Crystalism Changes

Rispok

This makes me mad, and I'm not even a Magi. My house lost probably over 10 million facets because of this, and I'm sure others lost a huge amount as well. Since we sell them in shops, I have to ask, was the server lag really so bad that we had to be penalized 500 million gold worth of inventory?

ANNOUNCE NEWS #4035                                     (01/24/2014 at 03:20)  

From   : Tecton, the Terraformer

To     : Everyone

Subject: Master crystals, folding, and refining.

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In an effort to reduce paperwork (ok, virtual paperwork) and prepare for some upcoming changes to 

cities and houses, we're pleased to announce an overhaul to the way master crystals and refining are 

handled! The details of the changes are as follows:

* Magi now have a personal tally of facets that they can refine from a master crystal, which 

replaces the single massive pool shared among all house members. There is a hard limit of 5,000 

facets per person.

* Houses that own a master crystal still have a pool of facets, which is increased by 1 facet for 

each pearl folded in by house members. These facets can then be allocated to individual house 

members by those with the CRYSTALS power (which is assignable by the house leader). There is a hard 

limit of 200,000 facets in the communal pool.

* The number of facets per pearl folded in has been increased.

* Personal facets can also be transferred between house members with GRANT <person> <number> FACETS 

while standing at the master crystal.

* HOUSE CRYSTAL(S) has been expanded upon, allowing house members with the privilege to:

   * HOUSE CRYSTAL STATUS   - Show details of the house's communal pool.

   * HOUSE CRYSTAL LOG      - Show additions and withdrawals to the crystal.

   * HOUSE CRYSTAL ALLOCATE - Move facets from the communal pool to a house member.

* We have "reset" all existing master crystals to reflect these changes, so everyone who is magi 

class and a member of a house that owns a master crystal has been given 50 facets to get you started.

 Every house pool has been gifted with 10,000 facets.

Penned by My hand on the 25th of Glacian, in the year 645 AF.

Achilles

I would feel bad then I remembered Shallam lost way more than that.

Saidie

I cannot even begin to tell you how upset I am....that they decide to go in and destroy nearly 350 (Achaean) years worth of work because of 'paperwork'?  Seriously? 

Millions of facets just taken... If they were going to destroy our Master Crystals at least give us the opportunity to get some of our damn facets from it.

Most of us folded without refining for YEARS just to make our House Crystals larger.  I realize I'm tired, and it probably makes this ten times worse. But I'm very disappointed right now.

Rispok

Oh. It seems like crystalsbrief doesn't work any more, and crystal log doesn't show in brief format, thus making this system cause more (virtual) paperwork for the players!

Gibbi

The part of me that is still magi just died a little.

Jarrod

The part of me that's still Magi went, "Finally they removed an outdated mechanic so that multiclass will work for a city."

Nellaundra

What's the point of having a bigass crystal if you're not gonna use it in all honesty?

Jovolo

I agree with Nellaundra. Why on earth did you spend real life years growing a huge master crystal without actually using it as if that provides some tangible benefit. The Merchants probably lost the most as they actively sell (so it was a potential 500,000,000 they lost), and it seems strange for the crystal to not be implemented with max facets?

But, it's a refined (whaaaaay) system and it was for the greater good. Suck it up, get to pearling and restore your master crystal to its former entirely superficial glory.

Vansittart

Like, of *course* it's completely irrational for magi to love their MCs, and have spent RL years tending them and to have put RL days into doing it, and for it to be a really core part of the identity for a lot of the original magi Houses.  Of course, that's silly.

That said: it is still true.  You would think that the admin might have checked in with one of those Houses to see how this change would go down before doing it.  Or worse, they did and decided they didn't care and did it anyway.  It's a bad idea to mess with the stuff that people are emotionally attached to in-game - rationally, or not.  I'm probably years away now from actively playing in a House with an MC and I'm still experiencing twinges of annoyance.  God knows how I'd feel if I was active and still cared, manning the barricades probably.

Bad change is bad.  Not on its merits, but because you don't prioritise minor coding convenience over the feelings of a big chunk of your playerbase.  Your business depends on one of these things, and not the other.

Nellaundra

All that really says is that people obsess over weird shit, and I'm saying that as I organize my scripts so they all go in alphabetical order.  If you don't use something except to make it bigger, then there is no point to having it.  Did it have any point beyond the "big number" mentality or was there a practical point to having one that big when you didn't actively use it except to make it bigger?

Nizaris

I feel like what should have happened was this:

• Hard limit of 200k communal facets is put into place. Whatever the MC level was before, it will stay there and gradually diminish as is detailed below.
  
• If an MC was already above this hard limit, further pearl folding does not grant more facets to communal pool. However, while MC is above the hard limit, further folding grants additional personal refines, above and beyond the 5k personal limit, if needed. Once the hard limit is met/passed, the system goes to what the admin wanted.
  

This way: the prior work does not go to waste; the system gradually moves toward what the admin want; hard work is rewarded by crystal refines, which in turn bring about lowering the MC into ranges acceptable by the admin.

Vansittart

Nellaundra said:

All that really says is that people obsess over weird shit, and I'm saying that as I organize my scripts so they all go in alphabetical order.  If you don't use something except to make it bigger, then there is no point to having it.  Did it have any point beyond the "big number" mentality or was there a practical point to having one that big when you didn't actively use it except to make it bigger?

But *if* people obsess over things in your game, it's good sense not to mess with it.  Does @Penwize really use all his levels?  Did Ottis really use all his artifacts?  Do most of the cities really use all the gold and credits they sit on?  To take another example - do people really need achievements points on WoW? 

But messing with all that stuff is a really bad idea, because people *do* care, and you shouldn't mess with it.  The only excuse for messing with that kind of thing is if it's necessary or it results in an overall better game, or you need it for balance or you're replacing with something even better.  None of these apply.

Nellaundra

Except it was probably to alleviate server workload on top of the stated reason.  That's an "overall better game" in my opinion.

Plus, y'know, the big ol' city/house overhaul that's coming in.  Groundwork for that, and thus, necessary.

Tharvis

i agree with @Nizaris here, this sudden forced change wasn't very good, houses should have atleast gotten a little bit of time to do something with the excess facets instead of just getting a "hey, we did this, deal with it"

Vansittart

Nellaundra said:

Except it was probably to alleviate server workload on top of the stated reason. That's an "overall better game" in my opinion.

For you, because you don't care.  Of course you'd take an extremely marginal improvement in Tecton's administrative burden over something that you care nothing about. 

Nellaundra

Yes, because I don't care about Magi house e-peen.

Bonko

Tecton is clearly my alt.

Vansittart

I don't understand what point you're making.  You seem to think that using the word "e-peen" is a useful contribution somehow.  All you're really saying is that you don't care about the things that a reasonable chunk of the playerbase do.  E-peen is just another word for reputation in the game and really, that's all anyone cares about in Achaea.  It's *everything*. 

So it's not your e-peen, fine. But it matters to a lot of people and, I say again, messing with that for a marginal server improvement is a dumb move.  That's the core point, that I don't really think you're addressing.

Dji

Nellaundra said:

Except it was probably to alleviate server workload on top of the stated reason.  That's an "overall better game" in my opinion.

Plus, y'know, the big ol' city/house overhaul that's coming in.  Groundwork for that, and thus, necessary.

What's the workload on storing a number? I'd be major league shocked if having a big number instead of a small number made the slightest bit of noticeable difference.

Jovolo

It's just the way they implemented the change, causing the Houses to lose what they feel like as being years and years of investment. Nizaris' idea of placing a hardcap on 200,000 and keeping the facets as they are currently until they drop and meet the hard cap through natural decline sounded like a solid one, and I don't know why the Master Crystals were instated with a laughable initial facet count.

Jarrod

I think you're grossly overestimating the percentage of the player base that feels offended by this for one. This change was put in during high traffic time and didn't get a post for hours. That alone signifies to me that even the vocal portion of the player base that regularly visits forums, the majority of it doesn't care.

So the Magi of the Magi houses who had big MCs are upset by this. They're allowed to be upset, they should be upset, but they should also get over it.

The people who realize this lays the groundwork for a city MC that allows all Magi of the city to refine on a personal basis, without it having to be monitored, while still allowing the Houses that purchased MCs in the past to maintain a unique aspect of their House and garner a marginal benefit.

Could this have been implemented better? Probably. Should they have warned people? Absolutely not.

Can you imagine the hundreds of thousands of crystals that would be refined by players if they knew their MC was getting cut down immensely? That would have been horrid.


TL;DR Good change for everyone, some people can be upset if they want.

Skye

Old magi houses like the Kindred, Warlocks, (RIP) Crystalline Circle, had some pretty strong rules set in place for refining etc. Maybe it's because I've played Arcanist before, but I personally found the care and maintenance of the Crystal to be part and parcel of Magi RP. I always imagined the MC as something like a nuclear reactor or a ticking weapon of potential mass destruction that the House safeguards for potential use (which still makes me wish that Shallam had been blown up at least partially by the Circle nuking their own Crystal to kill the Dalamyr)

The practical point to the large facet accumulation is in the event that you wind up being stuck in say... a long term war, the leadership might (at its discretion) open the facet reserves to magi to refine at will without folding. It also adds a buffer to your MC in the case of breakins where some enemy magi gets to refining your MC, they won't total it completely.

Personally I would've taken it in the other direction and put a decay rate on the MC like Icons except there's no upper limit, just a general degradation of facets over time. I mean, if the magi in general are fixated on folding, then you may as well add a little purpose to it. >_>

Vansittart

@Jarrod: I understand that argument, and I dunno maybe you're right about the number of people who care but I think you're wrong.  I did a good stint in an old magi House and the vast majority of the House members would have been pretty pissed I think.  We'll see I guess.

@Skye: Totally - the MC was one of those huge things that everyone had to care about - like an Icon that actually mattered.  A threat to the MC was the one thing guaranteed to get every single member of a mage House off their asses and RPing/working.  Who knew that it wasn't Felisse we had to worry about, it was @Tecton all along.

Blujixapug

Nellaundra said:

All that really says is that people obsess over weird shit, and I'm saying that as I organize my scripts so they all go in alphabetical order.  If you don't use something except to make it bigger, then there is no point to having it.  Did it have any point beyond the "big number" mentality or was there a practical point to having one that big when you didn't actively use it except to make it bigger?

People do obsess over weird shit. You can laugh at them and say, "Stop being so weird, stop obsessing over this pointless stuff!" But these are the people who play your game. This is the way they play it. This is what they like. This is one of the reasons they log in.

You don't have to like the weird things people do. You don't have to actively support forestal form-filling, or Cyrenian cake-decorating, or people who traipse off into the wilderness to exchange synonyms for turgid and throbbing. But if you make drastic alterations to those things, or remove the potential to do them, regardless of how weird they may be, you will alienate parts of your playerbase.

Alrena

I kinda feel like people are missing the good parts here. It's impossible to overwithdraw, so you don't even NEED to check it anymore. Furthermore, no more MC raids (thank you, admins. So, so much).

Am I really the only one who sees those and thinks "Hell yes"? Sylvans lost 50K refines, that nobody was ever going to use anyway, because we had a refining policy. Now, we no longer need that. Our Magi get more refines per pearl, and the House will still get the facets it would otherwise gain (could refine 6 per pearl before this).

Jarrod

Alrena said:

Am I really the only one who sees those and thinks "Hell yes"?

Definitely not, people are usually more vocal when they're upset than when they enjoy a change!

Rispok

Obligatory statement that the Merchants pay people who add facets. I still have to check the logs, and removing brief seems like an oversight.

Shecks

I completely agree with Jarrod's opinion on this - it's a good change that could have probably been done a little better if they tried.

However, I also think that the Houses with MCs that lost massive amounts of facets (and thus time, work), should have been compensated.  It's not like IRE to be fair to people, especially when it comes to taking things without warning... but in this case, those facets represent hundreds, or probably thousands of hours of work - and it would take all of a few seconds for the admins to give them some form of gold or other means of compensation for it.  Do they have to?  No.  But should they?  I think so.

Jarrod

Rispok said:

Obligatory statement that the Merchants pay people who add facets. I still have to check the logs, and removing brief seems like an oversight.

You give me 5 credits and a copy of what the new output looks like and I'll give you a script to do it for you.

Blujixapug

Shecks said:

However, I also think that the Houses with MCs that lost massive amounts of facets (and thus time, work), should have been compensated.  It's not like IRE to be fair to people, especially when it comes to taking things without warning... but in this case, those facets represent hundreds, or probably thousands of hours of work - and it would take all of a few seconds for the admins to give them some form of gold or other means of compensation for it.  Do they have to?  No.  But should they?  I think so.

Introducing this with some kind of event, rather than an OOC form letter Announce post, and somehow rewarding MC Houses in proportion to the number of crystals they lost, would definitely have helped distract from what was taken away. I wish that more major changes were introduced with events rather than just Announce posts, but it doesn't seem to be a priority.

Tahquil

I like the new change, even with having played a Magi before. There's really no use frothing at the mouth over it because it's not going to suddenly revert back. Might be coincidence but Achaea's lagging has cleared up for me (granted it might just be a lucky few hours).

There's a thread, it's down in the sewers called "Ranting Menace" which is specialised for thesefrustrations.