Yeah, despite my usual criticism and what could honestly be seen as nit-picking, I'm very much looking forward to seasons. I've said since I started playing that consolidating players in a single area is the right decision for encouraging interaction and facilitating RP. Hopefully the days of logging in, seeing 30-40 people online only for those online to be in a different part of the game from you will be over.

I've also been liking the first impression of new staff, the storytellers seem inspired and open to ideas, and generally I've not seen anything that I'd consider to be red flags.

The changes to gemmed are also really nice, I understood that sometimes the oppression and such is a key part of the theme but giving players the change to reach higher in society as anything other than a mundane human is a really good step forward. I hope perhaps dwarves will get a similar treatment or opportunity in the future.

All in all, good things. I know I can be a bit of a negative Nancy on the forums, focusing on what I think could be improved- but I'd like to take this opportunity to say that I actually think staff are doing a lot of great things and I'm looking forward to what's in store, I think they deserve a lot of kudos for pushing on despite everything.

Howdy Folks.  Long time off and on player here who had been out of the game for quite some time.  Planning on coming back to play Seasons, and I suspect I'm not the only one.  Wanted to share what I think are some real possibilities.  Or things I hope are possibilities.

1.  A number of people like myself intrigued by the new approach, the higher density of players in one place, the fresh start in history, etc deciding to come give it a shot after a long absence.  I believe we may see over 75 people online at a time.  Maybe more.

2.  With the "jump start" for skills, we will be able to start doing significant things sooner and won't be so afraid of losing all the hours of grinding.  This will make us more open to telling interesting stories - even at our own expense.  This is something I've always aspired to and never been great at.

3.  These things taken together - I think - are going to lead to some of the best Arm we've seen in a very long time.   I've had a handful of experiences over the years where I felt like I was part of an amazing story - but those were brief and fleeting.  I think that will happen much more often in Seasons.

Hope I'm right about all of this...

Will there be a change to the ranking glass ceiling with the seasonal model? Are we likely to see red robed templar PCs? Byn commanders? House heads?
If not, how will risky (and potentially ruinous) clan decisions be made? Will it just be up to the staffer assigned to that particular clan's discretion?

Quote from: Pariah on Today at 03:07:39 PMYeah but let's assume for a second that stats run in a playable range of 1-10 for humans and lets say that we are given 20 points to split between those four for humans.

All that would happen is people would just start experimenting to figure out the best min-max allocation and once discovered, using it every time.  You'd literally see six fighter type characters out of X player that all had the same stat spread.

That would still be better than the current system. I'd rather have a game where a lot of players pick what they think works best (and judging by the countless discussions about this, there's absolutely no consensus about what's best) than one where characters are created either amazing, mediocre or terrible, and stay that way forever, based on blind luck. The idea of min-maxed stat optimization is far less pernicious than what we have now where you can take two characters of the exact same race/class/age/whatever, and then one has AI/EX/EG/VG and the other has VG/G/AA/BA. That's a shockingly terrible stat system in a game like this where conflict between PCs is a central theme.

Fortunately for everyone, there's no need for a crass points-buy system ala D&D. A system where people tailor their stats to their exact specifications is not the only alternative to the current RNG fiesta. Shadows of Isildur came up with a much better system over twenty years ago: characters have a fixed pool of total stats, then you pick the order you want them in, and the game rolls some dice that determine the final result. Since the parts always add up to the same sum, no character is truly shafted or gifted. Maybe Bob didn't get as high a number in his first-priority stat as Steve did, but then his second priority isn't as low, and so on. Plenty of room for characters to be different, but you never get saddled with a character that's just bad, or one that has unbeatable godlike stats that lets you be way more powerful than if you hadn't been so lucky.

Stats make too much of a difference to be as random as they are. No amount of rerolls will fix this problem. The solution is simple and doesn't require changes to any other aspect of the code. It has been proven to work well on other RPIs and completely solved the issue of stats without resorting to something as unpalatable as a points-buy system. All this change would do is eliminate the unfairness of characters that are way below or above par.

I mean, the current system "Works" just like the Karma system "Works".

Not perfect by any means but functional.

My thoughts:

Saying "most people want" is tough to prove, because the game's players fluctuate between 80 and 180 players at a given time. The GDB and Discord are home only to the most vocal.

Wanting the system to change is perfectly fine, but understand that no matter HOW many people want it to change that it isn't the Players' game, it is the Staff's game.

I'm fine with the system how it is, but over time it has lost so much focus on storytelling and roleplay that the most vocal of the playerbase seems to want to have every coded advantage so they are on "equal footing" with everyone else. Without such a focus on the story of the game, all Arm has left is being the new Grudash or THG.

Also, the new changes to stats using ceiling() will make a lot of difference in my opinion. No more will you need to age up 10 years to finally roll enough to get +1 strength, only to then fall in the bracket where it falls back to .99 and you lose it.

I don't really get why there is such a high need for changing the stat system. I remember suiciding a PC because of low stat-rolls when I was still a noob to Arm. But as years passed, I realized that the game needs all clever and stupid, strong and weak, agile and clumsy, tough and fragile.

Quote from: Windstorm on April 22, 2024, 05:46:08 PMIt's your birthday! You have just turned 24.
You can now hold no more than four limes.

Arm already does this, as you reach some milestones, your stats change. When you grow old, your strength reduces and wisdom increases.  Though I am not sure about at what age that happens.

I think the current system works well enough.  I like the idea that someone might always be better than you are and sometimes you might just be the better one.  The old Luirs pit fights always brought out the best of the best mundane fighters. I do not want to see all cookie cutter clones, with the best stats, simply by typing a few numbers.

Quote from: Kavrick on Today at 02:50:53 PM

Quote from: Pariah on Today at 02:38:11 PMSo changing the system of stats would essentially be a total rewrite, then after you got stats done, you'd have to find everything that pulled from that old code of stats that no longer existed and fix those.  Let's say that every weapon skill, every offense/defense skill and magick all pull off the stats basics, that's basically re-writing the whole game when it's all said and done.

Oh I know a learning-by-doing stat system would be a much bigger task, but I feel like switching from random stats at creation to non-random stats at creation wouldn't be such a massive task.

Yeah but let's assume for a second that stats run in a playable range of 1-10 for humans and lets say that we are given 20 points to split between those four for humans.

All that would happen is people would just start experimenting to figure out the best min-max allocation and once discovered, using it every time.  You'd literally see six fighter type characters out of X player that all had the same stat spread.

Now I personally don't really care, but I think that's the hesitation point right there.  People will just game the system.  One thing I'm guilty of is once they instituted feed code, I literally will feed my beetle/sunlon/whatever to full every single day I go out, why?  Because it makes them better and you never know when you're gonna get sidetracked or stuck outdoors and need that extra 10 rooms of running or such.

So if I had to guess that's why they are against us assigning stats outright.

Quote from: Pariah on Today at 02:38:11 PMSo changing the system of stats would essentially be a total rewrite, then after you got stats done, you'd have to find everything that pulled from that old code of stats that no longer existed and fix those.  Let's say that every weapon skill, every offense/defense skill and magick all pull off the stats basics, that's basically re-writing the whole game when it's all said and done.

Oh I know a learning-by-doing stat system would be a much bigger task, but I feel like switching from random stats at creation to non-random stats at creation wouldn't be such a massive task.