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[IronyOwl]

The dead bodies bit is to be a metric; something that differentiates between an 'easy' mission and a 'hard' mission that isn't completely arbritrary.  Even if correlation isn't 100%, it's nice to have something that can be pointed at.

Well sure, but is it a useful thing to point at? Most deaths come from specific incidents rather than general mission difficulty, so if the correlation's only, say, 30%, is that worth measuring?

the five newbie thing.. well, I think you might actually want a sixth or a seventh for the ground mission.  Two with light weapons, one with a free prototype weapon, one amp user, a driver, and a spare with a cutting laser.  The ship mission would be three guys with goop throwers, one with a cutting laser, and one 'fighter' with a combat weapon.  Success wouldn't be guaranteed, but I'd bet on better than 50%.

For the ground missions, I don't see how this wouldn't result in a TPK as soon as one of those holes opened up for the jeeps. They wouldn't have the strength to physically lift it out, and I doubt they'd be able to effectively hoof it before they got wiped out by beetle herds or chained bear traps.

The ship mission I feel is harder to estimate, because we didn't actually get to see the robots in (real) battle. But as I recall we barely shut them down before running out of goop with at least three goopers and a pack of instagibbing veterans; any less than that and we'd have had to start cutting through them the old fashioned way. I'm not sure I'd give that 50/50 with only one CQC specialist and one amp user, and even if you could remember that the mission still fails if the ground teams get eaten before we can help them.

I'm also very reluctant to imply that newbies are also useless players.  You're not useless simply because you joined later than other players.  You're useless because you're on missions that can be, and are, soloed by your robot overlords.  And because new players tend to disappear more.

I didn't mean to imply that newbies were useless, but especially before you get a few tokens for a good weapon there's just a lot of threats you're ill-equipped to handle. The jeep thing is a good, if peculiar, example: If all you needed was a single robot overlord, the jeeps wouldn't be necessary in the first place. But once the planet's grabbed them, you kind of need a response that ordinary humans just can't provide but overlords can.

And it is sarcastic whining, heh.  I suppose I could make a game, though, but would you guys really want a freak like me running one?

I'm not terribly fond of deathmatch/meatgrinder games in general, but otherwise why not?

In my opinion, the Avatars should not be "purchaseable", as you put it. They should not be gear just anyone can buy if they survive long enough. Sure, they come with a number of catches, but 30 token doesn't even begin to cover the sort of battlefield presence an Avatar has. They're awesome things, to be sure, but I think the overall game flow and mission structure would greatly benefit from battlesuits (and/or Assault Suits) being the biggest things generally available to the players. Avatars could be a part of a special rewards program, extending from the "tokens as a measure of a character's trustworthiness/competence", as in "you have served us well and have shown great skill and command ability - if you want to, we can put you into an Avatar of War, although you'll lose most of your current gear because you'll be entombed in a massive almost-sentient war machine".

As somebody mentioned earlier, there doesn't seem to be much demand for them at the moment regardless, though. I feel like it's such a huge investment and such a huge alteration to your character that it's probably not worth worrying about too much as a standard option, because nobody's going to upgrade to it as a standard matter of progression. It's a very powerful niche buy, but it's nonetheless a niche buy.

[Radio Controlled]

Disclaimer: if I end up repeating some things pointed out before, blame those filthy ninjas my esteemed compatriots.

That isn't quite what I said.. I said dead bodies means it's challenging.  It could be spread out to mean other kinds of failure as well.  It could be from any cause, bad orders, underpowered players, etcetra, and it could be in other forms, such as actual mission failure or permadead players or such.

Well, as said, I don't think you can really use dead peeps as a good metric of gm-induced mission difficulty, cause there is too much confounding with player stupidity or char being underpowered. And kinda the same can be said about mission failures. It's just very hard, if not impossible, to find any decent metric without establishing some sort of baseline, which would need eg. multiple teams running the same mission without extra info and seeing how they do, to balance out difficulty from player and char stuff and let the actual mission difficulty come through (if the same mission gives about the same difficulty level/outcome for the 5 man newb squad vs the 5 man ultravets team, then you can say the mission is too easy).

I mentioned dead bodies because that's the only kind of real failure that exists.  A failed mission hardly matters, it's just a missing superartifact or two that you never knew existed in the first place, or a theoretically uncomfortable situation for Steve which he would then solve with no player effort at all.

This, I can almost see where you're coming from. I proposed to pw, long ago, we invent some sort of points system where the missions we do and decisions we make influence some sort of (maybe hidden) 'war effort' value. And then, we can get an actual effect from failed missions that ensures things have consequences (eg fail this mission, lose 100 points, and if you are below threshold x by time y, things get harder, or you loose out on something). If pw says 'if you get above 200 points by next mission batch, there's a special mission where you raid a UWM weapons lab and get to steal EVERYTHING' then I can assure you people will feel the loss if they don't get that. Or maybe 'below a certain amount, that mission will have more defences, represented by more enemies and heavier AA on drop'. He doesn't even need to show us this number or the thresholds triggered, but knowing it's there means there is a sort of assurance that bad shit has consequences, and might even help him be tough on us and actually make things harder. It also gives him a handy excuse: 'sorry guys, but you didn't meet the points needed, and now I can't help but send you on a penal mission batch with lots of danger and low payouts'.

Because, as I am hearing it, what you want most here is for things to have consequences, mostly hard consequences of screwups. This part:

A screwup on the Q'baja diplo mission, for instance, and I think Steve would have murdered the guy and took over the planet anyway.  Only loss would have been a couple tokens.  Temp dead, which used to make you sit out a mission, doesn't matter, you get patched up and sent out again immediately, no loss.

I can agree with partially: if Steve says a failed mission just means he solves things in the background, things do loose their meaning a bit. And when is the last time a brain went stale and died due to being dead too long? If we invent a system where every 10 (random example) turns after a temp dead you get a -1 on your end roll that determines bad stuff, then it would have a much more meaningful impact.

A significant majority of player casulties were caused by other players, but these days we have plenty of people ready to jump on any inappropriate orders in the OOC thread, 'don't do that' and any players seen to be dangerous have been marginalized, such as Xantalos or U_P.

I do agree we really need to cut down on OOC at certain times. I don't really agree with saying the players have been very marginalised though, both of them still play and not outright ignored. Hell, Xantalos took the loss of Xan's powers like a champ and kept it almost fully IC! Sure, he is probably plotting to exact horrible revenge, but as long as that's IC? I'm ok with that.

In the end though, we need to remember something: as long as people are having fun, and the gm is as well, that's what matters. So, even if we are all but destined to win the game in the end, as long as people have fun with it, that's not a problem. Sure, you might only find true bliss if you first have to bash your head against a wall for a million times or when every mistake is brutally punished (you play roguelikes, for example), but I wouldn't say that that idea of fun is an any way superior! So, be careful not to force this view of how 'a good game' should be.

ER is a game about nutso convicts with weapons of outrageously high caliber on deadly and genuinely zany/surprising/spooky missions at the whim of an omnipresent green AI, at heart, and the whole "Do exactly and only as I say or I will have the GM assassinate you" just doesn't seem to like, fit.

I do agree what happened not a long time ago was very unfortunate, in multiple ways, but we shouldn't dwell on it forever. Gotta learn what went wrong, and try to do better in the future. Not like we've suddenly gone full HARD ASS MILITARY SON! Cause if we were, Miya'd be putting peeps through brutal (and very mandatory) VR training on their downtime.

The current round is definately more significant, but we're moved from the point of 'don't blow yourselves up' to win, to 'do things that could be done with five 0 mission newbies'.  There's a long way to go from there.

Heh, lolnope. Without cameyes and a very good amper, that organic missile strike would slaughter quite a few newbs that don't have robotic jock straps.

Even if correlation isn't 100%, it's nice to have something that can be pointed at.

Have you had statistics? If there's a lot of confounding parameters and you aren't sure if relationships are only correlated instead of causal, you might as well not bother.

I'm also very reluctant to imply that newbies are also useless players.  You're not useless simply because you joined later than other players.  You're useless because you're on missions that can be, and are, soloed by your robot overlords.  And because new players tend to disappear more.

This touches on a sensitive area. How to rhyme a situation where one character so vastly outclasses another, said newb might as well not be there for all the effect it has on a mission? However, should said overlords hold back (and suffer more casualties) because of that, and then be rightfully blamed for it? It's one reason why I'm trying to go on a bit less missions (I can always yell at Hep for fun times), or maybe try to command more from ship, cause nobody wants to see the 'Miyamoto solo show (also others)'. It's almost a vicious cycle: peeps disappear cause they can't do things, and vets do things themselves cause noobs tend to disappear.

Topic reminder: price of AoW - price should or should not be raised from 30 to 50 tokens
argument: current price of 30 tokens is reasonable, 50 is too many, because 50 would mandate 5 missions minimum, 10 maximum, of saving every single token in order to buy it, and saving every single token for that long is an unreasonable expectation in of itself. leading to it becoming unpurchasable

If we take the maximum of 10 missions of decent (not extraordinary, but decent) pay, isn't that an ok number to get an avatar? The single most powerful piece of equipment? Cause right now, if a person earns 7 tokens per mission, he can get there with 4 missions a lil' bit of loaning. suppose 5+14 tokens go into gear, and then 14 tokens from next missions. Selling gear gets you 9 tokens back, that's now 23 tokens. 7 tokens are very easy to loan from people, and unlike with the battlesuit, you don't need to save some tokens for equipment, you get a whole lot of stuff for free! And then you are so powerful/nearly unkillable, paying back those people should be hella easy. You know that I get around 35 tokens worth of equipment for free on top of the avatar, right? 20token manip + (ballparking, would probably be more) 15 token superlaser (with own generator).

The jeep thing is a good, if peculiar, example: If all you needed was a single robot overlord, the jeeps wouldn't be necessary in the first place.

That's kinda the ugly question though: if the teams had only been robot overlords and a couple normal peeps who could ride on top of them, would the mission have gone that much differently till now for (or, at least, for gyromitra)? Hell, one reason I created that perimeter and told them to 'hold the line' while I dig is because it's a perfect opportunity for pw to send some actual enemies at them and give them something to shoot at and be helpful. Cause for now, the most work by newbie chards has been done by drivers (ferrying newbs around) and medics (healing people, mostly newbs).

[Toaster]

And when is the last time a brain went stale and died due to being dead too long? If we invent a system where every 10 (random example) turns after a temp dead you get a -1 on your end roll that determines bad stuff, then it would have a much more meaningful impact.

We simply haven't had any mission instances where this was long enough to be an issue.   The instance that comes to mind is Charro's death on M6 (Abyss) where he was killed by the Wyrm a day's march from safety.  The team was trying to decide what to do... but then the Wyrm came back and squished him into dust.

[Radio Controlled]

And when is the last time a brain went stale and died due to being dead too long? If we invent a system where every 10 (random example) turns after a temp dead you get a -1 on your end roll that determines bad stuff, then it would have a much more meaningful impact.

We simply haven't had any mission instances where this was long enough to be an issue.   The instance that comes to mind is Charro's death on M6 (Abyss) where he was killed by the Wyrm a day's march from safety.  The team was trying to decide what to do... but then the Wyrm came back and squished him into dust.

Didn't some fools get iced in the beginning of M7? Those were out cold for at least a couple hours. And what about Jim, who died early yet was also still very revivable? Keep in mind, for m7, there was also the long trek back to the ship, even if that was abstracted in game.

[kj1225]

I think it comes down to it being annoying for everyone involved.

[Nikitian]

Eh? Can't really say about M7, but yes, M1 had Jim dead for a couple of hours. However, there come these two things: It takes several hours for brain to be thoroughly decomposed in ERverse with its future medicine, and that time can actually be prolonged by keeping the brain cold - which is exactly how it went with Jim in M1, I think, and exactly what we could not accomplish in M6 (it was cool, but not nearly enough - so it came out as a race against time, rather than leisurely walk back home; before Charro's brain was turned into paste the next turn, of course).
So yeah, probably the opportunities are rare enough, but still exist - the very reason Maurice takes his portable cooler when going on a mission, among other things.

[piecewise]

Eh? Can't really say about M7, but yes, M1 had Jim dead for a couple of hours. However, there come these two things: It takes several hours for brain to be thoroughly decomposed in ERverse with its future medicine, and that time can actually be prolonged by keeping the brain cold - which is exactly how it went with Jim in M1, I think, and exactly what we could not accomplish in M6 (it was cool, but not nearly enough - so it came out as a race against time, rather than leisurely walk back home; before Charro's brain was turned into paste the next turn, of course).
So yeah, probably the opportunities are rare enough, but still exist - the very reason Maurice takes his portable cooler when going on a mission, among other things.

AP mission didn't have that safety net, I believe.

[kisame12794]

AP mission had several empty bodies, which players had to medic people into if they died that hard.

[Parisbre56]

AP mission had several empty bodies, which players had to medic people into if they died that hard.

But we didn't have braincases. So if someone got screwed up that badly, you couldn't just stick them in one and revive them. You'd have to try to robocop them, replace their entire body with synthetics and make all the right connections... Even with the new system and a +4 level, that doesn't sound like something easy. And based on the response Kri got on ship, you'd also have to do all this in the right order/the right way/the right time, because resuscitating people without the right equipment is hard. I think the equipment that does that on ship is large, hard to use and prone to causing cancer among other things if used incorrectly, based on what Steve told Flint when he was asking about it.

[IronyOwl]

The jeep thing is a good, if peculiar, example: If all you needed was a single robot overlord, the jeeps wouldn't be necessary in the first place.

That's kinda the ugly question though: if the teams had only been robot overlords and a couple normal peeps who could ride on top of them, would the mission have gone that much differently till now for (or, at least, for gyromitra)? Hell, one reason I created that perimeter and told them to 'hold the line' while I dig is because it's a perfect opportunity for pw to send some actual enemies at them and give them something to shoot at and be helpful. Cause for now, the most work by newbie chards has been done by drivers (ferrying newbs around) and medics (healing people, mostly newbs).

I think it would have. Recall that the Haebi adapt to whatever's messing with them, so keeping a bunch of fleshy squishies is probably helping the overlords tank a lot better than it looks like. I'd agree that the newbs haven't been as useful as they could have been, and I'd agree that this is a really tough mission to be underequipped and underskilled in, but I do think having a certain mass of bodies and variety of forms is important.

As an example, recall that most of the murder has been directed at newbies and their succulent jeeps. If they weren't there, presumably the planet wouldn't be bothering with beartraps and jeep-eaters and would instead be pinpointing the fatasses with fatass-melting acid and so on. Or at least, I'd assume a robot overlord or two wouldn't have faced the exact same responses; it's obviously hard to tell without trying it out.

[Xantalos]

On a completely unrelated note, anyone wanna play doctor with Xan?

[Beirus]

On a completely unrelated note, anyone wanna play doctor with Xan?

Don't you mean Doctor?

[Cheesecake]

On a completely unrelated note, anyone wanna play doctor with Xan?

Tommy needs something else to do until he gets more drugs, so he volunteers!

[Xantalos]

On a completely unrelated note, anyone wanna play doctor with Xan?

Don't you mean Doctor?

That comes after.

On a completely unrelated note, anyone wanna play doctor with Xan?

Tommy needs something else to do until he gets more drugs, so he volunteers!

Perfect! After I likely get refused the knife and electrocuted and make some minor complaints about that policy, I'll come find you and practice medical procedures.

[Cheesecake]

medical procedures.

Riiiiight.