Get Rid of Rollover UE
Is it really fixing the problem?

Also, even IC it's explained that immigrants come in various forms and strength. The UE rollover is part of that in my book, otherwise you could just expect every new PC to be able to take on other new PCs, which just flat out isn't how the game should be.

Does it give players who have previous knowledge an advantage? Sure. But so does everything in the game, and I don't think removing this is gonna aid in fixing this issue, and it's only going to make knowledge on combat builds even more important than before.

There's a million ways to win against someone more powerful than you, ESPECIALLY when it comes to UE.

It's nothing that not having UE rollover will fix.

Also, players aren't typically bullies- That just sounds like an issue with the character invoking the wrath of those people more than anything else. Seen it plenty, also seen plenty of people not recognize they're doing so, over and over.

Firstly: you should be able to fuck up and 'invoke wrath' without that pc staying on top of you for the rest of the time you play, ruining everything you do, and trying to get you to literally, stop playing sindome

As for 'hhiding, and trianing.' Doesn't really help. I've watched many try this, and it simply does not work.

I tried this, and it simply does not work.

Not only have I literally WATCHED 3-6 months PC's get bullied out, a LOT in the past 9 months of playing since I returned.

I LITERALLY had 2-3 players hopping alias, siccing me 3-5 times an hour for over a month 'perm yourself.'

secondly: If you do not see how this would bleed, then you are willfully ignoring how damaging such things are.

You both are blaming the victims in your response to me. I am not trying to be snarky here. I'm just standing my ground on my point.

"players aren't typically bullies..."

Just because a Owl doesn't eat other Owls, doesn't mean the mice are less afraid.

Most players aren't. a good handful are. The handful causes issues that ripple out into the community. You end up with it being normal to steam roll 1 month players over and over again, because they pissed you off once. Rulles should be discussed so these bad apples don't spoil the bunch, like was done with Pickpocketing.

thirds: Swallow your pride and step back? WTF? So your answer is literally.. "stop playing, and maybe when you come back they will stop."

Cmon now.

What worked for me was not giving the bully the pleasure of a response anymore.

My character stopped reacting to their provocations, and every time he was vatted/ rolled/had some part of him removed for literally no reason. My PC would just act like it was another tuesday.

Eventually the people fucking with me got bored and moved on to others who will scream, cry, and give them the reaction they need to scratch their sadist itch.

I've said my piece about the topic, I'm peacing out.

My two cents, I don't think UE rollover is bad.

I am not upset that immies can beat up non-immigrants. I stated in my original post that I've been on both sides of the situation before. The points I have tried to make are that

a.) Rollover UE was intended to encourage veteran/max UE players to reroll

I have not seen this happening more than it did pre-implementation, although I was very new when it entered. There are dozens of players who are playing the same character that they were before implementation. This is not intended to be a criticism of them, but maybe a suggestion that there either needs to be more a carrot/stick or some other system in place to encourage it.

b.) UE does not matter.

We tell new players this all the time. 'Go out and RP, UE is meaningless.' There was an OOC discussion about it last night with a newbie and that made me think about how many of us tell immigrants this, but have a benefit of a few months of extra UE whenever we reroll new characters. It's what prompted my post. If UE does not really matter, then perhaps we should all be held to the same standard that we hold first time players.

Rollover UE or not, that gap is going to close fairly quickly. While there is an advantage to having prior experience with the game and knowing exactly where you want to put each point… the only thing that is going to prevent that gap from closing is how you choose to build your character. If you need direction, it is a good idea to seek out mentors. Plural, because just as in real life, you will come across people who have absolutely no idea what they're talking about (one touch kill karate dojos anyone?).

I don't remember what the rollover percentage is, but I don't recall it resulting in a significant amount, even on the high end and probably wouldn't care either way.

1. I probably would never re-roll if not for rollover UE.

2. Some people don't rollover not just because they 'feel powerful', but because they really love the character they're playing and are too attached to get rid of it.

3. If you get permed by other people, this is going to be a comfort, a 'cushion' like some other people said.

4. I like that it exists. I feel like because of it, less people assume that all immies are useless. It's become less OOC. Because it makes no sense that all immigrants are weak and useless.

Only other thing I was going to say is that I was not suggesting you "roleplay away" a gap in applied experience (AE). I was pointing out that you can ICly find direction to make the most meaningful application of your UE if you lack the knowledge yourself or want to close a performance gap.

I'm certainly not the most knowledgeable player on the mechanics of the game, but I can't really think of any mechanic in which early UE investment is as important as in combat oriented characters, certainly not competitively (is there a secret aero mechanic war going on?) so I specifically addressed that.

If Sindome was cultivating a significant amount of new players into the game I'd probably agree its design is not highly retentive, but I don't think that's actually the case. My experience is the vast vast majority of new characters are existing players, and new player bits are either returning players or players already experienced with RPI games which makes them pretty inoculated to the demands of the genre.

Players should quickly abandon any idea that everyone is going to start from the same baseline because they never were. The importance of player knowledge about the game cannot be overstated, and for new players the priority should be to be a sponge for gameplay and mechanics and roleplaying development because there's a big difference between someone who understands the game and its systems and its politics and its mechanics, and those who don't.

At this stage of the game's life, cycling veteran players back through the game as new characters is much much more important than the far more slow process of culviating entirely new ones.

@0x1mm

That's a fair point about the state of the game although I think it is a little jaded. There do seem to be plenty of new players that seem to be brand new to the genre that pop in occasionally, and there's very little rentention with that crowd.

As a result of this discussion - I think my mind has changed to favoring the idea that everyone should start out with the maximum rollover UE, regardless of the time they've spent, but I also think that's a bit of pipe dream. With the way UE allocation works, though, it'd likely mean these new players would have time to go out and discuss on Day 1 or Day 2 about investment and build in another automatic RP hook before actually spending that UE.

If I understood it right, @0x1mm, do you mean that new players would get a bigger bonus than their next characters, until they've actually gained more UE for future characters?

More than anything, ganging instills resilience during hardship in the game, losing more tends to make people better. Learning early on that getting there first doesn't mean you're entitled to win is important, as well.

One thing an old, old ganging character I played was taught that an important part of being a good ganger meant knowing how to pick your fights. If you picked a fight with someone you couldn't handle and made a big public affair over it you made the gang look bad and you were likely to be put in your place by your own gang. Things change all the time. I've seen periods where NPC gangers seemed to back every stupid thing their PC gangers do, and times where PC gangers are cut down and cast out for making the gang look even a little bad. So your mileage may vary. But I think learning to pick your fights will help no matter where the game sits.

Given the current ganging design set up by staff as I last understood it, there was zero expectation that joining a gang was supposed to be a ticket to swing your dick at every other mixer. It was mostly a means to find conflict, largely fighting league style, with other gangers. Some very skilled gangers managed to successfully push non-gangers about long ago and created more hustle and cyen streams for themselves but the idea that every ganger should be given the same for free and by default always baffled me. Especially as most gangers are encouraged to move on before they reach the levels the gangers that first established these things had reached.

Overall I think there is an assumption that there are some elements of ganging that every ganger gets handed to them when they join up that isn't based in reality. That are meant to be built up over time if the ganger can manage it. And not all can. I think if one doesn't buy into these assumptions that the UE rollover has less impact than it might seem to. I also think that it's important to remember that you can play a ganger in many, many ways and that there's isn't one mold you have to squeeze your character into.

I think it would function only to let all players skip a portion of skill/stat progression while reintroducing the issue of playing meta to power level by time in city.

It also deprives newer players the full experience of SD theme. Sometimes you do just get shit on. Sometimes a lot. That's the world we play in. And it doesn't necessarily change just because you're max UE. You have to know how to properly use your stats and the tech associated with it. That's part of what UE progression is for - learning how to play the game.

Every table-top game I've played has modifiers for bonus xp based on the concept of no-experience, mid-experience, high-experience campaigns. Higher tier xp bonuses are typically handed out to groups that are experienced with the game (anecdotally).

I view this as the same thing. It isn't simply time in game or existing that earns rollover UE, it's SD gaming experience. You have to be logged in to earn UE and you generally have to be playing the game instead of idly sponging it (because the latter is against the rules).

Rollover UE is a representation of your commitment to playing and learning the game and RPing over a period of time. It's a reward that celebrates those things and yes, it's the incentive that pushes some people to the side of the fence where they say farewell to a max UE character. I for one was very attached to my last character and also felt it was daunting to start over after so long (over 3 years) of commitment to that character's progression. The rollover, however small it is in the grand scheme of things, did incentivize my decision and gave a small cushion to landing on the other side. Anyway, I'd rather be bullied by a UE rollover character than a max UE one. I can catch up to the latter much quicker and get even if I really only care about stats and combat. Or you know…I can make friends that can do it now. Or pay people to handle it. Or RP my way out of it in other ways.

I also (would like to expect) that characters that have max UE rollover have enough SD experience to know when to pull punches when necessary, are generally more experienced RPers, and overall have learned how to be better players in the community. Might be wishful thinking, but I imagine there are more people like this than not after years of gaming here.