Roleplaying Experience

[Itsyagirl]

This is more based off a personal problem, but perhaps some people will agree with me.

 

I like roleplaying. It's fun to make your character a real character, rather than just a bio and a pile of stats. But it sometimes feels like I'm wasting my time hanging out in Pocket D (even when it's a lot of fun!) because I could be out in the city grinding missions and getting XP.

 

I remember hearing that the philosophy for Homecoming was that all modes of play should be equally rewarding. Should that include roleplaying?

 

I'm not suggesting anything drastic - you obviously don't want people power levelling while AFK - but a steady trickle of experience if you've got the new Roleplaying tag on (and you haven't earned any other xp for some time) might be a nice concession. I remember many roleplaying servers in games like Neverwinter Nights would actually track if you were talking near other people and you'd get XP that way. 

 

Hell, even just accumulating patrol XP while logged in and roleplaying might be nice.

 

Is anyone with me on this or am I just daft?

[Steampunkette]

I roleplay while running missions.

 

My superheroes interact with their teammates and friends, react to changes in the combat situation, and discuss the particulars of the enemy groups they are fighting or the story that they're contributing to.

 

It requires one major change: do you have to use team chat instead of local or emote.

 

I just put an asterisk on either side of an action to denote that it is an action instead of a statement. It's worked well for over a decade in different games.

[GM Capocollo]

Different kinds of activities can have different forms of rewards, including intangible ones.  I think the reward for roleplaying is getting to write an interesting collaborative story, developing hooks that tie your character into a larger plot, and building a community.  For people interested in roleplaying, I think these are sufficient without having to put out an additional carrot of increased XP gain.  I also wouldn't want people to feel compelled to RP (or figure out a way to game the system without actually participating) in order to optimize their leveling.

Edited August 19, 2019 by GM Capocollo

[biostem]

4 hours ago, Itsyagirl said:

This is more based off a personal problem, but perhaps some people will agree with me.

 

I like roleplaying. It's fun to make your character a real character, rather than just a bio and a pile of stats. But it sometimes feels like I'm wasting my time hanging out in Pocket D (even when it's a lot of fun!) because I could be out in the city grinding missions and getting XP.

 

I remember hearing that the philosophy for Homecoming was that all modes of play should be equally rewarding. Should that include roleplaying?

 

I'm not suggesting anything drastic - you obviously don't want people power levelling while AFK - but a steady trickle of experience if you've got the new Roleplaying tag on (and you haven't earned any other xp for some time) might be a nice concession. I remember many roleplaying servers in games like Neverwinter Nights would actually track if you were talking near other people and you'd get XP that way. 

 

Hell, even just accumulating patrol XP while logged in and roleplaying might be nice.

 

Is anyone with me on this or am I just daft?

So let's play this out... you're sitting there RP-ing with some friends, and bam!  You suddenly unlock a new power?  You can RP that your character is training while in a mission - even create an AE mission specifically for that purpose, but while just sitting around with absolutely no risk to yourself?  I don't think you should get XP from that.  Heck, you could hang out in a zone that is just at the edge of what you get XP for, where there's very little threat to you, and knock off a few enemies if you want to RP some training or such.

[Leogunner]

I don't often rp with others mainly because I play erratically. My rp comes in the form of reading mission dialog and "bending it" slightly to fit my character's personality and I think how my character would respond (or want to respond thus eliciting other emotions based on how things actually turn out). My characters tend to be pretty based. They aren't often world savers or priority threats but they tend to have expertise that isn't reflected in actual powers, like my stalker's ability to lock /unlock any mechanical, computerized or magical locking mechanism or my scrapper being a teen prodigy at martial arts that he can do the things he does despite being a novice and sidekick to other heroes. 

[Megajoule]

You're not wasting your time.  You're choosing to spend it on one sort of gameplay, which fulfills one sort of desire/need/goal, rather than others which have more concrete (but still ultimately virtual) rewards.  But you're obviously enjoying it, or you wouldn't keep doing it.

 

The problem, IMO, is not that you're not getting xp, it's that some part of your thought process defines activities that don't earn you xp as "a waste".  That's clearly not the case, and that's the part I advise you to work on.  Since that's something internal, it's something only you can change.

[Coyotedancer]

9 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

I roleplay while running missions.

 

My superheroes interact with their teammates and friends, react to changes in the combat situation, and discuss the particulars of the enemy groups they are fighting or the story that they're contributing to.

 

It requires one major change: do you have to use team chat instead of local or emote.

 

I just put an asterisk on either side of an action to denote that it is an action instead of a statement. It's worked well for over a decade in different games.

 

I do exactly the same thing... XD

As I said to a friend the other day, I play the game to play the game... not JUST to roleplay... So, I love chatter and character interactions during and between missions. I even use that same asterisk notation for actions. (That's an old habit from text-only forum roleplay in my case-)

 

Just standing around a base or Pocket D, on the other hand? That can end up feeling more than a little awkward to me, unless we go into it with something specific in mind to talk about.... Like Kai and her partner Blue's experimentation with the Codex of Bloodlines or their adventure on the Psychic Plane. Just randomly standing around with people has never worked out well for me, so even if it DID earn me XP I doubt I would do it.

[LateNights]

10 hours ago, Itsyagirl said:

Hell, even just accumulating patrol XP while logged in and roleplaying might be nice.

 

Is anyone with me on this or am I just daft?

That's a great compromise, and to my mind it's somewhat in line with the thinking behind day jobs - that is, not having time be considered "dead" or "wasted", even while logged off!

 

(Just quietly, I'd much prefer we had access to the dev commands like on the test server - as you noted earlier - we were very much told we would be able to play as we chose...

 

Of course, I'm probably simplifying whatever goes into that decision, so take it with a grain of salt - I'll keep enjoying the game as is, because I'm just that damn tough 😄)

 

 

[Jeuraud]

As a Tabletop GM/DM I often give extra XP for Roleplaying, but for me Roleplaying does not mean BSing with your buds about what happened in the mundane world, which is what often happens in the Tabletop games. As a GM/DM I can bring my players back into the game world, but how is CoHH supposed to do that. Just because you have a Roleplaying tag on does not mean you are not using CoH as a visual social media, instead of Roleplaying a Sup doing Sup World, non-mission things.

I have no issue with people using CoH as a visual social media, but they should not get XP for it.

 

What I could see XP for, is participating in a Costume Contest, or being in a Dance Off in Pocket D, or partying with an NPC of the opposite faction, or setting up a future job (Including talking with Contacts.), or hells, getting thrown out of Pocket D for fighting. Something active.

[Zolgar]

1 hour ago, Jeuraud said:

As a Tabletop GM/DM I often give extra XP for Roleplaying, but for me Roleplaying does not mean BSing with your buds about what happened in the mundane world, which is what often happens in the Tabletop games. As a GM/DM I can bring my players back into the game world, but how is CoHH supposed to do that. Just because you have a Roleplaying tag on does not mean you are not using CoH as a visual social media, instead of Roleplaying a Sup doing Sup World, non-mission things.

I have no issue with people using CoH as a visual social media, but they should not get XP for it.

 

What I could see XP for, is participating in a Costume Contest, or being in a Dance Off in Pocket D, or partying with an NPC of the opposite faction, or setting up a future job (Including talking with Contacts.), or hells, getting thrown out of Pocket D for fighting. Something active.

I am never IC in costume contests, 90% or more of my characters, I cannot imagine wasting their time to get their costume judged.

[Megajoule]

That, incidentally and/or ironically, is why none of my characters spend much time in the D - they have other social circles and/or much better things to do with their limited downtime than hang out (or try to hook up) with random strangers in a bar.

[Burnt Toast]

No... What's next... getting xp for base editing? I spend A LOT of time base editing.. my reward - the finished base/room. Your reward for roleplaying is the actual rp experience - you should not earn any xp for roleplaying. You choose not to participate in fighting.. much like base editors...marketeers...etc - you gain something different from your choice. 

[ZeeHero]

This would be impossible to implement becuase how would the game know if you're actually RPing?