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Discussion of transparency
Zahan
Valhalla
As requested, moving this to somewhere more appropriate.
I'm not hearing people ask for complete transparency, or for things to be made easier. I'm hearing mostly people asking they not take away stuff that's been around longer than the people taking it away. Unlike the opposition, they aren't opposed to you having things your way too.
I disagree about being disadvantaged. It's a pretty weak argument to me but then again my best achaean friend has played for 15 years as an occultist. In that 15 years, he's never once attacked another player and his only shining achievement is hunting his way to dragon. He had never joined the guild or house of occies, he just liked being an occie. He liked it, despite knowing full and well the entire time that occie is a pvp-based class that (until recently) lacked basic hunting utility or even a decent damage attack. He doesn't use 95% of the skills he has, and he accepts that he is sacrificing utility and benefits. Again, he likes being an occultist. Those people haven't been, and won't be, affected by any dps meter. They are roleplayers and they roleplay.
Also, the information you mention being breaking of immersion to you, is still available. They didn't do anything to stop that, all they did was make it annoying for the people who do that.
Others in the quick questions thread made some amazing points about viewing the numbers as part of the roleplay. I've been playing achaea so damn long that my health number is my health, it's part of my roleplay. If I had a falcon, and had been looking at his health number for the past 19 years also, I'd be really crushed that MY immersion was being ruined to no real end.
Luckily for me, most of the numbers I like seeing are still there for me (because I don't have a falcon), but as I mentioned, it's the mindset that scares me. The day I log in and cannot see my exact hp number (which i use to create immersion for myself via a constant reminder if i'm in dragonmode or not) turned off and made into a percentage I can't change back, is the last day I log into achaea.
For me, there are only a few things like that, but for others it may extend beyond simple things like health and mana and weapon stats.
About the whales: almost nobody out there would buy a $300 artefact if all they knew about it was "it makes you recover faster by an amount so small you actually won't really notice it most of the time" or "this sword is stronger but not so much stronger that you'll need less hits to kill the mobs you always hunt." We get real information and we use that to justify purchases that often times don't really have an affect, even if it's not realized.
Ahmet said:@Zahan The problem is though, the more prevalent those precise numbers are, the more canon they become, and the more likely people are to use them in-character. I'm not saying that's okay, but it happens far too often as-is. That doesn't need to become more prevalent.
As well, to go along with @Makarios' points:
You're wrong when you say the availability of that information doesn't take away from people who don't want to utilise it. The availability of the information further disadvantages those who don't have the time, experience, or knowledge to use that information to its fullest potential. It's all well and good to say that they don't need to bother with it, but by not bothering they're immediately less effective than those who have access to the numbers. Some immersion breaks (item/denizen ids, room numbers) are absolutely necessary for basic functionality. Achaea hasn't ever been friendly to those who try to min/max. As you said, there are other MUDs that fill that niche. If you want that, Achaea isn't the place for you.
As far as immersion goes, I'm a huge proponent of mmos, and I've tried so many I probably can't remember them all. None have come anywhere close to Achaea. The sheer depth that a text game allows for just can't be replicated in a 3d environment, even with the cutting edge of today's technology. It's just not feasible, especially when it comes to user-generated content.
I understand what you're wanting, and I can't say I'd be too unhappy about it, but there are consequences that would come along with such transparency, and I really don't think the end result would be healthy for Achaea overall. And since you mentioned our local whales as an argument in your favour, I'm fairly certain that some, if not most, of the biggest monetary contributors to Achaea, are strong opponents of such transparency.
ETA: Oops. Started ranting before Mak posted. Time to run away.
I'm not hearing people ask for complete transparency, or for things to be made easier. I'm hearing mostly people asking they not take away stuff that's been around longer than the people taking it away. Unlike the opposition, they aren't opposed to you having things your way too.
I disagree about being disadvantaged. It's a pretty weak argument to me but then again my best achaean friend has played for 15 years as an occultist. In that 15 years, he's never once attacked another player and his only shining achievement is hunting his way to dragon. He had never joined the guild or house of occies, he just liked being an occie. He liked it, despite knowing full and well the entire time that occie is a pvp-based class that (until recently) lacked basic hunting utility or even a decent damage attack. He doesn't use 95% of the skills he has, and he accepts that he is sacrificing utility and benefits. Again, he likes being an occultist. Those people haven't been, and won't be, affected by any dps meter. They are roleplayers and they roleplay.
Also, the information you mention being breaking of immersion to you, is still available. They didn't do anything to stop that, all they did was make it annoying for the people who do that.
Others in the quick questions thread made some amazing points about viewing the numbers as part of the roleplay. I've been playing achaea so damn long that my health number is my health, it's part of my roleplay. If I had a falcon, and had been looking at his health number for the past 19 years also, I'd be really crushed that MY immersion was being ruined to no real end.
Luckily for me, most of the numbers I like seeing are still there for me (because I don't have a falcon), but as I mentioned, it's the mindset that scares me. The day I log in and cannot see my exact hp number (which i use to create immersion for myself via a constant reminder if i'm in dragonmode or not) turned off and made into a percentage I can't change back, is the last day I log into achaea.
For me, there are only a few things like that, but for others it may extend beyond simple things like health and mana and weapon stats.
About the whales: almost nobody out there would buy a $300 artefact if all they knew about it was "it makes you recover faster by an amount so small you actually won't really notice it most of the time" or "this sword is stronger but not so much stronger that you'll need less hits to kill the mobs you always hunt." We get real information and we use that to justify purchases that often times don't really have an affect, even if it's not realized.
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That said, ship has sailed sailed sailed... and while sometimes I will say "you can get the admin to reconsider eventually if you hammer away at it enough", I think their stance on this one is that it's part of their actual vision for this game. So good luck with that.
But I do have a lingering fear that they will change more stuff like that because of the stated mindset. Fears like that make it harder to be as devoted to contributing to the realm as I could be.
Currently available: Abs, Cnote, Keepalive, Lootpet, Mapmod
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One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important
I don't claim to speak for the whole body of Achaea, but from the perspective of a non-comm that can't survive 10 seconds against seasoned combatants, for a guy like me, immersion is almost everything and if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be here and my fellow non-comms probably would bail too. PK to me is like trying to speak Swahili. People who do both PK and RP might lean either way, and I suspect the really hardcore PKers would be the ones who want the numbers, not for some nefarious reasons but rather because the way they enjoy Achaea deals with numbers and the extreme complexities of Achaean combat.
There IS definitely some stuff floating around about Achaea veterans I know being worried about Achaea going from an RP game to a text-based MMORPG. In Achaea I think I can safely say I have the influence of a dead rat in the basement, but I have definitely heard this and not just from one person, either. I am not saying you guys should treat the game like I would want it to be treated, (I don't have much arrogance or a sense of entitlement,) I am simply asking you to consider the whole body of players and the various needs and wants of those groups, because the Garden has to consider the whole population's needs, and it simply can't always be what an individual or a small body of individuals wants it to be.
I think the philosophy is different now in an important way (but I am not truly sure). Now, I think the idea might be less "we're going to actively hide the basic nature of something, muahaha", and more "we don't really want people having incredibly fine grained numbers". That is a far less objectionable goal.
Your point is precisely my confusion. Achaea is tiny, various people play it, and they like it for drastically different reasons. I wish achaea was large enough to afford alienating part of their existing playerbase, it just doesn't feel that big to me. I would support the decision to allow every number in the game as a percentage, or even a descriptive word. That doesn't take anything away from anyone else's gameplay, and who doesn't appreciate more options (even if you don't use them).
It would be one thing if it's a movement to gain new players but I'd just about bet my entire character's gold on that removing people's option to see their falcon's health number didn't net them a single new player. Nor would any other similar change. It could have been made to be configurable.
I'm seeing that it was just a move to hurt people - to take something away from people - and it didn't stop the majority of the concern I'm hearing expressed (mostly being that dps meters influence weak-minded people to flipflop classes while the administration balance things out) other than "i don't want to see a number."
As far as seeing numbers in channels, if someone is as serious of a roleplayer that they'd claim to be offended by this, it seems they could spend even less effort justifying that into their immersion. Such as with innersight allowing people to see the tenths of their exp, some people can just as easily be viewed as gifted or having a different insight.
I welcome new ways to view and experience the world, and actually now I have a better appreciation of another style of immersion so I won't be mentioning raw health numbers outside of private communications anymore. I just hope that was the last type of change like that they plan on doing for a while and as they continue down that road, they consider everyone's individual joy and allow stuff like that to be configurable if they do have the thought to remove it.
Currently available: Abs, Cnote, Keepalive, Lootpet, Mapmod
Mind you, I don't agree with most of Zahan's positions, (or his attitude) but this is not a zero-sum debate. Achaea is a game that runs on numbers, and so to a point we have to be able to discuss those numbers IC, otherwise any combat discussion whatsoever has to be considered OOC, and that doesn't really make sense either. Health, mana, stats, essence, limb damage, balance times, these are all just basic game mechanics that can only be communicated clearly with numbers, so some suspension of disbelief is required.
There's a balance to strike in how transparent Achaea chooses to be, and in how IC we treat underlying mechanics. We shouldn't obscure basic mechanics that are important for players to know in order to make good decisions, but the more transparent the mechanics are, the easier they are to game and abuse. And while we try not to lapse into clearly OOC discussions of game code and systems, the more difficult we make it to discuss basic and important game mechanics, the more of a headache it becomes to actually teach or learn anything in this game. All extremes in these regards are bad.
Stuff like "This attack is exactly 2.03 seconds" and "This profession does 46.5 bashing dps" isn't that important to the game and they come in a completely different context. The people who are making arguments along the lines of "YOU CAN SEE YOUR EXACT HEALTH SO YOU ALREADY HAVE EXACT NUMBERS SO NOTHING IS WRONG WITH THEM" are basically just being intentionally dense; the context is entirely different and that should be obvious to anybody who thinks about it.
As a player that likes some RP with his PK. Or vice versa.
got gud
Off topic/not related but could you like go to every other IRE game's forums and post that please and thank you.
I actually do agree with you. I was disappointed when I checked AB to see equilibrium recovery. I personally like knowing how long it takes to recover from stuff, so I coded up a little script that displays that when I recover, but it was a very dark colour that I had to look for. In the AB, on it's own line, in bright white, is shoving that stuff in people's face. It's the same with the decision to redesign many of the files and add immersion-breaking symbols everywhere.
I hope that that's right and they do never hide what most people view as critical numbers behind obscure masking. You must consider that it is relative, though. For some, they already have. It might be argued that you don't need to see your exact willpower because you have so much of it and abilities use so little of it. A rough approximation of % would be sufficient. I actually wouldn't mind that.
Would it bother you if you couldn't see your exact willpower? Would you mind if your endurance was changed to a relative phrase like hunger, such as "You are exhausted and about to collapse." and if you do something else, you faint? I think that would be cool, and I'd even turn it on for a bit.
I wouldn't wish them to completely remove the ability to see that number that, again, has been a part of immersion for a good enough number of players, though.
Currently available: Abs, Cnote, Keepalive, Lootpet, Mapmod
$100 is a ton of money to pay on a virtual item. It may not be for everybody, but that's a sizable majority of my disposable income for any given paycheck. If I spent that on a flail and went to the arena, I could very easily see its value, and I could very simply quantify it and determine if it was worth it for me to buy the L2. With my weapon being a rapier and my focus being bashing atm, the closest information I can get on its actual value to me in game is some minor increase in jab speed(which I can't confirm until prompt time is fixed) and a damage difference that is so small it is undetectable on a rat that I hit for 68% damage per jab.
I'm willing to buy the L2 eventually if I can prove to myself that it would have some measurable impact on my crawl to dragon, but at this point the only reliable information I know about rapier damage is that a 1/1/1 rapier does MORE damage than an L1 rapier, so forgive me for holding off on that purchase for now...
(Also, just to toss this out there, I don't even need access to raw numbers for the limited comparisons. Adding a single decimal of precision to mob hp% similar to Vision Innerfocus would give me enough info to know if it was worth getting, or if I should dodge it and save for STR gloves)
Percentages miss a lot of that because seeing raw percentages doesn't give you that sensation of growth and so they do not serve as a good marker of progression.
Anyway, it is the hallmark of a good player to be able to ignore things that bother them. Generally, only stuffy and uptight people complain about such petty things as "numbers break my immersion" and "this person said something I think is out-of-character." These are the kinds of people that think the world has to absolutely conform to the way they want it to conform and get upset whenever someone does or thinks something they don't like. Achaea has players of every type; some like numbers, some don't, and that's okay. But trying to make the world conform to what people don't like instead of what people do like is bad practice and makes everyone unhappy.
It also seems like some people think that if accurate numbers are made available, other people will use those numbers to be better than the ones that don't use the numbers, and that's "unfair." (Which, in my book, is about as silly as complaining about people who spend money on artifacts.)
Also, @Adeleine, while I always enjoy a healthy debate over a controversial issue, what I don't enjoy is the casual ease with which you throw insults at anyone who may disagree with you. Insults such as people being "idiots" for caring about bashing DPS increases compared to the "intelligent" people who don't, calling people who dislike having every number exposed bare "prissy grognards who failed math class", and now both that people not ignoring something that bothers them makes then not "a good player" and that only "stuffy and uptight people" weigh in on an issue that is so petty you've devoted quite a few passionate arguments on the other side of that same issue. Cut out the insults and innuendo.
Finally, @Sena, I'm the one who did the classlead for innersight or whatever to give better denizen HP percentages, and was shot down because apparently there's a Shop of Wonders artefact that already does this. I've looked for it both in the current listing and in the retired items list, but can't find it. Haven't been able to find it in the news yet, either, though I haven't tried that hard yet. But supposedly it does in fact exist.
If you aren't able to handle a few sweeping generalizations and facetious hyperbole, I don't think there's anything I can say to you that you won't get offended at. (｡◕◡◕｡✿)
It was a magnifying glass or something, I remember it being used by some Eleusians (possibly Yae?) during the Reckoning. It was changed with the coming of Battlerage though, and now you can see enemy health %s by simply looking at the enemy.
- With sharp, crackling tones, Kyrra tells you, "The ladies must love you immensely."
- (Eleusian Ranger Techs): Savira says, "Most of the hard stuff seem to have this built in code like: If adventurer_hitting_me = "Sarathai" then send("terminate and selfdestruct")."
- Makarios says, "Serve well and perish."
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