Power Level Reform

[Furamirionind]

11 minutes ago, Darth Woodrack said:

No it wouldn't. There would still be arguing, because people don't like how things are scored, and the think that their weaknesses make up for it. It will not remove the arguments, it will just make people go after the system, instead  of the actual reasons why. In my opinion this system will not remove arguments,  it will make them worse.

I disagree about the making things worse part, but you make a good case for it not really changing anything.

[Darth Woodrack]

I prefer our current weakness:power ratio, and were this is the equation that I think of. Archer just approximates that. Again, this is a free form rp, and it is meant to be very fun. Any new person will come, and their is about an added 10% chance, in my opinion, of them being driven away. The point system just makes people mad at the system, and they won't be able to actually explain their powers. Their is also they fact that you can't quantify epic powers, or talents. You just have a larger argument.

x=power y=weakness

x=y-1/4x

[Voidus]

Again all this does is make it explicit, the 'system' is inherent in imposing a limit. I'd like to think new players aren't likely to be driven off by the mere presence of a quantification of sonething that has to exist.

I do also have extensive experience in quantifying Epic powers if we want to make use of it, but if not then it can be estimated case by case. Cutting out some ambiguity is better than none.

[+Sorana]

I am fine with the points sytem, should we decide on it, though we might need to find a good way to balance weeknesses.

I mean, as long as you don't need to spend all points it could work. And we still need to apply some rules, to keep it logical. A lot of the op characters mix different types of investiture, that's something I'd like to avoid, at least a new character.

And we need to think about skills a character has. Like fighting, knowing hemalurgy and so on.

[Furamirionind]

50 minutes ago, Darth Woodrack said:

Again, this is a free form rp, and it is meant to be very fun. Any new person will come, and their is about an added 10% chance, in my opinion, of them being driven away

Here is unfortunately another area were we must disagree on principal. You only notice new people who join your community. No one here can notice the ones that do not. For example, did you know I have been following this sub-forum for almost 6 months now?  The best way to get new members is to make it easy to join. However, we have 2 different opinions as to what "easy" is. Here is mine:

Quote

What would make this "game" easy to join for new players, would be a solid foundation and place to look to get a step-by-step process of how to create a character, join a guild, and begin RPing.

Here is what I believe yours is:

Quote

What would make this "game" easy to join for new players, is a lack of restrictions on their creativity so they can express themselves how they wish.

Am I on the right track, or am I interpreting your posts wrong?

Here is the thing, when I was creating a character, I was going to make just a normal person, who over the course of me RPing, was going to bond an Honor Spren, and progress through the stages of radiant-ness.  However, when I looked at other characters, I saw tons of compounders, radiants 4th ideal, etc. And I didn't know what to do.  I ended up making a zinc coupounder, windrunner 1st ideal (i think).  However, I gave myself a massive weakness of prohibiting my character from being in just about any combat situation at all.  You may say that this is totally fine, but from my perspective, it made it difficult to RP.  There are wars happening, fights, arguments... And I have basically told my charecter to stay out of them all... I just didn't know what to do.

To summarize, I was overwhelmed by the endless possibilities I had before me, and made some poor decisions because of it.

---

What I think we should do, is try a points system. And try to keep an open mind about it.  Players like you who have been doing this for a while may not need to worry about it too much.  Perhaps we could even pull some people over from the "new user" sub-forum and ask them to help us design it/analyse it to make sure it makes sense to them.  We can ask them if they would rather have a guide, or nothing.  I think that will give us a much better idea, and as I did create a character 5ish months ago, people might listen to them more than me.

I would like to point out I have experience IRL designing systems to involve and keep new people who may be interested.  It is very possible that I am wrong on this case, but I stand by my reasoning for it.

Edited December 13, 2018 by Furamirionind

[Darth Woodrack]

I know that it is hard to start. Actually, Ark all but forced me to start, but once you do, it is fine, at least to me. Their is a problem with new people not knowing where to post, and we should fix that. I did actually notice you, I just though nothing off it, as you hadn't brought yourself to my attention, which is not against you, just true. I just think that this is a bit to restrictive on how characters can be made. I didn't see any problem, other than post creation enhancemtns, AKA, Hellbent syndrome.

[+Sorana]

5 hours ago, Furamirionind said:

We can ask them if they would rather have a guide, or nothing.  I think that will give us a much better idea, and as I did create a character 5ish months ago, people might listen to them more than me.

I would like to point out I have experience IRL designing systems to involve and keep new people who may be interested.  It is very possible that I am wrong on this case, but I stand by my reasoning for it.

I don't want to dismiss what you're saying, because of course we want new people to be able to start easily.

But we do have a guide, pinned at the top of the subforum, where most of the important things are explained. If it doesn't work as it is, maybe we could edit, add a "3 steps to start" or something like that.

Apart from the point system, the whole "how to make a start easier" discussion, maybe should be separated and started again, after we decided on how to go on with the guilds and the powerlevel and all that.

[Voidus]

We'll be creating a 'newcomer friendly' thread at some point in the near future, the guide I think is more useful for people who have just started and are looking for background but isn't as useful for people who are trying to decide whether they want to join at all or not.

[Furamirionind]

35 minutes ago, Sorana said:

But we do have a guide, pinned at the top of the subforum, where most of the important things are explained. If it doesn't work as it is, maybe we could edit, add a "3 steps to start" or something like that.

Like Voidus said, I think the guide that we have is more of a referance for those who are already in game, rather than a guide for those that are new.

Adding a 'newcomer friendly' thread sounds good, a thing that we will probably want to mention in that is a recomended starting power level, regardless of whether or not we implement a points system. That is really the main thing I am getting at with the points thing. (Though I do still think comparing players points is fun, but that is why I play SE I suppose...)

Edited December 13, 2018 by Furamirionind

[Karnatheon]

I think before we can agree on what these restrictions should be, we need to agree on what a reasonable character looks like. I think that most people would agree the three individual investitures with the most power are a Mistborn, a full born feruchemist, and a knight radiant. I could be wrong about that though. Obviously a mistborn can be weakened by restricting to Mistings, and a Feruchemist can be weakened by making Ferrings. The weakest a Knight Radiant can get is 1st ideal. Does a 1st Ideal Radiant sound like a good power level to cap creation at? Or do people think the cap should be higher than that?

[old man moomba]

Maybe the first ideal is the highest one can get without RP and you have RP the other oaths.

[Kidpen]

I actually agree with Woodrack this time, which almost never happens. I would be open to trying a point buy system, but I wouldn't prefer it. 

I think a point buy system will encourage people to be as powerful as possible without going over the total. People would think that a character using all the points is where an acceptable character should be. Obviously we don't see many weak or low power characters now, but a point buy system is only going to lower the power level characters can be at, not encourage people to make characters without as much of a focus in powers. 

Another thing: When I make a character, I try to give it a power that directly supports the direction I want to take the character in. If it's a Knight Radiant, it means the character is shaped by those Ideals and will probably be progressing through the oaths. When I give a character 2,000 Breaths, its because that provides the power needed for my character to go insane. Admittedly some of my older characters don't do this, but its what I try to do. 

In my opinion, requiring a direct plot reason to have each power is an alternative. Just having power so your character won't be outmatched in duels isn't enough. That implies that the most important thing your character will be doing is dueling, and that it will fight in a head on battle usually rather than using cleverness to win. The character actively trying to be as powerful as possible/get as much investiture as possible is also not enough. You could instead start your character at a very low power and RP the character searching for each investiture. 

Also, smaller issue, but in a point buy system, there are going to be a lot of eventualities that it can't account for. Talents and Epic Powers both can result in powers that are difficult to count. Weaknesses will need to be figured out almost every time. Skills will also often be unexpected. This is something that could be worked around, but it is still an issue. 

On mobile, so I may have deleted a paragraph without noticing. Let me know if something I said doesn't make sense. 

[kenod]

I'd personally say the the points system would work, but only as a general guideline to get a basic understanding of whether a powerset is okay or not. After checking the amount of points, we should still go over the characters ourselves in order to see if it's alright. At the same time, we should also be open to powersets that cost too much points, but aren't actually overpowered, and might actually be interesting to see.

Also, at least for compounding, but possibly also radiant orders we'll need a specific points amount for the specific combo, since we shouldn't have people be able to buy gold or steel compounding, while other types might actually be interesting.

Also, how would we address Hemalurgy. For power spikes I think it'll be easy, just use the amount of points for that power, but what will we do for mutation type things?

[Lord Meeker]

11 hours ago, Voidus said:

Here's the thing, as soon as we agree to place an upper limit on PC power we are using this system. All coming up with these lists is doing is precisely quantifying it so anyone can know that their character is reasonable or not. If we didn't have these numbers the calculations would still be done, they'd just be vaguer, less precise and prone to difference of opinion.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[+Ark1002]

11 hours ago, Voidus said:

Again all this does is make it explicit, the 'system' is inherent in imposing a limit. I'd like to think new players aren't likely to be driven off by the mere presence of a quantification of sonething that has to exist.

I do also have extensive experience in quantifying Epic powers if we want to make use of it, but if not then it can be estimated case by case. Cutting out some ambiguity is better than none.

I personally would have been driven off if this was how it was at the beginning. I'd never done RP of any form, at that would have been a bit much for me.

[Darth Woodrack]

Huh. Both Ark and Kidpen agree with me... Who are you and what have your done with them?

[Kidpen]

17 minutes ago, Darth Woodrack said:

Huh. Both Ark and Kidpen agree with me... Who are you and what have your done with them?

I was wondering that as well.

[Darth Woodrack]

WHAT DA EXPERIMENT IS THIS? Or is this Dusk's fault?

[BitBitio]

15 hours ago, Ookla the Meme-Thief said:

My ideas and categorization for a points system is as below, inspired by @Ookla the Ring. (As above, so below! -Kvothe)

Let's assume a fifty-point starting area.

I think that's all the important Shardworlds, including what I know of the non-cosmere books. The above recommendations are entirely my opinions, but I think they apply to some extent to our characters. I'm not going to get into non-Investiture-related abilities for now.

 

14 hours ago, Ookla the Meme-Thief said:

But a point system would regulate how much power people stuff into their characters. Tena has an astounding seventy-five points on her tab, while Archer's character Mace has an unbelievable one hundred eighty points. 

Weaknesses would have to be in place, of course. Mace hardly ever uses his powers for combat, and is a generally chill guy, while Tena uses the crap out of her powers.

Oof. Kane has about 120ish. Yup, stuff is gonna happen to him soon. 

Spoiler

Namely, 28 new Investitures. 
 

Spoiler

Kidding

 

 

[+Ark1002]

I'm gonna figure out Hellbent on that scale.

He's has 185, not including a bunch of powers not even on the list...

Edited December 13, 2018 by Ark1002

[Sherlock Holmes]

So please kill him. Tena, after whatever Era-ending event happens, will have 30 points. My other character, Seom, will have 5.

[kenod]

KoTiel is around 35, though I'm planning to bring them up to 55 if we're going to get a big battle to finish off era 2. My era 3 character, KanMien is currently planned to have between 5 and 25 points (depending on changes in points cost, as well as what being specific species (kandra) is going to cost).

[Furamirionind]

@Ookla the NotVoidus

I agree with your point, having a point buy in system encourages min-maxing which we don't want.  Instead, I would suggest we use points as a way to understand the power levels of our charecters.  That way we can see our power level compared to everyone else.  This would not be a buy system at all then, but an analysis tool.

We could then also use this tool in duels to help decide a victor.  The reason I suggest this, is because my current charecter (a zinc compiumder) should NEVER be able to defeat... say... helbent. Or probably most of anyone elses charecters.  This system would just allow us to see this effect, rather than semi-guessing.

Edited December 13, 2018 by Furamirionind

[Voidus]

The presence of these numbers doesn't even have to be made public, we can limit the final list to mods if we want. Then we have an objective standard but it's not offputting to anyone, people can't minmax (Which honestly i don't see as a huge issue anyway, if that's how someone wants to enjoy the rp then let them, a limit ensures it will still be sonewhat balanced), etc.

[Furamirionind]

3 minutes ago, Voidus said:

The presence of these numbers doesn't even have to be made public, we can limit the final list to mods if we want. Then we have an objective standard but it's not offputting to anyone, people can't minmax (Which honestly i don't see as a huge issue anyway, if that's how someone wants to enjoy the rp then let them, a limit ensures it will still be sonewhat balanced), etc.

I personally believe this accounts for the issues @Ookla the NotVoidus @Ark1002 and @Darth Woodrack propose, as the numbers still only matter if they become a problem.

I personally am less fond of this because I like my analysis tools. (please give me all the things to analyse!!! ...) But perhaps I could just ask for the things... : )

This would also mean that this is probably not discussed in the new player thread, but perhaps I should stop pushing for that, as the disconnect between myself and the rest of people on this matter seems to be pretty significant.