Reincarnation

[Nasredin]

Warning: long post! If you want to skip the preamble, jump to the "new mechanics" part below.


First of all, the two concept that I always considered foundational for Arctic:

1) Social interaction. The more the people solo, the more the game becomes a single-player PvE, which means we have to compete on a different market: there are many more high quality single player games around.

Thus, anything that encourages grouping is good; anything that discourages grouping is bad.


2) Diversity. Be it limited eq, forcing every player to choose their own optimal eq set or some clever preps, allowing alternative ways to win a certain difficult fight - it is good to offer the players an unobvious choice whenever possible, because it allows them to be creative and have fun.

On the other hand, any features that enforce some fixed, "optimal" playing style are bad, because any fixed behaviour begs for automation and may the game play itself.



With this in mind, I find (and I'm not the first one who mentions it) that the current implementation of reincarnation violates both principles.

First, powerleveling is much different from zoning for ranks or eq. In case of ranks, I do some zone, trying to choose the least-visited one, and then proceed elsewhere, not returning to the same place for a couple of days. Also, I'm likely to skip all the courtyard guards whenever possible and proceed directly to the king.

On the other hand, the key to efficient powerleveling is choosing a zone with lots of easy mobs (e.g. those same coutryard guards) and doing it again and again and again until I get maxxed on them. At the same time it makes perfect sense to skip the king because the xp for it is not worth the time required for the fight, especially when my reincarnated char is still somewhat low.

As the result a regular group and a leveling group are only efficient if they do different parts of the zone or rather if they just do different zones, choosing the ones with more kings or more guards, respectively. In other words, the current mechanics urges the players preparing for yet another reincarnation to NOT group with the players who do regular zoning.



Second, there seems to be not many different strategies for reincarnation. Generally, at the beginning a player keeps leveling and reincarnates a few times without buying expensive ranks or doing any end-game content. Then they buy legendary and other nice ranks and become a "real" char. However, it's a big investment and they are very unlikely to reincarnate again after that.

Certainly, some elite players could afford to buy all the legendary ranks, then reincarnate and buy all the ranks again. But then, they are just as likely to finish all their reincarnations reasonably fast and do not bother with the ranks before getting to reinc 6.


Now, here is the idea how to fix all that: change the cost of the ranks. Once again, I'm not the first one who comes up with this suggestion, the big question being how exactly to change the cost (the devil is in the details, you know). My criteria were:
- simple (easy to understand for the playerbase)
- robust (easy for Vuddy to code)
- working (solving the issues mentioned above).

[Nasredin]

The new mechanics:

After each reincarnation, change the (monetary) cost of ranks.

k = ( sqrt(5) + 1 ) / 2 ~= 1.62

For the ranks that the char have purchased during the previous reincarnation,
new_cost = old_cost / k

For the ranks that the char had purchased sometime during the previous reincarnation, but later sold,
new_cost = old_cost

For the ranks that the char haven't purchased during the previous reincarnation,
new_cost = old_cost * k


A few simple examples how it works:

1) At reincarnation 0 you didn't get to rank 25 and didn't buy legendary. The new cost at reincarnation 1 is
100000 * k = 161803 (162k)

2) At reincarnation 0 you got to rank 25 and bought legendary for 100000. The new cost at reincarnation 1 is
100000 / k = 61803 (62k)

The total cost for buying legendary 2 times in a row is 100000 + 61803 = 161803 (162k), just the same as in example above. In other words, you don't lose any money if you buy some rank just before the reincarnation and then again after the reincarnation.

3) You reincarnated 6 times in a row without buying legendary. The new cost at reincarnation 6 is
100000 * k^6 = 1794427 (1.8m)
As you see, the new cost is 18 times the original one. Now, almost 2m coins is a lot of money even for the elite players!

4) You reincarnated 6 times in a row, buying legendary at each reincarnation. The new cost at reincarnation 6 is
100000 / k^6 = 5573 (5k)
The total cost of buying legendary 7 times is 100000 + 61803 + ... + 9017 + 5573 = 252786 (253k)
Even an occasional player may collect 250k over time, and the latest purchases are pretty cheap!

5) At reincarnation 0 you didn't get to rank 25 and didn't buy legendary. Then you bought legendary 6 times in a row. The new cost at reincarnation 6 is:
100000 * k / k^5 = 14590 (15k)
The total cost for 6 purchases is 400k - almost twice as much as in the previous example. To get the maximum discount, the player should start buying the rank as early as possible.


A more complicated example:

6) At reincarnation 0, you bought
1*Whiff:
70     Whiff                  1/3  2   3000 HITROLL by 1

Then you bought
2*Model Student:
67     Model Student          2/2  3   4000 LEARN by 5

Then you sold both Model Student ranks and bought
2*Grit
59     Grit                   2/4  2   3000 CON by 1
and
1*True Grit
60     True Grit              1/1  4   6000 CON by 2
and
2*Weight Lifter
51     Weight Lifter          2/4  2   3000 STR by 1

Finally, you sold the 1 Whiff rank and 1 of the Weight Lifter ranks and bought
1*Fireproof
21     Fireproof              0/1 10 100000 IMMUNE_HEAT


At the moment of reincarnation, your ranks were:
2*Grit
59     Grit                   2/4  2   3000 CON by 1
1*True Grit
60     True Grit              1/1  4   6000 CON by 2
1*Weight Lifter
51     Weight Lifter          1/4  2   3000 STR by 1
1*Fireproof
21     Fireproof              0/1 10 100000 IMMUNE_HEAT


The new cost of ranks at reincarnation 1:

Whiff: 3000 as before (you bought the rank but sold it before reincarnating, thus you get no discount, but no upcharge either)

Model Student: 4000 as before (you bought the rank *2 but sold it all before reincarnating, thus getting no discount and no upcharge.)

Grit: 3000 / k = 1854 (you have the rank bought at the moment of reincarnating and thus get the discount. In fact, you even have *2 of it, but the multiples don't count when calculating the new cost).

True Grit: 6000 / k = 3708 (you have the rank bought at the moment of reincarnating and thus get the discount. Please note that Grit and True Grit are 2 different ranks and do not influence each other, even though both are about CON).

Weight Lifter: 3000 / k = 1854 (you have the rank bought at the moment of reincarnating and thus get the discount. The sold copy of the rank doesn't affect the calculation).

52     Power Lifter           0/1  4   6000 STR by 2
Power lifter: 6000 * k = 9708 (you didn't have the rank bought at the moment of reincarnating and thus get the upcharge. Please note that Weight Lifter and Power Lifter are 2 different ranks and do not influence each other, even though both are about STR).

Fireproof: 100000 / k = 61803 (you have the rank bought at the moment of reincarnating and thus get the discount.)

All the other ranks get their cost multiplied by k = 1.62 (the upcharge of 62%).


As a final note, I'd say that k = 1.5 is almost just as good as k = 1.62 but makes the calculations simplier:
upcharge *= 3/2
same cost *= 1
discount *= 2/3
(not a big difference for Vuddy, but easier for the players to make the tables of rank costs).

[Nasredin]

Expected results:

1) Ranking is no longer a waste of time for a char planning to reincarnate, even if they're already at 1x. Extra rank points allow the char to buy more ranks before the reincarnation and thus spend less time doing cash runs afterwards.

2) Reincarnating 6 times in a row, only then buying legendary and starting playing "for real" is no longer the optimal strategy. On the contrary, most players are likely to strive for getting rank 25 and the legendary status at reincarnation 0 or 1, _especially_ the elite players planning to do all 6 reincarnations.

3) Reincarnation is no longer "the beginning of the wipe" feature. On the contrary, the players may zone normally and reincarnate at leisure when they achieve 1x naturally, while enjoying all the advantages of the legendary status.

Consequently, powerleveling to 1x is no longer a viable strategy; the regular groups and the leveling groups should no longer exist separately.


4) I expect the players to like the idea since it allows them to buy legendary as soon as they get to rank 25 and keep reincarnating after that without penalty. On the other hand, even though the cost of the popular ranks goes down after each reincarnation, the total amount of money spent on ranks is going to become larger, which is good for Arctic economy!


As to diversity, i see some interesting strategies with the new mechanics. For example, a very elite player may prefer to get to rank 30 at reincarnation 0 and then, at 1x, just before reincarnating, sell all their legendary and other ranks and buy, say, the IMMUNE_COLD, the IMMUNE_HEAT and the IMMUNE_ELECTRICITY ranks. Repeat this scenario at each reincarnation. As the result, at reincarnation 6 (for simplicity, I assume that they're still at rank 30)
- the player spent 700k coins on buying (and selling) the ARCRIC LEGEND rank 7 times
- the cost of all the other ranks got 18 times higher and the player has to spend like another 1-2m to buy their favourite ranks
BUT
- the new cost of IMMUNE_COLD, IMMUNE_HEAT and IMMUNE_ELECTRICITY ranks is now only 5.5k!

20     Anti-Freeze            0/1 10 100000 IMMUNE_COLD                   
21     Fireproof              0/1 10 100000 IMMUNE_HEAT                   
22     Shock Insulator        0/1 10 100000 IMMUNE_ELECTRICITY

In other words, now the char may spend 20 rp on legendary and other ranks of choice and keep the 10 remaining rank points for an immunity and switch from immune_cold to immune_heat or back like after every zone!

I'm sure the creative players will find many other interesting scenarios that match their playing styles!


5) The feature doesn't have to be introduced at the beginning of the wipe. You may add it at any time; the costs are recalculated at the moment of reincarnation and do not take into account  any reincarnations that happened earlier. In other words, if you introduce the new mechanics today, the cost of fireshield remains 100k for anyone, be they at reincarnation 0 or 6, and only changes after they actually reincarnate.

In fact, the new mechanics could be even made optional, with something like option NEW_REINCARNATION. Then the players may decide whether they prefer to get a discount for their favorite ranks (and an upcharge for the rest), or if they prefer the fixed price system.

[Zozen]

I like any idea that makes grouping more worthwhile.

As someone who rolled 2 chars for the first time in a long time I find the whole reincarnate feature needing a serious adjustment.

Short of it: bonuses are too good to not do it at least a few times at some point-- if nothing else than to get exotic race before you have a legend char. Everyone grinds the same zones. Inhibits grouping as everyone is at different stages of reincarnation and different alignments.

As someone who loves the grouping aspect of the game reincarnate is a super weird dynamic that dominates the game and isn't enjoyable at all.