Player info and immersion

[Xenyar]

I would like to revisit this. Hours played and secret tag. I strongly suggest removing both of these from players view. Still give the training bonus for quantity of secrets, and have secrets tag show up in their scorecard.
This is something that hurts nothing by removing, and greatly helps immersion.

[Davairus]

We said we would not have gameplay discussions behind closed doors because it censors the views of others who are not emissaries. This caused a huge blowback, so we ceased that. So I will not respond to that here. However, it seems fine to inform you of how the game works. you can toggle the secrets tag with "showsecrets". We did it this way so that people have a choice of whether to display it. People generally prefer making their own choices, instead of being told how to play.

[Mogu]

I completely agree. I feel more strongly about the secrets tag than hours played. This string of text really narrows down who is possibly playing who and that goes against the philosophy of judging a character and not the player behind it. The hours played has made it incredibly easy to pick out several Ozaru characters without interacting with them.

Edit: posted before I saw Dav's reply. @Xenyar start this thread in the public forum and I'll c/p my reply there.

[Xenyar]

Those two things have nothing to do with actual gameplay...a little phrase at the bottom of a description is not gameplay.

And I know we can toggle it.

[Davairus]

Seems like it removes fun from the game, and alienates the playerbase. AR will not be AR without "unlocked many secrets of the world", that is like taking away turkey from christmas. Maybe we could find a way to make new characters have to actually do them but keep the training bonus as an account perk.

As for something actually impactful. What about removing consortium ability to read backgrounds since Heralds can obviously spot the Legion's applicants? If you are worried about information ruining the mystique then that is much bigger immersion-break than anything else I can think of. I don't doubt every serious RP Legion applicant has a problem with it. An argument against that, is that the consortium are used to having that on demand and it will feel very odd that we pull the rug without discussing it with them, but its much more appropriate to have applicant backgrounds reviewed by the cabals they applied for. You are supposed to meet characters to discover what they are about.

[Ceridwel]

Would a happy medium be to have display of account-tied secrets disabled by default and people have to opt-in intentionally to show it? Like having to turn on overdraft or colors_all.

[Mogu]

I don't think it solves the root of the problem which is losing the learning bonus when it's off. I think vast majority of players would opt to turn it on to gain the bonus of their secrets progress they've likely built over years of playing.

[Davairus]

thats a personal choice.

[Mogu]

Yes, it is my personal choice to display my secrets progress I've been accumulating for over a decade thereby telling everyone I'm one of three or four possible players. It just seems a little ridiculous I have to make that choice to begin with.

[Mr. Forgotten]

Idk why, but I was under the impression that the bonus from the quests was negligible. Something I may have read a while ago.

[Davairus]

What problems are left if I remove "Bob is a master explorer"? A few butthurt heralds? Consider that on offer

[Mogu]

If I follow you're suggesting getting rid of "master explorer" and just making "experienced explorer" the top? Sounds good to me.

[Xerties]

I don't think we should be making any decisions in here. The public input is warranted. However I do think there's value in having some initial discussion among players with more experience before bringing it up to the wider world.

[Davairus]

Good talk.

[Ceridwel]

Sorry, I didn’t express my idea properly. The message is off by default but the learning bonus is always on, regardless of if you toggle the message on.

[Davairus]

Ah yes, the vegan option. How about we move this discussion out of the HoE discussion forums?

[Ceridwel]

Xenyar, care to do the honor?

[Xenyar]

It's now moved

[Ozaru]

If you treat my characters based on knowing its me differently thats a you problem. I go into every character treating every other character like I have met them for the first time. No matter what that character may have done to me in a previous character.

[Vevier]

I think the goal of this post is to make it harder to figure out who is whom. I've said before that I appreciated when we took account info away from everyone but the implementors because it makes it more fun to find out who someone is and how they're going to play their race/class to be interesting.

But everyone has their tells, and as this game gets smaller, those tells get louder. This request would allow those people who have every secret for the training reward to remove one of those tells.

Is it wrong to treat a character differently because you know who is behind it? Absolutely! Not only is it wrong, but its technically against the multi-play rules. But let's be honest, we're all humans and imperfect. We were even all rolled up before the floating +1 stat bonus, so we're even more gimp.

Personally, I am in favor of letting the account's secret score go into the learning bonus, but displaying the tag line based on the actual character's experiences and discoveries. That way we don't get "Master Explorers" who are still fishing in the academy.