In the case of Cheap skillsofts, cheap skills are not the problem (I think many people already make skill points cheaper), it's that BP (or karma for karmagen) isn't standardized across all build options, but honestly that happens with all facets of ware and gear. Muscle Toner is 8k a level or 1.6 BPs, raising agility by +1 is worth at least 10 BPs. Yes, essence factors in but Toner allows you to exceed racial maximums, etc.

As such it's already apparent that 1BP spent on one phase of char-gen does not equal 1BP spent during a different phase.

Assuming that it's okay to have gear buy attributes at a discount rate, I don't really see a problem with skills being purchased at a discount rate.

Worst Case scenario the character has 10 skill ranks worth of activesofts active at any one time. While that might seem like a lot for the most part people aren't going to chip a bunch of rating 1 skillsofts on a rating 5 skillwire system. More likely you are looking at someone with a rating 4 system chipping a rating 4 activesoft (insta veteran) and a couple of mission specific active skills like drive or mechanic, etc.

I don't really see that as particularly gamebreaking especially if they can't use edge to boost chipped skills. Anything that you are going to want to really rely on (your core competency so to speak) is probably going to be a natural 5 or 6 anyway that you can boost with edge as needed. If activesofts allow the samurai to cover the role of wheelman for a mission or allow people to cover low usage skills on an adhoc basis (like diving or parachuting) I think that allows for a greater variety of missions than B&E with infiltration and maximum carnage.

Hehe. I'm just saying that I'm happy for people to have more general skillsets of *low*-level skills. I just don't want people to easily acquire a set of 8 Rating 5 skills that they can Edge reroll. Low-grade flexibility and generalization is fun, a cheap path to near-max specialization is not fun.

That's exactly the point, Vuron. You can get up to 10 Rating 5 skills with Edge rerolls. Now, we've established that you can't pirate that, so it's expensive, but you *can* pirate the Rating 4 (DIMAP, Optimized), and swap them with a thought if you need more than 8 or 10 at once.

The problem with Legal Skillsofts is they have things like the Ares Gunman 3000® won't let you pull the trigger if you're shooting at someone wearing Knight Errand, or Ares Security Uniform.

Ah no. Skillwires allow up to 10 points of skills not 10 skills. So that's two at 4 and one at 2, or one a 4 and two at three or even ten at 1 at the same time not more. Anything else has to be switched out.

PLUSCOD 3, means you can run rating 4 software, using up 1 slot.

So, you can have 10 rating 4s (each with pluscod)

Sorry, Dakka Dakka. I'm sure I confused you by accidentally saying 'Optimized' instead of 'PlusCoded'. Still, you should have known better, because we were talking about it earlier.

Since I have not actually played a hacker character, I have rarely looked into Unwired, I totally forgot what it does I though it was the +1 die option. Pluscode really makes skillwires a lot more powerful. Then again with the inflated cost of SR4A having 10 rating 4 Activesofts is very expensive.

Right, which is why we're talking about pirating them. It's like you're not reading. Hehe.

It *should* be very expensive, because those skills are very expensive… and technically have to to be trained slowly using an expensive tutor.

Well if you do (rating x 2500) then you just need to make each simsense option coded add +1 to the basecost effective rating.

Pistols 5 (Pluscode 3) + Personalized + DIMAP would be 25,000 base cost

Yeah you could stock up with 10 Tricked out Autosofts but would you really want to?

The problem is actually more tied to the pirate software option which allows you to get high-end software at a fraction of the market rates. If the discount rate was actually closer to the second hand cyberware rate + some low maintenance payment it wouldn't be such a big game balance problem. Warez makes some sense from a world design perspective but isn't particularly great from a game balance perspective.

But really, there is no alternative to having warez. What's worse? I slot a pirated skillsoft, or I summon an R6 task spirit? For free, even.

YES, I think having high-end skillsofts piratable makes no sense, because they should be tailored to the user. But as it is right now, they are not, and all a GM can do is make his players roll a bit for them. There were plenty of sensible house-rule options discussed above.

The problems lie in the basic game design: There is no consistent cost model. The system is all about cheating the system, so you migth as well accept it. Basically all software could be free entirely, and it would not change game balance in the least.

Just to nitpick, it'd be Pistols 4 + Personalized + PlusCode 3 + DIMAP. Under the RAW, that's 40k+9k, or 4600 pirated and without the Personalized.

So, my point is that cost should fit benefit. If that means raising their cost (directly, or by removing piracy, etc.), then yes. If it means reducing their benefit (lower cap, whatever), then yes. It just depends on the world that you want to exist.

To summon a R6 task spirit, you have to invest considerably in Magic, skills, materials (only if you want to bind it), be the right tradition, etc. Skillware is cheap.

We were discussing exactly this, just the other day at game, it's ridiculous that skillsofts were somehow unbroken cheap when task spirits, guardian spirits, and machine sprites exist.

Like any other Program, you can only have 2 options installed in a Rating 4 Skillsoft...

Better choose between PlusCode and DIMAP, then. Personally, I never use Edge, so I wouldn't care. On the other hand, if you skip Personalized, you can pirate them, so that's a solid choice. You get the idea, the details aren't important. I guess I should have said, 'just to reiterate' instead of 'nitpick'.

Heh... No worries. And if you want to use Edge, just get the Skillwires Expert System.

It's true. I usually forget about that because DIMAP is strictly better (in the sense of 0 Essence)… except when the program option limit comes into play! Smart. Also, it's cheaper if you're not pirating, and eventually even if you are.

DIMAP is just as limited as the Expert System, I would not bother with it.

That's not false, but some people would bother with it. It's not 'real Edge', no, and thank goodness. A little game balance, surprise!

The real issue is the power vs. cost of skillware. Without piracy, it's near par with real skills; with piracy, it's insane. Imposing some pretty serious GM-fiat limits/penalties can help, but that's only fair if everyone knows ahead of time.

But again, it shouldn't really be a question of skills vs skillsofts, it should be skills vs skillsofts vs spirits/sprites. It's false to say X and Y should be comparable when Z is over there blowing them both out of the water.

I already addressed that, but… of course. Game balance is total game balance. Still, that's not an argument to allow a broken thing because something *else* is also broken. Real skills are the real baseline. If you want skillsofts to compete with spirits (honestly, I don't understand that comparison in the first place), then you're only creating a world where the only two (medium-term) options are magic or skillsofts.

As has been said several times in this thread, improving cyberware should not be just power-creeping it up to magicrun levels. Cyber should largely be a cheap-ish, 'quick fix' option for augmentation, something the suitably desperate use to compete. At the high end, it's also something that augments metahumanity in gross and impressive ways, well beyond what bioware can handle. Augmentation as a whole (bio, cyber, nano, etc.) should probably be about par with magic, depending on the configuration, and only in those areas that have direct equivalents. Not everything overlaps, nor should it.

Actually, they are not, because if they were, then skillwires would be useless. Skillsofts are a means of getting skills cheaper, if they weren't, then there would be no reason to ever get them. Which means they automatically compete with other means of getting skills cheaper.
As it is, they are hardly useful with the SR4A prices if you don't take the MBW, anyway. And even then, you can't afford more than one skill at chargen, so they don't do what they are supposed to do: Provide "cheap" versatility. If I want cheap vesatility I'll get good base stats and just buy a lot of skills at 1, and buy a specialisation with karma in game.


You're not, you're creating a world where you have all the options: You want bleeding edge, you need real skill+edge. You want versatility, you take skillwires. Magic is sort of the middle ground from a competence perspective, and it still can't do everything. (Matrix skills, for instance.) In end what matters is to make everything interesting and any fix to skillsofts will have to keep that mind.

Since this thread got huge over the weekend i'm not gonna read through all the stuff thats come between page 10 and 23.

But since we are now on the subject of skillwires I thought I'd mention a fix I've come up with in my game to get around the problem of pirated skillwires.

First I made Skillsofts dirt cheap...like Rating x 100 or somesuch...you can pirate it if you want, you don't save a whole lot

Second, I made it so its not just a plug and play insta-veteran. Each person is different and so any skillwired user has to have any skillsofts properly calibrated. Calibration requires a difficult Cybertechnology extended test as well as Software exteded test (4+[ratingx3], 1 hour) for noncombat and (5+[ratingx4], 1hour for combat skills). Players purchasing legal software can opt to have it installed and calibrated for them at a cost of (rating x 2000) for noncombat skills and (rating x 4000) for combat skills, and of course requiring licenses for most combat skills.

After they have been installed and synched with a given skillwire/user set, they can be removed at any time, but doing so causes a slight disorientation for a short period afterwards (-1 dp on all tests for [rating] combat turns) and reinsertion requires [rating] minutes to resynch the user with the skillsoft.

Havn't thought about the pluscode abuse yet, but one simple ruling would be to say you can't pluscode activesofts

Also, I had been considering implementing a "skillsoft fatigue" based off of the number and ratings of skillsofts plugged in for extended periods. Havn't come up with a mechanic that i liked and has the desired effect on the game.

except of course that PLUSCODE is specifically for activesofts

I don't understand this sentence. Possibly you're misunderstanding what 'baseline' means?

If we are talking about house rule tweaks to the system I don't really see why it would be a bad idea to cut the PlusCode Option (and frankly the Optimized/Ergonomic code options from regular software) if it presents game balance issues. Obviously at their current 4a costs activesofts simply aren't useful.

Pistols 4 bought with regular skill purchase is 16 BPs

Pistols 4 bought with skillwires is about 15 BPs (5 for restricted gear + 8 for the activesoft + 2 for the skillwires) plus the opportunity cost associated with essence loss, yes additional skills purchased come at a discount due to the restricted gear quality and skillwires being one time purchases.

However unless you buy the DIMAP option you can't spend edge on activesofts and even then it's not equivalent to actual edge assisted skills. Most high use skills are simply better natural.

So unless you use the Pirated Software option from Unwired there really is absolutely no reason to invest critical resources in activesofts as the cost-benefit simply isn't high enough. There is simply so many other gear and ware upgrades that should occupy your relatively scarce financial resources after chargen.

Further the idea that pirated activesofts would degrade ratings over time seem more than slightly simplistic. It's not like an exploit program that is constantly seeing firewall programs with new hotfixes and patches, activesoft programming should be fairly static. After all if you have Parachute 3 as an activesoft you are seeing a bunch of changes month to month in the parachute skill set At that point in time the only reasonable explanation is that code has planned obsolescence coded and that planned obsolescence can't be coded out

So in the end you get a cyberware system that is really only useful if you use a supplemental book and even with that supplemental book it generates nonsensical undesirable game behavior.

You do save 5 BP if you don't take the sucker's Quality (Restricted Gear). The whole point of skillware is to be cruddy-but-useful, for less resources, so yes: remove piracy and things start to fit. Without piracy, you could even lower the cost a little, enough to make it fit the cost/benefit tradeoff properly.

Maybe I was. My point remains: Cheaper skills compete with cheaper skills, not with the base skill. If the skill chipper has to compete with the mage for when utility skills are needed, then that's what must be taken into account. Of course the mage doesn't invest at all, he simply maxes his two primary skill groups and picks the right tradition, et voilá, he's a skillmonkey - admittedly with less versatility, but at least you'll never need to pay a mechanic again. (You just might have to rent his workshop.)

Even with real skills as baseline skillsofts have to be significantly cheaper, because the opportunity cost of getting wires is added onto the base skill cost, as Vuron pointed out so nicely.

Ah, I see what you're going for. I just meant that real skills are the baseline for *comparing* everything (magic or wires), not that everything should be the same as the baseline. I see your point that the mage's huge magic investment isn't actually just for skills (indeed, the main reason mages are so powerful is that they get a dozen benefits from their one big investment). I still don't see a mage realistically using spirits for non-downtime skills, unless the run required a safecracker. I feel like skillwire 'abusers' are getting Automatics, Dodge, etc., not Auto Mechanic. Auto Mechanic is probably the more *intended* use, though.

I fully agree that skillsofts would have to be cheaper than 50k; most of the argument is that they have to be much more expensive than *5k*.

Also dont forget that chipped skills are significantly less good than real skills.

You cant spend edge on them at all, unless you invest in other options, and even then it only lets you re-roll. It does not let you spend to avoid glitches, or add dice.

Did you just glitch with your chipped skill? Well sucks to be you buddy.

Also, you cant upgrade a skillsoft like you can a normal skill. You can only buy a better skillsoft.

If I get pistols 3 at chargen, it will cost me 8 karma to raise it to 4.

But if I have a rating 3 skillsoft, it will cost me 40,000 nuyen to bring it to 4. This makes it prohibitively expensive to actually upgrade your skillsofts, and makes it a generally poor idea to take skillwires and splash in a few skills for variety at chargen. By the time you could actually afford to improve any of your Activesofts, you could just learn the skill normally.

Heck, assuming that you started with R2 Skillwires and a R2 Skillsoft, and then upgraded them slowly during play, you would be paying a total of 140,000 nuyen, and thats not counting the costs of the skillwires!

The cost of chipped skills is ludicrous right now. I don't even care what the other options cost. Even considered by themselves, Activesofts are just way too expensive to really be viable before your getting enough money for deltaware.

Except that PLUSCOD is what makes skillwires actually an interesting and viable path for a character.

It's a great way to make a jack of all trades character. He's not great at any one thing, but god damn he's good enough at tons of stuff. In a pinch, he can sub in for any job needed.

Getting rid of Optimized and Ergonomic is equally stupid, and shows a complete lack of understanding of the Matrix and the issues. Honestly, the whole Rating 1-6 thing for Response, and the way response degredation works is retarded. Same with Subscription limits. Most of it is bass-ackward.

I believe another part of the problem with expensive skillsofts is resource allocation. The archetypes most likely to (want to) get skillsofts are also the ones that have the greatest conflict in getting them. Sammies and hackers are the two main canadets for skillsofts (hackers especially for thematic reasons), but they also require nuyen for general improvement through improved/more ware. On top of that it competes on the essence front, especially for sammies. Hackers less so as they aren't generally hurting for essence.

So what you have is three options for skills:
Normal skills which cost karma
Skillsofts which cost nuyen
Magic which costs nothing but has the requirement of being good at what you do

Mundanes generally have an excess of karma and a deficit of nuyen, so it doesn't make sense to spend nuyen on something they can spend their excess resource, karma on. And mages of course have no reason to get it at all because they have spirits to do things like that, as well as an excess of nuyen that that they could generally just use to pay to have stuff done as opposed to taking a hit to their essence.

It's still not really viable because having a bunch of small dicepools isn't really that great. Shadowrun isn't as bad as some other games about punishing generalist characters but honestly being jack of all trades master of none isn't that useful as a character concept. Furthermore the few concepts that can somewhat do it (edgemonkeys) aren't compatible with activesoft usage because activesofts don't really work well with edge usage.

Further as other people have indicated the characters that are most dependent on activesofts to increase flexibility simply don't have that excess nuyen to invest in getting a ton of rating 2-3 skills to flesh them out. They are more focused on saving nuyen to spend on critical upgrades rather than filling out secondary roles.

In contrast they tend to have less things to spend karma on and thus use karma as their primary method for increasing flexibility.



It would be nice to slot a mechanic chip or a obscure active skill (parachuting, exotic melee, etc) that simply isn't worth it to boost via karma because the applicability of the skill to the average run is simply so small. Increasing flexibility is really nice, especially if you are a character concept that experiences a good amount of time waiting to do your primary schtick (combat, hacking, etc). The problem is that it's cost prohibitive using the 4A cost structure. Pirating the chips makes it more acceptable especially for one-mission skill usage (because you'll never really have to pay to patch it afterwards) but more than a few people have expressed dissatisfaction with unwired in general and pirating activesofts specifically.



I don't know the idea that running big programs in memory can eat up valuable system resources has been a part of Shadowrun since 1e. 4e has eliminated tracking MP anymore in favor of a more abstract system of measuring processor response. Just like running a ton of programs in active memory will slow down the performance of a modern system running a bunch of really processor intensive programs should slow down a commlink or a nexus.

Further systems should be dependent on the hardware as to how advanced the software you can run on it. Just like I can't run large relational databases and enterprise resource planning software on a piece of crap server it doesn't make sense for a hacker to be able to run SOTA hacking programs from a off the shelf commlink.

Ergonomic and Optimization options allow the Hacker to ignore many of the default resource allocation issues presented in the core rules. They can safely run a full suite of ergonomic and optimized options without having to transfer loaded programs in and out of active memory in order to maintain optimal system response. Further they really don't need to continue to invest in the higher extremes of SOTA because they can safely go with a handful of optimized programs on mid tier comm-links.

For me it's kinda like how later versions of Battletech basically eliminated heat as a resource to be managed when they included double heat sinks. Suddenly the game changed from being concerned about if you could move and shoot (or shoot more than a small number of weapons at a time) to being able to fire massive salvos without much concern. I kinda miss that level of resource management and don't really think that it's a spectacular modification to the base rules to eliminate the effect of running a host of programs on system responsiveness.

If the game is going to move into expensive rating 7+ commlinks and other computer equipment then I'm not 100% sure that optimization is really that critical of a rules patch for extending the lifespan of the hacker.

First off, Dice pools in the 12-16 range isn't 'small' it's actually pretty good, unless you're playing in munchkin land.

a 7 stat + 5 from the skillsoft, +another 2-5 points from enhancements isn't bad.
4 Natural agility + 3 muscle toners + 5 skillwire(acrobatics) + synthcardium (3) + another couple of points from this and that..
Logic is easy to add tons of bonuses too.

The current response system is stupid. It's so prohibitive in one direction that your top end commlink can run 5 programs (out of 20) before showing some issues, but dropping response just doesn't matter to most people, because you rarely get into cybercombat, and if you do you can unload programs as free actions.

On the other hand, if you have no skillsoft, it's still only 40,000 nuyen to bring it to 4.

Software should never be upgraded unless you like wasting money/BP. Either overbuy it at chargen (if not using piracy) or overbuy it after chargen (if using piracy) or overwrite it after chargen (if coding your own).

Likewise, there's no reason to buy any skill at 3 at chargen if using BP. Improving skills with karma past 2 is much more expensive than buying the same skill with BP. Buy all your high skills up front as much as possible and then learn, improve to 2, and specialize with Karma.

-----------------------------------------

Personal Proposal: If you really want to houserule skillsofts to make them viable, make them "rentable". Allow people to, instead of purchasing a program, subscribe to a program for a limited time, say weekly.

This make skillwires very desirable for those "not used every mission" skills. You can "learn king fu*" (or automotive mechanics or how to fly a copter or pick a lock) for the mission. It simply becomes part of the mission expenses, either funded by the client or taken out of the team's pay or, if you're on a personal mission, out of your savings.

In doing so, this allows for clients to provide things such as their workplace's skill package (to allow runners to infiltrate as an employee easier) or the skills necessary to use some exotic weapon or drone or tool that's still in research and development (in case anyone needs to "listen to Reason**").

--

*Matrix
*Snow Crash

If I recall correctly, I have my 6 common on Ergonomic because it's cheap and 14 non-ergo loaded at one time because it's worse loading and unloading programs that having response being degraded. I'm convinced I'm reading the rules wrong because response degradation is a joke. If Base Response took a hit, I'd take it seriously, but Response is pretty worthless.

You mean, Just like they talk about in the Skillware section of Unwired, Pages 192-193? That does not need a House Rule...

Base Response DOES take the Hit... It is never a Hit to your "Pseudo" Response.

Ironically, the only person I've ever seen using a skillsoft after piracy got banned from SRM ... was a technomancer (using that echo).

Yes, just like they talk about in the fluff on 192-193. I see no prices, no restrictions, no rules about where to get the software, nothing other than it's existence as fluff. I belive it needs house rules because, as far as I can see, it has no rules and certainly could use some.

I must be misreading pgs 222-223 of SR4A where it talks about Base Response, Response, and Processor Limit. I don't see where running too many programs is much of an issue. Can you help me understand why it is?

No need for hard rules, since that will change by table. You know what the costs are for A Skillsoft for Permanent purchase. You also know that services such as these are generally cheaper overall than outright purchase. Set it where you think it works for your city (or whatever). That is what we have done, and it is often directly subsumed into Lifestyle, within limits, of course. Easy Peasy. And I am curious... Why do you need rules on where to get such software anyways. The descriptions tell you of services that do what you are talkking about. Why, exactly, do you need rules for that?



To many programs directly degrades your Response. It is not that big of a deal, honestly. So you are right, it is not that much of an issue. The only time it becomes a real issue is when you are running against someone who does not have those response degradations. Then it can be the difference between Success and Failure.

*Shrug*

But unless you are a REALLY good hacker, that would just leave an even BIGGER datatrail. I mean you are not anonymously downloading a program while spoofing your access id; you are getting it, most probably legally or with a fake ID, as a time limited offer, which means it most likely reports back if its used after the intended time, OR it contains some sort of self-erase mechanism which only screams to be hacked.

I keep coming back to just saying that piracy is fine up to non-personalized rating 4, or at least Ratings 1-3 should be so cheap to allow a jack-of-all-trades character.

Maybe it runs "in the cloud" >.>

streaming application, requires continuous matrix connectivity...can be purchased with a volume license and hosted on an internal corporate server that all hosts running skillwires can then subscribe to, assuming they are holding a valid CAL. I'm sure this would be implemented in certain industries where you want a large number of unskilled workers to have a specific skill for manufacturing for instance (industrial or automotive mechanic?)

Yep. Just like black market guns and stolen vehicles and smuggled Foci may have been used before you got them.

I don't understand why you think questionable software from a questionable source is any safer than anything else. If AAA companies don't have teams of hackers injecting back doors into software hosted by pirate sites then they're not paranoid enough.

Whoa, this thread has grown since I went on holiday last thursday...

What I like about SkillWires is that they could (theoretically) provide on-demand skills, like "I need to learn to drive this escape vehicle NOW", or "How do I get out of these shackles?". That works best if there are a LOT of skills, more than any character can be reasonably expected to possess. (SR has this.)

So I like the idea of exponential nuyen costs for activesofts, and also availability; your hacker should be able to find a rating 1 activesoft within moments if the need comes up, but that R4 skillsoft will take some time.

I also like the idea of rentable skillsofts. It needs rules, so the players will know just how much they can depend on it. You could even run it in a "pay (Rating * 50) every dice roll" kind of way, or maybe require a Data Search (Rating) test to find them quickly. The point is, to be a real choice it needs some simple rules.



It would be nice to have a compatibility table for IP/Initiative affecting gear; the current rules are ambiguous. Just have the GM draw up such a table, makes it much easier on everyone. "It's not a house rule so much as the house interpretation of what the RAW means."



Regarding the Essence Cost of Bone Lacing/Bone Density Augmentation: they've got a fairly hefty Essence cost for a rather disappointing effect. Sure, it's a really invasive effect, so fluff-wise it's justified, but it's not really attractive as a character option. Maybe you could let the bonus to Body count for armor encumbrance limits too (letting you wear more armor because your reinforced skeleton can easily bear it)?

Rather than a table, I'll just make a blanket rule, bonus IPs are incompatible with each other. Instead you use the highest source of bonus IP available. Reaction enhancements are compatible with each other as normal enhancements to attributes (i.e. you can stack them). So reaction enhancers stack with everything, but you can't stack Wired Reflexes's IP with Cram IP's or anything else. On the cyberware side of things, it doesn't change much. On the magic side of things, this is a nerf since Increase Reflexes does stack with drugs.

As for Bone enhancements, I'll rather have them just provide more body to resist damage (which is better but very similar to having lots of armor). 2-3 times more than they provide now I think will make them arguable.

I would rather make the rule "bonus IPs are incompatible with each other, except for the 1 extra IP you can get from drugs", that would keep the drugs as a "valid situational boost with cost involved" for all but the 4 IP characters.

Maybe just put the bone augmentations on the same Essence to effect scale as the Agility cyber/bioware? Body and Agility are fairly comparable in importance, except the bone augmentations don't add Body for encumbrance, Drain, toxin and so forth, but give a slightly better unarmed attack ("yay").

I think all the IP enhancement from 'Ware and Magic should all be incompatible with each other, and all the Reaction/Intuition/Initiative enhancement should stack, up to the augmented maximum (which is easily reached for Reaction anyway).

I'm on the fence about Edge and Drugs IPs adding to 'Ware/Magic: I kinda like it. I think drugs are more seductive if they aren't obsoleted by 'Ware. But that also requires clear guidelines from the GM on how the risk of Addiction will be handled in the campaign.

I have a problem with how the more SotA ware always has higher essence costs even if it takes up the same amount of meat or occupies the same space.

Why do the different bone lacings have different essence costs? Its not like more material or more bone is replaced when you go with ceramic or titanium over plastic....or why is there such a HUGE difference between wires 1 and 3? If one replaces a larger amount of natural tissue than the other I should think that would be the difference between standard ware and Beta/Delta ware.

I think the problem is that Essence became too much of a measure of how good ware is as opposed to how much of an effect it has on your body's wholeness of being.

Essence always has been and always will be only a mechanic for game balance . . nothing more, nothing less . .