Arelith

The GrumpyCat wrote: Sat Apr 25, 2020 8:51 pm There's a line here of: 'But why can't I play as I wanna play?'

People are misconstruing the situation I feel.

The through line here isn't 'You need to play like this or you'l be banned' the through line is 'Why should this style of play be rewarded?'

And that's a fair point.

I'm not saying people who spend all their time run-grinding and none of their time rping shouldn't be allowed on arelith. Far from it. But I am saying that such behavior shouldn't be given the same amount, same chance, of award (or higher!) than someone who's style is more in line with the server - which is to say, Roleplay.

Indeed, oddly enough, I'd argue that the RPR system is vital for acutally -allowing- such behavior on this server.

I think this really captures everything. (And I was being mildly facetious on the dragons and vampires thing, I trust that is being managed!)

There is nothing stopping players from continuing to grind if that is how they want to play. However, the question is where the incentives are placed. Frankly the server is awash in incentives for different play styles. The vast majority of those incentives focus on group play and RP including:
-Epic bosses that can't be soloed
-A crafting system that relies on trade
-Settlement systems and voting
-Factions and guildhouses

There are a few systems that still incentivize grind play. Things like builds that are designed to solo, like SD. (And yes, I play one for this reason, just calling myself out) In addition, resource collection can really incentivize grinding and this is key for the economy of arelith. Enough to say, both of these are good reasons we don't want to ban solo grinding. Some people have to do it, and economically speaking, it can be necessary for both personal goals as well as settlement goals.

However, the one system that really incentivizes the grind above all else is the award system. The grand poohbah's of the server tried to fix this a little bit by requiring 20 RPR to balance out an RP emphasis. However, I think that revealed some of the problems with the RPR system as it stands.

Changing the system is not telling you that you can't do something. It is saying that we don't want to reward that play in this way. Frankly, there are still plenty of reasons to grind for everyone and if you want to grind on an alt to help your friend accrue resources or just for the fun of mass murdering kobolds (I get it) then you still can.

All told, I am sure this will change and I look forward to seeing what the powers that be come up with and I am glad that it is on their radar.


As a total side note, please stop saying that people will never get through their adventure XP. My only character to play into high epics rant out of adventure XP at like level 24.

Your analysis is really impressive, Archnon, but just out of honestly not knowing and this is tangent to the actual topic so feel free to skip, how is grinding key for Arelith's economy? What's like the mechanism? I feel there's an entire game I'm missing by not knowing the settlement system practically at all.

Flower Power wrote: Sat Apr 25, 2020 8:25 pm

DM Rex wrote: Sat Apr 25, 2020 8:00 pm having already seen the content and not wanting to grind through it for the same length are a few examples.

This is an underappreciated argument, I think. I've been on Arelith since before the Arelith-Amia split, and if I have to spend yet another 3 hours grinding FoD/Wharftown Boys/Sea Bandits ad nauseum again to get my character to a decent level, I may very well scream.

While I am not as OG a veteran as you, I wholeheartedly agree.

Also: there are only so many times one can roleplay wonder and marvel at the new places your character travels without it becoming stale and forced.

Back in my day we started at 0 RPR, and personally my first RPR raise took over 6 months.

You kids have it so easy nowadays

The GrumpyCat wrote: Sat Apr 25, 2020 8:51 pm Sorry, I was actually player side and distracted. I'll respond a little now.

Firstly just an assurance

There will be a rash of vampires and dragons by the end of this, mark my words. (Shoutout to my fellow parents out there who are now barely eaking out time to play, I am with you!)

The rest of the post this is from is actually quite cool and inciteful, and I do thank the poster for it. But I want to assure that this at least won't happen. Dragons arn't avaiable as an award, and Vampires are application based, and also I try to keep the numbers down. We may see an upsurge in tieflings/aasimar/minotaurs though - fair point.

I really do sympathise with the origional poster. It's a thing that frustrates me too a little. Because it means that, at least to an extent, 5% concepts are more likely to occur if you just grind enough. And that's slightly depressing. And it is something we have on our radar. I don't want to go into details yet, but change will come sooner rather than later I hope (and by 'sooner' I mean 'within the year' not 'next week'.

I wouldn't like to gate awards behind a 30 rpr though - because I do recognise that the rpr system isn't perfect and, as many have pointed out, people get lost and missed, and that's not fair.

There's a line here of: 'But why can't I play as I wanna play?'

People are misconstruing the situation I feel.

The through line here isn't 'You need to play like this or you'l be banned' the through line is 'Why should this style of play be rewarded?'

And that's a fair point.

I'm not saying people who spend all their time run-grinding and none of their time rping shouldn't be allowed on arelith. Far from it. But I am saying that such behavior shouldn't be given the same amount, same chance, of award (or higher!) than someone who's style is more in line with the server - which is to say, Roleplay.

Indeed, oddly enough, I'd argue that the RPR system is vital for acutally -allowing- such behavior on this server.

When you want to enforce a certain set of behaviors or rules - there are two ways of doing it. - Carrott or Stick. We can enforce good rp standards on this server either by handing out awards (such as rpr raises) or by punishments (e.g. bans). The more awards we remove, the more punishments we have to inflict. Personaly I tend to be in favour of awarding good behavior rather tuan punishing 'bad' behavior.

So yes, we are looking at changing the award system is being looked at.
My aim is that it will still be possible for almost any player to get an award, but that those who... act in accordance with the expectations of the server... will find it easier to do so.

Old rewards won't be transferred or honored in the new system then? Or am I misunderstanding?

It's a little too soon to say? So please don't take this as gospel. But at present my thoughts are they will be, yes.

The GrumpyCat wrote: Sat Apr 25, 2020 11:50 pm It's a little too soon to say? So please don't take this as gospel. But at present my thoughts are they will be, yes.

Umm...

But RP 30 doesn't doesn't reflect if you are a powergamer and always in character. It reflects making a noticeable enjoyable wave in the server. That's like asking every npc to be the lead character of a show (i know socially/literary speaking ill never ever be rp 30 similar to why i can walk into myon and cordor as a pirate with no stealth and disguise, I am

Also the special races arnt even advantageous minus the minotaur for WM build.

Duergar is much better than ogres. And orog is amazing anything duergar is not (ezcdpt for wizards). Humans are still master race at pretty much everything.

Personally I'd like to see a points based system that has some limit on time. I'm just going to make up numbers here.

Let's say the team decides that one person earning a Major every RL year is cool, or a Greater every 6 months.

A Major will cost 10 points, a Greater 5, Normal 2, Minor 1. You can earn a maximum of 12 points a RL year by rolling characters and level, gold, etc all factors into it. Maybe a level 26+ character with max gold etc is worth 4 points and a level 16 is worth 1 point. You could even split this into 3 RL month blocks, so 4 points max every 3 months. You could add it other requirements if you didn't want a grouping of level 16 characters to be able to add up to a Major like at least 1 PC had to have been 26+ in that year for it to be unlocked etc.

Luck is removed from the system, everyone given enough time can grind for an award, but grinding through 3 different characters in a month isn't worthwhile. Likewise you still have a "cap" on the number of special races strolling about.

xanrael wrote: Sun Apr 26, 2020 1:11 am Personally I'd like to see a points based system that has some limit on time. I'm just going to make up numbers here.

Let's say the team decides that one person earning a Major every RL year is cool, or a Greater every 6 months.

A Major will cost 10 points, a Greater 5, Normal 2, Minor 1. You can earn a maximum of 12 points a RL year by rolling characters and level, gold, etc all factors into it. Maybe a level 26+ character with max gold etc is worth 4 points and a level 16 is worth 1 point. You could even split this into 3 RL month blocks, so 4 points max every 3 months.

Luck is removed from the system, everyone given enough time can grind for an award, but grinding through 3 different characters in a month isn't worthwhile. Likewise you still have a "cap" on the number of special races strolling about.

You'll just see majors. Maybe minors. You wont see Greaters.

If someone wants to play a Greater race then they'll pick Greater. Also you caught me mid edit and I addressed that with: "You could add it other requirements if you didn't want a grouping of level 16 characters to be able to add up to a Major like at least 1 PC had to have been 26+ in that year for it to be unlocked etc."

Edit: Also I'll add I don't see there being a problem if people just work towards Majors. I'd want a system that reduces people chain rolling characters in a short time period fishing for Majors. If you add in a "time in game" then they're just adding server load if they stay in game pseudo-idle. Even if they game this system by not playing except for once every 3 months to grind a character up to 26+ that's still less others will be impacted by it.

An issue with having 'just played a certain amount of time' is farmers and bots. You're still going to have those players with multiple characters running up the point clock.

This doesn't really eliminate the issue, just shifts the means to it.

Additionally: It's a trade of luck verses investment at that point. What would automatically qualify for a major reward? A year's worth of play on a single character, two? The present system gives no pressure, no determined award for any advantage other than the accomplishment of gold. As opposed to gating newer players, allowing all rewards to be free, and really drain the special nature of them even further. Since everyone would have them.

The existence of Gift of Humility and ECL rewards are not really ... good? in Arelith anymore.

Because, for a brief period of time, ECL used to impact your RPR. Yeah, you heard that right. You'd get less of a RPR boost if you took more ECL (aka more Gifts). This is what 'balanced out' some of the really, really powerful Gifts in the beginning (like a Spell Resistance one that scaled with your level).

The problem with ECL rewards is that they a) do not affect RPR and b) really, really have such small impacts on actual monster-killing XP gain. We're talking the difference between 20xp and 17xp per kill. This was maybe more important in pre-writ Arelith, and pre-AXP Arelith. But now?

Not important.

However, I find these threads very very humorous. People scream and shout for more objectivism (rules, regulations, standards, metrics, etc.) for an inherently subjective thing (your roleplay) while we have a currently objective system (Epic Sacrifice) for an objective thing (your level).

Meanwhile, whenever we DARE wade into criticism, critique, or feedback of people's (subjective) skill of roleplay, we get called elitists or worse, and breach the Be Nice rule, and out comes the golden saying:

u r doing it wrong.

To be frank, if you want to gate content behind RPR 75% of the playerbase will never see it. Majority of the server has a 20. Do you want to gate content that you might never get to experience? Like, ever?

That a new player might never get to experience? Like, ever? Some people, for good or ill, never got more than 20. There's nothing absolutely nothing inherently wrong with that.

Except if you move to a system where Access is put behind RPR and suddenly people will feel lesser, jealous, betrayed, envious, demeaned, etc.

At least with the current Epic Sacrifice system, everyone has a chance. You just need to get a certain level. You arguably don't need a single other living soul on this server to do that. It's arguably the "fairest" in the literal meaning of the word.

So that's what we have.

I want to enshrine this post. I have nothing further to say on this matter.

Opustus wrote: Sat Apr 25, 2020 9:59 pm Your analysis is really impressive, Archnon, but just out of honestly not knowing and this is tangent to the actual topic so feel free to skip, how is grinding key for Arelith's economy? What's like the mechanism? I feel there's an entire game I'm missing by not knowing the settlement system practically at all.

So, two things. First, the economy of Arelith follows most economies and relies on supply and demand. Demand is pretty constant, if not increasing. Supply is where grinding matters. The bulk of the high end economy is dependent on high end resources (addy, gems, etc) and high end loot (mithril dust, berjuli gems, etc). In the first case, grinding helps you maximize the number of times that nodes get hit. In the second case, because these items are a percentage chance drop, the more chests that get opened, the more of that item on the market. (This is oversimplified, but you get the idea.)

Long story short, if you want to keep the price of high end crafted items down for players to have access, then you need to keep a reasonable supply of high end resources and grinding helps with that.

Second, settlements lose resources every year and that pays for many things, but most importantly the number of slots citizens can have in the bank. Settlement leaders will often organize resource gathering trips or go out and grind themselves to keep these resources up so they don't have to panic when the year rolls around. I have never managed a settlement but this is how it has been explained to me.

tl;dr - Grinding is useful for the server and there are mechanisms in place already that encourage it and no one wants to see it eliminated. This is why grinding doesn't stop at level 30 once you cap experience and roll chance.<br/>

Seven Sons of Sin wrote: Sun Apr 26, 2020 2:15 am However, I find these threads very very humorous. People scream and shout for more objectivism (rules, regulations, standards, metrics, etc.) for an inherently subjective thing (your roleplay) while we have a currently objective system (Epic Sacrifice) for an objective thing (your level).

Meanwhile, whenever we DARE wade into criticism, critique, or feedback of people's (subjective) skill of roleplay, we get called elitists or worse, and breach the Be Nice rule, and out comes the golden saying:

I don't think this accurately portrays the debate. There are two issues. This first you bring up is fairness and objectivity. However, the second issue is the question of what you are rewarding. The current system is completely fair as you point out. However, it does not reward RP. You could roll a level 30 character that never entered a single line of dialogue and still get a reward. And expecting the DM's to police this is a big ask when most of us would rather see them using their time to create fun events and engage players. Alternatively, you could play a character for a year, never break level 16 and RP the entire time. It would not be hard to fill your time with settlement politics, witty banter, trade, etc.

At this point, I think even OP would agree that gating this behind subjective DM decisions like RPR or granting in game rewards is the wrong move. What people are asking for is an objective system that actually rewards RP, without judging the quality of that RP. Essentially, something that rewards people putting forth the effort of engaging in RP without telling them they are doing it right or wrong.

I am glad that there are brighter minds managing this server than myself that can design this ideal system. However, I don't think we should fault people for noting this issue and offering ideas. The team might be able to use some versions of those ideas to come up with something that, as IG described, is durable. </r>

Seems like an easy enough fix. Just gate rewards to level 30 only.

Seven Sons of Sin wrote: Sun Apr 26, 2020 2:15 am The existence of Gift of Humility and ECL rewards are not really ... good? in Arelith anymore.

Because, for a brief period of time, ECL used to impact your RPR. Yeah, you heard that right. You'd get less of a RPR boost if you took more ECL (aka more Gifts). This is what 'balanced out' some of the really, really powerful Gifts in the beginning (like a Spell Resistance one that scaled with your level).

The problem with ECL rewards is that they a) do not affect RPR and b) really, really have such small impacts on actual monster-killing XP gain. We're talking the difference between 20xp and 17xp per kill. This was maybe more important in pre-writ Arelith, and pre-AXP Arelith. But now?

Not important.

However, I find these threads very very humorous. People scream and shout for more objectivism (rules, regulations, standards, metrics, etc.) for an inherently subjective thing (your roleplay) while we have a currently objective system (Epic Sacrifice) for an objective thing (your level).

Meanwhile, whenever we DARE wade into criticism, critique, or feedback of people's (subjective) skill of roleplay, we get called elitists or worse, and breach the Be Nice rule, and out comes the golden saying:

u r doing it wrong.

To be frank, if you want to gate content behind RPR 75% of the playerbase will never see it. Majority of the server has a 20. Do you want to gate content that you might never get to experience? Like, ever?

That a new player might never get to experience? Like, ever? Some people, for good or ill, never got more than 20. There's nothing absolutely nothing inherently wrong with that.

Except if you move to a system where Access is put behind RPR and suddenly people will feel lesser, jealous, betrayed, envious, demeaned, etc.

At least with the current Epic Sacrifice system, everyone has a chance. You just need to get a certain level. You arguably don't need a single other living soul on this server to do that. It's arguably the "fairest" in the literal meaning of the word.

So that's what we have.

Yeah this post is excellent and well written. It also covers what I tried to say earlier about gift of humility. The means to get negative ecl via award is less of an issue imo because 1) it costs an award. 2) it doesnt cripple the character mechanically so bad that the purpose of the character becomes being rolled asap at 26 from creation. I dont have a problem with the option to play Humility, I have a problem with the -2 ecl it gives. Instead of humility you get something else entirely in reality.

xanrael wrote: Sun Apr 26, 2020 1:18 am If someone wants to play a Greater race then they'll pick Greater. Also you caught me mid edit and I addressed that with: "You could add it other requirements if you didn't want a grouping of level 16 characters to be able to add up to a Major like at least 1 PC had to have been 26+ in that year for it to be unlocked etc."

Edit: Also I'll add I don't see there being a problem if people just work towards Majors. I'd want a system that reduces people chain rolling characters in a short time period fishing for Majors. If you add in a "time in game" then they're just adding server load if they stay in game pseudo-idle. Even if they game this system by not playing except for once every 3 months to grind a character up to 26+ that's still less others will be impacted by it.

So i never understood this "pseudo idle argument". Like are they any more or less attentive than when circle grinding the same dungeon 100 times? Are they make them selves step every 6 minutes with WASD keys in their qaurter while watching a movie (because surely DMs would eventually notice that if they kept doing it excessively)?

The latter (doing nothing past an action to keep the ticks coming) was what I was referring to. And really it doesn't matter to me unless it became excessive in a significant portion of the population doing it or if they pick bad spots to do it in. For example a normally empty zone with a merchant that sees decent use and that ends up causing crashes.

Some players receive zero DM interaction. Some have been here a good while, have been IC and courteous to others the whole time, yet have never received a stamp of approval in the form of RPR. And the OP is suggesting they need to have their RP anointed twice before they can receive any reward for retiring their character, when they can't even get their RP acknowledged once.

I don't know if it's the OP's intent here, but his Suggestion very much reads as "hey, I got mine, now it's time to pull up the ladder behind me."

versus wrote: Sun Apr 26, 2020 2:29 pm Some players receive zero DM interaction. Some have been here a good while, have been IC and courteous to others the whole time, yet have never received a stamp of approval in the form of RPR. And the OP is suggesting they need to have their RP anointed twice before they can receive any reward for retiring their character, when they can't even get their RP acknowledged once.

I don't know if it's the OP's intent here, but his Suggestion very much reads as "hey, I got mine, now it's time to pull up the ladder behind me."

There's a real issue of not reading things before posting. I know it's 3 pages long now but a lot has been discussed. RPR is not really on the table of discussion. Bad idea, I get it. Now move on to other constructive ideas instead of crapping on what has been established to have been a bad idea.

Sorry for dogpiling? I did happen to read it all, but only felt compelled to comment on the original post. Anyway, no hard feelings or anything.

Seven really hit it. While sure people who level faster have a higher probability to gain these unique races, these unique races don't really add anything that can't already be achieved by base races, and lead to some odd roleplay (re: imps).

While you might be a have-not, you can always gain by rolling at 16-26.

xanrael wrote: Sun Apr 26, 2020 12:34 pm The latter (doing nothing past an action to keep the ticks coming) was what I was referring to. And really it doesn't matter to me unless it became excessive in a significant portion of the population doing it or if they pick bad spots to do it in. For example a normally empty zone with a merchant that sees decent use and that ends up causing crashes.

At least if you'r circle grinding you're doing something. You are 'playing the game', you are taking risks, you're being an adventurer.

Standing around contnatly, doing nothing but shifting your character a little to the left or right for hours on and, and/or using a Macro to do that, is something we will not tolerate.

Anyone we catch doing it can expect some very serious consequences.

What an atrociously inefficient way to gain xp too, jfc

NauVaseline wrote: Sun Apr 26, 2020 4:12 pm What an atrociously inefficient way to gain xp too, jfc

I don't even think it works, I'm pretty sure the system checks for chat activity!