I've always wondered why some kind of Reincarnation system isn't used in MMO's.
What if when you reached max level you could do an arduous quest that resulted in your character permanently dying and reawakening as a new level 1 character with the same last name.
This new level 1 would be the next generation in your lineage and all your items would be passed down and waiting in the bank for you.
It wouldn't be apparent at first but at max level this reincarnated character would be a bit more powerful than before.
This cycle could help the problem with low levels being deserted as the player base gets top heavy.
It also could keep a whole type of player that likes leveling up and going through all the content happy.
This is not akin to rolling an alt ... each time you reincarnate your base power gets a bit higher so it is a real form of progression.
Would you take advantage of a system like this ?
I think I would...
Thanks for reading,
Kiz~
You have some good points!
However, adding an endless grind will eventually also result in content being balanced to compensate for that, or else that content would appear obsolete. That would mean that content isn't cleared by the people with great teamwork or the players with a high individual skill level, but the person who can grind the most. Don't get me wrong, I like a long leveling process and I also like grinding, but at some point you need a cap where skill and teamwork is more important than the time you invest into the game.
Well its totally optional and the base stats increase would have to be balanced...
It's definitely uncharted waters I just wonder if the good would out weigh the bad.
I can imagine a situation where you and your static group hits max level then everyone just says lets do it again cause that was fun !
Not really talking about the players that will just grind low level mobs repeatedly for advancement but I suppose to each their own.
Kiz~
They are already planning on something like this.
Players will be able to 'retire' high level characters and then create their children as new characters, but these new characters, the 'progeny', will have certain abilities, stats, etc. that make them slightly yet noticeably better than a completely brand new character (but not to the point that it unbalances things).
My question is...how many generations can this go on? Will my Great Great Great Grandchildren be unbalanced, or will the stat advantages only last for one generation?
Baulkin said:
Progeny System
Players will be able to 'retire' high level characters and then create their children as new characters, but these new characters, the 'progeny', will have certain abilities, stats, etc. that make them slightly yet noticeably better than a completely brand new character (but not to the point that it unbalances things).
My question is...how many generations can this go on? Will my Great Great Great Grandchildren be unbalanced, or will the stat advantages only last for one generation?
This is something I was thinking about to be honest. I would hope there is a cap (preferably only once). Otherwise despite all good intentions, if a player can "progeny" themselves an excessive amount of times then these players will be the ones who will simply power level 1-max level, progeny... rinse and repeat.
Although, if there is a "hard cap" stat system like there was in Everquest - Then I suppose an "unlimited" progeny system would be mitigated by simply having endgame gear. (Granted - theoretically you could then have a maximum level character with hard cap of stats while being naked... Neat ;) )
Baulkin said:They are already planning on something like this.
Progeny System
Players will be able to 'retire' high level characters and then create their children as new characters, but these new characters, the 'progeny', will have certain abilities, stats, etc. that make them slightly yet noticeably better than a completely brand new character (but not to the point that it unbalances things).
My question is...how many generations can this go on? Will my Great Great Great Grandchildren be unbalanced, or will the stat advantages only last for one generation?
I wrote a post and talked about this over at Terminus Terminal and wonder the same thing. My other concern is being a top end raider I like to maximize my character anyway possible and worry this will take away from raiding.
My thought process goes like this, my guildmates and I all get to lvl 50 (Assuming that is the max) and are ready to start grinding out some dungeons, raid access what have you, but half the guild decides that they want to retire the character and re-make it. Now we have to wait for them to get back up to lvl 50 (which I am hoping is a pretty hefty time investment, something on the magnitude of 200-250 hours invested) or if I decide to retire and reroll and very few others do in the guild and they are raiding for a month to 6 weeks before I can get back up there....
There's nothing in the FAQ or otherwise that led me to believe this, but I just figured that the progeny system would be in place to assist a veteran player level up an new character they created, but not to make that new character better overall. I'll use some even numbers here to give an example of what I mean: let's say the level cap is lvl 50. A player retires their lvl 50 character and starts a new character as the first character's 'son or daughter'. The new character has +10 to all stats. At level 10, the bonus is reduced to +8. Level 20, the bonus is +6. And so on until they get to lvl 50 where the bonus is completely gone, thus preventing them from having an advantage over other players who want to keep their lvl 50 and not restart a new character.
Or, they could have the bonus of +10 all the way to lvl 49, and at 50 the bonus is removed. I just presumed it was to assist while levelling, since what would keep a hardcore player from reincarnating several times and inflating their bonus. Although that would take a hella long time.
@AgentGenX We really just need more info, The way it sounds is you could have a lvl 50 Cleric, retire him, keep one heal skill, reroll a monk "child" and be able to heal as a monk.... This really changes how game would be played. Specially if you could then retire that monk and make a wizard with FD and a cleric heal....
I have no inside information so I hope VRI is more creative than my idea of what a Progeny system would be.
The skeptic in me does not like this system at all for an MMO, it's fine for a single-player game for replayability, but there's no way I want to start a character over from max level to achieve +10 base stats when I've invested hundreds of hours (or more if it's similar to EQ1 progression), so, the bonus would need to be much larger to make it worthwhile which would ultimately effect gameplay/class balancing, etc. However, the min/maxer in me would still be very torn if in order to be "the best" player you had to constantly reroll your character, even with just +stats - especially since I would be mainly restricted to the group game based off play time and I would be looking at all angles to min/max my effectiveness. I also would be curious to see what would happen with /no drop gear etc. if your character had to be retired. Does it disappear, is it bound to your character? I would be hard pressed to think that a raider would want to /reroll if they had full raid gear and would lose it all. I "get" the idea in practice, I just don't see how it practically could be implemented into an MMO.
And, as far as your idea AgentGenX - I wouldn't see anyone rerolling if they didn't keep any bonuses from doing so (or very few). I did see some players play 2 enchanters, etc., but they would be in the minority versus the majority.
I would much prefer an alternate form of advancement similar to EQ at end-game to add nearly endless content than having to reroll a character, and, if a veteran player wanted to group with their new friend, to start an alternate character. There's plenty of ways to keep old content viable - I'm just not a fan of this idea as I don't see how you can implement a progeny system and make it worthwhile without having to add significant bonuses to the rerolled character and creating major game imbalances; although, I'd be happy to be proven wrong by VRI.
Considering how much time people invest in their main character in a MMO, especially the hard-core players, I don't see many of them permanently retiring their main. If you have 500 days on a character... and I don't mean in-game days, but 500 RL days on one character (and I had more than that in EQ 1), chances that you will be willing to retire it permanently are next to none.
I think a game of this nature that had a reincarnation feature would be trying to say, "hey guys we don't have any endgame content so please keep chasing your tail". After making the journey to max level I don't think I would ever want to reincarnate him. If I ever want to experience the lower level content at a level appropriate range I could roll an alt and or they could put in a level matching system or something.
The more possible ideas I'm hearing about this progeny system, the more I am not wanting it to be in the game at all. I guess I overlooked the word 'retire' and what it actually indicates, because I cannot fathom someone wanting to render their max level main character unplayable forever. Which led me to believe that it might have been a system to assist players who have already reached max level to level an alt, but I guess that doesn't make sense.
I definitely don't like the idea of a new alt having a new skill that strong, as in the example above of the monk inheriting a healing ability from their parent. What are we going to end up with here, tanks who can mesmerize their own pulls? Healers who can teleport/evac a group out of trouble? Rogues who can cast a nuke? Or a situation where two monks are looking for a group, and they are both judged and one is selected based on which special skill he has inherited (if he has one at all, in which case the poor monk without one is shunned). Bah.
And if the min/maxers are forced to keep reincarnating to be the best they possibly can be - how big will the division be between them. and the 'normal' players? I hope one of the powers that be can maybe ease our minds on this a bit, cause I'm getting a lot of negative vibes from this system :(
I'm kinda of hoping that this idea does not get implemented in Pantheon, at least not for the first year or 2. This feature is in DDO( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_Online#Reincarnation )and I've seen/experienced so many issues because of it. From players not being allowed into groups/raids because that have not Reincarated enough to hours and hours and hours of dev time wasted on debugging/fixing the feature. And countless hours spent by support staff helping players when reincarnate has gone bad.
Get the game out and the first expansion released and down the road think about adding this in.
I honestly like the idea and in the end it's optional. I think it won't be for everybody and that includes the min/max type of players. This could be a great way for the casual player to enjoy themselves. Instead of making a ton of alts they can enjoy themselves by using the reincarnation option. I also like the idea for hard core guilds once they have completed all the current raid targets they should have enough time to play through the game again by using this option prior to the next expansion.
