Mcduff Goblin Squad Member |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And who will be the judge of that? One party will claim griefing, the other will claim they're a highway robber. Some will be highway robbers, others will be there just to ruin other player's days.
If a game has specific tools in place to facilitate a type of play, then it can't be called griefing. Griefing implies someone exploiting a rule or acting in a manor outside of what the designers intended.
If one of the built-in features of creating a hideout is being able to ambush and attack unwary fast travelers, then no one can honestly call it griefing to do so.
Edit: I'd also like to add with regards to being able to "loot proof" one or more items, perhaps classes should factor in as well? Whether through a microtransaction, skill points, or an in game drop, it might be a good idea to allow one's class to effect the cost of purchase or the odds of finding it.
My concern is for melee characters or tanks who are often built to soak up damage and defend their allies. If they're doing their job right, they should be fine, but if anything goes wrong, they're usually the first ones to drop. Moreover, fighters, paladins and the like will probably not have as many escape options as their stealthy or long ranged compatriots.
I'm all for having significance in death, but I'm concerned that there may be an imbalance in which classes suffer the most for it. If it becomes unbalanced, it'll be twice as hard for a fighter to hang on to decent loot than a ranger.
Mogloth Goblin Squad Member |
Ryan Dancey Goblin Squad Member |
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
That's a tricky topic (getting killed repeatedly by the same person).
The bounty system sounds as though it's designed to allow and even encourage that. But then that's just an issue for murderers.
It's why I like their policy of a subjective rule system. An intelligent person looking at the situation and looking at the server logs and asking questions should be able to piece together what is harassment, and what is truly unwarranted malicious behavior.
If your company is at war with another, it's not personal for one of them to make life difficult for one of yours. If you hire someone to do an unscrupulous deed and don't pay what you owe when the deed is done, expect them to wring that payment out of you with heavy interest, late payment fees, and punitive damages.
An unscrupulous sort who knows their unscrupulous business well will have screenshots of conversation to quickly provide any moderator questioning such a scenario.
Rafkin Goblin Squad Member |
The more this game looks like Eve the less I want to play. I think the people out there that just want to have fun far outnumber the people that want the harsh penalties for dying. And we probably spend more money in your fluff store.
I realize your business model doesn't require a lot of players so maybe you don't care.
SirUrza Goblin Squad Member |
SirUrza wrote:Goblinworks.
And who will be the judge of that?
Pardon my cynicism.. but if mutli-million (perhaps billion) dollar companies can't properly deal with gold farmer spam in general chat (and by all appearances some of them try very hard) I doubt Goblinworks has the workforce to deal with every ticket submitted to them in a timely manner or investigate them properly.
Ryan Dancey Goblin Squad Member |
@Rafkin - We hope to be the difference between being shipwrecked and thrown bloodily across the reef and nearly drowned and surfing.
@SirUrza - the number of harassment tickets that will be generated will be a a tiny fraction of the number of RMT abuses that are ticketed. It happens far, far less than you'd think based on the amount of discussion the topic gets.
DarkLightHitomi |
@ Blaeringr I don't play MMOs to play with friends, I have PnP for that.
@ Stumpy Mcduff We can multiclass freely, since this is closer to skill based system with just a nod towards the classes of PF. Therefore fighters who want to actually be good at it should be learning the skills they need to do the job, and those who are trying to focus to get the class cap should expect greater difficulty.
@ Rafkin What constitutes fun is different for different people, I like the idea of a challenge (as long as the consequences make sense), when I learned how to cheat on Oblivion I stopped playing because I didn't find it fun anymore. I am now much more careful on those rare occasions I cheat in a game. Other people however find fun in breaking the game, or in grinding, or in griefing.
Mcduff Goblin Squad Member |
those who are trying to focus to get the class cap should expect greater difficulty.
I can appreciate that. I've been playing allot of GW2 lately and my brain still tends to approach things from a theme park mode by default.
@ Rafkin What constitutes fun is different for different people, I like the idea of a challenge (as long as the consequences make sense), when I learned how to cheat on Oblivion I stopped playing because I didn't find it fun anymore. I am now much more careful on those rare occasions I cheat in a game. Other people however find fun in breaking the game, or in grinding, or in griefing.
Agreed. For me, the fastest way to suck the fun out of a game is to cheat. With regards to what different people may or may not look for in an mmo, that's one of the advantages to there being so many different ones right now. Pathfinder Online is aiming to be a sandbox, which means it will at the very least be keeping a close eye on Eve since it's the most successful one right now. Games aren't made in a vacuum. If this was a theme park, they'd be watching WoW.
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
I don't play MMOs to play with friends...
I expect that'll change if you really try to excel in PFO.
For what it's worth, The Seventh Veil is built around providing a home for the kinds of people (among many other kinds) who are used to playing Theme Park MMOs in small guilds, or just casually by themselves or with a few friends.
1. If you don't know what you want to do, we'll usually have more than a few things happening that you can join.
2. If you know what you want to do, but can't do it by yourself, we'll usually have other members doing the same thing that you can join.
3. You'll never be required to attend anything, or give up any portion of your share of what you helped gather.
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
How do you guys plan to pay for armed escorts?
Who said we'll need to pay armed escorts?
The whole point is doing things with other people. None of us really know what it's going to actually be like in-game, but I can easily imagine a group of mixed Harvesters and Fighters working a particular resource and splitting the proceeds - down to the loot taken from the corpses of the bandits who tried to steal from us - as equitably as possible.
And here's where I realize I may have spoken out of turn because it's not my decision alone, but I will be doing everything I can to ensure that we don't impose a tax on that split. There will be people who want to gain power in our organization, and they will want to be donating to the organization to "buy" that power. There will be other people who just want to Harvest for their own purpose - and their assistance in that particular event should be payment enough back to our organization.
If we end up contracting out to players who aren't part of our community, they'll probably have generally the same experience.
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
Onishi Goblin Squad Member |
Blaeringr wrote:How do you guys plan to pay for armed escorts?Who said we'll need to pay armed escorts?
The whole point is doing things with other people. None of us really know what it's going to actually be like in-game, but I can easily imagine a group of mixed Harvesters and Fighters working a particular resource and splitting the proceeds - down to the loot taken from the corpses of the bandits who tried to steal from us - as equitably as possible.
I suppose that's 2 schools of equally valid thought.
Viewpoint 1: Guards are seen as an outsider who charges by the hour
Viewpoint 2: Guards are seen as an active member of the group. Thus given a portion of the share for the harvesting, treated exactly the same as the person doing the harvesting.
IMO both viewpoints are equally valid, I actually imagine the second being more likely (more valuble resources will likely equal more danger, thus need higher rate, IMO a guards skill is equally important to the success as a harvesters. So in my viewpoint the most fair system is, say a team of 5 harvesters and 5 body guards runs a harvesting mission, they should each get 10% of the profits from the operation.
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
It's not about which is more valid, it's about clarifying how much the harvester gets. Do they get what they harvest? Or is there a cost to make sure they're safe?
Two very different results, and validity has nothing to do with simply stating which one is the case. It's situation 1 and situation 2, not "viewpoint".
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
Onishi Goblin Squad Member |
It's not about which is more valid, it's about clarifying how much the harvester gets. Do they get what they harvest? Or is there a cost to make sure they're safe?
Two very different results, and validity has nothing to do with simply stating which one is the case. It's situation 1 and situation 2, not "viewpoint".
Is it really any different than any form of party or group anywhere else? Technically the DPSes did the actual "Killing" and most likely did 80% or more of the damage, but they wouldn't have killed a thing without the tanks and healers backing them up.
All of the members present should use comperable time, resources etc... in making the opperation a success, as a result, they should all be entitled to a comperable size share of the reward.
By that token in my mind the harvesters should also be entitled to an equal share of the loot dropped by the monsters that the guards killed in the process of protecting the harvesters. Now if the value of the 2 is equal, than that could work out. If someone needs only one type of item, he can probably trade or work out a deal with the group, and of course this is all subjective, anyone can do it anyway they wish, but were I to organize a group my starting point would be that everyone who is brought, is fairly entitled to an equal share of the rewards. As a guard I would feel ripped off if I were payed 1000 coin an hour, and a 3 hour harvesting opperation brought back 2,000,000 coin worth of goods. Likewise if I were a harvester I would feel like I threw away quite a bit of money if on a bad day we only got 5000, and 4000 of that went to the guards.
From what I'm gathering of your response it seems that your greater complaint with the system is that it doesn't incentivise the harvesters to say maximize their harvesting for maximum efficiency. Well just like every other role for anything else in games, if they aren't built for it, people who don't pull their weight, are less likely to get invited. Just like a healer who made himself a PVP focused build that doesn't help the party much, gets picked only as a last resort when preparing for a dungeon crawl.
Now mileage may vary and it also depends on the trust level of the group. If I can't trust the harvesters to truthfully tell what they retrieved etc... than I may very well prefer an hourly set rate based on what I consider my time worth, but if I were organizing a harvesting with my trusted charter/settlement members, I would consider even shares as the fairest system.
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
And just because I say you won't be forced to give up part of your share, that doesn't mean you can't donate some or all of it. And just because I say the guards will be entitled to an equal share doesn't mean the harvesters can't work out a different arrangement.
The whole point is to give members as much freedom to do what they want, how they want.
Ravening Goblin Squad Member |
As a member of the 7th veil I like the approach that everyone who is part of an operation gets an equal share of the proceeds, whether that is resources harvested or loot from wandering monsters & bandits. I’m also happy to contribute to a collective fund to help the 7th Veils interests. Once a settlement is founded then we won’t need to donate funds, as we will be automatically taxed. At least that’s how I view the tax system to work. You kill a bandit and loot his body and *ping* some tax is deducted and automatically allocated to the central settlement account.
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
Blaeringr wrote:It's not about which is more valid, it's about clarifying how much the harvester gets. Do they get what they harvest? Or is there a cost to make sure they're safe?
Two very different results, and validity has nothing to do with simply stating which one is the case. It's situation 1 and situation 2, not "viewpoint".
Is it really any different than any form of party or group anywhere else? Technically the DPSes did the actual "Killing" and most likely did 80% or more of the damage, but they wouldn't have killed a thing without the tanks and healers backing them up.
All of the members present should use comperable time, resources etc... in making the opperation a success, as a result, they should all be entitled to a comperable size share of the reward.
By that token in my mind the harvesters should also be entitled to an equal share of the loot dropped by the monsters that the guards killed in the process of protecting the harvesters. Now if the value of the 2 is equal, than that could work out. If someone needs only one type of item, he can probably trade or work out a deal with the group, and of course this is all subjective, anyone can do it anyway they wish, but were I to organize a group my starting point would be that everyone who is brought, is fairly entitled to an equal share of the rewards. As a guard I would feel ripped off if I were payed 1000 coin an hour, and a 3 hour harvesting opperation brought back 2,000,000 coin worth of goods. Likewise if I were a harvester I would feel like I threw away quite a bit of money if on a bad day we only got 5000, and 4000 of that went to the guards.
From what I'm gathering of your response it seems that your greater complaint with the system is that it doesn't incentivise the harvesters to say maximize their harvesting for maximum efficiency. Well just like every other role for anything else in games, if they aren't built for it, people who don't pull their weight, are less likely to get invited. Just like a healer who made...
What?!! Where did you come up with all that from? What posts of mine gave you all that?
What are you even reading? You aren't gathering anything at all from my response.
Context: Nihimon responds to a guy who says he prefers to solo. His comment is ambiguous as to whether there was any cost involved for joining them (as opposed to a solo player keeping everything). I merely pointed out that ambiguity.
Don't have a clue what the hell you're talking about.
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
Clerics still get XP even if they don't kill anything.
Protectors will still get their share even if they don't harvest anything.
The point I was trying to make is that we won't be skimming off the top. At least, I'm going to fight to make sure that's the case.
I never criticized your approach. All I was getting at is "what is your approach?" When you say someone joining your expedition doesn't have to give up anything, how literally do you mean that?
And don't forget skills train with time, so none of this talk of xp while the rest of the party kills stuff. And the protectors' share has to come out of the gatherers' share.
And for the people who don't read so well, the previous sentence is a nominal statement. I'm not talking about opinions. It is not an opinion that one person getting a share means the rest of the shares diminish. That's not an opinion, that's math.
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
And just because I say you won't be forced to give up part of your share, that doesn't mean you can't donate some or all of it. And just because I say the guards will be entitled to an equal share doesn't mean the harvesters can't work out a different arrangement.
The whole point is to give members as much freedom to do what they want, how they want.
If the guards are entitled to an equal share, but the harvesters are not forced to give up part of their share...where does the guards' share come from? Unless of course by "share" you mean take everything and pool it up then divide it to the whole group. That's different than your share is whatever you personally gather. The word "share" can apply to both. When I ask what you mean, please don't respond with your grandmother's life story, or your philosophy on hugging butterflies.
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
I can easily imagine a group of mixed Harvesters and Fighters working a particular resource and splitting the proceeds - down to the loot taken from the corpses of the bandits who tried to steal from us - as equitably as possible.
@Blaeringr, that's from my initial response to you. Sorry if it wasn't clear.
I'm not aware of any meaning of the word "share" that means what you're saying is an alternative. If you and 4 other people clear a dungeon and finally get to open the treasure chest the last boss was guarding, does anyone think the thief's "share" is whatever he can stuff in his pockets immediately upon opening that chest?
DeciusBrutus Goblinworks Executive Founder |
We're still waiting on details of how the systems will work to decide on the details of stuff. I'm slightly less optimistic regarding the effectiveness of a tax-free policy, but I'm not going to give up on it quickly.
I will encourage groups to clarify exactly what the expectations are regarding who gets what, under what circumstances, before they set out. I doubt that there will be many people who want to play hack-and-slash-and-commodities-trader, so I don't think "We'll give you x% of the ore upon arrival" is going to be a common agreement. I think according to the dev blog the standard arrangement will be "Show up and earn x coin, with a y coin bonus if we arrive safely", or something similar. I don't expect that the standard contract will always be used.
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
That's different than your share is whatever you personally gather.
I also tried to make clear that "[n]one of us really know what it's going to actually be like in-game". It may turn out that it's not feasible to divide the gathered resources into equal shares for the entire group - for example if it's not possible to know how much each member gathered.
I'm trying to describe the general principles we'll apply, not the specific processes we'll use.
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
I will encourage groups to clarify exactly what the expectations are regarding who gets what, under what circumstances, before they set out.
That's the way to do it.
In theme park MMOs, this is a big issue for raids. Some people can have a pretty big fit over how they expected things to be handled rather than taking the time to clarify things beforehand.
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
Blaeringr wrote:That's different than your share is whatever you personally gather.I also tried to make clear that "[n]one of us really know what it's going to actually be like in-game". It may turn out that it's not feasible to divide the gathered resources into equal shares for the entire group - for example if it's not possible to know how much each member gathered.
I'm trying to describe the general principles we'll apply, not the specific processes we'll use.
Different people with different levels of skill in gathering are going to gather different amounts in the same given period of time. If you insist on pooling everything and then splitting it evenly and calling that a "share" then it will discourage grouping with people who have a lower gathering skill than you do. Even if you mathematically divide everything up into equal parts and then pass it out to all involved, the people who are more specialized in gathering won't be getting their actual share.
For that reason, some will see it more in their favor to pay a flat fee for protection and then keep whatever they can gather.
DeciusBrutus Goblinworks Executive Founder |
Nihimon wrote:Blaeringr wrote:That's different than your share is whatever you personally gather.I also tried to make clear that "[n]one of us really know what it's going to actually be like in-game". It may turn out that it's not feasible to divide the gathered resources into equal shares for the entire group - for example if it's not possible to know how much each member gathered.
I'm trying to describe the general principles we'll apply, not the specific processes we'll use.
Different people with different levels of skill in gathering are going to gather different amounts in the same given period of time. If you insist on pooling everything and then splitting it evenly and calling that a "share" then it will discourage grouping with people who have a lower gathering skill than you do. Even if you mathematically divide everything up into equal parts and then pass it out to all involved, the people who are more specialized in gathering won't be getting their actual share.
For that reason, some will see it more in their favor to pay a flat fee for protection and then keep whatever they can gather.
If the guards have a significantly higher investment (in skills, coin, and player proficiency), then the guards might prefer the flat-fee system as well, rather than a system which penalizes them for escorting less effective miners.
A different option would be for total material gathered by a group per unit time to scale faster than the sum of the individual gathering rates; perhaps an ability which allows characters to work together, and work as as if they all had any ability which any one of them has?
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
If you insist on pooling everything and then splitting it evenly...
You caught me in that last quote, where I mistakenly said "equal shares", I deliberately avoided that term in my earlier statement, where I talked about "splitting the proceeds... as equitably as possible."
Are you enjoying this game where you pick nits about an undefined (and undefinable) process and I remind you we're talking about principles, not processes?
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
Blaeringr wrote:If you insist on pooling everything and then splitting it evenly...You caught me in that last quote, where I mistakenly said "equal shares", I deliberately avoided that term in my earlier statement, where I talked about "splitting the proceeds... as equitably as possible."
Are you enjoying this game where you pick nits about an undefined (and undefinable) process and I remind you we're talking about principles, not processes?
I just asked what you meant by shares. As far as explaining principles rather than processes, fine whatever. The issue is you're not very clearly explaining either. I haven't asked for specific "processes", so instead of "reminding" me, how about you read what I'm actually asking you to clarify instead of dancing around it like a politician talking about dress stains.
None of this matters to me personally though. So rather than getting yourself flustered trying to explain something you don't know, let this just serve as an illustration of why it's going to be important to have straight and clear answers when you deign to attempt to convince a solo'er thathe'll be better off tagging along with you. So far all you've got is such a twisting, winding, muddled answer that he'll think you're trying to con him.
Valkenr Goblin Squad Member |
I doubt guards will be wanting an equal share of the spoils, they will want a fair share of the profit, in coin. In most cases I see guards wanting coin over resources, they won't want to take the time to market their reward or find someone to process their materials.
I also don't see the total loot equaling the average gathering skill level of the party, one key member of any group should be an expert scavenger, the higher their gathering skills the more the group gets.
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
I just asked what you meant by shares.
And I tried to answer as clearly as possible. Yes, there will be factors we'll need to consider, but the principle is that the guild itself won't be skimming off the top. I tried to be as clear as possible about that, too.
None of this matters to me personally though.
Does that mean I should be giving you the last word?
Are you enjoying this game where you characterize me as "flustered" in the hopes of flustering me? Do you feel it's working? Not that it matters to me personally, though...
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
And I tried to answer as clearly as possible. Yes, there will be factors we'll need to consider, but the principle is that the guild itself won't be skimming off the top. I tried to be as clear as possible about that, too.
Skimming off the top has nothing to do with a question that is about how you perceive who has earned what.
Ya, you won't be cheating people out of what they earned, good for you. Pat yourself on the back.
But you still have no idea how to go about deciding what it is they "earned".
Don't accuse me of playing games. I'm asked straightforward questions. Are you enjoying your game? I asked you a question. Read the question, not between the lines. You've never had any success in the past guessing what I might actually mean by what I say, so just stick to what I actually say.
Ravening Goblin Squad Member |
I’m surprised that someone who isn’t part of the 7th Veil is so concerned about how the 7th Veil is going to split the rewards from harvesting, and protecting the harvesters. If you don’t like how the 7th Veil is going to do things, then don’t join us on our expeditions.
Nothing is set in stone, most of this sort of stuff won’t be decided until we’re actually in-game and will involve an amount of trial and error.
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
And Nihimon accuses me of playing games...
Ravening, quote where I said I don't like how 7th veil is going to handle it.
I never said anything of the kind. I asked him to clarify what he meant, that's all.
And FYI, I am part of the 7th veil. So even though I'm really just nit picking the clarity, contrary to you assertion it will affect me.
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
@Blaeringr, I'm familiar with the way you play this.
You ask me a question like "How do you guys plan to pay for armed escorts?" And I answer that question directly.
Then you ask me a question like "When you say someone joining your expedition doesn't have to give up anything, how literally do you mean that?" First, that's not what I said, and second, I can't know how literally I mean that until we know how the game is going to work.
Now you're going to pretend that I've been evasive and basically anything you can think of that might "fluster" me. It's cute, but it's gotten boring.
Skimming off the top has nothing to do with a question that is about how you perceive who has earned what.
I answer you directly not to make any impact on you, but to reveal my character to the rest of the people who read these boards.
"We won't skim off the top" is the principle I wanted everyone to know about. The particulars of "who has earned what" is something that can't be defined right now because no one knows how the game works.
If you want to pretend like my refusal to do something that can't be done is a sign of evasiveness, knock yourself out. (Please!)
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
I was asking you to clarify what you meant by "share". You did eventually clarify by pointing out you were not aware of the alternative definition I was asking about. It's fine. Get over it. It took a few posts, but it was clarified. Eventually...then it moved into a conversation with other parties about the significance of that distinction, and you thought I was still talking to you. I wasn't.
Read the posts over and ask yourself, honestly, if you aren't being a bit over reactive now. You already know from history that if I were actually trying to bait you that...well suffice it to say you've already seen where that can go.
I'm not trying to play games, but you keep insinuating I'm trying to say or imply more than I have. So go knock your own miserable self out.
DarkLightHitomi |
I think it should be noted that Blaeringr may possibly have more difficulty then I do in catching the subtleties of conversation.
This is one of the extremely rare cases where I understood perfectly what someone was trying to say the first time while someone else had difficulties. It was refreshing, thanks Blaeringr!
Note; understanding that fact helps sometimes, to realize that what one is saying doesn't always make as much sense to others as to ourselves.
Blaeringr Goblin Squad Member |
Mogloth Goblin Squad Member |
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
@Mogloth, mostly this:
For what it's worth, The Seventh Veil is built around providing a home for the kinds of people (among many other kinds) who are used to playing Theme Park MMOs in small guilds, or just casually by themselves or with a few friends.
1. If you don't know what you want to do, we'll usually have more than a few things happening that you can join.
2. If you know what you want to do, but can't do it by yourself, we'll usually have other members doing the same thing that you can join.
3. You'll never be required to attend anything, or give up any portion of your share of what you helped gather.
Blaeringr was helpful enough to point out that there might be different interpretations of #3. I clarified that "your share" would be an "equitable split" - and that The Seventh Veil would not be skimming off the top. The exact details of the various "equitable" splits will need to wait until we know the exact details of how the game will work.
GrumpyMel Goblin Squad Member |
In the end, the place where the game design has to balance is between making death meaningful and making it so painful that too many people quit in frustration when they die.
EVE moderates this problem a bit with ship insurance, but that works because a HUGE portion of what you invest in when you leave port is your ship. Insuring the hull allows you to recoup a good bit of that investment if the ship is destroyed.
In a fantasy game there's nothing that really approximates the relative value of a ship hull in EVE. We could use armor but then we'd have to come up with all sorts of equally expensive armor-slot stuff for everyone to wear. In EVE, you fly a ship to mine, you fly a ship to explore, you fly a ship to transport, and you fly a ship to fight. So everyone is flying a hull and those hulls get more expensive as you advance your pilot in skills.
In a fantasy game that strikes me as being too much arbitrary manipulation of the world for the sake of a game mechanic. People who fight spend a lot of money on arms and armor and they need some protection against loss so when they round-trip through the grave they're not crippled. But people who cast spells could conceivably operate with little more than a robe and some slippers, relying almost entirely on their own spellcasting for protection and potency.
Likewise there could be characters that rely on a vehicle and some pack animals as their primary means of functioning and their garments would be meaningless. Or characters that focus on tools for things like tracking, orienteering, lock opening, trap removal, etc. The contents of their pockets are really what makes them function not what those pockets are sewn too.
The system we've described is basically designed to address the easiest PR problem with regard to widespread PvP: I hate getting killed and not being able to get back to my friends / recover my possessions.
Beyond that it's very much an area that requires extensive development and community input.
I suppose you could try to address that by giving each character X number of "bound slots" and having the individual characters decide what item(s) they want to bind into them. As a rationale you could use something like a "soul-binding" ritual between the individual and the item... with magic even seemingly implausable things can happen.
That would take away the complication of trying to figure out what was central/critical to each builds function and put responsbility for it in the hands of the individual?
GrumpyMel Goblin Squad Member |
As for losing things from your corpse I like the concept, but I don't like your implementation of it.You already have durability to remove things from gameplay, so why make everything lost on death? Yeah I need to go back to retrieve it but of all the things on the body, everything should be lootable at some point even if not all at once.
If someone loots my body to get my bow (cause I switched to sword) then they should be able to at least grab my bow, and if I go kill them I should be able to get it back by looting it from their body. The whole "random thing gets looted and everything else goes poof" thing is what doesn't jive with me.
Get rid of that and allow for closer spawning to where you died and I wouldn't have a problem with respawning in underwear.
The idea is they get to select 1 item plus an amount...
I see it as a bit of "anti-ganking" mechanic. If you can loot everything a player is carrying then it starts to get into the area where it is more proffitable to "farm" lower level players for thier gear then farming mobs or engaging in other economic activity. By making it only 1 or 2 random things and everything else goes poof, the victor still gets some reward....but it's not something that becomes an optimal career choice when compared with other economic activities. YMMV.
GrumpyMel Goblin Squad Member |
Lots of bad assumptions here.This is not a game where you want to be playing solo especially in a PvP encounter. You should have a group of buddies nearby to kill your killers. Depending on the situation, the battle could be raging all around and nobody will have time to loot anything, so getting back to your husk is meaningful.
If you get ganked (killed by an opponent who knows he will also die due to the response of the NPC Marshals) you may not have to do anything but get back to your husk quickly to recover your stuff.
You may be facing PvE content, not PvP content. The monsters won't loot your body. So if you can fight your way to where you died and hold off whatever killed you (avoid, distract, etc.) you could recover your stuff.
RyanD
Ryan,
I'm assuming that you'll make "looting" a husk something like an extended action on a timer that can get interrupted by getting attacked? I've seen some other games that failed to do that...and the SOP was an immediate loot after a kill pretty much every time. If the player has to worry about attacks...maybe even have looting drop your defenses, then it's more of an after battle thing...or at the very least you will need someone to protect you while you are doing it. YMMV.
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
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The more I think about it, the more I think some kind of magical insurance makes sense.
I could be entirely wrong about this, but intuitively it seems like it will be easier for Goblinworks to regulate the costs if there's both an MTX and an in-game market for the insurance.
I could also easily see there being a cost-curve where the more items you tried to insure, the more costly the insurance. So that it's relatively easy to insure 1 or 2 items but prohibitively costly to insure 6 items.
GrumpyMel Goblin Squad Member |
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I want most players to feel that they are underachieving if they're not spending ~$15-20/mo. But I want people to not feel the game is pointless when spending less than that. And I don't want people spending more than that to be buying win.
This is another area where we're benefitting by being able to study the successes and failures of other games and not have to operate with a blindfold. :)
I'm really glad you said that...makes me alot less nervous about some of the MTX suggestions I've seen.
I actualy vastly prefer the subscription model myself...but I know the F2P model removes barrier to entry for players and ends up with more people trying/playing the game to some degree.
My suggestion would be to setup a "maximum threshold" for gameplay advantages (whatever falls into that category) that can be applied to a single character in a single month so that no matter how much the user spends they can't put more direct power into a single character then that. You could then setup some sort of recurring package deal at that level for those of us who prefer the subscription model and find "shopping"/MT disruptive of our player...that way we could just set it and forget about it for our regular play.
A player could still spend more then that to apply those game-play advantages (upto the threshold) for multiple characters on thier account...or for other things that weren't direct game-play advantages for a character...like more character slots on thier account or access to beta/testing servers, etc.
I think even those of who really dislike the F2P model would be fine with a setup like that. YMMV.
GrumpyMel Goblin Squad Member |
The more I think about it, the more I think some kind of magical insurance makes sense.
I could be entirely wrong about this, but intuitively it seems like it will be easier for Goblinworks to regulate the costs if there's both an MTX and an in-game market for the insurance.
I could also easily see there being a cost-curve where the more items you tried to insure, the more costly the insurance. So that it's relatively easy to insure 1 or 2 items but prohibitively costly to insure 6 items.
If they went the insurance route, I would actualy prefer it if they set a "hard cap" on the number of items insured per character. I think that would remove alot of the perception that players (like myself) would have about it being a "pay-2-win" element.
Having items stay with you through death is definately a direct game-play advantage. If you make that number potnetialy infinate, no matter how cost prohibitive it is, players are going to feel like they are competeing out of game to spend more money (upto an infinate amount) then they other guy, just to play on the same level rather then competeing in game through gameplay. That's the sort of thing that will cause alot of folks (myself included) to just walk away from a game.....as we don't want the game-play results determined by who can spend more money then they are about how you actualy play the game. By putting in a hard cap for a single character and setting the cost at a reasonable amount, (IMO) you pretty much take that away. Then it becomes much more of a binary situation....if you are willing to play the set "entrance fee" then you are playing the game on pretty much the same footing as everyone else, no matter how much they can spend. If you can't then you knowingly play at some handicap in exchange for a "discounted admission". At least that's the way I see it. YMMV.
Ravening Goblin Squad Member |
We’ve dealt a lot with what happens when our characters die and the looting of our character husks. Is there going to be a mechanic which allows a player to deliver subdual damage instead of ‘lethal’ damage?
There are a number of scenarios I can see this coming into play. Duels, sparring matches, beatings (for protection money), muggings, and perhaps even banditry. In relation to muggings and banditry not every person who is playing a bandit or a robber will necessarily want to kill their victims, as this can carry the stiff consequence of being marked as a murderer and having a bounty placed on their heads. Sometimes all they want to do is subdue their victims and make off with some of their gear. Also not every player will want to kill another player loot them and make them suffer the loss of the majority of their inventory.
It would be a nice addition if we had this mechanic. It could differ from death in that once the player is beaten unconscious that they could still be looted in a similar fashion to when a player dies. However, there wouldn’t be a need for their inventory to be destroyed. After a certain amount of time the character would regain consciousness.
If mugging or banditry occurs within the borders of an NPC settlement, wardens could be dispatched as usual, but perhaps at a slightly delayed rates (muggings are less urgent than murders). You could also build in a chance to evade the notice of the wardens if you have the right kinds of skills, as they may give up the chase after a certain amount of time as they have better things to do.
If this system was implemented then you could automatically apply it to characters below a certain ‘level’ so they could only be mugged/robbed rather than killed. Aka training wheels for newbies. This could also be tied into a small MTX for newer characters so they can have the chance to try PFO before they fully commit to it.
The main reason why I like the idea of this mechanic is it gives players options as to how they can act against others in a PVP setting (Gentleman Bandit for instance). I’d much rather have on-going battles and enmity with another player before having a final showdown which would result in the ‘death’ of the other. I also like this as an option as I love the idea of going head to head with others, but I’m not keen on destroying the majority of their items.
Personally if I was given the option I’d use subdual mode in preference to lethal mode, and reserve that for my most bitter enemies.