Problems & Solutions, by yours truly.

[nils]

So I’m looking at the current poll result regarding whether or not reducing the global damage output while not compensating the experience gained was a good idea. Currently (January 7th) there are 15 who think it was a bad idea and 13 who think it was a good one.

If we’re to view these results in a western majority rules-kind of way, the instruction given is pretty clear – “give us what we want – more xp per kill!”. I’m not saying it’s right, but it is the mob’s will. Yet, the wise ruler knows when not to give into the mob’s desires, because wisdom and experience grants perspective and vision.

Why is the opposite true in regards to racial balancing and dare I say, in retrospect, foreversaving items?

Was sacrificing the importance of guilds and guild racks on the altar of new player’s feedback worth it? I believe many agree that it diminished the overall Genesis-experience. I’m willing to bet some in the administration agrees with me on this, which leads me straight to an observation I made the other day - I saw a member of the wizarding community say publicly that if “rollbacks” happened, that was it for him.

An honest statement, sure, but it got me thinking. A wise leader knows when he’s made a mistake, right? He will, if able, lay blame on a blurry vision and poor councillors and revert back to the old ways if his decision proved detrimental to his subjects and/or their reality due to unforeseen side effects.

A more grim example of knee-jerk mob appeasement can be witnessed in a certain country in Asia lately. The leaders thought it was a good idea to be trendy and force its farmers to go full organic. No pesticides, no fertilizer. Obviously, everything went to shit and the leaders came to regret their decision and did a complete roll back. Unlike Genesis though, where everything resets at Armageddon, the country is now facing imminent starvation and an economy in the toilet. The road to hell truly is paved with good intentions.

As a community we’ve endured many changes, and as I wrote previously, many of them have been collectively applauded and stand proud to this day as real upgrades to the game. Simple quality of life-improvements such as recovery mode and new combat descriptors, or enrichments such as the introduction of imbuements and archery are blessed additions. I’m fully convinced that recovery mode probably increased player retention beyond their n’th meeting with Lars drastically.

In life I am a liberal, a radical leftist even by Scandinavian standards, and fighting for change is and always have been my modus operandi. In Genesis, however, I find myself thinking and speaking like a nostalgic, “hardcore” old-timer who fights to keep everything the same. It’s not true, of course, I agree that changes need to be made for Genesis to evolve, but considering the recent rollback to slow experience gain after a whole year of fattening up on quick xp, I truly hope I’m wrong, but right now it looks to me that we as a community can’t handle another ‘nerf’. Let me make a couple suggestions to how to proceed without anyone suffering.

Let me start with the least likely and (probably) least productive; rollback of foreversaving items, or as I like to call it:

Make racks great again
Roll back to saving and unsaving items, forget all about foreversave. BUT, do make a footnote regarding really communicating this mechanic in the tutorial. The communique should even include the thinking behind this very ‘not like other games’ trait that is, after all, ‘core genesis’. It needn’t be a big deal/huge job, maybe a simple addition to the help-posters you need to read to get your first points of experience would suffice? Having Carlsan praise it randomly probably wouldn’t hurt either, now that I think about it. Either way, I offer up my help and type up the sign, ascii art and all. Gladly.

Musings
Based on what I mentioned above, this change will likely come with some negative emotion from some/several in the community. Understandably so. So unless there’s a roaring majority who agree with me that this change took away some of what made Genesis, Genesis and should absolutely be rolled back, I’d say that while it may be the right thing to do, the timing is simply put: bad.

Let’s put this one on the back burner for now, we’re used to foreversave and even though I think we’re poorer off for it, the system works and we’re used to it. Let’s move on to the hottest topic lately:

Equalizing races – the wrong medicine to a made up problem
The racial modifiers, along with racks and guilds, are unique to Genesis. Fundamental stuff that’s always been around and all of us who failed one or more years of our education because of a (probably) unhealthy addiction got this way either because of it or in spite of it. It’s the first thing I spoke of in great detail prior to guiding a pupil or friend through character creation, it’s the reason the hedonist in me play a goblin character and it is the reason there lives a racist in me who can’t stand dwarves, simply because of their dex penalty (stupid, right?)

I think Goirbagh raised some interesting points in his reply, so forgive me but I’m just going to point and go “What he said!”

Giving everything to everyone. Making everything fair and balanced. Being afraid of generating the smallest bit of frustration in the player. Being afraid of requiring some effort on the player's end.

I do not like - actually, let me rephrase that - I absolutely despise the posts on racial changes, saying that it shouldn't matter so much for combat.

It's a trendy, modern, post-modernistic, inane way of thinking about things.

Some races are and should be way better at physical combat, maybe even combat in general. This makes the choice in and of itself interesting. If all races are equal in every way except for the text used to describe them (because that's what you're reducing them to if you equalize everything) and possibly emotes, then why even have races?

...

Why can't there be an effort-reward transaction anymore? This seems to be a general societal trend. You shouldn't have any advantage because you're a particular race, have a particular education, because you're taller, stronger, more handsome or anything else in life. Well, to me, that makes life extremely dull and uninteresting. It's interesting that those who usually say "we have to make life/game more fair and inclusive" are the ones who seem to absolutely hate the idea of people being different and having different abilities in life/game.

Now I’m not going to channel more energy into this Jordan Peterson-esque post-modernist far leftist culture war argument. It is interesting, however, and it makes me wonder who Genesis is for in 2023 – Boomers or Gen Z’s? Does a parental role weigh heavy on the shoulders of the former? You decide.

So if Goirbagh wasn’t clear enough, making races equal in all but orthography is an example of a bad idea gaining traction all the way to the top, and like a true sunk cost fallacy it’s been so invested in that re-thinking it isn’t an option anymore. The idea that it is somehow the least bad option cause me to question the competence of our not elected decision makers and leaves a foul taste in my mouth.

Here’s why:
Much like a sudden rollback of foreversave, pushing this change all the way to fruition will produce negative emotions in a pretty large part of the community. You took away our god-like damage and our xp-fix, and the community bled an undisclosed number of active members as a direct consequence. The rest of us are either mourning, jonesing or contemplating an exit. There is no room for more negative emotion, and we sure as shit can’t lose a single more active member to negativity induced from above.

The racial modifiers are pretty favorable towards certain races, ok, ok.. singular. But I don’t think this is the actual cause to the feeling of unfairness. I say it’s the lack of options on the ‘good’ side of the alignment spectrum combined with a conservative and very limited approach to maybe the most adaptable race of all (human) that together brings out the worst in us.

So while I’ve suggested these before, I firmly hold and lovingly repeat that adding more options equals a literal upgrade of the game. I’m convinced that if the following suggestions, adjustments and additions miraculously appeared in the game, not a single tear would be shed, save tears of joy. All behinds free from chafing because nobody’s getting nerfed. Halleluja!

First though, let’s just speak plainly:
* Currently there’s one option reigning supreme in battle, the goblin.
* The dwarf has goblin-like strength and constitution, but suffers a severe penalty to dexterity resulting in a lot of awkward, but super hard (!) holes in the air.
* Being a human fighter is noticeably worse and the game heavily restricts how much we can offset our experience into individual stats. Human fighters experience unnecessary experience leaks into their mentals, and I’m sure human casters would share the sentiment albeit in reverse (let’s not discuss how this isn’t entirely true because casters need con to survive and strength to carry shits.. Not the point, so just chill and keep on reading. You might like my solution anyway.)

The goodies need their abominable choice.
Playing a goblin poses both drawbacks and straight up STOP-signs when attempting to solve the top 15 largest quests/sum total of a series of quests in the game. Experienced players (and new players who take my advice) will start a human character (and keep it good aligned) with the sole purpose of completing said quests and switch to goblin post deed.

Additionally, a goblin suffers both a social stigma and a top-down, disapproving mindset from all the two decade old legends who claim the (non-existent) title “Elite RP’er” simply because they are too lazy or inept at game mechanics to even dream about reaching myth. Some even (true story) hold the belief that their way of enjoying this game is superior to everyone else and certainly the pariah; the classic “min-maxer”. If that wasn’t enough, certain guilds/individuals will flat out refuse to team based solely on the color of its skin.
This is the way of the goblin, and I would have it no other way.

My suggestion then is instead of making the goblin worse, make the dwarf equal to the goblin. It is also looked down upon and has some undesirable traits (stubborn, greedy, prone to alcoholism, slurred speech and an unpleasant appearance). Im sure that a dwarven face smells like piss after a day of walking into crotches while trying to buy some produce, but I digress.

The dwarf is portrayed as a mighty warrior in pretty much any IP available, but in Genesis a dwarf is only truly playable for a good aligned min-maxer if he’s able to join the one guild that is built around the race itself (Neidar).

Said plainly: the dwarf is a natural, typically good-aligned counter to the traditionally evil goblin. Instead of pulling every player in the realm into one giant experiment, make something better and nobody loses anything, we all win something because we get the option to play a dwarf without the masochism. Balance the scales by adding, not subtracting. We can’t take any more nerfs.

Technically, the adjustment would be to remove anything penalizing dexterity, and transfer the penalty to mentals. Or just take away the penalty and leave the mentals as is. Will the average get a little high? Sure, but so do elves’. I don’t think anyone would complain that the dwarf finally gets the gusto he’s always been deserving of. Being forced to sniff crotches all day should have some type of reward, yes?

So now there’s a combat optimized race on both sides of the spectrum, what about the humans?
Quickly, imagine Hafthor Bjornsson next to Gandalf and ask yourself: Do you really think all their stats are equal from birth? That Gandalf could deadlift 501kgs and Hafthor could cast spells if their parents somehow switched them at birth? Surely some are born to do something, so why can’t we choose to be Hafthor or Gandalf? Enter the next upgrade by enrichment and options offering:

The mental-human and the physical-human, side by side with the neutral-human.

Technically they’d all look like normal humans when they enter the realm, but with a significant difference underneath. Logically then the mental-human gets a significant bonus to his mentals at the cost of his physicals. I’d say where there was 100 intelligence before, there is now 120, and where there was 100 strength there is now 80.

Obviously the physical-human gets the same, only to opposite stat grouping. The neutral human stays as he’s always been because everyone loves a good all-rounder, even the casters these days I’m told. The goblin and dwarf are noticeably stronger and healthier than the physical-human, but must endure stigma, discrimination and old balls. What doesn’t kill you etc.

The important part is that instead of pushing an agenda of equality and perceived “fairness” by means that provoke negative emotions, you instead enrich the game with more options. More options equal more freedoms and everybody likes freedoms.

What about the other races?
Well, considering there is Galadriel and Guy-ladriel within the same IP (lol), I see no reason why the elf shouldn’t get the same treatment as the human. Many choose elf to fight, some to do magic so naturally we have the mental-elf, the physical-elf and the neutral-elf.
I’ll leave the offsets and distribution to someone with a passion for weak, frail and vain creatures. I’m sure they’ll be fairer than me.

That leaves the hobbit and the gnome, and when I glance at the rankings I see a kender who’s been their biggest advocate forever. It seems to me he’s doing well for himself: 9th place on Best and obviously first on dexterity. Hobbit/kender have massive bonus to dex, and that’s a great foundation to build an (another?) occupational guild, worthy of a hobbit, upon. Wiz and do it yourself? I see no reason to change the hobbit. It’s a cool niche that is obviously playable and some even say it’s fun.

As for the gnome.. I have very little skin in this game, but I guess it could it be tweaked a little towards more mentals at the cost of dexterity, so that it would become the socially awkward, stigmatized and publicly disliked option that will outperform both the mental-human and mental-elf in all things magical at the cost of looking like a mistake? I’ll leave the decisions and the technicalities to those who have painted garden ornaments interests at heart.

Follow me next time when I suggest that we all go back to newbies and kill each other repeatedly, and I might ramble on about how vampires are secretly conspiring to have everyone nerfed so that they'll come out on top.




TL;DR
Reading into the poll results (Gauging-thread)
The mob isn’t always right
Rhetorical stabs
Ramblings about real world famine as if it were genesis
Introspection regarding conservativism, basically stroking my own ego, all good
Realizing a rollback of foreversave might not be what we need right now, but maybe later?
A good page on explaining why the race equalization project is a catastrophe
Quoting Goirbagh cuz Jordan Peterson
Rambling about nerfs and negative emotions being the death of us
Suggesting additions rather than subtractions.
More humans, more elves and a better dwarf to match the goblin
Options equals freedoms. We like freedoms.
Short part about the lesser.. uhm.. other, races

[cyork2]

I like it. +1 from me

[Cherek]

So, Nils presented his “dwarf counter” idea for races a long time ago in private to me, and we have discussed it and my own ideas for racial balance many times before. Now that we have decided to go in a direction he doesn’t like, Nils does what he always does, he changes tactic from polite private discussions to making a dramatic public display instead. He tries to rally support with public polls and a series of rather insulting forum or in-game posts that questions the competence of the admin, and especially me.

Now, perhaps this is a strategy that works in the very harsh climate of RL politics, however, as I have told Nils many times, in a game that is run by a group of volunteers, the only effect is that it demotivates us to do anything at all. This is most likely the goal, though. Make us question ourselves, crush our confidence and motivation by pointing at horrible decisions in the past (according to Nils). Sprinkle in a bunch of insults to really make us feel bad. Nils of course already knows we aren’t doing his dwarf idea, since I’ve told him that many times in private before, so this public display is of course only about trying to demotivate us from doing the planned change. Or any change at all. If Nils REALLY wanted to sell his idea (again), and try to convince us to actually do it, the post would of course have been written very differently and in a much more positive and respectful way.

[Goirbagh]

Hey man, thanks for the shout-out, or quote at least. I read some of your posts over the boards and we seem to be like-minded with regard to our view on things, at least things related to Genesis.

I think you're absolutely right in the way you reason about it. It saddens me to think back to the day where racks meant so much, and now basically are an endless supply of epic equipment or just empty. Racks made cooperation through guilds so, so interesting - where one player could pick up where another one left by starting their session with visiting the rackrooms. And before leaving, dropping things of in the racks. Creating a cycle of some sort of solidarity and sense of comradeship among the players. That is all gone, because, yeah, new players. Or something. It didn't make the game better, just as it wouldn't make the game better to have each player spawn with maxed unbreakable armor upon character creation and then keep that armor forever. It makes epic armor easier to acquire and attain, but it makes the game less interesting. But hey, it makes new players whine less. Lol.

The racial imbalance tweaks will likely be the same. It will make the game less interesting, but it will silence the whining for a while. Again, it's important to think deeply about this because it is a general trend in society right now - and it's not healthy (you may not want to get into a debate re. that, I mean, we would likely agree for the most part, but it's beyond the scope of this discussion - but still very, very relevant and related). As you put it, a good leader knows when not to listen. And more importantly, knows when they took a wrong turn to correct it.

Focusing on equalizing combat is just going to make the game more combat-focused and less diverse. Let combat be however unfair it wants to be, and then focus on creating new opportunities for players to experience how fantastic Genesis is. Hammering down nails instead of putting in new nails (and warts) will create a slow regression to nothingness.

[Zhabou]

If we were to return to the old equipment scheme, and I'm not convinced that's a good idea, but if we were, the monsters would likely need to be re-adjusted to account for their inflation. And, those who idle in safe rooms would only be affected at arma ... it seems like a lot of adjustment to the new reality has been done which would have to be re-examined.

[Cherek]

In the last decade or so, the change to EQ saving is probably the one change we got, and still get, the most praise for from players. I am personally also very happy with how it turned out. Are there issues with it? Well, sure, you can find problems with _anything_ if you look for it, but in my opinion A LOT of things are better when it comes to EQ now. And we wouldn't have gone through with it if we hadn't believed in it back then, and I sure still do. We're definitely not rolling that back.

[TripleM]

I'll go on record that Nils' note is a + 1 from me, when it comes to races in Genesis. I think there's a lot of truths in there. And the solution he proposes offers all there is to wish for no? The main thing would be no breakage or unintended consequences AND more fair options to all. So no long trajectory of correcting unintended consequences, and the risk of a hit on our playerbase. And before I get labelled as 'min-maxer' or whiny goblin once again, I have always been a goblin, a Calian at that since '94 with a lot of drawbacks. In fact, Knight-NPC's attack me in Krynn, I drowned trying to find Rivendel etc. AND I didnt change race to do said quests.

In my mind, a question would be how much work Nils-solution would be in comparison to the proposed solution Cherek and his team proposed (if you go through with it, please consider Zhar's upgrade on it). Cherek, in your explination of the white-hit-trajectory, you basicly also explained what things can go wrong, and a timeline it took to eventually get to your preferred solution. A time-span of almost 2 years.
You also showed you as a Keeper dare to pull triggers on decisions, and sometimes dare to trust on your gut-feeling. I think this is what a leader does.

Alot of shit (and I myself am guilty of it)and profanity gets flung towards you. However I urge you to consider at least some of the points that are being made. People like me in fact care. I genuinely believe that this suggested alternative would be fair to all, and it doesnt make the game more bland. Flavour and consequences to choices are good, and make Genesis stand out.

PS For rolling back permasave, that ship has sailed as far as I'm concerned. Nils arguments on consequences are not wrong, but accepting change on this and no longer look back is more constructive.

[Goirbagh]

PS For rolling back permasave, that ship has sailed as far as I'm concerned. Nils arguments on consequences are not wrong, but accepting change on this and no longer look back is more constructive.

Why couldn't the same be said for racial imbalances which have been there for 30 years?

[TripleM]

PS For rolling back permasave, that ship has sailed as far as I'm concerned. Nils arguments on consequences are not wrong, but accepting change on this and no longer look back is more constructive.

Why couldn't the same be said for racial imbalances which have been there for 30 years?

It could. And I would personally not be against that. But if the administration decides they want to change the game in a department they consider unfair, I would be in favour of the Nils-route in this case. I think Cherek made clear he and his team think they should adjust the game in this department. I think Nils' proposed solution would solve the perceived unfairness, and doesnt make the game lose flavour.

[Dan]

Also a +1 on Nils suggestion regarding races from me, look at WOW or any other game, flavors of races is a big part of roleplaying games, and taking that to just the name will take away a lot of flavor. I think some kind of 'combat elves' should somehow be added to the better dwarves, so that one can choose to roleplay an efficient elven warrior as well as dwarven. And we all know humans are bland and boring, the terrans of SC and so on, thats the choice of following a balanced but bland path.

I guess when people complain about silly things like race modifiers, not enough people reply 'current model is fine' making it standout like silent agreement of a 'fix' is required where none is.

the perma save i disagree so thats a -1 from me, i much prefer the current model of saving gear that dies after 3ish months, great solution by carnak back then +10 for that.