Since I took HL, I've been trying to be really good about using my House favour as often as I can. It's a great way to let people know that I appreciate their efforts, and I have never been a fan of having a million people sitting at HR5, especially when House privs for the different House Ranks cannot be invested and moved around by the House Leader.

What's been bugging me is this: I can't raise people up a rank manually, like I do for HR3, and HR5. I'd really love the ability to promote people up a rank or two without having to favour them for 3 weeks, every day. So if I want all my House secretaries at HR10, the likelihood of that happening in a reasonable amount of time isn't really all that good.

I'd be happy with something I could only use once a day, if there was worry about abuse, but I just think it's unfortunate to have 15 House ranks that no one will ever see, ever.

15 house ranks? One for each Naga?

I see no issues with this so long as, you say, a limit is put on to how many 'promotions' can be done in a month/day or what have you.

Official, numerical House Rank should be removed in my opinion.

It does nothing

To op, no. House rank doesn't matter that much .

As a House leader, I also like this idea. I've been working on something which would benefit rather greatly from this, if implemented.

I like this idea, too. It's a real pain in the ass to have to favour someone repeatedly to get them back to their old rank when they leave the House after having infiltrated Shallam.

Power should not scale infinitely over time as the current House Ranks specify.

It'd be better for the leadership to manually break them into a groupped hiearchy based on current service. People should be ranked and applied privelege based on their current actions. What I have in mind is pretty much just what you see on House List, but made into a more uniform manner of rank, and applied to everyone.

House favours are frivulous and do nothing.

Says the rogue for life.

Like the idea. Took nearly every high powered person to get me from HR9-HR10, ~9 HFs.

I like this idea as well.

Sure. Except I'm surprised to say that I agree with Santar, too.



Let us create and manage our own ranked groups. I'd like to think it would give Houses more freedom in their progression programs, since as far as I can tell, most Houses go HR1 -> HR3 as novice, HR3 -> HR5 for full member, or something like that. Making this "backbone" more malleable could give more freedom to innovative progression plans.

I really don't see a point in this. All I think it would do, is to make Orders and House more similar.

I don't see why to remove the old numeric rank system, with favours and such, as while favours main purpose is to raise someone's rank, it's also a great way for a house to give feedback to its members on how much they appreciate their work.

I'd like to see houseleaders given the possibility to raise/lower rank once a month though, along with seeing them able to distribute House powers at different ranks. Or be able to speak to their Patron about managing this... not sure if that's actually possible now though.

-Firey-

I'm not really a fan of the numeric rank system either.

Housefavours will do enough for 'giving feedback' I should think. The system can be modified to checking a person's 'CV' or 'membership log' for that particular org. So they can see all their favours logged nice and neat and remember what they did right.

As for giving rank 10 to secretaries... well, once an individual is appointed to a secretarial position, they're already granted the necessary priviledges for performing their duties. Not forgetting that they already show up prominently on help house <whatever> and house structure. The other thing they can do is stick an honoursline 'he/she is a secretary of your house'. Or summat.

They don't show up on HELP HOUSE <whatever>. Only HL and HoN do that, along with anyone currently in-game, without an active gem, who can induct.

Most secretaries by default are able to induct. In the orgs I've been in anyway. And yes, I didn't mention the gem because I thought that was a given.

I'd be a fan of adding Officers: back into the help file. It allows public recognition for the 5 positions you can appoint.

At the same time, an option to have certain positions hidden would be nice.

You mean like HOUSE STRUCTURE?

Also, this.


House ranks are kinda stupid. You do something well once and outrank everyone else forever. Though, it doesn't matter much.

I agree, however you would still need someway to judge activity. Because just because someone is in realms doesn't mean they are contributing to the house at all, so there would need to be some sort of awarding process for doing things. I thing a better way would be to keep house favors, but have them "decay" slowly so the person has to keep working at getting them. For obvious reason the person couldn't decay below HR5 because that doesn't really make sense.

No.

Idea: Added functionality of HOUSE PROMOTE exclusive to the HL. Raises the HR of person being promoted after HR5 by 1.

That was my original idea.

I get that people don't like the House system. Sorry for that, but since this is what we have, I'd like to be able to use the ranks I have in a reasonable manner.

To be fair, your OP was "I want this", but not exactly how to do it. I created a method for your madness.

To repeat, I like the idea of added functionality for House Promote, or at least a viable alternative.

I don't, really. I mean, all the powers needed for various house leadership positions are investable already, and house rank is something to strive toward, not be bestowed upon a whim or for aesthetic reasons.

HR is supposed to serve as an indicator of long-term service and commitment to making a House better through various ways and therefore an incentive for someone to stay in a House. To change that would really be diluting the point.

The problem, I think, is that essentially the only way to reach the higher ranks is by being HL. I don't think I've ever seen a HR14 person, and only one or two HR10+ people. Excluding former HLs, of course.

I would make the HL's favour worth more at a set rate, not the rank that the HL is at at present, like Cityfavours from leaders/council members. Not necessarily a full rank - that's a bit too open to abuse, I would think, especially given the permanence of HRs.

Secondly, a number of Houses that I, as a player, have been in aren't the sort to HF consistently or even often. That's something that can be addressed in-game, though.

Given, also, that the HRs bestow certain abilities by merit of past service/tenure within a House/reward for not House-hopping, such as access to HTS, which can also be bestowed when necessary such as when one is in an appropriate position of authority. But I'd rather not see HRs diluted more than they actually are.

I have seen an HR14 person but it's really rare. I, personally, was HR10 in the Crystalline before I left and it took a crapton of favours to get to that point. I see that houserank for the most part is indicative of service to the House but it's not always and it has been abused before. Favouring isn't always for the best of reasons and some Houses do favour far less than others. I like Santar's idea over the current setup. It's more customizable and a cleaner way to put things together.

I'd have to say I agree more or less entirely with this. I do think, though, that the number of favours required to raise HR after a certain point (namely, 8) is excessive. I think either a change to the amount of favour required or a change to the strength of favours with increases in HR would be good, but, of course, this is hardly urgent.

It recently took three favours to boost someone up from HR1 to HR2, which I think is just nuts. One of those favours was from the House Leader (HR15), the other two were from members at HR7 and HR6.

EDIT: Sorry, HR8, HR7, and HR6. The leader-favour was for someone else, which did admittedly bump the second person up to HR2. But it's really stupid that it took three favours just to go to HR2.

Aye. From my experience, 1-2; 3-4; 5-6-7-8 are all three favours, seemingly regardless of rank for the lower two ranks. Guessing 8-9 is closer to 5, but I could be wrong. 9-10 looked like approx 5 from various ranks.


(Meant to reply to Sol.)

The number of favors it takes to move from rank to rank is dependant on the rank of the person favoring you.

Aye. My point was that it's ridiculous to require three favours to bump someone up one rank from HR1, no matter who is favouring you. One HR6-favour should be enough for HR1->HR2.

Actually, I find the whole 'old person comes back from dormancy and still has all their old authority simply because they're ranked like 10 or some crap' kinda silly. Also, just because they are no longer dormant does not mean they are really contributing. Some of them just use their rank and old contributions to boss people around even if they aren't doing anything right now.

I'd very much prefer it if 'rank' was determined simply by aideship and their activity. An individual who has become a full member of the House must be an aide to a certain department in the House or at least contribute activtely. That way, an individual builds up a reputation. If each house member would have a hardcoded 'CV', that other full members can view what contributions they have made to the House and their level of experience for example:



And so on


Things can be added or recorded in the activity log, for example, the HoN could keep track of the activity of his aides, and see how many interviews they've conducted and add it to their activity log. Favours may also be given more freely since they do not actually affect any authority or rank. Only to show approval to an individual for something they'd done. So things become less about the rank and more about the activity and actual contributions.

.. Humgii.

I really like that.

It's a good idea; the only problem is that either people would get favoured for exactly the reasons you listed, or not at all, ever.

Changing the way that favours are set up means, in some sense, that you're fundamentally changing the nature of Houses, which are an integral part of how the game runs (even moreso now). Again, the way that the favours are set up appears to be that HR reflects the total cumulative contributions someone makes to the House in a meaningful way; there are going to be some times when you are able to play more or less than other times, and not all of those reasons are in the players' control. It doesn't seem fitting to really punish a player for things that may very well be out of his or her control, and given that whatever the course of action may be, it will have to be applied consistently, in every case.

The game, as set up now, already rewards players who invest more time (or have more time to invest) than other players; in this sort of atmosphere, I'd not really like to see one of the cornerstones of permanence be taken away. One could imagine that having a higher CR/HR/OR/CHR could actually serve as an incentive for players to return to a character, as there are much lower barriers of entry.

Furthermore, getting favoured (and having it actually mean something) provides the sort of positive reinforcement lending itself to a compelling social experience, which means more players, which statistically tends to mean more players who contribute meaningfully, making the game better overall.

So you could alter the number of favours it takes to get to the next rank at the lower levels, surely; at the same time, I think that HR15, for instance, -should- be more difficult to achieve, and should come with more perks. It gives goals and some structure to the game, without providing a significant barrier to once-active players wishing to re-enter the game. That would mean that people would want to come back, or at the very least know that coming back and being able to get right back into the game is a viable option.

What is with everyone on these forums now, you guys are trying to change the entire game

I like Skye's idea. Implement it please!

My favour takes someone from HR1 to HR2. It also takes one favour to get someone from HR3 to HR4. Two of my favours will raise someone from HR5 to HR6. But it took...at least 7 to get someone from HR7 to HR8. I've favoured someone who is HR10 probably 9 times now, and he's still HR10.

I'd be fine with decreasing the number of favours that are required to elevate people in rank.

No where did I claim this was an urgent problem. No where did I suggest revamping the House system entirely. I just would like a way to make use of the system that is currently in place in a reasonable fashion. I do not think it's reasonable to have to appoint people to leadership positions as a means of reward when I have 15 House ranks to work with.

If the House system needs revamping, that's another ideas thread entirely.

If we can't manage a way to promote, could we at least make the ability to Favour a power that can be invested?

Believe it is. Though there're two House abilities called 'Favours,' so it might reference the one that checks when they were last.

Neither favour command is able to be invested.

Not that it matters. The ability to housefavour is at HR6, anyway.

Idea is not a good idea.

I really don't see the point.

For most Houses all the powers you need are either accessible by HR6 or are able to be invested in a position.

The only good change will be for previous HLs to revert to their original HR after completing their tenure as HL.

Add to this -

- She promoted <person> to <rankname> on <Achaean date>

- She sponsored <person> to <rankname> on <Achaean date>

- She achieved <rankname> on <Achaean date>

- She put <person> on probation on <Achaean date>

- She enemied <person> to the House on <Achaean date> for <reason>

- She unenemied <person> to the House on <Achaean date> for <reason>

-She castout <person> on <Achaean date> for <reason>


Very good idea, I'd love this.

I do not like Balynne's original idea, as much as I sympathize with the "practicability" thoughts behind it.

I guess my view has to do with me always seeing a HR as something that reflects upon the appreciation of -various- fellow-housemates over one's time in the House, and not by something a HL that likes you should be single-handedly able to raise in one go (even if this is the way (+novices aides) it works from HR3 to HR5.)

A high HR is very hard to reach and I do not mind this. HRs reflect for me upon the -long-term- activity in a House, it has for me to do with tradition and history of a char, and I do not mind that it might not reflect on the current HELP HOUSE <housestructure>, just as I don't think all secretaries should automatically be made HR10 or whatever.

I am not sure whether I can phrase myself well, but I consider HR more being the long-term reflection of a char's life in the House than something that has to do with current jobs within the House. That said, of course, people active in a House over a long time should in most cases end up with the higher houseranks anyways.

In the old days, an appointment to Secretary used to instantly raise someone to houserank 10 - just as being elected to housemaster raises them to houserank 15 currently. This sounds very similar to what Balynne is requesting for certain individuals in her house, only on a more specific level. I don't have strong feelings on it one way or the other, but it's not without precedent.

This is incorrect data.

Being elected to housemaster causes you to collect regulated, server side House Favours at intervals.

I stand corrected. This part has changed since I was housemaster then.

It's essentially the same thing still. The only change was that you have to be the House Leader for at least a month or two to get it. In all practical cases, the House Leader will be rank 15 before they step down.

I was HR13 when I was contested in the Lotus and lost it for stupid reasons..

I agree delete automatic HL promotion to 15.

I think that change was done to prevent people from contesting just to get HR15. But that doesn't stop people from being elected and doing crap all from the time they get it to the time they reach HR15.