Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
- 6.2K All Categories
- 3.1K Everything Achaea
- 1.5K North of Thera
- 26 Archives of the Terraformer
- 257 The Matsuhama Arena
- 885 The Golden Dais of Creation
- 299 The Scarlattan Theatre
- 149 The Blank Canvas
- 2K Getting Help
- 412 General Questions
- 258 Quick Class Questions
- 1.3K Tech Support
- 313 Client Help
- 486 Curing Systems and Scripts
- 841 Off-Topic
- 255 The Wander Inn
- 586 The Universal Membrane
- 298 Class Discussions
- 298 Individual Class Sections
- 20 Alchemist
- 9 Apostate
- 30 Blademaster
- 9 Depthswalker
- 14 Druid
- 4 Infernal
- 20 Jester
- 19 Magi
- 34 Monk
- 11 Occultist
- 8 Paladin
- 7 Priest
- 29 Runewarden
- 18 Sentinel
- 26 Serpent
- 20 Shaman
- 9 Sylvan
Comments
Sure, it means we have lots of hr5s... but is that really such a bad thing?
The last straw on my Mhaldorian char was getting bumped back down to start the new houses from scratch. Lack of time at the time, and I just hated those little tasks. I had the same thing with being offered to be 'mentored' by one of my own proteges, because they were in the founding few. It was daft. I figured if I'm going to be treated like a newbie again... I may as well just make one.
Also, in most cities, the number of houses was too many. Yes even some of the ones that got two houses, those two were too many. Some would have been fine with just one house, and having differing paths in that house past hr5.
We probably have it easier because being combat-centric gives us an inherently wide field of stuff to teach and do, and more tangible measures of success. Other houses focused on non-combat application kinda have to invent stuff to teach/learn/do, and that kinda lends itself to contrived house tasks.
I invite all you old, disaffected folks to Cyrene, Achaea's retirement home, and to take part in a post-Ren House that just wants to make sure you are decent at one thing, and spends the rest of its time forging personal friendships and a sense of belonging. You can help us invent our history and culture while we're at it.
Also as a combatant that got into the Eleusian combat house and almost had to do basic combat tests to get to HR3, this isn't really as not-annoying as you think. I don't really want to have to prove that I can fight, when it's clear by my past history that I can. I especially don't want to prove it by doing tests and spars of all things.
The point here isn't that the shield sucks or anything, but that all the houses with checklist requirements could really make some improvements, or even ask themselves if they're really useful requirements. I didn't learn to fight by doing rote sparring for requirements, and most people didn't either, I think. Experienced fighters don't want to do these anymore than experienced characters want to redo any other kind of test.
Having done so damn many reqs in my lifetime, I've come to the decision that if I want a checklist of things to accomplish I'd just play more new games on steam. All those achievements, so little time.
Checklist requirements very much reek of exam culture to me. It's when the love of learning/teaching has been superseded by a love for qualifications. That the evolution of your House can be broken down into an arbitrary list of 'do this, interview that', ultimately feels horribly inorganic. Even worse, if every time you change a new HoN, they change/update the reqs and then your newbs are left in a state of limbo while they figure out what they're supposed to be doing with themselves.
If supposing, I were a leader, and I came across someone who was so pro-active in working on actual things for the city and the house, even if their requirements were sitting in a lurch, I'd still go ahead and find some way to promote them.
Checklist reqs are for people who have no idea what to do for/about themselves. If someone is willing to get their hands dirty and their feet wet from the get-go, why would you hold them back?
I wouldn't understand their complaints. Other than the HR3 "test", and a completely optional test for a certain aide position, we don't really test you. The few tasks we have just make you go out and spar some people, and by doing that, you advance. Whether you get anything out of it is kinda up to you. Obviously we try to encourage one-on-one mentoring sessions, and we do have one task that makes you "chart out" a kill setup, but we can't make anyone a great fighter, we can only put you in a position to learn, and then answer questions you have as you make the effort.
That's the beauty of it, I think. There isn't a checklist aside from two tasks that just show us that you know what you say you know, and both of them take about 15 minutes if you really do know it. Past that, you get out of the Shield what you put in. We don't babysit you, we don't fill your time with arbitrary chores, and assuming you do enjoy fighting to a degree, you advance just by doing what you enjoy.
If you expect to join a house and be given HR5 just because you're an established player with a history, I don't know if that's a reasonable expectation, but cutting out the nonsense bullshit tasks has really been a goal of mine/ours while building up the place.
Obviously you should come try it and give us feedback!
Again, to reiterate, this is like overheard information so I'm making a lot of assumptions, but your post seems to confirm the assumptions I made.
Why shouldn't an established player be given HR5 in a combat house? A certain top-tier combatant was telling us a story about how they were a founding member of the Targ combat house and had to start at like HR1. Why? What is the point of a combat house if the best combatants aren't actually boosted even as the founding wave? At the very least, a combat house should offer 'defeat the HL/designated person in combat and be auto promoted' in my opinion. And, honestly, if you're a combat house and someone that's pretty much famous for being a high level combatant joins and you make no allowances, that's just annoying bureaucracy.
Also sparring people is not 15 minutes, really. Takes ages to find people to spar when you're not at the solid mid tier (and even then takes a while). Too newbie and you can't find anyone that won't destroy you immediately and therefor has no interest, too experienced and the opposite.
I think that is a reasonable expectation. Or at least it should be.
Are you going to give the guy who just joined the keys to the bank account? No. But in real life, when you defect, it's usually a lateral move. That's a completely normal expectation. When German scientists fled Germany in WW2, they worked as scientists. When you poach another company's CFO, you don't put them in the mailroom until they've "proven themselves". When a professor moves to a new university, you don't ask them to start out as a student again ("Well, we just want to be sure you know what you say. I'm sure you'll be able to finish your degree really quick, so don't worry!").
And the stakes are even lower in Achaea than in real life. These orgs are relatively small and if problems arise, they're easy to fix. I'm not saying bring someone in and make them secretary or house leader or head of novices, but HR5? Sure. And if you want to limit them a little and keep an eye on them, there is an explicit mechanic for doing that - house probation, a mechanic that has virtually never been used for its intended purpose. So give them HR5, put them on probation, and keep an eye on them. See if they measure up. Nothing wrong with a "trial period". But a trial period as CFO is not the same thing as sticking that same person in the mailroom and saying "if you were such a good CFO, it should be easy for you to rise out of this again!".
If Santar (or insert a more relevant name, I have no idea) joins your combat house, you put him on probation and keep an eye on him, but you don't make him run through newbie spars. You don't risk turning him away - you get him to start teaching anyone he's willing to as soon as possible. Anything else is just a waste of everyone's time and a huge waste of potential. Putting him through newbie tasks does nothing but satisfy people's egos by temporarily being able to tell themselves that he's technically lower rank.
But it does apply to other things too. If your house is about ritualism, and Flair joins your house, are you seriously going to put him at hr1, too?
Either way, in the Houses I've observed, I'd say the Shield has about the fastest track to full member of any House in the game right now. Whether that's fast enough for you, I couldn't say unless you tried.
And what does making a known combatant spar however many randoms do to prove loyalty in the first place?
HOWEVER! That being said...
We have specifically worked out a path based on reputation in the Insidium that negates a need for checklist. What it requires is a little bit of creativity.
I totally get feeling jaded about not wanting your 300+ year old characters doing noob tasks, so we pass that along and move it into more group oriented tasks. If you don't want to have it spelled out for you, it's absolutely and 1000000 percent on you to step up and create and share in your own way. There is 0 possibility that a character would come around, offer meaningful contributions and be told "Well I'm sorry that you did all these awesome things, but you're -still- HR3 because you're not doing the tasks as written."
I have yet to see a lot of, if any, oldies come back (griping about tasks the whole way through) who actually contribute in a solid, consistent and meaningful way. So while it's absolutely fine to say 'hey, you know what, eff these tasks this sucks', sure, I feel that way too! You could instead try to go the extra mile and create an immersive gameworld and share enjoyable experiences and roleplay that furthers your house - bet ten bucks it'd get you places. At the very least I know it would in Mhaldor.
It can also be very uninspiring for newbs to see foreigners get accepted and quickly bumped to HR5, so that should be considered as well.
I wonder how many they lost because of it. Anyway, like I and others have said, it was a final straw. Losing the house you love, and then that.
Also, in the old guilds/houses there was often a special title for experienced transfers that had simpler, shorter requirements before promotion. What happened to that?
But yes, like Saeva said, merit based promotions also help. I skipped having to do basic combat reqs in Scions after raiding a couple of times, and I'd probably never have bothered otherwise.
Submission to some low-level tasks shows that you can follow before you lead, for one. And that you don't believe yourself so invaluable that the rules need not apply to you. Houses don't really benefit, long-term, from celebrity members that expect to be catered to. That pretty easily weakens the fabric of fraternity that most Houses want to foster, and as a leader myself, I don't really want to deal with a member who responds to my requests or expectations with "No, and I'm better at fighting than you". I understand, of course, that's something of a mischaracterization of your position, just as your posts have leaned toward mischaracterizing mine as unsympathetic toward veteran players, but it still showcases why there's a necessary balance to be found between the two extremes.
Everyone in this thread wants houses to not only be efficient and convenient in their progression, but also deep and engaging in their RP, and those two can conflict on certain fundamental levels. The Maldaathi were Knighted at HR5, for example, because that makes sense for "full members" of a Knight house to be Knights. But you couldn't be a deep, engaging Knight House if new "Knights" were accoladed immediately upon entry because they were good fighters, or even were in Mhaldor for a long time. Even in a combat house, there should still some RP involved here, and that's not very engaging for anyone if the extent of your RP as a full member is "I've been here a day and I beat an HL in a duel". (And realistically speaking, HLs are probably not the House's best fighters. The best fighters don't want that paperwork!)
In the end, I completely understand the annoyance of being treated like a novice when you're not one, and while this thread isn't all about us, we in the Shield make every effort not to do that, having fast-tracked more than a few individuals on basis of merit. But being quick to label any organization as "overly bureaucratic" for not immediately capitulating to an established player's age, reputation, or ego sets up something of a false dichotomy.
As for the whole topic I feel part of what is lacking is any kind of involvement that legitimizes these structures. I think most of the houses have had a god awake for all of about a year to set things up then poof. No magic no nothing to help legitimize the direction they are taking or that this is a new era.... Heck in old shallam we would randomly have 3 deities show up just because we won the landmarks and they would CTF or do story time with us heck they would randomly come sit on fish street with us and bring fountains of booze or other stuff which often lead to great stories. The legitimization is what helps create and spur on culture when it gets left out the great stories that help develop a culture in a house end up left out. I spent a lot of time trying to develop culture in my old house pre-rennaissance and it would work but nothing replaces the wild awesome stories of shrine wars against impossible odds and the time one of your city patrons holobombed you to death in the arena because your house acheived an objective. Less meta more micro transactions make a huge deal.
All that aside come join us in Achaea's old folks home in Cyrene. It's not home but it's as close as your going to get. They actually don't kill you with reqs and if your an old Templar look me up and we will walk through it together.
(Blades of Valour): Draekar says: "Synbios if sunbeams sparkle off that I'll kill you where you stand."
(Party) Halos says, "Disbar?"
(Party) Draekar says, "You know here we have disbar."
(Party) Draekar says, "And over there we have datbar."
I generally didn't have an issue with the Scion combat thing because of the merit based part. The reqs aren't really why I left, either.
I think the point everyone is trying to make is that, at least of the Houses being spoken of (the Shield, the Insidium and the Scions), they are making every effort to not force established players to do novice checklists. Even when the Insidium was brand-new, I got to skip the more novice-y tasks because even as someone who had only been in Mhaldor five years, I was certainly established. Instead, I focused more on tasks that were group-oriented and taught me city/evil culture (while we began trying to make new culture for the Insidium).
Nowadays, speaking for the Insidium, we have a reputation-based system anyone can take advantage of that was mentioned above, as well as a somewhat different list of things to do for those who are established players and prefer not to create their own content, one version for established Mhaldorians, and one version for established people who came from outside of Mhaldor recently. We also work very hard to try and engage novices, though as expected, this can be difficult for a place with a generally smaller population, especially during the holidays with a lot going on.
If there are Houses currently doing what you describe, then perhaps posting the name plus a list of tasks would be helpful!
That love soon might end You are unbreaking
And be known in its aching Though quaking
Shown in this shaking Though crazy
Lately of my wasteland, baby That's just wasteland, baby
A lot of the time it definitely takes a bit to develop, sadly. I know that when I was doing stuff in targ, the Dawnblade had no way to skip requirements, it looked like (I don't know, they might now), but needless to say there hardly seems to be a consensus, sadly.
I hate being right about these things.