Keep characters between events? [POLL]

[Essence]

Re: the idea of a -Rep penalty for attacking lower-level people: it's unnecessary.  Wasting your time fighting for 0xp is just as bad as sitting in Spirit World, only you risk actually going to Spirit World for doing so.

Also, I think the 'lower level' limit shouldn't be a cutoff, but a diminishing return. As in, if you fight someone within 3 levels of you, it's considered 'even', but if you fight someone 4 levels lower, you get -1 discard/salvage; 5 levels lower, it's -2 discard/salvage, and so on.  Needless to say, if you win against someone 4 levels higher, you get +1 discard/salvage, and so on.   That way, there's a bit of a larger range of attack (which is a good thing), and you make getting attacked by a higher-level player into an opportunity for the victim as well.


In terms of resetting characters, I'm liking the idea of a few non-elementally-aligned "Elite" skill trees. You gain 1 Elite skill for reaching Character Level 31 (or whatever), and Elite skills carry over between characters.  They don't even have to be all that unique or special; something like "You may always use 2 extra upgraded cards in a fight." or "You gain access to a single Mark of your choice." is just fine.  The point isn't that Elite skills are appropriate for CL31, it's that they're small boosts for characters of any level but aren't overpowering at CL1.

I'd create say, 3 trees just to give Elite players the illusion of choice, but make all of the bonuses small ones. The satisfaction of being able to carry something over and call yourself Elite is the real prize.

[Jappert]

In terms of resetting characters, I'm liking the idea of a few non-elementally-aligned "Elite" skill trees. You gain 1 Elite skill for reaching Character Level 31 (or whatever), and Elite skills carry over between characters.  They don't even have to be all that unique or special; something like "You may always use 2 extra upgraded cards in a fight." or "You gain access to a single Mark of your choice." is just fine.  The point isn't that Elite skills are appropriate for CL31, it's that they're small boosts for characters of any level but aren't overpowering at CL1.

I'd create say, 3 trees just to give Elite players the illusion of choice, but make all of the bonuses small ones. The satisfaction of being able to carry something over and call yourself Elite is the real prize.

Amen! I really like this idea.

[Scaredgirl]

Re: the idea of a -Rep penalty for attacking lower-level people: it's unnecessary.  Wasting your time fighting for 0xp is just as bad as sitting in Spirit World, only you risk actually going to Spirit World for doing so.

Also, I think the 'lower level' limit shouldn't be a cutoff, but a diminishing return. As in, if you fight someone within 3 levels of you, it's considered 'even', but if you fight someone 4 levels lower, you get -1 discard/salvage; 5 levels lower, it's -2 discard/salvage, and so on.  Needless to say, if you win against someone 4 levels higher, you get +1 discard/salvage, and so on.   That way, there's a bit of a larger range of attack (which is a good thing), and you make getting attacked by a higher-level player into an opportunity for the victim as well.


In terms of resetting characters, I'm liking the idea of a few non-elementally-aligned "Elite" skill trees. You gain 1 Elite skill for reaching Character Level 31 (or whatever), and Elite skills carry over between characters.  They don't even have to be all that unique or special; something like "You may always use 2 extra upgraded cards in a fight." or "You gain access to a single Mark of your choice." is just fine.  The point isn't that Elite skills are appropriate for CL31, it's that they're small boosts for characters of any level but aren't overpowering at CL1.

I'd create say, 3 trees just to give Elite players the illusion of choice, but make all of the bonuses small ones. The satisfaction of being able to carry something over and call yourself Elite is the real prize.

Yes, that is one option, but I feel that giving a gameplay bonus, even a tiny one, is unfair to other participants. It's like letting War veterans use one extra upped card compared to those who join War the first time. Even if the advantage is small, it is still and advantage, which is bad on principle imo.

I think that better bonus would be a cosmetic one like:

- forum icon
- special title for your character
- quest where your previous character is the lead character
etc.

[YoungSot]

Keeping characters would really discourage new players since they will start at a huge disadvantage, and no matter how much you try to discourage it the leveled up characters will just feast on them for free income and salvage.
Unless we take away their motivation to do so, by decreasing xp/salvage/etc for defeating lower level characters. 

WoE would lose alot of it's appeal if you have a few supremely powerful characters just rolling over everyone else.
Keep in mind that WoE is not meant to be only a pvp event. While they weren't a big part of Beta, quests are actually going to be one of the main focuses for characters. Also, the battles are still fought in EtG, so it is always possible to out-think your opponent and bring a counter-deck despite their level-based advantages. And if we adopted a dynamic reward system like Essence suggests, the lower level character would be gaining increased rewards to compensate for the extra difficulty.

At least most MMOs have "no PvP" servers or areas where players can safely level to try and at least be competitive.  Trying to implement something similar in WoE would be very tricky to say the least, and making characters immune to attacks until X level is very abusable so that teams could send noobies into dangerous areas to do things for them safely. Agreed, outright immunity would be a bad idea.

[xsindomanx]

I haven't been in elements beta, so I don't understand CL31 or CL1 or trees, but the second idea suggested seems really good to give the veterans something special of their proof of godliness, but also not give them the greatest advantages.

For the first idea suggested, as I said, I don't understand how this CL thingie works, but seems like it could be abused to get less cards per match but more cards by the end of the day.

[Jocko]

What about a forum icon for the MvP of each WoE? Maybe even a small reward code, like only electrum.

[xsindomanx]

What about a forum icon for the MvP of each WoE? Maybe even a small reward code, like only electrum.

Sounds rather limited, as only one or so players can receive it.
I don't think this is enough of a reward to the veterans who played WoE to play again next season and do the same things over and over again without changes.
Additionally, I don't think many of the veterans here really care about 1k more electrum or so anymore

PS>  ??? at people who responded 'I don't care'

[Zaealix]

I think the IDC responses are for peeps who don't mind the gap or the constant remaking.

[TStar]

Keeping characters would really discourage new players since they will start at a huge disadvantage, and no matter how much you try to discourage it the leveled up characters will just feast on them for free income and salvage.
Unless we take away their motivation to do so, by decreasing xp/salvage/etc for defeating lower level characters. 

WoE would lose alot of it's appeal if you have a few supremely powerful characters just rolling over everyone else.
Keep in mind that WoE is not meant to be only a pvp event. While they weren't a big part of Beta, quests are actually going to be one of the main focuses for characters. Also, the battles are still fought in EtG, so it is always possible to out-think your opponent and bring a counter-deck despite their level-based advantages. And if we adopted a dynamic reward system like Essence suggests, the lower level character would be gaining increased rewards to compensate for the extra difficulty.

At least most MMOs have "no PvP" servers or areas where players can safely level to try and at least be competitive.  Trying to implement something similar in WoE would be very tricky to say the least, and making characters immune to attacks until X level is very abusable so that teams could send noobies into dangerous areas to do things for them safely. Agreed, outright immunity would be a bad idea.

I just don't see the need to retain characters indefinitely.  Each WoE launch is like an RPG "campaign" where you grow and develop your characters.  Once the campaign ends they are retired and a new one begins with new characters and new stories.  That's the nature of most well-balanced RPGs.  Even the very best MMOs can't prevent the "haves" and "have nots" from developing when you try to keep characters indefinitely.  Plus you run into all sorts of situations you need to start making special rules for.  For example, Team Entropy has 10 players returning on a 12 player team, all with a level of 12 let's say.  Team Fire has a team entirely composed of level 1 players.  Team Entropy then decides to go and capture the fire capitol quickly and there really isn't anything Fire can do to stop it since Entropy has a large base of cards for deck flexibility, including many rares, weapons, and shields.  No matter how much you try to prevent it Team Fire will always be playing catchup and the only way to protect them is to create special rules to prevent teams from attacking them for X turns or something like that.

Possible solution:  Every WoE campaign starts fresh, but old characters are archived.  Maybe like tournies now have every 4th one as upped we can have every 4th (or whatever number) WoE campaign as a "veteran" campaign where only characters of a certain level can join.  This allows players to play those powerful old characters on occasion but in a setting where they playing field is still balanced and doesn't require all sorts of special rules and/or exceptions to deal with the imbalancing issues.

[Scaredgirl]

Possible solution:  Every WoE campaign starts fresh, but old characters are archived.  Maybe like tournies now have every 4th one as upped we can have every 4th (or whatever number) WoE campaign as a "veteran" campaign where only characters of a certain level can join.  This allows players to play those powerful old characters on occasion but in a setting where they playing field is still balanced and doesn't require all sorts of special rules and/or exceptions to deal with the imbalancing issues.

Very cool outside-the-box suggestion.

Using that same basic idea, we could have a certain storyline quest for level 24 players, and those who finished the quest, would become Ascendants. Those characters could then start the next WoE as Gods, with their own smaller map and quests. What the Ascendants do, would also affect the regular world.

Players who would have an Ascendant character, could start WoE with a new regular character as well, so they would be playing two characters. And to make the workload less demanding, Ascendants could perform actions less frequently or something.

And finally, we could have Ascendants fight for the title of God, which would be the final step. A player whose character was God, could affect the mortal world in many ways, like changing the terrain, sending armies of NPC's to do damage, things like that. It would basically be a combination of Organizer and player.

Just an idea.

[Zaealix]

That Acendant and God thing sounds like a great way to handle players who really get into the event. The casual players run around fighting smaller battles, while the old-tiemers are literally False Gods, if not THE GOD.

[YoungSot]

I like the Ascendant Characters idea. It's a great way to make players feel like their beloved characters they worked so hard on are still around. It sounds like a good bit of work of course, and I think we should still be sure that each chapter lasts long enough that a player can play as a high level character in the "normal" world for a while, but it seems like a fun solution.