Consolidated Discussion of RPG Mechanics

[Juno]

Right. My original post would have worked then. >.>

That was an extremely unclear post.

My bad. You can get it back, right? Repost, sir.

[Vad]

My bad. You can get it back, right? Repost, sir.

My original post was asking which one of those lines was meant for me because I was confused as to why you quoted me.

[Juno]

My original post was asking which one of those lines was meant for me because I was confused as to why you quoted me.

The top one, because of your "everything is lost" comment.

[Piper Juunanagou]

I totally found Chubbs via Google, and a stat reset would make me an extremely unhappy panda.

[Kaden]

I totally found Chubbs via Google, and a stat reset would make me an extremely unhappy panda.

A stat reset would depend on what changes are made. But, really, what changes could we make that wouldn't involve resetting things? We may do some kind of starting bonus thing for people -- personally I'd prefer not to, but that's said with absolutely no discussion having taken place -- but we can't really keep stats from one system and plug them into something that could be completely different.

[Piper Juunanagou]

You could, perhaps, y'know, not feel the need to completely change the core of the system. But I already rambled about that a few pages, back, so I'll just sit back and grumble silently until something concrete comes out of all these pages.

[Rem-13]

Again, and this is kinda premature but whatever, Just set up a tier system where you get your new power level or what-have-you based on how awesome you are in this one. Kaden would be Tier One, I'd be Tier 4 he'd have X pl I'd have Y pl. I don't see any issue with that road unless we went a route that was completely numberless.

[Super Buu]

I kinda like the idea of a tier system because it stops power levels getting out of control but I'm not sure why you'd use it over the alternatives that have been proposed. It makes your character's progression feel very ungranular and impersonal, not to mention nonsensical. That's bad in a writing-focused site.

[Juno]

I kinda like the idea of a tier system because it stops power levels getting out of control but I'm not sure why you'd use it over the alternatives that have been proposed. It makes your character's progression feel very ungranular and impersonal, not to mention nonsensical. That's bad in a writing-focused site.

There's always the option that we shirk power levels completely and everything is based on the quality of the writing. There isn't really any real progression there, but it's an option.

I know, I seem like I'm jumping from opinion to opinion. I don't really have a specific opinion I like best.

[Sigfried Hunin]

I think that the most reliable way to get good writers that wanna stay is word of mouth. Specially in this day and age.

I think a curvature in the acquisition of PL is not only good for GAME purposes, but I think that it also makes a lot of sense in the DBZ universe. It seems to me that it becomes progressively harder to raise your PL as time goes on which necessitation the need to use Power Ups and things like Kao Ken.

And, ok, here's my feeling on the matter guys: I fucking hated being trapped at the bottom. It sucks balls. I wanted to write with other people and fight them and steal Dragonballs and just FUCK WITH PEOPLE. But when they can just wipe me off the face of the earth like a passing thought, those things become a bit less possible and I was discouraged to even try to write with others.

That, in essence, is why Sigfried exists in the way he is now. I just bipassed PL and all that shit by not writing a DBZesque character so I wouldn't have to deal with it. I mean, I write more as Orsalis now to be honest and he's a really "DBZ" character. I was really excited when PL got removed because I was like, "OH HEY I CAN GO GET A DRAGONBALL AND NOT BE VIVISECTED BY PIPER AND VAD NOW." I'm not saying I'm opposed to PL. Oh no, I think it's ESSENTIAL for a Dragonball universe. I would, however, like to stand a CHANCE.

EDIT: And I mean like, a point by point scanner style PL. Because it's mother fucking DRAGON. BALL. Z. Allow me to give everyone a quick reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqA35ovy3zA

[Vad]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4Wc6034p...re=related

This. Is. Powerlevel. For the love of God.

[Sigfried Hunin]

Perfect. Now make a system that is both fair and allows people a "level" playingfield while allowing this to happen. I like relative returns, but I'm not picky!

[Vad]

The problem is your asking for moments like the beginning of that video in an IC fight. That's a complicated system to convert from "story encounter" to a system that will actually let underpowered fighters have a shot.

[Sigfried Hunin]

Well, now, I don't suggest that underpowered fighters have a shot. I'm just suggesting a system that will allow people that are on the bottom go to the top in a reasonable amount of time and effort. I mean, when you write and write and write and you're trying to climb up this huge ladder that you pretty much never have a chance of mounting it's horrifyingly discouraging. A more "fluid" sense of PL exchange is what I would PERSONALLY like to see. That way if, for example, I wanted to really get a high PL with Orsalis I could write and write and hopefully get up to a level somewhere remotely near Vad's within, I dunno, like a few MONTHS or something as opposed to it being a neigh impossible task.

[Josh]

Seriously, this is a complete "I Told You So" moment. You know who you guys are.

The Rank System.

The idea behind the ranks is that if you exist within a rank then even if you are at the very low end of that rank and your opponent as at the very high end you can still do appreciable damage to him and win.

Of course the chances of you winning are considerably low and would require exceptional role playing on your part.

At the beginning the power range would be relatively narrow but as the rankings got higher the range would be larger meaning even people who have a power level 4x greater than that of their opponent could still potentially lose.

The best way to put is to say if Raditsu had a power level of 156,000,000 and was ranked S and his opponent was Reijin and his power level was 60,000,000 but he was also Rank S because the power range for Rank S was 50,000,000 to 160,000,000. Reijin could still potentially win the fight although his chances would be less then 10%, but his attacks would still hurt Raditsu and wouldn't be wtfpwned in an instant.

XP Rewards during Saga's and Tournaments

I think that eventually we'll just have to give greater XP awards to weaker characters in saga's to try and close a gap

Obviously we'll also need to give modified bonuses during saga's to the weaker characters to keep them competitive and to keep a steady smooth gradient of powerful and weaker characters.

As an aside, we could create an XP curve where the higher your CA is during a Saga the lower the XP reward would be at the end of a saga. An example of this would be taking say Ander and Sage in a Saga, and everyone is given an XP reward of 10 xp, while Ander is at the bottom his reward becomes 15 XP and Sage who is at the top becomes 5 XP.

Diminishing returns

Josh has a hard-on for adding Diminishing Returns. The concerns about a power gap are valid if we were keeping things even remotely similar to the way they are now, but we're not. People will not get a single thing they do not work for. If that means that in two years a new players joins and instantly loses against someone who's been here and active the whole time, well then tough shit. Diminishing Returns is a direct penalty to active players.

[Rem-13]

The system itself doesn't necessarily need to be tier/rank based (it could be, I remember and liked that idea), I was just using it as a transfer method.

Say we move from CA to PL and they are incompatible. Instead of resetting everyone's powers, have the top five players form Tier 1, and give them 10,000 PL and the Next 10 players have 5,000, and so on.

[Sigfried Hunin]

Diminishing returns
Josh has a hard-on for adding Diminishing Returns. The concerns about a power gap are valid if we were keeping things even remotely similar to the way they are now, but we're not. People will not get a single thing they do not work for. If that means that in two years a new players joins and instantly loses against someone who's been here and active the whole time, well then tough shit. Diminishing Returns is a direct penalty to active players.

But the proposition isn't that you reward people for what they haven't worked on or that you penalize people for writing. I mean, I don't think anybody here thinks that a brand new person should be able to hang with somebody that's been here a long time. All that system would accomplish is making it harder to make the gap from the very top person to the very bottom person harder to widen. If you are pretty close to an individual in PL then you should both accelerate at the same speed and be in the runnings with each other.

Does that REALLY penalize anybody here? I mean, would anybody be opposed to allowing people to get closer to your PL or are you all just content to sit all high and mighty on horses, untouchable because you've been here longer or cause one summer you apparently had enough time to just write your fucking balls off to get to the top of the chart? I mean if the people at the top of the charts are honestly so terrified that somebody might catch up to them and have, you know, an even fight... well that's a lil sad really.

[Belle Hibiki]

Hey Sig, would you like some more straw for that man you've made up?

[Sigfried Hunin]

Why have I misunderstood something? I'm honestly not trying to force an opinion or anything like that, I'm just trying to have a conversation under honest terms. Then again, I have extreme retard moments so... What'd I miss here? XD

[Belle Hibiki]

Because someone advocating a strict 'keep what you earn' system and then having it twisted into elitism ('high horses') and fear of newbies ('if the people at the top of the charts are honestly so terrified') isn't a misrepresentation of his position at all.

Oh, no, wait, it's exactly that.

I like the idea of diminishing returns more than what we have now (or had, and still not my preferred method of tracking CA), but there is absolutely no reason to paint Josh and all of us at a high CA the way you did.