Proposal: High Force Level handling

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Proposal: High Force Level handling

Post Brend » Sun Feb 09, 2014 3:54 pm
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Brend
 
Given that at least one player (me) is already heading towards Force Level 10, I engaged in a separate discussions on the topic with Chriz and Mercury. I'm not going to give you a rundown of all the options that we inspected and thought up, and instead I am going to propose the final result I came up with after looking at the situation from multiple angles.

Right now, the wiki places no limit on the height to which a Force Level can grow. However, we all feel that there should some higher cost involved with going beyond the magic Force level 10.

Skill limit

Force Powers and Attributes are limited by your Force Level. For no reason, skills are not.

Proposal: Limit skills the same way as Attributes: they can go no higher than your Force Level.

Force Level >= 11

Force Levels 1-10 are gained automatically after spending enough (:xp) on something else. We propose to have Force Levels 11 and higher have an explicit (:xp) cost, so you'd have to safe up enough (:xp) and spent it on +1 Force Level.

Based on the impact of a Force Level I propose the following:

Proposal: Force Levels above 10 must be explicitily bought. Such a Force Level increase costs 50 (:xp).
Post Chriz » Sun Feb 09, 2014 4:05 pm
Chriz
 
Due to the fact that you are actively spending the (:xp) on the Force level the amount should be set to 20 (:xp) .

This is due to the fact that you only get about 25 (:xp) / year on average and purely game technical nothing should be more expensive than 1 year of playing due to the fact that you will no longer have progress anymore.
Player of the Praetorian Empire
Post Elmer » Sun Feb 09, 2014 4:20 pm
Elmer
 
I don't like the 'nothing should be more expensive than 1 year playing' argument. Because in this case, why not buying force levels with time instead of xp? 'I've played 1 year now, +1 force level'.

Setting the cost on 20 (:xp) is too cheap this way. You get a +1 on all your attributes and combat styles. Attributes alone is 24 (:xp), therefore 20 (:xp) is too cheap.

Instead I think I would go for 'you get +1 force power for free after 50 (:xp)'. This way, your jedi still gets more cool over time, but you don't have to stop growing to do so.
Player of the Teprogrenaian Consensus inner world
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Post Brend » Sun Feb 09, 2014 4:29 pm
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Brend
 
A Force Level gives you a +1 on all checks, which is equivalent to boosting all your attributes. It also boosts all your combat ratings with +1, which is equivalent to buying two manoeuvres per style you know. I'll take the number of styles at 3 (the lowest estimate possible due to character creation rules).

1 Force Level is roughly equivalent to:
  • Increase all attributes: 6 * 4 (:xp) = 24 (:xp)
  • Buy 2 manoeuvres for 3 styles: 2 * 3 * 3 (:xp) = 18 (:xp)
  • Increase the limit on both Attributes and Skills: X (:xp)
So, we end up with +1 Force Level being roughly 42+X (:xp). With +1 Force level costing 50 (:xp), this means 8 (:xp) to raise all limits by 1 (that would mean 1 (:xp) per Attribute limit, and 2 (:xp) for all skill limits -- not really that expensive after all)...
Post Chriz » Sun Feb 09, 2014 4:46 pm
Chriz
 
Right, I guess it is fair to say that all attributes together are already very expensive. In this case I have to agree with Elmer: 'you get +1 force power for free after 50 (:xp)'.

This still makes it take longer to get a new force level but you can still get it without not being to spend any xp for at least 2 years in a row.
Player of the Praetorian Empire
Post Gerben » Sun Feb 09, 2014 4:48 pm
Gerben
 
I think the cost of 50 (:xp) is a reasonable estimate, but may still be a bit cheap as Brend already stated. I am however willing to support his proposal and if this seems to be too cheap in the future, we can always adjust it then.

And that is, the force level +1 costs 50 (:xp) , and is not granted for free as is suggested by Elmer and Chriz.
Post Brend » Sun Feb 09, 2014 4:52 pm
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Brend
 
The reason we didn't go with 'you get the Force level for free' is that the (:xp) put into the force level are really an amortized increased cost over the other traits.

We originally looked at making every single trait more expensive the more you had it past 10. For example, making Attributes above 10 cost +1 (:xp) for each dot you would go over 10, so Attr 11 would cost 5 (:xp), Attr 12 would cost 6 (:xp), Attr 13 would cost 7 (:xp), and so forth.

We decided against that because I strongly advocate against growing costs. However, we realized that we need some way to make the growth of Master more expensive, and having people spent (:xp) to increase their caps seemed like a fitting way.
Post Stuiter » Sun Feb 09, 2014 8:06 pm
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Stuiter
 
I think that for 10+ you need to pay extra amount of (:xp) for going up a Force level as it is really epic and there should be a clear distinction.
Post Fedor » Sun Feb 09, 2014 10:26 pm
Fedor
 
I think 50 (:xp) is quite a lot, but fair enough for the bonuses. I think making a force level take much more than 50 (:xp) means that you just save up a whole lot for another force level, and I don't think that force levels alone are cool ways to express a specialisation of jedi, just a generic increase to the power of that jedi. I'd rather jedi keep specialising and gaining cool powers, but I see the point of needing some limitations at some point (after force level 10).
Post Brend » Mon Feb 17, 2014 4:45 am
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Brend
 
So, the overal consensus seems to be "50 (:xp) is a whole lot, but we understand why its so high".

We just have two ways of going about slowing growth:
  • "Explicit buying": Make buying Force Levels explicit after 10, with a price of 50 (:xp) (favoured by Brend, Gerben, Stuiter and Mercury)
  • "Growth over time": Let them come for free like before 10, but only for every 50 (:xp) (favoured by Elmer and Chriz)
Since this is a very high-end option anyway, I propose to just go with the explicit version and see how it pans out. If we later decided to change it, it will only get better instead of worse ^_^



As no one objected to the skills limitation, I am assuming that that's fine with everyone.
Post Elmer » Mon Feb 17, 2014 5:59 pm
Elmer
 
After a discussion, I realised how the situation really was, and now I am in favour of letting a force power cost 50 (:xp).

Reason: As a new master, you enter as a practically nobody. Your skills and attributes are mostly around 3 to 5, while they are capped on 10. By the time you have increased them to 10, they can be 15. When you have them on 15, the cap lies on 20 etc. There is still no end on this growth.

While if you need to spend 50 (:xp), increasing your cap is a real choice. And besides, you can safe half your (:xp) and spend half your (:xp) you get from missions. By the time you are at your cap, you can already buy one or two levels of force powers.

So I think this will work.
Player of the Teprogrenaian Consensus inner world
You need a picture? Pm me ;)
Post Brend » Mon May 05, 2014 3:46 pm
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Brend
 
No one has said anything in two months. Unless objections are raised within the next two weeks, I'll update the wiki with the explicit version of the rules as tallied.

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