COMMUNITY - FORUMS - SOULS, TALENTS, & REINCARNATION
Metagaming the Age of Heirs

So, something I noticed in reading about attributes and how they change with age is that, depending on what you plan to do with your next life, there can be a certain ideal age range that you want your next character to fall into when you take them over. Two examples, for reference:

  • Ranger/Wilderness Survival character A: This player loves this playstyle and intends to continue doing it with their next character. It's dangerous, and they may die fairly often. It's also a physically demanding playstyle, attributes wise, meaning it's a "young person's game." Once they realize they are about half of the way through their soul points, we've created an artificial incentive for them to produce a new heir every 4-6 years, ensuring they land in the 15-21 year age range when their character eventually adventures their last adventure.

  • Queen/King character B: This player enjoys the title, and intends to pass it on to their next character, etc. As characters get older their leadership attribute gets better, which, conceivably, makes them better at playing this role. Should this character churn out 5 children as soon as we hit exposition (more numbers to hopefully ensure one of them survives until their current character dies) repeating the process every 10 years or so, just in case they live long enough so that the first batch gets too old to take over, but hopefully ensuring they will probably have some offspring at least in middle age to choose from when the time comes?

I won't lie, I sort of dislike the idea that my character's stats change this way with age. I totally get why they do, and I think it's a really neat mechanic to represent the way roles change with age in a society. I like to play characters that are more of a character A, though, so I feel like once I hit 50 it will probably be in my best interest to get things setup and then intentionally fail the spirit walk. I'm okay with that. It does seem sort of weird that, where design seems to remove most of the metagame for everything else we would typically do in an MMO (pick this race because of certain class etc.) we are then adding in a new mechanic which creates a very clear metagame which could even involve intentionally killing your own character.

Not really lobbying for change or anything, just sort of want to know what other people think about this.


Knight Chancellor of Ironholde - Servant of Serverus, Lord of Ironholde - Darkholm Dutchy - Kingdom of Blackheart

6/11/2017 3:44:39 AM #1

I think there are a plethora of reasons why that wouldn't be in your best interest.

For one, you'll be limiting yourself in the way of advancement; because your character will stop advancing at an early age, your skill ramp(s) will be lower than someone who will have mastered their skills over their lifetime. (Note, it's never been said that you can't advance your skills later in to your life, just that they may be more difficult to perform proficiently. Of course, that's purely speculation, but it seems sensible.) I understand where you're coming from with your first example, and it could be true in some cases, but, in my opinion, most people will want to reach achieve as high a level of skill as possible in their lifetimes. By cutting their character's life short, they're not experiencing the game to it's fullest extent because they will not be reaching the same levels that other players may be. Now, if you intend to have the exact same experience every time you spark a new character, then that play style may suit you, but I don't think that will be the case for the most part.

Next is the subject of Story Points. It may or may not be possible to spark into your heir because you ended your lifetime early. This seems like a very good reason to play your character's life out to the fullest. It's in your best interest to attain as many story points as possible if you want to ensure that you are able to play your heir.

Personally, I think this works out against your favour and more in the favour of others. While you're playing the game the same way every time you start a new life, others are progressing in both skill and story.

6/11/2017 3:54:40 AM #2

Piggybacking off of Artsy.

Another thing you would be giving up is the buffs of old age. They have already stated that as you age your skill will decline in more athletic pursuits buy ascend in more intellectual and social pursuits. Additionally, (I think), it has been shown that some cultures/tribes place additional value on older members thus opening new avenues there.

Now, if you want to play one way and only in the characters 'prime' for that way, then I can understand your metagaming instinct. That will probably be the Min/Max route. This does come at an additional cost of souls, but that is beside the point.

Min/Max gameplay is inevitable, however; the method of going about it weighs on the game mechanics themselves. I doubt it will be balanced in a way that rewards premature death, as suicide and short lived characters rarely make for a good story.


6/11/2017 4:33:12 AM #3

I'm not worried about the value of SP, currently, as I don't have any intention of acquiring or maintaining titles. We'll see when we get there, but my understanding is that it should not be terribly expensive to continue in my family's bloodline if I'm not worried about that.

I don't think this will necessarily disadvantage my character from a skill ramp perspective, either. 50 was an arbitrary number I threw out for illustrative purposes, but it stands to reason that once age has a noticeable impact on my character's ability to do the things I want to do in the game, they probably are going to slow down in the skill progression as well, if nothing else but because of frequency of those activities. If, as another arbitrary example, myself and another player who did exactly the same play as me but lived out their full days as a senior citizen fighting giant spiders in an alpine forest, they might live two lifetimes in the time I did three. We don't have numbers, but there's no reason currently to say that getting to start skill-ramped characters and enjoy the faster progression sooner wouldn't keep up just fine in the long run.

I wouldn't call giving consideration to who your heir will be min/maxing, it's just smart game play. If this is min/maxing, so is inheriting anything from your previous life. I also wouldn't call retiring a character early min/maxing, either. Who knows, maybe by the time my character is 60 I'll have decided I want to play the mentor who doesn't do as much as they teach, but I'm not going to play a character that isn't fun for me.

As far as characters dying young not making for good stories, I invite you to read the Iliad. Characters dying before their time have made for countless, amazing, epic stories throughout the ages.


Knight Chancellor of Ironholde - Servant of Serverus, Lord of Ironholde - Darkholm Dutchy - Kingdom of Blackheart

6/11/2017 4:50:11 AM #4

Just to chime in... I may be wrong but I am under the impression that the Min/Max route of killing off the character as they leave their Prime will come with a huge negative. I am under the impression that the longer your character lives the higher the skill ramp will be in the next life. So if you kill them off early then the ramp may be more or less flat, however if you become a teacher and live into a ripe old age, then the ramp will be much sharper, giving you a learning bonus into the next life.


"Count Eldric Blackmoore of The Haven, offering direct support for the Hunters, Explorers and Gathers of Elyria" the

6/11/2017 4:55:39 AM #5

Posted By Surana at 12:33 AM - Sun Jun 11 2017

I wouldn't call giving consideration to who your heir will be min/maxing, it's just smart game play. If this is min/maxing, so is inheriting anything from your previous life. I also wouldn't call retiring a character early min/maxing, either. Who knows, maybe by the time my character is 60 I'll have decided I want to play the mentor who doesn't do as much as they teach, but I'm not going to play a character that isn't fun for me.

Maybe I misunderstood your intent. My understanding is you are attempting to extend the optimal period of your souls lifespan for a specific playstyle, through "abuse" of the reincarnation system into an heir. That's Min/Maxing. If that is not your intent than you can forget I mentioned it.

As far as characters dying young not making for good stories, I invite you to read the Iliad. Characters dying before their time have made for countless, amazing, epic stories throughout the ages.

I think you are confusing dying young, with the set piece. I paraphrase the quote since the source elludes me "If this isn't the most interesting time in the main characters life, why not show me that?". The most interesting time period for most stories occur during the youth of that character, while they can develop in both skill/power and personality. However the supporting cast, the cast that motivates the plot, is typically older and wiser, or peers facing the same extreme tribulations.

Characters dying young is OK in a vacuum when they are the main character, (after their story is told) but that leads to problems when they are the supporting cast whom have yet to play their role in the plot. Thus the excess of plot armor on supporting cast in recent works.


6/11/2017 5:02:19 AM #6

@Sullen That could be true. I'd like to see something written to support it, though. This would specifically penalize titled players who have to deal with war time situations, which could be problematic. A countess would have a x32 (x8 x4) spirit loss, duchess x64 (x16 x4... that's ~17 years of IC lifespan for that one death) for dying in battle during war. The obvious solution is for nobility to never participate in the battles themselves, and some may have no interest in doing so, but I think others are very much planning to. Should your character's age when perma-dying have more of an affect on skillramps than the actual level of skills they attained in that time?


Knight Chancellor of Ironholde - Servant of Serverus, Lord of Ironholde - Darkholm Dutchy - Kingdom of Blackheart

6/11/2017 5:30:00 AM #7

Caspian has stated that those who live a dangerous life would die sooner, so it would be impressive to live past 35 (forget reaching 50).

Die one death as an unknown = 2 days = 2/7 a in-game year

Max life = possibly 14 months (not really exact)

~14 months = ~60 weeks = 60 years old

Caspian said on average a person would die once a day with the champion lifestyle:

Live: 20 weeks + Lost (due to death): 20 * 2 = 60 weeks

You take over a character at minimum age 15 years old (in-game)

20 years you play + 15 where you start = 35 will be where you expect to die

If you manage to reach 50 that would be mean you would have AMAZING skill and this would be the reason you are respected within your tribe.


Friend Code: 1BD8F6

6/11/2017 5:30:24 AM #8

@Kyxsune It's maybe confusing because the topic is kind of two fold. One is addressing the issue of having to potentially do a constant "re-planning" of heirs to ensure you end up with a character that suits your playstyle. The other is talking about the stats that cause the issue in the first place.

I get what you are saying about storytelling, but asking people to continually play characters they are losing interest in will result in burnout and player loss. Better to let the character go in a way that can at least be some plot fodder and allow the player to be happy with their position.


Knight Chancellor of Ironholde - Servant of Serverus, Lord of Ironholde - Darkholm Dutchy - Kingdom of Blackheart

6/11/2017 5:37:34 AM #9

@LukeSpyro the numbers Caspian quoted in that regard were for illustrative purposes in explaining how even people with dangerous lifestyles can expect to get a really good go for their investment in spark (in comparison of cost to play most other MMOs.) I don't think he expressed the die once a day example as what they were aiming to specifically balance towards. It's true, my character may live out the entirety of her spark before any of this becomes an issue, but I'm probably going to spend some days doing other things, so even if that were the case (to reiterate, I don't expect it is) that itself will extend things quite a bit.


Knight Chancellor of Ironholde - Servant of Serverus, Lord of Ironholde - Darkholm Dutchy - Kingdom of Blackheart

6/11/2017 6:02:09 AM #10

Posted By Surana at 01:30 AM - Sun Jun 11 2017

I get what you are saying about storytelling, but asking people to continually play characters they are losing interest in will result in burnout and player loss. Better to let the character go in a way that can at least be some plot fodder and allow the player to be happy with their position.

I get what your saying, and a balance has to be struck. PCs are intended to drive the plot, with some aid from NPCs and as a result should be motivated by self interest in doing so. Its up to SBS to assure that people want to play their role, and some people have different motivations than others.

I personally hope that death isn't the only option to transfer a soul. This would disuade one from killing their own charachter while freeing them up to follow new avenues.


6/11/2017 7:02:08 AM #11

I think much of this will actually be a non-issue.

It's been stated before that they're designing the game such that most people can expect their characters to live roughly 50 years, with a max play-time-age being roughly 60 years. A more adventurous sort could be looking at more like 40-ish years.

Now, all of that said, assuming you want to be an active character, and not a noble et cetera, then you're probably gonna want to start playing a character at no older than 15. Now, assuming you're pretty good at being adventurous, then you're still looking at about 40 years play time, if that is really the focus of what you want to do. At about 55 years, being very active for the whole character's life, you probably won't have too much issue continuing to play in that style up until your character's end. The main things that will happen are two-fold.

One, the rate at which the character can continue to increase those physical skills/attributes will decrease. I highly doubt that they would ever make it so it could completely stop, though you'd likely already be a master at that point.

And two, if you decide to slow down and not be as active, it will be harder to keep up your physique and regain any ground you've lost on that front. But, again, at this point you should be a master and would have no reason to have slowed down, unless you, in fact, found that slowing down would be more enjoyable.

So, at the end of the day, I highly doubt there will actually be many instances where you would want to kill off your character prematurely.

But, for your second example in the OP, yes, that seems to be exactly what you would want to do. If you wanted to maximize your social skill potentials. But, that would not be completely unusual for a monarch to do. There are many examples of monarchs having many children to insure their line of succession.

Edited: Fixed some spelling and grammar.


6/11/2017 7:20:56 AM #12

So it is advantageous to live your full life irregardless of playstyle. as you get older A your skills still grow just at different rates. B as you get older your mental stats grow. Playstyle A relies on physical stats but also mental stats for survival. Survival is partly a mental skill. Knowing what plants to eat. What animal is easiest to kill. Playing full life is good.


6/11/2017 9:59:54 AM #13

Besides, you could use your last few weeks of playtime to teach your heir, what your current character has learned, to make it easier to start again, once you die.


The truth is born in argument

6/11/2017 12:12:34 PM #14

One thing you may not have considered. I believe your heir does not have to be one of your own children, it could also be a grandchild. If you take advantage of the option to name one of your grandchildren your heir, you will be more likely to have an heir in the appropriate age range even as your children age. It still might be a good idea to put some consideration into the spacing of your children in case you die young, but if they are marrying and starting families, it will be less of an issue for you.


Shieldwall Strong!

6/11/2017 2:55:23 PM #15

Posted By Sullen at 11:50 PM - Sat Jun 10 2017

Just to chime in... I may be wrong but I am under the impression that the Min/Max route of killing off the character as they leave their Prime will come with a huge negative. I am under the impression that the longer your character lives the higher the skill ramp will be in the next life. So if you kill them off early then the ramp may be more or less flat, however if you become a teacher and live into a ripe old age, then the ramp will be much sharper, giving you a learning bonus into the next life.

I may be wrong but I believe skill ramps are only indirectly based on age. They are directly based on how high your level in a particular skill was in a previous life. The longer you work on a skill the higher it gets but it is possible to attain a high skill based on previous skill ramps in a relatively short span.

The real rub depends on how much stats actually add to the effectiveness of a skill versus the actual level.

I expect to see spreadsheets on the optimum time to off yourself in order to reach max effectiveness in your next life.