The new virtue system, new characters, and VXP overflow.

[Thornglen]

Hello, all.

In general, the new virtue system seems like a good idea. The one thing that seemed a bit off from the start, though, is the earning" mechanic.
Needing to manually set one virtue to get the VXP will, I imagine, lead to lots of experience going where players were not expecting it to go.

First, because I'm not sure how well it is explained that you even need to set one to be "earning" and because it is very easy to accidentally switch which one is set.

And then because, unless I am missing something, there is no way for a new character to queue up level 0 virtues in case of overflow.
For example, a new character I started had one virtue up to level 4 and completed a deed that awarded another 2000 VXP, but the virtue capped at 5 and overflowed to a level in Charity, which I did not want.

So, a good start to the new system, but I'd really like to know why we can't just spend the VXP where we want without needing to navigate this system where most of the mechanics (like what happens to overflow) are hidden from the player.

[Ballie]

Virtue Management Online


Specifically Levelling up and ranking up Virtues under the new System:


What will hurt is that you can't continue to raise a virtue beyond the imposed level cap so you can get the benefit when your level rises.

In a way it actually disincentives completing deeds until you are ready to micro manage the virtue panel. But you will have times when you arrive at a new location and an explorer deeds completion hits out of the blue. If you tend to leave the alerts panel to fill up because you'd rather deal with them all later you are going to miss stuff.

Someone some time will see their first virtue pop up with Charity at cap, Compassion at rank 1 and everything else at zero, because the whole thing has passed them by.

It could be that you'll want to save completing advanced slayer deeds in the early levels rather like a savings account to dip into when the cap extends and you can quickly top up your slotted virtues rather than being forced to raise unfavoured ones. It will cover for later areas that don't have so much available VXP.

You'll be at a disadvantage slotting capped virtues with only one earning that is near to the cap. Having a second or third choice uncapped virtue slotted can catch those unexpected gains. You have to literally handicap yourself to have complete control. It might be easier to have two identical builds set up, one with your best virtues slotted for raids/instances post Moria and another with your levelling up virtues slotted so you can quickly change when you are exposed to the VXP environment. Maybe have one skill placed differently and obviously to show you which build you are in.

Players who don't concern themselves with the mechanics of the game and drift along can continue, but will likely be digging a hole for themselves if they later get exposed to instances and raids and want to stand up against another who has the appropriate virtues capped and grinds completed. With Valour and Wisdom alphabetically challenged for auto ranking they could face a lot of difficulty addressing it too late on.

Will we be getting a revision of the virtue mechanics soon? I rather thing the tick has been placed on the producers letter for this and they have moved on.

It's a lot of effort to micro manage, before we could have virtue rise and not have to think about them until we had some new content coming and could go knock out some specific deeds with our buddies. If we now wish to prop up the funds in our savings account instead you don't really want to be grouped up to kill boars when someone in the group might kill a Wolf that blows your Wolves-slayer you'd just got set.

I'm perfectly fine with the idea of micro managing an unwieldly game subsystem to get the best out of it, I wonder how many others will be?

It might have me levelling a new toon just to test out how my theory crafting of it works out.

[Ballie]

I do wonder how much exposure to LUA the selection of slotted and earning has as well as deed completions. I'd imagine nothing but it screams out for a plugging to switch in a selection of virtues based on a user defined list just as a deed reaches completion and then switches back to the standard best five capped.

[scorrp10]

System should be similar to trait point spending or pre-imbue LI points. VXP should go into a pool, and each virtue should have a 'level up' button.

[Thornglen]

System should be similar to trait point spending or pre-imbue LI points. VXP should go into a pool, and each virtue should have a 'level up' button.

This would seem to be ideal. Which is why I wonder how all the extra complexity got into the system in the first place.

[FolklegendRedux]

This would seem to be ideal. Which is why I wonder how all the extra complexity got into the system in the first place.

It's needlessly complex. I'm skeptical this was tested at all with a new character because the flaws become obvious very quickly when using this while leveling up. It's a poorly thought out system and appears to be one of those instances of confusing complexity with sophistication. It actually makes it more difficult to level specific virtues than before while adding a grind for the sake of grinding. That can't possibly be what was intended, can it?

[Moondog548]

Very good points. I like the new system a lot, and even hope it gets adapted for LIs, but you and everyone else who has been saying so is right; we should pick where to spend the xp from a pool rather than have it auto-assigned.

[Lanhalt]

It's needlessly complex. I'm skeptical this was tested at all with a new character because the flaws become obvious very quickly when using this while leveling up. It's a poorly thought out system and appears to be one of those instances of confusing complexity with sophistication. It actually makes it more difficult to level specific virtues than before while adding a grind for the sake of grinding. That can't possibly be what was intended, can it?

They probably did that for the same reason they made the early game harder/longer : so people don't use reroll to farm LP.

[NavarreBlood]

The current system of virtue earning is so far superior to the prior one that there is hardly any comparison. In one day, I now have my top virtue at 59 from 50, ready to hit cap after doing about 2/3 of a region's deeds. Yes overflow is kind of a waste but those who pay attention get the most bang out of this system.

This system isn't precise and as others have stated, you need to stay on top of it if you want your favorite virtues to go up. I'd also like more control but doubt that will ever happen - dev resources what they are. It is what is is and it's far better than what we had before.

At this pace it should be fairly easy to get all 5 main virtues to the 60 cap just by deeding old regions - or if I get tired of that, from endgame dailies.

[Thornglen]

The current system of virtue earning is so far superior to the prior one that there is hardly any comparison. In one day, I now have my top virtue at 59 from 50, ready to hit cap after doing about 2/3 of a region's deeds. Yes overflow is kind of a waste but those who pay attention get the most bang out of this system.

This system isn't precise and as others have stated, you need to stay on top of it if you want your favorite virtues to go up. I'd also like more control but doubt that will ever happen - dev resources what they are. It is what is is and it's far better than what we had before.

At this pace it should be fairly easy to get all 5 main virtues to the 60 cap just by deeding old regions - or if I get tired of that, from endgame dailies.

Oh, I agree that the new system is an improvement to the old. But now is the time to push for fixing what is wrong with it. Get in there while it is still new rather than letting it become another of those UI annoyances we just learn to deal with and hope new players like the game world more than they dislike the frustrations.

Am I expecting the whole thing to be revamped to let us spend the VXP where we want from a pool? Not really. I don't know how much time and effort that would take, but I assume it would not be trivial because it just does not seem to be designed to handle that at all.

There are other aspects, though, that may be a little more realistic to hope we'll see.

For instance:

• a clear indication on the UI for which virtue is set to "earning" without needing to open the whole panel
• a clear indication for the current maximum level of that virtue so a player can swap before it needs to overflow
• the ability to queue up a next virtue if there is overflow, even if that virtue is at 0 or you have no available slots open

I think those three things would make the mechanic much more user friendly. And, for the first two, it is information the game has somewhere already. I want to be able to see that information in order to better manage the system before I get the alert that tells me the VXP went somewhere I did not want or expect.

[Tarmas_Eldar]

All that's needed is a separate slot on the UI to which you drag the virtue you want to earn, rather than the easy-to-mess up right click (or is it left click?).

Once that is maxed, overflow to equipped is fine. If those are all maxed too, then does it really matter where it overflows to?

[Thornglen]

All that's needed is a separate slot on the UI to which you drag the virtue you want to earn, rather than the easy-to-mess up right click (or is it left click?).

Once that is maxed, overflow to equipped is fine. If those are all maxed too, then does it really matter where it overflows to?

Overflow to equipped is fine for someone who started out with 5 virtues slotted, but to test the system I started a new character. It becomes more of an issue when you can't slot virtues that are at level 0 and, obviously, you can't make use of slots that have not unlocked yet. So at some point your overflow is very likely to just go to alphabetically to Charity without you having any means to direct it elsewhere.

[Tarmas_Eldar]

Overflow to equipped is fine for someone who started out with 5 virtues slotted, but to test the system I started a new character. It becomes more of an issue when you can't slot virtues that are at level 0 and, obviously, you can't make use of slots that have not unlocked yet. So at some point your overflow is very likely to just go to alphabetically to Charity without you having any means to direct it elsewhere.

Yes, I can see that's a problem. I was only thinking of the level cap situation, my bad.

[NavarreBlood]

All that's needed is a separate slot on the UI to which you drag the virtue you want to earn, rather than the easy-to-mess up right click (or is it left click?).

Once that is maxed, overflow to equipped is fine. If those are all maxed too, then does it really matter where it overflows to?

There should be two slots - or even easier for the developers, just two you click on: one that is earning and one that is backup so the overflow points go to backup once the "earning" virtue is maxed.

[Moln]

There should be two slots - or even easier for the developers, just two you click on: one that is earning and one that is backup so the overflow points go to backup once the "earning" virtue is maxed.

I think this would solve most of our concern on overflow.

[Thornglen]

There should be two slots - or even easier for the developers, just two you click on: one that is earning and one that is backup so the overflow points go to backup once the "earning" virtue is maxed.

That could work. And if the backup virtue maxes (I still think there should be some indication on the UI for what the current max level is), then it could follow the other overflow rules, but at least the player would have a little more control.