The Almighty Marketplace Comment Card!

[Akito]

Wait, wait, wait. Why is it an issue now? Why wasn't it an issue before in FM? All that was really done was the Shop's choices were updated and added to. I thought you liked the upgrading and the new ability system (Myself, I still have a preference for the old way, but that's just me). Is it just the Blacksmith option that's the proverbial 'straw that broke the camel's back'?

If you want to fast track a character's improvement, you have to focus on only one and dedicate all your resources to that one. But that's how FM has always been. It's about patience. Do you want FM to be more like KHRPF? That's fair enough, their success should be mimicked.

And you'll have to explain your second paragraph a bit more, Shinn, if you want the system to be considered. However, yes, unless its organized, just spontaneous fights are hardly fair with some characters being more buffed up than others. However, I like FM's munny system. It does limit things that you can do, but it also makes this place distinct.

[servant]

Apr 15, 2009 21:18:37 GMT -5 High's .Valentine. said:

Both Iris and I have agreed that if you want STATS, then play the GAME. This is an RP forum based on text based RP. And we would like to keep it that way. Unless total chaos ensues and stats is the only thing that will save this forum from potential doom, we will try and keep away from stats.

Somewhere, in a lonely corner of the world, a lonely person just pinked away a tear. ;_;

[Shinn]

I hate to say it High but you and Iris failed in your attempt to stray away from stats. AP and the new weapon strength have clearly become this forums version of stats. And it probably won't end there I'm sure of it.

And while I believe that we shouldn't be an exact copy of KHRPF, think about how they are so successful for a second. They focus more on the rping aspect than all of this technical stuff, thats probably why most people who join actually stay [Thats only an assumption of course], whereas our percentage falls to about a 30% of members staying around. If you look at all the new members who have recently joined this year, only about four really stuck around here. And thats just this year alone, think about last year and all of the new members then, how many of them are still around?

The way I have it figured out is very much similar to how we had that old status system but more applied to fighting and makes better use of abilities and whatnot. They are given 20EXP to put into four specific categories;

Ability Strength- focuses more on the strength of a persons abilities. It would be best to use this if your abilities are the attacking type rather than fancy moves and special defenses.

Weapon Strength- focuses on the strength of your weapon. Best if used for players who like to use weapons rather than magic or special fighting abilities.

Defense- this is meant to determine how much damage your character receives if they get hit. Depending on the amount they have for their Ability and or weapons it can lessen the damage done to your character.

Awareness- for those who are real thinkers in battle. The amount of exp put in here allows them to easily evade attacks depending on how much they put in as well as how much their opponent puts in their Abilities and Weapon. (this might change somewhat depending on what everyone says)

The scale is fairly simple, 1 being the weakest with 10 being the strongest. Players will be given HP in fights. 80HP will suffice I think. To determine damage is simple, if your attack is lets say 5 then multiply it by 2 and you did 10 damage to an opponent. But if their defense is 6 then you have to subtract the damage by 2. If its less than 5 then the damage is still the same. The same goes for awareness as well although if their awareness is higher than an opponent [lets say Awareness is 8 and an opponents attack is 6], they are able to evade an attack but must wait two turns before they can evade once more.

If there is more that needs to be done tell me and I'll see what I can do. This was kind of a rushed explanation.

[Heroic Bilby]

Well it certainly wouldn't end there if we took your suggestion and... made stats. XD

Seriously, is it just this whole weapon thing? I was just thinking of people making characters like Sora who were normal brats but happened upon some lucky special stick or something thus begins their amazing adventures. Haha.

If "the people" really don't like it or just think its too complicated(Easily understandable, we did sort of rush to get it out around the same time as the marketplace revamp and I wouldn't mind having suggestions to simplify it) can easily be removed. Its just an extra and weapon abilities can still be made in a character's normal abilities anyway, just as before.

None of it matters unless the players involved care anyway.

[prythian]

This forum will never have stats like the ones you're talking about.

And you're estimating a what, 30% success in members? Most forums don't get nearly the amounts that we have before. Not to mention, and let me say this straight, KHRPF SUFFERS FROM THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM.

Just about the same success rate. Even in KHRPF's peak, they didn't get more than that for long-staying members.

Now, I agree that the weapons things is redundant. The only possible reason I can see for it is the problem of people loading themselves up with extremely powerful weapons and trying to sneak abilities in through them, and I believe that can be fixed in a different, more elegant manner.

However, if the weapons system is removed, your argument goes out the window. AP is similar to stats, yes, but not in determining strength and speed and defense, which is what you're comparing it to. That will and shall always be determined by the roleplaying of the character on this forum, not by allocating points.

[Heroic Bilby]

Well more AP into a defensive ability makes for a higher defence with it, Pryth. You can't say stats don't exist in some form because any time a person writing has to decide how much damage they are taking or their success in evading something they have to use the various aspects of the character they are using and the situation/environment itself to figure that out. Stats themselves exist, even if we had no written out abilities on profiles.

But if everything was decided by numbers like that what about things without a number? Like the ceiling collapsing in on you or a really long fall?

I prefer the free play method with the forum's guidelines used more strictly if the players feel the need for some regulation for fairness or whatever.

[prythian]

I meant not directly, Bilby. Yes, it powers up your abilities, but I'm talking about things that are inherent in the character, mostly. Only passive abilities deal with that. And that's the choice of the member, not a stat system that's required. AP is not a direct stat system like what's been discussed here.

And yes, I do believe it is the new weapons system, which you haven't addressed the stuff in my post about. The Marketplace Revamp was just an upgrade; this is something new, and people don't like new things, especially not new limits like this one. Find another way to fix the ONE problem it fixes, and there will be no need for it, not to mention people don't seem to want it.

[Heroic Bilby]

Uh... you and Shinn. Who else are these "people"? Don't get me wrong its just I haven't been handed any complaints about it and no one else has said so in this thread so I'm unaware of anyone else.

I wasn't out to 'fix a problem' with it. It was suggested and I thought it sounded like a lot of fun as an extra feature.

Wait... "new limits like this one"? What limit?

[prythian]

The limit on power of weapons, Bilby. >> You've now got another thing that people have to pay munny to improve.

[Heroic Bilby]

A new thing? You would have had to pay munny to make a weapon super-powerful before too, only you would have had to use a character ability to do it. And you can still do it that way anyway if its more cost-effective for you. This option is completely extra.

The blacksmith stuff only exists to free up character slots for other things if you want to make use of it. You could use character abilities to put abilities on secondary weapons too, just like before. Blacksmith is meant to supplement a tech class character too. They're a lot less balanced without it.

And it only even matters, once again, if someone they are playing with has a problem with their weapon cutting up rock and steel without an ability for it. XD Somehow I doubt a lot of us even bother to look at another player's profile for stuff like that anyway.

What if we just took out the part about higher grades performing better against lower grades and left it just for ability slots? Would that stop confusing you and/or others about having limits?

EDIT: I just got permission from Iris and did that anyway, since it seemed to be causing this confusion even if only a little.

[Akito]

Aye, I don't think its fair to blame the 'poor percentages' completely on the system. As with most forums, the rate at which new members become permanent veterans even in the most populated places I've been to is drastically low. Or I could be wrong, maybe they just read the rules and though "Nah, this is over my head, screw it, lets go to KHRPF," Pryth points out an interesting note, not many newbies stay on KHRPF (Albeit, possibly higher than us). It, like us, relies on core members that have stuck with it.

The stat system you recommended seems even more cumbersome and limiting for RPs, to be honest, Shinn. I thought you wanted to stray away from the MMORPG elements?

I can't emphasize what Bilby said enough. The systems are optional. I don't see why people have a problem with choice. Furthermore, as pathetic as it is to have to, Hero added sections to the Rules to EXPLICITLY tell you that the abilities/munny systems are optional and in no major way should they limit Free RPing.

[parasiteeve]

As I said before.... this was meant for arena matches and specific quests that revolve around fighting and such, it wasn't meant as a new system for rping in general. This is just a new/old way of making fights simpler and reasonable so that anyone can have their characters be in arena matches without worrying too much about their opponent. It's made so that the fights are more or less like the ones in Kingdom Hearts.

It doesn't require the member to waste munny on buying upgrades, or extra items or abilities for their character. Upgrades can be created for members so their characters can get stronger, but I would have it based on performance rather than munny. And by performance, I mean success in arena matches and quests.

To answer yours and Bilbos question, it is more than just the weapon upgrade. I'll admit the shop revamp and the blacksmith was the last straw for me, but I've never been a huge supporter of the munny system since day one. It's ridiculous in my opinion since members are now given the choice to not use it. To compare buying things your character doesn't need to just rping freely the way you want to, is like comparing a expensive wet sock to a free car. What are the benefits to having this munny system now since it's not truly needed? So there will be less arguing in arena matches? Even with the AP and it's add-on there are still disputes in matches, just for different things. So in the end nothing was accomplished. Tell me why we need to keep this munny system.

[Heroic Bilby]

Whoa, I wouldn't call it "optional", Akito. That would be stupid. Like Shinn said, if it were optional why have it at all? The only thing I was trying to say to you at that time was that in certain plot-based circumstances people could stretch the rules. Y'know, like the classic hero should be defeated but sees his friends in danger and rises to fight again moment. Or a villain who's army of minions has been defeated gives himself up to the darkness just to summon more and becomes permanently scarred for it. Things like that which make sense in circumstance and for storytelling.(Those are the only cliches that come to mind at the present time but I'm sure you can get the gist of what I mean)

Personally I thought we were "rewarding role-players for how they role-play" with the whole role-player's discount thing. How does that not reward them for what they do? Or is it just not good enough?

[Shinn]

You don't need to "reward" members for how they roleplay. And even if you do, "special discounts" still wouldn't encourage me to roleplay better because I'm in it to have fun not post in rps like some kind of job with the hopes that I get rewarded for it. You don't need all of this add on stuff, it doesn't do anything really.

[Heroic Bilby]

I wasn't talking role-playing "better" or working. I suppose "Results based on what they role-play" is a more accurate phrase than "reward for how". I was talking about characters actually getting stuff because they got it in-character. Sora did get things/spells/etc because they were given to him, among others that just popped up(Which would be equivalent to non-discount stuff). And he did have AP distributed to his available abilities, in a different manner of course.

On a side-note though, didn't we once talk about how we both weren't fans of the munny system but you said you would have a hard time just letting people play freely however they want as I was saying I would actually like to have it? Have you had a change of heart there and agree with me now? Were you just referring to things like arena matches at that time or am I thinking of a conversation I had with someone else?(I have a bad memory for that stuff so it may very well be someone else entirely, sorry)

Either way more people would have to actually say they want that. The squeaky wheel gets the oil and all but the comments before in here were all rather positive and no one else has exactly come to say they feel like the shop is ruining all of their fun.

If something on the forum is ruining everyone's fun(Or just getting in the way of it) then of course the staff would do something about it. I'd be sure to advise them as such. But people actually have to make that known if its a large consensus of many people's feelings and not just one or two. So unless this thread(Or whatever) gets some new voices to add in then any significant change there is unlikely.

And unless we do I guess there isn't really anything left to say on the matter, unless Iris or High have already heard something they like.