[Suggestion] More leveling rewards for Vaniki.

Several Vaniki guilds are constantly recruiting.

Implementing more level-based achievement rewards (say Illusion: Gigyn at Level 80 and Illusion: Leadbetter at level 100) will expand the pool of available players.

Casual players aren't going to help any of the Vaniki guilds. Geared boxes are better than casual mains for the remaining guilds.

We get it. You want two free illusions for no effort. They aren't going to give you what you want.

A real, competent player is preferable to a boxed char in any raid.

It requires time and effort to level unless you don't mind paying the 2+ Krono (money for Darkpaw) for a PL service.

There has been no controversy over the Visage of Vaniki.

Having incentives to maintain an active server population is preferable over some sort of imagined purist position.

We get a reward every time we reach a level cap.

Two weapon ornaments were also originally granted for reaching level 60.

I don’t think people will want to incidentally or casually grind to level 100 or higher for more of the same weapon augments.

As some others have said, I don't think more rewards for doing random things, like reaching a level cap or taking down group level content is needed here. This server doesn't need 10,000 people on it, it was intended to be a challenging server for raiders: trying to take down higher level content with lower level characters and so on. By design it's kinda hardcore.

To that end, adding a bunch of things to promote casuals occasionally logging into the server to pick up achievements is not really doing anything for the server. These people are probably playing other TLP's already, so why does or would DBG care if they play on Vaniki as well? And it's been explained already here why adding random achievements probably won't pull Live players over.

The funny thing about Vaniki is that it's actually super casual, despite being intended as a hardcore raiding server. There's literally only 1 guild that's really pushing raid content and progression. Every other guild is milling around hardly raiding anything interesting or challenging.

The problem is more along the lines of character maintenance (whether that player is full time or part time raider, a casual-raider convert, or a casual). Once you a miss an era or span of time on Vaniki, there's little incentive to play catch up unless some (not the majority of rewards) are offered for leveling.

If keeping up or maintaining one's character is not properly incentivized, the churn (due to boredom, seasonal inactivity, work or family obligations, new expansion, etc) will ultimately kill the server.

Some players are interested in collecting cosmetics and other rewards (teleports). Allowing even a minority of items to be available via leveling achievements is an incentive for Live players (who can choose to go F2P) to maintain a sub (even to log in "once a month" on Vaniki). Subs means additional revenue. Vaniki would become a de facto Stormhammer (Legends) type of server.

Your first point is true- this is a super fast paced server. If you miss the lvl 60 era for example, and come back during TSS, yes, you're going to miss all the 60 achievements and so on. That's kinda like ANY TLP though. If you take 3 months off on Yelinak right now and come back during Luclin, you're never going to get to kill Vulak.

I don't see why Vaniki needs any special attention if it behaves the same as any TLP. Also, there's only 1 guild doing achievements anyways. In fact, I expect what will happen on Vaniki is that in the future, groups of people will go there for achievement farming. I already know this to be true: many of my Agnarr friends intend on going to Vaniki once Defiant gear comes out to do old achievements. I think this server will have a niche population and long shelf life for this reason.

To your second point, what others have said, and I agree, is that there are a bunch of other issues with the server that are much more important than making changes that'll cause a small handful of live players to sub to a TLP for cosmetic achievements. Fixing the raid achievements on the server will incentivize a much larger group of people to sub/stay subbed. The point of the server is to challenge raiders, but the problem is a lot of the raid content is: a) literally inaccessible (see TOB), or b) literally impossible due to certain spells/abilities/etc not being available at the level cap. These changes are going to impact a much larger group of people than adding random achievements for leveling and group-lvl players. I think that's the point most people are making.

You can agree or disagree or w/e I guess

Vaniki's super fast unlock is punishing for character maintenance. There needs to be incentives to stay current or play catch up. This is especially true with a substantial portion of Vaniki's population being Live players.

With other TLPs, there's an understanding of pace (e.g. Selo vs. Mangler) and "being a main" on that TLP server. Vaniki is a 2nd server for many players (with the according risk that they could easily drop off).

Addressing bugs (or design issues) and incentivizing play could work hand in hand in keeping a healthy, active server population. It is possible to do both and would be ideal to attack churn on both fronts.

Again, all I am proposing is moving 5 or so rewards to level achievements. This a low-hanging fruit, uncontroversial type of move with a worthwhile pay off.

You say its uncontroversial, but this thread proves that it IS in fact controversial.

No one invoked a exclusivity or purist complaint over Visage of Vaniki when it was granted for everyone reaching level 60.

It is controversial because - without fail - there's TLP chauvinism-tribalism (server against server, guild against guild) that gets blended in with most TLP discussions. The zero-sum drama that occurs in game gets carried over to the forums. lol.

In this case, it is quite likely that non-main Vaniki players are concerned that Vaniki could "poach" players (from Yelinak or Mischief) or dev attention. Some who have opposed this thread has straight up said that they want Vaniki to fold and merge.

Giving away 1 free illusion to everyone is a lot different than giving away all the cool illusions. Completing the achievements to be some of the few people in the game with them is the entire reason some people rolled on Vaniki. Also the ratman illusion is from the only non instanced raid achievement when the change was made to give it away no one knew there would only be 1 real guild left. Everyone thought it would be a toxic cesspool of training and griefing, comparing that illusion to any of the others doesn't work.

It's controversial because it's a bad idea and a waste of dev time that could be spent on real problems with the server.

No one said that.

Incorrect:

Source? I haven't seen a single person brag about the rewards. No one cares about exclusivity. At this point, Darkpaw may as well hook as many players as possible on subs (via some Vaniki leveling rewards).

Again, the majority of rewards would remain with raid challenges. A handful (minority) of rewards would encourage character upkeep.

One can address both raid issues and incentives.

Read the rest of the post and learn some context?

Vaniki had 2 General Chats (200+ in 2nd Gen) consistently around the Level 60 cap opening up.

Once many players hit level 60, server chat pop has dropped to 200 at off-peak hours and around 400-450 at peak hours. We probably have Township Rebellion carrying most of Vaniki server pop when they will return to Luclin on expansion launch.

We will see if the next expansion shows a decline.

If another illusion level grant or goodie helps with server pop, the rising tide helps us all. Who cares about "bragging rights" if the server "feels dead" (precipitating a vicious cycle).

To stay caught up only requires a couple of hours work. We had guildies hitting level 60 2 hours after OoW landed. Giving them different rewards for leveling up isn't going to keep players on the server any longer than they are now, especially if they can get illusions for a very little work. The Vaniki illusion was a little different. I was in channel when the discussion took place with Ngreth before the server opened that the Vaniki illusions should be available to everyone who played on the server, being that was the name of the server. Especially as the King and Queen who had that illusion assigned to originally was only open world and would be difficuilt for guilds to get if one decided to lock those targets down.

The main issue I have seen from my guild is that the players have never reached or gone beyond DoN before and are completly lost on where to go and what gear to gain, not to mention not knowing first hand what the strats are for raids.

It has been interesting trying to work out how many you need to do things like epic 1.5 fights when you are 10 levels lower than normal. For me this has been the fun side of things, I'm more used to steamrolling all epic fights at level 120.

I think some of the challenges could do with being changed to other targets, to make them a little more attainable, some spells and discs could also do with being changed to 10 levels earlier, along with gear giving full stats 10 levels earlier also. I'm sure this would do more to help the raid issues than adding further rewards for leveling.

I'm still enjoying the server, but that is more down to the players than the server rule set. Everyone is sharing information and helping each other learn. This server has opened my eyes a lot to how little of EQ some have explored. I'm looking forward to taking them to explore TSS next month.

Most of all I am looking forward to getting guild banners and campfires next level increase. I miss my Stein more than anything else, but I have a while to wait for that still.

Staying caught up at this time requires grinding for DoN and PoR gear. Leveling requires time and effort for sure (few will want to bother friends or pay for a PL).

Vaniki players seem to care more about the Magus Token than the Vaniki illusion. The illusions feel less consequential than teleports and raid currency. Again, it only takes a few or handful of rewards to dangle that carrot.

I want the server to succeed. My concern is if population levels drop to sub-200 during primetime (especially after ToL Part 2 drops), devs may consider shuttering the server sooner (2023) rather than later (2024-2025). If enough characters are kept current (net pop), that proposition won't be in the realm of possibility.

It is doubtful they'd shut the server down early, selos made it to live with only 1 active guild after TDS