Rewards Lock

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The GrumpyCat
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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by The GrumpyCat » Mon Jul 25, 2022 9:24 pm

We could introduce set numbers of exotic reward options alongside each rotation, for example only 15 aasimar would be available, and players could enter a lottery to receive one (should they have enough points to 'buy' it) it would be a sure fire way to control rarity.

Another option would be that players can only have x number of rare races in their vault. The option to buy another would be in red (blocked) while they already have such a character.
This is actually an issue that's been plauging me for a while. But anyway-

1) I personaly am not fond of this idea for reasons that other people have already stated. Also, if this number refreshed over time (which I really hope it would) I'd worry we'd still get race number 'creep'. It'd slow down the process, but not hault it. Doing over all time (as with Vamps now) is even more problematic. It's hard enough turning away awsome app concepts for one pc race, I don't want to see it happening more.

2) The second idea is far better, but I wonder if it fixes the issue that's being stated? The issue stated goes something along the lines of. 'I want to see less wierd races around and more people just playing mundane options - or at least less flashy options.' Or at least as I understand it the concern is that. And it's valid. But if we restrict the situation to 1 5% per vault, then people can still play that 5%. What I mean is - if IronGron2022, is playing his Aasimar or his Tiefling or his Fey'Ri or his Avariael - he's still playing his super 5% concept isn't he? So that person is still playing that 'wierdness'. It does work to make sure that 5% are less likely to stick around forever I'll grant. But if I were, in that case, rolling a 5% equivilent character, it'd just be to replace, or try to replace, it with another. So the net 'wierdness' potentially remains the same.
I'm not saying I don't like this idea... in fact I think I do... I'm just unsure how effective it is?

OTHER OPTIONS
(DISCLAIMER!!! These are just random ideas! Some of them may well be bloody awful! I am NOT saying that I think we should do any of these! I'm putting them down here to get some thoughts/opinions. Don't worry, these are not plans I have in mind particularly!)

Idea 1) Making award races less attractive in a mechanical sense. OR none award races more mechanically attractive. I've not got a great mind for this, so I'm not in an ideal place to comment on how we'd do this, but the main issue we have is balencing out this, with what a race SHOULD have by lore terms. e.g. - sea elves really should be able to breathe underwater. Not being able to is just strange...

Idea 2) Locking certain more races behind RPB/Application- This might mean better roleplay, but it comes with it's own troubles. For one it's more work for the Team, for another it can lead to bitterness, resentment from players, and accusations of bias/favoritism on the part of DMs ect... and also it is predisposed against people who are either too shy and nervous to write an app and/or who are great rpers, but we havn't noticed/are in a poor time zone.

Idea 3) Limiting the amount of time an award character can be in active play: - An interesting concept, but I think some people would absolutly HATE it. People don't like being told their character has only a finite life span.

Idea 4) Limiting the amount of time a character can be in a vault: I like this less than option 3, because people take breaks, have issues, don't have time to play for periods, ect. But it's... an option I suppose.

Idea 5) Enforced MoD's for some Award characters (prob PvP only) - Ok, ok guys. Please. Put the pitchforks away. It's just an idea. Yes, yes I see you over there. Put down that flaming torch. Thank you. Whilst this makes some sense, it also could encourage griefing ect. The only thing I will say that intreages me about this idea, is that it does sort of help enforce a subltty to certain concepts. For example, it means that if your Rackshasa has an enforced MoD for PvP, it's REALLY in their interest to try and stay hidden, and not flaunt their heritage.
This too shall pass.

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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by Mattamue » Mon Jul 25, 2022 10:01 pm

As for idea 1, it's already been said in the thread, but I'll echo it again: completely divorce mechanics from the races. Choose an ancestry that you want to play for roleplay reasons.

Then choose an archetype for the actual stat block, like the beefcake archetype would be -2 dex +2 con and whatever other gifts come with that with a point buy: extra level 1 feat, larger size, smaller size, darkvision, +2 stat gift, languages, etc. Then, whatever race you pick, you choose the beefcake if you want to be a fighter. Then, your elf is still a weird alien that doesn't sleep and everything that comes along with that, but it just happens to be one that ate a lot of protein while growing up and naturally gravitated to being a fighter.

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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by xf1313 » Mon Jul 25, 2022 11:27 pm

Limiting number of rare characters per account is good at freeing up spaces for others (vampires, for one). And with huge player base, sure we’ll meet more of them but I feel they are still rare.

Making them mechanically unattactive...isn’t that the truth with monstrous race, well, stat wise some races already fell behind humans (genasi, for one, their stat is cutting them off from certain builds, play if u are ok to be weaker than others). Even those that are stronger than standard race have racial disadvantages, sunlight blindness for example.

personally would like to see more normal options, just my selfish hope cos normal is all I have lol.

Another thing that put them into disadvantage is while being a rare race, they need to find a home in ‘regular’ settlements. Any who wish to rp them proper would have to suffer from this. No magical forest for nymph and pixies to live in. No secret castle for vampires, no yuan-ti village etc. Probably that is why the last wave of fireblogs disappeared so fast.
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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by God_In_Action » Tue Jul 26, 2022 12:52 am

If there is a problem of too many major reward characters being made per month, then you could restrict the rate at which they are made by:

1) the current temporary method of limiting further reward roll attempts over time, or a variant of limiting successful rolls of time.

2) you could limit how quickly players are able to make 5% rolls by limiting the amount of exp gained over time. I.e. a maximum amount of experience could be gained per player per month, beyond which nothing further is gained, in order to stop grinding.

3) you could reduce the percentage, to be less than even 5%.

4) bring back the 30 rpr barrier. Once upon time I seem to recall 30rpr being needed for the exotic races. (And no, I don't myself meet that criteria before anyone thinks I'm being selfish)

5) make a 5% characters innately less attractive by adding a +X ECL tax not relative to mechanical power and make ECL tied to reward roll percentage, I.e. a higher ECL equals a reduced chance for rewards when deleting the character.

6) make it more attractive to delete a 5% character. Increase the % chance of a higher reward when deleting the character. This can't produce a feedback loop, because most of the deleted 5% characters will still not produce new 5% character, even if you set it crazily high. But I bet that if a bored player of a 5% character had a 50% chance upon deletion of a new major reward then they'd be inclined to take those odds.

On another line of thought, the BIG limiting factors to how many 5% characters there are in the world at one time:

1) real player time. Even if one player has lots of 5% characters, there are only so many hours in a day and they can only play one of them at any one time. In other words, it's not a problem if a player has a hundred 5% characters in their vault, since they can't put in more hours than the player with a single 5% character.

2) how quickly a player can make reward rolls to get 5% character.

3) as Irongron already said, number creep over time. If people don't ever delete their 5% characters, and there is no limit to adding to the pool then the size of the pool is likely to increase over time.

Because of number 1, I don't recommend limiting the number of 5% races per player. Because of number 2, I do recommend limiting the number of rolls a player can make, because no serious and high quality RPer should be willing to game the system. Number 3 is very hard to judge as player- it's a worry, but is it actually real in practice? Do the player stats show such an increase?

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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by Seven Sons of Sin » Tue Jul 26, 2022 2:50 am

Everything MissEvelyn said is a banger.

Ork speaks sage wisdom on the realities.

I will get wistful with Zavander.

I still don't know what story I can possibly tell with a half-giant that I can't with a halfling.

I will gladly raise pitchforks against tieflings because I'll inevitably get called a bigot and then report to a DM on it.

This thread makes me sad.
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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by Ork » Tue Jul 26, 2022 4:23 am

Here is what I do know is true — great stories are still told here. Imagine these new players as us old bones 15+ years ago, kids. My true belief, and why I still post, is that if we can get the systems right, give the DMs more of an imperative to coach (& consequence), and model for our fellow players, we all can still have fun.

When Loremaggedon hit, I was going to vote with my feet but I gave Skal a shot & and I learned a lot. Lower your expectations for others, increase your expectations for yourselves, and engage players no matter how mundane/exotic/weird the interactions. Good stories are told in that space.

I'd wager the % of players, when controlled for by population, that played drow-loving elves, cutebolds, cuddly goblins, and (now) amazonian seductresses are the same they were back 10 years ago. We just have so many more players we encounter them so much more frequently.

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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by Evianna » Wed Aug 10, 2022 2:32 am

I would just like to put forth that tying a 2 month lock to a normal reward feels like an absolute spit in the face.

Is there any chance 2 month can be tied to Greater, and Normal can sit at 1 month along with Minor?
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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by Yvesza » Wed Aug 10, 2022 2:42 am

Two months for a normal does feel pretty bad, not only did you roll the lowest tier of high reward, you're limited in the same way as if you'd have gotten as higher reward. Scaling back the lock for normal a bit would ease up the pain of seeing the same (admittedly horrifying) normal reward message.

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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by Algol » Wed Aug 10, 2022 6:26 am

Perhaps I'm the weird one here but, to me it feels like barring some unusual circumstances, if a character is not made to be rolled, they tend to last around 3 months minimum anyway. So I think 2 months for a normal is generous enough.

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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by Flower Power » Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:41 am

The reward lock is just awkward because all it's really succeeded in doing is make me regret being one of the handful of people who played the game the way it's being 'pushed' to be played "properly" and having not spent a lot of time grinding out a pile of awards instead. It suffers from the same problem that a lot of suggestions for fixing inflation in the game have suffered from - it really only punishes new players and the people who weren't taking advantage of the system.

Fortunately, it's been stressed to be a temporary fix - but it can't end up being temporary enough for my tastes, because it's a badly designed fix.
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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by AddledPunster » Wed Aug 10, 2022 12:20 pm

On the subject of how one might be able to more adequately limit the number of exceptionally rare races in the new system, if we adopt a point buy system, is it possible to implement in such a way that, the more of a particular rare race that there is on a server, the more points it would cost to create an additional one?

For example, if something like Modrons were added as a Major Reward equivalent, let's say that costs 10 Arelith Fun-time Reroll Dollars. (Please note, I have NO inclination of how the point buy system will or won't work. This is all hypothetical to convey the concept!) Once there is a Modron rolled on the server, that price gets bumped up to 11 for anyone to make a new Modron. Or maybe we want it uncommon, but not THAT uncommon? Then it only gets a +1 to cost for every 2 or 3 Modrons created. Or maybe we want it SUPER rare; +2 or 3 points for EVERY Modron created. This could encourage people 'spreading out' what they spend the points on in the point-buy system as certain races become more populated and by extension more expensive. I would wager this would also be a lot easier for the playerbase to stomach if the dev team decides they need to raise the costs of a rare race. It's a more granular option than the raw, harsh change that getting bumped from Normal to Greater, or Greater to Major would.

This could generate more variety of high end choices, making it impossible for a bunch of people to horde points and then suddenly all decide to roll in a whole Snuggybear tribe of super rare creatures rolling into Arelith one day; that concept would be expensive. Possible, but expensive. If people are pushed to other choices, sure we might still have a lot of rare, high cost creatures, but the variety of that rare tier would disguise that fact. You would likely make note of passing 3 Modrons in a day before you would make note of passing 1 fey'ri, 1 tiefling and 1 storm giant, for example.

The biggest fault I can see in this system is one of shelving, as I'm not sure how we would account for a character that is sitting in the Vault because someone is taking a break from a concept they do want to come back to. It wouldn't strike me as fair to say "Keep playing that character or lose it," nor would it be fair to say "Sorry, Modrons are going to be expensive because a lot of people have Modrons they aren't playing in their vault."

Perhaps there is a way to set a cutoff date for Vaults where they are automatically moved into a "shelf" state where you would need to reapply to get the character reactivated? But even then, how would you keep people from hopping on for one minute to keep the character out of that state, or would you have to review those cases manually? That would be a lot of work for what would possibly result in a player being mad at you for taking away a character, but automation leaves it open to manipulation.

It's a hard thing to think about. I get why the award system exists, and I get why everyone is super frustrated with it. I do have to wonder what the best option would be; at some point I think we might have to accept some amount of frustration with whatever we go with as being part of something very necessary for the server's function. Though I'd love to be proven wrong!

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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by Evianna » Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:13 pm

Algol wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 6:26 am
Perhaps I'm the weird one here but, to me it feels like barring some unusual circumstances, if a character is not made to be rolled, they tend to last around 3 months minimum anyway. So I think 2 months for a normal is generous enough.
The issue I am trying to touch on is more that I shouldn't be punished with a two month wait for wanting to tell a story that would be better with an award just because RNG said no. At least without the lock I had a chance. Now what do I do when I have my heart set on a concept character that I know would very likely make for an engaging story?

I've played default humans, elves, a noble drow, humans again, and more elves. I've told stories that didn't need awards, and I would like the opportunity to at least grind myself the chance to tell the ones that do.

This system frankly shouldn't have been implemented until we had even a bare bones replacement in place. As it is I'm close to entirely losing motivation to play because I've been deprived of the chance to grind out my gacha reward race. Once every two months to get a chance to play something I actually want to play to contribute to the server with and tell stories with is just dull.

If nothing else, normal being lowered to a month at least would make me feel less affronted for being punished twofold.
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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by Edens_Fall » Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:39 pm

xf1313 wrote:
Mon Jul 25, 2022 11:27 pm
Limiting number of rare characters per account is good at freeing up spaces for others (vampires, for one). And with huge player base, sure we’ll meet more of them but I feel they are still rare.

Making them mechanically unattactive...isn’t that the truth with monstrous race, well, stat wise some races already fell behind humans (genasi, for one, their stat is cutting them off from certain builds, play if u are ok to be weaker than others). Even those that are stronger than standard race have racial disadvantages, sunlight blindness for example.

personally would like to see more normal options, just my selfish hope cos normal is all I have lol.

Another thing that put them into disadvantage is while being a rare race, they need to find a home in ‘regular’ settlements. Any who wish to rp them proper would have to suffer from this. No magical forest for nymph and pixies to live in. No secret castle for vampires, no yuan-ti village etc. Probably that is why the last wave of fireblogs disappeared so fast.
*raises hand*

I would so vote to see a seelie/unseelie fey spot or small vampire manor like we see now with the new giant guild house.

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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by The GrumpyCat » Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:41 pm

The biggest fault I can see in this system is one of shelving, as I'm not sure how we would account for a character that is sitting in the Vault because someone is taking a break from a concept they do want to come back to. It wouldn't strike me as fair to say "Keep playing that character or lose it," nor would it be fair to say "Sorry, Modrons are going to be expensive because a lot of people have Modrons they aren't playing in their vault."

Perhaps there is a way to set a cutoff date for Vaults where they are automatically moved into a "shelf" state where you would need to reapply to get the character reactivated? But even then, how would you keep people from hopping on for one minute to keep the character out of that state, or would you have to review those cases manually? That would be a lot of work for what would possibly result in a player being mad at you for taking away a character, but automation leaves it open to manipulation.
Yeah, this is going to be The Problem with the point buy system. Now to be fair? I think that there's enough positives that it's absolutly still worth it, but it's a concern.

Your idea isn't a bad one, and indeed it's something we already sorta do manually. Every six(ish?) months I try (Try!) to lower a few awards a peg, and raise a few up a peg, as numbers and themes allow.

One problem that does come with this though- and which I will raise as a small concern with the above (though it is a good idea) is that what tends to happen is people 'rush' awards, and indeed it can make a bit of a vicious cycle which goes something like

*Race (e.g. aasimar) gets lowered, lots of people go 'ooh I've always wanted to play an aasimar and I've a greater, I will do that now!'
*We get Quite a Few aasimar.
*We panic 'Oh no! we didn't think THAT many people would pick them! let's raise it back up!'
*Aasimar gets raised back up a month later
*Next time we lower a race, people go QUICK WE MUST GET IT NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW!' And we end up with LOTS of whatever as people panic rush, giving us the false positive of something being SUPER popular
*So we panic even more and - ect.

With the above idea, when a new award came out I'd worry people would rush-grab it whilst they knew it was cheep. Which isn't ideal.

I do think when the point system comes in, or even before, we are going to need some sort of... limiting factor for awards. Current options I believe are

*MoD for major/greater award pcs
*Limited Log-In time for Greater/Major award races (Once a certain amount of ticks go by, your pc is deleted)
*Limited existance time (e.g. they will be automatically deleted after five years in your vault) for greater/major award races
*Points being more or less expensive - as you've put above
*Only allowed a certain number of greaters/majors in vault at any one time
*Hard limit on certain races*


Of all these I think I like the limited numbers in vault best... though I'd be a smidge generous with this personally. The one I will confess I dispise the most is the Hard Limit on races. It's harsh enough with Vampires, and again I really feel this encourages people to just rush-buy awards. Further more this tends to go hand in hand with apps and wilst I'm certainly not against putting a few races behind apps, it's not something I'd like to see as a general thing. Too much work.
This too shall pass.

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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by WanderingPoet » Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:52 pm

The GrumpyCat wrote:
Mon Jul 25, 2022 9:24 pm
Idea 1) Making award races less attractive in a mechanical sense. OR none award races more mechanically attractive. I've not got a great mind for this, so I'm not in an ideal place to comment on how we'd do this, but the main issue we have is balencing out this, with what a race SHOULD have by lore terms. e.g. - sea elves really should be able to breathe underwater. Not being able to is just strange...
Number one is the obvious given; it's pretty poor design to have mechanically superior races be behind a %chance to unlock; and a poor idea if you want the races to be played in such a way that the players care about the lore of the race any keep the immersion of the race.

I highly doubt anyone looks at aquatic elf for the fact it can breathe water, and more look at it for the fact it starts with free trident access and has really really easy access to epic damage reduction which elves struggle to get. Do some people play them for the lore? Of course, but they're mechnically superior for many melee builds, like genasi and avariel and many other races are, and they'll definitely be chosen by some (or many) for that.

If they're mechanically better then there is advantage to grinding out for those reward races; if they're mechanically better then there will always be people that make it for the mechanics and then figure out the lore later.

The little cookies like reduced falling damage/breathing water/spot welding are nice, but not really mechanically useful.

Mattamue's idea would be great; remove the mechanics entirely so people play lorewise the race they're looking for, but have the mechanics divorced.

==================================
As for the length limits; while I can understand why someone would feel 2 months is too long, I don't think it's good to look at it as a punishment. If the goal is to convince people to RP characters and not just grind them out, then you have two months to make a meaningful story before you throw that character to the abyss.

Unfortunately solving one major issue (of the need and thus high occurence of throw away characters and shifting people towards not caring about new characters until they've stuck around a bit) creates a new problem (of making it harder to tell the story with the character race you really want).

That 'new' problem has long existed, and the fact people needed to grind to get that story was always a problem. Mass grinding of characters for awards is, unfortunately, a rather major problem so I'm glad the lock is in place - but I can empathize with the desire to try to get through the gatcha system to get the character you really want. Hopefully the point buy system solves both problems and arrives sooner rather than later!
===============
On the hard limits, I think that if things were less rare (points buy) then people would sit on them less. We'll likely have a large influx of special races as people FINALLY get to play that thing they wanted to play -forever-. But eventually people will settle down, and things will stabilize. As Grumpy points out, the fact that aasimar drops to greater for a month encourages people to mass make them since they FINALLY get to play that story. If you can play it any time then what's the rush? No need to sit on it forever, no need to grind for it; just do it when the time is right.
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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by Evianna » Wed Aug 10, 2022 2:22 pm

The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:41 pm
I do think when the point system comes in, or even before, we are going to need some sort of... limiting factor for awards. Current options I believe are

*MoD for major/greater award pcs
*Limited Log-In time for Greater/Major award races (Once a certain amount of ticks go by, your pc is deleted)
*Limited existance time (e.g. they will be automatically deleted after five years in your vault) for greater/major award races
I can't state just how much these make me recoil in fear. I can make my peace with the last one, but 1 and 2? God, no. No, no, no. MoD greater/major will be griefed out of existence, but perhaps the worst thing there?

A limited log in time???

That's punishing you for PLAYING the character and not doing it "efficiently". What if the story is at its peak? What if you need time to tidy things up for others' sake?

Please, don't implement that. It's absolutely horrible.
The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:41 pm
*Points being more or less expensive - as you've put above
*Only allowed a certain number of greaters/majors in vault at any one time
*Hard limit on certain races*
All of these are absolutely fine and I can't imagine anyone will argue with these being fair.
you may remember me from such idiot characters as:

mystery

iyelle ixit'shii - waiting for her Death to come for her in Menzoberranzan
raimie mistmantle - sold into slavery
yukana ("malyss") - in a castle with her elf in kozakura

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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by AstralUniverse » Wed Aug 10, 2022 2:41 pm

The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:41 pm
*MoD for major/greater award pcs
*Limited Log-In time for Greater/Major award races (Once a certain amount of ticks go by, your pc is deleted)
These ideas punish players for taking risks and actually playing the character and would 100% result in players going afk with rare race characters and never rolling. If I were to have a rare race in my vault and I have limited time to be online on it I would rather use that time when I'm not busy at work, or with other things in real life and actually have a good amount of time per-day to invest into it and do something meaningful with it, and it just pressed me to not play the character until I have such a period of time in real life. It would also mean I would naturally do my best not to piss off anyone in game until I've had enough and I'm ready to consume my 10 lives. That's a sad way to play the game tbh and I dont want to feel pressured in that direction, personally.
The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:41 pm
*Limited existance time (e.g. they will be automatically deleted after five years in your vault) for greater/major award races
This part makes more sense. I think even if we take the current system and slap on a 5 year timer it would really do wonders to the rare races cycle, how many players get to play them, and how rare they feel in game. So I can get behind this idea, regardless of points 1-2 which I'm definitely not in favor of. I think 5 years is a pretty long time to play 1 character but it's still short compared to the age of some characters we have out there. Seems like an isolated-to-the-problem solution.
The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:41 pm
*Only allowed a certain number of greaters/majors in vault at any one time
*Hard limit on certain races*
I think if a rare character's life span is limited to even 5 years, these two points wont matter as much.
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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by Yvesza » Wed Aug 10, 2022 2:48 pm

The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:41 pm
*MoD for major/greater award pcs
*Limited Log-In time for Greater/Major award races (Once a certain amount of ticks go by, your pc is deleted)
*Limited existance time (e.g. they will be automatically deleted after five years in your vault) for greater/major award races
*Hard limit on certain races
Honestly some of these suggestions are frightening to behold, they'd enforce a cliqueish style of play and move us so far away from the leisurely drop in and drop out roleplay that Arelith provides to so many.

MoD for major and greater PC's means that anyone playing a greater or major needs to not only play a powerful build and avoid going with the thing that they think might be fun, but also shouldn't ever take any risks for fear of losing a character they might've poured their heart and soul into. It makes people far less likely to take a chance and engage in any kind of conflict and, if they do engage in any conflict they're so much less likely to give anyone a fair chance for fear of losing out on their character.

Limiting log in time means that people would be pushed towards the objective style gameplay that is specifically even mentioned as being something players with lower RPR will tend to focus on. Earlier today I had a bit of time to spare so I just wandered around a city to check up on some of the fixtures people had given nice descriptions and placed, with this system I'd be pushed towards using an alt instead to do the same thing because if I were a greater or higher I'd be ticking down valuable time.
No one wants to feel forced to be optimal with their time, it's just not fun for anyone.

Limiting the number of greaters & majors in vault is perhaps the most elegant solution, it doesn't demand anyone do anything or enforce a certain style of gameplay. But for someone that already has a few shelved higher tier reward characters they'll eventually have to make a decision if it's really worth holding onto them over a fresh face.

Hard limits just circle back around to the same issue now of people shelving higher tier reward characters over rolling them. Perhaps this could be mitigated by giving people some kind of reward for shuffling off their long vaulted majors? I wouldn't know what to suggest honestly but I think this would be a better solution.

For a long time there really weren't any exciting greater rewards and then, when something gets lowered to greater all of the people that had been saving their greaters now have a new exciting thing to spend it on. Then we suddenly have a wave of 50 firbolgs running around, firbolg gets bumped to major and then we're back to where we were. People start saving up greaters because they've not much to spend them on and then the next thing gets introduced...
With that said, I feel like the recent addition of the many new award races did a *lot* to resolve the issue. We have a lot more half-giants running around now but they're spread between greaters and major rewards. The same thing goes for Kenku and Gloamings, there was an initial influx but now people have a choice. People aren't hoarding their rewards anymore because there's a lot of new things to experience which, for the longest time the only really outstanding things were locked up in major.

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Party in the forest at midnight
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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by Party in the forest at midnight » Wed Aug 10, 2022 4:05 pm

*MoD for major/greater award pcs
This would result in people killbashing special races into oblivion. Especially vampires which have hit a hard cap. If it has a positive, people would finally take concealing being a vampire seriously. But the moment they get found out, it's game over.
*Limited Log-In time for Greater/Major award races (Once a certain amount of ticks go by, your pc is deleted)
This is the worst suggestion. As others have said it actively punishes you for playing your character. There's a lot of idling involved in the game, or meetings or other activities where you spend a lot of time trying to convince players of things. This is a worse version of having 2 years to play a character because actually playing it makes it go by faster. If a timer is implemented it should be a static number of years (as said below)
*Limited existance time (e.g. they will be automatically deleted after five years in your vault) for greater/major award races
As someone who usually plays long lived characters, this time frame is too generous and should be lowered to 3 years.
*Only allowed a certain number of greaters/majors in vault at any one time
This is my favourite option out of all of them. It naturally incentivizes people to roll their greater/major if something new comes out they want to play. It's less limiting and punishing and lets the player decide for themself.

Slapstick
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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by Slapstick » Wed Aug 10, 2022 4:19 pm

Maybe I'm going against the grain here, but I actually think the current system is great and I believe healthy for the server. Character turnover is necessary to create a continuous cycle of new blood, characters, plots and it helps the server not go stale. The added timer on rolling will IMHO go a long way towards "fixing" the issue of characters being currency rather than the actually character one wishes to play. The only thing that's a bit of a bummer is that you can roll 5 characters and easily not get a greater or major. As much as I enjoyed my pixie, I know i'd be super-depressed by never getting the chance to play one due to unluckiness. If we could uptrade at a rate of 3:1 I think it would be much better.

Evianna
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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by Evianna » Wed Aug 10, 2022 5:30 pm

Demonizing people for having less investment in characters they don't want to play as much as things they do want to play and wanting it to be over and done with sooner is really near the top of the list of things that irks me here.

I choose this server over the plethora of other games available to have fun, not to be told I should be:
  • having MORE fun than I possibly can with a roll-bait character
  • prolonging that character's life. I am, at that point, just there to support others' story - which is fine sometimes, but not what I want to do all of the time, and my RP is worse when I don't have any real investment.
  • putting more time and investment into characters I'm just not feeling but have to keep playing for an arbitrary length of time until I'm permitted to try again and likely end up repeating the process for another two months.
Sometimes for whatever reason a character just doesn't click, or you don't have a concept for everything, or you don't want to do another base race right off the back of the last one.

Some of the proposed changes (and even some of the ones that have been added recently) are starting to feel like "this is how you should be playing."
you may remember me from such idiot characters as:

mystery

iyelle ixit'shii - waiting for her Death to come for her in Menzoberranzan
raimie mistmantle - sold into slavery
yukana ("malyss") - in a castle with her elf in kozakura

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Ork
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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by Ork » Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:23 pm

Why are you making roll-bait characters? Maybe you're right and Arelith isn't for you.

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Algol
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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by Algol » Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:55 pm

It's perfectly normal to have a character that just doesn't click and have them deleted in pretty short amount of time. But I don't see why such characters should be rewarded? IMO "Epic Sacrifice" shouldn't be seen as a reward for leveling a character but rather investing in one.

xanrael
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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by xanrael » Wed Aug 10, 2022 8:36 pm

I think that limiting the number of reward characters in a vault is best of those choices.

I know from having limited play time on Arelith I would be frustrated and lose motivation to play if a character of mine was auto-deleted not for anything done in game but simply due to some time limit.

I'd rather see MoD enforced on all level 30 characters than specific award ones, I don't picture PvP where one side is literally immortal while the other has a life counter as being particularly healthy. From a player standpoint I tend to let the other party start the fight even if it increases the risk of visiting the fugue to extend the pre-fight RP as much as the other side is willing. In a situation where I have an enforced MoD and the other side doesn't I'd be less likely to operate that way. Maybe that makes me a bad player, but I doubt that line of thinking would be an anomaly.

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Purplemyst
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Re: Rewards Lock

Post by Purplemyst » Wed Aug 10, 2022 8:45 pm


*MoD for major/greater award pcs
*Limited Log-In time for Greater/Major award races (Once a certain amount of ticks go by, your pc is deleted)
*Limited existance time (e.g. they will be automatically deleted after five years in your vault) for greater/major award races
*Points being more or less expensive - as you've put above
*Only allowed a certain number of greaters/majors in vault at any one time
*Hard limit on certain races*
All these rewards suggestions are terrible, why can we not just enjoy the reward cookies. I honestly do not get the issue with so many greater/major award races running around. If someone else playing a race or seeing so many of a particular race bothers them or it ruins their immersion, that's their problem.

If the Devs don't want too many running around lower the chance of attaining the reward. But don't limit someone's time and choose when that time comes to an end. I personally would like to choose when my character checks out.

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