Shattered Kingdoms

The characters I have seen flagged [HRO] since the inception of the tag have been in my estimation overwhelmingly not heroic with respect to PVP, with 1 exception. I do not mean to insinuate anything by this, so I name no names, but I do state my opinion. I agree with 2 other [HRO] choices but not for any PVP reasons.

Is this something that's open to discussion from the playerbase? I think it's a fine example of a flag that was better left imm-awarded based on exceptional circumstances. Awarding it to people who couldn't PVP (note: Not PK, but competitive PVP, be it RP or PK) out of a wet paper bag has devalued the flag.

The hero flag is fairly clearly defined as far as how to get it. PvP is not required. However I do feel that calling them Heros is the mistake here not the flag or what it does. Heros has a had two different iterations in SK both of which did have a significant PvP element to them. Having the flag really does very little for PK.

The metrics are pretty clear, if they aren't PKing well that is one of the three criteria (IIRC) that they suck at. If you are better than that, then up your RP or start mentoring more and take it from them. It isn't permanent, if they have it and you think they shouldn't then up your game. It is that simple. If you don't have it and think you should, then ask questions on how you can up your game so that you can take it from them. It is an objective form instead of some form of voting which is always subjective. Yes, the RP portion of the criteria is definitely subjective. Can't codify good RP though.

I must have missed the hro flag post where the criteria was clearly defined. Could either of you direct me to it?

Guess I remembered incorrectly. There are 4 categories.

http://www.shatteredkingdoms.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=24879&p=411610&hilit=Hero+HRO#p411610

It's either in help hero or help hero requirements or whatnot.

There are four metrics used to determine your so-called heroism. Roleplay, PvP, leadership (cabal/tribunal/religion all factor into this), and mentoring. Supposedly having a deficiency in one area will not stop you from getting the hero flag. However, we know that having a negative RP score will make you ineligible for possessing a hero flag. I would assume that that is the case for other areas, but that has not been confirmed. Morever, since it seems that having a negative K/D ratio doesn't affect your eligibility, I'm not sure any other area would. as Leadership is the only other area you can possibly get a negative score in.

Heracles, Achilles, Samson, the Monkey King, Bruce Lee and Goku are not the guys that SKs heroes are modeled after.

You also have a have a certain amount of game hours on the character and years in character age base on race. It is also base on average of the realm's score. if the character majority has a crap average then Hero probably wouldn't be that hard to obtain with a little effort. unless the "average player" is a static value set by the Dulrik.
The help file is under "hero-qa".

The most successful PKers on SK play short-lived characters who don't have the stamina to make Hero.

You can argue that hero is not the right word for this position, but I'm going to keep using it. It emphasizes what we want to see in characters on SK. And yes, PK does contribute or hinder your score.

I won't claim the algorithm is perfect. Nothing ever is. But we'll be continuously augmenting it's short comings as they are revealed.

Some of us keep going. And then we go another round. I did play a mercenary for over 3 years.

Moreover the helpfiles are intentionally misleading as it leads players to believe that being deficient in one area they can still manage to be flagged as a hero. This is, of course, untrue as a deficiency in at least one area will make you ineligible.

Which brings me to my next point. The reward system is utterly useless. Paragons only reward people within their inner circle. When Achernar told me that most paragons resides at about 25-35 points back when I had Destrivai and that Frollith and Destrivai had 77 and somewhere around 120 points it was pretty evident that other paragons simply don't bother rewarding people. Considering the time investment put into roleplaying versus mindlessly slaying NPCs for xp the latter being far more efficient for gaining levels, roleplaying is hardly worth the time put into it. Especially since a character can only be rewarded once per day (no idea why this limitation is even set, good roleplay is good roleplay and should be able to be rewarded multiple times if necessary especially since the inverse is true that you can be penalized multiple times a day).

The rules are also far too oppressive. Yes, there need to be rules, but there is that ever persistent bizarre juxtaposition of ultra-violence in Shattered Kingdoms versus the qualms of what words people are using. If Shattered Kingdoms was a video game rated by the ESRB it'd easily receive an M rating for the violent content alone. That players should tiptoe about their use of language is absurd. Players don't want to return to playing the game for fear of violating new rules that seem to pop out of the woodwork for silly reasons.

I think this is an extremely limited and unfair position to have, particularly for you, Dulrik. You know that it isn't true, you have access to the metrics to prove it. The fact is that some active and successful PKers DO have long lasting and meaningful, developed characters and don't just spam roll for the flavor of the month.



Never understood that.



Not the only reason but definitely one of them in my case, if anecdotal evidence means anything to you, Dulrik.