Goblin Squad Member
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This has come up several times before. I think the answer is "Yes". Others think the answer is clearly "No".
It would be really great if a dev could give us a clear answer.
Keep it simple. We're not at war, we're not grouped, etc. Just two strangers who meet in the wilderness. No challenges, etc. One just starts attacking the other.
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Goblinworks Lead Game Designer
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This has come up several times before. I think the answer is "Yes". Others think the answer is clearly "No".
It would be really great if a dev could give us a clear answer.
Keep it simple. We're not at war, we're not grouped, etc. Just two strangers who meet in the wilderness. No challenges, etc. One just starts attacking the other.
Two dudes, not involved in a war, get in a fight in the woods.
The following things happen assuming the attacker kills the defender:
1) The attacker suffers alignment change dependent on the relationship of his alignment to the attacker. A lawful character killing another lawful character is going to suffer more than a lawful character killing a chaotic character, and a good character killing a good character will suffer more than killing an evil character. How much loss/gain occurs, we need to figure out. This happens regardless as even if you hide your acts from the prying eyes of others you cannot hide your moral compass, so if you are going to go around murdering people don't play a paladin.
2) The attacker suffers Reputation damage, based on the relation of the reputation between the attacker and defender. If the defender has high reputation the loss for the attacker will be high, and vice versa. Resurrection is built into the game, there is a reason the player's resurrect so if a player kills another player there will always be a witness in the end (even if he is dead for a short time). We've got some options like mitigating Reputation loss based on witnesses, so if you manage to kill someone with no one around you suffer less Reputation loss, but in the end you'll suffer some loss. So not everything settled.
3) The attacker gets flagged. Right now that flag is listed as criminal but we may split the current functionality of that flag into two: An Attacker trait so we can keep track of who started the fight (and not penalize people who defend themselves or their friends from attack) and a Criminal trait for people who cause trouble in areas under the control of a settlement. Criminal is sort of doing double duty currently.
4) If the player you kill is part of an Alliance, you lose ranking with that Alliance.
If the defender kills the attacker, he does not lose any Alignment, Reputation, or Alliance points and may in fact gain them depending on the relation of the numbers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Quick question if I may -
If Attacker wins - will all of the items mentioned, alignment, reputation, alliance be clearly visable instantly for the player to make the decision to attack or not or will it be similar to Eve, i.e. require an hour of deep research through 20-30 different screens?
If defender wins - so all I have to do is harass some newb into taking the first shot and I can wtfpwn him for free???
You don't think thats gonna get exploited or griefed?
You have far more faith in humanity then I do :-)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Re point #3: let's clarify that Nihimon is asking about a wilderness encounter - so not, as you say in your response, "trouble in areas under control of a settlement". Is your answer still the same regarding uncontrolled wilderness?
Also, does that mean a significant change in policy from these statements from the early blogs?
When you are murdered—that is, killed unlawfully—you will have the option to place a bounty on your killer's head.
Bounties can only be issued when a character unlawfully kills another. Killing an opponent as a part of a declared war, or in an area that does not have laws against murder, will not trigger the bounty system.
The intent is to deter characters from arbitrarily attacking and killing others simply for fun. Of course, those who simply wish to avoid any PvP at all will choose to remain within the very high security zones close to NPC settlements where PvP is effectively impossible. Such players will have fewer opportunities to find adventure or to earn treasure than their braver and less risk-averse peers, but they'll be safe from griefers.
Thank you for the clarification!
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Goblinworks Lead Game Designer
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Quick question if I may -
If Attacker wins - will all of the items mentioned, alignment, reputation, alliance be clearly visable instantly for the player to make the decision to attack or not or will it be similar to Eve, i.e. require an hour of deep research through 20-30 different screens?
If defender wins - so all I have to do is harass some newb into taking the first shot and I can wtfpwn him for free???
You don't think thats gonna get exploited or griefed?
You have far more faith in humanity then I do :-)
Some items will be known to the player, like Reputation and probably Alliance. Alignment will not be without some special player ability like detect evil. So choose your targets carefully and people who just murder randomly will find themselves on the chaotic and evil end of the alignment scale.
And yes, if a player lacks the self control to avoid punching someone who is annoying, they will have a hard time. They can also choose to rebuke the annoying player using their probably higher Reputation or Alignment, costing the target player the same (assuming the new character is the prime character, i.e. earning XP, for an account, we're going to have safeguards to prevent the mass creation of new characters to increase settlement population, rebuke people, etc). But that may get them punched in return, but then they could death curse the attacker...
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Goblinworks Lead Game Designer
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Re point #3: let's clarify that Nihimon is asking about a wilderness encounter - so not, as you say in your response, "trouble in areas under control of a settlement". Is your answer still the same regarding uncontrolled wilderness?
Also, does that mean a significant change in policy from these statements from the early blogs?
When you are murdered—that is, killed unlawfully—you will have the option to place a bounty on your killer's head.Bounties can only be issued when a character unlawfully kills another. Killing an opponent as a part of a declared war, or in an area that does not have laws against murder, will not trigger the bounty system.The intent is to deter characters from arbitrarily attacking and killing others simply for fun. Of course, those who simply wish to avoid any PvP at all will choose to remain within the very high security zones close to NPC settlements where PvP is effectively impossible. Such players will have fewer opportunities to find adventure or to earn treasure than their braver and less risk-averse peers, but they'll be safe from griefers.
Answer is the same in wilderness. Alignment, Reputation, and Alliance still apply in some fashion and we're looking at the split between Criminal and Attacker.
Bounties and hiding out in the warden protected areas still apply. Granted, there won't be a whole lot of warden protected areas. The majority of the game will be non-warden partolled.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So any attacker in a wilderness area that is not controlled by any settlement at all will be flagged as a criminal. Someone who can, as the early blogs put it, have bounties re-issued on them forever more so long as the victim can still pay.
That is a very vivid change in the early descriptions of the game concept of one of open PvP where adventure is only for the brave. From what you're saying here, Goblinworks have changed their direction on that big time. To me you're no longer talking about the same game anymore, and that's giving me a lot to think about. But I'm glad to get this information now, rather than after you've taken more of my money.
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Goblinworks Lead Game Designer
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| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
So any attacker in a wilderness area that is not controlled by any settlement at all will be flagged as a criminal. Someone who can, as the early blogs put it, have bounties re-issued on them forever more so long as the victim can still pay.
That is a very vivid change in the early descriptions of the game concept of one of open PvP where adventure is only for the brave. From what you're saying here, Goblinworks have changed their direction on that big time. To me you're no longer talking about the same game anymore, and that's giving me a lot to think about. But I'm glad to get this information now, rather than after you've taken more of my money.
Actually as I said twice in this thread I'm looking at divorcing the functionality of an Attacker flag from a Criminal flag, so someone who is attacked in the wilderness would get Attacker but not Criminal so we can keep track of who is starting the fight. Criminal would be used more for breaking laws in settlements. Currently Criminal is sort of doing double duty in its functionality, so breaking off the Attacker functionality seems like a good solution.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Actually as I said twice in this thread I'm looking at divorcing the functionality of an Attacker flag from a Criminal flag, so someone who is attacked in the wilderness would get Attacker but not Criminal so we can keep track of who is starting the fight. Criminal would be used more for breaking laws in settlements. Currently Criminal is sort of doing double duty in its functionality, so breaking off the Attacker functionality seems like a good solution.
Ok, thank you for the clarification. I read that part, but for some reason I read that as separating the flags in terms of who's attacking and who's being attacked, rather than what you meant: where the attack is happening.
I really like the attacker flag for wilderness areas as opposed to criminal. There are still the alignment/reputation penalties for initiation, but still not so harsh as to discourage PvP as the criminal tag could. I know many things are far from set in stone, but it's nice to see the open discourse on current ideas and direction.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Decius, don't forget they've already mentioned that there will be diminishing returns to alignment shifts, etc. when it repeatedly involves the same parties.
I expect this means that Blaeringr will eventually be able to kill me at will with no penalties :)
[Edit] "able to" may have been a bit of a stretch, actually... *grins*
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Goblin Squad Member
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I also agree that these new mechanics are a significant change from what I envisioned given the early, general information.
To me, it seems a significant shift from FFA Open PvP to PvP via War. This isn't necessarily a terrible thing, and I can appreciate the many reasons to do this, but it is definitely different. I always liked the idea of somewhat FFA Open PvP due to personal preference and because I thought a 'wild west' feel fit well in the setting of the free river kingdoms wilderness.
But alas, I'm sure the population at large and especially the PFPnP community appreciate a little more structure to help them identify who their enemies are and when they are in danger.
Also, the alignment system fits in here very nicely as a meaningful aspect of a character that affects and is affected by player decisions.
Ryan stated in another post today that he hopes that settlements will constantly find conflict with their neighbors. If that's the case, then I imagine there won't be any shortage of PvP opportunities; you will just have to go to territories of settlements that are already are at war with yours. Or, you could be Chaotic Evil and deal with bounties, criminality, and a poorer settlement home.
I will probably still love PFO despite this, but I have 2 concerns at this point:
1. I'm not sure it's necessary to force chaotic settlements to pay higher upkeep (it seems like bounties, death curse, limited looting, etc. might be enough, not to mention anti-griefer intervention). I definitely don't think they should be limited from getting the 'best' buildings (though obviously not Lawful monk/paladin buildings).
2. I hope the bounty system is tied to criminality, and criminality is tied to settlement laws and is confined to the immediate area of a settlement. I suppose maybe you could stagger it out a bit with the highest upgrades to infrastructure, but would rather not have that. I like the idea of separating it out to 'attacker' and 'criminal' statuses.
I have to seriously reconsider my character concept now...
In any case, I have no intentions of griefing the weak.
Whew, I'll be safe.
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I am really digging the concept that the criminal tag will be tied to settled regions. Will those settlements be able to decide what does and does not trigger a criminal tag? Could you have settlements that lean chaotic/lawful evil where there is no criminal tag applied?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am really digging the concept that the criminal tag will be tied to settled regions. Will those settlements be able to decide what does and does not trigger a criminal tag? Could you have settlements that lean chaotic/lawful evil where there is no criminal tag applied?
Lawful evil should definitely have a criminal tag. The difference between lawful evil and lawful good is that lawful good prays for your soul and looks for every opportunity to reform you whereas lawful evil punishes you and your whole family in horrible ways to make an example out of you.
Try breaking a few laws in North Korea then come back and explain to us how lawful evil is soft on crime.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Decius, don't forget they've already mentioned that there will be diminishing returns to alignment shifts, etc. when it repeatedly involves the same parties.
I expect this means that Blaeringr will eventually be able to kill me at will with no penalties :)
[Edit] "able to" may have been a bit of a stretch, actually... *grins*
I read it as diminishing returns effecting positive shifts, so someone can't set up a few accounts, make one character really evil, then kill them over and over again to shift lawful.
I would see it as a bad feature to have the punishment for killing someone diminish the more you kill them. If anything, punishment should increase with repeat offenses.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am really digging the concept that the criminal tag will be tied to settled regions. Will those settlements be able to decide what does and does not trigger a criminal tag? Could you have settlements that lean chaotic/lawful evil where there is no criminal tag applied?
I hope that settlements can decide how they react to the criminal flag. For instance it doesn’t make much sense for Shadow-Haven to discriminate against criminals. In fact criminals are part of our target market and will be welcomed, as long as they behave themselves within Shadow-Haven.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think there's a built-in assumption that Lawful Good is the "best" alignment for a Settlement. That other alignments will suffer inefficiencies of one form or another. I think that's a good assumption.
I disagree. I'd be fine if the settlements were different, though.
Lawful could have more options for laws, such as being able to outlaw murder.
Lawful might have better/more/more developed guards available at higher tiers of development.
Lawful might even have better defenses from attack, while chaotic would rely more heavily on their inhabitants to help defend.
Lawful might be able to achieve higher attribute ratings with less "Open for PvP" time than chaotic settlements with the same amount of open time.
Lawful might have a range of tax rates from 10-100%, while chaotic might have from 0-30%.
Lawful might be able to have more information on their inhabits, such as who is skewing the settlement alignment/alliance away from the goal, etc.
Lawful would benefit from it's ability to maintain order and centralize power, while chaotic settlements would depend much more on the individuals and organizations acting within them.
So, chaotic settlements would have to spend more manpower to police their city and surrounding hexes from other chaotic characters ready to cause mischief. They may fall behind in infrastructure due to not being able to pull in as much tax. They may have to devote more time to settlement defense in wars as they have worse defensive weaponry, NPCs, etc. And chaotic settlements would have trouble routing out characters that are skewing them from attaining alliances they desire.
In these ways, chaotic settlements and their inhabitants maintain the benefits of being chaotic, while also experiencing drawbacks for that flexibility.
It is more acceptable to me that chaotic settlements not be able to grow their infrastructure as quickly due to low maximum tax rates, rather than be limited by "higher upkeep costs" and being gated from attaining high-level buildings.
I prefer a design that provides barriers to be overcome, rather than a closed gate. I think we all love PFO because of the general use of that concept in the game's design. I wonder if there isn't a way to apply that here.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Oh ok, I thought you were responding to the things that Lee had already suggested, that I was discussing in that post...
Specifically, I don't think this should be the case, if possible to avoid:
1. I'm not sure it's necessary to force chaotic settlements to pay higher upkeep (it seems like bounties, death curse, limited looting, etc. might be enough, not to mention anti-griefer intervention). I definitely don't think they should be limited from getting the 'best' buildings (though obviously not Lawful monk/paladin buildings).
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Kafi, yeah, I'm hesitant to wade into that too much. In general, I trust the devs enough that, if they believe it is inappropriate for Chaotic Settlements to have Building X, that they probably have a very good, lore-appropriate reason for it. But without really seeing the details laid out, it's hard to say one way or another.
But you're absolutely right, that's very much a "closed gate".
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Goblin Squad Member
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I really want to know alot more on how the magic system will be handled now. I can already see people spamming Detect Evil/Good on everyone they meet outside settlements.
I think I liked the way my Favorite DnD GM put it. The disabled bum at the side of the street can be pure evil, with the inability to do anything or a man can be convinced to perform an act of evil "For the greater good" which one is more evil? The bum that can do nothing but sit there, or the person who can act even if it is in a misguided way. I think running around and detect evil, if evil, kill is not really going to be a thing, even if they are evil you are suffering a rep hit. On top of that. If the game keeps true to the idea of Spells Per Day, you may not have the casts for everyone you meet :-p I have no clue what is intended for magic and I'm sure that's what you're getting at. I agree, it will be interesting :-)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Some items will be known to the player, like Reputation and probably Alliance.
this. You don't need to detect alignment when you can see reputation. High reputation means you don't hurt innocents (only legit wars, bounties or fighting extremely low reps). Low rep means you did something to get it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I wish I had read this before I spent all morning complaining about the low-risk for bandit types. Assuming that the most well developed settlements are skewed to lawful good then I can see that there is a significant deterrent to ganking people.
I'd like to withdrawl everything else I said today :)
One question: Would it be correct to assume that these hits to rep/alignment only happens if the attacker actually kills the defender?
If I find a prime harvesting spot and someone else comes along can I attack them when they come close but let them run away without taking penalties?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Will there be "training rooms" or similar where players can try fighting one another without risk of alignment change, criminal flagging, etc?
There will almost certainly be ways to allow yourself to be attacked with no consequences with respect to alignment and reputation. I think they want it to be possible for players who are of a mind to do so to be able to flag themselves in such a way as to encourage random attacks against them. Apparently, this is something that quite a few people would do simply because they like being attacked.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Couple of things:
with the stated goals of developing (allowing players to develop) a robust intrigue game (spying and the like), how will this affect these measures? as the following points of 'information' have been discussed, how will the 'ardent defender' determine:
alignment: you've already said that in-game mechanics must be used. the relatively cheap and long-duration 'undetectable alignment' spell is already in PFTT, how will it be implemented here? (it's a 2nd level divine spell IIRC). will there be 'shades of evil' and 'shades of law'? it seems like alignment will be on a permanently shifting slider based on your actions... how will 'detect good' fare against neutral characters? and how far away from neutral on the good axis will you have to be to be considered by the spells detection mechanics? obviously this works for all other axes of alignment and all detect spells.
Death Curse: this, i can actually see as being deus ex machina. after all, the gods, and particularly (referenced) Pharasma have a hand in the affairs of Golarion. There's no getting around this one, so if the killed defender chooses this option, takes the personal hit on reputation (generalized reputation? faction rep? alignment? is placing a death-curse on anyone, even a 'griefer' any different than ganking someone in the first place? will it negatively affect your alignment to both evil and chaos? i hope so! or at least evil... if it's the stated law of the gods that Death Curses can be levelled in certain circumstances.) we can be certain that the 'curse' is placed on the correct individual.
Faction: how will the defender know who the attacker 'works for'? what about disguise? some other factions's tabard? magical disguise? i hope there's a mechanic for 'spotting' disguises (seeing through them) that can scale with level, just as i hope there's a mechanic for making/donning ever more convincing disguises that scales, whether it includes magic or not. again, referencing the tabletop game, Assassin (prestige class) has a pre-requisite for disguise (for a very sensible reason... Blaeringr i'm sure will agree).
this was brought up before, but as i've just alluded to assassination, what about 1-hit kills? how (if even possible in game?) will this be handled? If the defender literally doesn't see/sense the attacker coming, and doesn't get a 'move' in before crumpling in a bloody, dead heap (or incinerated, or whatever), what will their 'detection' options be? is the Death Curse the only recourse for that encounter?
is there any other 'information' that a defender could glean from an attacker that will A: make sense in the game and B: be used as a mechanic to mitigate abuse/griefing (which is the supposed intent here, if i'm not wrong?) and also C: will there be 'counter' mechanics to use/skill up/exploit? so far the only referenced mechanics have been alignment, reputation and alliance...
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Goblin Squad Member
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LOL, I remember reading my first DnD book where it was explained that asking another his alignment or attempting to discover it without permission was considered great rudeness.
Now everybody is just going to Detect Alignment instead of handshakes.
Keep in mind, ya'll, even if you figure out Henry is evil, you still take a rep and alignment hit if YOU attack first.
Hmmm, I wonder how that's gonna work in a settlement? If I attack someone first, I get a hit. What happens if I set the settlement rules so that NPC guards attack all evil. Does the settlement take a hit?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I was wondering about the feature where the victim of an unlawfull killing that has branded the attacker as "Criminal" can keep putting bounties on the attacker: is it possible for the victim to lift this retribution, so that the attacker will be off the hook again, at least from this particular victim?
Sorry if this is stated elsewhere already.
Reminds me of Runescape, really.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... is it possible for the victim to lift this retribution, so that the attacker will be off the hook again, at least from this particular victim?Well, the victim can certainly stop putting a new bounty on the attacker every time the old one is collected, so in a sense "Yes".
True, true. But I was wondering if there was a "hard" way to reset this situation, where the victim does a command like /stopbounty {playername} and after that he can not put a bounty on the criminal anymore. And that the criminal would get a notice of this.
It is not my intention to pamper the criminal, but it could be that players want to change their ways (or go down a different path with their character) and this could be a manner to help that along. It just seems wrong that some victim can still put a bounty on some criminal over something that happened maybe 3 years ago.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It just seems wrong that some victim can still put a bounty on some criminal over something that happened maybe 3 years ago.
That's the point of the system, if you want to kill someone in a way that gives you a bounty, you need to expect the rest of your experience with this game to be under constant bounty.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Lee
Question will a 3rd party be able to attack someone who has a "criminal/attacker" tag without taking alignment/reputation hits or gaining a tag themselves?
Example: I'm walking along in the woods. I encounter someone that has just murdered 3 people. They have an attacker/criminal tag on them. I'm not grouped with or associated with the victems. I'm not a bounty hunter, I have no bounty against the murderer. I just want to stop this guy from murdering more people in the woods. The murderer hasn't attacked me, because they know I'm not an easy target. Am I safe to attack them without suffering an alignment reputation hit. If not, could you explain the reasoning behind that? Thanks.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@GrumpyMel in your question are you asking about someone who has a criminal flag, or someone who has an attacker flag, or both?
Lee has already said they are divorcing the two, so you don't automatically get flagged a criminal just because you also got flagged an attacker. That depends on where the attack happened (ie. claimed lawful area)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think that Tyncale makes a good point, though. If somebody spends the first year of their experience in PFO being a hardcore Random Player Killer, they should have a way to work their way back to acceptable society without rerolling; that is a whole year of character development to give up, after all.
In my mind, the best solution would be to give the bounty-holder an option to nullify his right to place a bounty. This way, after a year of RPKing, and the guy starts realizing that everybody else is doing better than he is, life is starting to get really hard, and he can't walk around anymore due to all the bounties put on his head each day, he can find the people that he has wronged in the past and beg forgiveness.
Some people might be moved and do it just for that. Some might do it in exchange for monetary retribution for the harm he caused, some might charge him an exorbitant sum or ask some random favor of him. Some people may simply refuse, and exact a long, cold revenge on him.
Whatever the case, the person placing the bounties holds the power in that regards.
Obviously, I think there needs to be a popup warning or something so that griefers don't just try to get people to type in the command unknowingly.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@GrumpyMel in your question are you asking about someone who has a criminal flag, or someone who has an attacker flag, or both?
Lee has already said they are divorcing the two, so you don't automatically get flagged a criminal just because you also got flagged an attacker. That depends on where the attack happened (ie. claimed lawful area)
Either. I recognize that the answer may be different depending upon the flag (i.e. attacking a "criminal" may be ok while an "attacker" not)...I'd just like a clear understanding of the system and the design intent behind it.
I think there is alot of confusion for many of us at this point because descriptions of this system seem to have morphed a bit since the early blogs and some of the described mechanics seem to lead to things that sound a bit counter-intuitive (e.g. a Lawfull Good player sliding towards Chaotic Evil for attacking someone who is Chaotic Evil)