Sacrifice Measurements

[Revelations]

When you use -delete_character to attempt a roll for a reward, certain figures are put into the calculation to better your chances, i.e. up to 5%.

The GP value of your character's inventory is added to cash and the account balance, which to me, seems to make it so that past level 25, getting a lot of gold (or valuable things) is the most effective way to improve your chances at receiving a reward.

I believe this is not a very "fair" way of handling rewards in that it benefits certain archetypes of characters more than others. It incentivises grinding even more. The other option to get rich is crafting and selling.

There are several ways of playing this game, where you're adding to the RP environment and become influential in some way or another, and still always remain dirt poor.

If, however, you hope to receive a reward at some point and want to improve your chances, you're forced to bend your character into either grinding, or becoming a wall street shark - In addition to being forced to micromanage things you as a player perhaps do not enjoy.

That is why I think, there ought to be a different approach.

Thoughts, suggestions?

[Echohawk]

There isn't a reward for being a leader of the guard, or a leader of a settlement. (Unless it's some kind of weird pride/ooc thing.)
And there isn't really a way to quantify or really ultimately verify someone's 'contribution' to the narrative and setting.

It's fair to admit that the current structure is a grind and dump sort of scheme, a choice made by each individual. But how can we take into account the stories that a character engages in? The number of DM scenes that they have? RPR?

[DM Avalon Soul]

Admittedly I can see where you are coming from. Though to some degree if you are taking a character to the point of level thirty (30) and have played them for an extended enough period of time, would you not have either by nescessity or design of character done at least one of those to some degree?

I can think of one idea that comes to mind but I'll let others add their two coppers in before I throw a personal opinion into this mix.

[The Rambling Midget]

The original reason for the increase in award chance, as I understand it, was not to reward rich characters, but to disincentivize bequeathing the entirety of your gold and material possessions to your closest friends when retiring your character. It makes no sense to give away all of your stuff when you're going to continue living the rest of your live beyond deletion, IC, but OOCly there's no loss.

You could change that, or add in other ways to boost your chance, but just know that you're always going to be trading one problem for another.

[Revelations]

The original reason for the increase in award chance, as I understand it, was not to reward rich characters, but to disincentivize bequeathing the entirety of your gold and material possessions to your closest friends when retiring your character. It makes no sense to give away all of your stuff when you're going to continue living the rest of your live beyond deletion, IC, but OOCly there's no loss.

You could change that, or add in other ways to boost your chance, but just know that you're always going to be trading one problem for another.

That makes sense.

Perhaps keep it, but add other ways?

[Halibutthead]

Well, if we added other ways and increased the maximum, do you think this would solve your (or [the], if you prefer, I'm just posing a question) problem, or just shift it, since you would still get a bonus for being rich?

And if we added another way and kept the maximum, wouldnt that just open the door to unsolving the original problem?

[The GrumpyCat]

The number of DM scenes that they have? RPR?

Dm scenes would probably just mean people badger us for rp, or else start accusations of Dm favoritism.
Raising it slightly with RPR isn't a... terrible idea. But at the same time a) again accusations of DM favoritism. and b) in a way rpr already helps you get a 5%, becaues the higher your rpr, the more xp you gain. The more xp you gain, the faster you level. The faster you level, the quicker you can -delete_character and get that roll for the 5% award.

I think the fundamental problem is it's a choice between:
a) Do we increase the chances due to mechanical reasons (E.g. Gold, Amount of PvP kills, Amount of runes in Inventory, amount of adventure xp saved up ect)? - Which has the drawback of what the origional poster is suggesting - basicaly it by no means reflects the quality of the rp of the character.
b) Do we increase the chances due to Roleplay Reasons (e.g. RPR, DM Scenes, Votes from Other Players, ect) In which case it becomes open to accusations of Biias. Either Dm side (Bob only has a 40 rpr because they play with Grumpycat playerside!') or Playerside. ('Archon only got that 5% roll because all the cyracist players clubbed together ooc to get him it! grrr!')

[Royal Blood]

Idk about DM favoritism, I think Arelith is often held hostage by 'hypothetical' situations. DnD has DMs you have to listen to the DM. If you don't like the DM don't play. I wouldn't not do something on Arelith because some block head might at some point make an accusation. That just leaves us in a stalemate too afraid to make any changes.

Regarding the issue at hand, it's always sorta hard to gauge what 'good' role play is I don't know how that could be evaluated better there's flaws with all of it, and perception plays such a big roll in it, what's cool to one person might make 0 sense to another.

Atleast with gold that is even handed. Everyone has roughly the same opportunity to become wealthy as anyone else.

[Hazard]

I think we should avoid any scenario in which someone could feel there is favoritism.

[Ork]

Idk about DM favoritism, I think Arelith is often held hostage by 'hypothetical' situations. DnD has DMs you have to listen to the DM. If you don't like the DM don't play. I wouldn't not do something on Arelith because some block head might at some point make an accusation. That just leaves us in a stalemate too afraid to make any changes.

It doesn't really pan out like traditional D&D. And trust me these situations are far from hypothetical. DM favoritism use to be the leading cause of community downfalls back when Bioware helmed this platform.

[Hazard]

Idk about DM favoritism, I think Arelith is often held hostage by 'hypothetical' situations. DnD has DMs you have to listen to the DM. If you don't like the DM don't play. I wouldn't not do something on Arelith because some block head might at some point make an accusation. That just leaves us in a stalemate too afraid to make any changes.

It doesn't really pan out like traditional D&D. And trust me these situations are far from hypothetical. DM favoritism use to be the leading cause of community downfalls back when Bioware helmed this platform.

It is true. The main server I played on in NWN's youth died for that reason. It can tear a community apart.

[Kalopsia]

I could imagine this bonus being tied to the actual play time of a character.

Add an activity counter for every character. Every non-afk server tick increases the counter by 1. Every 500 ticks add +1% chance for a major award. This bonus percentage could even remain unlimited, in which case 42500 ticks - roughly 4250 hours of play time - and 1,000,000gp would equal a 100% chance for a major award.

Additionally, the current counter status could possibly be displayed with the first usage of -delete_character, as well as a command like: -delete_character ?

The server can already recognize afk players, so all this could probably be scripted with a rather small time investment.

[Miskol]

I could imagine this bonus being tied to the actual play time of a character.

Add an activity counter for every character. Every non-afk server tick increases the counter by 1. Every 500 ticks add +1% chance for a major award. This bonus percentage could even remain unlimited, in which case 42500 ticks - roughly 4250 hours of play time - and 1,000,000gp would equal a 100% chance for a major award.

Additionally, the current counter status could possibly be displayed with the first usage of -delete_character, as well as a command like: -delete_character ?

The server can already recognize afk players, so all this could probably be scripted with a rather small time investment.

I would agree with this idea. It would reward players for committing to long term RP rather than short life cycle bursts.

[Ecthelion]

I may a bit out of it there, but isn't it fairly easy to acquire one million in gold+items ? I've got people telling me 500k can be done in 5 hours.

If the point is to go beyond the 10%, it makes it a bit easy to get, otherwise ...
Perhaps, though, what would be great would be to rise the chances when you roll multiple times ?
(For exemple if someone rolled ten chars and never had a reward, it feels a bit ...)
Someone made simulations on 100 players rolling, and most of them got a reward in less than 10 attempts. Though, some sits at 70 attemps and so on.
Though I have no idea if the number of rolled char without getting a major is trackable in any way.

[Xerah]

I'm all for putting more control of things in DM hands (I don't think DM favouritism is a reasonable complaint in most cases--it's silly to hold things back because of "what-ifs"). It would be nice if DMs could add a chance for when you roll. Unlike RPR, this would only be tied to the character itself. Regardless of what my RPR is, I know certain characters of mine are more impactful on the world.

[TimeAdept]

Idk about DM favoritism, I think Arelith is often held hostage by 'hypothetical' situations. DnD has DMs you have to listen to the DM. If you don't like the DM don't play. I wouldn't not do something on Arelith because some block head might at some point make an accusation. That just leaves us in a stalemate too afraid to make any changes.

It doesn't really pan out like traditional D&D. And trust me these situations are far from hypothetical. DM favoritism use to be the leading cause of community downfalls back when Bioware helmed this platform.

Still is, fam. Still is.

[dominantdrowess]

I personally am not for RPR being a favortism tool on rolling.

Reason being:
- This can cause a lot of characters we like, and who have a positive impact to be rolled more often than ones that do not.

Likewise, part of my enjoyment of Arelith compared to some other servers is that my day to day life is not affected by DM's and DM events as often as it is by players and player events. I like the current tool as a PERCENTAGE of "player oddities" ... I think it is a terrible idea to limit -- even partially limit -- these just to the abstract measure of how good a roleplayer DMs think they are, and as someone who knows several people who'd benefit from that ... I /still/ think it's a bad idea.

I think it is far better an idea, and probably far healthier for the economy of the setting if gold values ABOVE one million gold started being counted with diminishing returns.

Level 26 (+1%)
Level 27 (+2%)
Level 28 (+3%)
Level 29 (+4%)
Level 30 (+5%)

First 200,000: (+1%)
400,000 (+2%)
600,000 (+3%)
800,000 (+4%)
1,000,000 (+5%)
Two million (+6%)
Four million (+7%)
Eight million (+8%)

And so on. These numbers are not ideal, and probably need to be adjusted more on a bell-curve rather than doubled continuously, but I am sure there are math-wizards out there like Kalopsia or our amazing Dev team who are far smarter than me who can come up with better exact numbers.

The idea is to try to take all this excess gold out of the economy without harming the baseline system. I liked Kalopsia's idea.

There are some factions out there in excess of 40 million gold, and I believe reducing some of these big spenders who casually yoink up overpriced runes for their personal bodyguards would lower prices across the server to be more manageable for the average player. Being able to dump large amounts of gold and just "throw money" at problems is incredibly bad for any economy.

[Lunargent]

I'm all for putting more control of things in DM hands (I don't think DM favouritism is a reasonable complaint in most cases--it's silly to hold things back because of "what-ifs"). It would be nice if DMs could add a chance for when you roll. Unlike RPR, this would only be tied to the character itself. Regardless of what my RPR is, I know certain characters of mine are more impactful on the world.

I wholeheartedly disagree. Before the 'automation' of rolling/the reward system, 5% rolls were controlled by Admins and (mysteriously!) only people the Admins liked actually got the rolls. It eventually came to light that certain people paid for them in large server donations. This is actually the origin of the Iron Citadel guildhouse in the Abyss, it was essentially bought by Keth Naburis. It isn't a 'what if'. It happened. Adding DM oversight to the system in any way would just be repeating the mistakes of the past. Let's keep things fair and pseudorandom.

As someone who doesn't often grind, I get the frustration with a gold/gear-based "bonus", but frankly I feel that it is too easy to get this bonus and the increase is too big. I know a lot of people who have 5%s these days, and someone who has gotten multiple just by playing, not 'grinding' for the rewards. It's a fair point to discourage the distribution of gear, but I really feel the bonus the gold total adds should be made smaller.

[Hazard]

I personally am not for RPR being a favortism tool on rolling.

Reason being:
- This can cause a lot of characters we like, and who have a positive impact to be rolled more often than ones that do not.

Likewise, part of my enjoyment of Arelith compared to some other servers is that my day to day life is not affected by DM's and DM events as often as it is by players and player events. I like the current tool as a PERCENTAGE of "player oddities" ... I think it is a terrible idea to limit -- even partially limit -- these just to the abstract measure of how good a roleplayer DMs think they are, and as someone who knows several people who'd benefit from that ... I /still/ think it's a bad idea.

I think it is far better an idea, and probably far healthier for the economy of the setting if gold values ABOVE one million gold started being counted with diminishing returns.

Level 26 (+1%)
Level 27 (+2%)
Level 28 (+3%)
Level 29 (+4%)
Level 30 (+5%)

First 200,000: (+1%)
400,000 (+2%)
600,000 (+3%)
800,000 (+4%)
1,000,000 (+5%)
Two million (+6%)
Four million (+7%)
Eight million (+8%)

And so on. These numbers are not ideal, and probably need to be adjusted more on a bell-curve rather than doubled continuously, but I am sure there are math-wizards out there like Kalopsia or our amazing Dev team who are far smarter than me who can come up with better exact numbers.

The idea is to try to take all this excess gold out of the economy without harming the baseline system. I liked Kalopsia's idea.

There are some factions out there in excess of 40 million gold, and I believe reducing some of these big spenders who casually yoink up overpriced runes for their personal bodyguards would lower prices across the server to be more manageable for the average player. Being able to dump large amounts of gold and just "throw money" at problems is incredibly bad for any economy.

I like this.

[dominantdrowess]

@Lunargent
Well said, case and point.

[The GrumpyCat]

Here is a crazy idea!

How about at character creation, put in a new Mark of Destiny type item. Maybe call it 'Mark of Rebirth' or something. This can be taken by anyone with an rpr of 20 or more*
Like the Mark of Dispair, this mark gives no extra ticks, and after a certain amount of deaths (e.g. 10) your character is perminently deleted.
However, when this happens, if your character is level 26+ they get an extra percentage to their roll.


* RPR 10's can apply for it too from Dms, but must do so early on in creation. The reason for this is soley to ensure that new players don't take it by mistake and get disenheartened.

[dominantdrowess]

I think that encourages the grind mentality and throw away characters rather than helping the community or economy Grumpy cat.

[The Rambling Midget]

I think that encourages the grind mentality and throw away characters rather than helping the community or economy Grumpy cat.

I agree, but just about anything that doesn't involve direct DM oversight is going to somehow encourage grinding.

You'll never stop people from grinding for awards, so I'd rather focus on making things more fun for those who don't, as long as things don't get too exploitable.

[Xerah]

I wholeheartedly disagree. Before the 'automation' of rolling/the reward system, 5% rolls were controlled by Admins and (mysteriously!) only people the Admins liked actually got the rolls. It eventually came to light that certain people paid for them in large server donations. This is actually the origin of the Iron Citadel guildhouse in the Abyss, it was essentially bought by Keth Naburis. It isn't a 'what if'. It happened. Adding DM oversight to the system in any way would just be repeating the mistakes of the past. Let's keep things fair and pseudorandom.

I still highly disagree. One case that happened 5 (10?) years ago doesn't prove that the system cannot work. I doubt the same team is in charge of that.

I ran/built/DMed on a server off and on for 14 years (it's still active) that does not allow progression past level 20 except by token from a DM. Are their claims of favoritism? Of course. However, people only see part of the picture and make assumptions about the rest. It was clearly laid out what DMs were looking for, so we favoured people that engaged in that type of play style (hint, it's no different than what gets you high RPR here). It's still a successful PW after all this time (granted with less population than Arelith).

For me, it feels bad rolling a long term character and getting a normal reward. A character that was highly involved in the server and the setting. For example, wouldn't it be lame if Thane Ghest rolled and got a normal reward after all that time (maybe he did, I don't know)? Then Gritty the Ginder makes a goblin and rolls @26 in 18h and gets a major reward just seems extra lame.

[Kalopsia]

I think that encourages the grind mentality and throw away characters rather than helping the community or economy Grumpy cat.

I agree, but just about anything that doesn't involve direct DM oversight is going to somehow encourage grinding.

You'll never stop people from grinding for awards, so I'd rather focus on making things more fun for those who don't, as long as things don't get too exploitable.

Grinding is done mostly because it's deemed as more "efficient" than playing the game differently.
That's why I think time needs to be factored in - a time-dependent bonus percentage for the award roll would not benefit grind characters, as those tend to be rolled very quickly. It would, however, benefit people playing long-term characters and concepts.

Of course, some players can't invest too many hours into this game - and a time-based solution would be unfair for them.
But said people also lack the time to grind for awards and more often than it's completely impossible for them to create award characters.


The more I think about it, the more I wonder if an award system can even cater to all kinds of players simultaneously.