Constructive (keyword) Criticism of Arx Systems

[Arkandel]

@groth said in Constructive (keyword) Criticism of Arx Systems:

If you don't want people to feel pressured to optimize characters this or that way, why are the game systems built to give such massive advantages to specialized characters? Almost all Arx systems involve high base difficulties combined with massive multipliers.

Why not?

What's the upside of creating systems specifically so knowledge of how they work or optimization can't give an advantage?

[Tempest]

@kanye-qwest said in Constructive (keyword) Criticism of Arx Systems:

make it fun and rewarding without necessarily being as tied to prestige.

What would make hosting events feel more rewarding? What would make you seek out a socially statted char?

???

This seems kind of weird to say?

The pretty obvious answer is...just raise the prestige gain from hosting events to be on par with modelling. Why would other things be less tied to prestige?

Tie it to a social stat/skill that rolls, factored in with the largesse or something.

Like, you guys have set the bar with modelling. Millions of prestige for wearing an outfit is...not really creating RP.

If anything, hosting events should be even more tied to prestige, and more rewarding, I would think.

You can even tie social chars in general to events as a whole. If Joe McSwordman wants to host an event and actually get any significant prestige from it, he needs to talk to a social character and get them to co-host it or endorse it or something.

(I mean, it's not like I'm over here hosting events, I'm not saying this shit for me.)

[Thenomain]

@arkandel

I don't think your question relates to what Groth said.

What I heard, at least, is related to my #1 complaint of Mutants & Masterminds 3e: There is a specific way to best make the characters but the game book does not have you do this.

This criticism of M&M doesn't have anything to do whether or not social stats are useless (as in WoD/CoD), or a treatise in dump stats (D&D), but that if a game system says "here's a bunch of numbers; go nuts", then there should not be an asterisk at the end of that statement.

--

This is no criticism of Arx, but how I read Groth's statement. The only thing I don't like about the systems of Arx is that I could make a character, play it, retire, and then find someone else is playing it in a way that it wasn't designed.

That is, I sincerely dislike roster systems. I don't hate them, they are just something I don't enjoy engaging with.

Oh, and the arbitrariness of making scouting (stealth? one of those) a 'combat' stat and therefore chew up all of my chargen points making a character I thought was going to be more or less off-screen funtimes.

[Groth]

@arkandel said in Constructive (keyword) Criticism of Arx Systems:

Why not?

What's the upside of creating systems specifically so knowledge of how they work or optimization can't give an advantage?

You'll never be able to create a system where knowledge and optimization are not things. However you can create a system where a player just making their sheet according to what they feel their character should be like will be succesful and not be subjected to pressures about doing things 'wrong'.

[Kanye Qwest]

@tempest Sure, this is all fair, and I agree!

I think maybe as staff we are overestimating how upset people are about prestige. Or maybe not. I especially feel for Pax, who has been working really hard on supremely exciting fun shit to go into the game, and instead it seems like all the focus is on prestige and who is where on a chart.

We could get rid of the chart, but I don't think that would make a big difference - long before score, long before ARX, there have always been people who complain and accuse when other people get things they don't have. I remember way back in the beforetimes it was how unfair it is that people playing leadership chars get to make decisions.

[Sparks]

@groth said in Constructive (keyword) Criticism of Arx Systems:

@sparks said in The Arx Peeve Thread:

But telling other people that their fun is "wrong"—that they need to adjust their sheet or their very concept to be more "effective" mathematically instead of playing the thing they want to play—is what staff's really not okay with.

"Oh, you need to be a combat character, social stuff isn't really useful."

"Oh, you want to do market stuff? You need to pick these specific skills, in this specific order, or else you aren't maximizing your effectiveness and XP spends; if you do anything else, you're just wrong about it."

Being pressed on those things is not usually fun for the people who are being told they're "doing it wrong", when they have a character concept they want to play. It's especially bad if it happens to someone brand-new to the game who doesn't know any better.

If you don't want people to feel pressured to optimize characters this or that way, why are the game systems built to give such massive advantages to specialized characters? Almost all Arx systems involve high base difficulties combined with massive multipliers.

I wasn't staff back in alpha so I can't speak to decisions early on, but I played in the latter part of alpha and I saw a fair number of people complain that specialization/high skills didn't matter enough, and so there was no advantage to playing specialized characters. So I suspect some of that fed into the system designs going into beta.

And honestly? There should be some advantage to playing a specialist; someone who is focused solely on combat should be better at it than someone who's a combat-social-crafter (and also dabbles in occult lore on the side). Otherwise there's no purpose to character concepts who do specialize.

To me, I feel like it'd be disheartening to be someone whose whole Thing—whole character concept—is this one niche area, only to have someone else who's a total generalist who does All The Things blow you away at your one thing you wanted to shine at.

And there's a difference between "if you specialize in this system/archetype, you will be significantly more effective" (which, I think, has a place in systems) and players telling other players "oh, social skills aren't useful at all; you should play combat" or otherwise insisting someone has to play a given way (which is what the post you are quoting from is referencing, in particular referencing a specific instance of precisely that happening). I feel like you've mistakenly conflated the two things here.

I mean, not everyone cares whether their sheet is optimized to eke every single last silver from the market; some just want to be able to haggle at a decent level as part of their character concept. Insisting they have to do it that way or they're doing it wrong is really unfriendly to other players, especially new ones. People have remarked on that in this very thread, that they don't care about whether they're super-uber-optimized down to the last possible point of XP.

Now, perhaps some of that benefit to specialization is too high! It's possible. System balance is not an exact science, since so much of it relies on player feel, and no system design ever completely survives contact with the playerbase.

But I am willing to bet you that that if we stripped those benefits out—if there was no significant, tangible benefit to specializing in a given area—people would howl about that too, and about how now the only thing that makes sense is being a generalist because having level 5 in something is worthless.

To be fair, maybe the real answer is "we need to just stop listening to complaints about system design until everything is done, and then do any re-balancing afterwards." Because the systems are meant to facilitate RP, not replace it.

[Thenomain]

@sparks

I ask this with kindness and understanding:

What do you mean "until everything is done"? Is there a timetable? Is it transparent?

(edit: quote was not direct; fixed)

[Kanye Qwest]

@sparks said in Constructive (keyword) Criticism of Arx Systems:

To be fair, maybe the real answer is "we need to just stop listening to complaints about system design until everything is done, and then do any re-balancing afterwards." Because the systems are meant to facilitate RP, not replace it.

Maybe!

[Tempest]

My unsolicited 2c, the glaring problem with prestige currently is that modelling is effectively the "one true way" to get prestige. And like...glaringly so. Model one time, and you are gaining tenfold the total prestige of even other characters in the top 20.

That has been mitigated, yes, with the cap on modelling gains.

But there is still NOTHING in the game that is going to let you potentially gain 1+ million prestige a week, except...modelling.

Which makes it feel very weird and kind of frustrating?

"Prestige" as a system has become literally nothing but a chart of modelling scores.

Will this change, in the future, as more stuff gets added? I am sure it will.

People will probably be salty until then. And let's be serious, probably after it, too, but hopefully less so.

This is amplified when prestige (AKA do you model or not?) effects SO much other stuff in the game.

If you are an HoH and want to mechanically work on improving your house? Go fucking model.

[Arkandel]

@thenomain said in Constructive (keyword) Criticism of Arx Systems:

I don't think your question relates to what Groth said.

I think it's relevant to one of the points of what he said (or, at least, how I interpreted them). Yes, I agree for example if there's a best way to create a certain type of character, yet the game doesn't instruct you in how to do so, or at least point out the tradeoffs if you choose to build them a different way, that's an issue.

However:

@groth said in Constructive (keyword) Criticism of Arx Systems:

You'll never be able to create a system where knowledge and optimization are not things. However you can create a system where a player just making their sheet according to what they feel their character should be like will be succesful and not be subjected to pressures about doing things 'wrong'.

Of course not, unless characters are virtually identical to each other in the end. However my question wasn't so much about whether it's possible to do so or not, but rather what the upside of it was.

For example there are players who enjoy crafting a character's sheet, spending carefully to create a specific build to back their RP up. I'm one of them. And yet even professionally created and highly curated systems (MMOs come to mind) have historically failed to achieve the dual state of balance and *absence of homogeneity. That's a really, really tough goal to achieve.

What's the upside in trying in the context of a game like Arx? It's not a rhetorical question, I think it's a valid one.

[brent]

On the one hand, you do want specialists to be have some distinct advantage to specializing (i.e. the old 5/5) -- otherwise there's no real point to actually going and getting one and you have the one character doing All The Things problem.

On the other hand, giving specialists LOTS of oomph on the far end leads to a perception of obligatory min-maxing. Like, if the net system effect of going from 4/4 to 5/5 is as big as the one going from 2/1 to 4/4, that's not very good either.

I tend to think optimally 2 to 3 (on the 0 to 5 scale) ought to be your biggest hop in terms of numerical effectiveness when you're basing calcs on straight up skill points instead of the results of rolls, with the subsequent 3 to 4, 4 to 5 (and 5 to 6) being progressively smaller improvements.

[Tempest]

If you want to encourage specialization...XP Cap.

Not XP tax.

XP cap.

When you have infinite xp, eventually everybody who plays for 6+ months is great at 75% of the things.

No, people's characters don't need to keep "growing" sheetwise forever and ever and ever. If you get older and want to learn a new skill? Drop a point from one of your other things.

[Roz]

I just want to say that I have RPed SO MUCH about Berenice's fashion and most recently her Assembly outfit that bumped her way up to #2 on +score.

But also I find the idea of further lowering the ceiling on modeling and increasing the floor for things like event hosting, work/invest, and +donate to be super fair for balancing. Especially event hosting!

BUT YOU CAN TOTALLY RP ABOUT MODELING. I'm playing a dedicated fashionista socialite tho which probably makes a difference.

As for the matter of optimizing -- I think that there's a different between optimizing and specializing. Specializing is when you say "my character is focused in one specific area and all or most of their stats and skills will be in that area." Optimizing, to me, is more "what is the most efficient way to maximize the numbers as the system currently exists." Staff has generally indicated that their philosophy is that they want people to specialize or not based on what's IC for the character to pursue so that they can balance the system to optimize around that. As @Sparks said, they want the system to reward specialization in a way that you do get an advantage for it versus someone more generalized/spread out, or else you end up with a game full of generalists where anyone can basically do anything and no one is really shining in different ways.

Optimizing to just boil down everything to maximum efficiency for skill buys also runs the risk of literally becoming obsolete when the system is retooled/rebalanced.

I know that there are players for which optimizing the numbers is a source of a lot of fun! I think the issue that comes up is when the extremes kind of butt against each other. Like, a lot would be solved I think if people kind of just paused a beat to clarify if a level of detail on either end is what someone is asking for. If someone is just discussing their PC's overall skillset, comments about it not being "optimized" (like what @Goblin described happening to him) can be really premature and end up feeling unwelcoming and discouraging. Likewise, if you're asking for help and people start with the basics but what you're really looking for is more detailed stuff, just ask for more detail instead of assuming people won't help or are hiding info.

@sparks said in Constructive (keyword) Criticism of Arx Systems:

To be fair, maybe the real answer is "we need to just stop listening to complaints about system design until everything is done, and then do any re-balancing afterwards." Because the systems are meant to facilitate RP, not replace it.

Tbh I have been saying this about various things since Alpha. That it is okay for staff to be like "Okay we understand there are concerns but we've reached our cap of talking them out for the time being."

[Thenomain]

@arkandel

That's fair. I think searching for homogeneity is a mug's game; it's traditionally been the GM's job to make things interesting for the players, or as @Sparks says, the systems are there to facilitate RP, not replace it.

However, I have upped my concern to: It looks like the players are playing an incomplete game. I have no problem with this. But as a defense, it makes this entire thread moot, academic for the sake of academics.

I also have no problem with this, but if true it does mean that Arx staff should probably stick to this as their one and only defense of Arx, if they feel that Arx needs defended at all.

Explained, sure. Defended? Not at all. We are, after all, blowing in the wind, and anyone who doesn't realize that now is probably just fooling themselves.

System design is fun, even when futile. So onward, to system design theory!

--

edit: Er, that said, it's still staff's job to try and make all sheet designs as fun as reasonable.

edit 2: By "explained", I mean if you lot want to explain the theory behind a certain system design, cool. I'm interested in design theory, and tend to prod at its weaknesses in the White...ish Hat Pentest manner. If you want input, you're already getting flooded with it. If not? Yeah, not bringing it up might be best.

[Arkandel]

@tempest Even though having XP caps is certainly one way to address specialization, it bears pointing out it's not the only way, and that it has side effects - such as disincentivizing established players from earning more XP by participating in the game's systems that reward it.

[Tempest]

@arkandel said in Constructive (keyword) Criticism of Arx Systems:

@tempest Even though having XP caps is certainly one way to address specialization, it bears pointing out it's not the only way, and that it has side effects - such as disincentivizing established players from earning more XP by participating in the game's systems that reward it.

I've yet to see any other way of addressing it actually accomplish anything.

If there is infinite XP, eventually people have all the things. Even if they are paying 5x the XP cost of other people for those things.

[Groth]

@thenomain
I don't think Arx needs to be defended. The purpose of the thread as I see it is examination, feedback and suggestions, not attack.

[Arkandel]

@tempest said in Constructive (keyword) Criticism of Arx Systems:

@arkandel said in Constructive (keyword) Criticism of Arx Systems:

@tempest Even though having XP caps is certainly one way to address specialization, it bears pointing out it's not the only way, and that it has side effects - such as disincentivizing established players from earning more XP by participating in the game's systems that reward it.

I've yet to see any other way of addressing it actually accomplish anything.

If there is infinite XP, eventually people have all the things. Even if they are paying 5x the XP cost of other people for those things.

Whether any other way of addressing the issue is 'as good' or not is debateable and I'm not going to pursue that argument in a thread about a game I don't play msyelf. Its players know better about that part.

What I'm saying though is that if an argument is made that a certain system is the best to address a problem then part of that argument must be to point out its side-effects, if only to ensure the solution doesn't create more problems than it's solving. I'm deeply suspicious of easy solutions ("do <X> and the problem is solved!"), since it's usually because they skip that step.

[Thenomain]

@groth said in Constructive (keyword) Criticism of Arx Systems:

I don't think Arx needs to be defended.

Nor do I. I even said as much.

I've seen a few posts indicating that it does, or that the feedback is unwelcome.

To those people taking it there, getting up in arms on either side, I say: It's all good.

(Mostly because it looked like @Sparks was maybe getting a bit agitated, and that bugs me because she's good people. Don't nobody hurt Sparks, dammit.)

[Pyrephox]

@kanye-qwest There's an argument to be made for it. Ultimately, whatever changes you make to the system right now are only going to apply to how the system works /right now/, and how the system works with characters who have been built and benefited from years of working under different versions of the system. All of that seriously skews "how the system works" even in the moment, because everyone isn't really playing by the same rules. But more, every time you add a new system, /everything/ is going to be thrown off to some extent within the playerbase, and people are going to throw characterization to the wind as they scramble to adjust their mechanical abilities to take advantage of the new shiny. That's just gonna be a thing, and the only way to stop that from being a thing would be regular XP/asset resets with each rollout, so that you could actually test how the system works.

My biggest fear with this rolling implementation is that changes keep being made based on edge cases largely created by people having gobs and gobs of XP to build a character /perfectly/ designed to take advantage of the system, which often ends up hurting everyone who isn't that character. Which you have been taking into account by boosting some low-level work of various systems! But then, that leaves people in the middle, who the helpfiles say have "professional" level skills somewhat in a lull space.

But, talking about one specific thing: making hosting events more rewarding. I think the only real way to do that is to make hosting events more impactful. Adding prestige (even more prestige) to orgs and people who host events might help, but prestige should not, I think, be an ur-stat in the way it's sort of becoming (which is, to my mind, the issue with it, not just that there are numbers and they go up).

What I might suggest are a couple of different things: Fame gained for an event is a fraction of the fame of the people who attend that event, maybe averaged out, calculated at a random point during the event?. This lets social-climbing PCs know who they need to flatter, schmooze, and invite to get big boosts, AND it gives Famous PCs a chance to use that fifteen minutes of Fame to be courted and maybe win concessions or bonuses for being willing to show up. It's also very immersive and thematic -- IC Fame means that people want to be seen with you, and certain events will have greater cachet because they're attended by luminaries. It also allows people who don't want to have HUGE events throw high end, invitational events and still see benefits for doing so.

Second, throwing an event on behalf of an organization creates an automatic rise (maybe based on largesse and your Propaganda) in your reputation with that organization. Probably Affection rather than Respect, but maybe significant Affection and lower amount of Respect, because you ARE showing your support in a public fashion and taking on expense to do so, in favor of that org. Now - right this second, this doesn't mean much, because Respect and Affection don't do anything, but I assume you guys have systems in the works that will make those stats meaningful! This will position social mavens to be able to have a way to offset losses through actions, or promote themselves to orgs.

Third, allow social events to contribute towards influencing the social atmosphere of the world in a reliable, repeatable way. If a social character wants to, for example, make the defense of thralldom her passion, then she shouldn't have to just persuade PCs, but should be able to throw events that create a sway in the NPC population towards accepting thralldom as an ancient tradition which civilizes shavs and gives criminals a chance to make restitution for their crimes. And while someone could do that right now, by using the @action command, they'd have no idea how effective they would be, how many additional resources might be made, or where the NPC population is regarding thralldom and thus, how much pushing it's likely to need. If you could throw an event, put in your largesse, choose a Social Issue Of The Time (maybe predefined, maybe keyworded) and have it roll something for you and say, "This event will create a SMALL/MODERATE/SIGNIFICANT/LARGE support for thralldom in the NPC members of (Insert Ward Here)." then that's attractive, because you KNOW your character will have something of an effect. It also gives people a way to support causes they're passionate about OTHER than gathering silver and resources.