Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2015 8:32:53 GMT -5
You can't discredit all complaints as whining. Invisibility is problematic because an entire slew of classes have literally nothing they can possibly do against it, and because spells can be cast from invisibility without the caster appearing. Hide is a problem for the former reason but doesn't have the latter issue of being able to harm people without breaking stealth. All offensive magic should break invis, and all classes should have an option of doing a lengthy search at least while indoors which will eventually result in a decent chance at revealing anything hidden or invisible if they don't move.
Forcing feelings on other players is bad if it's done to the point where the mindbender basically hijacks their roleplay. It can be so frustrating if a psi decides you're interesting and goes overboard, making your character feel things that have nothing to do with what you would be interested in roleplaying. Like if someone is playing an angry character and somebody forces them to be happy and it's just like, why? You're simply changing someone's character with no real goal.
It's a common thing that happens with newbie psions because they're not yet comfortable doing anything more elaborate, so they test the waters by just making people feel random shit. Often they'll simply make the person feel the opposite of what their roleplay indicates, so someone roleplaying sadness will be made to feel happy. If they pick the same target often, the player of that character will quickly feel like they're not really playing their own character anymore because everything they do is just cancelled and there's no point trying to roleplay anything.
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Jeshin
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Post by Jeshin on Jan 28, 2015 9:13:13 GMT -5
Well lets examine that shall we? We leave the Tuluki militia and Faithful RP alone. Tuluk is already underplayed and it's not improving. They have already attempted various other cosmetic fixes like uniforms, gating the city, wiping out clans, and so on so forth. I don't think the whole it's not going to help so do nothing approach is really valid this late in the game of changes being made.
Now lets look at the forced feelings and counter character. We're presuming a mindbender who is either inept or doesn't understand roleplay. A faithful shouldn't care if you're happy or your sex life is good or you have a murderous rage. They care about your loyalty and efficiency as a soldier. That is a much vaguer aspect and lets be honest if you join the Legions with some kind of traitorous intent the Faithful should just kick you out or disappear you so in theory it should be completely in line with your character concept if you aren't kicked out or killed.
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Jeshin
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Post by Jeshin on Jan 28, 2015 9:20:15 GMT -5
Back on topic: One of the things that annoy me are anti-role concepts. I'm a bard that doesn't Sing. I'm a Bynner that doesn't want money or to fight. I'm an Agent that doesn't care about doing anything but taking orders. I'm a Noble with no clear vision or plan to push plots instead I will sit here and do nothing.
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Post by someguy on Jan 28, 2015 9:22:49 GMT -5
...I think Tuluk is improving... A lot actually.
And the few rare times I've had a mindbender put feelings into a PC of mine, I ran with it and it was fun. In fact, it added a lot depth to my character and made it more polarizing. Granted they didn't control how my character interpreted those feelings... But still.
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Post by jcarter on Jan 28, 2015 10:26:56 GMT -5
I know, and people complain about it. That's my point. They don't want the staff forcing emotions on the PCs. People complain about invisible whirans being impervious to attack. Other people claim that's their only defense and they're otherwise as vulnerable as a tregil to anything with a weapon. No matter what kind of added "power" you give one group or another, you will find a group of people whining about it. And no matter what kind of power you take away from one group or another, you will find a group of people whining about it. Of course if you leave things the way they are, you'll find people whining about it. The logical response, then, is to leave things as they are. That involves the least amount of effort for the exact same result. literally no one is trying to make the argument that you're going to satisfy 100% of the playerbase. the 'logical response' is to evaluate the criticisms, see if there's a need for a solution, and implement a solution that can satisfy the majority of the playerbase to reduce complaints. if your response to complains and criticism is to say feh always gonna be whiners and sit on your hands, then you do not belong in a managerial role. |
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Post by lyse on Jan 28, 2015 10:59:29 GMT -5
...I think Tuluk is improving... A lot actually. And the few rare times I've had a mindbender put feelings into a PC of mine, I ran with it and it was fun. In fact, it added a lot depth to my character and made it more polarizing. Granted they didn't control how my character interpreted those feelings... But still. Tuluk isn't that bad, it's a victim of its own docs and is caught in a bad cycle though. Blocking off areas of the city might not have been the best of ideas. It might've even benefitted from having a new section added called the "alienage". I stole that from DA:O, but a whole quarter just for immigrants, tribals and foreigners a sort of anything goes area. Not the 'rinth though because FaciPolice State. They still could do something like that with the Warrens. But as it stands, Tuluk is hard as hell to play as a non-Tuluki. We get the whole "ewwwww foreigner" thing, that's fine and that makes sense in the game world. But from an ooc standpoint, wtf? You really can't do anything. Since Tuluk kind of died a while back, people stopped playing there. Let's face it though, most people like to pop in from time to time. When you go there and it appears empty or worse still a little derpy in the places you're allowed you're going to think "I'm not apping my next character there." Then you have that small group that knows what to play there, that play mostly in the places you can't go saying "There's lots of rp going on in Tuluk." It makes it seem a little too insular even from an ooc standpoint. What has to happen in Tuluk is it has to say: IC "We don't want you here" OOC "We want you here". On paper Tuluk should be a hotbed for plots and intrigue. In practice......ehhhhh. I thought the judge Dredd Templar and Lyksaen sergeant role calls were a little funny, because who you gonna judge dredd on? The concept is great, but where are you going to get people to beat up on? In the beginning it has to come from immigrants, because most people don't play there. So something has to happen to make people want to play there again. TL;DR Yeah, it's better than it was a year ago. But it's still missing that thing to make it pop. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2015 11:14:56 GMT -5
They definitely need to get rid of the citizen-only gates, at least, and probably the same for the Sanctuary.
The gate thing just means absolutely nobody is ever going to consider playing a non-citizen in Tuluk unless it's some 100% city-bound role, and who's gonna play a foreigner who can't be employed and also can't go hunting/grebbing? People liked to go to Tuluk with their tribals, their random assassins for the grasslands grind, Luir's people who don't join Kurac, and occasionally a southerner who wants to run with the "southerner in Tuluk" trope. GMHs liked to send their people to Tuluk now and then to hunt. These things are all but impossible now as only one gate is available to non-citizens, and absolutely fuck-all of any use is accessed from that gate except the road away from the fucking place.
It's so monumentally stupid, and it ensures that a whole slew of people who would otherwise consider Tuluk are going to play elsewhere instead. This in turn means some will decline to play in Tuluk precisely because they know there'll be nothing but boring, loyal citizens in the city, never any foreigners to rag on or tribals to make things a little exotic. This ensures a smaller playerbase, and that alone will further discourage some because the sheer size of the playerbase has a great deal to do with how many will play there. What you're left with is only the players who have a burning desire to play concepts that can absolutely only work as a Tuluki citizen. Needless to say, that's not even slightly close to enough.
And what did all this accomplish? Did they really improve the place? As far as I can tell, they've done next to nothing about the things that actually caused problems in Tuluk, i.e. the fact that "don't talk about things" is hugely antithesis to roleplay and the fact that the place has such a bland, shallow culture. The city lacks things like a mercenary outfit, a proper lawless area and a conflict-generating social structure. Instead they change the physical layout of the city and the shadow artist thing which nobody has ever complained about and almost never becomes relevant to anyone's roleplay.
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Kronibas 2.0
Displaced Tuluki
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Post by Kronibas 2.0 on Jan 28, 2015 11:59:15 GMT -5
Meh I kinda like the gates
Would rather play with my pure tuluki girlfriends than some dirty twink tribals
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jkarr
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Post by jkarr on Jan 28, 2015 12:17:34 GMT -5
The city lacks things like a mercenary outfit, a proper lawless area and a conflict-generating social structure. Instead they change the physical layout of the city and the shadow artist thing which nobody has ever complained about and almost never becomes relevant to anyone's roleplay. someone said the byn are active up there now otherwise agree with all the rest |
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Post by lyse on Jan 28, 2015 18:29:23 GMT -5
They definitely need to get rid of the citizen-only gates, at least, and probably the same for the Sanctuary. The gate thing just means absolutely nobody is ever going to consider playing a non-citizen in Tuluk unless it's some 100% city-bound role, and who's gonna play a foreigner who can't be employed and also can't go hunting/grebbing? People liked to go to Tuluk with their tribals, their random assassins for the grasslands grind, Luir's people who don't join Kurac, and occasionally a southerner who wants to run with the "southerner in Tuluk" trope. GMHs liked to send their people to Tuluk now and then to hunt. These things are all but impossible now as only one gate is available to non-citizens, and absolutely fuck-all of any use is accessed from that gate except the road away from the fucking place. It's so monumentally stupid, and it ensures that a whole slew of people who would otherwise consider Tuluk are going to play elsewhere instead. This in turn means some will decline to play in Tuluk precisely because they know there'll be nothing but boring, loyal citizens in the city, never any foreigners to rag on or tribals to make things a little exotic. This ensures a smaller playerbase, and that alone will further discourage some because the sheer size of the playerbase has a great deal to do with how many will play there. What you're left with is only the players who have a burning desire to play concepts that can absolutely only work as a Tuluki citizen. Needless to say, that's not even slightly close to enough. And what did all this accomplish? Did they really improve the place? As far as I can tell, they've done next to nothing about the things that actually caused problems in Tuluk, i.e. the fact that "don't talk about things" is hugely antithesis to roleplay and the fact that the place has such a bland, shallow culture. The city lacks things like a mercenary outfit, a proper lawless area and a conflict-generating social structure. Instead they change the physical layout of the city and the shadow artist thing which nobody has ever complained about and almost never becomes relevant to anyone's roleplay. Those gates could have easily been an RP opportunity too. Let's not call them gates let's call them checkpoints, sure you can pass through even if you're a non citizen, but it sends an alert to any legion or Templar that's online if you are a non citizen. It sends a psi to them with their mdesc and which checkpoint they passed though, now Judge Dredd can come harass Joe Grebber or not if he chooses too. |
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Post by sirra on Jan 28, 2015 23:24:17 GMT -5
I know, and people complain about it. That's my point. They don't want the staff forcing emotions on the PCs. People complain about invisible whirans being impervious to attack. Other people claim that's their only defense and they're otherwise as vulnerable as a tregil to anything with a weapon. No matter what kind of added "power" you give one group or another, you will find a group of people whining about it. And no matter what kind of power you take away from one group or another, you will find a group of people whining about it. Of course if you leave things the way they are, you'll find people whining about it. The logical response, then, is to leave things as they are. That involves the least amount of effort for the exact same result. literally no one is trying to make the argument that you're going to satisfy 100% of the playerbase. the 'logical response' is to evaluate the criticisms, see if there's a need for a solution, and implement a solution that can satisfy the majority of the playerbase to reduce complaints. if your response to complains and criticism is to say feh always gonna be whiners and sit on your hands, then you do not belong in a managerial role. It's stunning sometimes, how many people who inevitably rise to 'management' positions in any kind of online game or community, thoroughly do not belong in a managerial role. You'd think it would happen occasionally, but it's really more the rule than the exception. Since the exceptions inevitably burn out or move on with their lives shortly thereafter. |
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Jeshin
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Post by Jeshin on Jan 28, 2015 23:34:42 GMT -5
Okay something that really grinds my gears: Staff do not crowd source plot ideas or ideas in general from the playerbase. Threads discussing changes or improvements are normally poopoo'd and snarked into oblivion. I am the first to acknowledge that not all suggestions are good or even helpful there is a lot of things lost there.
1. By even remotely tapping into the playerbase for inspiration it creates a WORKING relationship between staff and player. It creates goodwill. It creates a collaborative bond.
2. Nothing will get a player more invested in a game than to think that their ideas for a story, NPC, item, plot, or whatever are being used by the staff. Even if the suggestion is changed to prevent foreknowledge issues.
3. The STs on ARM can be extraordinary and as the majority of STs are sourced directly from the playerbase and then return to it I think it's a good ancedotal proof that the playerbase knows what it's doing (to a degree).
Query: I'd be super curious to know how many players have been made STs over the entire history of ARM. Or perhaps what % of players overall have held ST positions (and not risen higher)
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delerak
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Post by delerak on Jan 29, 2015 0:21:04 GMT -5
Ballpark figure probably 20-30% of the pbase has probably been on staff.
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Jeshin
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Post by Jeshin on Jan 29, 2015 8:56:41 GMT -5
 So about 20-30% of the ideas are worth reading. There you go staff, big time saver for your volunteer asses. |
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Post by BitterFlashback on Jan 29, 2015 9:39:38 GMT -5
So about 20-30% of the ideas are worth reading. There you go staff, big time saver for your unpaid volunteer asses. Fixed that for you. |
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So about 20-30% of the ideas are worth reading. There you go staff, big time saver for your volunteer asses.