Discussion thread for proposed karma changes.

[Adhira]

As Nathvaan said we are talking about the regen rate and running through various combinations of numbers. However, the point of having regenerating karma is to have a method to ensure game balance in terms of PC classes being a more accurate representation of the game world.

Previously this was done by restricting karma. Making it harder to achieve.  So much so that most people were never going to get beyond 3 karma points. This way we're opening it up so that people should be able to get ALL options in the karma scale. The trade off is that they have to balance that with downtime in their choices if they have a shorter lived PC.

The guild revamp coming up should add some exciting options at the 0 karma level. Additionally once that is done we will be looking at subguild tweaks and additions. I expect that we will shift things around the karma scale as time and information comes in from the changes. Karma subguilds are one point that is likely to shift in the future. For now they are on the karma scale so that we can get a more accurate feel for how things play out. There are some karma subguilds that will never be at 0 karma. If the subguild offers advantages at a level different to everything else in that karma (or 0 karma level) or represents an amount of work and time (such as mastercrafting) then its placement on the karma scale will reflect that.

[Insigne]

I don't think the extended subguilds should be behind a karma wall. It requires trust and knowledge of the game world/culture to play a half-giant responsibly. Aggressor not so much. Seems like apples and oranges to be lumping subguilds in with desert elf, gicker, half-giant, etc.

Some of the extended subguilds just let me start out with a skill I'd eventually get anyway. You can't make any sort of an argument that starting out with parry disrupts the game world balance on characters that are going to end up with parry anyway.

+1.

I can get behind the sentiment of these. I don't necessarily agree with bumping these subguilds down to zero karma (but correct me if I misunderstood the point being made here). Perhaps lessening the wait time of karma-required, mundane subguilds since they aren't hurting any accurate representation of the game world?

Edit: Then again, my opinion of the regeneration system pretty much amounts to HOLYSHITTWOTOSIXMONTHS!?!? so I would probably be holding up a huge thumbs-up for any solution that meant lesser waiting times.

[trakel]

I'm fairly new to Armageddon, and as such it should be noted that my perspective on certain things can be... shortsighted in that way. I started playing in March and for the most part, I keep to myself. That being said having read over the suggestions and feedback presented here, I'll offer my two cents on what I think is a good adjustment overall.

• Extended subguilds (mundane) that require karma should continue to have a baseline requirement for karma. However I don't think when creating a character using one of these subguilds karma should be "used" so to speak. I think by doing this, people who have earned karma will still always have an option for a character beyond what is available for someone who just started playing. This also enables them to play something like an enhanced mundane character without having to worry about losing karma points for something else. Save the karma expenditure on this for skill bumps, etc. So say for instance player A has 0/3 karma. The game recognizes that he has a possibility of having three karma, so it lets him create a character using the protector subguild without any additional time cost in accumulating those three karma points


• Given how sudden and random death can be in the game (at least in my experience) I think the regeneration for karma should be a flat 30 days per point.
  3/3 Karma, use one, still have two left - takes 30 days to get back to three. Use two, takes 60 days, etc. I think it's important to have this regenerate at a moderate pace. I believe this because if roles like half-giants, gickers, etc are constricted the people who do finally get to play one of these roles will be so careful and reserved in how they play for fear of losing all the time they spent waiting to accumulate the karma required to play the role.

Maybe it's just my generation, but even now I feel that waiting three years just to play a Mul or a Destro Krathi is a stretch at best. I feel that given how old the game is, I'm probably one of the youngest people that play this game, and I love it. I really do. But having said that, I'm a particular person. I like reaching long term planned goals, but a lot of my generation prefer instant gratification. I can see why many people would turn away from an experience like Armageddon when there are so many other games out there that offer reward much quicker. Having said that, I'd like to suggest one final thing.

I think the special application request should stand as is, with reflection towards the possible karma scale shrinkage. I think once a year is really way too little for that amount of time. In regards to psionicists and sorcerers, consider making these classes - and perhaps others like Nilazis, Drovians, Elkrosians an arbitrary four, or five karma cost. The amount of karma a player can reach should remain three, but to apply for one of these roles they'd need to use a special application, either at 2/3 karma, or 3/3 karma with all of the "spent" karma that comes of using these points. It's my belief that it should remain a three per year thing. I know it causes a larger workload on the staff, and to be honest I have no idea how this really works - but if someone makes a special application for one of these roles, require them to state a long term plan. Have them choose where and how they're going to play their character, and give the storytellers for that particular area or clan the option of approving or declining these requests.

Personally, all of this aside, the one thing I am most personally interested in are mutant roles. I haven't really heard any discussion how these types of roles would play a factor into the new system. Using my suggestions, a mutant role could vary from cost depending on the scale of mutation, power of mutation, etc. This would give even more variability and life to mundane or otherwise characters. This is another reason why I think the special application feature should remain as it is. Others have suggested making psionicists and sorcerers roles that can only be applied for via role call, perhaps this isn't such a bad idea. Despite wanting to play these classes, perhaps it's for the best.

I apologize in advance if my lack of knowledge or experience gives my opinions and thoughts less body than would be adequate. I really have been enjoying this game since picking it up. I just wanted to offer a perspective of things from someone that is relatively new to things around here.

[Harmless]

I am a little bothered about the long karma regeneration times, but then again, this represents a karma nerf, which I am fine with. Karma is OP anyway, and it'd be fun to have more reason to roll up lower karma roles. They now have the advantage of having less pressure to be very long lived.

Otherwise, I don't mind any of these changes. I appreciate that the categories by which points are earned are basically the same, because I like those, and found it easier to get to my karma level with them as at least half of the categories are objective -- knowledge of the game world, etc. This is more just a way of how karma is spent/used. I was worried that the way in which staff judge who gets karma was going to change, but now that I know that it won't, I can still assure my friends who play this game that they can get karma if they put in the effort to play roles that fit the setting.

[FantasyWriter]

I like the change overall.

Here are my concerns:
1) Karma regen, seems slow for people who die frequently (especially new players and explorer-type players).
     When I first started playing, it wasn't unthinkable to go through two characters in a week (I apped 3 in one day once before I learned my way around and where not to go).  I guess the higher you go on the scale, the longer your PCs will live on average, but it seems like the system favors some types of players: those who like to play safe social/flavor roles over those who who like to -do- stuff that is risky and -fun- from the average gamer's perspective (explorers, raiders, thieves, assassins)  To me, it has felt like many game changes and policy discussions over my time here have been moving in that direction.

2) Hard limit on sorcs/psions (or anything for that matter). 
     What happened when those three people are only playing a 1-5 hours a week?  They're not interacting with or adding anything to the game's other players but the top pick on the waiting list would? One has an unexpected month+ leave and has to either hold up other players chance of trying them out, is force-stored, or stores out of guilt and loses their PC, that they can't try again for a year.  These roles may be low-interest enough with the spec app limit of one/year in place to prevent it, but I would hate for the waiting list to end up  being years deep since more players will have access to the waiting list. 
I don't want there to be more than three (or even one or two) active powerful sorcerers/psions running around any more than anyone else, but I do think it benefits the playerbase and game world for sorcerery and psionics to be a real fear and perceived threat to the status quo if not the safety of the denizens of the Known World.  I've always thought staff did a good job of organically regulating magick and clan caps after the "end of days" plots of the Quick/Gin/CAM days.  I hope it is their intent to do the same going forward and not assign an arbitrary number to an ever-changing playerbase.

[Delirium]

those who like to play safe social/flavor roles over those who who like to -do- stuff that is risky and -fun- from the average gamer's perspective (explorers, raiders, thieves, assassins)

This is probably a quibble on something you don't intend to express, but:

I find myself increasingly annoyed with this seemingly pervasive idea that because you are long-lived, you must be a tavern-sitter (and/or a fraidy cat reclusive) PC who never takes any real risks. I... I beg to differ. Not only do I tend to be long-lived and a risk taker, I have seen many examples to the contrary. HARUMPH. 

Do some long-lived PCs stay that way because they hide from consequence? Maybe, sure. But on the flip side, some of you guys who can't seem to stay alive for more than a few days make me want to shake my fists at the sky. I try to include you in my plots and then never see you again because you just had to backstab a scrab.

My point is, it takes all kinds. Some backbone to the game is fine to help offset the lemming problem.

[Miradus]

Some are, some aren't. I can't speak for all of them. There's some characters roaming around now who I see out and about all the time (with my different characters) and I'm amazed they've survived. And there's other long term characters who I know survive by logging in for 30 minutes every few days and literally never going outside of the Gaj or the Gaj's adjoining quit room. (Or the one in Red's.)

There's a threshold with action-oriented PC's at which point they're hard to kill. They literally won't die to that proverbial scrab. They're going to die to PK or something hard-coded in game, like a fall or a bigtime poison. Or they're going to go linkless as pair of rantarri amble out of the woods or while spamming past twitchy wearing a pair of fancy pants.

If you make it over that threshold, then you can usually do some action AND be long-lived. But we all have the pain of rolling up the new character, getting great stats, and then falling off the mount just as 5 tarantulas erupt from the sand and the reeling begins.

It sucks when you've just been introduced to 3-4 of those long-term characters and hooked into their plots and then you get scrabbed or tarantularized, but it's going to suck even worse when NOW you have to wait 150 days before you can have a master crafter again or someone who starts with city/outdoor hide.

[boog]

There are still plenty of low level options, though, so I guess I don't see what the problem is?

[Miradus]

There are still plenty of low level options, though, so I guess I don't see what the problem is?

Maybe there isn't one. I had fun when I was playing the no karma options too, so I guess it's not the end of the world.

But here's kind of the rub ... some of you guys have had access to these karma options for over a decade and you're telling us newbies "hey, it's no big deal that you're now only going to get sporadic access to them. You'll still get to play maybe 2 a year."

When you've literally tried out every combination in every clan, north and south, left-handed, right-handed, and double-fisted.

But some of us newbs? I'm still working my way through that list based on whatever roleplaying concepts I can come up with. And looking to insert those concepts and skills I've just relatively recently gained access to into the game world in a more meaningful way than the Randy Ranger whose only impact is a rotting corpse in the grasslands.

So 3 years to earn enough karma to try out the options and then I can try one of the 21 options every 150 or so days? That's 11.6 years to work through that list.

Just seeing the math wants to make me say 'fuck that' and go take up golf.

[Delirium]

Um, I've been playing for .... I think 12 years now... and I've still never played some guild/subguild combinations.

Or in the rinth. Or long-term in Red Storm. Or a half-giant, or a dwarf. Or ... or...

I mean, I look at it in a completely different light - after all these years there are still new things for me to try.

[Miradus]

I get that. And it's one of the coolest things about Arm.

That and the fact that you can come back to something a year later (like the Guild or the Arabet) and find it completely different than your experience before simply because the players have changed. It means there's no "end game" to Armageddon. It will always change.

But I don't like my activities gated by "time". Just waiting on character approval makes me tear my hair out.

[FantasyWriter]

those who like to play safe social/flavor roles over those who who like to -do- stuff that is risky and -fun- from the average gamer's perspective (explorers, raiders, thieves, assassins)

This is probably a quibble on something you don't intend to express, but:

I find myself increasingly annoyed with this seemingly pervasive idea that because you are long-lived, you must be a tavern-sitter (and/or a fraidy cat reclusive) PC who never takes any real risks. I... I beg to differ. Not only do I tend to be long-lived and a risk taker, I have seen many examples to the contrary. HARUMPH. 

Do some long-lived PCs stay that way because they hide from consequence? Maybe, sure. But on the flip side, some of you guys who can't seem to stay alive for more than a few days make me want to shake my fists at the sky. I try to include you in my plots and then never see you again because you just had to backstab a scrab.

My point is, it takes all kinds. Some backbone to the game is fine to help offset the lemming problem.

Appologies, if it came off like that. I don't think that at all. I have played some rather long lived characters and very rarely roll up anything that would resemble a tavern sitter.  Neither do I think tavern sitting or playing it safe is a bad thing.  Every role type helps in an RPI.  Even my reclusive nomads need a little tavern time to talk people up from time to time.
Explorers and people who enjoy the combat code (especially newer players who don't know how to OOC their way around instadeath rooms, spider caves, kryl spawn rooms, pickpocketing the uber-baddass warriors in the rinth, etc) shouldn't be punished or their options limited for the way they like to play, either.

[mansa]

I'd just like to point to a moment in our game's history where the players felt that there were too many karma characters active in the game.

https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,28005.0.html

I'm sure there was a heck of a lot going on at that same time (end of the world plots, powerful magickers not dying as often) but it happened, and we shouldn't forget how the world 'felt' when there was a lot of people surviving.


Adhira stated that they want to have the playerbase in a spot where -everybody- has 3 karma.  That's their end goal.
They also want to have it so the world doesn't get 'full' of sorcerers.



I feel like -
We want to tell other people they can't play magickers because there's too many, but we want to be able to play our own magickers whenever we want.  :|

[FantasyWriter]

Adding to my previous post, not replying to Mansa's:
Playing long lived explorer and combat-heavy types long lived takes a lot of world knowledge that the character would probably know, but the player doesn't.
You could play every PC in nearly every clan for years and not explore half the world (sometimes because leaders or their players don't think those areas are worth risking their PC/self or their crew), so even "playing it safe" in a clan, gets boring for us eventually.

A good example of this is the Whiran of mine someone asked about in the "whatever happened to..." thread: He died because I didn't know that [Leave, Enter] exits worked differently than [N, E, S, W] exits when it comes to Whiran defensive spells.  That's not an IC feature, it's a limit of the game that you have to change the way you play around it in order to survive.  Thankfully staff has done a great deal toward eliminating many things like this in the past.

Sometimes you have to die a lot to learn how not to die.
As I said earlier, this is a problem that is more of a problem for newer players who won't have as much karma to wait on regenerating either.

[Kialae]

How about if you feel you deserve (or really need) karma to regenerate quicker, you can just put in a staff request explaining why? They could review it case-by-case and if it's a fair or compelling reason, they manually tick the karma regen.

[Miradus]

How about if you feel you deserve (or really need) karma to regenerate quicker, you can just put in a staff request explaining why? They could review it case-by-case and if it's a fair or compelling reason, they manually tick the karma regen.

Because you'll get into trouble that way (not you, but the player/staff relationship).

It'll be the same as rerolls.

wish all Can I get a reroll? Every stat is poor or below.

A staff sends, "That sucks. My deepest sympathy. But ... policy is no."

[Vox]

There are still plenty of low level options, though, so I guess I don't see what the problem is?

Maybe there isn't one. I had fun when I was playing the no karma options too, so I guess it's not the end of the world.

But here's kind of the rub ... some of you guys have had access to these karma options for over a decade and you're telling us newbies "hey, it's no big deal that you're now only going to get sporadic access to them. You'll still get to play maybe 2 a year."

When you've literally tried out every combination in every clan, north and south, left-handed, right-handed, and double-fisted.

But some of us newbs? I'm still working my way through that list based on whatever roleplaying concepts I can come up with. And looking to insert those concepts and skills I've just relatively recently gained access to into the game world in a more meaningful way than the Randy Ranger whose only impact is a rotting corpse in the grasslands.

So 3 years to earn enough karma to try out the options and then I can try one of the 21 options every 150 or so days? That's 11.6 years to work through that list.

Just seeing the math wants to make me say 'fuck that' and go take up golf.

As a veteran player who has been here off and on since like '95.. I can say this concern is dead on. I have played every major guild/race and combined them with almost every sub guild combination. I know the geography of the entire exploitable Known like I know Los Angeles where I live(surprisingly similar to Allanak..). My learning curve was steep and it took countless deaths and terrible experiences in-game with so many characters I can't even count them over the last 22 years. We live, we die, we live again. So I definitely hear Miradus and agree that the biggest impact the karma regen factor will have will be on new players getting to experience/learn these gated classes. I'm glad Nathvaan and Adhira have mentioned that the regen rate is being debated in immland, I have no doubt that whatever they decide will reflect these concerns.

@Delirum: I heart you. I wish more long-lived PC's played like you do.

Edited to add: @Mansa: I always wish there were more magickers/scaryshit running around to be afraid of.. and I heart you too.

[HavokBlue]

My obligatory gripe is potentially being locked out of options like extended subguilds. I think it's excellent that more people will have the opportunity to play more character types, but it doesn't improve MY experience if things like mundane character options are locked behind a timegate.

[Lizzie]

Another stab at a combo idea:

If you only have 1 karma max and use it, you can now play any 0 karma character for the next 30 days. You can earn a 2nd during that time but you still have to wait the 30 days before you can play another 1-karma character.

Once you have a 2nd point and have been "clear" (see above) for at least 30 days, you are now free to play any 0 OR 1-karma point character, which has to then "clear" for 30 days before you can play a 1 or 2 karma character. If you pick a 2-karma character, you have to wait 60 days total (but you can still play the 0 or 1 karma during that period).

Once you have all 3 points - you can play a 0 or 1 karma character without having to worry about a 30-day wait. A 2-karma role will require that 30 day wait. A 3-karma role will require a 60-day wait.

Sorcs and psis are special app only, must have at least 2 karma to app it, and it's restricted how Mansa suggested - a percentage of the current active playerbase.

[Brokkr]

Imagine if all extended subguilds took up one of the three special character applications you were allowed a year, and then they were made more freely available as a test of their impact, recently.

[Molten Heart]

.

[Delirium]

Imagine if all extended subguilds took up one of the three special character applications you were allowed a year, and then they were made more freely available as a test of their impact, recently.

[John]

I'm still working on a long ass post which captures all my thoughts. But for now my thoughts on regen and sorcerer/psionicist characters is complete.

The limitation to 1 sorcerer/psionicist per year only stops people who can't make a character survive at least 12 months from playing nothing but sorcerer/psionicist characters. Those who can't make a sorcerer/psionicist last longer than a month are extremely affected by the 1 per year limitation.

So the question staff need to consider is what percentage of "karma 8 or nothing" players routinely survive 12 months? If the answer is most, or even half, then the rule of 1 per year per player does nothing to stop them. If you really wanted to stop them you would need to change it to "you can't playa sorcerer or psionicist until X months past after your last one died" (X could be 3 months, or 6 months or even 12 months).

Delirium: Staff have noticed a propensity for SOME players to protect their characters from danger by not buying into plots and avoiding RPTs. It is enough of a concern for Staff to raise it for discussion at least once. Karma regen will only encourage more players (not all of them, just more of them) and it will exacerbate the issue among those who do it already. It's a valid point for Staff to consider before deciding to implement these features and how to do so.

[John]

That said. I never choose 0 karma subguils so thisb would fix that.

[BadSkeelz]

I don't like any mundane subguild (extended or otherwise) being on a timer. Is it really so destabilizing to the gameworld that people can make characters with better-rounded skill sets?