Rival System

Eyy, it's ya boi Serilda. Just pitching an idea that I was discussing with Iris the other day that I totally forgot about until just now. Wanted to throw it out for discussion to see what staff and members thought about it.

I don't remember how the conversation came up, but we were discussing a Rival system that would encourage and reward players for working collaboratively with characters that they view as enemies. In my mind it would work basically just like the Mentor system, but geared toward establishing a rival ICly.

Some of the ideas I had for this were:

1. In order to sign up for being official rivals, you have to prove through IC threads that you've done enough plot together to be considered rivals. This could be over the course of a couple threads, or through one heavily impactful one, but the idea is that you can't just say two characters are rivals without actually getting to that point ICly first.

2. You can change rivals at any point if needed/wanted, but you can only have one rival at a time.

3. Possible exp and/or jewel bonuses similar to Mentor system?

4. The idea I actually like the most: Doing a thread with a rival gives you access to jobs you might not otherwise have access to. For instance, a legal mage could go on a dark mission or a dark mage can go on a legal mission with their rival if they are playing the force of good/evil in their rival's thread. So for instance, a legal mage could join their rival on a dark mission but only if they are spending their RP actively trying to stop them from completing their dark mission. Likewise, a dark mage could try to sabotage their rival's efforts in a legal job.

Anyway, thought I'd throw this out there to see what people think. Endorse or reject as you will!

So this is a very interesting idea, and I am quite open to it. I do however have a couple questions.

How will this effect completing jobs, for instance, if they both go on a dark job with the result being an assassination, and the 'good' force succeeds, meaning that the assassination is in fact stopped, the job is not actually considered complete at that point. How would they handle completions?

I am assuming, if this is handled like mentor/mentee it follows under the same Rivals only get these bonuses if it is just the two of them? I would be okay with a bonus which is about the same as mentor/mentee. I think it is a great way to get light and dark guilds to RP together in a way they wouldn't otherwise.

MarkusEldridge wrote:How will this effect completing jobs, for instance, if they both go on a dark job with the result being an assassination, and the 'good' force succeeds, meaning that the assassination is in fact stopped, the job is not actually considered complete at that point. How would they handle completions?

I would imagine that's up to them to determine either ahead of time or to see where the thread goes during the course of it. Perhaps in instances where a person manages to successfully usurp their rivals goals, then the person "failing" the job would only get EXP and bonus EXP rewards and just miss out on the monetary gain and any special gains listed that one would only get for completing the objectives.

Obviously, this would take a willingness to work together and come to an agreed outcome in some fashion by both parties. After all, this is meant to encourage IC plots between opposing characters and foster cooperation, not disagreements. (Though with any perceived PVP type of situation, I am sure there is bound to be disagreements eventually. We're all human, after all).

Either way my general thought it that no matter what, EXP should be rewarded for the thread whether or not IC objectives are met, but jewel/items could be lost if a character is thwarted from completing their mission. And to make things easier on staff, when turning in a job to be completed the person turning it in should list which of the rivals came out victorious with the turn in template.

I'm going to put my two pence in so don't mind me. I do like the idea of this and find it interesting as a new type of job type could be made were only rivals are able to do them, with that being said however it isn't like a year or so ago were it was forbidden for legal and dark mages to be in a team together. I get there is often plots for teams or that the team want to keep it purely to their guild, which is perfectly fine but you could just add your rival to your team and gain bonuses that way.

My suggestions to this is if a new job type was added for rivalries then those jobs would be given a slight increase to exp and/or jewel or alternitively as you have brought up it being something like the mentor system give rivals something likea a 25% bonus to exp and/or jewel for any job they do together I suggested this percentage because this would be a long term thing unlike mentor/mentee which stops as soon as the mentee hits S rank.

Hania wrote:I get there is often plots for teams or that the team want to keep it purely to their guild, which is perfectly fine but you could just add your rival to your team and gain bonuses that way.

Yes, people can definitely be on teams with others of opposing alignments, but remember that does not allow them to take any job with each other. If a legal and dark mage are on a team together, they are restricted to doing neutral jobs with one another. Hence why this would be a perk over just having them on a team with you, because this would allow you to potentially take jobs that don't fit your alignment.

Hania wrote:My suggestions to this is if a new job type was added for rivalries then those jobs would be given a slight increase to exp and/or jewel or alternitively as you have brought up it being something like the mentor system give rivals something likea a 25% bonus to exp and/or jewel for any job they do together I suggested this percentage because this would be a long term thing unlike mentor/mentee which stops as soon as the mentee hits S rank.

Creating some new jobs is always a plus, so this could also be cool to add along with it -- adding some jobs that are specifically catered to having both a legal and dark (or neutral) mage involved. This could be an additional option on top of what I've suggested above to have more available chances to interact for the players. :)

Edit: Ha, apparently I'm on Trinity. This is Seri... though I think everyone knows that already. Carry on!

I love this idea.

In character, you might have failed a job, but that doesn't have to mean you can't get the jewels OOC?

Or might I suggest that the job, done with rivals, give let's say 25% fewer jewels but gives a 25% boost to exp; or something similar like this.

The idea in itself sounds great to me but the thought of only one of the two participants being rewarded fully doesn't. I personally feel that job rewards should be equal since both writers put in the same amount of time and effort when doing a job. I mean, being in a team and doing a neutral freeform job, which can be anything, could accomplish the same thing as what you're suggesting, with both sides gaining equal benefits. A winner and loser IC doesn't mean that there can't be two winners OOC.

Just my two cents. :)

Uh, I'll just throw in my opinion as well, I suppose.

I think a Rival System is really an excellent idea, and personally, I see no issues with completing objectives. In the Rival Mission template, we can have a section called 'Objective', which will mention what is actually supposed to happen (this having been discussed and agreed upon by both rival parties). E.g. An assassination mission objective will be to assassinate the Grand Old Duke of York, so we know that's how the mission ends. The rival will, of course, seek to stop this, but eventually fail. Both parties can still get their EXP and jewels, and everyone is happy. Because if there's a penalty for whoever doesn't succeed in their own facet of the mission, the system will be hobbled, as no one will have any incentives for losing, and though we humans want to win all the time, we never do.

Of course, someone feeling particularly naughty can just go ahead and specify in the Objective that "may the best mage win", and ultimately cause trouble for the higher-ups when bickerings about who should win or not eventually evolve from the events of the mission. I think that's all, folks.