Karma spread

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ferranifer
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Karma spread

#1 Post by ferranifer » Wed Jun 18, 2014 9:23 am

At risk of beating a dead horse, can someone please explain to me what's the reasoning behind allowing karma to 'spread' to people around you?

I understand that there are currently certain mechanisms in the game that need to somehow figure out what kind of person you are (Elor door, certain miracles, w/e) but shouldn't what kind of person you are be determined by what YOU do and not by some strange spidey-sense of what someone did when you weren't even there? Wouldn't you naturally do 'good' things when you team up with 'good' people anyways? Why does the game adjust karma on its own?

Thanks!

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Re: Karma spread

#2 Post by ghalt » Wed Jun 18, 2014 2:37 pm

I'm a huge unfan of karma checking by teaming. You should be revealed as doing evil acts by getting caught mid act, accidentally getting side-swiped by a holy word, that sort of thing, not by being sociable.

The Elor gate, on a slightly related note, is a jerk. It seems to exist to punish evrenites for accidentally partying with the wrong people, at which point oh yeah those people are obviously evil. I'd say it very much exacerbates any issues with karma spreading.

My two cents, yadda yadda.

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Re: Karma spread

#3 Post by luminier » Thu Jun 19, 2014 2:24 am

I don't like it, you don't like it. I dont think anyone likes it.

The fact is, it's here. And I am more that certain that it is associated with so many already coded things that changing it would be such a giant pain in the wizards collective ass.

Feel free to talk about it, but, I really feel like it won't change. It sucks, but it's not THAT bad.
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Re: Karma spread

#4 Post by Delia » Thu Jun 19, 2014 5:40 am

I do not really know but I think the karma system can be a bitch for those trying to keep an extreme alignment. The whole karma thing has been quite invisible for me and RP has kept it in check quite nicely. I have not noticed any extreme changes in a long while even if having interacted wih various sorts of people.

What I have noticed however, that after leaving the shaos and glowfisting endless undead hordes to dust, is that acquiring any other than midrange(neutral grey with good tendencies) goodie karma requires a lot of work. Evil is easy on the other hand.
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Re: Karma spread

#5 Post by glorfindel » Thu Jun 19, 2014 7:12 am

The Elor gate, on a slightly related note, is a jerk. It seems to exist to punish evrenites for accidentally partying with the wrong people, at which point oh yeah those people are obviously evil. I'd say it very much exacerbates any issues with karma spreading.
Yes, karma can be a serious pain. It's not uncommon for me to loose all good karma back to neutral just because I spent a few hours about some Asralites...

Oh and the Elor door..., yes, it's quite selective and I stood before closed doors more then once. But then, Evren has the highest karma demands of any deity I've seen so far. Luthien already nearly hugs you before the evren shrine keeper starts telling you your karma is a little better then neutral. Keeping maximum Evren karma is ... really painful and time intensive.

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Re: Karma spread

#6 Post by ferranifer » Thu Jun 19, 2014 10:34 am

Hmm, just to clarify, I was specifically talking about the 'spread karma by teaming' mechanic. Why is it in the game? What's its purpose? What does it even represent IC? Should it be removed?

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Re: Karma spread

#7 Post by Aturshus » Thu Jun 19, 2014 7:50 pm

I for one am very tired of teaming up with seemingly good characters, only to have my karma drop from great or perfect to very bad, locking me out of Elor and possibly ruining my experience playing with that character. It's annoying, it's senseless, and it -must- go.

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Re: Karma spread

#8 Post by Trysnyx » Thu Jun 19, 2014 9:55 pm

I would have to agree with the intent that this must be removed. I have never had Luthien say anything about my karma except that it's worse than normal, and I don't do -anything- karma related ever. The only times I can think of is killing undead with some more experienced people (which last time I checked, that is supposed to give you good karma!). I personally find it very annoying that I can never have decent karma because I like to team up with various people. It seems to only affect it negatively as well (such as the fact my karma doesn't seem to raise very much even when teamed up with crusaders and clergy members, probably because of my slightly negative karma influencing theirs, which is just a complicated system which leads to a lot of confusion and frustration).

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Re: Karma spread

#9 Post by louis » Fri Jun 20, 2014 9:46 am

Trysnyx wrote:[...] I have never had Luthien say anything about my karma except that it's worse than normal, and I don't do -anything- karma related ever. [...]
Just a quick guess (really dont know it) - Luthien is a cleric of taniel, I guess his/her demands could be a little higher than "average" or?

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Sairina
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Re: Karma spread

#10 Post by Sairina » Sat Jun 21, 2014 4:15 am

Just a quick guess (really dont know it) - Luthien is a cleric of taniel, I guess his/her demands could be a little higher than "average" or?
Yes, Luthien is the Taniel cleric. She clearly demands good karma, but waaay less than the Evrenites.
Yes, karma can be a serious pain. It's not uncommon for me to loose all good karma back to neutral just because I spent a few hours about some Asralites...
If a goodie effectively can't team with a neutral (without being punished for it), doesn't this hurt the game by hindering player interaction, given the relatively small playerbase? What benefits does this system have anyway, I don't think a Tanielite would team up with a Satho without game mechanics forcing them, and other than that... you might not even _know_ the alignment of people you're hanging out with. Tough luck that your god does, but really fair of him to punish you for something you can't possibly know? (OK, maybe clerics have a way to tell, but not everyone is a cleric...)

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Re: Karma spread

#11 Post by Aslak » Mon Jun 23, 2014 8:31 am

Sairina wrote: Tough luck that your god does, but really fair of him to punish you for something you can't possibly know? (OK, maybe clerics have a way to tell, but not everyone is a cleric...)
Nope, not even Clerics can (at least not mine), but at least the god is nice enough not to punish them for it. Or rather, doing all their clergy stuff brings them to the wanted Karma rather easily and automatically. I once tried to improve my Karma to slightly good, was simply impossible 8)

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Re: Karma spread

#12 Post by isengoo » Mon Jun 23, 2014 4:06 pm

Just stop checking your karma! Problem solved! :P

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Re: Karma spread

#13 Post by Aturshus » Wed Jun 25, 2014 10:50 am

That is easy to say for somebody with a character who isn't affected by karma in some way. :P

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Re: Karma spread

#14 Post by mazarmormuk » Wed Jun 25, 2014 2:05 pm

strange to hear asral clerics arent affected at all by their karma from a person playing an elvandarian char :-)

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Re: Karma spread

#15 Post by Aturshus » Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:05 pm

Well, where in the game's code does it punish you for not being neutral karma?
Furthermore, why do we have so horribly few 'good deeds' supported by code? Raising karma should not just be giving piles and piles of gold to beggars. Killing undead? Yeah, sure, I can do lots of that and see no change. (maybe the amount gained from that should be raised, as well).
Why does fighting darkelves or goblinoids not also raise karma, when fighting good-aligned npc's does the opposite? Where is the -actual- support for playing a good character? You can do 'good' things all the time and it won't make a whiff of difference unless it's one of the very few code-supported methods.

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Re: Karma spread

#16 Post by luminier » Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:36 pm

thats another thing I don't like about karma!

If the archbishop says you are a bad person, people can just go kill a bunch of undead, game the system and make the archbishop look like an idiot!

if the ARCHBISHOP says you are being bad, you are not taniels avatar dammit!
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Re: Karma spread

#17 Post by Delia » Thu Jun 26, 2014 7:24 am

If I remember correctly, ideas for coded good actions were once asked. Unfortunately it was not that simple, simplifying dilemmas of the soul into mere code. Code can discern what was done but it cannot discern WHY it was done, what was felt and thought of during the process.

Some small repeated mini-quests could be surely done but there should be a lot of them so everyone would not just do the same exact thing over and over again and even then it could start to feel like a karma mini-game within the game.

It is a good system that can work in a tabletop setting where there is continuous open dialogue present which code cannot duplicate. If there was an option to shift your own karma by asking the playerarch by writing an explanation for it and the playerarch would review it and perhaps do something...I do not know. Might end up in flooding the playerarch with karmamail.(I was thinking that this should be a rare occurrence, a dramatic situation, big in game events)

Even so I do like the fact there is karma even if it is not perfectly elegant. It was added for a reason after all, the game was in parts very, very different before. Oldies know it and I do not think we should return there.

In comparison, people use who to launch raids against vulnerable targets. Ok, it might be a huge coincidence but that has been how it has appeared to me. Heck, I have been a part in one or two myself. Similarly, when karma was not around to kick you in the butt, people could behave VERY strangely...
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Re: Karma spread

#18 Post by glorfindel » Thu Jun 26, 2014 7:26 am

Am sorry, but I honestly disagree there Luminier. Karma is what your actions say about you... not what some cleric announces you to be. He can excommunicate you, ruin your reputation, maybe influence that _any cleric_ will grant you any miracles, but, in my opinion, he can not change how your actions are seen from the eyes of the god. IF you do all good stuff and some malicious archbishop says you are not... well, I think the god would recognize that twist, wouldn't they ?
delia wrote: In comparison, people use who to launch raids against vulnerable targets. Ok, it might be a huge coincidence but that has been how it has appeared to me. Heck, I have been a part in one or two myself. Similarly, when karma was not around to kick you in the butt, people could behave VERY strangely...
Aye, they did and I don't think we should go back there. I believe karma in itself is a good option, there just needs to be a way that it feels less like an unjust punishment and more like a system that's intended to do like that. Alas, as already been said, it's all but easy to get such a system designed and may be more the code of a game as open as GEAS can handle.

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Re: Karma spread

#19 Post by luminier » Thu Jun 26, 2014 10:16 am

For all the bad press karma gets, I suppose Delia is correct. Without it things would be EVEN MORE strange.
glorfindel wrote:Am sorry, but I honestly disagree there Luminier. Karma is what your actions say about you... not what some cleric announces you to be. He can excommunicate you, ruin your reputation, maybe influence that _any cleric_ will grant you any miracles, but, in my opinion, he can not change how your actions are seen from the eyes of the god. IF you do all good stuff and some malicious archbishop says you are not... well, I think the god would recognize that twist, wouldn't they ?
The point of the archbishop is that he -is- Taniel on "earth", I thought. You don't get to be archbishop by being malicious because Taniel is not malicious!

I think the more zealous Archbishops did their job well (not to the point of being overly malicious). However, I believe they probably stepped over the bounds a little bit and let it affect them personally as a player when people did not respond IG to their actions.


With that aside, the point I was trying to make is this. In the large number of cases characters -actually- did something very wrong and try to play it off like it was nothing. I know it because I've dealt with it and when I was new, I was a player that ABUSED that. When Luminier was expelled from the Crusaders I purposely kept killing undead so my karma was high and the Crusaders would essentially be punished for hunting me (people still abuse this today in fact).

This is when I feel like even though you've killed a mountain of undead, there should be a PLAYER (not a playerarch), that can overrule your trickery in "good karma actions" and change your karma to reflect what your ACTIONS in game actually are.

A prime example that is recent as of two years ago. The Order. They tried to make everything think they were the gods gift to Forostar, while killing Crusaders and Clerics and then killing undead to fix their karma. Granted, we did hunt them down first! But only because their leader was a man who would indiscriminately kill good people and help the enemy! No malicious goal there!
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Re: Karma spread

#20 Post by ferranifer » Thu Jun 26, 2014 11:23 am

What the gods think of you = Favour.
The moral universal standpoint of your actions = karma.

If the archbishop represents Taniel's will, then he would be able to affect my FAVOUR, not my karma.

I personally don't understand why karma is relative to the gods. That's what favour is for. Now, a god can consider you fit or unfit depending on where you stand in the universal spectrum of balance, but the effect of that should always be done based on your Favour, NOT your karma. For example: if Taniel cares about me killing undead, he should give me favour for doing so. If he doesn't care that much about me killing goblins, he should give me less favour. But killing goblins is still a GOOD action (assuming it is, as determined by the game rules, which should be UNIVERSAL). By the way, karma MUST be universal OR separated per point of view. I assume the intention is that it is universal because the other option is .. well, impossible to implement.

So a character's actions can be classified in the evil vs good spectrum (karma) AND also in other SEPARATE spectrums (god's favour) but when you mix those two together, karma is just an extension of favour that simply doesn't work.

I disagree that the game would be worse if karma was removed. Karma was always there. It was never "introduced" per se because karma is nothing but alignment with a new name. It behaves the same way, it has the same effects and it has the same game design problems too. If alignment was removed from the game players would be forced to make their own opinions about what people is and do and how they want to react to that. And gods (and their clerics/followers/social structures) can do the same, through the FAVOUR system. I think a world where your character is judged by mortals based on its actions and not based on a limited number of abusable minigames is preferable to a world where favour and alignment are mixed together and people is pushed away from each other from some strange spidey-sense mechanic that nobody can even explain.

Let me ask you something, is it acceptable roleplay for my character to say: "Sorry, I won't spend time with you because, despite all your actions, legal status and (perceived) personality and beliefs, SOMETHING is telling me that you are evil."?

Lastly, to this point in the thread, nobody has been able to explain what the "karma spread" mechanic is trying to accomplish. Why do we keep this mechanism when all it does is emphasize the problems with karma AND segregate the playerbase for no reason?

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