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[Combatant:]

So, I was thinking about the RP-based leveling system we had proposed earlier, and considering some of the flaws with it, and after some thought, I arrived at the conclusion that it needed to be rethought before we ever considered implementing it.  So, I took it "back to formula," so to speak, and I've developed an entirely new system that I hope will be better accepted.  I've found what I believe to be a good compromise between PvE leveling and gaining PvP benefits through RP.

Basically, what Barghest and I have decided to do is to split our current level system into two parts: code levels and RP levels.  Code levels will be just as they are, awarded through experience gain from PvE, though we do plan to slow this down some.  Not nearly as much as we had stated in the first thread.  The plan is to remove power-leveling with groups by limiting experience share to within 10 levels, and then evaluating how long it takes to level without that and experimenting with new values to make the leveling process actually be a part of a *game* while still allowing it to move quickly enough to be fun.  I expect that experience requirements will be increased by a factor of 3-5, possibly as much as 10 at most, but nowhere near the exponential increase we were suggesting last time.

EDIT
To clarify, RP levels and code levels are two completely different things.  They'll be held in different variables, so getting all of the skills can ONLY be done through code leveling, while getting the RP-based bonuses can ONLY be done through RP.  If you haven't RPed at all, you can still get all of the skills, but your RP level will remain at 1, so you won't get the bonuses.  You can, later, go back and RP your RP level up; leveling entirely by code does not result in losing anything.  (In fact, there's no alternative for skill acquisition.)
END EDIT

The way this will work is as follows:

Code levels will work for the attainment of skills, as they do now.  The level requirements for skills on your practice list will be based on code levels rather than RP levels.  The code level should be seen as representing basic education and tradecraft in whatever class you're looking at; it's reasonable to assume an engineer just out of engineering school would know how to make a blaster, after all.

What code levels will NOT do, however, is provide passive level-based benefits, as some classes do now.  This is where RP levels come in.  Advantages of level, such as improved damage for combatants, increased engineering speed for engineers, etc, will come from these levels.  RP levels can be considered to be the finesse obtained from career experience in the field, those things you can't be taught in school but have to learn over a long period of dedicated study and in-the-field experience.

As an analogy to military service, reaching the maximum code level would be akin to completing boot camp, whereas reaching the maximum RP level would be akin to having served through multiple foreign engagements.  There are some things you just have to learn by doing them, so to speak.

What will happen with these RP levels is that, with every RP, imms will rank the amount of character development that took place during the RP in all nine classes on a scale from 0-10, where 0 is none at all and 10 is the absolute most development that could feasibly occur in a single RP.  They'll then award you levels based on the following formula: Primary classes will be awarded equal to the rating given (0-10 levels per RP), secondary classes will be awarded equal to 1/2 the rating given (0-5 levels per RP), and all other classes will be awarded equal to 1/5 the rating given (0-2 levels per RP).

Now, you may think this makes gaining some levels (those that are neither main nor secondary) extremely slow, but there's a caveat here: RP levels have no cap.  You can get to max level in all 9 of them with enough work.  Thus, the reason why it's very slow going for some of them.

All of that having been said, I'll go ahead and throw out the list of passive bonuses provided by RP levels.  Note that, in cases where the listed bonus is already provided by levels in that class (EDIT See my post below for a list of what exists currently and what doesn't. END EDIT), the RP level bonus is REPLACING the existing bonus, rather than being IN ADDITION TO it.  Whatever bonus you currently get at 150 levels, you will get the same bonus under this system at 150 RP levels.  What this means is, essentially, leveling all the way up with code alone gives you all the skills you need as if an immortal in the current system had sset them to 100% while leaving you at level 1.  You gain no level-based bonuses to anything.  Also note that this list of bonuses is not at all final; suggestions for additions to it are welcome, and anything that we feel is not too vastly overpowered will be added to it.  Likewise, anything already on the list that is determined to be overpowered or otherwise just a bad idea will be removed from it.

EDIT
As another clarification: The numbers in red are footnotes.  Scroll down to the bottom of the list to see more information about them.
END EDIT

Combatant: HP[1], damage of auto-attacks, attack speed[2], duration of combat-tree buffs and debuffs, resistance to being stunned, effectiveness of some skills (such as disarm), damage reduction vs. backstab and circle, ability to see your damage, saves vs. poison and paralysis, and damage of some combat-tree offensive skills

Bounty Hunter: Backstab and circle damage, duration and strength of hunter-tree buffs, success rate of track, chance of seeing through hidden/masked foes with heightened awareness and see masking[3], amount of change brought about by boast

Agent: Success with setting and removing traps, credits gained through beg and steal, success rate with several agent skills, ability to avoid detection by other players when using agent skills[4], duration of sneak, ability to avoid detection by other players when hiding and sneaking[3], duration of poison weapon, effectiveness of faceless and nameless[5], effectiveness of various other agent skills, amount of change brought about by influence

Pilot: Damage with ship weapons, chance of hitting enemy ships, chance of evading enemy ships, effectiveness of various maneuvers (i.e., barrelroll), small boosts to ship capabilities (speed, hyperspeed, and maneuver), effectiveness of prestige class skills when implemented

Leader: Effectiveness of leadership skills, strength of mobs called through leadership skills, duration and strength of prestige class buffs, bonuses to the amount of money withdrawn through collect taxes/draw support, amount of change brought about by pop support changing skills, cost of mob reinforcements,

Medic: Amount of HP recovered by healing skills, duration and strength of buffs, amount of time taken to use non-instantaneous medic skills, strength and duration of buffs/healing effects provided by medic skills and items created by the medic, strength of implants created by the medic, effectiveness of corpse disguises (i.e., difficulty for other medics to detect the disguise)[6], effectiveness of checkcorpse[6], cost of medical droids, clones, and medical supplies

Engineer: Length of time taken to make an item, cost of engineering supplies, value of objects made by the engineer, all-around improvements to quality of items produced (damage, ammo capacity, etc), amount of change brought about by advertise

Slicer: Length of time taken to use slicer skills, cost of slicing supplies, value of objects made in slicing tree (datapads, bugs, flashlights, etc), difficulty of detection and battery life of slicer's bugs/trackers/cameras (surveillance expert), success rate of "offensive" slicer skills and ability to remain undetected by other players while using them[4] (cracker), effectiveness of "defensive" slicer skills (security expert), strength of assassin droids and operating time of all droids created, and obediance rate of created droids (programmer)

Footnotes:

[1] It's currently under debate whether HP should result from RP levels or code levels.  It's very probable that this enhancement will remain with code levels for the simple reason that it would be difficult to fight in areas like Nal Hutta with only 500 HP, and an engineer going through Hoth with 500 HP is even worse off than they already are.

[2] This will only take effect when the new attack speed system goes into play.  Until then, this will affect the chance that you get additional attacks each round (no, even with fifth attack, there's no guarantee you'll get seven attacks per round while dual wielding.  All attacks have a random chance of failing based on combat level even in the current implementation.)

[3] Hiding and invisibility will be level based; that is, in order to detect someone hiding or sneaking with heightened awareness, see masking, et. al., your RP level in the class the detection skill comes from (e.g., Bounty Hunting) must be greater than or equal to the RP level of the other person trying to evade detection in the relevant class for the skill they're using (e.g., Agent.)  Furthermore, in order to successfully HIDE from someone, your relevant RP level must be at least 75% of their highest RP level among all classes.  For example: if you're Bounty Hunter level 75 trying to detect an agent of level 76 or higher, you will fail to see them; however, if you're trying to detect an agent of level 75 or lower, you will see them without fail.  As another example: if your agent RP level is 60 and you're trying to hide from a character whose highest RP level is 95, they will always detect you, even without heightened awareness.

Detection of hide will work as I've suggested previously: whether through heightened awareness or through simply being of sufficiently high level, if you detect a hiding person, you will simply see "You detect someone hidden here."  You will have to use the search skill to uncover that person, which will directly contest your agent RP level with theirs, in addition to some randomization.

[4] If you are an agent using, for example, pick ship lock in the same room as another player, your agent RP level will be contested against that player's highest RP level, with some randomization added in.  If your agent level is equal to or higher than their highest RP level, they will never be able to detect you performing these actions, and you will be able to pick the ship open without the other player seeing it.  If the check fails, however, they'll clearly see you taking whatever action you're taking, and will be able to use that information ICly.
[5] Nameless and faceless will both work similarly to the above; anyone typing "who" when you're faceless or fingering you when you're nameless will run a check of their highest RP level vs. your agent RP level, with some randomization.  If you fail the check, they will successfully see you on the who list or bring up your finger information.  If your agent RP level is greater than or equal to their highest RP level, nameless and faceless will always be successful.

[6] Checking a disguised corpse will run your Medic RP level against the Medic RP level of the person who disguised it, along with some randomization.  If you fail the check, the corpse will be reported as not having been disguised.  Unlike the above skills, there is no guarantee of success or failure with either skill by having a higher level than the other person, unless your level is significantly higher.

I believe this system more accurately portrays what we wanted to: Context-sensitive code rewards for real character development in RP, without punishing those who don't RP.  People who don't RP can still play the game just fine, and reach maximum level on the code-based scale with no difficulty or hindrance, but people who put work into their characters on the RP front will be able to back up their RP with code, showing advantages in PvP and other code activities that come about as a direct result of their RP.

On a slightly related note, when this system is implemented (assuming that it sees enough support from the pbase) we're going to also put in a new way of displaying levels.  I'm not going to go into any detail on it right now, but I think you'll all like it quite a bit!

It is much better as a rough draft than the other one was, however, removing the level-based bonuses from code levels is punishing those who either don't RP because they don't like it or--more importantly--those who don't have as much free time to spend.

An improvement would be to leave all of the current level-based bonuses with the code levels and come up with some nifty, interesting additional bonuses for the RP levels.

The restriction of grouping to within a range of 10 levels is actually a good idea. This is the only MUD I've encountered that didn't have such a restriction.

Let's be clear on one thing, if you want to look at it that way: ANY form of meaningful reward for RP is punishing those who don't RP, including our current RPP system.  Those who don't RP can't get force beyond level 20, so that's a punishment for them.  If we're going to go that route, we should eliminate RP rewards altogether.

Leaving the current level bonuses there and coming up with new ones would be no better.  The RPers are *still* going to be stronger than the non-RPers, so the non-RPers are being "punished."  The only way to have a reward system for RP without punishing non-RPers would be to make the rewards trivial and useless.

I'm not trying to be contrary or condescending here, but what I've just said is a fact.  Anything that rewards one group inherently punishes another.  That's the nature of reward.  The only way to avoid that is to distribute all power in the game equally to all players, virtually eliminating player competition.  Looking at it another way: Currently, giving level-based bonuses to combatants to improve HP, damage, and give the ability to see your damage numerically is punishing engineers.  Looking at reward from this perspective is just entirely nitpicky, and from where I stand, it makes any system like this impossible to design, because no matter *what* benefits I give to RPers, you and others are going to complain that it punishes non-RPers.

In point of fact, all of the piloting enhancements are, believe it or not, nifty, interesting additional bonuses for RP levels that don't currently exist from code levels.  But I very seriously doubt you wouldn't see those bonuses as punishing non-RPers.  Tell me I'm wrong on that.

[Existing Combat Bonuses:]

Ok, I'd like to clear something up: After looking through the code to find out exactly how much the damage bonus is for combat level, I've discovered that it's exactly... 0%.  I apparently made that one up entirely.  So I'm going to give a list of what already EXISTS in code, and of what's new:

Existing Combat Bonuses: HP, attack speed,  duration of combat-tree buffs and debuffs, resistance to being stunned,  effectiveness of some skills (such as disarm), damage reduction vs.  backstab and circle, ability to see your damage, saves vs. poison and  paralysis, and damage of some combat-tree offensive skills

New Combat Bonuses: Damage of auto-attacks

Existing Bounty Hunting Bonuses: Backstab and circle damage, duration and strength of hunter-tree buffs

New Bounty Hunting Bonuses: Success rate of track, chance of seeing through hidden/masked foes with  heightened awareness and see masking, amount of change brought about by boast

Existing Agent Bonuses: Success with removing traps, credits gained through beg and  steal, success rate with several agent skills, ability to avoid  detection by other players when using agent skills, duration of sneak, duration of poison weapon

New Agent Bonuses: Success with setting traps, success rate with some additional agent skills, ability to avoid  detection by other players when hiding and sneaking,  effectiveness of faceless and nameless, effectiveness of various other agent  skills, amount of change brought about by influence

Existing Piloting Bonuses: None.

New Piloting Bonuses: Damage with ship weapons, chance of hitting enemy ships, chance of  evading enemy ships, effectiveness of various maneuvers (i.e.,  barrelroll), small boosts to ship capabilities (speed, hyperspeed, and  maneuver), effectiveness of prestige class skills when implemented

Existing Leadership Bonuses: strength of mobs called through  leadership skills

New Leadership Bonuses: Effectiveness of leadership skills,duration and strength of prestige class buffs,  bonuses to the amount of money withdrawn through collect taxes/draw  support, amount of change brought about by pop support changing skills,  cost of mob reinforcements

Existing Medic Bonuses: Amount of HP recovered by healing skills, duration and strength of  buffs

New Medic Bonuses: amount of time taken to use non-instantaneous medic skills,  strength and duration of buffs/healing effects provided by medic skills  and items created by the medic, strength of implants created by the  medic, effectiveness of corpse disguises (i.e., difficulty for other  medics to detect the disguise), effectiveness of checkcorpse, cost of medical  droids, clones, and medical supplies

Existing Engineering Bonuses: Length of time taken to make an item

New Engineering Bonuses: cost of engineering supplies,  value of objects made by the engineer, all-around improvements to  quality of items produced (damage, ammo capacity, etc), amount of change  brought about by advertise

Existing Slicer Bonuses: None.

New Slicer Bonuses: Length of time taken to use slicer skills, cost of slicing  supplies, value of objects made in slicing tree (datapads, bugs,  flashlights, etc), difficulty of detection and battery life of slicer's  bugs/trackers/cameras (surveillance expert), success rate of "offensive"  slicer skills and ability to remain undetected by other players while  using them(cracker),  effectiveness of "defensive" slicer skills (security expert), strength  of assassin droids and operating time of all droids created, and  obediance rate of created droids (programmer)

As you can see, some classes (combat) get significant benefits from level, while others (slicer, pilot) get none at all.  It's in the interest of equal reward for equal effort that I think the ones that currently exist in code (with the probable exception of HP) be moved to RP.

And since the bonus to auto-attack damage doesn't currently exist, and I don't want to mess with balance too much with this, there's a chance that it'll be removed.  If it stays, it'll likely be no more than 10% or so.

@Talyah - What always gets me about this "those who aren't around enough get screwed." thing is that if you're not around much, or not RPing much, why would you need these bonuses? Expecting something for nothing is ridiculous-- people who are around and RPing actively are around and warrant the bonuses, those who aren't might warrant them, but they'll need to work for it.
It's not something we're handing out to everyone who logs in, it's promoting RP as a main theme of the MUD, and if you choose to engage in that you get rewarded.

I was only suggesting leaving the current level-based stuff as they are and putting new bonuses on the RP levels. This would still give some "additional power" to those who do a lot of RP, but would leave those who can't with at least some capability. Hell, even if both level types give the same bonuses, then those with the higher RP level will still be more capable.

See my above post.  Only combat has any substantial bonuses from leveling, and most of those, while useful in PvP, aren't really going to have an impact on the PvE scene.  I do *not* want to add additional bonuses above what's already there, firstly because it makes combat outweigh the other classes even more, and secondly because it would throw any semblance of balance we currently have all to hell.  I've given and given and given new bonuses and powers and skills left and right; on this one, I just don't want to give combat RPers an even *greater* advantage over noncombat classes than they already have.

Increase the advantage an RPing combatant has over a non-RPing combatant?  Sure, that's the idea.

Make any attempt for an RPing engineer to escape the first attack of an RPing combatant even more futile than it already is?  Not the goal here.  Combat as a class is overpowered enough compared to the other classes without giving them even more power; besides, looking at the list of bonuses they have, extra damage-per-attack is pretty much the only new thing that I can give them that would really be worth the effort, and I'm not so fond of stacking bonuses between code and RP levels both giving the same thing (for reasons explained already regarding balance between classes, etc.)

Non-RPers will still be able to handle themselves fine in PvE.  The PvE mobs are ridiculously easy.  They might have some trouble in the Nexus catacombs when those are finished, but other than that, it's not too much of an ordeal.  Really, in PvE, the only noticeable change will be the buffs and debuffs and the damage of some of those offensive skills; it's unlikely the difference in disarm will be enough to impact PvE, since mobs don't typically get a grip check.

Once again, I'll point out that the chance of HP being moved to RP levels is pretty much null.  I thought it was a bad idea when I first thought about it, and sentiments of the players seem to echo that thought, so it's pretty certainly going to remain a code improvement.  The same will be true for movement/mana/etc.

How about instead of making an rp based leveling system you just make some more RPP awards specifically made to strengthen your character.  Be it a temporary buff or +1 to any stat's max and remove the 30 cap, to extra carrying capacity, or maybe a bad ass skill that doesn't require force for battle.  Just put all of the things that you wanted to add into the "rp level" bonuses and make them rp awards.  Plain and simple and doesn't require any coding.  Everyone that has time to rp can get any of these awards but the people that don't have time to rp won't be completely screwed over.  Obviously you'll want to limit certain things but let other awards be bought as many times as you want.  I think this would solve everyone's problem all at once and it would give even more incentive to rp.  Right now other than ship mods, force, tertiary class, and second prestige there really are no awards that are worth getting... That's way too limited in my opinion.  If someone could choose the exact bonuses that they wanted their character to have that would add one more level of customization.  What does everyone think about that?

That would defeat the purpose of the system, which is to encourage real character development and to give context-sensitive rewards based on not only how much a player RPs, but on WHAT the player RPs.  If you RP training combat a lot, you'll get the RP levels in combat so that your code backs up your RP.  It doesn't make much sense to RP training combat and get more powerful in slicing, which would be possible if these were just RPP awards.

And it would require coding either way.

Okay... So separate the RPP given.  Have combat RPP, Pilot RPP, ect.

What would be the difference between awarding RPP that can only be spent on combat bonuses and just awarding the combat bonuses directly, aside from the fact that the former requires an extra step (and thus more work for the imms, and probably more waiting for the players)?

Because if I don't want a particular bonus then why should I have to wait even longer to get something that I would find useful.  Maybe a character that is favoring Dexterity over Strength would receive a dex boost instead of a str boost and so on...  The reason behind it is that it does give the imms a chance to keep a measure of control over the process.  Make the players have to explain why they think they should get a particular bonus after they submit an rp or something instead of everyone getting the same skills and bonuses.  And about making the players wait... I've said it a few times that we need more imms to be active... I understand that you, shadow, are busy coding and doing other stuff, barg is busy doing irl stuff, and sora is... well... sora...

As I already said, I don't want to add new combat bonuses that aren't already there for balance reasons.  There won't be any stat bonuses or buffs, temporary or otherwise, available through RPP.  All buffs and skills will be available through code leveling only; RP will only grant bonuses to duration and effectiveness of said buffs and skills, not grant new ones.

That would defeat the purpose of the system, which is to encourage real character development and to give context-sensitive rewards based on not only how much a player RPs, but on WHAT the player RPs.  If you RP training combat a lot, you'll get the RP levels in combat so that your code backs up your RP.  It doesn't make much sense to RP training combat and get more powerful in slicing, which would be possible if these were just RPP awards.

And it would require coding either way.

A portion of this is a major reason I don't like any of these ideas and have felt and still feel that the system for awarding rpp should become less subjective and more objective. There have been too many times in the past where people have gotten lower awards just because the reader didn't happen to like what the RP was, despite the effort. Granted I haven't seen the ones who were doing the majority of complaining about certain RP types in a while, but that doesn't change that it happened. I feel that this will only exacerbate the problem and serve to bring this problem one step further giving too much power of how a character progresses and how fast to others who may or may not have an ulterior motive in keeping a particular player's character in a weakened state. (Not accusing here, just saying it could happen and human nature would make it very tempting.)

That would defeat the purpose of the system, which is to encourage real character development and to give context-sensitive rewards based on not only how much a player RPs, but on WHAT the player RPs.  If you RP training combat a lot, you'll get the RP levels in combat so that your code backs up your RP.  It doesn't make much sense to RP training combat and get more powerful in slicing, which would be possible if these were just RPP awards.

And it would require coding either way.

A portion of this is a major reason I don't like any of these ideas and have felt and still feel that the system for awarding rpp should become less subjective and more objective. There have been too many times in the past where people have gotten lower awards just because the reader didn't happen to like what the RP was, despite the effort. Granted I haven't seen the ones who were doing the majority of complaining about certain RP types in a while, but that doesn't change that it happened. I feel that this will only exacerbate the problem and serve to bring this problem one step further giving too much power of how a character progresses and how fast to others who may or may not have an ulterior motive in keeping a particular player's character in a weakened state. (Not accusing here, just saying it could happen and human nature would make it very tempting.)

I'm of the opinion that a stock RP should get a stock reward.  If the RP you're doing took no real effort because it's just the same RP you've done forty thousand times already (like buying armor or getting cloned), then the reward should be fitting for that.  The imms shouldn't have to read the same thing over and over to determine how much it's worth THIS time you do it compared to LAST time you did the exact same RP.  That's why I've suggested that those RPs get glanced over rather than read and awarded either 1 or 2 points stock based on what the imm in question sees in that glance.

If you want to do a stock RP, you should be willing to accept a stock reward.  If you want a unique reward, do a unique RP.  If you want the imms to put effort into reading your RP, you should put effort into writing it.  And if you want your reward for the RP to advance your character code-wise, your RP should advance your character RP-wise.