Anyways, don't we want to make it as easy as possible to maintain RP, without having to pay a premium for it? It seems like it's in the best interest of everyone to have the most RP preserving choice be the cheapest and easiest one!
Oh, right, it's perfectly fine to jump guilds and learn skills. My thought was that if you want to stay in your guild and learn non-guild skills, it'd cost a premium but you get to keep your guild rank and RP, etc.
I'm coming in very late on this conversation... so my opinions will matter very little to the grand discussion.
I can most reasonably anticipate that the Nekotai guild leaders will nearly block all incoming guild flex requests for players to try monk for PVP or PVE without embracing the cult mentality. Then again, there will be pressure for guild leaders to keep out Glom legacy players... I could see the org pressure to allow for top tier spenders / combatants to flex through each guild (while blocking most others) as a new status quo.
Is that what we are striving for? Is this feature a true improvement on the game as is? Really guildflexing most likely will appeal only to top spenders and combatants. Rather, I would love to see guild flexing attached to arena battles and not to longstanding RP, PVP, PVE, "gotta catch them all" artie traditions.
There was once another Mud who had a dedicated PVP telnet port where you could setup and play a variety of "arena" style pickup games. The hitch was that you could specify race/guild prior to the arena commencing. You would start top level / max skills. This feature seemed to satisfy both the PVP craze and wanting to try out new races/guild prior to making a long term commitment.
Imagine if this feature was imported to Lusternia. For a cost (i.e. credits, gold, lessons) ~ANY~ player could play test races/guilds within the confines of one arena match. I imagine a feature such as this could help better train lowbie to mid-ranged combatants learn the ins and outs of each guild-combat style and boost PVP combat on whole without tampering with RP or true guild mechanics.
I'm going to agree with janalon here. I don't personally feel comfortable with teaching someone outside of my guild(s) the skills without their devotion to my ideals and belief structure.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
Allowing players to easily switch back to their guilds class would help promote maintaining that class, this could be achieved by not putting a restriction on switching back while maintaining one on switching to any class other than your guild. This would be helpful to the druid guilds especially as it would mean people could classflex back if necessary for totems/saplings.
From a guild rp standpoint... I can't honestly see the Hartstone having much issue with its members classflexing into anything other than maybe Moondancers. Stag Warriors would be fine (possibly even popular which could encourage our envoy to look at ways to improve the stag skill for warriors) they've moved away from using magic to defend nature and are now defending it with more mundane powers, Spiritsingers would also be pretty fine, the music being just another way to commune with nature and the spirits, and the Shofangi... well again it's another way to defend nature. The Hartstone already have druids and non-druids (wildewood) in the grove, so more people of different paths just provide more ways to protect the natural world. The main issue I see would be the other guilds not wanting to share. Similarly, I could, at least, see some ease of accepting Moon Warriors into the coven.
This is an amazing thing for guild rp because it means that people who are only in the guild for the skills can leave it, and people who are only not in the guild because of the skills can join it. It should mean that we can go back to the days of being tough on people leaving guilds, because realistically the only reasons that you'd leave a guild would be rp. So you wouldn't have people jumping from guild to guild every few months because they're bored of the class and the population would hopefully even out across guilds.
Oh, I would suggest, if it doesn't already exist, writing something in the code to allow progs to detect if a player has the ability to flex into a class. I could see possible guildhall expansions utilizing it, for example... The Moon Coven might say that the tower itself is only for those who are members of the Coven, but then they might seal it off and allow anyone who has the Moondancer class to enter the gardens and the parlour outside it (which is currently part of the hall)
EDIT: A minor addition to the comment about guild rp. This is a view point developed from being on the receiving end of people ranting and moaning that it is ridiculous and unfair to require them to learn the rp of the guild in order to get rank 3, that it is not fair to require combatants to engage in tasks unrelated to combat... These people can now leave if they don't like the rp of the guild. As above, the Researchers could go really strong in Scientician caste roleplay while the Sentinels could focus in on being the Ministry of Peace, crating people into the defenders of the collective. If someone wants to just be a Researcher combatant and not really engage in the scientist rp, the Institute could decide "I'm sorry, but you don't really belong here you can keep the abilities but you would serve the collective better elsewhere"
These absurdly high costs are just going to cause frustration amongst those people who would like to exercise this option but do not have the means to do so, leaving out what might possibly be a decent avenue of RP.
Personally, I feel that the mere fact a person is going to have to spend the best part of (at least) 900 credits is cost enough in itself.
I'm more than a bit disappointed. I'm not sure why I expected different, but these costs are just impossible for me to even think about trying. This has made an otherwise exciting aspect of the game into a vast expense to which 95% of the game isn't even going to be able to afford, regardless of the permission status of your guild.
If the entire game can't enjoy this opportunity, it doesn't make the game better. In fact, I could even argue there is just no point at all.
#TheRichGetRicher
"But paradise is locked and bolted...
We must make a journey around the world
to see if a back door has perhaps been left open."
Because you can't freely switch back and forth between being a mage and being a warrior or whatever when you need to for a battle. That's something worth paying a premium for, as opposed to permanently switching guilds, which is always a hassle and needs people around to approve of (and also hairy RP).
I would much rather have it be limited to once every six IG months than have a heavy lesson cost, maybe allow the artifact users to do it once an IG month instead, similar to changeling?
Heavy costs are going to alienate players here, when the simple ability to have another class will instead draw in a LOT of interest, and credits from people who want to learn. I'd start learning skills right now, and trans Astrology again, if I could do it without a cost to jump between classes, even if I had to wait time-wise.
Okay, so let's say we remove the extra cost for learning skills outside the guild. Also, we limit classflexing to once a game year.
The artifact would cost 2000 credits and be an upgrade of the doctoral cord (a doctoral tam?). It'd allow you to classflex once per game month (or 5x per game year?) and raise the skillflex limit to 150 lessons per game day.
Estarra, if you do that, sold. I'd jump on that in a heartbeat, no questions asked. Even if it IS just 3/4 times a game year (Though I'd say every one/two months would be a bit better, a sizable advantage over the non-artifacted). I'd definitely go ahead and do it.
Plus hey, I'd be picking up that artifact upgrade, no question about it.
I think this way you have a reasonable artifact, and the cost to switch classes isn't excessively high. It'll encourage people to try it out more freely, though I still can understand the concern over lessons being spent to switch like that.
I'd be all over this like butter on bread if it goes through as the proposed design. There's a couple of skillsets I've wanted to try for some time and been unavailable to due to not wanting to leave the Ebonguard, but at the same time be able to achieve certain goals.
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Might as well just let the artifact do every month. The benefit it provides should be worth the upgrade cost from the cord- and I think that plus the extra flex lessons will do it.
Unless you are still leaving in the transfer costs? Removing that was another of the benefits of the arty idea.
Maybe it would help to just summarize where the full idea stands at this point.
Overall I’m pretty disappointed with the direction this
went, believing instead it would have been better to have a multi-guilding
system to allow players to help pick up the slack in low pop guilds.
This system seems more designed from the power player’s
stance, then from helping grow the playerbase or providing value/coverage for
orgs (it should provide some minor boost for both but doesn’t seem like it’ll
lead to players stampeding to play Lusternia).
For example, one flaw in Lusternia’s design is a near insistence
on melders for group combat. This system, really wouldn’t elegantly address
that, since it is one thing to take on a role to help someone and quite the
other to get suck in that role for depending on how the chord works and how
much you’ve used it, for RL days.
So for myself, I would have much rather seen the ability to
join multiple guilds within the same organization along with a system like
activating which skillset you use at your org’s nexus.
Disclamer, being an artifact whore, I would probably adopt
any system, but my preference would be a system that would help build the
playerbase and give some value to even casual players.
I don't want to dwell too much on the negatives of a guild-flex artie, as the idea has some mass appeal and early coding. Rather, I would love to advocate for an alternate/complimentary race/guild flex that is limited to one arena event for a hefty gold charge. I feel that such a feature could better serve the player base at large for the following reasons:
Help lowbie and midbie PVP'ers learn various aspects of combat
Help Envoys better understand guild skills from the 1st person
Allow all players to playtest race/guild prior to guild hopping/flexing
Steadily drain gold savings over a continuous period of time
For example, one flaw in Lusternia’s design is a near insistence
on melders for group combat. This system, really wouldn’t elegantly address
that, since it is one thing to take on a role to help someone and quite the
other to get suck in that role for depending on how the chord works and how
much you’ve used it, for RL days.
I agree with your statements, but this is a huge point that will hopefully be addressed in the overhaul. A lot of people in my guild are just there because someone has to do it, not necessarily because they give two hoots about the RP, or even because they like the skills (most tend to emphatically not). Having the option to even partially outsource this burden to the rest of the commune would be a huge relief, even if we never actually use it.
For example, one flaw in Lusternia’s design is a near insistence
on melders for group combat. This system, really wouldn’t elegantly address
that, since it is one thing to take on a role to help someone and quite the
other to get suck in that role for depending on how the chord works and how
much you’ve used it, for RL days.
I agree with your statements, but this is a huge point that will hopefully be addressed in the overhaul. A lot of people in my guild are just there because someone has to do it, not necessarily because they give two hoots about the RP, or even because they like the skills (most tend to emphatically not). Having the option to even partially outsource this burden to the rest of the commune would be a huge relief, even if we never actually use it.
Yus, people like me that actually enjoy melding are scarce... and crazy.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Comments
Signature!
Signature!
Personally, I feel that the mere fact a person is going to have to spend the best part of (at least) 900 credits is cost enough in itself.
I'm more than a bit disappointed. I'm not sure why I expected different, but these costs are just impossible for me to even think about trying. This has made an otherwise exciting aspect of the game into a vast expense to which 95% of the game isn't even going to be able to afford, regardless of the permission status of your guild.
If the entire game can't enjoy this opportunity, it doesn't make the game better. In fact, I could even argue there is just no point at all.
#TheRichGetRicher
"But paradise is locked and bolted...
We must make a journey around the world
to see if a back door has perhaps been left open."
-Heinrich Von Kleist, "On the Puppet Theater"
The artifact would cost 2000 credits and be an upgrade of the doctoral cord (a doctoral tam?). It'd allow you to classflex once per game month (or 5x per game year?) and raise the skillflex limit to 150 lessons per game day.
Comments?
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Unless you are still leaving in the transfer costs? Removing that was another of the benefits of the arty idea.
Maybe it would help to just summarize where the full idea stands at this point.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Overall I’m pretty disappointed with the direction this went, believing instead it would have been better to have a multi-guilding system to allow players to help pick up the slack in low pop guilds.
This system seems more designed from the power player’s stance, then from helping grow the playerbase or providing value/coverage for orgs (it should provide some minor boost for both but doesn’t seem like it’ll lead to players stampeding to play Lusternia).
For example, one flaw in Lusternia’s design is a near insistence on melders for group combat. This system, really wouldn’t elegantly address that, since it is one thing to take on a role to help someone and quite the other to get suck in that role for depending on how the chord works and how much you’ve used it, for RL days.
So for myself, I would have much rather seen the ability to join multiple guilds within the same organization along with a system like activating which skillset you use at your org’s nexus.
Disclamer, being an artifact whore, I would probably adopt any system, but my preference would be a system that would help build the playerbase and give some value to even casual players.
Yus, people like me that actually enjoy melding are scarce... and crazy.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.