Player retention and you: brainstorming

[Dresan]

What would be nice to see is more in game customization so characters have more room to grow beyond their original mold.

I rather keep things random but still allow for small improvement, assuming your character starts off really weak. If you want to work your character up to be stronger, you should be able to within reason, perhaps with very good being the cut off. Or maybe people should just be able to apply to reroll a single skill...it could go up, stay the same or it could go down, working out can hurt you after all (i busted my shoulder once, and it took months before it got better) . Its the same with skills, there should be no reason why your character can't learn a skill at sub-guild levels, perhaps mid-journeyman or no higher then advanced depending on the skill.

But there should be a significant cost to this for the player. Perhaps maybe once every six months per stat boost or to add a single sub-guild skill, and it should cost you a special app. It would allow people to always have something to strive for and look forward too, no matter how long they've played a character. This would satisfy the achievers, while allowing people like me, to have slightly more useful character in the beginning with less grind.

Again this would be nice to have, but in terms of player retention, losing your character, contacts and story hurts enough in a perma-death game....its just that initial two weeks to month long grind to mediocrity that just adds insult to injury.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

One thing I think would make the people who play mostly gickers stay more and burn out less is a single skill add-on.

Like a subguild, but this is a single extra skill you choose at chargen from the non-profitable crafting skills and less advantageous other skills.

Accidental guild sniffing becomes vastly harder, every elf knows how to sneak now, the mercenary can make clubs and knives together, the secret witch in Kadius can make clothes and jewelry both, etc.

[Dresan]

I`ve thinking magickers should start with a few more sub-level guild mundane skills, and slightly better combat skills so non-gemmers could join combat clans by just taking mercenary sub-guild. Considering they can really only use their magick outside the walls of a city, village or outpost perhaps giving some of them novice level direction sense which they can then train to journeyman IF they do go out wouldn`t be the worst of ideas. As I said on the other thread, I dunno, and I`m often more concerned with mundanes then magickers, though that isn`t really that fair to people who enjoy those roles from time to time.

I sometimes feel like there should be a lot more hidden skills, like direction sense. Rangers starting off amazing in them, but every other player with a lot of work still being able to become good at them abeit slowly. Again the idea being that you start off good with the skills intended for your guild making you useful from the start but you should still be able to practice climbing, or riding with your warrior and eventually be able to invisibly cap at sub-guild levels with a lot of grind, if you didn`t want to grind those particular skills you should have picked it as a visible sub-guild skill.  

[CodeMaster]

Ranger Quit: Perhaps you could, with a certain amount of karma, get ranger quit (i.e., quit anywhere) for free, or maybe you can buy ranger quit with CGP, or maybe you can QUIT OOC an unlimited amount of times after reaching a certain karma threshold, or providing staff with some justification or something.

One of the restrictions I like about quit ooc is you have to touch a quit exit at least once every two log-offs.  This keeps you anchored to society unless you're a ranger.

But "touching" the quit room entails logging off and back in again (I wonder how staff view doing this rapidly just to lose the flag).  I wouldn't mind, say, a compromise where simply walking through a quit room (or typing quit touch or something) reset your quit ooc status?

Meta-Movement Points: So there's a big RPT coming up, but you have a dozen things to do, and can only make it in the middle, or have to leave during the middle, or it takes an hour to get to the RPT, etc.  Again, perhaps players with a certain amount of karma, or maybe purchased with CGP, can have the ability to meta-poof from point A to point B, or teleport to a certain person.  (Details could be sorted to avoid abuse -- e.g., it could log it to staff or whatever whenever this happens, limited to once a month, requires a report to be filed, or something.)  We suspend our disbelief when people quit out during a scene; we can suspend our disbelief when they re-enter a scene too.

Potentially solved by the wagon code, maybe?  What if for large campaigns the Byn had a wagon (not a wagon necessarily, but a "vanguard" or a "detachment") that players could enter/exit and quit out from, thereby enabling them to be near the action whenever?

Same before any big RPT: if templars are amassing a citizen militia, maybe there could be an enterable quit-room object initially described as a "training camp" that would later be moved close to the RPT action and re-described as a "desert trench" or something.  Entering the object would give a warning to the player:

[WARNING: this room represents a mobile troop.  If you quit in this room, you may log back in to find yourself in another part of the game.].

[Rokal]

Ranger Quit: Perhaps you could, with a certain amount of karma, get ranger quit (i.e., quit anywhere) for free, or maybe you can buy ranger quit with CGP, or maybe you can QUIT OOC an unlimited amount of times after reaching a certain karma threshold, or providing staff with some justification or something.

One of the restrictions I like about quit ooc is you have to touch a quit exit at least once every two log-offs.  This keeps you anchored to society unless you're a ranger.

But "touching" the quit room entails logging off and back in again (I wonder how staff view doing this rapidly just to lose the flag).  I wouldn't mind, say, a compromise where simply walking through a quit room (or typing quit touch or something) reset your quit ooc status?

Meta-Movement Points: So there's a big RPT coming up, but you have a dozen things to do, and can only make it in the middle, or have to leave during the middle, or it takes an hour to get to the RPT, etc.  Again, perhaps players with a certain amount of karma, or maybe purchased with CGP, can have the ability to meta-poof from point A to point B, or teleport to a certain person.  (Details could be sorted to avoid abuse -- e.g., it could log it to staff or whatever whenever this happens, limited to once a month, requires a report to be filed, or something.)  We suspend our disbelief when people quit out during a scene; we can suspend our disbelief when they re-enter a scene too.

Potentially solved by the wagon code, maybe?  What if for large campaigns the Byn had a wagon (not a wagon necessarily, but a "vanguard" or a "detachment") that players could enter/exit and quit out from, thereby enabling them to be near the action whenever?

Same before any big RPT: if templars are amassing a citizen militia, maybe there could be an enterable quit-room object initially described as a "training camp" that would later be moved close to the RPT action and re-described as a "desert trench" or something.  Entering the object would give a warning to the player:

[WARNING: this room represents a mobile troop.  If you quit in this room, you may log back in to find yourself in another part of the game.].

This is a super cool idea.

[Dresan]

Something else I wanted to mention was elves.

You know I really like playing humans, and once in a blue moon I play half-elves. Half-elves have interesting role play and nice upside to help you along as you wade through all the shit thrown at you. People love dwarves too, nice stats, interesting roleplay, not my cup of tea but I can understand why people enjoy playing them.

Basically these are changes of pace from just playing humans, which is great, adds to the game being able to play different things and different races is one of the things that really adds variety to the game. Now, considering there is really only one city elves can thrive in perhaps a few more benefits with city life wouldn`t be the worst.

It is not that I don`t see people playing elves, and kudos to those that play but man, they need some love. I`m sure elven clans are being work on but honestly I don`t want to see an elf only clan, rather having more options within the current system.

I also think the coded upside to elves fall short in comparison to almost any other race in the game. Shit strength sucks when leather armors are so damn heavy, my human can easily run around the city, they inability to ride is such a loss when ride is a powerful skill for both movement and combat.To add insult to injury, the one thing they do get as a benefit is the same thing that has caused the death of two or three of some really fun characters... gee not much of a benefit in my books.  

I mean considering we now have rooftops, perhaps all elves should at least start with climb and a few other city skills to represent their adaptability and mobility in the city. Perhaps city sneak, or flee....if they can`t ride or play the op ranger class, they should be able to do as they please on their legs within the city.

Again the only reason I mention this in this thread is it all adds to the variety of the game and ultimately will help with retention. For example, if I can`t pick allanak or tuluk every other character, perhaps I can pick human or elf, and get two different experiences with in the same city, but right now, elves feels like its lacking, since you have so many RP and coded restrictions.  Again though, kudos to those people who do play them.    

[Old Kank]

Perhaps "special applications" could be changed to "special requests?"  Three times a year, you can go to staff and request the addition of one skill, one stat change, or one skill bump, more or less no questions asked.  No need for exhaustive logs or whatever.  Keep your character alive for 3-4 years and you can pick up the equivalent of two or three extended subguilds.

[nauta]

Perhaps "special applications" could be changed to "special requests?"  Three times a year, you can go to staff and request the addition of one skill, one stat change, or one skill bump, more or less no questions asked.  No need for exhaustive logs or whatever.  Keep your character alive for 3-4 years and you can pick up the equivalent of two or three extended subguilds.

I love this idea, especially the 'more or less no questions asked' part of it.  Submitting logs for scrutiny is tedious for both parties; subjective; and, at least for me, a bit arbitrary: my dudette was training sword while I was offline, guys, honest.

[Taven]

Perhaps "special applications" could be changed to "special requests?"  Three times a year, you can go to staff and request the addition of one skill, one stat change, or one skill bump, more or less no questions asked.  No need for exhaustive logs or whatever.  Keep your character alive for 3-4 years and you can pick up the equivalent of two or three extended subguilds.

I'm all for long-lived characters getting something, but having what amounts to 2-3 subguilds on one PC, who might even be already maxed in their main guild, seems like way too much.

[nauta]

Perhaps "special applications" could be changed to "special requests?"  Three times a year, you can go to staff and request the addition of one skill, one stat change, or one skill bump, more or less no questions asked.  No need for exhaustive logs or whatever.  Keep your character alive for 3-4 years and you can pick up the equivalent of two or three extended subguilds.

I'm all for long-lived characters getting something, but having what amounts to 2-3 subguilds on one PC, who might even be already maxed in their main guild, seems like way too much.

I was just about to edit my entry to say the same -- you might want to limit the "special requests" to once a year or three-times per PC or something.  (Just tweak the number: but the general idea here is that it gives players the very real possibility to change their characters, which I think a lot of people want.)

[Dresan]

How about twice a year, once every six months, and it still costs you a special app for a regular sub-guild skill. Some skills available in extended subguilds like backstab would cost much more, and be one request per year only.  The first time you app for a skill, it should be awarded at journeyman level, the second time bumped to low advanced and that's it.


So if you've invested two years of your RL in this game, your character might have an extra sub-guild worth of skills, or two extra advanced skills to show for it. Four years of your 80~ years on this earth would double that, assuming you haven't been using requests for stat or other skill bumps. Not to mention four RL years is like what, around 32 years in the game? 

[Taven]

How about twice a year, once every six months, and it still costs you a special app.

Okay, but how does this negate long-lived PCs from becoming even more unstoppable superhouses then they already are?

[BadSkeelz]

They're really not.

A good assassin, a few moderately skilled warriors, enough coin to a Templar...

Anyone can be killed.

[Taven]

They're really not.

A good assassin, a few moderately skilled warriors, enough coin to a Templar...

Anyone can be killed.

Yeah, but a maxed out 5-RL-year warrior (for example) is going to be a lot harder to kill then anyone else. Giving them even more random things just because they happen to be old (no questions asked) doesn't make sense to me.

Now if you wanted to take a non-ext subguild old PC and expand their subguild into a related extended subguild, which would require a special app slot or two, sure. That's not pushing them past what a different PC could do. That's enabling them to expand a PC's interests in a way that makes sense to me.

[Dresan]

Stat loss on a aging warrior or ranger is a heartbreaking thing....I've seen it.  

Ranger with the right extended sub-guild already reaches those levels of op, so its not too much of a concern. They still die just as easily.


What might be op is this system on a magicker though, I will admit that

[Taven]

Stat loss on a aging warrior is a heartbreaking thing....I've seen it. 

Well... This is a permadeath game. Sometimes the death is immediate. Othertimes it's a year at a time, watching your hp dip slowly lower.

The second way isn't fun, but that doesn't make it any less valid a form of death. People get old.

[nauta]

They're really not.

A good assassin, a few moderately skilled warriors, enough coin to a Templar...

Anyone can be killed.

Yeah, but a maxed out 5-RL-year warrior (for example) is going to be a lot harder to kill then anyone else. Giving them even more random things just because they happen to be old (no questions asked) doesn't make sense to me.

Now if you wanted to take a non-ext subguild old PC and expand their subguild into a related extended subguild, which would require a special app slot or two, sure. That's not pushing them past what a different PC could do. That's enabling them to expand a PC's interests in a way that makes sense to me.

Dunno about that.  First, 5-RL-year warriors are extremely rare.  The proposal seems (at first blush at least, with some tweaking) to address a large swathe of concerns in a single easy way: some people want new skills (Jihelu and his precious sword); some people want skill bumps (people without much time to grind); some people want stat tweaks (people with bad rolls but good concepts): boom, there's one easy way to achieve that.

I see the concern, but capping it at X times per PC seems to address even the worry about the 5-RL-year warrior.  (X being three, maybe.)

[Dresan]

Stat loss on a aging warrior is a heartbreaking thing....I've seen it.  

Well... This is a permadeath game. Sometimes the death is immediate. Othertimes it's a year at a time, watching your hp dip slowly lower.

The second way isn't fun, but that doesn't make it any less valid a form of death. People get old.

My point was that if someone lives that long, their character will start to begin experiencing stat loss, making the skills they have feel less op anyways. Again as others have pointed out, they'd still be easy to kill. I mean no amount of mundane skills would make them like full sorcerers were in the game.  And we are just talking about mundane skills here.

[Taven]

Dunno about that.  First, 5-RL-year warriors are extremely rare.  The proposal seems (at first blush at least, with some tweaking) to address a large swathe of concerns in a single easy way: some people want new skills (Jihelu and his precious sword); some people want skill bumps (people without much time to grind); some people want stat tweaks (people with bad rolls but good concepts): boom, there's one easy way to achieve that.

I see the concern, but capping it at X times per PC seems to address even the worry about the 5-RL-year warrior.  (X being three, maybe.)

I wouldn't mind a system that allowed to get changes to a PC after they have already existed in the game. I agree that once you have a concept, once a PC is created, you're locked into whatever they picked.

I don't think that there should be a lot of extras you can get, though. I don't want everyone capable of doing everything. It's like Lizzie talked about: The limitations of what a PC can do make them reliant on other PC types. It makes it so you have to find others, it encourages plots, and so on. Likewise, it's realistic.

So I'm fine with swapping some skills out for others, I'm fine with changing a subguild into an extended subguild, I'm wary of stat bumps, and I don't really like the idea of arbitrarily adding extra skills. If you have a solid reason for a skill, and pursue it a long time, maybe so. But... I think that should take RL years to accomplish, keeping imms informed. That's a lot of work for staff, and maybe not realistic, so there's that.

I just don't like the idea of everyone able to do a large variety of things.

[Taven]

My point was that if someone lives that long, their character will start to begin experiencing stat loss, making the skills they have feel less op anyways. Again as others have pointed out, they'd still be easy to kill. I mean no amount of mundane skills would make them like full sorcerers were in the game.  And we are just talking about mundane skills here.

Yes, they're older and less powerful. Why is this a bad thing? How is that an unrealistic thing?

I feel your argument is "I should have skills because I'm old".

I don't think that's a legitimate reason.

[Norcal]

They're really not.

A good assassin, a few moderately skilled warriors, enough coin to a Templar...

Anyone can be killed.

This is true.

[nauta]

Dunno about that.  First, 5-RL-year warriors are extremely rare.  The proposal seems (at first blush at least, with some tweaking) to address a large swathe of concerns in a single easy way: some people want new skills (Jihelu and his precious sword); some people want skill bumps (people without much time to grind); some people want stat tweaks (people with bad rolls but good concepts): boom, there's one easy way to achieve that.

I see the concern, but capping it at X times per PC seems to address even the worry about the 5-RL-year warrior.  (X being three, maybe.)

I wouldn't mind a system that allowed to get changes to a PC after they have already existed in the game. I agree that once you have a concept, once a PC is created, you're locked into whatever they picked.

I don't think that there should be a lot of extras you can get, though. I don't want everyone capable of doing everything. It's like Lizzie talked about: The limitations of what a PC can do make them reliant on other PC types. It makes it so you have to find others, it encourages plots, and so on. Likewise, it's realistic.

So I'm fine with swapping some skills out for others, I'm fine with changing a subguild into an extended subguild, I'm wary of stat bumps, and I don't really like the idea of arbitrarily adding extra skills. If you have a solid reason for a skill, and pursue it a long time, maybe so. But... I think that should take RL years to accomplish, keeping imms informed. That's a lot of work for staff, and maybe not realistic, so there's that.

I just don't like the idea of everyone able to do a large variety of things.

The cap combats any slippery slopes, and it seems like a moderate solution: we don't have unbridled post-chargen stat bumps, skill additions, or skill bumps.  But at least we have some.  The current system, as mentioned, strikes me as, if not outright making it impossible, at least making it seem very hard.  (Moreover, it is subjective, and so prone to some worries about favoritism, creates paperwork, and, at least for me, arbitrarily restrictive.)

You could restrict it to karma, or have it track karma, so everyone has karma+1 as the cap (up to a maximum of three or four or something).

[Old Kank]

Let's say staff give you three skills per year.  You play a warrior with magicked aspirations.  After surviving 6 years, yeah, you now have 18 spells or so.  Less if you stopped to skill-bump your warrior past the dreaded warrior plateau, or pick up skills like sneak or scan.  So what?

A six year old warrior alone, without any added skills, is already damned powerful.  Very few characters make it that far, and as others have mentioned, by that point you're looking at a completely different set of challenges from aging and playing what amounts to an institution.  And what if it takes an army to kill your character?  Isn't that kind of awesome?

[Dresan]

My point was that if someone lives that long, their character will start to begin experiencing stat loss, making the skills they have feel less op anyways. Again as others have pointed out, they'd still be easy to kill. I mean no amount of mundane skills would make them like full sorcerers were in the game.  And we are just talking about mundane skills here.

Yes, they're older and less powerful. Why is this a bad thing? How is that an unrealistic thing?

I feel your argument is "I should have skills because I'm old".

I don't think that's a legitimate reason.

I think this is a fairly legitimate reason. They are older, less strong, but have had the time to pick up some things younger character have not...what those things are have been their choice. They are unique and no longer fit in a cookie cutter mode. They are special, and when they die, they'll be gone. Once upon a time there used to be a lot of older character that used to have something special about them. It would be nice to have that back without there being any favoritism about it.

I just don't like the idea of everyone able to do a large variety of things.

Now this is a good point, and one I do agree with.

However, I am okay with people being able to be decent at archery, I'm not okay with anyone other then ranger being able to master it. The same thing with backstab, I'm okay with an extended sub-guild version of the skill (maybe lower if its something someone picked up along the way). I'm not okay with anyone being able to master it like assassins can. I'm okay with people picking up more skills, but I'm not okay with people being able to master them or get anywhere as good as the main guilds can. I think mid-journeyman to low advanced man for most additional skills is reasonable without beginning to overlap the power of the people who can actually master them.

Again rangers and the right extended sub-guild get so many skills already, one or two more won't change much for them, and it would take other characters years and years to even begin to match them.  

[Taven]

The cap combats any slippery slopes, and it seems like a moderate solution: we don't have unbridled post-chargen stat bumps, skill additions, or skill bumps.  But at least we have some.  The current system, as mentioned, strikes me as, if not outright making it impossible, at least making it seem very hard.  (Moreover, it is subjective, and so prone to some worries about favoritism, creates paperwork, and, at least for me, arbitrarily restrictive.)

You could restrict it to karma, or have it track karma, so everyone has karma+1 as the cap (up to a maximum of three or four or something).

I don't like it being something you can do more then once in a PC's lifetime.

Maybe if it was something you could do once, after x amount of time, with a certain amount of karma (equal to if you had originally apped that way), for a special app slot or two (making it more inconvenient to get it after the PC is IG).

That way it wouldn't feel like the longer you lived, the more special options you'd get for your PC.