As far as the suggestions regarding the deletion of the post, both Thad and I agree. The thread deletion was not fully thought out and Thad is working to restore as much of it as possible. In no way do we want to make it seem that we do not care about the ideas suggested by our player base. In the future we will try to simply intervene with a warning if we feel that things may be getting out of hand or that hurt feelings may ensue, and if push comes to shove, lock the thread. So, let?s start our civilized discussion once more!
You beat me to it and said it far better than I was going to. How many ranks of extra action would be able to be purchased? Up to three per tier? Also did we want to propose respending for boon on this thread as well?
For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I agree. If it had been me, I probably wouldn't have deleted the whole thing. It was a valuable discussion, after all. I feel particularly bad because Casey had written up a long response that I had planned on reading and responding to tonight. No use crying over spilled milk, though.
To speak to Crystal's point, yes, it is possible for administrators to lock a thread by disallowing further comments. It is also possible to delete specific comments. I think this should be how we handle it from now on. As a general rule, I'm against censorship unless absolutely necessary.
It took a bit of work, but I've managed to recover what I could of the "Sellbacks and such" thread. Unfortunately, Monday's backup only gives us a piece of the conversation, but there's nothing I can do to restore the rest. Also, I must have missed something, because it doesn't seem to exist within the forum anymore. At any rate, you can still view it here for future reference.
Jessi is referring to the Extra Action skill that was the predecessor to the Specialty Action skill. It was revised out of existence because it became many orders of magnitude more powerful as characters went up in level. An extra action purchased at level two cost the same amount as one purchased at level 10, even though it might be the difference between packet of 10 damage and a Slay.
I do agree, however, that it solves the problem of sellbacks by making it something characters would never want to sell back. Whatever the solution turns out to be, that's probably going to be a requirement anyway. Otherwise, we'll just get back into the same fruitless debate over again.
A few other alternatives have been batted around off the forums. Nick proposed tiered pricing for extra actions. For example, you may be able to purchase a Tier I extra action usable to prepare any action from level 1 through 5, and Tier 2 extra action for level 6 through 8, etc. The prices of these would, of course, increase from one tier to the next. It's a bit on the complex side, but it addresses the problem of cost scaling with usefulness.
Another possibility is what you might call specialty chains. In this system, we would develop preset chains of actions centered around a common theme. If you wanted to be an ice wizard, for example, maybe your chain would look like Icy Ray, Frostbite, Chilling Ray, Ice Brand, etc. You would have to purchase each step in the chain to proceed to the next, but the cost would be more reasonable at each step. I like this for thematic reasons, although it would be difficult to implement.
Those are my ideas for now. I'm interested in hearing more.
"You are technically correct. The best kind of correct!"
- Bureaucrat 1.0, Futurama
Perhaps in the future if a heated debate gets out of hand, is it possible to "lock" a thread instead of delete it? It also seems prudent to issue a warning in the thread as well, that if any further inflammatory comments are made that the thread would then be locked, but constructive debate is still welcome.
This way any intelligent points that the members contributed (of which there were a lot in this particular thread)don't just go up in smoke. Also, I know it was no one's intention, probably more of a panicked response to people arguing, but deleting a thread does nothing to ensure that the player base feels like they are being listened to, quite the opposite. Just my humble opinion.
"The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Just make sure to stab with an upward motion." - Stephen Colbert
I second what Crystal said.
As far as a differnt mechanic, I know this is going to get shot down (mostly because it was before) but here goes.
If you let pc's purchase additional action slots without identifying a specific action then there would be not reason to sell back the skill. I understand this provides a level of flexibility that you guys are uncomfortable with but maybe you could reduce the max number of times you can have a single action memorized to 5 instead of 6 which will force some spread in the additional actions that are chosen.
Just so that everyone's aware, I've been working all afternoon and did not see the post that prompted Nick to do this before it was deleted. I've been given the jist of it by Nick. Even if I hadn't, though, I trust him implicitly in the decision to delete it.
Here is my response to attacks on my credibility as a game designer. I will elicit feedback from players, weigh the facts of the responses, and make a ruling accordingly. What I will not do is make a ruling based on the emotions of those involved. Fairness and balance comes from constructive discussion, not who can yell the loudest. If you have an point, make it and let that be the end of it. I have no desire to engage in an argument.
And you don't have to agree with my rulings. I'm fine with that. I would only ask that you trust me to have the best interests of the game at heart. I love a good debate. I love getting good feedback. And I love coming up with answers to the complex rules questions that help the game to evolve.
What I don't like is the drama. Snarky remarks and resentment because you didn't like a decision are disrespectful. As such, they are against the Code of Conduct. Frankly, things like that only serve to hurt my feelings, not advise my judgment.
As for the Specialty Action skill, based on recent feedback, I'm strongly considering removing it from the game entirely and creating a specialty mechanic we can all agree on. In my mind, that's a better alternative to re-addressing the same contentious issue ad infinitum without getting anywhere.
Thoughts?
"You are technically correct. The best kind of correct!"
- Bureaucrat 1.0, Futurama
I'm all for a generalized special action. as in an ice wizard buys ice specialization, then pays a small amount extra per spell to grant specialization for that spell, but this would only work for spells with the ice tag line, so if they wanted to be a fire mage they would have to spend a lot of extra points on buying specialization (fire) then a few points for the extra spells.
it would balance itself by being a skill that you would purchase early one then cost for the spells would be considerably cheaper after buying the costly gate-way skill...it still needs a lot of tweaking but I think the idea could work.
"I'm not locked up in with all of you, all of you are locked up in here with me!" Rorschach - Watchmen