Should Extended Mundane Subguilds be Karma-locked?

[IAmJacksOpinion]

More riding Extended Subguilds!

You could probably make a Raider ExSub pulling skills from Bounty Hunter and Outlaw.

+1

[RogueGunslinger]

If hunt, skinning, ride, direction sense, and climb, were high capped on a subguild I'd probably never play a ranger again. It's like having high parry, shield-use, a weapon-skill, bash, and kick on a subguild...

Actually I WOULD play ranger if that one was around too.... Now I really want them both.

[Warsong]

As a 0-karma player, I think it's really unreasonable and unnecessary that my mundane characters must be worse than other people's mundane characters of the same race and such. I'm fully in the boat where advanced races and magick guilds need to be karma-restricted, but mundane guilds ought to be available to everyone. The prospect of waiting perhaps two years before I can make, say, a ranger who can get parry and shield use to master or a warrior who can scan and stealth (without spending one of my three annual special applications, anyway), is so crushingly demotivating that I'm not actually really planning to make another character after this one. That's not meant as some kind of quitting threat, that's simply how I feel after having spent 30 days playing a character with one of the basic subguilds and come to realize just how much worse my character is than it would be with a 2-karma subguild. I will not put in that kind of time and effort a second time if that character cannot become as good as some other guy's character just because he had access to some superior subguild.

The extended mundane subguilds present neither the difficulty nor the power to justify requiring karma, especially not in a game where getting one karma per year is generally the norm. It's just a way to reward experienced players with superior characters for the sake of privilege. They aren't new roles, they aren't perilously powerful, they're just objectively better and kept out of reach of new players for no reason. Regulating the potential of people's characters using such an arbitrary method is entirely against the spirit of an RPI game. A new player should not be saddled with unfair disadvantages that they can't overcome. It's like one of those "free to play" games where you can play for free, but you're relegated to these distinctly worse options while the premium mode players can surpass you in ways that you have no chance of compensating for. There's no justification for restricting superior mundane subguilds behind karma. It goes against what karma is for. It makes the new player experience worse and makes me disinclined to put time and effort into another inferior character.

The help file states that the purpose of karma is to "open up the more complicated, powerful and RP challenging roles to players," and that "karma is not an end in itself. Acquiring karma points is not something you should be 'striving towards' as a player." This is entirely at odds with the extended subguilds.

[wizturbo]

The extended mundane subguilds present neither the difficulty nor the power to justify requiring karma, especially not in a game where getting one karma per year is generally the norm.

They absolutely seem like they present the power to justify a karma gate.  If it were no big deal, no one would be talking about this.  Playing a Warrior who can hide, sneak and use poisons is powerful.  A ranger who can be a master at using a shield is powerful.  There's karma gates on these things because they're powerful.  Anyone who says otherwise is either lying, or delusional.

I do not want to see the power creep that would come from making extended subguilds open to everyone.  Personally, I hate that they're freely available with Karma, I'd love it if they were restricted to a certain number per year, or some kind of point system to regulate their usage either on a time basis, or on an options basis.

[MeTekillot]

I really don't think they're that powerful.

I mean, you get advanced weapons, backstab, master parry, and hide that's not even capped at master. So what? Why is that the same karma level as being able to call forth an aspect of an Element to make yourself supernaturally tough/strong/fast?

EDIT: Oh, you get hide at master. It's backstab that's not even at master.

[MeTekillot]

You still get dunked if some guy backstabs YOU with a poisoned weapon.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

I'd love it if they were restricted to a certain number per year, or some kind of point system to regulate their usage either on a time basis, or on an options basis.

[solera]

I'd love it if they were restricted to a certain number per year, or some kind of point system to regulate their usage either on a time basis, or on an options basis.

As it was before?

[BadSkeelz]

The extended mundane subguilds present neither the difficulty nor the power to justify requiring karma, especially not in a game where getting one karma per year is generally the norm.

They absolutely seem like they present the power to justify a karma gate.  If it were no big deal, no one would be talking about this.  Playing a Warrior who can hide, sneak and use poisons is powerful.  A ranger who can be a master at using a shield is powerful.  There's karma gates on these things because they're powerful.  Anyone who says otherwise is either lying, or delusional.

I do not want to see the power creep that would come from making extended subguilds open to everyone.  Personally, I hate that they're freely available with Karma, I'd love it if they were restricted to a certain number per year, or some kind of point system to regulate their usage either on a time basis, or on an options basis.

They're only really powerful in comparison to normal subguilds, which generally restrict a Guild to doing one thing well (if that) and a few things passably. If everyone had an extended subguild, such PCs would stop being this exceptional multifaceted tool - all would become characters with wide arrays (or specialized) skillsets. Rather more like actual people.

[Vwest]

Going to short hand this as I'm watching a show about ring-tailed lemurs.

1) The point stands. 2) The only way ANY guild or subguild will be superior to ANY other guild or subguild, is if the player uses it, against the other player. PK just isn't that common in Armageddon. It happens, but it's not all that common. 3) The mentality that "I have to be codedly superior to other people in order for my character to be viable or fun" is a "wrong" mentality to have in Armageddon. 3) You don't need to be codedly superior. 3) This is just fact. UNLESS your idea of fun is being codedly superior. If that is the definition of your idea of fun in gaming, then RPIs are not a good match.

1) No, it doesn't.
2) There are countless PvE scenarios where one guild will prove superior to all the others and in every single one of those scenarios, having an extended subguild will give you more favorable odds of success and survival than it's standard counterpart. This isn't strictly an issue of coded power for the purposes of 'PvP', but about coded power and associated advantages in general.
3) No one said they require 'codedly superior' characters in the thread. Am I wrong? I must be because you said it three times. Show me some quotes.

Fails at reading comprehension; goes ballistic and throws insults, insinuations, etc

1) Grats on your hairdresser, but I don't see how it's relevant.
2) Thanks for the aggressive assumptions, insinuations and thinly veiled insults. A+ attitude for a helper and high karma player.

That's your view point.
/snip
If you want to play a character that is not "strictly and indefinitely inferior to almost every other character in the game" then put in your time and follow the guidelines and earn the 1 or 2 karma required to unlock these extended subguilds. 

1) Exactly that, its only my point of view. It apparently sets people off like fundamentalists on a contrary opinion, too.
2) Could you elaborate on the bold part, for me?

They're only really powerful in comparison to normal subguilds, which generally restrict a Guild to doing one thing well (if that) and a few things passably. If everyone had an extended subguild, such PCs would stop being this exceptional multifaceted tool - all would become characters with wide arrays (or specialized) skillsets. Rather more like actual people.

And just like that, we'd have our level baseline playing field back and I could go back not not caring about karma.

Lemurs are pretty neat.

[RogueGunslinger]

Can you explain yourself a little bit, Vwest? Are you saying you don't like how ext-subs offers more power to vets? That entire argument seems moot because newbies can play every one of the extended sub-guilds. All they have to do is spec-app.

I also find the idea silly because the only situation it is applicable is the very, very rare occurrence where you and another person happen to have the exact same main guild, similar skill levels, and are in each-others sphere's of roleplay enough that they become competition(PvE or PvP doesn't matter). And then you have a wealth of options to deal with that person through roleplay.

Veterans will always have an advantage. Fact of the matter is there's SO much more to being good at this game than having a good skill-set. Even if noobs had unfettered access to ext-subs, they would still get plowed over by someone with meta knowledge, both for that job promotion and in pvp.

[BadSkeelz]

For what it's worth, the most dangerous PCs I've ever known have been mundane non-extended subguild PCs. Either their Guild provided all the danger they needed, or they'd acquired political power (making skills meaningless), or both.

[valeria]

Fails at reading comprehension; goes ballistic and throws insults, insinuations, etc

1) Grats on your hairdresser, but I don't see how it's relevant.
2) Thanks for the aggressive assumptions, insinuations and thinly veiled insults. A+ attitude for a helper and high karma player.

I'm pretty sure you're not reading me right.  Maybe you should try reading my post in a helpful, slightly frustrated voice instead of an aggressive one.  I don't actually care enough about this issue to get aggressive with you, and at that point I was still pretty set on trying to reason with you.  Meanwhile, my hairdresser example is relevant because your assumption is that everyone in the game is out there picking the highest powered guild/subguild combos they can and using their skills regularly, so that you'll be outskilled by everyone in the game.  The hairdresser illustrates that not all of us are here to min/max our skills, so no, you wouldn't be behind every player in the game.

Anyway, I'm done trying to reason with you at this point.  Good luck with your characters, and if taking a break/leaving the game is what you feel like you have to do, good luck with that too.  Despite disagreeing with you pretty strongly, I have zero personal animosity toward you.

[Fathi]

I don't see the need for karma restrictions on certain extended subguilds, but I can see why it might be handy for some of the combat-oriented ones.

Every now and again some new player or general idiot likes to roll up a dorf warrior and slaughter everything in the rinth, for example. I'm glad he can't also do that with backstab as a default option. Sure he can do that as a dorf assassin, but assassins are way easier to kill out the gate than warriors are. Assassins tend to die to NPCs a lot. The problem sorts itself out. I can't say 100% that it would be worse if they were all warrior/slipknife, but based on my experience with those guilds it might be.

Karma isn't a perfect filter, but I feel like having a karma restriction on certain skill combos does prevent a certain degree of abuse. Maybe not abuse that has happened often, but I played a rinth leadership PC for over two years and experienced the above scenario more than once.

And if that zero-karma player still wants to play a dorf warrior/slipknife in the rinth, he can! He just has to special app for it. And then maybe he'll treat the character with a bit more care.

And yes, staff could just choose to punish those individual accounts if they engaged in that behaviour multiple times, but honestly I'm way more in favour of systems that make it so staff have to police things less on an individual account level. It's part of their job, sure, but I feel like there's way better things I'd rather my game staff did with their time.

[SuchDragonWow]

MUDs cater to a few different playstyles, and there's even research to suggest this is true.  A certain portion of the playerbase cares more about X, and some do Y, and there's going to be a Z here and there, and so forth.  I don't think it's necessary, or even a show of good communication, to say that you don't think Y has problems because X is working for you.

To play with it a little, it's like saying "I don't think there's enough good mudsex going on, right now."  The response:  "I"ve been having a lot of fun crafting bone swords.  You could craft bone swords?"

[wizturbo]

That's your view point.
/snip
If you want to play a character that is not "strictly and indefinitely inferior to almost every other character in the game" then put in your time and follow the guidelines and earn the 1 or 2 karma required to unlock these extended subguilds. 

1) Exactly that, its only my point of view. It apparently sets people off like fundamentalists on a contrary opinion, too.
2) Could you elaborate on the bold part, for me?

Seems pretty self explanatory to me.  You can put in a Karma review every 6 months.  Pass muster, get Karma, and you'll have these options unlocked without having to jump through a special application hoop.

I'd also like to point out that jumping through the special application hoop (and making a cool, compelling character that doesn't abuse the extra power of these abilities) is likely going to accelerate your karma gains, because you've just proven you can handle it.  Best way to get karma is to special app into karma roles and show you can handle it. 

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

I'm still rather frightened personally of [IC info].

[MeTekillot]

Right, I forgot specific magick spells are common knowledge now, great.

[Asmoth]

I'd also like to point out that jumping through the special application hoop (and making a cool, compelling character that doesn't abuse the extra power of these abilities) is likely going to accelerate your karma gains, because you've just proven you can handle it.  Best way to get karma is to special app into karma roles and show you can handle it. 

Unless you're me, then it doesn't matter if you play your roles awesome, Karma only comes from being nice on the GDB.

/snark

[Vwest]

That entire argument seems moot because newbies can play every one of the extended sub-guilds. All they have to do is spec-app.

My experience with the spec-app process is that it isn't worth the time or extreme frustration.

I'm sure peoples mileage varies, though.

I'm pretty sure you're not reading me right.

I'm pretty sure I read you spot on.

That was a very nice, face-saving post, though.

[Jihelu]

I put in a spec app and it took straight up three hours for it to be resolved.
It was for an extended subguild but I digress.

[RogueGunslinger]

Extreme frustration? Extended-subguild spec-app? Are we talking about the same process? Every time I did it it was almost as easy(and as fast) as regular character generation.

[hyzhenhok]

That isn't mootness. That's an artificial, completely unnecessary barrier. If you're going to say new players should and do have easy access to extended subguilds anyway, surely there's no reason to have a separate application process.

[Coat of Arms]

Extra: Veteran player has no problem getting special apped characters; can't fathom how it wouldn't be the exact same for a new player. Doesn't see his own idiocy.

Listen, a new player isn't even gonna know to spec app stuff, let alone get it approved. Let's not pretend that there's no hurdle in that regard. The spec app process is for players who have proven that they deserve to try something. Are you seriously trying to suggest that there can't be any problem with gating mundane subguilds behind karma because everyone can just always spec app? Really? Am I hearing that?

Let's see.

First of all, new players can't just do that.

Secondly, you only get a few per year.

Thirdly, some players, after confrontations with Nyr, have been told never to spec app for anything or expect karma ever again.

The last one could change in his absence, but it's still very much a part of the game and a factor in spec app politics. To suggest that everyone can just automatically always spec app is nothing short of moronic.

[RogueGunslinger]

Extra: Veteran player has no problem getting special apped characters; can't fathom how it wouldn't be the exact same for a new player. Doesn't see his own idiocy.

Listen, a new player isn't even gonna know to spec app stuff, let alone get it approved. Let's not pretend that there's no hurdle in that regard. The spec app process is for players who have proven that they deserve to try something. Are you seriously trying to suggest that there can't be any problem with gating mundane subguilds behind karma because everyone can just always spec app? Really? Am I hearing that?

Let's see.

First of all, new players can't just do that.

Secondly, you only get a few per year.

Thirdly, some players, after confrontations with Nyr, have been told never to spec app for anything or expect karma ever again.

The last one could change in his absence, but it's still very much a part of the game and a factor in spec app politics. To suggest that everyone can just automatically always spec app is nothing short of moronic.

Is this post satire? If so you totally nailed it. Is Jihelu even a vet? I can actually tell you've never tried to spec-app for an extended-sub-guild if you think I got favoritism because it went through quickly... The idea I receive favoritism at all is kind of amusing to me. You think that just because I have a high post count and have played for years? Heh.

Also if a newb isn't going to know about the spec-app process they're probably also not aware of the extended-subs, karma and "subguild fairness" in the first place.

That isn't mootness. That's an artificial, completely unnecessary barrier. If you're going to say new players should and do have easy access to extended subguilds anyway, surely there's no reason to have a separate application process.

The barrier is "take the extra 5 minutes to send application through request too." and "wait a tad longer"

Even if it was artificial it's practically superficial.  Also you seem to be of the mind that I'm against everyone being able to use extended subguilds. That is very much not the case.

I don't think they should be behind Karma...

See? I just find the idea that those extended subs offer too much benifit to vets and upset some sort of balance of "fairness" to be silly and way overblown.