Suggestion: Licenses

verðandi

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Original poster
Apr 5, 2024
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Licenses have been brought up on and off on discord. I've given them a good thought and want to make a suggestion.

I propose to make them run on played hours with a couple of limits to even the field.

I suggest the following:


Expire rate:

Sellsword, Cleric, Arcane, Economical = 40 h
Nationality = 80 h

40 h is a full working week with 8 h / 5 days in a lot of places. This means they would run on the same timer they currently do, and can easily be roleplayed as a half and a full tenday in game.


Tick time:

Play time / week before they start ticking, "free time" = 4 h
Max tick / day = 8 h
Max tick time / week = 40 h

This would mean that you can play up to 2 h for "free," and need to play 5 days of 8 h + to get the full amount drawn.


Why I suggest the rates and hours above:

People who have very little play time each week don't have to worry about their licenses.
People who are only available for example during the two days over the weekend would hit the roof of 8 h drawn from their licenses per day, so 16 h, and their licenses would last significantly (2,5 times) longer than people who play the full 40 h + over 5 days.
People who play more than 40 h per week will likewise be protected in that the licenses will run on the same speed as before - 2 and 1 weeks respectively for nationality and the rest.
Most people will end up in the middle and get to enjoy the same without being punished for being offline.
Naturally silver cost of licenses can be adjusted to account for a more forgiving system.
Numbers can be adjusted of course. I was toying with 10 h as a max tick per day but thought it was a bit too much, and 2 h free per week but thought that was probably too little, and landed on suggesting 8 and 4.

In conclusion, I'd like to say I support licenses being a money sink, but that people who play a lot, a little or have narrow play times shouldn't get the short end of the stick. I'd also suggest a free renewal of licenses across the board if you put something like this in. That might bring some people back.
 
With being restricted to how many hours I could play, I found that I could not keep up adequately with licenses. Then they finally elapsed an my character had not enough silver to renew, so that put an end to his adventures. If there were means for such as suggested, then it'd be a lot more worthwhile to look for ways back into adventuring.

Thanks.
 
Laws, especially those governing licenses, are only as strong as those enforcing them, ie. the player guards. There's nothing stopping your character from adventuring without them, there are ways in game enabling it and helping you avoid their scrutiny - obviously at the cost of some inconvenience.
Moreover, the server has changed and continues to change. The monster stats were adjusted, the ways of earning money (loot, bounties) have been expanded and right now, the cost of licenses can be easily covered by a single dungeon run lasting less than two IRL hours, with a competent party. If you find yourself playing during the low-population hours, it is still possible to find another character willing to help you fight some of the easier content. A minor bounty is worth five coins, which means you only need twenty to pay for your sellsword license, arguably the most important one.
Keep in mind that the staff is currently hard at work dealing with the core part of the server, which is PVE content. I doubt that the license system is going to be changed any time soon.
 
I’m fully in support of licenses being based on played time rather than real time that’s always ticking away. Don’t have much input on the rest of the ideas presented, but that change alone would be a great start, IMO.
 
I think a lot of people approach this from the perspective of a single character, without considering the limitations placed on trying to play alts - admittedly, it can take only a few hours to make the necessary coin - but it does become a more arduous task across multiples of characters. I like variety, I enjoy being able to play alts and I am sticking through it, but I can definitely see why some are deterred by the prospect of 'grinding' across multiple characters as well as adhering to the separate expiry periods.

At the very least, we'd see more variety in classes and prospective characters if it was more lenient.
 
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