Pay to Slay?

[Zhar]

So, with this idea I would be able to kill myself totally down to extremely pacifistic, join a new guild, pay X thousand platinum and instantly be back to whatever size and have an enormous amount of gxp?

Sounds a bit too easy, doesn't it?

Nope. Think of it more in terms of "save player state at death" -> "pay" -> "recover player state". This would completely bypass experience factor.

[Eowul]

In other words - no fallback to lower stats/size whatsoever? Means growth-only?
I don't know ... how could I then set my stats differently if I wanted to switch from gobbo fighter to elf caster? This would need to be set to "evenly" for the whole population?

I'm not against this, but such an idea would require a lot more tweaking AND agreement from the community, with the whole concept (it's pros, cons, implications, etc.) on the table for everyone to judge. Such implications I can see plenty already.

Drastically changing your stats (and other stuff) is something that indeed requires some more thought, but thinking of all the exceptions is only worth it if the general idea has at least some potential.

So, with this idea I would be able to kill myself totally down to extremely pacifistic, join a new guild, pay X thousand platinum and instantly be back to whatever size and have an enormous amount of gxp?

Sounds a bit too easy, doesn't it?

In my eyes, the stats would be frozen (including guild stat) and won't go up till you repay your debt (at which point you'd be at your normal brute level), if you switch guilds in between, your guild stat would be at 0 for the duration of you repaying your debt. Only once you start growing would your xp go back into your xp pool (and thus your guild stat)

In regard to PvP and so on.. I don't really think it will have an effect.

In the interest of actually searching for a solution, perhaps you could say why you think it doesn't have an effect .. What's stopping you from PVPing now?

[Creed]

Well, I never liked PvP.

Thats my main reason not to participate in it.
Second reason would be that at the moment I have nothing to fight with.

As for my reason to why I don't think it will have an effect, is that my feeling/thoughts about what is happning in the realms these days, are that everyone are mostly focused on just getting bigger, and want to be left relatively alone in pursuit of that goal.
Another matter is that while the guilds aren't all updated and balanced, there will continue to be some around the realm who you just don't want to interfere with, since you won't ever have a chance of defeating them, as things are now. Which doesn't exactly make you want to stir up conflicts with those.

[Celephias]

I like this thread.

While there are certainly rich players, I think that Gorboth's proposal is reasonable. Maybe a tweak could be a combination of a percentage of your current accounts (at time of death to limit people trying to game it) and size if we felt like we needed to punish the rich. Even considering the rich, I like the idea as an option.

Eowul's idea has merit as a clever way to mitigate the pain of death without conferring any special advantages to the big or the wealthy.

I thought guild stat benefit was (in some cases) and/or will be (in all cases) capped. So dying to improve guild stat doesn't buy one much unless you're a guild hopper. In Eowul's model it would buy you nothing to die to ramp guild stat.

These proposals also aren't mutually exclusive.

[gorboth]

Yes, one of the most interesting things about Eowul's suggestion is that it would, in fact, make it impossible to game the system to max your guild stat with mass-suicide. I hadn't considered that.

G.

[Cherek]

Yes, one of the most interesting things about Eowul's suggestion is that it would, in fact, make it impossible to game the system to max your guild stat with mass-suicide. I hadn't considered that.

G.

Then I think it wont be used by many players, as they would rather grind their way back and get more guild XP, than pay for instant recovery, and get no guild XP at all, just lose 20.000 platinum. Which, actually, probably takes about the same time to gather is at does to recover. In many cases its probably easier to grind anyway, than gather the coins, since the price suggested is quite expensive.

Tahts my guess anyway, would love to hear from a bunch of myths. How much does guild XP matter for you?

[Targun]

For me it's just another reason not to play Genesis. To be honest it's well... a terrible idea. The only thing that should be done with cash on Genesis is to:
1. Wipe it from the players accounts.
2. Redesign the way you earn it.
Or introduce an alternative currency that has nothing to do with Mlns of plats on the acconts. Your idea Gorboth would just make the spread between casual players and huge myths even harder to swallow. Especially when hundreds of thousands of those plats were earned by 'blacksmithing/ herb bots'.

I really do not understand what this games turn into. First bots were allowed. Half the MUD botted themselves to Myth size. Blacksmith bots were never banned, and once you are a myth 20.000 plats is a sum you would not even notice gone. So is 200.000. You don't need them anyway.

The problem with no PVP is lack of any changes to the game mechanics. Non challanging XP grounds that allowed insanely fast lvl inflation. Your happy bunch of bots won't start killing each other because killing on Genesis is impossible and lack ov PvP was one of the reasons for the lvl growth.

I am sorry, but this idea strives for logic. Dramatically and desperately. I see ideas after ideas, none of them ever completed, new guilds added, people play in those guilds for a while and leave, but game mechanis stays pretty much the same. Despite the fact that Genesis' combat mechanic is so poor it aches. It was more advanced 20 years ago. Then the PvP features - primitive as they were- were removed and levels hiper inflated even further.

What's wrong with you people? You got rid of pretty much all Roleplayers, all of the players who liked PvP, you are left with 90% hardcore grinders/bots and you just want to get rid of those 10% left as well.

[Celephias]

Targun, no disrespect, but I am not sure I am following.

I'm a good sized myth. I don't bot, am too cheap to sell any herbs I have (I only gather ones I can use), and am not a blacksmith. My bank account is at 42k plats and I am number 16 on the RMC list. That means there are 15 people before me. Using 20k plats to regain myself would hurt and I could do it twice. It has taken me quite a while to make this sum.

It could also be that I'm a shabby grinder or money maker. I certainly don't hold myself up as the model for making exp or money.

I also died recently by experimenting and overstretching myself a bit. This means that for the past few weeks I have been grinding a lot more, to the point of making the killing machine list, if barely. I am keeping a spreadsheet of how many progress levels I make on each login and the date. I suspect I am about halfway there given my brute and stat levels, but I don't know how much time I will spend to recover. I will admit I am focused on it so it will be about as fast as I can manage it.

I don't find the proposals by Gorboth or Eowul offensive or driving me away. Why does it feel that way to you? Can you help me understand? I could also be that I'm simply not all that smart about some of the issues. I know I am pretty old (been playing for a while), pretty big, at least sort of rich (#16 or so). What am I missing?

[Strider]

What would it be like if a feature were introduced that allowed players to use money to purchase something that would provide an instant full-recovery of all deaths?

Perhaps I am misinterpreting "all deaths", but when we discussed this recently, I wanted to discuss the game differences between the ways one could obtain death and how they probably require different game mechanics.

1. I specifically called out
2. scoring character vs. character contests
3. behavior modification and intra-player conflict resolution
4. balancing risk vs. reward in normal environmental activity

If this were to be an option for all deaths, I don't think it's low enough to promote casual fighting (#1), high enough to bother doing retributive slaying (#2) or the right fix to promote more adventurous behavior against the environment either.

It's not a bad idea and might be a great addition to more targeted fixes, but as I understand it, it very well could cause more problems than it solves.

I also died recently by experimenting and overstretching myself a bit.

I'd like to offer both my condolences and my praise.

[Zhar]

I believe that everything was a bit easier when everyone was smaller and people didn't care about death all that much as you could easily recover in a day or two. There also wasn't such pressure on questing as you didn't need to do so many of them to have reasonable brute at reasonable mortal level.