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Less Scaling for Promotion Points!

AuthorMessage
Ensign
Dec 25, 2010
26
The price needs to be adjusted for the PPs. I find the price is far to high and the drop rate is far too low once you reach cool ranch.

Cool Ranch by itself is REALLY hard, but it's even harder when you can't get the gold together to level up your crew. Most of the time you have to go back a land and waste more time fighting things that don't drop the price tag the PPs are.

The game really needs to either scale up it's gold drop-rate/payout or it needs to cut the price to buy PPs dramatically.

Also on another note it really doesn't matter who I make my second and third mate- it always puts in the guys from the very bottom on my list into combat.

So again it's really important I can level up EVERYONE in my crew so I don't get stuck with guys I couldn't afford to buy PPs for.

It just makes the difficulty of Cool Ranch worse.

Bosun
Sep 08, 2008
388
I quite honestly did not find Cool Ranch difficult.

The absolute beauty of this game is the fact that you can grind. I am now level 50, have not even finished Haunted Skyway yet, and all my companions are at least level 47.

Petty Officer
Feb 10, 2011
97
SherlocksClues on Dec 2, 2012 wrote:
The price needs to be adjusted for the PPs. I find the price is far to high and the drop rate is far too low once you reach cool ranch.

Cool Ranch by itself is REALLY hard, but it's even harder when you can't get the gold together to level up your crew. Most of the time you have to go back a land and waste more time fighting things that don't drop the price tag the PPs are.

The game really needs to either scale up it's gold drop-rate/payout or it needs to cut the price to buy PPs dramatically.

Also on another note it really doesn't matter who I make my second and third mate- it always puts in the guys from the very bottom on my list into combat.

So again it's really important I can level up EVERYONE in my crew so I don't get stuck with guys I couldn't afford to buy PPs for.

It just makes the difficulty of Cool Ranch worse.
Good suggestion, either give us more gold or lower the cost of the training points. Doesn't make sense in a game where you have no control over who you can bring into battle besides your first mate to have to worry about having the gold to level up so many.

I've been working really hard and so far have gotten to level 32 with only 13 companions but that still means the guy who has a 2% chance of showing up in battle shows up WAY to often. He's last on my list for a reason, besides liking other companions more, I can't afford to keep him closer to my level.

But, and I know I've said this before, if the game designers would just allow us to un-equip some of them and leave them in our house or "release them from duty" we wouldn't have to worry about it so much. I'd rather they let us un-equip them, leave them in our dorm room, our house or below deck so I can get them when I need them.

I think a mandatory minimum of 6 (besides your first mate) should be perfectly acceptable in this game. My suggestion still allows for "randomness" while giving players the ability to actually manage their crew like any captain would. Then you could work on training your next favorite 6.

My other suggestions was to give them the same xp our characters get from battles and abolish the training points all together. And when we turn in a quest and get the xp, everyone on our crew should get it too.

Petty Officer
Dec 16, 2009
60
I would think so too, I have a companion that is over 20 levels lower than me!

Friendly Justin Everhart - Level 42

Ensign
Dec 25, 2010
26
Shiningfantasia on Dec 2, 2012 wrote:
I quite honestly did not find Cool Ranch difficult.

The absolute beauty of this game is the fact that you can grind. I am now level 50, have not even finished Haunted Skyway yet, and all my companions are at least level 47.
But this isn't wow. There is no reason I should have to work that hard in a game meant for families! It's great you were able to do it but they are failing with the rest of the target audience!

And I REALLY love the suggestion about leaving behind crew. If I could take my top 8 or 6 I think it would solve so many headaces that I am having now trying to get threw Cool Ranch. I am really tired of those 2% showing up ALL the time.

Frankly I was kinda hoping we'd be able to fire crew later on- but leaving them behind works just as well for me!

Community Leader
SherlocksClues on Dec 4, 2012 wrote:
But this isn't wow. There is no reason I should have to work that hard in a game meant for families! It's great you were able to do it but they are failing with the rest of the target audience!

And I REALLY love the suggestion about leaving behind crew. If I could take my top 8 or 6 I think it would solve so many headaces that I am having now trying to get threw Cool Ranch. I am really tired of those 2% showing up ALL the time.

Frankly I was kinda hoping we'd be able to fire crew later on- but leaving them behind works just as well for me!
This evidence is merely circumstantial, but once you get a second page of crew, you never see the ones at the bottom of the list. I went all the way from lvl 40 to lvl 50 and still havent had my Water Mole Slingman of Monquintan Crossbowman show up for a single fight (they are at the bottom of my list). Leveling up, it feels like you get bad pulls on crew all the time, but the bigger your crew, the further you can bury the ones that aren't as useful. Now, what I'd prefer to the ability to shelve certain crew if the ability to improve the ones I don't like, above just leveling them. It would be neat if there were quests, once you reach 50, let's say, where you could take a single companion through a rigorous training process, similar to a main storyline companion promotion quest, but you pick which companion you upgrade. At the end they get to pick out a new talent and a new epic. Could be fun and would give us something else to do!

Host of the Talkin' the Plank Podcast, where we talk about Pirate 101 every Friday!
Bosun
May 10, 2010
396
Shiningfantasia on Dec 2, 2012 wrote:
I quite honestly did not find Cool Ranch difficult.

The absolute beauty of this game is the fact that you can grind. I am now level 50, have not even finished Haunted Skyway yet, and all my companions are at least level 47.
Just because you may not have found something difficult ShiningFantasia, does not mean others wont. Everyone has different play styles and strategies. You also have had advantages over others, you got to learn good strategies early on.

Now, my question is, if you are level 50 now and have not even finished Haunted Skyway, that sounds like a serious exploit that KI needs to know about.

Ensign
May 17, 2011
49
I was about to make a post like this. This does need to be fixed. PP really REALLY need to be cheaper. I have played far to many games. In each one, it was always grind. 300 gold for one PP trainer and two training points from that? Gosh, please don't have pirate101 turn into yet another grind game. -shakes head-

-Dark Amber

Developer
If you don't want to grind, stop leveling your companions when they are two or three levels below you.

If you don't mind grinding, then you can choose to level up your companions all the way to your level cap.

Be aware that if you are buying training tomes, you are engaging in an optional activity. Between the points you get from leveling up, and just a few side quests, you will have enough points to keep your most valuable companions competitive, and even the less valuable ones "close enough."

You may occasionally get a bad draw, and get a lower level companion; this happens. It might even cost you a win every now and then. You should not have any expectation to make it through the entire game without losing a single combat (although this is certainly possible once you have mastered the game).

If you want to keep your companions all leveled up to the maximum level at all times, you are choosing to make them as powerful as possible, which in turn will make combat much easier. But this "short cut" is offset by the fact that you'll have to engage in other activities (ie, grinding out gold) to compensate. You're probably better off just spending that time to complete some of the side quests that award training tomes-- there are lots of quests like this.

All of that being said, rest assured that I am definitely here to help-- we want the game to be challenging and rewarding, not frustrating.

Community Leader
Darth JT on Dec 5, 2012 wrote:
Just because you may not have found something difficult ShiningFantasia, does not mean others wont. Everyone has different play styles and strategies. You also have had advantages over others, you got to learn good strategies early on.

Now, my question is, if you are level 50 now and have not even finished Haunted Skyway, that sounds like a serious exploit that KI needs to know about.
If you read some of Shining's other posts, you'll see that he spent weeks of grinding the bosses in Cool Ranch trying to get an armadillo pet. Conservatively (and this is a guess based on his numbers and a few rough calculations) he must have fought around 1,500 battles to grind out that much xp. Not an exploit, just a determined player with a greater tolerance for repetition that I will ever understand!

Host of the Talkin' the Plank Podcast, where we talk about Pirate 101 every Friday!
Petty Officer
Feb 10, 2011
97
Ratbeard on Dec 6, 2012 wrote:
If you don't want to grind, stop leveling your companions when they are two or three levels below you.

If you don't mind grinding, then you can choose to level up your companions all the way to your level cap.

Be aware that if you are buying training tomes, you are engaging in an optional activity. Between the points you get from leveling up, and just a few side quests, you will have enough points to keep your most valuable companions competitive, and even the less valuable ones "close enough."

You may occasionally get a bad draw, and get a lower level companion; this happens. It might even cost you a win every now and then. You should not have any expectation to make it through the entire game without losing a single combat (although this is certainly possible once you have mastered the game).

If you want to keep your companions all leveled up to the maximum level at all times, you are choosing to make them as powerful as possible, which in turn will make combat much easier. But this "short cut" is offset by the fact that you'll have to engage in other activities (ie, grinding out gold) to compensate. You're probably better off just spending that time to complete some of the side quests that award training tomes-- there are lots of quests like this.

All of that being said, rest assured that I am definitely here to help-- we want the game to be challenging and rewarding, not frustrating.
Wait a minute.

How is leveling up the companions game developers force us to have "optional" or a "short cut"? Especially when we can't "choose" not to have them or "choose" to have a smaller active duty roster?

Leveling up our companions isn't a "choice," it's a decision the developers made about how they are acquired, how they level, how many, how much gold it cost, etc, etc, etc.

That's like when Apple said, "It's not a bug, it's a feature."

C'mon guys, ALL of us playing the game aren't 10-year-olds.

Bosun
May 10, 2010
396
Talkin The Plank on Dec 6, 2012 wrote:
If you read some of Shining's other posts, you'll see that he spent weeks of grinding the bosses in Cool Ranch trying to get an armadillo pet. Conservatively (and this is a guess based on his numbers and a few rough calculations) he must have fought around 1,500 battles to grind out that much xp. Not an exploit, just a determined player with a greater tolerance for repetition that I will ever understand!
Oh, I have farmed and farmed myself, on all my pirates. Not only for the armadillo pet, but for gold at the abandoned church graveyard. I got 100k a few times, bought ships for all my pirates, bought training tomes, etc and got lots of xp, but to go from 39 to 50? WOW, somehow that just does not add up to me and I was constantly farming.

Just wanted to know the secret, I mean, even the Mines in Tumbleweed, if you survive 12 rounds offers over 200 xp per batle, if you are the only survivor, even then, that would take a ton of battles to get from 40 to 50....

So, I am just kinda stunned when he said he is at 50 and not even out of haunted skyway yet.

Bosun
Sep 08, 2008
388
Darth JT on Dec 5, 2012 wrote:
Just because you may not have found something difficult ShiningFantasia, does not mean others wont. Everyone has different play styles and strategies. You also have had advantages over others, you got to learn good strategies early on.

Now, my question is, if you are level 50 now and have not even finished Haunted Skyway, that sounds like a serious exploit that KI needs to know about.
ROFL my dear, dear DarthJT.

I point you to the Wizard101 forums where I posted a one too many complaint about Avalon gameplay difficulty. Having all started with Celestia, no less.

I rest my case.

And I do not think it is an exploit at all. I farmed almost every day for WEEKS to get to where I am. So, again, I don't think it is an exploit at all.

Bosun
Sep 08, 2008
388
SherlocksClues on Dec 4, 2012 wrote:
But this isn't wow. There is no reason I should have to work that hard in a game meant for families! It's great you were able to do it but they are failing with the rest of the target audience!

And I REALLY love the suggestion about leaving behind crew. If I could take my top 8 or 6 I think it would solve so many headaces that I am having now trying to get threw Cool Ranch. I am really tired of those 2% showing up ALL the time.

Frankly I was kinda hoping we'd be able to fire crew later on- but leaving them behind works just as well for me!
As Ratbeard said, it is an optional undertaking. I chose to do what I did. Therefore the later content in the game was not difficult for me.

But point of that is: you ARE ABLE to make it easy on yourself. I don't know why you mentioned wow, that game has nothing to do with pirate101. In any game, especially rpg's, grinding is usually available. Except Wizard101. Wizard101 is just quest progression after quest progression, and grinding in Wizard101 is just not feasible. So I just took advantage if the fact that you could grind.

Bosun
Sep 08, 2008
388
Darth JT on Dec 7, 2012 wrote:
Oh, I have farmed and farmed myself, on all my pirates. Not only for the armadillo pet, but for gold at the abandoned church graveyard. I got 100k a few times, bought ships for all my pirates, bought training tomes, etc and got lots of xp, but to go from 39 to 50? WOW, somehow that just does not add up to me and I was constantly farming.

Just wanted to know the secret, I mean, even the Mines in Tumbleweed, if you survive 12 rounds offers over 200 xp per batle, if you are the only survivor, even then, that would take a ton of battles to get from 40 to 50....

So, I am just kinda stunned when he said he is at 50 and not even out of haunted skyway yet.
My first grinding phase was Fin Dorsal. I do not keep track is my number of fights, but here is a general idea of how long I fought Fin. By the time I moved on, I had 13 chameleon pets.

My second grinding phase was the Duck with no Name. I lost count how many fights, but roughly a combined 2 weeks of it. Result was 3 Scorpions, a Tropical Sky snake, and 2 Armadillos. I actually got the second one a day after I got my first. That was when I ended the duck grind.

My third and final grinding phase was Squinty, in Cave of Echoes. Not a major boss, but a kill boss only fight that ended on turn 1 or 2 and rewarded me with up to 2,000 (very very rare, and only seen it once) gold. Average gold was about 600 per fight, with a record low of 35 gold (seen that twice). That is when I hit level 50, and grinded a bit more after that to level my companions to at least 47. All of them.

Any bosses I look for now will be in the final world for equipment drops, not necessarily gold.

Bosun
Sep 08, 2008
388
aaronlightwalker on Dec 7, 2012 wrote:
Wait a minute.

How is leveling up the companions game developers force us to have "optional" or a "short cut"? Especially when we can't "choose" not to have them or "choose" to have a smaller active duty roster?

Leveling up our companions isn't a "choice," it's a decision the developers made about how they are acquired, how they level, how many, how much gold it cost, etc, etc, etc.

That's like when Apple said, "It's not a bug, it's a feature."

C'mon guys, ALL of us playing the game aren't 10-year-olds.
It is optional, because that is just that. Optional.

You are more than welcome to not level up companions at all. Or just keep up with the bare minimum necessary to pass through the game's challenges.

It is as simple as that. Game developers may 'force' us to have companions, but by no means are they forcing us to level them.

So... Leveling up our companions IS a choice. A choice WE make.