You ask for discussion and then straight up call us toxic and only capable of vitriol, nice. And this is not the first time I’ve seen you have such an opinion about the site, so do you just love all the toxicity to keep on coming back just to remind us about how bad we are?But the key word is 'discuss', not verbally curb stomp others and outright dismiss their opinions with the most vitriol you can muster without physically vomiting acid on your keyboard as you type your response.
I'd like to take a moment to call back to an earlier point/concern I raised in this thread. Specifically that regarding site culture.
To be point blank, there is a rudeness factor that underpins this site that, speaking from a personal point of view, has been a growing deterrent to my interest here. I need not seek out past evidence or examples (though I easily can if such are required/requested), but this has been a pervasive issue, both off-site and on, and in one page of conversation in this thread alone, we literally see a site owner (of all people) and a moderator proclaim that they "don't give a crap about what gripes" someone has, and that if someone hasn't been active then their opinion has "no merit".
How are either of those sentiments being constructive? They're being dismissive. There's no other interpretation you can glean from comments such as those. They contributed nothing to the conversation but to "smack down" a member for voicing an opinion.
If the site is going to change or improve in any meaningful way, the first step is to learn basic respect for the opinions of others, and be less prone to flying off the handle at perceived slights.
Now before anyone can pull my own behavior out of the dust bin to use against me, yes I have been snarky and bitchy myself in the past. But it was about the time I received my first actual reprimand (somewhere near the end of the last TL when I was prohibited from participating in battles/PvP due to my behavior) that I understood I was taking things here far too seriously. If I could be so easily goaded and whipped into a rage by something as silly as RP... I was doing it wrong.
Roleplaying is a hobby. Hobbies should be entertaining, something you do to unwind and relax. Not something that breeds frustration and brings out the worst in you. Discuss things that need to be changed, that's fine. But the key word is 'discuss', not verbally curb stomp others and outright dismiss their opinions with the most vitriol you can muster without physically vomiting acid on your keyboard as you type your response.
Reminder.Cool, let's see some more rule/structure suggestions cuz we're all collectively losing sight of the point of this thread.
I'm actually sort of intrigued by @Boli 's idea, but I'm not sure I'd make it so random and mechanical- generally speaking, I'd like to have less rules rather than more. And, ass much as I like pvp, I would also like to see less minimally-meaningful character death. The dichotomy is real.
A large part of the issue maye be site pvp culture, which I think has been slowly shifting, but I'm not entirely opposed to rule based options that discourage wanton slaughter.
The downside of dice is that everything basically boils down to pure chance at the end of the day...
However, it would give decisive results in most situations, which could cut down on bickering and make threads flow smoother. The dice threads I've taken part in have been some of the smoothest sailing I've experienced on the site. I, for one, would be game to give it a shot.
This is a good way to think about it.And for people that are nervous about chance, it forces them to find a compromise if they wanna avoid it.
I had a thought about improving the level system today while I was sitting at work. I don't know if this has been proposed already, so I apologize if I end up inadvertently rehashing someone else's idea.
What if we removed "credits" entirely (or repurposed them for something like advanced tech, idk) and, instead, had members apply for a level-up the same way they do for a faction rank up? My reasoning is as follows: right now, the level system is about quantity over quality. If you write a whole lot, or write a lot of "'11 credit posts," as I've often seen bragged about in the Discord, you can quickly increase the level of your character. Moreover, PvPs are rewarded with more credits to compensate the risk and to award good OOC behavior, and completion of plots does this as well. In essence, if you are crazy active, it doesn't matter if you're telling good stories or reasonably progressing your character's growth, you're still going to level-up and have the potential to be insanely powerful.
Instead, what I envision is a system in which people write plots—not only to grind for gear and territory and artifacts—but as ways to genuinely advance their character arcs. These can be plots that involve training, some personal tragedy (or overcoming such tragedy), going on an adventure, etc., etc. Then, once you have done the work of training the character and/or growing them through story rather than grinding, you submit the applicable threads to the staff team, who will review it and—if they deem the work sufficient—will level your character up. Quality over quantity.
Brandon said earlier in this thread that character level should correspond to their growth as a character and I couldn't be more in agreement with that. This would also remove the issue we had earlier in the timeline with people abusing personal plots for credit gains by removing the credits altogether. Staff could set standards for each level, which would allow them to keep Level 3s and 4s progressively rarer, only awarding such levels to the people who have genuinely written the stories for the characters that deserve such progression.
Admittedly, the flaw in this system is that it leaves leveling up at the hands of humans rather than a simple mechanical acclimation of credits, opening it up to personal bias and whatnot; but, having been on and led the staff, I know that this group always strives to be unbias and will call each other out if they suspect bias of having creeped into another's judgement. But, in my view at least, it is equally unfair that someone can spam a lot of posts per day, or write consistently massive posts, turn in a lot of plots and PvP threads for credits, and have access to higher levels of power despite the fact that their characters haven't grown in the slightest and have all the personality and development of a cardboard box. Character power and growth shouldn't be about how much and how fast you can write, nor how many people you can gank in PvP, but how well you can write, and I think that this system or some version of it could help to promote better story writing over blind grinding for credits.
I had a thought about improving the level system today while I was sitting at work. I don't know if this has been proposed already, so I apologize if I end up inadvertently rehashing someone else's idea.
What if we removed "credits" entirely (or repurposed them for something like advanced tech, idk) and, instead, had members apply for a level-up the same way they do for a faction rank up? My reasoning is as follows: right now, the level system is about quantity over quality. If you write a whole lot, or write a lot of "'11 credit posts," as I've often seen bragged about in the Discord, you can quickly increase the level of your character. Moreover, PvPs are rewarded with more credits to compensate the risk and to award good OOC behavior, and completion of plots does this as well. In essence, if you are crazy active, it doesn't matter if you're telling good stories or reasonably progressing your character's growth, you're still going to level-up and have the potential to be insanely powerful.
Instead, what I envision is a system in which people write plots—not only to grind for gear and territory and artifacts—but as ways to genuinely advance their character arcs. These can be plots that involve training, some personal tragedy (or overcoming such tragedy), going on an adventure, etc., etc. Then, once you have done the work of training the character and/or growing them through story rather than grinding, you submit the applicable threads to the staff team, who will review it and—if they deem the work sufficient—will level your character up. Quality over quantity.
Brandon said earlier in this thread that character level should correspond to their growth as a character and I couldn't be more in agreement with that. This would also remove the issue we had earlier in the timeline with people abusing personal plots for credit gains by removing the credits altogether. Staff could set standards for each level, which would allow them to keep Level 3s and 4s progressively rarer, only awarding such levels to the people who have genuinely written the stories for the characters that deserve such progression.
Admittedly, the flaw in this system is that it leaves leveling up at the hands of humans rather than a simple mechanical acclimation of credits, opening it up to personal bias and whatnot; but, having been on and led the staff, I know that this group always strives to be unbias and will call each other out if they suspect bias of having creeped into another's judgement. But, in my view at least, it is equally unfair that someone can spam a lot of posts per day, or write consistently massive posts, turn in a lot of plots and PvP threads for credits, and have access to higher levels of power despite the fact that their characters haven't grown in the slightest and have all the personality and development of a cardboard box. Character power and growth shouldn't be about how much and how fast you can write, nor how many people you can gank in PvP, but how well you can write, and I think that this system or some version of it could help to promote better story writing over blind grinding for credits.
I like this idea, I just don't know how feasible it would be in the long run. Granted I think there would need to be some defined rules on how that would take place. How do you show that a character has progressed? We would be turning a lot of our already stretched thin staff into editors and literary analysts.
I do know that we had training threads in the past to progress your character's physical powers, I believe that this was in the 5th TL. Maybe something like that could be done? It's an intriguing idea, just not sure if logistically it would make sense.
If you wanted to change player progression to something based on your contributions to the story, then I would hazard to say that the most meaningful metric of player contribution is faction rank. Every faction does it differently of course, but you still have a process where people have to meaningfully move things along and then show their leader they mean business.
IMO the most obvious one is the Jedi training system for Galactic Alliance. To become a Master you have to really prove yourself IC'ly by surmounting multiple challenging milestones in your character's story. Those characters have reached the highest rank of Light Side Force users, but they might not necessarily be level 4. It would be the same amount of applications to review as normal, with the fringe benefit of getting people to participate more in major factions.
I guess there would have to be something separate for unofficial faction members or independents, but this scheme would at least cut down on the workload for admins and fit with the idea you want.
Yeah this is a big problem, but it's a problem with having the level system to begin with too. Factions with more veterans or more prolific posters will naturally accrue more credits. That's good on a purely theoretical level, because it implies they post more, but it's a disincentive for new players to compete with older ones.Apologies for the double-post.
The problem with this suggestion is that it puts leveling up in the hands of factions, which creates a couple of problems. Number one, faction leaders change every few months now and each leader brings with them a new set of standards for the faction. That would really put leveling up all over the place because each faction leader would have different standards for what constitutes a higher level. Adding to the problem is the fact that multiple factions usually exist per-timeline and if it is easier to level up in one faction than it is another, the site would become horribly imbalanced.
Not to mention, from a PvP standpoint, factions have a vested interest in having a lot of high-level characters in their ranks. The more high level characters you have, the better chance your faction has of controlling the PvP scene, and I'm not sure I want the people making those decisions to be the ones deciding whether their faction members get a level-up too.
Yeah this is a big problem, but it's a problem with having the level system to begin with too. Factions with more veterans or more prolific posters will naturally accrue more credits. That's good on a purely theoretical level, because it implies they post more, but it's a disincentive for new players to compete with older ones.
Ill try to come up with some more extended thoughts on the levelling system a bit later today, but since I havent been around much for most of it, I genuinely want to ask - what is the benefit of having the level system? Does it really offer much to the RP landscape of the site? What are the benefits of it compared to when we didnt have it and 'power level' was essentially determined primarily by writing ability and rank?