Post 50th-remort incentives

[Jason Orsini]

and it is 101 mind you. 

[Jaros]

I think exponentially decreasing payoffs would be as far as we could go in that direction.  So by the end if you want to invest 6months in earning 2 extra speed points or something that's fine, and it may even make a difference against that other insane player you're competing against, but for all intents and purposes the overall range isn't increasing anymore.

[Xeriuth]

Perhaps something that I've seen before is a type of rebirth or reincarnation system. When you do this, you go back to level 1, no remorts. and start fresh as a unique class/race with. Of course you can keep everything you earned your first playthrough, all quest flags, equipment, tokens, gold, subskills, cybernetics if they are in, etc. This will provide incentive to keep levelling, because you just have to start over to keep going. If you want to keep going for no other reason but to keep going, then that's on you. Except maybe, lets say a portion of the exp after 50 remorts could be conveyed over to after the rebirth. Not really time effective, but it does give something.  With this of course, it could propose unique to races that players could propose or something else interesting to make it semi worthwhile, without the new perk being advantageous, just something, new, unique, and desired.

[Asmodeus]

After 50 remorts on one race, you could be 'reborn' into another race and start collecting races like you do with classes.  Then maybe you could get the bonuses of each race on top of the bonuses for each class.  I start as a spacewolf and complete 50 remorts.  Then I am reborn as an elf.  I could keep whatever dam bonus perk a spacewolf gets, but then also have the stats of an elf as i am that class.  Say i complete another 50 remorts and turn into a gringo.  Then I get the perks of spacewolf and elf, but now i also have gringo stats.

I guess in doing this, you'd be reset to tier 1 level 1 with 0 remorts each rebirth, and would essentially have to reach GM and get to 50 remorts.  This way though, you're collecting race stats as opposed to just adding bonus points to already buffed stats, and you're starting over which helps level the playing field a little bit for newer characters.  Although, being reborn, you should get to keep everything you earned up to this point.

Also, this would give us a chance to look at races and make them a bit more unique if need be.

[Jason Orsini]

buuu 

[Jaros]

First we had remorts, then tiers, then GM, then.. Grand-GM?  Race-Master?  I won't lie, it feels like we're just stacking things up.

There IS a problem in that you get GM and then what?  But that problem has always been there in one form or another.  Some kind of reincarnation just seems like repeating the tactic we've used every time in the past without ever really solving the problem.

I think this line is key:

something else interesting to make it semi worthwhile, without the new perk being advantageous, just something, new, unique, and desired.

If we can work out what that thing is, that's worth building a system around.  Some open-ended reason to keep going and developing your character without getting physically stronger in relation to anything else.

What's genuinely worth earning that doesn't make you any bigger?

Our coders are busy as fuck already, both here and elsewhere, as everyone knows.  If we want to actually develop something like this it HAS to last.

[Molly]

I think Virisin already summed things up very well  in his reply #13 on page 1, so I won't repeat all of his arbuments here, just go back and read them

One of our main problems is, that the gap between new players and oldbies already is too big. It makes new players despair about ever catching up, and it also makes the game harder to balance.
And any additional 'remorting rewards' will just increase that gap.
We'll have to figure out something else, to keep oldbies interested enough to leave Recall.

Let's just all take a deep breath, take a step back and consider the subjects of Game Design and Balance, instead of constantly asking for new patches that, although they sound cool one by one, potentially might cause more problems than they solve.

Let's start out by asking ourself the following questions:

1. What kind of the game do we have presently?
2. What are the things that we specifically like and specifically dislike with our current game?
3. What kind of game is it that we want?
4. How do we get from step 1 to step 3 without disrupting any of the things that we like in the process?

So far I haven't seen anyone draw up the goals and frames for the design we should aim for. And by design I mean the total package, because everything hangs together - balance, races, classes, equipment, skills and spells, fight code, zones, quests, trading, code features...
And because everything is so convoluted, every change we do affects a lot of other things - usually a lot more than was expected from the start.

Understand me right;
- I'm not against changes, as long as they are not so totally fundamental that we lose our 12 year old identity.
- I think it's wonderful that we actually for the first time in 4D history have more than one competent coder.
- I think that changes usually are positive, because development in a mud is one of the things that keeps the player interest up.
- I think many of the ideas that are being tossed around or already implemented are promising.

I just want someone to present the full picture of what we are aiming for, before we start running in one direction or another.
Once we have defined the long term goals that we are striving for, all changes - even the small ones - should work together towards those goals.
And that means both Coders, Builders and Players.

And maybe the subject of Game Design is worth its own thread?