Clarification Please: Is there an automatic shift towards Good in addition to the one towards Lawful?

@GrumpyMel

Not sure it would be good to bar you from your settlement if the rest of the settlement are happy for you to be there. I have always assumed the reputation rule was for non settlement visitors. It would be strange from an rp point of view.

eg Everything thinks bob the dwarf is a bit dodgy (low rep) but we have known him for years and never had a problem with him so we dont mind him being round however we have been told a lot of bad stuff about you stranger and we don't know you from Adam so we ain't taking the chance of letting you in.

If the devs really mean you will be barred from your guilds settlement then I would like to hear them say it plain and simple as it seems a strange decision

@ GrumpyMel

I see what you're saying, but, and I could be wrong, I don't think anyone is proposing what you're opposing.

Instead, I think most people don't want to see someone shift from Chaotic Evil to Lawful Good in a day. Dramatic shifts from Evil to Good (not vice versa!) should be difficult.

Edit - And to echo Dario, I don't think alignment prevents entry into anywhere.

Nothing prevents entry.

Instead, being a member of an organization or with certain flags active might make someone a criminal in a certain place, but there isn't any physical bar to entry in the game at all as far as I can tell.

Otherwise, make your town illegal to CE, NE, and LE and you're pretty safe from assassins.

Yes, if you're banned for whatever reason, you're not physically prevented, you get the trespasser flag and can be attacked. My point was that I've never seen anything say that alignment was something that you could blacklist based on.

Maybe if you're dancing on the borderline, alignment shifts shouldn't push you to the middle of your new alignment

If a careless act pushes me from 2,550 Good to 2,450 Neutral, a 50 point Good act should be able to shift me back. If the system wants to punish me for slipping, maybe it should require a 100 point Good act. Allowing a 100 point slip at 2,550 to drop me all the way to 0 seems a bit harsh.

"Getting behind" on the process of shifting alignment just seems like an odd notion to me.

Everquest 2 had an alignment shift mechanism that was very grindy. After leaving the original alignment (and its corresponding city), a player had to kill a ridiculous number of enemies of their new alignment in order to be accepted into the new alignment's city. If I'm not mistaken, when I was playing the price to transition from Evil to Good was to kill 1,000 gnolls in a dungeon near the Good city. Apparently, the current procedure allows characters to gain acceptance with the new city by doing various things, rather than killing one specific type of enemy, but it's still a long grind.

"Getting behind" on the process of shifting alignment just seems like an odd notion to me.

I agree, and it's hard to talk with specificity about something that doesn't exist.

I can relate it to Vanguard, which I'm playing now. In order to get my "Tier 3 PotA" gear, I have to collect Slivers. 100 Slivers makes a Cord. 5, 7, 9, or 12 Cords are used to get the gear. This is slightly simplified, but conveys the point. I can get 90 Slivers by doing a "Named Run", which takes about half an hour.

I've already spent several weeks doing named runs doing pretty much the exact same thing to get my "Tier 2 PotA" gear, and I still have about 35 Named Runs ahead of me before I get the last of my T3 gear. Every hour I spend playing the game not doing a Named Run is effectively pushing back the date at which I'll have my T3 gear.

This is what I mean by "falling behind".

Currently, it's possible to repeatedly do Named Runs, one right after the other. If instead, it were only possible to do 3 or 4 Named Runs a week, there would be more "free time" for me to do other things in the game that I enjoy.

What I'm asking for is similar to what a lot of people have recognized about why EverQuest felt so much more social than, for example, WoW. It's the Downtime. I want there to be enough Downtime that I can rest for a bit and socialize, or do any number of other things that might not be advancing my character.

One of the things I think is really, really brilliant about PFO is that they're taking the grind out of leveling. I'm asking them to take it out of faction gain, etc., too.

Nihimon, the difference there is that you're talking about a cap on currency. You're only going to "fall behind" on alignment if you're "spending" it doing things that are out of alignment, and doing so at a rate faster than you can earn it.

You're only going to "fall behind" on alignment if...

I'm not really that worried about it in the context of alignment.

It's not just Alignment and Reputation that will likely be limited by these types of systems. There will also be NPC Faction with the various organizations like the Assassin's guilds.

My concern is about the general application of Daily limits as a gating mechanic, regardless of what's being gated.

I'll stand by my statement for anything that is simply accrued, not spent like currency. Assuming "faction" isn't spent in place of gold for alliance items, or anything else in a similar category, then I don't have a problem with it. It makes perfect sense to me that a faction should not go from "stranger" to "trusted lieutenant" in a day.

If there is Benefit A in the game that I can only access once I have gained a certain amount of Score B, then I hope that my ability to gain Score B is subject to something like weekly or monthly caps, instead of daily caps.

It makes perfect sense to me that a faction should not go from "stranger" to "trusted lieutenant" in a day.

On the off-chance that you are reading me to be saying something else, I want to make it very clear that my intention is to further slow down the gain of Score B from my example above, not to speed it up in any way.

@ GrumpyMel

I see what you're saying, but, and I could be wrong, I don't think anyone is proposing what you're opposing.

Instead, I think most people don't want to see someone shift from Chaotic Evil to Lawful Good in a day. Dramatic shifts from Evil to Good (not vice versa!) should be difficult.

Edit - And to echo Dario, I don't think alignment prevents entry into anywhere.

Nothing prevents entry.

Instead, being a member of an organization or with certain flags active might make someone a criminal in a certain place, but there isn't any physical bar to entry in the game at all as far as I can tell.

Otherwise, make your town illegal to CE, NE, and LE and you're pretty safe from assassins.

Check out Ryan's posts in terms of Chartered Company and Settlement Membership in the discussion thread of the "Put It It Writing" Blog....as far as I know they haven't been changed since then.

You have to be within ONE alignment step of a Charted Company or Settlements Alignment in order to be a MEMBER of either. If you slip outside of that range, the system AUTOMATICALY revokes your membership.
Meaning you can no longer be a MEMBER of the same in-game PLAYER organizations as the rest of your play group.

Settlements will have fairly granular access permissions. They can be setup to allow ACCESS (as opposed to Membership) based upon MEMBERSHIP status, ALIGNMENT and/or REPUTATION. However no way they are going to go all the way down to making exceptions for individual characters.

If you try to enter without ACCESS permissions....you get flagged as a tresspasser (DEGRADING your alignment even more) and are Kill on Sight for the NPC Guards of the settlement.

This game makes a VERY BIG DEAL of what Alignment you have...not just in terms of your relationships with NPC Organizations but also in terms of the sorts of realtionships you have with other PLAYERS and PLAYER organizations.

That's why, from a game-play standpoint, it CAN'T be overly burdensome to recover from an occasional slip.

You want some work involved, certainly....enough work that people aren't going to go through the effort every day....but a game that it makes it too difficult and burdensome for a player to be a member of the same Player organizations as thier play groups is going to be one players walk away from in droves.

It's also why attaining (and maintaining) LG, while definately harder then less stringent alignments shouldn't be a herculean task, nor one which isn't FUN. You do want a reasonable number of players to be able to do it, and enjoy doing it....else it probably shouldn't be in the game at all. It would also pretty much exclude players who really enjoy playing what is actualy a reasonably popular character type in the source material.

EDIT: In regards Assasins (and spies, etc), thats what the DISGUISE mechanic is used for. See the blog entry about them. They use a DISGUISE to appear as another Character (including Alignment) to gain entry to a settlement.

Mel, I may not have been very clear. I have not seen anything suggesting that alignment is one of the controllable "access" categories. Can you show me where that was said?

I know it's an option for membership, but membership is different from access.

Mel, I may not have been very clear. I have not seen anything suggesting that alignment is one of the controllable "access" categories. Can you show me where that was said?

I know it's an option for membership, but membership is different from access.

"Alignment: A character's alignment dictates what kind of Settlements they can belong to. A character's Settlement dictates what kind of training, resources, markets, allies, and potentially character abilities that character can use. The more grief you cause, the worse your alignment, and eventually you'll only be able to access the worst sort of Settlement. That will have a direct influence on your character's relative power vs. other characters of a similar age." - Ryan

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2p9b5&page=3?Goblinworks-Blog-Gypsies-Tramp s-and-Thieves#148

I've seen it referenced or alluded to a number of other places as well, but I haven't been able to dig it up easly.

I got slightly confused in that original quote and shouldn't have included Good vs. Evil. The current idea is:

• You gain Law over time but can turn that off if you want to stay Chaotic.
  
• You gain Good by doing certain PvE actions like quests (probably at a restricted daily rate to keep people from just grinding all the way from Evil to good in a marathon session). You can remain Evil by not doing these actions.
  

The idea is that Good vs. Evil is much more of a roleplaying and PvE choice, while Law vs. Chaos is something that even players that primarily PvP need a way to recover.

Stephen,

I'll note that the Dichotomy in treatment of those 2 axis does strike me as a bit odd...

- You can obtain shifts for BOTH in PvP (assuming not War, in which case the shifts wouldn't apply to either) the only time (it looks from what has been described) where you attain a chaotic shift without a corresponding evil shift is when you attack someone but fail to kill them....essentialy when you lose the combat.

- Both seem to have fairly significant gameplay effects in addition to RP effects...these revolve around Chartered Company/Settlment Membership, Settlement Access and Access to training facilities, and ability to use certain keywords on equipment, correct?

Given that they both seem to have similar causes and similar effects, I wonder why the decision to treat them differently in terms of recovery?

@ GrumpyMel

You ignored one very important part of the Put It in Writing blog.

"The settlement's alignment—characters must be within one alignment step* to join or remain a member of the settlement."

I doubt someone could drop two alignment steps, such as from Neutral Good to Neutral Evil or Chaotic Good to Chaotic Evil, accidentally or after only a "few" missteps. If you do something so heinous as to go from CG to CE, then you deserve whatever you get.

Further, I would refer you to blog RESPECT: Find Out What It Means to Me where it says, "[Alignment] may* cause a character to be ejected from them if the character's alignment diverges from the expected norm of that organization.

It's not guaranteed.

Further, in the blog I Shot a Man in Reno it talks about how settlements can set reputation levels. It's entirely possible alignment no longer kicks people from settlements like it said in Put It in Writing.

This makes it even more likely alignment won't do that with put into context with developer remarks about how a settlement's whole player population will affect the settlement's alignment score and you won't be able to see alignments easily.

Either way, since you have to drop two steps for that to happen, this is much ado about nothing methinks.

I got slightly confused in that original quote and shouldn't have included Good vs. Evil. The current idea is:

• You gain Law over time but can turn that off if you want to stay Chaotic.
  
• You gain Good by doing certain PvE actions like quests (probably at a restricted daily rate to keep people from just grinding all the way from Evil to good in a marathon session). You can remain Evil by not doing these actions.
  

The idea is that Good vs. Evil is much more of a roleplaying and PvE choice, while Law vs. Chaos is something that even players that primarily PvP need a way to recover.

Just please allow people to do PvP type of things to gain Good alignment. dont force us to have to PvE for alignment.

I wonder if good-evil will involve the types of escalation mob?

If so, then the emergent possibility of defeating "evil" alignment escalations and "seeding" "good" esclations near evil settlements would be pivotal to players natural motivations to do these activities. :D (visa-versa etc).

If players are following alignments, then getting the players to feel as if their actions are creating the situation they want and indirectly shifting their alignments is sorta the ideal of this sytem, I suppose?

Check out Ryan's posts in terms of Chartered Company and Settlement Membership in the discussion thread of the "Put It It Writing" Blog....as far as I know they haven't been changed since then.

You have to be within ONE alignment step of a Charted Company or Settlements Alignment in order to be a MEMBER of either. If you slip outside of that range, the system AUTOMATICALY revokes your membership.
Meaning you can no longer be a MEMBER of the same in-game PLAYER organizations as the rest of your play group.

(....)

This game makes a VERY BIG DEAL of what Alignment you have...not just in terms of your relationships with NPC Organizations but also in terms of the sorts of realtionships you have with other PLAYERS and PLAYER organizations.

Of course you can easily drop from NG to CN by doing a few chaotic evil acts, and I very much see your point.

In you example the Jolly Rangers (NG) could probably decide to officially become CG or NN. But that would kick out any LG members. If they really want to stick together there's still the option of the others doing some chaotic (or evil) acts. But more likely, they would group with you to do good pve stuff until you could rejoin (and obviously allow you full access to your stuff).

If the alignment shift is the result of "one bad day" (aka leaving the computer logged in), the PvE work to get back to CG should not be days and days of grinding. The lawful shift may take a few days, but should be automatic as long as you don't break more laws.

The problem is then not 'one bad day' but that you can't have a barrel with 'one bad apple'.
My old DnD group would struggle to keep together in PFO, as one would gravitate towards CG and another towards LE (and the rest stay around LG-NN). The current PFO alignment system makes it impossible for us to play as a group. On the other hand, it makes it much easier to find people with more compatible playstyles and values, which I have great hopes for.

I'd actually prefer Monthly limits, though, since that way a player can "catch up" during the month with one or two marathon sessions.

If WoW's Cataclysm expansion taught me anything, it's that Daily anything is a bad idea. Weekly or monthly limits works a lot better, imho. If there has to be a limit.

Isn't it a matter of:

1. Set Goal
2. Which alignment is most conducive/matches said goals?
3. Community forms consensus on how to maintain status quo and does a "risk assessment" of factors that might contribute to compromising that status.
4. Explore problems and measure success towards goals. Reassess.

Isn't that really what alignment boils down to? Being a "tool".

The one-step in each direction is why my CC has decided on Chaotic Neutral being our center or goal alignment.

This will allow most of our Bandits and Barbarians to be CN. Our Assassins to be CE and some of our Bandit / Rangers to be CG. Obviously, Wizards and Clerics can be on any of the three. Same goes for our merchants andd crafters, although most of them would probably be TN or NN (however you want to say it).

I wanted to play a True Neutral character since day 1 but got slightly rebuked by the auto-LG mechanism. I mean, to remain completely neutral, you had to engage in unprovoked PvP for a CE counterweight. That's not what I had in mind for a neutral character...

With Stephen's clarification, I can avoid both PvE and unprovoked PvP, turn off the auto-lawful and stay neutral. That's good news!

Just please allow people to do PvP type of things to gain Good alignment.

The Champion long-term PvP flag allows that very thing, as long as you can find Heinous players.

The player earns extra good vs. evil for each character with Heinous killed up to a daily max.

leperkhaun wrote:

Just please allow people to do PvP type of things to gain Good alignment.

The Champion long-term PvP flag allows that very thing, as long as you can find Heinous players.

I Shot a Man in Reno Just To Watch Him Die wrote:

The player earns extra good vs. evil for each character with Heinous killed up to a daily max.

As long as you are already Good-aligned. (The requirement to enable that flag)

Why do people assume that you can "fall" from Neutral to Chaotic in a day and then have to take weeks or months to crawl back?

If you fell in a day, you should be able to return in a day, that's all there is too it.

Others have said in another thread that all combat is chaotic, but I've not gone hunting for dev-statements to confirm it. The Lawful drift can't be the only mechanism to climb away from Chaos.

If you fell in a day, you should be able to return in a day...

So, you go on a killing spree and kill a bunch of newbs and fall to CE in a day. You really think you should be able to go back to LG the next day? That doesn't sound right to me.

I think a lot of people are thinking of the alignment system as a neutral center with equally valid spokes radiating out from it. I don't think that's the right way to look at it. Lawful and Good are inherently "better". That's why you talk about "falling" to Chaotic or Evil. You don't "fall" back to Lawful or Good. You have to "climb" back, and that should require effort and commitment.

@ GrumpyMel

You ignored one very important part of the Put It in Writing blog.

"The settlement's alignment—characters must be within one alignment step* to join or remain a member of the settlement."

I doubt someone could drop two alignment steps, such as from Neutral Good to Neutral Evil or Chaotic Good to Chaotic Evil, accidentally or after only a "few" missteps. If you do something so heinous as to go from CG to CE, then you deserve whatever you get.

Further, I would refer you to blog RESPECT: Find Out What It Means to Me where it says, "[Alignment] may* cause a character to be ejected from them if the character's alignment diverges from the expected norm of that organization.

It's not guaranteed.

Further, in the blog I Shot a Man in Reno it talks about how settlements can set reputation levels. It's entirely possible alignment no longer kicks people from settlements like it said in Put It in Writing.

This makes it even more likely alignment won't do that with put into context with developer remarks about how a settlement's whole player population will affect the settlement's alignment score and you won't be able to see alignments easily.

Either way, since you have to drop two steps for that to happen, this is much ado about nothing methinks.

KJ, all I can say is your interpretation doesn't match my reading of what the Dev's have posted so far. Of course things are in flux, so they could change it...and I could always be wrong but I don't think so.

From the actual numbers Stephen posted for the alignment scales, you can calculate for yourself that 2 unwarrented kills of moderately good characters takes you down a full shift on the Good/Evil axis (I haven't bothered to do the math for Law/Chaos)...since each individual kill is calculated seperately that means that a single party engagement gone wrong (e.g the target party was misidentified) can easly take you ALL the way from LG to CE.

It's no secret I'm not a big fan of GW's proposed alignment system ...mostly due to the limitations of a fully automated system in making reasonable adjucations.

Under the proposed mechanics, Alignment drops can happen very EASLY and rapidly and have VERY, VERY serious consequences. IF that system remains as is, then I believe recovery has to be reasonably unburdensome enough to recover from the occasional slip or mis-step while still being impactfull to habitual offenders.

As someone who is largely interested in RPing but still wants to be able to participate in the PvP aspects of the game upon occasion (the game is, after-all PRIMARELY focused on PvP and not so much on PvE) and who doesn't enjoy RP-ing "dark" or "evil" characters at all...it's pretty much a deal-breaker if it's anything other. I can see a few days in the dog-house working to recover from a bad slip-up as reasonable...more then that, no.

Essentialy, the effort/speed of attonement has to be related to the ease/speed of falling....especialy where it's possible to fall unintentionaly or because the automated systems are only capable of crude judgements. The game needs to be FUN for ALL the people who play it...not just those who are happy to live thier lives on the "neutral" or "evil" spectrum or those who have limitless hours and patience for grinding. If the game is to feature Alignment prominantly, then it needs to allow for people to recover from making the OCCASIONAL mistake without herculean effort, while still being impactfull to people who are HABITUALY engaging in some activity that doesn't match thier proffesed alignment.

If you avoid murder, theft, arson, and general thuggery, it shouldn't be pretty hard to keep a decent alignment. It's not like we're playing under a capricious GM who docks your paladin for not sharing his ice cream with the wizard.

From the actual numbers Stephen posted for the alignment scales, you can calculate for yourself that 2 unwarrented kills of moderately good characters takes you down a full shift on the Good/Evil axis (I haven't bothered to do the math for Law/Chaos)...since each individual kill is calculated seperately that means that a single party engagement gone wrong (e.g the target party was misidentified) can easly take you ALL the way from LG to CE.

How would a Lawful Good character "accidentally" murder two other good players?

Seriously, I really don't see how that could happen.

Someone trying to be Lawful Good shouldn't be attacking anyone that is tagged as Criminal, Outlaw, or Heinous in any shape, form or fashion. If they do, my heart has no pity for them.

theStormWeaver wrote:

If you fell in a day, you should be able to return in a day...

So, you go on a killing spree and kill a bunch of newbs and fall to CE in a day. You really think you should be able to go back to LG the next day? That doesn't sound right to me.

I think a lot of people are thinking of the alignment system as a neutral center with equally valid spokes radiating out from it. I don't think that's the right way to look at it. Lawful and Good are inherently "better". That's why you talk about "falling" to Chaotic or Evil. You don't "fall" back to Lawful or Good. You have to "climb" back, and that should require effort and commitment.

Nihimon,

1) The game needs to be FUN for everyone who is playing it largely the way it is advertised to be played.

2) There is a significant between someone who has a single bad incident or even the occasional slip and people who are chronicaly engaging in an activity.

Frankly, IMO you are setting up a bit of a strawman arguement. For the Alignment system... Purposefully slaughtering a bunch of newb's is identical to one party getting trigger happy against another in the Wilds thinking they are about to be ambushed when thier not....get's even more dicey when you add disguises into it.

Obviously in RL, even a single unprovoked attack is VERY serious business, but this isn't real life, it's a game.....only pixels are getting hurt and it's supposed to be FUN for people...and it's a game where PvP is advertised as a MAJOR focus of the game...not a sideshow.

I don't neccesarly agree with StormWeaver that recovery has to happen within a single day, even if falls can happen within a single day...but month's or weeks of concerted effort is ABSURD..and way too much on the other end of the scale. This is a game where PvP is SUPPOSED to be happening ALOT. The game has to make an allowance for people not being perfect in thier judgement and making the occasional mistake or slip up...and still being able to recover reasonably. YMMV.

If you avoid murder, theft, arson, and general thuggery, it shouldn't be pretty hard to keep a decent alignment. It's not like we're playing under a capricious GM who docks your paladin for not sharing his ice cream with the wizard.

If I believed that were reasonably true...I'd not really have a problem with it.

Frankly, IMO you are setting up a bit of a strawman arguement.

Really?

I quoted someone, and replied directly to them. How is my example not applicable to the statement I quoted: "If you fell in a day".

... but month's or weeks of concerted effort is ABSURD..and way too much on the other end of the scale.

And not something I advocated.

Are you responding to what I actually said? Or something that you're opposed to that you think I'm supporting?

I'm fairly sure the alignment -ve/+ve of points must be fine tuned in EE?

GrumpyMel wrote:

From the actual numbers Stephen posted for the alignment scales, you can calculate for yourself that 2 unwarrented kills of moderately good characters takes you down a full shift on the Good/Evil axis (I haven't bothered to do the math for Law/Chaos)...since each individual kill is calculated seperately that means that a single party engagement gone wrong (e.g the target party was misidentified) can easly take you ALL the way from LG to CE.

How would a Lawful Good character "accidentally" murder two other good players?

Seriously, I really don't see how that could happen.

Someone trying to be Lawful Good shouldn't be attacking anyone that is tagged as Criminal, Outlaw, or Heinous in any shape, form or fashion. If they do, my heart has no pity for them.

KJ,

This is a game where PvP is supposed to be happening ALOT. It's perfectly possible to screw up the Rules of Engagement. It's not like RL where confrontations are very rare and things far more serious then pixels are at stake.

So let me paint a scenario for you, to show you how easy it is to slip up....

You and your party encounter another party out in the Wilds. In this same area 5 minutes ago another LG party got wiped out and robbed...but that was 5 minutes ago so the Attackers will no longer have ATTACKER flags (those flags only last for 1 minute after combat) and no CRIMINAL tags would apply because it's not in a settlement area. The other party seems to be moving threateningly to encircle yours while you try to talk with them, you even think they might be using the DISGUISE mechanic to mask thier identities. One of your party members gets nervous and jumps the gun attacking them...combat ensues and you defeat them....if there are 4 members in the other party and they aren't actualy Evil, you and everyone in your party gets 2 shifts toward Evil and 2 shifts toward Chaos....taking you all the way from LG to CE in one incident. Note this wasn't even adjucated by the Alignment system as "murder" since it happened in unsettled land...just an "attack" and a "kill".

Now, I agree that it was wrong of the first party to jump the gun and attack first....but in a game where PvP is supposed to be happening ALL the time, should that 1 mistake equaly WEEKS or MONTHS worth of grinding to atone for? Sorry, I wouldn't want to play that game, and I don't think too many others would either. YMMV.

This is a game where PvP is supposed to be happening ALOT.

I'm aware.

You and your party encounter another party out in the Wilds. In this same area 5 minutes ago another LG party got wiped out and robbed...but that was 5 minutes ago so the Attackers will no longer have ATTACKER flags (those flags only last for 1 minute after combat) and no CRIMINAL tags would apply because it's not in a settlement area. The other party seems to be moving threateningly to encircle yours while you try to talk with them, you even think they might be using the DISGUISE mechanic to mask thier identities. One of your party members gets nervous and jumps the gun attacking them...combat ensues and you defeat them....if there are 4 members in the other party and they aren't actualy Evil, you and everyone in your party gets 2 shifts toward Evil and 2 shifts toward Chaos....taking you all the way from LG to CE in one incident. Note this wasn't even adjucated by the Alignment system as "murder" since it happened in unsettled land...just an "attack" and a "kill".

Now, I agree that it was wrong of the first party to jump the gun and attack first....but in a game where PvP is supposed to be happening ALL the time, should that 1 mistake equaly WEEKS or MONTHS worth of grinding to atone for? Sorry, I wouldn't want to play that game, and I don't think too many others would either. YMMV.

Yes, it was wrong for the first party to jump the gun and they should suffer for it if they're trying to play Lawful Good. Sorry. I have absolutely zero pity for them. Play your alignment or settle for something less.

And, where are you getting WEEKS or MONTHS from? Who has proposed it be that onerous? It certainly shouldn't be trivial, but I'm not aware of anyone who has proposed the strawman you're busy breaking.

But still, no, I don't see how it happens accidentally. What you describe wasn't an accident. Yes, people are going to get ganked and robbed. Players can either suck it up and stay Lawful Good, or they can freak out and get hit with the drop they deserve.

GrumpyMel wrote:

Frankly, IMO you are setting up a bit of a strawman arguement.

Really?

I quoted someone, and replied directly to them. How is my example not applicable to the statement I quoted: "If you fell in a day".

GrumpyMel wrote:

... but month's or weeks of concerted effort is ABSURD..and way too much on the other end of the scale.

And not something I advocated.

Are you responding to what I actually said? Or something that you're opposed to that you think I'm supporting?

I'm responding to Stormweavers initial premise which you SEEMED to take issue with....

"Why do people assume that you can "fall" from Neutral to Chaotic in a day and then have to take WEEKS or MONTHS to crawl back?"

There clearly is a middle road here between 4 hours and 4 months....since your opposition to Stormweavers proposition looked to be unqualified with any recognition of such, I assumed you meant it to be so. Apologies if I assumed wrongly.

Your strawman was by advocating the worst possible case by which an individual could slip..."a killing spree against a bunch of newbs"....

Clearly no one supports anyone going on a killing spree against newbs...and clearly the alignment system deals with much more then that...nor is it even evident that the alignment system would be the main recourse against that.

Frankly, I've even been in games where I've witnessed such incidents occur....and the player came back the next day, apologized and made right by everyone involved....never repeated such activity and went on to be a helpfull and productive member of the game community....so even under such conditions I wouldn't overly judge a player by thier actions in a single incident.

I'd think a couple of days to maybe a week to work back up from a fall like that is not inappropriate. Actual consequences will teach them that maybe they should be a little more cautious, instead of shouting "They're coming right for us!" and firing away blindly. PVP is supposed to happen, it's not supposed to be the first line interaction.

Your strawman was by advocating the worst possible case by which an individual could slip..."a killing spree against a bunch of newbs"....

Clearly no one supports anyone going on a killing spree against newbs...

What other game mechanic is going to cause a fall in a single day? I didn't go looking to exaggerate a terrible example. I simply pointed out the only example I can think of that would actually cause the fall "in a single day".

I'm responding to Stormweavers initial premise which you SEEMED to take issue with....

"Why do people assume that you can "fall" from Neutral to Chaotic in a day and then have to take WEEKS or MONTHS to crawl back?"

Not to harp on this, but I think I made it clear which part I was taking issue with, that being the part immediately preceding "That doesn't sound right to me."

GrumpyMel wrote:

Your strawman was by advocating the worst possible case by which an individual could slip..."a killing spree against a bunch of newbs"....

Clearly no one supports anyone going on a killing spree against newbs...

What other game mechanic is going to cause a fall in a single day? I didn't go looking to exaggerate a terrible example. I simply pointed out the only example I can think of that would actually cause the fall "in a single day".

Mel's using the math from the Shot a Man in Reno blog. Assuming your target is average Good, killing them will net you -2400 GvE according to the blog. If you, yourself, are average good (+5000), killing four good people (a reasonable size for an opposing party) will net you -9600, moving you from +5000 ot -4600 in one encounter.

@Dario, thanks for pointing that out. You're right, and I just re-read that part of the blog.

To give you an idea of how much these things will cost or grant in terms of reputation, killing a player with Reputation 0 who has no flags will cost about 500 Reputation, while killing an average low-reputation player (-5,000 reputation) will cost about 16 reputation and killing an average high-reputation player (5,000 reputation) will cost about 2,400.

So, killing 4 "average Good" players will make you fall in a single day. As will killing 10+ "newbs". Both examples seem equally valid, and I contend that my example is far more likely.

And, where are you getting WEEKS or MONTHS from? Who has proposed it be that onerous? It certainly shouldn't be trivial, but I'm not aware of anyone who has proposed the strawman you're busy breaking.

This is not the first go around such discussions have had. There have been multiple previous discussion threads dealing with this almost since the game was anounced and there are a few people who desire to make attaining and maintaining LG or even G a VERY onerous task...equivalent to grinding max reputation with a faction in some other games. Even in this thread we have...

"I think the key is to make the time required to maximize an alignment long term, like the skill progressions. It should take months to move from TN to NG. The 'marathon grinder' would still take months to shift, and the casual player will probably take a year. " - Valkner

There are some very different schools of thought about how aligmment should be approached by some of the long time members of the community here....

I've stated multiple times here that I'm not really even in favor of having an alignment system for PFO, or if we have one to make it simple self-selection. Given that we will have one, and it will play a very important role in gameplay and given the limitations of any automated system....I'm trying to insure that it isn't something which sucks all the fun from the game and ends up breaking peoples backs for being imperfect.

Even LG doesn't imply perfect all the time with never a screw up or failing in behavior.....especialy in a game which is supposed to be about entertainment....we need to allow for players who want to pursue that alignment to make a mistake once in awhile or even do something wrong upon occasion and be able to recover from it in a reasonable fashion without a huge impact on thier gameplay.

@Dario, thanks for pointing that out. You're right, and I just re-read that part of the blog.

I Shot a Man in Reno Just To Watch Him Die wrote:

To give you an idea of how much these things will cost or grant in terms of reputation, killing a player with Reputation 0 who has no flags will cost about 500 Reputation, while killing an average low-reputation player (-5,000 reputation) will cost about 16 reputation and killing an average high-reputation player (5,000 reputation) will cost about 2,400.

So, killing 4 "average Good" players will make you fall in a single day. As will killing 10+ "newbs". Both examples seem equally valid, and I contend that my example is far more likely.

I would disagree. I think killing 10 players is more likely to be a sign of malicious intent. 4 players is more plausible than 10 if you're talking in terms of a mistake. I would wager you're more likely to see groups of 4 than groups of 10.

I'd think a couple of days to maybe a week to work back up from a fall like that is not inappropriate. Actual consequences will teach them that maybe they should be a little more cautious, instead of shouting "They're coming right for us!" and firing away blindly. PVP is supposed to happen, it's not supposed to be the first line interaction.

No disagreement, that's reasonable....as long as it's calibrated to work for casual players as well as hardcore ones.

@Dario, I'm saying I think my example is more likely to actually occur in-game. I think it's going to be extremely unlikely that an "average Good" player is "accidentally" involved in killing 4 other average Good players.

I've stated multiple times here that I'm not really even in favor of having an alignment system for PFO, or if we have one to make it simple self-selection. Given that we will have one, and it will play a very important role in gameplay and given the limitations of any automated system....I'm trying to insure that it isn't something which sucks all the fun from the game and ends up breaking peoples backs for being imperfect.

I agree with what you're trying to do, but I would encourage you to keep the hyperbole to a minimum. I can't imagine any system would "suck all the fun from the game." Usually it's unexpected collusion of systems that do that.

@Dario, I'm saying I think my example is more likely to actually occur in-game. I think it's going to be extremely unlikely that an "average Good" player is "accidentally" involved in killing 4 other average Good players.

This is why I don't have much to say on this subject.

Whether or not that is the case, I think LG groups will find it handy to have one person that can 'detect alignment' so they can better judge whether or not another group is approaching them 'aggressively.' If they are a group of neutrals or CE thugs, it won't make too much of a difference if they determine that the best course of action is to act against their alignment and attempt to murder them preemptively. If they are goods, they have a pretty good idea that they won't attack (especially if it takes weeks or months to recover their alignment).

If the game systems are designed with the idea that I won't initiate an attack if I want to be Good, then I won't initiate an attack if I want to be Good.

@Dario, I'm saying I think my example is more likely to actually occur in-game. I think it's going to be extremely unlikely that an "average Good" player is "accidentally" involved in killing 4 other average Good players.

If I'm not misunderstanding you, then you consider two groups meeting in the wilderness, and getting into a fight due to miscommunication or error so unlikely that you dismiss it from consideration? I'm going to have to disagree with your assessment. It happens in real life where the cost is a lot higher.

Edit to add: I am not advocating reducing the consequences of it. A few posts back I actually suggsted that steep conequences for this sort of thing are desirable. I'm only disagreeing with what is, to my perception, an argument that this issue isn't worth discussing.

If the game systems are designed with the idea that I won't initiate an attack if I want to be Good, then I won't initiate an attack if I want to be Good.

Likewise, I won't use magical AoEs if I want to be good.