New AP / Award Changes Feedback

[RedGiant]

I feel for those who have seemingly lost value, but the new direction of the system is a strict upgrade.

I am especially keen on the idea of adding awards to existing characters. While I know this is not live yet, one of my long-term efforts could finally be "fixed" if I could simply add the "gift of devotion." I know this surely entails some further balance discussion, but certainly there is room for lots of exciting opportunities here. I think expanding the language cap and other non-game-breaking rewards should be on the table.

On the caution side, I do urge a bump down to more casual numbers. 30 hours instead of 60 seems reasonable. While we want to encourage RP, I don't think we want to punish those balancing Families and careers.

[Hrothgar Bloodaxe]

So, this is part question, part comment:

For starters - I think this is a step in the right direction. As someone who has played for around a decade at least, and has never rolled a Major...it's a welcome change of pace.

Now, for the question/concerned comment:

Because I had such terrible luck, at a certain point, I basically stopped sacrificing characters, consistently. I resigned myself to the fact that the odds of getting a Major were terrible, so instead, I just kept my characters alive. I might shelve them for a time, but I'd come back to them; basically rotate, to keep from getting bored.

But from what I understand correctly, those various non-reward characters, when rolled, are worth at most 30,000 points, and that's if I basically roll a 100? Because when I log on, it says there are 0 AP assigned to those characters, even though I've spent hundreds, maybe even 1,000+ hours on some of them.

Which means that even though I've spent many years on these characters, with countless adventures and RP...they appear to be worth far less than if I had simply been sacrificing them for rewards the whole time, and just stacking up banked Normals, which would now be all worth 100k in immediately available AP.

Basically, the "conversion process," best I can tell, has penalized people who actually played long term characters, even at the expense of their chance of winning a greater, and rewarded people who were just stockpiling rewards in their bank.

So while I think the system itself is great going forward, unless I'm not understanding the mechanic properly, this seems like anyone who simply "shelved" characters instead of actually killing them, has just lost a massive amount of AP value.

And even if that value is somehow translated into the "legacy AP," it's still locked up, and unavailable. It's still penalizing someone for keeping a character going, instead of just making a new one/rolling every 3 months.

But like I said - if I'm missing something, please, someone set me straight. I would be happy to be mistaken on this!

[Security_Blanket]

I'm sure it's a step in the right direction because of people that were grinding characters just for an award. It seems like the people that were doing that have benefitted the most now that this change has come into effect. Anyone that was playing long term characters up to this point are the ones that have been hit the hardest, even though it's suppose to benefit them. I can only speak for me, but I now have absolutely no incentive to EVER roll a character.

[Xerah]

I really don't understand why you have no incentive to EVER roll a character. It makes me think you must not understand the system if you don't think rolling a character gets you anything.

You got a lot of points from legacy characters that were not rolled. You don't have those points yet, but there will be a way to get them in the next few weeks or so. It's kind of funny to hear people say how unfair it was that they rolled characters and lost their banked play time, and also hear people say it's unfair for people who kept their characters because they didn't get the rewards.

[Security_Blanket]

I really don't understand why you have no incentive to EVER roll a character. It makes me think you must not understand the system if you don't think rolling a character gets you anything.

Maybe I don't understand the new system, shocker, another weird Arelith specific thing to learn. From where I'm sitting, it looks like if I rolled one of those three level 30s back when the award reset was announced (on April Fools of all days) I would haven gotten a much better payout. I already didn't care about awards, mostly playing Humans or at best a Shadovar. The award options to me are basically: a little taller, a little shorter, a cool new language. I can't speak for any of you, but speaking for me, it looks like I have no reason to ever type -delete_character now.

[Ping14]

From where I'm sitting, it looks like if I rolled one of those three level 30s back when the award reset was announced (on April Fools of all days) .

After getting pranked IG, kinda didn't believed it (not that I am on cooldown anyway, but would've made an instant double dip if I could since I got two characters that doesn't interest me anymore).

Epic Sacrifice AP Awards:

• Minor - 6,000
• Normal - 9,000
• Greater - 15,000
• Major - 30,000

Also, for every 200.000 gold pieces that your character owns worth of flat gold, inventory value (probably for 1/3rd or 1/2nd, see quote from Xerah below. Maximum item gold worth is capped at 50.000), bank account and gear equipped an extra 1% will be added to each awards of your roll (except the least-valued that you could get), with a maximum of +5% at 1 million gold pieces.

Example:

Level 30 normal roll: 5% major, 20% greater, 75% normal
Level 30 with 1 million GP roll: 10%, 25%, 65%

I would've expected atleast a 100,000 since:

The awards are still tiered, purchasable only with AP in the amounts of:

• Minor - 40,000
• Normal - 100,000
• Greater - 400,000
• Major - 800,000

Still here hoping that pre-AP change epic toons be given a window wherein they could atleast have some adjusted AP rewards that atleast at the minimum have 100,000 (normal reward). The above formula is fine, moving forwards atleast, since you'll stack up enough hours to get to that minimum 100,000 anyway as you play the character. However, it feels bad to delete the character (epic pre-reward change) without stacking enough hours on it to make it worth while.

I can see a shift of old characters turning back up again, being played only to stack a few hours in them. Only to get deleted after 3 months atleast- but this is speculation. Its too much trouble for me, and I just ignore it. Never really a hard roller myself. I just delete characters whenever the attachment from them dies out (having a silent boring end in the mainland) -or- there's a good way to end the tale (which rarely happens unforced, and I don't try to force the story since its like walking straight to a pool of lava at that point).

We considered a heads up to allow players to make an informed decision - of whether to roll their current characters or keep them to turn into legacy points - but we ultimately decided to release the update without warning. This was both as a matter of fairness and equality, and because we wanted to move away from the old system as quickly as possible.

But really, not really counting on it. It feels bad, but eh- never really cared about race rewards. The "intelligent" weapon reward was great though, atleast on paper. I was not one of the lucky ones that got it, but its a nice piece of special something that is reminiscent of "Enserric the Longsword" from the official campaigns. If they give us the window, that's good, if not, its just whatever at this point, maybe I'll stack a few hours on the few pre-AP change epics that I have, maybe I'll just ignore it.

What keeps me excited is this:

Q: This is cool, but why doesn't it do X and Y too?
A: This is the first phase of a larger award overhaul project. Many more features are planned for the future, such as possibilities like the ability to choose awards for existing characters, the ability to choose multiple awards, or dynamic and individual prices for the awards.

[Xerah]

I really don't understand why you have no incentive to EVER roll a character. It makes me think you must not understand the system if you don't think rolling a character gets you anything.

Maybe I don't understand the new system, shocker, another weird Arelith specific thing to learn. From where I'm sitting, it looks like if I rolled one of those three level 30s back when the award reset was announced (on April Fools of all days) I would haven gotten a much better payout. I already didn't care about awards, mostly playing Humans or at best a Shadovar. The award options to me are basically: a little taller, a little shorter, a cool new language. I can't speak for any of you, but speaking for me, it looks like I have no reason to ever type -delete_character now.

You can roll one now, if you have one that you've used a normal reward on, and get back 67000 AP from it (67% of the normal), assuming the character's played 60hr. Then, as you play them, you'll accumulate a lot more as well (and in another 60hr, you'll end up with more points). That doesn't even include the legacy points you got from those undeleted characters.

If you don't like the rewards, this system doesn't change anything. You do have a reason to delete characters if you want rewards, but if you don't, then nothing changes there either. You didn't delete them before for a reason.

[Zaon]

I played as Ner’enthis Shadowclaw for more than a year, regularly putting in 40-60 hours a week. I built an empire, dramatically impacted many factions and settlements, and told and contributed to more stories than I can count or retell.

When the time came to say goodbye to him? All that amounted to, was a Normal award.

The same was true of when I rolled Nadjia, my sailor turned pirate who did similar things and wrote multiple books that were duplicated and passed around for literal years. Rolled, for a Normal award.

The same was true of when I rolled Tom the Wand Merchant, the merchant lord of Guldorand. Yet another Normal award.

The previous system added insult to injury when a story ended, and gave me the same reward potential as someone who RPed like the Protagonist in a pokemon game and got rolled after two months.

If Arelith is a roleplay server? Then that’s just not right.

It may have been even-handed, in that everyone had the same odds, but it did nothing to reward roleplay or character investment. In fact, it did the opposite, rewarding players for not investing or roleplaying and just churning character after character.

The new system, whilst imperfect (because nothing is perfect), is a hell of a lot better for rewarding roleplay and investment.

Will there be winners and losers from its implementation? Of course, such is unavoidable.

But this is a dramatic improvement for the encouragement towards roleplay that Arelith says it wants to see happen.

Thank you dear writer for helping me to decide to step back from arelith, at least for a while.

Everything you are, I am its opposite. You are the hero who’s been here since the founding of Cordor, your books are treasured in every wizard’s library, your deeds are sung at the campfires.

I mostly just walk off in the middle of a conversation because it starts to burden me. When I get home from work I’m too socially exhausted to be thinking about empires, and merchant lords, and all that drama.

You clearly take this whole thing very seriously, I can’t hold candle to that, and I really don’t want to. You are absolutely right to feel deserving of the rewards. Who else if not you?

Two things I implore developers to consider .
1) would it kill you to be a little bit more transparent? You don’t have to spill all the beans, just tell us the beans exist for gods sakes

2) rethink the time investment. 2 hours per day for a year for a greater award is extreme.

[Peacewhisper]

I played as Ner’enthis Shadowclaw for more than a year, regularly putting in 40-60 hours a week. I built an empire, dramatically impacted many factions and settlements, and told and contributed to more stories than I can count or retell.

When the time came to say goodbye to him? All that amounted to, was a Normal award.

The same was true of when I rolled Nadjia, my sailor turned pirate who did similar things and wrote multiple books that were duplicated and passed around for literal years. Rolled, for a Normal award.

The same was true of when I rolled Tom the Wand Merchant, the merchant lord of Guldorand. Yet another Normal award.

The previous system added insult to injury when a story ended, and gave me the same reward potential as someone who RPed like the Protagonist in a pokemon game and got rolled after two months.

If Arelith is a roleplay server? Then that’s just not right.

It may have been even-handed, in that everyone had the same odds, but it did nothing to reward roleplay or character investment. In fact, it did the opposite, rewarding players for not investing or roleplaying and just churning character after character.

The new system, whilst imperfect (because nothing is perfect), is a hell of a lot better for rewarding roleplay and investment.

Will there be winners and losers from its implementation? Of course, such is unavoidable.

But this is a dramatic improvement for the encouragement towards roleplay that Arelith says it wants to see happen.

Thank you dear writer for helping me to decide to step back from arelith, at least for a while.

Everything you are, I am its opposite. You are the hero who’s been here since the founding of Cordor, your books are treasured in every wizard’s library, your deeds are sung at the campfires.

I mostly just walk off in the middle of a conversation because it starts to burden me. When I get home from work I’m too socially exhausted to be thinking about empires, and merchant lords, and all that drama.

You clearly take this whole thing very seriously, I can’t hold candle to that, and I really don’t want to. You are absolutely right to feel deserving of the rewards. Who else if not you?

Two things I implore developers to consider .
1) would it kill you to be a little bit more transparent? You don’t have to spill all the beans, just tell us the beans exist for gods sakes

2) rethink the time investment. 2 hours per day for a year for a greater award is extreme.

I just wanted to chime in and say this post is very relatable to me. I recently stepped back from Arelith as well after realizing I wasn't allowed to simply RP a background character without causing resentment. Turns out when you don't play 14 hours a day people start to feel entitled to your stuff, even when there are multiple free shops and quarters just two transitions away. I think it would be nice if the community was more understanding when it comes to casual players or even serious players who get burned out and decide to play less for a while. My little shop full of cheap runic materials wasn't hurting anyone. It sat empty for two months after I left. There are less good shops now than when some people decided to run some merchants out of town. Its wild to me this kind of thing still happens but whatever.

Back on topic, the issue of transparency is real because some people were in the know about the award system change before it went live, they even had a free reset on their roll timers ahead of time to farm up an extra 100,000 points. The rest of us did not know, did not exploit the timer reset, and are now being told this was somehow fair to everyone. And I agree, two hours a day, EVERY DAY, can be extreme. I am an adult, I have things to do, I don't have the energy that I used to, and sometimes I'd just rather spend that energy playing another game or doing something else like cleaning my house or spending time with family or pets. I think 30 hours a month would be a lot more forgiving and wouldn't make the game feel like a 2nd or 3rd job for many of us.

[Rei_Jin]

You know what? I did take Arelith very seriously. I played a lot, because I am disabled and it was my social network to keep me from going mad.

And during my time playing on Arelith (I am focusing on my family at the moment rather than playing, have been for 18 months now) one thing I always tried to do was to make time and space for others who played the game differently to me.

I shared what I did not to say that I am more entitled than a casual player, but to more put forward that IF Arelith is a roleplay server, then it naturally follows that those who roleplay should be rewarded for doing so.

Yes, some of those rewards come in game. I put in effort, I saw outcomes.

But when it comes time to say goodbye to a character, why should I, who did put in so much effort and time with my roleplay, be functionally penalised for that investment?

Let's say that someone else puts in the same number of hours I did, and even with roleplaying, they roll a character every 2 months with a million gold.

In that time, I had three chances and got three normals.

They would have had TWENTY ONE CHANCES for rewards.

So why am I penalised for investing in one character for a year, as opposed to someone who rolls a character six times in that same year?

It doesn't make sense.

The new system, by comparison, DOES reward me in a very similar way to someone who rolls characters regularly. They'll still get some rewards on top because of the Epic Sacrifice bonus, but the difference is far less than it was before.

And that's the thing.

If you want to roll a character every two months? You will STILL get more out of it than someone who plays a character continuously for months or years at a time, with the bonus AP coming at the cost of having to re-level, and re-gear each time.

I'm 100% okay with that, and if you want to play that way, that's absolutely okay with me.

The reason I like this new system, is that I am not being penalised for investing in a character. You and I can play the way that we want to, and we both still get rewards for it.

No, it's not the same as before. But I am of the opinion that it is far more equitable now.

Yes, some numbers will need to be adjusted as the data comes in with use and I trust the team to do so.

[Iceborn]

Back on topic, the issue of transparency is real because some people were in the know about the award system change before it went live, they even had a free reset on their roll timers ahead of time to farm up an extra 100,000 points. The rest of us did not know, did not exploit the timer reset, and are now being told this was somehow fair to everyone. And I agree, two hours a day, EVERY DAY, can be extreme. I am an adult, I have things to do, I don't have the energy that I used to, and sometimes I'd just rather spend that energy playing another game or doing something else like cleaning my house or spending time with family or pets. I think 30 hours a month would be a lot more forgiving and wouldn't make the game feel like a 2nd or 3rd job for many of us.

I want to clarify this, because it's immensely important to me.
The award system was approved for implementation more or less a week after the roll CD reset. There was no talk about it whatsoever. It was kept secret even from the DMs, and most admins weren't even informed that the update was 'here' until the last moment. Even 2 hours prior when the maintenance went live, we didn't release any early internal changelog.

The people that were aware the system was, in fact, landing soon were:
Iron, as his role as the server owner;
Backlands, Hoodoo, as the main admins responsible for pushing the award overhaul forward;
KenC, Amnesy, Zaphiel, Starfish, as the contributors I talked with to bounce ideas against and bughunt;
and DM GrumpyCat, that provided DM-insight and feedback on utility implementation.

Of the people involved, I know most of them are in similar situation as the players, were they either found they suddenly had access to a greater/major, or due to their gameplay style and their 'rolling habits' they have very little and they have to start earning AP from scratch.

Had we known the system would change, most people maybe would have prepared, maybe would have rushed to game the system and accumulate awards, or would have played in a very different way. That all is true.
I'm not going to fault the players for choosing to play in a way or another, or revile them for feeling mistreated for not having the best landing on the transition to the new system.
I can only remind them that this is as fair as we could make it with the tools that we had at our disposal.

And as always, the numbers will be adjusted.

[Peacewhisper]

I want to clarify this, because it's immensely important to me.
The award system was approved for implementation more or less a week after the roll CD reset. There was no talk about it whatsoever. It was kept secret even from the DMs, and most admins weren't even informed that the update was 'here' until the last moment. Even 2 hours prior when the maintenance went live, we didn't release any early internal changelog.

The people that were aware the system was, in fact, landing soon were:
Iron, as his role as the server owner;
Backlands, Hoodoo, as the main admins responsible for pushing the award overhaul forward;
KenC, Amnesy, Zaphiel, Starfish, as the contributors I talked with to bounce ideas against and bughunt;
and DM GrumpyCat, that provided DM-insight and feedback on utility implementation.

Of the people involved, I know most of them are in similar situation as the players, were they either found they suddenly had access to a greater/major, or due to their gameplay style and their 'rolling habits' they have very little and they have to start earning AP from scratch.

Had we known the system would change, most people maybe would have prepared, maybe would have rushed to game the system and accumulate awards, or would have played in a very different way. That all is true.
I'm not going to fault the players for choosing to play in a way or another, or revile them for feeling mistreated for not having the best landing on the transition to the new system.
I can only remind them that this is as fair as we could make it with the tools that we had at our disposal.

And as always, the numbers will be adjusted.

Thank you for the clarification. It is good to know that staff have tried to keep things fair as possible. I think most of us are in agreement that the system is an overall improvement, the main point of contention seems to be the amount of time required. The only games I play that make me play 60 hours a month for any kind of rewards are the mobile gacha type that are trying to get in my wallet. Hopefully staff will consider reducing it to 30 hours a month out of respect for us players' time.

[Aeryeris]

The system feels like a big improvement to me. I had basically given up hope the long talked about award overhaul would ever happen, but here we are.

I am glad the RNG element is gone, and I am glad there is now some incentive to roll dinosaurs. I had never intended to roll Ginny ever, because the proposition just didn't seem worth it. Now that's back on the table, which I think is a healthy consideration.

I do dislike the tie to RPR in the same way I dislike the ECL reduction from RPR. I don't think making some people more equal than others is a great thing for the server atmosphere. This is a minor thing in the grand scheme of the update though, kudos.

[Apothys]

You know what? I did take Arelith very seriously. I played a lot, because I am disabled and it was my social network to keep me from going mad.

And during my time playing on Arelith (I am focusing on my family at the moment rather than playing, have been for 18 months now) one thing I always tried to do was to make time and space for others who played the game differently to me.

I shared what I did not to say that I am more entitled than a casual player, but to more put forward that IF Arelith is a roleplay server, then it naturally follows that those who roleplay should be rewarded for doing so.

Yes, some of those rewards come in game. I put in effort, I saw outcomes.

But when it comes time to say goodbye to a character, why should I, who did put in so much effort and time with my roleplay, be functionally penalised for that investment?

Let's say that someone else puts in the same number of hours I did, and even with roleplaying, they roll a character every 2 months with a million gold.

In that time, I had three chances and got three normals.

They would have had TWENTY ONE CHANCES for rewards.

So why am I penalised for investing in one character for a year, as opposed to someone who rolls a character six times in that same year?

It doesn't make sense.

The new system, by comparison, DOES reward me in a very similar way to someone who rolls characters regularly. They'll still get some rewards on top because of the Epic Sacrifice bonus, but the difference is far less than it was before.

And that's the thing.

If you want to roll a character every two months? You will STILL get more out of it than someone who plays a character continuously for months or years at a time, with the bonus AP coming at the cost of having to re-level, and re-gear each time.

I'm 100% okay with that, and if you want to play that way, that's absolutely okay with me.

The reason I like this new system, is that I am not being penalised for investing in a character. You and I can play the way that we want to, and we both still get rewards for it.

No, it's not the same as before. But I am of the opinion that it is far more equitable now.

Yes, some numbers will need to be adjusted as the data comes in with use and I trust the team to do so.

This hit a chord with me, I agree 1000% percent with this. I'm the same, rarely roll, spend a lot of hours on one character, I always thought running toons just for award rolls only was a bit "meh" felt like playing the system to me. Never got better than a normal. Struggled even to get to the million point in gold usually. I had consigned myself to always having minors and the odd normal to play with.

But yeah could not have said it better than what this player said above. tips hat to Rei_Jin

On the topic of hours played to hit cap, id rather not lower it. In fact id like to earn for all the hours i play. Make the cap higher or remove it. I play a lot more than 60 hours a month.

[The GrumpyCat]

Re the Cap and the points...

One question to consider within this model, in the long term, is 'How difficult should it be go get a Major Award character?' How common do we want these to be?

This is not a question I have an answer to, frankly. Not really. It's one up for discusison by the higher Admin team, especially Irongron. But it's kinda at the core of this.

If we want to lower the cap of playtime (e.g. say 30 hours a month) and keep it at needing at least 2 years, then we'll also need to lower the award point values (all be it eventually)

If we want to raise the cap (for sake of argument 120 hours a month) then we'd need to double point values.

This will in turn have a knockon effect.

In truth I doubt any changes will be so extreme, but this balence has to be considered. Perhaps we want to make Major awards even harder to get? Maybe we want to make them Easier?

Again - I don't really write this with any answers. For me the 'two years to major' seems good enough because, under law of averages, it was pretty much the same as it was before. But just because that's what it WAS doesn't mean that's what it SHOULD BE.

So what I'm saying is that all these things are all interlinked.
Want the cap to be 30 hours per month? Sure- but it'll take the average player around 4 years to get that major.
Cut the points needed in half to account for that? Fine. But it means players who've had award points banked already will be able to afford even more awards.
And so on. It's all a little interlinked, is what I'm saying and explores a few different points. I'm sure that as the weeks/months/years go by, the system will be refined more and more to something fairer.
But at least, right now, we have a system to refine.

[Anomandaris]

It’s obvious a lot of thought went into this and I appreciate that, as well as the teams engagement on Q&A.

One quick question I have. Do we have a rough estimate on timing for being able to access legacy points? Not sure if I should even bother thinking about character concepts, and what I might do with them or if I should expect it to take a while and things to change before those points are made available to use….

[Hrothgar Bloodaxe]

I think this response is sort of missing the point. It's not about recouping points from characters that you used a normal award to make.

It's that, prior to this update, any level 30 character that was rolled, would grant a normal award. This was true for characters that didn't require any award to make, i.e. Moon Elves, Rock Gnomes, etc. - the vast majority of races were "non-award."

Those normal awards, if they were in a player's "award bank," were automatically converted to 100,00 AP. Not "legacy AP" - actual, "immediate use AP."

But now, if you rolled a level 30 Moon Elf / similar "non-reward race," you'd get...30,000, and that's if you literally roll a 100.

So just from the start, many people who have played long-term characters, using "non-award races," have been deeply penalized by the switch.

I have roughly 5 characters I could have, at any point, decided to roll for a reward. But I opted to instead play them over many years, instead of trying to farm rewards by constantly rolling "disposable" characters every 3 months.

Had I rolled those 5 characters, I would have, currently, at minimum, 500k extra AP for immediate use. Instead, the best I'll ever get is basically 30k per character, and realistically, more like 18kish, for a total of around 100k, or around 1/5 of what I would have gotten, had I simply decided to recycle these long-term characters that I'd come back to every now and again..

And while my "legacy AP" is higher as a result...this is locked. And will continue to remain behind some sort of barrier - while it's still up in the air as to what that barrier might be, no one seems to be indicating that this will just become available...I'll basically need to work to unlock AP I already earned.

In summary, this transition penalizes the very people it seeks to help - people who played long-term characters.

I think the new system is a good one - but I think the transition needs to be reworked. Why is it someone who played dedicated characters over time has so much less AP available than someone who was just farming normal rewards every 3 months? That seems backwards.

I really don't understand why you have no incentive to EVER roll a character. It makes me think you must not understand the system if you don't think rolling a character gets you anything.

Maybe I don't understand the new system, shocker, another weird Arelith specific thing to learn. From where I'm sitting, it looks like if I rolled one of those three level 30s back when the award reset was announced (on April Fools of all days) I would haven gotten a much better payout. I already didn't care about awards, mostly playing Humans or at best a Shadovar. The award options to me are basically: a little taller, a little shorter, a cool new language. I can't speak for any of you, but speaking for me, it looks like I have no reason to ever type -delete_character now.

You can roll one now, if you have one that you've used a normal reward on, and get back 67000 AP from it (67% of the normal), assuming the character's played 60hr. Then, as you play them, you'll accumulate a lot more as well (and in another 60hr, you'll end up with more points). That doesn't even include the legacy points you got from those undeleted characters.

If you don't like the rewards, this system doesn't change anything. You do have a reason to delete characters if you want rewards, but if you don't, then nothing changes there either. You didn't delete them before for a reason.

[Floral Shoppe]

Well. When the staff starts saying "you need to play 60 hours a month or more" as part of a reward system I worry that is pushing people to play more than they may healthily be able to and they'll give up other aspects of life to do it. People are going to do that anyway, sure, I just don't think it should be encouraged from the staff and any minimum should be lower or not at all. There's already plenty of incentive to be logged in as much as you possibly can without there being an official quota to meet. I would greatly prefer a server attitude that's "play when you have time, we'll be here"

Rewarding time spent is fine, and it should take a weekend player longer, but I don't think the staff should have a set amount of hours you're basically recommended to play, because this number does heavily suggest that's where they put a cutoff of "real vs casual" or whatever you want to call it.

[chris a gogo]

Did i read the announcement wrong?
You don't have to play 60 hours you only get the AP for 60 hours per month

Gaining AP:
Every minute you receive 10 AP, however, there's a monthly cap of 36000 points shared across your characters, achieved by playing 60 hours.

The 60 hours is only about refunds on award characters.

Refunds
Characters past level 11 that have accumulated 60 hours of playtime will be eligible for a partial refund of their awards on delete/remake, in the amounts:

Minor - 36000
Normal - 67000
Greater - 160000
Major - 160000

[Xerah]

I'm not missing any point.

I have roughly 5 characters I could have, at any point, decided to roll for a reward. But I opted to instead play them over many years, instead of trying to farm rewards by constantly rolling "disposable" characters every 3 months.

Yeah, but like, you didn't want to roll them. Or you would have. So now, you still have them and can play them. Maybe you were planning to never play them again. Or if you did roll them, you could have used those rewards on other characters. And got refunds. And those refunds are not just for locked races, you could have used them on nobility, languages, etc.

In any system change, you're going to have ways you could have gamed the system to maximize your return when looking at the transition in retrospect. I've rolled plenty of characters that used rewards that I would have gotten more in this new system due to the refunds.

It's unfortunate that you don't know what is happening with those legacy points yet. I think everyone is a bit frustrated by that point. But based on the numbers, I think there was a pretty good job making sure everyone was reasonably compensated.

[Anomandaris]

This change gets a lot less exciting if I can’t ever actually use the legacy points I earned from playing characters long-term without some sort of gate.

Maybe I got excited too early, but I thought I might actually be able to play a greater for the first time ever in a decade because I had 400 K legacy points.

Especially given, I had two characters I was about to roll and would prefer to take the RNG chance or guaranteed normal over the long-term slog.

[Hrothgar Bloodaxe]

So, I think we're in agreement, really. I think the issue is that people who played long-term characters, and kept them, got legacy AP. Which is currently not useable, and will likely be restricted in some way/shape/form once it can even be accessed.

Meanwhile, someone who was rolling characters each month, has access to their AP now.

So it has given a boost to people who were "serially rolling characters" to stack rewards, and penalizes people who played their characters long term.

Which, hey, bad things happen to good adventurers. I get that. Is what it is. But let's not pretend like this didn't create a situation in which the transition rewarded behavior that the new system is trying to move away from.

I'm not missing any point.

I have roughly 5 characters I could have, at any point, decided to roll for a reward. But I opted to instead play them over many years, instead of trying to farm rewards by constantly rolling "disposable" characters every 3 months.

Yeah, but like, you didn't want to roll them. Or you would have. So now, you still have them and can play them. Maybe you were planning to never play them again. Or if you did roll them, you could have used those rewards on other characters. And got refunds. And those refunds are not just for locked races, you could have used them on nobility, languages, etc.

In any system change, you're going to have ways you could have gamed the system to maximize your return when looking at the transition in retrospect. I've rolled plenty of characters that used rewards that I would have gotten more in this new system due to the refunds.

It's unfortunate that you don't know what is happening with those legacy points yet. I think everyone is a bit frustrated by that point. But based on the numbers, I think there was a pretty good job making sure everyone was reasonably compensated.

[D4wN]

Imagine being mad at a system that evens the playing field for every community member being able to play a major. It's literally a point system like you get a supermarket or other shop. Loyalty awards. Count probability and how likely you'd be able to possibly earn a single major in 10 RL years versus a guaranteed major playing 3 RL months. I know which I'd pick.

I played 10+ RL years and got 1 major from a character I rarely played. A character that had little to no real effect on the server. Instead I cringed and got traumatised over rolling Theodor Helbrecht for a normal award who I played intensively for 1.5 RL years.

Now I can actually get more if I just play enough and get a better reward out of a character that made a decent impact on the world.

Seems fair and a much better use of my time and investment with an actual guaranteed outcome rather than a gamble.

[Narcho]

The new system seems much better than the old one, creating characters just to grind to 26 and roll for a poor chance of a major seemed pretty at odds with the RP focus of the server.

This change gets a lot less exciting if I can’t ever actually use the legacy points I earned from playing characters long-term without some sort of gate.

I understand why there need to be some limits for accounts with a stable of ancient characters that might give them millions in AP off the bat.

It would be nice if there was some scaling here. If you're sitting on a single historic character that you want to roll to get some AP but that will end up sitting in a Legacy pool for years it's a bit disheartening and encourages you not to bother.

[A MAN DRUNK ON POWER]

Under the old system, you had a 10% chance of rolling a major, IF you were doing it on a level 26 pc, and with 1 mil gold in the bank
Most likely you'd get a normal, and a 2 month cooldown
So, lets say that's ten rolls = 20 months.
That's just shy of two years for a new player.
And that's if the player met rule of average, not accounting for rolling of greaters (which means a longer cooldown) the fact not every pc will have a million gold, will be able to level that fast, or will be that lucky.

As for the other arguments re RPB (and, more pertinently the giving out of points, which honestly is something I CHAMPIONED hard for this system I think it's one of the best parts of it!)

We are a roleplay server.

To be a roleplay server we have to enforce roleplay.

To enforce roleplay, to some degree, means, yes, judging roleplay.

I would rather, as part of that, we enforce roleplay via awards and encouragements, as much if not more than punish.

Consider: Would you rather have a roleplay server of high quality because poor roleplay is punished? Because Dms who see poor roleplay forcefully ban, delete, or otherwise penalize characterts due to their judgements?

Or would you rather have one where Dms encourage good roleplay via small awards, pushing people to be better?

One of the key issues with the old system was people complaining that roleplay basically wasn't taken into account at all. That You could have someone who was a truly amazing pc, who could make a Vampire, or Tiefling, or what have you concept really shine, but they'd have little chance than a person who just got lucky on their first roll.

On the other hand, the concern that people who are in poor time zones don't get as many cookies is valid. But I assure you the amount of points Dms will give out is probably going to be fairly minor over all, and everyone still has an equal ability to get the awards they want.

Yes, some people are getting things a bit faster. So?

Rather than tearing down what they have, why not rejoice for them? Why not take it as an opportunity to consider how to improve? Or don't! You don't have to! You can still play just fine on arelith without being Teh Best Evar! You just get your awards a teeny bit later than somoene who gets a few points more though Dm noticing. The difference is never going to be mindblowingly huge - we have guidelines to make sure it's not.

This system is a compromise. Deal with it.

Just wanted to say that it's even worse than 20 months to get a major, even if you rolled 10 times. It's a 0.9¹⁰ = roughly 35% chance you don't succeed - after 20 months you have roughly 65% chance of getting a major.

Or you can get a guaranteed one by then in the new system. (Give or take a few months.)

Or, even better, you can buy a couple greaters if you don't want a major, but have multiple OTHER concepts you want.

I love the new system. Kudos to devs