Pure Blood Humans Gaining PXP [?]

[Amalea]

I have two pure blood humans that I started recently.

Both are gaining PXP at day change. I believe this is due to the update:

Firstly, you will gain 1 extra PXP per day that you get your energy down to less than 5 points. Basically, use up all your energy at least once per day and you'll be gaining powers twice as fast as usual. This does not work for those who have been in training squares that day.

I believe this is a bug since pure humans have never gained pxp aside from event rewards or the 6 you get from completing the tutorial as they have no use for it.

[Dex]

I can confirm this is happening. Didn't think much of it until it was questioned.

I can't really say if it's a bug or not in the current iteration of the game, but I would argue it's fine as-is (especially if pure humans already gain PXP from the tutorial). Humans don't get powers, but PXP can be converted into EXP (which humans gain very slowly) so it is still beneficial.

[CharlotteC]

I agree with that, it would be incentive to play as a pure human for longer.

[Amalea]

I can't really say if it's a bug or not in the current iteration of the game, but I would argue it's fine as-is (especially if pure humans already gain PXP from the tutorial). Humans don't get powers, but PXP can be converted into EXP (which humans gain very slowly) so it is still beneficial.

Actually, Pure Humans can't even convert PXP to EXP. They are completely unable to access that via the powers page. Trying to access the powers page (and thus the option to exchange PXP) is met with:

Humans cannot get powers until they obtain a special class such as Blood Thief, Sorcerer or Paladin, but some unique skills are available to you.

[Dex]

Actually, Pure Humans can't even convert PXP to EXP. They are completely unable to access that via the powers page. Trying to access the powers page (and thus the option to exchange PXP) is met with:

Humans cannot get powers until they obtain a special class such as Blood Thief, Sorcerer or Paladin, but some unique skills are available to you.

Thanks for the reminder. That, I think, is a bug. There are ways for humans to get PXP (tutorial, bonus PXP, Fadebeast Tooth Necklace, PXP Orbs), but without the ability to convert these to EXP, there's no point unless the PXP can be put toward a future path. I'm not sure if they can or not, but even if they can that doesn't do much for those who prefer to play as a pure human.

I had actually bookmarked the PXP Exchange page (along with a couple others for convenience), so I can confirm pure humans can access and use this page by going directly to the URL. The bug, I think, is the lack of a proper link.

The real point in favor of pure humans getting PXP though, is that the entire point of the update referenced in the top post was to help increase the rate of level gain. If humans can't gain and exchange PXP, they become the only characters in the game who don't benefit from this. PXP Orbs are supposed to be versatile, going toward powers or EXP. If pure humans have no powers and can't convert these to EXP, then the item that benefits every single other character type in the game is useless to them.

[Caligrace]

Yeah, that shouldn’t be possible - and link manipulation such as that is exploiting a bug. I’m not saying that you are, or had any intention of doing so, but until this is resolved - I suggest stopping so you don’t get in trouble.

There was an issue a while back about the shop relic linking to the magic shop through bookmarked links, which is how I know that using those links for something they’re not meant to (even unintentionally) is a no. :)

As for the other topic - pure humans are meant to be hard and grueling to play, so I feel like they’re fine as they are. They’re not meant to level fast, or have powers, or gain PXP. To me, it makes no canon sense to alter that.

[Alexandrea]

Using a bookmarked link does count as URL manipulation, sorry Dex.

But I agree with you that it's a bug... and it should have it's own report.

If a human has the pxp from whatever means they acquired it, trading it in shouldn't be impossible... at least I don't think so.

As far as the pxp daily bonus, that was coded as an incentive to daily play. If humans are meant to be excluded from that (I don't think they should be if they are meant to be) then that's a separate bug.

[Dex]

Yeah, that shouldn’t be possible - and link manipulation such as that is exploiting a bug. I’m not saying that you are, or had any intention of doing so, but until this is resolved - I suggest stopping so you don’t get in trouble.

Using a bookmarked link does count as URL manipulation, sorry Dex.

Yeah, that's why I brought it up. It was one of a few pages I bookmarked on Cobb; didn't realize at first that Dex couldn't get there on his own. Meant to bring it up, but I forgot about it until Amalea mentioned it.

As for the other topic - pure humans are meant to be hard and grueling to play, so I feel like they’re fine as they are. They’re not meant to level fast, or have powers, or gain PXP. To me, it makes no canon sense to alter that.

I've never found "Humans are supposed to be hard to play" to be a compelling argument. It's poor game design and outright backwards by lore. The entire premise of Path of the Vampire is impossible if it's this much harder to be a human than a vampire.

That said, it makes no canon sense to alter the rate at which anyone levels. Levels are a game mechanic that make little-to-no sense in story terms. If general playability means we need to make it easier to gain levels faster, then it doesn't make sense to apply that to all but one subset of the playerbase, and it makes even less sense if that subset is already has the slowest leveling in the game. Doing things that way would only exacerbate the issue. It makes far more sense to come up with a simple fix that can be applied equally to everyone at once... which is what this mechanic does if pure humans are able to gain PXP and exchange it for EXP.

The simplest solution is to move the PXP Exchange link to a page pure humans have access to as well. Considering that pure humans have no available powers anyway, I'd probably just have the Powers menu item take them directly to PXP Exchange, perhaps with an extra line of text like the one they currently see on the empty Powers page.

[Amalea]

Any further discussion not related to either potential bug should be posted in Game Discussion so David doesn't have to wade through it once he gets a chance to look at this.

[Dex]

Any further discussion not related to either potential bug should be posted in Game Discussion so David doesn't have to wade through it once he gets a chance to look at this.

Does this need to be split up into more than one bug report? I'm not sure if this is all still one bug.