Carry Over

[Nimrod]

I'd like to get your feedback on the idea of skill points rolling over from one character to the next. The general idea is that you've worked hard to raise your skill levels as a new player, should those added skill levels completely disappear when your character is killed? Or should a percentage of your earned skill points roll over in to your new character?

i.e. When you roll a new character a percentage of the skill points from your old character transfers over automatically to the new character.

[AdamBlue]

I think this would be cool, but it would be abusive if jerks try to use it. For example, if there is a player who plays lots and lots of characters that die very quickly, would he eventually have a character that's mega strong for no reason?
Maybe have a limit, and make it so that you can carry over skill points -if- you have an RPP. It doesn't cost anything, but you need to have a measure of trust from the community.

[Matt]

Definitely not. And double definitely not for RPP players. I feel that's kind of what RPP roles are for. RP well and get points for your next PC, that encourages better RP.

[Nimrod]

We would indeed control this through various means such as rpp, as well as some other things. You could not GAIN points in this fashion, merely keep some of what you've worked for.

An example would be a military man that builds up his skills for fighting (say his pool is now built up to 680). Instead of having to start over at 200 (the very bottom of newbiedom), I can now start my next character (after death) at 400. (a percentage of my last levels).

If my new character died shortly after training up his skills to 500, my next character would start in the 250 range.

There would be no way to gain skill levels through this system, it would just be a way to keep some of what you've worked for in the past so you don't have to grind your skills quite so hard the next time around.

This is only a concept right now, and barely that. It's not on the list of things to do, I just want your feedback.

Thanks.

[Nimrod]

Definitely not. And double definitely not for RPP players. I feel that's kind of what RPP roles are for. RP well and get points for your next PC, that encourages better RP.

Currently we're not charging anything for roles that require rpp, Matt. We have yet to decide on this. Are you saying that folks should spend their rpp on this type of thing rather than reaching a specific trust level and keeping their rpp?

[AdamBlue]

This should be at LEAST policy during Alpha and Beta, if not the full game. That way it would allow characters to get another quicker start so we can fully flesh out the crafting and combat systems to perfection without having to kill 200 pig sows or cut 3000 wooden planks.

[Hawkwind]

Dislike strongly. Against the spirit of an rpi. Carbon copy PCs would be all to easy.

[Kayube]

It should at least be optional- what if you get a character built up and then want your next character to be inexperienced?

[radioactivejesus]

seems like an unnecessary addition, and kind of gamey. Waste of time when you have a million other, way cooler things like to work on like the war code.

[Auroness]

I understand people work real hard on a character and gain the skills, crafts or other perks. Then die to something silly or even just to a simple mistake. It hurts, and people will think twice before trying to start from dirt poor again. Some people who invest so heavily in a character will take fewer and fewer risks, because they don't want to lose. It is all understandable.

If they are lucky and have RPP, you just take a role. But RPP are so rare, they cannot be counted on to compensate for months of work. The carry-over sounds like RPP-lite. Points for playing hard, but not actually do anything substantial.

For SOI and it's history, I don't think RPP-lite is a good idea. Next step would be getting rid of perma-death.

[ThinkTwice]

I love it, and think it should be based around your RPP count, as those are direct expressions of staff trust on an IC and OOC level.

Please please please.

[cfelch]

The idea has some merit, but I have some questions...
What sort of percentage are we talking about?
Does it have to be in the same skill?
Does this bank of extra skill points apply to every new character, or for only the next?
And if it does carry over to multiple.... is there a maximum amount of banked points one can accumulate per account?

[Icarus]

Dislike strongly. Against the spirit of an rpi. Carbon copy PCs would be all to easy.

This.

[Patty]

I think this game already has too much emphasis on getting skills up and not roleplay. This would be a step backward in my opinion.

[Hawkwind]

I think this game already has too much emphasis on getting skills up and not roleplay. This would be a step backward in my opinion.

Patty makes me happy.

[Nimrod]

I think this game already has too much emphasis on getting skills up and not roleplay. This would be a step backward in my opinion.

The spirit of rollover is to let folks spend more time roleplaying and less time grinding their skills. At least that's how I see it.

I'm not married to this idea by any means, nor do we have any plans to do it. I'm merely asking for everyone's feedback. Whether you like it or not, thank you for contributing to this discussion.

As far as what percentage would carryover, that's totally up in the air. 50%, 75%? It all depends on what would work best, though it looks like the major opinion here is to not do anything like this, which I'm okay with.

[radioactivejesus]

I think this game already has too much emphasis on getting skills up and not roleplay. This would be a step backward in my opinion.

The spirit of rollover is to let folks spend more time roleplaying and less time grinding their skills. At least that's how I see it.

I'm not married to this idea by any means, nor do we have any plans to do it. I'm merely asking for everyone's feedback. Whether you like it or not, thank you for contributing to this discussion.

As far as what percentage would carryover, that's totally up in the air. 50%, 75%? It all depends on what would work best, though it looks like the major opinion here is to not do anything like this, which I'm okay with.

If you want to reduce time spent grinding on new pc's, it seems easier and better to just raise the number of skills you can pick on RPP roles and raise the amount of points players start with in chargen. I've seen people pick 4 skills and still start far under familiar. The proposed system seems really open to abuse, as someone could commence, start training skills that are really easy to raise, suicide, and then put all their freed up points into skills that are hard to raise on the character they plan on keeping

[Real]

And if it were to go in, never, ever let anyone trans points into Deflect or there will be a giant discrepancy in combat ability for the 'legacy characters' vs regular ones.

[Matt]

Yea I'd just roll an int/wil/dex PC and grind deflect, d-wield, and bludgeon to retarded levels. Then I'd die to a bear and reroll str/con/agi and d-wield medium blunts. Just some possible twinkery. I just think the cons out weigh the pros on this.

[WorkerDrone]

Rather than add in code that can be easily gamed by abusive players, maybe the amount of points players start with out of chargen should be looked at again?

I mean, it's not like exactly that has been suggested repeatedly since the start of this iteration of the game.

[Hawkwind]

Skills are already really easy to twink up, why do you need more reasons to get them faster. Ideally, more incentives for roleplay is what is needed.

[WorkerDrone]

Skills are already really easy to twink up, why do you need more reasons to get them faster. Ideally, more incentives for roleplay is what is needed.

Ideally people wouldn't need incentives to roleplay.

[Hawkwind]

That's true WD. But the ones that don't rp are the ones that can and have done but just... don't. They know what they do is poor form, they know what they do is twinking, they know what they do is bad for the game but they do it anyways.

Nearly every new player I've seen comes in to this game loving to get involved in roleplay.

[deerskin]

No, thank you. I am content having to grow my character with each new one. If there was an option to spend RPP towards a boost here and there during character creation, that would be nice and a far better balance than the idea of skills carrying over.

[radioactivejesus]

Rather than add in code that can be easily gamed by abusive players, maybe the amount of points players start with out of chargen should be looked at again?

+1 to this.