Arelith

I don't want to take the balance thread off topic anymore than it already is, but a theme going on in there is player fatigue over constant changes that ruin character viability to an extent people feel the character is unplayable. A lot of it has to do with level 1 choices, which can't be retaken.

I know the mechanical issues surrounding allowing people to retake level 1, the server is ancient and has so much legacy stuff that it'd be impossible to let people retake level 1 normally.

What I propose instead is a new system that allows for characters to be flagged for an enhanced remake, where inventory, property, and gold is transferred to a new character of the same name. Players would have to apply for this so it wouldn't be abused, or could automatically get a token for it if there's a massive change to a class.

If players had the reassurance that they could remake and not lose everything, it would take the sting away from gigantic changes to classes. It's really depressing hearing about friends feeling like they need to roll their characters because they aren't viable anymore. A lot of RP I am in is potentially going to be shut down if everyone rolls, and it's disheartening.

+1

Huge sweeping class/archetype changes (which Arelith goes through an awful lot these days) can often make or break a character, particularly when they make niche builds that don't follow cookie-cutter designs unviable. It happens a lot more often than people think.

The above option is not our current consideration.

We have taken opportunities to test new features that have been worked on by our contributors that might allow for editing of first level classes and feat selections to open up some flexibility. However, we have not scratched the surface on how base stats would be handled and such. Once we are more comfortable with the system that is currently there, which only DMs have access to at the time, we will post on how this will work and what can be done.

But, we are looking to make it easier on the player base with larger sweeping changes by implementing this.

Id like to see the proposal in the initial Post too.

Can you explain the concerns of the Team why this wouldnt be a good idea?

fulminea wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 08, 2022 7:04 pm

Id like to see the proposal in the initial Post too.

Can you explain the concerns of the Team why this wouldnt be a good idea?

It's a nice suggestion. Don't get me wrong. But, it would be a lot of work to get this to function properly with our code and database. And, we'd have to find some way of making things transfer over.

We already have a system currently in place to alleviate some frustrations. But, we are working on some finer details. Please just give it a bit and I'll respond with them when they are finalized. The new method is a lot cleaner when handling first class stuff (stats exempted from that because they are their own monster).

Thank you very much for the reply. I hope everyone thinking of rolling holds off for a bit.

Party in the forest at midnight wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 08, 2022 7:15 pm

Thank you very much for the reply. I hope everyone thinking of rolling holds off for a bit.

Provided such remakes will be open and available to those who have suffered through level 1 feats and/or ability score choices that no longer fit in the build.

MissEvelyn wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 08, 2022 7:55 pm

Party in the forest at midnight wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 08, 2022 7:15 pm

Thank you very much for the reply. I hope everyone thinking of rolling holds off for a bit.

Provided such remakes will be open and available to those who have suffered through level 1 feats and/or ability score choices that no longer fit in the build.

This was my thought too. If it's an "all characters made going forward" situation then it's not very useful.

Just wanted to tack on a +1.

While I have yet to be affected directly by a change myself, it is incredibly disheartening seeing characters be rolled that folks still immensely enjoyed playing a day before, or worse players stepping away from Arelith (at least for a time) because of these.

FallenDabus wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 09, 2022 12:10 pm

Just wanted to tack on a +1.

While I have yet to be affected directly by a change myself, it is incredibly disheartening seeing characters be rolled that folks still immensely enjoyed playing a day before, or worse players stepping away from Arelith (at least for a time) because of these.

I 100% agree with this sentiment.
Also, I've noticed an increase of the "different name and build, same character as the previous one (same RP concept, personality, quirks and mannerisms, even the same outfit)" meme.

-XXX- wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 09, 2022 12:55 pm

Also, I've noticed an increase of the "different name and build, same character as the previous one (same RP concept, personality, quirks and mannerisms, even the same outfit)" meme.

*guiltily raises hand*

It's because the mechanical character has been killed by an update, but the character's personality itself is still fun to play. I mostly play forest gnomes so I can't reuse names, as every time one gets splatted by an update I need to roll them rather than remaking them.

-remake_character doesn't give you your award back, you see, making it completely useless to remake an award character.

I'm not particularly proud of the behaviour but it's a direct response to external stimuli.

AFAIK after personally messaging the DM team about that sort of thing in the past is it goes against their motto of encouraging character retirement.

Encouraging retirement of characters who've been around for years is a good thing but these increasingly frequent overhauls hit a lot more characters who may be a few months old and still have life in them. It's rarely "well, they had a good run", it's a lot more "my 3 month old level 27 was just ramping up and now they're ruined".

Hence the fatigue. Most reasonable players understand things change but too much change is wearying and unsettling. Characters need to rotate out but when it's too fast or feels forced and premature there's less player investment when leads to a real dip in quality of RP. Any tool to keep characters who still have a story to tell alive through these balance updates is very welcome.

OK, quick question here:

Is this about spellswords?
If so, how are they ruined?

Are the starting stats optimal for the new spellsword so diametrally different from the old ones that it's impossible to salvage the character with -relevel?

I know at least one STR spellsword rolled. I've never played the class, I don't know how stat spreads varied between old spellsword and new. But it was bad enough that someone felt they had to roll.

There is no use for 20 INT anymore since you can not take epic spells. It is quite shitty especially if you took a +2 INT gift to get your character's Intelligence to 20, since it does not bring any relevant benefits compared to 18 INT for the new spellsword.

Know that I say this with all affection, but ya'll really like to over-rely on your automated systems for character management. Just because it can't be done *elegantly* doesn't mean it can't and shouldn't be done client-side.

How we did it back in the day: Cookies/tokens that store the character's inventory and other relevant information. DM holds the cookie. DM gives the cookie to a new character with a slightly different name, which said character then eats to repopulate their inventory, XP, gold, ect.

The DM time commitment is negligible and is just enough oversight to weed out most forms of abuse. I'd bang out several remake requests in a couple minutes when logging into a DM session, no biggie. It just has to come with the understanding that the DM isn't going to sit there and hold your hand while you screw up your build half a dozen times.

Keep in mind that the playerbase has grown almost exponentially since then. Now we're not looking at a dozen players per DM, but a couple hundred players per DM, if not thousands even. If might be easy to log in and knock out a dozen, but if a major update drops and over a hundred people submit requests for these tokens I don't think many DM's would be too keen to log in and spend a couple of hours as a token dispenser bot.

ReverentBlade wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 10, 2022 12:13 pm

Know that I say this with all affection, but ya'll really like to over-rely on your automated systems for character management. Just because it can't be done *elegantly* doesn't mean it can't and shouldn't be done client-side.

How we did it back in the day: Cookies/tokens that store the character's inventory and other relevant information. DM holds the cookie. DM gives the cookie to a new character with a slightly different name, which said character then eats to repopulate their inventory, XP, gold, ect.

The DM time commitment is negligible and is just enough oversight to weed out most forms of abuse. I'd bang out several remake requests in a couple minutes when logging into a DM session, no biggie. It just has to come with the understanding that the DM isn't going to sit there and hold your hand while you screw up your build half a dozen times.

This is nice for that server on how they managed it; however, it is not applicable to Arelith and the back end system. Without knowledge of the intricacies on how the server is managed, anyone can present a solution. But, there has to be one that works with our system.

Characters when created are assigned a player character ID number. These are unique to each character, and increment as a new character is created. PCID is used to track a lot of information over; portals, property, banks, etc. Simply creating a character and moving their inventory, gold and xp is easy. Doing the other aspect would require a lot of manual intervention by one or two people. Not the DM team. But, Hoodoo or myself.

For just LETO edits, I broke it down here: viewtopic.php?f=37&t=35861&start=25#p281700

If you look at player numbers currently compared to DMs (if DMs had the power to set everything right again - although they are lacking database access), the following plays into it:

1) We have about 2100 active users a month, and when new year / holidays end, we usually see this climb back up to around 2200.
2) We currently have 13 active DM members on the team.

2100 / 13 = 161.5 players / DM ~ 162 players / DM
2200 / 13 = 169.2 players / DM ~ 170 players / DM.

Smaller population servers might benefit from the above, but this would significantly tie up DM time. And, the solution is not as simple as just hiring more DMs.

As I made mention before:

We have taken opportunities to test new features that have been worked on by our contributors that might allow for editing of first level classes and feat selections to open up some flexibility. However, we have not scratched the surface on how base stats would be handled and such. Once we are more comfortable with the system that is currently there, which only DMs have access to at the time, we will post on how this will work and what can be done.

But, we are looking to make it easier on the player base with larger sweeping changes by implementing this.

We already have a system in place that we are going to be releasing in the next few days and expanding upon as we iron out some finer details (this could be further automation as to what can happen with it, or how it will handle stat adjustments). However, we are doing our best with what is possible and what would ultimately save time in the long run for individuals to ensure that level 1 modifications are considered.

fulminea wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 08, 2022 7:04 pm

Id like to see the proposal in the initial Post too.

Can you explain the concerns of the Team why this wouldnt be a good idea?

Please see above about database, but to sum:

Bank Accounts, Crafting Points, Portals, Property, Muling, Attunements, etc.

MissEvelyn wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 08, 2022 7:55 pm

Party in the forest at midnight wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 08, 2022 7:15 pm

Thank you very much for the reply. I hope everyone thinking of rolling holds off for a bit.

Provided such remakes will be open and available to those who have suffered through level 1 feats and/or ability score choices that no longer fit in the build.

This is our intended path; right now I can say that it handles class, and starting feats. Stats is something we need to look into.

Wings of Peace wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 09, 2022 7:13 am

MissEvelyn wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 08, 2022 7:55 pm

Party in the forest at midnight wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 08, 2022 7:15 pm

Thank you very much for the reply. I hope everyone thinking of rolling holds off for a bit.

Provided such remakes will be open and available to those who have suffered through level 1 feats and/or ability score choices that no longer fit in the build.

This was my thought too. If it's an "all characters made going forward" situation then it's not very useful.

Finer details to come on this; however, its not all characters going forward. It would be to alleviate the issues around larger changes, and enable some flexibility in fixing (so long as it makes sense, etc). We're trying to do our best to be fair to everyone.

MRFTW wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 09, 2022 1:47 pm

-XXX- wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 09, 2022 12:55 pm

Also, I've noticed an increase of the "different name and build, same character as the previous one (same RP concept, personality, quirks and mannerisms, even the same outfit)" meme.

*guiltily raises hand*

It's because the mechanical character has been killed by an update, but the character's personality itself is still fun to play. I mostly play forest gnomes so I can't reuse names, as every time one gets splatted by an update I need to roll them rather than remaking them.

-remake_character doesn't give you your award back, you see, making it completely useless to remake an award character.

I'm not particularly proud of the behaviour but it's a direct response to external stimuli.

Correct, -remake_character does not refund rewards. And, that is the intended feature. Players have up until hitting level 11 to refund characters, reward or otherwise.

Spyre wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 10, 2022 7:47 pm

Characters when created are assigned a player character ID number. These are unique to each character, and increment as a new character is created. PCID is used to track a lot of information over; portals, property, banks, etc. Simply creating a character and moving their inventory, gold and xp is easy. Doing the other aspect would require a lot of manual intervention by one or two people. Not the DM team. But, Hoodoo or myself.

Personally I would already be happy if my character's inventory, gold and xp were salvaged.

All the additional information that may be more difficult to migrate (portals, property, whatever else there might be) is an acceptable price to pay in my eyes, if I were given the opportunity to rework my character and get to keep them.

In either case, thank you for taking the time to respond to all the comments that came up.

fulminea wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 10, 2022 8:16 pm

Spyre wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 10, 2022 7:47 pm

Characters when created are assigned a player character ID number. These are unique to each character, and increment as a new character is created. PCID is used to track a lot of information over; portals, property, banks, etc. Simply creating a character and moving their inventory, gold and xp is easy. Doing the other aspect would require a lot of manual intervention by one or two people. Not the DM team. But, Hoodoo or myself.

Personally I would already be happy if my character's inventory, gold and xp were salvaged.

All the additional information that may be more difficult to migrate (portals, property, whatever else there might be) is an acceptable price to pay in my eyes, if I were given the opportunity to rework my character and get to keep them.

In either case, thank you for taking the time to respond to all the comments that came up.

This is the intention - the method we have preserves characters, does not require a delete and saves properties, gold, portals, and all that.

Spyre wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 10, 2022 8:22 pm

fulminea wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 10, 2022 8:16 pm

Spyre wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 10, 2022 7:47 pm

Characters when created are assigned a player character ID number. These are unique to each character, and increment as a new character is created. PCID is used to track a lot of information over; portals, property, banks, etc. Simply creating a character and moving their inventory, gold and xp is easy. Doing the other aspect would require a lot of manual intervention by one or two people. Not the DM team. But, Hoodoo or myself.

Personally I would already be happy if my character's inventory, gold and xp were salvaged.

All the additional information that may be more difficult to migrate (portals, property, whatever else there might be) is an acceptable price to pay in my eyes, if I were given the opportunity to rework my character and get to keep them.

In either case, thank you for taking the time to respond to all the comments that came up.

This is the intention - the method we have preserves characters, does not require a delete and saves properties, gold, portals, and all that.

This is amazing, and it's definitely something I look forward to. Even if in the end all we get is the ability to swap out level 0 feats, that is better than nothing =)

Spyre wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 10, 2022 8:22 pm

fulminea wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 10, 2022 8:16 pm

Spyre wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 10, 2022 7:47 pm

Characters when created are assigned a player character ID number. These are unique to each character, and increment as a new character is created. PCID is used to track a lot of information over; portals, property, banks, etc. Simply creating a character and moving their inventory, gold and xp is easy. Doing the other aspect would require a lot of manual intervention by one or two people. Not the DM team. But, Hoodoo or myself.

Personally I would already be happy if my character's inventory, gold and xp were salvaged.

All the additional information that may be more difficult to migrate (portals, property, whatever else there might be) is an acceptable price to pay in my eyes, if I were given the opportunity to rework my character and get to keep them.

In either case, thank you for taking the time to respond to all the comments that came up.

This is the intention - the method we have preserves characters, does not require a delete and saves properties, gold, portals, and all that.

Outright sorcery, thanks you guys.

Speaking for myself, I walked away from Arelith for several years on account of disappointment not being able to fix level 1 stats on a reward race after major mechanical changes.

Xanrick wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:22 pm

Speaking for myself, I walked away from Arelith for several years on account of disappointment not being able to fix level 1 stats on a reward race after major mechanical changes.

I really hope you, along with the rest of us, will be able to fix our level 1 choices soon =)