Character limit changes

[Dante Silverfire]

That's what we wanted to prevent in our realm on FEI at least; until we spent a few weeks without a banker and thus my second character was more or less forced into the role to prevent the realm from taking damage from the lack of willingness from other players to take responsibility. Said character is the banker of the realm and holds a second city region in my realm. Both are technically against the law in the realm but until more people show up who are willing to take such positions of power and responsibility we've been forced to utilize it. We've been actively trying to grant our newer nobles positions of lordship but they lack the mandatory honor/prestige requirements at this time. (That and the city my second character holds is notoriously annoying to keep in check, I have the secondary character doing extensive maintainance on a daily basis or the city destabilizes and causes trouble in the space of 2-3 days while she does her bankery business in her study....) Oh well, it'd be nice if people'd come on over and live with us in FEI... it's fun and my character still have cake and tea on offer. >_>; And Lordships; we got plenty of those as well. :p

This is purely my opinion, and I'm pretty sure I hold zero influence in how game changes move forward, but the situation you describe is one where I think your second character is causing more harm than good. If you didn't have that character, your realm would have more problems. There would be unrest in the city and due to lack of a banker. That is a good thing. It's the game telling you that you need to make more effort to retain and attract players to your realm. If things were actually falling apart, people would have to work harder at making the realm interesting.

Feel free to disagree, but I can only see opportunity arise and more interaction take place if your regions like that city were to start revolting, or go rogue. This allows other realms opportunity for conflict, expansion, or cooperation. All of that is prevented by the second character. While I can see why you wouldn't want your realm to experience it, such consequences cause conflict, and conflict keeps people interested in the game.

[Sovari]

I appreciate the opinion actually, from a gameplay perspective we would much rather drop the city off since it's a rather insanely large burden on the realm as a whole. It's been rogue for quite a while before it was restored by my primary character. From a RP perspective, the reason she's holding the city for her aunt is because it has been the home she grew up in and thus is the most attuned noble in the realm to deal with the city's perks and nuisances.

And alot of people want the city cuz it's a massive vanity booster.... but when they get it, the city bites the hand that feeds it so to speak. I fully expect the city to go rogue when the second character returns to her NPC status; though she will still be present and have some influence on RP, she won't affect the gameplay any longer which is appearantly what people want. *shrugs*

[Indirik]

What people want is an end to stagnation. If second characters aid stagnation, then they need to go.

[Zakilevo]

What people want is an end to stagnation. If second characters aid stagnation, then they need to go.

They want an end of stagnation without losing their second characters

[Sacha]

I want it all! Character limits! Mortality!

At the very least in battle, nobody should be beyond Death's reach. It's getting ridiculous to see centenarians charge into battle, take (sometimes grievous) injuries, and survive all the time.

[Medron Pryde]

It would also strongly encourage exactly the behaviour we are seeking to eliminate: having a second character be nothing but a drone, contributing nothing of real meaning. Players who didn't want to lose their second character would keep them safe behind walls, never putting them in a situation where they could be captured and executed.

If they never leave the walls, they will never boost the army's might and make the nation more powerful, which as I understand it is what is claimed as the reason for getting rid of dual characters.

As for multi-dukes, you could merely say that it is no longer allowed and anyone caught doing it will have their character banned.

[Sovari]

They want an end of stagnation without losing their second characters

That's correct; and what if the second characters aid in dealing with the stagnation? What will you do then, when say the limit get downscaled and stagnation gets worse? Has that been calculated into the plans?

[Lorgan]

They want an end of stagnation without losing their second characters

The correlation is faulty. Realms need nobles to fight - internal and external - wars.

You're right that 2nd characters are often much more silent than primary ones. However that's an OOC time issue, it won't change when those characters are dumped on another continent.
I'm more likely to delete my 2nd character than move him tbh, it'll free up time for my primary characters. So that's a good thing for my characters, but less so for the game's noble count and resulting stagnation.

[O Dear Me]

My two pence worth in the debate would be marginally against the character/continent limit change.  I do think overall decline is being incorrectly blamed too much on 2 characters on continents.  I am, boo hiss, a 2 character player in a small kingdom, but that suits well my non extrovert and not top % activity approach to the game (in a larger kingdom such as the very fine Luria Nova, where I was recently I would/did not feel active enough to take on lordships/roles etc). 

It may be too late in the day (and fiddly) to consider, but increased mortality seems a much better approach, specifically with that mortality significantly amplified for all 2nd character players via battles and assassins (even just plain old age, ideally with a week or twos pre-warning?).  Add to that, second character players could accumulate honour and prestige much slower so that change is real and more constant.

With increased mortality but 1 character a continent I think you encourage people to see that as a natural breaking point from that continent or even the game.  I think you need the stubbornness of players who feel invested in the realms as much as it has some draw backs.

Where I think the real concern comes is that in our efforts to retain more characters for the realm we are in, we seem to lose more to apathy and not wanting to step up to activity (sorry but I can’t commit as much time as the position deserves, is a more common parting message than; I am going because I never get a chance to try what I want is my own experience).  You could go increasingly extreme with the mortality and honour penalties until you get the levels of regeneration needed.  All with whatever limits on lordships/offices thought appropriate per family too.

[Anaris]

The correlation is faulty. Realms need nobles to fight - internal and external - wars.

You're right that 2nd characters are often much more silent than primary ones. However that's an OOC time issue, it won't change when those characters are dumped on another continent.
I'm more likely to delete my 2nd character than move him tbh, it'll free up time for my primary characters. So that's a good thing for my characters, but less so for the game's noble count and resulting stagnation.

Noble count is not useful to the game in and of itself. Only participatory nobles fight stagnation.

So if you delete a drone noble, and gain more time for your primary noble, that's a double win for the game. Triple if you consider the fact that removing the drone makes it clearer just how many "active" noble characters there really are.

[Lorgan]

Well, if you say that the vast majority of 2nd characters are drones, drones being silent non-entities, then you're right. In my experience they're mostly less developed or more silent but still participate and it's a bit of a stretch to blame the relative silence in realms on those nobles, because without them, there'd be even less going on.

Then again, it wouldn't be the first time that my experience is a bad indicator of the status of the game.

[Sovari]

Noble count is not useful to the game in and of itself. Only participatory nobles fight stagnation.

So if you delete a drone noble, and gain more time for your primary noble, that's a double win for the game. Triple if you consider the fact that removing the drone makes it clearer just how many "active" noble characters there really are.

So by that logic, what if both nobles are participating in a realm and you remove one of them? Does that not seem counterproductive? Even if there are more drones than actual participatory secondary nobles. Removing the ones that are trying to fight the problem seems kinda like you're just making things worse. Maybe that's the wrong angle to look at it but that's what I'm seeing.

[Anaris]

So by that logic, what if both nobles are participating in a realm and you remove one of them? Does that not seem counterproductive? Even if there are more drones than actual participatory secondary nobles. Removing the ones that are trying to fight the problem seems kinda like you're just making things worse. Maybe that's the wrong angle to look at it but that's what I'm seeing.

And if we had a foolproof way to determine which was which, in the code, without human intervention, and make this clear to everyone so we're not accused of favoritism when we make some people delete or emigrate a character while others got to keep it, we'd do it in a heartbeat.

Unfortunately, I don't believe there is such a way.

[Sovari]

And if we had a foolproof way to determine which was which, in the code, without human intervention, and make this clear to everyone so we're not accused of favoritism when we make some people delete or emigrate a character while others got to keep it, we'd do it in a heartbeat.

Unfortunately, I don't believe there is such a way.

Just saying, it's not all as perfect as it may seem to people. And I seriously believe the change will cause more harm than good for that reason alone. If we want to fight stagnation, we need to be more active. Not dunk active characters which will only cause for additional stagnation and further decline. Eventhough I would much prefer to trade off my second character for even a single new player in my realm to have my ruler character take under her wings to guide and care for.

However, the question is; do we want to keep an imperfect system that allows us to fight stagnation or do we want a new imperfect system that may in fact promote stagnation. Additionally; would it be in any way shape or form reversable in case things do end up freezing up? Since some others and myself are currently trying to break the Far East out of its torpor and while we may be able to do so with just a single character each; it'd be easier and more likely to cause a bigger wave to do so with the other characters present until people stop being afraid of the Far East. We don't bite... hard....

[Anaris]

However, the question is; do we want to keep an imperfect system that allows us to fight stagnation or do we want a new imperfect system that may in fact promote stagnation.

I don't see how that's any more valid a question than, "Do we want to keep an imperfect system that we believe promotes stagnation, or do we want a new imperfect system that will allow us to fight stagnation?"

I don't think anyone's suggested that reducing the characters-per-continent limit is a perfect way to fight stagnation, only that it's likely to do more good than harm, in our view.