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

[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 )