Politician Archive
Thread: 0 Skill Points to be a Politician?
Ive been in many player cities that are run by utter idiots that nobody in the city can boot out of being mayor because we cant be politicians...we are combat types and crafters and such. Eventually the city just decays and one day the town hall is gone. Poof! no more city.
Only those with a 2nd account can really be politicians..mule chars who likely support a guild's desire to have its own city.
If it was a zero skillpoint proffession then mayors would have competition and true politics take place... the candidate with the best track record or the best policies or the best design, etc will win.
tacwraith wrote:
0 skillpoints sounds good to me.
Ive been in many player cities that are run by utter idiots that nobody in the city can boot out of being mayor because we cant be politicians...we are combat types and crafters and such. Eventually the city just decays and one day the town hall is gone. Poof! no more city.
Only those with a 2nd account can really be politicians..mule chars who likely support a guild's desire to have its own city.
If it was a zero skillpoint proffession then mayors would have competition and true politics take place... the candidate with the best track record or the best policies or the best design, etc will win.
For me the best design isn't enough to be the best mayor ... you also have to dedicate time and effort into the projekt of a city ... and manage it. If you are only combat or crafter chars then to me by default you are saying you don't have enough room for being a mayor. But of course this is something that everybody sees differently from their point of view.
But more importantly for me: If we go to 0 Skill Points for being politician we have absolutly no basis for demanding any content/features or even the nececary tools we need to govern a city in a fun way. Effectivly this would kill the concept of politician/mayor being a profession and simply make cities to an equivalent to PAs (even less, since PA-Leaders have to devote 7 lots to the hall !!! - while not having the perks of decoration/gardens/militia/shuttles/cloners/banks/garage/...).
I can clearly accept politician costing less skill points (be it 6 for novice and 1 for each skill - or a pyramid skill tree form as already once indicated by the devs on fan fest) ... but setting the cost to zero won't enhance the fun this profession will grant the players - only devotion (spending something) and getting content in return can do this (risk vs reward)
Delvyn wrote:
George Bush did it and he has no skill points
He has God mode! 
But as I read some of your posts of making the point costs less I do agree totally. 6 for novice and 1 for each box including master is exactly what it should be. I think it would make it feel not only earned, but more fun with more people getting involved.
Message Edited by TheNarcis on 12-21-2004 09:47 PM
Khristen wrote:
DaQuilla wrote:
For me the best design isn't enough to be the best mayor ... you also have to dedicate time and effort into the projekt of a city ... and manage it. If you are only combat or crafter chars then to me by default you are saying you don't have enough room for being a mayor. But of course this is something that everybody sees differently from their point of view.
But more importantly for me: If we go to 0 Skill Points for being politician we have absolutly no basis for demanding any content/features or even the nececary tools we need to govern a city in a fun way. Effectivly this would kill the concept of politician/mayor being a profession and simply make cities to an equivalent to PAs (even less, since PA-Leaders have to devote 7 lots to the hall !!! - while not having the perks of decoration/gardens/militia/shuttles/cloners/banks/garage/...).
I can clearly accept politician costing less skill points (be it 6 for novice and 1 for each skill - or a pyramid skill tree form as already once indicated by the devs on fan fest) ... but setting the cost to zero won't enhance the fun this profession will grant the players - only devotion (spending something) and getting content in return can do this (risk vs reward)
QFE
Excellent post that pretty much sums it up for me. A reduction in points or enhancement for the points spent would be fine, but eliminating the need to spend skill points at all would destroy the profession.
Politician is not like Pilot. Pilot is set up the way it is to allow players to participate in Jump to Lightspeed without completely screwing their current templates. It is still limited in the fact that you can only be one of the three professions at a time and still have to put forth quite a bit of effort in order to level. To me, pilot isn't so much a profession as an ability. Politician is very much a profession and should require dedicated skill points. It does not require an alt account in order to be a mayor and still have skills in other areas that you enjoy. A mayor can be a Master elite combat class/Politician and still have some points left over and participate in just about anything they want. Just because you can't be everything in the game at once doesn't mean the skill points are set up wrong. If you want the benefits, there has to be some kind of cost to make those benefits worthwhile.
I'm not saying at all that there shouldn't be some kind of cost. And I didn't mean to imply that Politician "requires" an alt account. I'm just stating the facts as I see them... MOST mayors that I have met run their cities with an alternate character, which is typically their buff bot in addition to being Mayor. Of course, a lot of people do the same thing with Alt Crafters and other such professions in the game. Maybe they wanted it that way. Who knows?
The point I'm trying to work toward is the idea of trying to make Player Cities something that everyone enjoys again. Maybe my view is limited, but it seems to me that the "flair" of a Player City has long since worn away. Nowadays, you either live in a player city and gain some benefits (such as Research Center which is easily the most popular) or you live out in the middle of nowhere.
I compared Politician to Pilot for a few reasons. You mention that Pilot is a separate system so it doesn't screw up your template. Why can't Politician be the same way? And why can't a crafter or a hunter be a mayor as well? I'm not saying that we should be able to have access to "everything" with every character. Of course that's no fun. There has to be diversity. I'm also not saying that my idea is the best idea ever. But it is AN idea that I think would help this game a lot. I'm not looking at it solely to help "enhance" or "modify" the Politician profession. I'm looking more into the aspect of Player Cities and what can be done to restore them into something enjoyable again. Sure, they are still fun. But not nearly as fun as they were the first month they were in the game.
I want to see more player-run events. More roleplaying. More competition. More politics. And certainly more city activity. This was just one of my ideas to try and get that spark flaring. 
DaQuilla wrote:
For me the best design isn't enough to be the best mayor ... you also have to dedicate time and effort into the projekt of a city ... and manage it. If you are only combat or crafter chars then to me by default you are saying you don't have enough room for being a mayor. But of course this is something that everybody sees differently from their point of view.
But more importantly for me: If we go to 0 Skill Points for being politician we have absolutly no basis for demanding any content/features or even the nececary tools we need to govern a city in a fun way. Effectivly this would kill the concept of politician/mayor being a profession and simply make cities to an equivalent to PAs (even less, since PA-Leaders have to devote 7 lots to the hall !!! - while not having the perks of decoration/gardens/militia/shuttles/cloners/banks/garage/...).
I can clearly accept politician costing less skill points (be it 6 for novice and 1 for each skill - or a pyramid skill tree form as already once indicated by the devs on fan fest) ... but setting the cost to zero won't enhance the fun this profession will grant the players - only devotion (spending something) and getting content in return can do this (risk vs reward)
Khristen wrote:
Just to clarify, what I meant by "Pilot is set up the way it is to allow players to participate in Jump to Lightspeed without completely screwing their current templates." is simply that. They had to have an incentive for players to buy JTL. How many people would have done so if they would have had to pay $30 for an expansion and then have to completely alter their character (that may have been around since launch) in order to get any benefits from it? They could have added more skill points to players in order to allow a pilot class, but I think we all know it wouldn't have worked the way it was intended. It needed to be something exclusive to JTL and to the Pilot class.
Leala asked why you can't be a crafter or a hunter and be a mayor as well. There is absolutely no reason why not. And it doesn't require making Politician a 0-skill point class to do it. Right now, you can quite efficiently run a player city with minimal Politician skills. You may need to go up higher in order to place certain things, but after that's done there is no reason to hang on to many of those skills. But even if you go for Master Politician, you still have plenty of skill points to spend on combat or crafting classes. You won't be a cross-class combat stacker or a multi-class crafter, but you can still gain Mastery in them.
You also asked about more player-run activities, more roleplaying, more activity.... My question is this: What's stopping you? Not one of those things has anything to do with skill points. Do you need those skill points "wasted" on Politician to run a scavenger hunt or a party or a tournament? Nope. Roleplaying is something the player does, not what the game provides. It's up to the player to decide when this happens and how good it is.
Player cities are far from dead. My city is a role-playing city with over 60 active, role-playing citizens sponsored by a role-playing guild. We have weekly events, several storylines in-game, an archive of stories from our characters on our website, a city government structure, and a mayor who is also a Master TK and Entertainer. I have more fun in this player city than I did in the city I lived in when they first came out.
Cities don't fail simply because the Politician doesn't want to spend skill points. Sure, there have been many cases where a city has died because the mayor didn't want to be a Politician anymore. But if you have an active city with citizens who actually care about the city, it's not going to die from that alone (at least not now that it's so much easier to get a new mayor elected). Templates and skill points and lots are easily changed if the need and desire is there. Player cities that succeed generally have someone or several someones who care enough about it to invest time and skills into it.
I don't fault the desire to get a "spark" going in the slightest. Don't get me wrong. But making Politician 0 skill points isn't the way to do it. A reduction in cost/change to the Politician skill tree would be an excellent solution, and one that has been already suggested by the devs as a consideration as DaQuilla pointed out. I think all Politicians and player city citizens would be benefited if we focus our efforts on something like that. It would preserve Politician as a class unto itself and strengthen it at the same time. Plus it's something the devs have already thought of, which at least suggests that they might be a bit more willing to do it.
I am all for lowering the cost, in lieu of making it a 0 cost profession. Someone suggested keeping the Novice box at 15 points, and the remaining skills at 1 point each. This is a fine setup, I'd say.
As for your comments on roleplaying... I agree wholeheartedly that the game isn't what makes roleplaying happen. I am personally involved in a lot of RP events, and I also tend to simply RP in game all the time no matter who I'm dealing with. It's fun.
But the fact STILL remains that there are relatively FEW "active" Politicians in this game. I'm not saying I have all the answers. I'm not even saying I have ANY answers. I truly feel that your city is a minority. Sure, you will find other cities that are active, and you will find roleplayers all over the galaxies. But I invite you to spend an evening travelling to every player city on your server. How many of those cities have NOTHING going on? You will find quite a few. I have personally done this, and that's exactly what I found. Not a soul to be found, even in the Cantina.
It would be vain for me to say that the only reason for this is that Politician costs 77 skill points to master. Of course that's ridiculous. That would be like me saying that the reason the Bounty Hunter profession was so messed up was because it used to require Master Scout. For certain there needs to be additional content added to every area of this game, including Politician. I have confidence that they will be adding that content as time goes by.
I'm just looking at a more immediate "quick-fix" to help spur more activitiy game-wide. And this is one of those areas where I feel particularly sad at the lack of activity on the player side. I am not faulting anyone here. I think the developers did a smash-up job on the player cities as they are. There is no otherMMORPG in existence where the RP potential is so high, in my opinion. But again... I'm just looking for more ways to enhance the current play experience.
Maybe making Politician a 0 skill points skill, like Pilot, is not the best way to go. Or maybe it IS the best way to go. Maybe lowering the cost of the Profession as a whole is the best way to go. Heck, just reverse the top and bottom boxes. Make it 1 point for Novice, and 15 points for Master. And then make it WELL worth your while to be Master. That way, you will get competition, and see actual "politics" happening... but only the people who want to dedicate a whole slew of skill points will ever reach the Master box.
LadyLeala wrote:
It would be vain for me to say that the only reason for this is that Politician costs 77 skill points to master. Of course that's ridiculous. That would be like me saying that the reason the Bounty Hunter profession was so messed up was because it used to require Master Scout.