One-time only ability reset

[Jirato]

So, the idea of giving everyone an ability reset has been brought up and discussed several times in the past month. I went ahead and implemented the switch to flip, all I have to do is flip it now and everyone will get ONE ability reset per the lifetime of their character.

While this is an extremely OOC approach and kind of breaks character, being able to suddenly and drastically change your character at the drop of a hat. We feel we're willing to allow a one-time exception to this to revert any major mistakes that people made when the ability system first came out (or when they first started playing, for newer characters).

I want to emphasize, however, that this is a one-time-only thing. We will not be granting additional full resets, ever. All current and future player characters will get the one free reset, and that's it. Abilities will continue to change and be tweaked. There's still lots of balance changes to make still, and new abilities are still being worked on as well. You are free to hold on to your free ability reset as long as you like, and I actually encourage you to. This should be a major decision and not something taken lightly just because you finally have it. If you reset your abilities and then we add five new ones next week and you ask us for another reset, the answer is going to be no. There is always the 30 day unlearning process, and in the event of abilities that are significantly changed/rebalanced, we may temporarily grant accelerated unlearning times for that specific ability like we did with two-weapon combat last month.

So, the switch is ready to be flipped, all I have to do is uncomment a line of code that restricts it to GM usage only. But before I flip it, I'd like to give everyone an opportunity to discuss it. Feel free to reply with any questions or concerns.

[Avedri]

This sounds fine to me with my only two concerns being:

Will this take affect after all the general abilities are released? The previous post makes it sounds like this will take place after and at most, it general abilities will be tweaked/rebalanced not adding a whole new set.

Ever is a long time. I think stating that the likelyhood of them coming up again will be close to never, but I would hope that if suddenly combat was completely redone or if a guild got a new branch opened that you guys would feel comfortable about considering the option of allowing that guild to have the option to reset.

[Jirato]

Good point. I shouldn't really limit myself by saying never. There may very well be drastic changes in the future that would warrant this. But I just want to be clear it's not going to be like a certain other MUD where you can completely redo your skills once a year or anything like that.

As for "When abilities are finished being added", that's really hard to say, because there's no definite stopping point there. We're always open to evaluating and adding new abilities. The initial rollout and the planned stuff that Rias shared wasn't a definitive list of "These are all the abilities you're going to get.". Were always going to be looking at adding more. The more ways we can encourage character customization and uniqueness the better. Just keep in mind the saying, "You can do anything, you just can't do everything." And even then, some of those proposed abiities such as the herbalism expansion might not even make it here until 2016 if not later, and I kinda thought people wanted this sooner rather than later.

[Avedri]

Oof! Good to know about the herbalism delays, I've been holding off on taking abilities because of wanting to explore that path.

But I feel good about the one-time reset and the openness to exploring other options if there is a complete overhaul.

[Jirato]

I'd love to just sit down and crank out these abilities sooner. But, it's just not at the top of the priority list at the moment, and adding in a completely new system like that is going to take some time. I don't want to sound like I'm just making excuses or anything, but most of this stuff was just in Rias' head. He was pretty detailed in his explainations of it so it's not like we have to completely re-invent the wheel or anything like that, but at the same time, it's not like we have an existing famework for it that we can just plug into. "2016 or later" might have been a slight exageration though.

[Kent]

So, the idea of giving everyone an ability reset has been brought up and discussed several times in the past month. I went ahead and implemented the switch to flip, all I have to do is flip it now and everyone will get ONE ability reset per the lifetime of their character.

While this is an extremely OOC approach and kind of breaks character, being able to suddenly and drastically change your character at the drop of a hat. We feel we're willing to allow a one-time exception to this to revert any major mistakes that people made when the ability system first came out (or when they first started playing, for newer character...

Well, lets admit it...it's no more ooc than putting the change in the first place as was done last month. Kent was a moderately accomplished blacksmith two months ago, has exquisite weapons and armor with his crafting mark on it, yet is now incapable of producing an average dagger.

I dislike some things about the new ability system, but on balance I am enjoying the game more with it than I did before it was rolled out five weeks ago. I really thought my idea to have the unlearn period reduced to 10 days for the initial couple of months was a good one, as there are some abilities that really are not worth a precious ability point and there is no simple way to find that out. I have been only been able to unlearn and relearn one ability in that time and some other good looking abilities may not be worth it once I try it.

Two examples, as I may have mentioned before, rapid reload, which does quite little for the character before it lapses and puts him in a long cooldown (relative to battle length) is an example of a regrettable ability choice; also, advanced leatherworking, which adds merely the option to do rigid leather (spelled out in the description plainly) is an example of an ability that does too litttle, I recommend Advanced Leatherworking be dropped off the list and the ability to work on soft and rigid leather be both combined in Basic Leatherworking. (In much the similar fashion as brawling was decided not to require Dual Wielding and those two capabilities were rolled into one.)

I also think hamstring, which requires feint, costs too much to get to and is no longer an affordable option. As melee focus does nothing in and of itself, it just costs a point in order to get to other abilities. I would prefer to see melee focus include the ability to perform a feint, then if you want to do hamstring, that costs only one more point.

These are only some examples, and other players have brought up other concerns on how they got burned on ability choices they now wish to get rid of, for example, the guy who put the thorns on his masterful staff/flatbow only to have it degraded. One thinks about a hypothetical brand new player of next week getting frustrated with such an ability with no reset option open to him. I would have preferred the last six weeks had been better designed to flesh out more of the problems with certain dud abilities, as would have been the case with a shorter unlearn period and some sort of ratings forum for systematically rating each ability with feedback. With GMs seeing all the abilities players got rid of, not just the one or two permitted by the 30 day wait. Perhaps we can use the next six weeks doing just that.

[Kunren]

I personally kinda agree with Kent here. Originally wasn't there some plan to have what hes talking about after gms got to see what people picked while it mattered? If not, that's fine however, though I have no idea how long ill be clinging to my ability reset now o.o

[Jirato]

I personally kinda agree with Kent here. Originally wasn't there some plan to have what hes talking about after gms got to see what people picked while it mattered? If not, that's fine however, though I have no idea how long ill be clinging to my ability reset now o.o

That's exactly what this is. We've seen what people picked, we've applied numerous tweaks and balance changes over the past month, and now we're getting ready to let them reset it. There are still going to be further tweaks and balance changes, sure. But I feel that it's been significant enough that it's a good time to go ahead and release it rather than keep people waiting around wondering if/when it's going to happen.

[Kent]

I really think it makes no sense to limit Sap ability to one guild. If your behind someone, they're not expecting you, any one of us with a baseball bat or wlking cane IRL could have a good chance to knock them out. Not only should it be available in the general abilities, it arguably needs no ability to perform (as is the case with Press and Flank).

[Sneaky]

Would it also be within reason to offer a one time single ability refund? I'm pretty happy with my current set up, it's not really worth resetting my entire ability pool though, just an ability I've decided didn't really fit my character, and probably a second one after that, so something like this would be very much appreciated just for that single regreted ability. Though as it stands it's only two months or so, and I'm perfectly fine with that.

[Sneaky]

I'd be pretty okay with sap going away completely actually, just my two sense.

[Jirato]

I kinda feel like I have to defend any argument form purely an IC/RP/Lore point of view. But frankly, sap is just way too OP to give to everyone. Giving everyone sap and coupe de morte would be a very bad idea, balance wise. (Personally I think Mercenaries should have kept Coupe as a guild-only thing, but it's a bit late for that).

I guess if I really had to defend it from an IC point of view, I'd tell that old joke about the new plant manager who came out to ask why the workers weren't working. The assembly line wasn't running because they had a machine down. He looks through the contact list his predecessor left him and calls the company who provided the machine. They send out a specialist who walks over to it, hits it with a hammer, and hands him a bill for $2500. The new manager is outraged and says, "If that's all that needed to be done, I could have done that myself!" and the worker claims, "Sure, you can hit it with a hammer, but what the bill is for, is knowing WHERE to hit it."

I think there's a lot more subtlety in sapping someone than just sneaking up behind them and bashing them on the head with a baseball bat. If that were all there was to it, we'd have people with crushed skulls dead all over the place.

[Kent]

I personally kinda agree with Kent here. Originally wasn't there some plan to have what hes talking about after gms got to see what people picked while it mattered? If not, that's fine however, though I have no idea how long ill be clinging to my ability reset now o.o

That's exactly what this is. We've seen what people picked, we've applied numerous tweaks and balance changes over the past month, and now we're getting ready to let them reset it. There are still going to be further tweaks and balance changes, sure. But I feel that it's been significant enough that it's a good time to go ahead and release it rather than keep people waiting around wondering if/when it's going to happen.

Well, another problem is there without a systematic feedback board. A player takes an ability, finds out its a dud, and unlearns it. In the meantime, the GMs tweak it so its no longer a dud, but that player doesn't find out until its too late, and wants the ability back, is there an easy remedy for him?

[Zoiya]

The BBS is where feedback should be going, Kent.

I personally kinda agree with Kent here. Originally wasn't there some plan to have what hes talking about after gms got to see what people picked while it mattered? If not, that's fine however, though I have no idea how long ill be clinging to my ability reset now o.o

That's exactly what this is. We've seen what people picked, we've applied numerous tweaks and balance changes over the past month, and now we're getting ready to let them reset it. There are still going to be further tweaks and balance changes, sure. But I feel that it's been significant enough that it's a good time to go ahead and release it rather than keep people waiting around wondering if/when it's going to happen.

Well, another problem is there without a systematic feedback board. A player takes an ability, finds out its a dud, and unlearns it. In the meantime, the GMs tweak it so its no longer a dud, but that player doesn't find out until its too late, and wants the ability back, is there an easy remedy for him?

[Kent]

I kinda feel like I have to defend any argument form purely an IC/RP/Lore point of view. But frankly, sap is just way too OP to give to everyone. Giving everyone sap and coupe de morte would be a very bad idea, balance wise. (Personally I think Mercenaries should have kept Coupe as a guild-only thing, but it's a bit late for that).

It's a bit late? Well this is not something I can see. The last six weeks have half been about us being incapable of doing things we could do before, in some cases, things we did for years and now cannot. What is sacrosanct about Coup that it cannot also be moved over to Merc Guild only, along with perhaps tactics Mastery? Even if some did it for six weeks, so what, in light of all else?

The ability change rollout put us through a HUGE retcon, it would be better to do a small retcon now to iron out imperfections in it than to set everything in stone "just because."


And still I think the ability change, being such a huge game-changer and such a huge retcon, it deserves to allow all players the ability to change their guild and to sell their warhorses back to the stableyards. We should have been able to select our guild based on knowing all the advantages and disadvantages of it up front.

[Kunren]

I kinda feel like I have to defend any argument form purely an IC/RP/Lore point of view. But frankly, sap is just way too OP to give to everyone. Giving everyone sap and coupe de morte would be a very bad idea, balance wise. (Personally I think Mercenaries should have kept Coupe as a guild-only thing, but it's a bit late for that).

It's a bit late? Well this is not something I can see. The last six weeks have half been about us being incapable of doing things we could do before, in some cases, things we did for years and now cannot. What is sacrosanct about Coup that it cannot also be moved over to Merc Guild only, along with perhaps tactics Mastery? Even if some did it for six weeks, so what, in light of all else?

The ability change rollout put us through a HUGE retcon, it would be better to do a small retcon now to iron out imperfections in it than to set everything in stone "just because."


And still I think the ability change, being such a huge game-changer and such a huge retcon, it deserves to allow all players the ability to change their guild and to sell their warhorses back to the stableyards. We should have been able to select our guild based on knowing all the advantages and disadvantages of it up front.

I don't think a guild change is necessary, nor perhaps a warhorse reset. But I do agree that there should probably be no "too late" for changes, retcons will almost certainly abound in this period either way. As for moving coup du morte to mercs only: I admit I couldn't care less if that happened, I honestly probably don't value that ability as much as I should, but meh. Im gonna have to have it either way for adrenaline rush. Similar for tactics mastery.

[Zoiya]

If we could try to keep things constructive and polite, that would be pretty great.

[preiman]

maybe there is a compromise, perhaps the people who already have it can keep it, but it moves off the general abilities list going forward. there is some precedence for this with old guild abilities and the like staying after people lost the ability to learn them. It's not a perfect solution but it might make more people happy than not.

[Jirato]

Again you run into the problem of justifying something ICly.

All coup de morte is, is a finisher that lets you kill off an already disabled foe. You're walking over to a helpless person/critter, and ending its life. I feel that's far more general than sap.

But, the ability itself wasn't really ever designed with generalizaiton in mind, not from an in-character perspective, but from a mechanics perspective. There are far too many disabling abilities (such as sap, word of wonder, etc) that just make it too OP. Thieves and Mummers, which are both considered non-combat guilds, are pretty much top notch killers now if they decide to take up coup de morte, and I do not like that.

I am frustrated at this. Generalization was extremely sudden and there was not really enough internal discussion about these types of things before it happened. It was not our decision, and we don't like it and want to undo it. But I just don't really feel I have sufficient justificaiton for undoing it. I'm concerned about the backlash if we just yank it from all those non-mercs that have it and say "Whoopsie! You don't get to do that, because, reasons.". That is why I say it was too late.

[Dakhal]

To be honest, there's a reason why you're offering this reset to people. Of course one might argue that they would be forced to use this one-time reset to fix the ramifications of their 'build' being ruined by having coup taken from them, but it was always said that this was highly experimental and that things would be changed from the get-go. That skills would be added and possibly removed and it would be entirely out of the player's hands when it did happen. To be honest, I would consider it very fair if I had an ability taken from me but I was refunded the point for it, rather than being told 'you cannot use it' and then wait 30 days for it to unlearn. If players cannot understand that it's become a balance issue and that it was an oversight that it was ever made a general ability from the beginning, then that's on them.

[Jirato]

Oh, absolutely! If we ever did do something like remove coupe from general abilities, it would actually be -removed- from your ability list, freeing up another ability slot on your list.

[Kent]

The BBS is where feedback should be going, Kent.

Some persons read all posts on the BBS and have pretty good memories of what was said and who said it. Some of us only read about half or less, and think about the case of the brand new person on, who is just checking out the BBS as a relatively blank slate.

It is for these latter persons that I am requesting an entirely new Board on the BBS, the Abilities Feedback Board, with
58 distinct threads on it, one for each ability, so compliments and regrets for each can be readily looked up, please.

[Kunren]

The BBS is where feedback should be going, Kent.

Some persons read all posts on the BBS and have pretty good memories of what was said and who said it. Some of us only read about half or less, and think about the case of the brand new person on, who is just checking out the BBS as a relatively blank slate.

It is for these latter persons that I am requesting an entirely new Board on the BBS, the Abilities Feedback Board, with
58 distinct threads on it, one for each ability, so compliments and regrets for each can be readily looked up, please.

That's gigantic, though I admit I kinda expected at least a general section devoted to abilities when they hit. But once it was done I suppose it would indeed allow for careful examination and discussion of each specific ability by the playerbase.

[Laroremas]

I believe there were plenty of disclaimers and whatnot announcing the fact that generalization as it was was a tentative and growing thing. Generalization is an ever-changing beast and sure, some people may whine in the future if their OP ability combination is taken from them, but I'm sure they (as well as myself) would MUCH rather play in a balanced space.

Even if that means defying logic and common sense so far as some abilities are concerned and so far as giving them to everyone is concerned. As Dakhal said, there should logically be no lashback if they are refunded the ability point correspondent to the ability that was "taken" from them (as if they owned it to begin with!)

If they do lash out, it should be pretty clear what sort of player they are. So try to be understanding of our omnipotent group of finger-waggling balance makers. During my period of playing CLOK I have had many, many of my abilities adjusted to be less effective because they were simply too strong or didn't make any sense. The fundamental way my guild works was changed because there simply hadn't been enough testing in the realm of utilizing these abilities in ways they had not quite considered in the past, resulting in an unrepentant death machine capable of pretty much killing anything and large groups of anythings to boot.

We're all testers. I like to assume as much responsibility as I can in the realm of assisting our game's growth. Remember to suggest and not to demand. It's never too late, so far as I'm concerned and so far as any logical player should be as well; deep down we all want to see the game grow, even if it means ending up a little weaker.

[Jaster]

On sap. I've always been an advocate for its responsible use.

It can be used to easily kill another character, or knock them out and completely ransack their containers and steal everything they have. But as a character, and a member of a certain guild, that looks down on both of those approaches in most cases, I've never used it to that purpose (unless you count playing around with critters).

Of course, I'm not so naive to think that everybody would be so responsible. :D