New AP / Award Changes Feedback

[Morto]

I really like the solution as a means to provide consistent attainable rewards without the gamble. It could or should be pointed out the epic sacrifice is still a major gain in the system, though it seems under tuned the reward range.

Question: does the epic sacrifice still factor in that 1 million gold benchmark to improve the rewards odds?

[Xerah]

It’s designed so that the roll chance is not a major gain to stop the feeling that you need to make characters to roll.

It still factors in that extra gold, yes.

[Morto]

Could benefits other than direct AP returns be considered for epic sacrifice? Like lasting improvement on gains?

Such as a minor multiplier bump on top of the RPR. RPR 30, which was noted of having a bonus +10% on certain AP gains. With 3 epic sacrifices, perhaps that boost
increases to +13% instead.

Or.. if I commit 3 epic sacrifices under the new system my monthly AP cap is improved by 1000 for each. Setting my maximum AP to 39000 Instead of 36000?

Just ideas. There sounds like there are a lot more nobs to play with in the new system. I feel Having a lasting return on a sacrifice would help encourage good feelings sacrifice with even less randomness of the one time epic roll ap boost, which is a gamble I can't see anyone having a good feeling about doing.

[Perplexia]

not feedback, but questions:
does the legacy AP pool consist of the full amount of award points that would have been accumulated by a character, or only the 20% split that would have gone directly to the account?

if so, what happened to the other 80%? because apparently i won't receive any AP from deleting any of my existing characters

and, if not, is it correct that i should only have received a total of 170k AP from a character i have actively played for two years?

i'm no mathematician but i feel like the math isn't mathing

[Marsi]

DM-awarded AP is reminiscent of Amia and I don't like that. Overexcited DM handing out overpowered rewards to their quest-doers is not unheard of - will it be a consistent reward template?

Whenever the RPR system is used as a reward force multiplier the same arguments come up. I think it makes perfect sense that a player recognised as a community asset gets more expedient access to tools and character concepts that more significantly affect the community. I've never seen epic sacrifice as a "reward" per se, but more like: "we trust you with the cool toys". A player who is perfectly fine but keeps to himself, can't play often, or is in a poor visibility timezone, doesn't really need equal access to niche character roles -- speaking as someone who is all three of those things. Some people have more skin in the game than I do.

[DM Herald]

DM-awarded AP is reminiscent of Amia and I don't like that. Overexcited DM handing out overpowered rewards to their quest-doers is not unheard of - will it be a consistent reward template?

Whenever the RPR system is used as a reward force multiplier the same arguments come up. I think it makes perfect sense that a player recognised as a community asset gets more expedient access to tools and character concepts that more significantly affect the community. I've never seen epic sacrifice as a "reward" per se, but more like: "we trust you with the cool toys". A player who is perfectly fine but keeps to himself, can't play often, or is in a poor visibility timezone, doesn't really need equal access to niche character roles -- speaking as someone who is all three of those things. Some people have more skin in the game than I do.

To answer this without giving too much on the inner workings away, the most we can give away is a small fraction of the worth of a minor award. And needless to say, issuance of award points are monitored and logged - I imagine if the system was being abused, it would be very easy to catch.

[Kalthariam]

Overall, I want to say I think the new system is a good change.

As others have said before, the number tweaking will need to be fine tuned, and that's fine. Just the fact the system is in is the most important part.

Now to plot on how to turn my Major into a dragon....

[Seekeepeek]

It's a refreshing change. I remember that the RPR motivated me to strive toward becoming a better role-player when I first joined the server. Over time, however, I realized that the higher tiers of RPR were not really about role-play. Instead, they seemed to favor those who were proactive and influential—people who made things happen, treated others kindly, had a helpful spirit, and avoided out-of-character drama.

However, the system has flaws. I noticed that European players often gained RPR raises because their late-night gaming aligned with peak activity hours, when the most players and DMs were online. While I was happy for them and felt they deserved the recognition, it became clear that the system was biased, favoring time-zone overlaps over true role-play efforts. My own attempts felt pointless unless I adopted the same schedule, which I couldn’t do because work and school took priority—and frankly, I valued a good night's sleep.

I'm optimistic about this new opportunity and think it will benefit the majority of players. Personally, I believe Arelith has shifted toward an action-focused server, which diminished my enjoyment. A subtle move back toward encouraging meaningful role-play, reminiscent of when I first joined, could be a positive step forward.

[Iceborn]

not feedback, but questions:
does the legacy AP pool consist of the full amount of award points that would have been accumulated by a character, or only the 20% split that would have gone directly to the account?

if so, what happened to the other 80%? because apparently i won't receive any AP from deleting any of my existing characters

and, if not, is it correct that i should only have received a total of 170k AP from a character i have actively played for two years?

i'm no mathematician but i feel like the math isn't mathing

100% of the points are issued.

The amount of points issued works according this formula -
RPR ticks * 10 * 5
To that result we divide by 4
With a cap of 1296000 points.

The ticks are a bit inconsistent, as they have some conditions to triggers - some areas (such as the Wall) don't tick RPB, and going AFK will also disable RPB ticks.

To calculate the points a character should have and add them to your historic/legacy pool use the -awards command.

[Kushion]

RPR and DM involvement really really should be nixed from this system entirely. Aside from that I think it's great.

[Perplexia]

The amount of points issued works according this formula -
RPR ticks * 10 * 5
To that result we divide by 4
With a cap of 1296000 points.

so essentially this means the legacy AP is only 25% of what the character would have earned from playtime?
the numbers certainly make more sense now, but there was no mention of this tax in the announcement post

additionally, in regards to how legacy AP is handled, the announcement states:

AP awarded through the first time system initialization goes to the character if it's a legacy (has not been played in the last 5 years) character, or split 20-80 account-character if it has any playtime recorded in the last 5~ years.

which, to me, implies that the character itself should receive some amount of AP, to be released when the character is sacrificed, as opposed to all of it (or, in this case, a quarter of it) going to the account

regardless, this is a good change, even though i'm kicking myself for habitually clearing out my character vault before the update

[Dachlatte]

Can we get a little more insight about this? Or is it too early?
Spending AP on existing characters...

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.

Thanks!

[98lbs of sad carryweight]

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.

I agree with the rpb, the DM awards, anything you say there. Great update. Maybe award combinations in the future, very cool.

But I am genuinely so confused why a cap on the existing awards. It hit 11 of us.
Less than 0.5% of monthly players. As you said 'why tear down what they had'?
I've little in in my legacy pool because I rolled my old chars, as intended.

If I fail to utlize them, or the build becomes suddenly unviable, like my ranger AA that's now worth less, I'll never get to the point again. It was a lot of effort.

This stresses me out, I know this is a individual issue, but instead of letting it stop me from engaging with arelith I worked it it out - then it got slapped out of my hands again.

I like the new system. I just think you looked at a tiny minority and told us to go screw ourselves for no gain and reason.

[Coolguy McMagic]

I'm pretty glad to see a rework of the award system and this is definitely a big step in the right direction, so kudos to the team for tackling this issue.
However, as is often the case, the devil is in the details and I think some numbers are still pretty off and some specifics are not working in the way they are intended.

A big issue that I've identified and I don't think has been mentioned before is the way the 80/20 distribution of character- and account-based AP and the cap of 36k per month interact with each other.

So we know that the cap of 36k per month is account-wide, and not character-wide. The reason stated for this is to discourage people grinding playing time on alts after reaching the cap. That sort of makes sense. However, there is perverse incentive created by this:

If you play a character that you currently have no desire of rolling, or maybe you do not yet know when you will be rolling them, there is a risk that 80% of the AP that character generates are utterly wasted, since you can't access them. Playing an alt doesn't help you generate AP if you have already reached the cap, as the cap is account-wide.

Now here is where it gets icky: in that case your best bet of gaining AP would be to carefully plan your playing times to make sure that, each month, you clock in a whopping 60 hours of AP by playing some rollbait character before ever playing your other character that you are not sure when/if you want to roll them.

More simply-said: if you have a "main" character and an "alt" character, every hour you play your main character is technically "wasted" (in terms of AP!) when compared to playing your alt character. I'm not sure how many people would even consider playing like that, but I think the incentive there is fairly strong and something that I do believe needs to be adressed in some form.

Personally I'd just recommend switching the ratio - 80% account and 20% character - so that every player can potentially benefit from AP generation no matter the personal playstyle.

[Iceborn]

Can we get a little more insight about this? Or is it too early?
Spending AP on existing characters...

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.

Thanks!

It's one of the next updates I'd like to implement.
The admins still need to ascertain the rules and limitations of it, of course, but the intent is to have a system that allows characters to take awards after creation.
There's no reason you can only take the ECL award at first level. If I so much think I'd like to purchase it as soon as level 5, why not? Or maybe I'd like to hit my character with a +7% size after they were captured and experimented on with super soldier serum.

Other awards may present a more tricky situation that merit internal discussion - it is fair to allow somebody to purchase a language award at any moment? We'd think it a bit ridiculous if you suddenly start speaking Xanalress the second you are stopped by the drow patrol.

[Edens_Fall]

Big fan of the new system, not that I'm actually looking to play any major characters any time soon. No system is going to be perfect and everyone is always going to find something to complain about but I think this is a good middle ground. Some come out better and some come out worse. But looking ahead to more than what I get myself, it's a vast improvement to not need rolling/luck/grinding anywhere near that which was required before if that was your goal.

I'm looking forward to adjusting things so like 7% height isn't 100,000 points and can be made something more reasonable like 10k (or whatever). Same with races being able to be dynamically adjusted depending on population. This should also allow some neat new rewards as well (similar to noble/languages/height).

Couldn't have said it better myself, as I agree a system based on investment is more fair then one based on the luck of the dice. Though I'm still a bit confused how legacy characters play time is calculated and such, but know things will get sorted out in due time. Eitherway, I think its a good change.

[Inordinate]

How often are people even getting exp from DM events prior to this? I can count on one hand the times I've received any bonus at all in my thousands of hours recorded on Steam, I'm sure my experience is pretty consistent across the vast majority of players who probably have never interacted with the team in any direct way.

If there was potential for abuse it was present before, in the numerous ways DMs (not just Arelith but any DM on any server ever) are capable of doing it. There being another data log point for DM actions isn't going to change the nature of that implicit contract players have with DMs when you log onto a server.

I'm not even going to boot kiss here, I can come up with many reasons why you may not want to trust the DM team in my time on Arelith, but favoring players by granting points towards the award system isn't it. You already aren't likely to get exp from them, most people aren't gonna get AP from them in any meaningful amounts either.

But even after all that, I agree with removing the RPR modifier itself. It only further strains the sentiment around the system feeling more punitive than complimentary and how difficult it is for some people to even meet the threshold to engage with the award system.

Here's an idea: publish the RPR rating counts with the monthly player stats posts. If something like 80% of active players are 10 and below then maybe the system isn't working.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

If you ask me, the rpr system is way worse for the dms than the players lol. You can "app" for an increase, meaning the only thing that is keeping them from being flooded with requests is player self-doubt or people like me who can't be bothered.

[Xersaoth]

Yeah DMs should simply not be allowed to award AP. It's simply not a resource I trust in a subjective process that could be unfairly dispensed. AP should strictly be a automated process.

I agree, unless it's a transfer from one CDkey to another of the same person for extraordinary reasons like hacking etc.

[DarknessOfDespair]

Absolutely not a fan of this new system. I have a life, I work a full time job, I enjoy other games. According to the math someone else put on here, it will take 60 hours a month for I believe 17 months. That translates to 15 hours a week, or, 3 hours a day for 5 days a week. I dont have that kind of time. It will probably take my 5 years to achieve that. It also makes me have zero reason to delete a character, because if there is not a CHANCE at the major gift every time i sacrifice a character (assuming its been leveled high enough to do that), I'm not rolling them, Period. Which will result in a vault full of characters at level 30 that quickly grows stale.

If thats what you were shooting for, well, congrats. You did it. Been playing for 20 years and this is the worst change thats been implemented, in my opinion. All casual players will slowly leave, which are the ones that have boosted player numbers in recent years.

[Xerah]

Absolutely not a fan of this new system. I have a life, I work a full time job, I enjoy other games. According to the math someone else put on here, it will take 6 hours a month for I believe 17 months. That translates to 15 hours a week, or, 3 hours a day for 5 days a week. I dont have that kind of time. It will probably take my 5 years to achieve that. It also makes me have zero reason to delete a character, because if there is not a CHANCE at the major gift every time i sacrifice a character (assuming its been leveled high enough to do that), I'm not rolling them, Period. Which will result in a vault full of characters at level 30 that quickly grows stale.

If thats what you were shooting for, well, congrats. You did it. Been playing for 20 years and this is the worst change thats been implemented, in my opinion. All casual players will slowly leave, which are the ones that have boosted player numbers in recent years.

The idea has always been that there is a major desire to have time invested into a character have some meaning. And people hate loot boxes. I get that now you have less of a chance to hit the jackpot, but there is now certainty. It make take you 5 years to reach that, but previously you could have 0 majors in those five years (which is vastly more likely the result) Statically, you need to roll about 15 (i.e. ₂.5 years) characters to have an 80% chance of getting a normal assuming you're 26 and have 1million coin. I don't consider that great odds.

To look at the numbers a different way, people get about 90-100k every 2 months if you're playing regularly.

36k for playing 1st month
36k for playing 2nd month
9k for rolling (Assuming you're rolling into a 'normal' as before; more if you rolled a 'greater' or 'major')

=81k points (though 14.4k will already be on your account).

You also get an additional 10% of your adventure EXP. I don't think anyone has any idea what kind of numbers a new character would generate in 2 months, so lets say 9k?

So, a 2 month character gives you _90k. That will take you 18month (1.5 years) and you have 100% chance to get a major (previously, the chance of this was 61%). If you only play 1 character this whole time, it will take a bit longer though.

[Ruzuke]

Absolutely not a fan of this new system. I have a life, I work a full time job, I enjoy other games. According to the math someone else put on here, it will take 6 hours a month for I believe 17 months. That translates to 15 hours a week, or, 3 hours a day for 5 days a week. I dont have that kind of time. It will probably take my 5 years to achieve that. It also makes me have zero reason to delete a character, because if there is not a CHANCE at the major gift every time i sacrifice a character (assuming its been leveled high enough to do that), I'm not rolling them, Period. Which will result in a vault full of characters at level 30 that quickly grows stale.

If thats what you were shooting for, well, congrats. You did it. Been playing for 20 years and this is the worst change thats been implemented, in my opinion. All casual players will slowly leave, which are the ones that have boosted player numbers in recent years.

The idea has always been that there is a major desire to have time invested into a character have some meaning. And people hate loot boxes. I get that now you have less of a chance to hit the jackpot, but there is now certainty. It make take you 5 years to reach that, but previously you could have 0 majors in those five years (which is vastly more likely the result) Statically, you need to roll about 15 (i.e. ₂.5 years) characters to have an 80% chance of getting a normal assuming you're 26 and have 1million coin. I don't consider that great odds.

To look at the numbers a different way, people get about 90-100k every 2 months if you're playing regularly.

36k for playing 1st month
36k for playing 2nd month
9k for rolling (Assuming you're rolling into a 'normal' as before; more if you rolled a 'greater' or 'major')

=81k points (though 14.4k will already be on your account).

You also get an additional 10% of your adventure EXP. I don't think anyone has any idea what kind of numbers a new character would generate in 2 months, so lets say 9k?

So, a 2 month character gives you _90k. That will take you 18month (1.5 years) and you have 100% chance to get a major (previously, the chance of this was 61%). If you only play 1 character this whole time, it will take a bit longer though.

A normal roll giving 9k AP and to use a normal token for 100,000 results in 11,111 rolls for a normal to be able to use a normal. Where before I could play one month and make a character requiring a normal roll to play what I wanted to play.

People get 36k a month if they play 60 hours a month. A part time job is working weekends only at 7.5 hours a day (two days a week) = 60 hours for the month.

Math can be fun. I have a lot of free time however I keep making characters, RPing with them, and having fun and rolling them. I help others on their quests (which we RP through), hang out in town and RP. I like the system, however I have 0 reason to casually log on to RP and run quests with those who may needed (all arranged ICly).

This is the feedback and experience from someone who prefers the new system.

[Xerah]

A normal roll giving 9k AP and to use a normal token for 100,000 results in 11,111 rolls for a normal to be able to use a normal.

I'm not sure what you're trying to illustrate here, but this isn't, at all, correct or relevant. I showed how you get approx. 100,000 points in 2 months (approximately 136 hr of play time on the character over a little more than 2 months).

That might be too few for some and too many for others, but it has nothing to do with rolling 11,111 characters.

[Ruzuke]

A normal roll giving 9k AP and to use a normal token for 100,000 results in 11,111 rolls for a normal to be able to use a normal.

I'm not sure what you're trying to illustrate here, but this isn't, at all, correct or relevant. I showed how you get approx. 100,000 points in 2 months (approximately 136 hr of play time on the character over a little more than 2 months).

That might be too few for some and too many for others, but it has nothing to do with rolling 11,111 characters.

I said it in the sentence and will repeat it again.

Your math said a roll could result in 9k for a normal a normal award is 100,000 AP which equals 11,111 rolls.

Your math as a positive of what could be done in a single month on average now takes three months.

Yes, it is both correct and relevant. It is just not coinvent for your argument.

Edit: As for the 36k a month it is the equivalent of working a part time job each week of 15 hours a week.

[Xerah]

I said it in the sentence and will repeat it again.

Your math said a roll could result in 9k for a normal a normal award is 100,000 AP which equals 11,111 rolls.

Your math as a positive of what could be done in a single month on average now takes three months.

Yes, it is both correct and relevant. It is just not coinvent for your argument.

Edit: As for the 36k a month it is the equivalent of working a part time job each week of 15 hours a week.

That completely ignores that you also get the majority of points for play time now (which you have to roll to access). It has nothing to do with being convenient for my argument or not.

You were usually getting 1 normal every 2 months as it was if you were going through characters that quickly (or had a lot left over). Yes, you probably didn't need to play 135 ish hours to get that normal if your only concern was getting to 26 as fast as possible, but you also couldn't combine those normals into greater or major rewards either. The overall design goal was to remove some of the roll bait style characters (i.e. play characters for a bit longer), remove the 'lootbox' (i.e. less payoff for the actual roll), add certainty to the system (you can eventually earn what you want to play), and reward time invested in the characters (i.e. get AP for playing). I think it accomplished those goals.

People who weren't rolling every 2 months are also much better off than they were before. They can still get rewarded when they finally do roll those characters (and generate passive points as well) instead of just that 1 normal they probably got for the 1 year old character.

No system is going to make everyone happy (some people are going to prefer lootboxes/gambling), but figuring out the overall goals of the award system and designing it to meet those is usually the best approach.

I'm not sure why you're phrasing it as a part-time job instead of calling it a hobby. You could certainly get a job instead of playing Arelith in the past, too.