When you wish to upgrade a section of your application — generally +abilities and +skills — you must submit a +request that details this upgrade. We ask that you provide:
- A detailed explanation that one would find in an application. If the upgrade is a rewrite (improvement of an aspect of your ability or gaining experience in a skill, as opposed to a new skill or manifestation), then please submit the rewritten portion in its entirety;
- A note regarding how your character came to earn this improvement. Where possible, please provide logs that display on-screen development, or other justification. If you are +requesting an upgrade that does not have the background justification (such as an emotional manifestation that triggers unexpectedly, IC), then explain what you can about the situation.
When requesting an Ability upgrade, please consider the following:
- Am I increasing the ability's effectiveness?
- Am I reducing the effort it takes to use the ability?
- Am I introducing a new talent of the ability?
Effectiveness: Increasing an ability's effectiveness means you are improving the way it functions. With superhuman strength perhaps you can lift more, with pyrokinesis your fire burns hotter, with precognition perhaps your visions are clearer.
Effort: When you reduce the effort it takes to use an ability you're lowering the effective difficulty of maintaining the ability (see effort chart for more examples on levels of effort). Typically effort can only be reduced one effective "step" on each upgrade.
Talent: A Talent is a sub-function or "trick" an ability can perform. If you are a photokinetic who can create a flashlight from your palm, perhaps you're adding a talent where you can narrow that down to a laser.
When making a +request for an ability upgrade, please only upgrade one of the above, outside of extenuating circumstances.
We will also not approve upgrades if they are requested within a short frame of time of one another, as we believe time is required for a character to develop significant manifestations and improvements. We may also deny upgrades that seem to deviate too wildly from the original ability, or expand in too broad a direction — basically, upgrades are treated with the same scrutiny as an application, so such criteria applies.
Please Note: After enough upgrades, staff may inform you that we will not be approving further upgrades to your ability, as we believe it has reached a maximum potential. Characters that have been apped to be exceptionally powerful already may also be denied, as well as players who have had difficulty in the past working within their written ability limits. This may occur with skills too in extreme cases.