Growth opportunities for Veterans

There are several parallel aspects of the game that have shaped the recommendations I'm about to present. I'll first present the aspects relevant to what I'd like to present, and then get into the actual recommendation I want to make.

Alternatively, if you want you can skip past everything for a tl'dr when you get to the "Method," section.

Consideration 1: Power disparity between new players and veteran players is intentionally absolutely ridiculous. Characters who have been around for 2.5+ years are at their maximum capacity for growth, and have had potentially even more time to shape their reputation, gather power, and ingrain themselves into the story of the game. Part of why new Player Characters suck so bad is so it feels amazing when years down the line your plans hash out and actually become a badass. It's part of the design of the game.

Consideration 2: There seem to be a really good deal of Players who have had the same Player Characters for waaaaaaayyy more than 2.5 years. I'm talking like since this whole thing started in 1999 or whatever. People who have had the same character for 4-8 years or more, or even people who have had multiple characters who have each went on for 2+ years or more before they were terminated by their players. Also, generally it's these players who have stuck around with the game over all these years who are most likely to donate and support the development of this project.

Consideration 3: You can only have one character at a time. Yes, this helps ensure that the RP and story experience is not compromised by players who meta as multiple characters at the same time and break lots of rules that way. But this also means that those veterans who have stuck with their same character for 5+ years are not able to try something new on SINDOME without giving up a character they have put lots of time and emotional investment into. This is an unfortunate necessity of the game.

Recommendation: Give Veteran players a little bit more room for mechanical growth. The purpose behind this is to encourage more story engagement from Veteran players who have already got all of their UE over 2.5 years. While there is plenty of room for growth via in-character means such as accumulating power, earning reputation, and getting into better socioeconomic spheres within the Dome, some additional mechanical (specifically UE) growth opportunities can act as an engaging consolation prize to those Veteran players who have a long-running character they don't want to give up just yet, but still kind of want to try something new.

The benefits to additional UE growth for Veteran players is the previously stated increased potential for story engagement, as well as increased potential for support from those Veteran players to help SINDOME continue to live and grow. The downsides to this are an even greater disparity between new and veteran players. But that's fine. It's already part of the game design, so like whatever, you know? The devs have done a pretty good amount of work towards retaining new players, so that's fine.

tl;dr

Method: Introduce a system where a player gets to choose 1-2 stats and 3-5 skills to be "Tagged," for their character's growth. A player character continues to gain a certain amount of UE after the 2.5 year mark, however they may only apply this UE to the character's "Tagged" stats and skills. The rate at which this "Veteran UE," is gained can be easily fine-tuned by the admins and game-devs, and can be capped at whatever value they want. Heck, it could be slowed down to something REALLY slow like 1UE every 3 days or whatever. But the point is it's a value that can be easily adjusted as the admins and game-devs see fit, to to accommodate the experience they want for the players.

Even if this kind of thing has been suggested TONS of times in the past, and there's ZERO chance of this kind of thing ever happening, I'd really love to hear everyone's thoughts on this proposal.

We don't need to encourage you to do more by giving you more points to be stronger, because as many people know, people like to idle and get their UE. Once you hit max you can just focus on going and doing those things instead of worrying about if you're at "optimal strength for a particular challenge"

I don't see the problem with tagging the their 2 most important combat stats. Generally this game wants specialized characters rather than generalists, right? As for the thing about the UE cap becoming ridiculous: I already talked about how this is a value that could be adjusted as needed. The cap could be anywhere from 10-50 more UE being put into Tagged stats and skills, and the rate of gain for this UE could be as slow as 1 UE every 3 days, or even 1 UE a week or slower.

"...retire their characters and start over and develop new storylines and new routes."

That's fine, but from my perspective as a new player, it's these old, veteran characters who I will often end up going to for additional opportunities to progress my own character, no? Encouraging veterans to retire is fine, but encouraging veterans to play long enough to take on an apprentice or whatever to potentially expand the player base sounds better.

"I don't feel like it's holding me back in roleplay."

I do believe people in general like their numbers increasing. I don't know how big of a problem that is for most of the players here, but it definitely seemed like something that would get me a little bit down, eventually. But who knows if I'll be around for 2.5 years. The game certainly seems fun though.

And yes, idling does seem to be a bit of an issue. Perhaps this UE that goes over the 2.5 year cap can only be assigned based on actual use of the skill/stat?

"These guys would eventually look the same under your proposed system, and that to me is a shame."

I really don't see how that is? There's already a UE limit, and there's already a wide diversity of characters and builds, from what you said. The pistol fighter can keep putting UE into pistols if he wants, or tag a different skill to round things out. Just like before with the regular UE cap. People were already doing different things when there already is a UE cap. Why wouldn't they continue to do different things with a bit of extra UE?

The beefier friend can tag pistols, martial arts, and driving if they want. Are you suggesting that people will feel compelled to optimize under a skill/stat "Tag" system? Because if there are a diversity of builds and characters in the current system, then there's probably a good mix of people optimizing and being less optimized. And if that's the case, I don't some extra UE is suddenly gonna make them want to optimize.

Honestly the biggest issue with my idea is something I hadn't thought about until now.

The coding and implementation of this entire thing would be waaaaaaayy too much trouble for the amount of benefit it would bring. I'm glad I'm getting others' opinions on this, but I'm realizing now the idea isn't worth it most likely. For now.

Before I make a new topic, have there been previous topics about combating idling via skill/stat usage requirements before being able to assign UE to it? Like, I have to do a certain amount of stuff with Systems before assigning UE to it, or do an amount of things with Melee before I can assign UE to it?

"A player character continues to gain a certain amount of UE after the 2.5 year mark, however they may only apply this UE to the character's "Tagged" stats and skills. The rate at which this "Veteran UE," is gained can be easily fine-tuned by the admins and game-devs, and can be capped at whatever value they want."

I don't mind when people disagree with my ideas, because I think that's the best way for there to be growth for all people: Discussion and constructive criticism. I already think I overlooked some serious problems with my first proposal.

But when I see comments like this: "The problem with this idea is that combat characters will tag the most important 2 stats for combat and dump UE into them until the UE cap becomes ridiculous."

". This would make the strongest people more invincibler and remove any sense of risk for them except from other pure combat oldbies."

"If what you are suggesting was to be implemented, older players would simply become untouchable gods"

It makes me think that people didn't read the part in my post where I said "continue to gain a certain amount of UE after the 2.5 year mark," and that it can all be fine-tuned by game-devs.

Like... Would the UE cap really be "ridiculous" if the Admins set the value of extra UE veterans can gain at like 10-30 UE? This is what I mean by fine-tuning.

Would the strongest people be more invincibler when they're getting even 30-60 UE past the Original cap, and this 30-60 is gained over the course of 2 years or whatever? This is what I mean by fine-tuning.

Would players characters really be "Untouchable gods" if there was like 20 more UE they could gain over the next 3 years? This is what I mean by fine-tuning.

Like, am I writing too much stuff? Is it making people skim through what I have to say and not catch these things? Should I get better at just writing much less?

I don't see what your new proposed system would add to the game except for giving older players the ability to be stronger.

Rules lawyering is not going to be helpful, trust the advise of older players who have been in your shoes before.

If you want a breather, consider a vacation in character. The alternative is going out with a bang. You can't have your cake and eat it.

Which stat should you raise if you want to be a dead shot with a gun, perception or agility? Oh, either one could work based on in-game description? Sorry, we can't elaborate. Really, you shouldn't be worried about things like stats and code. -I- personally reject even the points handed out at character creation. Because -I'm- not a POWER GAMER LIKE YOU. Or, but we will demand you have the requisite stats and skills to fill a job or position. How much? Find out IC. While you're at it, figure out whether a 'winsome' character is as good at being a spokesperson as a 'charismatic' one, with no mechanical knowledge on the subject. You shouldn't be worried about actually making your character competent at the role you want to play, and you certainly shouldn't think it creates a competitive edge for veteran players the discourages new player retention.

Honestly, even D&D has figured out that theres different categories of information. Theres a DM guide, theres a bestiary, and theres a player's handbook. And guess what? That player's handbook is literally just a compilation of stats, mechanics and possible effects that entirely encompass the who why and how of anything related to your character. You can completely preserve the mystery of the world and the fun of your opposition without deliberately obscuring how your own character works. But hey, basic coherence might lead to MIN MAXING. And we certainly don't want to encourage hyper specialized characters, right?

So yeah, go find out IC. Isn't that satisfying, and not at all annoying?

Obviously, UE gains are not the point of the game, but I think we can all agree that there is something satisfying about spending UE, so if you're a junky and you know, hit the button!