Morphing Levels - Endgame

[Suji]

All right, folks. It's been touched on a bit since the site first launched, and, as someone who just hit the current "level cap," I figured I'd drag the issue back to the forefront.

Main Question/Problem: What happens when someone reaches post 900?

Two important things to keep in mind here (and I'll be as objective as possible):

• Any player making it to this point is someone who has proven that they have a commitment to the site, and is invested in its characters and plots.
  
• At this point, the character is trusted with the most "dangerous" morphs the Animorphs have to offer.

So far, there have be two front-running suggestions for how to address this issue.



Option 1: Purple/Silver/Gold Morph Levels.

This option was raised forever ago here. The basic overview is that there are a certain number of extra benchmarks above 900 posts, and hitting these allows you to acquire and morph ALL animals of that level - wild and DNA based - at will.

Two possible examples:

Silver Level ~1100: Opens up all Yellow & Green
Gold Level ~1300: Opens up all Blue & Red

or

1000: Opens all Yellow Morphs
1100: Opens all Green Morphs
1200: Opens all Blue Morphs
1300: Opens all Red Morphs

Benefits

• Extends the leveling system, giving people past 900 posts something to 'look forward to.'
  
• Easier to avoid potential balance issues, as the free morph acquiring isn't available until very high levels.

Disadvantages

• Extends the leveling system, perhaps arbitrarily. After effectively completing the leveling system, should players need to hit 2-4 more milestones?

Option 2: Wild Morphs Available at the Last Color Benchmark

This idea was Drake's brainchild a few weeks ago. The underlying mechanic takes the last morph a character gets for a specific color level (fourth green morph, third blue morph, second red morph, etc) and opens up all WILD morphs at that level.

For example:

0: Trainee- None

10: Recruit- The three you chose when signing up

25: Animorph- Yellow Morph

75: Animorph First Class- Green Morph

125: Ensign- Green Morph

200: Ensign First Class- Yellow Morph - You may now acquire wild yellow morphs at your own discretion.

275: Lieutenant- Blue Morph

350: Lieutenant First Class- Green Morph

425: Captain- Blue Morph

500: Captain First Class- Green Morph - You may now acquire wild green morphs at your own discretion.

600: Special Forces- Red Morph

750: Special Forces First Class: Blue Morph - You may now acquire wild blue morphs at your own discretion.

900: Elite Sea-Space-Air-Land Special Forces (Elite): Red Morph - You may now acquire wild red morphs at your own discretion.

Benefits

• Leveling wraps at 900 posts.
  
• Players are encouraged to adapt to their faction's environment with "native" morphs.
  
• Less penalization for picking a morph that you end up never using or not enjoying.
  
• More opportunity for specialized missions like in the books, where everyone would acquire one animal.

Disadvantages

• Potential concerns about abusing the system to greatly increase character morphs. Do characters need access to so many morphs?
  
• Does this make the DNA morph pool less effective? IE: Who would "waste" a morph slot on a dog, when they could wait another hundred or two hundred posts and acquire one for free in the "wild"? Does the value of "I want it now" balance with "I could get it for free later"

Option 3: Hybrid of 1 and 2

Another option would be to combine both the first and second models. The meat of the leveling system would follow the second model (wild morphs becoming available at the upper-reaches of each color), while a couple more levels could be added post Red Level. These additional levels would allow players to freely acquire morphs from the DNA vaults.

[Suji]

Personally, I vote for Option 3. I think there is a lot the site stands to gain from encouraging players to acquire morphs in the wild (while also placing restrictions on it). It helps connect the factions more with their locations, which I think is very important if we're focusing on a "global" feel. The ability to acquire a zebra in the wild is a pretty nice counterpoint to the general desire to stick to what you know and go for a USA-based faction.

I think creating a hybrid of the two models also would allow very high level players to use their level to their advantage. If you've achieved the highest rank possible amongst the Animorphs, you should have free reign over the DNA morph resources. Not only does this make narrative sense, it also encourages top secret, highly mobile specialty missions.

[Alain]

I like option 3 if you put in a restriction on the wild morphs. I would say something like (acquire with faction leader permission). I generally try to encourage more freedom and less oversight by trusted players but eventually we will probably get a player inclined to abuse the "wild morph" thing and go around "catching" the most ridiculous animals. But opening it up with Faction Leader permission allows for group missions and guards against those who might abuse the system since anyone who is made a faction leader would probably be someone we trust.

[Drake]

Not to just go with the crowd here, but I also like option three the best.

I like the gradual increase of freedom with acquiring morphs as you attain higher post levels. I also like that you still have more to look forward to after you reach the magic 900th post. I like the idea that you still have the potential to acquire interesting animals from the morph pool that you would never see in the wild in AE (like a panda, for instance. They were super rare even before the yeerks took over).

We may need to implement a faction leader's permission with the wild yellow morphs, but I don't think it would need to be implemented by the time they get to the wild green morphs. There are currently only three characters who have enough posts for that anyway.

[Alain]

Also, may want to put restrictions on acquiring new morphs. I believe the purple level suggestion came along with the limitation that you had to wait two weeks between new morphs or something. Some time limit would be good to stop people from saying, "I walked through the forest and acquired everything in it."

[Drake]

Upon further thought, I think putting limits up for gaining wild or purple-level morphs might be a good idea, but only if it becomes a problem. And frankly, I don't foresee it becoming a big problem.

By the time someone can acquire wild yellow morphs, hopefully they will already have the morphs they really wanted to acquire most. Same with the other levels. And since animals are supposed to be at least somewhat scarce, and there are no zoos or pet shops or similar concentrations of animals, that just makes it even less likely that they will "abuse" their newfound options for acquiring animals.

And by the time they reach the level where they can acquire anything from the morph pool, it seems unlikely that someone who was so devoted to their character would just up and acquire everything, or even go overboard. It could happen, but I doubt it will.

For the reasons above, I would like to say that I think limits should only be imposed if it becomes necessary (just so there is less that needs to be kept track of).

[Alain]

There is no reason to assume animals are scarce. They have not been wiped out. I thought that was retarded. Maybe it was a way to limit the game on AA but it's also impossible. We have no idea what would happen to the Earth's ecosystem without animals. People are predicting doom because we might lose bees. There is just no way to know what the world would look like if most animals were wiped out. That's why you'll not find anything on AE in any backstory or official thread that says animals are scarce.

[Drake]

Sept 21, 2010 13:55:37 GMT -5 Alain said:

There is no reason to assume animals are scarce. They have not been wiped out. I thought that was retarded. Maybe it was a way to limit the game on AA but it's also impossible. We have no idea what would happen to the Earth's ecosystem without animals. People are predicting doom because we might lose bees. There is just no way to know what the world would look like if most animals were wiped out. That's why you'll not find anything on AE in any backstory or official thread that says animals are scarce.

AA's history aside, I still don't think that animorphs would have easy access to a lot of animals. It doesn't seem likely that yeerks would keep zoos, pet shops, animal shelters, circuses, etc. up and running, so wild animals would be their most likely option. And I would imagine that taxxons are none too gentle on the nearby flora and fauna. Even if the animorphs were to stray from their factions' city and out into the wilderness where there is likely more animals, wild animals are still difficult to catch.

So even if it isn't in the site's backstory, it still wouldn't make sense for earth's wildlife to flock to the animorphs like they are Snow White.

[Drake]

With the advertising contest reopening, it signals the strong possibility of a wave of new membership coming in soon. Which is why I am bumping this thread. I think it would be a good idea to come to a conclusion with this thread one way or another before too many new people arrive. It could be confusing to start a new character and have something like this change after fifty posts or so.

I think we have covered all of the obvious big topics at least briefly. So, if possible, I hope to see a conclusion reached here in the next day or two.

[Alain]

I would also like to see a decision made on this. Also, just reading your earlier post Drake, I agree. I don't think there are still zoos and such around. I just don't think it makes any sense to say all animals in the "wild" aka, the world have been wiped out. If the yeerks can't find all humans they certainly can't kill every ant.

[Drake]

I think we are on the same page now. I agree, it doesn't make sense for all animal life to be wiped out. If it even came close to that, the Earth's ecosystem would probably collapse. Even with alien technology to support them, that probably wouldn't be too desirable an outcome for the yeerks.