Continuing your discussion about OP'ed characters

As Munroe suggested, this is a continuation of the argument about OP'ed characters that derailed this thread:
http://aeria.omgforum.net/general-discussion-f1/fight-rp-etiquette-t2239-15.htm

So anyways,

Kain wrote:

You've got one thing wrong there, buddy. It's true, Ruta once had his OP'd character, and it was only him as far as admins of the time go (unless you count Psyche), but generally speaking, the majority of OP'd characters belonged to the player base as a whole. Hell, the strongest character in the RP belonged to me, and I'm definitely no admin. There was little distinction between those who earned that strength and those who ass-pulled it, and because everyone was so strong and recklessly abused this strength, often refusing to play weaker characters or even act weaker, fail, mess up during RP, or anything like that. It's given every single one of you a phobia of powerful characters. The complaints of OP are getting repetitive, and they're often coming from the same few people. I, for one, can't really take them seriously anymore.

Edit: And that character you speak of is Kardilaz. I don't have the slightest clue why he, or any of that guy's characters, are still around, much less how they were conceived. There definitely was no earning process, nor any digression on his part for usage of force or power, he was just handed a diamond genesai, and he does whatever he wants with it, so... *shrug* Guess that's one legitimate complaint for a character.

Kain proves a good point. The complaints of OP -are- getting repetitive. Madcombat's argument is very Black and White, in the sense that his argument is somewhat groundless.

Quote :

A: They are a Admin.
B: They are running a Event.
C: Just made a great app.

A: The player (And there character) has obviously been around for a while. Seniority trumps power through applications or whining.
B: That's called an event character.
C: This is true. But if it's a "Great App", it's most likely the character deserves and has earned whatever power from said app. Unless it's like that Occelot character whom I have no idea how it got accepted. Same goes for reserved characters.

Continue.

Veteran players should not have a huge advantage over newer players. Simply because not everyone has been there since day 1, which is no fault of theirs, and not everyone has the time to do a zillion events and get cool stuff. And on that note, events shouldn't give people OP'd items. Thorn and Kain, the characters most common in this argument, became OP'd through events. If you don't want this to happen, then don't have events that give characters opportunities to become OP'd. Now the only way to balance them is by stripping their equipment and powers, which isn't fair to them. Bottom line is, while new characters may not be as powerful as vets, they should at least have a fighting chance. I define an over-powered character as someone who is far beyond the reach of a new character, and even some veterans, in terms of level of abilities and power of items.

Another thing I've noticed: People like to bypass the laws of physics and biology by playing the "magic" card. "It's magic, so I can do it." MP had a system, where the more powerful you were with magic, the less physically strong you could become. And there was a limit to how powerful you could become in either aspect, based on your race. So if you were half as powerful with magic as humanly possible, you could theoretically become only half as strong as humanly possible. I would strongly support the adaptation of this system into Olden.

Anyways, more on this later, when I get back.

Those are very good points and I agree, Munroe, I should have specified that newer characters should have a fighting chance in the right situation. You know, so long as the newer character actually spends some time on training and development themselves, rather than fighting a veteran character as soon as your new character is accepted.

Munroe, thats kinda what I am trying to say in a sence, and that idea is briliant, I think if two players was to fight with /me it would be more intresting with that, I do belive we should cut some of the over powered charters abilitys in half, giving abit of a choice though, as Mon did state, give Newer players a chance.
It should happen, it would benefit Olden.

Typically, you got three kinds of new players. You got the players that keep away from any chars that you may consider OP, be it because they make an effort to, or it just ends up that they don't rp with them. Then you got the people that are bright enough to know who you should be trying to kill, and who you should be getting someone else to try and kill. Finally, you got the "sortanubs" that either grosly over-estimate their own strength or don't really know how to properly roleplay (For lack of a better term). Either way, none of these three types of new players would really have a reason to have to deal with supposed OP chars. Other then that it only means that hard events that only OP chars can do would be an issue, and those can be solved easily enough by having the players step back and let the bar get lowered.

While the magic idea does have merit, I don't think it'd change anything in the large, since by the sounds of it, it's not the fact that said people could use strength and magic. It's that they can't handle power properly to begin with, and it'd simply create extremes of each. Though I must admit characters like Occelot who could not only conjure up any kind of black magic, but had incredible strength and a sword that could cut anything would be reduced. Although he shouldn't of existed in the first place, that was just an admin blunder on whoever let him get accepted.

And yes, before you say anything, I can talk. Thorn is incredibly physically strong, but doesn't know any magic, all he can do is channel a sort of fake magic thanks to his armor, that's limited to igniting parts of the armor on fire. And again yes, I had those tendrils, but those wern't of my creation, and I used them very very seldom, eventually not using them at all and acting as if they didn't exist, since tbh they made fights far less fun.

Besides, one on one, a near brand new player character is always going to lose against a vet character, OP or not. It just depends on by how much they lose. Besides, last time I checked we wern't RPsocialists/RPcommunists intent on character equality, we've always adopted a more capitalistic approach towards characters and with capitalism there's always going to be a few people that're imesurably beyond the abilities of the highschool graduate just starting out in the world. Doesn't mean it'll stop them from striving to greatness. Basically what I'm trying to say is no system is perfect, every system is just flawed in different ways and that we as a community need to ask ourselves. Do we want to adopt a more capitalistic approach, or a more socialist way?

- Alright, sorry, but once again I'm going to have to use Thorn as an example. Thorn wears Stygian armor, is possessed by an evil demon, and commands the guard. Now tell me, how is the guard supposed to do its job when its captain is a demon with powerful armor? Why would the guard even tolerate that? Why is Thorn even allowed anywhere near town? Surna was crippled by Thorn, and will continue to be as long as he remains in power. And since there's no character I know of that can defeat him, this is going to persist. This caused a hell of a lot of complaints and drama, and severely damaged the community. This sort of thing is why I stand in such strong opposition to over-powered characters. When they become that powerful, it creates a huge problem, ICly and OOCly.

- You can't draw a comparison between capitalism and RP. How did Thorn and Kain get their stuff? Did they work extremely hard? No offense, but no. They did some events, and Stingwraith dumped a bunch of godly items on them. This was a bad decision on his part. You have to approach RP differently in order to make things fair for everyone, because A) it's a game, B) people have lives outside of it, and C) newcomers aren't going to stay long if they don't have a chance of success. Role-Play =/= society.

- The magic idea would set upper limits for both magic and strength, and make it impossible for someone to achieve both. I think it would balance things out very well.

- I'm not trying to argue for complete character equality. Yes, vets should have a better chance against new characters, and generally be more powerful and established. But all things in moderation. Right now, things have become extremely one-sided, leaving vets and admins with the most power, and the common player with next to nothing. How can we talk about applications and balances and limitations and rules when we don't even apply these to ourselves?

Munroe wrote:

- Alright, sorry, but once again I'm going to have to use Thorn as an example. Thorn wears Stygian armor, is possessed by an evil demon, and commands the guard. Now tell me, how is the guard supposed to do its job when its captain is a demon with powerful armor? Why would the guard even tolerate that? Why is Thorn even allowed anywhere near town? Surna was crippled by Thorn, and will continue to be as long as he remains in power. And since there's no character I know of that can defeat him, this is going to persist. This caused a hell of a lot of complaints and drama, and severely damaged the community. This sort of thing is why I stand in such strong opposition to over-powered characters. When they become that powerful, it creates a huge problem, ICly and OOCly.

- You can't draw a comparison between capitalism and RP. How did Thorn and Kain get their stuff? Did they work extremely hard? No offense, but no. They did some events, and Stingwraith dumped a bunch of godly items on them. This was a bad decision on his part. You have to approach RP differently in order to make things fair for everyone, because A) it's a game, B) people have lives outside of it, and C) newcomers aren't going to stay long if they don't have a chance of success. Role-Play =/= society.

- The magic idea would set upper limits for both magic and strength, and make it impossible for someone to achieve both. I think it would balance things out very well.

- I'm not trying to argue for complete character equality. Yes, vets should have a better chance against new characters, and generally be more powerful and established. But all things in moderation. Right now, things have become extremely one-sided, leaving vets and admins with the most power, and the common player with next to nothing. How can we talk about applications and balances and limitations and rules when we don't even apply these to ourselves?

(Backing statement of Munroe with events and just my little opinion here and there)
When I made events you didn't get shit, in Mouse-Pie events.

The orc invasion everyone did their part, *Even though most of it was mostly irrelevant of how that happened but meh I accepted it* And what did everyone get? A pat on the back and experience in war against orcs. Maybe crude weapons here and there but nothing else.

That's how events should be its suppose to DAMAGE, CRIPPLE, and Such most likely. Not "HOLY SHIT GODLY ARMOR THERE"

That's my statement on the whole "People get godly stuff here and there"
I even am a GM of a WoW Server for Making of Events.


In other news, definition of which to gain veteran (Professional Stuff Etc.. Blah.. blah blah..), is merely your more skilled, but does that mean you can't kill people that's veteran if your a newbie??

Lets put two people as an example:
Thorn
And
A newcomer

Now thorn, demon, skilled, veteran and everything against a merely swinging sword furry man that doesn't know shiz should STILL have a chance against Mr. Thorn here.
(But Thorn Can't die because of his deathly armor, and tendrils, and other such armory of weapons.)

Thorn is kill able everyone is kill able. Achilles was kill-able. PEOPLE say there is weaknesses and play smart, but how the hell do they know your not bsing it, and when they do find out what the hell do some people do? They say, "Oh lulz thats not it DIEEE"
Greatest warriors ALL HAVE THEIR FALL. But, it seems everyone wants to play that "power-game card" and avoid their certain doom and run away freely. If anything I wish there would be a rule, "If you become at the peak of power, you should now be able to be pk'ed without consent." unless its just randomly retard trying kill him just for the LULZ.



That is all (Disappears)

Although rp community and society are different to an extent, they can all follow the same guides and over all way of things work. Idk about Kain, but I know I worked hard for everything Thorn got, especially the Stygian. I designed it, I wrote the lore and info on it, it was offered to me oocly, I earned it in a event Icly and regardless still, I apped for it. So you can't bullshit me with the whole "Not getting it properly" since I had virtually every availible process in order to obtain it. Point is, you can apply forms of government to the way roleplay works. Basically you're suggesting a socialist approach to the problem, which is give everyone on the same general level, no going higher then the rest, no going lower regardless of anything. Basically you're saying a farmer armed with a hoe should have a chance against charcters like Thorn, Zayl, Marius and various other older characters.

Secondly, in referance to the first part of your section. The reason Thorn's icly in power is because people under his command do as they're told and despite the fact that his methods and actions are often unorthodox, he's the best man to get the job done. Oh, and unlike everyone else that jumped aboard the "Demon possessed" train, the Banespawn started off in Thorn's armor, and merged with him, altering his personality. The Banespawn gives him no power at all, he can't harnass it's energy, or anything. Name me someone else that's more or less willingly possessed by a demon but gains no advantages from doing so.

Perhaps we should understand, first, Thorn's actual limits, his strengths and weaknesses.

Understand that Thorn's otherworld enhanced armor, otherworldly tentacles, and any of the fact-- they're really not an issue anymore. They are to be removed for both the Out of Character reasons as well as valid story reasons. In Characterly, they are to be removed by the Priory of Scorn.

Now, first, the Stygian armor. Normal Stygian armor is possesed by a demon that once wore it. It is completely immune from fire and fire magic, and somewhat resistant to other energy based magics, with the exception of any magic based on cold. It is, however, very weak to holy magic, and any holy magic used against the individual, being tainted by a demon, causes intense pain and debilitation.Lightning is moderately effective, as the energy can travel through the armor and to the individual underneath. It is tied for strongest armor in terms of blunt, cutting, or piercing force resistance with other enchanted armors, such as mithril, I believe, and one other I cannot recall. From what I have learned, piercing, cutting, or blunt attacks, through purely magic means or simply enchantments, combined with ice or holy magic,works very well against the armor.

Now, Thorn himself was in the army for several years, I believe, before becoming a guard. He is strong, honed by years of experience and brawling. He is skilled in brute force skills, and often uses berserker tactics to overwhelm an enemy, smashing straight into them. He is not especially skilled with a sword, his main conventional weapons being a mace or flail. Often he will use anything he can get his hands on.

His weapons are numerous and everywhere because of extreme paranoia. Understand that Thorn has been part of several sieges, and has been betrayed, attacked, and assaulted by numerous people. He has learned to be prepared at any time, and has acquired large amounts of weaponry he spends his guard salary on.

Essentially, yes, Thorn has weaknesses. His armor may be strong, but it has plenty of weakesses. Thorn himself is nothing but a man merged with a demon, causing irrationality, times of sudden violence, and brutal actions. He can also, at times, be a gentlemen, utterly civil, and honorable. He is split between the two beings, with one or the other coming out moreso at different times. He may be physically stronger than the average, but he can be harmed, though he has a high threshold for pain.

Whether or not his mental instability would be grounds for dismissal from the position of guard captain is to be determined ICly. There is nothing wrong OOCly with it.

Rutabega wrote:

Point is, you can apply forms of government to the way roleplay works. Basically you're suggesting a socialist approach to the problem, which is give everyone on the same general level, no going higher then the rest, no going lower regardless of anything. Basically you're saying a farmer armed with a hoe should have a chance against charcters like Thorn, Zayl, Marius and various other older characters.

That's not what I'm saying. I don't want a "socialist" RP where everyone is exactly the same. I never wanted that. If some drunk brawler or crazy idiot with a pitchfork attacks an expert swordsman, no shit they're going to get their ass handed to them. But if you have a swordsman at a moderate skill level, with no magic or superhuman abilities, I don't see why he couldn't at least do some decent damage to anyone else's character, rather than it being a total shut-out, because the veteran character has some godly armor or sword that makes him unstoppable. The latter example represents most newbies, following the rules of applications and character creation.

Here's a hint: if you think a new player would get laughed at and completely denied applying for what your character has currently, that may be a sign it's over-powered.

By the way Ruta - you didn't apply for Thorn. His armor maybe, but none of his abilities or other stuff.

Thorn in himself has no abilities, as Pat stated. Thorn started off as a man with literally nothing but the clothes on his back, I didn't even give him a sword. Then I joined the guard, where he got his first set of armor, and I decided to give him a mace since the stun baton didn't look likea bloody sword, plus no one used maces. Plus when I either obtained things or was awarded something I was never told I needed to apply, and I took their word on it, since at that time, if a HA said you didn't need to app for something they give you, you don't bother with an app.

And just a footnote, socialism isn't for total exact equality, it puts people in a general state of equality, where everyone is about the same.

The application rules weren't around when Thorn came into possession of all that. After they were implemented, you slipped under the radar and conveniently forgot to apply. Don't make me dig up that condump. And let's not play word games, either. I don't want total equality or even "general" equality (whatever that means). I just don't want enormous gaps between certain players and the rest of us. It's not like I just got here and am demanding to be on par with the vets - these are rules I, as someone who's been here a while too, am proposing to make things more fun for both newer players and more casual players. I think Olden needs sensible, attainable limits that any character could potentially reach, and that aren't overly unbalanced. This isn't an MMO, it's RP. It shouldn't be about spending the most time in-server, training up / grinding, or getting the coolest stuff. It should be about RPing and having fun. RP needs to be easily accessible, not just an exclusive veterans' club.

I can't believe we're even having this argument, frankly. OP'd characters helped make this community go under in the first place. Have you learned anything from your mistakes?

If you're saying you want a new player character to have a chance at beating a vet character, you're basically wanting to put them on roughly the same playing field, or in other words, a lesser sort of equality. 'N really, vetrens club or not, as you put it, all posibilities are availible to all characters, since at some point every dedicated character becomes a vet. All it depends on is how willing the player is to throw their character into whatever situation may come up.

And supposed "OPed" chars in Olden wasn't the core reason. Especially when you had people with ooc grudges going after characters with the intent to kill them, and then when they fail they start bitching about how a character is OPed because they couldn't kill a character they had no right or concent to kill.

*Reads above posts* Huh?
I think we just need to cut down on some powers perosnaly, I take thorn as a example, (Dident get what you ment about the tentical and that part).
His armor is basicly resistant to most Magic Damages, he uses a Mace (Thats great), His can spawn tenticals out his hand.
Now the only problem I really see with thorn is the Armor he wears, I mean, I watched a guy try to attack him a long time ago but the armor (I think) dident dent abit (Not too sure), Personaly shit like that is over powered...
Hope you understood what I ment.

The tendril things are from after you left, and they had to do with the Otherworld upgrades, which are gone now. All that's left is the armor and all of his non-powered gear, which yes, does include explosives. As for the armor, read the info thread on it in the IC library section. Stygian is basically the best non-custom armor in existance. Of course it comes with a price, which is total mental collapse, due to the energy of the Banespawn in the armor, followed by a reconstruction, and finally a hybreed of the users soul and the energies of the Banespawn. In short, if you have a character that has Stygian, they first get addicted to it, not wanting to take it off. Next, if their willpower and resolution isn't strong enough, the Banespawn will consume their mind, usually sending them into a bloodthirsty frenzy for an unknown amount of time. From there the only way it can get better is to take off the armor, but at this point it's like a drug, you can't bring yourself to do so. Finally, if your character should lose his willpower, for example, his wife dies and he gets depressed, he'll be totally consumed, which means perma frenzy. If after a while, he doesn't get killed, a positive influence may bring part of said spirit back, which will fuse with the energies of the Banespawn, basically making your character have split personalities.

Anyways, in short, there is a sacrafice for using Stygian, it totally fucks up your character and changes them to a point of no return. This happend to Thorn, for those few of you that remember what he was like before he found the Stygian. Several people have been offered Stygian and none of them have accepted, so you can't say it's been restricted to admins only.

Christ.

The issue is simple. Overpowered characters are overpowered because they have more power over other characters. Sounds recursive, because it is.

The more overpowered characters there are, the more the bar is raised, that meaning people have to get more power for their character.

The problem with having an overpowered character is that it causes people to want to be overpowered. It's not that hard. And with that, the question arises:

What's so hard about making your character lose power?

I mean, geez, it's just a character, I know there's a sentimental part to it, but is your character worth more than the health of the community? It's some absolutely qualitative stats even worth the hassle?

But no more bullshit. SOLUTIONS

1) My stat based RP combat system. It works on D&D, it would most likely work for us (Should I say you?)

2) Regulating magic. Simply add rules as to what you can and cannot do with magic. Like, metals are bad magic conductors, and thus, wearing them limits your magical ability, this also means metals cannot be enchanted or enhanced permanently.

See? A simple rule that separates physical strength from magical strength, thus balancing them out. Far more rules like that can be thought up to make magic less extensive and much more manageable, in order to make it more fair for everyone.

3) Judging overpowered characters more harshly. Reducing the bar is better than raising it, but it's also a lot harder.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

I don't like combat systems, but as long as it's just an optional deal, I think it could help smooth things out when the need arises.

Munroe wrote:

Couldn't have put it better myself.

I don't like combat systems, but as long as it's just an optional deal, I think it could help smooth things out when the need arises.

What people often ignore is that it not only makes fighting more fair, it both not hinders RP and allows me to add in clever attack effects. I could make some sort of blasts for magic attacks, add animations for sword attacking, sword standing, defending, dodging.

It's not all an elemental thing, and it would add that visual element that is missing from RP.

I don't like stuff that moves us in the direction of an MMO. Stats, abilities, systems, numbers, they all bog things down and make it a royal pain to make and keep track of a character. Not to mention a combat system would get dull after a while. It'd be the same moves, the same effects, etc. Code just doesn't substitute for RP. RP should be open-ended.

But on the other hand, two players could elect to use the system to avoid an argument about who did what, and who is better. That would lay it out right there, fair and square.

Munroe wrote:

I don't like stuff that moves us in the direction of an MMO. Stats, abilities, systems, numbers, they all bog things down and make it a royal pain to make and keep track of a character. Not to mention a combat system would get dull after a while. It'd be the same moves, the same effects, etc. Code just doesn't substitute for RP. RP should be open-ended.

But on the other hand, two players could elect to use the system to avoid an argument about who did what, and who is better. That would lay it out right there, fair and square.

No, because it's not like on an MMO.

You don't just do /attack. You do the equivalent of a /me, only that you don't determine if it hits or not. It looks the same as the /me, probably accompanied with an animation and a clever effect. It does not take originality, at all, it's the exact same thing.

Stats are not to be raised at any time, in fact, the only time they should be changed is to fit with applications. Stats self balance your character, without requiring you to do anything else, and they do so in a way that makes sense. The system also does not use health points, of any sort. Players declare when they lose, simply because the system can't guess when a fight is over.

And, that's the purpose of it. Don't trust someone, or anyone at all? Use the system. Don't want to use the system? Don't, then. Just don't complain later.

The fight system would be great if it was just animations and nice effects that went along with your /me - (/punch /cast and whatever jazz you can think of.)

If you brought stats and rolling and such, that's a step too far.

Kruggly wrote:

If you brought stats and rolling and such, that's a step too far.

Good fucking god. How many times do I have to explain neither the stats or the actual fighting interfere with roleplay.

Stats are set when you create your character, that's it. No leveling, no anything. Stats are auto balanced by simple math, and they're optional in every sense. The point of the system is to have an actual way to make a FAIR fight, where the sparring sides have no direct outcome on what hits and what doesn't.

Stats don't make you run faster, hold out more, or anything, they just apply on the fighting system.

The thing is, it's not meant to be just razzle dazzle, I'm making it so you can have an easy way to continue roleplay and reduce whining while fighting somebody you can't trust.

It'd be the equivalent of an admin that's on call 24/7 to watch character pages and show up at fights people are complaining at, who comes forward, asks about the situation, then flips a quarter.

Wait, isn't that what we're supposed to do anyway?

The main issue I was seeing was that either A) people are too shy or stuck up to call an admin, or B) they call on administrators too often because they cause problems too much or report every little issue.