I have a few thoughts on this. It seems the downsides outweigh the upsides quite a bit. I hate to see that you're really pigeonholed into dark friend or murderer route with a m c.
First and foremost the HP change. It really kind of blasted trying to blend in in the foot. There are some Clans you can get into as an MC and just sort of blend in as like a ranger or something if you have good enough stats. This is a lot harder with limited HPS. The only real acceptance of MCs is dragonsworn or dreadguard. I'm sure there's a way that those can still have their HPS regulated as part of balance while giving regular old struggle to survive you're boned if you get caught MCs a leg up.
Automated checks to clanning? I'm not well-versed on this so I'm not going to dig too deep into it but maybe someone else has had more experience. Is this a thing I guess is what I'm asking I'm under the impression that it is. If it is a thing it would make blending in yet even more difficult.
The taint. It is truly ridiculous how fast it can come and how heavy it can be. I would like to see a way to reduce it a little bit for regulars. It is a huge malus but it is also hugely entertaining sometimes.
Being boned if you Channel out right. This is fine for the most part. However in my experience if you just fight dark side it will eventually leak over to light side and people will usually break character to get you warranted. Super harsh punishments for this if it can be proven with a clear defined policy.
The upside is you can get any weave you want. But it's inherently killed by not really being able to use them.
Now all of these are in place for a pretty good reason nobody wants a bunch of free Clan weave channelers running around fighting versus the dark side only. But in my experience the downsides far outweighs the upsides and MCS were a pretty cool part of the books. I just hate to see that they almost always either have to go dragonsworn murderer or dark friend.
Giving MCs some love
Re: Giving MCs some love
Wouldn't mind seeing MCs not being under the HP cap until they remort, to prevent new dreadlords coming over with a silly amount of HPs. Would give MCs an advantage over regular FCs, which seems okay in my book. That being said, I don't think there is anything stopping you or whoever from statting a couple MCs and joining up with a couple friends and be "white hat" MCs and only PK DS/SS. I haven't played an MC in forever, but the last time I did I had a good 2-4 months run with heavy channeling before taint started becoming an issue, and even then it wasn't too bad. I later gave him away, so unsure how well he fared after that.
I think it depends on how you want to look at MCs. To me they are a temporary character that you can goof around on for a bit, but nothing long lasting. You have instant access to all the clanned weaves, so you can team up with a couple friends and go on a murdering spree, smobbing spree, "white hat" squad or whatever but you won't have much chance of progressing your character beyond what it is.
To your point of information leaking. I doubt this can be policed. I can't recall ever having seen anyone getting directly warranted for killing someone crossrace, but since the information is there I imagine people will be more wary and actively try to catch you slipping up so they can warrant you. Unsure how big of an issue it is, personally can't recall ever having experienced this.
To me the biggest issue is statting. Spending however many hours for a character that is essentially going to be tossed away in the near future seems to me to be the biggest deterrent. But then again if you could have a 14 19 19 18 14 MC in an hour of statting I imagine we'd see an influx of MCs which isn't too much fun either, now that our playerbase has shrinked a bit.
I think it depends on how you want to look at MCs. To me they are a temporary character that you can goof around on for a bit, but nothing long lasting. You have instant access to all the clanned weaves, so you can team up with a couple friends and go on a murdering spree, smobbing spree, "white hat" squad or whatever but you won't have much chance of progressing your character beyond what it is.
To your point of information leaking. I doubt this can be policed. I can't recall ever having seen anyone getting directly warranted for killing someone crossrace, but since the information is there I imagine people will be more wary and actively try to catch you slipping up so they can warrant you. Unsure how big of an issue it is, personally can't recall ever having experienced this.
To me the biggest issue is statting. Spending however many hours for a character that is essentially going to be tossed away in the near future seems to me to be the biggest deterrent. But then again if you could have a 14 19 19 18 14 MC in an hour of statting I imagine we'd see an influx of MCs which isn't too much fun either, now that our playerbase has shrinked a bit.
Re: Giving MCs some love
Yeah it seems like you've summed it up just about like I have. They generally tend to be pretty temporary. That's the part I like the least.
Re: Giving MCs some love
With a little care you can easily avoid tainting completely and still channel...
The difficulty with MC is as you said there isn't a lot of direction one can go with them, and the murdering route isn't as fun as it once was because you are pking vs masters and it just doesn't work. There should really be a secret MC clan similar to other secret clans, where you can work up to master (obviously no QP for unclanned/low level) and also work up to taint protections (maybe dragonsworn already has this?).
If anyone wants to test my theory on how taint works - let me know and we can talk, I've had several MC that I channeled on for years until getting lazy or in a tough situation and breaking my code and resulting in tainting quickly so I'm quite sure it works. I'd really like Hress or someone to test it for me and confirm
The difficulty with MC is as you said there isn't a lot of direction one can go with them, and the murdering route isn't as fun as it once was because you are pking vs masters and it just doesn't work. There should really be a secret MC clan similar to other secret clans, where you can work up to master (obviously no QP for unclanned/low level) and also work up to taint protections (maybe dragonsworn already has this?).
If anyone wants to test my theory on how taint works - let me know and we can talk, I've had several MC that I channeled on for years until getting lazy or in a tough situation and breaking my code and resulting in tainting quickly so I'm quite sure it works. I'd really like Hress or someone to test it for me and confirm
Re: Giving MCs some love
Within the clan we refer to each other as "bonuslord" because we have so many blessings from the Immortals on high. (sooo no, we don't have this)Rodger wrote: (maybe dragonsworn already has this?).
Re: Giving MCs some love
Sensitising the parents would be the first step I think. Even if the child is born an MC, it's not his fault. Special schools where he can be taught to think of his channeling ability as an unfortunate illness, and advocating with Mayors and commanders to help set up facilities where he can channel in relative safety or stay in isolation would be a next step.
But main thing in terms of creating an atmosphere of love would be to create awareness that it is an accident of birth that can happen to anyone. I think people are especially hostile because they don't really know what is involved, and fear unexpected changes.
But main thing in terms of creating an atmosphere of love would be to create awareness that it is an accident of birth that can happen to anyone. I think people are especially hostile because they don't really know what is involved, and fear unexpected changes.
Re: Giving MCs some love
so gelding the parents and send the kids to the isle of mad men, am I reading that right??
Re: Giving MCs some love
I'm glad this was revisited but, sadly I don't really see a great way to handle this. The male channeler is a pathway to Dreadlord through the DF system (which needs revamping, from what I hear we're working on a new improved system), and or you can roleplay however you want from there as a murderer or good guy, whatever.
Sadly, once you begin to taint the charachter will progressively become unplayable and it's a waste of time if you don't pursue the alternate route through being a DF, as sad as that may be.
A solution:
I do think Dragonsworn should have the no-taint flag added after r5, but only because their behaviors are policed by the clan i.e. they can't attack innocents, etc. I don't think it'd be great to have a bunch of essentially Male Aes Sedai running amok pking ds because quite frankly it's going to tip the scale some and make it fairly uneven. Additional HPS seems somewhat warrantable but, it's not a mean to an end. The player just has more hps now and becomes useless with more hps vs with normal fc hps.
I think if Dragonsworn was allowed to have no-taint at r5 for MC chars, that would be fair/difficult enough. Maybe restrict weaves on MC's to that of unranked FC's and only give MC's full weave or close to full weave (no sleep, port, incin) at r5+
At least they have a home if they so choose to go that route and char progression is available. I'm personally convinced that it won't contribute much though because the Dragonsworn as a clan have not really made an impact as a clan just yet. It's kind of useless.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts but, they're right: the player base is smaller than it used to be. I think we can combat this influx of mc's with no taint fairly easily with making clan weaves available at r5/immunity to taint at r5 or at a certain alt qp for DF if they so choose the other route, but at least the character has options and can escape dooming their alt.
I'm sure this requires coding but, for what it's worth it would police this some and still provide an attainable although difficult path to still enjoying a potentially powerful character. They just have to work at it some more and in my opinion, they should - channelers are the ultimate weapons.
Sadly, once you begin to taint the charachter will progressively become unplayable and it's a waste of time if you don't pursue the alternate route through being a DF, as sad as that may be.
A solution:
I do think Dragonsworn should have the no-taint flag added after r5, but only because their behaviors are policed by the clan i.e. they can't attack innocents, etc. I don't think it'd be great to have a bunch of essentially Male Aes Sedai running amok pking ds because quite frankly it's going to tip the scale some and make it fairly uneven. Additional HPS seems somewhat warrantable but, it's not a mean to an end. The player just has more hps now and becomes useless with more hps vs with normal fc hps.
I think if Dragonsworn was allowed to have no-taint at r5 for MC chars, that would be fair/difficult enough. Maybe restrict weaves on MC's to that of unranked FC's and only give MC's full weave or close to full weave (no sleep, port, incin) at r5+
At least they have a home if they so choose to go that route and char progression is available. I'm personally convinced that it won't contribute much though because the Dragonsworn as a clan have not really made an impact as a clan just yet. It's kind of useless.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts but, they're right: the player base is smaller than it used to be. I think we can combat this influx of mc's with no taint fairly easily with making clan weaves available at r5/immunity to taint at r5 or at a certain alt qp for DF if they so choose the other route, but at least the character has options and can escape dooming their alt.
I'm sure this requires coding but, for what it's worth it would police this some and still provide an attainable although difficult path to still enjoying a potentially powerful character. They just have to work at it some more and in my opinion, they should - channelers are the ultimate weapons.
Re: Giving MCs some love
It isn't coding, it just is bad game design. Channelers are far and away the most powerful and versatile class in the game. Female channelers have 3 layers of maluses and restrictions on them, both mechanically and in-game. Males only have taint and the general fact that our pbase treats them as a bad guy by default. In reality, this boils down to taint being the only thing that keeps WOTMUD as it is rather than "MC-MUD" because in the end this is a game and it is played by human beings - RP will always be sacrificed for general playability and enjoyment.
Solo MCs without taint already feel like cheat-mode. Theres a reason very few DLs stay active for long and its because if you take the most powerful character in the game and put it on the pk side and give them a handful of perks, it gets boring pretty quickly. So you either keep pushing limits and creating fun situations by essentially handicapping yourself or you go play other characters or you realize you wasted large amounts of time/effort on a boring character and go do something else with your time. That or you rp/buddy-system your way to DL then realize you're in a spotlight/leadership role and aren't very good at PK and DS players hate you, so you shelf your trophy character and call it a day!
Many of us have wanted to play a good-guy MC and not be relegated to hermit-smobber, but it just isn't really doable without ruining the little semblance of balance the game has. You still can do it, but it is probably the most difficult goal around (it was the last goal I seriously considered, ultimately deciding it wasn't worth the effort). And even outside of the game design concerns, it should be very difficult to do successfully - take a minute to think about what the game is based on...
Oh also - just dont channel below 50% sps or w/e the threshold is to drop from strong to good sps and you'll never taint. Several players have tested and documented this over the yrs and I'm sure you can find the specifics with a little effort. And carry a gd angreal. Jade carvings are another stupidly-broken thing, being a combination of the sp reduction of a statuette and the gigantic charge pool of circlet. Problem fixed.
Solo MCs without taint already feel like cheat-mode. Theres a reason very few DLs stay active for long and its because if you take the most powerful character in the game and put it on the pk side and give them a handful of perks, it gets boring pretty quickly. So you either keep pushing limits and creating fun situations by essentially handicapping yourself or you go play other characters or you realize you wasted large amounts of time/effort on a boring character and go do something else with your time. That or you rp/buddy-system your way to DL then realize you're in a spotlight/leadership role and aren't very good at PK and DS players hate you, so you shelf your trophy character and call it a day!
Many of us have wanted to play a good-guy MC and not be relegated to hermit-smobber, but it just isn't really doable without ruining the little semblance of balance the game has. You still can do it, but it is probably the most difficult goal around (it was the last goal I seriously considered, ultimately deciding it wasn't worth the effort). And even outside of the game design concerns, it should be very difficult to do successfully - take a minute to think about what the game is based on...
Oh also - just dont channel below 50% sps or w/e the threshold is to drop from strong to good sps and you'll never taint. Several players have tested and documented this over the yrs and I'm sure you can find the specifics with a little effort. And carry a gd angreal. Jade carvings are another stupidly-broken thing, being a combination of the sp reduction of a statuette and the gigantic charge pool of circlet. Problem fixed.
Re: Giving MCs some love
A Craven sighting! 
(Don’t be a stranger)
(Don’t be a stranger)