Goblin Squad Member
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You turn chaotic evil and lose reputation for killing ANYONE?Made me re-read the blog to make sure I understood it.
You slip toward evil whenever you kill someone while you have the Attacker flag...
If you have the Attacker flag, when you kill a target you lose reputation....
... gaining the Attacker flag is not chaotic if you got it from attacking a bounty target...That sure makes it sound like you'll get the Attacker Flag if you go for a Bounty.
Can one of the devs please clarify whether you're intentionally trying to rule out Bounty Hunting for Good characters?
It seems like a really bad idea to put the Attacker Flag on Bounty Hunters.
From my understanding, the Evil and Rep loss for Bounty Hunters will be minimal if the targets are Evil and low-rep. It should be able to be a good bounty hunter if you limit yourself to those targets by gaining good and rep in other areas to make up for the minor loss for killing evil low rep killers. If you take bounties on good characters, then your alignmt may fall faster than it rises.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You turn chaotic evil and lose reputation for killing ANYONE?Made me re-read the blog to make sure I understood it.
You slip toward evil whenever you kill someone while you have the Attacker flag...
If you have the Attacker flag, when you kill a target you lose reputation....
... gaining the Attacker flag is not chaotic if you got it from attacking a bounty target...That sure makes it sound like you'll get the Attacker Flag if you go for a Bounty.
Can one of the devs please clarify whether you're intentionally trying to rule out Bounty Hunting for Good characters?
It seems like a really bad idea to put the Attacker Flag on Bounty Hunters.
I think that's intended to be an additional protection for bounty hunters who don't find the target until their other flags have worn off (or if they didn't get the criminal flag because murder was allowed where the incident happened). If you attack someone who has the criminal (or other) flag, you don't get the attacker flag yourself either way.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you attack someone who has the criminal (or other) flag, you don't get the attacker flag yourself either way.
I understand that.
However, it's clear that the devs envision Bounty Hunters getting the Attacker Flag. I'm just asking them to clarify that this is intentional.
Keep in mind that, if a Bounty Hunter gets the Attacker Flag for attacking his Bounty Target, that means the Bounty Hunter is now completely fair game for anyone to attack and kill without any loss of Reputation or Alignment.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We already know that a bounty is restricted from the known cohorts of the criminal. We can infer, then, that the owner of the contract can share his property with his own cohorts.
It would indeed make sense to infer that anyone grouping with Gleaneagle would benefit from both a share of the reward and the limited reputation loss. But this is not explicitly written in the blog.
Example: TN Ranger 'Gleneagle' takes a bounty contract on CE criminal 'Lololol'. Gleneagle uses the bounty hunter perks and his ranger skills to determine that Lololol is hiding deep in CE territory. So Gleneagle assembles his A team and makes an incursion to enter CE territory to neutralize Lololol and collect the bounty.
Ok, what about DudeRanger which is also a bounty hunter? He happens to be right beside Lololol but can't attack him despite the bounty. This makes no sense to me. The reason to put a bounty on someone is to make sure the target is tracked down by as many people as possible. Limiting bounties to a single player and his group sounds more like an assassination contract then a bounty one.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you attack someone who has the criminal (or other) flag, you don't get the attacker flag yourself either way.I understand that.
However, it's clear that the devs envision Bounty Hunters getting the Attacker Flag. I'm just asking them to clarify that this is intentional.
Keep in mind that, if a Bounty Hunter gets the Attacker Flag for attacking for attacking his Bounty Target, that means the Bounty Hunter is now completely fair game for anyone to attack and kill without any loss of Reputation or Alignment.
No, they're understanding that it's possible for the BH to get the attacker flag and adding additional mitigations for it. A BH will not get the flag where another character would not. You are misreading. If the bounty target has the criminal/thief/heinous/whatever flag, you will not be flagged as attacker for attacking them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
1. You don't lose anything for killing someone if you don't have the Attacker Flag. All the alingmnet/Reputation hits are applied for killing someone while you have the Attacker flag. Don't start the fight, but end it.
2. You don't loose Law-Chaos if you kill someone while you have the Attacker Flag if you are on a bounty. You will lose on the good-evil axis and reputation, but those are minimized if your target is evil and has low reputation. You should be able to see the targets reputation and/or alignment when you take a bounty. And we havent gone into anything on how you might gain alignment or rep. It whould be possible for a paladin to maintain a LG alignment while taking bounties on evil players.
3. It's more likely that a LG person may be a pacifist crafter than an evil one. But it certianly isn't a synonym for being a care-bear.
I am clear on all 3 points except how 3 is relevant. It doesn't make the problem any better.
Evil Murderdude rides through town, kills five people and burns down an orphanage. The next day we catch Evil Murderdude out stomping on flowers and singing praises to Rovagug, attack him and kill him. Because his flag wore off that was chaotic evil even though he has an evil rating if 98/100 a chaos rating of 96/100 and a reputation of 2/100. Sure we don't take a big hit but we shouldn't take one at all.
We are out riding the roads all day. Several times we come along chaotic evil groups sitting along roadways waiting for traders. We run them all off and kill many in the process to keep the roads safe for neutral traders. At the end of the day we come home more chaotic, more evil, and with a lower reputation.
This is unacceptable to me. Good aligned doesn't mean pacifist. Paladins wield swords for a reason. You don't take alignment hits for killing goblins and bandits in the P&P for a reason. Even when you fire the first shot.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm ok with a Paladin taking a little tiny hit of evil when they kill someone. In a perfect world, the Paladin wouldn't need to exist because everyone would be good and you wouldn't need someone to defend good at the point of a sword. If it were possible to rehabiliate an evil character then that would be a better outcome for good than killing the threat.
That kind of doubt and guilt is something that should alawys be in the back of the mind of a Paladin IMO, and is part of thier reason for doind what they do. It should alays be there to make sure that when a life must be taken, they are doing it for the right reasons, and that they are taking every possible action to further Good lest they fall themselves.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A BH will not get the flag where another character would not.
I'm not suggesting they will.
If the bounty target has the criminal/thief/heinous/whatever flag, you will not be flagged as attacker for attacking them.
I understand that clearly.
You are misreading.
That's certainly possible. I'd like to have a Dev clear that up for me, though.
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Goblin Squad Member
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1. You don't lose anything for killing someone if you don't have the Attacker Flag. All the alingmnet/Reputation hits are applied for killing someone while you have the Attacker flag. Don't start the fight, but end it.
2. You don't loose Law-Chaos if you kill someone while you have the Attacker Flag if you are on a bounty. You will lose on the good-evil axis and reputation, but those are minimized if your target is evil and has low reputation. You should be able to see the targets reputation and/or alignment when you take a bounty. And we havent gone into anything on how you might gain alignment or rep. It whould be possible for a paladin to maintain a LG alignment while taking bounties on evil players.
3. It's more likely that a LG person may be a pacifist crafter than an evil one. But it certianly isn't a synonym for being a care-bear.
I am clear on all 3 points except how 3 is relevant. It doesn't make the problem any better.
Evil Murderdude rides through town, kills five people and burns down an orphanage. The next day we catch Evil Murderdude out stomping on flowers and singing praises to Rovagug, attack him and kill him. Because his flag wore off that was chaotic evil even though he has an evil rating if 98/100 a chaos rating of 96/100 and a reputation of 2/100. Sure we don't take a big hit but we shouldn't take one at all.
We are out riding the roads all day. Several times we come along chaotic evil groups sitting along roadways waiting for traders. We run them all off and kill many in the process to keep the roads safe for neutral traders. At the end of the day we come home more chaotic, more evil, and with a lower reputation.
This is unacceptable to me. Good aligned doesn't mean pacifist. Paladins wield swords for a reason. You don't take alignment hits for killing goblins and bandits in the P&P for a reason. Even when you fire the first shot.
Maybe we need to know the actions that make us good and lawful before anything.
also, Bounty became more an assasinate contact now.
Andius... You need to wait that they attack first. it his all.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Alignment is too much of a hassle. Just get rid of it. You have settlements that can make their own laws. They can decide how punitive breaking those laws are. This covers your lawful - chaotic scale.
We have deities that tell us what is right and wrong. If you follow in the path of a deity then you can gain favor with them. You can use the favor as a numerical value to distinguish a type of good - evil axis. Gods who favor slavery and tyranny won't be allowed near settlements who believe in freedom. Each deity can be set up with what actions they would consider favorable.
Favor could also be used as a type of currency such as the death curse instead of reputation. Favor could be used to determine how much of your gear can get threaded. Favor could be used to determine length of time until your gear can be looted.
Assassins have a deity they can follow, paladins have a deity, farmers have a deity, bounty hunters have a deity, crafters have a deity, bartenders have a deity. All types of players can have some type of deity they can gain favor with, and it doesn't have to be just one. You could have favor with different deities at varying levels as long as they don't contradict each other (paladins and clerics may be more rigid).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Andius... You need to wait that they attack first. it his all.
If there is a group of 10 ragged bandits and I ride up with 20 well armed and trained soldiers in gleaming armor. They aren't going to attack. They will either run or thumb their noses at us since they know we can't do anything without taking an alignment hit.
Of course if we just ride off then they will continue to sit there until a trader and his three guards show up and then kill him.
I would rather be playing Darkfall. Sure it's a cesspool but at least I can do something about it without being flagged as evil myself.
In a perfect world, the Paladin wouldn't need to exist
This isn't a perfect world. This is Golarion. Paladins not only exist, but they are a core class, and they aren't pacifist, and they don't always wait for evil to to strike the first blow. They smite it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If there is a group of 10 ragged bandits and I ride up with 20 well armed and trained soldiers in gleaming armor. They aren't going to attack. They will either run or thumb their noses at us since they know we can't do anything without taking an alignment hit.
Of course if we just ride off then they will continue to sit there until a trader and his three guards show up and then kill him.
I would rather be playing Darkfall. Sure it's a cesspool but at least I can do something about it without being flagged as evil myself.
The secret here is to be upfront with ragged bandits and declare an official war on them. The long term solution is to colonize the hex and set laws to engage CE at will.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've ventured my opinion before that I would honestly just scrap the whole Alignment system and just let players choose whatever alignment they want for color purposes, as I think it's just too impractical to do well in a non-human moderated system.
If they do go with an alignment system. What I would probably do is base the shift upon the alignment of the players in the conflict.
Good player attacking Evil player = shift for Good
Good player attacking Neutral player = shift for Evil
Good player attacking Good player = major shift for Evil
Evil player attacking Evil player = no shift
Evil player attacking Neutral Player = shift for Evil
Evil player attacking Good Player = shift for Evil
Neutral player attacking Neutral Player = no shift
Neutral player attacking Good Player = shift for Evil
Neutral player attacking Evil Player = shift for Good
Target player can elect to wave shift on attacker if combat was consensual.
Alignments are normaly hidden but certain actions can expose them for a certain time as can certain types of magic. End result, non-evil players will be cautious about attacking targets that they can't positively ID as Evil for fear of an unwanted shift.
I wouldn't penalize Evil but simply give them a different set of advantages/disadvantages then Good. I honestly don't think you'll have much inherint player population alignment inbalance...and even if you do have one in favor of Evil...Evil fights Evil as often as Good so still plenty of room for conflict there.
You can put in other actions (i.e. sacrificing at shrines) that allow for alignment shifts outside of the conflict system.
In terms of Law/Chaos....
Criminal Tags = Shift towards Chaos
Failing to Honor a Contract = Shift toward Chaos
Honoring Contracts = Shift toward Law
Serving as Law Enforcement (i.e. combating criminals in ones own territory) = Shift towards law.
Under said system...
LG characters tend to go after Evil Criminals but only in areas where they have lawful jurrisdiction (e.g. Thier own territory or territories upon which a War has officialy been declared)
NG characters will go after Evil wherever they find it and won't really care much if Evil is a Criminal
CG characters will tend to go after Evil Criminals in territories outside thier own lawfull jurrisdiction and may spend a fair amount of time under the Criminal Tag for doing so.
LE characters will go after Neutral & Good Criminals but generaly only in territories where they have lawfull jurrisdiction to do so.
NE characters will go after Neutral & Good Characters without much regard as to where they are found or whether they are Criminals.
CE characters will tend to go after Neutral & Good characters in territories where they don't have any jurrisdiction to do so and they will spend a fair amount of time wearing the Criminal tag.
Characters that spend a fair amount of time in above the board commerce will tend to be Lawfull
Characters that spend a fair amount of time in thievery, sabotage, black-marketiering will tend to be Chaotic.
YMMV.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do agree with Andius at this point. This whole system can be abused in so many ways it isn't funny.
If I have my own land, with my rules and some bandit comes in, kills someone and I cannot kill him without taking a hit in rep/alignment then I am just wondering what good the pvp will be then?
Sure, a bounty can be put out on the said killer, but if only 1 person can pick it up, then it is still pointless.
IMO, the bounty system needs to be available to everyone (of either said alignment or maybe a charted company) and can then expire after 24hrs (which is to short IMO).
Now what happens is that you get 5 ppl killing 1 helpless guy, so 5 contracts go out, once more, if it is only available to 1 person for x amount of time, the offenders can get away without a problem!
Finally, I do want to see information about how it will be handled for a land holding charter and what they can do to defend their land. That is one of the most important things around. If a charter cannot defend their own land against incursions from others and will have to just sit by, it is then the most stupid thing to come up with.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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| 12 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've mentioned before that there's a misconception that "sandbox" means "unlimited freedom". Sandbox means that you build with the tools we provide, and you often astonish us with the unexpected uses to which you put those tools.
But that's the "sand". The other word in that term is "box". The box is the envelope we establish that defines the game and how it is to be played. One of those definitions is "don't be a jerk". Jerkiness is defined along one (of many) axis as killing without meaning.
As we've said many times before, dealing with disruptive greifing requires a multi-layered approach; there is no silver bullet. Therefore, there are in-game and out-of-game processes that are designed to limit such behavior, and responses that scale from warnings to substantial mechanical penalties as well.
We have also been clear that there are lots of forms of PvP that we consider inherently good for the game and are not jerkiness. Territorial warfare and banditry are two that we've been very up-front about. Banditry implies Bounty Hunting, and we've been up front about that as well.
There are forms of PvP that we consider inherently unacceptable behavior. If you are engaged in killing characters without an in-game rationale, just "for the lulz", that's not ok.
There are lots of gray areas in the Venn Diagram of "ok" and "jerkiness" when it comes to PvP, which is why we have a multi-layered, multi-dimensional, escalating approach to dealing with the problem. You will have meaningful choices to make about semi-jerky behavior, because engaging in those behaviors will have some, but not total, often not permanent negative consequences. You will have to decide if the fun you get from doing something that is "semi-jerky" is worth the price you'll pay in mechanical and social penalties.
These parts of the "box" mean that there are things you can do that we'll support, and things you can do that we won't, and things that if you do them, you'll face increasingly stiff penalties to the point where we hope you'll quit and go play some other game. You will not have unrestricted freedom to do whatever you wish, whenever you wish, to whomever you wish, for any reason.
This is Pathfinder Online not Lord of the Flies Online.
RyanD
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Goblin Squad Member
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All this to try to stop griefing. FAIL! There will always be griefing.
I think it is about more than that. It isn't something to simply eliminate a type of human player interaction that will never be eliminated. To try is to fail before you start. If you invite humans into a shared evironment many will eventually try and gain advantage, and having gained advantage, dominate.
This game design intends to respond to human behavioral patterns that are, as you basically pointed out, inevitable. As it intends to harness the most destructive and, incidentally, some of the most creative personalities to create constructive content it is bound to get complicated.
The objective is not simple elimnation of an element of what appears to be basic human nature. That reactionary effort that has utterly failed innumerable times in the past.
The game will instead attempt to turn inevitable undesirable behavior patterns into something at least partly useful, and do so by making use of the most creative game resource present, the players themselves.
I doubt they ever imagined it would be easy. I doubt we should call it dumb.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Nihimon,
What zone is a LG charcter restricted from adventuring in?
That was my point, not that they can go 'harvest harvesters' or what ever other words you're putting in my mouth.
An Evil cahracter will have to stay away from most settlements, and will not be allowed in any 'safe' zones.
Where's the pay off for this 'risk'? How is a good character balanced by this?
Good characters killing evil characters take less of a hit to their reputation, than vice versa. This means that they will be able to retain their 'good' status longer for the same activity an evil character may engage in, even killing other evils.
Where's the pay off?
As you can see my overall point is, in the vein of 'risk vs reward' what do evil characters get, other than a flag, that rewards them for the risk?
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CEO, Goblinworks
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| 12 people marked this as a favorite. |
Thoughts about Paladins
This is just me, Ryan, writing, not me Ryan the CEO of Goblinworks, and not Ryan giving directions to his game designers. So don't take any of this as anything but one persons' opinion.
Paladins are not bounty hunters. They are not sheriffs. They are not enforcers of the law. They are not Delta Force commandos.
Paladins are heroic adventurers who use Good and Law to fight evil and chaos as expressed primarily by outsiders, undead, monstrous creatures, aberrations and magical beasts, placing themselves into extremely dangerous situations and using the powers gifted to them by their patron deities to confront and vanquish elemental evil and chaos.
Paladins should not be engaged in killing other characters except in defense of Lawful Good Settlements. They should not be taking revenge for harm caused to other characters by 3rd parties.
Paladins should be standing in ancient barrows fighting wights, or issuing challenges to ogres who are terrorizing the Common Folk, or hunting and killing demonic creatures that have infiltrated civilization.
Paladins should serve as an example to others of the power and the glory that comes from living a righteous life, adhering to a rigorous code of honor, and placing oneself - one's very soul - at risk to protect the weak, defend the Realm, and upholding the tenants of the Faith.
RyanD
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Goblin Squad Member
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We already know that a bounty is restricted from the known cohorts of the criminal. We can infer, then, that the owner of the contract can share his property with his own cohorts.It would indeed make sense to infer that anyone grouping with Gleaneagle would benefit from both a share of the reward and the limited reputation loss. But this is not explicitly written in the blog.
Example: TN Ranger 'Gleneagle' takes a bounty contract on CE criminal 'Lololol'. Gleneagle uses the bounty hunter perks and his ranger skills to determine that Lololol is hiding deep in CE territory. So Gleneagle assembles his A team and makes an incursion to enter CE territory to neutralize Lololol and collect the bounty.Ok, what about DudeRanger which is also a bounty hunter? He happens to be right beside Lololol but can't attack him despite the bounty. This makes no sense to me. The reason to put a bounty on someone is to make sure the target is tracked down by as many people as possible. Limiting bounties to a single player and his group sounds more like an assassination contract then a bounty one.
Who is this avenaoats, you quote? Imposter! (I think you have the wrong avenaoats quoted...) :)
=
@GrumyMel: That sort of "the big picture" is possibly what is missing here. I actually thought the shift for pvp between good/evil would work that way instead of everyone takes varying degrees of alignment shift in pvp - towards evil.
As already said, the other side of the picture is what shifts alignment back up (or in the case of evil further evil via non-pvp)? Community service type things (ie non-pvp activities?)?
Maybe this blog indicates that players who are not selective and high frequency involvement in pvp will more quickly slide down the scale (if down is meant to mean evil/chaos (exchange as you see fit))?
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've mentioned before that there's a misconception that "sandbox" means "unlimited freedom". Sandbox means that you build with the tools we provide, and you often astonish us with the unexpected uses to which you put those tools.
But that's the "sand". The other word in that term is "box". The box is the envelope we establish that defines the game and how it is to be played. One of those definitions is "don't be a jerk". Jerkiness is defined along one (of many) axis as killing without meaning.
As we've said many times before, dealing with disruptive greifing requires a multi-layered approach; there is no silver bullet. Therefore, there are in-game and out-of-game processes that are designed to limit such behavior, and responses that scale from warnings to substantial mechanical penalties as well.
We have also been clear that there are lots of forms of PvP that we consider inherently good for the game and are not jerkiness. Territorial warfare and banditry are two that we've been very up-front about. Banditry implies Bounty Hunting, and we've been up front about that as well.
There are forms of PvP that we consider inherently unacceptable behavior. If you are engaged in killing characters without an in-game rationale, just "for the lulz", that's not ok.
There are lots of gray areas in the Venn Diagram of "ok" and "jerkiness" when it comes to PvP, which is why we have a multi-layered, multi-dimensional, escalating approach to dealing with the problem. You will have meaningful choices to make about semi-jerky behavior, because engaging in those behaviors will have some, but not total, often not permanent negative consequences. You will have to decide if the fun you get from doing something that is "semi-jerky" is worth the price you'll pay in mechanical and social penalties.
These parts of the "box" mean that there are things you can do that we'll support, and things you can do that we won't, and things that if you do them, you'll face increasingly stiff penalties to the point where...
No one, to my knowledge, is asking for Lord of the Flies. They are asking to be able to RP evil characters without the deck being ridiculously stacked against them, or ridiculously in favor of those most likely to hunt them.
The notion that good characters would only hunting anyone with a heinous flags with in-game reasons for doing so (ie, did they hear of this person before? Do they know of that character's crimes? How would they know besides a giant red flag, that they were evil or had commited said crimes?) is also ridiculous.The ones who wish to grief, will do so. No mater their rep or alignment.
There has to be a better solution. I trust you guys will find it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thoughts about Paladins
This is just me, Ryan, writing, not me Ryan the CEO of Goblinworks, and not Ryan giving directions to his game designers. So don't take any of this as anything but one persons' opinion.
Paladins are not bounty hunters. They are not sheriffs. They are not enforcers of the law. They are not Delta Force commandos.
Paladins are heroic adventurers who use Good and Law to fight evil and chaos as expressed primarily by outsiders, undead, monstrous creatures, aberrations and magical beasts, placing themselves into extremely dangerous situations and using the powers gifted to them by their patron deities to confront and vanquish elemental evil and chaos.
Paladins should not be engaged in killing other characters except in defense of Lawful Good Settlements. They should not be taking revenge for harm caused to other characters by 3rd parties.
Paladins should be standing in ancient barrows fighting wights, or issuing challenges to ogres who are terrorizing the Common Folk, or hunting and killing demonic creatures that have infiltrated civilization.
Paladins should serve as an example to others of the power and the glory that comes from living a righteous life, adhering to a rigorous code of honor, and placing oneself - one's very soul - at risk to protect the weak, defend the Realm, and upholding the tenants of the Faith.
RyanD
I agree with this 100%.
Alas, we will probably see few paladins actually played this way.|
Goblin Squad Member
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We already know that a bounty is restricted from the known cohorts of the criminal. We can infer, then, that the owner of the contract can share his property with his own cohorts.It would indeed make sense to infer that anyone grouping with Gleaneagle would benefit from both a share of the reward and the limited reputation loss. But this is not explicitly written in the blog.
Example: TN Ranger 'Gleneagle' takes a bounty contract on CE criminal 'Lololol'. Gleneagle uses the bounty hunter perks and his ranger skills to determine that Lololol is hiding deep in CE territory. So Gleneagle assembles his A team and makes an incursion to enter CE territory to neutralize Lololol and collect the bounty.Ok, what about DudeRanger which is also a bounty hunter? He happens to be right beside Lololol but can't attack him despite the bounty. This makes no sense to me. The reason to put a bounty on someone is to make sure the target is tracked down by as many people as possible. Limiting bounties to a single player and his group sounds more like an assassination contract then a bounty one.
Just as a note, Cap: Those were my words, not Avena's. She was quoting me.
If DudeRanger doesn't have the bounty on Lololol he has no business attacking Lololol unless he wants to get a bounty on his head as well. The sanction belongs to Gleneagle. In my concept, which I think might be close to right, Gleneagle could elect to share the bounty privileges with DudeRanger with a groupinvite before the dirtydeed is done.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Andius does have a point here. Anyone who spends a significant amount of time making the world a safer place for peacefull commerce will end up Chaotic Evil by virtue of sheer volume of work they are doing.
That why I offered that it was preferable to scrape the aligment system altogether or at the very least base it on pure alignments of the attacker and defender.
In that proposed system, Andius and his troops would shift towards Good (as they should) if they judged the situation correctly but do bare some risk of shifting toward Evil if they are excersizing poor judgement and haven't taken enough care to make sure those they are attacking actualy ARE Evil bandits.
They wouldn't be shifting toward either Law or Chaos since they are neither acting against criminals in a territory they have lawful jurrisdiction over nor taking the law into thier own hands in someone elses territory. They are just knocking out (what they believe) are Evil villians where they find them. That would be a NG action....again assuming that they have judged the situation correctly and these are Evil Bandits and not just a bunch of rowdy teamsters that got drunk and wandered off into the wild.
Note Andius would be held in check from promiscious violence, as if he weren't using alot of care to make sure his targets really were Evil, he would be rapidly sliding toward Evil himself.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I've mentioned before that there's a misconception that "sandbox" means "unlimited freedom". Sandbox means that you build with the tools we provide, and you often astonish us with the unexpected uses to which you put those tools.
But that's the "sand". The other word in that term is "box". The box is the envelope we establish that defines the game and how it is to be played. One of those definitions is "don't be a jerk". Jerkiness is defined along one (of many) axis as killing without meaning.
As we've said many times before, dealing with disruptive greifing requires a multi-layered approach; there is no silver bullet. Therefore, there are in-game and out-of-game processes that are designed to limit such behavior, and responses that scale from warnings to substantial mechanical penalties as well.
We have also been clear that there are lots of forms of PvP that we consider inherently good for the game and are not jerkiness. Territorial warfare and banditry are two that we've been very up-front about. Banditry implies Bounty Hunting, and we've been up front about that as well.
There are forms of PvP that we consider inherently unacceptable behavior. If you are engaged in killing characters without an in-game rationale, just "for the lulz", that's not ok.
There are lots of gray areas in the Venn Diagram of "ok" and "jerkiness" when it comes to PvP, which is why we have a multi-layered, multi-dimensional, escalating approach to dealing with the problem. You will have meaningful choices to make about semi-jerky behavior, because engaging in those behaviors will have some, but not total, often not permanent negative consequences. You will have to decide if the fun you get from doing something that is "semi-jerky" is worth the price you'll pay in mechanical and social penalties.
These parts of the "box" mean that there are things you can do that we'll support, and things you can do that we won't, and things that if you do them, you'll face increasingly stiff penalties to the point where...
I am sure most of us understand that there will be rules to prevent from a grieving that would make people rage quit if it happens. But by describing what you do and say will also be a way for those looking to do pvp in a way.
However, the need to stop grieving should be there, no questions asked. But allow us also to sort things out with companies that go chaotic, evil or the likes. IIRC in one of the older posts it was said that should war be wanted it needs to be declared and then both parties need to accept it. This basically means that if good companies would be to declare war on an evil company and they would decline it would be another way for them just to laugh and move on. What will be done to do that? A war should be able to be declared when needed and maybe in case against a good take a rep / alignment hit (unless it is justified).
I feel that the bounty system can use some more tweaks, but the whole alignment hits for defending your land etc. not a fan of it. This can and might chance in the future ofcourse, but I am now on the fence about this.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I suspect it is more likely that we don't fully grasp how it works yet than it is to imagine that a LG bounty hunter will drift to CE by being successful in his trade. That would be a hard outcome to miss, as detail-oriented as they appear to be handling risk management.
You are, yourself, contributing to that risk management analysis by speaking up like you are.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Ryan Dancey
I think the major complaints I'm reading in this thread (and indeed my own) don't come from players feeling like they don't have enough freedom to act as jerky as they like, but from players that are worried that the proposed mechanics will make their character concepts an inviable option.
For example, as Andius has stated throughout this thread, it appears that a Paladin would have a very, very hard time going with this system and maintaining a LG alignment. Even if you don't slip on the Law/Chaos axis, many Paladin players wouldn't want to take any action that causes a loss on the Good/Evil one, or suffer a loss in reputation for what is intrinsically a good act.
On the evil side of things, I understand that it's not your goal to make all the alignments equal, but I'm having a hard time understanding why anyone would want to play an evil character at this point, other than to RP being a jerk. It really seems like, at this stage, evil characters are set up to fail. We haven't seen a single mechanical benefit to being evil in this game, but we've seen plenty of penalties (limited contracts and inferior settlements, to name a couple). So why play an evil character? I think that's the question many of us are asking ourselves, and why you see so many more good or neutral chartered companies.
I think you're approaching this from the wrong angle, psychologically. People don't need a huge mechanical advantage to play Good. Playing Good in a heroic fantasy setting is a reward in and of itself. It seems that you're assuming that the hordes of evil are going to run rampant unless placed at a disadvantage from the get go, but I think that as a result the design approach you're taking is going to limit the amount of player generated content when players don't see the benefit of being evil. Also, on a somewhat less important note (though of some consideration for those of us who are fans of the setting), there's no way the River Kingdoms would still be overrun with bandits at this point in Golarion's history if it were so disadvantageous to being evil.
Please consider as you move forward with the design process.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yep, I mixed up quote tags. I was not quoting AvenaOats but Being, my bad. It's been more than an hour so I can't edit it...
Now with proper quoting :)
If DudeRanger doesn't have the bounty on Lololol he has no business attacking Lololol unless he wants to get a bounty on his head as well.
I understand this is the way they want to implement bounties. And it might end up being a good way to do it, who knows. All I'm saying is I have reserves about whether this system will:
1. Address the grieving issue by ensuring gankers that only a handful of players are actively pursuing them instead of the whole server.
2. Appeal to players who wish to be bounty hunters.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Ryan
Could you please answer one thing for me?
What comes to mind, or what type of plans do you have in place for the proposed training limitations?
Does this only apply to obvious things like a bandit not being able to train paladin skills?
Or is this more like an enforced cap of say 70% to any type of training so long as you are following the "Dark" side?
The reason I ask is because I will be paying real money for training. I'd like to know what restrictions would be in place, even though Im paying real money for it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If we ditch the whole Alignment/Flag system, then we're left with a total Free-for-all, which is exactly the kind of environment their trying to avoid.
I think the Alignment/Flags system is fine, and think it would be perfect if acting in fulfillment of a Bounty did not place any Flags.
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Goblin Squad Member
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No one, to my knowledge, is asking for Lord of the Flies. They are asking to be able to RP evil characters without the deck being ridiculously stacked against them, or ridiculously in favor of those most likely to hunt them.
The notion that good characters would only hunting anyone with a heinous flags with in-game reasons for doing so (ie, did they hear of this person before? Do they know of that character's crimes? How would they know besides a giant red flag, that they were evil or had commited said crimes?) is also ridiculous.
The ones who wish to grief, will do so. No mater their rep or alignment.There has to be a better solution. I trust you guys will find it.
If I may share: When I write fiction the most difficult of things is to write from the point of view of the villain. This is because of the cultural legacy of my forebears and culture who essentially trained me to be good, and to not be bad. They did so by giving me heroes, mostly in fiction, that as a boy I tried my best to emulate, foolish, lovable child that I was.
But it is still very challenging to make my villains think like villains, to see the world as they see it, to respond to events as they would respond.
So if Ryan is more eloquent describing what a Paladin should in his view be like, but has difficulty describing what a high level LE Cleric should in his view be like, then have a heart. His interior dreaming child may not have much convincing dialog to share.
If that is true (and I have no idea but he might actually be Lex Luthor undercover), then the more constructive avenue might be to adequately describe for him what a real high level LE Cleric would, in your view, say and do and attempt to accomplish.
This would be providing the development team with what is called a "Use Case". If they build your potentials and habitat for you to RP an evil character, what would it be like?
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CEO, Goblinworks
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@Danneth Sky - There is no good reason to play a chaotic evil character except if you like being other people's content.
I think the strongest opposition that Lawful Good Settlements will face will come from Lawful Evil Settlements.
I think that many players will find that their choices often funnel them towards Chaotic Good social structures, thus those communities will often be the largest, most diverse, and most active.
I see most of the "neutral" positions on the alignment grid as either a delicate balancing point that you have to work hard to maintain so that you can be a bridge between other, larger social structures, or a temporary waypoint as your character's actions pull them towards one of the four corners.
RyanD
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Goblin Squad Member
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@GrumpyMel, I love your alignment solution, definitely much more balanced.
@Ryan, you post as yourself, personal opinion, is the first from you since the blog came out that actually make sense, and I agree with what the role of the paladin should be. Definitely not to be bounty hunters, also they tend to be very poor characters, only taking what they need to survive to to have improved equipment that they can carry at all times, nothing else stored elsewhere. Paladins should be giving the excess money to charities, not hoarding the money. Bounty Hunters do the task for profit, and the means to achieving the end is no consequence (just have to look at modern day bounty hunters around the world, at many time non-lawful methods being used). Sadly arresting a criminal is not part of the game due to non-lethal combat not being available. Bringing a criminal to jail, is more good than killing the criminal, as is practised in most good countries of the world. Evil, on the other hand could not care if the target is dead or alive in jail if death sentence is not required.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Ryan Dancey - I have no way to know regarding PFO, but in the tabletop game, a couple of good reasons to play CE include A)A walk on the wild side from your, normal good aligned character, and B)exploring character options that are restricted to Good or Neutral characters.
Undead creation and demon summoning are a couple of examples that come to mind. These aren't necessarily confined to CE, but could be depending on the specifics of the act. Would special abilities/options such as these be available to evil characters?
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Goblin Squad Member
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In the early stages much of the content will likely be PvE because we will not yet be settled up and built into kingdoms capable of fielding armies against one another. The escalation system should take care of much of that for awhile, long enoguh for the devs to keep working on the longer term solutions.
The way Ryan seems to me to be envisioning it all there will be a few really superb players he expects to be playing LE who will manage to form powerful forces that can contend with LG kingdoms.
While CG towns will likely be the most populated they will also be the least cohesive, unlikely to effectively get their act together enough to be a viable war power.
So maybe my guild was right to be leaning LG if that is the alignment likely to be able to balance LE.
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Goblin Squad Member
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To me the problem with this is that pretty much the only proactive things a paladin could do in the game are PvE. If a paladin knows that a chaotic evil group of bandits has been terorising the road leading to his hometown then he should be able to do something about that without a hit to alignment. As it stands it seems as if the paladin will only be able to act if he happens to be passing by while the bandits have the attacker flag from attacking and looting travellers already.Sure, they shouldn't be attacking to third parties to take revenge. But you could just as easily have a paladin who takes bounties...
That is my point too. Maybe it could be solved using contract system. So if a good (or neutral?) settlement governor issues a contract asking a paladin to hunt a group of criminals (for free with no payment just for justice sake)maybe the paladin (or any LG char) could get some flag that allows him to kill those criminal w/o suffering penalties. A guardian flag or something like that.
So if they want to, Paladins can be bounty hunters, they will just have to do some alignment maintenance to keep their LG status. To me, as someone who doesn't intend on playing a paladin, this doesn't seem like an unduly burdensome task. After all paladins have always had a more difficult road to walk then other classes (roles).
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Goblin Squad Member
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This all sounds so crazy. I'm exited. The posts are flowing. Alliances are being made and made broken. Sounds like the river kingdoms are being made. Combining the three axes in one cohesive vibrant system interacting seamlessly is the best thing the devs can accomplish and achieve imo. Wow! :)