'State of the RP' feedback thread

[Vinn Esper]

Also, all of the lightsaber fighting style forms didn't even exist yet.

Light sabers were still fairly new and as wookiepedia states, those who used light sabers were like children with toys compared to the Jedi and sith from later timeline

 

[Calixis]

I think a lot of people's concerns are being simplified as, "you are anti-PvP" and "You are pro-PvP."

I don't have an issue with PvP unto itself. My current character was made with the expectation of just that occurring. I've been on private game servers where I've permakilled, had my characters permakilled, pushed for consequences and 'grounding' of people's absurd ideas and tried to push them into environments where they are not unstoppable. In that way PvP is good. But because I don't think that PvP should be -THE- one and only thing that dictates progress, then I'm obviously just a hater. PvP can and perhaps should be a major part of how territory and faction influence is measured and especially for say... Mandalorians, professional militaries (GAR etc), but it shouldn't be the only way.

"But Calixis," somebody will say. "You can do four [Ask] PvE Missions before invading a territory!" Okay, great. That's a nice start because it demands both types of threads. But the threads that ultimate decide it and the ones marked [MAIN SUPER DUPER IMPORTANT THREAD] are the PvP ones. Want a square? PvP it. Doesn't matter if your faction writes eight threads penned by God's gift to writing. If your faction gets its arse kicked in PvP then it's all for nought. Doesn't matter if you and your friends poured over eight threads of quality writing that last for ten pages each for months, what matters isyou 'out wrote' the newbie in posts encouraging brevity over quality.

Why do you think the Senate is completely and utterly dead and the only 'active' Senators also part of GAR?

The focus on PvP above all else isn't healthy because it warps the factions into this really awkward void. The playable Jedi Order became the Revanchr- I mean, Jedi Army because... PvP. Doesn't fit your character? Tough. Go and scalp that guy. The Galactic Republic is, by all accounts, ran by total and utter morons armed with twigs and suffering from brain damage because... it doesn't have a very active playerbase and doesn't PvP an awful lot, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your faction doesn't PvP a lot? What a bunch of losers, your NPC leaders are dumb-dumbs and your soldiers/fleet incompetent.

The Death Watch are one of only two Indie Factions with official territory because they won PvP threads. Want to shape the story? You have to PvP. Want to join a Main Faction? Hope you enjoy PvP or at least have a character themed towards it. Your Jedi leans more to diplomacy and doesn't support an active, expansionist war? Eat shit, carebear. Go join one of those silly 'Indie Factions' and maybe you'll get some table scraps.

Mission Packs. If they don't push the territories forward then doing any of them is pointless. Rebuilding a world? Dealing with corruption on home turf? Setting up defences in conquered territory? Pointless, because you could be expending time and effort into one of those four [Ask] or two [Open] threads that lead into getting you a shiny coloured square. Sure, the writing's good and enjoyable, but there's always the nagging feeling of, "I could be doing something that is more OOCly beneficial to my faction."

Despite this, PvP can and should absolutely have a place. It's too embedded now to be anything but. It also shouldn't be the sole driving force of the site. It 'story' feels lacking at best, or just boring at worst, because the overhanging metaplot - due to how territories work - feels... video gamey? It doesn't feel like characters are being used to push a story forward, it feels like they're putting pins on a map and cheering each other OOC for getting more pins than the other guy. It probably doesn't help "Not-Sith Empire invades the Republic and they fight" is one of the most overused tropes on just about every single Star Wars board but that's my own bias leaking in.

If somebody said, "Well what would you do with PvP?" then I'd narrow its focus down, make it more personal than some sweeping galactic war that takes up entire star-systems overnight before moving on to the next one. Clans on Mandalore fighting each other over whole planets instead of five threads dictating the entire star-system now belongs to one side. Jedi Army and Sith engaging in a shadow-war of sorts on the fringes and over important worlds, rather than coloured pins of vast swathes of off-screen land. The whole galaxy feels small, because whole star-systems are being decided in a few threads. Expand the mini-game's depth further by making more than just pushing forward matter too.

Food for thought.

 

[Gamov]

All this talk of player initiated content and players regulating the flow of the plot and how rules are interpreted, really reminds me of star wars chaos. But I digress, and honestly, that has little to do with the actual words being spoken so much as the context they are being used in.

You asked about the state of the rp? Well, don't know what to tell you honestly. Nobody has a direction in this rp, except the sith, whose direction is wanton destruction without an endgoal. Nobody does anything else because its literally pointless to do anything else. On the sith side, it's because anyone who doesn't tow the line can expect to be challenged to a duel to the death, or otherwise summary executed. On the jedi and pubs side, it's because any plot that gets created with the involvement of the sith end up becoming "Sith get a super weapon and win a bunch" via the skype chats and planning, regardless if the proposed plot even initially called for a super weapon in the first place. And any plan that doens't involve the sith doesn't get attention because NPC's, who would be the main opposition in a thread without sith, cannot be used to harm PC's at all, not even grazes or obstructions.

Literally pointless to do anything that doesn't involve just doing the same invasion/repelling threads with both usual opposing player side, because no matter the story told, it is instantly negated by the fact that "NPC's can never harm or inconvenience PC's in any circumstance", which is an unofficial rule adhered to on this site by all of its writers.

Don't even get me started on the Indies. Almost a year now and they still need a ridiculous amount of hoops to jump through, and for what reasons? Because the main factions have fleets they never use, and territory borders that mean **** all because anyone can just hop onto any planet they want without any sort of repercussions. But Indies don't have that so they need to make, what was it last time, 4 Open threads or 8 Ask threads just to have a planet, and then 4 more opens or 8 more ask threads to secure a square? Wowie, it's a wonder more people don't do stuff with indies.

"Oh but you can do stuff that doesn't require squares", to which I say, "Like what?" Because frankly it seems like squares are the only thing that matter this timeline rp. Fleets don't matter, nobody uses them. Borders don't matter so any border organization or defense force is useless due to the fact that you can't prevent an enemy faction from setting foot on a world, period, they gotta get boots on the ground before they can get pushed back. Mercenary groups are already covered because of the sacred band, and bounty hunters as a faction collapsed due to no real ability to make threads. Be it a Smuggler organization, Humanitarian relief worker, Force Sensitive faction, or Assassin order, the fact is, in order to actually impact things in this story, you need to claim territory. Literally nothing else will get noticed.

The temple of Tython and Moraband were destroyed, two major blows that didn't invovle territory conquest, and the effect it had on the story was marginal to nonexistent. Because players needed to make the consequneces, and most players didn't give a shit cause it wasn't territory.

You know...im gonna be completely honest here. If this timeline were to end, or if some madman were to make a cosseted effort to massacre all of the jedi and all of the sith, and bring this timeline to a forced close...I'd be completely fine with that.

While I agree with about 90% of what you've said here, there is one point I'd like to draw out for the sake of clarification:

On the sith side, it's because anyone who doesn't tow the line can expect to be challenged to a duel to the death, or otherwise summary executed.

This isn't entirely accurate. While it makes sense ICly that the Sith would act this way, OOCly the faction has become more progressive and open to writers of every stripe. Duels to the death within the faction are extremely rare, and to date there has only been one instance of the Arauek'kesh (invoked by yours truly... and also lost by yours truly. lol). So to say that people within the Sith are expected to maintain lockstep with this "PvP only" mentality is erroneous.

On the flip side of that though, I'm not saying I'm 100% comfortable with the exclusivity of factions like the Jedi and Sith. Yes both factions have made strides to incorporate all of their writers and give them all a shot at achieving something beyond just your rank and file Jedi Knight/Sith without needing to slog through a horde of PvP threads to earn it. And I can honestly say I am pleased with that. But at the same time, those offerings (especially in the case of Sith Immortal) were delivered with the caveat that even then, you still aren't as important as a Jedi General or Darth. Which makes these changes feel more conciliatory than anything.

Do those ranks put people who aren't so focused on PvP in a better position to carry out personal stories within the faction with a bit more freedom? Sure, but I actually had to ask the respective AFLs on my side (the Sith) what exactly I could accomplish with my promotion. Because it wasn't made overly clear in the announcement, and I still don't think it really is. And I personally feel that has become a major stumbling block for writers along the entire spectrum on the site when it concerns conceptualizing and executing personal stories within the framework of their faction of choice: no one is really sure where the lines are drawn.

We have all these rules to govern PvP, the Force, tech, and territory acquisition, but really no road signs telling people where it's safe to tread when considering their character's personal exploits. Most of it can be boiled down to simple common sense, but I also feel that because so much emphasis is placed on titles like Darth and General (by virtue of the fact that, at least for the Sith, there can only be so many Darths at a given time), people seem to have this perception that in order to do anything even remotely worthwhile with their character's story through the faction, becoming a Darth is necessary to have that freedom, when that isn't necessarily true.

So if I were to call attention to something that isn't working as well as it should (by association with the muddled PvP system), it would be the factions. Within the framework of this timeline, they work brilliantly to drive a war story forward. Unfortunately, that's exactly what the factions were designed to do in this TL and not much else. The timeline was essentially set up as a giant game of capture the flag - with the Jedi goal to eliminate Moaraband, and the Sith goal to capture Cosruscant - while the Republic was just stuck in the middle as an inept trade conglomerate with an ancillary rebellious faction (the former Border Alliance) on its fringes carrying out a guerrilla war against a rising Sith threat that (oddly) only they seemed intimately aware of.

To be perfectly frank, the story for this timeline doesn't seem to have been thought out all too well. There's no impetus for the factions we currently have in place to be doing what they're doing other than towing the oldest and most cliche line in Star Wars: Sith in hiding, Republic complacent, Sith come back, Jedi start war, Republic remains complacent and incompetent. The story so far is about as cookie cutter as they come, and part of the reason there is so little interest in driving it forward except to reach some arbitrary conclusion to be decided in a few one on one battles between Dark Lord Darth Badass and Jedi Master General Obi-Clone.

 

[Apollyon]

Hi, Apollyon here! Some of you may remember me from last tl, others only know me from limited sources and stuff. But basically, I pvped A LOT last timeline and utilized it to bring my main character from a fresh faces acolyte all the way to the Dark Council where he served as Warmaster until the end of the timeline.

What I see are a lot of people complaining that pvp has this "how can I win" not "how would my character interact here" mentality. While this is partially true it isn't entirely. I'll use the only example I have and that would be my own character, Darth Kova/Audroti.

Audroti as a character was a warrior hell bent on dominating the galaxy and destroying the light side of the Force. This meant in pvp he didn't hold back, he went for killing blows every time, and generally broke most characters who opposed him. People complained that I only cared about the win because I wrote a character that developed this way, when in reality I was simply sticking to what my character had slowly evolved into.

To compound this, most people think a battle is over when one character is dead or dismembered and captured, this isn't true. In war retreats ARE sounded! You can run away, and in most cases your opposition will not only help you design a way out but will want to develop a story off of your character's escape!

The few times this happened to me in pvp, I got to explore some pretty cool plot lines with other writers. We both got to see how our characters reacted towards one another and it almost developed a rivalry cross faction. In a sense, pvp became a story telling device between our two characters which was pretty interesting.

What I am trying to say is that YES winning will always be in the back of someone's mind, especially in main battles. However, it doesn't mean this person isn't willing to create a cool story from the pvp or that they won't be down to work with you for your character to retreat. Most of the "god-tier" pvpers aren't interested in killing your character they are just interested in the fight in front of them.

Now to address your concern about all the high quality pvpers being on a single faction. Yes currently, most of the pvpers are on the Sith BUT there is a reason. Earlier this year the Jedi were COMPLETELY dumpster into EVERYONE to the point people were afraid of them ending the timeline SUPER earlier by completing the original story objective. To balance this out A LOT of pvpers joined the Sith side to help hold the fort and keep morale high.

Once the faction leadership changed, the Jedi became more pacifistic and started to lose. Pvpers didn't rush back onto their side for a simple reason, in a pasifist culture there isn't much fighting or aggression which severely limits the pvper, boring them. Now that the Jedi have found a balance between warlike and pacifistic there are pvpers going over to them. Many of the pvpers are simply enjoying a character they started role playing as a year ago, and want to finish that tale.

 

[Roen]

Saying the PvP system is 'okay' because some fights are good and some are bad is a blanket statement that won't suffice. Correlation trying to be proven as causation is bad times.

I know, I make a study of these things, PvP and bad tiems both.

 

[Nor'baal]

Can I just say "eat shit, carebear." had me in stiches for a good 15 mins.

Thank you @Calixis

 

[Phoenix]

1. well I think it becomes quite hard to separate OOC from IC when you are not just dueling ICly but also OOCly. It's about writing the other person into a corner and outsmarting them, therefor it's not just between the characters but also the writers. As this makes it a mix of IC and OOC by nature it's hardly suprising people quarrel with each other.

But that's my point. You're trying to write the other person's character into a corner, but everyone has the mentality that you're trying to write the other person into a corner. It may be a slight difference, but it's an important one. People don't separate the two. Again, I go back to the fact that one of my best friends just killed my character a month ago. She wrote my character into a corner and he got shot in the face. We're still great friends. I shrugged and moved on because it's not about the two of us, it was about a fight between our characters. But people don't separate the two. They think "oh you killed my character, I hate you and want revenge."

2. Naw I'm not gonna get angry, I'm just curious who are you to tell players they are WAY too attached? Yes some people (myself included) don't want to lose their characters because a sandwich gets thrown into their face or because someone decides the sun was standing in a specific angle so XY will get blinded in the very second a blow is thrown at them... ;) Does this make me a second-class writer in your eyes? That my characters mean something to me and I'm not willing to dagger them on the altar of PvP ^^°? I know you don't mean it in a rude way and if you have no problem replacing your characters by just another then I congratulate you, however please don't belittle the ones that are not like this :)

I never said that you were a second class writer and I'd greatly appreciate it if you did not put words in my mouth. But my point stands that if you're not willing to lose whatever character you're fighting with, then you have no business using them in PvP. If that means your extremely attached to all of your characters and can't PvP, then so be it, that's fine. Not everyone has to PvP. That's your decision. But if you're putting in some character that you feel you absolutely can't live without, you are simply asking for trouble, so don't be surprised when trouble finds you.

And as for who am I to say people are too attached to their character? I'm simply saying that if people were not so attached to their characters, this wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue. That's just a fact. Now, does that mean people should be less attached to their characters? In my opinion, yes. But that doesn't mean it's going to happen.

I'm not belittling people for being attached to their characters. I have characters that I'm quite attached to, but I've seen firsthand instances where people treat character death like it is literally the end of the world, and I'm sorry, but it's not. You're never going to convince me that the stakes for this are actually high enough that people shouldn't be able to move on with their lives. No one's life is actually in danger and there are far greater issue that plague this world than the death of a fictional character.

 

[Nor'baal]

I do agree, if you don't want to lose your character, do not enter pvp.

And if people wont rp with you unless it is pvp enabled, then you'd probably not miss out if you didn't rp with them.

 

[soed]

But that's my point. You're trying to write the other person's character into a corner, but everyone has the mentality that you're trying to write the other person into a corner. It may be a slight difference, but it's an important one. People don't separate the two. Again, I go back to the fact that one of my best friends just killed my character a month ago. She wrote my character into a corner and he got shot in the face. We're still great friends. I shrugged and moved on because it's not about the two of us, it was about a fight between our characters. But people don't separate the two. They think "oh you killed my character, I hate you and want revenge."



I never said that you were a second class writer and I'd greatly appreciate it if you did not put words in my mouth. But my point stands that if you're not willing to lose whatever character you're fighting with, then you have no business using them in PvP. If that means your extremely attached to all of your characters and can't PvP, then so be it, that's fine. Not everyone has to PvP. That's your decision. But if you're putting in some character that you feel you absolutely can't live without, you are simply asking for trouble, so don't be surprised when trouble finds you.

And as for who am I to say people are too attached to their character? I'm simply saying that if people were not so attached to their characters, this wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue. That's just a fact. Now, does that mean people should be less attached to their characters? In my opinion, yes. But that doesn't mean it's going to happen.

I'm not belittling people for being attached to their characters. I have characters that I'm quite attached to, but I've seen firsthand instances where people treat character death like it is literally the end of the world, and I'm sorry, but it's not. You're never going to convince me that the stakes for this are actually high enough that people shouldn't be able to move on with their lives. No one's life is actually in danger and there are far greater issue that plague this world than the death of a fictional character.

Sorry for being brief in my response to this, it is absolutely only because I am on phone.

Don't you see how this is a self-fulfilling prophecy? PvP oriented timeline = PvP centric characters.

If you make not the character you envision, or rather make it exactly as you envision but with a cookie-cutter goal in mind, then you are automatically less invested in them.

If you create a flawed character with a lot of potential for a personal arc, which you certainly have in mind, you'd be rather prissy about some doofus offing the character out of left field.

And seriously, just look at the two main factions. The Jedi and Sith both recommend against starting as an initiate and acolyte respectively. Why? Because of PvP.
Now I am just one person, but I always thought the master/apprentice storylines were not only extremely interesting in the SW universe, but also completely central to almost all stories told within; at least those involving those two factions. I think that is a big mistake.

 

[Jinan B]

Also, all of the lightsaber fighting style forms didn't even exist yet.

Light sabers were still fairly new and as wookiepedia states, those who used light sabers were like children with toys compared to the Jedi and sith from later timeline

While I understand that things might have changed in the new canon that I'm not aware of, in legends lightsabers and lightsaber forms were 100% a thing long before the time that this TL takes place in. I don't suppose you have a source or anything talking about young lightsabers?

With regards to this whole PvP thing, frankly I skipped all the long involved posts about it cause I already have a headache lol, and I'm like 99% sure that there are people here already saying the stuff that i would say otherwise.

Maybe I'll get involved later

OH

With regards to the whole Jedi should be savage and all that, I feel like the difference may in part be as a result of how the force works in this system (/how it's been interpreted here, it may well be how it works in canon I don't think there's anything definitive with regards to that in the new stuff [or the old stuff? I'm really not as well versed in Star Wars as I like to think half the time]). With the parallels to DnD taint (disclaimer, I know nothing about DnD and that parallel was made by Boli in his thingy), the Jedi that do end up acting like sith would end up as Sith, regardless of their personal beliefs (at least that's how think it works, obviously I could be wrong, though if other newbies share this mistake perhaps some clarification might be needed in the rules? idk). As it says here:

"and it is separate from one's morality - even the most righteous and noble hero can be corrupted by it." (though this is talking about taint, not the DS, it is highlighting where it is similar/the same, and goes on to explain how the DS works like that)

 

[Berlioz]

But that's my point. You're trying to write the other person's character into a corner, but everyone has the mentality that you're trying to write the other person into a corner. It may be a slight difference, but it's an important one. People don't separate the two. Again, I go back to the fact that one of my best friends just killed my character a month ago. She wrote my character into a corner and he got shot in the face. We're still great friends. I shrugged and moved on because it's not about the two of us, it was about a fight between our characters. But people don't separate the two. They think "oh you killed my character, I hate you and want revenge."



I never said that you were a second class writer and I'd greatly appreciate it if you did not put words in my mouth. But my point stands that if you're not willing to lose whatever character you're fighting with, then you have no business using them in PvP. If that means your extremely attached to all of your characters and can't PvP, then so be it, that's fine. Not everyone has to PvP. That's your decision. But if you're putting in some character that you feel you absolutely can't live without, you are simply asking for trouble, so don't be surprised when trouble finds you.

And as for who am I to say people are too attached to their character? I'm simply saying that if people were not so attached to their characters, this wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue. That's just a fact. Now, does that mean people should be less attached to their characters? In my opinion, yes. But that doesn't mean it's going to happen.

I'm not belittling people for being attached to their characters. I have characters that I'm quite attached to, but I've seen firsthand instances where people treat character death like it is literally the end of the world, and I'm sorry, but it's not. You're never going to convince me that the stakes for this are actually high enough that people shouldn't be able to move on with their lives. No one's life is actually in danger and there are far greater issue that plague this world than the death of a fictional character.

To put it bluntly, I can't help but sympathize a bit when it comes emotional investment into characters. Emotional investment is what drives a lot of writing, at the core. You want to finish your character's story, you want to see them do _____ and accomplish _____. While I agree that this emotional investment can also cause a lot of issues when it overrides the other person's decision-making, excluding it completely cannot and will not happen. It's a RolePlay Forum, projection (damned as it may be) is natural, and it's a common place for people to start out when they're just learning how to write.

People write what they know, and who do they know best? There's your answer.

As it stands, that type of cut-throat mentality turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy: "I care about my character, therefore I want to do something that matters. I want to do something that matters, therefore I must PvP." It's cyclic, and I don't think you can really blame people for it.

Anything in excess is a bad thing, yes. But in moderation, caring about what you're writing about will go a very long way.

 

[Nova Elgrin]

But that's my point. You're trying to write the other person's character into a corner, but everyone has the mentality that you're trying to write the other person into a corner. It may be a slight difference, but it's an important one. People don't separate the two. Again, I go back to the fact that one of my best friends just killed my character a month ago. She wrote my character into a corner and he got shot in the face. We're still great friends. I shrugged and moved on because it's not about the two of us, it was about a fight between our characters. But people don't separate the two. They think "oh you killed my character, I hate you and want revenge."

That's what you claim, however it's not what is practised in the end. And again, if you don't care about your characters dying I congratulate you very much, but for others it's not the case.

I never said that you were a second class writer and I'd greatly appreciate it if you did not put words in my mouth.

I've never put words in your mouth, I asked you a question. I'd greatly appreaciate if you would read properly what I am writing.
--->Does this make me a second-class writer in your eyes? That my characters mean something to me and I'm not willing to dagger them on the altar of PvP ^^°?
questions - not statements. Please be aware of the difference.

But my point stands that if you're not willing to lose whatever character you're fighting with, then you have no business using them in PvP. If that means your extremely attached to all of your characters and can't PvP, then so be it, that's fine. Not everyone has to PvP. That's your decision. But if you're putting in some character that you feel you absolutely can't live without, you are simply asking for trouble, so don't be surprised when trouble finds you.

Well that's excately what I'm doing? I have stated before: I walk miles and miles around PvP ^^ This thread is for collecting impressions and opinions of the community right?
Also I have stated as well that I DO understand the PvP community to a certain ammount (momentum-stuff) so I'm not a hater per se.

And as for who am I to say people are too attached to their character? I'm simply saying that if people were not so attached to their characters, this wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue. That's just a fact. Now, does that mean people should be less attached to their characters? In my opinion, yes. But that doesn't mean it's going to happen.

Well not everyone is the same. Take me, I'm very attached to my characters, that's just the way I roll and I don't see any reason why this is bad as I never caused anyone any trouble with it.

I'm not belittling people for being attached to their characters. I have characters that I'm quite attached to, but I've seen firsthand instances where people treat character death like it is literally the end of the world, and I'm sorry, but it's not. You're never going to convince me that the stakes for this are actually high enough that people shouldn't be able to move on with their lives. No one's life is actually in danger and there are far greater issue that plague this world than the death of a fictional character.

The greater issues that plague this world are not topic in this thread, pls stay on topic ^^ And btw you're never convince me that simply saying "well don't love your character so much!" is an actual solution approach for the PvP problems.

 

[Minuteman75]

In my opinion we need to come up with a way to reassure roleplayers that story still matters in the RP regardless of whether it's in PvP threads or not. Though we have different views and interests when it comes to roleplaying here, we're all still part of this site. Hopefully we will find a balanced solution to address these concerns and I believe we can.

 

[Phoenix]

To put it bluntly, I can't help but sympathize a bit when it comes emotional investment into characters. Emotional investment is what drives a lot of writing, at the core. You want to finish your character's story, you want to see them do _____ and accomplish _____. While I agree that this emotional investment can also cause a lot of issues when it overrides the other person's decision-making, excluding it completely cannot and will not happen. It's a RolePlay Forum, projection (damned as it may be) is natural, and it's a common place for people to start out when they're just learning how to write.

People write what they know, and who do they know best? There's your answer.

As it stands, that type of cut-throat mentality turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy: "I care about my character, therefore I want to do something that matters. I want to do something that matters, therefore I must PvP." It's cyclic, and I don't think you can really blame people for it.

Anything in excess is a bad thing, yes. But in moderation, caring about what you're writing about will go a very long way.

I get that. And people seem to be taking what I'm saying as "don't care about your characters" and that's not what I'm saying at all. I have characters that I'm extremely attached to and invested in. But if they died, I still realize that the world isn't going to end. I'm not going to tell you not to care about your character at all because then you won't ever write them and you'll get bored. But there should be a middle ground between "I don't care at all" and what I often see which is people panicking because of a character's death

 

[Jinan B]

I 100% agree with Phoenix because I am guilty of what he claims happens, I haven't even been in a position where my characters death is very likely and I've recognized how I leaned less towards being amiable and more towards saving my character.

 

[Phoenix]

That's what you claim, however it's not what is practised in the end. And again, if you don't care about your characters dying I congratulate you very much, but for others it's not the case.

I think we're agreeing in circles on this. I agree, that's not how it's practiced. I'm saying that's how it should be, but people have the wrong mentality.

I've never put words in your mouth, I asked you a question. I'd greatly appreaciate if you would read properly what I am writing.
--->Does this make me a second-class writer in your eyes? That my characters mean something to me and I'm not willing to dagger them on the altar of PvP ^^°?
questions - not statements. Please be aware of the difference.

I read it and I know you asked a question. Questions carry implications. Your question implies that I have somehow called you inferior and then you proceeded on to say that I belittled you. Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your intentions.

Well that's excately what I'm doing? I have stated before: I walk miles and miles around PvP ^^ This thread is for collecting impressions and opinions of the community right?
Also I have stated as well that I DO understand the PvP community to a certain ammount (momentum-stuff) so I'm not a hater per se.

I never said you were a hater or meant to imply that. The point I was making was that if there is a character someone can't bear to see die, then they shouldn't use them in PvP.

The greater issues that plague this world are not topic in this thread, pls stay on topic ^^ And btw you're never convince me that simply saying "well don't love your character so much!" is an actual solution approach for the PvP problems.

I think you missed the point I was trying to make about that. I'm saying that often times people don't have perspective. And that's fine if you don't agree with me. I'm entitled to my opinion just as you are. As someone that has seen a great deal of the issues associated with PvP, I'm willing to say that if people were not so resistant to losing a character there would not be as many issues in PvP.

Edit: I apologize if I've come across as rude here, perhaps I should let this go.

 

[Sreeya]

I don't normally chime in on these conversations, and I don't know how much of an impact it's going to make in the long run, but I just feel like getting my initial thoughts about the current PvP system down. Sorry if this is a bit of a ramble, I can't guarantee I'll have solutions to any of this stuff either.


As PvP currently stands, it functions very similarly to popular competitive games like League or DOTA or Overwatch. And like these games, you're going to have skill brackets or "tiers", where some people are not so great with little experience (like myself), and then others that have tons of experience and are very, very good at it. As it stands, in my eyes at least, this skill gap is so massive that you have a select group of people that are "god tier", and basically win every single fight that they enter. In fact, I know that entire MFBs are planned around these people and assume that they will win automatically - which they inevitably do - in order to win the MFB as a whole. This, to me, is an incredibly unfair system. The fact that a select group of members, which almost always tend to align themselves on the same side, can practically dictate a faction's victory based on what side they join, is insanely unfair. Now, I'm not trying to be rude here, and I personally harbour no ill will towards these people - I'm just calling it as I see it. Like I said, I don't have any kind of solution to this problem, but I thought it just needed to be laid out.

The other point I'd like to make is somewhat related. As PvP currently stands, almost all of the skills and abilities of the characters themselves are completely handwaved, and instead it boils down to the imagination of the writer contestants themselves. (I think this is one of the things that a lot of people have sort of been lumping in when they talk about "story" in PvP, but from what I've read it hasn't been expressly mentioned.) I'm not necessarily saying that it'a a bad system or that it doesn't work, or even that it needs to be changed necessarily. I'd just like to mention that in a real-world scenario, when people fight each other, a lot of the time the fight's victor is determined by actual personal skills, experience, and human error. For example, realistically a lieutenant in the GAR who has been serving for five years or so should not be able to defeat a Sith Lord in a sword fight who has been training since a child. A lot of people also mention things such as physical attributes, mental prowess, Force aptitude, lightsaber proficiency and form - but in a lot of PvPs I see, most of this information is blown aside and ignored. Also, we're humans. People make mistakes, and our characters would too. In the rush of a fight, nobody is going to realistically land all of their hits perfectly right, every single time. However, this is a highly competitive field, and perhaps "levelling the playing field" is for the best, and all that extra character development is best left for tPvP and other threads. Food for thought.


Ramble over, that's all I've got for now.

Point 1: This is actually hilariously easy to fix. I think if the FLs purposely don't select some of the 'PVP elites' for fights, it can mitigate a lot of these. Putting the blame solely on the people that are good pvpers is kinda stupid imo. At the end of the day, they sign up just like everyone else. But it's sort of a shared blame where every FL has been guilty of wanting to pick the same people because they know it gives them an advantage. FLs on all sides have done this. I would too if I were FL and I knew there was a player that'd def win me a battle. So if FLs just exercise restraint and let others go into the pvps and talk to their opponent FLs to make sure they do the same, this can curb this issue with the skill gap. Now, I don't think good pvper's should be passed over for every single battle, but you'll also notice that unless it's a very key fight, most of the players don't sign up in a group anymore. Why? Because even those players realized this was becoming a problem and just not fun for everyone. They sign up for the key ones still because, like anyone else, they wanna be involved in something big lol So there's no reason to penalize players for wanting the same thing as any other player but they just happen to be good at pvp.

Point 2: This is something you'll always see a problem with on ANY rp forum. In fact, this site is much better than others I've been on where everyday characters are literally gods and do crazy things. Here there are a lot of restraints especially with Force use, concentration, etc. No one ever lands a perfect hit, every single attack is always written as an attempt, so I'm unsure where that's even coming from. The forum doesn't allow for auto-hitting unless you have a technicality or timeout. Most of the time, attacks miss or don't do damage. As for limitations, that's hard to enforce without making the site entirely too gamey. You don't want to have a system of "ok you wrote x amount of sentences so your char is currently very tired and can't do anything". As far as the GAR vs. the Sith who's been training for life, it sounds like you want to bring back the concept of rank = power level. That's a horrible path to go down because in the past its been abused badly.

I think a lot of people's concerns are being simplified as, "you are anti-PvP" and "You are pro-PvP."

I don't have an issue with PvP unto itself. My current character was made with the expectation of just that occurring. I've been on private game servers where I've permakilled, had my characters permakilled, pushed for consequences and 'grounding' of people's absurd ideas and tried to push them into environments where they are not unstoppable. In that way PvP is good. But because I don't think that PvP should be -THE- one and only thing that dictates progress, then I'm obviously just a hater. PvP can and perhaps should be a major part of how territory and faction influence is measured and especially for say... Mandalorians, professional militaries (GAR etc), but it shouldn't be the only way.

"But Calixis," somebody will say. "You can do four [Ask] PvE Missions before invading a territory!" Okay, great. That's a nice start because it demands both types of threads. But the threads that ultimate decide it and the ones marked [MAIN SUPER DUPER IMPORTANT THREAD] are the PvP ones. Want a square? PvP it. Doesn't matter if your faction writes eight threads penned by God's gift to writing. If your faction gets its arse kicked in PvP then it's all for nought. Doesn't matter if you and your friends poured over eight threads of quality writing that last for ten pages each for months, what matters isyou 'out wrote' the newbie in posts encouraging brevity over quality.

Why do you think the Senate is completely and utterly dead and the only 'active' Senators also part of GAR?

The focus on PvP above all else isn't healthy because it warps the factions into this really awkward void. The playable Jedi Order became the Revanchr- I mean, Jedi Army because... PvP. Doesn't fit your character? Tough. Go and scalp that guy. The Galactic Republic is, by all accounts, ran by total and utter morons armed with twigs and suffering from brain damage because... it doesn't have a very active playerbase and doesn't PvP an awful lot, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your faction doesn't PvP a lot? What a bunch of losers, your NPC leaders are dumb-dumbs and your soldiers/fleet incompetent.

The Death Watch are one of only two Indie Factions with official territory because they won PvP threads. Want to shape the story? You have to PvP. Want to join a Main Faction? Hope you enjoy PvP or at least have a character themed towards it. Your Jedi leans more to diplomacy and doesn't support an active, expansionist war? Eat shit, carebear. Go join one of those silly 'Indie Factions' and maybe you'll get some table scraps.

Mission Packs. If they don't push the territories forward then doing any of them is pointless. Rebuilding a world? Dealing with corruption on home turf? Setting up defences in conquered territory? Pointless, because you could be expending time and effort into one of those four [Ask] or two [Open] threads that lead into getting you a shiny coloured square. Sure, the writing's good and enjoyable, but there's always the nagging feeling of, "I could be doing something that is more OOCly beneficial to my faction."

Despite this, PvP can and should absolutely have a place. It's too embedded now to be anything but. It also shouldn't be the sole driving force of the site. It 'story' feels lacking at best, or just boring at worst, because the overhanging metaplot - due to how territories work - feels... video gamey? It doesn't feel like characters are being used to push a story forward, it feels like they're putting pins on a map and cheering each other OOC for getting more pins than the other guy. It probably doesn't help "Not-Sith Empire invades the Republic and they fight" is one of the most overused tropes on just about every single Star Wars board but that's my own bias leaking in.

If somebody said, "Well what would you do with PvP?" then I'd narrow its focus down, make it more personal than some sweeping galactic war that takes up entire star-systems overnight before moving on to the next one. Clans on Mandalore fighting each other over whole planets instead of five threads dictating the entire star-system now belongs to one side. Jedi Army and Sith engaging in a shadow-war of sorts on the fringes and over important worlds, rather than coloured pins of vast swathes of off-screen land. The whole galaxy feels small, because whole star-systems are being decided in a few threads. Expand the mini-game's depth further by making more than just pushing forward matter too.

Food for thought.

First of all, thank you for hitting the nail on the head with this. And I also noticed you've been actively pushing for things in the story which helps so much more than most others that like to whine and do nothing about it, so thank you for that.

Everything you said is a problem, and as a huge supporter of PVP, even I have to agree. The problem with pvp is the place it has and it becomes annoying even for me when literally everything needs a damn fight. It gets exhausting and irritating, but we're all coming together to change it. There are some plot ideas going around that will present opportunities for mains and indies to get involved in that the FLs and a group of members are working to put together. We have a few threads up already that are marked as Main, but it's all pre-planned and not at all a competition. Its in its infancy so we're working to lay the groundwork. Within a few weeks, it'll be open to everyone to play a role in. On the Sith side it's already open for its memberbase (working with what we've got, so it's missions right now but missions with a huge purpose). The point you make is the one that really hits home, so people are actively working to fix that and give some semblance of an overarching plot to the timeline. All that's asked is just a little bit of patience for now. I think perhaps some announcements can be made about it to show progression.

PVP can be done for territorial gains on the side, but I don't think it should be the literal story of the timeline. Hopefully that will begin to change with everyone's help.

 

[Elijah Brockway]

Canon wise, you got the Jedi wrong and most people who play the Jedi, are playing them as pascifistic when the Jedi during this time were just as savage and warlike as the sith. Just saying. You asked.

Also, all of the lightsaber fighting style forms didn't even exist yet.

Light sabers were still fairly new and as wookiepedia states, those who used light sabers were like children with toys compared to the Jedi and sith from later timeline

I'm ignoring the other posts in this thread to comment on this.

Stating the Jedi are just as "Savage and warlike" as the Sith doesn't really fit, imo, and I'm saying that as one of the original Jedi AFLs and the second Jedi FL in this timeline (there's a lot of stuff that happened that isn't going to be mentioned here that also applies into some of what happened, but I'm going to comment on just what was mentioned here).

But I'm also going to do that in reverse order.

Literally nowhere does Wookieepedia state that lightsabers are fairly new as of this timeline we're in. It says they were used "thousands of years before the age of the Republic," and not just the Galactic Republic in the movies, but also well used in the time of the Old Republic...which is what we're currently in. Or used during events like the Scourge of Malachor, which is said to have taken place many millenia prior to the fall of the Old Republic, which would put it many millenia prior to where we're at right now. Nor does it ever say that the forms didn't exist yet or that people using lightsabers were like children compared to later eras' users. If anything, I'd be more inclined to go with some of what we saw in Legends canon, which would go with the idea that later users were the ones that looked like children compared to the art of the old masters, just because over time duels became less and less common so people ended up having less and less skill with lightsabers. (Also, if your comment there isn't directed to this timeline but applies to a lot earlier from our current setting, then, like, my bad, mang. But it just looked like you were talking about this timeline. And I say you're wrong and Wookieepedia [which I just looked over quite a bit for the canon info on lightsabers] doesn't support your statement at all.)

As for Jedi supposedly being just as "Savage and warlike as the Sith," that's not really corroborated by any of the faction write-ups or any of the stuff that was said prior to the timeline beginning. Are the Jedi in the Jedi Army a lot more proactive and warlike than the other Jedi in the Order (who are just NPCs this timeline) or moreso than later Jedi that we saw? Yes. Heck yes. They kinda have to be, with their whole "the Sith are a danger and we want to be proactive and take them out so that they don't hurt as many people as last time." And they're willing to take a more military role. But that doesn't make them just as savage and warlike as the Sith. The Jedi are still focused on protecting people, still focused on serving the light side, and still focused on being guardians of the peace, just in a different fashion than what we're used to. The Jedi we have right now are a lot more like the group of Jedi that helped the Republic during the Mandalorian Wars in the old legends canon, when that group started out and before Revan and Malak got turned to the Dark Side by the Sith Emperor and ended up turning a lot of their allies.

"Oh shit!" they say. "These evil [insert Sith/Mando/Whatever here] are causing trouble in the galaxy, and they are hurting innocents! We must take up arms for the good of the galaxy and stop them!"

>"No, young one, we must be patient and wait, there is so much yet we don't know."

"Stop being such a stodgy old fool!" says the younger Jedi. "Innocents are being killed, the Republic is threatened, and the [insert evil faction here] is threatening to engulf the galaxy in the Dark Side! I'm leaving to stop them!"

Basically, they're more hotheaded than the rest of the Jedi, but they're not "just as savage and warlike as the Sith," and nothing that's been set up this timeline has been meant to give that idea, nor has it given that idea to most players.*




*Your mileage may vary. Some characters are pretty bloody crazy on the Jedi side, but I wouldn't say they accurately represent the faction as a whole or what has been set up for it.

 

[Vinn Esper]

I'm ignoring the other posts in this thread to comment on this.

Stating the Jedi are just as "Savage and warlike" as the Sith doesn't really fit, imo, and I'm saying that as one of the original Jedi AFLs and the second Jedi FL in this timeline (there's a lot of stuff that happened that isn't going to be mentioned here that also applies into some of what happened, but I'm going to comment on just what was mentioned here).

But I'm also going to do that in reverse order.

Literally nowhere does Wookieepedia state that lightsabers are fairly new as of this timeline we're in. It says they were used "thousands of years before the age of the Republic," and not just the Galactic Republic in the movies, but also well used in the time of the Old Republic...which is what we're currently in. Or used during events like the Scourge of Malachor, which is said to have taken place many millenia prior to the fall of the Old Republic, which would put it many millenia prior to where we're at right now. Nor does it ever say that the forms didn't exist yet or that people using lightsabers were like children compared to later eras' users. If anything, I'd be more inclined to go with some of what we saw in Legends canon, which would go with the idea that later users were the ones that looked like children compared to the art of the old masters, just because over time duels became less and less common so people ended up having less and less skill with lightsabers. (Also, if your comment there isn't directed to this timeline but applies to a lot earlier from our current setting, then, like, my bad, mang. But it just looked like you were talking about this timeline. And I say you're wrong and Wookieepedia [which I just looked over quite a bit for the canon info on lightsabers] doesn't support your statement at all.)

As for Jedi supposedly being just as "Savage and warlike as the Sith," that's not really corroborated by any of the faction write-ups or any of the stuff that was said prior to the timeline beginning. Are the Jedi in the Jedi Army a lot more proactive and warlike than the other Jedi in the Order (who are just NPCs this timeline) or moreso than later Jedi that we saw? Yes. Heck yes. They kinda have to be, with their whole "the Sith are a danger and we want to be proactive and take them out so that they don't hurt as many people as last time." And they're willing to take a more military role. But that doesn't make them just as savage and warlike as the Sith. The Jedi are still focused on protecting people, still focused on serving the light side, and still focused on being guardians of the peace, just in a different fashion than what we're used to. The Jedi we have right now are a lot more like the group of Jedi that helped the Republic during the Mandalorian Wars in the old legends canon, when that group started out and before Revan and Malak got turned to the Dark Side by the Sith Emperor and ended up turning a lot of their allies.

"Oh shit!" they say. "These evil [insert Sith/Mando/Whatever here] are causing trouble in the galaxy, and they are hurting innocents! We must take up arms for the good of the galaxy and stop them!"

>"No, young one, we must be patient and wait, there is so much yet we don't know."

"Stop being such a stodgy old fool!" says the younger Jedi. "Innocents are being killed, the Republic is threatened, and the [insert evil faction here] is threatening to engulf the galaxy in the Dark Side! I'm leaving to stop them!"

Basically, they're more hotheaded than the rest of the Jedi, but they're not "just as savage and warlike as the Sith," and nothing that's been set up this timeline has been meant to give that idea, nor has it given that idea to most players.*




*Your mileage may vary. Some characters are pretty bloody crazy on the Jedi side, but I wouldn't say they accurately represent the faction as a whole or what has been set up for it.

I didn't read the whole thing. Perhaps I didn't phrase what I meant correctly. Obviously the Jedi were never as savage as the sith. They never killed innocents. However, they absolutely WERE on what was the equivalent of a holy crusade to destroy any and all sith.

 

[Elijah Brockway]

Again, not quite. The closest the Jedi have had to a "Holy Crusader" since Bau Zo stopped being Jedi Lord was Apollyon's character Hlodovic. All the Jedi Army people agree that the Sith are bad and they need driven away, but they don't go Holy Crusader mode normally. They go the mode of the Mandalorian Wars-era Jedi from legends canon. And that's been pretty accurately reflected in all the write-ups and in the pre-timeline-start info stuff.

Take it from the former Jedi FL: You're really not quite hitting the nail on the head. Jedi are less peaceful and more warlike, but they're haven't been going Crusader mode or anything like that, and nothing we've seen has really reflected that whole "Holy Crusade" or "savage and warlike" idea you've been trying to put out.