Anti-PG methods

[Moirear Sian]

• Foreword

Although I complained about this in the past to unmeasurable lengths and did not expect something to be done immediately, I feel this is a necessary proposal as it will help narrow down the margin of discussion around the flimsy topic of "Powergaming".

• Observations

There are two distinct things that express themselves through Powergaming.
• Crafting endless amounts of items or slaying so many monsters/npcs that the amount of items dropped bursts and realistic limits.
• Doing the same action repetitively to gain skill and some sort of edge when the game boils down to comparing skills (and ironically, this expresses itself first and foremost in combat-related issues).
A possible reason as to why these things occur, is perhaps the double-standard of many players to state and chew up the "rules" of PG time and time again, however to state along the same lines that they don't take people seriously concerning their RP if they cannot back it up with skills and items.
As such, it becomes easy to imagine why now and then someone might land in the spotlight as a rulebreaker, although, there is no exact mathematical formula given by the game as to what is realistic and what is not; and the fact that this is a fantasy game furthermore implies that a strict ruling towards the subject of "PG" is imperative so people can play their roles without the constant unknown of what exactly is PG and what is not. I remember alot of cases in the past where, deciding whether something was PG or not was done out in the open by players on the forum, and rather questionable.

• Deductions

The game has to have certain methods implemented within the client and server to downsize the effects of "PG" to the point where the players in question deem them unnecessary, and feel no "need" to meet any standards other than roleplaying, as well as the GMs are not burdened any longer with having to monitor for the effects of PG and going to lengths of punishing them. Instead, devising a clean-cut method which regulates the gameplay to the point where actions are simply a question of style and not of any "gain" (or unfair advantage), is what would be preferable.

• Suggestions

My proposal consists of implementing the following speedbumps to end the discussions concerning PG, and still meeting the design ideal of Illarion concerning "This game is not about levelling up or slaying as many things as possible".
• Method 1 - Time-based skill gain caps
As many people argue that having gained a skill over the course of a year or more feels like an accomplishment to them, it would make sense to implement a cap that restrains the skill gain to a total amount of points based on week or month. If someone spends those points chopping wood as a fighter while they should have been fighting, or on fighting instead of smithing, that's their loss for not sticking true to the role and should be handled as an in-game consequence of their actions.
• Method 2 - Guaranteed skill gains
Something perhaps known to players of UO or WoW, the effect of this method is basically nothing else but: "The less you train, the faster you gain."
This entails that someone who plays only seldomly or RPs so much that their "skill hunting" is impaired, and does not fill the quota of "x points for gaining during 1 week", will gain those points much faster upon employing the skills, albeit, in end effect, never more than what the cap suggested in Method 1 would induce.
• Method 3 - Monster/NPC drop-limitations
Simple: "If player X has killed an amount of N monsters, NPCs, and player characters, they will not drop any more items till the allotted time is up."
In this case, again, "allotted time" could be adjusted to one week or one month in the system.
• Method 4 - Crafting limitations
This would be almost identical to Method 3, limiting how many items one character can produce in a certain timeframe. The only difference to Method #3 is that this would require a message and a break within the crafting procedure, something like "You don't feel like crafting anymore, your hands are all sore."


If you have read all the above and this far, you are not Homer J. Simpson.
Thank you for your attention.

[Aragon]

Method 1 is allready in use. When doing to much a message appears, that you can't concentrate more on learning, and later, that you need a break.
If this message appears, skills don't rise anymore until enough time has passed.
Sure, the person can go on in his work, but there would be no skill gain.
Another question is the balancing of this skill cap. In fighting it seems, it comes very fast, in crafting it takes more time.

[Moirear Sian]

Indeed, but I think the amount of skill to be gained should be slightly raised, as well as the timeframe within which you cannot gain anymore should be extended to more vast amounts of time (i.e. a week or a month). I was under the impression that these gain caps wore off very quickly as they are now.

[Adano Eles]

Point 4 has been discussed at the RL- meeting. It's quite possible that there will be a total cap of "crafting points". Depending on the difficulty of an item it would only be possible to craft a certain amount of them before the cap is reached. This has the additional advantage of reducing mass production of items which should be difficult to craft even at a high skill, i.e. plate armour.

[Moirear Sian]

The idea with the "crafting points" sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Tying in with that; it could be the same with Method #3, using a scale for the significance of foes defeated nulling out item drops. "murder points", I guess, which are invisible, but clog up the possibility for item drops.
- player characters --> highest priority
- high-end npcs --> medium to high priority
- low-end npcs --> low to no priority

The reasonings I have behind that is that a player character can drop the most significant and sometimes also rare items (stepping ahead, perhaps it could be determined by a character's skill total?). Dangerous monsters are said to drop better items, but would count more heavily against the cap. Low-end monsters that drop minor items or nothing at all would weigh minimally against the cap, or not at all.

[Keikan Hiru]

Why are you including Character-Loot ?
When a Character drops items, nothing is added to the total number of items in circulation only the owner changes.

[Moirear Sian]

True, but I included it because these Anti-PG-methods are supposed to serve the point of deriving OOC-motivation to PG. After all, if the monster-loot is capped this way, and looting off of player characters is not, you could in theory expect alot more PKing to win upperhand over unrealistic amounts of "MKing". Besides, if I'm not mistaken, it's a usual thing already that not all of a player character's items drop to ground when they die.

[Adano Eles]

On the other hand, player- killing is covered by separate rules. Extensive PKing for the sake of gaining items from other chars alone would be a banning reason. Roleplayed robbery can never be compared with looting monsters in the amount of gained items.

[Moirear Sian]

Agreed.

/Edit: On second thought though, roleplayed robbery (even the violent type) doesn't necessarily have to include turning somebody into a cloud.

[Talaena Landessi]

but it usually comes down to that becouse people dont seem to be scared of three armoured orcs on them all at once

[Konstantin K]

I like those proposals. I say, implement them all, and you will get your anti-PG oriented graphical chat, where people will craft for 1 day and then sit idle for 6 days. I bet you, you will have 5 players online at most, because Roleplaying without actions is boring.

What can you talk about? Sheep? Flowers? How beautiful the buildings are? Families? Okay, do that for a day or two. You still have 4 days of the week to occupy with something. And that something is: plots, conspiracies, attack plans, operations, trade routes, crafting, merchandise interactions, magic studies, and mercenary employments. And all those things - need skill.

If you limit the game's skill gain to extremely slow pace, like you want it - it will become boring.

Why do you want slow skill gain anyway? Just have people become good at their trades, what's your problem?

Hmmm... If the anti-PG Method 1 is already implemented, and skill gain speed is ALREADY limited.... why was I still punished?

The client ITSELF is a proof that I could not gain any more skill than permitted by the CLIENT.

[Terook Telcove]

Actually he has a good point if he can only gain a certain amount of skills in a certain amount of time none of his actions after that skill gain would amount to anything except a waste of time

[Konstantin K]

The answer is: Idiocy and Hatred.

[Aegohl]

You're almost done, Konstantin.

The answer is: The system is incomplete and not idiot-proof.

[Irania]

K, please don't dig a hole.

[Konstantin K]

You're almost done, Konstantin.
The answer is: The system is incomplete and not idiot-proof.

Oh really? I don't think so.
I got the messages rather quickly, and whenever I could not concentrate on learning, I went out and roleplayed with people, but did you care about that? No.

The thing is: I don't have to do what others do, I'm not obligated to sit by the fire and pick flowers. I like to fight, and when my friends are offline - I fight instead. I don't feel like meeting others. My character seeks no new contacts, and neither do I. When I see people I like to Rp with online, I go ahead and Rp with them.

But when I'm free of that - I train. And that's why my skill was very high.
I did not explore the map much like others did.

Why didn't you punish players who uncovered the entire island in one day? Isn't that "unrealistic"?

I uncovered main monster lairs, most of them close to town, and went to those places instead, to train.

I know I did nothing wrong, and you know it too, and until you admit you made a wrong decision, I will continue to label you wrong.

You must hate be by now very much. But it's just like a mirror. Reflecting it all back at ya'.

[Gwynnether]

Oh really? I don't think so.
I got the messages rather quickly, and whenever I could not concentrate on learning, I went out and roleplayed with people, but did you care about that? No.

The thing is: I don't have to do what others do, I'm not obligated to sit by the fire and pick flowers. I like to fight, and when my friends are offline - I fight instead. I don't feel like meeting others. My character seeks no new contacts, and neither do I. When I see people I like to Rp with online, I go ahead and Rp with them.

But when I'm free of that - I train. And that's why my skill was very high.
I did not explore the map much like others did.

Why didn't you punish players who uncovered the entire island in one day? Isn't that "unrealistic"?

I uncovered main monster lairs, most of them close to town, and went to those places instead, to train.

I know I did nothing wrong, and you know it too, and until you admit you made a wrong decision, I will continue to label you wrong.

You must hate be by now very much. But it's just like a mirror. Reflecting it all back at ya'.

Why don't you just search for a game where you don't have to RP?
Where you can fight as long as you want and gain skills as much as you want?

Please give me a few reasons why Illarion is interesting for you anyway?

[Aegohl]

That was almost a neat catch phrase, except it didn't really make any sense. All you've done is cuss me out for a week straight.

I've warned you to take your punishment like a man, Konstantin. This is a proposal board. If you want to extend your punishment, do it elsewhere. The big boys are talking about big proposals here. The playground is elsewhere.

[Konstantin K]

How dramatic.

@Gwyn: Nothing really holds me here.

[Misjbar]

Can I rephrase the question? Why are you still here?

[Konstantin K]

That will take exactly 4 paragraphs to explain, which I don't feel like typing right now.

[Misjbar]

4 paragraphs should not take long. You have enough time to fight probably (as stated by yourself) so why not for this?

[Moirear Sian]

I like those proposals. I say, implement them all, and you will get your anti-PG oriented graphical chat, where people will craft for 1 day and then sit idle for 6 days. I bet you, you will have 5 players online at most, because Roleplaying without actions is boring.

What you're not considering when you write this is the following:
You can still roleplay and carry out actions with these proposals in effect. All the more, any roleplaying and actions cannot be deemed PG since they would be paramount to a question of style. Furthermore, if these things are massively slowed down for everybody, everybody will be low in skill and items; which will signify a slightly more balanced IG-situation, statistic-wise.
Last but not least, the GMs will have a tool at their disposal; namely they can monitor statistics and item caches of a character and discern on an easier basis whether someone is cheating (hacking or abusing bugs) or not.

What can you talk about? Sheep? Flowers? How beautiful the buildings are? Families?

This joke is void, because this proposal is supposed to adversely inspire people to not fall victim to the "sit around the campfire and talk all day"-symptom. How would that work you wonder?
I'll tell you how: Go around the boards and find every post of someone saying that they're tired of playing because they don't know what PG is and what is not. Because they don't know how they should roleplay without falling into the "sit around the campfire and talk all day"-symptom, and at the same time, without being slandered "PGer", "cheater", or other nonsense.

Okay, do that for a day or two. You still have 4 days of the week to occupy with something. And that something is: plots, conspiracies, attack plans, operations, trade routes, crafting, merchandise interactions, magic studies, and mercenary employments. And all those things - need skill.

I don't see how this will prevent those things you speak of. Following my theory, a fighter should fight, a crafter do his trade, a whatever do his whatever. Other things however will be impossible:
Younger characters can never surpass previously existing ones (in the sense of skill ratings) unless the older ones take extensive breaks of missing out in play (although, following method #2, the latter type of player character has a chance to stay on top easily).

If this is a bad thing is arguable, however I'd like to add that the PG rules are in place to somewhat cause the same effect; however, I am convinced these rules should not be professed by human beings judging what is PG and what is not; instead programmed by the game designers and regulated by the actual game.
But while this is a thing that may become impossible, I think this is the price many of us would be willing to pay in order to have an unconstrained RP-environment where people are not labelled PGer for their style of playing.

Additionally, there are things that are oftenly independant of skill ratings and the likes. Integrity within an in-game community or society, for example, is oftenly only achieved through certain amounts of roleplaying. As for items, player characters should be far less self-sufficient; not so it's impossible to be slightly self-sufficient, but to the extent where the players are driven to more interaction (if you think of the crafting and item drops being restricted by the game, this is the main purpose behind it).

If you limit the game's skill gain to extremely slow pace, like you want it - it will become boring.

This is not true. The pace of music, for example, does not determine the quality of the music, instead it's the orchestration that creates the full effect on the listener. These are the repercussions I'd estimate in follow-up to these methods falling into place:
• old characters will always be more skilled and have more items than young ones
• player characters who "train" alot can finally go under the description of being "ambitious" or "eager", without the player being labelled a "PGer" or assumptions being made about the player
• the playfield is slightly levelled out between the people who sit around the campfire talking about sheep or flowers or cupcakes all day, and the ones who train alot or craft alot out of RP-reasons

Why do you want slow skill gain anyway? Just have people become good at their trades, what's your problem?

As my entire initial post indicates, the purpose behind the slowed down rates is to eliminate discussions by players as well as GMs concerning whether a player is a PGer or not. What concerns me most is players labelling others PGers. As Aegohl once said, the GMs see all and know all. The players more oftenly than not do not know a God damn thing about the other players.
Secondly, it is not necessarily that I want slow skill gains. Moreover, people can still RP to be good at their trades; their progression rate in skill ratings will simply be much slower. It is ridiculous to say this will end all actual actions that go along with the RP; in the contrary, it would hopefully inspire people to actually carry out more actions! And you'd never have to worry about someone having an unfair advantage over you because of extended free time they spend skilling up or gaining items.

Actually he has a good point if he can only gain a certain amount of skills in a certain amount of time none of his actions after that skill gain would amount to anything except a waste of time

Not true. Any actions that would normally gain skill or items after reaching a cap are purely a matter of style then. If someone wants to play the murderer, or monsterhunter, or pied piper, whatever that person does is a question of style and not of gaining skill, thus the PG rules could be narrowed down to simple things that could be bulletted well and serve for a better atmosphere paired with the illusion of fairness.

As it is now, it is an illusion of mythical proportions to ever make perfect PG rules, or eliminate PGing forever. Instead the game should be welcoming for new players and new player characters, and the playfield should be balanced out for the type of PG which I don't consider malicious (as you can read in the edit below, I do not agree with the current definitions of "PG": I consider "cheating" to be "PG"), and within the borders of proper roleplaying.

/Edit.
This is what I consider PG:

• • Hacking the client for unfair advantages.
  • Consistently abusing bugs in the game for unfair advantages.
  • Speaking consistently and exclusively OOC when "training" or "crafting".

That's it. Anything else people dub "unfair advantages" sounds silly to me since this is real time a player is spending, playing with the underpopulated game world! But that is beside the point. My proposal serves so that people can RP any style of character, even one who camps out near some bandits and kills them day in day out (which is a distinct character type), without being labelled PGer.

As we all know, powergaming is something that can hinder the roleplaying environment in Illarion.

I underlined "can" because it's just that. "Can". I can say that most basically, PG as some other people define it, concerning skilling up, lurking around monster spawns and such, does not hinder a fantasy roleplaying environment.

What hinders a fantasy roleplaying environment...

... is OOC talk
... is characters stepping out of their roles (a fighter suddenly acting to be the scholar or a scholar suddently acting to the fighter)
... is PKing without roleplaying background
... is abusing bugs that cause odd in-game situations
... is encountering characters with names stolen from mythology and fantasy literature without a single alteration to the name
... is silly brabble off the game about what the players are doing wrong, when we're supposed to be in the game having fun together.
/

Thank you for your attention.

[Misjbar]

If this is a bad thing is arguable, however I'd like to add that the PG rules are in place to somewhat cause the same effect; however, I am convinced these rules should not be professed by human beings judging what is PG and what is not; instead programmed by the game designers and regulated by the actual game.
But while this is a thing that may become impossible, I think these are the price many of us would be willing to pay in order to have an unconstrained RP-environment where people are not labelled PGer for their style of playing.

Slight contradiction here, because in essence the programmers who make the game, are humans too. They already have to judge what is PG, and what not.

[Moirear Sian]

That is not quite the contradiction as it may at first seem.

I am convinced that the programmers are the designers.
They should write the rules into stone.

From there on, we play. No more judging who's a PGer or not.
No more judging realism. This is a fantasy MMORPG.

The designers and the game's setup dictate the game's "reality".

[Adano Eles]

One point people seem to miss out here is that every change made to the game engine will of course have to be balanced out.

If a crafting point system is implemented and you can only craft a single plate armor a day then of course the amount of skill gained for each armor will be rebalanced. Of course will the disadvantages of having a low skill value be rebalanced. Don't forget that we have a quality system now. It's no longer needed to have immense failure rates.

[Bloodhearte]

K's gotta get his RP fix somewhere...certainly not from Runescape or Tibia. I can see where his idea of high skill coverage and good role play fit in.

The proposal reads fine to me, but I must disagree on the rate skills are gained. Such slow gain may please those who like waiting a long time and seeing what they accomplished, but to others...they might quit before they even start because they know they have to wait a year or so getting the character to be whatever the player wants that character to be (skill is especially a requirement to back up fighting roles).

On the other hand, it would all be relative...everybody would still be gaining skill at the same rate if they tried to maximize the time possible for gaining skill. But even contrary to this, players would see less "fruit" from the practice of their character's trade, and would just give up early because they're not even sure if it's raising at all, or worth it.

Now I know there are people that would reply with something like "this isn't a lunch time game." This argument is moot.

I'm posting my opinion here based on experience, not theory or what others would like to see happen in the future. Xerake was my best overall fighting character, and got good in a relatively short time. However, he was by far my most fun character to play with and I logged in with him more often than any other character I've ever used.

Why? Because he reached that plateau of getting the darn skill, and I started to have fun actually letting him get on with his intended "work"...assassination and mercenary stuff. And believe me, characters can't be assassins or mercenaries if they're running from flies. It just doesn't happen.

I don't really have any other proposals for prevention of PG. I would just like to see lucid, absolute rules on what is and what is not PGing so players don't have to play mind games with the GMs at guessing, or be punished without knowing exactly what they did wrong (like in K's case).

[Moirear Sian]

Personally I agree with you Bloodhearte. I think year(s) of playing the same character just to reach the "plateau" of skills is far too long. Mind you, I wrote these proposals under the preface of what seems to me to be a majority of people who prefer the years over a few months. The restraints, if applied, can always be tightened or loosened, depending on what the majority says and the developers make of it.

As both you and Adano wrote above, things like crafting success rates, or the effect of skills in fighting are a relative thing, and possibly subject to change. As it is right now, for example, I don't agree on how strong the effect of the height of combat skills affects fighting (I think it's way too reminiscent of games like D&D, where a level 3 fighter is condemned to lose against a level 16 fighter, if you know what I mean).

I find this part very important:

I would just like to see lucid, absolute rules on what is and what is not PGing so players don't have to play mind games

And to add to it, lucid, absolute rules, that hold well enough so people have no margin to go whining about fellow players and learn to roleplay with what they face (e.g.: not go crying boo-hoo on the boards about an evil character killing their peaceful fairy sitting at a campfire chatting, but instead reacting to it with roleplaying, as in going to in-game authorities, getting strong allies to beat up the baddie, etc.).

[Pendar]

I am currently very frustrated by numerouse aspects of the game at this present moment so perhaps this post is ill founded.
There are many good ideas for the controling or limiting of power gameing listed. How ever I personally believe the issue of power gameing to be a storm in a tea cup. The more I play this game the more I realise we are a relatively small player group with a unique taste in gameing.
I have for most of my time in game played a town guard meaning that generally speaking I have encountered many of the more skilled based players or to rephrase many players who like to compliment there rp with a very skilled character.
I have in that time encountered maybe three highly skilled/PGed characters abuseing there skills to PK or inhibit other peoples ability to enjoy the game. Generally speaking even if you power game skills take time to get in this game. If you have dedicated the time to do that you have propably found something worth while in game and wish to be a part of it.
If people are not able to rp well enough they never really find a home here and move along to different games. If you do find you really enjoy this game it usually means you have been adopted into the Illarion world by other players and are such adding something to it. If you are meaningful part of the game who cares how skilled you are?
In the past when people have used skills to abuse the game or players extensively the !gm function has been used enough times that a GM can safely say this person has been a hiderance to a large number of players sense of fun. Problem is then solved.
The entire issue of pging is a little paradoxical as many of us are saying we dont care about skills rping is not about winning anyway.
So when we then say stop power gameing, stop players being powerful to fast. We are saying I dont care about skills as long as i dont get beaten or people cannot craft to much better than me ?

Factors that to me make controling power gameing are as follows.
1. We all have different amount of time we choose/are able to put in game.
When I am really enjoying this game I am lucky enough to be able to put in 24 hours in 3 days if i choose to. There are a few other people in the same situation.
2.Numerouse character accounts, I know some people had upwards of 5 characters on the old server. Some like me only had one.
How can we judge if some one is power gameing unless we watch them for most there time in game, how long have they been playing each day. What rp motivation do they have, How many characters are they skilling up? etc
3.Everyone see's power gameing differently.
Just the other day i was dueling with some of the guards "training". A dwarf character walked by and typed ((power gamers)). I knew this dwarf character was allready smithing axes and armors only a few days into the new server. So I asked him why what we were doing was pging and him being such a good smith was not.
His answer was we had no rp reason for beating each other up...as a smith he had a strong reason for smithing for hours and hours on end.
4.If people are skill instead of role play centered they will find the way to max out skill gain as much as the client allows and logg out/stand idle/make money or what ever inbetween.
Players who sit and chat around fires will always do that. Players who only play to be the best will continue to play to be the best. It is that simple, skill caps, rules or points. Will not make the rp better in game.

To me the issue has never been powergameing but respectful rp one cannot make rules about that though. One can only as a community encourage good rp manners and interactions and when some one goes way over bored pull them out as GM's have done in the past.
Please should any one choose to reply to my post directly do not mention the Konstantine K issue as a reason for stricter rules regarding power gameing. That issue goes beyond just skilling up and it is my humble opinion.
As i see it
Brian

[John Irenicus]

where people will craft for 1 day and then sit idle for 6 days.

Their own fault, maybe? It is truely possible to play a good skilled character AND rp with other players. Or do you go ig only to work and log out if your amount of learning points is over? How about waiting when sitting next to a campfire, talking about anything in the ig situation, and work on after 2-3 hours of nice and joyfull roleplay? Illarion is NOT a skill and working-based game, so people who behave like you said should consider playing other games.

And that something is: plots, conspiracies, attack plans, operations, trade routes, crafting, merchandise interactions, magic studies, and mercenary employments.

Also possible, you just have to play for more than 3 days to be able to kill the whole npc monsters on the island. Play half a year, allow your char to gain his abilities in a realistic time and start to plot the big wars and such.

and skill gain speed is ALREADY limited.... why was I still punished?

Maybe because you found the tinies loophole in that system and used it?Just because any technical system allows it, does that mean your character is able to face whatever he has done? Are you playing this game always with a manual in the left hand, checking what action you are allowed to do and which not?
How about using your brain, roleplay experience and think? All this discussion wouldn't be needed if all players would do it, anyway.

In general: excessive powergaming: wrong; excessive roleplay: games doesn't seem to work entirely without skills.
Solution: Find a good middle.