Limited job roles and you

[Tailong]

I have heard some issues, and seen in threads recently,  of limited space jobs like hunters for the GMH's all being filled, yet we clearly see those people are holding those roles and not logging in. How long as these positions held before characters are fired and the spots opened back up? 

Why are people taking these jobs, knowing they do not have the time to fully commit to the positions?  Commitment of 2 to 3 nights a week to actually contribute.

This can go for clan leaders, nobles, Templars.  Why hold such a position if you do not have time to commit, because these roles affect entire cities, if not the entire game?

[Delusion]

There is no better way to drive people away from the game than to mandate minimum playtimes for even the most basic of roles.

[zealus]

In my experience, if the playtimes are low, it takes one report and a request to hire a temp to fill in for the reduced to fix it. If they are ICly completing their job, I see no reason to mandate required hours.

Sponsored roles are a commitment, so either clever delegation needs to be done, or a minimum playtime might be required.

But these two are seperate problems.

[Cowboy]

Clan leaders, nobles and Templars are not the most basic of roles.  If you are going to take one of these roles, be ready to make the role come alive. Showing up once a RL week for an hour is not going to cut it.   I can't imagine you are having any fun and the other people who are around and want, and in some cases need to, interact with your character are missing out.  If you take a important role and your real life situation changes...store or go out in some in-character way.  Give someone else a chance to play the role.  This game is a team effort. 

[Riev]

I think the OP is talking specifically about minions and clan caps, not about sponsored roles specifically.

As in:
Why is my Borsail Clan only allowed to have 2 subordinate PCs in it, when those 2 PCs are either dead (and I'm not allowed to know) or are not logging in with any relative consistency or frequency?

As Delusion says, mandating minimum playtime is anathema to what you want to do. However, when your role as a Leadership PC is dependent on underlings and you're not allowed to hire more to replace the ones that are taking a 2-week break, I can see how that may erode the desire to play.

[Hestia]

I'd suggest to players of clan leaders/recruiters:

Please feel free to use the OOC command while hiring your new minion to convey this information:

1. Your own /typical/ login days/times.
2. That your clan has a limited # of hirelings allowed.
3. They /need/ to post their own availability on the GDB forum (explain how to make an account if they're new to the game and don't know how)
4. If they know in advance that they'll will be unavailable for more than a few days in a row, to post on that forum.

As a leader - in /my/ clans (mine have those limits so it applies, definitely): send a SIMPLE quickie clan request once every couple of weeks titled CURRENT ROSTER with just the names, sdescs, and rank of your minions.  If you haven't seen them, add them anyway and put a question mark at the end of their line.  No need to comment on them, this is a recordkeeping thing for me. In this way, my leader PCs and I can be on the same page when it comes to "missing" minions.

Because I am generally /not/ fully peak and more often non-peak, it really helps me as your staffer see who's expected and who isn't, so I can occasionally check to see who's alive and who's dead - since I'm often not logged in to see those death messages.

[LindseyBalboa]

The OP reads more like it is taking issue with having caps on desirable minion roles and people seeming or being inactive, as opposed to worrying about having minions to further their own RP.

IE, "how long can people have roles with caps on the # of those roles in play, while also seemingly being inactive? I/others want those desirable roles."

[Patuk]

I remember, a year and then some back, a certain Crimson Wind leader. They were never about. The other Stormers would joke about his sightings being about as rare as falling stars or earthquakes. Naturally, no Allanaki person got his hands on the guy: how can you search and hunt down someone who barely ever even shows his face?

But this persisted for months and months, because you can't MCB a shadow, and neither did staff kick him down the clan rankings out of disappointment. I couldn't say how prevalent issues like these are, but they are for sure real and they are for sure disappointing when they happen.

[HammerofJericho]

The really tough part is that real life should always come first.  And real life has a way of not coinciding well with major things in game. I think coming at this with understanding is important and maybe the caps should have some wiggle room?

That helps leaders and others who might want the role? If we're talking clans and there's that many people chomping to work for x clan. Then I think they should be able to. The new mantra being "Let people play what they have fun with."

[Lutagar]

this wouldn't be an issue if staff got rid of/lessened the clan caps and just let people play what they want to play

expecting people to play arma like a job to be able to play anything but a bynner or a starving indie (which get shat on every single patch) is a game design mistake rather than a player problem

[Kavrick]

this wouldn't be an issue if staff got rid of/lessened the clan caps and just let people play what they want to play

expecting people to play arma like a job to be able to play anything but a bynner or a starving indie (which get shat on every single patch) is a game design mistake rather than a player problem

Even as a new player I've had trouble with this. I played a good few wilderness characters because I enjoy wild gameplay, but every single merchant house was always full on their tiny two-person hunter limit, which means I was forced to play solo hunter which wasn't very enjoyable with how lethal the world is and how slowly combat skills level on non t1-t2 chars.

[Riev]

this wouldn't be an issue if staff got rid of/lessened the clan caps and just let people play what they want to play

expecting people to play arma like a job to be able to play anything but a bynner or a starving indie (which get shat on every single patch) is a game design mistake rather than a player problem

Even as a new player I've had trouble with this. I played a good few wilderness characters because I enjoy wild gameplay, but every single merchant house was always full on their tiny two-person hunter limit, which means I was forced to play solo hunter which wasn't very enjoyable with how lethal the world is and how slowly combat skills level on non t1-t2 chars.

This is where you gotta get creative.

You don't have to work for Salarr to work for Salarr's hunters. "Sell" your services to them on the cheap, and offer to go hunting with them all the time. Call yourself the "prospective" to take over for one of the 2 hunters when they get eaten.

[Tranquil]

this wouldn't be an issue if staff got rid of/lessened the clan caps and just let people play what they want to play

expecting people to play arma like a job to be able to play anything but a bynner or a starving indie (which get shat on every single patch) is a game design mistake rather than a player problem

^^

[Dracul]

These caps would also make me feel occly bad for the character concept that pretends to work for multiple groups, spies, and otherwise.

[Master Color]

expecting people to play arma like a job to be able to play anything but a bynner or a starving indie (which get shat on every single patch) is a game design mistake rather than a player problem

Basically this.

[Nao]

I'd like to see caps adjusted so people who log less than 10 hours a week (or whatever is deemed to be an appropriate limit) don't count towards the caps. You don't have to boot anyone for 'not playing enough', or have dead people blocking slots. It would solve most of the problems.

[valeria]

I'm not a fan of arbitrary limitations on what people play.  Limitations on high-power roles are one thing, but limitations on minions simply do not make sense.

Let people play what they want to play.  If this results in certain clans being player-heavy, so what?  If people are playing and enjoying playing, that's good for the game.  If House Fancyswords has five hunters and the other clans have none, those five hunters are probably playing with each other, reporting in regularly, and have a good reason to interact with other people.  Isn't that what we want?

[Kryos]

The player base tends to 'go where the action is' or where friend groups target in terms of clans.  This has been true in every mud/orpg/mmo I've played, and its true for Arm.  So where staff are running plots or active, and critical mass created naturally or artificially(the later being a problem).  I suspect the limits were put in place to unilaterally curb some of this friend group massing first, and 'action is' second.  I think people tend to forget how unenjoyable things can get when certain factions get artificially over represented.  I haven't forgotten how unfun that behavior is.  So, with those points in mind I'd say nuke the arbitrary automatic limits and let staff drop the hammer on artificially number inflation as they need to.  I think that'd best serve the end goal of everyone having fun.

[Tuannon]

No measure to limit monopolization of sophont resources is going to please everyone, this has been proven in the past.

A bunch of people conflate influence with having a big crew of underlings, so it's normal for monopolies to form. Personally I appreciate the measures to prevent this, no matter how hacked they can seem to be.

All I'd ask for is more clear and clean communications between staff and players on clan finances and spending as well as hiring and project management.

[WarriorPoet]

Sophont is a good word. Sophont. I like the taste of it.

[Tuannon]

I blame Traveller.

[FantasyWriter]

How I've always handled the issue in the past was to have two levels of underlings. My big circle that I provided food/water/supplies/clothing to, and my inner circle (clan-coded). To get into the inner circle my character has to trust you (or want to make it appear that he does) and you have to be a semi-active reliable player. By that I mean I am in contact with you SOMEHOW two-three times/week minimum (this can be face to face, via the way, or via the GDB [Hey, Amos is going to be out of sight and doing his job virtually for the next two weeks]), and during those meetings, I am seeing evidence that you are doing your job or at least appearing to do so.

I don't care if a player is just logging in a couple times/week, if they're regularly doing so and (hopefully) consistent with time/days that they play so I can adjust accordingly.  I don't think I have ever hired anyone into a coded clan without at least two RL weeks of interaction not matter how desperate I was for help.

In my own personal opinion, if you aren't regularly able to log in twice/RL week, you shouldn't be seeking out clan roles unless you are up front about it. That way I can let my staff know that this guy is IN the clan and fun to be around, but can we not count him as one of my slots?  I've had characters who worked for me in the past that took long breaks away from the game or weren't able to log in regularly for whatever reason, and as long as they were communicating about it, I was cool with that and just supplemented my Big circle to account for it.

[Armaddict]

Meh.

I don't believe in caps in the first place.  I don't believe in clan consolidation either.

I believe in options.  I believe in versatility.  I believe in leaders being given at least relative freedom over how they want their underlings organized.  I believe more clans is more opportunities for different concepts, even if they have similar gameplay to other clans.  The flavor changes, and that can make all the difference.  I believe more players in a clan is usually brought about by having leaders or prominent players who have plenty of 'shit to do'.  I also believe this makes dominant groups that antagonists can work against on their own, or ally themselves against with that clan's rivals that they inevitably form.  I believe that a thriving clan/group should start to see both natural and conceived obstacles placed in front of it before it grows stagnant.  I believe the vast majority of clans are supposed to be city based with relatively minor extensions into the wilds as needed or as per basis of what their group goal is.

I dunno, I talk a lot about changes to the game, but most of the time I want as little of the micro-management as possible; I think it's better to make changes to the world that forces groups to change rather than directly implementing ideas of changes on the groups themselves.  Makes everything look and feel more organic to me.

[Kialae]

I've literally never cared about clan caps. I do what I want. I'm also a responsible person and don't gobble up all the talent. I'm the opposite, really - I try to make sure everyone's rounded out if I can. I want YOU to have fun. I'll have fun anyway.

[Hestia]

Team south has a "soft cap" on my clans. It's somewhat flexible, but it has a baseline. There's actual history to support the need for it. You have three clans open in an area, all of which select from the same pool of players in that area for their hirelings. There are maybe 10 of those players available.  There are three sponsored clan leaders in each of three clans.  There are enough potential clannies to share.  But they all congregate toward one.

That means a few things will happen, if we don't say "sorry clan's full":

1. The two other sponsored clan leaders will have no minions, and therefore no one to delegate tasks to. This means their role becomes more of a job, and less of play, for the player. They have to come up with the plotlines, and perform all the tasks themselves to accomplish them, with no interaction within their own clan.

2. The clanned people are all stuck with each other. Little opportunity, and absolutely no reason, to leave their compound and interact with anyone else.

3. The sponsored role leader is now stuck with all of the drama that comes from a clan with 10 people in it, including having to come up with things to do that all his clannies can get involved in, when if he only had 2-4 clannies, that work (yes, it's work) would be less.

The result is storage of sponsored roles due to lack of interest - death/storage of clannies due to not enough things for them to do for this singular sponsored clan leader, an empty city that people complain nothing is happening in, because all the players are in a single clan compound they have no reason to leave.

So that's MY reasoning for the soft caps. If I only have one or two nobles, and a lot of players in the city, then yeah I'd lift that cap. If there are three nobles and a handful of city commoners, then I'd keep the caps. I need my sponsored nobles to have people available to hire. I can't force player of Amos to join House Kasix. But I /can/ tell him the House Fale is full.

[Fragmented]

Team south has a "soft cap" on my clans. It's somewhat flexible, but it has a baseline. There's actual history to support the need for it. You have three clans open in an area, all of which select from the same pool of players in that area for their hirelings. There are maybe 10 of those players available.  There are three sponsored clan leaders in each of three clans.  There are enough potential clannies to share.  But they all congregate toward one.

That means a few things will happen, if we don't say "sorry clan's full":

1. The two other sponsored clan leaders will have no minions, and therefore no one to delegate tasks to. This means their role becomes more of a job, and less of play, for the player. They have to come up with the plotlines, and perform all the tasks themselves to accomplish them, with no interaction within their own clan.

2. The clanned people are all stuck with each other. Little opportunity, and absolutely no reason, to leave their compound and interact with anyone else.

3. The sponsored role leader is now stuck with all of the drama that comes from a clan with 10 people in it, including having to come up with things to do that all his clannies can get involved in, when if he only had 2-4 clannies, that work (yes, it's work) would be less.

The result is storage of sponsored roles due to lack of interest - death/storage of clannies due to not enough things for them to do for this singular sponsored clan leader, an empty city that people complain nothing is happening in, because all the players are in a single clan compound they have no reason to leave.

So that's MY reasoning for the soft caps. If I only have one or two nobles, and a lot of players in the city, then yeah I'd lift that cap. If there are three nobles and a handful of city commoners, then I'd keep the caps. I need my sponsored nobles to have people available to hire. I can't force player of Amos to join House Kasix. But I /can/ tell him the House Fale is full.

I think the baseline assumption here though is that if Fale is full and Amos is advised of this, he will even consider Kasix. What seems to be happening instead, is that Amos, who wants to play with Fale (who has x players to meet the cap) will, instead of considering Kasix, instead head off to the wilderness to die, or store, or shift elsewhere.

I think you've hit the nail on the head, either way, re: caps. In my opinion, there should only be two of the sponsored roles, with the exception being GMH. Per city : two nobles, one templar. Worldwide, one of each GMH with any other power players in the GMH coming up via promotion. Let the nobles plot against each other and/or the Templar. Let the Templar plot against the other City and/or the Nobles or GMHs, let the GMHs plot against each other and/or the Nobles/Templar. But let the common masses (for however common they are) go where they want. This is a source of power for one sponsored role over the other. No doubt easier said than done, but allow the great GMH stuff to be accessed at their shops (and let the commoner npc merchants handle the buying/selling of the non GMH crap). Sponsored GMH roles can then become focused on providing extremely high value custom made stuff, or if they CHOOSE selling some items at a discount (but still a good profit for themselves).

All of the hunters work for Kadius, instead of Salarr or Kurac? Well, Kadius must be doing something - or at least DID something to achieve critical mass.

Just my two 'sid.

[Lutagar]

Team south has a "soft cap" on my clans. It's somewhat flexible, but it has a baseline. There's actual history to support the need for it. You have three clans open in an area, all of which select from the same pool of players in that area for their hirelings. There are maybe 10 of those players available.  There are three sponsored clan leaders in each of three clans.  There are enough potential clannies to share.  But they all congregate toward one.

That means a few things will happen, if we don't say "sorry clan's full":

1. The two other sponsored clan leaders will have no minions, and therefore no one to delegate tasks to. This means their role becomes more of a job, and less of play, for the player. They have to come up with the plotlines, and perform all the tasks themselves to accomplish them, with no interaction within their own clan.

2. The clanned people are all stuck with each other. Little opportunity, and absolutely no reason, to leave their compound and interact with anyone else.

3. The sponsored role leader is now stuck with all of the drama that comes from a clan with 10 people in it, including having to come up with things to do that all his clannies can get involved in, when if he only had 2-4 clannies, that work (yes, it's work) would be less.

The result is storage of sponsored roles due to lack of interest - death/storage of clannies due to not enough things for them to do for this singular sponsored clan leader, an empty city that people complain nothing is happening in, because all the players are in a single clan compound they have no reason to leave.

So that's MY reasoning for the soft caps. If I only have one or two nobles, and a lot of players in the city, then yeah I'd lift that cap. If there are three nobles and a handful of city commoners, then I'd keep the caps. I need my sponsored nobles to have people available to hire. I can't force player of Amos to join House Kasix. But I /can/ tell him the House Fale is full.

You're assuming that the turned away players go on to join one of the other two clans instead of shrugging and playing as an indie instead. Or that the experience doesn't just put them off playing in clans forever. The reason we're seeing this problem to begin with is because no one wants to feel obligated to play because of slots (sponsored leaders are obviously different) and no one wants to be alone and forced to idle in a clan that enforces schedules, which almost all city clans do. You'd also have a much larger pool than 10 players between 3 clans (which means more sponsored leaders) if everyone wasn't playing indies just to not have to put up with this.

So far staff's answer to this has been "make indie's less fun to play" but it's not working. People are just not playing or are doubling down and going full twink mode to get around the new hoops to jump through that keep getting added.

[DesertT]

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I honestly don't care. 

There are IC restrictions on a number of city clans for REALLY good reasons.  I'm talking rules, not caps.

Having played a Jal Foreman, Byn Sergeant, and AoD Sergeant, you WANT to recruit people into your clan.  You WANT to hope that they're smart enough to last a full month before that next Monthly Roll Call you post on the GDB (if they post on the GDB or don't die before they get access).  There's a certain level of responsibility that falls to the player as well, not just the leader.

I don't recall having a limit in the Byn.  Those seem to take care of themselves by either leaving the walls on their own, going into the Rinth, getting recruited by other employers, or whatever else.  So long as the leadership is active and engaged, these issues become less of a problem.  But that's the issue right there.  Active Leadership.  When Runners get bored, they get exceptionally stupid. 

I don't recall having a limit in the AoD either.  It seems these take care of themselves as well.  Between having similar issues as the Byn, they are also just the natural target for those PCs who want to "make a name for themselves" by killing a militia member.  The only improvement I can think of for the AoD would be to push newjoins to the Byn first.  Then those who survive the Byn, instead of having to wait ANOTHER year to become a Private, they have their time reduced to 1 Month as a Recruit instead of 1 Year.  There are some pretty significant bonuses (imho) for Privates in the AoD upon their promotion from Recruit.  Again though, for those Recruits, Active Leadership is especially critical, otherwise, people can only handle so much of the "sparring dummy" and they need someone to tell them how to mingle at the bar, or how to conduct bag checks at the gates, or even patrol the city streets.

When I was Jal Foreman, I did understand that I had a limited number of slots.  There was no "big circle / little circle" that I could really filter them into.  Either you were a Swab or you were an Indie and we had to hunt you down for RP events.  That's annoying.  So even when someone who was off-peak wanted to join House Jal as a Swab, I wouldn't recruit them because I could offer them almost ZERO meaningful interaction, maybe just on weekends.  Maybe.  And if I want at least 3 people to take on a patrol of the Ivory Road, or to go Salting, or whatever RP event, then I just reduced my chances severely by hiring on off-peaker.  So there goes someone's want/desire to House Jal.  Then we see those complaints about how leadership doesn't cater to all timezones.  That burden shouldn't be carried by the leadership.  In my opinion, that burden should be carried by staff and whether or not they want to hire another leader for said organization who can cover down on off-peak times.

If I recall correctly, the hardcap for House Jal Swabs was four and I wasn't about to leave the Walls with only one other PC, my minimum (typically) is three, so if I have two swabs who are peak and one who is off-peak plus one vacancy (or perhaps someone whose dead and we just don't know it yet, or not logging but that one Saturday I met and liked them), then I have to HOPE that the two peak players will have an overlap of playtime that lasts 90 minutes, AND that said overlap starts before dawn the same IC day that I can be on for at least 90 minutes, because there's usually prepwork and decompress time built into a single patrol (if you don't get caught outside the gates).

So yeah, having a hardcap on a clan like House Jal, I think you'd want to raise that to something like 7 or 8.  Maybe strongly consider hiring an off-peak Foreman as well.

As for positions like House Hunters for the GMH's, maybe that cap should be 2 peakers with 1 off-peaker?  I definitely don't feel they should be running as full as the House Jal swabs.  I offer these suggestions as reasonable measures that can be taken.  Could it be that a GMH tries to hire three hunters (1 off-peak) and ends up with 3 players who all have the exact same schedule and really begin to out-perform the other way?  Yes.  Just like there's the possibility to have two leaders in a clan and both of them end up with OOC reasons to not log for over a month and a half.  It's a game of odds (or risk).

I'd love to offer ideas of tracking hours of play for these positions, but that sounds too much like work and not an ideal use of volunteer time.

But I hear you, Tailong.  If you just want to be a Kuraci hunter because it sounds cool, then only log 4-5 hours a month....  Nobody's saying you need to dedicate 4-5 hours per night, but if you're going to move into a leadership role, either tell staff that you can't be the full-time leader this clan needs, so you'd like to CO-lead with someone, or just be happy playing a senior non-leader.

Communication is key, as is adaptability and there are those who count on certain roles to actually perform (hello nobles!!).

[Tuannon]

You only need two decent swabs, you need the other slots for spies, traitors and DersertT alts.

[Kavrick]

I will say, the two hunter limit does really hurt when one of the two, or awfully even both of the hunters are pretty inactive. I agree with others in saying that people who aren't very active shouldn't count towards the slot, because then they're both preventing another player from doing what they wanna do and also not providing for the clan.

[BadSkeelz]

It falls on clan leadership to oversee those roles and ensure they're going to "worthy" hires which... kind of sucks. I'm sure few of us enjoy telling others no because of arbitrary limits set in from above.

It's also difficult to live the indie hunter life if you're not dedicated to living out of your backpack, given the dearth of public housing in parts of the game world.