0-karma subclasses are abysmal! And here's why...

[Strongheart]

So, you've just apped your special snowflakey three-karma fme mage, and after a few days played you end up befalling the fate of all Zalanthans: death. By whatever means, you're once again facing the mantis head! What now?

Well, it'll take you at least thirty days to fulfill even a possible mundane concept you were thinking of if the 0-karma subs don't do the job. Maybe a delven scout with a master weaponmaking subclass would do the trick, but you're locked out! Okay, so I guess a 0-karma will have to do instead of spec apping (which adds to staff workload) or making do with not playing for awhile until that karma comes back. Both options are a drag either way, both involve you not playing for a lengthy amount of time, and adding to the game world/the playerbase just because these 0-karma classes don't fit the concept. What then?

Screw it, you guess you'll just roll up a 0-karma class only this time you've got experience in you. And if you manage to survive long enough in the deadly wastes or cesspool that are the cities, then you've got nowhere to go but up, right? I'm afraid not! For you see, a majority (not all such as Linguist) of the 0-karma subclasses offered to all players lack a ceiling that other mundanes can achieve solely for having higher karma due to arbitrary coded reasons. Were they fair or required more trust from staff then how would mastering the abilities offered by these mundane subclasses be no more abusable than the lower tier subclasses? It makes no sense for someone of say the Outlaw (0-karma) profession to not be as proficient a climber as a Grebber (1-karma) by one level or either being incapable of mastering it. I could go on with my salty spiel but I'd like to hear what you guys think.

Should the amount of subclasses be merged together that are similar? Or maybe higher tier mundane subclasses should be looked at, be more balanced to the concept it is attempting to offer? There are many possibilities, I for one hate being locked to certain character concepts with a lower skill ceiling due to no discernable reason.

[Krath]

I never understood why the extended subguilds required karma to begin with, and especially now with the new main guilds. If anyone has any links from previous staff posts on the matter that would be great.

[mansa]

In my opinion,

The ongoing story of Zalanthas needs 0 karma character archetypes, and temporary characters.  It needs flavor characters and characters that attempt to do something and fail.  It needs failure criminals and poor raiders and characters who attempt to be cool but aren't.

I never understood why the extended subguilds required karma to begin with, and especially now with the new main guilds. If anyone has any links from previous staff posts on the matter that would be great.

- They require karma but they don't "use" karma when you select them.

[Krath]

Mansa,

My question is why do they require Karma if they do not cost karma. There is nothing game breaking or rp required for them that is not already available on the mundane mains.

[Strongheart]

In my opinion,

The ongoing story of Zalanthas needs 0 karma character archetypes, and temporary characters.  It needs flavor characters and characters that attempt to do something and fail.  It needs failure criminals and poor raiders and characters who attempt to be cool but aren't.

These are always a possibility with stat rolls, and through character motivation. You can be barred from many avenues due to your race and your skills alone, not to mention the decisions you make as said character.

I for one believe everything should be optimal according to your concept, and should you desire a character who is a terrible, short-lived character then that shouldn't be determined completely by random. There are too many variables to determine whether or not you can be formidable ICly or codedly! You won't Ubermacht through sheer coded ability anyway.

That is why I feel it is only fair to withdraw the inability to access higher tier skills for no reason since you have to grind for those coded advantages anyhow, may as well make yourself useful without needing to worry about what ceiling you can reach mundanely.

[Strongheart]

I'll add that you should have the means to achieve a mastery over the skills you're given from a subclass. You do not by any means need to pursue that though! It will require practice either way. This mastery change would involve several changes, such as the variety of skills you are given to reach or how many you get at all.

[triste]

My two cents on this in brief since it's something I have griped about before:

The psychology of opportunity cost puts players with karma in a position where it is hard to commit to a zero karma character beyond that character being a short term throwaway. Therefore, the karma regen system necessarily demotivates players to play seriously while waiting for their karma to regen. After all, why sink valuable time in a character that is capped at lower potential? I don't think the solution is refactoring the subguilds as OP proposes, as much as maybe allowing players to spend karma on a living character (capped at your max karma) to do things like get a new skill or skill bump an existing skill. You will actually motivate players with karma to play mundanes more with a system like this. The current system, in contrast, causes players with karma to not play and make threads on the GDB like... this.

[Strongheart]

My two cents on this in brief since it's something I have griped about before:

The psychology of opportunity cost puts players with karma in a position where it is hard to commit to a zero karma character beyond that character being a short term throwaway. Therefore, the karma regen system necessarily demotivates players to play seriously while waiting for their karma to regen. After all, why sink valuable time in a character that is capped at lower potential? I don't think the solution is refactoring the subguilds as OP proposes, as much as maybe allowing players to spend karma on a living character (capped at your max karma) to do things like get a new skill or skill bump an existing skill. You will actually motivate players with karma to play mundanes more with a system like this. The current system, in contrast, causes players with karma to not play and make threads on the GDB like... this.

I'm inclined to agree with that assertion. It does create more work in things staff doesn't seem too interested in doing since stat bumps for example are things they're pretty strict on. This aligns in a similar vein, what I propose is work that requires less maintainence however I like what you're getting at.

[mansa]

Maybe we should consider what problem the extended subclasses were meant to solve for.

[Anglico]

You don't need karma to have fun. You don't need karma, to outwit, outplay, kill, someone with karma. You don't need karma to create a story. You don't need karma to be a part of a story.


Buuuut it's sure nice to have!

[Strongheart]

Maybe we should consider what problem the extended subclasses were meant to solve for.

But they require karma and if you've spent all your karma then you're out of luck until a month later.

You don't need karma to have fun. You don't need karma, to outwit, outplay, kill, someone with karma. You don't need karma to create a story. You don't need karma to be a part of a story.


Buuuut it's sure nice to have!

And I'm not even saying that! But mundanes shouldn't be affected by the karma system, they don't require any more trust to be played responsibly unlike say a mage or desert elf or half-giant or mindworm etc. And if they are then maybe that needs to be looked at a bit.

[Anglico]

I agree. It also puts mundanes, 0 karma mundanes at a severe disadvantage from 1 karma mundanes.

[Narf]

So I disagree with one of the premises of this thread, ie that expanded subclasses are drastically superior to the standard subclasses. They're a little better, but it's not a drastic difference.

That said, I agree with the general sentiment. Karma was developed not to powerbump people as a reward, but rather gatekeep roles that were difficult to roleplay for people that had proven they could handle it. Master subclasses aren't particularly difficult to roleplay, they are a flat (if modest) power bump to people with karma and exist for no other purpose.

I think we need to go back to when karma was specifically and only used to determine people's capability to play difficult roles, and remove the notion that exists for the purpose of giving more experience players a flat powerbump to even mundane and normal roles.

A 0 karma mundane dwarven fighter shouldn't be any less capable than a 3 karma mundane dwarven fighter.

[Strongheart]

So I disagree with one of the premises of this thread, ie that expanded subclasses are drastically superior to the standard subclasses. They're a little better, but it's not a drastic difference.

That said, I agree with the general sentiment. Karma was developed not to powerbump people as a reward, but rather gatekeep roles that were difficult to roleplay for people that had proven they could handle it. Master subclasses aren't particularly difficult to roleplay, they are a flat (if modest) power bump to people with karma and exist for no other purpose.

I think we need to go back to when karma was specifically and only used to determine people's capability to play difficult roles, and remove the notion that exists for the purpose of giving more experience players a flat powerbump to even mundane and normal roles.

A 0 karma mundane dwarven fighter shouldn't be any less capable than a 3 karma mundane dwarven fighter.

110% agree

[Armaddict]

Honestly, I'd say ditch extended subs altogether.  The main guild overhaul gave each main class sooooo mannyyyy skillllssss.

[triste]

Interesting comment, but getting back to the psychology of opportunity cost, if you get rid of extended subguilds you would see players with karma playing mundanes even less and playing magickers/muls/etc more. If you changed the policies that way I bet you a solid $50 that is how stats will shift. I don't make the rules of how human [and lizard] brains work.

I agree with OP about the premise of the problem as previously mentioned, but I also agree with Mansa that we need to look at the goal of creating these new subguilds, karma regen, etc. It wasn't just to bar certain roles at high karma as Narf said. Regen and all these wacky rules also exist to incentivize players with karma to play mundanes and you need to keep that incentive in tact.

Edited: less words, less douchey

[Culinary Critic]

Interesting comment, but getting back to the psychology of opportunity cost, if you get rid of extended subguilds you would see players with karma playing mundanes even less and playing magickers more.

Strongly disagree with this for a few reasons.
1. playing a magicker or a mul or a half-giant over and over and over can get pretty boring.  Magickers in particular fill a particular niche and, for the most part, have less social interaction than other roles.  I can't imagine playing two or three of them in a row even if they were all different elements...unless playing magickers are your thing.  If you want to be hated and ridiculed, play a sharp or a breed.

2. Just because a person has karma doesn't mean they have to use it every time they play.  Some of my favourite characters have been mundane humans with no extended sub-guilds.  To me (not speaking for other players), it's about the character and what I can do with it.  I admit that some PCs were more work than others and some were less fulfilling than others, but the guild or sub-guild had little to do with that.  My "mean" characters were a lot harder to play than my pleasant, friendly characters, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy playing them.

3. As noted, if you face the mantis head early, you're forced to play a mundane, standard sub-guild character or sit on the sidelines.  Given the player base and the way we put a lot of effort into our characters, I don't believe that many (if any) will hit that magic 30 day mark and store just so they can play a karma required character.  I expect that nearly everyone will continue to play the character they've put almost a month into until the end of that character's life.  What they do afterwards is up to them.

[triste]

We are a diverse playerbase, and while your argument is valid (one more argument in your favor is that mundanes are more likely to be promoted in most guilds), I just have to state in the interest of facts and representation that a number of players have mentioned not playing while they wait for karma to regen. And they aren't bad players, they are probably just busy people and have other factors augmenting their cost benefit analysis to make playing a zero karma character irrational.

[Strongheart]

Interesting comment, but getting back to the psychology of opportunity cost, if you get rid of extended subguilds you would see players with karma playing mundanes even less and playing magickers more.

Strongly disagree with this for a few reasons.
1. playing a magicker or a mul or a half-giant over and over and over can get pretty boring.  Magickers in particular fill a particular niche and, for the most part, have less social interaction than other roles.  I can't imagine playing two or three of them in a row even if they were all different elements...unless playing magickers are your thing.  If you want to be hated and ridiculed, play a sharp or a breed.

2. Just because a person has karma doesn't mean they have to use it every time they play.  Some of my favourite characters have been mundane humans with no extended sub-guilds.  To me (not speaking for other players), it's about the character and what I can do with it.  I admit that some PCs were more work than others and some were less fulfilling than others, but the guild or sub-guild had little to do with that.  My "mean" characters were a lot harder to play than my pleasant, friendly characters, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy playing them.

3. As noted, if you face the mantis head early, you're forced to play a mundane, standard sub-guild character or sit on the sidelines.  Given the player base and the way we put a lot of effort into our characters, I don't believe that many (if any) will hit that magic 30 day mark and store just so they can play a karma required character.  I expect that nearly everyone will continue to play the character they've put almost a month into until the end of that character's life.  What they do afterwards is up to them.

If you read one of triste's prior posts, you will see that they are talking specifically about mundanes. Either way, I do not believe staff would allow you to play two half-giants or muls in a row, maybe not even delves tbh. But magickers are another story, and to retain their niche they would adhere to the karma lock/waiting time.

What's being argued here is making mundanes more appealing, some of my suggestions have been to expand or modify them. Mundanes shouldn't be gated like magickers, you should be able to make an artisan/apothecary should you so choose after losing a 1-3 karma role.

Also, Armaddict seems to be trolling. If there weren't any mundane subclasses, mundanes would be suffering so much more virtually than their gicker counterparts. I am suggesting these other subclasses be adjusted to accommodate mundanes better, make them more potentially powerful or varied, and altogether believable.

Why is Wastelander karma-gated by the way? What is so OP about wilderness quit when three of the main classes get it. Beats me!

[Alesan]

Strongly disagree with this for a few reasons.
1. playing a magicker or a mul or a half-giant over and over and over can get pretty boring.  Magickers in particular fill a particular niche and, for the most part, have less social interaction than other roles.  I can't imagine playing two or three of them in a row even if they were all different elements...unless playing magickers are your thing.  If you want to be hated and ridiculed, play a sharp or a breed.

I've seen a lot of mages breeze through the game and I don't think any of this is true. There are players who LOVE playing mages. From what I have seen, a lot of them get just as much social interaction as a mundane if they are SECRET mages, and a vast majority of them are. And there is not nearly as much hate and ridicule for mages as the docs seem to suggest there is. At least if you look at how their interactions go in game.
For that matter, I don't see nearly as much hate and ridicule for elves and breeds as the docs suggest, either, but that may be its own topic altogether.

[wizturbo]

Question.  I thought you just need to have 1 karma (potential,  not actually in the bank) to use extended subguilds for free.  Is that not the case?  Is there literally a wait period to use them?  If so that doesn't seem particularly good to me...it'll just leave a feeling of capped potential for no real reason.

Separately, I personally have no objection to gating more powerful subguilds behind a karma gate. The role play challenges of some roles is one aspect but part of the Karma systems purpose is to encourage good role play and giving new players a short term goal of hitting the games quality bar for RP doesn't seem out of place to me. 

[Brokkr]

Subclasses have experienced substantial power creep since they were introduced, which is the main thing in explaining the power differential.

Maybe we need to reset to zero, for mundane subclasses?

[Krath]

Subclasses have experienced substantial power creep since they were introduced, which is the main thing in explaining the power differential.

Maybe we need to reset to zero, for mundane subclasses?

Yes!!!

[Narf]

Separately, I personally have no objection to gating more powerful subguilds behind a karma gate. The role play challenges of some roles is one aspect but part of the Karma systems purpose is to encourage good role play and giving new players a short term goal of hitting the games quality bar for RP doesn't seem out of place to me.

There's a benefit and a cost. The benefit you note. The cost is a greater sense of elitism.

I'd be willing to pay that cost for important gates like "sorcerer role play" or even "half-giant role play." It's just not worth it though as a very minor addition to the already existing motivations for good roleplay, not to me at least.

[Narf]

Subclasses have experienced substantial power creep since they were introduced, which is the main thing in explaining the power differential.

Maybe we need to reset to zero, for mundane subclasses?

I agree that there's been a lot of power creep in the last few years. It seems like it's not hard to play a character that can do almost everything, as long as you're not too picky about being 'the best there ever was' at it.

That said, I actually think the subclasses should be more powerful and the /main/ classes should be weaker. This would create two opportunities:

1) There would be a greater incentive to play mundane classes. Right now a magic user can rely entirely on the skills in their main class and not even worry that they're effectively missing a subclass. If subclasses were boosted and main classes were decreased in power, it would actually be more of a sacrifice to throw away your subclass to play a witch.

2) Balancing the main class with the subclasses more closely makes characters more customizable. People love customization.

[wizturbo]

Subclasses have experienced substantial power creep since they were introduced, which is the main thing in explaining the power differential.

Maybe we need to reset to zero, for mundane subclasses?

I'm not sure what you mean by reset to zero Brokkr, could you elaborate?

[wizturbo]

There's a benefit and a cost. The benefit you note. The cost is a greater sense of elitism.

1 karma is far from "elite".  Any player should be able to achieve it relatively quickly.  I think it creates a nice short term goal encouraging new players to adhere to the standards of RP set by the game and creates a sense of investment in a given game account to discourage bad behavior once you achieve it.

It's the mud equivalent of "earn an extra feat if you write up a backstory for your pen and paper rpg character".  Kind of.  That's not a perfect analogy but you get the jist.

[Armaddict]

...what about what I said is trolling?  I said that extended subs became less needed after the class revamp.  They were far more pertinent before the class revamp.  Removing them now has a far smaller impact than before, and creates sharper class definition.

I have no idea why you'd consider that trolly.

[Brokkr]

Zero.

Zip.

Nada.

Like character's in the 90's.

[betweenford]

IMO alot could be solved by either making ESG's merged with normal subguilds, or separate but cost nothing and not be gated by karma (just extra options for 0 karma players or people who USED UP all their karma). Oh, and giving Master Crafterwhatever subguilds toolmaking... and universal food forage for master chef.

Honestly though, I'm all for the second choice. Have every option available during character creation even if some feel like straight upgrades or redundant.

[wizturbo]

Oh, remove the extended subguilds all together then?  Hm...  I don't know.  The mastercrafting aspect of all this definitely is a consideration, I'm sure there are a lot of people who like those subguilds.  I think I'd rather see things remain as they are, more options > less options...  unless the extended subguilds are replaced with even more new stuff!

[Brokkr]

Uh, like characters in the 90's, for mundanes.

I.E. before subguilds existed.

[wizturbo]

Oh... no subguild at all?!  That sounds not very fun to be honest.  So many concepts rely on subguilds in my eyes.  You'd have to rework the guild system again to include more options.

[Narf]

There's a benefit and a cost. The benefit you note. The cost is a greater sense of elitism.

1 karma is far from "elite".  Any player should be able to achieve it relatively quickly.  I think it creates a nice short term goal encouraging new players to adhere to the standards of RP set by the game and creates a sense of investment in a given game account to discourage bad behavior once you achieve it.

I believe it takes about six months of investment to earn a karma. Sometimes (usually?) more. That might not seem like a large investment /after/ its been put in, but it's a pretty daunting one when you're looking down the barrel from the other side.

Try to put yourself more in a newplayer's shoes. That's really who all this is for. Old players have no strong reason to care.

[Lotion]

I just wanna play Adventurer + Slipknife or any city/criminal class + outdoorsman/wastelander

[DesertT]

I don't see an issue with the current system MINUS the fact that Roughrider doesn't have Direction Sense, Master Chef not having MasterCraft Toolmaking, and Master Tailor not having Tent Making per my post here:  http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,55991.0.html

Otherwise, you can take a Laborer Linguist and join the Byn, join Leadership for a couple of clans, and have loads of fun.

I know, I just suggested Linguist.

A more fun one would be Laborer Custom Crafter.

BOOM!!

[X-D]

I don't exactly agree with Armaddict. SOME of the classes get tons of skills...but almost all of those classes lack certain important skills often supplied by the subclasses.

3 main classes lack any type of support skills at all...these pretty much require subclasses to be viable unless you really enjoy hard mode survival.

And another 3 main classes are total fails in combat, this also can be partly mitigated with subclasses.

Now as to extended subs requiring karma. I think that any subclass that does not give master in some skills OR does not give certain perks such as wilderness quit or mount taming should not be karma. Let us take outdoorsman, likely one of the best extended subs yet why is it karma, Does it get a good number of skills...Yes, are these skills to a high enough level to cause any real unbalance...No. Do they get any perks that cause unbalance...No. And the bad part is they are not even that distinct of a subclass. If I was to have made them, with the intention to require karma, it would be a distinct class fitting with the name. So, first off...No archery. They would get skinning, scan, direction sense and hunt to master. Sneak, hide, climb to advanced and possibly wilderness quit. That is it. And there you go a distinct sub well worth requiring karma.

[Hauwke]

Uh, like characters in the 90's, for mundanes.

I.E. before subguilds existed.

I think that's an absolutely awful idea. Really the nuclear option, even. No one benefits from this.

[Hauwke]

I don't exactly agree with Armaddict. SOME of the classes get tons of skills...but almost all of those classes lack certain important skills often supplied by the subclasses.

3 main classes lack any type of support skills at all...these pretty much require subclasses to be viable unless you really enjoy hard mode survival.

And another 3 main classes are total fails in combat, this also can be partly mitigated with subclasses.

Now as to extended subs requiring karma. I think that any subclass that does not give master in some skills OR does not give certain perks such as wilderness quit or mount taming should not be karma. Let us take outdoorsman, likely one of the best extended subs yet why is it karma, Does it get a good number of skills...Yes, are these skills to a high enough level to cause any real unbalance...No. Do they get any perks that cause unbalance...No. And the bad part is they are not even that distinct of a subclass. If I was to have made them, with the intention to require karma, it would be a distinct class fitting with the name. So, first off...No archery. They would get skinning, scan, direction sense and hunt to master. Sneak, hide, climb to advanced and possibly wilderness quit. That is it. And there you go a distinct sub well worth requiring karma.

No sub gets anything to master anymore, is I think my biggest gripe.

Extended subs WERE lightly overpowered when you could take burglar/slipknife and have master sneak hide and backstab atop the skills burglar got. It only improved the guild it was combined with.

Then, when the class change happened, we lost the master skills from extended subs and they were reduced to advanced, mid advanced in many cases it seems, but advanced none the less.

I'm not totally sure how we could even fix this without simply bringing standard subs to the level of extended ones and making them all 0 karma.

By my count, there are 54 sub classes in total, 31 of which require karma to access. Over half of all subclasses require you to have played a minimum amount of time AND have been approved for a karma point AND for you to have said karma point.

(NOTE: My subclass count does include the touched subs, but even not including them comes up with over half requiring karma.)

[triste]

Uh, like characters in the 90's, for mundanes.

I.E. before subguilds existed.

If this is what it takes to bring back main guild magickers...

[Dar]

Personally. I think ext. Subclasses should require having 2 karma in the bank, but not spent


Aside gating complicated roles, they are also ment to limit them. So people can't play back to back 3 karma mages, etc.

But sometimes people find it reasonable not to play a ... Month to regain ability to roll a character with ext. Subguild instead of basic subguild.

But make the wait 60 days instead of 30 and that becomes less likely. So much less, that if a player is willing to wait this long - they are barely if at all playing the game at all. In which case it's inconsequential.

The power creep is there, but is also irrelevant. If there is 'any' difference. People willing to wait before rolling a character will wait.

[mansa]

Let's get some history here:


Before the year 2000, there was only 6 mundane classes:
Warrior, Ranger, Assassin, Burglar, Pickpocket, and Merchant.

Before the year 2000, there was no crafting skills, and there were no subclasses.

When crafting skills got implemented, the basic 0 karma subclasses got created and implemented.

Historically, this was intended to round out characters with regards to their primary class.  It gave some minor combat skills, minor stealth and thievery skills, and crafting skills.

The intent was to let the character be more than their standard skillsets, and to distribute crafting skills to those who want to minor in things such as knife_making or instrument_making.


---
Extended Subclasses were mentioned Sept 2011 when they updated the Karma system.
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,41934.msg633505.html#msg633505


"Essentially the special application system will now be focusing on using the skill boost area or subguild areas for altering characters.  Special applications are currently limited to guilds/races currently 3 or less above your current karma range. We'll be following through with the same philosophy, if you want to get a few skill boosts or a different subguild and don't have enough karma you will need to special app and ask for a temporary boost of said karma points."
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,41933.msg633526.html#msg633526 - Sept 2011


After they went live, there was a big discussion about it:
"To those that are lamenting the fact that these all incur a reasonable cost which could exclude lower or zero karma players from creating their most desired combinations, sorry, these are not your average subguilds. They are more powerful, they have more options and they are meant either for those that have the karma to spend on them or who wish to use up one of their special application slots to have one.  The existing subguilds and guilds are still in play and you have the same access to those that you have always had.  As mentioned above, the majority of these subguilds are available via special application which will open up combinations to everyone, you just might not get to play the nilazi assassin you were dreaming of."
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,42570.msg654746.html#msg654746 - January 2012


---

Nergal started the Guild/Class revamp in 2017
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,52438.msg985902.html#msg985902

They went live in June 2018
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,53139.0.html

Brokkr asked for feedback on subclasses in July 2018, and did some revision of the non-magickal subclasses.
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,53906.0.html


---

None of the extended subclasses have any combat/stealth/thievery skills that surpass "advanced" after Brokkr revised them in 2018, but should they be lowered again to reduce the power creep?

[wizturbo]

Perhaps a wacky idea, but figured I'd share it...

   
• What if all non-magick subguilds were removed, in favor of allowing most skills to be learned up to apprentice levels by anyone?
• I don't mean having all skills on the skill list at character gen, but instead requiring a teacher at Master in the skill to teach someone in order to branch it.  It may take more than one teaching to learn the skill.

Instead of having mundane subguilds/extended subguilds, instead skill boost options could be added for each class at a variety of intervals.  For example:

   
• Enforcer Boost 1 (Costs 1 Karma; skills are boosted by a small amount)
• Enforcer Boost 2 (Costs 2 Karma; skills are boosted by a moderate amount)
• Artisan Boost 1 (Costs 1 Karma; skills are boosted by a moderate amount)
• etc

The use of Karma would then be focused on starting off further along, but without having any additional potential beyond anyone else.  A time saver, just like skill bumps used to be.


Maybe some skills would be exempt (city, wilderness versions of some skills for instance)?

[Armaddict]

3 main classes lack any type of support skills at all...these pretty much require subclasses to be viable unless you really enjoy hard mode survival.

Kinda like ye warriors of olde.  And this is kind of the point of the 'powercreep', is that the concept of viability has shifted pretty drastically.  Subguilds are still there to grant the minor support to allow those classes to do things, just not be exceptional at them.  Extended subguilds aren't needed for them to be viable...but if you're looking for a character that does 'all the things', then you choose a class that's worse at combat.

That was kind of the idea in the original mission statement for classes anyway, it's just that extended subs kind of throw a wrench in it, and we made the 'able to do things' classes too formidable in combat anyway.  So of course it feels like you aren't you viable in those roles...you have these other roles that don't actually sacrifice that much unless they're very active in PvP, which is not that big of a portion of the game anyway.  So instead, you build it more like those classes, but with higher combat skills...and you can do the same from those classes to make them more formidable in combat.  Again, this just makes the classes altogether kind of meh.  Different combinations don't -actually- increase variance that much in the current state...it all comes down to one or two skills in each archtype where all you have to ask is 'Do I plan on using that?  No?  Shift up to the next class.'  'Do I plan on using that?  Yes?  This is my class, now get this from subguilds and I basically give up nothing'.

I'm not saying that this just has to happen or the game is going to suck.  But I do think extended subs are kind of a remnant at this point from a historical problem.  Like...like...we had serpents before, and we added subguilds so that they could leap, then wings so they could fly, then we transformed them into leaping lizards, and now they just have a bunch of arms and legs like an octopus with wings trying to do everything or else they're an evolutionary setback.

Okay, that last paragraph was mostly for my own amusement.

[Kryos]

1) ESGs need a rework, not a nerf.  Nerf = bad, uplift = good for player enjoyment.  This lesson has been beaten, and beaten, and beaten home by so many games now I'm surprised people are seriously talking that way. 

2) Classes need polish and some refactoring too.  Maybe 1 or two need a touch of a refactoring 3-5 need expansion ranging from trivial to bigger.  Some I can't talk for because I never really play that style.

3) There's some shiz I want to say but I think tis a bit too technical and data scraping to be good for the GDB.

4) The best option?  Blow it up and do a tier investment system that lets each player build their own character as they want, not as handed down from on high that will never satisfy.

Longer Spiel:

I don't think the main classes are done being polished, from a gameplay and fun perspective.  There's some . . . behind the
scenes behavior I don't think is appropriate to touch on on top of some of the classes lacking skills that befit their name and/or intended role(which are different).  Newer players will look at the names and pick based on that, and not get what they want.  People with more characters under their belt will look at classes and see gaps that they don't fill out on their own for any one concept.

And then there's 1 or two that are just bonkers.  Whatever SG you pick is for the lolz.

ESG's changed, call it power creep if you want, but there's been nerfing too.  No master skills from a ESG now.  No master skinning means if you intend to do certain tasks around killing and skilling animals you HAVE to do it with an non tier 1 character.  I tried with an old style warrior/outdoorsman (with low master skin from the esg and a bonkers stat roll) and it was paiiiiinful even then.  A normal stat roll likely means 'good luck.'  You can apply this to more skills than skin, that have real, hard thresholds that ESGs won't offer.  This matters for ALL tiers and mages.  It means you can 'try' some things but you'll NEVER pull it off.  On top of this, there's some combos that can't be achieved, period, with the classes and esg as is.

I don't think the combat caps are done right, but that's a suspicion I don't have any data to confirm. (I think low tiers cap too high) Just call it a practiced eye.

What am I getting at?  The whole thing needs a polish round.  Do not pull out the nerf bat for indiscriminate bonking.  Everyone who does that regrets it.  Consider blowing up a class system and make an investment tier system based on karma for race/skills/magick/wealth/'perks'.  Want to make everyone happy?  Let them build their own characters within a uniform system.

Also, big props to everyone upstairs who are moving the game along in a good direction in general.  I've got some remarks from a game design perspective, sure, but Arm's in a much better place these days in many facets.
 

[Kryos]

To the OP's point, as the above was on the tangent.

Bullet point first:

1) The answer has always been staring us in the face, and I purposed it years and years ago.  Cooldowns ala a spec app timer.   A lockout timer based on your karma selection.  If you make a mul enforcer/whiran you can't play a mul for 3 months after death nor a whiran.  Desert elf adventurer/master weaponsmith means no desert elf or master weaponsmith for a month after death. 

Spiel

Some years back I purposed that the 8 karma system was bonkers and needed to go.  Crunch it down to 4 I said, 1 de/dwarf, 2 some gicks/hg 3 mul, 4 psion/sorc.  Lets say it met with some nay saying and discouragement.  Few years after that poof:  new karma system.  But I did not advocate a karma regeneration system. 

The karma regen system discourages risk taking, encourages absences and extended leaves, and does nothing to prevent repeat roles.  Boo, hiss.  A blocker on the selections you made for your pc after they die means you are encouraged to keep playing, taking risks isn't the end of the world nor is dying if you want to try another karma role, AND  it encourages you to try something new.  Yay, hurray!

[mansa]

The karma spend system also coded-ly enforced a limit to how many magickers a player can create in a row, which is the intent of the system.

Simply, which is to tell the players "No, you cannot play another magicker."  You cannot play what you want to play. You break the world every time you play one.



That's the whole reason why it exists.   The whole reason is to tell the players "No."   And as players, we're upset we're being told "No"!

[CodeMaster]

I'd vote for a rework, although I'm currently an interested but inactive player (so grain of salt).
 
I think extended subguilds distort what karma is actually supposed to be (and I don't think it's just supposed to be "more power").  In my view, exercising karma used to mean you'd inherit more responsibility over the story.  Primarily you got a role that required a higher standard of play.  In return, you would enjoy a character who was more strongly integrated with the gameworld.  Often this integration made the character stronger, e.g. an ability to do sorcery.  But it also often made the character weaker, e.g. she was now an escapee, a pariah, a target, or some other thoughtful restriction on her story.  This made it feel 'fair' when someone had a karma character, because they were taking the good along with the restriction.  They weren't just the beneficiary of a pat on the back; they'd demonstrated an ability to take responsibility for the story and now they were following through with a more integrated role.

I think there are too many subguilds/extended subguilds and they are robbing the main guilds of canonical-sounding names.  I'll use the sneakies as an example: "assassin", "burglar", and "pickpocket" probably shouldn't be reused any time soon, but I think they were pretty good names.  If you asked someone from another game what skills these guilds had, they probably wouldn't be far off in their guesses.  Contrast with "miscreant", "infiltrator", "pilferer".  The "pilferer" is actually a pretty middling thief, the "infiltrator" is not the best housebreaker in the group, and the "miscreant" is not the best at fighting dirty!  I sympathize with the apparent difficulty to find names for these classes, but it isn't surprising considering "rogue", "thief", "thug", "slipknife", "pickpocket", "burglar", and "assassin" have all been taken (thanks to subguilds).

Subguilds and extended subguilds could stay, but then they should be refocused, clarified, and their names should be pillaged to help rename and refine the main classes.

(edit: got interrupted and then posted without realizing I hadn't finished.  Apologies for poor editing on the first round)

[triste]

The karma regen system discourages risk taking, encourages absences and extended leaves, and does nothing to prevent repeat roles.

A clear statement of what we've all observed and what I was saying earlier. If we had full insight into playtime statistics and the motivations for players to play or not to play I can promise this would be a commonly stated factor.

I'd vote for a rework, although I'm currently an interested but inactive player (so grain of salt).
 
I think extended subguilds distort what karma is actually supposed to be (and I don't think it's just supposed to be "more power").  In my view, exercising karma used to mean you'd inherit more responsibility over the story.  Primarily you got a role that required a higher standard of play.  In return, you would enjoy a character who was more strongly integrated with the gameworld.  Often this integration made the character stronger, e.g. an ability to do sorcery.  But it also often made the character weaker, e.g. she was now an escapee, a pariah, a target, or some other thoughtful restriction on her story.  This made it feel 'fair' when someone had a karma character, because they were taking the good along with the restriction.  They weren't just the beneficiary of a pat on the back; they'd demonstrated an ability to take responsibility for the story and now they were following through with a more integrated role.

I think there are too many subguilds/extended subguilds and they are robbing the main guilds of canonical-sounding names.  I'll use the sneakies as an example: "assassin", "burglar", and "pickpocket" probably shouldn't be reused any time soon, but I think they were pretty good names.  If you asked someone from another game what skills these guilds had, they probably wouldn't be far off in their guesses.  Contrast with "miscreant", "infiltrator", "pilferer".  The "pilferer" is actually a pretty middling thief, the "infiltrator" is not the best housebreaker in the group, and the "miscreant" is not the best at fighting dirty!  I sympathize with the apparent difficulty to find names for these classes, but it isn't surprising considering "rogue", "thief", "thug", "slipknife", "pickpocket", "burglar", and "assassin" have all been taken (thanks to subguilds).

Subguilds and extended subguilds could stay, but then they should be refocused, clarified, and their names should be pillaged to help rename and refine the main classes.

(edit: got interrupted and then posted without realizing I hadn't finished.  Apologies for poor editing on the first round)

A few responses to this:
- I know it's only implied and not your main point, but I like the implication that the crime main guild rework didn't pan out in an ideal way. And it didn't, we have a lot of threads on this. A lot of people are displeased that "Miscreant" is simply the "best" of these options, and that criminal sub-guilds lost their specialization. If we rework subguilds, might as well rework guilds like these.
- Subguilds also lack specialization. I am fond of the weird subguilds: customcrafter for giving you one skill + custom crafter, hunter for giving you outdoor sneak (without the actual sneak skill) and con-artist (for giving urban sneak without the actual sneak skill). These subguilds actually feel, well, /specialized/. I think you're getting at the need for more specialization and specificity in these guilds and I agree.
- Extended subguilds definitely need a rework because some used to be 2 karma and others were just 1. So now we even got crappier extended subguilds mixed in with more overpowered ones, and... yeah, we gotta fix it.

And now I just want to dump another thought:
- Ideal solution to address all the subguild/guild grievances coming up: Point based skill buy? Is now the time? I was against this before because of my fear that it would cause a lack of specialization [suddenly all warrior types will have skinning again]. But now after realizing that a lot of these guilds are "Jack of all Trades, master of none," and prone to annoying crap like skill overlap or skills unusable by elves showing up on your skill sheet, I am now in favor. Maybe we can have some system where your main guild is more or less what we have now, but you can buy additional skills. This might also work with some issues around magickers and the trouble of shaping a character concept when you do not know what spells you will get.
- MVP solution that precisely fixes OP's problem: I am 100% in favor of Kryos's idea and like it even more than the idea I floated earlier in this thread. The core issue, by far, is karma regen. There are much more efficient ways of imposing this super fun "You cannot play what you want" rule from mansa. Kryos's idea cuts right to the chase without penalizing people who die unluckily like OP describes in the first post.

[Dar]

As far as I understand. The point buy system has one significant flaw. It's borderline impossible to introduce it with Armageddon's aged character generation code.

[triste]

As far as I understand. The point buy system has one significant flaw. It's borderline impossible to introduce it with Armageddon's aged character generation code.

Tragic, yes, I understand this is because in DIKU the guild/subguilds are filesystem based and not stored in a persistence layer like SQL. But I thought I read a release notes update here that implied ArmageddonMUD fixed that up (in relation to skill bump setup etc). I guess I read that update too optimistically.

[Dar]

I'm kind of curious. If one was to create a subguild via a web based tool, no different then Triste's guild calculator.  How difficult would it be to automate the creation of a guild file with the chosen skills and make it available for selection immediately.

Dude A picks a bunch of skills to create his own custom guild, using a point based system.
System creates the guild and titles it :11022020.

Dude A logs into the MUD, clicks create character, and upon guild selection picks the guild 11022020.

[Alesan]

 There's a certain distaste I've always felt for the idea that people would prefer not to play over playing a 0-karma role. It has always felt like people are saying they are "too good" to play 0-karma roles, or are "above" them in some way or another. I realize that isn't always the case, but I'm not convinced it's never the case.

There is merit in restricting how often people can play high karma roles, and it's to keep the game balanced between low power roles and high power roles. If everyone insists on playing high power roles every single character, the game loses a lot of its bottom-tiers and starts feeling very top-heavy.

I get that you want to spend your valuable time playing what you enjoy, and what you earned. I really do. But I also feel like maybe people should be relaxing a bit and letting go of the need to always be at the top, and maybe try being at the bottom once in a while. Kryos' idea of restricting mage-mage, mul-mul and halfgiant-halfgiant combos will only go so far. People will instead cycle from mage - mul - halfgiant and so on, and ultimately very little will change.

[triste]

I'm kind of curious. If one was to create a subguild via a web based tool, no different then Triste's guild calculator.  How difficult would it be to automate the creation of a guild file with the chosen skills and make it available for selection immediately.

Dude A picks a bunch of skills to create his own custom guild, using a point based system.
System creates the guild and titles it :11022020.

Dude A logs into the MUD, clicks create character, and upon guild selection picks the guild 11022020.

I am sure this, or similar, could be hacked in. It would take a lot of work, but I do encourage Staff to look into something like this if they are already contemplating a re-work.

There's a certain distaste I've always felt for the idea that people would prefer not to play over playing a 0-karma role. It has always felt like people are saying they are "too good" to play 0-karma roles, or are "above" them in some way or another. I realize that isn't always the case, but I'm not convinced it's never the case.

There is merit in restricting how often people can play high karma roles, and it's to keep the game balanced between low power roles and high power roles. If everyone insists on playing high power roles every single character, the game loses a lot of its bottom-tiers and starts feeling very top-heavy.

I get that you want to spend your valuable time playing what you enjoy, and what you earned. I really do. But I also feel like maybe people should be relaxing a bit and letting go of the need to always be at the top, and maybe try being at the bottom once in a while. Kryos' idea of restricting mage-mage, mul-mul and halfgiant-halfgiant combos will only go so far. People will instead cycle from mage - mul - halfgiant and so on, and ultimately very little will change.

By some sick, sad irony, my only characters to achieve lasting impact have been mundanes. Some of my most kudosed characters have been 0 karma mundanes. But by the sick, sad irony someone already alluded to here, players with karma will be tempted to store these characters who, in your words, are needed and appreciated, as soon as their karma regens. Because, again, the psychology of opportunity cost. I am sorry you feel distaste for this, I feel distaste for it too: I am advocating for is a rework of a system that has sick, sad incentives and leads to distasteful outcomes. Either make playing a 0 karma mundane more compelling [the guild rework ideas people are floating] or get rid of clunky karma regen that both [1] encourages players not to play while their karma regenerates and [2] encourages players to store their mundane characters when their karma does regenerate. It's just the science of opportunity cost; I was born in crushing poverty and it probably damaged my brain and soul, but I am not going to settle for less when more is on the table. I resist the temptation to store as long as it takes to wrap up my plots on the mundane, because roleplay is the chief concern here, but you can't damn people for wanting to use the credits they've earned. You can't damn people for behaving rationally so far as human brains can comprehend or define rationality. You and I both don't like the current outcomes of this system: rather than expressing distaste for those who are operating in a rational way given the incentives in place, change the system and incentives.

[DesertT]

Do we really have that little faith in our fellow players that we think they're storing mundanes once their karma regenerates?

I know I'm not.  Even if it is only one point.

It seems like we're assuming the worst of players and telling staff to fix a problem when the problem isn't with them or the system.

At least, according to what's being pitched by some in this thread.

[Dar]

Personally. I think Brokkr is having himself a little evil chuckle.

It's happened a few times. a 10 page uproar thread where players are saying how this that this and that is horrible and then Brokkr or Shabago (i think?) posts some data that invalidates most of basically assumption based narrative that we built in our minds.


Speaking from experience. I'd like to think that players who choose to wait a week, or a month to regen a karma before playing the game are VERY VERY VERY Casual players already.  Most people who play have the time and passion to play regularly wouldnt do that. Most people for whom 5 hours a week of gameplay is too much already, might do it. But ... whether it's waiting for karma, or just plain waiting. I doubt it affects the gameplay all that much. Casual players are casual players. I am one of them.

[triste]

Speaking from experience. I'd like to think that players who choose to wait a week, or a month to regen a karma before playing the game are VERY VERY VERY Casual players already.  Most people who play have the time and passion to play regularly wouldnt do that. Most people for whom 5 hours a week of gameplay is too much already, might do it. But ... whether it's waiting for karma, or just plain waiting. I doubt it affects the gameplay all that much. Casual players are casual players. I am one of them.

Yes, this is basically where I am coming from; I don't have a stopwatch running to track how much I play, but I think it's around 5 hours a week at this point. When you are in this situation, and option A is "Play an unskilled Yaroch Bumpkin Laborer/Hunter with little long term potential," and option B is "Abstain from this hobby you barely have time for anyway, wait a couple of weeks, and be a badass flying witch." Well, I am going to choose option B at least 50% of the time. And that doesn't make me or anyone else in this situation a bad player. If karma regen and wait time weren't a factor, then we have option C, "Play whatever concept your karma has earned whenever you have time to play it and enjoy this hobby."

It's just amusing to me that when a beloved non-mundane of mine dies and I am left with 0 karma my feelings are equal parts "Well that sucks, I wanted to see where that concept went," and "Oooh, now to add salt to the wound, I am trapped in the prisoner's dilemma of [this thread]." When I saw this post by OP and the way he laid it out as arising from this exact scenario, I was just like oooooh I sure have been there!

[Brokkr]

I'm kind of curious. If one was to create a subguild via a web based tool, no different then Triste's guild calculator.  How difficult would it be to automate the creation of a guild file with the chosen skills and make it available for selection immediately.

Dude A picks a bunch of skills to create his own custom guild, using a point based system.
System creates the guild and titles it :11022020.

Dude A logs into the MUD, clicks create character, and upon guild selection picks the guild 11022020.

I've always marveled at how easy it is to be creative when you think outside the box.  We see it with things like "code works this way" and we see it with "this item/plot/character would be so cool and unique and fun, we just have to ignore the documentation for the gameworld".  Unfortunately, when thinking outside the box isn't just about thinking unconventionally or from a new perspective, but outside of the box of limitations of code or other hard constraints....

So.  Names.  Once names go in for classes and subclasses, it is incredibly hard, confusing and not really worth it to try to change them.  There are NPCs and PCs that have those classes/subclasses.  Its not like they are keyed to a numeric value and you just have to change the name associated with that (ie is the code looking for a 1, which it then outputs as "warrior" or is the code literally looking for "warrior").  Don't get your hopes up on names for things ever changing.

The are code limits on the number of subclasses available overall.  This number has been increased a couple of times, but doing so consumes resources.  Not a coder, but I'm not even sure if it could be increased over 255 subclasses at all without massive refactoring of how character/NPC data is stored.

How skills attach to characters has some limitations.  The whole thing is designed to work within the context of classes/subclasses.  We have some ability to work outside of that, but those abilities are somewhat limited without a re-write of the whole thing.  It works okay for us setting skills to a specific level, but that great when someone wants skill progression.

We aren't looking to do a point based system.

We aren't looking to do massive code re-writes.

Personally. I think Brokkr is having himself a little evil chuckle.

Muhahaha!

[Aruven]

Do we really have that little faith in our fellow players that we think they're storing mundanes once their karma regenerates?

I know I'm not.  Even if it is only one point.

It seems like we're assuming the worst of players and telling staff to fix a problem when the problem isn't with them or the system.

At least, according to what's being pitched by some in this thread.

I've found that hidden beneath the niceness of paragraphs most people on the GDB these days are just griping about the tightness of their own waistbands.

There are players that I am willing to consider would do so, but I think the people that care about the game world aren't storing their characters or killing them as soon they have their karma regen.

[triste]

Do we really have that little faith in our fellow players that we think they're storing mundanes once their karma regenerates?

I know I'm not.  Even if it is only one point.

It seems like we're assuming the worst of players and telling staff to fix a problem when the problem isn't with them or the system.

At least, according to what's being pitched by some in this thread.

I've found that hidden beneath the niceness of paragraphs most people on the GDB these days are just griping about the tightness of their own waistbands.

There are players that I am willing to consider would do so, but I think the people that care about the game world aren't storing their characters or killing them as soon they have their karma regen.

Yeah, you know what? Maybe I just suck at this game.

I tend to do comical shit like get my special apped characters killed really quickly [AKA the opening premise of this thread]. More than a year ago, I had a mul die to a scorpion. That's right. A single scorpion did my mul within a month of playing it. I wasn't vigilant about [redacted], and the scorpion caused my character to [redacted] and attack [redacted] and blamo, dead. It was a very surreal experience, being at my keyboard, staring at my character die before my eyes, without the agency to do anything because of [redacted]. It was also stunning because I was getting somewhere with this character, finally enjoying the sorts of plotlines I was hoping for for years, and it all melted away before my eyes. Because of a 2 HP sting from a scorpion.

So yeah. It's a mix of luck, but also, just sucking at this game. I was warned that as a mul starting out you need to either smoke tho ALL the time, or start training unmounted. People WARNED me. I am passing this warning on to players new to muls now. I didn't listen to these heavily redacted stories and cryptic warnings, but you should. It felt like insanely bad luck -- I filed a res request, but nope, it wasn't a bug [just a scorpion and the result of my laziness]. I just sucked as a player, and my character died. Right in the midst of plots I have dreamed of breaking into, and I fucked it up.

So yes, sure, I am a player whining about the tightness of my own waistband or what have you. I am a filthy casual who doesn't game very well I guess. Not a leet gamer, totally sucks. I'll shut up and stop whining. If you revamp the subguilds or something ping me so I can update that site someone mentioned here.

[Hauwke]

Anyone familiar enough with the game to have the 2 karma to be able to specapp and then the trust from staff to be approved for a mul has it coming if they died to a scorpion.

(Edit: Slightly misread a bunch, still a pretty silly choice on a new PC even if its a mul)

Back on topic, I find it weird that we have objectively worse subs that are also a karma. Berserker v Reaver, idk why in the world you would pick Reaver aside from an easier time starting out. You get less skills and they aren't as good.

[Jihelu]

Anyone familiar enough with the game to have the 2 karma to be able to specapp and then the trust from staff to be approved for a mul has it coming if they died to a scorpion.

(Edit: Slightly misread a bunch, still a pretty silly choice on a new PC even if its a mul)

Back on topic, I find it weird that we have objectively worse subs that are also a karma. Berserker v Reaver, idk why in the world you would pick Reaver aside from an easier time starting out. You get less skills and they aren't as good.

Its for people who really, really, want the new combat skills.

[Kryos]

Disappointing that larger change won't be considered.

I hope some feeback and a polish round will be rolled out though.  It is needed.

[triste]

Disappointing that larger change won't be considered.

I hope some feeback and a polish round will be rolled out though.  It is needed.

I confess to seeing the earlier iteration of the post and I miss the book reference! Looks like a good book, I go through books like that regularly and might check it out, though my female students would laugh at that title [I have a side job teaching software engineering in addition to being an engineer myself].

But I do like how you edited your post. Yes, this is a good point to focus on and emphasize with brevity.

[Dar]

Anyone familiar enough with the game to have the 2 karma to be able to specapp and then the trust from staff to be approved for a mul has it coming if they died to a scorpion.

(Edit: Slightly misread a bunch, still a pretty silly choice on a new PC even if its a mul)

Back on topic, I find it weird that we have objectively worse subs that are also a karma. Berserker v Reaver, idk why in the world you would pick Reaver aside from an easier time starting out. You get less skills and they aren't as good.

This is a little needlessly desparaging.  In actuality, Muls, nilazi, drovians, sorcerers, and psions have underwater stones that cause a lot of "First Try" deaths. Even if prior to those roles a person played for decades.

Having said that. Triste is a little quick to sink into despair in my opinion. Deaths happen and they happen suddenly. I'd like to consider myself a skilled player codedly. But I died to an exact same combination of events that Triste did.

I rose the topic of casual playere not to say They suck. But to say that game should not become worse for dedicated players to remove one reason for casual players to remain casuals. Casual players are not casual due to 'anything' game related. They are casual due to irl. In my experience.  Remove a reason for them to wait out karma and they'll wait for other reasons. Wait for a sponsored role boss they don't like to store, or a staffer they don't like to rotate, or consequences of their deeds to dim in memory, or whatever.

Just try your best for casual players to enjoy their game. But you can't force them to play if they too busy irl to do it.

[Uzbad]

Warriors got less skills over all I think, but they did get some support skills...even skinning, sure, it was max like JM,  but it was there.

[Narf]

Warriors got less skills over all I think, but they did get some support skills...even skinning, sure, it was max like JM,  but it was there.

As I recall, that was their one and only support skill (not counting the skills everyone got).

[CodeMaster]

I wrote this a while ago but I thought it would be relevant to pull in here:

> it would be cool if some subguilds were tweaked/put on a rotation based on recent events.
> One example was the "rebel" subguild which made sense when there was a northlands rebellion.  There could be things like "cataclysm survivor", "southlands refugee", whatever.  More work for staff, and I don't know about the feasibility.

In my humble opinion, it's subguilds like these are should be earned through karma.  Examples like:

- A "former gladiator" would be familiar with arena rules, perhaps known by the templarate, may have had a noble patron in the past, and is probably already a superb fighter
- A "spice runner" would know how to get to/from Red Storm, be familiar with the role spice plays in the game world, and of course know a few tricks
- A "wartime survivor" could be cycled in and out of availability for karma players when there has been a recent IG war; a message might pop up saying "dear karma player, please refer to the in-game calendar and make sure you're in the right age range for this role or you will be rejected"

These are roles that require maturity and some knowledge about the game that would be overwhelming to try to put in newbie docs.  That's (imo) where a karma gate makes sense.

That said, I appreciate the technical limitations mentioned -- and by the way thanks for weighing in with that, Brokkr.  I get a ton of enjoyment out of "typing out loud" threads like these, even if the ideas are so far outside the box they're not even feasible anymore.

[Bushranger]

Warriors got less skills over all I think, but they did get some support skills...even skinning, sure, it was max like JM,  but it was there.

As I recall, that was their one and only support skill (not counting the skills everyone got).

Actually Warriors did not get the skinning skill back in the day. I remember when the Warrior class was altered so that they did get skinning and it was the first time I recall a class being changed to have a skill added and not taken away (unlike Rangers who lost the Kick and Trap skills )