Character Retirement and personal Hall of Fame

[Jay303 2]

I'll start with the mechanics of the ideas I'd like to see implemented and then move on to why I would like to see this and what I think it would add.

 

Character Retirement: Pretty self explanatory. After reaching some kind of meaningful threshold, like 12 in game hours on a character, I would like to have the ability to retire the character and start over with a fresh spawn.

 

Character Hall of Fame: Simply a way to view your retired characters and their stats, as well as attach notes to them. I want to stress that the HoF would be personal only, as a collective hall of fame would run directly counter to the game's 'play your way' fundamental.

 

Reasoning and desired effects: The way I play is to focus on exploration and survival. I don't avoid player interactions, but PvP is not on my priority list. I know for a fact due to these forums that I'm not the only player who focuses on these aspects. The problem with this play style is that once you collect the gear you want and reach self sufficiency the play quickly becomes boring. I find myself wanting to start a new character and face a fresh challenge shortly after reaching whatever my personal goal is at the time.

 

At this point I face a meaningless and immersion breaking choice: do I just hang out around a high traffic area waiting to be killed or do I find something tall to jump off? Either option runs against the nature of the survivalist character I've been playing and is just a waste of time. In reality, a character who had reached self sufficiency would be just that: self sufficient. Retiring this character would simulate them fading into the hills and allow me to get back to the coast and into the action without the bullshit. 

 

This mechanic and its Hall of Fame counterpart would allow players like myself to set personal goals such as: survive for 12 in game hours on only bow hunted animal meat. I could then retire that character and keep them in the HoF as a memento of my own personal in game goals with a note stating what I did with that character. This would really revitalize the game for me and increase its longevity without violating its open ended nature. 

 

Threshold: Regarding what the threshold would be for gaining the option to retire a character I can't really say with any authority as I don't have access to player statistics. BI would want to look at the curve on player lifespan and pick an amount of in game time that would be challenging but not absurd.

[bauertschi 254]

Welcome to the forum.

 

When I started on your post I immediatelly thought, "Ah, a new player, 12h is nothing, certainly no fame, ...". But further down your reasoning became clear. Hm, I don't really know about idea here. I keep track of all my PvP kills and deaths, record all my gameplay and if something worthy happens, I cut the video out. The problem is, there are about 130 entries there now. Your hall would explode at some point. Things you considered great at the beginning become mediocre. Even without vids, such a hall of fame would not be able to replace my diary... .

 

Now concerning your whish to start over, that is something I understand and often think myself. For me the solution is simple, go more aggro in pvp ;) If you really don't want to do that, do something else that might result in your death, but is still worthwhile. Just thinking of the hat, I could imagine you going to three valeys or so and search for bambis. Lurk, hide, stalk and try to find a worthy one to give all your gear to. Then you might still be energized or hydrated, even though you could try to keep that down, too, when it gets clear that you will soon go to the east. There are two possible outcomes. You die and start fresh, or you don't die and start naked but with probably a little more energy and hydration than usually. It would also allow you to figure out friendly approaches better. You could keep your playing style and look how often you can do that without dieing. Maybe that's and idea for you or not, don't know. I somehow doubt we will get the option to retire characters, and I think that's ok so.

[Jay303 2]

Hey Bautschi, thanks for the feedback and the welcome. After reading your post I'd like to clarify a few things.  

 

First off, although I'm new to the forum, I'm not new to the game. Over 200 hours between the mod and the stand alone at this point, but that time has been spread over years so I never started posting on the forums because everything was changing anyway. This just happens to be one thing that I have run into over and over and over since respawn was disabled (which was the right move of course.)

 

I want to clarify that characters in the HoF would only be the ones you retire, not the vast majority of characters which wind up dead, many within the first few hours. If you wanted to play a character past the threshold/until their death that would be completely up to you; retirement would simply become an option at some point. The 12 hour mark is just a random suggestion but I would be utterly shocked if BI told us that even 20% of characters hit that mark. Think about it. For every character that you get fully geared the way you want, how many get picked off by bandits or get bad RNG and can't get rolling (without bullshit server jumping that is.) I don't think HoF flooding would be that big of an issue, and there would be no reason not be allow people to delete entries and only keep their top 3 or whatever.

 

As for the list of suggestions I appreciate that input but that stuff is exactly what I'm tired of. When I'm done with a character and want to start fresh, I would like that to be an option rather than a work-around. Playing a character that I am bored with for several more hours is pointless, and I don't always have that kind of time. Real Life and all that jazz. This state feels like getting a slap on the wrist for creating a successful survivalist, when that is theoretically the purpose of the game.