Readjusting Tiers: What In The Sam Hell Do You People Want?

I only glossed over the other opinions, so sorry if I just restate what has already been established or opinionated. Anyways, personally, I think there should be a very large modification of the tier system, however that's only in the long-term. Right now, as I see it, tiers are being jumped through faster than I've seen before--either that or I'm going senile, but anyways, as for the long-run, I was thinking that eventually the tier system is widened. There are more and more characters getting to the borderline just before 0-1-, whether in some released state or base. Either way, there are more people getting to the point where it seems to be nearly impossible to keep pushing forward, lest your character essentially achieves some sort of higher-state on par with perhaps divinity or something. Basically, it seems like we're reaching a cap. Thus, I feel like there should be some way to establish a broader gap between the those on that brink and the level beyond which reaches heights only achieved by NPCs as a base state (as far as I know), rather than just a sub-tier. The way I see it, there are two ways to do so. Either push everybody back, adding more value to the higher tiers, or extend the tier system beyond 6-0, where a powerless human would be something like 8-0, etc. Of course, this is only an idea that can be taken into effect over a long-period of time, slowly changing a superbly major part of the site.

As for ways to achieve this, I have a few ideas. These ideas can also be taken as individual ideas, where you can pretty much scrap the "long-run" change.

One of the main concerns is the insanely large amount of 0-tiers. Like most others, I agree that 0-tiers should require dual-staff checks. Of course, I also agree on having the checks be stricter with the higher tiers requiring higher-quality apps, stronger abilities, etc. For the most part, I think a character starting out at 0 tier at all should be a rarity, lest granted special permission by an admin, or rather, put simpler, checked by two admins. Of course, staff members in general are busy people, especially admins, but I still think that simply a double check by staff at 0-3/0-2 tier isn't enough. I also think there should be a cap in which one can start out at. In my opinion, characters shouldn't be able to start out at a tier lower than 0-4. Like CPK, I think an exception might be a character which is created to fill a position. Of course, there's always the option of making them NPC, but NPCs aren't always adequate, so yeh.

As for the buying of tiers, I don't think it should be taken away altogether, but rather, buying tiers should be more expensive, and there should be a certain point in which you can buy tiers. For example, you can't buy 0-tiers. Those must be achieved with tier-upgrades or by re-apping a char after providing adequate proof and reason for why they should go a tier higher, as is the usual.

Now a bit of a problem might present itself, and I thought of it after glossing over Phantasia's post. A large appeal to PH is the freedom of combat, power, and the lack of numeral restrictions and definite limits. Extremely few RPs have that. Most of them use numbers, have defined restrictions and basically are stricter on powers and the limits. I've in fact seen VERY few sites that don't have a list of banned/restricted powers, and I've yet to find one of those here. Again, that grants a large factor in PH's pizzazz. This also means that the opportunity to start out higher straight up is of appeal, which too is something not all RPs have, and appeal also results in offering factors which keep an RPs uniqueness, attraction, and overall can make a better, funner experience for the community as a whole, thus, barring up the tier system and adding/changing too many things from its current system may present future problems; though I'd assume many have foreseen the possibilities.

Thus, I mulled over it a bit and came up with the extension of the tier system wholly, as mentioned in the beginning of this post. Extending the tier system and moving people back the tiers offers the possibility to reach for even higher states without nearing the brink in which characters can supply entire races energy from themselves. Furthermore, the extension offers a more specific set rank/tier, which might even help with filling spots in organizations that require certain minimum tiers. Without a more specific system, there can be less shots in the dark on whether a character is capable of fulfilling a position with the proper amount of power s/he holds (although I don't know how much of a problem that might actually be here). Another one of an extensions benefits is the further growth of not just a character, but the person behind the character. Extension of the leveling system could lead into the extension in time it takes to "level up"; however, that also leaves more opportunities to go ahead and thread with the aspiration to jump ahead multiple sub-tiers. Such as now, if you were to go from 2-5 to 2-4, with the extension, it might look something along the lines of 4-5 to 4-2. Though there's technically no difference, there's the "appeal" factor which might be affected. Everyone likes to see there levels go up quicker! This would probably be the least beneficial in terms of betterment of the site though.

As I hope I actually made sense, as I myself got lost there a couple times, the actual extension of the tier system is, again, something that would need to be implemented over a long period of time, and would also probably offer a larger work-load for the staff, however, some other suggestions that would help lead into a tier extension, once again, can also be taken individually and still hopefully make a beneficial impact. Either way, with the most worrisome thing being the large amount of higher-tiered characters, a clearer line established between power-levels as well as the establishment of the 0-tiers rarity and worth seem necessary.