Rewards Lock

[Ruzuke]

I will start off by saying. I do appreciate the work staff has put into the game. You are trying to make a fun server. The lock for rolling a character for a reward does not add to the fun. It is not something that will force players to play characters longer. Like staff playing the game is something at least I do for fun. It is not a second job for me.

I say this because I have three characters about level 30. I have not played them for some time as they are not fun. With some of the announcements, I decided to come back and play. There is a new concept that could be fun. Sadly, I do not have a reward for it. Not a problem; I can roll one of the characters I do not play and get a chance. Except I failed. Okay, I can try again… I cannot. So I have two months to wait, or I have two options. Start playing an old character I do not have fun with in the attempt to gain more gold for the following -delete_character or make a new character I do not want to play as I wait sixty days.

I know the point buy is coming in the future; however it doesn’t solve the more significant problem. Neither option sounds fun for me or anyone who might potentially RP with me with a character I do not want to play (it is why I am not playing them). If a character I played is done, please let me delete them. There is no benefit to forcing me to keep a character I do not want.

[Amateur Hour]

You can still delete any character you don't want; you just can't roll for an award.

I'd encourage you to spend some time thinking about concepts you could use with the awards you do have. It's quite possible to make an interesting character that requires no awards at all, though it may take a little more thought in creation than it would to make something from a rare race.

[Purplemyst]

I agree with you that the wait time is a little extreme. Especially when getting a normal reward, which in my opinion isn't really that much above a minor. Yes it unlocks some races, but it isn't on the same level as the races offered by a greater reward which is also a two month wait.

[CharmedRidge]

I think minor award could be reduced to two weeks and normal award to one month, there's nothing special about most of those races, I'm told some of them even are rewards to avoid goodly natured PCs of that race.

[MissEvelyn]

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but nothing is stopping you from creating interesting characters. You don't need to play an exotic planar-touched race to enjoy the game and have fun.

In fact, some of the most memorable characters in this server's history have been humans.

[Paint]

As far as I understand it, the system is going to be replaced at some point with a point-buy system, so this particular way of doing things is a holdover for now, to prevent people from grinding up characters for the sole purpose of award grinding. In that capacity, it does what it intends to do, and I personally support it.

One of my most memorable characters was a pretty typical human. They were special because of their actions, not because of what they were. And while I understand that people enjoy playing exotic races, part of the reason they're locked behind awards in the first place is to ensure that the isle of arelith doesn't become so diluted with exotic races that encountering them stops being special.

In the meantime, if you want to grind characters out for awards, you can still do so -- just at a significantly reduced clip.

[xf1313]

I think minor award could be reduced to two weeks and normal award to one month, there's nothing special about most of those races, I'm told some of them even are rewards to avoid goodly natured PCs of that race.

Hi, do you mind to explain a bit? I agree that some of the minor/normal award race aren’t that special, just the genasi, wild races and the aquatic elf should be in smaller populations. For the monster races... I do not think their numbers will surge anyway even if they are not locked

Why goodly natured pc are avoided?

[xf1313]

From my leveling experience, it usually takes about 2 month or more for me to bring a character to 26. Somehow I kept getting normal due to my bad luck...

Thou normal and greater share the same cool down timer can feel a bit..hm, since greater gives people so much cooler stuff! Especially with the update, Shadovar is great for normal but that is the ONLY new normal option. Major is even more attractive and having me drooling over greater as well.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

I think the locks are great. Some people take year(s) to get to lvl 30, rolling every one to three months is still exponentially more often than they are. Could carry over until next system.

As for 'being forced to play something not to enjoy'. We all should be, there are random luxury, should not be centric to your enjoyment, races. And it is intentional that not all of us will ever get to play some of them.

[CharmedRidge]

I think minor award could be reduced to two weeks and normal award to one month, there's nothing special about most of those races, I'm told some of them even are rewards to avoid goodly natured PCs of that race.

Hi, do you mind to explain a bit? I agree that some of the minor/normal award race aren’t that special, just the genasi, wild races and the aquatic elf should be in smaller populations. For the monster races... I do not think their numbers will surge anyway even if they are not locked

Why goodly natured pc are avoided?

That's rumor mongering on my part that some races were moved to minor award due to awkward situations. I wouldn't take it too seriously.

[WanderingPoet]

If anything the wait times are too short. The locks don't really have anything to do with a flood of reward races as being a disincentive from grinding/smashing through characters until you get that major award. It takes 2-6 weeks even for the slowest of levelers to get to 30 if they're doing writs and not intentionally slowing down (avoiding leveling, skipping writs, etc).

I know people want to play ShinyRace#4 and all, but as an RP server these kind of locks encourage people to RP rather than grind to 30 with throwaway characters.

[Skibbles]

Assuming rolling 'normal' as the base minimum in most cases this only means you're playing a character two months longer than usual right?

I don't see why that's bad. Instead of people greater valuing their next character, maybe they'll be more likely to value their current character.

I think this change is going to have pretty interesting effects especially in slowing the turnover rate and fixation on grind-grind-grind, roll, repeat, to get a human with a tail so they can find out a tail wasn't the critical component to a good story and shelve soon after anyway.

Not everyone is going to like it, obviously, but I feel like it may redirect the flow back towards getting people to refocus on character interactions and stories that develop and shift. Honestly I think this change, temporary as it is, is a very elegant solution as the population continues to explode up and as we're seeing the release of more magical and profoundly unique races.

Like others are saying, though, this doesn't actually fundamentally change anything.

We can still grind out new classes, mindlessly run about killing stuff and taking loot, testing fancy new mechanics or builds, and honestly - I love doing this time to time. I'm not ashamed of soloing orc lands at 3am Pacific, for a few hours, listening to music, just to see what all the hype about Spellsword is.

I also have to recognize this contributes nothing to Arelith's story except whoever profited from my character's need for an Mdamask and adamantine bracer before my faceless, passionless mook, fades into deleted oblivion. The true enjoyment was all the orcs I killed along the way, because I definitely didn't make any friends.

So in that light I don't think it's wrong that this playstyle isn't actively rewarded either. Full disclusure, however, is that I'm playing a 5% major race, so this is all very easy for me to say, but before that I played normal humans and drow for almost 10 years, with very long story lines, and had no less of a grand time by being simply normal.

I do recognize the taste of envy in seeing a subrace or magical creature being played that you very much want to, having felt it myself many a time, but sadly there's just no way around that if we want these races to remain the unique thing that makes us want to play them in the first place.

[Purplemyst]

I have to politely disagree with those stating the time locks are too short. Yes, I understand your logic in terms of the special races, but races are not the only thing on offer. As a player who works full time, the minor and normal reward level skip is what's important to me. 1 month to wait for a new reward isn't so bad. But 2 - 3 months is a very long time to have to wait to get another level skip. I've played arelith for 10+ years on and off, and I have only had a handful of characters make it to 2 months.

[Kalthariam]

I'm going to just wait for the hopefully updated version and see if that looks any better.

To be frank I've always kind of hated the rolling characters for awards, and having more exotic races locked behind very low chance awards.

I don't level quickly, and If I cannot roleplay the character, I generally don't get very far with the character, and if I have a character whose only goal it is to be rolled, I can't get behind it and I simply just end up giving up pretty early on.

The odds just are not currently remotely enticing enough for me to really get into the system at all. I think I've rolled two characters in my life time that were in epics, and that was because I stopped playing them and stopped enjoying them, both were well of, normals. *Shrugs*

Normal awards don't really get you anything, and I'd personally think some of the things under minor and normal awards are really weird "Awards" but to each their own.

I'm hoping the point buy system that was suggested does more, but as it stands I currently just see no reason to interact with the award system anyways, cool down or not.

[Spriggan Bride]

The awards system as it stands is rough to sync with inspiration. The newest races I'd like to play most are greater... But I am sitting on a major. Do I waste that major on a greater award character, chancing that some other major race I want to play more won't come along later because I'll probably never have another of those awards, or do I hold off until I roll a greater award some day which will probably be 2025 at my pace?

I mean ideally you'd just get to play what you're really inspired to play within reason and not settle for what's available. A point buy system sounds like it could be a better solution.

[Xerah]

It’s insane to me that people are suggesting normal rewards aren’t worth anything. Get to level 16 and not have to worry about early stages is a super great option. Plus, there are numerous languages and races that a good/fun/different at that stage.

I’m seriously debating between a normal reward 16 and a giant. I’m not sure the giant adds that much to the roleplay idea.

[Subtext]

That's very much a matter of personal opinion, Xerah. I personally don't think a level 16 award is worthless. Locking it behind normal was very much alright too.
Now, a level 16 reward when I can't get another of that stage for two months? Then it turns into a very uninteresting choice. The early game isn't that rough and I'd be much better off banking the award because I can't reliably get one when I need it.

I'm not even generally averse to time locking rewards. I think it's an overall positive. But it also means that choices made can be very frustrating.
For example, I made a character with a very specific purpose locked behind a normal reward. I leveled it to 30 only to discover that I can't do what I intended to do because of some aspect not mentioned in the wiki. I can't salvage it into that purpose either because of level 1 choices. I'm okay with the idea to scrap the char and remake it properly. But in case I get a better reward I'd either "waste" it on that or lock myself out of it for several months. It's disheartening.

That's not entirely an argument against time locking but it should perhaps be considered to make "recovering" an award easier.
Perhaps it might also sense to ease the time lock in so far that if you get a greater or major that you're not locked out of a normal or minor. Including getting nothing if you are still on a greater/major cooldown and would otherwise get lucky on rolling a 26 char.

Generally I am looking forward towards a point buy system as long as it is as automated as possible and has some sort of weekly limit integrated as to not promote nolifing for rewards.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

I have to politely disagree with those stating the time locks are too short. Yes, I understand your logic in terms of the special races, but races are not the only thing on offer. As a player who works full time, the minor and normal reward level skip is what's important to me. 1 month to wait for a new reward isn't so bad. But 2 - 3 months is a very long time to have to wait to get another level skip. I've played arelith for 10+ years on and off, and I have only had a handful of characters make it to 2 months.

That's Wildman. As someone juggling full time and family I have only been to lvl 26 once since arelith and a viable split.


I am definitely not the norm. But I don't think the vision of the server where charscters never make it to 2 months I supposed to be norm. Mathematically speaking I will never ever have a major. So people being concerned about roll caps is wild to me.

However what I'm hearing is you don't want major to begin with but just lvl skip. Very interesting niche situation I have to admit.

[AstralUniverse]

It’s insane to me that people are suggesting normal rewards aren’t worth anything. Get to level 16 and not have to worry about early stages is a super great option. Plus, there are numerous languages and races that a good/fun/different at that stage.

I’m seriously debating between a normal reward 16 and a giant. I’m not sure the giant adds that much to the roleplay idea.

Is it really insane tho? I have 5-6 normal awards in the bank, I really dont want more. I dont have anything unique and interesting to do with them that I havent done 90 times already.

I think I would very much at least like the option to NOT receive any award at all unless it's greater or major at this point because anything lower just puts me on a timer for no real gain for my Epic Sacrifice.

I have no issue with the current system except that I rather not receive any award at all if I roll normal or minor. I dont really like this part. If there was a toggle command that simply says "if you roll a lvl 26+ character and get a Normal award, you get nothing. If you roll a lvl 21+ character and get minor award, you get nothing." that I can switch on/off... That would be nice.

[evilkittenofdoom]

...I have no issue with the current system except that I rather not receive any award at all if I roll normal or minor. I dont really like this part. If there was a toggle command that simply says "if you roll a lvl 26+ character and get a Normal award, you get nothing. If you roll a lvl 21+ character and get minor award, you get nothing." that I can switch on/off... That would be nice.

That would defeat the entire purpose of this change, put bluntly. The issue isn't to stop a flood of low level rewards, the issue is to stop a constant stream of characters whose sole purpose is to be rolled. Allowing us to bypass the cooldown undermines the entire system to the point where it may as well not be there.

As a long time player of Arelith, I've noticed since returning to Arelith in EE that the dynamic of low levels has completely changed. Instead of stopping to talk and make meaningful connections, Writs and overall higher XP gains have encouraged players to aggressively level up and forget to stop and smell the roses. I think that with the "rush" to roll a character being disabled, hopefully people will learn to slow down rather than constantly pump out new characters.

That said, in all honesty I've never even wanted a reward anyway. The minor and normals are okay, the Major and Greaters are interesting, but I'm too attached to my gifts to want a high ECL race. I've played primarily humans and goblins for a long time and honestly there's little you can't do between the two them (and really almost all of it can be done with humans. Goblins are an acquired taste, as I'm aware).

Your imagination is the only thing stopping you. Virtually any concept can be adapted into an available "free" race.

(Disclaimer : The highest level I've ever had pre EE was 9. Post EE is still only 14. I've never even had the luxury to roll a character, but I doubt I would want to even if I could as a result. I still am just not interested in any of the rewards)

[AstralUniverse]

...I have no issue with the current system except that I rather not receive any award at all if I roll normal or minor. I dont really like this part. If there was a toggle command that simply says "if you roll a lvl 26+ character and get a Normal award, you get nothing. If you roll a lvl 21+ character and get minor award, you get nothing." that I can switch on/off... That would be nice.

That would defeat the entire purpose of this change, put bluntly. The issue isn't to stop a flood of low level rewards, the issue is to stop a constant stream of characters whose sole purpose is to be rolled. Allowing us to bypass the cooldown undermines the entire system to the point where it may as well not be there.

As a long time player of Arelith, I've noticed since returning to Arelith in EE that the dynamic of low levels has completely changed. Instead of stopping to talk and make meaningful connections, Writs and overall higher XP gains have encouraged players to aggressively level up and forget to stop and smell the roses. I think that with the "rush" to roll a character being disabled, hopefully people will learn to slow down rather than constantly pump out new characters.

That said, in all honesty I've never even wanted a reward anyway. The minor and normals are okay, the Major and Greaters are interesting, but I'm too attached to my gifts to want a high ECL race. I've played primarily humans and goblins for a long time and honestly there's little you can't do between the two them (and really almost all of it can be done with humans. Goblins are an acquired taste, as I'm aware).

Your imagination is the only thing stopping you. Virtually any concept can be adapted into an available "free" race.

(Disclaimer : The highest level I've ever had pre EE was 9. Post EE is still only 14. I've never even had the luxury to roll a character, but I doubt I would want to even if I could as a result. I still am just not interested in any of the rewards)

I dont know if you forget or intentionally dismiss the important part. If you do roll greater/major the timer kicks in and you cant roll for months. So I do not think my suggestion defeats the purpose. It would only reduce stagnation.

[Skibbles]

Presumably those months are spent playing the greater/major that was sought in the first place, no?

I agree with kitten that it seems to undermine the purpose.

[Amateur Hour]

I dont know if you forget or intentionally dismiss the important part. If you do roll greater/major the timer kicks in and you cant roll for months. So I do not think my suggestion defeats the purpose. It would only reduce stagnation.

You say "stagnation." Many others of us say "durability."

I don't think it's a huge ask to say "invest two months in a character before rolling them." It encourages more thoughtful character design for more thoughtful roleplay if you've got a two month commitment...and frankly, it needn't even be a full two months. If you roll, get a normal, then take a week to think about your next concept before rolling them up, it's really not that long.

[-XXX-]

I dunno, the RNG aspect of the award system helps making sure that only a fixed % of the character population are extraordinary.
While I fully sympathize with the "but I don't want another normal award" sentiment, removing randomness here would have allowed everyone to have extraordinary characters eventually.
Consider the aesthetic implications of seeing wings, horns and tails at every corner alone.

[Ork]

I think it might be best for all us old heads to mentally shift from old Arelith dynamics to new. What we have now is basically any 5E setting. Plenty of humans, but a large mix of exotic “others”. I think the old thoughts of “by god it’s a tiefling, get the pitchforks!” is dead and gone. Instead, what we have now are half-giant politicians, tiefling shopkeepers, and shadovar snake-oil merchants. It’s different. The old lines of medieval-esque revoltions from seeing an “other” is gone. If that threatens your immersion, buck up or back out I guess.