Global MC System

[Jen]

The MC system as it is has it's advantages and disadvantages. I think it's overall a good system, but there is one proposal I've got:

Can we please introduce a global MC system, rather than "per character".

You have to invest time into the game, to be able to level up - I don't see a reason why this should be character specific. It shouldn't matter to the game with which character I invest my time. To give you myself as a personal example:

I have a full time job and my time to play Illarion is limited as it is, meaning I'm already struggling to lower MC to skill my characters. Additionally I'm being forced to play the game with the character that I'm currently trying to skill:

I might look on the online list and really want to hop into the game with Meriel, because there are characters on I really want to rp with, with this particular character. Meriel is at the moment a pure rp character because I'm not gaining any skills with her (until the magic system comes out anyway), but for me this means: If I want to log in with Meriel to enjoy roleplay for 1-2 hours, I lose out on the MC that I could be lowering for character XYZ that I'm actually trying to skill.
In a way, this stops me from playing the game the way I want / would enjoy it most.

A global MC system would also make it a lot more interesting for people who play characters that are anti-social or potential future villains, without being bored ingame. I hear about characters walking the map for hours, to lower their MC, because their character concept doesn't allow typical "Campfire RP". I would rather that player comes ingame with a character that I can interact and play with and reaps the rewards with any other character of choice.

Thanks for taking this into consideration

Jen

[Evie]

Interesting proposal.. and I like it. I too have two characters that are atm pure Rp and one I try to skill one. And yes you get forced to play the one you want to skill on and endless walk at times if no one online to rp with, when you could be Rping with another more social character. I am very curious to see if something like this could be implemented.

[Kamilar]

I love this idea. I miss playing multiple characters but I'm in a vicious MC cycle that I just can't break. I would love to share that MC around. Maybe it could be an average between all active characters?

Tagging on to the MC system, I've been wondering if it would be possible for players to turn on and off skill gain on skills like you can do in UO. For example, I needed 75 threads recently to complete a quest and when making them learned an unwanted and, for that character, useless 13 levels in tailoring. This would also benefit crafters that want to focus on the craft rather than the resource gathering.

[Kugar]

Whilst I kinda like the idea, I can also see some disadvantages to it. Like, you could only really skill up *one* character, because when MC goes up for all characters, it must come down with all characters. This is a disadvantage for me, because I like to skill a few char's up and shake up my gaming experience.

If it were possible to have a designated slot for a 'pure rp' character that would drain the MC from all of the other character slots collectively, then, sure, that would be great! But I think it seems like too much of an 'advantage'. However, there would be positives to this because it would increase the online count and make it more appealing to come in game. More players would be playing instead of hiding in a cave somewhere. It would help the game.

[Jen]

@Kulgar: Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't make sense of that argument.
I mean, you don't 'accidentally' level up. You make a conscious decision which character you level up or want to train. And the time you need to invest into the game to get 3 characters up to Lvl 50 Slashing will exactly be the same, no matter whether you have to lower their MC individually or if you have an MC pool. The only difference is that you can be ingame with whoever you like, rather than being ingame with that specific character.
Or am I seeing this wrong?

[Kugar]

Your proposal is to have a global MC pool between your characters. This means that when any of the characters are online, the MC of all characters lowers after time spent in the game. If it were such a global pool, it would also raise all of the characters's MC points when you spend your time skilling up with your characters with the time spent in the game.

Let's say we have just made 3 characters which all start with an MC of 2 mil. We then go and powergame with one of those characters and bump up the MC to 19 mil. That would mean that the learning would then be slower for all your characters because they share in the global pool.

If it is the case that you propose only for the MC to be lowered between all the characters instead of sharing the ultimate MC values including raising them between all the characters in a global pool, then that would result in quite a lot of work. This is my assumption. I'm not saying it a right assumption, though!

Also, just for the sake of argument, you can accidently skill up! If someone comes and bashes you, BAM! That's a level in armor!

Edit: It's actually a really great idea in the long run.

[Estralis Seborian]

This is in fact an interesting and innovative proposal. I never thought about such a "global" MC calculation.

At this moment, I think this is very tricky to realise. Within the architecture of Illarion, everything of interest is centred around individual characters. This is also the reason why we do not have shared depots. All characters would have to "write" on a value that is stored in the account. I am not sure that this is possible in the very core architecture of Illarion.

All in all, I think I should repeat once more that a low level of MC points does not mean that you learn faster as in skill/time. You just learn more in terms of skill/action. MC~=actions/time, so Skill~=actions/MC and hence, Skill~=time. Of course, if you have e.g. limited raw materials, you might want to "train" at low MC points, but in the long run, it won't matter too much.

[Annabeth]

All in all, I think I should repeat once more that a low level of MC points does not mean that you learn faster as in skill/time. You just learn more in terms of skill/action. MC~=actions/time, so Skill~=actions/MC and hence, Skill~=time. Of course, if you have e.g. limited raw materials, you might want to "train" at low MC points, but in the long run, it won't matter too much.

No matter high or low mc, it still makes it so you have to spend that time on that exact character to get the level value out of it.
A global MC system would allow you to RP 9 hours on character X, and then skill 1 hour on antisocial character Y, and get the same value as you now get if you RP/wander around aimlessly 9 hours on character Y then skill 1 hour on character Y. The first option would help promote RP as well as promote the possibility of characters that aren't "campfire friendly".
I believe that's the main point of this proposal? Which, I very much like the idea of. You still get the exact skill in return for time investment as you'd normally get, but no longer is there a conflict in choice of which character to play.

[CJK]

As somebody who loves jumping between multiple characters, I think this is also a really, really good idea.

@Estralis, I get what you mean about Illarion being currently centered around each individual character, but is it really so difficult to change this aspect?

In the DB, I can only assume that each character has a value for the player account (If not, then that is terrifying).

You could even keep the MC generally distributed across the characters and just combined when using it for calculating skillgain. Here's a (admittedly kludge/hack) solution:

MC is increased and decreased the same. That part of the code doesn't need to be changed if the values are still localized as such. So no need to change any setter-like methods.

When the MC value is accessed through something like a ThisCharacter.getMC() method, that imaginary getMC() method would make its call to the DB.
Normally, it would basically just return for MC where Character ID == this Character's ID.
Instead, have it return the sum MC where Player ID == this Character's Player ID.

I admit that this is far from elegant, and searching the DB for every character whose Player ID equals a value would be considerably less efficient, but I don't see why this wouldn't work on a concept level.


Edit: On a less technical note, I think this would also be great for outlaw characters. If I want to seriously PG my bandit outlaw, he's going to be racking up some crazy MC. If I don't want to either get his face smashed in or forced to put him in a chatty RP scenario that just doesn't fit him at all, reducing that MC is going to be really difficult. Under this proposal, my natural reaction would be to create a RP intensive townie to act as his MC drain. The result? Our world gets two more interesting characters.

[GolfLima]

Could someone please make a GER summary of the discussion.
Thanks in advance.

[Estralis Seborian]

is it really so difficult to change this aspect?

Yes. For example, you cannot access characters that are not online at the moment. The proposal is interesting yet it is not feasible without a lot of effort.

[Annabeth]

is it really so difficult to change this aspect?

Yes. For example, you cannot access characters that are not online at the moment. The proposal is interesting yet it is not feasible without a lot of effort.

So you couldnt just make a code like:
"old" character X logs in.( Client checking for personal MC info for that character or whatever you want to do to identify an "old" character.)
MC pool of X is accessed and its value is added to the players MC pool instead, deleting/archiving the personal MC pool of X.
New character created on an account immediately accesses your player MC pool, with default value of "#" should no character already have been played on the account.
Anytime a character of the player logs on the shared MC pool becomes active and functions just like the current MC value does.

Or is something like that impossible?

[Ufedhin]

Im sorry i must come from another planet or time line but this is to me purely "i want my cake and to eat it aswell " the mc works just fine, 4 hours training play got me 50 skill ranks in medium armour it took a few game days however due to roll playing but im still alive and having fun and nobody forced me to play anyway i did not want to .

Leave it alone and just play the game stop this fixation on skill ranks!
I so wish the old skill bars stayed as they where...who's insane idea was it to replace them with numbers in a number obsessed world its only going to cause trouble.................

[Jen]

Also, just for the sake of argument, you can accidently skill up! If someone comes and bashes you, BAM! That's a level in armor!

! Watch me troll you and throw stones at you ingame to mess up your MC! *evil smile*
Haha. Thanks for claryifing your point <3
And no, your original assumption is right. But I think the advantage of the "MC pool" outweighs this disadvantage. Also your point is only really valid shortly after character creation when you start off with a low MC. If you skill character A, B and C you will rack up 5 Million MC with all of those characters eventually and you will need to spend X amount of time ingame individually to lower that MC again. The difference is that with a global MC you spend that "X" amount of time with ANY character you want at the time and are not forced to do so first with A, then B, then C.

Of course if you do lower your MC then, you have to be a bit more strategically about it, thinking with which character you really want to spend it now and how much of it. That's true...

No matter high or low mc, it still makes it so you have to spend that time on that exact character to get the level value out of it.
A global MC system would allow you to RP 9 hours on character X, and then skill 1 hour on antisocial character Y, and get the same value as you now get if you RP/wander around aimlessly 9 hours on character Y then skill 1 hour on character Y. The first option would help promote RP as well as promote the possibility of characters that aren't "campfire friendly".
I believe that's the main point of this proposal? Which, I very much like the idea of. You still get the exact skill in return for time investment as you'd normally get, but no longer is there a conflict in choice of which character to play.

That's exactly how I meant it

Edit: On a less technical note, I think this would also be great for outlaw characters. If I want to seriously PG my bandit outlaw, he's going to be racking up some crazy MC. If I don't want to either get his face smashed in or forced to put him in a chatty RP scenario that just doesn't fit him at all, reducing that MC is going to be really difficult. Under this proposal, my natural reaction would be to create a RP intensive townie to act as his MC drain. The result? Our world gets two more interesting characters.

I can not highlight this line enough!



@Ufhedin: When I read your post I had to double check that you haven't accidentally posted it into the wrong thread. I think you misunderstood the intention behind this proposal, but also your point is way off topic for this. If you want to discuss "Roleplay over Levelling" I'd warmly suggest creating a separate thread for that?



@Estralis: So I understand this correctly:

• We can't store the MC information somewhere on an account
• We also can't access information of a character that is not currently online

That's shocking.

Can we run this past Vil and Nitram how much effort it would be to implement this or a potential work around with the same result to see if we have any options at all that are feasible? I'm wondering: If we were to implement such a functionality, are there any other features that could be built as a result of this? If we have more reason, than just the global mc system, to build something like this, then maybe it would make it worth the effort?


Edit: And just as another example as to how it currently stifles roleplay in the game, other than forcing future villains and anti-social characters to lonely walk the map for hours: I had a player approach me a while ago with a great idea for two cute characters, more of 'comic relief' kind. Pure roleplaying characters. I really want to play them too, but my response to it was: 'I can't, I currently have two characters that I'm trying to skill and I need spend the time ingame with them so I can lower their MC'. I'm not too ashamed to admit this. My time is limited and if I want to play a fighter character, I need to think very hard how I want to spend that time.

[Nitram]

Okay so from the pure technical side.

We have a database. We can access anything we want from anywhere. Only because it does not work right now does not mean it can't be changed.
That said I still see a major issue with that proposal.

There is a massive chance that the entire thing blows up into our faces when it comes to logging out and quickly back in with another character or even login with two characters at the same time because you are

1. a evil person
2. someone whos just got disconnected and does not bother to wait until his character times and but rather plays with his second character
3. a GM (I know it is kind of the same thing like a )

Now that would cause major confusion and data in general is only written to the database upon saving operations. Mainly for performance reasons. Storing something in the DB takes some time. Too much to do it inside the world cycle of the server. Now what would happen is that two characters logged in at the same time drain the same MC points at the same time without knowing about each other (major exploit ahead). Even worse if you login before your the second character is properly saved, you get the MC points from before the login if your first character.

The way to prevent this, is to absolutely forbid any new logins until any other character of the account is logged out fully. And even that is not save, because the DB takes a moment before the new data is exposed to new incoming connections. Even in that case there is a small window that allows that exploit to kick in.

The amount of work to get this working in a way that can't be exploited is a very major amount that requires A LOT of testing and thinking how to get this going. The idea in general sounds nice. But the work and the potential major exploits generated by this aren't worth it I think.

Nitram

[Jen]

Nitram crushing my dreams
Thank you for the reply though <3

[Ufedhin]

@Ufhedin: When I read your post I had to double check that you haven't accidentally posted it into the wrong thread. I think you misunderstood the intention behind this proposal, but also your point is way off topic for this. If you want to discuss "Roleplay over Levelling" I'd warmly suggest creating a separate thread for that?

No you miss my point completely ,but it matters not i half expected it.

[Mephistopheles]

Sorry jen but I think this would least benefit the guys who put the extra effort in and nore benefit the casual players. Things are easy, skilling takes months instead of years like before. Everyone seems to have magic gems unlike before when you really needed to work for them, and everyone has magic weapons. Theres nothing rare anymore, nothing to motivate the crazies like me.

Theres the general emphasis on no elitists yet thats exactly what this game needs. When i was a noob and i saw an awesome char with good rp AND badassery i wanted to be like that.

[Banduk]

There might be a way how it works technically.

An account has a pool of removable MC.

Once you log out a character and the MC of the character is less than 1/3 of the average MC of all your chars a package of 1/3 of the average MC is added to that character and to the pool.

Once you log in a character and the MC of the character is more than 1/3 of the average MC of all your chars a package of maximal 1/3 average MC is removed from the pool and the character, if there is any to remove.

The pool never can become less than 0. The MC of a char never can become less than 0.

If you play a single char only, nothing changes. The function works without any setting.

[Mephistopheles]

That sounds like a good proposal, possibly lifting the burden of multiple chars and leaving alot more room for roleplay overall. Lets say someone wants to pg a char and has a limited ammount of rp they can really get involved in maybe due to alignment or whatever, you can roleplay with your more suitable chars INSTEAD of idling around uselessly. I think it has potential or it might be a burden for someone who wishes to level up a few chars at once. As for technicality i dunno.

Overall the current system works and quite well, so changing it might prove counter productive however everything has its pros and cons.