State of the Site Discussion

[Shield 0]

@Genji There are already players that do that here. Having stats doesn't exclude you from focusing on RP. The issue is, for those who do things that require stats, like boss battles and crafting, how do we balance it in a way that's not discouraging to new players. There's nothing saying you can't have a low level player that goes around and has lots of adventures. You're just limited on things like... actual combat. I don't think there's anything stopping you from RPing story-based mob combat with just text and no numbers or stats. You just can't get rewards from it other than basic col and SP from just completing a thread.

I feel like my character is just fine. He's got plenty of meat on his bones, and he's had a lot of great RP-focused threads along the way. And this is coming from someone who raced through about 90% of the available quests in time to hit tier 3 as soon as it became available. You can do both. Or just one. It's up to the player. But if we want official levels, it has to be based on something, and there's a pretty decent system behind it. It just needs tweaking.

[Lessa 1]

@Shield

For the record, I don't think anyone is claiming that there are no players with rich histories. But there are players who are asking for more, as I'm sure you can see in this discussion, and on Discord. I could write a dozen solos and have an awesome story. But how does that tie me to the community? How does that build overarching themes that everyone can benefit from? I'd like to see us open the world to everyone by creating events and stories that can't be wrapped up with a bow in 21 posts.

[Genji 0]

More to the point, if we sell a product with a singular merit, we're not selling for retention. It's well and good we have a dynamic system that involves grinding, quests, and boss battles, but this is a roleplaying site. 

What sort of events and things do we have that set us apart from other sites of the same genre? Realistically, we're trying to compete on the merit of having an ingenious combat system and not much else. This is in no way an attack on that system, nor is it an attempt to do away with it

What I want is more, real, impactful story that fosters character growth in more than just levels and gear.

[Opal 0]

On 10/3/2017 at 4:39 PM, Vale said:

@Lessa

If there was a site revival of characters. I'd be all for that, but there could be some specific characters that the Staff doesn't want to see revived. Namely Dom and Zel, and I will have to say for good reason too. This is purely an opinion before anyone gets mad. But some limitations should be placed on players that do revive that way, and a way to fairly figure out where the gray ends to become Black and White.

But let me deffo say, I'd be all for a revival of dead characters. I was lowkey having that thought a few days ago but didn't pitch it because I didn't know how well it would be taken to if I said it. xD

I had left the site altogether due to inactivity on my own personal problems IRL. Life got stressed hardcore for me and I just couldnt handle 'the grind' while maintaining a high level character while making things fun for myself. At the time, I thought my Opal had a good run with her story and I tried to kill her off as a means of moving on from her story. But with that came much regret, not that I have enjoyed my time with the alts I created in the meantime. However, nothing has been able to fill that void so to speak. I have been gone roughly 3 months, it hasnt actually been that long I think. I just recently came back to the discord to chat with some people, but I still feel weighed down by life in general to make a come-back of even if that is a chance to do so with my current schedule. I do plan on clearing this up by the end of the year and...I will be honest here. Having a chance to RP as Opal again would certainly feel like a nudge to get back into it things here. But I wouldn't say it's a 100% sold on the idea. From what I have read, it looks like the staff are really working hard on making this site active again. 

I figured I would say a few words on the subject since I found myself here. I'll keep an eye out on the developments and of course anyone is more than welcome to hit me up on Discord if you see me online. 

 

[Bismarck 0]

I'm going to add a preface to preface my preface here in post, my past self didn't realize quite how much opinion he had floating around in his mind. This post is probably way longer than it should be, so I should warn any prospective readers that you're in for quite the ride. Incidentally, I'm going to go in and tag where I mention specific names. It's not so much to address people directly. I'm more so trying to bring attention to this thing that probably took me two hours to write, as I've a vague suspicion that this thread died eight days ago. We'll see how that goes. In all honesty I feel quite awkward tagging people who don't know me like this. I suppose this as good an introductory post as any though, putting up this wall of text to offer up my opinion.

 

As a preface, I've had literally no interactions with this site prior to this post (unfortunately). I have however been lurking around for quite some time, at least a year and a half by this point. That probably makes me completely unqualified to make statements on a thread like this, but since I've once again started considering actually rp-ing here I figured I might as well voice my opinion. I also noticed that most (with a few exceptions) of the people here are long time veterans of the site with a top-down view of what's going on. As someone who's quite literally at the bottom in terms of both numbers and roleplaying experience within SAO, I might be able to offer a different perspective. (More likely though I'll just reiterate points that have already been said through a different lens, and maybe try to argue something. I'm not sure yet at the time of writing this sentence. I've mostly just got opinions in my head without a structure as to how I'll present them.)

Firstly I'd like to say that I think a hard reset would be an absolutely terrible idea. I saw it tossed around a lot that such a change would benefit newer players, and that's probably true from a numbers perspective. It might even provide that novelty feeling of terror and wonder to the writing as everything is reset to floor one. However I think that would take away from the experience of joining a site and story that's been going on for... I think someone said it was four years now? As much as I hate the thought of having to grind to catch up with the frontliners (more on that in a bit) I actually thought it was kind of cool that there were already these legendary characters who'd molded the setting before the arrival of whatever character I intended on writing. They were figures to look up to, maybe even figures to envy. Perhaps if your character wasn't really motivated to be a frontliner they might instead view those figures as heroes, or perhaps just as fools lacking a self-preservation instinct. That's probably just my own weird perception of it though. I suppose the more solid argument (one of those things I'm just reiterating) is that the people behind those legendary frontliners would lose all the work and storytelling that got those characters there. I'd feel a little off joining a level playing field, knowing what was lost in the process.

I should point out though that I'm a little biased on that particular opinion. I may not have been roleplaying here over that year and a half, but I have been occasionally popping in to read some of the threads. It was kinda fun honestly. Popping in every few months to see what was new, check out the latest boss raid, maybe catch a particularly controversial thread. (Not pointing fingers at Dom or anything.) Since most of my reading focused on the frontliners, I personally find myself not wanting them to be erased in a reset, even if it would make things easier on me as a new player. It also may be worth noting that I'm listening to songs from the SAO soundtrack as I write this. It doesn't help at all with keeping sentimentality out of my writing...

I said that I'd return to the subject of grinding to catch up with Calrex the frontliners, so here I am. To be perfectly honest, this is one of two reasons why you aren't already familiar with a character of my design. The first (somewhat embarrassing one) is that I could never for the life of me figure out what I was going to write in his journal. I could go more into depth on that, but I'm not going to as I'm here to elaborate on the second reason. The level difference. Knowing what had to be done to earn SP and seeing what the frontliners were already at was quite the demotivator for me. Especially so as I knew I wanted to write a character with a competitive personality, which would mean he'd be constantly pushing to try to catch up with the high level players. Such an undertaking would've required an amount of writing that I don't think I can pull off. I'd be burnt out long before my character actually got anywhere interesting in terms of level. To summarize, about 95% of the reason Ricard isn't already a character is the looming threat of having to grind through that level gap.

As for the solutions offered previously in the thread (I told you I'd be reiterating) I'm personally in favor of bumping up the starting levels of newer players. You can sense the bias right? It just oozes out of the text. Yes, that opinion is largely due to the fact that I don't already have a presence on the site. However I also agree strongly with a point that @Shield made, a point that kind of cemented my favor for this idea. I mentioned that I wanted to play a competitive character right? Well since my interest in SAO has recently been on the rise, I've been revisiting the ideas I had for that character's personality. One thing that kept bugging me was how such a competitive, driven person had been sitting around twiddling his thumbs for literally four years. The only solution I can come up with is to somehow shoehorn something into his personality that would keep him stuck in The Town of Beginnings for so long, never even picking up his sword to maybe take a stab at trying to kill a boar. In that context the idea of having a higher minimum starting level makes a great deal of sense to me. It would effectively solve two problems with a single action, helping make newer players relevant while also sealing the gaping plot hole that only gets bigger with each new character.

The time skip, however, is an idea that I don't particularly like. While it may have the possibility of cleaning up the stagnation that the site has apparently fallen into (I say apparently since I haven't personally been too in touch. The only indication of that stagnation from my point of view is that there hasn't been a raid in forever.), I think it may heavily disrupt stories that are already occurring. In all honesty though, this is another one of those biases from me. Something that I was annoyed with when watching the show was that massive portions of Aincrad (to me one of the most interesting aspects of the show) were simply skipped. Of course this makes sense when telling a narrative, especially in anime, but I'd hoped that the rp would be able to maintain itself through all one hundred floors. An impractical hope I suppose, but there's a side of me that wants to see all of what that massive floating castle has to offer, as well as the stories that form along the way.

I've seen tell of an idea to split the website, starting a new server where newer players might be able to have their experience in early Aincrad without destroying what the veterans have built. From the perspective of my own opinion, I personally prefer the idea of just having the one persistent world. It might be nice to have a fresh start running alongside the main game, but I think it would draw away all of the new players, so there wouldn't be any dynamic between the frontliners and the lower level characters. From a more practical perspective, it sounds as though SAO doesn't really have the player base to support such a split anyway. So my two cents? Probably a bad idea, for now at least. (Oh look, I'm reiterating again.)

From a roleplaying perspective, I actually don't mind that Calrex some people are way higher leveled than everyone else. I think it's cool that there's people like @Calrex to be that sort of legendary player within the game. From a game design perspective however, I can definitely see how that absurd level difference causes issues. If I recall correctly even a few of the recent floor bosses were child's play thanks to the sheer power of some players. As someone who's enjoyed reading the occasional floor boss raid, that particular aspect took away some of the intrigue from the fights. It removed a fair bit of tension when I knew there were players on the field who could probably pose a threat to the boss by themselves, let alone with a team of sixteen+ other formidable characters. In this I agree with the idea of a level cap. Whatever form it would take, I think such a cap would go a long way to making floor bosses the milestone threats they're depicted as. It might also serve to restore at least a little challenge to the game for those frontliners who've long since outclassed everything around them.

The last point I want to address is @Lessa's, primarily because it's probably the one that I'm leaning both ways on (I'm also totally just reiterating here). To talk about the negative first, I think that bringing characters back from the dead defeats a large point of SAO. One of the main hooks that makes the setting so interesting is that people are permanently killed within the game. On the other hand, from what I've seen written in this thread alone the site seems to be having trouble with attracting new players. I'm not sure how much encouraging experienced writers to come back would do to solve that, but it would certainly bring back some spice to the story lines that may have been lost with their deaths. Take the very post above me, for example. I actually didn't know that @Opal had died before I read that post, and as an outside observer I was honestly saddened by it. I remember being so shocked as I watched her and @Oikawa cut down two of the biggest players in the game, the culmination of Opal's grand plan. Her sudden reveal as a villain was something exciting that I looked forward to seeing in future threads, or maybe even something that might've affected my own character if I had decided to finally join. Now I don't know if she would continue on that line were she to be brought back to life, but either way she and many other characters would likely make the world of this roleplay even more appealing.

Huh, I went into that paragraph intending to play both sides. Maybe I just like the character Lessa? Regardless, I think that's all the opinions I have on the subject. Honestly I'll be a little surprised if anyone bothers to read, even more so if someone responds to it or takes it into account. Still, that was my two cents as a lurker who is considering joining once 3.0 drops. Now excuse me while I go add a preface to my preface at the top of the page.

 

On an unrelated note, I remember an announcement being made that accounts who hadn't posted within a certain amount of time from their creation were going to be removed. Knowing this, why is this account still here? I mean I can't complain, but I created this account over a year ago and it's done literally nothing until this very post.

Edited October 14, 2017 by Ricard

[Macradon 0]

1 hour ago, Ricard said:

As much as I hate the thought of having to grind to catch up with the frontliners (more on that in a bit) I actually thought it was kind of cool that there were already these legendary characters who'd molded the setting before the arrival of whatever character I intended on writing. They were figures to look up to, maybe even figures to envy. Perhaps if your character wasn't really motivated to be a frontliner they might instead view those figures as heroes, or perhaps just as fools lacking a self-preservation instinct.

I ... I never actually thought of it that way. That may just be becasue I'm living in the frontliner Bubble, not experiencing a lot of the lower floor's quarrels like that. Very interesting point ot be made. 

1 hour ago, Ricard said:

(I say apparently since I haven't personally been too in touch. The only indication of that stagnation from my point of view is that there hasn't been a raid in forever.)

There haven't been any active in the raid meeting. I'd like to have a raid as fast as possible as well. The motivation of the frontliens is quite stagnant.

1 hour ago, Ricard said:

I think it may heavily disrupt stories that are already occurring.

I agree, a Time Skip may solve the stagnation, but all of the things that could've happen in the timeskip isn't there, and so much could've happened within the floors that were skipped.

 

My stance for the time is, Level Cap, raise new player's Starting level (unless they want to make a lower leveled character). I've fallen off from the Time Skip idea, as right now it doesn't touch me where it used to, and I'm not for it.

[Ssendom 0]

5 hours ago, Ricard said:

maybe catch a particularly controversial thread. (Not pointing fingers at Dom or anything.)

I feel Loved. <3

[Havok 0]

So it's late here and I have been up for far too long. However, after shooting Shark a PM on discord and saying how much I've enjoyed the site and community as a new player, wanted to chime in. 

Couple things to get out of the way: 

• I like story. I love story. It is why we do what we do. If it wasn't for the story, there are tons of video games we can play to get a gaming fix.
• I love numbers. I love finding that Nth detail that links up a character concept and makes it viable or strong even.
• I won't sacrifice story or the thematic/aesthetics for numbers, but I won't skimp on the numbers cause I like being as strong as I can be. 

Now...all told, this sounds like mixed messages I admit. But to give clear perspective, let me show how I came up with Havok.

• I brainstormed on what the core components for gameplay I wanted to emulate: surviveability and damage. 
• I settled on a Lancer/Dragoon aesthetics as they seemed to embody this.
• I started working out builds and numbers and gear to get that settled. 
• I crafted a personality that lent itself to this style. 
• I established his backstory and motivations for fighting at all.

Now, sure, I worked backwards compared to some people who claim to prefer story over numbers. But in D&D, MMOs, other Fantasy RPs...I have to find a style or weapon concept that meshes or resonates with me before finding out anything else. But that is how my brain works. Yet, understand I have been at this for over 16 years now. I was in middle school when 9/11 went down in the United States and I lived about 20 miles from the pentagon. I was sent home early and started my first RP account on gamefaqs. So I have a tangible date when I started. I can tell you how many words I've written across multiple forums. I've done at least, 3 million this decade over 2 characters. I've done stuff that ranged from pure free form to things much like SAO-RPG. Hell, I did eight months of a D&D campaign in play by post. 

Point is, I have seen a lot, done a lot, and enjoyed a lot. I am neither afraid of a grind, nor am I resentful of those who have grinded out years of activity to achieve their level of power. I should not have everything handed to me in the beginning, rendering 3+ years of activity moot for the vets. But we all, I think I speak for everyone there, but we all know what it feels like to be at the bottom and looking to catch up to others. Sure, maybe I never hit level 80+ but if I can hit level 30, I can begin to contribute in ways that meaningfully impact people who have been so kind enough to talk to me and help me out. However, it's a crap shoot if I ever get there if we are all being honest. Depending on the progression rate for new players, if I am working 50+ hours a week as a restaurant manager and still contributing on my home site [been there 6 years] how much effort and time do I have to put into here? Sure that's selfish, that's very...narrow in scope of experience...but I think it's a valid concern for new players in general. 

That we have to work to achieve something is not a problem, how fast we can is though. I don't know the reasonable expectation of hitting level 30 or higher. I don't know if that takes 2 years, 15 months, 10 months, 3 months or next week. [Ok, I joke, I imagine it's not under 3 months] So if I put in daily activity over 6 months, what is my expected level of power? RNG is RNG, so unique toys and rewards cannot be accounted for, but a reasonable estimated number of SP or the like should be. And once you have that number, does it provide me with the means to be relevant in the frontline areas? Not dominate, not even be a focal point...but can I contribute? Can I participate? That is what I think should be the end goal. Not treat me or other new players like special snowflakes that need everything handed to us, but instead, we need you to help us create reasonable expectations for progress. And those expectations for progress should be centered around a system that is inclusive and not meant to make even a dedicated poster like me [potentially!] feel marginalized after a good investment of time and activity. 

So, from a new guy's perspective who has been through server wipes? Ain't fun to lose 3+ years of activity. However, if there could be a wipe that saved items or gave a small level advantage to vets? I could see that being more...easily stomached than a hard, hard reset. If you're level 50? You get a level 5 start, etc. I don't know the ins and outs of your system yet, so maybe that's off. 

Time skip might be interesting, and others have alluded or outright said that it fits in the anime's progression. Though truth be told, I have always taken exception to how fast the anime moved. 12.5 episodes were dedicated to what I thought could have been 100+ episodes. But that is a critique of the creator and the storyheads.

Regarding level cap, or at least...raising the starting point of newer players, I selfishly like this the most. It has the least impact for the vets, but I ultimately...it feels imperfect and half hearted.  I think that it would be a temporary bandage treating a symptom and not the illness. But I would prefer that to doing nothing if the concerns of the community are valid.

Ultimately, I have been through soft and hard resets. I have found soft resets, where I keep modicums of my past achievements to be the easiest to stomach. At least into comparison to waking up with nothing that I had earned before. I am not sure what the right answer for this community is, as I have been a member for less than 24 hours! But, I do know the fact that people are concerned enough to talk about it makes it worth saving and trying to better. 

I hope my mumbling and musings have contributed! Thanks again for having this community at all!

Sincerely,

Dan aka Havok