Bringing Back Prestige

[Rudra]

So a comment was made by someone a while back that inf' should automatically be a pool for all the player's characters. (Don't ask me why that memory popped in my head today. I don't know.) Predictably, I disagree. However, I had a thought. What if prestige were to be brought back and used in this manner? Hear me out before you stone me to death.

 

I'm proposing bringing prestige back, except it won't be used to buy anything for the SG base. Instead, it would be a SG pool of funds. Characters would be able to set their prestige gains in set ratios. Say 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%. Those ratios would determine how much of the influence their characters would normally get that would be converted to prestige instead. So yes, at 100%, the character would gain 0 inf' from anything, including mission completion, and instead it would be prestige for the SG. Now the way prestige itself would work in this proposal, is that any SG member can bank on their SG's prestige to gain things they could not normally get on their own for lack of inf'. This means that a character could go to their SG and convert some of that prestige into inf' for their character. So they would withdraw some of the SG's prestige as inf' to buy inspirations, enhancements, recipes, whatever. And a per character per day (per account?) limit on withdrawals would be available to be set by the SG leader to prevent others from just draining the SG's prestige for themselves and leaving possibly more in need characters out of luck.

 

Why do it this way instead of just making an account automatically pool inf' across all its characters?

    Firstly, because despite inf' being used as money in the game, it is supposed to be a measure of the clout and resources the character has amassed over the course of their career. Their influence over the game world, their infamy they can leverage into bullying others to give them what they want, or their accumulated knowledge they can blackmail others with to get what they want. More specifically, favors earned and cashed in to get resources, public acclaim being leveraged for personal gain (disillusioning the public until the character builds up more acclaim), and so forth. So it doesn't make sense for inf' to be an account pool just because it is used as money in the game, since it is how the game world views that specific character and that specific character's ability to influence things. However, a SG's prestige is the same thing, except that it is a group's ability to influence the game world around them.

   Secondly, this would enable players to easily share resources with each other even if they weren't on at the same time. Such as to help a friend's fledgling character or some newbie player that you bring into the SG to help learn the game. So doing it this way means you can help others with your ability to gain inf' as well.

 

You may now set fire to this idea. I've got food ready, at least I'll get a decent barbecue out of it.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Rudra
Edited for spelling errors. Edited again for missed spelling error and word choice ("a" replaced by "the".)

[kito]

I like this idea for Rp as a in game currency the questions is always why not just give.outher players some influence. I would like to see.prestege added back into the game and just set to 0 every month as a easy way for you to see how active the SG was that month or even a player.

[Rudra]

Yeaaaahhhhhhh... I'm pretty much just looking at single player SGs and friend SGs with this. Just a means for players to consolidate and simplify inf' transfers. If larger SGs use it, good on them. This is never going to happen, but this would not be posted at the SG registrar or anywhere else outside of SG members being able to access it. I want the Live use for prestige to stay dead. Both for base building and for SG competition. There are much better options that can be introduced to show if a SG is active or not than prestige. I'm still against that suggestion.

 

Edit: In a nutshell, I am proposing a SG bank with a direct deposit feature. Not a method of tracking SG or SG member activity. Don't let the "prestige" name fool you. I'm just recycling the name for group funds.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Rudra
Edited for spelling.

[GM Crumpet]

Originally the way SG mode was coded meant you only got half inf while in SG mode. We kind of fudged it so you can be in SG mode for SG purposes (costume, emblem etc) and no longer lose the inf, but you also don't gain prestige. From what I can tell turning off that part was easy, but anything more complicated would more than likely hit the spaghetti code and need a lot of work and maybe even need to start from scratch. It's not a bad idea, but it hits the criteria of "What's a good idea that devs willingly spend months of coding on that will enhance the playing experience for the maximum number of players, and what's niche and will be used by a very small percentage of players". We have a small team of superb devs, but the key word is small. We don't have the resources or staff to make quite large changes unless it's going to be widely used. What we need is a team of unpaid interns we can throw something at and say "Have fun, you have till Friday" 🙂 

[Parabola]

It's a nice idea but given that we can just email inf between characters it would just be creating a slicker, more lore friendly solution to an already solved problem.

[srmalloy]

13 hours ago, Rudra said:

Firstly, because despite inf' being used as money in the game, it is supposed to be a measure of the clout and resources the character has amassed over the course of their career. Their influence over the game world, their infamy they can leverage into bullying others to give them what they want, or their accumulated knowledge they can blackmail others with to get what they want. More specifically, favors earned and cashed in to get resources, public acclaim being leveraged for personal gain...

If, and only if, crawling into your electronic navel to destroy thousands of enemies that exist only inside the AE simulation system gives no inf regardless of the character settings. Someone who disappears into the AE building at level 1 and doesn't come out until level 50 is completely unknown to the populace around them; they should have neither clout nor resources. Spending time defeating virtual opponents will teach you how to use your abilities better, so there's no problem with gaining XP, but you're not doing anything to help your reputation, so you get no inf from it.

[Hyperstrike]

15 hours ago, Rudra said:

So a comment was made by someone a while back that inf' should automatically be a pool for all the player's characters. (Don't ask me why that memory popped in my head today. I don't know.) Predictably, I disagree. However, I had a thought. What if prestige were to be brought back and used in this manner? Hear me out before you stone me to death.

 

I'm proposing bringing prestige back, except it won't be used to buy anything for the SG base. Instead, it would be a SG pool of funds. Characters would be able to set their prestige gains in set ratios. Say 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%. Those ratios would determine how much of the influence their characters would normally get that would be converted to prestige instead. So yes, at 100%, the character would gain 0 inf' from anything, including mission completion, and instead it would be prestige for the SG. Now the way prestige itself would work in this proposal, is that any SG member can bank on their SG's prestige to gain things they could not normally get on their own for lack of inf'. This means that a character could go to their SG and convert some of that prestige into inf' for their character. So they would withdraw some of the SG's prestige as inf' to buy inspirations, enhancements, recipes, whatever. And a per character per day (per account?) limit on withdrawals would be available to be set by the SG leader to prevent others from just draining the SG's prestige for themselves and leaving possibly more in need characters out of luck.

 

Why do it this way instead of just making an account automatically pool inf' across all its characters?

    Firstly, because despite inf' being used as money in the game, it is supposed to be a measure of the clout and resources the character has amassed over the course of their career. Their influence over the game world, their infamy they can leverage into bullying others to give them what they want, or their accumulated knowledge they can blackmail others with to get what they want. More specifically, favors earned and cashed in to get resources, public acclaim being leveraged for personal gain (disillusioning the public until the character builds up more acclaim), and so forth. So it doesn't make sense for inf' to be an account pool just because it is used as money in the game, since it is how the game world views that specific character and that specific character's ability to influence things. However, a SG's prestige is the same thing, except that it is a group's ability to influence the game world around them.

   Secondly, this would enable players to easily share resources with each other even if they weren't on at the same time. Such as to help a friend's fledgling character or some newbie player that you bring into the SG to help learn the game. So doing it this way means you can help others with your ability to gain inf' as well.

 

You may now set fire to this idea. I've got food ready, at least I'll get a decent barbecue out of it.

 

Okay, if you're just using it as a shared alt-salvage for Inf, what's the point?

Pretty much all funds in the game are transferable (outside of some Incarnate stuff) via the e-mail system.

And you can transfer INF to friends already.

Why do the devs need to go to the trouble of creating a super group penny jar?

And what purpose does it serve to needlessly convert it back and forth to Prestige?

[Ghost]

This sounds like power creep

 

 

🙂 

[Hyperstrike]

Just now, Ghost said:

This sounds like power creep

 

 

🙂 

I swear (ALL THE DAMN TIME!).  I'm not THAT creepy!

[Yomo Kimyata]

8 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

Originally the way SG mode was coded meant you only got half inf while in SG mode. We kind of fudged it so you can be in SG mode for SG purposes (costume, emblem etc) and no longer lose the inf, but you also don't gain prestige. From what I can tell turning off that part was easy, but anything more complicated would more than likely hit the spaghetti code and need a lot of work and maybe even need to start from scratch. It's not a bad idea, but it hits the criteria of "What's a good idea that devs willingly spend months of coding on that will enhance the playing experience for the maximum number of players, and what's niche and will be used by a very small percentage of players". We have a small team of superb devs, but the key word is small. We don't have the resources or staff to make quite large changes unless it's going to be widely used. What we need is a team of unpaid interns we can throw something at and say "Have fun, you have till Friday" 🙂 

 

This is well worded and extremely accurate.  I suggest that the bolded half of this paragraph should be stickied, and possibly be automatically inserted as a header for every single new post in this forum.  It's common sense, but hey, it can't hurt to remind people.

[Troo]

1 minute ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

This is well worded and extremely accurate.  I suggest that the bolded half of this paragraph should be stickied, and possibly be automatically inserted as a header for every single new post in this forum.  It's common sense, but hey, it can't hurt to remind people.

 

don't forgot to caveat pvp changes.

[Grouchybeast]

On the one hand, this seems like it would inevitably lead to thefts of funds, enormous popcorn-worthy drama, and huge amounts of work for the GMs trying to clear up the messes afterwards, so in that sense it doesn't seem worth it when there are already very easy ways to pass inf to other players.

 

On the other hand, this seems like it would inevitably lead to thefts of funds and enormous popcorn-worthy drama...so...

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Hyperstrike said:

 

Okay, if you're just using it as a shared alt-salvage for Inf, what's the point?

Pretty much all funds in the game are transferable (outside of some Incarnate stuff) via the e-mail system.

And you can transfer INF to friends already.

Why do the devs need to go to the trouble of creating a super group penny jar?

And what purpose does it serve to needlessly convert it back and forth to Prestige?

The point would be the number of players with large numbers of alts that in the forums have complained about needing to search through pages of alts to find characters with inf' to e-mail themselves.

 

3 hours ago, srmalloy said:

If, and only if, crawling into your electronic navel to destroy thousands of enemies that exist only inside the AE simulation system gives no inf regardless of the character settings. Someone who disappears into the AE building at level 1 and doesn't come out until level 50 is completely unknown to the populace around them; they should have neither clout nor resources. Spending time defeating virtual opponents will teach you how to use your abilities better, so there's no problem with gaining XP, but you're not doing anything to help your reputation, so you get no inf from it.

Not a problem. AE not transferring via this is fine with me.

 

1 hour ago, Grouchybeast said:

On the one hand, this seems like it would inevitably lead to thefts of funds, enormous popcorn-worthy drama, and huge amounts of work for the GMs trying to clear up the messes afterwards, so in that sense it doesn't seem worth it when there are already very easy ways to pass inf to other players.

 

On the other hand, this seems like it would inevitably lead to thefts of funds and enormous popcorn-worthy drama...so...

That would be why I have a SG leader settable limit for how much can be withdrawn. Potentially even per account instead of just per character.

[srmalloy]

2 hours ago, Rudra said:

Not a problem. AE not transferring via this is fine with me.

You misunderstand. If we're going to revert influence/infamy/information to the original concept of what it represents, instead of being just an abstract currency, then AE missions should award only XP and tickets; defeating mobs inside AE missions, and AE mission completion, award no inf at all. You can defeat millions of opponents inside AE missions, and it won't affect your reputation in the 'real world' one bit.

[Rudra]

13 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

You misunderstand. If we're going to revert influence/infamy/information to the original concept of what it represents, instead of being just an abstract currency, then AE missions should award only XP and tickets; defeating mobs inside AE missions, and AE mission completion, award no inf at all. You can defeat millions of opponents inside AE missions, and it won't affect your reputation in the 'real world' one bit.

I'm not getting into that discussion.

[Hyperstrike]

2 hours ago, Rudra said:

The point would be the number of players with large numbers of alts that in the forums have complained about needing to search through pages of alts to find characters with inf' to e-mail themselves.

 

Sorry if I sound callous here.
But are people incapable of documenting their resources?

 

Or setting up known "Twink" characters?

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Hyperstrike said:

 

Sorry if I sound callous here.
But are people incapable of documenting their resources?

 

Or setting up known "Twink" characters?

I don't know about other players, but I already have more than enough projects that I have to deal with without making this game one too. Sure, players can set up mule characters to send all their money to, or just fill their in-game e-mail with lots of e-mails of inf' for their other characters to claim. I'm not saying there are no other solutions. So let's break it down:

 

Solution 1: Just keep searching through up to the limit of 1,000 characters to find the character(s) with available inf' for your alts.

Solution 2: Just keep a set number of characters so the player doesn't need to scroll through pages of characters to find one with inf' to send.

Solution 3: Just end each and every game session with e-mails to yourself with all the inf' you've gained for the day.

Solution 4: Fix solution 3 by having a mule character whose sole purpose is to hold inf' for your alts.

Solution 5: Make and maintain a spreadsheet to track available inf' across your characters.

Solution 6: Forget giving inf' to your alts, just grind reward merits and inf' on the character that needs it.

Solution 7: Make a central location where your characters can put their inf' for ready and immediate access. Like a SG bank.

Solution 8: Expand on the idea of solution 7 so that characters can direct deposit their gained inf' and streamline the process.

 

Solution 1 is not really a solution but a declaration of current situation.

Solution 2 is just plain out for some players. Alt-itis is real and incurable.

Solution 3 bogs down your e-mail, which several players already have maxxed out storing inspirations for when they need them on TFs, SFs, trials, etc.

Solution 4 is the most feasible of options that don't require dev work to implement. However, it runs up against the single character limit for inf' and still requires you to use solution 3 to implement. So depending on the player, (s)he could need several such mule characters to store resources for their alts. (And then track which characters are the mules.)

Solution 5 turns the game into work. And while I can't speak for others, I refuse to turn a game I play for entertainment into work.

Solution 6 is viable, but means you have to wait until max level to get very far with slotting enhancements.

Solutions 7 and 8 require work by the devs to implement. However, they would greatly simplify the situation for players.

 

There may be other solutions I didn't think of. However, those 8 solutions are my best attempt at an objective review. So are there solutions to the problem the OP is meant to address and do most of them already exist? Yes. Of course there are. Do I expect any dev to look at this, think it is the greatest idea since the invention of the home computer, drop whatever (s)he is working on, and tackle this? No, absolutely not. I doubt they will even give the OP any consideration since there are already solutions to the problem. However, from my point of view at least, this is a quality of life issue that can be implemented whenever the devs like if they so choose.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Rudra
Edited to remove extraneous "e" and re-arrange dev sentence. And again to add new solution 1.

[Zeraphia]

15 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

Originally the way SG mode was coded meant you only got half inf while in SG mode. We kind of fudged it so you can be in SG mode for SG purposes (costume, emblem etc) and no longer lose the inf, but you also don't gain prestige. From what I can tell turning off that part was easy, but anything more complicated would more than likely hit the spaghetti code and need a lot of work and maybe even need to start from scratch. It's not a bad idea, but it hits the criteria of "What's a good idea that devs willingly spend months of coding on that will enhance the playing experience for the maximum number of players, and what's niche and will be used by a very small percentage of players". We have a small team of superb devs, but the key word is small. We don't have the resources or staff to make quite large changes unless it's going to be widely used. What we need is a team of unpaid interns we can throw something at and say "Have fun, you have till Friday" 🙂 

I don't mean to be rude here, this is a sincere question, why not add more open source projects or resources? I know it's not quite as cool as "hiding the objects behind the curtain and letting the public see the changes after" that's the current method of production, but since the team is so small, why not invite the extra help in development?

[Hyperstrike]

1 hour ago, Zeraphia said:

I don't mean to be rude here, this is a sincere question, why not add more open source projects or resources? I know it's not quite as cool as "hiding the objects behind the curtain and letting the public see the changes after" that's the current method of production, but since the team is so small, why not invite the extra help in development?

You ever managed a large game programming project with a group of geographically diverse programmers of all manner of varying skill levels and expertise?

[srmalloy]

2 hours ago, Hyperstrike said:

You ever managed a large game programming project with a group of geographically diverse programmers of all manner of varying skill levels and expertise?

"99 little bugs in the code, 99 little bugs. Take one down, patch and rebuild, 125 little bugs in the code."

[Hyperstrike]

4 hours ago, srmalloy said:

"99 little bugs in the code, 99 little bugs. Take one down, patch and rebuild, 125 little bugs in the code."

Ask Linus Torvalds about dealing with a plethora (El Guapo: Do joo know what a PLETHORA EES?) of different grades of unpaid programmers is like...

[GM Crumpet]

Getting a little off topic here guys, but not everyone is organised 🙂

I'll log on to an alt I haven't played in a long time and go "Hey, 200 million inf I'd forgotten about". And I only have around 40 alts. 20 of which are retired now they have hit incarnate level 4 on everything. Those I do strip of inf, merits and emp threads, but the others have all kinds of stuff I forgot about. I found 10 PaPs on one yesterday.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

Do we really need another currency?

[Hyperstrike]

3 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

Getting a little off topic here guys, but not everyone is organised 🙂

I'll log on to an alt I haven't played in a long time and go "Hey, 200 million inf I'd forgotten about". And I only have around 40 alts. 20 of which are retired now they have hit incarnate level 4 on everything. Those I do strip of inf, merits and emp threads, but the others have all kinds of stuff I forgot about. I found 10 PaPs on one yesterday.

Sounds like you guys need CIT...

[Rudra]

4 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

Do we really need another currency?

It's not another currency. You can't buy anything with prestige as proposed in the OP. It is a storage mechanism. The name is strictly to differentiate between the stored inf' and the character possessed inf'. For all intents and purposes, it just influence/infamy/information presented in a more or less generic form (hence the name change) in a separate location from your characters that can be added to or withdrawn by the characters.