you're in a group/raid, but not needed for solo ironman. Of all the things you mentioned above, the empty/naked user interface was the coolest. : -) Thanks for your feedback! I should reiterate: I don't skip the main questline of a zone. I don't look out for all the hidden quests though. Personally I chose to do all the quests in my questlog before entering the next zone, but it's not really that important for the challenge. Just do quests you want to do basically. I'm not sure about the importance of talents when I continue this challenge with the level scaling, but I'm not a friend of giving up talents which make gameplay more fun. I could reiterate that blue gear isn't allowed, if it's still too easy once 7.3.5 hits.
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Post by Broken Fox on Nov 12, 2017 10:41:45 GMT -5
Respect the amount of thought you put into this. Very old school.
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Post by Brynazul on Nov 13, 2017 18:44:02 GMT -5
If you're into hiding the UI, you might want to check out the Immersive addon. It will autohide the UI for you, while allowing you to create conditions for it to show the UI elements. It's also, imo, easier to use than MoveAnything. I'm also interested in the lives concept of play. That's an interesting idea. I also like the professions tie in. I've been trying to come up with a way to make professions relavent to leveling again.
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Asyluun
Iron Veterans
Drunk
Posts: 272
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Post by Asyluun on Nov 13, 2017 21:07:29 GMT -5
why?
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Post by maarius81 on Nov 14, 2017 11:43:22 GMT -5
If you're into hiding the UI, you might want to check out the Immersive addon. It will autohide the UI for you, while allowing you to create conditions for it to show the UI elements. It's also, imo, easier to use than MoveAnything. I'm also interested in the lives concept of play. That's an interesting idea. I also like the professions tie in. I've been trying to come up with a way to make professions relavent to leveling again. thanks for the suggestion, it's a great one. Actually I already use it for the chat window, it's awesome. here a short list of some of the addons I use Asyluun: I think I should have clarified it better: because I think that the current leveling isn't fun enough for me. Most enemies are dead before I hit a second skill and gear from quests - if you equip everything - makes the experience completely trivial. Personally there is too little excitement for me when something nice drops from an enemy and most of the time it's useless because I already have superior gear. I wanted to change that as much as possible. I know, it's still quite simple but with 7.3.5 this will change a lot.
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Post by Brynazul on Nov 14, 2017 17:22:32 GMT -5
There's also the Gryphonheart Items addon. It'll let you make your own items (like how lore library lets you collect books). Another thing I've incorporated is to only use bags that I've earned the reputation to get, or profession bags are allowed. So you'd start off with the default and then when you get revered with one of the factions, you can get the bag. I took forever to think of what class and race combo I wanted to make to try out your challenge. I think I'll remake my wildhammer dwarf shaman. Now, you mentioned that you only have a weakauras sound to tell you if your health is low, do you show the mob health on screen, or do you have something similar for the mob health?
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Post by maarius81 on Nov 15, 2017 1:40:40 GMT -5
There's also the Gryphonheart Items addon. It'll let you make your own items (like how lore library lets you collect books). Another thing I've incorporated is to only use bags that I've earned the reputation to get, or profession bags are allowed. So you'd start off with the default and then when you get revered with one of the factions, you can get the bag. I took forever to think of what class and race combo I wanted to make to try out your challenge. I think I'll remake my wildhammer dwarf shaman. Now, you mentioned that you only have a weakauras sound to tell you if your health is low, do you show the mob health on screen, or do you have something similar for the mob health? Thanks for your reply and for trying the challenge I also wanted to try the Gryphonheart addon first, but at the time I created this challenge it didn't support 7.3. I've seen now that they updated it a few days ago. Total RP 3 was a good alternative, you can also create your own quests and I wasn't sure if I'd make a few for me (unlock riding). In the end it was a bit too complex to get into that process and just writing down the things I need for zone-riding was a bit easier. The idea with the bags is interesting, I like it. Do you still use dropped bags or vendor bags? At the moment I have only the mini-healthbar (I couldn't get them completely gone) behind the level-number for enemies, no soundclues. I wanted to take out the "hurry up"-factor in questing completely, that's also why I hide my experience bar. I don't care if a battle takes 5 seconds or a minute - it's over when the enemy is dead and part of the challenge is to handle multiple mobs that way. I have to admit that the mini-healthbar still distracts me sometimes, I'll look for a way to get rid of it as well. I'll probably add the soundcues via Weakauras in the future, but it's not a top priority. Battle shouldn't be a race to get the mob down as fast as possible. I can also cheat by looking at the mob tooltip in my bottom right corner, which also shows the enemy health. The only thing I find important to show is the enemy level imho. Once you get rid of all (and I really mean all) ui elements, combat will be a much more immersive element. I play a paladin and the only thing I had on my screen were the holy power charges. It was VERY distracting, that tiny element. I didn't look at the enemy, I watched the charges. I got rid of them and it was a totally different experience. At the moment I paused the challenge because doing most quests gives me too much experience and mobs are usually a few levels below me. I'll wait for the level scaling, so excited about that.
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Post by Xezzy on Nov 15, 2017 12:49:44 GMT -5
What I like about this challenge: 1. The "Soulsearcher" theme. I personally would modify it to be able to equip "Soulbound" items gained from questing. You put in the work, you should be able to equip the item. Fits the theme quite nicely. 2. Being able to use Talents. What I don't like about the challenge: 1. Over-complication of addons. I only use a single quest tracker addon period. Many people are not addon savvy or do not want to even bother with them. 2. Allowing deaths. Not really much of a challenge outside of limiting what you see in your UI. 3. Zero way to track any of this outside of personal limitations. So what it seems to be is that you are trying to create another game out of the existing game and making it more of a UI-limitation-challenge rather than test your skill/knowledge vs. the existing game. Honestly, I really like the idea, but what I would suggest is modifying the existing Tin-man rules to limit green's equipped items to quest-received soulbound items to fit with your theme. It's great that you like to challenge and limit yourself to a particular playstyle, but how does it translate to allowing others to participate without having to spend hours self-tracking and tweaking with UI settings. Keep it simple
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Post by Brynazul on Nov 15, 2017 14:35:50 GMT -5
I don't use dropped, quest, or vendor bags, except buying from the faction vendor at revered. That and I allow profession bags.
The idea about creating your own quests I'll have to look into. I didn't realize rp3 had that feature. Wonder if I can get Gryphonheart to do that...
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Post by maarius81 on Nov 15, 2017 17:02:17 GMT -5
What I like about this challenge: 1. The "Soulsearcher" theme. I personally would modify it to be able to equip "Soulbound" items gained from questing. You put in the work, you should be able to equip the item. Fits the theme quite nicely. 2. Being able to use Talents. What I don't like about the challenge: 1. Over-complication of addons. I only use a single quest tracker addon period. Many people are not addon savvy or do not want to even bother with them. 2. Allowing deaths. Not really much of a challenge outside of limiting what you see in your UI. 3. Zero way to track any of this outside of personal limitations. So what it seems to be is that you are trying to create another game out of the existing game and making it more of a UI-limitation-challenge rather than test your skill/knowledge vs. the existing game. Honestly, I really like the idea, but what I would suggest is modifying the existing Tin-man rules to limit green's equipped items to quest-received soulbound items to fit with your theme. It's great that you like to challenge and limit yourself to a particular playstyle, but how does it translate to allowing others to participate without having to spend hours self-tracking and tweaking with UI settings. Keep it simple Thank you for your opinion, I appreciate it! As this challenge is nothing official since most rules can't be tracked everyone is free to change the rules to his/her liking. You're spot on that I basically tried to create my own little version of WoW with those rules. My ideas are based on the themes: challenge, not taking away stuff but giving existing things a new take. @1: why the restriction of only 1 soulbound item per level (for a cost of 1 life): The idea was to make items which drop from mobs much more meaningful. Those should be an upgrade most of the time, which can only be true if you aren't overflowing with other items. In order to make the game more challenging, kind of like the iron man challenge, something had to be the limiting factor. There are a lot of really good items you get from questing, so the idea was to make a difficult choice. A choice you don't have in the current game. Decide between two, three or more upgrades and only keep one of them. The others are lost for you. And if you want that very useful item, you weaken yourself by losing one of your lifes. ...so you now have an incentive to kill those rare mobs. Not only for the potential BoE drop but also in order to get a new extra life (which in turn can be spent for another soulbound item on your next levelup). It isn't that easy though, since you aren't equipped like someone who has done all the quests. You may have a few very old pieces of gear - so it's risky to take on the rare mob. And then there's crafting. As BoE-items which aren't useable are crafting tokens now, you might finally craft something you really can use. @dislikes, 1: I understand your point of view. For me personally challenge doesn't only mean a statistical challenge but also a "new way to play"- challenge. A real fighter doesn't know how much energy his/her opponent still has. A real fighter doesn't exactly know when he becomes stronger. A real fighter watches his enemy and his movements, not some statistics. I really tried to recreate a new feeling when fighting in WoW. Addons help me with that. Maybe it's because I get distracted so easily from the UI. @dislikes, 2: Well before I paused the challenge to wait for the "hardcore soulsearcher challenge"(which is 7.3.5 level scaling) I basically played with 2 lives most of the time, since I wanted to spend the extra lives on equipping one soulbound item. I didn't/don't want to run around with only one life, because a single mistake would end that challenge. My current thoughts about how it goes: it's too easy because I gain xp too fast. I'm quite happy with the item-rules though, gearing is fun for me this way. 7.3.5 can't come soon enough. I will update this thread with how it feels with level scaling and what I am going to change to keep the challenge fun but not TOO hardcore.
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Post by maarius81 on Nov 15, 2017 17:09:43 GMT -5
I don't use dropped, quest, or vendor bags, except buying from the faction vendor at revered. That and I allow profession bags. The idea about creating your own quests I'll have to look into. I didn't realize rp3 had that feature. Wonder if I can get Gryphonheart to do that... Not using dropped bags would go against the idea of the soulsearcher challenge, since one of its goals is to give mob drops more value. I really like your motivation to create your own rules though, so respect for that. You give crafting a meaning, so that's nice. What I forgot to mention was the fact that money isn't so easy to get in the SSC (soulsearcher challenge). Buying stuff like bags from the vendor is something that also feels quite rewarding. Especially since you may have lost tons of money from a surprise death which you could have saved by putting it in your guildbank. At least it's not lost in the world and someone else might find it useful.
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