Capped XP vs Staggered XP?
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I am against caps but I am fine with the xp slowing down to a trickle, usually I am sitting on a bunch anyway, but the hard cap mean that what you hit it your characters story is over, they can no longer grow, even in minor ways given how most systems work. The example I always thing of in a game where I hit the cap, no biggie I was very happy with where my character was mechanically. Then a few months down the road an ic situation popped up where he would want to learn Spanish. Not something big and flashy just for ic reasons wanted to learn the language. The system that was used has Languages as skills but since i was at the cap I could not learn it. Which was fine I knew the policy but still it pretty much meant the end of me playing that char.
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I think part of the problem has to do with the bizarre time scale of MU* events, which seem to go like:
"I am a brand new, fresh-faced 21-year-old, ready to face a world full of scary things! Yay!"
...soap opera plots and some adventures later...
"I am now a tremendously powerful 22-year-old, yielding powers beyond the comprehension of puny, mortals. I have seen it all, and there is nothing new under the sky."
And then your character is 22 years old (or 100 years old but, regardless, fresh out of a period of absurdly fast personal growth) and they have peaked. Now, capping XP can be mitigated by allowing easy respecs. You have taken up Spanish and began neglecting your Kung Fu practice, so you lose your Kung Fu 5 and receive the XP for it, which you can then spend on educational trips to Tijuana. Or maybe you've spent all your money on educational trips to Tijuana, so you lower your Resources instead, and possibly your Morality rating.
I made a mortal on The Reach towards the latter part of its run, and there was just nothing I could do with all that XP that I kept drowning in. I was going to make an older and more experienced character, and just spend the first few weeks accumulating XP so I could put their sheet together the way it was supposed to be (it's hard to be a former SEAL PhD ballerina, and yet they exist), but then I lost interest. It would, at least, have avoided the mandatory accelerated hero's journey. If I'd started my character as a spry 70-year-old witch, I'd probably be fine with a cap, but even then, I'd still prefer XP slowed down to a tiny trickle for at least the illusion of possible growth.
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I'm against xp caps, mostly for the reasons everyone else has stated: That is the end of the character's growth, and that's all they can ever learn, ever. It creates an inorganic finish to an otherwise vibrant character.
I suppose I wouldn't mind bare minimal xp, but really, I think that spend timers are the way to go with things like this. It both helps to ensure that people are growing in a relatively believable way and that there is some diversity to what they're spending things on.
But of course, that system won't be favored by those who want to power their way into a five, either, and argue that 'I should be able to spend xp I earned.' (Which, in fact, under many systems was not earned, but given).
So I don't think there's one 'right' way to do it. Someone's always gonna be unhappy.
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@peasoupling
I think that's more of an issue of XP glut and overabundance than it is the time scale of a MU*. -
It's definitely that, but I think the time scale conditions how XP feels.
XP is, generally, awarded over time. This is both IC time and OOC time.
I don't think it's unreasonable for players to want to see some form of growth over an OOCly doable period of time. I don't want to wait several years (OOC) for my character to learn Spanish, or to learn a martial art. But that means that characters are ICly developing very fast, too. This is highly subjective, of course. And it isn't so much of a problem when starting stats feel like the character can be competent at a couple of fields you choose to excel in, preferably without demanding hyper-specialization. Then the OOC growth can be slower, and trickle down to very little.
I just don't know about capping, because I don't particularly want to go with "This 23 year old is now the best she'll ever be and it's all downhill from here!" unless you're playing a game about child prodigies, or Replicants who have to accomplish as much as possible within a limited lifespan.
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@Derp said:
I'm against xp caps, mostly for the reasons everyone else has stated: That is the end of the character's growth, and that's all they can ever learn, ever. It creates an inorganic finish to an otherwise vibrant character.
So, make it movable. Problem averted.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@Ganymede said:
@Derp said:
I'm against xp caps, mostly for the reasons everyone else has stated: That is the end of the character's growth, and that's all they can ever learn, ever. It creates an inorganic finish to an otherwise vibrant character.
So, make it movable. Problem averted.
To what end, though? Serious question. "We are limiting the thing you can do arbitrarily for now, no matter how much of a justification you have for raising it more, but we'll up it later, because that's sensical right?' How does this accomplish anything more organic than spend timers?
In fact, while it might solve a problem, it creates a different problem in determining what that cap is and how often it moves.
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@Derp said:
@Ganymede said:
@Derp said:
I'm against xp caps, mostly for the reasons everyone else has stated: That is the end of the character's growth, and that's all they can ever learn, ever. It creates an inorganic finish to an otherwise vibrant character.
So, make it movable. Problem averted.
To what end, though? Serious question. "We are limiting the thing you can do arbitrarily for now, no matter how much of a justification you have for raising it more, but we'll up it later, because that's sensical right?' How does this accomplish anything more organic than spend timers?
In fact, while it might solve a problem, it creates a different problem in determining what that cap is and how often it moves.
Gany may have meant "make it movable" in that once you're at your peak, you can shift stats around. Maybe. I would consider that a good compromise.
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@Derp said:
"We are limiting the thing you can do arbitrarily for now, no matter how much of a justification you have for raising it more, but we'll up it later, because that's sensical right?' How does this accomplish anything more organic than spend timers?
I see no reason not to set arbitrary limits for arbitrary rewards. There is no rhyme or reason to how players gain XP; there can be no reasonable argument to disregard arbitrary limits of the same.
Spend timers are a fantastic idea, but they benefit those who came in through the doors first to the detriment of those who came in later. And for all of the clamor of players that insist that they should have an advantage for simply applying for a PC earlier, I respond with: "that is the most absurd reason for maintaining a superior position."
Moveable caps address the problem of: "how can we give newcomers a fair shot of meeting the power and prowess of their elders?" Moveable caps address the problem of: "how do we ensure that everyone is reasonable level in power when it comes to resolving plots?" They are no different than the level caps that exist in many video games after you've resolved all the side-quests you can. At some point or another, you're going to have to kill the Arishok if you want to hit Level 30 in DA2.
Stat-shifting goes hand-in-hand with moveable caps. Let folks re-arrange their points within reason intermittently.
If you give this a shot, I think you'll find a happy playerbase and happy newcomers.
I mean, just try it. Shit, it's like people think I'm suggesting drinking Drano or something equally stupid.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@Ganymede said:
Spend timers are a fantastic idea, but they benefit those who came in through the doors first to the detriment of those who came in later. And for all of the clamor of players that insist that they should have an advantage for simply applying for a PC earlier, I respond with: "that is the most absurd reason for maintaining a superior position."
This is only partially true, though. You're assuming that there is no advantage to being a newbie in this scenario, when there absolutely could be. Spend timers don't have to be equal, for instance. What happens if, after the first dot, you have to wait a month for the second? And then two months for the third? And three months for the fourth? Etc? New people could advance more quickly than older players up to a point. And that point is another side of fairness.
There absolutely should be some clout for those that came in the door first. They've already been on grid, they've helped to shape things around them, etc. I'm against people who 'just came in the door' having the same amount of influence as someone who's been there consistently for a year. I think that's pretty fair, too.
Edited for formatting issues, then accidentally quoted below, because grrrrr.
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@Derp said:
There absolutely should be some clout for those that came in the door first. They've already been on grid, they've helped to shape things around them, etc. I'm against people who 'just came in the door' having the same amount of influence as someone who's been there consistently for a year. I think that's pretty fair, too.
I do and don't agree with this on one salient point: it depends what they did with that year. If they sat on their ass and did absolutely nothing, "I got here first!" should not count for jack nor shit. And plenty of people do precisely this, making a login on a game early to ensure they'll always be among the most powerful. It's... pretty crappy, really. Active newcomers should absolutely be able to match, if not overcome, the power level of someone who has done nothing but waste the time they have had.
Oh fucking well.
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Yeah, I agree with @surreality that 'activity' measured in some way or other ought to be a major factor of XP distribution. Otherwise it's less useful as a carrot, since it promotes nothing but existence.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@surreality said:
@Derp said:
There absolutely should be some clout for those that came in the door first. They've already been on grid, they've helped to shape things around them, etc. I'm against people who 'just came in the door' having the same amount of influence as someone who's been there consistently for a year. I think that's pretty fair, too.
I do and don't agree with this on one salient point: it depends what they did with that year. If they sat on their ass and did absolutely nothing, "I got here first!" should not count for jack nor shit. And plenty of people do precisely this, making a login on a game early to ensure they'll always be among the most powerful. It's... pretty crappy, really. Active newcomers should absolutely be able to match, if not overcome, the power level of someone who has done nothing but waste the time they have had.
Essentially, you want to get rid of passive XP, since that would be the best way to do that. >.>
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@Arkandel said:
Yeah, I agree with @surreality that 'activity' measured in some way or other ought to be a major factor of XP distribution. Otherwise it's less useful as a carrot, since it promotes nothing but existence.
Recently, when we had been looking at some changes to XP policies at Reno, I did some lengthy breakdowns of how their system was functioning in actuality, since the XP transfer mechanic was being reconsidered.
The breakdown between 'XP earned by simply existing' vs. 'XP earned through all other sources' (this included CG xp, incentives, beats, conditions, breaking points, aspirations, and the rare MUX-wide XP gifts there) were incredibly eye opening. If I had the time to write out all the findings at the moment, I would, but they put things into a much clearer perspective for me in regard to some of the 'fairness' arguments that swing in one direction or the other.
Quick summary: among the characters who had been on the game for equal amounts of time, most of them with very high XP totals, a character that never filed for beats or plot XP or anything of the kind was 10% 'other' and 90% 'time existing'. You'd think a very active player, who frequently filed jobs -- usually more than one a week -- for running plots and fulfilling aspirations and working conditions through and facing breaking points -- would be dramatically different. Not really. That character was approximately 22.5% 'other' and 77.5% 'time existing'.
Those numbers proved out more or less all the way down the chain. The most active character the game has ever seen, with a player who had been, for well over a month or two, running one or more plot scene for others almost daily, still did not come close to hitting a 50/50 parity between the two, with 'time existing' still taking the lead over all of the player's actual effort and investment of time and energy into the game.
That basically shot the 'it's not faaaaaaaaaaaaair that people who can be more active get to earn XP for it!' attitude I have seen straight to hell with no coming back from it.
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@Coin said:
@surreality said:
@Derp said:
There absolutely should be some clout for those that came in the door first. They've already been on grid, they've helped to shape things around them, etc. I'm against people who 'just came in the door' having the same amount of influence as someone who's been there consistently for a year. I think that's pretty fair, too.
I do and don't agree with this on one salient point: it depends what they did with that year. If they sat on their ass and did absolutely nothing, "I got here first!" should not count for jack nor shit. And plenty of people do precisely this, making a login on a game early to ensure they'll always be among the most powerful. It's... pretty crappy, really. Active newcomers should absolutely be able to match, if not overcome, the power level of someone who has done nothing but waste the time they have had.
Essentially, you want to get rid of passive XP, since that would be the best way to do that. >.>
Not entirely, no.
It just went the rest of the way to convincing me that the 'passive XP only/passive should be the primary means/activity-based XP is unfair and should not be allowed or should be stringently limited' arguments are coming from the privileged position in terms of the way most games work already, which is something I strongly doubt most of the players who make those arguments recognize.
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@Derp said:
There absolutely should be some clout for those that came in the door first.
Let's test this out, then.
They've already been on grid, they've helped to shape things around them, etc.
You presume they've helped shape the things around them. You presume that they were of positive net worth to the game. I know plenty of players that wouldn't fall into either category.
I'm against people who 'just came in the door' having the same amount of influence as someone who's been there consistently for a year.
Why? Are new players somehow not as valuable? Is the point of running the game to cater to the pre-existing players first, to the detriment of the new?
Spend timers are redundant, in my opinion. You don't need them if you're being judicious about doling out XP. And if you aren't giving a shit as to how XP is giving out, then there's no reason to concoct any notion of sensibility when limiting it.
For the record, RfK's system was a nifty combination of capping XP and basing it on activity.
Shit, just try moving caps. It isn't difficult to unwind or change.
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@Surreality said:
I do and don't agree with this on one salient point: it depends what they did with that year. If they sat on their ass and did absolutely nothing, "I got here first!" should not count for jack nor shit. And plenty of people do precisely this, making a login on a game early to ensure they'll always be among the most powerful. It's... pretty crappy, really. Active newcomers should absolutely be able to match, if not overcome, the power level of someone who has done nothing but waste the time they have had.
Long block of stuff about existence RP being the major source of xp even on extremely active players.
That basically shot the 'it's not faaaaaaaaaaaaair that people who can be more active get to earn XP for it!' attitude I have seen straight to hell with no coming back from.
So like... maybe I'm reading this wrong, but that seems to contradict what you were saying. I mean, for certain things yes, what they've done should come into play for it, and I won't disagree with that at all. This is why I'm also not opposed to justifications for relatively high stats, and even encouraged that for Werewolf Renown, since it's all about what you've done, not how long you've been a fixture. But those who have been around longer with average levels of activity should not be outclassed overnight by a newbie with average levels of activity, like some catchup systems promote, nor do I think that newbies should catch up entirely to the older crew if they have the same levels of activity.
Maybe I'm just parsing it wrong? I think that ultimately we're saying the same thing here, maybe. Yes, what they do matters, and yes, how long they've been around matters.
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@Derp I'm pretty sure we're on the same page with this one, actually.
There are essentially two arguments around the activity issue:
- It's not faiiiiiiiiiir that I have RL and someone gets more than me just because they do more!
...and... - If you do the work, you earn the thing, and it's not fair that you don't get to have it just because someone else won't or can't put in the work.
Both have some validity -- there are genuinely reasonable considerations on both sides of that issue.
The problem is, it assumes a level of parity that doesn't exist in the samples I've seen. The 'got here first' have an enormous advantage on points in a lot of systems, whether they've done anything or not, so I am an enormous fan of promoting activity-based XP gains. I have weird-as-hell theories about this personally, but they don't really fit into the scope of the options presented here, so I'm gonna avoid that particular tangent.
I think both are useful and necessary, each for different reasons. "Has been around and stuck with it" counts -- but it shouldn't count more than "does stuff with the time they have, however much of it they have in actuality", and in a lot of setups at the moment, that seems to be the case. TR's catchup mechanic tried to resolve this, but it came with its own unique collection of crazy issues.
RfK's approach, from what I've heard of it, seemed to strongly factor activity into things, which is something I approve of pretty strongly, even if I think the staff overhead involved in their specific approach (looking for gains someone might have missed) is a little further than I'd be willing to go just in terms of time investment.
Quick edit before zooming out the door: Yes, they should work in combination. 'Been around and being active' would generally be at the top of the food chain, for reasons that seem fairly obvious to me, at least.
- It's not faiiiiiiiiiir that I have RL and someone gets more than me just because they do more!
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@Ganymede Normally I wouldn't get involved in these kinds of discussions... but something you mentioned pinged on a memory so I felt it might be prudent to share this.
I have nothing against new players to a game. Everyone is one when they first start with -any- game. But I also don't appreciate it when I've spent months and/or years building up an IC base of influence in whatever arena... only to have some random upstart from nowhere pop up and smash all my hard work into the ground because they got 'catch up' xp. How is that fair to all the hard work, effort, and xp that I invested into the game only to have someone else ruin my fun because 'everyone should start equal'. Where is the new player's equal share in the work that went into building that sphere of influence? Where is their equal share in the effort put into making contacts and allies? They didn't go out and schmooze and deal with anyone... they just spent some xp and maybe wrote a few sentences about it in a background. There is no 'equal footing' there.
By insisting on making everything 'equal', you're actually telling the people that put in the time and effort since the beginning that they're LESS valuable than the person just stepping in the door. Because that person can simply buy the dots and ruin your work.
