Inaryn
Knight
That would be exactly my point...
This rule change is horrible
- Thread starter Droth
- Start date
That would be exactly my point...
Durnic
Knight
I know I wasn't around in the "good old days" when rules were pushed out before, so some of you might completely dismiss my opinions, but as I understand it in the past there wasn't any such thing as player interaction in the rules process. The owners and ARC came up with changes, threw them over the fence and said "have at 'em, these are the official rules now". No public reviews, no requests for feedback, no ability to alter anything.
Contrast that with the system we used for 2.0 and you can see it working. Our first couple of packets were not well received. After many playtests hosted nation-wide and mountains of player feedback we have a packet now that is hugely appreciated. These forums have gone from a place full arguing and infighting to a forum where there was a Thank You thread posted.
I am certain that some here are going to consider that a "well you should be happy with the interaction you got so neener neener!" response but there is little I can do to stop that. The fact remains that there were quite a few owners that went into multiple meetings and Symposiums and fought for things not because we wanted them but because our players wanted them.
I think 2.0 kicks a lot of ***, personally. Good riddance to 1.3; it had a good run but I'm happy to see it go and, more importantly, so are the majority of my players.
Contrast that with the system we used for 2.0 and you can see it working. Our first couple of packets were not well received. After many playtests hosted nation-wide and mountains of player feedback we have a packet now that is hugely appreciated. These forums have gone from a place full arguing and infighting to a forum where there was a Thank You thread posted.
I am certain that some here are going to consider that a "well you should be happy with the interaction you got so neener neener!" response but there is little I can do to stop that. The fact remains that there were quite a few owners that went into multiple meetings and Symposiums and fought for things not because we wanted them but because our players wanted them.
I think 2.0 kicks a lot of ***, personally. Good riddance to 1.3; it had a good run but I'm happy to see it go and, more importantly, so are the majority of my players.
Last edited:
Krystina F
Artisan
If I'm not mistaken, owners bring feed back from their players to the ownership forum, which contains the ARC, and that is where many of these new rules came from. Suggestions from over the years coming from the player base... Some of which were directly from the owners or ARC members, as many of them are active players themselves. So saying that the players didn't have any input on the creation of 2.0, which has been a long time coming, longer than I've been playing, is a slap to the face of the players that have constantly been giving feed back to their staff and owners.
Sure, not everyone is going to like the new rules, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But saying they are dumb and and ridiculous without giving us feedback as to what you don't like isn't constructive. The play tests were a great way to show us why the new rules are not to your liking, or filling out the feed back forms breaking down everything or the particular items that don't work for you. There were plenty of things that I didn't like, and I gave negative feedback on. Not giving us constructive criticism doesn't help us make a better game, it doesn't help us make a supportive environment for everyone at all levels of involvement, it looks bad to people from the outside looking in that are interested in our game. It just fosters resentment and creates an Us vs Them mentality. Which is not what Alliance is about.
Unfortunately I feel that I am being miss understood and I'm afraid to respond any further.
Ardos
Artisan
I understand being worried to respond, a fair amount of the early 2.0 forum posts got pretty toxic and heated. That said, I just want to point out that I can point to 2 rules changes that were nearly direct implementation of suggestions we made from our playtest. This isn't "players vs owners and Arc", looking at the Feedback summary posted above, I saw 2 direct quotes from my feedback. I absolutely agree that the change to barbarian is the biggest one. But it sounds like the same doom and gloom I heard when my character became a selunari. The people that hated it went to colorful humans with an accent and kept on their role-play, the ones who stuck with the change got a new prosthetic and name and stayed on their role-play. The biggest difference is certainly that people playing a berserker style barbarian will not fit the "standard" oathsworn and sure that's not great, but there are several other races with that archetype, plus you could just continue your role-play and enjoy the new aspect of interaction with your race. It's just a bit counterproductive to say arc/owners made all these changes and not suggest your own changes to arc/the owners.
Dr_Chill
Fighter
Looks like the whole east coast and a goodly portion of the Midwest chapters did not provide any input?
Change is hard, but folks need to be brought along for the ride otherwise they will resent having changes forced on them by a vocal minority.
-Ryan
Alkalin3
Knight
That's not the entire list of chapters that playtested. Rather the ones that ran more events. New Hampshire and Denver also ran a playtests.
San Francisco, Gettysburg, HQ, and Crossroads also were at symposium and voted a on ton of what's in the packet.
The Chicago Owner (Rob) played at one of South Michigan's events, and praised the new rules as well as voted on things.
Both Casey (Kansas) and Paul (Utah) played at a playtest and voted on various things.
So I'm not sure that's the vocal minority in regards to votes. Certainly some folks missed their chance to playtest and get their voice heard if their chapters didn't run a game.
Most 2.0 votes since symposium have had between 8-10 chapters voting on stuff.
Last edited:
Just to bring everyone back on track,
As someone not on ARC or firmly in love with the new rules set, I can truly see both sides. 2.0 started as an idea that there would be one final rules change. It was supposed to be a large all encompassing change. The idea was to be done with the idea of owners coming in and making new things up every other year at symposium, and potentially putting the rules relatively into the hands of ARC with oversight by the owner of Alliance. As time went on and ownership changed hands (currently the only original chapter owners from that time might be XR, Calgary, and one or two others) the goals and focus of what 2.0 is or would become would change until we finally got our hands on the first packets.
Playtest coordinators were called for across the forums, players played in non-live theory craft sessions and modules, and gave feedback. New packets came out, more outside of game feedback, more changes. At any point that player ressponse was overwhelming on something, arc made changes, chapter specific issues- owners aproached the other owners and made changes through their process. As of this last symposium everyone agreed that each representative was at least okay with 70%ish or so of the changes (the number was a stretch for some of us, but we were willing to concede on some items to get others across the line). Some people really liked certain things, while others liked other things. I for one really liked the changes to add healing at each level. All things considered, those of us there pushed for and got approved full weekend playtests with the understanding that because the whole system was not being vetoed we were going to move forward with adoption of 2.0 at some point, and here was one last opportunity to allow the players themselves to see what it would be like in a low risk real life scenario. Obviously the chapters most interested in the process along the way had the most involvement, and subsequently submitted the most feedback.
So to answer the question on if players were consulted, yes, the whole of alliance at any given time was given the opportunities to be able to participate meaningfully. Those with the most communicative staff members likely had the most opportunities, we even created a place for the owners and committee members to gather and talk about their individual chapters concerns. Some of whom chose to meaningfully participate, and others who chose to just observe or ignore it altogether. Over the past six years every chapter has had the opportunity for meaningful feedback along the process.
At the end of the day 1.4 would have been fine for many. 2.0 seems fine now. Everything as it has in the past will change again symposium after symposium, some things will get more powerful, others will get weaker, but the Story and us playing together as a community, having fun with our friends, getting the oppurtunities to be the hero, or the dashing rogue, or captain of a pirate crew, or gang leader of a bunch of hench elves all ends up the same regardless of how much your weapon may swing, or how many healing spells your magic ring has left.
Anyone can makebelieve and write their own rules that they reason are fair and balanced and fun to play, but whats most important is the stories we come away with, the fun we had with our friends, and the oppurtunities we were given to make someone elses events memorable. I can do that in 1.3, 1.4, 2.0, any set of rules or parameters you give me. So at this point it is completely fair for someone to say "I think these rules suck". It is okay to not be excited about the change, and it is also unfair to anyone to be lambasted for their honest opinion in either direction. Do I think these rules are awesome? No, not my preference, but the level of complexity and powerbuilding I like, and the more comonly acceptable simplicity that makes a game more inviting to newer players are never going to line up, and that should be okay to say.
Im just a mostly regular player giving my opinion, but the work has had so much opportunity to be filtered through the general player base that its okay to not like the outcome, but lets not paint it as if there was not any opportunity for involvement.
I think you all are great, and I hope every ome of you can find things you do like in the new rules system!!
Sorry if any of this was preachy
As someone not on ARC or firmly in love with the new rules set, I can truly see both sides. 2.0 started as an idea that there would be one final rules change. It was supposed to be a large all encompassing change. The idea was to be done with the idea of owners coming in and making new things up every other year at symposium, and potentially putting the rules relatively into the hands of ARC with oversight by the owner of Alliance. As time went on and ownership changed hands (currently the only original chapter owners from that time might be XR, Calgary, and one or two others) the goals and focus of what 2.0 is or would become would change until we finally got our hands on the first packets.
Playtest coordinators were called for across the forums, players played in non-live theory craft sessions and modules, and gave feedback. New packets came out, more outside of game feedback, more changes. At any point that player ressponse was overwhelming on something, arc made changes, chapter specific issues- owners aproached the other owners and made changes through their process. As of this last symposium everyone agreed that each representative was at least okay with 70%ish or so of the changes (the number was a stretch for some of us, but we were willing to concede on some items to get others across the line). Some people really liked certain things, while others liked other things. I for one really liked the changes to add healing at each level. All things considered, those of us there pushed for and got approved full weekend playtests with the understanding that because the whole system was not being vetoed we were going to move forward with adoption of 2.0 at some point, and here was one last opportunity to allow the players themselves to see what it would be like in a low risk real life scenario. Obviously the chapters most interested in the process along the way had the most involvement, and subsequently submitted the most feedback.
So to answer the question on if players were consulted, yes, the whole of alliance at any given time was given the opportunities to be able to participate meaningfully. Those with the most communicative staff members likely had the most opportunities, we even created a place for the owners and committee members to gather and talk about their individual chapters concerns. Some of whom chose to meaningfully participate, and others who chose to just observe or ignore it altogether. Over the past six years every chapter has had the opportunity for meaningful feedback along the process.
At the end of the day 1.4 would have been fine for many. 2.0 seems fine now. Everything as it has in the past will change again symposium after symposium, some things will get more powerful, others will get weaker, but the Story and us playing together as a community, having fun with our friends, getting the oppurtunities to be the hero, or the dashing rogue, or captain of a pirate crew, or gang leader of a bunch of hench elves all ends up the same regardless of how much your weapon may swing, or how many healing spells your magic ring has left.
Anyone can makebelieve and write their own rules that they reason are fair and balanced and fun to play, but whats most important is the stories we come away with, the fun we had with our friends, and the oppurtunities we were given to make someone elses events memorable. I can do that in 1.3, 1.4, 2.0, any set of rules or parameters you give me. So at this point it is completely fair for someone to say "I think these rules suck". It is okay to not be excited about the change, and it is also unfair to anyone to be lambasted for their honest opinion in either direction. Do I think these rules are awesome? No, not my preference, but the level of complexity and powerbuilding I like, and the more comonly acceptable simplicity that makes a game more inviting to newer players are never going to line up, and that should be okay to say.
Im just a mostly regular player giving my opinion, but the work has had so much opportunity to be filtered through the general player base that its okay to not like the outcome, but lets not paint it as if there was not any opportunity for involvement.
I think you all are great, and I hope every ome of you can find things you do like in the new rules system!!
Sorry if any of this was preachy
Muir
Fighter
I've played a barbarian all my time in alliance and I agree with the above. They're a wonky expection to make up requirements and the number of times I get asked if I'm a human while I'm wearing leather fur and face paint is bonkers. I personally feel that the Oathsworn are a very well written and welcome race to our game. That being said I probably won't play one. My Barbarian RP is more in line with a High Orc than the Oathsworn, though that doesn't mean that I think Oathsworn are bad. I very much understand the sentiment of changing my beloved race. But it's something that I've accepted and I'm excited to see how my character grows without a race that was core to his identity. I encourage you to look at this as an opportunity.
This is exactly where I landed on the Selunari change. Nikolai's a human now, because that fit him better and didn't require I change his RP (or mode of dress
) one bit. All in all I see it as a positive change that doesn't limit the RP of people currently playing but does add another unique element that's Just Alliance and not cribbed from old D&D.I've been fairly critical of some of the changes (as I'm sure the ARC has noticed in the playtest forum), but overall despite having some reservations I think this is a good change. It directly addresses some of our system's long-running issues, and while not perfect, should be a net improvement once everyone's gotten used to the changes.
Especially if the monster DB changes are as pervasive as reported.
Tantarus
Knight
Nope, it makes it clear this is not the old death spell that undead, elementals and constructs are immune too. It is also not linked to life anymore.
Sage of Legaia
Rogue
I will chime in and say I was very much looking forward to throwing Love Gas Globes at people, and am sad that they've been removed in the latest iteration, and also agree that Doom just feels really awkward as the name of a Death effect.
Kix
Artisan
Hey Droth, I actually 100% felt this way going into ownership last year, and was pretty unreasonable right out of the gate. But after having played a few games with it, and actually landing effects, it felt really good! I've really done a full 180 since then and now I'm really into and enjoying the system. I hope that with some games, it grows in on you man.
Regardless man, I appreciate you posting your opinion and opening up some discussion on it! We're happy to listen to your feedback, if you're ever uncomfortable posting in a large setting look this, feel free to reach out to me directly and we can have a chat
all my chat things are on my profile here.
Muir
Fighter
The only bad part is that it doesn't have the old Doom incant. Nothing has ever been cooler than 'I SET YOUR DOOM UPON YOU'.
Eh, charm does mechanically the same thing without the occasionally deeply creepy issues that come with nonconsensual 'love' effects in a live-action game. I personally celebrate the removal of both Love and Love 9.
Sage of Legaia
Rogue
I disagree that Charm is the same thing as Love; Charm on my character has an actual effect, while Love is a total waste because he doesn't feel romantic attraction to any gender. Love doesn't mean you have to stalk someone, and specifically says it's not an aphrodisiac, so I mean, in theory, nothing is stopping that exact same behaviour on an Intoxicate, but I have a hard time seeing that removed for that reason. I think Love has a place if used appropriately, but I obviously can't stop people from being creepy jerks about it, so I'm not going to argue that it should have been kept.
I'm just sad because I can't throw Love Poison at people already in love like I was planning to (so they'd be extra-in-love for a while). I'm already on board with every other change, I'm just sad about the removal right before the switch over, is all. I'll get over it long before the official launch.
I'm just sad because I can't throw Love Poison at people already in love like I was planning to (so they'd be extra-in-love for a while). I'm already on board with every other change, I'm just sad about the removal right before the switch over, is all. I'll get over it long before the official launch.
Sage of Legaia
Rogue
Well... Technically he's not immune, it just doesn't make him act romantically towards anyone, although he does feel a great deal of platonic love and I play him as extra 'motherly' towards everyone on the few occasions he's been hit with it. Having said that, though, he's had some... adventures... while I've been in NPC camp, so I don't know quite yet if his ace/aro-ness is going to continue when he gets back.
And with that you've hit upon the strongest reason that Owners across the whole game agreed on the removal of Love. The trope of the Love Potion can be an interesting story interaction. However the fact that almost every person who's played our game has a story about Love that includes someone being creepy and making the game less welcoming made removing it from the game a necessary change.
The 2.0 update has been a lengthy process that has included input from Players throughout. It includes countless hours of volunteer work putting together a set of rules that, seek to improve game balance, create more interesting and unique Characters and and address some of the largest problems that had developed in the system. I'd ask that people who have concerns about a change be specific and raise those concerns, because I think you'll find that the people who worked hard on the 2.0 rules will be happy to explain why decisions were made and help you understand what's going on in the game we all enjoy.
Draven
Count
...so, Paralysis didn’t get a name change....
I’m in the same boat that Death is thematically superior cuz Life, so I also feel Life should have also been changed to Revive or whatever.
Or change Doom back to Death.
But I value mechanics over thematics, so I’m just happy E Magic is almost perfect (with the glaring, obvious imbalance of Life being the only real sole remaining problem).
Love is dead, and man will I cheer for that.
A stricter power creep is in place that closes the gap between low levels and unreasonably high levels, which isn’t as good as a cap, but better than nothing.
C Casters no longer have a free resource that E Casters don’t have, and while they still have scroll exclusivity, I feel that E Casters have some flexibility options that make up the difference?
Spellswords and Adepts have some cool capstone options that make them feel like more than just a combination of parent classes. Scouts don’t, but they have powerful static damage options.
I like a lot here.