Remove/Lower the blasted Karma regen timer. q

[Halcyon]

This post reeks of veteran entitlement. I don't have any karma and only a few characters.
A bunch of us try our best to manage with the mundane subguilds a bunch of you cannot even apparently deign to play.
Stop whining, please, its very toxic.

Respectfully, I've played almost 200 0 karma pcs.   I dont play "cleanly" some days, and have had runs of losing karma pcs on day 2.

I support lowering or removing the karma timer.  Is the game served by veterans not playing, or avoiding most risks until their timer is up?

[triste]

I support lowering or removing the karma timer.  Is the game served by veterans not playing, or avoiding most risks until their timer is up?

It's not.

But just an ironic side note that my only character to have any lasting change in this game in the past two years was a 0 karma throwaway comic relief character I had while waiting for karma to regen, so this game is still worth playing while karma regenerates.

But otherwise I would love to see this system reconsidered, I would love more context on why the system was put in place. Were there too many magickers running around? Seems like there are still a ton, they are just more cautious. Were people suiciding for good stats? Well that's really more of an individual player problem and I don't see why everyone should be punished. Just curious to see if this karma regen system fixed what it set out to fix and I am not sure it has.

If we want a system that increases the number of mundanes and increases the amount of time people play as a certain character: allow people to spend karma on living characters.

New players often make the mistake of getting karma on a great character and over-eagerly storing that great character to spend karma. This hurts plots and roleplaying. If it were possible to spend karma on existing characters to get a new skill or skill bump, we would stop being hurt by the pattern of people storing when they get karma and the whole "non-mundane elitism" concept would be obliterated. We would see more mundane concepts and this proposal seems like an unequivocal "win" in solving this problem (codebase permitting).

Last sidenote for Fernandezj -- please don't call veterans "toxic" and "entitled" one post as someone who has "only had a few characters" and proceed to post in a thread asking for veteran opinions like a veteran the next month. I am not asking that you make up your mind as to whether you are a veteran or a new player (the facts make this evident), I am asking you and everyone to be RESPECTFUL.

[SpyGuy]

Just a +1 on more ways to spend karma that aren't on a magicker or niche race.   Special apps are great but it'd be really nice for a character to be able to grow and pick up a new skill after they've been around forever by spending some karma.  (Within limits of course)

[Maso]

If we want a system that increases the number of mundanes and increases the amount of time people play as a certain character: allow people to spend karma on living characters.

This would be so freaking cool. 

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I wish like hell this was a thing. Ratio? I dunno ...

Maybe it costs three karma to add a skill, with a cap of advanced. Three karma later, if you bump it again, you get a cap of low master. Maybe you can't bump it past low master, to preserve high master for people who created the character with that skill.

Or, maybe one karma gets you apprentice, two gets you journeyman, and three gets you advanced. And then, to get low master, you spend three again. That way you can kind of just branch out, and any new skill requires a great deal of time to become really good at.

[Maso]

I wish like hell this was a thing. Ratio? I dunno ...

Maybe it costs three karma to add a skill, with a cap of advanced. Three karma later, if you bump it again, you get a cap of low master. Maybe you can't bump it past low master, to preserve high master for people who created the character with that skill.

Or, maybe one karma gets you apprentice, two gets you journeyman, and three gets you advanced. And then, to get low master, you spend three again. That way you can kind of just branch out, and any new skill requires a great deal of time to become really good at.

6 months to add a new skill to low master seems...legit. I think maybe it should depend a tiny bit on the skill, some are infinitely more valuable/powerful. E.g. if someone want to master floristry or basketweaving...don't make them wait 6 months...they probably want it for RP reasons...

[SpyGuy]

I spent way too long thinking about this today buuuuut....

I'd say give players the option after 2 ic years (~3 RL months).  Then the PC has to wait another 3 months to do it again.  All changes must be backed by RP and be logical, your nobles aide probably shouldn't learn chopping weapons if you've never held an axe. They can spend a certain max amount of karma total on such upgrades.  Let's say five max so that long lived PCs don't suddenly get all the skills. 

1 karma : buy a new utility or crafting skill with a max of journeyman or advance the cap of an existing skill up one step.

2 karma:  buy a new combat or weapon skill to apprentice or advance the cap by one step.

And if there was a max of say 5 karma being spent this way I'd also say a karma role should deduct from that.  So a 2 karma mage could only spend 3 karma total on improving their PC.  This is partly to make mundanes more attractive. 

Something like this would be amazing, have RP benefits, encourage long lived PCs and hopefully not be a burden on staff.   One can dream.

[Maso]

I spent way too long thinking about this today buuuuut....

I'd say give players the option after 2 ic years (~3 RL months).  Then the PC has to wait another 3 months to do it again.  All changes must be backed by RP and be logical, your nobles aide probably shouldn't learn chopping weapons if you've never held an axe. They can spend a certain max amount of karma total on such upgrades.  Let's say five max so that long lived PCs don't suddenly get all the skills. 

1 karma : buy a new utility or crafting skill with a max of journeyman or advance the cap of an existing skill up one step.

2 karma:  buy a new combat or weapon skill to apprentice or advance the cap by one step.

And if there was a max of say 5 karma being spent this way I'd also say a karma role should deduct from that.  So a 2 karma mage could only spend 3 karma total on improving their PC.  This is partly to make mundanes more attractive. 

Something like this would be amazing, have RP benefits, encourage long lived PCs and hopefully not be a burden on staff.   One can dream.

Yeah, that's nice.

[Riev]

I feel like we had something SIMILAR with Character Generation Points (such as being able to use 3 karma on a 0-karma mundane to raise some of your skills at character generation).

CGP no longer exists, so we don't have that functionality.

I'd be down for allowing karma expenditure on live characters. Give the people who can survive the 3-karma regeneration time a little something extra, if they want it, rather than the feeling of "sitting on karma".

Conversely, however, it might cause more 'safe-play' from people who know they don't NEED to go do anything dangerous if, in a RL month, they can just request to have their slashing upped again.

[triste]

I want to be clear when I first proposed this idea I meant for spending karma, up to the cap. Therefore you couldn't have a mul you also spent 5 karma to boost the slashing of. It's more that you can have a mundane who gets promoted to Sergeant who you then can make fancy by spending karma on as your karma regenerates. This would keep things fair and avoid these "edge cases" you are anticipating. It would serve to keep mundanes in game as worthwhile concepts (our main goal) without messing up anything else.

Glad y'all like the idea generally speaking though!

[creeper386]

I think if this was for giving you a cap, not just giving you a new skill at that level. One it'd be less powerful then just, *beep boop* "I know kung fu." It also addressed a nobles aide now having chopping. They still have to LEARN it in game. It's just a story telling mechanic.

I'd love some way to modify characters at creation and later on as well. I think there should be limits for sure. But man, imagine a long lived artisan who put in the time learning can swing a bone sword as well as any Bynner. That'd be fun to me. Probably still wouldnt' touch attack/defense hidden skills because nothing does currently.

I'd mostly love it for a skill here or there that is either missing for the character or something from that they interact with often and would make sense for them to start picking up.

[Inks]

Do not want. The less stuff that allows high karma vets to lord it over everyone the better. Play responsibly and you will nearly never run out of karma.

[Narf]

Do not want. The less stuff that allows high karma vets to lord it over everyone the better. Play responsibly and you will nearly never run out of karma.

I agree with this sentiment, but at the same time there's nothing saying that these options couldn't just be given to everyone.

Personally I remember when Karma was introduced and it was never meant as a "reward" per say. It was an expression of trust. We trust you to play these difficult things. At some point along the way it's turned into a reward, and I don't think that was the right way to go with it.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Eh. Karma is still trust, and it has always been a reward. I don't think anything at all has changed with the concept of karma.

[triste]

Going to try and lay this out succinctly since patience for me is at a minimum.

Summary of problems to solve in this thread:
1. If you whine about karma regen, you are maybe elitist, keep the current system.
2. There aren't enough mundanes and too many gickers and half-giants and muls.
3. People doing stuff like storing "throwaways" when karma regens which kills plots.

Humans often think in terms of cost-benefit analysis and opportunity cost. If you have two or three karma, here are your options:
A. Play a 0-1 karma mundane for "the good of the game" and have up to 3 karma just sitting on the shelf unused.
B. Blow your max karma on a fancy concept like a mul and get hella pissed when your mul [does redacted] after taking 1 hp damage and [redacted redacted] mantis head.

As we can see, because of human nature, very few people are going to be virtuous and select option A because of... unspent... points!!. Thus everyone picks option B in perpetuity, causing problems 1, 2, and 3 in perpetuity. And people without karma are tired of hearing it.

Allow more ways to spend karma on mundane concepts and everybody wins.

[Alesan]

Do not want. The less stuff that allows high karma vets to lord it over everyone the better. Play responsibly and you will nearly never run out of karma.

I agree with this sentiment, but at the same time there's nothing saying that these options couldn't just be given to everyone.

Personally I remember when Karma was introduced and it was never meant as a "reward" per say. It was an expression of trust. We trust you to play these difficult things. At some point along the way it's turned into a reward, and I don't think that was the right way to go with it.

It is a reward. It was always a reward. "Here is a reward of the ability to play more powerful roles because you have done things to earn it." Is it trust too? Maybe. But at its core, it is a reward. And it's used as a reward, too.

[triste]

What Inks might be referring to is the argument a lot of people pose, that Karma is just opening doors and it shows "We trust you enough to play a ____," and that there is an intrinsic reward to playing a mundane in that it opens up promotions, and climbing ranks, etc. Therefore karma is not a reward but only a sign of trust.

It's a good argument, but people like Alesan and 7DV who see it as a reward aren't wrong either, given the traditional [and documented] definition of the word "karma."

[SpyGuy]

I'd argue the ability to spend karma on a long lived PC doesn't benefit vets.   A brand new player that's fitting in should get that first point for longevity in ~6 months.  If they somehow have a PC that lived long enough to start spending karma on learning new things then the karma system opens up to them without the urge to die/store to try a d-elf or touched.

[Dan]

Do not want. The less stuff that allows high karma vets to lord it over everyone the better. Play responsibly and you will nearly never run out of karma.

I agree with this sentiment, but at the same time there's nothing saying that these options couldn't just be given to everyone.

Personally I remember when Karma was introduced and it was never meant as a "reward" per say. It was an expression of trust. We trust you to play these difficult things. At some point along the way it's turned into a reward, and I don't think that was the right way to go with it.

It is a reward. It was always a reward. "Here is a reward of the ability to play more powerful roles because you have done things to earn it." Is it trust too? Maybe. But at its core, it is a reward. And it's used as a reward, too.

It was implemented as, and has always been a measure of trust by the staff in the player to not abuse the coded power that comes with the increased karma options, also, to play such roles realistically. It has never been just a reward. There have been plenty of people who have done things others might consider karma worthy, but they have acted in bad faith, lied, abused code, etc.

Williamson's Guide mentions it as a measure of staff trust: https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,56441.msg1055567.html#msg1055567

It seems to be contested some in this thread from 2016, but trust and not reward is the central theme:
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,50905.0.html

Thread on Karma for new players from 2018:
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,53814.0.html

Finally, it's straight up in the help files. It tells you there in 'help karma' that it's a measure of trust by the staff.  http://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Karma

I would hope people trust the staff to adhere to that metric. If they don't believe staff are, maybe it could be part of the answer as to why that person has less karma than they feel they deserve. The trust has to go both ways.

[Narf]

Do not want. The less stuff that allows high karma vets to lord it over everyone the better. Play responsibly and you will nearly never run out of karma.

I agree with this sentiment, but at the same time there's nothing saying that these options couldn't just be given to everyone.

Personally I remember when Karma was introduced and it was never meant as a "reward" per say. It was an expression of trust. We trust you to play these difficult things. At some point along the way it's turned into a reward, and I don't think that was the right way to go with it.

It is a reward. It was always a reward. "Here is a reward of the ability to play more powerful roles because you have done things to earn it." Is it trust too? Maybe. But at its core, it is a reward. And it's used as a reward, too.

I was part of the original discussion back when karma was being implemented in the late 90's. At that time you couldn't use it for extended subguilds or skill bumps or anything other than playing a role  deemed to require a more responsible amount or rp. I know not every staff member's published statement necessarily reflects staff opinion as a whole, but there were several staffers at the time that explicitly said that the only purpose to karma was to determine a player's suitability to more difficult roles.

I would agree that such is very much not what it is today. My desire is to go back to its original purpose where karma is /only/ used to determine whether or not someone is suitable for a difficult role. As for all these benefits that people are suggesting, I'm actually in favor of them I just don't want them tied to karma. There are other ways to do it, up to and including just making them available to anyone that's doesn't have a record of specifically abusing them.

The other thing you could do is hand out specifically rewards for the behavior you want to encourage. If you want people to play mundanes, give them a free skill bump for every X hours or X times they play a mundane. Allow only common characters to earn new skills in game. Something that's attainable to a new player that doesn't know the ins and outs of the karma system, and might want to not feel left out of all these special benefits when they make their first or second character. And you can say "Oh, but they haven't earned it" but that begs the question, why do they need to jump through all these fancy hoops to earn something that's relatively minor and everyone else will have access to? Does it really make the game better?

I think it'll drastically improve the game to let the new players play with some or most of the toys that the older players get to play with.

[Halcyon]

Do not want. The less stuff that allows high karma vets to lord it over everyone the better. Play responsibly and you will nearly never run out of karma.

Responsibly = never interact with a pkilling pc?

[creeper386]

Nothing thing that I realized, one thing I don't like about spending karma is I'm already cost adverse. Mental defect of mine perhaps. Combine this with the more abstract mindsets and various code difficulties I've yet to overcome(like magick), makes me just less likely to spend karma ever.

On the other side, I know people that would just be against "leaving the karma on the table", so they'd perhaps always be spending karma. If they have a long lived character, there is a chance that "spending" karma incentivizes players to just reroll another karma character when they are done.

Don't know a ton about psychology, but do know enough that when it comes to spending things, human brains tend to get dumb. There is all sorts of fallacies we fall into that we don't really work logically around spending.

I'd still love to see the facts and reasoning around why the decision was made in the first place. As far as anyone seems to know that never was publicly discussed. one staff member mentioned seeing a player suicide and reroll a krathi three times before they got something that they liked. I assume stats? IDK. To me, that sort of behavior, should be penalized. Not adjust the whole system. That staff member said it's hard to catch ... I say if it's a big problem, maybe put in some extra tools for people to use when reviewing apps. Or some basic data on their last few characters is visible when viewing the new app. Feel like that would help prevent people from suiciding and rerolling ALL characters instead of just karma roles.


Harley

[mansa]

Nothing thing that I realized, one thing I don't like about spending karma is I'm already cost adverse. Mental defect of mine perhaps. Combine this with the more abstract mindsets and various code difficulties I've yet to overcome(like magick), makes me just less likely to spend karma ever.

On the other side, I know people that would just be against "leaving the karma on the table", so they'd perhaps always be spending karma. If they have a long lived character, there is a chance that "spending" karma incentivizes players to just reroll another karma character when they are done.

Don't know a ton about psychology, but do know enough that when it comes to spending things, human brains tend to get dumb. There is all sorts of fallacies we fall into that we don't really work logically around spending.

I'd still love to see the facts and reasoning around why the decision was made in the first place. As far as anyone seems to know that never was publicly discussed. one staff member mentioned seeing a player suicide and reroll a krathi three times before they got something that they liked. I assume stats? IDK. To me, that sort of behavior, should be penalized. Not adjust the whole system. That staff member said it's hard to catch ... I say if it's a big problem, maybe put in some extra tools for people to use when reviewing apps. Or some basic data on their last few characters is visible when viewing the new app. Feel like that would help prevent people from suiciding and rerolling ALL characters instead of just karma roles.


Harley

Original announcement:
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,41934.msg634122.html#msg634122

More Details:
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,48281.msg852037.html#msg852037

More Details:
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,48618.msg862662.html#msg862662

More Details:
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,52604.0.html


https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,56336.msg1054410.html#msg1054410


"I'd still love to see the facts and reasoning around why the decision was made in the first place."

Historically, the players with sorcerer options would only play sorcerer after sorcerer after sorcerer after sorcerer after sorcerer.  And players with Whiran karma would play whiran after whiran after whiran after whiran.  This has been stated by the staff multiple times in the past.  (Here's a post from 2004 from Sanvean:  https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,7607.html )

[triste]

Has this been shown to fix the problem it set out to fix? Sounds like people are still playing non-mundane concepts repeatedly (due to the stupid human psychology around spending) just more cautiously or not at all while their karma regens (or while they are afraid to spend it).

Is there any point, after years of discussion, when we decide this system has actually created more pain points than the one alleged pain point it set out to fix?

[Kyviantre]

Clearly I am playing wrong...I dot back and forth between playing maxed-out (for me) karma roles and playing mundanes.  Across my last four characters (in no particular order), I've had one mundane karma-race (maxed), one touched magicker (non-karma race) (not maxed), one full magicker (non-karma race) (maxed), and one mundane with extended subguild (not maxed).  My next character is probably going to be a mundane with extended subguild, and the one after that I'm looking at another mundane.  My touched magicker was originally going to be a mundane, but the extended subguild I wanted was missing part of the juice I wanted that the regular subguild had, but the regular didn't have something I needed...so it was a bit cornering

So yes, I do like the extended subguilds, but that is because I like the option to do CCs and add new crafts into the game, more than they are 'bling'.  If I'm playing mundane, I'll take the extended subguild if it is an option.

But my point is that I don't like this idea that we're ALL either scared to use our karma OR spending the max every time.  I don't feel represented...sometimes I just like a -little- bling, on top of an otherwise simple, mundane 0-karma-race character.  And I'm sure I can't be the only one (maybe I am?).

I like the idea of being able to spend karma on living characters.  I would 100% invest heavily into that!  Even if the timers were long, and the rewards small, sometimes it is nice to give your beloved character a little polish.  That smidgen of bling of a cherry on top, and give them more zest and excitement because they are evolving with the RP you are doing...a little like being able to put in for description changes!