Karma - what is the intention behind it?

[Alesan]

How are 0-karma players not second-class players? They are not trusted with higher power subclasses. This is basically what any 0-karma player is told through the game because they don't have the choice of picking a higher power subclass without asking for permission via a special app.

[Boogerbear]

Scrap the ESG's if anything.

We've just moved to a class structure that is far more diverse and far more 'skillful'.  ESG's no longer fill the role of granting further customization, they serve to try to min-max things and that's it.

Weaken subclasses to the standard of the normal subclasses, none but magickal are behind a karma wall, and we're in a healthy spot.

Well, the fact that merchantish classes can't pick an extended subguild AND mastercraft is a pretty big deterrent for a big chunk of classes, whereas before the merchantish classes were the ones who seemed to benefit greatly from the combat-oriented ESGs.

[Jihelu]

If I recall a ton of people liked the merchant class, or atleast a lot more than currently like Artisan. Artisan is what, the most underplayed new class? I thought to my self 'Jihelu, why is that'. And then I realized, you can't MC with it.

Which I actually thought was kinda silly because people rarely MC to begin with, but I guess the idea that you /might/ puts people off?

Also it eats your subguild.

[Heade]

Scrap the ESG's if anything.

We've just moved to a class structure that is far more diverse and far more 'skillful'.  ESG's no longer fill the role of granting further customization, they serve to try to min-max things and that's it.

Weaken subclasses to the standard of the normal subclasses, none but magickal are behind a karma wall, and we're in a healthy spot.

I disagree with all of this. Subclasses still serve to diversify characters, and, if anything, ESGs give you the opportunity to play characters with diverse skills that are actually useful, whereas most of the basic subs were often used to just "unlock" toggle abilities where skill level didn't matter, like foraging food in the wilderness, or language skills/accents.

With ESGs and higher skill caps, the "custom" skills you add to a class are actually useful IG, and not just window dressing for the "toggle" abilities people were really going after.

I still think the best idea is to just make all ESGs 1 karma across the board, and be done with it. Also, for god sake, give heavy mercantile classes the ability to custom craft so they can pick a REAL subclass. That decision was absurd. It makes more sense for master crafter ESGs not to have mastercrafting than for the core crafting classes not to.

[Delirium]

I still think the best idea is to just make all ESGs 1 karma across the board, and be done with it. Also, for god sake, give heavy mercantile classes the ability to custom craft so they can pick a REAL subclass.

[Armaddict]

ESGs give you the opportunity to play characters with diverse skills that are actually useful

Show me one of the new classes that is useless without and ESG.

There are wonky skillsets, but none of them are useless.  There's greater variety.  Keeping ESG's is just a movement towards making those new classes -less- relevant...we just made a huge switch in the formula for how characters are made.  I say less relevant...because it's a movement towards a myth-like 'everyone capable of most things', which may sound well and good, but it's entirely -boring-.

There's no reason to put any 'better subguilds' at some higher tier when that only muddies the waters.  Make all subclasses 3-4 capable but mediocre additions, put magick behind the karma gate, and all those complaints that people have go away at the cost of actually still having niches for characters to fill.  Or wait, that's not a cost, that's a boon.

[Boogerbear]

Artisan isn't THAT bad.  It's crazy how fast they branched with the initial bumps they get.

But they require a player to:

A) Join a clan

B) Hide until they've progressed enough to recruit people or gain master crafting skills.

C) Avoid Allanak.  Seriously, I play a lot, and I stopped counting how many times I was crafting away/walking around when suddenly some dude unlocks the door from the other side or fails a sneak while following me.

D) Be a GMH family member who is reliant on other PCs for: hunting, intelligence gathering, guarding, scanning/thief protection, and basically anything besides making stuff.

But they can make stuff really well and branch quickly.  It's just that they're even more defenseless than legacy merchants when it comes to thieves, which is bad when you suddenly have a city swarming with thiefy types because of the new classes.

Hard mode, yes.  Long term, yes.  Impossible?  Nah, it can be done.

[Bogre]

I'm with Heade.

Keep the ESGs, lower their karma requirement. They add flavor and utility.

[Boogerbear]

To add, if an Artisan picked a "Real" extended subguild with scan/city listen (I don't think there's one offering both, but anyway), well, it's already been noted that extended subguild scan probably won't detect the stealth guilds.

Legacy merchant had master scan; only two of the three heavy merchantile classes have scan now, and it only goes up to advanced.

[Jihelu]

You can take majordomo for advanced scan/listen.

[650Booger]

I think lots of us want our characters to be total badasses at everything.  the craving for power is the problem.  playing a character with built in weaknesses is actually fun, if you ask me.

[Heade]

ESGs give you the opportunity to play characters with diverse skills that are actually useful

Show me one of the new classes that is useless without and ESG.

There are wonky skillsets, but none of them are useless.  There's greater variety.  Keeping ESG's is just a movement towards making those new classes -less- relevant...we just made a huge switch in the formula for how characters are made.  I say less relevant...because it's a movement towards a myth-like 'everyone capable of most things', which may sound well and good, but it's entirely -boring-.

There's no reason to put any 'better subguilds' at some higher tier when that only muddies the waters.  Make all subclasses 3-4 capable but mediocre additions, put magick behind the karma gate, and all those complaints that people have go away at the cost of actually still having niches for characters to fill.  Or wait, that's not a cost, that's a boon.

I never said any of the core classes were useless. What I said was, that some of the BASE SUBCLASSES gave skills at a level that were pretty useless.

Example? Apprentice level slashing weapons on gladiator. Or jman sneak/hide/steal on thief.

If you actually expect your character to use these things IG without getting caught or beat the vast majority of the time, those aren't at useful levels of skill, and will likely get you in trouble for even bothering to have them, more than they will help you at all.

Generally, the more experienced players knew not to use subguilds for "active" or "contested" abilities like combat, stealth, or criminal behavior. Instead, people picked subs almost purely for utility stuff, like languages, crafting, accents, or toggle abilities like wilderness/city flags for stealth, or foraging.


What I -did- say was that ESGs STILL provide a way to flesh out base classes to mold them into character concepts. People's concepts for characters are endlessly varied, and so having as much variation in subclasses as possible is desireable.

[Boogerbear]

I think lots of us want our characters to be total badasses at everything.  the craving for power is the problem.  playing a character with built in weaknesses is actually fun, if you ask me.

Well, we have different realms when it comes to power:  Stealth, Fighting, Crafting, Surviving Outside, Magick.

Even with the most min-maxed class/subclass combos possible, a player won't be able to be badass in all of those things. If they're lucky, they can be mediocre at 3 and badass at 1, maybe 2.

[Cind]

The way things are are far better than they were. I don't know where the (relatively light) negativity on this forum is coming from lately. I think you'll were just nervous about the elections.

Then again, I'm pretty happy with whatever doesn't rock my crafting boat, and that odd sense of not being able to find a subguild for a mercantile that people won't hate you for? Staff are working on it.

[Nao]

Example? Apprentice level slashing weapons on gladiator. Or jman sneak/hide/steal on thief.

Apprentice in a weapon skill you would not get without the subclass is far from useless. Same for journeyman steal, you just need to limit yourself to (smaller) items that are relatively easy to steal.

[Miradus]

Apprentice in a weapon skill you would not get without the subclass is far from useless. Same for journeyman steal, you just need to limit yourself to (smaller) items that are relatively easy to steal.

I can't vouch for the weapon skill, but I've noticed by the time a skill ticks up from novice to apprentice I'm usually pretty good at combat in PVE. That might just be the hidden offense/defense skill though.

I CAN say that journeyman steal is pretty damn good. If you are successfully hidden, with very good agility or higher, and the item you're stealing is lightweight and not in a pack or pouch but rather worn on a belt or in open inventory ... you've got greater than a 90% chance of success.

Also, steal has TWO checks. One check to succeed at the theft, a follow up check to see if you're seen. If you're not seen but you failed to steal, they're just going to feel a hand in their pocket. No crimcode triggering and you won't be outed as a thief since you're successfully hidden.

I've always got a chuckle out of those people who think you need master steal before you ever try to lift anything. Take the risk if there's something you really want.

[Cind]

I've seen a steal attempt on my own person which physically failed but was seen by me and other people, and it was funny because I was pretending not to notice it at an OOC level and everyone else was ROFLSTOMP THAT DUDE. (He stole an empty bag.)

I always thought karma was an attempt to assure that meks weren't populating the roads outside and inside the city due to a surplus of crazy whirans, but this actually wasn't under control until a couple of years ago, so its not a foolproof system, and I honestly don't think its ever going to be.

The length of time required to make your character good at anything, plus the ease of death to things that aren't other players, always seemed to me to be things that have to make the playerbase naturally averse to risk, plus like staff said once, the playerbase is getting older, and are taking fewer risks on a daily basis than we used to. What I mean is that I don't think anyone should care that there were a bunch of whirans throwing meks into the most often-used roads, about four times more often than they are actually drawn there by victims running away from their natural habitat. Witches are dangerous; witches are scary. The game mechanics do not reward the player for being either, although roleplay does.

Yeah, I've been killed by whiran-thrown meks. A lot. It was awesome. But I usually play characters that don't spend a month or two training their combat skills, so I can't speak for their pain.

Bring goddamn elkros/drovians/nilazis back.

[Bogre]

The current karma mechanics definitely support risk-averse play.

[Vox]

Honestly, it's probably time to further simplify Karma. I say this as a player who has played everything. (Except legacy merchant, I just didn't want to craft that much)

0 should be the Newby entrance point, but ungate extended subguilds. And then make 1 the maximum and unlock everything.

Let people earn their point and then play well to keep it. Put the responsibility on players to show they're capable and make it binary. You either are or you're not. 0 or 1. Sorcerer and Psi can still be special app only. But if people can RP well enough to earn a karma point, let's allow them to prove that it means they're capable  Their actions will prove otherwise and get us out of this odd heirarchy of middle class RPers who wonder why they're stuck at 2 Karma.

Additionally the regen system is equally silly and as mentioned steers players towards risk averse play. For regen to be truly affective the choices needs to be far more powerful. (I.e. actual specialized classes with master level skills that work together rather than the jack of all trades choices that would be basic)

And yes, please bring back elkros, drov and nilaz.