[FatherCrixius]

I have long since been of the mind that SL2 handles player strength very very poorly for a roleplaying medium.

Keeping things brief-- My suggestion is two fold. Feel free to skip the explanation and respond with awful no good terrible opinions below.

• GM's are permitted to play stronger characters, characters with mob-profiles, higher levels, event tool buffs etc if it is narratively poignant.
  
• Players are allowed to character app for level-cap increases in the same capacity as the background apps of now.
  

Why?

Saying nothing of the homogeneity of SL2 power scaling, the PvP is inherently toxic to the player's creative freedom. Some players (wrongly) believe the PvP is to be or even is a competitively viable game in and of itself; too any player with a degree of understanding will know it is not so. This game has never been balanced comfortably, most things you can pick up are not viable under any level of scrutiny; and most mechanical fantasies can not be enacted without sacrificing theme or presence in someway. On G6 this was on the tame end custom tome swords, on Korvara god knows.

If you want to play a character of a higher narrative strength, the due diligence is giving them a strong build first, and oftentimes what is meta or even viable is not what meshes well with the character. What if you wanted to subject yourself to kensei? Or a Salamandra? Do you just accept every loss that comes your way while trying to convince people otherwise?

In the past this has been blamed on vague 'Metagamers' and 'Ungas' etc. An arms race where to remain sovereign in the sanctity of your character you must be prepared to deal with the RM / Engi / Whatever that will attempt to cheese you for mechanical gain. Jobbing is Jobbing, and playing any sort of greater character requires you to engage the rat race in some capacity. I think at the very least, some ought to be exempt from this because;

It is basically already happening.

One of the initial TENETS of event-minning was that EM characters would not feature outside of eventmin activity. A very dumb rule that corrodes organic storytelling for the sake of maintaining the homogeneity. It has not been followed; nor do I believe it ought to be, the expectation of these characters breaking immersion is not one being represented.  

There is a not-gay way for this to be done; But please comment kings. This is an idea with flaws.

[Ray2064]

okay but midas will be retconned to be weak and wrinkly

[Lolzytripd]

We can app abov da cap?

[Trexmaster]

I'll be honest on my role character I don't even use a build on them because to me it just wouldn't feel right.

It's an open secret they're an extremely proficient healer, yet because I'm not an Elf I cannot in fact heal better than one, mechanically speaking, and this fact would get leveraged against me if I tried to represent my character mechanically. This is a quick and minor example of how these things make it difficult, as per the OP, to mechanically represent characters with narrative strengths like that.

In a world where they actually could mechanically heal better it'd change nothing but allow to me participate in relevant events' mechanical portions without needing to attach an EM to myself at all times to prevent having people go 'wow you're not actually that great huh'. Which while ICly my character doesn't care and would rather people think that I'd like to be able to leverage that ability when it matters, instead of being confined to never participate in mechanical PvE events ever with that character.

GMs/EMs are basically already given these permissions at least when it comes to events. Though I believe it should be treated the same way as applications where it should go through the same process as players to give such characters approval to be 'stronger' in a mechanical capacity for fairness sake, and so such things can be reviewed by their peers to ensure no foul play comes of it.

[Shujin]

I mean this has been a thing already in the past, for GMs.

And I always thought that was cool, even if a single character could kick the butt of a whole group. I do not think that a long-term RP game needs to be perfectly balanced, beyond the basic systems. Sure it should be attempted to reach such state, but progression/advancements/and advantages should be able to be earned. Same as characters with a Focus on a craft should be able, to make a special item or something. I think things like that, are really cool for Roleplay.

And if that isn't given, have an actually meaningful progression system. There is a problem, that during B-day exp, I was easily able to LE 6 times, during one of the days. Progression is a joke.

[Poruku]

I don't really like the idea of applying for increased levels. You can already get the help of EMs to give you a power boost for narrative moments. I don't want level 65-70 characters running around, for any reason, because

What's the point?
Unless you plan to fight multiple people at once, I don't what someone would gain from being stronger than normal. This would just mean you get to beat people in 1v1s more easily, or maybe if you do a team battle, you get to be visibly stronger there as well. But like... That would kinda suck. Why would I want to fight a guy who's stronger than I will ever be? Mechanically that would just be boring, unless you're looking for a challenge and you're a sweaty pvper like myself, but in that case you run into the issue of like... Okay, what if the powerful character still loses to someone with a better build? Defeats the whole point.


No, no. Characters who are narratively stronger should only be stronger when it comes to narrative moments. Otherwise it only becomes a battle of numbers and I don't feel like giving a character a bunch of extra levels is going to feel good for anyone except maybe the guy who gets to be stronger than everybody...?

Also, look at the average character in sl2. You got countless people who are roleplayed to be super strong. Insanely strong. Every day you see behemoth slayers, legendary heroes, etc. There's no way the application thing wouldn't be flooded with a large amount of characters who would technically have narrative reasons to be strong.

So really I'm just saying, we already can accomplish the thing you want. I'm not sure if what you're saying is that we should have event characters be allowed to just participate in rp normally, because that's also kind of a slippery slope. What if an event character starts to get involved in other stories? In another event? Gets a role in a nation? The important part of having them exist and rp is already allowed. I guess I could do that more.

But reading this post I don't really get it. It mostly sounds like you wanna be able to beat people in pvp without making a top-tier build. Which I feel is more of a concern with game balance. And PvP isn't the end all be all either. Most important things don't resolve through pvp, and the ones that do, usually have a decided outcome anyway. I've done a shitload of pvp in my time as a bad guy. The only thing the outcome of a pvp match determines is how much longer I get to play this character. So I make strong builds, though I always try to keep it varied. There's a lot of things that are viable, you definitely don't need to be playing a specific thing to be able to do well. Because guess what, most people don't have incredible builds, so you can just build whatever and beat a lot of people. Then you run into sweaty people and probably lose, or maybe not. Or more commonly, you get simply outnumbered and lose/die. What's this for? Are you saying we need to give extra levels to people who want to play a low tier class and still wanna be "narratively strong"? (Everyone is narratively strong bro it came with your RPG)

And yes you always have the option of simply not engaging in pvp if you don't like this dynamic, like Trex is saying. It's a shame but also like, if Trex wanted to have their character in an event, I'd be down to buff the mystic. I'd give them +500 light atk or something. In a narratively important moment. Because mechanics is mechanics, and just because you're an elf healer doesn't mean you're better than the Mystic. I like to hope the players understand the separation. That's how it should be in my eyes.

[Cogster]

I'm not sure how much weight my words have. But I'll keep it kinda brief, just to voice my own issues with the game. A gripe I've got is that people that have either been voted in through their roleplay or worked narratively for their position as a figurehead kind of don't actually really represent character strength that well. 

You'd imagine that trying to fight the leader of a nation in a fantasy setting, a fantasy universe, would be kind of difficult. But you can just end up slotting in something like Engineer and you can kind of win most one on ones with some basic game knowledge.

[saikyogroove77]

I upvote this!

[Ham]

personally i think the game needs a way broader app system but that's a topic for another day so lets stick to the topic

aside from what cog put on the topic of nation leaders, there's a really important side to this exact topic that is kinda forgotten now that EMs are everywhere. it's the fact that before it was alot harder to get a hold of a free EM to play the plotline villain for your story, no crack cocaine bear boss fight to feel like your character is actually struggling against. you'd ask the homie you trust to write a compelling back and forth of ideologies or otherwise to do that to be your opp...

but...

then you'd see people trynna get in on your story, you'd be like sure why not. and you know what happens 9 times out of 10? they're trivialized with ease, and suddenly no one can take your character's trauma or plotline seriously. people would go 'oh this is what you had trouble with?' ic and ooc, and it leaves nothing but a bad taste for all the parties involved.

it's not about the cracked build because there's always the guy coming next that's even more nolifey than you are who apparently grinds a bazillion characters in two minutes while working finance. it's not about 'what's the point of fighting a strong dude' because guess what why would anyone tackle the slightest difficulty in anything? why are raid bosses and shit so popular? why do people even go to events if they're impossibly tailored to counter the meta everyone runs? it's a stupid question, because it's fun and can create for good scenes if you're not mindlessly thinking about 'how will i walk out of this with an explosion behind my ass' but 'how will i enjoy this while making sure my presence is enjoyable'.

EMs won't be present 24/7 either for every recently-created-oc that just left the char creation on evil's bday fully LEing their book and challenging someone to an honorable 1v1 for their title/what land they own/w.e

goose's idea has flaws, the game has fundamental flaws too that will hinder the idea, but i agree with what he has to say but seeing people miss the point spoke enough volumes.

anyways, for the love of god yes reward good ambitious writers with well thought out ideas than dingus flingus logging on because they wanna rp goku and heard you're pretty strong

and to quote a blue haired elf. i'm all for it, no problems here.

[caliaca]

I'm not sure how much weight my words have. But I'll keep it kinda brief, just to voice my own issues with the game. A gripe I've got is that people that have either been voted in through their roleplay or worked narratively for their position as a figurehead kind of don't actually really represent character strength that well. 

You'd imagine that trying to fight the leader of a nation in a fantasy setting, a fantasy universe, would be kind of difficult. But you can just end up slotting in something like Engineer and you can kind of win most one on ones with some basic game knowledge.

Just a thought on this. I'm not sure it follows that these characters are stronger narratively than others. Like Harklan getting elected in was elected because of his policies rather than because he's the strongest Telegradian or something.

It was mostly the same with Dahlia- at her base, she's just a frail girl who can shoot bow good. There was nothing special strength wise about her ascent, and similar for Iosefka.

But I really get the vibe of like your last sentence? It **does** feel really cool for fantasy leaders to be dope and yoked, what about the thought of something like a relic system? Like make the Blade of the Premier an actual unique item that's strong or something.

This way we could reflect that power of being a figurehead/lead while also keeping the idea that these ascents aren't necessarily strength based. Could also expand it to the app system like goose was talkin' about to have new guilds and stuff be able to app for them with their leads.

Just musin really