Newest Arelith update! 5%s! Yay or Nay?

[Dalenger]

Don't farm enough to play anything special, nor have I ever, nor will I ever, so...

Completely unaffected.

+1
Although it has always been a dream of mine to play a rakshasa (no matter how terrible a +5 ecl would be), so I have to say I'm a little bit bummed on that front.

I personally think that this could have been handled differently: If there are too many dragons... just stop letting people choose dragons. Unless there's any other custom races that are starting to get out of control, I don't see any reason to kill rakshasas or request races.

a system which limited a player to 1 attempt at a major award per period of time (say 6 months), regardless of whether that attempt is successful

Actually not that bad of an idea. Or even a year, it really shouldn't take you less than a year to make 26.

interacting with some of the people who have gotten dragons compares unfavorably with grinding glass shards into my eyes. I certainly don't trust them to handle a major server villain character with anything approximating good taste.

Eh, I have had good and bad experiences with dragons, just as I do with any other race. But the same rules apply: If they were fun to play with, I'll play with them again. If not, "srry, i was just about to log."


All in all, I think that its a step in the right direction, though not a prefect solution.

[Rispek]

Honestly I don't understand why everyone wants to play rare races (5%). If I got a major reward I would probably use it on (or attempt to); A mount, a bag of holding, a personalized coat of arms, or something else silly like that.

Although, I could see it being fun to play a rare race in a DM'ed event, a character that lasts for a week or less.

Maybe that is the way to assuage peoples cravings for rarity, give people access to a 5% character for a week or so provided they agree to play along with a DM'ed event. I could see great fun being had if a horde of dragons, or other rare races were around for a short amount of time (just long enough for groups to band together and wipe them out). Make it a Super Mark of Destiny = 1 life.

[Durvayas]

I'm completely against this decision.

It is punitive to everyone who has not abused the system, and it renders the 5% roll nearly worthless as the appeal of it was creative freedom to play something cool and outside the norm. The entire purpose of the roll was to encourage people to roll their old epics to prevent stagnation.
This custom races ruling wipes out an entire slew of potential character concepts and screws over the imaginitive.

You have effectively removed the carrot at the end of the stick. If this change remains as is, I can't think of a good reason to roll an epic anymore. The investment of time and effort is simply too high to reset for nothing.

If it goes to a monthly schedule of rotating races, all that will result of that is people getting to epic, and then shelving their PC so they can roll it when the appropriate month comes around. All this does is slightly inconvenience people who game the system(they'll just shelve their character and start grinding a new one), and completely screw over everyone else.

Rispek you can get a mount with a normal reward, and a custom coat of arms requires an override on your end or a hak on theirs.

[Trunx]

Durvayas, that's overreacting. There are still plenty of gifts to choose from if you get a Normal or Major award. The vast majority of people get, and go for, one of the Normal awards, now and before the new update. That's the carrot. If it's not for you? Well, that is a shame, but other people will still roll their characters, so nothing changes on that front.

[Rispek]

Rispek you can get a mount with a normal reward, and a custom coat of arms requires an override on your end or a hak on theirs.

I was just stating how little I understand peoples desire to play these rare races. Possibly it's because I am so new that I still find the idea of RP'ing a normal x/y character with a twist to be a lot of fun and exciting.

After I am through with my current character, I am looking forward to playing a dwarf with dreams of creating a royal house, My old classic thief, a classic knight (with mount and coat of arms), a truly evil something or other. So many characters I have rolling around in the back of my head.

Perhaps, after I am through with all those characters I will get the rare 5% bug.

[Liareth]

I think this is a good decision. If custom races were to forever disappear, it would suck! But I doubt very much that they will. Mithreas probably intends this as a temporary measure, to halt the introduction of brand new unique characters in the near future, thereby allowing time for existing ones to die off!

If you have a 5% and you're mad, chillax, have a pint, and wait for this to blow over.

[Ellaari]

a system which limited a player to 1 attempt at a major award per period of time (say 6 months), regardless of whether that attempt is successful

Actually not that bad of an idea. Or even a year, it really shouldn't take you less than a year to make 26.

Going to have to completely disagree with you, even going at a leisurely pace.

I'm totally for making 5% somehow more relevant to RP, I think there was a good discussion about having it based around RPR ticks but even that's iffy because it could just be people who play more often.

It's really hard to make a model that's completely friendly to all styles, and amounts of times that people have to RP while updating the current one so that it doesn't just favour people who CAN do it in like 2 weeks.

I'm a bit sad about the custom race thing because I had some cool ideas but I also REALLY like the idea of rotating through the races so kudos to Mith.

[Dalenger]

I think this is a good decision. If custom races were to forever disappear, it would suck! But I doubt very much that they will. Mithreas probably intends this as a temporary measure, to halt the introduction of brand new unique characters in the near future, thereby allowing time for existing ones to die off!

The trouble is, 5%s really dont just "die off". People grinder a long time or got very lucky to get their 5%, and I know that if I had one, the most I'd ever do is shelve it if I got bored. He would NEVER roll.

[Tashalar]

Mithreas probably intends this as a temporary measure, to halt the introduction of brand new unique characters in the near future, thereby allowing time for existing ones to die off!

Except, much like Planetouched, people will now simply retire them and keep them in their vaults (unless they have a MoD, which can be handled differently). It would only half be handled if all Dragons (because let's face it, Dragons are the reason for this change) or [insert-problem-race-here] were MoD'ed (because the vaulting would probably still happen).

And yeah, I disagree with time for levelling - it took me six years on my first character to get to 28 (Amelia was a wizard crafter with one remake at 19 about two-and-a-bit years in) and Azuilah is only just at 26/27 after a year and a half.

[Liareth]

Mithreas probably intends this as a temporary measure, to halt the introduction of brand new unique characters in the near future, thereby allowing time for existing ones to die off!

Except, much like Planetouched, people will now simply retire them and keep them in their vaults (unless they have a MoD, which can be handled differently). It would only half be handled if all Dragons (because let's face it, Dragons are the reason for this change) or [insert-problem-race-here] were MoD'ed (because the vaulting would probably still happen).

Whether dying off or "retiring", the net result is the same -- they are no longer played.

It's totally unfair to force an MoD on existing characters because they were unlucky enough to play during a time that a few people managed to get 5%s, I think! That doesn't seem like a real solution to me.

[Yma23]

WARNING: Post contains cyncism!

I can see why the update happened.
I'm not entirely against the update.
I think the update will solve some of the problems with there being more dragons than, say, halforcs on Arelith.
I respect the Dev team for making this decision.

But.

So back in the day... before my day... plane touched were common but roleplayed awfully. So a 30 rpr requirement was added. Then they were roleplayed better, and they were, whilst not entirely uncommon, not utterly unknown.

Then, due to Reasons, the 30 rpr requirement was eliviated slightly. (Which is to say, at one point if you had a 30 rpr, and you lost it, you could no longer play your plane touched. Then they changed it so that you could! So if, at one point, you had -ever- had 30 rpr, you could play your plane touched). And suddenly there were lots of plane touched, often played by people who... well... couldn't play them very well.

That was when plane touched were removed.

Then came Dragons. Again - a very unique reace given absoluly free reign. No oversite by DM's to see if the player had a good concept. No rpr rating. Just the ability to get to level 26 and get lucky in a roll. And because Dragons are pretty Damn Cool, both mechanicaly and thematicaly, and because there was no oversite, there ended up being a Lot Of Them, and whilst no doubt some are very well played, others... not so much.

As it stands the fact remains that the system is bias for those who can level quickly, rather than any sort of roleplay ability. And you can level much quicker by grinding than by any sort of rp. An rpr 40 MOD character cannot level as fast as someone who's the mechanical know how to just grind dungeons. And because of that, those sort of people are more likely, by statistics, to get the 5% roll.

Now tihs isn't to say that all 5% characters come from those who did mindless grinding to get to them. Nor do I say that those who do that sort of thing are even bad roleplayers! There are undoubtebly some gems in roleplay who, by coincidence, also just love to do a lot of dungeon crawling. But still...


So I'm going to make a hesitant prediction, one which I hope will be proved wrong.

Within the next six months, we will see a boom of plane touched characters. And whilst some will certainly be very well played, many will not be. And then we will see tiefling and Aasimar openly snogging in Cordor and go, 'Um Mith... we have a population problem.' And the pattern will begin all over again.

[Cortex]

Aasimars and tieflings are so last decade tho.

[Tashalar]

It's totally unfair to force an MoD on existing characters because they were unlucky enough to play during a time that a few people managed to get 5%s, I think! That doesn't seem like a real solution to me.

I know, that's why I said it would not really solve the problem

[Dalenger]

So a 30 rpr requirement was added. Then they were roleplayed better, and they were, whilst not entirely uncommon, not utterly unknown. <a bunch of other stuff>

I've heard it mentioned quite often that a rpr req should be added in order to have any special race. Was there ever a good argument against this? You don't get 30 rpr without being a good roleplayer, and as for players making 30 rpr then losing it after having created their character... all the more reason to fight to keep your 30.

[Yma23]

The argument against rpr's mattering goes essentialy as so:

'Roleplay is subjective, I'm here to have fun, not to work on someones subjective idea on what a 'good character' is! And further more it's based on DM's noticing you, and likeing you. If, say, I play in the Australian time zone, then it is going to be more difficult for me to get and be noticed by a DM. And thus it is going to be far less likely for my rpr to be raised. Especialy raised any higher than 20, as 30 requires two DM's to agree. And for that two dm's need to have noticed you. Further more it opens up accusations of DM favoritism. The ooc pals of DM's getting the 30's+ whilst those who arn't as well connected, don't.'

Personaly? For the most part I find this argument less than convincing, but I'd be a fool if I didn't recognise it had some validity.

[Irongron]

The RPR is nice, but I like to think people do it because they enjoy it, rather than for any mechanical reward.

The favoritism thing really isn't the case, from my experience. The last time I personally got a raise was before I became part of the team, and while I've been an Arelith developer I had it lowered for lack of role-play. Knowing who I was didn't make a damn bit of difference to that (And rightly so).

I guess it must have happened from time to time, but from my expereince with various DM teams I've never noticed it.

Regarding the other stuff on this thread. I'm not going to force MoDs on anyone, ever. Nor will I force people to retire their PCS.

The dragon removal wasn't because of poorly role-played dragons at all, simply because there was getting to be too many of them (As it was once with Aasimar and Tieflings). I'm not really interested in judging other people's role-play, and while I wouldn't be interested in playing a dragon PC I'm perfectly happy for others to do so.

We'll change up the system again no doubt, and are always trying to keep things fresh here, and that's just it - this wasn't about punishing anyone.

One new race wasn't quite ready in time for the update, but will likely join the others very soon. Personally I was pushing for Forest Gnomes for ages, not because they're super-charged, rather because I think they're a good fit (That and I like gnomes)

For me new races don't have to be super exotic, and while there are still some interesting and relatively common 'mundane' ones, I'm personally happy to look to those.

[msterswrdsmn]

Personally, I think its weird that dragons/rasks aren't allowed anymore due to wierdness, but aasimar/tieflings are, which were the original offenders of "weird character issues" that needed to be restricted with a 30 rpr (and eventually spilled over again when more people got 30's)

Both have lower ECL's and considerably higher bonuses, so its not like its deterring anyone from farming/rolling for a more powerful base character.

Short version: What Yma23 said

Thats all. I'm indifferent about the change itself either way.

[dirza]

If dragon subrace gave zero bonuses, i am pretty sure we would have seen like half of them.


I agree with people, whos idea for 5% is something actually for role play. Some family tradition item, custom change to existing / new character...like weapons, jewelry, books records, locations related to characters, or even a special ability in form of some limited spell, or some kind of animal companion for class which usually cannot have it. I dont need PC dragons walking cities, angels hopping down to crush evil and similar but well, thats my oppinion and i am not forcing it on anyone. Anyone can play what he likes.

[P Three]

RPR should not be a judge as to whether you are able to play something.

Hear me out here.

A lot of the people I enjoy playing with, who I log on HOPING to get to play with, are 10s or 20s. DMs are human. Human nature breeds subjectivity and there is no way around that. This is telling good people "sorry, this group of folks who don't even trust you enough to tell you who they are say your best efforts are not good enough."
Do I know why and support the reason the DMs keep anonymous? Yup. But at the end of the day they are an extremely small percentage of the playerbase, and they ARE OF THE PLAYERBASE. They are no more expret or perfect than any of us, and they simply can't see everything.

[GreatGospel]

If there are only two choices, both of which very unique .. you're bound to have their numbers rise even if it requires a 5% roll.

Why not instead have a wider variety of decidedly less special characters.

Goblinoids (Hobgobs, Bugbear), Minotaurs, Orcs, Giants, Beasts (Wereboar, werecat), Animals (RPable familiars), Driders, Mindflayers (though probably special), Dryads, Myrtle the Burrowhome cow, ect ...

[Cortex]

Aasimars and tieflings are not that unique, you can be more unique without a 5% roll to be honest.

And if Mithreas is taking suggestions:

Other types of shifters would be great(lycanthropes, doppelgangers, phasms but less so lol talking ooze, a stronger variant of Shifter class).
More types of "plane touched" and templates(pseudonatural aka far realm, genasis, lich/other undead, etc)
Special/stronger paths (new or super buffed existing paths).
Mutant/magic and or science experiment, with a few unique benefits (with the massive scientific/magic research history of Arelith I'm surprised nobody ever suggested this).
Or just flat mechanic benefits with no special races or anything(feats, ability scores, traits otherwise unobtainable).

[Trunx]

Aasimars and tieflings are not that unique, you can be more unique without a 5% roll to be honest.

And if Mithreas is taking suggestions:

Other types of shifters would be great(lycanthropes, doppelgangers, phasms but less so lol talking ooze, a stronger variant of Shifter class).
More types of "plane touched" and templates(pseudonatural aka far realm, genasis, lich/other undead, etc)
Special/stronger paths (new or super buffed existing paths).
Mutant/magic and or science experiment, with a few unique benefits (with the massive scientific/magic research history of Arelith I'm surprised nobody ever suggested this).
Or just flat mechanic benefits with no special races or anything(feats, ability scores, traits otherwise unobtainable).

Why should the 5% have super buffed or stronger variants of things?

[Cortex]

Tradition!

No, really, I got no other reason.

[Ellaari]

Or just flat mechanic benefits with no special races or anything(feats, ability scores, traits otherwise unobtainable).

Can I 5% to have HiPS?

[Cortex]

Or just flat mechanic benefits with no special races or anything(feats, ability scores, traits otherwise unobtainable).

Can I 5% to have HiPS?

It was given before as a 5%.