Say, for example, I create a second character in addition to Infineon (and trust me, when the retirement system is all cleared up, I will be), and stick with both of them without overwriting either of them. There are a couple of situations which I would like clarified and perhaps thought on.

First of all, if/when Infineon reaches peak item and gold level, but I still wish to battle with him or RP with him, I don't want my hard earned rewards to actually go to him at all, I want the gold on my other character. In the current system, I would lose x amount of gold by transferring the gold/items across to the other character, making it not fundamentally a good idea to use Infineon any more as I would just be throwing away a part of my reward every time I battled. The effect would be either making me more and more likely to use my alternate character, despite still wanting to use Infineon, or otherwise imposing a tax on the use of my favored character, neither of which are good. As such, a system where you can nominate the character that gets the reward (other, obviously, than in the cases of PQ or Tournament exclusive items), allowing characters to still be used once part of the reward is no longer useful for them. (And in any case, let's face it, battles rarely have a rational reason why any specific character would be rewarded gold at the end of them, so it's not like the story suffers for having another character benefit from the actions of a different player character)

[I disagree that the reward system has no rational purpose behind it. It is generally accepted that fighting is just "what you do" if you live in DI. As such, it makes sense that gold gets dolled out to those who fight. Furthermore, I think it's clear that getting skills/specials/spells from battles makes all the sense in the world - your character is gaining more experience and growing stronger.]

[Furthermore, the system is not intended to encourage you to use one character or the other. It's to allow you to do so if you want. The characters need to be made as separate as possible, while still allowing you some "edge" by maintaining two character under a single member. If you let someone C1 work for a reward, only to immediately pass it down to C2, you have an imbalance of power. You have one character reaping the reward of a different character. Put another way - you have your fresh, powerless character who gets strong/richer by sitting on his but while your behemoth of a primary character goes around wrecking DI for kicks.]


~[I'm not saying the reward system doesn't have a rational purpose behind it, I'm saying that it has no actual in-game, reasonable explanation for why it takes place. Two evil people fight in a forest around a burning house, and one wins. Cool, abilities make sense, they gain combat experience, but there's no actual person handing the combatants gold. As skills and specials can't be transferred between characters, this point was entirely about who gets the gold from the fight, and if the explanation for getting gold for fighting is just 'your character gains the opportunity to gain x gold', why can't it be 'a character of your choosing gains the opportunity to gain x gold' in story sense.]~

~[From a balance point of view, this would be for characters who the player determines either currently no longer needs gold, and would opt that ALL gold rewards go to their other character, no matter which of your characters you use in the battle. This is basically only to allow people who have an already developed character and a second less developed character to still use their richer character in fights without wasting the gold.]~

Secondly, I would recommend that if the issue with trading items between characters is about making sure that no newly-created character is made overpowered by an influx of items from the older character, rather than making it a 10-gold-down-the-drain transaction fee each way, allow items to be moved between characters freely, given that either a percentage of the item's cost or a flat rate in gold is transferred in return as a deposit. Then when the item is returned, the gold switches hands back. This system would mean that you would not be getting free gold transfer (as the gold would effectively be in storage, as it would have to be traded back with the item), and it would also mean that the items that any one character could inherit was limited by the amount of money that they would have earned in their life. Perhaps putting a minimum number of fights the items had to be traded across for, say two? And finally a clause that in the event of either character being overwritten, the trade reverts unless the party who has the borrowed item pays the remaining cost of the item out of their own pockets.

[So, rather than losing money, you're saying they're getting their money back once the item returns? As with my first point, this system isn't supposed to give members frictionless interaction between their characters. That's unfair to people who don't have 2 chars, which is an immediate veto in my book.]

[If you delete a char and they have a traded item, it's 1) Gone, 2) May be traded back for a fee to the other character, or 3) Handled specially by a mod. These rules are meant to be general guidelines for the 80% of the cases we'l have. For everything else, we have sane, rational mods to moderate the small nit-picks we can't all think of right now.]


~[The point about friction less interaction is why I recommended a minimum limit that the item had to be in a characters hands for. I can't see this being a particularly prevalent idea with my recommended system in place, given that you are intentionally weakening your stronger character to give a weaker character a minor advantage that comes with the other weapon. Particularly since it's unlikely the character has a decent level of training with the traded weapon. If it's an issue with the money going into the item, just make it a 100% value deposit. If it's a regular item that the character can somehow weave into the story that they obtained it off the other player character, they simply deposit 100% of that items cost in their other character and keep the item for a set number of battles. If it's a unique weapon, it would be the effective value of the item, rather than the price paid (ie. If you borrow one unique throwing dagger from a set of 6, or you get a unique item from another character that would be worth less than 15 gold if it weren't unique, you wouldn't have to pay the full 15 gold (which is supposed to represent combination costs, smithing etc, rather than the actual value of the item itself)). In that way you could ensure that no character has more items that is strictly necessary, but also means that if for story purposes the two characters cross paths and items are exchanged, it doesn't leave the second character with a potentially useless second copy of the original item.]~

Which leads me to my final point, which is sale value of items and moving items between characters just before a character overwrite. While it's unlikely to happen, in the event that two people collaborate together, it is currently possible for items to be transferred basically for free as I understand it, as players set the prices on moved items. Thus, you could sell a unique item for a low cost and then buy it back on your other character for the same small sum before destroying the character the item originally came from. This leads to the conclusion that either a) there should be a restriction or guidelines implemented regarding transactions between players or b) there should be a way to retrieve unique items for a portion of their cost from a character about to be overwritten.

[This suggests a 3-part trade, yes?. C1 trades to D1, trades to C2. Right? All trades are approved by mods. Shenanigans can be easily spotted and disallowed as such. This has already been moderated, esp. to prevent the whole "mommy/daddy". So, basically, your suggestion of point (a) is already implemented.]

[As DDR, the mods will know. That's our job.]


~[Righto, didn't know all trades were moderator-governed, not having ever traded anything before. Thanks for clearing that up!]~

Anyway, those are my sleep-deprived thoughts as they are. I'm sure more will occur to me in time.