Return of the Emblem: Chat

[roymbrog]

Oh, the one I was talking about per battle was to bump under average people up to the average gained that particular battle each fight. Ie: Nadya would have gained 47 this fight instead of 42. The other one Phee had about limits was about the battle point totals in the OP and making sure no one fell behind a certain threshold, but I think you already talked about that one earlier.

What kind of stat games were there during the festival? That was over one of the periods I was gone and I missed it.

[Snowy_One]

If it's going to be as simple and unimportant as that, why even bother? Robin would need to go on the sidequests until she hit the minimum point total, it would likely not be involved with the group in any way (that goes for other characters as well). So why not just bump them up and save everyone a lot of time?

Also, roy, that still has kind of the same problem. Not only will characters who earn less stay stuck behind but they earn more points by merely wounding enemies and letting others take the kill.

[Mercakete]

It was pretty similar to the hunting example I gave just now. People could go to various booths I made to try to win prizes. The carnival games had to do with various stats. There was a "ring the bell" str stat game, "Rune Squawk" where magic users had to use their magic to try to activate a rune to cause it to make a sound and another game that had to do with skl to throw a ball and knock over the target. Each game had 3 difficulty levels: easy, medium and hard. Depending on the game, the difficulties were flavored differently (a heavier weight for the bell ring, a further distance for the ball toss, etc.) The "enemy" or target would have a stat that would change depending on the difficulty. For the str game, for example, the bell would have def, stat wise. If your str and the die roll totalled up at or above the def, you'd win the game, just like doing damage to an enemy.

@ Snowy: I explained why: it gives the characters something to do besides stat combat, for one, which is probably the most important reason. It helps develop their character and gives them a spotlight. It's essentially a writing prompt. It's a bit noisy here right now and I'm in kind of a rush so I'll leave it at that.

Edited April 27, 2013 by Mercakete

[roymbrog]

(@Snowy) They won't fall further behind though, and will always have a chance to get ahead. Remember you get to keep the points if you go over the average. Once characters that keep coming up behind get up to speed they can occasionally earn more and slowly catch up. Not saying Robin would ever catch up to Zach, but she could at least overcome her point deficit over time and never have a chance of falling further behind. (I'm assuming you mean the average points per battle idea, Snowy).

Also, what's wrong with wounding an enemy for someone else to kill? We should be doing that anyway. It's that people aren't willing to do that right now that's part of the problem. Do you see anyone offering kills to Robin?

(@Merc) Oh, that sounds interesting. Kinda sad I missed it actually.

Edited April 27, 2013 by roymbrog

[Parrhesia]

Let them still be behind on averages. After all, you're always gonna have some people be higher than others, and I don't think it's fair to have people who only just signed up on the lowest of points. If Robin wants to be less behind on points, she can contribute more to fights.

Edited April 27, 2013 by Furetchen

[roymbrog]

Which averages are you talking about? All of them? Or single battle or total battle?

[GoD]

I find the whole hunting for food very pointless.... and for some reason very cheap.

Robin is a hunter, collect food to get points. This sounds more like a minigame to me lol.

[Ether]

Another thing I mentioned in IRC that Phoenix liked the sound of was increasing the scaling on points for hitting to better match what we usually see in FE.

Proposed scaling was (1/3/5/10/20 for kills) 1/1/2/4/6. This way, units that contribute via chipping don't fall quite so far behind those that get the last hit. Another one was some battles with high-objective points, but a low enemy count, which spreads the points out more evenly than low-objective high enemy count.

Edited April 28, 2013 by Ether

[Snowy_One]

Let them still be behind on averages. After all, you're always gonna have some people be higher than others, and I don't think it's fair to have people who only just signed up on the lowest of points. If Robin wants to be less behind on points, she can contribute more to fights.

This is a stupid notion as it assumes the reason why Robin is behind is because she is not working hard enough. In this most recent fight Robin got KO'ed before being able to contribute thanks to an OP'ed enemy. It's not fair at all to assume Robin isn't trying her best and to penalize her when the cause is simply bad luck or a lack of chances to contribute in a meaningful way. And besides, the characters who do end up higher than others get to keep their leads. This isn't about them. This is about making sure other characters don't fall to far behind.

Edit: That's not to mention that the people who aren't helping at all are getting the average points while people who do contribute to the combat put themselves at risk of falling behind.

Also, what's wrong with wounding an enemy for someone else to kill? We should be doing that anyway. It's that people aren't willing to do that right now that's part of the problem. Do you see anyone offering kills to Robin?

Nothing is wrong with it, per-say. This is what we SHOULD be doing. What is wrong (or at least what strikes me as wrong) is making so that this is the best way for an underleveled character to gain points. To jump the average up as high as possible and avoid kills as opposed to trying for their own kills. Not to mention that it doesn't fix the problem, just stops it from getting worse. Ergo, Robin is now not going to drop below her 107 point deficit (unless some horrible luck happens), but she's unlikely to ever reduce it down to a 70 point deficit, or even break even, without serious outside help (help that, if a unit who wasn't horribly lagging got, would give them a huge lead).

@ Snowy: I explained why: it gives the characters something to do besides stat combat, for one, which is probably the most important reason. It helps develop their character and gives them a spotlight. It's essentially a writing prompt. It's a bit noisy here right now and I'm in kind of a rush so I'll leave it at that.

I don't disagree with the idea of increasing the number of writing prompts. But is it really fair to have a unit make up a point deficit by doing the laundry or something similar?

Edited April 28, 2013 by Snowy_One

[Mercakete]

Ah, I think I see what you're seeing, Snowy. I wasn't suggesting that all menial tasks would suddenly grant points. You'd have to be eligible to get those points (meaning you'd have to be a certain number of points away from the total average.) Basically, I'm suggesting we turn this into something more interesting than simply giving out points, but if people don't wan that, then that's fine. I won't be bothered by it. Though I do agree that more writing prompts would be nice. I'm going to have to start brainstorming those and see if I can implement some that people can latch onto.

@ roy: I could probably bring some of those minigames (yes, Disk, that's essentially what they are. ) back at some point or at least ones like them. Will take some scheduling with the GMs, of course, and they won't be as carnival-based as before unless there's some other festival happening at the time and we're in a setting where that would be a thing.

[Parrhesia]

I refuse to respond to Snowy's terribly formatted post, but it's pretty obvious he hasn't read my previous posts. I want roy's system in place; I'm less keen on retconning everything before now so that everyone has at least ... however many, ~640 points or whatever. Maybe halve the deficit, but let's not go overboard here.

Edited April 28, 2013 by Furetchen

[Phoenix]

Overslept again and may or may not be around much tonight, but still it's about time to give some actual input here.

Now when I first came up with the negative average limit idea, the number I had in mind was -60. My reasoning was as follows:

The goal is to keep below average units from going so far behind the rest of the party that their 'potential performance' in battles starts to decrease without taking away the reward for individual effort. With this in mind, whatever the limit is, it should be between one and two purchases from whatever the current average is. 60 points is two tier1 purchases or 1 tier2 purchase which seems like a good area to aim for, at least when just looking at the average. Below that and you're very likely missing entire levels or more than one crucial gear upgrade.

I'm also considering Toogee's idea too though, because of the per battle gains that actually are kind of messed up, at least from a 'work' perspective, EG: Valter vs newcomers. While I don't mind sidequests as a whole, I don't see them working in practice. We'd spend more than a week setting up for and executing a farm battle to fix something we could have done in a single post in the OP, etc. While more writing prompts might be good, we have other ways to do that and I don't think the writing prompts we'd create here would produce 'good writing'(the only kind that deserves to be), which means all we're left with is a long and arduous miniplot to boost points for certain units irregularly. Honestly I'd normally be against flat out bumping units up, but the amount of work we'd have to go through to do it IC. Minigames are fine, in fact I encourage them, but tying them to the point problem as a fix is just going to slow us down. Anyway, getting off track ...

The idea of having pcs work for the extra points is only semi-valid. It's partially valid because anyone who gets points that's active in the party has worked for them to some degree. It's partially invalid because even units that do work fall behind because most units that aren't healers are only active for part of the battle. They can do something really important but will still score below average unless they were active from start to finish or were on a team that was. They really can't help it, so they're getting less of a payoff for work no matter how crucial that work might be. That's why the goal of the negative limit/point minimum was to keep them within an effective/workable range of the average. Being behind on points is fine since being at average for the sake of being at average is kind of a flimsy argument, but being so far below average that your overall effectiveness and potential in any given battle is completely compromised is not. Enemies are only going to get stronger as a whole, so it is going to snowball until later chapters if we don't set a limit to how low units can go.

[Rothene]

Ok, with immediate assignments out of the way I can start being active again. To prevent any inconsistencies, should I have Mireille exist as alwasy in the group, but have always been covering the rear or some such excuse like typical 4 move knights in FE or that she left the group by getting lost wallace style and now suddenly find her way to the group? Ranyin's still heading home since not too long has passed since his departure.

[GoD]

I still need a reply from Bal, Ether and/or Phoenix.

[Ether]

I'm waiting for a Phoenix post.

[Phoenix]

@ Rothene

Former(she can be our Kellam)

[Ether]

Insert filler content here

[Snike]

How to: Filler post

@ Rothene

Former(she can be our Kellam)

Our who?

Who's this Mireille, btw...

[Phoenix]

UPDATE:

-OP updated.

-New points rule in place regarding characters below the average. Here's the exact quote taken from the first paragraph of 1.6 in the OP.

In addition, no PC character can fall below 60 points of the current average. This means that if a PC isn't earning enough points to stay within 60 points of the current average, they will be automatically bumped up to it.

Currently this means if anyone counts up their character's totals and finds them at least 61 points below 644, they need to add in points to make up the difference.

Moving on. There's a huge PC influx that's going to eventually force us to change battle sizes to compensate for how many PCs we have. The obvious solutions are to cut down on PCs in the party or split the party, but the former forces out thirds and the latter makes plot difficult and there's no IC reasoning supporting it at the moment. Luna and I have been musing some solutions that won't force anyone to get rid of their PCs unless they actually want to; we're not lowering the PC limit(in fact we may be raising it). This is essentially Act 2 of RotE, so there are some new possibilities that I unwittingly set up that we can now make use of.

Amon is currently leading the sancturan group and there is a plot originally intended for later in the rp that we can actually initiate now to create a second PC group. This may require using paralogue chapters to keep things from getting confusing, but we've already started doing that so no big deal there. The second group will have their own plot to deal with and whether it intersects with the first group's at a later date is yet to be determined. Another benefit to a second group is that we can explore more of Sardius and do it more quickly with two groups operating independently of each other. We've worked out the most important issues for the time being and I'm bringing this up to gauge overall interest before implementing anything. After all if we don't get signups for the second group and Raquel's group keeps getting thirds, then the original issue isn't addressed at all and we're better off going with a 2 PC cap again. As for Second Group details, the initial plot is a miniature rescue arc; save Joanna and her emblem piece from the Wrathites, etc. Once that's done, she'll become a party npc in much the same way Raquel was in the beginning of the rp, and at a later date become a PC healer to actually help out in battle(once IC issues are resolved). Admittedly the second group will be taking some of the Wrathite heat off of Raquel's group by doing this.

I know some may want to move PCs between groups, and we might actually be able to do that, but not initially. The only thing left to address assuming we go ahead with this second group creation is to decide which route Greta's group takes. Meet up and join Amon's group, or Raquel's(or both if this can be worked out without an enormous clusterbomb going off. I figure people would prefer both groups meet her that way transfers can be done immediately if desired).

Anyway, that's the pitch to start. Leave comments and questions here or in the rp channel

[Snike]

YES.

Edited April 30, 2013 by Snike

[scorri]

I agree with Snike. He and I have a pair of characters that'll be joining up with the Amon group assuming this happens. As for the paralogue, I don't really care where they end up, since either way I'll have a split of 2/1. So... ask the others I guess.

[ReformBlade]

I am adamantly against this but it's irrelevant. Minority, hooray...

[Blue]

I think I like this. I think that to help with party balance, when I eventually have three characters, I'll have two of them with Amon's group.

[GoD]

RETURN OF THE AMON!!

[Toogee]

I'm all for this. I just need to look up who this Amon guy is. He seems pretty popular so far.