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Post by jcarter on Jan 31, 2019 14:25:39 GMT -5
I thought as much. That's where the clash with stats stems from, I suppose. In tabletop d&d, the precursor of muds and roleplaying in general, you roll dice to assign your stats. And while theoretically, it's possible to roll all highs. In general, there will be low rolls somewhere. And it would be embarrassingly "lame", if one of the players suddenly totally lost interest in that character. Situations are a little different, of course. Mainly, the other players and the DM are not sitting right in front of you, watching you lame out. But this is where a portion of people seeing unpredictable stats and finding it agreeable come from. The clash with stats stems from it being a stupid and outdated system. Give everyone a racial starting point and allow them to add or subtract points from it within a fixed amount. There's no compelling reason why a character should be gimped or overpowered based on a single dice roll. Brokkr and the rest of staff are fucking morons because this point should be quite evident, and it should be evident that no one enjoys this process. Players don't want to waste time suiciding characters, and it's a waste of staff time to approve a character that will be suicided on a bad roll. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together would see that it's an unnecessary holdover that should get removed, and everyone wins. Instead, Arm staff are gonna do what Arm staff do and work to punish players rather than make their game a better experience because they're too near-sighted to realize the purpose of a game should be to have fun, not enforce dumb systems nobody likes. Comparing it to D&D is stupid, because there's always a GM present who can and should be superseding rules in the name of player enjoyment. |
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Post by shakes on Jan 31, 2019 15:33:14 GMT -5
I want to argue with you ... but rereading your commentary has forced me to concede some of your points.
I don't particularly play to "win". I play to have fun. Sometimes dying is going to be fun for me. Particularly when I'm already bored with that character (high stats or low stats).
It does suck when you're not ready to die and you have some shitty low stats that makes your advanced skills more or less meaningless.
But I can't bring myself to play the way most people play Armageddon. Combat character? Spend 12 RL weeks in the Byn, only logging in to spar and then logging out before latrine roleplay. Don't engage with anyone socially or politically until you hit master across the board. That's just too boring.
I have actually had people get furious with me in game when I didn't use the Way to communicate a plot but instead whispered to them while we were at the same table. Dude. Give someone else a chance to use their listen skill and uncover your plots! Let yourself fail politically sometimes. I absolutely get so sick of some of these risk-adverse people who literally sit around and do nothing, just clogging up the game for everyone else. And if you ever even LOOK like you might put their precious snowflake at risk they are super fast to put an end to you.
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Post by jcarter on Jan 31, 2019 16:06:37 GMT -5
But I can't bring myself to play the way most people play Armageddon. Combat character? Spend 12 RL weeks in the Byn, only logging in to spar and then logging out before latrine roleplay. Don't engage with anyone socially or politically until you hit master across the board. That's just too boring. you're 100% right with this -- it is boring as hell and not fun. it is a lot of work and effort to get a character up to a competent level, which is why players will spend the few hours of initial effort to get optimal stats in order to make sure the next several hundreds bear fruit. that's nice you don't play to win, but you're in the extreme minority. there's no way i, and I wager most other people, are going to spend hundreds of hours building something only for it to be destroyed if it's within my power to avoid it. |
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Post by shakes on Jan 31, 2019 16:18:31 GMT -5
It's not nice, it's just my nature. I am going to get bored with a character at about 3-5 days played, no matter how awesome they are in skills and stats. I have no interest at all in the investment of hundreds of hours in building something.
I know that it's self-limiting in this game, and I'm fine with that.
I wish you could get a few tradeoffs in chargen. I wish chargen was more complex. Start at age 50 and suffer the detriments of aging on your stats, but get a boost to your starting skills. Or maybe a perk-negative system like Cataclysm-DDA. Start as a runaway slave? Here's 15 skill points to spend where you want. Start with a missing hand? Here's 20. A more complex, robust system where you can really design the character you want.
Brokkr redesigned the guild system. He's clearly got the coding chops to develop something like that.
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Post by gringoose on Jan 31, 2019 18:16:02 GMT -5
Low agility won't handicap you. Anything less than AI agility is next to useless anyway. And you can almost guarantee AI agility by playing an elf or starting out very young. Only being able to carry 5 items in your inventory isn't the end of everything. It's not even an inconvenience because why would you keep items in your inventory anyway? That's basically the only penalty for low agility. My strongest ever PC had poor agility and AI strength and nothing could get past his parry. If you roll shitty agi but have EG+ str and a decent hit roll definitely don't suicide.
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Jeshin
GDB Superstar
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Post by Jeshin on Feb 1, 2019 1:39:43 GMT -5
D&D was the genesis of MUDs this is true.
It is also true that 4-10 player D&D sessions with all players present at one time are not a persistent game world with players outnumbering DMs and playing at different times than them.
MMOs evolved from MUDs and they CLEARLY do not carry the same baggage that MUDs supposedly carry.
MUDs have evolved beyond the original tabletop genesis as they should.
If you want to see why addressing structural problems in original game systems is important just look at MUSHes and World of Darkness. The WoD setting is a narrative leaning game that does EXTREMELY poorly when the group of players is not playing for the same gameplay experience. You have Mages (super power) and Vampires and unaware humans and this and that and the other. As a setting it is interesting. As a tabletop experience where players generally act as a unified or collected group it is interesting. With a persistent world wherein one player is playing in high magic and another player is attempting to play in being unaware and they are competing... It is a fucking travesty.
Jcarter is 100% right. If the intention of Armageddon is to progress RP than random character generator is the antithesis of this. Take a page from MMOs or more narrative minded game systems. You have points. You spend points. You get what you want. Other players have the same points. There is equality in creation. When you remove the incentive to hunt randomized results you focus on the incentive to maximize knowable results. I know my human can be Exceptional str but have good agility and shit wisdom and mediocre stamina. I know I can have Good everything. So on so forth. I know. I can make an educated decision that my character concept will have these basic traits and can work towards RP and skill development.
It's very simple. Manage player expectations. Reduce player unhappiness. Knowable is good. Random is bad.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2019 2:30:19 GMT -5
D&D was the genesis of MUDs this is true. It is also true that 4-10 player D&D sessions with all players present at one time are not a persistent game world with players outnumbering DMs and playing at different times than them. MMOs evolved from MUDs and they CLEARLY do not carry the same baggage that MUDs supposedly carry. MUDs have evolved beyond the original tabletop genesis as they should. If you want to see why addressing structural problems in original game systems is important just look at MUSHes and World of Darkness. The WoD setting is a narrative leaning game that does EXTREMELY poorly when the group of players is not playing for the same gameplay experience. You have Mages (super power) and Vampires and unaware humans and this and that and the other. As a setting it is interesting. As a tabletop experience where players generally act as a unified or collected group it is interesting. With a persistent world wherein one player is playing in high magic and another player is attempting to play in being unaware and they are competing... It is a fucking travesty. Jcarter is 100% right. If the intention of Armageddon is to progress RP than random character generator is the antithesis of this. Take a page from MMOs or more narrative minded game systems. You have points. You spend points. You get what you want. Other players have the same points. There is equality in creation. When you remove the incentive to hunt randomized results you focus on the incentive to maximize knowable results. I know my human can be Exceptional str but have good agility and shit wisdom and mediocre stamina. I know I can have Good everything. So on so forth. I know. I can make an educated decision that my character concept will have these basic traits and can work towards RP and skill development. It's very simple. Manage player expectations. Reduce player unhappiness. Knowable is good. Random is bad.
I mostly agree.
I would say, let character generation allow the character starting points for the narrative you want to see. It wouldnt be that hard to develop a shadowrun style priority chart, or an amber diceless bid system that had stats, skills, social standing, magic talent, age, storyteller focus or "destiny", race, etc as different column options.
I dont care if someone gets to play Obi-wan Kenobi. If the character gen allows it, the system should also probably not allow him to be the central hero, or have the same capacity for growth as the "destined farmboy".
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ibusoe
Clueless newb
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Post by ibusoe on Feb 1, 2019 13:21:29 GMT -5
You seem like the nicest guy, Shakes, but you do seem to be particularly blue-pilled on a couple of game balance issues. Perhaps a bit of backstory? About five years ago I had a bout with depression that left me with a lot of time on my hands. Fortunately things are a lot better now but as many here would understand Armageddon proved a terrific timekill. I rolled up a character (dwarven assassin) and of course my stomach knotted when I logged in and saw my stats. Obviously it's been a minute but here they are to the best of my recollection:
strength: poor, agility: above average, endurance: average, wisdom: above averageI think his name was Umar. But as I alluded I'd had a lot of time on my hands. If you have a moment to go back and read some of my GDB posts from the era, I'd gotten pretty good at speaking truth to power. So I thought to myself, "OK. the staff insist that all characters are playable. Why don't I go ahead and play this one out. People trust me. If I do the homework and it's playable, I'll speak up. If I do the homework and it's not playable, I'll speak up." And so when it came time to grind, I ground. First my character joined House Kadius and I basically lived in the sparring ring. No one could understand why my character never got better. Obviously a lot of players are pretty dim, they just couldn't conceive of a low-strength dwarf. It never crossed their dimwitted minds. At the end of the year my Sergeant didn't want to promote me (guy was kind of a dick), so I simply resigned on shaky terms. Next I signed up with that big indie effort of the time, the one being run by whomever ShaLeah was playing back then. They needed a hunter, so I applied and was hired. At first they were impressed that an ex-Kadian was interested. Things quickly became comical when their new star hunter....couldn't lift one of those bags. Everyone knows the big bags that have pretty much become the game default for equipment? I couldn't lift one of those up. Everyone thought I was stupid OOC or something. Heh. Yes, you're destined to lose, but it doesn't mean you'll be LESS involved with things. Nobody knows your stats unless you're sparring with them consistently or you're doing stuff like trying to lift a dead scrab in front of them. The extremely risk-adverse playerbase of Armageddon is to blame for the limited involvement in plots. They prefer to only socialize and plot with their OOC buddies whom they are clearly coordinating with on the sly. Your weak stats aren't the reason they're excluding you ... they don't even know you have weak stats, probably. It's the fact that you aren't their OOC buddy. And here's where you're wrong. People passed me over time and again. I didn't make fully employee of the indie house after my first year, so I went ahead and signed again. By the end of my second year I'd had a total of eight days logged on that character, but at the rate that I was grinding it might have been equivalent to twelve days played by anybody else. I didn't get promoted to full employee even after this. What was that guy's name, Koman Locke? I really think that his player thought that I was stupid. Regardless I resigned at that point and set out on my own. There was no real purpose to the character, but I wanted to prove my point. Around then I went my doctor upped my methylphendidate perscription so I was able to log something like sixty hours playing in about three days. By the end of this, my character had nine days played and was still terrible at combat, socializing and crafting. Nine days played and I couldn't beat a scrab. I think a scrab is what finally ended that guy if I remember correctly. I got reel locked and eaten by a scrab, heh. And I'm glad that worked out for you, but I have proof positive that this won't happen for like every character. Too much depends upon stats. I'll avoid any further editorializing and wanted to keep my narrative here like 90% based upon facts, but it is not true that simply grinding your character out will eventually make him awesome. Some will be tempted to say that I was doing it wrong, that they would have found a way to make the character playable but this will simply be further platitude or a sample of the doublethink that is so popular on the GDB. No one should have to go through my experience again because nine days of time on an incompetent hunter did little to entertain anyone, improve the game at all or make me a better person. I can probably think of a hundred ways that my time would have been better spent, and a more resourceful person could probably think of two hundred. |
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Post by shakes on Feb 1, 2019 13:51:06 GMT -5
Hrm. I wouldn't say "awesome" particularly, but I would say capable. I think in a lot of cases skills are superior to stats. But I'll acknowledge I rarely play shitty stats for too long. Something always happens. I really can't evaluate the "8 days played grind". I've never reached it, with good stats or bad.
I also don't usually spend much time in clans. I've tried, but it's almost always unrewarding. You are literally there to be a mindless minion of the sponsored role. They get mad if you plot on their own and confine you in every way possible. And even the most complex plot to murder them and take over would not be honored by staff, who will then animate the kitchen staff to rat you out or kill you.
It doesn't sound like you and I play the same game. I'm nowhere near obsessive enough to make it through 8 days played. I'm generally starting to think of my next character concept at about 20 hours played.
Generally I want to excel at SOMETHING with a character. I may be physically weak, but I'm a stellar thief. Or I'm not very smart or agile, but I'm a brute of a warrior. I can tolerate bad stats elsewhere if what I was going for came out alright.
I guess I wasn't trying to say that your bad stat character can just be grinded out to become awesome. You're never going to be awesome. Even an awesome character that you've put a lot of work into is going to be hammered into pulp by that secret Rukkian with a hammer who has a mental disorder and has spent 1,000 hours twinking up on the same gith mob. Or the Templar who decides you didn't bow fast enough and flags you for the teleporting half-giant death squads to murder.
But that's kind of a point I'd like to make too. Death is going to come sudden and unexpected no matter what stats you rolled or how you play. Why would anyone invest that much time in a single persona? Fuck. Just have some fun and go out in style.
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Post by pinkerdlu on Feb 1, 2019 15:30:03 GMT -5
ibusoe 2 ig years gone by and you only had 8 days played? You weren't playing that much bruv LOL I've logged like x4 that in a single ig year on a char or two, post-depression. And shakes , 8 days played is noob tier compared to the most of the Armageddon 'regulars'. Not something to brag about (trust me, you don't want to invest valuable time and energy into this...) but time investment definitely changes the game.
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Post by shakes on Feb 1, 2019 17:02:11 GMT -5
So I'm a brain-normal guy playing in a fantasy world peopled with shut-ins with obsessive compulsive disorders?
Fuck. No wonder I can't get ahead.
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Post by jcarter on Feb 1, 2019 18:08:21 GMT -5
you all are overcomplicating this shit.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2019 20:35:32 GMT -5
How old was your dwarf? It's codedly impossible to have poor strength without an age penalty. Was he super old, or super young?
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Post by lyse on Feb 1, 2019 23:30:56 GMT -5
You seem like the nicest guy, Shakes, but you do seem to be particularly blue-pilled on a couple of game balance issues. Perhaps a bit of backstory? About five years ago I had a bout with depression that left me with a lot of time on my hands. Fortunately things are a lot better now but as many here would understand Armageddon proved a terrific timekill. I rolled up a character (dwarven assassin) and of course my stomach knotted when I logged in and saw my stats. Obviously it's been a minute but here they are to the best of my recollection:
strength: poor, agility: above average, endurance: average, wisdom: above averageI think his name was Umar. But as I alluded I'd had a lot of time on my hands. If you have a moment to go back and read some of my GDB posts from the era, I'd gotten pretty good at speaking truth to power. So I thought to myself, "OK. the staff insist that all characters are playable. Why don't I go ahead and play this one out. People trust me. If I do the homework and it's playable, I'll speak up. If I do the homework and it's not playable, I'll speak up." And so when it came time to grind, I ground. First my character joined House Kadius and I basically lived in the sparring ring. No one could understand why my character never got better. Obviously a lot of players are pretty dim, they just couldn't conceive of a low-strength dwarf. It never crossed their dimwitted minds. At the end of the year my Sergeant didn't want to promote me (guy was kind of a dick), so I simply resigned on shaky terms. Next I signed up with that big indie effort of the time, the one being run by whomever ShaLeah was playing back then. They needed a hunter, so I applied and was hired. At first they were impressed that an ex-Kadian was interested. Things quickly became comical when their new star hunter....couldn't lift one of those bags. Everyone knows the big bags that have pretty much become the game default for equipment? I couldn't lift one of those up. Everyone thought I was stupid OOC or something. Heh. Yes, you're destined to lose, but it doesn't mean you'll be LESS involved with things. Nobody knows your stats unless you're sparring with them consistently or you're doing stuff like trying to lift a dead scrab in front of them. The extremely risk-adverse playerbase of Armageddon is to blame for the limited involvement in plots. They prefer to only socialize and plot with their OOC buddies whom they are clearly coordinating with on the sly. Your weak stats aren't the reason they're excluding you ... they don't even know you have weak stats, probably. It's the fact that you aren't their OOC buddy. And here's where you're wrong. People passed me over time and again. I didn't make fully employee of the indie house after my first year, so I went ahead and signed again. By the end of my second year I'd had a total of eight days logged on that character, but at the rate that I was grinding it might have been equivalent to twelve days played by anybody else. I didn't get promoted to full employee even after this. What was that guy's name, Koman Locke? I really think that his player thought that I was stupid. Regardless I resigned at that point and set out on my own. There was no real purpose to the character, but I wanted to prove my point. Around then I went my doctor upped my methylphendidate perscription so I was able to log something like sixty hours playing in about three days. By the end of this, my character had nine days played and was still terrible at combat, socializing and crafting. Nine days played and I couldn't beat a scrab. I think a scrab is what finally ended that guy if I remember correctly. I got reel locked and eaten by a scrab, heh. And I'm glad that worked out for you, but I have proof positive that this won't happen for like every character. Too much depends upon stats. I'll avoid any further editorializing and wanted to keep my narrative here like 90% based upon facts, but it is not true that simply grinding your character out will eventually make him awesome. Some will be tempted to say that I was doing it wrong, that they would have found a way to make the character playable but this will simply be further platitude or a sample of the doublethink that is so popular on the GDB. No one should have to go through my experience again because nine days of time on an incompetent hunter did little to entertain anyone, improve the game at all or make me a better person. I can probably think of a hundred ways that my time would have been better spent, and a more resourceful person could probably think of two hundred. Thing one: You should never try to play a hunter with an assassin, even a dwarf...unless you have high strength. They have no bonuses against animals, which explained why you were getting rolled by a scrab. You would've had to get rolled a looooong time before killing scrabs would've been a thing for you. That was your first mistake. Thing two: Your timeline is a little shaky, but I've had similar experiences as far as being involved in plots. You suck? Third string baby, comic relief, waifu, flavor character...anything close to serious plottage, you'll be kept away from. Why?Because you can't be trusted to do whatever needs to be done. In short, you're a liability. I had a similar experience though. I'd just come back to the game, rolled a character with low strength and low endurance, wisdom and agility were great though. Ended up in a sparring clan and got a hard lesson about the game. A really hard lesson about the game, right there first character since probably 2004 or something. I had a lot of time on my hands in real life because I lost my job, so I was putting in a good 4-5 hours a day in and I still got hit with the dreaded "You need to play more." from a clan lead. I don't think they realized, I was playing enough...just, my stats sucked. At first, I'm thinking if I roleplay good enough, be fun to be around, they'll involve me in things. I drank the GDB kool-aid, but nah. Nobody's going to involve you if two good hits from just about anything will put you close to near death. You aren't going to be involved in things after three months if...a scrab is still kind of a serious threat to you. Ever watch the show Lost Girl? Remember Kenzie? Yeah, I was Kenzie. That definitely wasn't what I had in mind when I thought up the character, that was what the random stats made me. I was fun, I was lovable, I was funny. I was a red shirt nobody wanted to let die. Remember what I always say about Red Shirts? Nobody wants to be that guy. "Hey, Kenzie! Carry this heavy ass bag to the Hall over there!" "Uhhhh, I can't sir! I might pass out!" People ate it up....except...I really couldn't. My favorite was "You should probably....just, I dunno, be an aide or something." My skills were great though, because I was working on them every day. Just them fails...I got them a lot and people noticed after about three months my blows were bouncing off shit and Joe Newbie with the AI strength was rockin brutals. Guess who got promoted? I thought imms would notice me roleplaying sparring alone and shadowboxing in my off time and maybe throw me a bone. Maybe notice...I was actually roleplaying my flaws and attempting to work on them. Like I said, I drank the kool-aid. I believed. Eventually Kenzie died. Ironically...it was to a scrab. My next character? The original concept was a mousy farm girl (probably Stockholm syndrome for playing Kenzie for so long)...No stat lower than exceptional. Seriously...none. Whole different world. People wanted me around. People wanted me to go places with them. Didn't hear "You need to play more" that go round. I mean sure....I would get involved in little rinky dink stuff with Kenzie. The little "tee-hee" shit people call plots, I could've done the high school drama "plots". I could've done the THIS IS A THROWAWAY, I'LL JUST DO GOOFY SHIT UNTIL SOMEONE KILLS ME. But is Armageddon really that kind of game? Is it supposed to be? Your stats definitely do affect your gameplay experience (Nobody wants to be that guy). While I think it's dumb to just suicide your character over and over. 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Post by shakes on Feb 1, 2019 23:42:19 GMT -5
Man, I get involved in so many plots, even today, it would make your head spin.
But I start them. And I have to play along. And then I die as soon as it starts spiraling out of control and it looks like it might threaten one of the cool kids.
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