Changing Power-Ups

[Super Buu]

Given the current powerups, 1.5x would be more appropriate. But that would be pretty cool. Could be the equivalent of Giji Super Saiyan, and be optional.

[Jonathan Meer]

Yeah. That's not a bad idea.

[Jesper]

I could agree with that idea, as well.

[Victoria]

I concur.

[Vad]

Go for it.

[Celena]

Earning power ups was was oh so much sweeter. I'd be ok with that as long as staff don't actually rp our character earning the power up. They should be rewarded to us ooc, so that we can then have the opportunity to decide when we deem it appropriate for our character to activate them IC.

However i feel that people should keep their current power ups just to prevent peoples characters from being screwed.

[Jonathan Meer]

Just as a side note, I don't at all understand this whole idea of characters being screwed if power-ups are fiddled with.

You're still able to roleplay whatever the hell you want with regard to your character's abilities (as long as it isn't hitting god-modding, say). It just wouldn't have a direct effect on your CA. Storyline is separated from stats (until you earn it).

Or Alex's suggestion works too. I like his suggestion, actually. Provided the power-up doesn't become a pre-requisite for 'earning' the unpurchaseable power-up.

[John Doe]

Just as a side note, I don't at all understand this whole idea of characters being screwed if power-ups are fiddled with.

The first thing I thought of when I heard power-ups being a big part of the character was Bruce Banner. Bruce gets angry and then becomes the Hulk, pretty simple. If his "power-up" was taken away from him, all he would be is angry. A big part of his character is that he has to deal with the power he holds inside him in the form of the Hulk, and without that he's not the same character.

I assume that some members on Chubbs have a somewhat similar element associated with their own power-ups. Taking away the power-up would essentially take away a part of their character. That or I'm completely off the mark.

Also, I'm perfectly fine with returning to the old "you dun wrote good here's your power-up" system again. Adding a small power-up to be earned by XP is cool too.

[Belle Hibiki]

x10 is pretty bad considering the trend of power we have now.

x5/x4.5 (or an ability that lets you add + .5 to the multiplier of any power up you have at a cost of additional PP) would be nicer.

Though how that can be earned 'fairly' is questionable. In the former (making it a really high multiple beyond what you can buy on your own), is that the only tier that gets awarded? Wouldn't that kind of trivialize the lower tiers and disincentivize people buying them if you didn't have to buy the lower tiers first? You have a situation where the popular characters are always the ones who have the ability to contribute most to a saga, rather than the ones who contribute most to a saga becoming popular characters. Lower tiered/newer people forgo buying the tier-ups, because if the best tier gets awarded for free regardless of your previous tier status, why bother buying x3/x4?

If we change it, it should be changed all the way. Not just some power ups, but ALL power ups should have to be awarded. In addition, saga runners should make a commitment to privately contact the person they're planning on awarding the Power Up to ahead of time - to make sure they don't screw up the character's arc of development.

[Dehan]

I don't remember who but I recall joining on the old Chubbs as Turles and about two months in I was wondering what would I have to do besides get the requirements and write some good(to me) rps to gain that almighty blonde haired transformation for my character.

Out of curiousity I pmed a member, can't remember which but he was a saiyan or half-saiyan and had managed to get SSJ. I asked him how long and how did he get it...and I think he said about a year and a half. Well I was pretty blown away.

'A year and a half...to get SSJ. Man shit. Yall go fuck yerselves on that bullshit.' is what I thought at the time. Then I was thinking 'Shit I will just write and hope I get it. If I don't I'll just switch to a human character, get Spiritken, get killed hope I get to train with King Kai and just go for broke on gaining Kaioken.'.

Now I have that same mentality, the latter that is. While that mindset does slightly overshadow my first thought when I found out how long it had taken someone to gain the most popular powerup of them all; I still feel as though waiting for someone on staff or otherwise to say 'We don't see you earning SSJ right now...try again next Saga.' or something like that won't sit too well with every newer member.

A first tier gained via XP, CA or whatever...that would be neat. Or just make the requirements/stats for it pretty high as well as gaining said transformation via rp(whether personal/quest or if the member chooses to a Saga).

As far as the folks who currently have them, from my P.O.V you worked for them. Keep them. Time and effort put into writing on a site that gives you personal pleasure and no monetary gain is good enough to me.

That's probably all I have to say on the subject, I got to thinking back to the old Chubbs and from the suggestions made in the other thread we're going to need some big changes or improvements to get back to old 'epic dbz rpg' status.

[Kaden]

Something to think about, since Power-Ups have been the main topic of discussion, is Combat Ability. Without CA, Power-Ups would make fights very black and white in their use. Someone with Tier 1 will beat someone with no Power-Up, while T2 would beat T1 and so on, with very few exceptions.

If we do go back to using CA, we also need to think about how people accumulate it and at what rate that accumulation should happen. There are ways of monitoring CA by handing out on specific occasions, similar to Zeni or just reducing the rate that people earn it at, etc., etc..

I don't mean that you should only post unless you have an entire system planned out and ready to post, I'm simply trying to expand the scope of the conversation. If people would find it helpful, I can post roughs of some system changes I've come up with later on.

[Jonathan Meer]

How about, instead of treating CA as accumulation, it is instead treated in relative terms according to writing prowess and activity.

This'd be a bit of work on the part of staff, but say it goes like this: A beginning writer starts with 0. The maximum is 10. At particular times over the course of the site (during or after sagas, say, or after a fight, or after an attempt to acquire the Dragonballs), wherein persons are graded for success or failure, their CA is open to be changed. The key point here, however, is that CA can decrease; if a person has been inactive for an extended period of time, or if the quality of their writing has noticeably decreased, then their CA will decrease accordingly. For example, let's say that, following the fight between Alex T and me in that tourney ages past, I was graded at a 6 for CA. However, since I haven't really roleplayed in over a year, it's only natural that my CA would dwindle; at this point, my CA would probably be a 2.

Or something like that. CA, in this way, emulates muscles; if you stop using them, they atrophy.

This sort of thing would be a little tedious to set-up, but probably not overly so. It wouldn't be necessary to do a check of every single roleplayer every week for CA. For every CA change, or every grade, a date can be set in parentheses next to the CA on the user's profile. If that user roleplays and the staff member grading their CA notices that they've been largely inactive, or have written a half-assed post below the standard of quality indicated by their previous CA, then they can be docked.

Understanding this CA value not as a real-time factor that must be updated at all times, but rather as a reflection of the most recent evaluation (however long ago that was), which may be reconsidered in light of future events, would take a lot of the stress off this sort of thing.

Of course, the system I outlined above, of the people of Chubbs 'grading' the roleplays of others, would lend itself well to this sort of implementation.

At any rate, what I've described above, as 'relative CA,' is essentially what's being done now. If a Person A has a higher 'power level' (I use this to describe the current CA system, as it is different than the CA I'm describing) than Person B, but writes worse, then Staff tends to go in favor of Person B. Writing ability has always been much more significant than bare stats (though there have been situations in which stats have won the day).

Thoughts?

[Orion]

Why not simply keep CA as it is, but treat it differently? Ie. the stronger characters will have a higher CA, but it would only be for writing flavour (and therefore keeping things like Ki Sense and scouters a little more relevant) and wouldn't determine the outcome of fights. Shit, how many times did the weaker person defeat the stronger in DBZ? That way there's a degree of satisfaction in a character's power level, but in an actual fight the writing would be all that matters.

[Celena]

I agree Orion.

[Josh]

Shit, how many times did the weaker person defeat the stronger in DBZ?

Never.

[Jonathan Meer]

Yeah. Pretty much never.

[Orion]

Goku had to pull a lot out of his arse to beat Vegeta in the first fight.

And again against Frieza.

It's arguable that Cell was stronger than Gohan during their final Kamehameha wave.

Goku wasn't stronger than Buu and needed an entire planet's worth of energy to win.

That sort of stuff. I really don't see how that couldn't work in this setting. Eg. I fight Kaden. He's way stronger than me, but say I outwrite him, there could be any number of ways that he loses. There could be an energy back-and-forth and something distrupts him, or Orion pulls off some cunning plan that involves Kaden over charging or overcomitting to something, hell maybe the Kool-aid guy bursts through and sits on him. Who gives a shit?

[Vad]

The Traits do just that.

The Defiant trait was one of the main driving factors to Vad. With CA gone it's pretty much been shafted.

[Super Buu]

I like to use that kind of logic as the kind of reason why lower PL people can and should be able to defeat people of higher power level. But I do also like having power level come into play, and I tend to use the thinking that whilst anything can happen, power level affects the likelihood of who's going to win. In an RPG like this I think it's best when it has a very slight effect, a tiebreaker of sorts, which is why I argue for a system that just closes the PL/CA gap to make that more believable IC.

[Josh]

Goku had to pull a lot out of his arse to beat Vegeta in the first fight.

Goku was stronger than Nappa, and Kaioken was capable of pushing Goku's power level past Vegeta. Plus Vegeta ended up fighting Goku, Gohan, Kuririn, and Yajirobe, if he fought against just Goku it would have ended up with Goku losing.

And again against Frieza.

SSJ Goku > Furiza.

It's arguable that Cell was stronger than Gohan during their final Kamehameha wave.

Nope it isn't, Gohan was still much stronger. He was actually holding back against Cell because he was afraid of unleashing his full power and the damage it would cause earth.

Goku wasn't stronger than Buu and needed an entire planet's worth of energy to win.

Goku was stronger than Buu, he repeatedly kicked the crap out of him after going SSJ3. Goku's only weakness was that he couldn't completely eradicate Buu in one shot so he would just keep reforming.

But even then, if you want to say he was still weaker because of Buu's regenerative abilities- it still wasn't a one on one fight. Vegeta, Mr Satan, and Fat Buu as well as the world assisted Goku in destroying Buu.

A weaker person never beat a stronger person in DBZ, though there are times where group of weaker people pooled their power together to defeat a single strong enemy.