It should be pointed out in all the furore about whether NRDS is viable or not and you do not want the whole world to be NBSI that currently only one person has declared that their organization would be NBSI and that is me.
There are not a thousand groups waving the NBSI banner just one and there are at least three that have suggested they would be NRDS
CEO, Goblinworks
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The World Until Yesterday
I read that book when it was released. It has been highly impactful in my way of thinking about Pathfinder Online. I know there is some pretty intense criticism of the work, but triangulation with other sources seems to suggest that Diamond's basic synopsis of Highland life matches historical evidence.
I'm not saying that Pathfinder Online is going to be a clone of Highland New Guinea but I think there's a lot of deep human psychology that is revealed by the Highlander's attitudes about security and defense worth paying attention to.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My biggest interest in NDRS is To prevent rep/algn griefing before invasion. Sending people that must be removed for no other reason than to force the settlement to remove them and take faction hits to do so. I am not a fan of the take a bit for the team or monster in the basement method. I would prefer to have a way to make trespassers yes consequence free kills. Not that they all have to die just those trying to use the games rule in ways not intended to bomb a settlement.There is somewhat of a disconnect between saying "I want to be NRDS, so I will have a list of hundreds or even thousands of players on my "Red List".
Unaffiliated PCs could be in the thousands. So whats your point.
Tork Shaw said it in the other thread.. There will be no red / white list. he also asked, why don't you just use the Feud?
How do you feud a NPC settlement?
That is what the systems are there for. Otherwise, since there is no information on the Influence system as of yet, GW should just drop it.
Why should a PVP focused MMO have a cost assigned to what it considers sanctioned PVP?
Why should settlement hexes that have laws, be FFA PVP, and the wilderness areas without laws have constraints on PVP?
You lost me here, one more time why should a settlement have laws and the wilderness not have laws, but if you attack someone in the wilderness it is not FFA. Well settlements would not be FFA is would be enforcing the law.
PC Settlements are not supposed to be as safe as the NPC Starter Towns. The wilderness hexes are not supposed to be as safe as the PC settlements.
Safer for who?
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Goblin Squad Member
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The World Until Yesterday: Prologue - An Airport Scene, p.4-5, abridged:
(1931 was the date of the first contact of indigenous New Guineans with Western explorers)
I read "Guns, Germs, and Steel" twice. We I read it, watched a Discovery channel version, and read it again to wipe away the Discovery version. I'll have to look for this title. Thank you.
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Goblin Squad Member
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How do you feud a NPC settlement?Tork Shaw said it in the other thread.. There will be no red / white list. he also asked, why don't you just use the Feud?
Valid point. How does a settlement deal with an unaffiliated obnoxious characters in their space?
The current answer seems to be: use your own unaffiliated alts to dispatch the unaffiliated obnoxious guy (who is probably an alt).
Wait o'minute. What if I want to play my character, not a string of alts? Maybe the game should take a lesson from the good people of the New Guinea: people (alts or mains) that have no company can be presumed to have no friends, and can be moved into the category of enemy or prey if they move outside NPC controlled areas. (editted: I'm halfway serious. I think alts in general are a blight; a way to bypass meaningful interaction and avoid consequences.)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Maybe the game should take a lesson from the good people of the New Guinea: people (alts or mains) that have no company can be presumed to have no friends, and can be moved into the category of enemy or prey if they move outside NPC controlled areas. (editted: I'm halfway serious. I think alts in general are a blight; a way to bypass meaningful interaction and avoid consequences.)
@Urman that's not a halfway bad idea. Remaining in an NPC Settlement is an indication that you don't want to be bound by the social norms of the rest of the game world. Maybe they shouldn't be bound to you either.
Perfect! At least, to my fairly limited understanding of the problem space :)
It seems very much in-line with using Settlements and Companies to apply social pressure to moderate the behavior of their members, and removes any concern about needing to flag individual characters who are effectively unaccountable to a Settlement or Company.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It doesn't really have to be a global "outside of NPC areas" thing either, although that might indeed be the best implementation. It could be as simple as letting each Settlement declare that unaffiliated PCs are automatically Trespassers. It doesn't require a Red List with hundreds or thousands of names to be stored per Settlement. And that would allow Settlements to plan to receive guests who pre-clear their arrival. Maybe even slightly expand that Town Marshal/Sheriff idea of Tork's and let them temporarily declare a person a Visitor, guaranteeing their safety while visiting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Bringslight, my thinking is sort of along these lines:
Members of any company, whether sponsored by an NPC settlement or a PC settlement have an affiliation with that settlement - which can be feuded. Members of player-owned settlements, even if they don't belong to a company, have an affiliation with that settlement, which can be war decced, or some of its companies can be feuded.
Characters who are a citizen of an NPC starter town, but member of no company, are unaffiliated - no social group exists to impose any social norms on them. Nor does any social group extend its protection over them.
Such unaffilated characters should be given stern warning before they step outside NPC controlled areas. It shouldn't be impossible, but I'm thinking something on the order of Darkfall: across this line, anyone can treat you as a hostile/flagged for PvP IF you are unaffiliated. You have a 30 second timer before you glow red, in case you stepped across the line by mistake.
PFO is really intended to be a grouping game. Players should be strongly persuaded to join groups before leaving the "safe zone."
(Perhaps the unaffiliated are hostile-orange instead of hostile-red, just in case some might choose to be more merciful. Details.)
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Bringslight, my thinking is sort of along these lines:
Members of any company, whether sponsored by an NPC settlement or a PC settlement have an affiliation with that settlement - which can be feuded. Members of player-owned settlements, even if they don't belong to a company, have an affiliation with that settlement, which can be war decced, or some of its companies can be feuded.
Characters who are a citizen of an NPC starter town, but member of no company, are unaffiliated - no social group exists to impose any social norms on them. Nor does any social group extend its protection over them.
Such unaffilated characters should be given stern warning before they step outside NPC controlled areas. It shouldn't be impossible, but I'm thinking something on the order of Darkfall: across this line, anyone can treat you as a hostile/flagged for PvP IF you are unaffiliated. You have a 30 second timer before you glow red, in case you stepped across the line by mistake.
PFO is really intended to be a grouping game. Players should be strongly persuaded to join groups before leaving the "safe zone."
(Perhaps the unaffiliated are hostile-orange instead of hostile-red, just in case some might choose to be more merciful. Details.)
I cannot vehemently disagree with this position more strongly. I can understand the desire to add 'Unaffiliated NPC Settlement members' as a group to your settlement territory 'Trespassers' list. But stepping out of NPC starter territory and into an uncontrolled wilderness hex should not mark you Red to All. This goes way too far.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I can understand the desire to add 'Unaffiliated NPC Settlement members' as a group to your settlement territory 'Trespassers' list. But stepping out of NPC starter territory and into an uncontrolled wilderness hex should not mark you Red to All. This goes way too far.
I tend to agree, but defer to the judgment of Ryan and the devs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Bringslight, my thinking is sort of along these lines:
Members of any company, whether sponsored by an NPC settlement or a PC settlement have an affiliation with that settlement - which can be feuded. Members of player-owned settlements, even if they don't belong to a company, have an affiliation with that settlement, which can be war decced, or some of its companies can be feuded.
Characters who are a citizen of an NPC starter town, but member of no company, are unaffiliated - no social group exists to impose any social norms on them. Nor does any social group extend its protection over them.
Such unaffilated characters should be given stern warning before they step outside NPC controlled areas. It shouldn't be impossible, but I'm thinking something on the order of Darkfall: across this line, anyone can treat you as a hostile/flagged for PvP IF you are unaffiliated. You have a 30 second timer before you glow red, in case you stepped across the line by mistake.
PFO is really intended to be a grouping game. Players should be strongly persuaded to join groups before leaving the "safe zone."
(Perhaps the unaffiliated are hostile-orange instead of hostile-red, just in case some might choose to be more merciful. Details.)
Not bad. I like a slightly different color or flag so that others can decide to not attack a curious new person.
Maybe another possibility is a 30 day (totally made up numbers) limit or 30 hrs logged in limit so that new players can see some of the world and the settlements before they decide who to join. This would not protect them from regular consequential gankers, just auto-flagging? After a time, wherein they had a chance to get to know the world and some of the settlements, it becomes obvious that they want to remain unaffiliated for another reason.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Ryan
Are you saying that companies attached to NPC settlements should be vulnerable to feuds?
I was under the impression that a company, even if sponsored by an NPC settlement, could still be feuded. If not, then they should be.
Are you suggesting that an NPC settlement can be WarDec'd?
That would be interesting, but very risky for the PC settlement declaring the war.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I've never understood where this opinion of bad player behavior came from anyway. I've played MMOs going on 15 years now and I've never been driven from a game because of other players. Sure there's the random jerk, you ignore him, he goes away.
Reading the numerous threads about Reputation and what it's trying to accomplish makes it look like we're expecting this flood of asshats to be playing.
Communities have always done a good job at identifying and dealing with "problem players". Mostly by just ignoring them.
I understand the pvp nature of this game means there is more potential for unsavory players than other games but its not like this is the first open pvp game to ever exist.
TLDR: I feel the concern over unsavory players is unwarranted and we don't need complicated mechanics to curb them. Mechanics that are sure to have exploits anyway. The only feature we need is Ignore.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Bringslight, my thinking is sort of along these lines:
Members of any company, whether sponsored by an NPC settlement or a PC settlement have an affiliation with that settlement - which can be feuded. Members of player-owned settlements, even if they don't belong to a company, have an affiliation with that settlement, which can be war decced, or some of its companies can be feuded.
Characters who are a citizen of an NPC starter town, but member of no company, are unaffiliated - no social group exists to impose any social norms on them. Nor does any social group extend its protection over them.
Such unaffilated characters should be given stern warning before they step outside NPC controlled areas. It shouldn't be impossible, but I'm thinking something on the order of Darkfall: across this line, anyone can treat you as a hostile/flagged for PvP IF you are unaffiliated. You have a 30 second timer before you glow red, in case you stepped across the line by mistake.
PFO is really intended to be a grouping game. Players should be strongly persuaded to join groups before leaving the "safe zone."
(Perhaps the unaffiliated are hostile-orange instead of hostile-red, just in case some might choose to be more merciful. Details.)
Not bad. I like a slightly different color or flag so that others can decide to not attack a curious new person.
Maybe another possibility is a 30 day (totally made up numbers) limit or 30 hrs logged in limit so that new players can see some of the world and the settlements before they decide who to join. This would not protect them from regular consequential gankers, just auto-flagging? After a time, wherein they had a chance to get to know the world and some of the settlements, it becomes obvious that they want to remain unaffiliated for another reason.
Sounds like the perfect spy, free to act for 30 hours or 3.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Lifedragn I was elaborating my thinking, in part to capture my views at the moment.
I think your point about being red in an uncontrolled hex is a good one - one that I hadn't thought of. The morality of good and evil would suggest that an unaffiliated character in an unowned hex *cannot* be trespassing, so should not be a valid/free target.
As for settlements, I'd offer that the unaffiliated characters in your settlement space will likely be a mix of new characters and alts of old characters. But at the end of the day, yes, each settlement should be able to decide how they approach unaffiliated strangers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I feel the concern over unsavory players is unwarranted and we don't need complicated mechanics to curb them. Mechanics that are sure to have exploits anyway. The only feature we need is Ignore.
You're at odds with the designers, then.
In general, we're pretty sure that MMOs are a race to the bottom, Lord of the Flies style, if you don't put in mechanics to try to incentivize better behavior.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I've never understood where this opinion of bad player behavior came from anyway. I've played MMOs going on 15 years now and I've never been driven from a game because of other players. Sure there's the random jerk, you ignore him, he goes away.
Reading the numerous threads about Reputation and what it's trying to accomplish makes it look like we're expecting this flood of asshats to be playing.
Communities have always done a good job at identifying and dealing with "problem players". Mostly by just ignoring them.
I understand the pvp nature of this game means there is more potential for unsavory players than other games but its not like this is the first open pvp game to ever exist.
TLDR: I feel the concern over unsavory players is unwarranted and we don't need complicated mechanics to curb them. Mechanics that are sure to have exploits anyway. The only feature we need is Ignore.
Unfortunately, it is hard to ignore being killed at random (an unknown reason from your perspective) if it happens too often. Some accept such situations and carry on, others don't much care for it and go to another game. Judging by the populations of most Open PVP MMORPG titles, I would say that it is not a favorite environment of the majority that are willing to try these games.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I can understand the desire to add 'Unaffiliated NPC Settlement members' as a group to your settlement territory 'Trespassers' list. But stepping out of NPC starter territory and into an uncontrolled wilderness hex should not mark you Red to All. This goes way too far.I tend to agree, but defer to the judgment of Ryan and the devs.
I tend to agree as well, and think that it is valid to state that disagreement but I can see a counter argument.
1. I believe it's been stated by Ryan in the past that he wants people to join player groups because people who get involved in player groups tend to make friends and therefore become more invested in the game / more likely to stick around.
2. What this will undoubtedly lead to is the formation is some companies that are loose affiliations of fairly independent members. Basically rather than joining an NPC settlement you go join a newb company with a low criteria to join and fairly few commitments and restrictions when you do so but who might kick out all the bad apples that give them a bad name.
I think the key there though is they need to make company recruitment info very accessible and heavily encourage you to join one, basically stating it as something you are intended to do before leaving the starting zone.
A lot of text based MMOs want you to join a company as part of your tutorial / reward you for doing so / make it impossible to advance in the tutorial without doing so. I'm generally not a big fan of that practice as it tends to throw you into a company with very little time to decide whether it's a good fit but if you're going to get flagged for leaving the starter zone in an NPC company, this seems a logical step for PFO to me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A couple questions.
1. Is there actually going to be a cap set on company size?
2. Will all player groups larger than companies require the establishment of controlled territory such as a settlement?These may not seem related to the topic at hand but they are actually are.
If there was a requirement to have a settlement or POI to limit the size of a company, then companies would just meta game their size through the use of unaffiliated divisions.
Example; if UNC has no desire to have a settlement, but we have 90 members and NPC sponsored companies are capped at 30, we will just have three regional companies.
I have always envisioned going with a Motorcycle Club like organizations that are semi autonomous and all meet at a council level that is meta gamed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Sounds like the perfect spy, free to act for 30 hours or 3.@Bringslight, my thinking is sort of along these lines:
Members of any company, whether sponsored by an NPC settlement or a PC settlement have an affiliation with that settlement - which can be feuded. Members of player-owned settlements, even if they don't belong to a company, have an affiliation with that settlement, which can be war decced, or some of its companies can be feuded.
Characters who are a citizen of an NPC starter town, but member of no company, are unaffiliated - no social group exists to impose any social norms on them. Nor does any social group extend its protection over them.
Such unaffilated characters should be given stern warning before they step outside NPC controlled areas. It shouldn't be impossible, but I'm thinking something on the order of Darkfall: across this line, anyone can treat you as a hostile/flagged for PvP IF you are unaffiliated. You have a 30 second timer before you glow red, in case you stepped across the line by mistake.
PFO is really intended to be a grouping game. Players should be strongly persuaded to join groups before leaving the "safe zone."
(Perhaps the unaffiliated are hostile-orange instead of hostile-red, just in case some might choose to be more merciful. Details.)
Not bad. I like a slightly different color or flag so that others can decide to not attack a curious new person.
Maybe another possibility is a 30 day (totally made up numbers) limit or 30 hrs logged in limit so that new players can see some of the world and the settlements before they decide who to join. This would not protect them from regular consequential gankers, just auto-flagging? After a time, wherein they had a chance to get to know the world and some of the settlements, it becomes obvious that they want to remain unaffiliated for another reason.
Free to act for a limited time, but not free to play OR free from the suggested dangers already IN the proposed mechanics. They would be no more safe than they already are and for a much more limited time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A couple questions.
1. Is there actually going to be a cap set on company size?
2. Will all player groups larger than companies require the establishment of controlled territory such as a settlement?These may not seem related to the topic at hand but they are actually are.
I think they're talking about a soft cap of 50. Note that the cost of feuds seems related to the relative sizes of the two companies, so a huge company will pay more than a moderate sized company for attacking the same foe. (There may be other diminishing returns as well, dunno).
They've specified that there will be company-level alliances, so I don't think multi-company groups need a settlement, though I think they're encouraging it. Even a POI hex (like an independent tavern/inn) might have two outposts controlled by allied companies.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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I don't think being a member of an NPC Settlement and walking outside the Settlement's security zone should flag you as killable on sight by all everywhere.
I do think maybe there's a worthwhile idea to examine that a PC Settlement can define NPC Settlement members as hostile within the territory the Settlement controls so they can be killed on sight as a policy of the PC Settlement.
That ties back into the question of how and if we can enable Settlements to have security policies as a mechanic and not a social compact, and if they can how players are informed of them.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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I've never understood where this opinion of bad player behavior came from anyway.
Lots of people play Theme Park MMOs and don't interact with the general player population of those games. If all you do is play with friends or solo and you don't engage with out-of-game community tools, you'll likely never have a sense of the toxicity (or lack thereof) of a game's community. About the only way you might see it is in global chat or if you get messaged by someone who wants to harass you, or if you are targeted by a griefer (and that's hard to do these days in most Theme Parks where about the only grief most players will encounter is being teabagged).
But all the major attempts at Sandbox games have developed toxic communities very quickly, and the toxicity has often extended in game in meaningful ways - it's much harder to avoid engagement with the general population in a sandbox game than a theme park.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do not think that NBSI or NRDS are game mechanics. I believe that they are social structures build on the game mechanic of being able to discourage or encourage characters to be in your settlement space. That game mechanic will be a well defined bounding box for my character's development, and I welcome that clarity of boundary.
I expect to be a small gain of sand in a very big box. But I want that box to be well defined, with a high granularity that will allow me to identify my bounds within the box. I have always pushed at boundaries, many times to my detriment. However, once I can define those boundaries, they become the trellis that gives my character strength to grow beyond what I could on my own. Boundaries do not confine me. They give me strength and leverage.
I don't believe the sky is falling.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Not to be argumentative...but forcing people who don't want to belong to a large group to join up or be flagged as hostile the minute they leave the NPC zones and we will have, I'm sure, several of our more enterprising friends creating bunk guilds that will allow membership for a fee in exchange for simply belonging to a group.
They will never adventure together and never care...it will just be another form of meta-gaming we can't stop. Maybe a better way to implement this would be to make rep losses for killing unaffiliated players dependent of level. If some first level noob decide he wants to see the world and a 19th level mage roasts him....smash the mages rep. but as the noob increases level...take away the cloak of penalty wrapped around him in increments.
That way by the time the noob is no longer a noob and has reached a decent level (4-5 th?) he will know enough about the game and the different guilds to make a decision about his direction. It's a nice combination of the presented options and won't make new players feel like they are being forced into a hurried decision...which might turn people off.
EDIT: IT might also make strides in the area of everyone's fear of unaffiliated alts being used as spies. The minute those alts begin leveling they will lose their security blanket. It might not solve the problem totally, but at least Meta-gamers will have to have a paid for account that does nothing more than erase and re-roll 1st level characters...and I am fine with taking their money in exchange for some guild knowing where my wood pile is.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If everyone has to be a member of a settlement, how does someone start a new settlement? Do they just ditch their old one upon creation/joining?Another good question.
Same as in EVE, I would imagine. When you create a new corporation, you first shift to an NPC corp for a few moments until you create the new one. If you create the new corporation fast enough, your employment does not even record the few moments you were in transition from:
Old Corp -> NPC Corp - > New Corp.
The NPC Corp info won't even show up if it is almost immediate. The only annoying thing about EVE's process was if you had various corp management abilities, you had to remove all of those roles first before you could drop out. The you still had a 24 hour waiting period, unless I think if your were the CEO and you were closing the Corp.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You start in an NPC town "determined by... factors". When you join a new settlement membership in the previous is quit.
Also, the CEO doesn't think players in NPC settlements should be flagged red for everyone to kill outside the NPC town's influence. When he said "outside the NPC town walls they find a sea of red" it means he thinks players will set their own settlements to not welcome characters with NPC membership. He was predicting a player culture not a GW mechanic.
There were two recent dev posts saying these things but I'm far too lazy to link them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Not to be argumentative...but forcing people who don't want to belong to a large group to join up or be flagged as hostile the minute they leave the NPC zones and we will have, I'm sure, several of our more enterprising friends creating bunk guilds that will allow membership for a fee in exchange for simply belonging to a group.
They will never adventure together and never care...it will just be another form of meta-gaming we can't stop. Maybe a better way to implement this would be to make rep losses for killing unaffiliated players dependent of level. If some first level noob decide he wants to see the world and a 19th level mage roasts him....smash the mages rep. but as the noob increases level...take away the cloak of penalty wrapped around him in increments.
That way by the time the noob is no longer a noob and has reached a decent level (4-5 th?) he will know enough about the game and the different guilds to make a decision about his direction. It's a nice combination of the presented options and won't make new players feel like they are being forced into a hurried decision...which might turn people off.
EDIT: IT might also make strides in the area of everyone's fear of unaffiliated alts being used as spies. The minute those alts begin leveling they will lose their security blanket. It might not solve the problem totally, but at least Meta-gamers will have to have a paid for account that does nothing more than erase and re-roll 1st level characters...and I am fine with taking their money in exchange for some guild knowing where my wood pile is.
Ryan said, Unaffiliated in a Settlement controlled Hex would be tress passers. (He did say considered, as a mechanic) Not all Unaffiliated are FFA.
A settlement like you describe would never survive the first considered attack as there would be nobody home to protect it. I believe it would be attacked sooner, rather than later IF its members were running a muck.
Rep losses do increase for low level / skilled characters.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You start in an NPC town "determined by... factors". When you join a new settlement membership in the previous is quit.
Also, the CEO doesn't think players in NPC settlements should be flagged red for everyone to kill outside the NPC town's influence. When he said "outside the NPC town walls they find a sea of red" it means he thinks players will set their own settlements to not welcome characters with NPC membership. He was predicting a player culture not a GW mechanic.
There were two recent dev posts saying these things but I'm far too lazy to link them.
This just a few posts up this page....
I don't think being a member of an NPC Settlement and walking outside the Settlement's security zone should flag you as killable on sight by all everywhere.
I do think maybe there's a worthwhile idea to examine that a PC Settlement can define NPC Settlement members as hostile within the territory the Settlement controls so they can be killed on sight as a policy of the PC Settlement.
That ties back into the question of how and if we can enable Settlements to have security policies as a mechanic and not a social compact, and if they can how players are informed of them.
There is nothing in stone, just a acknowledgement that it is something to be "examine"
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I cannot vehemently disagree with this position more strongly. I can understand the desire to add 'Unaffiliated NPC Settlement members' as a group to your settlement territory 'Trespassers' list. But stepping out of NPC starter territory and into an uncontrolled wilderness hex should not mark you Red to All. This goes way too far.@Bringslight, my thinking is sort of along these lines:
Members of any company, whether sponsored by an NPC settlement or a PC settlement have an affiliation with that settlement - which can be feuded. Members of player-owned settlements, even if they don't belong to a company, have an affiliation with that settlement, which can be war decced, or some of its companies can be feuded.
Characters who are a citizen of an NPC starter town, but member of no company, are unaffiliated - no social group exists to impose any social norms on them. Nor does any social group extend its protection over them.
Such unaffilated characters should be given stern warning before they step outside NPC controlled areas. It shouldn't be impossible, but I'm thinking something on the order of Darkfall: across this line, anyone can treat you as a hostile/flagged for PvP IF you are unaffiliated. You have a 30 second timer before you glow red, in case you stepped across the line by mistake.
PFO is really intended to be a grouping game. Players should be strongly persuaded to join groups before leaving the "safe zone."
(Perhaps the unaffiliated are hostile-orange instead of hostile-red, just in case some might choose to be more merciful. Details.)
Between the extremes of "Red to All" and "Gray to All" is an interesting space. I think it should be very similar to the space created by being a member of a company with one active member.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Between the extremes of "Red to All" and "Gray to All" is an interesting space. I think it should be very similar to the space created by being a member of a company with one active member.
Yes, the "Holding Company" will find its use in PFO.
Holding Company = 10 Alts (or whatever the minimum will be, maybe 10 to start it and 1 to hold it?)
Active characters play as unaffiliated for most of the week, month, whatever.
Every once in a while, they all rejoin the Holding Company, transferring the influence to it, depositing their loot, etc..
They go on a raiding spree, using up that influence. Once it is used up, they drop out of HC.
The HC can get feuded, but it will only consist of a non playing alt.
Do this for a few months, then a second alt is used. Wipe out the old Holding Company and start a new one under a new name. Different alt as head.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Between the extremes of "Red to All" and "Gray to All" is an interesting space. I think it should be very similar to the space created by being a member of a company with one active member.Yes, the "Holding Company" will find its use in PFO.
Holding Company = 10 Alts (or whatever the minimum will be, maybe 10 to start it and 1 to hold it?)
Active characters play as unaffiliated for most of the week, month, whatever.
Every once in a while, they all rejoin the Holding Company, transferring the influence to it, depositing their loot, etc..
They go on a raiding spree, using up that influence. Once it is used up, they drop out of HC.
The HC can get feuded, but it will only consist of a non playing alt.
Do this for a few months, then a second alt is used. Wipe out the old Holding Company and start a new one under a new name. Different alt as head.
All of that sounds like a terrific twisting of intentions (not arguing that it is an exploit. Let GW do that) except the influence part. Tork did say, somewhere that influence is kind of like prowess -> dominion. It will likely be a matter of earning Influence and applying it toward a company or settlement has more to do with being a current member.
Influence
From the moment of its creation, each company begins earning influence—a measure of the ongoing deeds of its members, and a currency with which the company can claim territory, trophies, and various boons for its members. Each time a member player earns an achievement, his or her company also earns a small amount of influence. Ambitious companies are therefore encouraged to actively recruit low-level members, guiding them through their early development in order to benefit from the rapid achievement gains of new players. In addition, special company achievements and even some items and trophies provide influence boosts.
Influence has a number of varied uses to complement a company's chosen focus. We'll cover influence mechanics in more detail in a later blog post, but here's a quick overview:
•All companies may use influence to forge alliances with other companies or settlements, usually to establish trade arrangements or provide mutual security.
•For empire-builders, influence is spent to claim territory in the Crusader Road region. When a company clears the dangerous inhabitants from wilderness hex, they may spend their influence to claim that location for their own.
•For mercenaries, bandits, and agitators, influence can be used to declare a feud—a state of PvP hostilities like a war between settlements, but at shorter notice and for a shorter period—against another company or settlement.
•For traders and crafters, influence can be spent on boons to help dominate an economy or profession, and on shoring up caravan defenses when transporting goods across the lands.
•Finally, for adventuring companies, influence can be spent to claim great rewards from successful escalation cycles, either for the benefit of the company itself or for its sponsoring settlement.
But since you are writing about some sort of "holding" company, maybe influence will not be so important for it?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am still in the process of trying to decide whether I would want to play this game.I have never played a PvP game before: and , in fact, Pathfinder (tabletop) is a cooperative venture as opposed to PvP , which is expressly prohibited in that venue. I know that I am NOT one of the "fittest" and would not like my character to be a target to be repeatedly killed by other more powerful and knowledgable players or teams. I would be satisfied with a small role as long as it's fun and not a constant battle in which i would always have to be looking over my shoulder so to speak. As in real life, there has to be some authority exercised by the game designers/staff so that anarchy does not ensue, as anarchy does not benefit either society or the game. After all, the average or even below average player has to have fun in order to be attracted to, or to remain in the game. Certainly, I would NOT pay to be abused by "fitter" players.
Hi Martin,
Many of us here feel that way or feel inclined to provide ways and areas that are safer for more casual people and people that are tentative about PVP. I am very tentative myself, or I was. I have been playing a game that I find little interest in since last August, just to get better at PVP and to get.... over that aversion to sudden and unexpected PVP. I am much better at it than I was and I am not too concerned about it anymore, yet it is still not my favorite pastime. :)
There will be PVP in PfO and not always when you want or expect it, but hopefully almost always for a reason that makes some sense.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am still in the process of trying to decide whether I would want to play this game.I have never played a PvP game before: and , in fact, Pathfinder (tabletop) is a cooperative venture as opposed to PvP , which is expressly prohibited in that venue.
Martin,
I used to be the same way. The first open world PVP game I played was Star Wars Galaxies. SWG had an Opt in PVP Flagging system and I spent my first few months running missions and grinding critter kills and raiding Tusken Raiders over and over again.
Then one day I decided to flag up for PVP. It added a whole new experience to the game for me. I eventually got better at it and was able to play as part of a team, speaking of cooperative ventures.
In EvE Online, I made the same transition with one of my characters there as well. EVE was a lot less forgiving than SWG. I lost quite a few ships and it took some time before I got my first kill. But, like SWQ, EVE really opens up when you dip into PVP.
In Pathfinder Online, I think that the PVP will be more accessible than the other MMOs I mentioned. Less of a learning curve and more focus on cooperative adventuring (PVP as adventuring, not dungeon crawling).
My advice to you is definitely give the game a try. Throw yourself headlong into PVP, particularly on the aggressor side (I'll explain) and don't worry about early losses.
Why the aggressor side?
Because you can have more control over the where and when you PVP. When you PVP solely as a defender, your PVp never comes to you when you expect it. You can't control the circumstances in which it comes, you mostly react. As the aggressor, you have more control, but not total control.
Finally, you don't have to be the "Bad Guy" to be an aggressor. You can be a Bounty Hunter, an Assassin, a Mercenary or a Marshal / Sheriff which is something that was just recently revealed.
Hope that convinced you to at least give it a try, and welcome to the boards!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Papaver, that should answer your Troll question. But you messed up. PFO identified itself as a sandbox game.
That wasn't a troll question. You throw around a lot of "you are doing it wrong"'s and the like. So I wanted to see your reaction if confronded with your own rhetoric.
I asked because you seem to imply that every sandbox game must have the same restrictions or rather the lack there of and you also seem to want a sandbox game that has the least mechanical restrictions. The later being a thing that is at odds with the game design presented over time in the dev blog.
PFO identified itself as a sandbox game.
Look at the Kickstarters and look at the blog. It doesn't. It describes itself as a Sandbox Themepark hybrid. Some of the experience will allow players a certain freedom of action and agency and some of the experience will be guided.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Random Idea:
Unguilded or 'Un-affiliated' Players are a resource just waiting to be tapped, correct?
How hard would it be to code 'flyer' boards in the NPC settlements where 'similarly aligned' Player Factions can advertise their Companies.
Chaotic Neutral, Chaotic Evil, Neutral and Neutral Evil Companies in the Bandit NPC starting area.
Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Neutral, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good and Chaotic Neutral in the Crusaders of Iomedae (spelling?) NPC starting area.
Lawful Evil, Lawful Neutral, Neutral and Neutral Evil in the Hellknight NPC Starting Area.
Since the Starting areas of each group will offer their own 'take' on how the game will be played, and presumably we'll get a 'joining X-NPC Faction, a coalition of bandits, murderers and slavers' vs 'joining Y-NPC Faction, an order of Infernal Knights and other Devil-worshipping fanatics' vs 'joining Z-NPC Faction, an order of Crusaders of Good, a fractious alliance of many Religions and Nations focused upon stopping the Abyssal Breach from spreading', helps any new players who are not familiar with Pathfinder, Golarion and/or the lore of the setting from trying to make a CE Rogue in the Hellknight faction or a LG Paladin amongst the Bandits.
Anyone who insists on being Unaffiliated is warned that without the backup of a Company or Guild is taking a great risk, and no doubt Settlements will watch Unaffiliated PCs like hawks.
You might even get S.A.D.s from the controlling Faction if they set their Laws up that 'vagabonds' (Unaffiliated players) do not grant rep loss for S.A.D.s in their Hex.
Of course, if the PC in question is willing to, in lieu of payment of the S.A.D., join one of the 'trainee' Companies sponsored by the Controlling Faction, Trainee Companies that exist as a loose support-group that helps new or casual players within the Hex gain friends and give them a familiar setup, a 'Guild' with a clear chain of command, that can either direct them to mutual benefit with the Controlling Faction of the Hex, or can identify potential problem PCs, who can then be tagged as 'Exiles', meaning that their presence in the Controlling Faction's Hex flags them up as 'Hostile' (Red flagged) or 'Dangerous'(Orange flagged) to the Controlling Faction and their allies.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am still in the process of trying to decide whether I would want to play this game.I have never played a PvP game before: and , in fact, Pathfinder (tabletop) is a cooperative venture as opposed to PvP , which is expressly prohibited in that venue. I know that I am NOT one of the "fittest" and would not like my character to be a target to be repeatedly killed by other more powerful and knowledgable players or teams. I would be satisfied with a small role as long as it's fun and not a constant battle in which i would always have to be looking over my shoulder so to speak. As in real life, there has to be some authority exercised by the game designers/staff so that anarchy does not ensue, as anarchy does not benefit either society or the game. After all, the average or even below average player has to have fun in order to be attracted to, or to remain in the game. Certainly, I would NOT pay to be abused by "fitter" players.
I've played all kinds of different MMOs over the last few years and I am a former table top guy as well. I can tell you that in all honesty I have never been one of those epic PVP guys that have all the best gear set up in all the right ways. I've never sat down with a calculator and made math formulas about how which cannons to use on my space ship and with what engines to maximize blah blah blah. I play for fun. I don't enjoy losing...but players like you and I far outnumber people who obsess to that degree. Thing about PVP is....you are gonna lose. I'm gonna lose, he's gonna lose...everyone is at some point. But I have noticed, that for myself, that while the frustration can be more acute in a PVP game...the rewards far outweigh the frustration. The gamers high also is way higher than anything you have ever gotten playing a single player or console game.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Between the extremes of "Red to All" and "Gray to All" is an interesting space. I think it should be very similar to the space created by being a member of a company with one active member.Yes, the "Holding Company" will find its use in PFO.
Holding Company = 10 Alts (or whatever the minimum will be, maybe 10 to start it and 1 to hold it?)
Active characters play as unaffiliated for most of the week, month, whatever.
Every once in a while, they all rejoin the Holding Company, transferring the influence to it, depositing their loot, etc..
They go on a raiding spree, using up that influence. Once it is used up, they drop out of HC.
The HC can get feuded, but it will only consist of a non playing alt.
Do this for a few months, then a second alt is used. Wipe out the old Holding Company and start a new one under a new name. Different alt as head.
Are you suggesting that as a strategy that should be viable, or suggesting it as something that might need work to remove because it makes a mockery of the intent of the systems used.?