Discussion thread for new blog entry Goblinworks Blog: Screaming for Vengeance.
Oooooh lots of good stuff! This will help refine discussions quite a bit, thanks guys! :D
Goblin Squad Member
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The team has decided that they wish to sub-divide the original hex into 7 "subhexes"—that's a central hex surrounded by 6 identically sized satellites. After making this change, we're now working on 7 hexes for our initial objective. The team is making this change to better facilitate territorial warfare, by creating intermediate points of control for settlements to contest, as opposed to an all-or-nothing contest if two settlements were immediately adjacent to one another. This design also makes it easier to visualize and implement things like escalation, and to reflect the impact of character actions on resources and wandering monsters at a higher degree of resolution.
This is fascinating. Some neat visualisation in the What is a Hex? thread concerning Hexes and little hexes. :)
For PvP purposes, there are four types of territory in Pathfinder Online:
- NPC-controlled territory
- Player-controlled territory with strong laws
- Player-controlled territory with weak or no laws
- Uncontrolled territory
Dang, I should have come up with this handy classification. Very neat. This blog is combinging pvp, alignment/rep, hexes, settlements altogether. Very nice to see it fit together.
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Its interesting that you can "spend" your reputation for things like a death curse.
The blog details a lot of things that move you to either chaotic or evil or low rep. I am curious to see what actions move you towards good or lawful or high rep.
I can already see what could become of reputation. It seems like it will turn into a kind of currency that players can use for a variety of things, like qualifying for titles, placing death curses, and even further, purchasing faction specific items, possibly land, and even training at some point. I wouldn't be surprised to see reputation being a "tradeable" good that players use to take our "favors" and buy their way into organizations.
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So, will bandits that accept stand and deliver offers get a slight reputation boost, or do we just not incur a reputation hit?
Still not clear if this applies to PCs only, or is there a different system for killing NPCs?
How powerful are these Wardens, are they the invincible insta death machines, like CONCORD in EvE Online?
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I love hexagons! The Honeycomb Conjecture, states "That a regular hexagonal grid is the best way to divide a surface into regions of equal area with the least total perimeter."
Why not 19 subhexs instead of 7?
Will player level movement work with hexes too? example
Will you implement the hexes this way to prevent the diagonal movement flaw with regular square grid?
Also will you continue to use this hex system for the Z axis? Or local player level for xyz?
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Goblin Squad Member
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How powerful are these Wardens, are they the invincible insta death machines, like CONCORD in EvE Online?
By all accounts, pretty much, if they catch you. I recall reading they can debuff you and stop you acting.
However further out from the settlements there seems there will be time to scarper and get away if your quick about it. "Warden baiting" may become quite a trend amongst the more risk taking bandits.
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What is not clear too is for example: If I have a true neutral char (and want him to still that way) and collect bounties on several evil criminals all the time just for gold, will my char shift to NG alignemnt just because I kill evil chars?
It looks like you would slowly shift to NE based on the blog.
In addition to the cash reward, bounty hunters get some other benefits. As noted above, gaining the Attacker flag is not chaotic if you got it from attacking a bounty target (though it might still be a crime where you are, and you will still lose good and reputation if you kill the target, relative to the target's own alignment and reputation).
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Goblin Squad Member
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What is not clear too is for example: If I have a true neutral char (and want him to still that way) and collect bounties on several evil criminals all the time just for gold, will my char shift to NG alignemnt just because I kill evil chars?It looks like you would slowly shift to NE based on the blog.
In addition to the cash reward, bounty hunters get some other benefits. As noted above, gaining the Attacker flag is not chaotic if you got it from attacking a bounty target (though it might still be a crime where you are, and you will still lose good and reputation if you kill the target, relative to the target's own alignment and reputation).
That should no happen as the motivation of the char is just money. They should create a way to prevente alignment shift in cases like that. Shifting into good alignments should be optional not mandatory IMO.
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Game Engine: Network Layer
I have been thinking about problems brought up by Ryan Dancey in regards to programs like ShowEQ, which would gain access to the symmetric key, decrypt the encrypted packets, and give the client more information than its privileged level.
Please look into using a rotating key encryption + hashed messages.
So it will harder to break the encryption, and if they do break it, only PFO will know what the hashed values correlate to in game.
Also a much simpler technique to use in addition to this, would be to have the Dungeon Master[the server] have a copy of every character sheet, and can make rolls for them without prompting a request from the client.
Example unsecure client request:
DM: "make a listen check, player x, please"
X rolls a 6
DM: "you hear nothing"
X becomes suspicious
Example secure:
DM rolls some dice
X remains oblivious
Even if it ends up not being technically possible to insure that client based restrictions are enforced (like being blinded in darkness), at least force the character to take -attack roll penalties for negative conditions. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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That should no happen as the motivation of the char is just money. They should create a way to prevente alignment shift in cases like that. Shifting into good alignments should be optional not mandatory IMO.What is not clear too is for example: If I have a true neutral char (and want him to still that way) and collect bounties on several evil criminals all the time just for gold, will my char shift to NG alignemnt just because I kill evil chars?It looks like you would slowly shift to NE based on the blog.
In addition to the cash reward, bounty hunters get some other benefits. As noted above, gaining the Attacker flag is not chaotic if you got it from attacking a bounty target (though it might still be a crime where you are, and you will still lose good and reputation if you kill the target, relative to the target's own alignment and reputation).
You misunderstand; you wouldn't shift to good you would shift to evil. Killing another player will cause you to lose good alignment. You lose less good for killing evil but you still lose some. For example with arbitrary numbers killing a good person may give you a -10 alignment shift, killing neutral -5 and killing evil -1. You would still slowly over time shift to neutral evil if you started out true neutral and didn't take any other action than killing bounty targets.
Which is kinda appropriate imo. An assassin who only kills lawful targets is still an assassin and taking lives for money.
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You misunderstand; you wouldn't shift to good you would shift to evil. Killing another player will cause you to lose good alignment. You lose less good for killing evil but you still lose some. For example with arbitrary numbers killing a good person may give you a -10 alignment shift, killing neutral -5 and killing evil -1. You would still slowly over time shift to neutral evil if you started out true neutral and didn't take any other action than killing bounty targets.Which is kinda appropriate imo. An assassin who only kills lawful targets is still an assassin and taking lives for money.
Ah ok , now I understand your point. That makes much more sense this way. What I would need to do is just something good to keep my neutral status. Nothing that would hurt.
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Well......
This is shaping into a really good PvE "only" game......
How so?
There is plenty of opportunity for consensual PvP and there will be wars.
The mechanisms are simply to make things hard for people that think PvP involves building up a combat monster, getting together with some friends, finding someone weaker than you (usually a role-play non combat build), and trashing them.
I have some younger friends in WoW that do that. They are a bunch of 20-something year old guys that like to find funky but poorly built characters, generally owned by a teenage girl who is into the game for social reasons, and attack them whenever they come online to "teach them a lesson about making good WoW builds".
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I've always given the devs the benefit of the doubt that Alignments would be balanced. None explicitly better than any other just with their own distinct benefits. I've even fought against people complaining that alignment was nothing more than a punishment if you are Chaotic or Evil.
This Blog, however, basically makes it explicit that the intent is that Law and Good are always superiors to Chaos and Evil in the game. This is a problem. I always expected alignment restrictions on what building could be be built, but this blog basically flat out says that you unlock newer better buildings by being Lawful and Good and get the awesome building locked out by being Chaotic and Evil.
There is no alignment equality, and the Alignment mechanics are starting to look more like a way to label undesirable players and punish play styles rather than a fun and interesting role playing tool.
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Not a huge fan of the 24 hour limit, anywhere it is mentioned.
I think 1 week should be the base unit of time, and 2 weeks should be the next step up. I don't want to see casual players at a disadvantage because they don't log in every day to make sure they are getting bounties out.
There are two things I do not want to see in the game:
1. Things that make players feel they need to log in every day(24 hour timers)
2. Things that make players feel they can go do what they want.(patrol jobs)
I hate large organizations that impose restrictions and requirements on their members. I want to see a game where there is no advantage to forcing playstyles, or activities. Some people may find that fun, but I don't want to see it give them a competitive edge. If an activity produces an advantage, I can guarantee you it will become a 'requirement'.
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This Blog, however, basically makes it explicit that the intent is that Law and Good are always superiors to Chaos and Evil in the game. This is a problem. I always expected alignment restrictions on what building could be be built, but this blog basically flat out says that you unlock newer better buildings by being Lawful and Good and get the awesome building locked out by being Chaotic and Evil.
More specifically, the blog says you can be Evil or Chaotic or have Low Reputation and do fine as a settlement, but all three will be a serious challenge.
No doubt playing the bad guy will be more challenging. But not impossible.
Ironically this is the reverse of the normal in-game situation where playing CE (in many cases just so you can behave like a spoilt brat) has significant mechanical advantages over any other alignment. However if people really want to play Evil or Chaotic they should be seeing it as a challenge, not complaining that it is "unfair".
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So what happens if our settlement has laws against murder and we see 100 players forming up outside our walls, obviosly preparing to attack. We just have to wait until they attack? Will our NPC wardens do anything?
If 5 of those players are operating siege weapons are those 5 the only ones we can attack without getting the criminal flag and smacked down by our own wardens?
How fast can we change a law? Who can initiate a law change?
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I've always given the devs the benefit of the doubt that Alignments would be balanced. None explicitly better than any other just with their own distinct benefits. I've even fought against people complaining that alignment was nothing more than a punishment if you are Chaotic or Evil.
This Blog, however, basically makes it explicit that the intent is that Law and Good are always superiors to Chaos and Evil in the game. This is a problem. I always expected alignment restrictions on what building could be be built, but this blog basically flat out says that you unlock newer better buildings by being Lawful and Good and get the awesome building locked out by being Chaotic and Evil.
There is no alignment equality, and the Alignment mechanics are starting to look more like a way to label undesirable players and punish play styles rather than a fun and interesting role playing tool.
The building restrictions make sense to me and are a needed balance vs the freedom a Low Rep Chaotic Evil player has. People who choose to play that style of character have no real penalties if they decide to kill, become a criminal, and so on. They don't have to work to gather resources, they can kill you and take yours. They don't have to craft the best equipment, they can steal it. In exchange for that kind of lawless freedom to murder anyone who is weaker than them, they should face restrictions. What kind of people would willing choose to go to a town that was full of cutthroat killers with no law? Only those that can't go anywhere else. The kind of environment that allows that kind of people to thrive would have almost no infrastructure or economy. It's not a safe place to craft, trade, or learn professions that don't involve killing.
Chaos is about destruction. You shouldn't have as much opportunities to create buildings if you devote yourself to that path, especially when you can go Lawful or even Neutral Evil and still stay competitive.
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One thing that I do not agree is the fact that Lawfull and good settlements apparently (if I did not missanderstood) will have more acess to better buildings.
Why , for example a LE settlement would be less capable of building better buildings than LG ????
I Can understand Chaotic (not only the CE) settlements having problems, but I see no reasonable explanation for an Evil having that kind of restricition. On the contrary, Evil settlements should be allowed to build stuff good cannot as, for example, buildingss related to slavery or black magic.
How do GW intend people to play evil roles if they will not be allowed to have access to cities where the better buildings for training and crafting will be built??????
IMO at least LE and NE settlements shoud be able to build equivalent stuff in comparison with the good ones or you will never got a suitable balance, and will make playing evil a less enjoyable experience than playing a good or neutral one.
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That should no happen as the motivation of the char is just money. They should create a way to prevente alignment shift in cases like that. Shifting into good alignments should be optional not mandatory IMO.
Sorry, you're looking at it backwards.
In PFRPG, you pick a class and that determines what you can train in.
In PFO, what you choose to train determines your class.
In PFRPG, you pick an alignment and that tells you how to act.
In PFO, the way you act determines your alignment.
In the real world, morality and ethics are hard questions and people have varying opinions on how to promote happiness and limit suffering. We're getting better at it, as slow as the process may be.
However, in Golarion, good, evil, law, & chaos are objective energy states. A GM makes a call based on their own view of the system, but in PFO, that call is whatever the dev team codes.
There's no Euthyphro's Dilemma here: Does god command something because it is good, or is the act good because god commands it?
The code places us firmly on the second horn of that dilemma, also known as Divine Command Theory, only in our case it is the code that says what is good or evil.
I doubt they'll make punting bunnies a good act, but if they do, that's just life in Golarion.
Yes, it is ultimately arbitrary, but that's what happens when you surrender your own sense of empathy and ethical reasoning to some outside fiat.
Unfortunately, a computer game can only aim for consistency.
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I like that.
I imagine the scene. You are transporting good. You have been ambushed. The bandit say: ''Give me your or die!'' You think you can beat him. You wait that he attack. Surprise there more than one and they are powerful. You try your best, But the hp jauge is becoming too low. The bandit repeat : ''give me your gold or die!''
On the losing side. You accept.
The bandit have your money and he just have a shift to chaotic and not evil. It will have the possibility to have access to better equipement if he was evil. He is just chaotic.
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I like that.
I imagine the scene. You are transporting good. You have been ambushed. The bandit say: ''Give me your or die!'' You think you can beat him. You wait that he attack. Surprise there more than one and they are powerful. You try your best, But the hp jauge is becoming too low. The bandit repeat : ''give me your gold or die!''
On the losing side. You accept.
The bandit have your money and he just have a shift to chaotic and not evil. It will have the possibility to have access to better equipement if he was evil. He is just chaotic.
I'm not sure about this, it is more likely that bandits will shift to Chaotic Evil, because they will have to kill at least a few before the merchant surrenders.
Personally, I'm going to play my character the way I want, and he will become whatever he becomes.
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I'm starting to think that to this alignment system make sense people should all start as true neutral...
But people who want their first acheviement in paladin or monk will have to work a certain amount of time before they got it.
Maybe the starting alignement should be lawful good because you won't have any flag yet.
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I want to know what else is going to give the heinous flag. I think I would like to be LE, and if you read carefully the only way to get evil without getting more chaotic is through the auspices of "heinous".
I can live with being a necromancer and a slave monger (the two actions specifically mentioned in last weeks blog that will make you "heinous"), but I would like to broaden my horizons, desecrate some temples, maybe torture some POW's etc. etc.
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I'm starting to think that to this alignment system make sense people should all start as true neutral...But people who want their first achievement in paladin or monk will have to work a certain amount of time before they got it.
Maybe the starting alignment should be lawful good because you won't have any flag yet.
Those people need to more or less "deal with it"
You are not starting with a class, you start with a character. Getting a badge like 'paladin 1' will require you to shift lawful good as part of the badge requirement and I wouldn't be surprised if every level of paladin required a higher alignment, with the 20th badge requiring full lawful good.
If you want to train skills that require an alignment, you should start from scratch and prove you can get that alignment.
I really don't care what you say your character is like, or what you say your character did. I care about what you character has actually done in the game.
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Anyone else not like that the taking of a bounty will reveal the target's friends list?
What exactly is the purpose in that?
Yeah, I know, so they can make sure their friends do not collect on the bounty.
* But, what if the person has 500 friends? Is the aggrieved party going to restrict 500 names from getting the bounty?
* What if the person purposefully does not add anyone to their friends list?
* If I play a bandit, and I'm likely to have a bounty placed on me at some point, do I have to choose to play that character and restrict my communications by not having a friends list?
On an unrelated question:
Can a player settlement make Bounty Hunting illegal?
What about a community whose borders are shut? Can you patrol the borders and kill trespassers without lowering your rep?
I am also interested to see how you can raise your rep, lawfulness, and goodness "scores".
I am still not sold on the idea that lawful v. chaos, good v. evil are realistic axes that reflect practical life, even in game. There is too much philosophy that says otherwise. Practically speaking, good vs. evil is decided from the perspective of the community that sets the laws. Chaotic vs. lawful is a completely separate dichotomy that is meaningless without a context. Reputation I can stand behind.
Tell me if I am wrong - the bottom line is that the developers are attempting to prevent meaningless PvP. So it seems like a leap to say that so-called "lawful good" communities are best, and receive the greatest "shinies". The Elves are chaotic good and have been around a very long time, and I have to assume they have "all the upgrades". Would they have some better buildings if they were lawful good?
Overall, I believe it will pan out to a helluva good time.
That should no happen as the motivation of the char is just money. They should create a way to prevente alignment shift in cases like that. Shifting into good alignments should be optional not mandatory IMO.Sorry, you're looking at it backwards.
In PFRPG, you pick a class and that determines what you can train in.
In PFO, what you choose to train determines your class.In PFRPG, you pick an alignment and that tells you how to act.
In PFO, the way you act determines your alignment.In the real world, morality and ethics are hard questions and people have varying opinions on how to promote happiness and limit suffering. We're getting better at it, as slow as the process may be.
However, in Golarion, good, evil, law, & chaos are objective energy states. A GM makes a call based on their own view of the system, but in PFO, that call is whatever the dev team codes.There's no Euthyphro's Dilemma here: Does god command something because it is good, or is the act good because god commands it?
The code places us firmly on the second horn of that dilemma, also known as Divine Command Theory, only in our case it is the code that says what is good or evil.
I doubt they'll make punting bunnies a good act, but if they do, that's just life in Golarion.
Yes, it is ultimately arbitrary, but that's what happens when you surrender your own sense of empathy and ethical reasoning to some outside fiat.
Unfortunately, a computer game can only aim for consistency.
Thank you, this partially clarifies my dilemma. It still seems like a problem to me, but if the devs have a clear idea what the divine rule needs to be, then so be it.
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I want to know what else is going to give the heinous flag. I think I would like to be LE, and if you read carefully the only way to get evil without getting more chaotic is through the auspices of "heinous".
This isn't correct, you can gain evil for killing someone. If you do it under a bounty then it isn't chaotic, just evil.
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I always was under the impression that reputation would be the metric by which players were judged as contributing to the game or just being a drag on it. There are lots of different kinds of buildings that a Lawful or Good society would not consider building as such should be restricted to Chaotic or Evil settlements. So a Chaotic Evil settlement could build a temple to a Demonic Lord, while Lawful Good would get a grand Cathedral dedicated to one of the Lawful Good deities. On the more mundane side of things an Evil Settlement could build slave camps.
The disadvantage to being Evil and probably Chaotic is that most evil acts will get you some kind of tag that just makes you a target for easy killing. Not, "You don't get to have nice things."
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I wonder if there will be a way to play a bounty hunter type and still remain neutral or good? The blog says killing the target, but I wonder if maybe you could do something else, like arrest the target or something? Or does killing a target outside of a city (or outside the 'law' zone) not count against you?
I really like the idea of being a bounty hunter who chases 'criminals' down, not because of the money (added bonus) but because those players need brought to justice. JUSTICE!
And another thing, even if not accepting bounties, wouldn't a Paladin striking down evil eventually lead to their downfall? I have never really thought of the Paladin as a "we are going to work things out." I think of them more as "I WILL STRIKE YOU DOWN IN THE NAME OF MY GOD YOU UNHOLY HEATHEN!"
...that might be my own personal view of them, though... XD
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I wonder if there will be a way to play a bounty hunter type and still remain neutral or good? The blog says killing the target, but I wonder if maybe you could do something else, like arrest the target or something? Or does killing a target outside of a city (or outside the 'law' zone) not count against you?
I really like the idea of being a bounty hunter who chases 'criminals' down, not because of the money (added bonus) but because those players need brought to justice. JUSTICE!
And another thing, even if not accepting bounties, wouldn't a Paladin striking down evil eventually lead to their downfall? I have never really thought of the Paladin as a "we are going to work things out." I think of them more as "I WILL STRIKE YOU DOWN IN THE NAME OF MY GOD YOU UNHOLY HEATHEN!"
...that might be my own personal view of them, though... XD
These are excellent points. According to the new blog, it doesn't sound like there is a situation where killing isn't evil (only more or less so given the specific circumstances). But as it stands, it seems like both Paladins and Bounty Hunters will be punished for killing even seriously evil characters with a (small) shift towards evil. I'm not sure I understand what GW is going for here, especially since it seems like their anti-griefing mechanics are getting in the way of at least one pretty core principle of Pathfinder.
Is there a way to gain good for killing a PC? Like killing a really evil character or one with an accumulation of Heinous tags? Or is the only way to gain good through killing in PvE?
And why is there always reputation loss attached to it? It seems as though reputation is specifically measuring level of fame (as opposed to infamy) and not simply notoriety (without valence). Is this the intention?
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I'm starting to think that to this alignment system make sense people should all start as true neutral...But people who want their first acheviement in paladin or monk will have to work a certain amount of time before they got it.
Maybe the starting alignement should be lawful good because you won't have any flag yet.
There are many skills that are appropriate to a paladin. You could spend your first few weeks training in weapon, armour and shield usage. Only the supernatural abilities of a paladin depend on alignment, so you have time to work your way up to Lawful Good before you start laying on hands or casting spells.
The Knights of Iomedae faction may even have some basic missions set up to help new characters work up to LG the first time (after which it's up to the individual to maintain it).
I'd be more worried about the minor evil hits that may come with every player-kill. Defending the weak from an aggressor seems like a moral imperative for paladins, but it looks like they'll need a way to incapacitate foes without actually killing them in order to do that.