A Plea for Decay (Character)

[Granger]

Currently taking a break (or starting late or having an accident) gimps a character permanently, compared to the ones that don't stop, which can't be solved unless characters are turned from being the sum of all their actions to being the sum of just their recent actions (over the last some weeks, at max very few months).

This is still not an upgrade. It is just the same as present, but less-so.

The thing that you don't get (or choose to blissfully ignore as your self proclaimed position on the top sets an incentive for you to not understand it - or, worded differently, motivates you to be dishonest in the discussion as keeping the status quo will benefit you as being on the top, see * below) is that in the current system any deviation from playing optimal leaves one permanently behind everyone that continues to play optimal. This is caused by the mathematical outcome of characters being the sum of all of their actions, can't be bargained with and results in any and all vacations or accidents being a permanent punishment that lasts till world reset.

Stat decay would change that permanent part: vacations or accidents would still set you back, compared to the ones that continued to play optimal, but as the time window set by the decay rate moves on and takes older actions out of the equation (which would take, with the rate discussed, about 90 days till each and every mistake is completely forgotten) the punishment for not playing optimal would only be temporary.

* You commit a fallacy:

The people playing while you're on vacation will be ahead of you in the implementation of this, the people playing in the current system if you take a vacation will be ahead of you. .

While this is exactly what would happen with this implemented... the part you left out, that with this suggestion implemented being behind would be something you could redeem yourself of, would be exactly as it should be in a game.

And while this is exactly what happens in the current implementation... the part you left out, that the penalty of a vacation is currently permanent for the rest of the world, is absolutely not as it should be in a game.

Incomplete comparison, false equivalence.

* You commit a fallacy:

Someone will always be ahead of you. This is the innate nature of an MMO.
It is completely impossible to solve this problem short of making the gap between casual and hardcore tiny, or adding stat caps.

The problem isn't the existence of a gap between casual and hardcore, that is as it should be in a game.

The problem is that an existing casual is mathematically unable to close the gap to an existing hardcore without a world reset. That is the problem, that is the cancer of endless growth that is eating away at the user base of each world, that is what stat decay would remove when implemented.

And stat decay effectively creates a stat cap, but one that can be bargained with. Resulting in the ones that play more optimal being on top, as it should be for a competitive game. Resulting in people who start later or less efficient being able, within reasonable time, to reach or, should they have learned and play more optimal, even surpass the ones that have been there from the start of the world, as it should be for a game.

Burning a straw man.

* Up to now one could think that you honestly failed to understand, but as you now follow up with multiple fallacies in

The thing is that you've never been on the top. I cannot in good faith trust you to have any opinion other than an uninformed one.

How optimal I play (in your speculation) has zero correlation with my ability to analyze flaws in the mechanics of the game.

Ignoratio elenchi, circumstantial ad hominem, Courtier's reply, poisoning the well.


I have to conclude that Upton Sinclair was right with

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

Your style of 'argument' hints that you just want to keep the status quo, fucked up as it is, as it suits you, not giving a damn about the resulting collateral damage it causes to the rest of the players and the game itself. And eventually even affecting you: from world after world getting boring from participation dwindling after a few short months.

I am disappointed by your rebuttal to my challenge.

I am disappointed that you act that dishonest in your attempt to bury this topic.

[SnuggleSnail]

The world where sweaty people don't shit on casuals doesn't exist, Granger. Not even in Mario Party

[Granger]

The world where sweaty people don't shit on casuals doesn't exist, Granger. Not even in Mario Party

That's completely irrelevant to the topic.

[Vigilance]

Hey, that's a nice breakdown! That's a good effort.

The thing that you don't get (or choose to blissfully ignore as your self proclaimed position on the top sets an incentive for you to not understand it - or, worded differently, motivates you to be dishonest in the discussion as keeping the status quo will benefit you as being on the top, see * below)

How naive. You can't assume things like this about me and simultaneously accuse me of ANY fallacies. Ask any of the people I spent up until May with about our village. We were certainly not on the very top, in fact, saying we were in the middle is generous. I've BEEN there, I am NOT there, I WAS NOT there. However, I've got infinitely more insight in to the high-end village life than you do simply from my experiences, in this world, the world before, the world before, and so on. I speak from a point of experience, not deceptive indifference.

Stat decay would change that permanent part: vacations or accidents would still set you back, compared to the ones that continued to play optimal, but as the time window set by the decay rate moves on and takes older actions out of the equation (which would take, with the rate discussed, about 90 days till each and every mistake is completely forgotten) the punishment for not playing optimal would only be temporary.

You seem to yet again entirely miss my point, though. How on earth would a titan's stats decaying allow you to catch up? There is no implementation that wouldn't just result in him simply playing more min-maxed, and then the distance between Felix and the layman is even more exponentially grown. To think that people wouldn't find a way to game any implemented system is naive, and you've been around long enough to know better. It's also quite frankly very deceptive of you to claim that character regression is the end-all-be-all in this instance, when frankly it would need to be paired with MANY MANY more mechanics than detailed in your post to be effectively bullet proof, and unfortunately I don't see such careful development any time soon.

While this is exactly what would happen with this implemented... the part you left out, that with this suggestion implemented being behind would be something you could redeem yourself of, would be exactly as it should be in a game.

And while this is exactly what happens in the current implementation... the part you left out, that the penalty of a vacation is currently permanent for the rest of the world, is absolutely not as it should be in a game.

The reason why people take the lead is that they've optimized and streamlined their progression. You will not beat someone studying your nabbly objects because turbonerds with maximum quality on every good they ingest have everything down to nearly a science, after all, they've no-lifed the game many many more hours a day for far far longer than you. Just because they're fighting a fire blazing over their attributes page does not mean you are going to surpass them with roasted meat and subpar foods. They will simply up the ante. And then what? You infinitely sledgehammer them down, harder and harder, with a blend of your other mundane tedium-to-ten level ideas, until their optimal FEP grind is eating tree seeds and undesirables because all of the other foods have been gimped to the ground?

The problem is that an existing casual is mathematically unable to close the gap to an existing hardcore without a world reset. That is the problem, that is the cancer of endless growth that is eating away at the user base of each world, that is what stat decay would remove when implemented.

I could ONLY agree with this if we no longer consider them a casual, as they'd have to now be on par with the try-hards spreadsheet gaming their feasting sessions, siphoning all of the resources they can possibly acquire. The average hermit would NEVER be able to come close to certain players I'm aware of, no matter how many deliberate take-you-down-a-notch strikes you take on them via these endless mountains of "The game fights back!" mechanics.

How optimal I play (in your speculation) has zero correlation with my ability to analyze flaws in the mechanics of the game.

Partially wrong. It would be totally unfair to say a spectator in the game has no say on the game, but it sure wouldn't be unfair to say your words have far less weight than those who have been there, done that.

Your style of 'argument' hints that you just want to keep the status quo, fucked up as it is, as it suits you, not giving a damn about the resulting collateral damage it causes to the rest of the players and the game itself

Fallacious statement entirely based in falsehood.

I am disappointed that you act that dishonest in your attempt to bury this topic.

I am disappointed you brought pointing out fallacies in to your post, while still laying them heavy yourself. Schäm dich.

I'm also annoyed I stayed up past my bedtime writing to a man who will simply wave his hands at anything proposed to him, lest it break his perception of how the game is (it's not) and how it should be played (it won't be)

Many of your ideas would serve just to siphon the last bits of joy from this game for many of us. Why can't you simply be content not having a chance? The people who are at the top have been grinding their hearts out for ages, harder and harder than you could ever even begin to think about, and the best part? If you knock them down, they'll simply find the new way to climb the ladder. You know who won't?

The poor guy who just started, takes a break, comes back to not only seeing his village leveled (Thanks, decay.) but also his stats rolled back to nigh-base, or frankly ANY degree. I do wonder how quickly we can drop players with mechanics like these.

[Granger]

How naive. You can't assume things like this about me and simultaneously accuse me of ANY fallacies. Ask any of the people I spent up until May with about our village. We were certainly not on the very top, in fact, saying we were in the middle is generous. I've BEEN there, I am NOT there, I WAS NOT there. However, I've got infinitely more insight in to the high-end village life than you do simply from my experiences, in this world, the world before, the world before, and so on. I speak from a point of experience, not deceptive indifference.

You perform a variant of the appeal to authority fallacay.

How on earth would a titan's stats decaying allow you to catch up? There is no implementation that wouldn't just result in him simply playing more min-maxed, and then the distance between Felix and the layman is even more exponentially grown.

Another straw man, titans (we we know them) couldn't be created anymore in the first place, you should know that when having read this topic.

It's also quite frankly very deceptive of you to claim that character regression is the end-all-be-all in this instance, when frankly it would need to be paired with MANY MANY more mechanics than detailed in your post to be effectively bullet proof,

Nirvana fallacay.

I don't see such careful development any time soon.

Me neither, that's why having stat decay would be a good thing: It would allow to fix fuckups (like the spiced axes, kebab itself or whatever broken thing they'll accidently come up with in the future) without having to wipe to get rid of the ill gotten gains that make the rest of the population think about quitting in disgust.

While this is exactly what would happen with this implemented... the part you left out, that with this suggestion implemented being behind would be something you could redeem yourself of, would be exactly as it should be in a game.

And while this is exactly what happens in the current implementation... the part you left out, that the penalty of a vacation is currently permanent for the rest of the world, is absolutely not as it should be in a game.

The reason why people take the lead is that they've optimized and streamlined their progression. You will not beat someone studying your nabbly objects because turbonerds with maximum quality on every good they ingest have everything down to nearly a science, after all, they've no-lifed the game many many more hours a day for far far longer than you. Just because they're fighting a fire blazing over their attributes page does not mean you are going to surpass them with roasted meat and subpar foods. They will simply up the ante. And then what? You infinitely sledgehammer them down, harder and harder, with a blend of your other mundane tedium-to-ten level ideas, until their optimal FEP grind is eating tree seeds and undesirables because all of the other foods have been gimped to the ground?

Appeal to motive and another burning strawman.

The problem is that an existing casual is mathematically unable to close the gap to an existing hardcore without a world reset. That is the problem, that is the cancer of endless growth that is eating away at the user base of each world, that is what stat decay would remove when implemented.

I could ONLY agree with this if we no longer consider them a casual,

Certainly he wouldn't be a casual anymore, when having learned the game, lost the job and is now no-life grinding.
That's the thing with stat decay: it would allow that new hardcore to start to (grind up to) compete, now, without having to wait for a wipe to not have a gap that can't be closed regardless of how hard he grinds.

How optimal I play (in your speculation) has zero correlation with my ability to analyze flaws in the mechanics of the game.

Partially wrong. It would be totally unfair to say a spectator in the game has no say on the game, but it sure wouldn't be unfair to say your words have far less weight than those who have been there, done that.

Another appeal to accomplishment, Courtier's reply, appeal to authority.

Your style of 'argument' hints that you just want to keep the status quo, fucked up as it is, as it suits you, not giving a damn about the resulting collateral damage it causes to the rest of the players and the game itself

Fallacious statement entirely based in falsehood.

Disecting your post proves otherwise. You don't argue against the proposed mechanic, you only secrete fallacies.

Please educate about this topic first, then come back to argue after having understood it - which you have proven above with the parth of 'exponentially grown distance' (which could no longer happen) that you don't understand (for whatever reason) even the basic premise of what this topic is about, yet.

Come on, there are even pictures some pages back to help you understand the effects... you're a smart guy, you can do it.
Feel free to return when being able to mount an actual argument about the suggestion.

[Vigilance]

Discussing anything with you is like trying to have an educated discussion on literature with my cat.

Shame. It's hardly a wonder why you're perceived the way you are, and why your ideas are no more than a laugh in passing among the circles of people who actually play this game.

a fat -1 to this idea, and frankly anything akin to it. You've yet to convince me.

[Ants]

I'm pretty sure my character is like one of the top five(three?) strongest on the server, and I've logged in exactly once since the 27th of Aug, and I basically stopped grinding stats 1-2 months before that. I could make a close to top stated character from scratch in a couple months right now.

If you can't catch up it's probably because you're not sweaty enough

Write a guide on how to do that so people stop complaining.

They'd never write a guide. If we all knew what they did they would just evolve and play harder and be just as ahead. I suspect it has something to do with a certain type of will to see something through even to the point of discomfort at times. Some technical background making use of the available time through some automation. These folks just game hard AF.

Then they have no right to complain about people thinking they can't catch up, imo. People won't change their mind until they are proven wrong. If SnuggleSnail is right, the main issue is a lack of knowledge from most of the playerbase..

And using bots shouldn't count, most people don't have access to those.

Any type of punishing mechanics = stupid. Decay doesn't feel rewarding. It is a punishment in a nutshell. Especially the skill decay, for not playing constantly and grinding it, for excelling in skills.
If you want to resolve something, make it via rewards, not punishments.

This 100+. Punishment drives people away. I don't have much else to add to this conversation, but I must say the idea of losing stats if you need to take a break doesn't sound fun.

[Tamalak]

OK I've been thinking about this and I see the logic of both sides.

Decay is not rewarding. It is HORRIBLE to 'make up' labor. Ever worked on a computer file for hours? Ever forgotten to save, had it crashed, and had to redo a mere half an hour of work? The half hour of work is almost unbearable compared to the hours and hours spent creating it to begin with because you're recreating what you've lost, which to us is horrible. So we shouldn't have decay, at least not of characters.

But Granger is right that, for any given world, the gap between players gets too big too fast. I particularly like his point that the period in which players are *competitive* with each other is very small. For any two random players that meet, it's almost guaranteed that one would curbstomp the other without trying.

I'm in favor of players being more competitive with each other. That means some or all of the following:

1. Diminishing returns (like Jorb's proposed fourth root of combat stats rather than square root)
2. More skill based, random based combat (like the more action oriented combat being tested in Valhalla now)
3. Make it easier for multiple players to combine their strengths. Even with the system we have now, 3 players of moderate strength should be able to defeat 2 players with big strength. It's just a matter of making it a little easier for those more numerous weaker players to protect each other.

[Archiplex]

3. Make it easier for multiple players to combine their strengths. Even with the system we have now, 3 players of moderate strength should be able to defeat 2 players with big strength. It's just a matter of making it a little easier for those more numerous weaker players to protect each other.

I agree with most of what you said, and this to an extent; but keep in mind that there's a fine line between "possible to fight someone stronger than you" and "large groups just make rage gank alts instead of fighting with real characters" which is a problem that has existed in the past- and it's difficult to balance according to that line very well.

I think a mix of the new coming combat system and the 4th root health system would be a perfect blend, though.