But like.. I'm not advocating for fast advancement, I never advocated for that, I advocated for a realistically time frame for advancement to occur. If your game has 4 to 1 time dilation, 2 IG years seems pretty adequate amount of time to acquire a level of mastery that should be feasible... and not just 'expert', especially if that character is participating in .adventures or situations that test their mettle a lot. A game with a multiplicative system really makes such advancement infeasible.
@insomniac7809 The Sherlocke holmes analogy fails a little bit because there is also Watson, who is the lens with which the book exists.. and is receiving training basically from Holmes throughout the entire series.. even if he never really gets any better. That isn't to say that Watson is the protagonist, but the trope exists in the literature.
There is the first movie sure for batman, but then you can have your deathstroke.. you know where batman meets super batman? And Batman has to learn to be a better batman to beat super batman?
The problem with your comparison to Han is that like.. character growth can occur both in a skill level, but also emotionally as well. Character development is a sign of character depth, in your Han analogy, Han doesn't grow as a thief, but he grows as a person. He goes against his princples of money first and goes back to save luke, and more.
So, what system is this using exactly?
Gonna go off topic becuase whee!
Could always do the trader route from north Africa after all.. If you want to do west or central African pigmentation... hrm..
IRL Musa's Hajj brought like several thousand peoples, with a few tons of gold, I'm sure some people remained behind in this time frame. Could be one of them? (Which FYI is how venice and genoa (the focus of the game) became so powerful IRL, the price of gold inflates wildly to the point of being nearly worthless as Musa distributes gold like its candy to every person he meets. Food prices increased. Europe at this point is still a poor backwater that only is notable for the amount of grain it has to trade. Venice proceeds to trade grain for obscene amounts of money. This period of time is basically the start of the Venetian golden age for a reason.)
The idea behind linear advancement isn't that you eliminate the gain- its that you make min-maxing accessible to everyone so that they can do it too, if it becomes a problem. (Caps exist for a reason too, so even min-maxers can't go too crazy and get brawl to 10 without still acquiring a massive opportunity cost even in a linear system. Like in nwod 2e)
If a player apps in to a system he knows nothing about- plays around, has fun but discovers he needs to retweak or retool their character.. like.. a total sheet rework isn't really a solution to the problem- its admitting that there is a problem. Without that sheet rework, in a multiplicative system that player is kind of screwed- just remake.
In a linear system- there is a very real possibility of solving these inadequacies.
AH I getcha, that makes more sense, sorry, @ThatGuyThere
Actually I like a story where an abused small child develops into an idealistic young man, who tries to follow strong guidelines, but as he becomes more and more skilled at writing journalistic pieces becomes a wealthy, cynical jackass who ruins peoples lives, or ends them and eventually becomes not unlike the monster that set his entire life into motion. His development and ability to manipulate people improving from his originally vulnerable state where he was nothing but a victim, to the very person he was rescued from.
Also Luke spends half of the empire strikes back literally talking to a puppet, learning how to be a jedi. Only at the beginning of 3 is he even remotely like a jedi... and then he beats the shit out of Vader and sees the puppets prophecy coming true and pulls back from the brink, because his character development was linked to his skill development.. and that process of training informed his decisions.
THe die hard movies has schlubby, regular john mcclain as a competent dude, sure but like.. its a realistic situation where its wrong place at the wrong time and only he can do something about it.
In 4 and 5 he's literally crashing helicopters into shit, well and beyond what the Mclain in Die hard one could of ever of done. In 1, he's a recognizable every man, hes better at a alot of things then the every man, but he is still 'human'. As the movies go on he become like this super weird monster.
That reads as incredibly puriticanal thing... I mean, like..
"everyone should come from the womb as fully formed adults capable of everything, character development and improvement, both in terms of skill, type of character, and general back ground, history and experiences should be established before getting into the game..." Like.. but..
Rosebud?
Growing, both in terms of skill and interactions.. is a very real part of life (childhood anyone?) and literature is reflecting real life in that regard. Is it unrealistic that MMorpgs have you start at level 1? Yes, but the faraday system isn't about magic and murdering dragons, and 90 levels of progression, it's learning to use a sword from beginner to expert.
@Faraday Except isn't that like a standard trope.. of literally every bit of fiction that has existed? Like isn't all media based on the idea that is breaking your 'suspension of disbelief'?
Not everyone starts out as a mecurtio. some of us are just plain old dudes, who don't know what the hell we are doing, train hard for a couple of months, get beat down but show remarkable development in our first major fight against the champ who was just looking for a publicity stunt match, then go on to beat the Russian, and have 3 other movies of varying quality before getting a soft reboot where we play the son of the dude who first beat our original protagonist character and train him via chicken catching.
There is something fun about starting only barley competent at something, or even more fun, incompetent, then becoming decent.. then even good at it. It allows players to have a history like... oh god I hope I don't accidentally crash this ship into the same mountain like I did last year.. but luckily, I've trained so much that is highly unlikely!
What? So in a cgen with multiplicative costs you make yourself competent only ant what you want then waste points?
Then in flat additive you drop all your xp into one thing?
I mean, that is different sure, but that is highly inefficient and sort of to the point of being almost a joke... and clearly the reverse of how a decent min-maxer would do their sheet.
Edit: So apparently, what has gone on here, is I am so confused by your post.. that what you were saying is literally what I said... except that you don't do the most xp efficient thing on the planet in a multiplicative xp system. So by definition you arn't min-maxing then in cgen? You know where min-maxing tends to be the most problematic and obvious?
I think a lot of this has been covered pretty well all ready.. er.. but I'll just add this in..
I am encouraged to min-max if the opportunity cost is that I will be subjected to unrealistic costs in game.This is just to pursue a set of stats that a normal character would end up specializing in during the course of play but ultimately unable to afford due to how xp spend costs work out.
So in systems like Faraday/WoD/L5R/Etc I tend to always min-max because they have multiplicative xp costs. This is justto get what I want to get out of cgen. I then try and fill in the cheaper gaps and flesh out a sheet. If the system is designed with a flat additive systems where everything costs the same amount at all times, then I'm willing to 'waste' points on skills that won't make me the most super optimized at everything. This is contingent on the expectation that as a player I can achieve my goals during the course of play.
SO yah.. if a system is inadvertently designed to punish players so that they don't have a realistic expectation to become that brawler monster or stealth master out of cgen, then not only should players min-max, they should be encouraged to do so. If they don't they will constantly be forced to invest xp sub-optimally in comparison to a player like me, who would min-max HARD in cgen, and then fill out the rest of the sheet.
Count me curious and watching. I've never played Fading Suns, so this is new.. and I do like the sort of descent from utopia style games.. so yah. This is up my alleyway.
@Arkandel Let's also not forget that bullies or assholes will often leverage their physical stats in disputes to coerce people- and the only way to feel protected yourself is to have good enough stats to make sure you arn't turned into paste, or are a large enough speed bump that there is some risk to them- and that you can escape alive. Thats always why even though I make almost exclusively non-combat characters- I always max out physical/combat stats. I know it sounds stupid, and I know I shouldn't, but all to often you'll encounter that bullshit and then realize- If I just had physical stats I'd be more confident to tell that person to back off.
Heres a question-
What if I want you to design and code an incredibly complicated new xp system?
I knew the comparison to dark souls was coming, and I have a huge problem with this analogy. If Armageddon was dark souls, it sounds like the worst dark souls game ever conceived.
The Mantra of Dark Soulesque games are- I'm dieing a lot and it's all my fault. As the thread established, there are a lot of reasons why a character might die or be ruined that are distinctly not the players fault. Furthermore..
Dark Souls is more fair.. and if you make a mistake in dark souls you have a downtime of approximately 3-10 minutes- and can generally figure out a way to actually correct behavior through watching, responding and experimenting. Observation of enemy beaviors, enemy placements and what not allow players to more or less to gain experience.
If we were to use Armageddon as a comparison, you make a mistake because you were not informed, or otherwise just behave not 'normally'- (or to be fair, don't take the game's wilderness seriously- though information on where you can go to new players is fairly scant) the game deletes your save file- and the reload takes anywhere from 2-3 days approval process on top of your character design process down time. Don't forget your skills are all reset obviously, so your ability to observe in detail for the future is significantly stunted until you get to your previous point. You also lose all your gear, your stats are randomly rerolled so you could become completely useless and have to suicide anyway and redo the entire process, and maybe this character will rub someone the wrong way too? Who knows! This is not a 'fair' system, especially if the game is not forthcoming with information from the gate.
Whether you actually learned anything from your mistake may be negotiable- perhaps you just got unlucky, perhaps one player was having a bad day and ganked you. Or perhaps staff decided to animate an npc and murder you, or you accidentally log onto the day of reckoning and plot that has player over turn over like nobodies business.Or a freak enemy placement, or you purchase a bunch of junk in the newbie shop because no one bothered to tell you what is actually worthwhile. Or maybe you get murdered by a templar because you somehow role played knowing how to read and instead of being a rational person, they killed you, because lets face it, those people also play this game too. I'm currently playing with some now on the RPI I currently play, I am a hundred percent certain they exist on Arma
@bored B-but.. HOI 4 taught me the most important principle of warfare and training!
"Perfect" weapons are overrated, a large number of "good enough" weapons is the path to victory!"
The easy balance is that it should take a ton of time to build a tank- and 2 minutes to put a gun in the hand of a dude and tell him how to pull the trigger and go die... something along those lines anyway. Every tank a guilder loses should be a massive loss that can't realistically be replaced in a short war- but retraining soldiers- is significantly cheaper and more feasible. Also you can just throw out complete raw recruits too to fill the gaps. Guns r cheap.
Not gonna hop into this argument, but when I get @ I like being quoted for things I acually claim and said, @thugheaven. On page 9, your confusing my ooc communication issues with someone else comparing rpis to some game. Grumble grumble
Well there tend to be a few examples- but all of which could color a player to refrain from using ooc.
The first example is a new player asking questions oocly about things his character would icly know to other characters in game. Said players asked questions would likely respond not with an ooc answer, but a simple ask IC.
General communication about things you can do in the game oocly are highly discouraged, if not punishable infractions.
A benign question asked oocly- even if your character icly might have knowledge of such- that is illegal could be something as simple as:Hey is it a good idea to go outside the west gate and hunt there or is the east gate safer? Some games go find out ic, Arma has a much harder stance on that shit, not only do you not get the answer, you should be 'reminded' not to ask questions like that.
Thus after maybe a week of this behavior- of being 'encouraged' or 'punished' to use ic communicion only, a player is not going to WANT to ask for a retcon until the scene is far too far in.
(On the RPI I play on currently, during a travel phase to arrange play times for about 10 or so players.. I used ooc personally.. 4 times total? During a trip, over the course of a week. This was to arrange travel times.. with diverse players. Instead players tried to try and match u preal time to in game time which is all sorts of stupid and difficult. Imagine how much easier if everyone was just willing to use ooc and not afraid people would call them out on that shit)
You.. play on an RPI, have you never encountered it? It's not a unicorn.
Let's not also forget that ooc communication is highly discouraged- so some new players might encounter situations where they are told not to take it ooc and keep it ic, so they might be afraid to ask for a retcon. Oh snap, the system is designed to keep new players in the dark and kick the shit out of em. So you know all those games your encouraged to express your needs and desires in the game oocly with the people around you so they know your limits n shit? Fuck that.
So what Arma needs it sounds like isn't players from Mushes... but fucking staffers who actually understand concepts of transparency and ethics. Lmao.
@Hedge Arma isn't unique in many of these things- most staff are not transparent on RPIS or what goes on behind the scenes- Arma I just know is the worst, by far.
First proposed solution- a who list where staff can't be invisible, all staff that are online must be publicly announced an online at the time. The mere fact that a player will never see when or which staff is online is insane, and a great source of mistrust for most of the playerbase. That alone is a step in the RIGHT direction. Give em tags if you want, Idle, Working, Observing, available, but they need to be fucking public. (For those of you uninitiated in RPI's, all staff are dark 100 percent of the time, and faceless)
Oh, than I must of been just crazy and imagining my entire experience one year ago. And no rebuttal to the earlier statement about how fucked up it is that such a culture is even considered remotely acceptable to fuck over new players for not being perfect on theme?