Extended Subguilds - Feedback sought

[Jenred]

The advantages they provide seem overpowered for them just costing a special app slot.
I've met a few players with them, and it just doesn't seem fair.
I'd really like to see them implemented with the CGP or some other metric to limit them.
When I saw the overall numbers of their prevalence in the world since implementation it seemed rather staggering.

[Nyr]

When I saw the overall numbers of their prevalence in the world since implementation it seemed rather staggering.

What's staggering about the numbers?

[Jenred]

It just seemed high... though at the same time I don't know how quickly players are dying.
Like I think the number was 230 extended subguilds approved in a year.
Which I guess if on average there are 50 characters created a week, that's 2600 apps a year... meaning that 10% of all characters are an extended subguild.
Again, just saying it seems high, not necessarily is... or an accurate ratio to apps created, etc.

[MeTekillot]

With CGP there would be more, considering special applications are limited to three a year.

[Jenred]

With CGP there would be more, considering special applications are limited to three a year.

I don't think so actually. Alot of it would depend on the specifics of regeneration of CGP, but as it is you can special app your 3 extended subguilds, or special apps, and still in the remaining time play whatever your karma allows.
If it was currently deducting as CGP, players would I think would be more hesitant as if they CGP an extended subguild, die in a month, and spent essentially all their karma, they are then limited to only mundane roles until it regens.
As it is /now/ you can special app an extended subguild, if they die in a month you are not at all affected. It cost you nothing but a special app slot.

edited to add - I think any of my opinions on the matter will essentially be biased /against/ the extended subguild system. The game, in my opinion, functioned fine without the system for the entirety of its existence. In MMOs and other games where there is an inherent interplay of skill involved, major things have to be tweaked everytime you essentially provide an advantage/bump to a class. With the advent of the extended subguild system you have given a number of "boosted" combinations to (using my anecdotal pull of average characters approved a week) 10% of the population with no real adjustment to the skill or difficulty of MOBs, fluctuations of in-game economies possible through a more craft diverse population, etc etc.

None of the subguild combinations are at all disadvantageous. As to say there is no reason to not pick lets say an Assassin/Aggressor over an Assassin/Brute. Or a Merchant/Master Armorsmith over a Merchant/Armorcrafter. For essentially 2 CGP/karma you allow for the implementation of a character far superior from the get go over everyone else that didn't submit this essentially -too easy to get approved- special app. While at the same time taking no look into the 2nd and 3rd order effects of creating a large population of superior-combatants and crafters on the gameworld.

edited again to add - like with not a whole lot of effort it was possible to be pretty much a badaas warrior regardless of subguild within a short duration of time. Now you are giving them the ability, for 3 CGP/karma, to also - hide, sneak, backstab, sap and poison "second only to an Assassin" (disclaimer: this is all supposition from the helpfiles and in no way an omission of which extended subguilds get which skills). It might be only to a very limited degree, but this is still a very limited degree HIGHER then the zero it was previously. A maxxed warrior was scary before, a maxxed warrior with stealth skills second only to an assassin, is IMO downright overpowered. MOBs as a whole werent tweaked to take these stronger PCs into consideration, I don't think there was any concerted effort to counterbalance cases like this.

[Morrolan]

MOBs as a whole werent tweaked to take these stronger PCs into consideration, I don't think there was any concerted effort to counterbalance cases like this.

Armageddon is not, and has no intention of being, "balanced." The extended subguild system will add to the number of Karma-required (and therefore often potentially more powerful) in the world. BUT it also gives "mundane human" options for Karma-required characters in a population that is (probably) growing in percentage of high-karma players. Whether this was the intention or not, it should reduce the number of magickers and high-power, high-karma races.

A warrior-outdoorsman might be compared to a warrior-hunter, yes (both are warrior + subguilds).
It can also be compared to a Half-giant warrior-hunter (both are 3 karma).

Neither will have the breadth, dangerousness, world-breaking ability, and challenging RP of a sorcerer or psi (8 karma) or even (arguably) a whiran (6 karma) or krathi (4 karma).

[Nyr]

Alot of it would depend on the specifics of regeneration of CGP, but as it is you can special app your 3 extended subguilds, or special apps, and still in the remaining time play whatever your karma allows.

Not true, actually.  If you are curious about what has been proposed for the CGP system, it is here.  (In a nutshell, you wouldn't be able to play whatever your karma allows--you'd be able to play whatever your CGP allows.)

In MMOs and other games where there is an inherent interplay of skill involved, major things have to be tweaked everytime you essentially provide an advantage/bump to a class.

That's why we are requesting feedback.  This has been in "beta" (probably the best way to put it) for the past year with specifically required approval and notes made by staff.

None of the subguild combinations are at all disadvantageous. As to say there is no reason to not pick lets say an Assassin/Aggressor over an Assassin/Brute. Or a Merchant/Master Armorsmith over a Merchant/Armorcrafter.

Reason 1 not to go with an extended subguild or skill boost:  because you don't have any special applications left.
Reason 2 not to go with an extended subguild or skill boost:  because you don't have the CGP presently to do it (once that system is in place).

For essentially 2 CGP/karma you allow for the implementation of a character far superior from the get go over everyone else that didn't submit this essentially -too easy to get approved- special app.

There's not too many ways to have players test these roles out to determine what issues are there.  One of the best ways to do it would be to trust players to do it within the confines of the special application system and keep an eye on them for abuse, and that's what we have done here.

While at the same time taking no look into the 2nd and 3rd order effects of creating a large population of superior-combatants and crafters on the gameworld.

It's not really a large population, and only a handful actually survive to become superior combatants or use their ability to be master crafters.  For instance, outdoorsman is pretty popular taken as a group, but there aren't that many alive and active (less than 10, and that's with me being generous with the definition of "active").  Of those, not a single one of them is actually maxed out on even one of their extended subguild skills.  Giving someone the ability to have more potential doesn't mean they reach that potential.

[Twilight]

I've only had one crafting extended subguild.  I love the potential.  My suggestions:

-Crafting subguilds that include the crafts that have small numbers of items in them, to increase the number via mastercrafts.
-A balanced, but lower skill cap combat subguild might be more useful to more non-combat guilds (merchant, mages, potentially pickpockets).
-Specialized area subguilds

Proposal:  Master Nomad
Skills:  tentmaking (master), bowmaking (master), fletchery (master), Bendune, direction sense (apprentice)
For the nomad back at the tents (really, all the nomads have tents!  they should be able to make them).  I would have added spearmaking, except normal nomad has it.

Proposal:  Gladiator
Skills:  Dual wield (journeyman), two-handed (journeyman), shield use (journeyman), parry (apprentice), slashing weapons (apprentice), piercing weapons (apprentice), chopping weapons (apprentice), bludgeoning weapons (apprentice)

Proposal:  Cavalryman
Skills:  Riding (master), charge (master), trample (master), direction sense (journeyman)

Proposal:  Lumberjack
Skills:  axe making (master), club making (master), lumberjacking (master), wood working (master), chopping weapons (apprentice)

[Kismetic]

I like the idea of a lumberjacking ESG.  Also, not entirely the exact format as Twilight listed, but I think a "Gladiator" ESG would be awesome.

[Old Kank]

I love the idea of the extended subguilds, but I've found that their implementation just left me wanting a better system.

It seems like the subguilds are just toned down versions of the existing guilds, and while that's useful for throwing off guild-sniffers, and adding a little bit of depth to some roles, it doesn't provide the functional compliments to the classes that I was hoping it would.

For one obvious problem, look at the warrior ESG's, Protector and Aggressor:

We know from the helpfiles that Protector offers some defense skills, and Aggressor offers some offense skills.  Without delving into it too deeply, I think it's fair to say that an offense without a defense, or vice versa, is just pointless.  That means that Aggressor/Protector are really only useful when paired with the sub-melee guilds like ranger or assassin, guilds that are capable of building up an offense and a defense without the ESG anyway.

If you want to play a non-combat character, and you hope to compliment their lack of combat ability with one of the warrior ESG's, you're pretty much out of luck, because you'll only be getting one of two necessary halves, and your character's combat will be forever hobbled by that.

The merchant ESG's have the same problem.  They're good, but kind of pointlessly not good enough.  It's better to make a Merchant/Outdoorsman, or a Merchant/Cutpurse than a Ranger/Weaponsmith, or Pickpocket/Trader.

The second problem is in the extreme degree to which combat favors warriors, and the implications for ESG's.  I don't want to talk too much code, but as others have pointed out, a Warrior/ESG is better than a sub-melee-guild/Warrior ESG.  In my opinion, there's simply no point to playing a Ranger/Assassin/Rogue/Pickpocket anymore.  The combat handicap simply isn't worth the extra bit of specialization.

How would I improve it?  Shelve the class-based templates, and base ESG's off functionality instead, so that people could compliment their envisioned roles.

Just a few examples off the top of my head:
Northlands Fighter might give you chopping weapons, shield use, and bash. 
Southlands Fighter might give you piercing weapons, dual wield, and parry. 
Spy could give you hide, sneak, scan, listen, and search.
Trickster could give hide, sneak, peek, steal, and plant.
Thief Catcher might give you scan, hunt, subdue, and guard.
Dune Trader could give cavilish, haggle, tent making, stonecrafting, and toolmaking.
Scrub Trader might give cavilish, haggle, basketweaving, lumberjacking, and woodworking.
Arms Dealer might give cavilish, haggle, armor making, sword making, spear making, and knife making.

It might even be worth making class-specific ESG's to narrow down those functional roles and keep specific guild/ESG combos from becoming too strong, but then we're talking more scope creep and really just moving toward a classless system.

[Twilight]

I disagree with Old Kank.

Lets take Aggressor / Protector.  I don't think the point is to be able to effectively kill anything, especially not in most all situations like you might have with a warrior.  Protector to me is much more useful (in theory, I haven't taken it yet) on an indie merchant, so that it can survive to run away.  Aggressor much more useful on your HG elementalist (again, in theory) than your sub-melee guild.

I am also not sure we are thinking about the same part of the character development curve.  I see master armorcrafter/ranger or warrior as much more able to get to the "doing what I want this character to do stage" than merchant/outdoorsman.  And, even in this example, armorcrafter/ranger might trump armorcrafter/warrior depending on your goals for the character, given that all goals might not be combat related.  Part of what I like about the system.

[MeTekillot]

i accidentally a code specific

[Kismetic]

While I disagree with Old Kank's assessment, I very much like the north/south (and maybe add a tribal) ESGs.  I would also like to add that not everyone makes a character to be viable in combat scenarios, or cares that much about the balance (thought I imagine those that do would end up picking the same ESG over and over, so perhaps it -is- relevant).

[Bluefae]

It's not really a large population, and only a handful actually survive to become superior combatants or use their ability to be master crafters.  For instance, outdoorsman is pretty popular taken as a group, but there aren't that many alive and active (less than 10, and that's with me being generous with the definition of "active").  Of those, not a single one of them is actually maxed out on even one of their extended subguild skills.  Giving someone the ability to have more potential doesn't mean they reach that potential.

    (Bolded emphases mine.)

    Nyr has zeroed in on a key point in dispelling one of my initial misgivings - that "old school" subguilds guilds would become obsolete, because guild + ext. subguild would always be better.  It just hasn't worked out this way, though, either from my own worm's eye view, or, apparently, from the staff's.  Initially I held pretty much all of Jenred's perspectives, but those concerns have largely gone the way of the dodo at this point.

    I was kicking around some kind of "Philosopher" sub-guild in my mind.  As lore skills are really more of an OOC knowledge/rp thing, I'm not really sure how it would be implemented.  Maybe make it mega-expensive, and include the coveted "Read/Write" skill?  I would totally go for that, personally!  If we can have teleporting warriors, I would argue there's room for literate ones. =)  

[Twilight]

Proposal:  Criminal
read/write (sirihish), tatlum, steal, perma-crim flag for Nak and Tuluk

But in a serious vein, something like writing at say 6 karma would be sort of neat.

[Kismetic]

Read/Write would totally be a great addition, too.  As BlueFae said, if we have sorcerer subguilds, why not something that has read/write?  Sirihish, I would think, but maybe Cavilish, too.

[Jenred]

All that Nyr said in response

Thanks for taking time to respond to each of the concerns, that at least makes me feel better about the whole thing!

[MeTekillot]

I don't see why reading and writing couldn't be 4 karma or, if a literate commoner is even rarer than a warrior who can fling fireballs, 5 karma.

[Jenred]

Dont even get me started on that...
For 4 karma/CGP you can either play a Water/Earth/Fire/Wind Elementalist - OR any mundane guild with magicker tendencies. To me it would take a lot more karma to play a mundane character dabbling in sorcery than it would take to play a standard magicker. Yet they are considered on equal footing. Boogles my mind.

[Reiloth]

I don't think Reading and Writing should ever be accessible via Subguild/CGP. It should be something arranged with Staff via a special application, if anything, I think. I like that Reading and Writing is incredibly rare, more rare than 'hey my name is Amos I spent 4 CGP at chargen so now I can read scrolls. l33t.' Obviously I trust everyone playing this game -- If you wanted to play a game that didn't require RP, you'd play WoW or whatever else is out there that's instant gratification with no character development. Still...I don't trust people with 4 karma to not abuse the reading and writing already out there, and the rarity of it as it stands, to the point of being able to expend karma to gain this knowledge.

Where or how would it be possible for a commoner to gain this knowledge? I don't even think that can be covered in a background, it should be happening in game.

[Reiloth]

Dont even get me started on that...
For 4 karma/CGP you can either play a Water/Earth/Fire/Wind Elementalist - OR any mundane guild with magicker tendencies. To me it would take a lot more karma to play a mundane character dabbling in sorcery than it would take to play a standard magicker. Yet they are considered on equal footing. Boogles my mind.

I guess I kind of agree in a way, but i'd need to see the magicker subguilds in action whenever they get implemented in order to test it out. I think it'd be hard to explain being 'kind of good' at Sorcery because you 'met this guy that one time and he taught you about making yourself invisible/super fast'.

Then again, it sort of reminds me of Jack Vances' Tales of a Dying Earth, where Magick was just SUPER FUCKING HARD. So 'wizards' who uncovered eldritch scrolls and knowledge could only memorize/cast 1-4 spells usually, and VERY TALENTED wizards could bust out like 6. So I can see Sorcerers remaining the ultra gifted and the subguilds just not being good enough to understand the full path of sorcery.

It does make me wonder though...(Without going into great detail)...Why not Psion subguilds?

[CravenMadness]

Psion is probably more of an 'All or Nothing' type of development and limited to humans racially, whereas the magick process can be learned chemist style through trial and error and sorcery. (at least for the extended subguild versions, elementalists are born to it as far as I know.)

[ShaLeah]

Psion is probably more of an 'All or Nothing' type of development and limited to humans racially, whereas the magick process can be learned chemist style through trial and error and sorcery. (at least for the extended subguild versions, elementalists are born to it as far as I know.)

You know one of the things I love about these Sub-Guilds is that it gives people (like those disgusting mindworms) a chance, a teeeeeeeeeeeenie little chance at surviving outside. That makes the game a whole lotta more interesting to me.

I played one and loved it, even though I never really got the chance to develop it like my primary guild. For me subguilds are the hardest to pick. I just suck at it and every single time I wish I picked something different.

[Nyr]

Dont even get me started on that...
For 4 karma/CGP you can either play a Water/Earth/Fire/Wind Elementalist - OR any mundane guild with magicker tendencies. To me it would take a lot more karma to play a mundane character dabbling in sorcery than it would take to play a standard magicker. Yet they are considered on equal footing. Boogles my mind.

Well, drovian, not whiran, but yes.  We trust people with 4 karma to play those roles.  At the time of developing the standards for the magickal extended subguilds, we decided to trust people with 4 CGP to play extended subguild magickers.  You haven't seen any of these in-game, ever.  Additionally, the restriction of these to 4 CGP (a determination carefully made at that time) will ensure that only people with karma will ever play them, unlike the mundane extended subguilds (where even people with 0 karma can app for them if they so choose and if we allow it, but only 3 per year).

Don't count your extended subguild 'gickers before they are hatched!

[Harmless]

Edit: to open with Nyr's quote:

None of the subguild combinations are at all disadvantageous. As to say there is no reason to not pick lets say an Assassin/Aggressor over an Assassin/Brute. Or a Merchant/Master Armorsmith over a Merchant/Armorcrafter.

Reason 1 not to go with an extended subguild or skill boost:  because you don't have any special applications left.
Reason 2 not to go with an extended subguild or skill boost:  because you don't have the CGP presently to do it (once that system is in place).

I don't like that the only reason not to select an extended subguild is that you can't, due to special app or no CGP. Shouldn't there be -some- reason not to go with Outdoorsman over Hunter? Even if it is just one of convenience?

Extended subguilds are basically making multiclass characters exist for the first time in Arma. Especially for some combos, like warrior/outdoorsman. A well-trained warrior/outdoorsman looks a lot like a warrior/ranger to me, with maybe slightly reduced caps on the ranger half of things, given the combat skills all overlap.

In D&D, Multiclass characters advance more slowly (XP is split between classes, or, in newer editions, players choose which multiclass to put points into, etc). This slower advancement is, functionally, a cap, as typically a group of players will all hoard about the same amount of XP at any given time, and the multiclassers among them will always be functionally lower-leveled than their more focused friends. This significant trade-off made multiclassers rare(r).

As it stands in Arma, although apparently nobody has reached their extended subguild PC's full potential yet, there seems to be no real limitation or trade-off to their decision to be so broadly skilled. We are all concerned about balance issues because we know the code, know how advancing skills works, and know that with minimal twinking very powerful characters can exist indeed.

I think people would think a lot more on the decision to make a warrior/outdoorsman instead of a warrior/hunter if they knew that things would be much more slow-going for the former, whereas the latter choice will get to a good level of combat prowess and have a basic level of ranger-type skills very early. A 10-day warrior/outdoorsman should be, at best, as good as your typical 5-day warrior; a 20-day warrior/outdoorsman should always be beaten in one on one simple combat against a pure 20-day warrior with a regular subguild. In old school D&D this would be literally the case; with a skill based system, it would never be exact but some kind of trade-off to that effect is needed in my opinion.

How to implement that? I think that's the golden egg in this debate, to make everyone happy and secure in knowing that although the potential is still there for these monsters to exist, that not every other warrior they deal with will be able to both sneak AND hide (outdoorsman) or be able to backstab AND disarm/parry (slipknife), etc. etc. Conversely, it shouldn't be so bad of a trade-off that nobody wants them anymore.