Goblin Squad Member
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It might be that we segue directly from you can train at any Settlement to you can train at any Settlement that has an alliance with your Settlement without a stop at a more restricted point. But the benefit of the restriction point is pretty high so I would accept that as a short-term situation if a direct segue was impossible.
I understand, and I appreciate the reply.
I'm not anywhere near as concerned about when "soon" happens as I am how long it lasts.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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It will be really easy to impose the restriction. Building a system where Settlements can make Alliances to share training requires all sorts of work. Putting in the restriction is probably something that could be done as a part of a 2-week sprint as an additional task on top of someone's more lengthy work. So "soon" is a function of "when do we impose the restriction" vs. "when can we build and deploy all the necessary code to make the Alliance feature work". And THAT will be a function of "what is our current prioritized list of features and fixes and where should this particular feature be slotted in that priority list?" Since the team is not considering any new features beyond "make the server work a lot better" and "fix all the known bugs with already implemented features" and "get the minimum necessary support tools built for customer service", we have no idea what that priority list really looks like.
Once we get through the Early Enrollment start then we'll actually have the space we need to start Crowdforging in earnest and that is when those kinds of prioritizations will start to be made.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I will take this ^^^ with a grain of salt rather than a mountain of preconcieved worry about prefered building paths for my characters.
Oh, it's not going to impact me in the slightest; I'm a Wizard in a Wizard/Rogue Settlement.
And I probably should have already understood that the prioritization of transitioning from "Training at your Settlement only" to "Training at allied Settlements as well" would be Crowdforged.
I'm curious, though, if there will be a cooldown associated with switching Settlements, or if switching Settlements temporarily in order to gain Training will be considered an acceptable work-around until "Training at allied Settlements as well" is implemented.
I would hope changing settlements is simple and not on a cooldown. Bad enough you lost access to what you did have, placing you onto a cooldown before you can join someone else seems a bit much, like kicking a dying dog.
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Goblin Squad Member
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After the first week or two, cooldowns are likely less important. We never lose xp, so it won't be difficult to plan ahead, leave one settlement at the end of a game session, stay out of the game for say 24 hours, then log back in and join the new settlement and immediately buy training. Same with companies.
Is there a risk of being impaired for the the time between settlements, if my settlement/company needs aid? Sure. Which just means that I'll plan ahead and make sure I don't switch at the same time everyone else is switching. And I won't switch terribly frequently.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Now: At server downtime your Settlement affiliation determines the max rank of the Feats you have access to.
Very good to know that.
It seemed logic to have it work that way, but getting a confirmation is good.Training is based on Settlement Tower control. The NPC Settlements don't control towers so the max training they can offer never changes.
"Soon" in the context of when you'll have to be a member of a Settlement to train there is a pretty fungible variable. I don't think we've even attempted yet to figure out the sequencing. I doubt it would be something that will happen in the next couple of months.
It might be that we segue directly from you can train at any Settlement to you can train at any Settlement that has an alliance with your Settlement without a stop at a more restricted point. But the benefit of the restriction point is pretty high so I would accept that as a short-term situation if a direct segue was impossible.
To me it seem fairly hard to write the code for all that in a single go, without in game testing, and get it to work smoothly at the first try, so I think that the phase with the restricted access to skills sound reasonable.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My concern is cutting off a characters access to feats, etc. if there is no way to allow their Settlement to add Support for whatever training they want. With the current locked in Settlement layouts that isn't possible.
So a "high level" Cleric in a Settlement that isn't a Cleric premade would be prevented from ever using their abilities purely because the Settlement they are a part of can't add Cleric Support, even if they wanted to.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My concern is cutting off a characters access to feats, etc. if there is no way to allow their Settlement to add Support for whatever training they want. With the current locked in Settlement layouts that isn't possible.
With the current locked in Settlement layouts, Support will be based solely on the number of Towers you control, and every Player Settlement supports every Role.
I very much hope that our Player Settlements don't stop supporting every Role until we have the opportunity to build support structures of our choosing.
Once we get through the Early Enrollment start then we'll actually have the space we need to start Crowdforging in earnest and that is when those kinds of prioritizations will start to be made.
*CsOurUvGeyHs*
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Hah! "such great surveys" is a bit of an overstatement. But then again I am probably my biggest critic.
Seriously, though, surveys would be a much better way to go than Ideascale or these forums. The forums are great for brain storming; but only the most ardent of us use them. Ideascale is, well, useless on so many levels (not that it wasn't a bad idea to try it out!). Surveys can take the ideas forged on the forums to the masses, where they can be voted on in ways that allow for the nuances of the ideas to come through.
Surveys would also help ensure that GW's sales-pitch about "Crowdforging" lives up to its name. When we have thousands of players running around the game in EE, surveys will do a lot more to ensure that they all get to participate in the Crowdforging process. Surveys will also smooth out any issues we might currently have with large personalities on the forums *CgOoUaGtHs* dominating discussions and ideas.
All this, just so long as GW doesn't decide to do the surveys in-house. They are harder than they look.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well. The answer is complex.
There is likely to be some period where that is true. A great deal will depend on how long it takes them to turn on alliance training. And how quickly your settlement finds a way to maintain the training you get elsewhere.
In the short term, you can train anywhere and support is a non issue.
In the long term, it likely won't be a problem. The settlement will make alliances for training, and have POIs that support you.
In between short and long term, there will be an undefined period when it can be a problem. So, yes. At some point, some of us will probably have to find other homes, temporarily.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The crafts closely associated with a class will have trainers in a settlement dedicated to that class. If tanner/leatherworker is associated with rogue (which i suspect they are) then should have trainer at Stoneroot. If they are there now, they'll be there in WoT. Not sure if can train to same rank as classes though.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I hope that the isolating transition stage between "train anywhere" and "train within your alliance" is very, very short.
I also hope that the settlements become custom-built before the isolated stage. If they're no longer "crafting settlements" or "Role 1 and Role 2 Only" settlements by then, they might not lose as many people.
I think sometimes we forget that the settlements won't be Crafting, Rogue and Wizard, etc., forever. Even if a Crafting settlement lost a lot of people for not providing combat role training, it could add training for popular adventuring roles after the Great Catastrophe to lure them back.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't know why people think the sky is falling.
Emerald Lodge is Fighter / Wizard
I currently go on regular basis to Hammerfall whenever we need some leather goods crafted or need a tanner. This includes training AND crafting.
For learning bow skills (Skirmisher) it is Hope's End.
My skills dropped to level 5 - but that was for 2 days only when our settlement got reset (the reason I didn't do it for a long while) combined with a day when no downtime happened (and therefore no update of settlement tower numbers happened).
GW was helpful throughout the process. And they even changed the formula afterwards as it really doesn't make sense to be penalized if you belong to a settlement with a low number of towers compared to no settlement at all.
Yes - long term you have to join a settlement. This is by design and GW cripples you if you stubbornly refuse. But to be honest - there will be enough settlements that just accept you to boost numbers.
And if you can't find a settlement that suits you in the 33 available - well - some might be recycled - so get a group together and claim a settlement yourself.
Emerald Lodge will be open to all RPG oriented players who are not griefers and who don't work against us - be it in game or by posting here and bringing EL into disrepute.
I expect a certain number of members to contact me only once - when joining. But that is okay. We won't have the most towers of them all - but we will have enough to allow decent play.
And should we get razed / attacked - well - then we need to talk again. Until then - enjoy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Immersion requires imagination.
Why are you marked by Pharasma? What is the nature and origin of your magic, strength and power?
This is fantasy. People within the game world, IMO, should not always think logically. Sometimes weird things magically and mystically happen for reasons beyond comprehension.
Let's try to make some reasons though, because we are modern computer gamers and not magical medieval citizens.
What does your character eat? There's no food currently in the game, but you can imagine that the croplands provide nourishment. How are you resting at night? Do you have other obligations and duties beyond what we see abstractly presented in the game space?
It is logical to assume that if you have a stressful daily life and a home in disrepair then you may not always have the time to put in the daily regimen required to perform extraordinarily fantastic stunts.
A wizard may be trained in casting fireballs. However, if he can't sleep at night because his camp is under constant siege then he won't be able to cast it in the morning. That's basic D&D 101 and should be easy to grasp.
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Goblin Squad Member
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On the other hand, "imagination" should not be leaned on as a panacea for anything that would otherwise feel incongruous in a given setting.
Pathfinder is a known body of game mechanics. Golarion is a known (albeit imaginary) geography with familiar gods and customs.
If you're going to brand something as "Pathfinder" and place it in the middle of a familiar setting, you need to either hew closely to canon or be particularly careful and considerate of your departures from canon. Even fantasy worlds have their own internal consistency. Game features that build on (or take away from) canon deserve a full and detailed explanation that bridges the gap between them and the core Pathfinder universe. Maybe not right this instant, but eventually. Certainly before OE.
Otherwise, the reason behind these deviations begins to sound like "Pharasma done it", or worse--"just because, so shut up, troll!" Both are entirely unacceptable.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think anyone 'needs' to comply with your recommendation Shaibes, except in the case where they are trying to meet your personal requirements for satisfaction.
Compare the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. The mechanics are distinct for gameplay purposes. The information presented can conflict with other sources because it is its own self contained game. Pathfinder Society also has a deviated ruleset and storylines. It is entirely reasonable for Pathfinder Online to modify its version of the Pathfinder world setting and lore in proportion to its modification of gameplay mechanics, just as any game master who adapts Golarion as their home setting is expected to do.
If you are looking for logical methods of immersion they are available whether they are compatible with canon or not. If you choose to ignore them then that is on you as the player.
This is a very old general argument. The specific point here is that if your settlement weakens then you also weaken. I mentioned one precedent from tabletop (nightly fireball training). Crafting requires time and materials it's at the GM's discretion as to how available those are. In this case the DM is using a house ruled system connected with settlement management.
Yes, it's valid to point to Rule 0. Goblinworks is your GM when signing up to play this game. And for me the Pathfinder brand embodies the open ended RPG element first and does not have the constricted canon needs you would find in novels, movies or comics.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Takasi, you make my point for me (unintentionally, I suspect). Goblinworks is the GM. They've decided on certain house rules that depart from the published game system.
That being the case, it is UP TO THE GM to explain the house rules, and the reasoning behind them--both mechanically and in game terms. The GM must do this not to satisfy MY personal tastes, but because that is part of what any decent GM does.
Any GM who waved his hand at me and said "If you are looking for logical methods of immersion they are available whether they are compatible with canon or not. If you choose to ignore them then that is on you as the player" would see my back immediately.
Are you proposing that this is Goblinworks' attitude towards their players?
I completely agree that game designers should not feel encumbered by convention when trying to come up with something new and fresh. However, in this case the game designers made a conscious decision to appropriate the brand of a TT giant. Those old TT players like me still watching the forum have accepted the fact that what we've got here isn't a pure RPG experience, and we've accepted the fact that a lot of game mechanics don't translate well from the table to the screen and must necessarily change.
Necessity is the key, though. The more the designers willfully depart from canon, both conceptually and mechanically, to shape the product they're crafting, the more I wonder cynically why they chose the Pathfinder brand at all? Just slapping a map of Golarion on something so removed from canon that it would play the same if it were called "Greyhawk Online" or "Forgotten Realms Online" is like me pasting a picture of a whale on a Hardy Boys book and selling it as Moby-Dick. Words are open-ended! Who cares what order you put them in? I'm telling you this is Melville, and you're a lazy reader if you can't figure that out!
D20 is the "open ended RPG element" you refer to. Pathfinder is not. The Pathfinder brand is a specific implementation of that element, embedded in a carefully-cultivated game world. That game world has meaning to a large segment of the player base, which is why Goblinworks would do well to come up with some reasonably consistent backstory supporting their game design.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I disagree with the carefully cultivated part. Golarion is a hodgepodge of anachronisms. It's a homage to Greyhawk, the beloved setting of the Paizo staff, and it was developed to allow freedom of creativity for home campaigns and not a biblical stranglehold of events, locations, physics and logic. The world is imaginary. It contains intentionally unexplainable fantastic, magical mysteries. You have to be willing to accept and even embrace nonsense for the world to be immersive.
Is there something specific in this topic of settlement development restricting player advancement that you find inconceivable?
Do you feel the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game's massive deviations in gameplay from the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game make it less 'Pathfinder'?
In the Pathfinder book Ultimate Campaign and the Kingmaker Adventure Path there are rules for advancing cities and managing cities. These are optional, willful deviations from the core rulebook. Why would this prevent you from enjoying varying mechanics and added or even conflicting lore? It does not invalidate your traditional tabletop experiences; it's just another way to play.
This is not some fly by night operation from half a world away fishing for a game world to shoe horn and tack on to a preexisting game. PFO has the full support and development of Lisa Stevens and the rest of the staff at Paizo. Doesn't this give you any reassurance for brand loyalty?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I haven't played Pathfinder, but when I played AD&D it was assumed that our characters were contantly training and honing their skills during downtime between adventures. If a player said, "Hey, my character is training between adventures and should get pluses to his attacks," the GM would look at him and coolly say, "That's nice, but constant training is assumed. If you ever decide to stop training, let me know and we'll assign penalties to your attacks."
In PFO I assume Tier 1 capabilities are pretty mundane. A character can maintain his training regime without a lot of gear (so even with access to just an NPC settlement). At Tier 2 and 3, though, those constantly training characters have better trainers, better training gear, the best adventurer training diets, etc., etc. And all those advanced trainers with their fancy training gear and elaborate training regimes all have standards of what kind of town they want to live in: it's not something downstream of Rotters' Hole.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Is there something specific in this topic of settlement development restricting player advancement that you find inconceivable?
Not inconceivable, just poorly explained. The whole nature of settlement support is vague, but plausible (and please understand that anytime I say "plausible" it's in the context of a fantasy setting like this). I also understand the need to bond characters to settlements via mechanics like associating skill level with settlement level. What I don't like is the absence of any reasonable (again, fantasy-reasonable) explanation for the apparent skill amnesia suffered by characters should they lose or leave their settlements. If it affected only support-heavy skills (artificer, smelter, etc.), that would be "unfair" but would not require any additional explanation. However, if you're going to say that a warrior who spends 90% of his time actually fighting monsters and enemies in the wilderness forgets how to swing his blade effectively because somebody burned down his village, or that a gatherer forgets how to tell a dandelion from a blackberry because he's quit his old town and hasn't settled down anywhere else yet, well, that's admirably fair because it affects all players equally, but it makes no sense on the face of it.
This is not some fly by night operation from half a world away fishing for a game world to shoe horn and tack on to a preexisting game. PFO has the full support and development of Lisa Stevens and the rest of the staff at Paizo. Doesn't this give you any reassurance for brand loyalty?
In the beginning, absolutely. That's why my friends and I threw our money at the Kickstarter campaign. Lately, though... it's hard to express accurately because I find myself going back and forth a lot. Let's just say my enthusiasm for and confidence in the project is not as solid as it used to be.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Explaining the lore behind the mechanics is difficult when the mechanics are in a state of rapid flux during development. Right now I see it as a scenario where, for understanding how a character can roleplay within the simulation, I say ask not what the developers can explain to you, but what you can explain to the developers.
Does it make sense that a wizard must get proper rest and a daily regimen of study and practice in order to cast spells? This is iconic to this genre. At the tabletop we don't force a player to roleplay sitting for an hour studying their spellbook; it is handwaved. The same could be said with PFO. There are things happening in the game world that we must imagine. There are peasants tending to crops, there are scholars copying research in libraries, there are sparring partners helping to train warriors.
We see the sunrise every 6 hours. When a settlement is higher level you are benefitting, behind the scenes, by a support network that allows you to perform at your peak.
What training loss, specifically, takes you out of your suspension of disbelief? Concepts like hit points, defense scores, attack bonuses and skill are very abstract. To a fighter in game it would just feel like you're not at your best. It doesn't mean you've really 'lost' any training, you just don't feel like you're fighting as well as you should. This is perfectly reasonable if the other 18 hours of the day that we must imagine involve varying degrees of stress, practice or pleasures from the support of your homeland.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Never has a mod post pleased me more. Perfection in action!
We have different definitions of perfection. I spent the better part of an hour composing a well thought out answer to the actual issues Summersnow raised, and all that work is taken away. I don't know what that's like for the rest of you, but for me, as a professional writer, it's highly reminiscent of being kicked in the stomach. Imagine yourself a technician who spends time setting up your parent's awful computer, only to have the guy from the cable company come along and throw the computer in the garabage while you're out.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Never has a mod post pleased me more. Perfection in action!We have different definitions of perfection. I spent the better part of an hour composing a well thought out answer to the actual issues Summersnow raised, and all that work is taken away. I don't know what that's like for the rest of you, but for me, as a professional writer, it's highly reminiscent of being kicked in the stomach. Imagine yourself a technician who spends time setting up your parent's awful computer, only to have the guy from the cable company come along and throw the computer in the garabage while you're out.
Thats fair enough. I take the opposite view - Summer's post utterly toxic, and needed to be expunged. While it is regrettable that their concerns were removed (and your responses to such - it was a good post), that is the cost of keeping a board in which that sort of behavior isn't tolerated. That content just had to go - including posts in which it was quoted.
That's why I don't respond to flamers anymore. I've gotten used to the moderation style here, so I've learned how to work around it. Getting posts caught up in the mess and eaten does suck, I agree, but I treat it as a necessary evil.
