Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

In all seriousness how about removing the RCR system altogether ?

Full exp refunds can be given for important changes relative to a given PC but otherwise this system, together with the possibility to mule items, is a way to capitalize on your time spent on the server that has ill effects as pointed by Thorsson.

Experience, gold and items keep piling up while the content, with reason as there are true newcomers, does not change power wise. This can lead to an increasingly stale experience the longer you play on the server : more than 2/3 of the server content is pre-epic, I think all the ways to capitalize on time spent on another PC should be removed and prevented, RCR and muleing are a slow poison.

I dont think there is a problem is the RCR system as its intended. But i dont see why you need to skip 10+ levels of potential server content you could be playing. I do like the ability to change a mistake you made on your character - which most pnp DM's would allow anyways. Hence my previous suggestion (some posts back).

I dont like the attitude of some people on here who seem to think that a 'reward' is only measurable in gold, items, or xp. Part of playing the game is for the fun of the game and the interactions with other players. Your experience and fun as a player is more important than any xp your character gains.

That said, it would be worth doing something about the level 30 cap. I am not saying the level cap needs raising (actually i would prefer it lowered), but there should be something that affects characters at the 'max' level. A somewhat extreme example could be that epic death penalties drop you a CL, or that a max level character is automatically scheduled for retirement in someway.

RCR and muleing are a slow poison.

They also create an atmosphere where their benefits become normal and acceptable behavior expected of everyone.

Valefort wrote:In all seriousness how about removing the RCR system altogether ?

First, you need to do something about item acquisition and progression speed in this case.

No-RCR (and no muling) is viable - or was viable - on Sigil. It is not really viable here. Because on sigil you could ask a certain frienldy PC erinyes for assistance and she would send you gathering ingridients which she actually need mechanically, but which are a pain to gather for a high level character. For the ingridients you'd get decent gear beginner gear (+3 with bunch of enchantment) and can start collecting money for decent gear (+5 without extra enchantments is "decent" on sigil), assuming your character survives the trip. Once you ahve decent gear, you can start looking for ultra expensive super gear, but that's optional.

Also, making a build and realizing you misunderstood something sucks. For example, I messed up my very first character badly (couldn't qualify for PRC I needed), and had to redo two very tedious levels. TeKill mentioned earlier a situation where he ran into a bug after playing a character for 6 years. Things like that kill the fun.

Valefort wrote:I think all the ways to capitalize on time spent on another PC should be removed and prevented, RCR and muleing are a slow poison.

QFT

Hard to take away though. It's like candy, if you take it away the kids will cry. Biggest mistake of this server was to push the "for all playstyles" mantra. It means that it will never be great for any playstyle.

RaiderOne wrote: that a max level character is automatically scheduled for retirement in someway.

James Holden, Nemesis Games wrote:“Hell no,” Jim said when they were alone in the suite. “Absolutely no. No (do-me) way, no. There have got to be a billion different ways to say no, and I’d still have to cycle through them a couple times to really express the depth of no on this one. (SPOILERS On the Roci?) How is that anything but a massive load of let’s-not-do-that?”

[quote="Gunnery Sgt. Roberta "Bobbie" Draper, Caliban's war"]“Uh, no,” Bobbie said.
“Did you say no?”
“Yeah, no. Hell no. (do-me) no. Nein und abermals nein. Nyet. La. Siei,” Bobbie said, stopping when she ran out of languages. “And I’m actually a little pissed now.”
[/quote]



I'm absolutely and utterly against any form of permanent retirement - even if a player initiates on their own characters, I'll likely try and convince them otherwise. Permanent death or retirement? Same deal - removes the ability for one to experience living the setting in eyes of a given PC, and removes the ability for others to interact with said PC.

If you want consequences - make it possible to protect 3 items from dropping on death, and drop a random assortment of items/destroy them when dying.



As for RCR and muling:

Muling: Personal storage for PC, no twinking otherwise.
RCR: Allow adjustment of PC, no transfer to new PC.


A new PC is a new identity and being and shouldn't be affected by the successes of the meta-identity of the player. The only exception I can see is allowing staff XP rewards to be rewarded to a yet unnamed PC.

I'd say the first thing to ask is: what is the most important experience to offer Gamers on BGTSCC? Is it the joy of mechanics building and experiencing in a variable and challenging environment? Or, is it the possibility to "choose your own adventure" and Role-play story building where any Character has the possibility to affect the world/environment around them in direct and lasting manner?

There is probably a middle ground, however, any experience will not satisfy the majority. It can, on the other hand, provide a unique experience unavailable any where else.

Anyway, getting rid of the Recycler except for DM-approved instances of broken builds or retirement, is a good idea. It seems that twinking/mulling will continue, thus, starting new PCs will remain easier than ever!

The real roadblock here is how to make low level RP and gaming exciting (again) for players who have "been around" for some time.

Lots of recent scripting work has facilitated this, which is super great. But if there were more Events and Server Wide Campaigns catering specifically to lowbies, and, the reality of lowbies affecting lasting change, it would create a paradigm where any Level carries equal possibility for the Best BGTSCC Experience.

It just has to be shown through empirical experience, for the doubters to change their tune! Or maybe better said: change their Toon! LOL

Steve wrote:I'd say the first thing to ask is: what is the most important experience to offer Gamers on BGTSCC? Is it the joy of mechanics building and experiencing in a variable and challenging environment? Or, is it the possibility to "choose your own adventure" and Role-play story building where any Character has the possibility to affect the world/environment around them in direct and lasting manner?

There is probably a middle ground, however, any experience will not satisfy the majority. It can, on the other hand, provide a unique experience unavailable any where else.

Anyway, getting rid of the Recycler except for DM-approved instances of broken builds or retirement, is a good idea. It seems that twinking/mulling will continue, thus, starting new PCs will remain easier than ever!

The real roadblock here is how to make low level RP and gaming exciting (again) for players who have "been around" for some time.

Lots of recent scripting work has facilitated this, which is super great. But if there were more Events and Server Wide Campaigns catering specifically to lowbies, and, the reality of lowbies affecting lasting change, it would create a paradigm where any Level carries equal possibility for the Best BGTSCC Experience.

It just has to be shown through empirical experience, for the doubters to change their tune! Or maybe better said: change their Toon! LOL

For the lowbies affecting lasting change, DMs would need to agree on a number of standard uses for skills and the DCs for said uses. Naturally, modifiers can make impossible tasks possible, and easy tasks impossible to complete, but the base DC assuming no special circumnstances should be defined and publicly available.

Nothing worse than being a level 10 char in an event with level 30s, DM knows there are level 30s so they make the DC regardless of difficulty and circumnstances to be between 38-53, because they want to avoid "Making it too easy for the level 30s", thus making DCs that no low level can pass despite D20srd and DMHB/PHB stating otherwise.

In PnP, when your character reached level 30 you retired. That's actual retirement, not come back as something else at level 20. As the area split shows, BGTSCC wasn't designed for level 20-30 characters, suggesting that that was at least the unwritten assumption here too. What has followed has been a series of changes working around the key problem of what happens at level 30.

All PWs have faced the problem of what to do at level 30. Here we offered RCR. I don't think it's a great solution, but then again I'm not that keen on solutions elsewhere either. I tend to prefer the PnP solution, which would go something like, "Congratulations, your character has ascended to the Astral Planes to be trained in the art of being a Demi-God. Please re-roll a new character". Apart from having a separate server for level 30s (which has obvious issues) then everything else is going to cause balance problems.

I understand that people have come up with some very clever "fixes" to try and ameliorate the issues caused by open RCR, but all these do is exchange one issue for another. And all the time the encouragement is to miss out levels 1-20.

This then ties in to the BGTSCC levelling paradigm. The idea of longer and longer time needed for each level is taken from MMORPGs - it's not a D&D metric. Of course there was a side benefit originally that it kept people playing for longer as they chased level 30, but that has been superseded for a long time. Once you allowed (non-100%) RCR it was clearly going to be a source of major dissatisfaction for those RCR-ing, hence the constant requests for 100% RCRs and faster levelling. When people "love" dynamic CR, what they mean is they love that they can gain XP in more areas, which means they level faster (even if it's only that it takes longer to get bored). The problem with dynamic CR is that it gives even less reason to start a character at level 1.

So, my point. If you wish to keep open RCR and make all levels accessible to Epics, not to mention having open, muleable gear, why just not skip levels 1-19 altogether? It's the logical conclusion. Or maybe there is something better.

Valefort wrote:I think all the ways to capitalize on time spent on another PC should be removed and prevented, RCR and muleing are a slow poison.

I disagree with that. There are IRL responsibilities, and those mechanics serve as a compromise that allow people to play without dedicating 12 hours per day to bgtscc forever. This way they can still enjoy bgtscc, and you still have characters to interact with.

Disabling RCR and muling (with the way things work now) will simply result in loss of players.

Thorsson wrote: So, my point. If you wish to keep open RCR and make all levels accessible to Epics, not to mention having open, muleable gear, why just not skip levels 1-19 altogether? It's the logical conclusion. Or maybe there is something better.

It is not a good idea, because a ton of fun can be had around levels 1-6 and 12-14. Depending on the build. Skipping it is not a good option. Low level character combat feels different, so this option should be available as well, for those who want to take on low cr dungeons.

Also, people should go from 1 to 20 at least once, to get the idea of the server, lore, what this is all about, etc.

Hoihe wrote:I'm absolutely and utterly against any form of permanent retirement - even if a player initiates on their own characters, I'll likely try and convince them otherwise. Permanent death or retirement? Same deal - removes the ability for one to experience living the setting in eyes of a given PC, and removes the ability for others to interact with said PC.

What some guy said about another game isn't really relevant here. IRL you know, some people die and new ones come along. People have actually retired on BGTSCC in the past and become part of the fabric of the server. Part of the original paradigm, but no longer it seems.

I know you're the King of the RCR, but not everyone feels like you do; you should respect their decisions, rather than trying to change them, which feels like emotional blackmail to me.

Played a new character, no mulling of gear, just going with what I find in chests and basic vendor supplies. Found new cr scaling very enjoyable and have had the pleasure of interacting with a bunch of new players as well. Hardly a dull moment. Skipping those levels because you're bored doesn't sound logical to me, it sounds selfish.

On the flip-side if I retire a level 30 to a lvl 14 (Rcr twice) you're saying that person should be labeled a bad RPer or something for muling items over to the level 14 or level 20 or whatever? Heck they could be a seasoned adventurer from someplace else finding new adventure on the sword coast, and hey, look at that, they have some enchanted gear from their travels! A little off trying that on a level 1 but with no item level restrictions whatcha gonna do? That said if you had another level 30 wizard for example is it too far-fetched to mule an item over to it or will you have to just say "oh well darn I guess I have to trade this away because I have no use for this thing here at all"

A lot of the problem I see is people can't accept new things (cr scaling- which by the way is awesome, thanks for that) and people who're bored and need someone to blame for it.

NegInfinity wrote:It is not a good idea, because a ton of fun can be had around levels 1-6 and 12-14. Depending on the build. Skipping it is not a good option. Low level character combat feels different, so this option should be available as well, for those who want to take on low cr dungeons.

Also, people should go from 1 to 20 at least once, to get the idea of the server, lore, what this is all about, etc.

I thought it was clear that I was raising a straw man.

Of course I don't think it's a good idea to do away with levels 1-19. I think that it's the other way round - most people should be experiencing those levels. The only ones that shouldn't are those who are perfectly happy to keep their characters at level 30, without changing them every few weeks. Such characters should therefore be part of the fabric; plots can be written around them. But what can you do with the character who is a level 30 Bard this week and a level 18 Favored Soul next? And that's supposing there isn't a slight change to the name and maybe he now has pointy ears...

Brother Bruce wrote:A lot of the problem I see is people can't accept new things (cr scaling- which by the way is awesome, thanks for that) and people who're bored and need someone to blame for it.

I'm not saying CR scaling is a bad thing per se, in case anyone got that impression. What I can see is two definite issues:

1. The sort of grinding parties that used to exist around the Lizardmen and still do around the Xvarts (and elsewhere) can now stay and grind longer.
2. Higher level parties can drive out lower from an area.

Tell me that neither of these things happen.

Thorsson wrote: 2. Higher level parties can drive out lower from an area.

Tell me that neither of these things happen.

How is that cr scaling' fault. It won't scale up if a bunch of higher levels come along when low levels are in a dungeon.

Brother Bruce wrote:

Thorsson wrote: 2. Higher level parties can drive out lower from an area.

Tell me that neither of these things happen.

How is that cr scaling' fault. It won't scale up if a bunch of higher levels come along when low levels are in a dungeon.

No, but if the higher levels are there already the lower levels can't get into "their" dungeon. Maybe you don't see an issue with that.