Reinstating the karma timer

[Jarvis]

Seems like the entire game's history never had a problem like this before until it was changed?

[mansa]

Seems like the entire game's history never had a problem like this before until it was changed? I do remember it was said that if it isn't working it might go back, I think we proved it doesn't work

Initial Response from the playerbase after the 'karma timers' were removed (Oct 16, 2022):
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,52143.msg1081920.html#msg1081920

And one of the most popular threads in the past 20 years, about the times when 'karma timers' were not yet implemented:
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,28005.0.html

[tiny rainbow]

Yeah, it was hard to know without giving it a chance, so commenting at the time seemed like it would be silly - I think there has been a chance now, and it didn't work...

It's interesting that this was already tried once before and the same conclusion came, why did we do it again? xD

[mansa]

Yeah, it was hard to know without giving it a chance, so commenting at the time seemed like it would be silly - I think there has been a chance now, and it didn't work...

It's interesting that this was already tried once before and the same conclusion came, why did we do it again? xD

Because players wanted it:
"Feedback on playing and log-ins" - https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,58471.0.html

[Inks]

I was always pro karma timer, personally. And still am. Have seen a lot more revenge pcs since.

[tiny rainbow]

Because players wanted it

Hah Yeah giving some people everything they ask for at the expense of everyone else is one of those things, sometimes there's a thing as listening too much sometimes... I remember a big commercial online game did a survey of how many actually joined in OOC discussions, and it was 1% of the numbers compared to real people playing, not sure what the ratio here is but it'd be interesting to see.

[Brokkr]

Things will settle down argument might've worked some months ago, but what we've seen instead is that without a system people don't follow a system that isn't there

I had assumed everyone would have anticipated that there would be pent up demand, and we would see that play out.

I give it 2 real life years, or so, to stabilize thoroughly, through players working through characters and concepts.



What we might find is different is that the players aren't coming at the game in the same fashion, from when karma was used to limit race/guild choice largely as it does now.  If player's mindsets have changed so that they are going into a character with a "build" in mind, or worried about how to optimize combat potential, you are going to end up with a game vastly different than where the player with a new character had their primary focus on how to dress entirely in green, accented with purple and how to keep their wardrobe rotating.  And that will be hard to address, because it is a player preference and swings of the Nerf bat (now 1d8) are unlikely to be welcomed.  There will be those players that want everyone else focused on how to coordinate their outfits while they are the exception that is focused on PvP optimization.  Get enough of those, and combat-code focused characters are not the exception, the hardcore RP person focused on their outfit is.

[Dracul]

I changed my vote to other because of Mansa's suggestion as well as Riev pointing out it's only been a recent change and yeah, that explains the splash of karma characters.

[Halaster]

My suggestion is different:
Rather than prevent individual players from playing a whole scope of character types, prevent the player population as a whole from playing specific character types.

I really like the idea.  However, a genuine question I'd be interested to hear everyone's opinion on:

If you have a cap, it limits someone from playing what they want.  They may wait for the cap to be down, and may choose to not play while they wait.  How do you think this would be different than a full karma timer?  (I have opinions, but don't want to cloud the question with them, would rather hear peoples' answers).

[Inks]

Or they murder someone just to create a slot. I think caps are the wrong way. The timer system was better than that.

I still think mundanes having a higher skillcap for every single main class skill is cooler. And move hgs to 3 karma no specapp maybe because there is too many hah.

[Jimpka_Moss]

To strictly answer this question:

If I am capped with what I can play, I will still play, and simply employ options available. If I am told there are too many whirans, I'll play something else, but it might still be at the same karma tier.  There, an answer.

Yet,
If I'm capped out of playing all karma options, I'm likely not ending up playing a leader, or playing a char meant to enhance play for others. (With each tier of karma, I feel there is an implicit request that I give others more RP, consideration, time, and vulnerabilities, etc.)

I would be in favor of a 'You cannot pick Whiran: There is too much wind in Arm currently' or something about playable independent muls being at max, try a clanned Mul today! gdb.links and stuff.

[tiny rainbow]

I feel like maybe that people are choosing high karma roles again and again is one of those things that makes me worry about if these people are really interested in roleplay as much, or just kind of (literally) power tripping, Brokkr's post was good too and it does make me wonder about how many good roleplayers players the game has haemorraged because of having to deal with karma characters that sometimes really don't add so much to the game roleplay-wise (I definitely remember this issue before the changes with sorcerers that a few different seemed mainly like they were just killing people en masse because they could, one I know for sure that never had any interaction with one before just deciding going to kill someone that day - it's like sometimes people think that is what an antag is, without much more depth or plots, not about anyone in particular, but maybe standards didn't used to be high enough or something), and have gone on to other places that have a more roleplay focus instead like MUSHes etc

What we sometimes don't consider is how this can affect other players who often are not willing or emotionally up to engaging in these kind of sometimes-harsh discussions where you can get sworn and shouted at on the forums, I don't think most people make "leaving" posts either so for seeing one there's like who knows posts that never got made? It's probably worth setting up something to track and notice and add to a list when a player just silently stops logging on and has left for greener grass, so it's noticed and there's some kind of reflection on what might have caused it

I'm not sure about that whole idea cap idea, I guess it'd spread the roles out a little, but it wouldn't deal with the issue of people not wanting to "slum it" in the roles with the newbies with less karma? (I think some clans can seem a bit like an Armageddon Gated Community kinda, because the new people are not getting a chance to meet or interact with ostensibly-good roleplayers ) I think a karma timer is the only thing that can do what the game needs, to encourage more of a spread of high to low karma roles really, there needs to be motivation to play the other roles than just the "codedly better" ones, different roleplay experiences need to be encouraged somehow, the karma timer was the only thing that could really do that in a fair way it seemed like.



It could be nice to have encouragement on selection for people to play stuff like Arm/Byn Sergeant etc, when more experienced people might not always consider those roles in the same way as they do others (but are very high-impact on other players, especially newbies) ...but maybe a little more obscured than implying that the "head of Allanak crimcode" position is empty to people making a potentially criminal character lol (maybe if it says a certain type of role but not which clan is open, if you are interested in this, select this, but cannot be taken back once you receive the OOC info - in the same way that clan docs requests should give something separate than giving IC clan secrets boards)

[whengravityfails]

I'm definitely in favor of some of the suggestions put forth - Mansa's idea on hard caps on races and gicks, for one, along with incentives to play normie mundanes using karma - better starting stats, gear, skills - in a role that won't require oversight and tie up staff time. (People who have made AoD Private in the past being allowed to step into it again, same with Byn Troopers, etc).

Caps and incentives. Taking away the timer now would just seem like a punishment for everyone when it isn't necessary. What's necessary is trimming down high powered roles without forcing people out of an entire blanket level of concepts.

[Nao]

There are a lot of 'shiny new options' for magickers right now, too. If you like to play magickers, chances are good you'll want to play an Elkrosian, or try to get upgraded to a full mage, or play one of the "new types of magickers" that were announced, or just play a delf in one of the recently opened tribes. Maybe all of those. You'll see a lot of these character types for a while because people want to try them out, but it's not necessarily permanent.

My suggestion is different:
Rather than prevent individual players from playing a whole scope of character types, prevent the player population as a whole from playing specific character types.

I really like the idea.  However, a genuine question I'd be interested to hear everyone's opinion on:

If you have a cap, it limits someone from playing what they want.  They may wait for the cap to be down, and may choose to not play while they wait.  How do you think this would be different than a full karma timer?  (I have opinions, but don't want to cloud the question with them, would rather hear peoples' answers).

I would like it less than a full karma timer.

I don't die often, and I haven't played a mage for more than a year now. Once I die, I'd like to play one again, and I'd hate to see "no, you can't, we have too many already, roll up a mundane and try again next time". The karma timer was more fair, with a guarantee of getting a chance every two to three months.

[Patuk]

I have played this game for a little over a decade. I've seen and played full mages, half mages, with karma timers, without, and I'll try detailing my perspective below. We'll save quick remarks for the Discord; the gdb is for effortposts!

tl;dr: people want to have fun and will pick what's fun for them

Longer version:

If I look back to what things were like when I started, what was different was how VULNERABLE mages were and how little things really catered to them. Full class mages could bring godly artillery-tier power to the front, absolutely, and with no ride/parry/dsense/stealth they also died really really quickly to clever attackers. There were many more gemmed because of the vulnerability, and fewer rando dune mages. There was also only one delf clan and one tribal human clan that'd allow magick in the first place, instead of several of the former and new shit with magick as we do now.

But today? The vulnerability is *gone,* and any mage is as self-sufficient as their scout or stalker class allows. There is no coded reason to prefer bringing mundane fighting dudes when mages are better at it, every single time, no matter the circumstance. We have the mul outpost they can head for and several delven tribes and in general, have many more options both to make their mark upon the world and to not die five days in because a character with zero combat skills just is kinda easy prey for anyone.

Isn't it a little obvious why we might have a couple more mages today than we did way back when?

Mundanes, plainly, just don't keep up. In the lead-up to the 2021 HRPT, the northern soldiers got to do nothing against a cadre of unleashed, better trained, magically amped gemmed nerds. The (H?)RPT of earlier involved a bunch of mundane people get absolutely trounced with no defence either. And it keeps happening, and then we get touched Drovians and the return of chain lightning and reworked sorcerers and reworked mindbenders and all kinds of other stuff.

Mundanes get.. Clans. Clans that get to lose if mages fight back, mostly. They get a northern staff that is fully MIA and gets its own people killed, they get a subclass that gives them toolcrafting and jewelry, guys! They get not to be shunned by other mundanes that hate them anyway while the game's rogue mages cheerily band together. They get to be aides and die young or join a city-state military and be outdone by people who aren't them.

Unless mundane characters get an edge, unless they aren't as codedly gimped, unless playing mundane means a longer grind with less payoff.. Well, I can see why people just kinda wouldn't. Playing a mage means you get friends in all the other rogues, get to be stronger at a much faster rate, and mostly just sacrifice the opportunity to master clayworking. Being mundane gets you hated by people from all the other clans and has people tell you 'um, maybe stay inside' if something nasty is going on out there.

So. Yeah. Let's not reintroduce karma timers or just arbitrarily keep people from playing mages. They're having fun! Don't fault them from having fun!

But, instead, please consider what play is like for all the other characters instead. Give them a good reason to exist, and make this show through in more than just once-a-year event cycles. As-is magick is a plethora of opportunities and choices that makes it attractive to so many that the amount of magickal PCs has risen incredibly high. Until choosing to play a mundane character can somewhat match that, I don't know that I can fault so many people for playing mages. They're just picking the most fun option presented to them.

[Riev]

My last few characters:
mul (that died real quick to another mul)
Nilazi
Psion that accomplished nothing
Vivaduan that I can't quite talk about yet, special apped
Half Giant
Drovian Stalker/Stalker
Breed that died quicker than the mul
Ehrnan Terash


I play a lot of karma/high karma characters. Most of them had more than 90d apart so it did not matter, but in some cases, I had to play carefully and not 'get into stuff' because I did not want to take the risk of 'being forced to play a role I am not interested in'.

Reinstating the timer, at least for me, is not going to do any good. It will make me stop interacting with the chaotic and kill-happy playerbase because I WANT to play this role out.

[Brisket]

Seems like the entire game's history never had a problem like this before until it was changed? I do remember it was said that if it isn't working it might go back, I think we proved it doesn't work

A very, very bold claim.

We've seen player numbers go up, and the instance of muls/magickers seems.. well, massively overstated. 

[dumbstruck]

No. The timer only suppressed player numbers. A prior survey suggested that. The timer was done away with, and sure enough, the average peaktime players increased by about 25% (roughly the number of people who will only play when they have the karma to play what they want to play). So really what you are putting to a vote here is whether or not that 25% of players is still welcome at the game? It only changed to have a karma timer partway through my time here, numbers dropped off, it removed it and they picked right back up. I guess my question is, in a game that so many people are claiming is struggling for players now, which means more, 25% playerbase boost, or having... karma timers and less players? So what do you prefer?

You can't make people play what they don't want to play. You can only make a game that people don't want to play. So that's a no from me. I was completely unsurprised that rolling back the timer saw the people who were sitting it out stop sitting it out.

[mansa]

My suggestion is different:
Rather than prevent individual players from playing a whole scope of character types, prevent the player population as a whole from playing specific character types.

I really like the idea.  However, a genuine question I'd be interested to hear everyone's opinion on:

If you have a cap, it limits someone from playing what they want.  They may wait for the cap to be down, and may choose to not play while they wait.  How do you think this would be different than a full karma timer?  (I have opinions, but don't want to cloud the question with them, would rather hear peoples' answers).

My suggestion is designed to limit the volume of classes and races that the gameworld writes about being rare - to enforce it's rarity amongst the active players.
My suggestion will not fix the problem of class+race+subclass combinations of player power.  That's not the point of the suggestion - the point of the suggestion is to limit the perceived gameworld representation.  We current use this system already for 6 types of subclasses and 1 type of race, and it is manual work for the staff to moderate - but I think it's successful for those classes and subclasses


In my opinion, if you want to make a mul, and you were told "No, you need to wait 480 hours" versus being told "No, the game quota is full", it's a different feeling of rejection.  The first one is the feeling of, "This is arbitrary, I will just wait it out until my timer hits 0 and then apply", and the second one gives the feeling, "Oh, it's because the world is overpopulated with that character type.  I will need to wait for one of them to die, and I have no clue when that is, so I'll just make another character and try that again later."


This change will not solve the problem of class+race+subclass power combinations.  It will allow the staff to codify a rejection system based on population density of their choice.  This is just automating sorcerer or psionicists applications.

[Veselka]

OP is way too anecdotal to be accurate.

Halaster: If I want to apply for a certain archetype of character and find out its full, I would go 'Huh, alright, i'll try something else'. Hard caps wouldn't bother me in the slightest. Particularly if we added in 'Role Applications' to char-gen. Cross-Posted on another thread, but basically allowing people at character creation to see if there are 'Beefed Up Mundane Roles' available. Aide to House Borsail. Byn Trooper. Blah-be-dee-blah.

The Karma Timer sucked because it limited ALL options, not just some. I'm fine with there being hard caps on special (see: more rare) races and archetypes. I'm not cool with the karma timer and telling people 'Play Mundane Or Else'. It's dumb. It's 2023. People will just play other games. I know I did and will.

[Veselka]

My suggestion is different:
Rather than prevent individual players from playing a whole scope of character types, prevent the player population as a whole from playing specific character types.

I really like the idea.  However, a genuine question I'd be interested to hear everyone's opinion on:

If you have a cap, it limits someone from playing what they want.  They may wait for the cap to be down, and may choose to not play while they wait.  How do you think this would be different than a full karma timer?  (I have opinions, but don't want to cloud the question with them, would rather hear peoples' answers).

My suggestion is designed to limit the volume of classes and races that the gameworld writes about being rare - to enforce it's rarity amongst the active players.
My suggestion will not fix the problem of class+race+subclass combinations of player power.  That's not the point of the suggestion - the point of the suggestion is to limit the perceived gameworld representation.  We current use this system already for 6 types of subclasses and 1 type of race, and it is manual work for the staff to moderate - but I think it's successful for those classes and subclasses


In my opinion, if you want to make a mul, and you were told "No, you need to wait 480 hours" versus being told "No, the game quota is full", it's a different feeling of rejection.  The first one is the feeling of, "This is arbitrary, I will just wait it out until my timer hits 0 and then apply", and the second one gives the feeling, "Oh, it's because the world is overpopulated with that character type.  I will need to wait for one of them to die, and I have no clue when that is, so I'll just make another character and try that again later."


This change will not solve the problem of class+race+subclass power combinations.  It will allow the staff to codify a rejection system based on population density of their choice.

Completely agree with this assessment and proposed solution.

[Nao]

My suggestion is different:
Rather than prevent individual players from playing a whole scope of character types, prevent the player population as a whole from playing specific character types.

I really like the idea.  However, a genuine question I'd be interested to hear everyone's opinion on:

If you have a cap, it limits someone from playing what they want.  They may wait for the cap to be down, and may choose to not play while they wait.  How do you think this would be different than a full karma timer?  (I have opinions, but don't want to cloud the question with them, would rather hear peoples' answers).

My suggestion is designed to limit the volume of classes and races that the gameworld writes about being rare - to enforce it's rarity amongst the active players.
My suggestion will not fix the problem of class+race+subclass combinations of player power.  That's not the point of the suggestion - the point of the suggestion is to limit the perceived gameworld representation.  We current use this system already for 6 types of subclasses and 1 type of race, and it is manual work for the staff to moderate - but I think it's successful for those classes and subclasses


In my opinion, if you want to make a mul, and you were told "No, you need to wait 480 hours" versus being told "No, the game quota is full", it's a different feeling of rejection.  The first one is the feeling of, "This is arbitrary, I will just wait it out until my timer hits 0 and then apply", and the second one gives the feeling, "Oh, it's because the world is overpopulated with that character type.  I will need to wait for one of them to die, and I have no clue when that is, so I'll just make another character and try that again later."


This change will not solve the problem of class+race+subclass power combinations.  It will allow the staff to codify a rejection system based on population density of their choice.

I have never not played because I was waiting for a karma timer. I would not play if I got told 'no, sorry, we're full', because I'm waiting for a spot to become available and I want the next available spot.

[Riev]

I have never not played because I was waiting for a karma timer. I would not play if I got told 'no, sorry, we're full', because I'm waiting for a spot to become available and I want the next available spot.

From my end, how is this different from a Special Application that you cannot play RIGHT NOW? Or applying to be a sorceror, but the game is currently full of them?

[Fragmented]

My suggestion is different:
Rather than prevent individual players from playing a whole scope of character types, prevent the player population as a whole from playing specific character types.

I really like the idea.  However, a genuine question I'd be interested to hear everyone's opinion on:

If you have a cap, it limits someone from playing what they want.  They may wait for the cap to be down, and may choose to not play while they wait.  How do you think this would be different than a full karma timer?  (I have opinions, but don't want to cloud the question with them, would rather hear peoples' answers).

I think it comes down to - with 3 karma, entire swathes of character concepts are cut out via Karma timer. If I want to play a mul, a drovian, a havoc elkrosian, etc, etc.. if one or two are blocked because there are too many already, I still have more options. If I roll a mul, and die in couple of rl days, I had to wait 3 months to play another 3 karma type (there are what, 10?), and an entire month to be able to play ANY 0 karma with an esg.

I disagree that there is a problem here at all - our numbers are up, it looks like to me (but mansa can do all the data scraping to prove it if he wants) and this is a good thing. I said it before, and I'll say it again. I'd rather the game be full of 30 halfgiants out of 60 players, than have 20 players with a great mix.

I think that if anything MUST be done, limiting specific special races and/or special subclasses similar to sorcs/psions is a pill that can be swallowed. Would rather see it given more than a few months while people get it out of their system.

**Edited to clarify a poorly expressed point.

[Halcyon]

Once a week, there is a query on the active player population, which I classify as all characters, dead or alive, that have logged in within the last 10 days.  A tally of character population breakdown is done, and then the script checks against a config file that determines how many half-giants are too many half-giants in the game, or how many shadow dancer drovians are too many of that type in the game, and then it prevents those options from being picked in the character generation flow.

This is a good idea.
It's fair.
We all get the idea that magickers, muls, etc. should be somewhat rare.
Staff can make the thresholds as permissive or restrictive as they like.
It gives people options: okay, I can't play a whiran now but there's space for a krathi. (As long as demand isn't way higher than capacity.*)
Staff could allow special apps to bypass the thresholds, for when you really really want the concept.

* but tbh the most likely outcome is that we would see more diversity in types of magicker.

The other thing is...

The reason you are being rejected is implied that you're being rejected because there are too many of that type, rather that some arbitrary timer.

Could this be fairly implemented with the addition of a waiting queue?   Currently some roles limited in number are hard to get into without some dumb luck on when you apply.