| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Well yes, EE vs OE should be a small gap, but for the health of the game the person who joins 2 years in needs to be able to do something useful before they have played for 2 years.
Ah, I see what you're saying. That being said, they'll probably reach a close level before the two years have elapsed—things will have gotten very slow at those levels, I'd imagine.
(Made up numbers following)
What I'm implying is that a maxed role should only give you a (relatively) 10% advantage over a noob. Enough that in a fair fight you probably shouldn't lose but not enough that you're impervious or insta-winning fights.
There's a thick, thick line between "impervious" and "10% advantage". A max-leveled character should almost always beat a noob, and a mere month of training should not be enough to about even tiny gap that's been left.
Why not? Well, if 10% is the biggest it gets, and 3-5% the standard, who will care about levels? Who will bother buying subscriptions? Reputation will become truly meaningless. Two newbies will be able dispatch a veteran with ease.
I think we're pretty much all agreeing that's the way it should be and that is what GW wants
I hate to be "that guy", but if a 10% gap is what Goblinworks decides is best, I will be seriously reconsidering playing the game. Or at least subscribing. What's the point?
If I remember correctly, Bluddwolf and others have offered, here on the PFO boards, to meet new people in EVE and have them rolling out the same evening, doing useful and fun things. I want PFO to offer that same level of get-your-feet-wet-by-doing as well, and for many of us to be able to extend that type of EVE-players-courtesy to new PFO arrivals.
Yeah, that will be crucial. I'll happily be joining the early orientation crowd, assuming there's no risk of people killing anyone seen with me just on principle.
Goblin Squad Member
|
The exact mathematical equation would be needed to really say when someone will be capped, how log it will take, and so on.
Until that happens its all speculation.
However, playing in several games where there are either, a flat level cap, a exponential increase in XP needed to advance, or a set real time training queue, or several other options. I have found that the one thing that always make a gap is Stuff. What stuff do you have.
Do you have crappy stuff? Then you probably suck. Do you have awesome stuff? Then you have an immediate advantage. Does it make you unbeatable? Absolutely not.
I play in a game where coming in the high level characters running around were in their high 20's early 30's, and had lots of toys. Starting at level 1 is not easy in that particular game. It does not stop people from joining up and trying it out, and loving it.
Now 10-13 years later my character is ridiculous in that game. Could I curb stomp every low level new character... yes I could. Could I curb stomp them all together.... maybe if I ate my Wheaties that day.
Could I do that if they took a little bit of time and prepared specifically to beat my ass? I'm going to go with no.
So its not always about level. its not always about stuff. More influential than both is your ability to out think a foe.
Which is figuring out their weakness, or doing something they don't expect.
Which goes back to The Goons, and excellent job to them, I wish I had not stopped playing so I could have been a part of either side of that.
We are all going to come up with 'the way' you do things. Then someone is going to come along, check us out, and annihilate the crap out of us (they should start in the south... perhaps a hint about hex selection...or maybe not.. haha!).
Then we will have to adjust or be destroyed and start over, either with the 'new way' or the 'new-new way to kick the crap out of the new way that annihilated us.
Either way people will show up to play as long as the game is a solid base, and give people a chance to have a relatively fair fight.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
...EVE University...
... you need a trusting community to lend you the equipment to do it.
I think the parallel in the discussion was something along the lines of "will a T3 greatsword in PFO be like a Titan, requiring hundreds of hours to make, and thousands of materials?" We have so very much to learn.
As for EVE Uni, I know the topic's come up, but I think it usually gets shelved until--again--we learn more about whether it's workable. I've little doubt the interest is there if the feasibility is as well.
Could I curb stomp them all together.... maybe if I ate my Wheaties that day.
I read this as Wheatleys. O_o
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I think anything end-game-super-awesome should require time and effort proportional to the ass-kickery it will enable.
Anyone who thinks they should get a Holy avenger for existing needs to go back to pre-school.
Actually I take that back,, they should come make a settlement next to mine so I can giggle while taking their candy... in a totally non-evil lesson teaching sort of way.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Personally, I think a max-leveled veteran should beat a green new guy about 80-90% of the time. The 10% would be when the low-leveler is prepared, knows how to play, has some friends, and/or attacks the veteran when she's just finished a difficult combat. It's like Arya Stark going up against Jaime Lannister: Come on, we all know she's not gonna win without a s*#&load of luck.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I'm not going to dig up the quote for this casual a conversation, but I seem to recall Ryan saying a newbie should be able to survive long enough to run away from a veteran, if he started that running right away. That's a standard I can (yes, pun intended) live with.
But remember, KC, that Arya seems nearly GRRM's favourite character, so perhaps he's setting up that match for later on by handling Jaime as he has ;-).
And then you catch up and they kick your ass because you're just as bad as them at normal combat feats.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"...he's...just killing them. Where's the joke?"
"It's funny to me."
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Let me understand. This conversation has moved from having too much PvP for some KICKSTART participants, some (like me) who did not know what PvP meant; to worry that some who arrive in OE will find that they must join companies to learn skills before they can take down the power that have developed in EE.
(1) Well people can join in EE. Currently there are about 2 months signed up.
(2) If anyone joins a game they do know who has been there before,or they don't and they learn as I have.
(3) In OE, expect large groups (10 to 100 time there 8000+ that EE is starting with). THese groups will have major change. THe one who are at risk are the PF TT player who arrive at OE, unsuspecting. 2 or 3 tier 1 characters can take down tier 2. 2 tier 2 are even on tier 3. So 1000 noobs (sp) against 100 fully equipped tier 3;; ???
Because, as we all know, noobs are masters at strategic warfare. Remember, kids, "noob" spelled backwards is...
Boon. Huh. Though it'd be goon, but I guess, with the 'b', never was any chance of...okay, moving on!
1000 noobs won't be organized. A lot of them will probably be joining the preexisting groups, or imitating the Land Rush and forming tiny, insignificant Parties Of One. It's the Goonswarms of the world we'll have to worry about.
I'm going to train running.. Good luck newbies!
Shooting them in the leg with a barbed arrow works just as well.
Uh-oh. I can fix this! If three Goonswarms—crap. Okay, well, even with five Goonswarms—dang it. Look, guys, I don't care if there are fifty—curse my strange reality-bending powers! If only I could learn to control them.
Since the "eve community" hated Goonswarm's guts after BoB said we should be hated, negotiations began with another hated alliance of the "eve community", the Red Alliance. The Reds had a dual reputation as being simultaneously the dirtiest and most effective fighting force in all Eve, and had at this time been fighting off, well, everyone in Eve, in a war that had already lasted over a year.
I like how the author/s can't even keep detached enough to speak in the third person.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Personally, I think a max-leveled veteran should beat a green new guy about 80-90% of the time.
I'm implying that as well, if you always have some % advantage (whether from gear or leveling) you will win an even fight. An even fight might include 1v1, 2v1, 3v1 or so on depending on the people involved and the decided scale.
That doesn't mean you should win by 2 shotting the guy or being able to take on improbably odds of 20v1, besides being annoying for the noobs it's pretty boring game-play for the max guy.
I guess I'm dancing around the problem of what's proper power multiplier? How many noobs does it take at once to kill a maxed role? Because that number can get out of hand fast once we start factoring groups of maxed people into it.
This entire discussion is also assuming total equality of participants, once you start getting into classes with different specialties things get even murkier.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Conquer-and-control will take essentially the same amount of manpower as needed to run the conquering Settlement, and there may be few organisations that can muster that number of folks.
This is only true if you ignore the possibility absorbing your enemy's population.
"Hey, your company likes running that poi? We'd love to have you keep running it, we'll even sweeten the deal a bit."
Groups with more interest in stability and doing the thing they found as fun, than in the politics of empire, will not be terribly rare.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
If I remember correctly, Bluddwolf and others have offered, here on the PFO boards, to meet new people in EVE and have them rolling out the same evening, doing useful and fun things. I want PFO to offer that same level of get-your-feet-wet-by-doing as well, and for many of us to be able to extend that type of EVE-players-courtesy to new PFO arrivals.
There is something called EVE University that is a corporation designed to teach new people how to play EVE. They have a very robust setup to allow it and most of the corporations leave them to their stuff as they don't get involved in the big conflicts. Has anyone been talking about doing that for PFO?
Well, that is actually one of the main purposes of the 'Thod's Friends' group, to provide a meeting place for representatives of other groups, or new PCs who have yet to choose a charter company or settlement.
Settlements with problems can post their want ads ('Ogre eating sheep in hex xx-xx, who will save us from this pitiless beast?'), and anyone who wants to take a shot can go for it.This is where those second and third charter company choices will come in useful, for the creation of temporary adventuring parties, among players who have yet to choose a CC, or have logged in when the rest of their CC are offline, but don't want that to cramp their adventuring.
That's how PFSoc operate within the canon background material; being a Pathfinder, and working well with your adventuring companions should be your focus when you're on the Society's clock.
But they accept they can never prevent their agents continuing to identify with their homeland or political/religious faction, and so tolerate these factions within their umbrella organisation, on the understanding it never compromises the mission, and in the hope that the rivalry could spur some members on to outdo the others.
This should be seen as a good thing for all the other CCs out there, because if the new players have a good experience, accompanying members of an established CC, they are more likely to sign up with them after their first 'mission'.
Conversely, if they find themselves subjected to ridicule for their n00bness, or stabbed in the back on the way home, they will know not to trust members of that CC again, and pass the word around.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Wow, I'm blown away by how reasonable and friendly our community is. The focus is on discussion instead of the common pitfalls of an MMO community forum. Kudos to all who've treated this as a friendly discussion. :-)
My original concern about competitive PvP being the forefront focus of Pathfinder Online is centered upon casual guilds(companies) trying to hold onto settlements. I completely understand and accept the PvP of Pathfinder Online from individual levels. But thanks to this Land Rush, from a much larger scale, the game is going to promote and favor larger and larger companies/settlements, eventually pushing players into leaving their small and/or casual communities to join larger alliances.
Does anyone see this as a major pitfall for the game in the future? Thoughts?
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Yes. But there are already some alliances that seek to protect the sanctity of smaller player groups. Ozem's Vigil has that as a goal, as does The Empyrean Order (disclaimer here...I have an alt that is part of Ozem's Vigil under Peace Through Vigilence).
But your basic premise is largely accurate. A single player will not be able to wander carelessly through the countryside and not expect to become a victim. That said, most places in the game will be 95% safe...inside friendly and neutral settlements, in the "safe zones" around these settlements, and in most all of the NPC patrolled territories. My guess at 95% leaves room for the occasional nasty surprise, even inside a heavily patrolled "safe" area. But we (most everyone of us) hopes that does not chase away true casuals.
I consider myself a mostly casual player too. But have grown accustomed to PvP and some arena, and try to stay prepared when exploring, even though I do not relish the though of getting ambushed. It does keep things interesting though.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
If/as the playerbase grows, the map will expand. Hopefully there will always be a frontier region that attracts the adventurous and the power hungry alike. In the centre of the map, the old parts, we may get to see stability and some degree of permanence and peace. Or not. I can't really predict exactly what will happen where but it seems to me that different parts of the game world will attract different amounts of conflict and different kinds of players.
I would be surprised if we don't get regions where borders are stable and there is less conflict, allowing large groups of players to focus on other parts of the game than settlement PvP.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
The game is going to promote and favor larger and larger companies/settlements, eventually pushing players into leaving their small and/or casual communities to join larger alliances.
Does anyone see this as a major pitfall for the game in the future? Thoughts?
I have he same concern, believe it or not. I'm more of a small gang PvP focused player. I have spent years playing pirate / bandit types, free to roam and with no major political ties. Nothing would make me happier than to at mist be tied to a POI, and to get my training from there or from NPC settlements.
Bit that is not the direction GW is going in, and they haven't been in quite some time. We have been told, "travel solo, you're going to die"; "Small boutique style settlements will get rolled over"; "The only answer to a "big town" is the "other big town".
Come OE, the impression that I get is that a town of less than 50 active members will be ripe for the picking. The land rush is already starting to push towards consolidation, and these week might be the last that a settlement under 20 may still make the cut.
So I agree with you that PFO is developing along the lines of being an alliance warfare game. I'm mindful that I will have to be flexible in my company's plans and in my own personal play style choices. Then I have to run my ideas through our council, to make sure we are all on the same page.
It is a long way before OE, if that eases your mind at all, it certainly helps me.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I don't know what the best 'gap' will be between veteran characters and new ones. I can see both sides of the argument. You don't want your 2 year old character be beaten easily by a new character or two. But at the same time, you don't want veteran players going around 'bullying' new player/characters for the laughs.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Wow, I'm blown away by how reasonable and friendly our community is. The focus is on discussion instead of the common pitfalls of an MMO community forum. Kudos to all who've treated this as a friendly discussion. :-)
My original concern about competitive PvP being the forefront focus of Pathfinder Online is centered upon casual guilds(companies) trying to hold onto settlements. I completely understand and accept the PvP of Pathfinder Online from individual levels. But thanks to this Land Rush, from a much larger scale, the game is going to promote and favor larger and larger companies/settlements, eventually pushing players into leaving their small and/or casual communities to join larger alliances.
Does anyone see this as a major pitfall for the game in the future? Thoughts?
My guesses...
I think bigger affiliation will have higher demand and provide more opportunities to "little helpers" aka casual players/guilds.
I think smaller groups playing the settlement game are at the sharp-edge of the game however. Ie productivity and competitiveness probably need to be more intense.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
The game is going to promote and favor larger and larger companies/settlements, eventually pushing players into leaving their small and/or casual communities to join larger alliances.
Does anyone see this as a major pitfall for the game in the future? Thoughts?
I have he same concern, believe it or not. I'm more of a small gang PvP focused player. I have spent years playing pirate / bandit types, free to roam and with no major political ties. Nothing would make me happier than to at mist be tied to a POI, and to get my training from there or from NPC settlements.
Bit that is not the direction GW is going in, and they haven't been in quite some time. We have been told, "travel solo, you're going to die"; "Small boutique style settlements will get rolled over"; "The only answer to a "big town" is the "other big town".
Come OE, the impression that I get is that a town of less than 50 active members will be ripe for the picking. The land rush is already starting to push towards consolidation, and these week might be the last that a settlement under 20 may still make the cut.
So I agree with you that PFO is developing along the lines of being an alliance warfare game. I'm mindful that I will have to be flexible in my company's plans and in my own personal play style choices. Then I have to run my ideas through our council, to make sure we are all on the same page.
It is a long way before OE, if that eases your mind at all, it certainly helps me.
We too have typically kept ourselves as small as possible while remaining effective. Like I said in my recruitment post, trying to bring in so many extra people is a new thing, and that's not a bad thing.
Trying new things is exactly the point of life isn't it? To challenge yourself to do something new and different? Rather than go, well if I need 100 people and I like my group of 30-40, so forget this game! Try to find a way to work with it and see what happens. That's what we are doing.At the end of the day, it either works or it doesn't, but you personally have learned something and grown. Maybe you try again, maybe you decide you are all set and move on to another new thing.
But being Sam-I-Am before the ham is even cooked seems like a poor choice IMO.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Disappointed, but not silent. I hoped for something completely different from rival settlements and their sordid wars as the primary focus of the world.
Adventure. Not soldiering. Excitement. Not sieges. Monsters to encounter. Not PCs.
IF there is still adventure and wilderness wandering, dungeon crawling and monster hunting then maybe I'll hang around.
IF I'm constantly ganked by frat-tards on a murderhobocation or uber-serious guildraiders then probly not.
Granted I understand about 10% of the terminology in this thread and will just try it and see. ;)
I do understand that the representation of any particular focus is somewhat unevenly overemphasised and misrepresented by the forum participants and not a true reflection of the actual game milieu or world. But I know what I like and settlements at war casting a pall over the lands ain't it.
Sorry for the emotive and charged terms. ;)
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Wow, I'm blown away by how reasonable and friendly our community is. The focus is on discussion instead of the common pitfalls of an MMO community forum. Kudos to all who've treated this as a friendly discussion. :-)
My original concern about competitive PvP being the forefront focus of Pathfinder Online is centered upon casual guilds(companies) trying to hold onto settlements. I completely understand and accept the PvP of Pathfinder Online from individual levels. But thanks to this Land Rush, from a much larger scale, the game is going to promote and favor larger and larger companies/settlements, eventually pushing players into leaving their small and/or casual communities to join larger alliances.
Does anyone see this as a major pitfall for the game in the future? Thoughts?
The game is certainly built to favor large alliances. That doesn't mean that smaller companies and communities aren't viable, but it does mean that they will need so degree of protection from one of those large Alliances if they want to keep their stuff.
I suspect that for smaller companies large player cities will end up functioning like NPC settlements in a Theme park MMO. The city functions as a base of operations with the smaller company with lots of other players running around doing their own thing and having little to do with the higher level settlement and nation stuff. The smaller company is much more likely to be running something out of a POI, and that POI is the company's little slice of the world.
I personally want to see a strong community of casual players in PFO with their own casual companies and even settlements, but that is very much dependent on the more competitive crowd standing up and offering the casual community the protection they need and deserve.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
My original concern about competitive PvP being the forefront focus of Pathfinder Online is centered upon casual guilds(companies) trying to hold onto settlements. I completely understand and accept the PvP of Pathfinder Online from individual levels. But thanks to this Land Rush, from a much larger scale, the game is going to promote and favor larger and larger companies/settlements, eventually pushing players into leaving their small and/or casual communities to join larger alliances.
Does anyone see this as a major pitfall for the game in the future? Thoughts?
While it is impossible to tell what the game will become (settlements won't even exist for several months yet), my impression is that there should always be room on the 'frontier' for small groups to operate without a settlement or found and grow one. I believe the minimum number of players to found a settlement was stated as 10 at one point.
Over time the older settlements will indeed likely get bigger, but there will likely be some sort of maximum viable size. However, there should always be room for new small settlements on the outskirts if they keep expanding the map.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
"Hey, your company likes running that poi? We'd love to have you keep running it, we'll even sweeten the deal a bit."
You're absolutely right, Guurzak. I was thinking only about the "primary" Settlement-folk, and not considering the viewpoints of other stakeholders; thanks for pointing that out.
I still believe my core point might hold, though: a Settlement that conquers a distant one, with the goal being not to raze, might not be able to absorb their defeated foe without creating a new Company dedicated to that purpose, if for no other reason than it sounds as if there'll need to be a link through contiguous hexes between original and new Settlements. My example was intended to alleviate a few concerns of folks who worry about EE Settlements being able to reach all over the OE map doing what they choose.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
One of the points that hasn't been made strongly enough in this thread is that *there will be significant PVE content in the game*. Monster escalations are going to be a constant threat to supply lines. NPC factions will have quests on which their applicants prove themselves. The Emerald Spire may be the largest dungeon ever deployed in an MMO.
Even settlements with the strongest of PVP focus will want to clear escalations for the artifacts they award. Settlements with a strong PVE focus will gain power as they reap the rewards of killing boss monsters and clearing dungeon sections.
The reason nobody is talking about this stuff is because *this is not the scary part*. MMO players know and understand what that game is like. We hope GW does a good job with this, but we're not worried about it and we don't need to talk about it. We talk about the PvP/SvS game because 1) so many developers have tried to make that game and failed, 2) that game is highly political and people talking to each other are how the political game is won or lost, and 3) we can play the political game *now*.
There's no point to talking about the PvE game yet, because there's no PvE game to play. That doesn't mean it won't exist, nor that it won't be possible to have an enjoyable and sustainable game career around it. If that's the game you want to play, you don't need to be discouraged; you just need to be patient.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
...you just need to be patient.
I agree with your points, Guurzak; they're very well-made. The patience is going to be key, and we need to make sure not to mis-lead anyone about it: we've no idea how long it'll take for PVE content to enter PFO.
Crowdforging will take the temperature of the community, of course, but there'll be constraints we don't yet know about, and Lisa's told us to remain very patient indeed about the Spire.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I think the parallel in the discussion was something along the lines of "will a T3 greatsword in PFO be like a Titan, requiring hundreds of hours to make, and thousands of materials?"...EVE University...
... you need a trusting community to lend you the equipment to do it.
I seriously doubt it. More likely a battleship, maybe with Tech 2 weapons. For analogy purposes remember, when EVE started there were no titans, or carriers, dreads, or other capital ships. Or strategic cruisers, or tech 2 anything. Or destroyers or battlecruisers.
On EVE's equivalent of OED1 there were frigates, cruisers, and battleships, which coincidentally, is three tiers of ships. All the other things that are considered fundamentals now were added in the years following initial release as the game and players grew.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
*cipher_nemo's quote that has been repasted here a dozen times*
The basic matter is that running a settlement isn't a casual thing. It's not meant for casual players and casuals will never have good results with it; just like DMing. So no, it's not a pitfall, it's a planned feature.
If you're a small group of friends who want to be in charge of your own thing, individual companys will run the Points of Interest and Outposts in the lands surrounding the main town. They'll have a few logical obligations to the chartering settlement, and in return be able to have their own place in the world at a size more fitting the size and lowered intensity of the group.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Wow, I'm blown away by how reasonable and friendly our community is.
A lot of people have said the same kind of thing. It makes me proud to be a part of it.
Ryan has told us bluntly that "I think there will be many more people who want to run a Settlement than there will be Settlements".
If I could give one bit of advice to small groups who intend to stay small, it would be to not worry about building a Settlement (right away), and instead focus on running a POI or maybe even just an Outpost. There are currently (I think) 77 possible Settlement Hexes on the map. On average, each one of those has 8-9 POI Hexes it can exclusively control. That's about 650 POI Hexes. It's been said that a Company of about 50 Players could reasonably run a POI Hex including both Outposts in that hex. It seems like there might be a lot of room for smaller Companies to run just the POI itself, with even smaller Companies running each of the Outposts. That's a lot of opportunity.
But thanks to this Land Rush, from a much larger scale, the game is going to promote and favor larger and larger companies/settlements, eventually pushing players into leaving their small and/or casual communities to join larger alliances.
I think it's very important to remember that you don't have to leave your small Company in order to join a Settlement, or even a larger Company, just like you won't need to leave your Settlement or Company when you join a Player Nation.
Also, Nihimon, adventuring parties. My bet is the vast majority of new players will stick to those for a long, long time. Pretty sure that's the only way I can hope to get my gaming snob friends to try it out.
...you just need to be patient.I agree with your points, Guurzak; they're very well-made.
Agreed. I haven't seen Guurzak around much (it looks like he joined the messageboards 2012, went inactive, then showed up here just this June, so welcome, Guurzak!), but I hope he's going to become a regular feature. I like his attitude.
I don't know what the best 'gap' will be between veteran characters and new ones. I can see both sides of the argument. You don't want your 2 year old character be beaten easily by a new character or two. But at the same time, you don't want veteran players going around 'bullying' new player/characters for the laughs.
Honestly, I don't think the level gap will have much impact on whether bullying happens—just who it happens to. Without a meaningful gap*, it'll end up being gangs of newbies beating up veterans. I would rather put the power into people who've paid more. ;P
*And as much as the word "meaningful" gets used and nitpicked on these forums, I think it's the safest word to use.
...that we knife with complete certainty.Your phones auto-correct is rather hilarious at times :)
Mobile Cleaved agrees with this.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
the game is going to promote and favor larger and larger companies/settlements, eventually pushing players into leaving their small and/or casual communities to join larger alliances.
If I understand your coincerns correctly, I do believe that such "small and/or casual community" play styles can be accommodated quite well within the PFO settlement structure. I'm not sure of the exact number you are thinking of for those communities, but for reference I would ask you to look at the sizes of your own RL communities/associations and where they fit within larger communities/associations. After all, RL is the only experience we have at the moment until alpha/EE.
From the Gobbocast interview with Lee Hammock, we can expect that the design target population for a viable settlement is around 500. This assumes 8 50-member companies, and about 100 support persons. This could well be in excess of your definition of a "small and/or casual" community. But let's look for a moment at how an individual player could fit within that 500 and still have that small community feel. First, if the individual player is in a company (which does not actually have to have 50 members; that is simply the level where no real additional benefit is derived from adding more members), and that company was a member of the settlement, one can still build social connections within that group equivalent to what I assume you mean by a "small and/or casual" community.
If you have an even more loosely defined community group, they can be individual members of the settlement without having to be in a company. These individuals can associate as they will, when they will, to what ever ends they will, as long as they stay within the rules of the settlement. The downside to that is that everyone in your community will have to be within one step of the community alignment. This may, or may not, be a deal breaker for you.
The structure of the game is that every player is a member of a settlement. That can be an NPC settlement (with it's inherent limitations on training), or a PC settlement. If your small and/or casual community wants to get together to play in PFO, they can belong to different settlements and still form an ad hoc party (with it's inherent limitations on permanency). I may be mistaken (and please someone provide the correct information if I am) but I believe that the alignment restrictions would be less of a hindrance in that case. Others can talk about the benefits of the game strategy of working with others who are within the one step alignment restriction.
As others have observed, running a settlement is not trivial task. It is one (out of many) of the reasons I have not tried to found a settlement "guild" for the Land Rush. I have no current group affiliation, and expect that I will find myself in that "100 support personnel" of whatever settlement I join. I think that I will be very close to the situation to which you refer. This by no means do I see this as a disadvantage. It simply means that I will have to play in unexpected ways. That, from my point of view, is an even greater challenge.
You know, Kobold Cleaver is probably right. I'm sorry, Kobold Cleaver. I shouldn't have doubted you.
Does this linked quote doohickey really work?
EDIT: :D