First off I want to thank the staff for your increasing transperancy over the years.

With that said I am curious if you could explain the implications of the removal of pk milestones? Is this only ties to number of pk by a certain level? Are there still edge point awards for total pks?

I am assuming edge costs are staying the same as they did when the change to explore/obs edge points went in. How is this going to affect getting edges as it seems it is going to be even more imm dependent now.

Also, would you mind providing some background for why this change was made?

Thanks again for all you do.

I didn't play for 4 years, and now I'm back. I don't think for long - my wife and my son are coming back home in a few days, and I won't have much time to stick around anyways (yeah... after I left CF, I became a father) :)

So, I see everything with a "fresh eyes". I nocied that:

1. There are less edge points for role XP and imm XP. Cap is about for 3k XP, if I understand it right. It is actually good, because players like myself, who can't write English well, had a huge penalty against native speakers. So, it's fair!

2. I see that edge points for PK were removed. I've checked PBF's of random last 20-30 players and noticed that they had way less edges than similar players 4 years ago. It made me slightly sad, because I love edges and they were a good motivations for me to play (and to kill). I'm more PK than RP kind of player. Not because I don't like RP, but because I'll alway be in disadvantage due to my poor english; no RC wins/serious rewards for me ever. So, I could balance it via PK, but now I'll always be behind.

3. Now, probably players with explore scripts will have a good advantage against those who don't do it, and who relayed to PK.

4. Overall, I see that rewards both for roles/RP and PK were decreased, so it's a balanced change. Probably it's required to make players pick edges more carefully and only the most important. Maybe it's good, actually (not for me, though). But I never had enough of edges! :)

Lastly, I think edge points for PK shouldn't be removed totally, but revamped. With each kill it could be more and more difficult to gain them, like 5-25-50-100-200-300 etc. It would be just 6 edge points, not too much if you would compare it to other ways to earn edge points.

I am esl as well. I don't have much exp for my roles. Now I don't get pk edges for pk kills as well. But its fine. There were the clown (clowns) who spam killed newbies for edge points, over and over again. The old system encouraged to harvest kills on low levels - now its fine ( and still I would prefer to make it like the ap-system with charges. )

You get edge points for lots of things - rank to hero, second name, reraids. Its more then enough. Nobody needs chars with billion edges on low levels that make them even more stronger just because they spam killed noobs and saced their pies.

PS: Just make the search, you'll find old threads about that. It was 1-3 months ago.

There are always ways to balance something, without taking it away from the game.

1. Count PK's only after you player have reached level 30 (there are few newbies already and a it's much more dfficult to spam it);
2. Do not count repeated kills (store unique PK's in DB, not a big deal)
3. Do not count the same player you have killed more than 3 times.
4. Recalculate milestones (5 is available for everyone, actually)

CF always been a PK MUD, and if it's a core gameplay, it should be rewarded, imho.

And sorry for beating the dead horse, I've just stumbled on that thread :)

But the imms went nuclear on PK as a whole and we just have to accept it.

However, the obs/explore before level 30 is also problematic, and should also disappear

gr

I mean why not remove legacies too?

Soon the only way to get edge points will be ImmXP. Just merge some edges into the classes and be done with it already.

I don't know why. I just am. I think counting PKs in a CF with lower player numbers was really dragging on me. It was starting to feel like a chore. "Oh there's a great grouping opportunity but I can't take it because I still need 1 pk before I advance". Don't get me wrong I think PK is one of the things that makes this game exciting. But making it into a job takes away from that.

I guess one just has to go into a character not planning for much by way of edges. Plan to take around 4 and if there are anymore earned it's a bonus.

Maybe I'll roll a serious character.

Heard through the grapevine this was done. Very glad to hear it. What few attempts I've made to play in the last year or two have been quashed by nonsensical player kills for the sake of edge points. Most noteworthy of which is a good/orderly shaman murdering my peaceful neutral mage on the streets of Voralia (then later becoming Marshall. lol wut). I'd rather have 10 evil/chaotic, murder everything, full looting douchebags than one of those shamans. Hopefully this change does a bit to curtail that.

I don't see an ounce of credible feedback to the negative regarding this change. Rather than troll each post individually I will outline the failed arguments and their logical fallacies below:

1. "No incentive to PK?" - Argument from retardation. How about gear, gold, and punishing your enemy mercilessly?

2. "Now you have to bot/script for explore/obs even MORE!" - Colloquially known as the "Small Penis" argument. Basically, when someone has a small penis they have to maximize other meaningless things in their lives to compensate even if they don't enjoy doing the task. It's worth noting that everything in life is meaningless except the penis (we all love them). I would be more harsh on this one, but I actually feel sorry for these people.

3. "Oh great, now only immortals can give edge points." - Argument from Pro-theory. First: Take your tinfoil hat off and just stop being a douchebag. Second: People won't treat you like #### if you don't act like a #### gobbler. Third: Lack of edges isn't why you're getting curb stomped (hint: it's your lack of brain power). Fourth: Read help edgepoint specifics.

Think that covers it. Now if we can get someone to stop deleting posts, this might be a decent place again.

>3. "Oh great, now only immortals can give edge points." -
>Argument from Pro-theory. First: Take your tinfoil hat off and
>just stop being a douchebag. Second: People won't treat you
>like #### if you don't act like a #### gobbler. Third: Lack of
>edges isn't why you're getting curb stomped (hint: it's your
>lack of brain power). Fourth: Read help edgepoint specifics.
>
Oh bravo. Brilliant outlining and clarification of the logical fallacies. Do you mind if my 2yr old borrows this for nursery so he can scribble on it?

Congratulations! I'm happy you were able to distinguish the logical fallacy that applies to your argument. You certainly may give my write up to your 2yr old to scribble upon.

There are already rewards for PKs (Imm love for challenging circumstances, gear, coins, respect). Offering edge point for specific PK numbers only resulted in some (not all, but some) characters killing anything that moved, often with very loose RP reasons for doing so.

Instead of a grind for obs or exploration exp, it was a grind that impacted other players.

There is plenty of edge points to go around.

My last three major characters (all over 400 hours) have had 12 or 13 edges each. I think that is more than enough.

A review of premium battlefields shows almost all characters have at least 6 or 7 edges.

I have played since 1994 and I trust the imms. I have never felt cheated by them and it has been many many different imms over the years.

Things will change and the playerbase needs to adept.

If the rush you get from a pk is not enough for you, then perhaps this game is not for you.

Why have hundreds of edges if no one is going to be able to get any? Looking at the same #### over and over again sucks. Why not just start giving away one edge per 5 levels from 15 on if making things even is your goal? You can always still give Imm xp to juice your brown nosers.

I left this game 10 years ago, and after ####ing around for a bit the past sixish months I'm now starting to think I should have just stayed gone. Things like this are exactly why I left in the first place. This is and always has been a PK mud. It's sad to see certain people try to diminish that.

gr

Purposefully misinterpreting what he said doesn't invalidate his point, nor does it make one for you.

>Why have hundreds of edges if no one is going to be able to
>get any?

You are absolutely right, having hundreds of edges when nobody can acquire any of them would be silly. Fortunately, that's incredibly far from the case with CF.

Even excluding all edge points earned from PK, half of the current active characters level 47+ have earned enough edge points to take multiple expensive edges or many medium/cheap edges. Very few can't afford at least a few of the cheap(er) edges.

Looking at 75+ characters at level 47+, what I don't see are characters that don't have many edge points that, upon further inspection, I think merit much more than they have.

Can't ever have nice things.
That said, I rarely break 10 pk wins anyway, so whatev.

The question is how they got them? I'm will to bet a large portion of those came from the stupidest mechanic in this game. Looking at the same things over and over and over. For those of us unwilling to do that... we now have no viable option to earn them.

You said it yourself somewhere in this thread or another, that there hasn't been any increase in ways to gain edge points as was planned. So how exactly we were supposed to gain them? RP? Seriously? You yourself said you were short staffed so who exactly is supposed to be doing this RP?

It's also been said many times that the game doesn't begin at hero, or even in hero ranks. Why make it so only those in that range really have a chance to gain edges? Pk was really the only way to gain edge points outside of the exp/obs at the lower ranks.

Copying from the EDGEPOINTS SPECIFICS helpfile, going to have a quick personal runthrough of the various means to gain edge points.

1. Experience (XP)

Characters receive edgepoints based on the amount of Commerce,
Exploration, Observation, and Immortal XP they gain.
- For every 2,000 Exploration XP (max 40,000).
- For reaching 5,000 Exploration XP before level 30.
- For every 3,000 Observation XP (max 30,000).
- For reaching 10,000 Observation XP before level 30.
- For every 1,000 Commerce XP (max 21,000).
- For every 1,000 Immortal XP (no maximum).
- For reaching 1,400 Role XP.

*** Personally, I have *NEVER* spent my time worrying about reaching any of these milestones. Yes, CF is a PK-intensive MUD, and we're trying to encourage characters that excel in multiple aspects. I honestly actually do more of my obs/exp effort to get the associated skills, but Legendary Awareness has probably spoiled me. Personally, I think the giving out the exact numbers we did was more of the mistake than how it worked. I'd be more of a fan of shuffling about the actual amounts, and just saying "Exploring gets you edge points. Doing some of that at all levels gets you bonuses".


2. Cabal Related

Characters receive edgepoints for meeting the the following cabal
milestones:
- 10, 25, 50, and 100 retrievals.
- Being made a leader (any position that can INDUCT) for the first time.

*** These seem pretty reasonable. CF loves its cabalwars, and it's encouraging. Though off the top of my head, I'd also be tempted to either add, or split some of those retrieval points into raiding and taking items. Yay, risk!

3. Level / Age

Characters receive edgepoints upon hitting the following milestones:
- Reaching hero (level 51).
- Reaching old age.
- Reaching level 49 with an xp penalty of 100 or less.
- Reaching level 49 with an xp penalty of 300 or less.

*** Don't see anything wrong with this concept. Longevity is supposed to confer some benefits. Though might be worth taking a glance at the xp penalty part, since the class side was removed. Dunno.

4. Immortal-Driven / Rewards

The following events will each earn a character edgepoints:
- Receiving a tattoo.
- Having an acceptable last name.
- Being rewarded with Immortal XP by an Immortal who has not previously rewarded you with any before.

*** I believe this is an area that is overlooked. As much as staffing issues may arise, a good number of the current staff ARE doing decent amounts of random interaction, small batches of xp, lastname, etc.

5. Things that DO NOT COUNT toward edgepoints:

- Skill and Quest Experience.
- Number of quests completed.
- PK

On to your comments:

> The question is how they got them? I'm will to bet a large
> portion of those came from the stupidest mechanic in this game.
> Looking at the same things over and over and over. For those of
> us unwilling to do that... we now have no viable option to earn
> them.

As I mentioned briefly..yes, it's mildly annoying. However, it's also part of a character. It's all starting at 0. Hell, every character I've ever had has perfected second attack, but now I rolled a new one and I have to perfect that stupid second attack *AGAIN*, why do I have to fight the same mobs over and over? Why do I have to kill troll #19402 AGAIN just to go from level 1 to 51 AGAIN? These are all aspects in which individual characters' longevity work to your benefit.

> You said it yourself somewhere in this thread or another, that
> there hasn't been any increase in ways to gain edge points as
> was planned. So how exactly we were supposed to gain them? RP?
> Seriously? You yourself said you were short staffed so who
> exactly is supposed to be doing this RP?

Ultimately? Players. Just this week I gave some random sub-15 character bonus EXP because he RP'd the difficulties of a conflict of his cabal and alignment with other characters. Does it always get XP? Should it NEED to be rewarded? No, it shouldn't. But the random pat on the back got him benefits. Hopefully it encourages them to continue.

> It's also been said many times that the game doesn't begin at
> hero, or even in hero ranks. Why make it so only those in that
> range really have a chance to gain edges? Pk was really the only
> way to gain edge points outside of the exp/obs at the lower
> ranks.

No, the game doesn't begin at hero, but neither does your lvl 15 warrior get to run around with specs and legacies. Personally, I don't know why *some* edges shouldn't be available at any level, but given we don't allow PK 'til 10, and let empowerment go 'til 20, I don't think lvl 20 is a huge stretch. Can you get edges at 20? Yes. Can you pick 15 of them then? No, for the same reason you don't have all your class abilities then either. Levelling gets you tougher, stronger characters that can take on more PvE challenges. So too do you get more and more edge options slowly as you develop.

>Personally, I think the giving out
>the exact numbers we did was more of the mistake than how it
>worked. I'd be more of a fan of shuffling about the actual
>amounts, and just saying "Exploring gets you edge points.
>Doing some of that at all levels gets you bonuses".

Yes, let's bring back obfuscation. That way Imms and Imm friends are the only ones that know the hard numbers and the rest of us schmoes are left guessing. Keeps me immersed.

Imagine it: you see what skills and paths are avaliable, but only have a rough idea of their cost and can't tell how many of them you can still study before running dry.

Brilliant.

I've written up about two responses to this, but both amounted to feeding the troll. I'll just say - if you want an actual discussion, then post with points, topics for discuss, or otherwise reasonable conversation. Making snide remarks accomplishes nothing.

Ultimately...yeah, we've done it. It worked out pretty reasonably at the time, and thieves didn't drop off the face of the planet when that was the case. Players asked, and convinced Immortals at the time to make it detailed out. Am I against how it's done now? No, but we're also comparing a classes' near entire skill set vs. entirely optional bonuses of edges.

It's very difficult to refrain from being snide.

I find myself bewildered at how you guys disregard player feedback and insist that everything is fine.

By the way, I had no idea it was *ACTUALLY* that way with thief points back in the day.

Two points:

1) I don't think we "disregard" player feedback. We read it and consider it, both the feedback that's in support of a particular change and feedback that isn't. Sometimes that feedback manifests itself in future changes, but when it doesn't I don't think it's fair to describe a subset of (oftentimes vocal) players not getting what they want as us blanketly disregarding the playerbase.

2) I try to give players the benefit of the doubt when I have access to information they don't. Oftentimes my response to a comment or criticism is to simply state that the assertion being made isn't true (because, again, I have access to evidence of the fact). Even if you sift out the hyperbole and the emotional knee-jerk reactions, players often make claims that just aren't accurate or don't consider perspectives other than their own. That isn't always their fault, but it makes for poor arguments.

PK edge point change objectively doesn't even mean much to me -- I only ever had 3 chars with more than 10 PK wins, and that's not going to change.

But, your "grep-fu" is not "more information" because it shows a general statistic and the problem is with outliers. And relegating things to human error encourages more outliers.

I'd also argue that players are better judges of which characters are quality and deserve reward. With possible exclusion of one's own character.

One of the nice things about our lower numbers these days is that we can more easily do qualitative analysis in addition to quantitative, and that's in addition to the knowledge we get from snooping, immteraction, and anecdotally from other immortals. In this case, I'm able to combine information about how many edge points every character on the MUD is earning in each category with their character histories, imm comments, and other things to get a pretty good picture of how things play out in practice, how characters who rely on PK for EPs compare to characters on rely on RP or cabal wars or exploration or all of the above, etc.

While you might say Bob is an excellently RP'd character who is deserving of accolades, I can see that when he died last week he spammed his killer with OOC taunts and abusive language, or that while he tunes up the RP when someone is watching, he regularly makes horrible RP choices in private for the sake of gold or equipment.

At the end of the day, all that combined with the player feedback that I do obviously read (though I'm seriously questioning why I bother) leaves me feeling pretty confident that I'm making sufficiently well-informed decisions.

"At the end of the day, all that combined with the player feedback that I do obviously read (though I'm seriously questioning why I bother) leaves me feeling pretty confident that I'm making sufficiently well-informed decisions."

You bother because every so often someone makes decent contributions to the conversations?

>"At the end of the day, all that combined with the player
>feedback that I do obviously read (though I'm seriously
>questioning why I bother) leaves me feeling pretty confident
>that I'm making sufficiently well-informed decisions."
>
>You bother because every so often someone makes decent
>contributions to the conversations?

Yes, but it's becoming less and less worth the time and stress. I've come to understand why many staff members just don't bother.

I mean... I assume you knew putting it in that it would generate an (online) #### storm... It takes nothing to cause a tempest in that teapot.

If you think the players have nothing to offer, feel free to find another game without players, we don't want you here?

That's my turning your line about not liking it and getting the hell out against you... probably poorly.

>I mean... I assume you knew putting it in that it would
>generate an (online) #### storm... It takes nothing to cause
>a tempest in that teapot.

No, that was pretty much my expectation.

>If you think the players have nothing to offer, feel free to
>find another game without players, we don't want you here?

Never said that.

>That's my turning your line about not liking it and getting
>the hell out against you... probably poorly.

Poorly indeed.

Jesus ####. You disagree, great. Let's just all take our balls and go home. Idiot

Worst thing is, I've been a senior imm in a mud and I *know* that players often can't see the full picture.

Yet here, as a player, I still often can't stop arguing.

I should remind that to myself more often and trust you to make decisions, even if I hate those decisions.

Out of interest if you've come to this thought process do you look back and review how you make these sorts of announcements to consider if you could have achieved a more satisfactory outcome?

This is only a slightly rhetorical question because the position that's been put forward by the imms appears to be "we discussed this with each other, what the hell are the peons moaning about"

"...all that combined with the player feedback that I do obviously read (though I'm seriously questioning why I bother)..."

If you're not doing things for the enjoyment of the "playerbase", then what is the purpose?

CF is the players. The people logged on pretending to be a character or IMM are the only reasons CF exists.

I always thought that the IMMs saw themselves as Stewarts of this game. As in, you didn't create it, you probably weren't here for it's birth and (I hope) you don't want to be at the helm when it dies. So, your role is an important, but fleeting, one. And a responsibility to those that came before and those that will be here after you are gone.

Let's not lose sight of the big picture. Is there a big picture?

For whatever reason, our players feel the need to be jerks whenever they disagree with something. This thread is a great example of it. I've said it for a long time now, and I will say it again:

If you aren't happy with something, there is an avenue you can go down in an attempt to fix it. Having a civil discussion is one of the easiest ways (which this thread doesn't really qualify as).

You can also try to join the staff and help champion some of the change you want to see from the inside. I would guess that the vast majority of people who play this game would be given the opportunity to do it. If you are in the minority who would not be given a chance for it, well then you shouldn't have done whatever it was that you did to make it so that you could never be trusted to see the other side of the curtain.

I actually think the playerbase suffered when about a decade ago a lot of great players moved to staff and weren't around as pcs any more.

Also I hope you'll acknowledge that a lot of what's been posted is civil, and quite a few posts are constructive.

I don't care if Bob breaks RP in the closet for the sake of gold or equipment. As long as he makes the game fun for other players (allies and enemies), he is deserving of accolades. And if you insist it be judged subjectively, then PLAYERS are the judge of that.

Besides, despite your claim to increased efficiency, there are still forgotten empowerees, untended cabals with empty leader spots, applicants who never get inducted, etc. So please, stop removing automated stuff and piling on manual control responsibilities when there's clearly not enough staff to fulfill them.

I know there's a lot of things I *could* talk about good 'ole "back in my day", though I think that's the first one I honestly thought people just "knew" about.

One thing to keep in mind...this is very similar to when I've DJ'd. Absolutely everyone has their opinion on what I should be playing, and why I'm doing a horrible job, and while I try to accomodate requests, there's SO many that I'll play someone's request, and even they won't go out on the dance floor for their own song, while in the meantime, I've done the job for 10 years, and I have a pretty good grasp of what music *will* get people moving and dancing. It's not saying I can't pick the wrong song and blow it, but overall I tend to have a better grasp than my customers (as much as I do my best to make it work for everyone).

In some ways, it works similarly as an Immortal vs. mortal. Yes, we do take player feedback, but part of getting a shot at Heroimm is showing consistent good judgment w/ characters, and having to continue to show solid judgment as you remain an Immortal. That, and we're often aiming for what's best for the game and players as a whole, and it's the nature of the beast that it's the ones who're unhappy at something that will most likely respond, vs. those who are happy with a change.

As for your PK record, don't worry. One of these days I'll actually get another mortal rolled up and I'm sure you'll get to pad your record on me. Destuvius sure as hell likes to *mutter*

1) For the record, I honestly *STILL* didn't know any of the particulars until I pulled up the helpfile. This tells you exactly how much "Imm knowledge" I've gained. Part of the reason is because just become an Immortal doesn't mean we suddenly get insight into everything. Just about anything I *KNOW* specifically about skills comes the same way every other player has it. Personal experience, or Daevryn/Umi/Zulg being nice enough to detail something out for us. The other half is that I *JUST DON'T CARE*. I'll look at named/unique mobs as I pass through, but I don't spend my days running through an area looking at every detail if I know the area. I still get edges, and the ROI works for me.

2) There's *ALWAYS* obfuscation. Help bash doesn't tell you the exact formula of how much your skill %, size, weight, etc matters, only that they do with possibly some information on what stuff matters most. This is almost EXACTLY the amount obfuscation I'm suggesting towards the edges. Spelling out exact numbers always seems to lead towards people feeling they absolutely have to see 100%s. No-one gripes that they just have general terms of wilderness time or form ability.

Ultimately, CF comes down to the fact that no-one *FORCES* you to do anything besides RP, and that you can't opt out of PK. You want edge points, go explore. Or retrieve. Or write roles, or RP. Leave the how important it is up to you. Exploring not fun for you? Fine. *DON'T DO IT* Don't like retrieving? Sure, don't do that. Min/maxxing your character the most important thing in your life to be SURE you have every advantage? Sure, go spend two hours at lvl 1 looking at every sign, description, or noun you see. Personally, I find the game more fun typing bash isildur than look 4.rock, so that's what I do.

And I am the person who get all his edges mostly from pk.

Some peoples just like to whine, myself included. But hey,
gaining edge points from killing peoples again and again
was the bad idea. Now its fine.

For that, I apologize. Also, the fact that I like those caps and asterisks doesn't really help.

Personally, I believe that in a perfect world, a player should be able to be (mechanical-knowledge) competitive based on intuitive assumptions (Hrm, you think having a high dex would be good at dodge?), with reasonable guidance from helpfiles.

CF is always evolving, and it won't exist without players. On that note, Immortals do try to answer questions, be helpful and informative. In some situations, I believe we've given out too much detail where the information no longer really serves to help a general player. CF's players have a tendency towards min/maxxing things that I feel is a detriment to their own enjoyment. In my specific interest, I'm definitely going to be more interested to getting a beginner up to par than detailing out specifics to veterans. Just remember, the more people we can get into the game, the more people you get to PK!

Hell, if I get to vote on it, I'd say you should get SOME edge points from getting *A* PK (or maybe even just an assist), and participating in that aspect of the game. I guess those poor Fort healers and Heralds are screwed.

Short version, that I so strongly want to stress - Play CF for fun, not so much to get every advantage. Yes, that other guy might beat you, but that's part of the game, too.

NT

CF has always been marketed as an RP/PK game. If you remove the incentive for PK - what is to encourage people to risk 1/3rd CON at all?

Umiron, please do not take this feedback as a dig or personal in nature. I do like a lot of the things you've changed - but this one is severely cramping my CF funstick.

If nothing else, I'd hope you are receptive to feedback from the community in the event that others may feel the same way as I.

Extremely critical since I choose not to farm ImmXP.

They need to do away with the whole EP system then instead of this "death by a thousand cuts".

RIP edges.

Then why did you PK before edges existed? To say that there is no incentive to PK is just silly.

>Then why did you PK before edges existed? To say that there
>is no incentive to PK is just silly.

If this is truly an RP/PK mud. Is it not as equally silly to reward one and not the other?

Maybe not in the way that you want them to be, but its there.

Plus, every time I kill Isildur Morgan Freeman gets another freckle.

These two milestones have a similar feel of obligation to them, once they're known about, as the 15 kills per level tier ones did.

I so totally agree with this. As a newer player who just got my first character past level 30, it's a kick in the nuts to realize that I screwed up and lost a chance at some edge points by not hitting the 5k/10k milestones early enough. I'm not new to muds, and I min/max as much as the next - I doubt I'm unique as far as most 2016 CF newbies go in both those regards - and while I understand why some would say that it's not worth worrying about for a first character, I don't agree.

If 5k/10k are worthwhile milestones on top of the points per thousand or whatever it is, just reward for reaching them regardless of the level at which they're reached.

I want to reference this post:
http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=3&topic_id=2963

And specifically:
"In addition, we will continue to brainstorm new and interesting ways of rewarding people for good RP and character development."

In my experience and the experience of several people I have discussed this with, there have been no new or interesting ways of rewarding people for good RP and character development.

Without exception, every person I have discussed this with reports receiving less IMM XP for good RP and character development.

I'm not saying that it doesn't happen at all, and The Flame posted his tattooing the other day, which is much deserved because He. Is. Awesome, but, for example, the mummy still has a stock title. (The Flame may have too, the last time I saw him, but we're not often on at the same time.)

Since this change I can say with certainty that I'm getting less IMM XP than ever for running around doing what I do, which I think generally people are a fan of, at least according to my death threads.

I think more liberally dispensing edge-point-accruing IMM XP would alleviate a lot of the complaining, because if people are going to farm this stuff, isn't it better that they do it by encouraging interaction and adventure between players (both mortal and immortal) than multikilling the same new assassin or look bucket; look rocks for the ten-thousandth time?

>I want to reference this post:
>http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=3&topic_id=2963
>
>And specifically:
>"In addition, we will continue to brainstorm new and
>interesting ways of rewarding people for good RP and character
>development."
>
>In my experience and the experience of several people I have
>discussed this with, there have been no new or interesting
>ways of rewarding people for good RP and character
>development.

This is probably pretty accurate. The reason being is primarily because we've been short on resources for a while and it just hasn't gotten done. Now that I actively think about it though, I'm skeptical that what I said then is/was a good idea, at least in as much as things like edges are concerned.

>Without exception, every person I have discussed this with
>reports receiving less IMM XP for good RP and character
>development.

This doesn't jive with my observations or my grep-fu of how often Immortals are giving out Imm XP and to whom.


>I'm not saying that it doesn't happen at all, and The Flame
>posted his tattooing the other day, which is much deserved
>because He. Is. Awesome, but, for example, the mummy still has
>a stock title. (The Flame may have too, the last time I saw
>him, but we're not often on at the same time.)

I'm laughing. I'll tell you when when the Flame deletes.

>Since this change I can say with certainty that I'm getting
>less IMM XP than ever for running around doing what I do,
>which I think generally people are a fan of, at least
>according to my death threads.

Not knowing what "doing what you do" is, I can't say. That said, if you are over-exerting yourself with regards to the amount of effort you are putting into the game solely out of an expectation or aspiration for Imm XP then I think you're doing it wrong.

>I think more liberally dispensing edge-point-accruing IMM XP
>would alleviate a lot of the complaining, because if people
>are going to farm this stuff, isn't it better that they do it
>by encouraging interaction and adventure between players (both
>mortal and immortal) than multikilling the same new assassin
>or look bucket; look rocks for the ten-thousandth time?
>

I'd rather people not be assholes AND play for enjoyment instead of for the carrot. I will have my cake and eat it too, damnit.

nt

I'm certainly not.

I've just noticed that with my current who is, for lack of a better term, a "serious" character as compared to my last "serious" character, I have about 1/3 the IMM related XP than I did last time, even adjusted for the differences on how it's handled now and the relative ages of the characters.

Now, it's possible that Jawn Foote was an outlier and people just loved lavishing attention on him, because, well, he was Jawn Foote, but based on my reading of the post in question I would have been expecting more cool titles and custom longs.

If that were the case and those perks came with a couple hundred IMM XP at a pop people would be able to choose more edges with less grinding and/or multikilling and I think that would be a good thing.

If it's a matter of staff availability, I get that, too, and think that people need to be more patient in real life in general and in CF in particular. I love when people stick out the tough roles and see them come through. The Paladin in Outlander was one of my favorite characters of all time and I swear to Thror I'm gonna get an AP into Battle one of these days.

And I know, I also want people to not be assholes and play for enjoyment instead of the carrot, and despite any seemingly complain-y observations I may have said in this thread, I think the quality of the playerbase is higher now than it has been in a while.

That's good because there's also (where are they coming from?) new players, oh my god.

I don't really care about edges, I just want the game to be even cooler and more fun.

So...if you look back and check, most of the lastnames/titles and stuff was done by Whiysdan, who is ####ing awesome (we miss you Whiys and come back soon!).

So, to my eyes, what Umiron is saying is correct. I don't know if you noticed, but other than Scarab, Ysal is the IMM persona with the most current seniority of the IMMs that actually have a presence. I killed Ysal with one of my first characters (though she also killed me, like, 10 times lol).

Basically, we have a whole new "class" of IMMs, and they feel differently about the game than the old "class" did. Not only that, but there's not a lot of coverage PERIOD, so yes, some characters are slipping between the cracks. It happens.

I'm been more than pleased with 95% of the changes and 95% of the IMMs posts recently.

I guess I just didn't notice that Whiysdan was gone, but now that you mention it, I guess it's been a while.

That dude was omnipresent and loved dropping good things on people.

Sure there will be differences, and damn I miss Yean and Amaranthe, but we'll roll with it, I guess.

If one of my gripes is that the mummy doesn't have a cool enough title, I'll obviously be okay.

We're all gonna make it.

>First off I want to thank the staff for your increasing
>transperancy over the years.
>
>With that said I am curious if you could explain the
>implications of the removal of pk milestones? Is this only
>ties to number of pk by a certain level? Are there still edge
>point awards for total pks?

From HELP EDGEPOINT SPECIFICS:

5. Things that DO NOT COUNT toward edgepoints:

  - Skill and Quest Experience.
  - Number of quests completed.
  - PK

That means nothing related directly to PK (PKs per level, total PKs, solo PKs, etc.) yields EPs.

>I am assuming edge costs are staying the same as they did when
>the change to explore/obs edge points went in. How is this
>going to affect getting edges as it seems it is going to be
>even more imm dependent now.

Costs weren't changed, correct. I don't imagine it's going to have much impact at all for most players and most characters, and the ones it would impact are typically characters that either A) are already earning lots of EPs elsewhere or B) characters that, with regards to edges, I don't give two ####s about.

>Also, would you mind providing some background for why this
>change was made?

Rewarding PK achievement, particularly with something that itself makes one more effective in PK, turned out to be something that wasn't really in the best interest of the game (in my opinion). Chalk it up to being one of those "this is why we can't have nice things" situations.

>Thanks again for all you do.

You're welcome.

The edge points for PK creative an incentive to behave in a way you don't agree with. I happen to agree with you, despite my ability to farm those points. However, I would like to suggest that now is an excellent time to consider adding incentives for behavior you do want to see.

For example:

Send and receive 1000 tells with other PC's, max 50 per PC. (Tells are RP, and spamming doesn't get you very far and will get you ignored/ROTD'd)

Gain a rank in a group of 2.
Gain a rank in a group of 3.

Same but with 10 ranks or something. Possibly per-level ranges. i.e. Gain 5 ranks in a group of 2 or more pre-level 10. Ranking together is playing with others = RP, even if not a ton.

Complete a quest with another player*

Engage in battle with 10? unique PCs.

Gather X explore points while in a group of 2+, 3+, etc.


* Most quests are not group friendly, but it seems like it wouldn't require a ton of work to make them such. If you are asked to kill 100 zombies, shouldn't kills for your group count? You recruited others to aid you... all of you should get credit instead of just the one that did the most damage (or however that gets calc'd now)

I appreciate the effort, but almost everything you suggested are things that I don't think are praiseworthy enough to merit a reward like edge points and/or involve way more work to do properly (i.e., such that they can't be easily abused) than I'm willing to consider.

I have a few ideas (of my own and other people's) to consider, but compensating for this change or making edges easier/more available in general is not a huge priority for me right now and thus any subsequent changes may not be made tomorrow or the next day.

Most of my suggestions are meant to encourage people to interact more and at more levels, since I've been feeling lately like CF is a solo endeavor these days, which makes it somewhat boring (for me) and I imagine makes it even less accessible to a new player than it was in the past (when there was more group play).

There will always be players who don't approach CF the way we'd like them to. We even reserve the right to punish/ban them if they take it too far (e.g., not staying in-character, abusive language, etc.). I think that's fair. I'm also glad that so far, it's a small subset of players and not the majority.

If and when we get to the point where in order for the majority of players to RP, interact with one another, and socialize requires bribery and mechanical rewards then we'll probably have reaches the point where CF's existence doesn't make sense anymore.

I have no interest in going down a path where I have to train players the same way I train my dog, and I often regret that CF has done so much to make itself appeal to the kinds of players who can't enjoy the game for the RP component and in such a way that it's fun for everyone else. Players who approach CF with the mindset that it can be won or that there is any merit to "proving" their superiority to other players are probably the game's biggest pain point, and if removing certain features gives those people less to do and fewer means by which to measure their ####s, fantastic. At the same time, I want the "reward" for interaction and RP to be largely intrinsic, though we do have ways both manual and automated.

I endorse every word of this post.

If the only reason you play cf is to farm people, you are doing it wrong.
This makes the field more level for all people, but I guess pk junkies like farming for the advantage it yielded.
It was a terrible system, and when twist posted the accrual system he should have known exactly what players would do with it. And players did, they became even less rp oriented and even more pk oriented.

No char needs 23 edges.
Most only need 2, the rest are just perks, but hardly necessary.

This is a great change,as anyone that enjoys cf for playing cf and not the grind of cf should still enjoy it. Hell, even more, with out people playing solely to farm their pk ep.

Bards, noticeably, require many edges to be played the way I like to play them. But in general, yes, 5-6 edges are core and the rest are just fluff.

Guess what, WE LIKE HAVING THAT FLUFF. It's not like I can always have a quest form, third legacy, leader spot or cross-class skill. Or even just a fancy title.

Edges were a great way to keep a player feeling like he's making progress throughout the character's life.

Generally I like more edges, and I think most people do.

However, I do still feel the enough edge points were available before this change, and I am in favour of a change that remove the pk incentives, where edges are concerned.

Pk already has many incentives. Giving edge points for pk was removing much of the social aspect of cf. It was yet another reason that people didn't want to group and rank, because they'd permanently miss out of edge points for a range of pk. It also rewards a group that is already reaping the rewards of pk success. And it meant that now almost every vet stomped the stompable instead of only those who want to jerk off over pk stats.

But edges are cool and fun, and I think people would generally like to have the potential to choose a large number.

So can I propose:
- killing someone that hasn't died in over 100 hrs is worth something.
- rather than giving edge points for old age only, which is good, maybe give smaller amounts every 50 hrs of play.
- for those whose con is taking a huge beating, maybe give them back half the con they've lost in the last 50 hrs too.

The idea being that people can still have plenty of edges, but less of a link to stomping people, and no extra burdens on imms.

I also still like the idea of giving minor defensive edges at no cost to people that are getting stomped. Eg to help them stay supplied with potions, or have a chance to sense an enemy approaching. But said edges only remain active while the person has a worse than 30 percent pk ratio, so there's no significant benefit to trying to game this system as a vet.

>So can I propose:
>- killing someone that hasn't died in over 100 hrs is worth
>something.

Statistically speaking this would apply to so few players that we may as well ignore it.

>- rather than giving edge points for old age only, which is
>good, maybe give smaller amounts every 50 hrs of play.

This disproportionately favours characters that have a greater life span (Elves, Leaders, undead, etc). What about poor, old arial getting withered all the time and age dying in 160 hours?

>- for those whose con is taking a huge beating, maybe give
>them back half the con they've lost in the last 50 hrs too.

This is CF, not http://www.hellokittyonline.com/

Here are my ideas:

1. Only award edge points if the person killed is worth some threshold (TBD) of AP charges.

2. Don't award edge points for multi-killing, and be pretty strict about what qualifies as multi-killing. (This may be covered by #1 above).

3. Do away with the "get X kills by rank Y" awards. These only create perverse incentives to stop what you're doing (i.e. ranking) and level sit until you reach the PK threshold for your current level tier.

4. Only award points for solo kills.

5. Set the cap at which PKs stop generating edge points fairly low, such that its reasonably attainable by most people who *try* to PK even if they're not super great at it. Maybe 20 PKs. The goal is to encourage people to participate; not to juice up the participants who are already really good. Potentially make each individual PK worth more since you're setting the cap lower and because of #s 1-3 above.

With each of the above I have:

1. Removed the (edge point) incentive to kill people who aren't good at PvP.

2. Removed the (edge point) incentive to kill any one character repeatedly.

3. Removed the (edge point) incentive to level sit in specific tiers. (There are still plenty of other reasons to level sit that aren't addressed by this change.)

4. Removed the (edge point) incentive to gang people.

5. Removed the incentive *once you've reached 20 PKs* to kill someone for no reason other than to generate edge points.

>Here are my ideas:
>
>1. Only award edge points if the person killed is worth some
>threshold (TBD) of AP charges.

Maybe, but meh. Two concerns:

1) Players don't know (and we'll never tell them) how many charges someone is worth, at which point they're going to go fishing with nets anyway.

2) This is still abusable. It probably wouldn't happen often, but it would happen and I don't feel like rewarding people for PK is important enough to justify putting up with that crap or trying to code around it. When you PK someone worth a lot of charges you (almost always) get access to very good equipment and a big bag of glory. In my book, that's reward enough.

>2. Don't award edge points for multi-killing, and be pretty
>strict about what qualifies as multi-killing. (This may be
>covered by #1 above).

Again, I just don't care enough to do this. It would require a lot of refactoring to do this, all for a feature I don't think has much value. If I really wanted to make EPs for PKs work, this would obviously be a good idea though.

>3. Do away with the "get X kills by rank Y" awards. These only
>create perverse incentives to stop what you're doing (i.e.
>ranking) and level sit until you reach the PK threshold for
>your current level tier.

I'll buy that.

>4. Only award points for solo kills.

It's actually not ganging that worries me.

>5. Set the cap at which PKs stop generating edge points fairly
>low, such that its reasonably attainable by most people who
>*try* to PK even if they're not super great at it. Maybe 20
>PKs. The goal is to encourage people to participate; not to
>juice up the participants who are already really good.
>Potentially make each individual PK worth more since you're
>setting the cap lower and because of #s 1-3 above.
>
>With each of the above I have:
>
>1. Removed the (edge point) incentive to kill people who
>aren't good at PvP.
>
>2. Removed the (edge point) incentive to kill any one
>character repeatedly.
>
>3. Removed the (edge point) incentive to level sit in specific
>tiers. (There are still plenty of other reasons to level sit
>that aren't addressed by this change.)
>
>4. Removed the (edge point) incentive to gang people.
>
>5. Removed the incentive *once you've reached 20 PKs* to kill
>someone for no reason other than to generate edge points.

I see this as a more of a half measure at best, but mainly see my answer to #1/2.

>1) Players don't know (and we'll never tell them) how many
>charges someone is worth, at which point they're going to go
>fishing with nets anyway.

This is a good point. This change would only be effective at deincentivizing the killing of scrubs if the killer is able to tell who's a scrub and who isn't.

>2) This is still abusable. It probably wouldn't happen often,
>but it would happen

Not the way I had in mind. I wouldn't tie the amount of edge points to the # of charges. If the threshold were "1" then killing a 1-charge guy would get you as many points as killing a 15-charge guy.

Technically, yes, some player worth 1+ charges could suicide on another player in order to give that guy edge points. But that was already possible under the system that was just scrapped. Not awarding points for multi-kills would also make it trickier. The player trying to suicide would need to make sure his deaths are interleaved w/ other kills or they'd end up not "counting".

>Again, I just don't care enough to do this. It would require
>a lot of refactoring to do this, all for a feature I don't
>think has much value. If I really wanted to make EPs for PKs
>work, this would obviously be a good idea though.

Isn't this already in effect for AP charges? That is, you can't get charges for killing someone who you just killed? For some reason I thought that was the case.

>It's actually not ganging that worries me.

Me neither. But I figured I'd throw it in there just to further deincentivize ganging.

>>Again, I just don't care enough to do this. It would
>require
>>a lot of refactoring to do this, all for a feature I don't
>>think has much value. If I really wanted to make EPs for
>PKs
>>work, this would obviously be a good idea though.
>
>Isn't this already in effect for AP charges? That is, you
>can't get charges for killing someone who you just killed?
>For some reason I thought that was the case.
>

Yes, but 95% of the time in this context I consider killing Lloyd, killing someone else, and then boning Lloyd again to be just as lame as killing Lloyd twice in a row with nobody in between. The latter tends to be a lot more common and effectively no different than the former, given the timeframes we often see.

I think it's also worth noting that sometimes when a person gets "multi-killed", it's largely their fault, or at least primarily their fault. If someone kills you, duh, don't go back and hang out in the same area. I'm more concerned about scenarios where that isn't the case and the killer is being deliberate, but neither should ever yield a reward of any kind.

Removing the pk benefit to edges has now reverted it to being reliant on imm benefactors, which like quest forms etc goes to the same old players who are well versed in the methods of maximising ass-kissing time and who self-confess to structuring their character in such a way as to maximise patronage.

Downer.

asd

The reality you perceive based upon the guys who write the roles I'm taking about?

Tell you what. Remove the pray command and stop reading emails from players who are asking for stuff and then we'd see what changes.

SOMEBODY GET JA RULE ON THE PHONE I NEED TO MAKE SENSE OF ALL THIS.

5. Things that DO NOT COUNT toward edgepoints:

- Skill and Quest Experience.
- Number of quests completed.
- PK