Aging with a flexible stat cap

[pppp]

I propose a variant of character aging. Attribute values in FEPs, LPs and possibly acquired wounds and played time would together contribute to character life fatigue. That fatigue would not manifest itself for a long time but after a certain point it will start adding permanent wounds, possibly exceeding CON gains at some far away point. Permanent means impossible to heal even with ancient root.

That will effectively place a flexible softcap on character progress with an option to tradeoff some stats for others. It will be possible to progress further by inheriting, so the cap for n-th heir will be approximately 25% higher than for the first char.

I propose a cap on total FEP + LP + wounds + online time.
Going past the cap will result with receiving an "Aged" / "Burden of Life" wound that would cripple all Abilities and Attributes (but would not go below 1)
Exceeding the limit by half should result in death from wounds for a fully balanced char. Chars with increased CON will be able to last longer at the cost of lower other stats.

Numerical examples:
There is 13 Abilities and 9 Attributes
Assume the target is to have balanced chars at 100 to each Ability and Attribute, lasting 30 real time days online and capable of being wounded within that time 10 times to 100% of their HHP.

The formula is sum((<Spent LP>/100)^0,75) + sum (<Spent FEP> ^ 0,75) + 90*<online days> + total wound points
Maximum is: 13 000 age points.
This is allocated as follows:
100 points to each attribute -> ((5005*9)^0,75)=3091 points
100 points to each ability -> ((5096*13)^0,75)=4129 points
29 online days (expressed in realtime days, not ingame)-> 2610 points
10*316 wounds -> 3160 points
12990 points total
Around target value of stats each stat point is worth slightly more than one day of life. Receiving wounds worth full HHP bar is translates to losing slightly more than 3 days of life.

After reaching 13000 age points the character would start to acquire "Aged" wound at the pace 1 wound point per ingame day with penalty -1 to all stats per each wound point. That will give another 33 realtime online days with increasing inconvenience of playing. At the end of that time the wound be worth 100 points and all stats will be driven back to where new char begins, and HHP damage will be equal to 100 corresponding to 100 points of HHP of a new char.

Alternatively a balanced char reaching 75 to each stat would live some 4 weeks longer before suffering from age. His days as an alder char will be shorter though, due to lower constitution.

Alternatively the same 13000 points can be assigned as STR CON AGI UA only. In that case the char will reach 207 to each of 4, still be able to live 30 days unaffected and will be able to swallow being 10 times fully depleted from HHP. After reaching senility he will last slightly longer than the balanced char due to higher CON.
Allocation for STR AGI CON UA char is as follows:
207 points to each attribute -> ((21483*3)^0,75)=4044 points
207 points to UA -> ((21681*1)^0,75)=1786 points
29 online days (expressed in realtime days, not ingame)-> 2610 points
10*454 wounds -> 4540 points
12980 points total

The heir of fully developed balanced char will be able to reach 120 in each stat and n-th heir will approach asymptotically 135 in each stat.
The heir of fully developed STR CON AGI UA char will be able to reach 250 in each of 4 stats and n-th heir will approach asymptotically 280 in each of 4 stats.

The system will punish all-round crafters.

The FEPs in above calculations should be considered as value of stats measured in FEPs, rather than actually consumed FEPs. Using actually consumed FEPs would reward variety but will severely and disproportionally punish any imbalance in developing character stats. It would be way too harsh IMHO.

0,75 exponent was added to mitigate quadratic nature of FEP or LP sum. Using raw FEP + LP totals was too harsh and left too little space for character spiraling.

I will later add another example with 1000 stat target, but these are just numbers and can be freely tweaked.

[stya]

The system will punish all-round crafters.

Just that is a no no.

But also the online time, the wounds, pretty much everything sounds like cancer. I don't want to "have" to log out asap because my character is aging and it will cripple it.
I don't want to be worried everytime I see those freaking midges because they are going to cripple my long term self.

I don't want forced ultra specialized characters to keep up with the q growth of everything, alts are alreay forced enough in the current gameplay.

[pppp]

For once, consider it a nicer alternative to static stat caps and to character decay. At some point even narrowly specialized chars will not be able to keep up with q growth, so the q growth will end.
Then keep in mind 29 online days is 348 days, almost a year of playing for a casual player that plays 2 hours a day.
Then you overlooked character spiraling part, your long time self would actually benefit from dying at least once, though as opposed to credocide, benefits are diminishing with each death. Nonetheless, the power player strategy would be certainly to stuff to death the first generation char and start playing more seriously on the second one only. Then in any case suicide by overstuffing would be preferable to any other way of suicide.
Regarding midges, your issue is perhaps not having a good repellent than anything else.

Regarding alts, I was under impression it brings the issue past the point where a single player can reasonably upkeep alts for all the possible stat combos so the best option for a single player is to give up and comply. Essentially the point is to create a niche for hermits owning a single narrowly specialized crafter (and ofc, big factions will have all of it too). If you say this is forcing social interaction, then yes, it is.

The point of involving lifetime and wounds in the calculation is to allow players to push even further the limits of stats at the cost of character fragility.

[stya]

For once, consider it a nicer alternative
...
Then you overlooked character spiraling part

I consider it, just a shittier alternative. It's just a matter of opinion, but from my perspective you want to introduce many features that make no sense and force some weird gameplay style.

Just like spiraling chars, so if we want to keep pushing quality we need to:
- make specialized chars.
- suicide on them.
- do it again.

Now you might find it beautiful and marvelous but I like to keep my characters alive eventually.

[MooCow]

Conceptually, I like the concept of aging and producing a linage.

One problem with adding any system like this, is that you cant remove the memory of how this system was before. I worry that aging, in general, might feel bad. Additionally being forced to make a new character because you play too slow, or spend too much time larping, would hurt the players that any stat cap is trying to "protect".

Like with any cap, you are effectually removing the "content" found past the cap. Just because that "content" was something that many people find tedious and awful doesn't change the fact that it is being removed. This suggestion does not currently fill what has been removed with anything else.

There is also the problem of degenerate behavior with this system. Because this is based on time spent online, an ideal charter would spend all of its time offline.

I really want aging to exist, and I think you might have a decent start. If you manage to address some of the criticism from me, and other level headed people, you might come up with a winning solution

[loskierek]

as a person who onlyl goes for 1 char and no alts this is like a slap in the face, so you are saying i can't play the game unless i make alts? lol

[Granger]

One problem with adding any system like this, is that you cant remove the memory of how this system was before.

Can't be worse than the shitstorm of Hafen launch night - even that died down eventually.

[pppp]

being forced to make a new character because you play too slow, or spend too much time larping, would hurt the players that any stat cap is trying to "protect".

Go with lower stats, skip unused stats, do not AFK in a swamp, you will have more days of life left. It's a tradeoff, power for longevity. With the numbers I used in the example a noob char would live 144 days online, that's almost 5 months online, and like 2,5 years playing 4h a day.
Overall, numbers are just numbers, can be changed. But once stats can be traded for lifetime, there will be always someone who will use all the buffer into stats, brag about these and then complain his life is too short.

Like with any cap, you are effectually removing the "content" found past the cap. Just because that "content" was something that many people find tedious and awful doesn't change the fact that it is being removed. This suggestion does not currently fill what has been removed with anything else.

That content is literally "bigger numbers". While I accept the fact some people see that as "fun", I doubt it is worth having if the cost is boredom of the larger part of the playerbase.
The expectation is that missing content will be replaced by larger playerbase, thanks to lower stats overall.

There is also the problem of degenerate behavior with this system. Because this is based on time spent online, an ideal charter would spend all of its time offline.

That's why it is not purely online or real time. The difficulty is to find variable that represents investment into character, in other words the dose of steroids it receives. I was considering adding xp in the formula but I did not like it. In a way that would double punish Abilities side and would also punish actively playing the game which is not good.
I wholeheartedly hate adding realtime counter into the formula because it will always punish not playing. But perhaps counting offline time with small factor like 1/20th might somewhat balance this issue.

as a person who onlyl goes for 1 char and no alts this is like a slap in the face, so you are saying i can't play the game unless i make alts? lol

How did you even read this ? I specifically wrote It encourages specializing with one char.
I am not saying you can't play with one char. But I think you would benefit from having a few friends who would make up for those missing alts.
Though indeed, having an alt for chopping trees, paving will be profitable but it is so even now, no much difference here.

[loskierek]

and how did you read it? i dont have alts and nor do i play in same camp as people i know and ur idea forces me to do so because i would be set back even more from big villages than i already am

[pppp]

But you can exchange goods and services with your neighbors, can't you ?