Post by Shimizu Haruto on May 27, 2019 15:34:15 GMT -4
Hello, Slrarthryng here with my comments, concerns, and suggestions! Naturally, some of them are more sensible than others, but I hope that at the very least they all make sense. So without further ado, I’ll be stepping into my greatest concern of them all:
EP
Since the first events on site, it has been well documented that EP means there is a massive gap in level between characters made just before and just after an event. This goes doubly so with the increase of EP rewards from 2 to 3 per event. However, new characters are not the only ones penalized- With most events being Death Enabled, there are a significant number of characters who have not participated in events which they could have. In turn, these characters fall behind significantly in terms of experience. At least in my experience, my progression comes almost entirely from EP, rather than from posting experience- Albeit this is probably due to my extremely slow nature when it comes to posts. That said, it does lead to a second problem I would like to address:
Quantized Growth
On TP, growth comes in extremely neat packages. You stay at the same level of strength for a long period of time as you accumulate the experience to level up an ability, and then you go back to accumulating. While this definitely gives new players assistance in catching up, it feels very bad to see your character not having increased in strength at all for such long periods, and will only grow worse as the cost to increase ability ranks increases. EP certainly compounds this issue, granting the push many characters need to increase their skills- Leading to an uptick in the number of abilities waiting to be graded at one time. While not necessarily a bad thing, it does create more work for the moderators.
As an aside, the new method of running events- While, as promised, will be significantly better for players with a toe in each faction, will likely show lowered gains for players with a single character, or multiple characters in one faction. While the latter applies to myself, I have no problem with it, but I would prefer not to discourage players who would only like a single character from doing so. However, as it will be easier to encourage participation in events by tailoring them to a group, I cannot wholely say that this is right or wrong- Only that it is worthy of discussion.
All in all, EP creates a scenario where not only rank ups, but general progression is often tied to events moreso than to general posting. This also loeads to a state where characters go for long periods of time without gaining strength, and then gain it all at once- A long period of dissatisfaction, for a short burst of satisfaction. Personally, I am not a fan of this.
My suggestion
So, and here I will just rattle off ideas that may or may not be reasonable, so that people can pick and choose the ones they like. First off, I think almost all of the problems would be solved by just moving power from EP to posting- Increasing the conversion rate of exp per post, and reducing the conversion rate for Event Points. While it would require tuning for balance, it would cause experience gains to spread more evenly across time, solving the problem of large purchases being made at once. Secondly, it would give players more reason to focus on their normal threads, instead of feeling that it is more efficient to wait for an event in order to gain experience. I have no problems with disproportionately rewarding more active players, who will have their exp gains significantly increased by this change.
In turn, this would make EP much less significant, except for creating new characters, or for ranking up in the distant future. While participation in events may go down, I think that this is fine- A smaller group will be easier to write finales for, and with characters being involved for interest rather than for profit, the overall investment in the threads will be higher. Of course, that is mere speculation on my part, and may or may not actually be true- But at the very least, it would make events feel much less mandatory, and lessen the impact of not being able to participate in faction-specific events, and that is something I approve of.
An even crazier idea would be to remove the exp merits of EP entirely, turning them into a pure measure of your character’s fame. EP rewards could be tailored based on their involvement in the event- For instance, back in Kunshu’s Circus, a character like Haruto who was mostly on the sides doing minor first aid would get a single EP, whereas Lani who arrested Kunshu herself would have received 3 or even more. Of course, this could lead to contention about if people deserved more or less, so it is probably not a good idea, but I wanted to suggest it. However, this would certainly help in things such as the current effort to rank characters, and would feel much more objective than the current crowdsourcing method.
However, the main point I would like to make is- By spreading the 750 experience gained from an event across the period between events, character growth would feel smoother, upgrade requests would spread out further, and altogether, the experience of ranking up would feel more like your posting habits had an effect, and less like it was all about waiting for your faction’s event to come around.
With that said, let me move on to my second major issue that I would like to discuss.
Damage and Durability
I know Pug has already brought up his concerns with Durability, but to me, the problem of Durability was a solution to an even older problem- Damage. It has been a long standing concern among some members that high levels of damage reach a point where it is difficult to justify taking even a single hit without being torn to shreds. Aside from Durability, the answer to these concerns has always been lackluster- Suggestions such as taking glancing blows instead, or taking a mobility skill and dodging have the same fatal flaw- Without arranging it with your opponent beforehand, it can come across as power playing, even to yourself. Taking a Durability skill is both safer and easier and leads to less concerns regarding this.
However, now we end up with an arms race. The higher Durability goes, the higher damage has to go to match it- And vice versa. This leads to an arms race where some variant of each ability is needed if you have any intention of participating in combat threads, as you inevitably need one or the other.
My solution
Okay so this is the part where my ideas really start to get weird. See, My idea of the best way to get rid of this problem? Ban ‘em both. Or rather, tie ‘damage’ and ‘Durability’ into an entirely different stat, such as quirk rank, character rank, or total exp spent on combat abilities. Personally, I like the second choice- It lacks the need to keep track as deeply as the third, and isn’t as powerful already as the quirk- Although all three have merits. Tying into quirk rank makes specializing in your quirk much more attractive, and also gives merit to quirks which have no combat capability naturally, and thus are less attractive to put ranks in. Tying into total experience is more complicated to calculate, but helps reinforce the idea that two characters who have spent the same amount on combat abilities should have equal chances in a fight. As for the character rank, my biggest issue with the current system is that ranking up is among the most expensive things on site, but gives the character no immediate benefit. Tying into it would give an immediate benefit to ranking up, and make saving up for ranks better for more than just bragging rights.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a ridiculous idea and would require a major retool of site systems. However, sometimes crazy ideas can be the source of good ideas, so I wanted to bring it up anyways. Base stats such as damage and Durability add very little in the way of interesting things to RP, but are also extremely valuable for combat purposes. Removing them, to me, offers little in the way of harm, and in fact would give characters more viable options in choosing their spread of combat abilities.
That’s all for now, but I’ll be sure to be back with any more out of the box ideas I can come up with for everyone to raise an eyebrow at!
EP
Since the first events on site, it has been well documented that EP means there is a massive gap in level between characters made just before and just after an event. This goes doubly so with the increase of EP rewards from 2 to 3 per event. However, new characters are not the only ones penalized- With most events being Death Enabled, there are a significant number of characters who have not participated in events which they could have. In turn, these characters fall behind significantly in terms of experience. At least in my experience, my progression comes almost entirely from EP, rather than from posting experience- Albeit this is probably due to my extremely slow nature when it comes to posts. That said, it does lead to a second problem I would like to address:
Quantized Growth
On TP, growth comes in extremely neat packages. You stay at the same level of strength for a long period of time as you accumulate the experience to level up an ability, and then you go back to accumulating. While this definitely gives new players assistance in catching up, it feels very bad to see your character not having increased in strength at all for such long periods, and will only grow worse as the cost to increase ability ranks increases. EP certainly compounds this issue, granting the push many characters need to increase their skills- Leading to an uptick in the number of abilities waiting to be graded at one time. While not necessarily a bad thing, it does create more work for the moderators.
As an aside, the new method of running events- While, as promised, will be significantly better for players with a toe in each faction, will likely show lowered gains for players with a single character, or multiple characters in one faction. While the latter applies to myself, I have no problem with it, but I would prefer not to discourage players who would only like a single character from doing so. However, as it will be easier to encourage participation in events by tailoring them to a group, I cannot wholely say that this is right or wrong- Only that it is worthy of discussion.
All in all, EP creates a scenario where not only rank ups, but general progression is often tied to events moreso than to general posting. This also loeads to a state where characters go for long periods of time without gaining strength, and then gain it all at once- A long period of dissatisfaction, for a short burst of satisfaction. Personally, I am not a fan of this.
My suggestion
So, and here I will just rattle off ideas that may or may not be reasonable, so that people can pick and choose the ones they like. First off, I think almost all of the problems would be solved by just moving power from EP to posting- Increasing the conversion rate of exp per post, and reducing the conversion rate for Event Points. While it would require tuning for balance, it would cause experience gains to spread more evenly across time, solving the problem of large purchases being made at once. Secondly, it would give players more reason to focus on their normal threads, instead of feeling that it is more efficient to wait for an event in order to gain experience. I have no problems with disproportionately rewarding more active players, who will have their exp gains significantly increased by this change.
In turn, this would make EP much less significant, except for creating new characters, or for ranking up in the distant future. While participation in events may go down, I think that this is fine- A smaller group will be easier to write finales for, and with characters being involved for interest rather than for profit, the overall investment in the threads will be higher. Of course, that is mere speculation on my part, and may or may not actually be true- But at the very least, it would make events feel much less mandatory, and lessen the impact of not being able to participate in faction-specific events, and that is something I approve of.
An even crazier idea would be to remove the exp merits of EP entirely, turning them into a pure measure of your character’s fame. EP rewards could be tailored based on their involvement in the event- For instance, back in Kunshu’s Circus, a character like Haruto who was mostly on the sides doing minor first aid would get a single EP, whereas Lani who arrested Kunshu herself would have received 3 or even more. Of course, this could lead to contention about if people deserved more or less, so it is probably not a good idea, but I wanted to suggest it. However, this would certainly help in things such as the current effort to rank characters, and would feel much more objective than the current crowdsourcing method.
However, the main point I would like to make is- By spreading the 750 experience gained from an event across the period between events, character growth would feel smoother, upgrade requests would spread out further, and altogether, the experience of ranking up would feel more like your posting habits had an effect, and less like it was all about waiting for your faction’s event to come around.
With that said, let me move on to my second major issue that I would like to discuss.
Damage and Durability
I know Pug has already brought up his concerns with Durability, but to me, the problem of Durability was a solution to an even older problem- Damage. It has been a long standing concern among some members that high levels of damage reach a point where it is difficult to justify taking even a single hit without being torn to shreds. Aside from Durability, the answer to these concerns has always been lackluster- Suggestions such as taking glancing blows instead, or taking a mobility skill and dodging have the same fatal flaw- Without arranging it with your opponent beforehand, it can come across as power playing, even to yourself. Taking a Durability skill is both safer and easier and leads to less concerns regarding this.
However, now we end up with an arms race. The higher Durability goes, the higher damage has to go to match it- And vice versa. This leads to an arms race where some variant of each ability is needed if you have any intention of participating in combat threads, as you inevitably need one or the other.
My solution
Okay so this is the part where my ideas really start to get weird. See, My idea of the best way to get rid of this problem? Ban ‘em both. Or rather, tie ‘damage’ and ‘Durability’ into an entirely different stat, such as quirk rank, character rank, or total exp spent on combat abilities. Personally, I like the second choice- It lacks the need to keep track as deeply as the third, and isn’t as powerful already as the quirk- Although all three have merits. Tying into quirk rank makes specializing in your quirk much more attractive, and also gives merit to quirks which have no combat capability naturally, and thus are less attractive to put ranks in. Tying into total experience is more complicated to calculate, but helps reinforce the idea that two characters who have spent the same amount on combat abilities should have equal chances in a fight. As for the character rank, my biggest issue with the current system is that ranking up is among the most expensive things on site, but gives the character no immediate benefit. Tying into it would give an immediate benefit to ranking up, and make saving up for ranks better for more than just bragging rights.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a ridiculous idea and would require a major retool of site systems. However, sometimes crazy ideas can be the source of good ideas, so I wanted to bring it up anyways. Base stats such as damage and Durability add very little in the way of interesting things to RP, but are also extremely valuable for combat purposes. Removing them, to me, offers little in the way of harm, and in fact would give characters more viable options in choosing their spread of combat abilities.
That’s all for now, but I’ll be sure to be back with any more out of the box ideas I can come up with for everyone to raise an eyebrow at!
