Catchup Systems

[renowner]

Here i'd like to talk about some suggestions I have for what I believe the biggest problem to be in games with no stat cap, such as this one. People who can't devote many hours to the game can't fully enjoy it. They have no chance.

Throughout the duration of this post i'll be using a certain individual who I will not name as an example. This person has to work twelve hour days and still remains the most RPly active player in the server despite only having up to two hours per day to devote to it.

Let's compare mister anonymous with an equal human, of equal mods, and equal power. Let's say this person is able to play four hours each day though, to Anonymous' average of two. Anonymous spends most of his time trading, RPing with others, promoting a fun story and managing a clan. He only manages to get thirty minutes of spar/mob fight training a day. With little bursts of self training/meditation AFKing. Person B spends a full two hours sparring and fighting NPCs, as he's more interested in fighting things than RPing. He makes not as many friends, doesn't impact the world as much, but still devotes a good hour to RPing with others, even if its mostly sparring. He's still a good player for the server, but the problem lies that at this rate person b will be gaining far more than the more helpful person A(nonymous.)  Now you might say person b deserves this as he spends all his time training, and that's a fair point, but let's say person B rps just as much, just as well, but STILL has a full extra two hours o fight and train just because Anonymous has work, and can't devote too much time to the game. No matter what, Anonymous will likely fall below everyone else in his age group. And this is a shame, eventually his ability to enjoy the game as a whole will be tested, and although he's a truly nice individual who likely will stick with the game, if only to learn witchcrafting, I Feel like these type of people deserve at least a decent chance at making a truly great name for themselves in combat too. And its with this thought that I propose the following catch up implementations:

The point of these systems are not so everyone can reach power comparable to the strongest person, but so that those without as much time to spend on the game can still become stronger than the -average- populace. Those who devote their full time to training, and maintain their higher transformations will of course still be the cream of the crop, but now we'll have useful minions, support characters, wives, husbands, blacksmiths and trainers now too! Since they won't have to devote 95% of their free game time to training, they can continue to enrich our rp world with their ideas, such as a lust demon brotherl. "Get your op kids, all it will cost is two and a half years of your life! Preserve you bloodline with the power of a demoness!" or, a clan purely based off of networking certain groups and businesses together. "Man, I could really use some ore for my metals hop!" Well here sir, clan Smithy devotes years to simply gathering the finest craftables! I'll give you their address! (which reminds me, x,y,z, coordinate system we can see please? Its already in game, there's a warp verb! Maybe a map we can buy that lets us see where we are on the plane?) But I digress.

,The system I propose would give people limited increased gain rates for being offline for a significant amount of time. Twelve hours to twenty four hours. Twelve giving 30 minutes increased gains, and a full 24 hours+ giving a full hour. This could be drawn out between maybe 8-32 hours or something, but its just a general guideline for my idea. During this time the person would gain, (given this some thought, and i'm thinking 5x stat gains would allow them to still be viable, without being broken, as if they use the full half hour, they still get 2.5 hours of training for only 30 minutes of their short time, if they only play every 12 hours or so. you'd get 5 hours of training in 1 hour for being away 24 hours.   If you do the 8 hour system, perhaps 8 hours would be 5 minutes of increased gains, so everyone can feel happy about gaining well after a good night's sleep! And it would provoke people to joining every day too, if only for a little. Great for server promotion, amirite? ;P  

It should also have a toggle so they don't waste all their gains when they're busy RPing, or it defeats the whole purpose of this, to allow good players and RPers to catch up. (Believe it or not he people with the lowest amount of time to spare usually tend to RP the most. My wife for example, who I RP with every day only plays 30 minutes a day. My brother clan's master, anonymous, only plays around two hours a day, and rps just about all that time, or focuses on OOC/helps with the forums. And that's why I find it profoundly unfair they don't get to gain much, and can't really become viable. )

Now I'm not promoting a stat ranking system Anonymous himself, and just about everyone including myself thinks that is a bad system. I however think its only a bad system FOR THIS GAME. it still remains to be one of my favorite catch-up systems in most any game. But this game is more focused on generational gameplay, and I don't believe it would work out well, when we have kids equaling adults and the like. However I will stress one final time that I still  believe people with small amounts of free time should be able to catch up WHILE still being able to actively participate roleplay, without sacrificing their character in the process. Stats are -incredibly- important in this game, hell Oras only serve  to widen the gap usually, since they multiply differences even greater still!

Another thing i'd like to suggest is a changing of the current RPP system, or perhaps, an addition. Perhaps they could be used to ascend a player to the server stat average, (or since that would likely be a bitch to code, an still make kids op if they have RPP,) the soft cap. After reaching your soft caps, then they'd go back to being used for increased gains. Perhaps at 10x server gain speed per 10 points to ascend to the soft cap? I"m unsure how that would translate, but you're the coder, not me.  I propose another way to use the soft cap system since it doesn't actually help people with LOW amounts of time catch up. Even if you're at half the power of your opponent, you're not gonna win in my experience. Especially since they've likely mastered a greater Ora than you. Its good in concept, and in practice. But only for people who get to play the same amount of time. Not for those who don't have a lot of time to spare.

Now if this RPP system is implemented, since I haven't seen RPP given out besides being "unlocked" (With unlock power) perhaps the earlier catchup system, if too much of a bitch/too hard to code could be scrapped, in lieu of awarding a set amount of RPP to people who haven't been online in a long time. Perhaps making them have to emote/say a certain amount of characters (yes its abusable but it also promotes RP anyway.) for them to get their paycheck of RPPs so they can catch up. Now AFK training would STILL be useful at this point, since its still the best way to master moves (even though makyuu is super easy to master, i'm sure there will be others.) and gain weapon mastery. It would just help those without much time catch up, again.


Finally, I know this might not be the -best- way to implement fair catchups for people with less spare time to devote to this awesome game, but its all I've been able to think of so far. And I hope you at least realize I -have- put a decent amount of thought into this post. I appreciate all of your ideas and criticisms, but I Strongly feel there needs to be a way for our beloved RPers to still maintain a decently strong character if they can only spare a few hours each day, or even a handful a week. They should be allowed to contribute fully to our world, our boundless realm, in a fair way that gives them a chance.

Thank you for taking the time to read this far, I hope you at least found my post interesting.

 

That Renowner guy

[Solus13]

I am not sure how others feel about this, but personally I think RPP should be a reward for dong something specatcular in rp. Beating an EC or event, finding/rp a potions creation for the first time, toppling a rival clan with wit charm and might, ect. To make it for something as mundane as catching people up feels a bit wrong, to me at least.

Now don't get me wrong, giving those with limited time a way to stay at least semi relevant so that they may rp without having to worry there character is fodder is great. Yet it mist be done in a manner that does not invalidate those who have worked hard to make their characters powerful. If you train your ass off only for someone who plays infrequently to pass you in power because of some aid system that player that devoted there time will get frustrated.

I agree there are many fringe rolls that these time constricted player could take up. Yet now there is no safe zone the issue is how are they going to do social rolls when they can be attacked at any time and will not have the stats of the average player.