Make Armageddon more casual: Increase skill gain

[Desertman]

I think that's fair. Though I think it should be determined by Staff what 'casual' is, not by a player. Because I think they'd probably have a more objective view point of that.

I can tell you from experience this is an absolutely terrible idea (though I admit it would seem to make sense on the surface).....simply because staff doesn't know. The player leader knows because they are the ones actually running the clan and seeing who is and isn't actively participating in things that matter in the clan on a daily basis. Staff generally has no idea.

But how can a player check someone else's playtimes? Couldn't someone be playing just as much as you, but in GMT time zones? From what I understand, Staff can actually check how often someone is playing, not just assert their assumptions as universal truth.

Unfortunately this is where you get into a grey area of OOC Feelings vs IC Usefulness.

OOC'ly I do not want to hurt this players feelings. In fact, so long as staff doesn't put the hammer down and force me to purge, I will let them stay around playing off peak for eternity just to avoid having to hurt their feelings.

IC'ly, they have zero value to me as a leader trying to accomplish goals since they aren't around when I need them to do things I need them to do. (Unless they are a hunter role or another similar role that can produce in a way where I don't need to actively oversee them. In such a case I would actively setup a system where I could monitor and reward them for their efforts and obviously would not purge them/count them as useless/inactive for the group. In fact I can think of instances where I have done exactly this.)

OOC'ly, my inclination is to let them stay.

IC'ly they are dead weight and even though they "are around" but not when my PC is they might as well not even exist for my purposes, and since I am the leader, my purposes are what will be gone by when it comes time to purge.

If staff wants to recruit an off-peak leader, more power to them, but I'm not an off peak leader so that's not my responsibility and/or concern. My concern is being a great leader when I'm available and keeping underlings who follow suit.

I guess again, to each their own. I'm glad someone who is the diametric opposite to me in many ways plays the game, because it reassures me that I am not the only 'type' of player that plays this game, and it's a testament to the strength of the game as a whole that it can cater to two very different people/playstyles.

Personally, I was very enthusiastic to hire someone who had the opposite playtimes from me, when I played leader roles, especially Nobles or Templars. Not exclusively, but 1-2 employees in playtimes that venn diagramed with me once in a while, while the majority of the time were opposite, had great appeal to me. It allowed me coverage in areas that I had no influence in, because of my time constraints/playtimes. I found most of my effective Aides/Clan Players were in timezones different from my own. It's a different style of leadership from your own (in many ways), but that doesn't make one better or worse, just different. And, I believe that my style of leadership actually lends itself to more casual players/people in different timezones, because I don't feel the need to directly have a hand in their affairs/over their actions in order to be associated with them, or take responsibility for them.

It did mean I had less direct oversight over these PCs, and in fact, one of my Kuraci PCs was betrayed due to this kind of 'lack of oversight'. But it was worth the risk, and actually that lead to a fun series of events including Murder, Corruption, and Betrayal, simply for taking a risk on someone who didn't play at the same times as me.

I play mostly military leaders or mercantile type leaders where I need my people actively around because I am "Doing Things" with them and taking them to do things. The types of leaders I USUALLY play are centered around the concept of group activities and group accomplishments.

For MOST of my leaders, if you aren't actively around with boots in the sand helping the group regularly and visibly, you might as well not exist for us.

As a Templar or Noble, hiring someone off peak to cover my political/social/other needs when I'm not around with another portion of the playerbase.....yeah absolutely a good idea. I just don't play that sort of role often.

[valeria]

Brief aside, as someone who plays frequent leaders, I don't mind having "casuals" in my clans and never have.  Especially not if they're vibrant characters who are fun to RP with when they're around.

Then again, I don't really play Armageddon to do stuff.  And I certainly don't lead clans to do stuff.

[Beethoven]

Brief aside, as someone who plays frequent leaders, I don't mind having "casuals" in my clans and never have.  Especially not if they're vibrant characters who are fun to RP with when they're around.

Then again, I don't really play Armageddon to do stuff.  And I certainly don't lead clans to do stuff.

Same here. If I focus too much on "giving people stuff to do" or "creating plots" like it's an obligation, I freeze up. It feels artificial and I can't think of anything. I have to let it develop organically or it'll never happen, I've found.

[Miradus]

Brief aside, as someone who plays frequent leaders, I don't mind having "casuals" in my clans and never have.  Especially not if they're vibrant characters who are fun to RP with when they're around.

Then again, I don't really play Armageddon to do stuff.  And I certainly don't lead clans to do stuff.

*sigh*

Tie that commentary back in with the "why does Arm feel so static/stagnant" thread.

Because the leaders don't want to do stuff?

[Beethoven]

I played around her when she was a leader, and she was a good one that entertained everybody. I think she just means she doesn't think of it that way.

[Miradus]

I played around her when she was a leader, and she was a good one that entertained everybody. I think she just means she doesn't think of it that way.

Probably a great leader, but seriously, that's why there's not going to be any epic change to the storyline or the game world.

A leadership position in one of the clans would give you the resources, the manpower, and the plot armor to go out and really shape the game world. A Kuraci militia leader decides to set up a permanent hole-in-the-wall fortress in the Tablelands. Or Kadius decides to set up a diamond mine along the shield wall.

But instead it's going to be, "Woohoo! I'm a leader! Now everyone go spend an hour on the sparring dummy and then clean your armor."

I could understand if the staff were telling the leaders that they couldn't do anything like that. Or at least understand that better than someone simply not wanting to. And I can tell you from my point of view, if the clans WERE doing stuff like that then you'd have people on a waiting list to join the clans instead of what we have now which are complaints about too many indies running around.

[nauta]

As a point of order, can we split off the discussion about 'Leadership and Casuals'?

[Miradus]

If you wish. I've made my point on it though so I don't have much more to say. And I hope it doesn't hurt any feelings from someone in a leadership position. I have encountered most of the leaders of various outfits in the game and enjoyed roleplaying with them a lot. It's not a matter of roleplay. I haven't met a bad one in the bunch.

[valeria]

Brief aside, as someone who plays frequent leaders, I don't mind having "casuals" in my clans and never have.  Especially not if they're vibrant characters who are fun to RP with when they're around.

Then again, I don't really play Armageddon to do stuff.  And I certainly don't lead clans to do stuff.

*sigh*

Tie that commentary back in with the "why does Arm feel so static/stagnant" thread.

Because the leaders don't want to do stuff?

I think you're reading me wrong. When I say "do stuff" I mean accomplish coded things in the game world. Hunting Carru #5266 Dead is less important to me than plotting against my characters' enemies or trying to secure IC advancement when I play leaders.

And these things aren't dependant on having full-minions full-time. Yes, you usually need 2 solid minions to get things done (unless you're the Byn, but the Byn cap is really high anyway).

But that's just it. I usually only need 2 solid people to play around to enjoy myself and get things done. 2 hunters/whatever and 5-6 semi-regular other characters would be just as useful to me as a full complement of full-time hunters, especially because casuals tend to show up to RPTs, which is when you really need those bodies. My nobles usually get on with MAYBE one aide IF they can find one.

In some ways, the casuals are even MORE valuable because they don't require my constant hand-holding to keep them entertained.

So... casuals are 100% welcome in clans I'm leading. I'm very opposed to the mentality that they MUST log on regularly or they're taking up space (or anything else that discourages casuals from playing in my clans).

[Miradus]

Yeah, I was reading you wrong.

I read that as you just want to sit around and gossip and not actually push for the advancement of your organization, which is ... well ... it's an attitude I'm bringing from another game into this one. I shouldn't do that and I apologize for tarring you with that brush.

[Jingo]

Minus Nergal's contribution, this thread is pretty damn depressing. The game should cater to accessibility, not some veteran's elitist notions of get-gud.

[Vwest]

Based on the OPs cash math, my current PC is worth: $53,640.

Anyone want to buy a slightly used character?

[Yam]

Based on the OPs cash math, my current PC is worth: $53,640.

Anyone want to buy a slightly used character?

149 days played? :O

[Vwest]

Yep.

We should make a thread and gauge exactly how much money we could have collectively made with our pooled hours played.

If nothing else, that should make all those casual players realize they're the real winners in all of this.

[SuchDragonWow]

My top 4 add up to right at 200 days played.  If I billed my usual rate, that's 264000$.  I'll take a check please

[Miradus]

I'd really rather not know how much time I've wasted.

[Case]

Man I've lost so much money to sleeping

I don't find it hard to skill up in this game playing casually, although weapons/combat skills do move slowly on your skill sheet. I do think at least in weapons skills' case, an apprentice or even novice one is much better than jman+ in other skills in terms of effectiveness. I don't believe you need to master everything to be useful either.  I know everybody wants to be the best and all, but without mitigating the bonus from being able to play more, you still won't be better than them if you make skilling easier - since they benefit too.

Advanced weaps could branch earlier and appear as master earlier without changing the skill and it'd solve that problem better than adjusting rates for it.

As for the rest, being more casual or whatever, offline training options? Slow and steady?

[Vwest]

You don't really need weapon skills above journeyman.

All PvE content is accessible around there, except for A) content intended for organized groups or B) content gated behind staff animations. And even if you're (Master) Slashing or even (Master) Razors, odds are good you aren't going to survive those kinds of encounters on your own without more going for you that high skills. You might not even survive them with a group in some cases.

The impression I get is people believe (Master) weapon skills or advanced weapon skills will somehow make you unassailable, or some kind of PvP killdozer.

It's a crock of shit, but people believe it.

[whitt]

The impression I get is people believe (Master) weapon skills or advanced weapon skills will somehow make you unassailable, or some kind of PvP killdozer.

I think, rather, it's the need to Master in a weapon skill to branch the follow-on skills that causes the race to Master.  If you're never failing, what diff does it make what label is put on your skill? 

Take... Archery for example.   You may never miss with the proper gear and Advanced archery.  Some guilds may never learn to make an arrow until they've reached Master.

[Sephiroto]

If I could easily start every new character with the skills of a 30-40 day warrior (or class equivalent), I might play this game again.  I don't have enough time to dedicate to this game to enjoy a mostly social role.  I want to hop into the thick of it and get some shit done without worrying about dying to scrabs or 10-day-warrior-twinks.

[Lizzie]

If I could easily start every new character with the skills of a 30-40 day warrior (or class equivalent), I might play this game again.  I don't have enough time to dedicate to this game to enjoy a mostly social role.  I want to hop into the thick of it and get some shit done without worrying about dying to scrabs or 10-day-warrior-twinks.

But then you'll just get pissy when my 50-day ranger with max archery and max poison gets an arrow into your 2-hour warrior with 30-day warrior skills.

[lostinspace]

If I could easily start every new character with the skills of a 30-40 day warrior (or class equivalent), I might play this game again.  I don't have enough time to dedicate to this game to enjoy a mostly social role.  I want to hop into the thick of it and get some shit done without worrying about dying to scrabs or 10-day-warrior-twinks.

But then you'll just get pissy when my 50-day ranger with max archery and max poison gets an arrow into your 2-hour warrior with 30-day warrior skills.

Except he can just make another one, doesn't seem like a reason to get upset...

[Lizzie]

If I could easily start every new character with the skills of a 30-40 day warrior (or class equivalent), I might play this game again.  I don't have enough time to dedicate to this game to enjoy a mostly social role.  I want to hop into the thick of it and get some shit done without worrying about dying to scrabs or 10-day-warrior-twinks.

But then you'll just get pissy when my 50-day ranger with max archery and max poison gets an arrow into your 2-hour warrior with 30-day warrior skills.

Except he can just make another one, doesn't seem like a reason to get upset...

No, then he'll complain that he doesn't have time to make a 50-day character to avoid being killed by every other 50-day character. You have to start somewhere. As in most games, you start out at level 1. If you get annoyed or refuse to play the game until you are allowed to play catch-up, then you might as well just pretend you're a 400-day character and say "I win." No matter how powerful your character is, SOMEONE or SOMETHING is going to be able to kill it. This is the nature of the game, and no amount of time invested, or "levels granted" is going to change that.

[Jingo]

The more I think about it. The more I think I should be spending my time on this character doing something else. I've got close to thirty hours in, but I'll be dammed if I couldn't spend that time learning a language or taking an extra summer class. I'm just kind of sick of both the skill grind and having to avoid the lamer-twinks that seem pathologically bent on ruining my fun.

I want to play my character without having to organize his daily fucking skill-up schedule in the service of having a reasonable shot somewhere in the realm of two months from now. I work in accounting and I'm not even kidding when I find my work more stimulating than the requisite grind of the game.

Some cool cats keep trying to pull me back. But I'm teetering on the edge here.

[bardlyone]

Yeah, the thing is, the people opposed to this, act like they're opposed to it from a PVP front because 'then that warrior that's 10 days longer played will still beat you, so what's the point', but realistically, most of the people who have concerns about this issue have concerns from a PVE perspective. It takes X amount of hours before you can reliably provide basic necessities, you want it to be a portion of that. That's reasonable. That's not at all the same as wanting to be able to ring someone's bell in PVP sooner. That's basically just saying 'Well, at this point with everything degrading and expiring and reel-locking the everloving fuck out of me, it sure would be nice if I could ROLEPLAY instead of skilling up until I could survive the PVE of the setting, and THEN roleplay'. I know that, because that is the same way I feel. I've been playing almost a decade and pk'd someone: 1 time. I've been pk'd about 18-20 times, and I honestly don't care about getting pk'd or pk'ing others. But I would sure as hell like not to have to sink 4 days of my actual life into making a character who can make something other than arrows or poles on a character that starts out as THE CRAFTING GUILD. That seems reasonable, right? Am I eating crazy pills here?