Goblin Squad Member
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This is a subject as important as the much more discussed topic of how you lose them. Ultimately if it's trivial to regain these points alignment and reputation mean nothing, but if it's slow and difficult that lends some measure of meaning. So let's lay out the options:
1. Time Based - Constant: Like the skill gains points could be earned at a consistent rate wether online or offline.
Example: EVE skill gains.
Pros
- There is no way for a character that's actively being played to game this. You do the crime, you pay your time.
- Makes it meaningful but not burdensome to gain points.
Cons
- Characters not being played as constantly get a heavy advantage as they regain the same amount of points but have less time in which to lose them.
- Incentivizes pre-vacation killing sprees.
Time Based - Active: You gain points while online playing the game. This can be coupled with systems that pause your gains if flagged afk, stealthed, or inside a settlement/structure.
Example: Mortal Online
Pros
- None of the cons of constant time games.
- Makes it meaningful but not burdensome to regain points.
- The methods of gaming it are very bannable offenses.
Cons
- Players will find safe(ish) areas to hide even if those are not settlements and structures and use macros to avoid afk flagging systems.
Resource Based: You spend resources to regain reputation. Things like sacrifices and and fines.
Example: Freelancer bribes
Pros
-You do the crime, you pay the fine. This simply cannot be gamed, period.
Cons
-This is less meaningful to players with lots of resources. They can simply buy their way to high reputation or lawful/good alignment.
- This is overly burdensome to player with few resources. They may never be able to recover from a bad reputation/alignment.
Activity Based: You gain points through doing things such as slaying a demon, completing a quest, or making a pilgrimage.
Example: EVE security rating
Pros
- Difficult to game if well thought out.
- Meaningful because of the active effort required.
Cons
- Heavily favors PvEers.
- May be overly burdensome to some players seeking redemption or just plain tedious.
- Simple to macro if poorly thought out.
Interaction Based: Based on interactions with other players such as reps for kills, rep for healing someone, or popularity systems.
Example: The kill for alignment system in the original Darkfall.
Pros
- Most in keeping with the player interaction theme of PFO.
Cons
- Incredibly gameable to the point of being utterly meaningless in almost any form.
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Goblin Squad Member
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1. Time Based - Constant...
Cons
- Incentivizes pre-vacation killing sprees.
First, I'm a very strong proponent of this method.
As for this Con, I think it really depends on the timeframes involved. Personally, it seems reasonable to make it take about 2.5 years to go from -7,500 to +7,500. Or 15 months for 15,000 points - seems not totally unreasonable.
With either of those timeframes, a pre-vacation killing spree isn't going to be a significant problem.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Here is my proposal
Reputation
The general idea is as we loot NPCs, wander around the map, craft, gather resources etc. we find non-tradeable items. These items give us reputation. The point being you would have to be actively playing the game to find them, you find them while doing most actions but there is no way to create a macro that finds them without doing something very complex.
As to a possible roleplay justification, we all know we cannot be permanently killed because Pharasma has marked us. It's also speculated the reason we can't leave the game area has something to do with this mark.
What if there is also a kind of essence related to Pharasma and the odd condition of the area in which we live. We act as a conduit between it an Pharasma, transferring it's power to her through touching it. Your reputation is your reputation within the marked of Pharasma (And thus there is no penalties for being a jerk to NPCs.)
Alignment
There is a light active-time gain based on your active alignment as well as resource based gains through sacrifices to deities of similar alignment. Sacrificing to deities gives a bonus, and you stop gaining alignment when you max your bonus. There are trainable skills that increase the effect of your bonus but also the amount that must be sacrificed to get them (Making the cost scale with your character's power.)
The resource desired depends upon the deity but there are items gained through slating of creatures of opposing alignments and making pilgrimages that almost any will accept.
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Goblin Squad Member
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(And thus there is no penalties for being a jerk to NPCs.)
I have to agree with Nihimon...and I hope the above is not necessarily true. I cannot off-hand think of any cases that should be otherwise, but I hope there is as little mechanical division between PvE and PvP as possible. Burning down orphanages should decrease your rep. Stealing from an NPC merchant should net you the same hit as stealing from a PC merchant. I see all "characters" in the world as the same, NPC or PC...unfortunately, present company the extraordinary exception, my experience has shown them about the same IQ and predictability on average. A game that minimizes this difference while increasing that average would be a welcome escape.
While I might not play IC at all times, I do "act" IC in that the decisions I make for my character are those I think he would make...and he sees no difference between PCs and NPCs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... you find them while doing most actions but there is no way to create a macro that finds them without doing something very complex.
If you can find them while doing "most actions", then you just need a macro that does one or more of those actions. I've seen these things at work, you're not going to be able to create a system such that "there is no way to create a macro that finds them without doing something very complex".
If there's a way to grind Reputation or Alignment, then the players most motivated to do so will take pleasure in finding the mathematical maximum RPKs per annum and will brag about how close they get to that maximum.
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Goblin Squad Member
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1. Time Based - Constant...
Cons
- Incentivizes pre-vacation killing sprees.First, I'm a very strong proponent of this method.
As for this Con, I think it really depends on the timeframes involved. Personally, it seems reasonable to make it take about 2.5 years to go from -7,500 to +7,500. Or 15 months for 15,000 points - seems not totally unreasonable.
With either of those timeframes, a pre-vacation killing spree isn't going to be a significant problem.
I have the feeling if we ran with that system you would have to be INCREDIBLY straight laced to not end up at a dismal reputation by playing active for 15 months. I mean not even able to make meaningful kills if they're unsanctioned.
Meanwhile players who don't play that much but keep their account active for skill training (Like I do on EVE) will be free to slaughter indiscriminately.
Also consider alts, and how much more easy that would make it on them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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6. Time Based - Increasing Variable: As described in the original blog posts on reputation regain; a character gains the alignment/reputation "currency" at an increasing rate the longer she has gone without a hit to that scale (rep/law/good).
Example: (unknown)
Pros
- There is no way for a character that's actively being played to game this. You do the crime, you pay your time.
- Makes it meaningful but not burdensome to gain points. Makes it very hard to gain points while continuing actions that cause you to lose points.
- Deincentivizes pre-vacation killing sprees. The point gain increases over time, so gains over a short holiday might not be significant.
Cons
- Characters not being played as constantly get a heavy advantage as they regain the same amount of points but have less time in which to lose them.
Regarding recovery speed:
I would think that a character should be able to gain 15000 points of rep in 3 months or less, with no negative rep hits in that time. 1 month might not be unreasonable.
Regarding core alignment:
There should be a way to drastically reset core alignment, through dedicating oneself to a new god for example. It should be costly, and difficult (ie, once every 6 months). It might/could require faction membership.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... you find them while doing most actions but there is no way to create a macro that finds them without doing something very complex.If you can find them while doing "most actions", then you just need a macro that does one or more of those actions. I've seen these things at work, you're not going to be able to create a system such that "there is no way to create a macro that finds them without doing something very complex".
If there's a way to grind Reputation or Alignment, then the players most motivated to do so will take pleasure in finding the mathematical maximum RPKs per annum and will brag about how close they get to that maximum.
Think Darkfall for a second. Imagine if there was an item that was dropped every once in awhile by every monster and resources node, as well as occasionally generated while crafting, and contained in every chaos chest.
Remember it's non-tradeable. If it's generated by a character killing mobs and snatching chaos chests that's nearly impossible to macro. If it's not generated by a character doing combat and opening chaos chests, that means if that character is any good at PvP they've trained combat on to a good level, and crafting/gathering to a useable level on a character they are now risking loss with by committing the highly bannable offense of macro-farming/crafting.
I'd also consider lowering or maybe even entirely removing the gains from crafting / gathering since those are professions that won't be involved in PvP much unless they are running around the map gathering, meaning they stand a chance to find chaos chests.
This is a subject as important as the much more discussed topic of how you lose them. Ultimately if it's trivial to regain these points alignment and reputation mean nothing, but if it's slow and difficult that lends some measure of meaning. So let's lay out the options:
1. Time Based - Constant: Like the skill gains points could be earned at a consistent rate wether online or offline.
Example: EVE skill gains.
Pros
- There is no way for a character that's actively being played to game this. You do the crime, you pay your time.
- Makes it meaningful but not burdensome to gain points.Cons
- Characters not being played as constantly get a heavy advantage as they regain the same amount of points but have less time in which to lose them.
- Incentivizes pre-vacation killing sprees.Time Based - Active: You gain points while online playing the game. This can be coupled with systems that pause your gains if flagged afk, stealthed, or inside a settlement/structure.
Example: Mortal Online
Pros
- None of the cons of constant time games.
- Makes it meaningful but not burdensome to regain points.
- The methods of gaming it are very bannable offenses.Cons
- Players will find safe(ish) areas to hide even if those are not settlements and structures and use macros to avoid afk flagging systems.Resource Based: You spend resources to regain reputation. Things like sacrifices and and fines.
Example: Freelancer bribes
Pros
-You do the crime, you pay the fine. This simply cannot be gamed, period.Cons
-This is less meaningful to players with lots of resources. They can simply buy their way to high reputation or lawful/good alignment.
- This is overly burdensome to player with few resources. They may never be able to recover from a bad reputation/alignment.Activity Based: You gain points through doing things such as slaying a demon, completing a quest, or making a pilgrimage.
Example: EVE security rating
Pros
- Difficult to game if well...
Honestly, I'd like to see all these implemented, particularly the first one, but, they could make it so that it regens faster if you're doing the second one too. Also, you should be able to give to charity or something to regain rep, so spending gold to get rep should definitely be an option.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If they implemented them all (which isn't a bad idea) there should be a cap on how much you gain from each one within a certain time-frame. Especially interaction. I'd cap it so you can only get a very small gain from it every 15 minutes since it's free points to those who abuse it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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IMO, the fewer the positive gains or recovery (from cost related PVP) rewarded for offline time the better. In fact I feel that way about any in game measure or currency.
The object, again IMO, should be to encourage people to play the game. This does not mean that those who play less should suffer a great deal. Just that those who do not play very often at all, should not be rewarded with "everything" stacking up through non participation.
Hopefully some balance can be found there.
I am in favor of: Time Based - Active, Activity Based, and ok with some (limited) Philanthropic Activity.
All of those need to be non bottable, of course, increasingly difficult for gain, and increasingly difficult for yo yo activity.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The best I can think of is missions that choose a random character less than 7 hours old and ask you to give them a set of low level crafted gear. The obvious benefit being if you track them down and give them the stuff, there's a good chance you might end up starting a conversation and becoming friends.
As long as as this has a cooldown, and is a fairly poor method for someone looking for maximum rep or alignment gains, it could work alright. The main challenge at that point would be how the system determines what items are acceptable to complete the mission.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A random moderated "good deed" system sounds intriguing...
I could even go for some kind of coin sink (donations) to charitable churches or factions. How do you measure and adjudicate such things so that the donation is = to or more than the crime or so that the rich just don't use it to buy their way to Sainthood?
A random moderated "good deed" system sounds intriguing...
I could even go for some kind of coin sink (donations) to charitable churches or factions. How do you measure and adjudicate such things so that the donation is = to or more than the crime or so that the rich just don't use it to buy their way to Sainthood?
The rich are people who provide the most value... why shouldn't they be allowed to buy their way to Sainthood? They earned it...
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Goblin Squad Member
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A random moderated "good deed" system sounds intriguing...
I could even go for some kind of coin sink (donations) to charitable churches or factions. How do you measure and adjudicate such things so that the donation is = to or more than the crime or so that the rich just don't use it to buy their way to Sainthood?
Well you saw my idea for sacrifices. Limit the amount that can be gained from donations within a set time period. Make it grant bonuses that can be scaled up for a corresponding scale up in price, incentivizing high levels to spend more. Or you could make it auto-scale up based on your skill points like clones in EVE.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well you saw my idea for sacrifices. Limit the amount that can be gained from donations within a set time period. Make it grant bonuses that can be scaled up for a corresponding scale up in price, incentivizing high levels to spend more. Or you could make it auto-scale up based on your skill points like clones in EVE.A random moderated "good deed" system sounds intriguing...
I could even go for some kind of coin sink (donations) to charitable churches or factions. How do you measure and adjudicate such things so that the donation is = to or more than the crime or so that the rich just don't use it to buy their way to Sainthood?
Almost anything, IMO, is better than being rewarded for not playing the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I thought reputation would be earned by various actions, such as successful SAD and Completion and assassination/bounty contracts, maybe even completing work order requests (crafting). These ways encourage proper player interactions, are not gameable, and ensures that people are doing what GW desires them to do. The other thread(s) talk about losing rep for RPKing and attacking "unflagged" PCs, but this thread is to discuss gaining reputation and alignment. I don't like the idea of auto gain reputation and alignment (though alignment gain towards your core I think was the idea anyway and is fine) isn't a good idea. For reasons already expressed above. It favors those who don't have much time to dedicate to in-game activities.
If you lose rep through in game activities, why not gain rep from in game activities? Activities that GW wants to see. Bandits who SAD and not just kill everything they see, players who take and complete quests given to them (I am talking PC quests like contracts), and performing duties for their settlement like "pulling guard duty" or something.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think gaming SAD for Reputation gains would be incredibly easy. Character 1 meets Character 2 in the woods, does a stand and deliver. Character 2 accepts the SAD, hands over some amount of loot. Character 1 gains rep for successful SAD. Character 1 and Character 2 are both run by one player, multiboxing.
I don't think I've seen anything that would stop that type of gaming, except not giving Rep gains for successful SADs, or seriously limiting the amount that can be gained per day. I'm sure no one on these boards would do such a thing, but after OE, when the MMO min-maxers arrive? It will be done all of the time. Frankly, if you can max out your daily Rep gains from gaming SAD with alts or friends, why waste game time doing legitimate SADs?
I do like the idea of tying Rep to contracts, but again I don't see a way that it won't be gamed, which is why I'm in the time regain camp.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I thought reputation would be earned by various actions, such as successful SAD and Completion and assassination/bounty contracts, maybe even completing work order requests (crafting). These ways encourage proper player interactions, are not gameable, and ensures that people are doing what GW desires them to do.
While those would be great ways to earn reputation (and should be), until we know more about how they will work and the guards against it, they are all very game-able ways to get reputation.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I thought reputation would be earned by various actions, such as successful SAD and Completion and assassination/bounty contracts, maybe even completing work order requests (crafting). These ways encourage proper player interactions, are not gameable, and ensures that people are doing what GW desires them to do.
SAD, I rob my alt or my untagged buddy. He accepts. +reputation.
Assassination, I have a buddy put a contract on my alt. I kill him. +reputation.
Bounty. My alt kills my buddy. He puts a bounty on him. I kill my alt. +reputation.
Work orders, my buddy puts out work orders on all the crafting I was already going to do. +reputation
Almost every instance of player interaction is highly gameable to the point of rendering reputation gained through it meaningless.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Rep gain over time, perhaps more quickly the longer it has been since you have lost rep...Perhaps make the rate relative to your current Reputation?
Players that maintain a high rep would recover from indiscretions faster. It would help mitigate some Binge and Purge rep cycles, but not all of them. I could see it working okay.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I just don't understand the whole being rewarded for not interacting with the world thing. I will play the game, however they settle on things, but it is just an alien concept to me. :)
Think of it more as a Lack of Punishment instead of a reward. How much honesty you think somebody has is more of a factor of how often, the extremity, and the recency with which someone has lied to you.
Most people, when they view someone as very honest will more quickly forgive small and infrequent infractions. If that very honest person has large or frequent infractions, their honesty rating plummets. Someone who is viewed as dishonest has a longer road to demonstrate their willingness to be more honest. There is very little they can do to speed up that healing process beyond not engaging in further infractions.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not opposed to alignment or rep rewards from interactions and actions. The questions is if they can be gamed (and if they can be gamed, they will be gamed). Like Andius points out, almost all character interactions can be gamed. Elsewhere it's been pointed out that afk status can be jiggered, or I'd happily accept time in game counting for more than time out of game.
One thing that might* not be so easily game-able is actions associated with social groups. So being the head of a large company might give a bonus to rep, or to rep recharge rate. Spending Influence or DI might give immediate rep gain to major actors. That all depends on how Influence and DI are gained and recovered, of course.
* I'm overlooking something, I'm sure.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not opposed to non-gameable interactions either. It's just that with most of them I can come up with a simple method for gaming in under 30 seconds. Any non-gameable interaction would have to be seriously well thought out, and likely too complex to be worth implementing, but I would challenge anyone to come up with an interaction I can't find a simple method to game.
If anyone actually succeeds, we may have found a gem.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The down side is, nearly everything can be gamed. Where there is a will and all. Granted the "passive regen" idea isn't gameable, however the mix maxers will just do their calculations of kill x PCs every y "timeframe" and I will maintain high rep. It is a form of gaming even though it isn't as "easy" as gaming the player interaction ideas. I really do understand everyone's response to my post and I get it, if that is how GW goes with it then so be it, but I would personally rather risk it being gamed if it is still promoting meaningful player interactions.
Side note that MIGHT limit or prevent the player interaction gaming "threat" would be to implement a system that (server side) tracks the characters on an account, or tied to the same person IRL. Simular to the soul system in Wizardry online. (quick idea is each account creates a SOUL and under each soul you can have 3 characters. Criminal acts as well as some quests and such are saved at the SOUL level and punishable (or useable) no mater which of the 3 characters you are using.) The idea would be that if the server recognizes the 2 "players" involved as the same person, then it cancels the rep gain for interactions such as SAD and assassinations. Granted it isn't perfect as using an alt to craft SHOULD, IMHO, be equivalent to getting another player altogether to do it.
I do agree that, once again, these are just theories and ideas until we get more solid information about how GW wants things to work.
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Goblin Squad Member
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No matter how I try to grasp the idea, it still seems wrong. Experience is a value that can only rise (assuming it is paid for), whatever your actions in the world. Reputation can tank, and quickly, through things you do in the game. Being able to log off my nasty pirate and play my destiny's twin until my nasty pirate is viable again seems wrong.
If GW can't design systems and metrics that are not impossible, not worth, or extremely difficult to game; should they even waste the time doing so?
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Goblin Squad Member
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No matter how I try to grasp the idea, it still seems wrong. Experience is a value that can only rise (assuming it is paid for), whatever your actions in the world. Reputation can tank, and quickly, through things you do in the game. Being able to log off my nasty pirate and play my destiny's twin until my nasty pirate is viable again seems wrong.
If GW can't design systems and metrics that are not impossible, not worth, or extremely difficult to game; should they even waste the time doing so?
The general solution that Goblinworks has for XP gain over time also incluedes a requirement to accomplish certain feats in-game. I don't see any reason that same general solution can't be applied to Rep gain as well. Yes, there are gains over time, but maybe you have to perform certain deeds in-game to actually lock in those gains.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The down side is, nearly everything can be gamed. Where there is a will and all. Granted the "passive regen" idea isn't gameable, however the mix maxers will just do their calculations of kill x PCs every y "timeframe" and I will maintain high rep. It is a form of gaming even though it isn't as "easy" as gaming the player interaction ideas. I really do understand everyone's response to my post and I get it, if that is how GW goes with it then so be it, but I would personally rather risk it being gamed if it is still promoting meaningful player interactions.
Side note that MIGHT limit or prevent the player interaction gaming "threat" would be to implement a system that (server side) tracks the characters on an account, or tied to the same person IRL. Simular to the soul system in Wizardry online. (quick idea is each account creates a SOUL and under each soul you can have 3 characters. Criminal acts as well as some quests and such are saved at the SOUL level and punishable (or useable) no mater which of the 3 characters you are using.) The idea would be that if the server recognizes the 2 "players" involved as the same person, then it cancels the rep gain for interactions such as SAD and assassinations. Granted it isn't perfect as using an alt to craft SHOULD, IMHO, be equivalent to getting another player altogether to do it.
I do agree that, once again, these are just theories and ideas until we get more solid information about how GW wants things to work.
Everything is gameable or rendered less meaningful by some factor to some degree. However when jumping through the hoops, some of them are the size of a wedding ring, and most forms of player interaction are the size of a barn door.
If alts are removed, every instance where I said alt with "a buddies alt" or keep it as an alt but add an IP mask.
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Goblin Squad Member
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No matter how I try to grasp the idea, it still seems wrong. Experience is a value that can only rise (assuming it is paid for), whatever your actions in the world. Reputation can tank, and quickly, through things you do in the game. Being able to log off my nasty pirate and play my destiny's twin until my nasty pirate is viable again seems wrong.
If GW can't design systems and metrics that are not impossible, not worth, or extremely difficult to game; should they even waste the time doing so?
I would say that since Destiny Twins are a limited resource and that other players will have to pay for having a second trainable character, that this is an edge case that is worth letting go.
The systems being designed are absolutely worth it to me. Without consequences for PvP, I would be gone in a heartbeat. I do not want to play a game where PvP is the goal instead of the means.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The general solution that Goblinworks has for XP gain over time also incluedes a requirement to accomplish certain feats in-game. I don't see any reason that same general solution can't be applied to Rep gain as well. Yes, there are gains over time, but maybe you have to perform certain deeds in-game to actually lock in those gains.No matter how I try to grasp the idea, it still seems wrong. Experience is a value that can only rise (assuming it is paid for), whatever your actions in the world. Reputation can tank, and quickly, through things you do in the game. Being able to log off my nasty pirate and play my destiny's twin until my nasty pirate is viable again seems wrong.
If GW can't design systems and metrics that are not impossible, not worth, or extremely difficult to game; should they even waste the time doing so?
That is certainly an addition to the current thinking that I can get behind. You should have to "Do" things to increase or regain reputation.
I also still feel that the lower you go or the more that you push the boundaries of regulated PVP the more difficult it should be to recover. That is purely a personal preference and I am not sure whether it would be good for the game or not. Just an opinion.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I also still feel that the lower you go or the more that you push the boundaries of regulated PVP the more difficult it should be to recover.
This is practically a mantra, and is very much Ryan's stated intent, particular implementation details notwithstanding.
The solution to most of your objections can be summed up by "don't let people make easy recoveries from evil acts".
The most important thing is not that characters can kill other characters. The most important thing is that there are consequences for doing that. And it's a corollary of that statement that the more often a character kills other characters, or helps a character killer, the harder it must be for that character to recover from doing so.
I thought reputation would be earned by various actions, such as successful SAD and Completion and assassination/bounty contracts, maybe even completing work order requests (crafting). These ways encourage proper player interactions, are not gameable, and ensures that people are doing what GW desires them to do.SAD, I rob my alt or my untagged buddy. He accepts. +reputation.
Assassination, I have a buddy put a contract on my alt. I kill him. +reputation.
Bounty. My alt kills my buddy. He puts a bounty on him. I kill my alt. +reputation.
Work orders, my buddy puts out work orders on all the crafting I was already going to do. +reputation
Almost every instance of player interaction is highly gameable to the point of rendering reputation gained through it meaningless.
This isn't a big concern, because it's more likely that it would be more beneficial to do these things the normal way. Assassination contracts are expensive, and not many players will be able to be Assassinated, and if they do, they'd be hurting their entire settlement don't forget.
Getting one SAD on an alt, or one Bounty, again, wouldn't make much of a diff. A bounty will cause them to lose whatever they're carrying, because you can only do it on people who've actually killed you. So, while they could clear their inventory, that's just another nuisance, and it would be easier to roam around dangerous areas waiting to get killed and then doing bounties that way... you could probably do more in a shorter period of time.
And so the only effective way to game it may be successful SAD's, BUT, again, we have to keep in mind that successfully doing one SAD won't be a major difference, and obviously they won't allow one character to get SAD'd over and over again by the same person.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I thought Ryan already said it would be a boring grind. If it takes lots of time-consuming and low-challenge monster kills which cost more resources to fight than you can get out of them, then it takes logged-in time, boring play, and some monetary cost to recover. They're doing the rest of the world some good by charitably spending days whacking hundreds of skeletons which wear down your arms & armour but have no resources themselves. If the PK is out in the open, they probably can't macro or bot the fights very effectively, because it would be easy for other players to jump them.
GW can't prevent all random PK, but they can make it so much slower to recover from spree killing than it takes to fall that eventually those who want to PK stop bothering with recovery attempts. There could even be a diminishing returns effect that each fall & redemption makes the next fall faster and recovery slower, depending on how often it's happened in recent months. If PKs insist on coming as close as they can with some kind of maximum kill count per month, then they have to choose their limited targets more carefully, and aren't exactly random anymore. Eventually though, I think those who want to make a habit of PKing will just settle into an evil alignment and low rep if the consequences are easier to deal with than the effort to repeatedly work the system over.
Edit:
I found the reference from Darkfall: Lessons Learned.
The point I was replying to was the comment about "going Pirate, then becoming good again". The intent of the response was to say that people cycling in and out of Dredd Pirate Roberts territory and back is limited by the incredibly onerous time requirements and boredom required. It happens, but it happens infrequently. That's a good design from the standpoint of saying that you can do some edge-case thing, but the game system implies limits that few will bother to overcome the inherent challenge.
People do all sorts of incredibly time consuming and boring things in MMOs. Player boredom is the only truly meaningful resource in MMO design. However people who get off on the thrill of player-killing are temperamentally unsuited to long, boring intervals of grinding no-challenge content. They don't do it if they can avoid it.
There are other people, of a very different temperament, who are content to harvest resources using utterly boring mechanics for hour after hour. They are getting some pleasure just from seeing a number on a graph go up slowly over time. There is a reason Pachinko is a successful entertainment business. Some people find boring, repetitive behavior very soothing. Plus they can be super social while they do it; the resource extraction is just an excuse to log in and chat with friends.
These two people are fundamentally different and a game design can work at limiting the first behavior without limiting the second! even though that may seem counter-intuitive.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This discussion about Rep and alignment seems to be related to concepts of gain of skill, which is not necessarily the same.
There has been suggestions that alignment will be restored by time as down time charter may be doing things in alignment.
I have not seen anything that rep would be resorted without active player actions, but Nihimon will probably provide quote that I am all wet (well it has been raining locally).
OK, so where would I like to see it to be (expressing opinion like many others here).
Skill points increase for paid time in the game and, while not my choice, there seem to be option to buy at the cash shop. Whether cash shop purchase can yield more skill points per month than subscription has not been addressed by debs.
There was a thread talking about how fast alignment shifts, or even if core shifts. I did advocate a process for both shifting and the rate of return is slower the farther astray. THe scheme I proposed had constant core active ration, but one could envision another algorithm with faster core changes when gap is larger. Small shifts (500 points) small effects on core.
There should also be in game actions way to move active toward core faster. THis can be gamed but I will discuss some ways of reducing gaming below. SOme of these actions may allow character move core toward a particular corner/edge. THis is not honoring neutral adjustment, but true neutral can adjust toward any of 4 corners/edges!
As I read it there is no design for passive restoration of reputation. Ryan speaks to actions being needed.
If there are PvP activities to improve alignment or rep (whatever "improve" means), there could be limits on how many interactions can be with characters of same player (say twice in 3 months, 3 times in 6 and 4 times in 12). Interactions beyond limits are allowed but do not improve Rep. Secondly, is the concept of network. Based upon activities aimed at improving negative reps, gains within network may be limited likewise.
I recall discussion in Sophomore maths about how to identify a network and mathematical operations on such. If the devs want to look at such, find the maths major and algorithm developers among the team. It is decades back.
Basic idea is that through play there are established networks of characters. Those networks (of the players of those characters) can not game with in themselves to raise negative rep.
The way to game this is to build max rep, before going on rampage and stopping before going negative -- then grinding back. This works best in neutral community where shifts in positive but always non-zero is more accepted.
Additional question. some speak of 7500 as maximum rep. I see +/- 7500 on the two
alignment axis, but do not see it on Rep discussion (Nihimon?).
lam
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Goblin Squad Member
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Skill points increase for paid time in the game and, while not my choice, there seem to be option to buy at the cash shop. Whether cash shop purchase can yield more skill points per month than subscription has not been addressed by debs.
Yes, the devs have addressed it plenty of times, but most of it was months ago, maybe before you started reading the blog or board.
Experience accrual is either 'on' or 'off'. Either you're getting XP at the same speed as everyone else, or you're not getting XP at all because you're not paying anything.
If you have a subscription, you're automatically billed and XP gain is 'on'.
If you do not buy a subscription, XP gain is only turned on when you buy XP time at the cash shop. It is also possible for other players to buy extra XP time for real-world cash and sell it to someone else for in-game coin.
If you don't have a subscription or purchased XP time, you gain no experience.
If you have a subscription plus purchased XP time, or you buy a lot of XP time at once, you can still only use it at the same speed as anyone else.
Regardless of how you buy your XP gaining time, you can't gain XP faster buy buying more of it because there's a limit on how fast one character can spend it. If you want to gain experience with more than one character at a time, you can do that, but each will gain XP at the standard rate.
Once you have gained XP, you need to use it to train skills. The amount of time it takes to spend your XP to train skills will vary, but there has been no indication of a way to spend real-world cash to speed it up.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yes, that is what I had hoped, but recent discussion has made me uncertain is more training could be bought is the shop, above and beyond the subscription. THat has not been explicitly stated. And I have read the blog from the beginning (1 1/2 times).
But thank you that was a good explanation except for come of there recent uncertainty about the cash shop. I am not sure how much of 2012 is still part of design. I ma not sure how much of 2013 has left the design. During implementation, some things need to change. Not too much as change orders cost $$$. But some things are easier to do than others.
lam
