Age Disability

[Dreams]

Well, again this could be a use for my idea of using skills to retain them- but just applied to age-related skill loss, giving a way to keep them with regular practice.

I didn't like this idea on the other thread, and I still do not like it. As someone struggling with keeping a connection to the game, this wouldn't get me logging in. It would make me log in, grumble, and log right back out.

[Deedee]

I didn't like this idea on the other thread, and I still do not like it. As someone struggling with keeping a connection to the game, this wouldn't get me logging in. It would make me log in, grumble, and log right back out.

You make it sound like it'd be worse than it is now, where you lose the ranks and can't recover them.
What would your ideal solution be?

[Kuzco]

You also lose max HP. I'm all in for age penalties but it struck me as a little too much. But hey this is new for me so I could just be sore from it. So let me get back to you when and if Norrig hits 60.

[wimple]

I don't have a problem with age disability. As long as a character has some grand mastered combat skills, they are not going to be useless. If combat was really that character's focus, then they should have some grand mastered and those do not get nerfed the same way as other skills do (though that's definitely progressive, first years aren't really that bad). Even if they do not, there are other combat concepts they can transition into if that's still the core of their character, like training or desk jobs with the Reeves/Knights/Mercenaries. I like that it forces character's to change or progress into different avenues - frankly, once you've had a character for that amount of time, anyway, those changes need to happen to keep things fresh. Those changes also allow younger characters opportunities to develop.

Really, my major gripe is champion not displaying properly for combat skills due to age disability.

[Lei]

Slightly off topic, but my characters, without fail, end up dying before coded age sets in. I'm a little jealous of the tenured legacies all of you have managed to acquire.

[wimple]

Slightly off topic, but my characters, without fail, end up dying before coded age sets in. I'm a little jealous of the tenured legacies all of you have managed to acquire.

To be fair, I took a break from the game and popped back in with Safir in her forties, so there were some missed opportunities at being murdered. Create a 40+ character and join the retirement community!

[galaxgal]

Long-lived characters generally get very powerful not just due to their coded abilities but due to social connections, overall trust, and usually political power, and IME these are way more powerful currency than any number of head-bashing skills, especially in a lower population where players are far more wary of starting fights or doing nasty things at each other.

A young character will take multiple IRL years to reach the age threshold. Between bodyguards, rank, game knowledge, and social capital, someone with an active character old enough to hit that threshold is already very entrenched and very hard to realistically touch. This is mixed into a situation where new players and even unestablished alts often feel excluded from impactful or 'interesting' RP.

I'm wary of suggestions to soften aging code for that reason alone.

[Starstarfish]

A young character will take multiple IRL years to reach the age threshold. Between bodyguards, rank, game knowledge, and social capital, someone with an active character old enough to hit that threshold is already very entrenched and very hard to realistically touch. This is mixed into a situation where new players and even unestablished alts often feel excluded from impactful or 'interesting' RP.

The question is ... that applies to every character whether they are "IRL years old" or not. It might be a question where we question if every character on grid should start as a teeanger?

[Geras]

I don't think anyone here is arguing there shouldn't be an age penalty at all. It's more that we just don't want to immediately turn into a pile of useless goo at age 45.

[mystry]

I don't think anyone here is arguing there shouldn't be an age penalty at all. It's more that we just don't want to immediately turn into a pile of useless goo at age 45.

I think that we all have to keep in mind that, in TI's medieval setting, the average life expectancy is much lower than we would be used to IRL.

For example, the average life expectancy for a wealthy person at the top of society, like a noble or a king or someone rich enough to pay for healthcare, was only about 43 years for women and 48 for men. It was frequent for commoners to die in their mid-30s, and anyone living into their sixties was rare. Life was a lot more harsh on people without the modern benefits we have today; it's one of the reasons why they would marry young, at fifteen or sixteen, sometimes even younger.

All that being said... I think it's reasonable that people start to break down when they hit their forties. I DO agree however, that the penalties might be a tad too harsh, and I might tweak the scaling so that it starts off slower and ramps up more extremely as time goes on.