Skill Progression and Starting Levels

[Jihelu]

I sincerely doubt anything will change.

These jaded veterans keep getting younger and younger!

Lel.

I didn't mean it more as a "Armageddon was so much better back in my...six months ago extreme play period"
I just mean it in general. Things don't change often.

[Eurynomos]

I sincerely doubt anything will change.

These jaded veterans keep getting younger and younger!

Lel.

I didn't mean it more as a "Armageddon was so much better back in my...six months ago extreme play period"
I just mean it in general. Things don't change often.

Really? Because a lot has changed even in the last year. Or last five years!

[Jihelu]

I sincerely doubt anything will change.

These jaded veterans keep getting younger and younger!

Lel.

I didn't mean it more as a "Armageddon was so much better back in my...six months ago extreme play period"
I just mean it in general. Things don't change often.

Really? Because a lot has changed even in the last year. Or last five years!

I haven't even been here that long! Silly.

So maybe it will.

I don't know.

[Norcal]

I sincerely doubt anything will change.

These jaded veterans keep getting younger and younger!

Lel.

I didn't mean it more as a "Armageddon was so much better back in my...six months ago extreme play period"
I just mean it in general. Things don't change often.

Really? Because a lot has changed even in the last year. Or last five years!

Yup. Things change. Eury has gotten old. Tuluk is closed and Whirans are 6 karma. Yet we have still not moved the jail closer to the criminals.

[Armaddict]

This is a change...that would very likely send me away.

[Jihelu]

My fondest memory is getting arrested and having the guy taking me to jail get stuck in the same square while saying "THE JAILS SURE ARE FAR AWAY" Or some shit.
10/10

[Old Kank]

How about a policy change that allows players to earn a boost to the skill of their choosing by participating in clan activities?  Each clan would be different, but maybe:  Bynners gain a boost for every three contracts they go on.  Fale nobles get two boosts for every celebration they throw.  AoD members get a boost for every two criminals they arrest.

Put in weekly boost cap if needed.

You get the idea. 

[Riev]

How about a policy change that allows players to earn a boost to the skill of their choosing by participating in clan activities?  Each clan would be different, but maybe:  Bynners gain a boost for every three contracts they go on.  Fale nobles get two boosts for every celebration they throw.  AoD members get a boost for every two criminals they arrest.

Put in weekly boost cap if needed.

You get the idea. 

The idea is there, but not quite that solution, because that would mean some clans will get more "boosts" just because they have a more active staffer/leadership/etc.

The trouble is not punishing casuals, but still letting hardcores feel like their time is spent efficiently.

[AdamBlue]

How about a policy change that allows players to earn a boost to the skill of their choosing by participating in clan activities?  Each clan would be different, but maybe:  Bynners gain a boost for every three contracts they go on.  Fale nobles get two boosts for every celebration they throw.  AoD members get a boost for every two criminals they arrest.

Put in weekly boost cap if needed.

You get the idea. 

The idea is there, but not quite that solution, because that would mean some clans will get more "boosts" just because they have a more active staffer/leadership/etc.

The trouble is not punishing casuals, but still letting hardcores feel like their time is spent efficiently.

Instead of making the game about questing, let's just casually offer three boosts in a character's lifetime. One to stats, one to a skill of their choice, and one to a language.
However, you'd need to make a convincing case about why the stat, skill, or language has raised, and there are certain factors to getting the boosts, which is concurrent with time played. Note that these won't be staggering boosts. We're talking about a single tick up in all of these. From good to Very good. From Journeyman to Advanced. From Poor to below-average. From not knowing a word of elvish to 'you know after being around all those bastards I think I can figure out when they're fucking with me.'


Right, so you became a huge badass? Right, here's a little bit more strength for having the character live 30 days!
60 days rolls around? Can't manage to hit that last little bit from Advanced into Master? Well, it's your lucky day!
Tired of chatting up sirihish? Here's a little gith so you can shout back at those ugly fuckers.

Maybe you could literally just like, put it in a little menu. Like, 'I want Wisdom, Slashing weapons, and Mirrukim'. Then you forget about it. Then, maybe staff notices you one day, notices you're qualified for a RANDOM BOOST of your choice, and they decide what's fitting for you. Maybe they decide instead of wisdom, you get agility. Maybe, instead of slashing weapons, you get some great cooking abilithy. Mirrukim? You haven't spent any time around dwarves, but you have spent some time around Templars. You figured out what they're saying, and that's dangerous! Maybe have it coinceide with bios!

[nauta]

One solution might be social: if you are a casual player, and you have enough karma, you could ask staff and make a case for bypassing the grind.  You'd have to make the rules for this perspicuous so that things are viewed as fair.

[Alesan]

The karma system needs to be completely rewritten if you guys want to put all these things behind a karma barrier.

[Narf]

The karma system needs to be completely rewritten if you guys want to put all these things behind a karma barrier.

Agreed. Karma exists to keep people from breaking the game through violation of trust with powerful but RP restricted options.

It's ultimately about "Does staff trust you with this difficult to rp role?" If it's not a difficult to rp role it shouldn't involve the karma system.

[Norcal]

The karma system needs to be completely rewritten if you guys want to put all these things behind a karma barrier.

Agreed. Karma exists to keep people from breaking the game through violation of trust with powerful but RP restricted options.

It's ultimately about "Does staff trust you with this difficult to rp role?" If it's not a difficult to rp role it shouldn't involve the karma system.

I don't know what karma is about really.

If you have been faithfully playing a game for x number of -years- and you have not really sucked, then I think trust should be there.  I can see not  trusting a new player, or one who has continually messed up.  But if you are neither one of those things, then trust should be the default way you are viewed.

I am not in favor of what replaces karma in other games (MUD),  the ability to remort, join certain guilds etc.  I think that there -should- be a period of time in which a player is evaluated. Once you have successfully passed that period ALMOST all roles should be available, until you show that you cannot handle them.

I say almost because I think roles like a sorc, Templar, Noble, Leadership PC, or a mul should be special app roles.

So, if you meet these criteria:

1. Been playing for at least 12 RL months
2. Also have at least 20 days logged in and actively playing (not sitting at a bar afk)
3. No serious negative flags in your account.

Then immediately all races/guilds should be open to you except those which are special app only.

For the first year:

For your first 3 days of play you can only play a 0 karma race/guild

After that and until the above benchmarks are reached, you can play 2 or 3 karma race/guilds.

This would give new players a reason to log in and play consistently. It would improve retention because you are putting a goal out there. People like goals and challenges.

The system as it is now is built to chase folks away who feel they are not trusted after many years played, or that they simply get tired of trying/waiting.

Cheers

You should have to give staff a reason to take karma away, not give it to you.

[titansfan]

Karma is about using the tool and requesting for it.  Imms can't watch everybody.  I know I've had some pretty awesome scenes that were never commented on.  Great characters that were never noted, so on and so forth.  It's frankly not their fault.  But for how long I've been playing I'd say I have a less than what it should be karma level because I haven't always used the request tool to ask for a bump review. I frankly don't mind though as I play for my own ways of having fun, although I wish I would have kept up more because I'd love to play high level mages more. :p


Edit: Because phone autocorrect sucks.

[nauta]

The karma system needs to be completely rewritten if you guys want to put all these things behind a karma barrier.

Agreed. Karma exists to keep people from breaking the game through violation of trust with powerful but RP restricted options.

It's ultimately about "Does staff trust you with this difficult to rp role?" If it's not a difficult to rp role it shouldn't involve the karma system.

I don't know what karma is about really.

If you have been faithfully playing a game for x number of -years- and you have not really sucked, then I think trust should be there.  I can see not  trusting a new player, or one who has continually messed up.  But if you are neither one of those things, then trust should be the default way you are viewed.

I am not in favor of what replaces karma in other games (MUD),  the ability to remort, join certain guilds etc.  I think that there -should- be a period of time in which a player is evaluated. Once you have successfully passed that period ALMOST all roles should be available, until you show that you cannot handle them.

I say almost because I think roles like a sorc, Templar, Noble, Leadership PC, or a mul should be special app roles.

So, if you meet these criteria:

1. Been playing for at least 12 RL months
2. Also have at least 20 days logged in and actively playing (not sitting at a bar afk)
3. No serious negative flags in your account.

Then immediately all races/guilds should be open to you except those which are special app only.

For the first year:

For your first 3 days of play you can only play a 0 karma race/guild

After that and until the above benchmarks are reached, you can play 2 or 3 karma race/guilds.

This would give new players a reason to log in and play consistently. It would improve retention because you are putting a goal out there. People like goals and challenges.

The system as it is now is built to chase folks away who feel they are not trusted after many years played, or that they simply get tired of trying/waiting.

Cheers

You should have to give staff a reason to take karma away, not give it to you.

Absolutely agree.  Karma shouldn't be an 'award' -- staff can award us in other ways, by being encouraging.  As far as I can tell, karma just creates paperwork, other than its basic role of holding back new players from wrecking things owing to inexperience.  Hence, two, maybe three, levels of trust: new players, then, after a year (or whatever), you become a trusted player.  Trust can be lost, sure, but it should be default that staff trusts after a probational period.

If karma is meant to prevent too many of X (sorcs, muls), that's not the easiest way to do it: just put a cap on the number of Xs allowed in the game at a given time.

(Just my two cents.  Now that I think about it, I've only apped something that required karma once, and that something died in three hours or something.)

[nauta]

The karma system needs to be completely rewritten if you guys want to put all these things behind a karma barrier.

Even though I have certain views on simplifying the karma system, my suggestion was just to put it behind the 'one karma' veil, which is pretty easily achievable on the current system: longevity.

[Jihelu]

I just wanna be a psionicist nilazi.

[Alesan]

Karma is about using the tool and requesting for it.  Imms can't watch everybody.  I know I've had some pretty awesome scenes that were never commented on.  Great characters that were never noted, so on and so forth.  It's frankly not their fault.  But for how long I've been playing I'd say I have a less than what it should be karma level because I haven't always used the request tool to ask for a bump review. I frankly don't mind though as I play for my own ways of having fun, although I wish I would have kept up more because I'd love to play high level mashes more. :p

I will likely never put in a karma request. Why? Because I feel it's egotistical to write in to staff and say "This is what I've done and I think I deserve karma." I think it promotes the wrong kind of goals in playing the game. I don't want to play to impress staff for brownie points. I want to play a character, be immersed in the environment, and let things come naturally. I don't expect to ever get karma. To me, karma is this mystical, magical thing that I'd have to perform miracles to earn. Even if I know what categories in which I can earn it, I don't know how to impress staff enough to make them think I'm worthy of it. And I don't think that's a good train of thought to have, either.

Roleplay for the sake of roleplay is good. Roleplay to reach an arbitrary goal... not so good.

Anyway, sorry, that's entirely off topic from this thread. I've had this on my mind and it was sort of itching to get out. I'm not against a way to bar untrusted players from roles like mages, HGs, and such. I just don't like the way it's done in practice.

[whitt]

I will likely never put in a karma request. Why? Because I feel it's egotistical to write in to staff and say "This is what I've done and I think I deserve karma."

So don't do that?  Just put in the request and ask for feedback.  It's just triggering the process for staff to look over their notes and make a decision.  Kind of self-defeating, I think, not to do it.  Unless you're perfectly happy with 0-3 karma roles and you're three spec apps per year.  Not needing to spec app a desert elf is worth doing it at least once.  IMO.

[Narf]

I will likely never put in a karma request. Why? Because I feel it's egotistical to write in to staff and say "This is what I've done and I think I deserve karma."

So don't do that?  Just put in the request and ask for feedback.  It's just triggering the process for staff to look over their notes and make a decision.  Kind of self-defeating, I think, not to do it.  Unless you're perfectly happy with 0-3 karma roles and you're three spec apps per year.  Not needing to spec app a desert elf is worth doing it at least once.  IMO.

Yeah, my karma review requests are usually about two sentences. The second sentence is usually a thank you for the staff's time.

[solera]

Isn't karma easy to get if you successfully play a +2 spec app?

[MeTekillot]

They don't always approve +2 spec-apps.

[KankWhisperer]

I almost feel like they should automate skill bumps diku style. And everyone should get 3 by default even on normal app charactersfor free. Each skill will have a limit to where it can be bumped. Everyone gets a new skill bump every rl month (or insert your preferred time frame) played. Skill bumps should trigger branches at that point.

[Morrolan]

Yes. And people would twink up a character, then get them killed, so that they would have a new, unknown character with powerful skills.

And then they would run around and PK like madmen.

[Armaddict]

What if subguild skills just...started maxed?