Quality of Life changes?

[Tantarus]

Given the lack of discussion and another playtest packet, it seems things are stalled. Which is understandable with such a big change. But why can't some of the smaller, just quality of life changes, be rolled out such as the changing of the gyspy race, base build upped to 25, and final death options were in the past?

Mostly I am talking about the racial changes. Removing some of the silly restrictions like elves can't use two-handers, Orcs are slower to read/write, Hoblings can't be fighters, Everyone getting read/write by adding the "Educated" skill, and so on?

These seem like an easy fix, non controversial, just quality of life changes. It seems silly we have to wait years for them.

 

[Draven]

While I'm neither against or in favor of Tantarus' post, he left out the "Blanket a Second Character" change.

His post felt incomplete without it.

:|

 

[Muir]

I expect with campaign/chapter ownership changing in at least one chapter, plus several new chapters being added this year, the chances of anything being voted on any time soon are nil. Those new owners are going to want to make their own input on the new rules.

 

[mikestrauss]

Also, arguably the biggest quality of life change you listed (Educated vs. R/W) is still far from settled. The Educated skill is not really set in stone. Until there is a workable replacement for that skill, making the change seems premature.

-MS

 

[Ragnarok]

Also, arguably the biggest quality of life change you listed (Educated vs. R/W) is still far from settled. The Educated skill is not really set in stone. Until there is a workable replacement for that skill, making the change seems premature.

-MS

I expect with campaign/chapter ownership changing in at least one chapter, plus several new chapters being added this year, the chances of anything being voted on any time soon are nil. Those new owners are going to want to make their own input on the new rules.

You're both right, but all the same I could stand to see some of these changes accelerated. I can't imagine why people would want to keep things like orcs pay double for R/W and Dwarves can't use two handers. Even if it might take a bit I could stand to see those kinds of changes come out.

-Sid

 

[Inaryn]

I think the racial changes could pretty easily be rolled out, yes, including sarr going away. For the most part, these changes have seemed fairly settled across the playtest versions. Body scaling is the only aspect I can think of that's still being settled, which could just be left out for now.

 

[mikestrauss]

I suspect Sarah nailed it on why racial changes haven't been rolled out early: body scaling. I think the owners would rather resolve that before making changes so that there is only one change to races in the "near" future, rather than two.

I still like the solution of adjusting XP/body by -1/0/+1 depending on race (so a high-orc fighter would get 1 body every 4 xp and an elf fighter would get 1 body every 6 xp, for example), though I fully recognize how much of a kick in the teeth that would be for anyone programming the database.

-MS

 

[Gilwing]

I voted to wait till 2.0. Any type of change will have a domino effect (that's one reason for the play test). Removing the racial drawbacks now and not when 2.0 rolls out would cause a cs issue if someone couldn't race change immediately and was forced to wait until 2.0.

 

[Avaran]

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[Alavatar]

I voted to wait till 2.0. Any type of change will have a domino effect (that's one reason for the play test). Removing the racial drawbacks now and not when 2.0 rolls out would cause a cs issue if someone couldn't race change immediately and was forced to wait until 2.0.

I fail to see how removing the negative aspects of race decisions would drive a race change or cs issue. Can you elaborate?

Other changes, such as the limits on Racial Skills being lifted, Sarr becoming Kyn, changes to Racial Skills, and changes to other benefits (e.g. skill discounts) I could see driving a race change or cs issue ... but just removing the downsides seems like there wouldn't be a ... downside?

 

[Saephis]

I voted to wait.

While many changes may "seem" like they're settled, the cascading effect of rules changes speaks a great deal to how thoroughly written a lot of these are. Moreover, as noted in the actual release notes, what we're provided with is a trimmed down, almost bullet-point version of the actual rules.

That said, I do believe that the Selunari change needs to actually be finished, rather than the half-attempt currently rolled out. Put in Resist Curse and be done with it.

 

[Ragnarok]

Other changes, such as the limits on Racial Skills being lifted, Sarr becoming Kyn, changes to Racial Skills, and changes to other benefits (e.g. skill discounts) I could see driving a race change or cs issue ... but just removing the downsides seems like there wouldn't be a ... downside?

I don't think I can agree more. I totally get postponing racial body changes but honestly just lifting weapon restrictions on races sounds amazing. R/W changes would be nice too but admittedly I'm biased. I feel like it's one of those things that could help players feel like there is real progress towards the rules change as well as slowly changing the rules to help folks adapt slowly.

-Sid

 

[mikestrauss]

I have been through more iterations of the NERO / Alliance rules than I can remember. Every rulebook change has been accompanied by a free spirit forge. Even some relatively minor changes have been accompanied by a free spirit forge. That is pretty telling, since Mike V. is one of the people most opposed to spirit forges in this game.

The changes here are so dramatic that a free spirit forget is guaranteed (probably within a year of the rules being implemented, if handled like last time). I could even see an option for a universal race forge, depending how the body point adjustment finally comes out (if enough races are changed in ways that might affect willingness to play the race, the owners might opt for a universal race forge, rather than offering the option to a large percentage of players who happen to play specific races).

As a few have noted, major changes can result in CS issues. Offering the ability to freely change characters often minimizes those CS issues rather effectively.

-MS

 

[Avaran]

-

 

[Polare]

As always, I would strongly caution against anyone making any plans based on the playtests. We've already had multiple major elements changed from playtest to playtest (usually due directly to playtest results). We have no idea on when 2.0 will be released or in what form. We've already passed several target dates and there is no firm date for "here's when it goes live!".

Over the last few years I've heard a number of people openly talk about changing their character planning due to "upcoming 2.0 changes" - whether that's planning for creating a Magic Item, changes in Build spending, etc. etc. In every case I try to caution against this. Individual 2.0 elements might not turn out to be what's in the playtest packet. One or more spirit forges (some folks have speculated on multiple!) may or may not occur. Bottom line, if you make current character decisions based on your guesses about 2.0's timing or contents you are metagaming and should not be doing so.

Play and enjoy the game we have now* and we'll deal with the 2.0 rollout when it happens. Please believe me when I say that the Owners have players' best interests in mind and will do their best to make sure the transition is as fair and equitable as possible.

-Bryan Gregory
ARC Chair

* - Obviously, the above is not true for Playtesting itself and character concepts you may bring there. For Playtests, speculate and plan away! Just don't expect to use that info for your current 1.3 characters now.

 

[Polare]

Given the lack of discussion and another playtest packet, it seems things are stalled. Which is understandable with such a big change. But why can't some of the smaller, just quality of life changes, be rolled out such as the changing of the gyspy race, base build upped to 25, and final death options were in the past?

Unfortunately, it can be very difficult to draw a bright line between "these changes can go in now" and "these changes can't go in now". 2.0 has hundreds of changes from 1.3 in it, from effects to defenses to racial changes to body points to Magic Items and their durations. Asking ARC or the Owners to spend what would invariably be a significant effort to do so would take away from the effort going into 2.0 now (and progress *is* being made behind the scenes, though rarely as fast as folks would like).

As noted by Brad, even the Selunari changes - which were rolled out early for good reason - suffered from this. The Race changed but not the Racials as intended. Part of this is because their *currently* intended Racial - Resist Curse - is rather significantly differently balanced in 2.0 than it is in 1.3. It's entirely possible (though unlikely) that, based on further playtesting, that Racial ability changes during the final rounds of Playtesting, and then we'd have to go through multiple rounds of the race changing in the "live" 1.3 games going on now.

Please keep in mind that the Playtester group is somewhat self-selectedly comprised of those players who are more interested and involved in the rules and their minutae. A large percentage of Alliance players just want to play, whatever the rules are, and every time a rules change is announced, that group's interest and ability to participate are negatively impacted. We've seen in the past that multiple smaller rules changes have a much more negative effect among the playerbase than a single large one; players don't want to have to keep adjusting their internal knowledge of the rules over and over as we roll out this patch and that patch. Playtesters are willing to do that for the good of the game (which we greatly appreciate) but the average player doesn't want to deal with change after change. From this perspective, a single big "rules revision" is much, much preferred. Or, to put it another way, a single change from 1.3 -> 2.0 is better than 1.3 -> 1.4 -> 1.5 -> 1.6 -> 2.0.

Due to this, the Owners (and ARC) are not expecting to release multiple "patches" to 1.3.

-Bryan Gregory
ARC Chair

 

[Muir]

As always, I would strongly caution against anyone making any plans based on the playtests. We've already had multiple major elements changed from playtest to playtest (usually due directly to playtest results). We have no idea on when 2.0 will be released or in what form. We've already passed several target dates and there is no firm date for "here's when it goes live!".

Over the last few years I've heard a number of people openly talk about changing their character planning due to "upcoming 2.0 changes" - whether that's planning for creating a Magic Item, changes in Build spending, etc. etc. In every case I try to caution against this. Individual 2.0 elements might not turn out to be what's in the playtest packet. One or more spirit forges (some folks have speculated on multiple!) may or may not occur. Bottom line, if you make current character decisions based on your guesses about 2.0's timing or contents you are metagaming and should not be doing so.

Play and enjoy the game we have now* and we'll deal with the 2.0 rollout when it happens. Please believe me when I say that the Owners have players' best interests in mind and will do their best to make sure the transition is as fair and equitable as possible.

-Bryan Gregory
ARC Chair

* - Obviously, the above is not true for Playtesting itself and character concepts you may bring there. For Playtests, speculate and plan away! Just don't expect to use that info for your current 1.3 characters now.

I feel that's a rather nasty accusation to make that deserves calling out. At what point are OOG decisions regarding build expenditure, or designing magic items for rules advantage to be considered metagaming?

 

[Polare]

While I understand that others may disagree, I do feel that this qualifies as metagaming. Specifically, using out of game rules information (the rules may be changing) to alter your in-game behavior (my character would have learned Celestial magic but because Wand damage is changing in the Playtest packet I pick up Earth spells instead, or my character would have created a Damage Aura but because that's not in the Playtest packet I don't even bid on the Damage Aura ritual scroll when it comes out). You're using information that may or may not be correct, and that others may not be aware of, to change what your character is doing.

The 1.3 game as it's played today is based on the published rulebook, and characters living in that world have no knowledge of the 2.0 playtest packet. They should not change their behavior because of it, not only because it's possibly inaccurate but also because it may be using info that other players (non-Playtesters) are unfamiliar with.

-Bryan

 

[Muir]

I understand the logic, but I disagree entirely with it being a metagaming issue. Especially no more than it would be a metagaming issue to create LCO magic items for a character that does not travel, or choose not to take waylay as a rogue because you intend to wield latex reps that are not valid for it.

There is a bright line between using OOG knowledge of plot for character advancement and playing to the rules system.

 

[Gilwing]

I fail to see how removing the negative aspects of race decisions would drive a race change or cs issue. Can you elaborate?

Other changes, such as the limits on Racial Skills being lifted, Sarr becoming Kyn, changes to Racial Skills, and changes to other benefits (e.g. skill discounts) I could see driving a race change or cs issue ... but just removing the downsides seems like there wouldn't be a ... downside?

I didn't play a Hobbling because I couldn't be a fighter. I play a Sarr and now I'm a Wilderkin? Yea, I don't want to be a Kin or maybe since I can pick any two racials I want to be a Kin now. How about, I'm really really good with a 2H weaponpso I don't play a Dwarf. Well now with the removal I can play that Dwarf and use a 2H weapon. There is lots of reasons why some one should be able to change their race with these drastic changes.