Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning
-
@Kanye-Qwest I was commenting on someone else commenting on the XP, and others have also, so... I think obviously some other people do perceive something? My perception is a newbie perception, which is to say, things look big and overwhelming and I realize that probably inflates it somewhat. But maybe newbie perspectives are valueable, even if they're not 100% accurate. But I don't mean any of this as highly critical.
@Roz Yeah, I think that's more or less what I'm trying to say and you're saying it better. I don't mean to be throwing down, just chiming in.
-
I think it is a LOT of game for a newbie, @kitteh, for sure. =/ The practical realities of people having a lot of xp are going to vary and might not always be how they seem (OR THEY MIGHT!), but I definitely get the perception.
-
If people can just buy a bunch of retainers to help with investigations if they can't/won't purchase their own investigate higher, doesn't that render obsolete the niche for high investigate pcs?
-
@Kanye-Qwest Yeah, that's mostly the idea.
I mean, to pivot a little to the purely positive side, there is a lot to be said for how it being a 'lot' of game is also a great thing. Like the other night, with your 'I don't want to post this now but OK I'm gonna' 'OH SHIT!!!' emit, as huge as that was, and some of the other emits have been, they're not even on my radar because I have OTHER big things to be thinking about. That there can actually be multiple BIG THINGS at once, that you can not have an in to one and have ins to another - that's downright amazing.
I came in with seemingly huge-ass plot hooks right on my sheet, and that's something that totally awesome. For as much as I sometimes feel totally lost I've found my way into things somewhat (I think!), and I'm hopeful. Unlike on Firan, I have trust, so I'm willing to play through the overwhelming feelings and see where it gets me
-
The clues and that entire system are absolutely a fun thing about the game. Working out your +theories, sharing them with groups and individuals who then create their own as well. It's a fun rabbit hole that I haven't experienced with the rapidness of response in other games.
-
@mietze said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
If people can just buy a bunch of retainers to help with investigations if they can't/won't purchase their own investigate higher, doesn't that render obsolete the niche for high investigate pcs?
I don't have an investigative retainer, so this may not be accurate, but my understanding is that use of a retainer also takes up your weekly investigation slot. So, you can only toss one retainer at something, and you can't toss a retainer AND do your own, other investigation, at the same time. So multiple retainers wouldn't really help - if you want to get maximized results, you need to seek out other actual PCs (or their retainers) to help.
-
@mietze said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
If people can just buy a bunch of retainers to help with investigations if they can't/won't purchase their own investigate higher, doesn't that render obsolete the niche for high investigate pcs?
It does take a good bit of investment to actually build a retainer into a really good investigator. I've had my retainer for -- I dunno, five months? Ish? And I'm still in the process of building. And, for me at least, he doesn't at all remove my need to collaborate with other people on investigations: he's just additional investigation assistance. I've never thought "I don't need people's help because I have this retainer." Because one single investigation retainer? Is only going to help so much. It's still always better to get more than one person to help.
@Pyrephox said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
@mietze said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
If people can just buy a bunch of retainers to help with investigations if they can't/won't purchase their own investigate higher, doesn't that render obsolete the niche for high investigate pcs?
I don't have an investigative retainer, so this may not be accurate, but my understanding is that use of a retainer also takes up your weekly investigation slot. So, you can only toss one retainer at something, and you can't toss a retainer AND do your own, other investigation, at the same time. So multiple retainers wouldn't really help - if you want to get maximized results, you need to seek out other actual PCs (or their retainers) to help.
You can only run one investigation per week, but you could, say -- run an investigation on your PC and help a different investigation with your retainer. Or help two separate investigations (one on PC, one on retainer).
-
I have seen this system before, where retainers can be built up over time, and participate in downtime/offscreen/supplemental actions. Just want to warn you that the unintended consequences often elbow out lower level PC from play and participation, especially as described above--high level friends build up retainers and then use those objects in a circular fashion with eAch other.
I don't believe that it ever starts out as an intentional way to bypass newbie/lower level inclusion but it often turns into that. So. Something to keep an eye on.
-
Investigations are wonderful aspects that generate a lot of RP, lore and fun. It's more fun when you don't just use your own retainer but have multiple people looking into things where you can get various results that don't always pan out how you're thinking it'd go! The Scholars is one group off the top of my head publicly that had good examples of this, the Darkwaters did some too.
Retainers are great to even out your abilities without overpowering your own specific character.
Battle focused character but weak on social/investigative? Get and create a social retainer and begin upping their levels.
Social focused character but weak on battle skills? Get and create a champion retainer and begin upping their levels and giving them gear.
Retainers are cool, except a zillion of them following people and those creepy animals slithering up to deliver a message. Nobody wants bird poo in the eye or rabies! Bird messenger delivers a message, "KAW! KAW! KAAAAAW!" You take 50 damage to your right eye, becoming blind. Lord Zipperzot the next day brings a case against you in court for ignoring his request that he sent via messenger.
-
@mietze said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
If people can just buy a bunch of retainers to help with investigations if they can't/won't purchase their own investigate higher, doesn't that render obsolete the niche for high investigate pcs?
I definitely appreciate the concern. Now I think the thing that counteracts it most there is that there's no limit on the number of people helping in an investigation, and they all make a significant difference in the rate something is finished. Right now, most investigations are really done by teams of people- some people do slowly gain things on their own, especially if they are stated for it, but it's difficult enough where most people aren't really like, 'oh I'll just do this alone with my retainer bob' since the threshold is so high, I usually see it like 4 PCs and 2 retainers helping out in one big thing as a team, rather than a bunch of smaller ones.
We are really nudging people towards the 'work as a team thing' not just because of the whole wanting to encourage collaborating aspect, but because it's really, really, really difficult to keep up with the rate people investigate otherwise if there's like 40 separate ones in per week. (I was spending 15+ hours a week just writing them at one point, before we dramatically raised difficulty)
some fucking idiot who people only like because he's good at taking credit for the work of everyone under him, just like every other fucking L&L headwiz.
-
@Apos said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
I definitely appreciate the concern. Now I think the thing that counteracts it most there is that there's no limit on the number of people helping in an investigation, and they all make a significant difference in the rate something is finished. Right now, most investigations are really done by teams of people- some people do slowly gain things on their own, especially if they are stated for it, but it's difficult enough where most people aren't really like, 'oh I'll just do this alone with my retainer bob' since the threshold is so high, I usually see it like 4 PCs and 2 retainers helping out in one big thing as a team, rather than a bunch of smaller ones.
To add to what Apostate says, my largest investigation was one involving thirteen PCs all pushing to the same goal for half a month, as a culmination of two other investigations (each with 5 or 6 folks on them) and a crisis action which, together, gave us enough info to know what to look for. As a whole, it was about 2.5 RL months of work for a lot of people. And as a result, we retrieved the lost ritual that allowed the paladins to be empowered.
There was zero chance I could've done that on my own if for some reason I hadn't wanted to involve others.
-
@Kanye-Qwest said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
That's somewhat the point of a forum like this.
Wait...what?
Who are you?
I am confused and frightened.
GET OFF YOUR LAWN!...
...
But seriously, A++ (plus a few more plusses) for the direction Arx is taking on the ever-present XP problem. I would far, far rather a game where the top tier is nearly impossible to attain than one where it's too easy to attain; I imagine it will keep the "End Game" problem far, far away.
Of course not everyone is going to be happy with it, but erring on the side of caution rather on the side of free candy for everyone is exciting. I can't wait to see what the result of this will be in a year. I'll wait, lacking time-travel.
Kudos.
-
@Kanye-Qwest said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
So in the final battles of the siege (IE the storming of Arx) we realized that uh, if you go unconscious it essentially removed any danger because nothing would target you.
That's going to be (might already have been) fixed. That's why no PCs died during it - though a few still came REALLY close. Whoops. You get this one for free, Arx.
One thing I noticed in the siege was some healers jumping into the fray of battle to "rescue" wounded people without having to make rolls with regards to their own safety. They literally posed going onto the battlements and into battle to drag someone back without a single roll. Otherwise, I thought everything was handled really well and kudos to Apostate for something that must have been hella intensive to run.
-
Somebody said earlier that this game is a bit more Dino friendly than Firan, and I just wanted to add my two cents to that... Firan was ruled by dinos that nobody could touch because they would just trample all over you. I played for 5 years, and was in the top xp earners list more often than not, funneling xp from my two alts to one just to try to catch up, and I still couldn't touch them.
This is because Firan had 1 vote = 1 xp. There was no tax, and so everybody was moving along, acquiring skills at the same rate as everybody else, so it didn't matter if you started a week ago or have been playing since the beginning, you were on the same level as everybody else, and you weren't about to catch up to the dinos. Except for maybe the fact that they likely weren't really raising too many skills at the end.
Here, you have the reduced returns, which I hated at first, but have come to appreciate. I'm rarely on the top twenty here, but I'm usually only a point or two behind, so, I'll take it. The longer you're around the harder it gets to raise skills, so it'll always be possible to catch up to a dino, or at least close the gap significantly. Being around longer will always present advantages, and I think that's honestly fair enough, and here I think they've done a great job fixing most if not all of the areas that Firan fell flat in.
Although. I hope that they look to the Firan damage system for inspiration when redesigning the combat. That's easily somewhere I feel was awesomely put together, and I'm not crazy about how damage currently works, though we're still beta, so I expect there to be a lot of changes.
-
Is this OOC or IC impressions, in the form of OOC information?
I have a waggish sense of humor.
-
@Misadventure The latter
-
@DeadEmpire said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
Except for maybe the fact that they likely weren't really raising too many skills at the end.
You're completely burying the lead here. This is the entire reason I made the comparison, and it's the whole point. Getting a skill to 5 didn't take that much, and once you did it, that was it (you're right about the voting, but there was a lot of auto-xp you could get similar to Arx's journals, via converting CP). Almost all the people playing focused characters had 5s by the time they'd played for a couple months.
Dinos didn't stomp on people because they had vastly superior stats (with the very limited exceptions of the few legendary people). They stomped on people because they were staff friends or staffalts and the judging was rigged. Events that were pure statistical contests (like the pentathlons) were regularly won by non-dino random nobodies.
Still not saying Arx's system is bad or that Firan's is preferable (for tons of other reasons, and the xp vote scaling is great), but with 3-4 skills you need for combat, plus gear, plus champions and guards that you can dump resources into, I think it's impossible to say that the total range of character advancement isn't vastly wider. That means by definition the gap between newbie and dino will be wider, and grow wider with time.
-
@kitteh While I still don't agree completely, I do see what you're saying. The thing is, the barrier for entry is not nearly as bad as it could be in Firan, and the way the XP system is designed in Arx makes me feel like leveling up will be interesting for far longer than it was in Firan. When I said that the gap between newbie and dino will narrow, what I meant was, if I were to start a new character today, I would be able to more quickly acquire the skills I want and need to catch up to a dino in the sphere that I want to gain entry in. Nothing will eliminate the problem completely (and Arx definitely needs a few sinks put into place, because right now everybody is too insanely rich), but I think Arx has done a great job of making it attainable and fun to try to get yourself to the same level as the people that have been playing for twice as long as I have. So like... I hear what you're saying, but I definitely think that what we have here is way better. I'm honestly not sure what I would even change about it to make it better.
-
@DeadEmpire Oh, I absolutely agree it will be more interesting for longer. I think this is one of those talking past each other kind of things. There's no question that Arx's system is a gajillion times deeper, and that there's far, far more for you to spend on. That said, if the dinos are never actually reaching the top where they level out, then simple math, you can't catch up.
What you can do is incentivize newbies and quickly bring them to a certain level of competence, which it does (well). The potential danger is that the scaling required for dinos devalues said basic competence. Group activities like the crisis and investigation systems seem good for this, as long as the default difficulties aren't too high? Like I've got my noob char in a +crisis that's about to resolve, I'm really curious to see how it pans out.
-
@kitteh Re: Combat retainers. Please note raising the retainers level to 5 does nothing but let you raise their stats. The level of the retainer caps their stats. I just spent a month leveling my character's dog to 5. Now I have to take MORE MONTHS to actually buy up her skills and her stats-- which buy the way seem to have the same XP progression as PCs AND cost military/economic/social resources.
