Site Suggestions

So, we as staff on Ardent want to know what you, as members, suggest we do to improve the site!

Feel free to post suggestions here -- for anything! Don't feel shy when it comes to suggesting things. If you would prefer anonymity, let me know and we can set something up for that as well.

Noted Suggestions

Items

• Early heat breeding pass (A female can conceive before her prior litter is a year old) (suggested by Briena)

Fight System

• Take highest of score in melee fights rather than averaging (suggested by Lunarcat7)
• Injury penalties (suggested by Lunarcat7)

Skills/Specialties

• Specialty suggestions: Panic button (suggested by Beau),
• Double skill point days
• See specialty description on hover (suggested by Skelle)

Other

• Flock/herd option for companions [non-combat] (suggested by bluetick)
• Allow more than two companions [non-combat] (suggested by lazuli)
• More systems for hunting, healing, nav (suggested by kingpedle)
• Some ghosty things (suggested by laz and bri)
• A custom threadlog (ability to sort, remove threads? add threads, "watched" threads, notes) (suggested by RK)
• Post templates tweak (ability to sort) (suggested by Joe)
• Postlog tweaks (sort by most recent) (suggested by Teegan)
• Dark mode for ACP (suggested by Bunni)

I'd like to suggest changing the refundable character cap from 10 posts to below 50 posts. There's no real difference between the two as there are no benefits between 1 post and 49 posts. Sometimes it takes us a bit to see if we can mesh with a character and we sometimes use items on them that are fairly valuable. A lot of people have been stuck with inactive characters that they'll never play again simply because they couldn't be refunded for having more than 10 posts.

To keep people from abusing this system, and to keep staff sane, there should be a cap on the amount of characters able to be refunded. Once every three months, perhaps? I've noticed the refunds getting out of hand recently.

In the current pack challenge system, there's no true penalty for taking the major risk of challenging a standing alpha for a pack beyond losing a few gems whereas the standing alpha risks losing their pack and all the work they put into the pack.

A challenger who loses a pack challenge should be permitted to have a T1 maim delivered onto them by the winning alpha within reason (no inflicting disabilities or genital mutilation, etc.). This realistically adds the element of risk to both parties—the alpha risks losing their pack and the challenger risks getting a serious maim, and is more true to how these fights would go IRL. It also balances the risk-reward for a pack challenge for both sides. A pack challenge is still a T1 fight, so the defending alpha shouldn't be the only one staking anything going into it for fairness.

a separate plot channel in discord just for advertising current litters, adopt threads, and character lf plot ads

hear me out, a channel where you may post ur link to ur current litters/adoptions, char lf plots with profile link, and the like but its on a cd of 1 per week so u have to go back and edit if u have more or wait. That way litter adverts and such don't get buried anymore. The current plots channel can become plot discussions, so people can ping u or talk about ur plots there without throwing ur adds 1500+ messages up and u don't annoy others with over adverting. It might help to make those of us that feel the need to not have our adverts 20+scrolls up not over advert as well as help people to know the current litters/adopts and the dates they close.

Is there a way to port the coding from the player database page so that those accounts can also appear on the OOC profile the accounts are linked to as well? Would be cool to see all active accounts linked on OOC profiles in addition to the database

Can we maybe have some more concrete rules around "liquid time."

It doesn't make sense to be able to have a character in a thread in Boreas and in Auster or even South and West Boreas at the same time. There have been issues with timelines and characters being in multiple places at one time that allow for conflicting information.

Maybe we can tighten it up like they can only be in one area, example East Boreas, at a time and must have their threads completed before suddenly appearing in Southern Boreas.

Fight guidelines suggestion
A link or three to already judged t1 AND t2 pages would be very helpful!

Suggestion for T1 fights.
Maybe have two separate threads so that the fight can be fully contained in one and the spectating can happen in another. That way it is easier for the judges to read through and find the fight posts and people coming in late to watch aren’t cluttering up the thread. And when I say ‘late’, yes, I am talking about myself. Lol

suggestions galore ~

- Names must follow proper Capitalization (ex. Bob, not bob or BOB)

- Image references MUST be provided on character accounts, and if no image reference is provided, a detailed and accurate description must be provided or staff reserve the right to require players to purchase additional items required for the character after approval.

- Having one specific staff member for character image approval (ex. when people ask in staff questions about colors, markings, mutations, etc.) to create a consistency across the site.

- Limiting how many times a single character can be refunded/recreated. Have seen an uptick in this happening when players can just put the character inactive.

- Adding a feature to the threadlog that allows you to "hide" threads that you're no longer posting in, but can't archive (ex. pack challenges, pack meetings)

- Limiting how many of a single player's characters are in 1 pack to prevent population inflation to make the pack appear larger than it "really" is.

- To prevent bullying and tattling to admins, making it a requirement that players must attempt to solve the conflict between each other AND provide concrete proof (ie screenshots of conversations) to staff AND admins before admins will step in to mediate.

this came up in discord but—
add a field on ooc profiles for re-tag preferences. eg, after one week, after two+ weeks, don’t re-tag

+1 to Resin about increasing the time between pack challenges.

And +1 to what Joe said about putting more penalties on someone who challenges for a pack.

My reasoning is that, after a huge fight like a pack challenge, it would take a long time to recover from the more serious injuries that are sustained during the fight. So, making the time between challenges longer makes it more realistic for healing time and time to regather followers, etc.

If you reaaaaally want to make money for the site, let us buy our skill mastery. Some players, myself included, are more about the story than the skill grind. It's just like choosing story mode when gaming.

-Must be two years of age to purchase mastery.
-Character must have 50 posts to be eligible. Basically get the character out of the refund limit to prove that said points are going to an established character.
-Perhaps $50 per skill, an item that you could buy in the shop with donations.
-Award for someone who takes the time to do the grind and skill their character without donations so that their hard work goes recognized.

T2 fights judged within 1 week of submitting to judgment requests.
It holds back IC stuff if we have to keep waiting 2+ weeks to get fights judged.

Can we possibly add a field for season and year of birth to the side profiles (idk what theyre called but ya know, what we see when we post)?
Would make it easier to keep track of ages

Hello Virgil here with a fight skill suggestion!

Feel free to use this as a permanent skill claim option or a spooky seasonal/event!

Unidentified large predator! Survive an encounter with an unknown attacker that you can't see in one of the underground/cave lands. Do you escape? Do you pass out from terror? Do you manage to get a lucky shot in the dark and defeat the opponent? It's anyone's guess!

regarding the discord discussion about paleo passes.

Given that it has become a hot topic whether or not Paleo species should be able to breed and produce offspring-

As it stands, Ardent is a semi realistic site where plenty of unrealistic and wildly impossible things happen (neon pink wolves, worm monsters, wolves wielding swords and axes, etc). We even have passes for same sex litters. So, a paleo species being able to breed with a non-paleo species of similar living species isn't too outlandish or unrealistic given everything else that happens here.

Additionally, everyone is well aware that a paleo pass is a rare and coveted item, likely costing upwards of $100usd or more if one were to sell it. Any changes made to the pass will more than likely lower its worth and depending on what those changes are, upset the players of paleo characters and those with a pass waiting to make one and even more likely to upset someone that bought one off of someone else.

So, instead of forbidding paleos from breeding with non-paleos, here is my suggestion:

Split the Paleo pass into two separate passes and allow players of paleo characters as well as holders of the pass to choose between them.
─ Massive Size: Living, modern day species only but breedable with massive and non-massive characters if the breeding is possible in real life. Players with characters already in play that have a litter/offspring would be forced into this option (sorry bas), but characters that don't could choose between this pass and the pass suggested below. This pass would be the coveted one and likely worth what the paleo pass is worth currently.
─ Extinct Species: Allows for cave lions, true dire wolves, giant sloths, etc, but cannot successfully produce offspring with non-extinct species. Biological offspring can only be an extinct species and will need its own pass to play. Not nearly as coveted, but definitely still could interest some people.

Rename the Dire height to Giant.
─ Calling them dire is confusing and unrealistic given that dire wolves are an extinct species.

In regards to there being some sort of repercussion for breeding with vastly different sizes, while I do understand that in real life it would be impossible, this is still just a game that is meant to be fun for everyone, not just the players… and adding more things for the staff to roll for is only adding more work every time a litter needs rolled given how many couples feature characters of vast size differences. Also, forcing litters from them to be infertile isn't going to make anyone want to play one any time soon, either.