Roleplay Experience

[TheSpaniard]

In my opinion, this proposal will fail to noticeably curb the behavior of the "grinders" who go through dungeons with little intention on role-playing.

All this does is level the playing field in a way, as Valefort has been saying, that makes no sense. A sorcerer practicing his arcane art, while putting food on the table as a mercenary, for instance, would surely become more apt at using his powers as he uses them in combat. His increase in Charisma, which gives him that extra power, is therefore understandable, not far-fetched, or immersion breaking. On the other hand, if this same sorcerer spends all his time chatting at the FAI, sitting on a log, basking in sunlight . . . His sudden gain of power is much less believable. Sorcerors that have the patience to study are very rare indeed. Our characters are adventurers, most of them anyway, and adventurers should take educated risks and be rewarded for them when things go well. Sounds almost like Dungeons and Dragons.

The problem lies in the fact that grinding is accepted vernacular. When going through a dungeon should be done in-character, always, and in fact . . . these should be the best places for role-play. The only way to do this, is to take away the possibility of grinding all day and night, making an adventure through the Minotaur Maze something rare, and for much more gain. IE, the time between PvE is inversely proportional to the experience output bonus, such as the longer you spend away from a dungeon, the more experience you get once you do go through it, with obvious caps to the bonus to avoid abuse. In this manner, the person spending all day and night going through the Xvart village will no longer find it worth their while. At every stage, regardless of level, player characters will no longer expect to, nor gain anything much from, running in circles slaughtering monsters without role-play.

[DM Novus]

I am happy to share with you that we are now looking at this. The DM team likes the idea as much as I do.

This is not exactly true. The DM Team has reservations about this script, as has been discussed privately by the DMs, and between Rasael and myself, in a Staff-only thread.

Do you think this is a good idea?

Rasael has made a smart move by presenting his script to the Playerbase, as it will effect the way PCs increase their power, as in, they can become level 30 just as easily as dedicated Chatting in a Tavern, as they can by adventuring.

What do you as Players think about this?

Our characters are adventurers, most of them anyway, and adventurers should take educated risks and be rewarded for them when things go well. Sounds almost like Dungeons and Dragons.

This is the way I see it, as stated by TheSpaniard. I am of the personal opinion that Roleplay is the reason why we are all here on BGTSCC, and that giving out "balanced" XP reward to Chatting (or Roleplay chatting), is not necessary. Yes, the current RP XP generator is low-ish, but it was always meant to be a bonus XP to adventuring XP (which some equate with grinding) and DM-granted XP (which is such a variable, it is hard to quantify).

Currently, a Chatty PC can earn 1240 XP per Server reset. Many never reach this cap, but some do. XP gained from adventure, killing mobs, etc. is unlimited...if you put the time into the action of killing mobs.

It is my opinion as well that Roleplay is not defined by Chatting in-character. Roleplay is a deeper, more nuanced manner of "playing a character," in that it is a mindset, a thing that can't be quantified by XP ticks based on amount-typed-per-minute.

Many on the DM staff—a majority, actually—do not see the current system for RP XP as "broken," and our main goal is that leveling does not become faster than it already is, on BGTSCC.

Yet here we are, willing to take a deep look at Rasael's script, which has it's merits. Between the desire of the Playerbase and the oversight of QC, I hope we can all come to a well-thought out conclusion to whether a change needs to be made, and if so, how to best do it.

The discussion so far is a good one, for all involved to consider the various voices on the matter. Thank you for keeping it civil and thoughtful.

[Blame The Rogue]

i'll second that. ty all for giving opinions and listening to others' opinions in a polite manner

we all love this place

i will always love it here, even when i agree to disagree with someone else's opinion about possible server changes

[Deathgrowl]

Our characters are adventurers, most of them anyway, and adventurers should take educated risks and be rewarded for them when things go well. Sounds almost like Dungeons and Dragons.

This is the way I see it, as stated by TheSpaniard.

In PnP dungeons and dragons, you're not likely to be running around in circles killing giants for the purpose of gaining experience. You look for work, you go into dungeons. You finish a task that gives a significant amount of XP. This is only the case with the current few quests (that feel very OOC to me, because of the dialogue choices).

I am of the personal opinion that Roleplay is the reason why we are all here on BGTSCC, and that giving out "balanced" XP reward to Chatting (or Roleplay chatting), is not necessary.

I am of a different opinion, as it is clear to me that some are here to become level 30 and loot. RP isn't encouraged. Grinding is. Not directly, but by the mechanics.

[Passiflora]

My personal opinion on this.


I would absolutly support a way to earn XP by mostly chatting. Yes, it doesn't make 'sense' to become a better fighter by chatting, but I don't care. Some people say they don't RP eating three times a day or to go pee, because that's what their characters do while the player behind them doesn't play.

Well, on my side, my character could train swordsmanship in my downtimes as well. And when I play, I could play his everyday-stuff instead of the hours of monster killing.

For the amount of experience it takes to get levels, especially in the epics, don't tell me that your character actually WOULD hunt all these hours with real motivation behind it. Like, you can make up 'reasons' to go 'adventuring', but after the 20th RL day spent in dungeons, you probably killed the entire dungeon and their grandmother a hundred times.

So yeah, another UP for more RP XP from my side. I want to see more people RPing, and less people running around doing weekly quests (running, to make it quick as it's repetitive, often doing them invisible as they're not doing it for RP or to train, but oocly, just to get the 600 xp), or running around for hours at the troll hills or the giants.


My philosophy:

RP is a reward by itself, yes. But with an open comunity, you need to reward RP mechanically, to make it worthwhile even for the grinder-minded. It creates a better RP environement, because more people are going at it. Rewarding mechanically mostly those who hunt push people towards hunting, and less RPing, exept a lower percentage.

[Undertaker]

My personal opinion on this.


I would absolutly support a way to earn XP by mostly chatting. Yes, it doesn't make 'sense' to become a better fighter by chatting, but I don't care. Some people say they don't RP eating three times a day or to go pee, because that's what their characters do while the player behind them doesn't play.

Well, on my side, my character could train swordsmanship in my downtimes as well. And when I play, I could play his everyday-stuff instead of the hours of monster killing.

For the amount of experience it takes to get levels, especially in the epics, don't tell me that your character actually WOULD hunt all these hours with real motivation behind it. Like, you can make up 'reasons' to go 'adventuring', but after the 20th RL day spent in dungeons, you probably killed the entire dungeon and their grandmother a hundred times.

So yeah, another UP for more RP XP from my side. I want to see more people RPing, and less people running around doing weekly quests (running, to make it quick as it's repetitive, often doing them invisible as they're not doing it for RP or to train, but oocly, just to get the 600 xp), or running around for hours at the troll hills or the giants.


My philosophy:

RP is a reward by itself, yes. But with an open comunity, you need to reward RP mechanically, to make it worthwhile even for the grinder-minded. It creates a better RP environement, because more people are going at it. Rewarding mechanically mostly those who hunt push people towards hunting, and less RPing, exept a lower percentage.

PASSI WINS!

[Hope]

My personal opinion on this.


I would absolutly support a way to earn XP by mostly chatting. Yes, it doesn't make 'sense' to become a better fighter by chatting, but I don't care. Some people say they don't RP eating three times a day or to go pee, because that's what their characters do while the player behind them doesn't play.

Well, on my side, my character could train swordsmanship in my downtimes as well. And when I play, I could play his everyday-stuff instead of the hours of monster killing.

For the amount of experience it takes to get levels, especially in the epics, don't tell me that your character actually WOULD hunt all these hours with real motivation behind it. Like, you can make up 'reasons' to go 'adventuring', but after the 20th RL day spent in dungeons, you probably killed the entire dungeon and their grandmother a hundred times.

So yeah, another UP for more RP XP from my side. I want to see more people RPing, and less people running around doing weekly quests (running, to make it quick as it's repetitive, often doing them invisible as they're not doing it for RP or to train, but oocly, just to get the 600 xp), or running around for hours at the troll hills or the giants.


My philosophy:

RP is a reward by itself, yes. But with an open comunity, you need to reward RP mechanically, to make it worthwhile even for the grinder-minded. It creates a better RP environement, because more people are going at it. Rewarding mechanically mostly those who hunt push people towards hunting, and less RPing, exept a lower percentage.

Perfectly said.

[Simian]

Recently I started a new character, a dwarven battlerager who likes to sing and drink, and I have actually gathered quite a few poems and songs he could sing in taverns. But what have I've been doing recently? Grinding dungeons for Exps and Loots. Not for too long mind you - but the actual role-playing has not played a very large part. I want those Battlerager levels.

And let us not forget about characters that seem very awkward to me. Should I really give them a chance? Or would I rather go to grind a dungeons and get something after the hour spent?

[Hitman Hard]

.

[talisen]

PASSI WINS!

Passi always wins.

[sweetlikesplenda]

This thread made me think about other ways Players can get XP for their PCs. Now, I haven't read every post in the thread, so I apologize for any repeating or if this was already pitched.

The gripe I have with the current RP XP system is that I can walk by someone and offer a *Nod* or say "Good evening." and get 40 XP. But, then I could meet up with a fellow guild member or friend and RP out server related/plot related/in depth conversations that flesh out a character and get nothing after two hours or typing out a conversation. The shear randomness or the flags that the RP XP system looks for is just beyond me and does little to help me gain in XP as it currently is. So, changes to the current system would be welcome.

My suggestion to offer Role Players additional incentive to RP and progress stories/plots is this:

Ive heard that DMs give out RP XP IG, but I don't recall seeing anything about IC posts in the forums, aside from creating a bio.

Would offering XP to those who write up posts in the Elfsong Tavern section help the Role Players? I know that not everyone thinks of themselves as great writers or they are shy about posting their writing, but could that be another avenue for helping people that prefer not to grind, but rather be involved in story telling to gain in levels/XP?

I reluctantly find myself grinding for XP, which I find really boring and usually log rather quickly when I find myself doing that, and I (And my character) dislike FAI chatting, since it usually degrades into silliness or someone comes along all buffed up prior and tries to wipe all the unprepared people there with a bunch of AoE spells. I love Role Playing, but I prefer it to have some depth and substance, rather then people just insulting each other, bragging about something, or sitting afk (I know this is rather generalized, but it seems to happen a lot when I am logged in).

So, as a way to help people who like to RP but don't have anyone to do it with IG at the time, but want to progress a story along that is posted in the forums here, could that be another avenue to offering people RP XP bonuses? I know the staff has a lot going on, and the forum moderators are usually busy slapping people's hands to trying to keep peace, but maybe they could make note of PC names and player log ins of those that post in the forums and pass them to IG staff members to give bonus XP to?

Maybe the Staff already does this and I am just talking nonsense?

Sorry if this derails the topic.

[Rasael]

I think the issue with that is mostly that for DM's to do that takes up a slot of their time. And they are by necessity a volunteer team of individuals. So it becomes a question of what you want them to spend their time on, and what they like doing themselves. I don't think any DM really wants to award XP continuously to players for forum posts, because it would be very hard to keep with all the time

And by doing so, you create a set of entitlement problems. Players will feel entitled to the experience if they make such posts. So then you get issues if the DM disagrees, or if he simply hasn't had the time to look at it.

But at any rate, I would want them in game and having fun running events for players. Making the world seem alive. I don't want to saddle them with more bureaucracy.

I agree with Passiflora on this, it is what I have been trying to convey:

My personal opinion on this.


I would absolutly support a way to earn XP by mostly chatting. Yes, it doesn't make 'sense' to become a better fighter by chatting, but I don't care. Some people say they don't RP eating three times a day or to go pee, because that's what their characters do while the player behind them doesn't play.

Well, on my side, my character could train swordsmanship in my downtimes as well. And when I play, I could play his everyday-stuff instead of the hours of monster killing.

For the amount of experience it takes to get levels, especially in the epics, don't tell me that your character actually WOULD hunt all these hours with real motivation behind it. Like, you can make up 'reasons' to go 'adventuring', but after the 20th RL day spent in dungeons, you probably killed the entire dungeon and their grandmother a hundred times.

So yeah, another UP for more RP XP from my side. I want to see more people RPing, and less people running around doing weekly quests (running, to make it quick as it's repetitive, often doing them invisible as they're not doing it for RP or to train, but oocly, just to get the 600 xp), or running around for hours at the troll hills or the giants.


My philosophy:

RP is a reward by itself, yes. But with an open comunity, you need to reward RP mechanically, to make it worthwhile even for the grinder-minded. It creates a better RP environement, because more people are going at it. Rewarding mechanically mostly those who hunt push people towards hunting, and less RPing, exept a lower percentage.

This is not exactly true. The DM Team has reservations about this script, as has been discussed privately by the DMs, and between Rasael and myself, in a Staff-only thread.

Ahh, this is my mistake! I was under the impression everybody was okay with the idea in principle. I think the majority is willing to give it a spin, and see if it works at this point. But not everybody is convinced.

[Azmodeth]

Ummm.... I've always found it faster to level up by RPing then grinding...

sure you can grind some area's that are really tough and dangerous and risk a lot and maybe make 10k in a day... but that's extremely rare...

usually I'd make 1-2k a day from RP and that makes up majority of your experience (xp) in the end...

I never noticed a cap on RP xp... unless there was never a cap...

I think I once made 6k in a single day in RP xp... and maybe once or twice hit 4k in a day..

but usually in 3-4 hours hitting 1-2k is easy...

why do we need to make it give more?

Might as well just offer us to choose what level our characters are at. IMO I think the XP is too much.

RP xp doesn't cap out like monster xp does. in fact you get more xp the higher level you are...

Kind of makes it weird...

it should be the inverse..... that you get like d20+ (15-lvl).

This way, getting 5 xp at level 30 is something to say "woot, niice got some 5xp brosef !" to yourself...of course.. XD

[ohboy007]

Am I missing something? Why not just take the cap off and put it to 5000 (if that's even possible at the current rate of xp)? I'm sure there can be good arguments on either side for what exactly that cap should be. "Well what about people who will RP and then grind all day anyway?" I say holy hells Batman! Good! You know that's what that player likes to do with their character anyway. But the bonus is you also incentivized them to do some RP which can only add to the server.

If one is dedicated, you can easily zoom to 25th level by just hopping from one raiding party to the next or soloing if the character is powerful enough. I RP because I have important IC stuff to say or I just happened to like the setting and interactions at the time. I'm not even thinking about xp until about 20 minutes into the convo, I notice all those...

23xp
33xp
44xp
35xp
40xp
32xp
32xp

...on my screen and I’m like, "oh hells yeah! I get paid for doing what I had to do, or wanted to do anyway. Bonus!" Which I think can only encourage more RP. I think the rate of RP XP is good enough, and if there's more RP XP to be gained, smart players might RP more when they're dungeon crawling which is what annoys a few people about "grinders" in general.

Anything to incentive RP sounds like it's worth experimenting with in my opinion. Test it, see if you like it, and then keep it or toss it. I don't mind being a guinea pig.

[Rasael]

The RP XP cap is there because of exploit issues. It's been there almost as long as we've had RP XP. It used to be 1000, but it was increased to 1251 because some people were hitting it really fast.

So for exploit prevention reasons, those caps have to be kept. The proposal I wrote only allows for unlimited RP XP if you are with a large group, which would make it harder to exploit the system. Or in any case, it will make it far more likely that the exploiter is noticed and caught. We're still not entirely sure we want to uncap it. But the way we've designed it now should make it much more annoying to try and exploit RP XP.

Chatscript roleplay XP
-Retained cap for 2 people at 1251
-Increased cap for 3 people to 2501
-Removed cap for 4 people chatting (very little risk of abuse with 4 people involved)

-A d6 die is used to chance awarding RP XP until 800 RP XP is earned
-From 800 on it becomes a d8 die (helps casual players)
-A d6 is also used so long as no grinding XP is tallied for the PC
-RP XP is awarded if you roll a 1

-One minute interval per roleplay XP award, at minimum (exploit fix!)

-Bonus Roleplay XP is d20 + half hit die (with another bonus added if in a bonus marked area)
-Bonus RP XP is only awarded if no grinding XP amount exceeds it
-Grinding XP tally is reduced for every bonus RP XP award
-Does not award bonus RP XP in combat (alternative XP source)

-regular roleplay XP is still awarded at the current level, just not with a bonus

-If RP Bonus XP was earned, grinding XP is reduced by the bonus
-No grinding XP is earned until the RP bonus XP tally is reduced to 0

-Minimum distance for RP XP to trigger is 5 or 15 meters, to the 1st nearest other PC
-Other PC's from the 1st are okay for up to 5 or 15 meters. (the 2nd and 3rd, for capping)
-Maximum distance depends on talking or whispering

-Added area variable which can increase RP XP, for example in taverns
-Adds a random amount between 1 and this variable, with half hit die added.

-Add another variable, which marks an area to not give RP XP
-No roleplay XP is awarded in this area (reccomended: NEXUS)

-TALK channel should now auto use DMFI languages if selected (experimental)