Timer on Roll

[Itikar]

Just a small reminder, though: many of the greater award races and even some major ones are hardly rare creatures. They are at most uncommon to be seen as playable characters in a normal D&d campaign.

An ogre or a tiefling can hardly be called incredibly special or really exotic. We even have the inconsistent situation in which genasi, which are rarer than tiefling or aasimar in the lore, are actually more common on the server due to having a lower award tier on human base. The case can be made for a few of the award races to be a bit too rare right now. An avariel, a legitimately exotic and rare race in Faerun, is put on par with a firbolg, which is not even remotely in the same league. Or with neutral aasimar and tieflings, which is as well pretty far fetched. The reality is that a good number of the award races are not so exotic, after all. That is also something that ought to be considered in my humble opinion.

[AstralUniverse]

I think it's safe to say that the award system missed its mark:

• incentivizes the creation and high turnover of throwaway characters
• heavily incentivezes the retention of award characters that pile up over time

= populates the server with superficial short-lived speedrunny toons AND slowly but steadily floods it with rare stuff

I generally agree, but the part where it 'slowly but steadily floods it with rare stuff' isnt necessarily true. For this to be true, that rare stuff would also need to be powerful, otherwise it becomes people's shelf character that we dont actually see much in the game except in events. And quite a lot of the greater/majors are absolute garbage.

[TheDoctor]

The entire system is flawed. It should be based off of rewarding peoples RP and not how fast can grind to 30 and roll.

Why should the person who grinds all day with zero rp or interactions with other players get rewarded?

Why shouldn't the people that get on and go out of their way to RP with people and breathe life into other peoples stories NOT get rewarded?

[Coolguy McMagic]

I would much, MUCH prefer slow leveling and harsher death penalites over the soul-crushing randomness of the current award system.

Also statistically speaking, allowing people to just get a guaranteed major after every 10th roll would leave us with the same amount of major award races that we have now. It would just remove the obnoxious random element.

[Xerah]

The entire system is flawed. It should be based off of rewarding peoples RP and not how fast can grind to 30 and roll.

Why should the person who grinds all day with zero rp or interactions with other players get rewarded?

Why shouldn't the people that get on and go out of their way to RP with people and breathe life into other peoples stories NOT get rewarded?

I agree but...

It's because then people will assume that the reason they don't get anything is because the DMs are jerks and only give things to the people that they like. I've been a DM on multiple NWN servers and none of them have this bias favouritism, but there were weekly/monthly accusations of it. You don't see that here aside from the RPR arguments that pop up once a quarter or so.

The other reasons are (there are probably some others):

• The player base is so large, that it's hard for DMs to watch everyone (especially on less popular TZ)

• Some players (maybe a majority, or a loud minority) already don't like the DM events and "actively avoid them"

It's kind of like a baby and bathwater situation but those complaints are super demoralizing for staff to constantly deal with, so I can understand wanting to keep it easy and even across the board.

[Diegovog]

First thing that needs to go is the slot machine aspect that brings out people’s urge to keep trying to get lucky. I feel like it should just be a straight process with heavy limitations. Like once a month you can trade an epic for a guaranteed minor, two months for a normal, one year for a greater, two or three for a major with application. Let everyone have a chance to play that special race that appeals to them, but then there’s a long cooldown so they can’t have a vault full of rare characters

Something like this would be nice.

[Cthuletta]

I have to agree with Xerah.
It'd put quite the amount of strain on a team that's already handling a massive server, and would only serve for accusations of favoritism regardless if there was any or not. That's not even counting unconscious bias, which nobody can help. Coming from a server where all 'special' races/classes/goodies were open-forum application based, and DMs had to approve as a majority in the public eye in combination with payment for RP/Time Spent, I MUCH prefer the RNG.

Not to say the RNG is perfect, I think we could do with some tweaking. I like the idea of combining awards and lowering the timer on normals. However, no matter what system is implemented, you will always have folks who play for a while, and roll as soon as the timer is up, doesn't matter how long that timer might be, or if there isn't one. There's no real way to get around that, and if someone wants to put in months and months of work just to roll to get their ideal character, I say let 'em. They're clearly passionate about that concept, which will likely result in a better character for them anyway!

For incentivizing rolling longer-term characters, as someone who mains their Major, I can't say I'm in any way inclined to let her go given how lucky I was to get that 5% roll. If I was guaranteed a Greater with a small chance for another Major, maybe I'd consider it? Hard to say. I'd be pretty bummed to roll only to end up with another Normal that I'll never use. From a couple others I've spoken to on the topic, they feel much the same.
Perhaps a greater % chance on a higher award after a certain amount of time spent online on that particular character? Like so many hours means you get a +1%? Though, that feels a bit like rewarding those who have the time to play regularly vs. those who have busy lives outside the game and can't help it. Just a rambling thought. Overall it's a difficult system to make fair for every single player, especially one as large as Arelith.

[TheDoctor]

I have to agree with Xerah.
It'd put quite the amount of strain on a team that's already handling a massive server, and would only serve for accusations of favoritism regardless if there was any or not. That's not even counting unconscious bias, which nobody can help. Coming from a server where all 'special' races/classes/goodies were open-forum application based, and DMs had to approve as a majority in the public eye in combination with payment for RP/Time Spent, I MUCH prefer the RNG.

Yeah I am from there as well. The thing though is their system is on one extreme side of the spectrum while ours is on the opposite side. Neither works very well. If the word "Action" came before Arelith I wouldnt really mind but it still says "RP".

Maybe thats the change that needs to happen. Stop pretending to be something we are not and have not been for a while now.

[The GrumpyCat]

IMO the best options is a system where everyone can eventually get an award at least in theory, a mechanical system...

BUT!

Where good roleplay and DM rewards can increase the speed (chance?) of getting said awards.

[xanrael]

IMO the best options is a system where everyone can eventually get an award at least in theory, a mechanical system...

BUT!

Where good roleplay and DM rewards can increase the speed (chance?) of getting said awards.

Maybe both mechanical effects and DM judgement go into the same calculation with a cap to decrease the worry of favoritism.

For example, using the current system, it would be a combination of gear value/gold and RPR to reach +5%. Though you could still hit the cap just with gold/gear or just RPR at the extremes.

Then add in factors like DM kudos for that individual character and maybe player kudos of that character. Player kudos (/recommend?) could even be weighted by player faction and starting area so a gold dwarf recommending a drow would have more weight than 2 drow both belonging to House Stabbification. Ideally it would reward more compelling antagonist behavior though could backfire and cause tea time in Cordor. I think avoiding having a downvote system could minimize the latter.

Edit: Might need a cooldown period or similar for the same CDKeys constantly recommending each other etc to lessen the effect of OOC groups.

[AstralUniverse]

Guys it's not gonna happen. Leave the DMs out of it. We've automated everything we possibly can, specifically to leave DMs out of all this bs. DMs are cool folk but they are also players and they too (as DMs and also as players) experience burn-out from time to time and I think we'd rather they experience it less. You also cannot expect DMs to be a partial metric in people's awards because they cannot possibly cover the entire player base. We would need x3 more DMs and the quality of the DMs would be proportionately lower in such numbers. Just leave the DMs out of it. Also, as already stated above correctly, a lot of (good) roleplayers avoid DM events like the plague because those can get really crowded really fast, and a good roleplayer usually leaves the spotlight for others or leaves the scene entirely in those situations so its really not a good metric for awards. RPR is different in that it doesnt unlock you anything except kobold rdd, and is also something that you build up over some time, reach a tier that is in line with your playstyle and it sort of remains stale from that point.

[-XXX-]

Players clearly want equity where the setting integrity can't handle it.

Arelith is set in a D&D high fantasy setting already - there's countless unique and interesting character concepts available for a human character alone. Does having wings/horns/tail/etc. really help players who are unable/unwilling to work with the basic core options?

[solar separation]

There is no current greater kick in the teeth than letting go of a character at 30, having it be a normal, and then having to wait an arbitrary amount of time before having a go at it again.

Turn-over being a reason for keeping the timer is strange, considering that sort of thing happens already. You will meet someone one day and then never hear of them ever again. It wasn't 'the roll grind' that was to blame for this, it's merely an aspect of roleplaying games.

This timer should not be in place for a system with no ETA and no one working on it.

[Algol]

I think timer should be longer to disincentivize throw away characters. It is true sometimes a concept doesn't work and a character is not played for that reason. I don't see why such should be rewarded with an award.

[Biolab00]

Isn't it possible to bind 'Actual login' hours to a character that they need to cross certain hours being played online before able to roll for award?

For example,
Total login hours of 500 hours

Take note that i mention login hours because logging off on that character does not count.

Though, this is probably going to pass as a very harsh system (which i don't see any chance of it happening), the way i see it.

[Eyeliner]

I think timer should be longer to disincentivize throw away characters. It is true sometimes a concept doesn't work and a character is not played for that reason. I don't see why such should be rewarded with an award.

I like being able to delete a dead-end character or one where I took a risk and it didn't work out, and get a minor or normal so I can take a level 8 or 16 start on another. I think that's healthy and encourages players to get out of their safety zone. Maybe these characters shouldn't be eligible for higher than a normal, that's fine, but most will probably not make it to 26 anyway.

In my opinion it's the characters who are created with the sole intention to be rolled that are a problem, not concepts that were tried in good faith but didn't work. Or worse, creating a series of character chasing that major award.

[solar separation]

I think timer should be longer to disincentivize throw away characters. It is true sometimes a concept doesn't work and a character is not played for that reason. I don't see why such should be rewarded with an award.

Earning a normal award for rolling a character has a timer of 60 days. Why in God's name should a 'failed concept' be punished systemically?
To say what character isn't and is deserving of a character due to how much it's played is rather silly. To extend the timers beyond what they already are - which are obscene in my opinion - is equally so.

You only have so many chances a year at rolling the dice with the system, with the odds consistently stacked against getting anything above a normal. That isn't to say you won't ever get a higher tier, but it's statistically unlikely. To those such as myself that work more than they have free time I'd argue get hit by this the hardest, given that this demographic aren't these 'evil roll bait' players that apparently must be punished.

The timer would make sense in terms of a game that operated around microtransactions, as other actual gacha games are. But it isn't.
It's a mandated time gate for a problem that's subjectively bad for a narrative that should be more than flexible enough to compensate for characters coming / going.

I greatly dislike gambling incentives in most games I play, and I detest that they're in a roleplaying server. That on its own is strange, but the timer is just salt on the infected wound.

I've no alternative beyond either removing the timer, allowing awards to be given to other players, or for every 1-3 you get a greater or major. Or simply letting people play what they like.

[Rei_Jin]

Meh.

Current system is what it is.

I rolled Ner’enthis and got a normal.

Even if I wanted to come back and try Arelith again in future, the current system does not incentivise roleplay, all it incentivises is grinding on a timer if you want a higher award, and if you don’t care about awards you won’t bother rolling a character until and unless you feel their story is done.

Changing the timer or removing it won’t fix the issues that exist, and removing the system entirely is a retrograde step that would needlessly antagonise players.

The solution is a new system, but until and/or unless it is implemented, Arelith has what it has. AND! Any new system will also be imperfect.

Can’t please all the people all the time, after all.

[Disaster Lesbian]

There are a lot of issues to all of this. The current system has flaws, but I'm unsure how it can be truly fixed in a manner that will truly make everyone happy. Regardless of what happens, someone's going to be upset.

If we're stuck with the current system for now, I would like alternative options. Say you're stuck there with a bunch of normals? Put in an application to, say, trade in three normals for a Greater. Nine normals for a Major. Have the application detail what you intend to use the award for; make everything a case-by-case basis and display a desire and direction with their ideas.

But it's not a solution and still has its own problems.

[Drogo Gyslain]

I'm going to put this anecdotally...

I've been playing on Arelith since 2019. That's 5 years OOC, and IC, that's been 33 Years Since AR 155.

Since then, I've played multiple characters. Fun characters. Engaging Characters. Evolving, loving, caring people who grew with me, who lived lifetimes, and then died or moved onto other parts of their world.

And in all that time, I have never recieved anything more than a Normal.

When do I get to get the chance to be something extraordinary? This just makes it that much harder.

This isn't a tabletop where I can pitch an Idea to a DM and we roll with it. I can't be what all the expanded rulebooks have in them, I'm limited to a mechanical system that has no soul.

I want to have the chance to play an Aasimmar. I want to have the choice to make a Firbolg. I wish to fly with the fey and get a chance to make a fey character. i want to explore the Kenku.

But no. After Millions of Gold trying to improve my odds, and raising characters to 30 (sometimes multiple times with relevels) even Dregan, only got a Normal.

So when do I have the time to try and break that mold and explore something other than a Human, and Elf, a Dwarf or a Drow?

Why can't we as players, get the ability to trade up to something that relies on a literal diceroll that is now restricted behind a time-clocked wall, waiting to see when the next pass is going to come?

I'll never crap on my base characters. I've had so much fun playing them, being them, and contributing to the lore.

But after 5 years, i think it's hella unfair, to not be given something more than a normal and the system be literally rigged now, to prevent me from trying to gain more than that.

And I know many, many players who are the same. They've rolled many characters and recieved nothing more than a Normal.

As the Community? As Players? We deserve better than a "Try again next time". We shouldn't have to be locked to our choices. Anything, that would allow you to earn your awards would be beneficial to the playerbase. Anything that shows that your effort, yoru time is worth more than just an -ECL or access to the minor award characters.

And that was a good thing I liked seeing, adding alot of minor options and normal options, for shadowvar, for Derro, for Genasi, that was a great option for minors and normals.

But when can we get the chance to try and apply for better, and not rely on a wholly mechanical system that doesn't take my effort, my heart, sweat and tears into account. When can we get something more representative of someone's investment into their character and respect that, this person may not have the time to play the way someone who stays on as long as other characters do?

Because let's face it. It's 2024, and alot of us fall into that 20-39 age range bracket. The pool of players coming and going is ever changing but we have real life obligations too. Not everyone is going to have the time to level multiple lvl 30s just trying for a slim chance to maybe get a Major Award and play the Orog or Gloaming they want to be.

The Community deserves better, and it shouldn't take us years to figure this out.

It shouldn't take years to fix something that's unfair, or mipliment human choices to fix things.

So.... Suggestions.

Trade up - it's been said before. Trade 2 minors for a normal, 2 normals for a greater, 2 greater for a major... etc. something along those lines.

Class up - Why not spend your award on a guarantee that your next award will exceed your current award? Spend a Normal on a character, with no other rewards, level to 30, and you're guaranteed at least a Greater Award? That's 2 characters you've leveled to 30 and youa re at the very least, guaranteed a Greater award. Not even a 50/50 Greater/Major, make it weighted. Make it an 80/20 roll. For me, this would be an amazing option because it would incentivize someone to play multiple characters and work their way to a Major if they didn't get it the first time around. It Gives people a true path, and something to build to and work toward if they really have a specific character concept without it being completely luck based. And then expand that to Greater. spend a Greater, level to 30, and get a Major. That puts a guarentee that if you play up through 3 characters, leveling them to 30 each time, you'll get at least 1 major award every 6 months. And heck, cap it. Limit a CD-Key to using this method once per IRL year, or once per lifetime. at the very least, it gives people a way to have a choice beyond the diceroll.

Lessen the rolls - Give us ways to increase our chances of recieving a Greater or Major at 30. Currently, it's a 75/20/5 shot, and with 1,000,000g it bumps the major to a 10. So why not encourage and incentivize people to burn that cash to increase it further? Why not give a 3,000,000 goal to bump the Major chance to 20%?

My point is, we have options. We're humans here, we're not machines. We should be able to put some humanity back into our options here.