[Suggestion] More Channels

Not sure if it's been discussed anywhere yet, but with the increase in the server's population, would an increase in channels (1 or 2, maybe 3?) be justified?

Feel free to discuss.

 

Additional channels, imo, are something that need to at least be considered by staff. Today, when I logged in there were appox 170 people already online, and all the channels were at least half full on the login screen.

 

The amount of channels is perfectly fine as it is now. Training spots are rarely full in all channels which would be the main reason why I would add extra channels.

All I see happening in the addition of more channels is that it would greatly benefit higher level characters who boss Big Foot, Anego, Crow, etc..

In the case of Big Foot, if you added 3 channels, you are adding 20+ more Big Foots which is ludicrous in my opinion.

 

And that is a bad thing because?

It would be nice if the influx of newer players were given a chance to boss as well, given that most established guilds and players already monopolize them.

 

I like this idea in theory, because I think it's likely we'll see another influx of new players when school's out for the summer. While the channels themselves are not full, there will probably be a lot of competition for certain maps. However, whether or not it is feasible and whether it might cause other problems (of the technical variety) is something for Matt to decide.

 

Personally , I feel no harm is done if we add new channels. This MAY lead to problems in server stability (more channels= harder to manage...??? don't quote me on that) but I really think that this is a good idea.

 

How do you know the more established players wouldn't take more advantage of the added bigfoots? They already know the timers on them and are on when bfs are about to spawn. It's MUCH harder for new players because they don't know the spawn times and don't want to camp maps all day.

And if newer/more casual players do catch the bf spawn they don't necessarily know the spawn timers (I believe 17-28 hours depending on maps) or they might not be able to get on for the next spawn. And if you miss one spawn you'll have to re-time it or know someone who knows the spawn time. Which requires knowing people who bf daily.

I agree that more bfs would be nice for new players, but the new players won't necessarily be getting those bfs. But more channels would be nice for all the other heavily trafficked training spots; like GS2, WS, Himes.

 

If this was the fully the case then I would agree with you. I too would like to see newer players given the chance to boss as well, but adding more channels is hardly going to accomplish that. The time is takes a newer player to kill a boss vs a high leveled character is massively different.

In theory, putting more bosses in the game means more players can kill them. This is true to a small degree. In reality what ends up happening is that the higher leveled players just get to farm them for even longer than they already do.

Speaking from experience, the only thing stopping me from killing more Anegos is that the Night Lord I am with and I have already cleared every single channel one after another. If you added 3 more channels, guess what? We will just end up clearing channels 1-11 just the same.

I would only benefit from the addition of more channels so if it was implemented then I would lose no sleep from it. I just find it unnecessary at this moment and have yet to see a practical reason why it should be implemented.

Edit: Looks like Robb beat me to it.

 

I don't know about the effect this will have on bosses, apart from people being able to farm more - maybe it'll be easier for a newer player to come across a bigfoot by chance? GS2 has been getting a little bit congested lately, though. If the active playerbase continues to grow, access to popular grinding spots could become a problem. Might be worth adding some channels for that.

 

The main reasons I'd support having extra channels would be GS2 and Manon.

There are viable alternatives to GS2, but because they're not quite as good, people seem to gravitate straight back to GS2 and would rather fight over a map there than do the obvious (for most job classes) and go to GS5.

 

You're right that there's a problem with the crowded gs2 and manon
but for those two there could be very simple solutions...
for gs2 as you said there's alot of good alternetive , nexon didn't create them for nothing.
and for Manon you could just reduce the cooldown...

 

I wouldn't support more channels. The community is far too small to have more channels. As said before, there are alternatives for grinding spots such as gs2. For one, when MP3 gets a proper fix that'd open another 8 channels to train on. Not just that, the map is so large there could train 2-3 people at once. (thats 16-24 training spots)
Other training spots as forest of golems are pretty good too, for close ranged chars atleast. The spawn is great.

Wouldn't fix any area bosses either, such as BF and anego. Again, as said before, the same people who hunt them now would hunt them more and it wouldn't open any oppertunities to other people.

 

There has been a huge spike in player population with the advent of summer, reaching up till 200-300. That is almost twice our population before summer. And probably even higher as more players join in during summer.

Can this be debated and reconsidered?

I've found that all GS2 channels are always full, heck, even maps like Skele which always had empty maps are full. Bosses tend to be wiped clean within a few hours and so on.

 

I understand the huge player spike and the Ghost ship maps being full, But there is more than just Ghost ship 2 which people just think is the stopping point. Not meaning they don't know there are more maps I mean that they think they should just train there (gs2) instead of the other ghost ship maps which are all viable training spot, sure maybe slower than gs2 but it's not drastically slower that u are dying trying to get to 70 or 75.

We have what 8 channels, and what like 300on at a time maximum. Everyone has an equal chance to get bosses even if some kill them faster. Sure the people who always boss know the spawn times but it doesn't mean no one else has a chance to grab a boss.

IMO : unless we start getting 500 regulars on at a time we shouldn't channels 8 is a good bit.

 

Okay! Then we add some server code that does not allow players over LVL 150 to enter ch 9-11

(if that channel is requested, they get redirected to ch 2)

now new players can boss as well.

 

Let's say more channels is not possible, because of technicalities.
Then how about another server? It would give all the new users a place to start where no one would be able to monopolize the bosses at first, and if someone wanted to train at a specific place without having to wait, they could just play on the less populated "new" server.

 

From a GM perspective, that sounds like a bit of a nightmare! There's more than enough work involved in supervising one world, let alone two!

 

We don't have enough players to popluate 2 worlds. I like how it's getting active. Passing a town and seeing actual moving pixels other than NPCs.