Haley Starshine

Proxima Sin of Brighthaven's page

489 posts. Alias of Proxima Sin.



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Goblin Squad Member

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Due to the fact that the Empire of Xelias is no longer Evil, the Everbloom alliance worries this will leave an Evil vacuum of sorts which may draw all manner of unsavory types into the game to play the new Evil group. To head off this scary possibility, Everbloom Alliance has decided to follow the axiom "If you want something done right, do it yourself".

BRIGHTHAVEN - Is now fully Chaotic Evil and will be using its superior numbers to raid gathering operations across the map to inhibit gear advancement among any other groups.

KEEPERS PASS - Is now Lawful Lawful and declares every item in its auction house, no matter what it is, shall be sold for 47 copper.

PHAEROS - Are now Pittsburgh Penguins fans.

Goblin Squad Member

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In a game where players are the content, if you can't connect to many other players immediately and easily, there is no content. Targeting, auction houses, husks, resource distribution, what constitutes ganking, nothing else matters if people log in for a few hours see a barren world with no one to interact with and never come back.

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Well, that didn't take long. Maybe I'll expand a little.

The game in it's current state is REALLY REALLY boring as a solo game. The first time I played EVE I quit after a few weeks because running missions and dodging low sec death became boring, and there's even less to do in the current game world.

On the other hand, ask any person that has played in the last two months what their most fun moments were and 98/100 of them will say when players gathered and stacked 14 high, waged a 12-person skirmish for a tower, battled the escalation with purple NPCs, or some big team event like that.

Bottom Line: PLAYERS NEED TO CONNECT TO OTHER PLAYERS EARLY AND OFTEN TO STAY IN THE GAME.

For anyone not already a part of the handful of large organizations, in-game chat is the only way they have to connect with anyone else. Right now hex chat might get three people talking at a time on the best day.

Recruitment Channel - I know Ryan has a personal vendetta against global channels (and Help should definitely be limited to help), but we NEED a global recruitment channel. The organized player groups need to be able to reach every new player whatever hex they wander into. Every new player needs to interact with different companies to spot one that feels like the best fit. Some day far in the future it might get shades of Barrens chat which also removes real communication and game community, but losing a conversation at the hex border or limited to five other people in a party is vastly oversteering in the opposite direction to the same results. Today reaching players wherever they are is vital for growing groups and seeding the game world like we're supposed to be doing.

Settlement Channel - Ask anyone in any settlement, we need it right now.

Last thing is the actual typing, we should be able to see all the channels and whispers like Local currently does, but chat in a specific one until we manually change to another i.e. everything we type is in settlement chat until we /h to hex for a quick comment then /s back to settlement.

Most people agree GW is making great progress in art, coding, design, new features etc. but don't kid yourselves. Players connecting to other players is the only thing that brings any of us back to any multiplayer game and right now when Pathfinder Online is being actively judged and talked about we don't have the tools to do that most fundamental part of an MMO.

Goblin Squad Member

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So the alpha period is over and the servers are offline to switch over to Early Enrollment.

When you follow the instructions in the blog to download the new version of the client, you end up at a page that currently says "Current client version is 16.0".

That is the older version of client from alpha that GoblinWorks is recommending we uninstall. It means the page is not yet updated with the link to the new EE client. We need to wait just a little longer for the version to update past the alpha 16.0 to get the Early Enrollment client.

I'm sure someone will update this post when the new client is available.

Goblin Squad Member

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I mean, other than there aren't any auctions in them....

All that stuff in your vault that you'll never use before the wipe and EE starts? Put it in the market for 1 copper each! It doesn't cost anything so even your town bound alts that never looted a copper in their life can do it.

Market use has suffered serious atrophy from the beginning. So being good alpha testers that made it to the end (and in the spirit of breaking stuff!) lets load up the market system with as much inventory as possible and see what happens!

Then for extra credit start using all that currently worthless Abadar credit to buy things, then re-list them again. You know like a bustling market full of inventory and transactions. Maybe we'll find some goblins in the code for Mark.

Remember, when time is short and and everything is about to go black except for the absurdly bright JJ Abrams moon, still IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO BREAK THE GAME!!!!

Goblin Squad Member

From two to three hours after downtime begins on Christmas Eve I am going to unload a lot of the clutter I've accumulated in the Keeper's Pass market for 1 copper each.

Loads of recipes.

T1 raw mats of all kinds including wool, hemp, metals, leathers, essences, salvage, etc.

T2 raw mats from mining and forestry.

Refined mats.

Starter, +1, and +2 weapons and armor (leftover prizes from stress tests), also 1 copper.

There's no point to hoarding or reselling so please take what you want to use or try out and leave the rest for others.

When I get back to Rathglen (no promises on when, the 26th?) I'll do the same there, and that's where I have my T1 and T2 ink colors and varnish mats.

Also, I'll hold back a couple of good things to toss out directly, this includes T2 wands and Dwarven Banded Armor +1 to anyone with the training but hasn't gotten the items yet.

I want to redistribute everything I have except the armor on my back and board with a nail in it in my hand by the end of the 26th so everyone has time to use everything before it's wiped.

Goblin Squad Member

It's been nearly two hours since downtime started. Normally we see the "Cannot connect to Goblinworks.com" notice during it, but now I'm hung up at good ol' Connecting to Server...

Is this an extra long downtime or are others in game and this is just me?

Goblin Squad Member

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This is the original meaning of a guide. It is not a dressed up spreadsheet or step-by-step checklist of what to train and when. You'll still need to play your game your way.

Set up - A feat that can apply a state to the target (or sometimes an affect on you) that will give additional benefits to following attacks.
Finisher - A feat that uses the set up condition to apply extra effects.
Chain - Sequence linking the set up and finishing feats i.e. Feint-Shank. Feint applies Flat-footed while Shank applies a Precise bonus to hit and DoT affect to Flat-footed targets in addition to its regular damage and effects.

The Fine Print
There are two key elements not yet in the game that will make a big difference to Subterfuge users. Per the tabletop game everyone should be entering combat Flat-Footed unless they have Uncanny Dodge; since that is a very prominent state for Subterfuge attacks and reactives it will make a big difference. Second, sneak attack damage is a major factor from Rogue Feature feats that is not implemented in the game yet.

Another note is the difficulty in assigning a damage value to the Penetrating feature of attacks that have that because it is currently extra damage based on the target's resistance. It is planned to change into a reduction of the target's armor total in a future iteration.

Also, daggers and short blades are smaller weapons so almost all of their attacks are uninterruptible. The downside to that is they don't have as much juice in the upfront damage department to make up for the risk of being interrupted/out ranged like slower attacks have.

If you walk up to something with a dagger expecting to press a button and smack it as hard as a two-handed sword these weapons will seem a bit underpowered. You need teamwork between your armor, feature, reactive, utility, and attack feats. Most of all, appropriate for a category called Subterfuge, getting the most out of these weapons involves a little guile.

Dagger - The weapon invented before humans were invented (seriously, Homo Habilis had them, crack a book)
An uniquely fast weapon with very low stamina cost, you can strike five or even six times per round so even 25% chance of a state or magnitude 5 stackables add up very quickly. It doesn't set up most of its finishers, but the Feint utility is a great Flat-footed set up for two of them.

Basic Dagger Strike - relatively high upfront damage for younger Subterfugers.
Fan - Reflex defense is a Rogue strength and this adds 20 more* increasing the chance and amount of damage reduction from weapon and Reflex spell attacks. * It's true this changes to +40 if you have Opportunity, but you're also opening yourself up to Attacks of Opportunity so that is a big gamble. It very much depends on who is attacking you at the moment.
Forehand - weak upfront damage but it is great support to other finishers and chains (see below). Combined with Bleeding Attack reactive this can cause A LOT of bleeding really fast so you can spend most of your time not fighting and still win.
Round - Eight attacks in six seconds (5.28 damage factor per round plus the Penetrating damage for 72 stamina means it's deceptively one of the highest dps attacks of the weapon at lowest stamina cost). If you want to proc double Flat-Footed reactives, this is the feat that will do it expediciously. That is, of course, if you can live through standing there spamming Round so many times. There is a plan to someday normalize reactive affects so quick attacks don't have so much advantage in the area over slower weapons... but this is not that day.

Feint-Basic Dagger Exploit has a total of 71 Base Damage for relatively strong direct immediate damage for beginners when needed.
Feint-Shank has a slower slightly interruptible finish also with higher than normal damage, hit bonus, and good Bleeding affect. If you use this often slot Bleeding Attack reactive feat for even more bleeding. Double it up as Feint-Shank-Shank to really have someone in trouble, then follow with a series of Forehands to maintain and even build the DoT through the target's recovery. Which leads to...
Forehand-Footwork the speed of Forehand makes it likely Distressed will have a lot of uptime on the target to activate the slow as you jump 20m out of melee. The DoT stack will continue damage for you.

Short Blade (including short sword, rapier, cutlass) - Lots of people think pirates' favorite letter is RRRRRRRR, but really their heart belongs to the C.
Press - set up with Feint a few Presses can quickly apply penalties to hit and defense for longer fights.
Stop Cut - very fast, the rare 100% interrupt, no set up needed. Valuable when facing large slow weapons and spells if you react to the signs of opponent's big hits.

Thrust-Compound finishes with the heaviest hit you can get with the weapon and leaves a DoT to work, so this functions much better as an opening. If you start at full stamina try to double up for Thrust-Compound-Compound and a really big DoT after a chunk of damage.
Parry vs. Prime - A choice of two defensive feats. Prime gives +10 Reflex defense to help reduce weapon and Reflex spell damage for the entire round. Parry is +20 Reflex until you get hit once then turns into Riposte for +30 to your next melee attack (the green up chevron goes from the shield to the sword). Parry can be used several times in a round depending on the rate of taking hits and attacking. Prime is for max defense at all costs. I'm inclined to use Parry since making things dead faster also reduces damage taken.
Thrust-Parry(let it change to Riposte)-Compound to get the +30 hit bonus on top of +20 from the feat itself to essentially hit one Tier higher than your weapon actually is (almost guaranteed full damage and a really good chance at critical and you may be using a critical reactive feat, see Pro-Reactive below). Make sure you have enough stamina to roll out all three or Distressed can easily fall off before you get to Compound.

Shortbow - Only five more strings then you have an axe.
The 20m range is the same as NPC's agro range, so have fun with that.

Distant Shot - ZOMG FLAMING ARROWS!! The higher stamina cost gets you 35m longbow range, a minor DoT, and freakin' flaming arrows man. With a weapon swap this may also substitute as the set up for Compound or Footwork chains as the target closes to melee but avoid shooting bows in melee with enemies that have Attacks of Opportunity.
Deadly Aim - a stamina expensive extra large damage attack with a major bonus to hit, for when you want to open with a bang or finish something off. Not recommended for the middle of a fight because it can leave you stamina deficient (unless you have a partner with Dazed to set it up for you, then it will be killer).
Multi-Shot - the long blast makes it a pretty decent AoE for dealing with many small targets in a long cone shape. When everyone begins combat Flat-Footed it will be automatically set up as an opener and even more effective.

Running Shot-Snap Shot-Snap Shot gives yourself extra Reflex defense while slowing the target and creating a gap (in practice the gap is still hit and miss for me, if it works you may need to take a step towards the target to get in range for the second Snap Shot). Remember Dodging needs to be on you as the set up condition, so at the end of a melee exchange a dagger's Fan feat can also set it up without provoking Opportunity like Running Shot will. Slow applies a Reflex defense penalty, so you could jump into melee with a Compound chain taking advantage of the lower defense and leaving melee range again. Like I said at the beginning, Subterfugers benefit from some guile.

Pro-Reactive

Rogue reactives are AWESOME. They proc if you hit while the target has Flat-Footed and the Feint utility can keep that state on your target pretty much all the time if you want so the reactives can be very reliable. The key thing to remember here is each stackable debuff works in a specific channel and only the highest magnitude debuff in each channel will have an affect on the target. BLEEDING, DRAINED, AND OBLIVIOUS ARE ON THE SAME CHANNEL if you use two of those as your reactives only one can ever be working at a time while the other goes wasted.

(Weakness)Befuddling Strike - a strong penalty to attack and perception.
(Weakness)Bleeding Attack - a DoT based on max HP and Fort penalty.
(Weakness)Crippling Strike - penalty to attack and defense.
Again, if you use more than one debuff from the Weakness channel, only one of them can ever work at a time. Though you can combine the same debuff from other places if that is best for your strategy i.e. slotting Deafening Critical and Befuddling Strike and using Deception feat which all apply the same attack/perception debuff, they will stack on each other.
(Torment)Slowed Reactions - reduced movement and Reflex penalty.

As for utilities, Feint is almost required since so much Subterfuge is based on Flat-footed. Evade is also very handy for separation when light armor needs to get out of the fire. Tumble and Resiliency are two closely related defensive utilities. Tumble increases your Reflex +20 for two rounds (with a two round cool down so it can be up nearly all the time) which helps against weapons and reflex spells like the fireballs and snow balls NPCs seem to be so fond of; if you use dagger Fan quickly gives the exact same defense which frees a utility slot. Resiliency gives physical resistance which at Tier 1 will put you between medium and heavy armor levels of protection for one of every three rounds.

Feature Presentation

All rogue feature feats give sneak attack damage and a chance to slow attack speed on Flat-footed attacks. A minor difference is in the keywords offered for sneaky tricks, the rogue expendables. The major difference comes with the second way each feat can grant sneak attack damage (you get regular sneak attack damage even if both conditions are met simultaneously).

Cut-throat - while untargeted. The feat for the super sneaky. Obviously much more difficult to use when alone. Remember even if you get targeted you can still get sneak attack from Flat-footed.
Opportunist - on Opportunity. You get sneak attack damage if the target has either Flat-footed or Opportunity. Makes no difference, killer.
Daredevil - on Opportunity to self. You get sneak attack damage if YOU have Opportunity and are also open to getting nailed by attacks enhanced by Opportunity. This is good if you plan on being a mainly bow rogue (you can still Feint to get sneak attack in melee), or spend a lot of time chasing things down.

How Do I Make My Attacks Stronger?

Once you have the basics down you'll want your character to start increasing in power and this is the part of the guide that helps you get your sheet together.

Weapons all have a Base Damage of 40; then gain a bonus +5 damage per minor keyword matched with its feat and +20 damage per matched major keyword. You get one major keyword at Tier 2 and another at Tier 3. When a keyword matches between gear and feat I call it "kp" for keyword points (or keyword power if you prefer) where each minor is 1 kp and majors are 4 kp up to a maximum cap of 12 kp on an attack.

Gear tells you what keywords it has at each level of enhancement i.e where Longswords say "grants keywords based on upgrade: Slashing (+0), Sharp (+1), Balanced(+2), Razored (+3)". If you have a starter Steel Longsword that is +0 so it only has Slashing to pair with feats no matter how highly trained they are for 1 kp total. A Steel Longsword +2 has Slashing, Sharp, and Balanced for potentialy 3kp or +15 Base Damage. A Tier 2 Dwarven Steel Longsword +1 has the Masterwork major keyword with Slashing and Sharp minors for 4+1+1= 6 kp or +30 Base Damage. It takes a Tier 3 + 3 weapon with two major and four minor keywords to have the most powerful possible weapon at 12 kp for +60 Base Damage (if your feat is trained to match all of those keywords).

Weapon feats gain potential keyword matches in a specific order from rank 1 to rank 6: +0, +1, +2, Tier 2, +3, Tier 3. At rank 4 you can match the T2 major keyword on a weapon but not the +3 minor keyword, you have to train up to rank 5 for that. Other feats for armor, features, reactives, utilities, etc. gain keywords at different rates but it works basically the same.

Armor Bonus

Chameleon - bonus to stealth, persuasion, and a huge bonus to Improved Critical for the sneaky killer types. Footpad's Leathers are best, Strapped Leather in T2.
Scout - bonus to stealth, perception, ranged attack, and small speed boost. Good for those who use mainly bows or want to go skulking around unnoticed in unfriendly places. Quiet Iron Shirt is best, Boiled Leather in T2.
Swashbuckler - giant bonus to light melee attack and the most hp and reflex defense of the group. This is the Bronn. Or the highwayman. Quiet Iron Shirt is best, Muffled Steel Shirt in T2.

Notes

*You can dual wield short sword and dagger either way, even dagger main and short sword offhand if you want a strategy based around Fan-Forehand-Compound DoT with Short Sword's bigger direct damage Exploit.

*I worked out all this stuff using rank 2 Pioneer armor (Freeholder light, no rogue bonuses, because I already had it. Actual rogue armor will work much better for everything here) with 7 physical resist and 68 Reflex defense, light melee 2, ranged attack 3, rank 1 Daredevil, reactives, and starter weapons, all of which can be trained within the first two days of a character's life.

*That said, this is how I repeatedly killed yellow-named Chainbreaker Ogres in 100% melee:

-Stealth close, Feint-Shank-Shank (with Bleeding Attack 1 reactive that's 37 each, 74 total Bleeding in roughly five seconds).
-Fan to reduce damage taken then Forehand repeatedly (+5 Bleeding per hit, stack reduces ~10 per round, but cap is 100 so application phase will be quick) until Distress is applied, Footwork. This applies Slow 20 and makes me 10m away. I jog around in safety while the huge DoT goes to work (I could be attacking something else if this was a big chaotic battle).
-When the stack is a little over half size, I run back to the ogre for Feint-Shank-Shank. More direct damage and this +74 has capped the Bleeding at 100 so I immediately Footwork away. Ogre will be dead imminently.

(If the fight was longer I could Fan-Forehand to Distressed-Footwork as needed for the defensive bonus and Slow for my inter-DoT jogging session.)

Tactical summary of 2 day old Subterfuger killing Ogres: Chainbreaker Ogres are heavy interrupters that can do damage but daggers are almost entirely uninterruptible. Quickly apply a heavy DoT then run away to spend most of your time not being attacked. Duh it's a freakin ogre, man.

Goblin Squad Member

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This is the original meaning of a guide. It is not a dressed up spreadsheet or step-by-step checklist of what to train and when. It points you in the right direction for your idiom and helps pick the right weapon for the job. You'll still need to play your game your way.

Set up - A feat that can apply a state to the target (or sometimes an affect on you) that will give additional benefits to following attacks.
Finisher - A feat that uses the set up condition to apply extra effects.
Chain - Sequence linking the set up and finishing feats i.e. Thwack-Escape. Thwack can apply Dazed while Escape applies a 2 second stun to Dazed targets in addition to its regular damage and effects.

This is not an exhaustive exposition on every single feat, but an overview of each weapon that visits notable feats and chains.

Club/Mace - A simple start

This is a small, fast weapon. It lacks strong finishing power and AoE but almost all of its attacks are uninterruptible if you want that as a compliment to a larger weapon vulnerable to interruption. Being a bludgeoning weapon it is oriented to a lot of incapacitation affects like stunning and exhaustion. Unfortunately it doesn't set up most of it's own secondary affects except for a Thwack-Escape to stun as you create a 20m gap.

Beat - built up over several rounds this can interfere with the target using large abilities; Thwack does a little more pure damage for quicker fights.
Club Conk - this can cause a decent penalty to hit with the Feint utility or help from a partner applying flat-footed.
Mace Conk - a rare melee dispeller when set up.
Shillelagh - a slower, interruptible attack that causes higher damage. If you can get Distressed on the target this can really ruin their day.

Battleaxe - Mayhem on a stick

A medium sized weapon with decent power, a good AoE, and lots of slowing so the party doesn't have to stop only your target's pulse. Nearly every feat comes with an Improved Critical bonus which is meaningless unless your Total Hit is equal or higher than the target's Total Defense, so I highly recommend maxing Heavy Melee attack to get that combat advantage. This includes Dragoon armor and Axe Specialization feat which gives even more Improved Critical with the Precise bonus. Also seriously consider avoiding Master of Opportunity instead using two Critical Reactive feats to make the most of all those critical hits.

Carve - a splash AoE which hits everything for 2m in a circle around you.
Sunder - building up this penalty to physical resistance is especially effective against heavily armored foes.
Hew - when set up this is a super sunder held between a penalty to attack and defense, also known as a trouble sandwich.
Hack-Mangle chain is a lot of damage with a slow and immobilize at the end so they stick around for your next attack.

Longsword - Now with 20% more dying. Just... wow.

Middle strength attacks with a great AoE, and strong ability to slow and DoT which is great to catch those who want to avoid melee.

Whirlwind - a splash AoE that hits everything in a 2m circle around you. It uses a lot of stamina which will leave you doing nothing for long periods if this is the only plan.
Hamstring - when set up by Opportunity (like running in combat) applies a very strong slow; and an interrupt which is useful when the Opportunity was provoked by spellcasting or bows.
Understrike-Thousand Cuts is a killer (literally) DoT to keep applying damage even when you're not in melee range.

Greatsword - Building a better Conan

I will call this a more advanced player skill weapon to use well. Gigantic attacks that use a lot of stamina (and are very vulnerable to interrupts); great for quick fights or finishing off in teams and more challenging if combat takes more than 3-4 hits at a time. Also with a decent AoE and several long chains. Wrath Guard's Defending turns into Replying when you are hit so look for that before you continue the chain. You can leave Wrath Guard off and start each chain in the middle if desired, experimentation and experience will build that judgement. A 3m range makes contact easier in mobile situations.

Cleave - short blast AoE causing high damage, think of a wedge in front of you 3m long that is narrower near you and a little wider farther away. Expensive in stamina so after two you have a long wait for the third. Facing small groups you may do better with a single Cleave then dealing with each individual one by one with lower stamina solo nukes, see below.
Cross Blow - the fastest attack and your best chance if interruption is an issue. Smaller damage from the lower factor is increased by the Precise and Penetrating when set up by Wrath Guard.
Wrathful Strike - a huge chunk of damage to one target that also leaves you more vulnerable to damage for a round (which can be cleared off by another huge nuke feat Wind-Up). Avoid if you are in trouble with hp unless you immediately clear the penalty affect.
Swing - relatively low stamina spammable feat that can gradually build up a bleed DoT effective for longer battles.
Wrath Guard-Cross Blow-Wind-Up ends with gigantic damage and a big penalty to target's stamina if they live through it. Huge stamina cost and 25% chance for Distressed makes this challenging to pull off but also offers big rewards.
Wrath Guard-Wrathful Strike-Hoist a guaranteed Unbalanced ends with a lot of damage done and a long disabling affect which is handy since you are extra vulnerable to damage for a round. If you are taking damage from other sources as well this may go south quickly.

Spear - The quickest way to someone's heart, and the person's behind them too.

Great at causing huge amounts of damage to a single target but the AoE is nearly useless as AoE and has very weak control to keep targets around if they don't want to be. A 4m range helps. Terrific at small group burst damage or being a team's finisher.

Puncture - a great basic attack with strong damage for the stamina and relatively fast speed for a large weapon. The DoT helps in extended fights or with runners.
Transfix - the best of miserable control options (better than nothing?), makes your target a little slower if they try to get away but a relatively high stamina per slow cost limits its spammability. The 4m range is a big help applying this on the chase.
Impale - a streak AoE that only affects a narrow 4m line straight in front of you if you can get enemies to line up like ducks. Still it has high damage with a small attack and defense bonus penalty. Good for an opening shock and finishing with Punctures.
Stab-Skewer a highly efficient chain that applies two big DoTs. Great on high hp targets and runners.

Greatclub - The sound of a tree falling in the forest... and landing on your face.

A huge weapon with 3m range and matching damage, the attacks are slow, expensive in stamina leading to huge period of inability to act, and highly vulnerable to interruption. Something for more advanced player skill to use effectively this is somewhat an all or nothing situation. When you equip this weapon only one thing is sure: somebody is going down hard.

Slug - the fastest attack and your only hope when facing interruption.
Stagger - a moderate but effective slow and like every gc feat comes with double portions of damage.
Sweep - a wedge-shaped short blast AoE for 3m in front of you.
Shatter - You can Raze just like an axe! (but the slower attack means stacks build slower so it will take longer to see the benefits) Especially effective against heavy armored targets.
Slug-Pulverize are quick interrupting attacks setting up the slowest biggest hit in the game complete with a stun and penalty to attack and defense; also known as a trouble sandwich with the works.

Shield - Good roleplay jewelry.

Sadly shields don't currently offer any more defense than you can get from the defensive feats on weapons themselves, and you also lose the big secondary offense of your main-hand weapon. There are some great advantages for certain situations.

Shield Bash - 100% chance of interrupt and it is very fast, when interrupting is that important.
Shield Block - another 100% interrupt if set up with Dazed and even faster than Bash.

Longbow - The pointy end goes in the other guy... who is waaay over there.

The 35m range of high damage to single targets is the obvious advantage. Keeping your targets at range but not getting away is the challenge.

Followthrough Foresight - a good slow for targets that run. Chains with Patient Anchor for situational use against stealthers.
Pinpoint Targeting - a gradual building slow when keeping your target immobile is the most important thing.
Half-Draw - interrupt with a 0% chance which is better than most.
Sorrow's Release-Parting Shot a chain with good upfront damage spam with an immobilize and slow added to gap creation (in theory. Currently Parting Shot is Restricted: Stationary because it's a ranged attack so it doesn't actually move you anywhere so don't actually try to use it until ranged weapons are revisited in EE).

How Do I Make My Attacks Stronger?
Once you have the basics down you'll want your character to start increasing in power and this is the part of the guide that helps you get your sheet together.

Weapons all have a Base Damage of 40; then gain a bonus +5 damage per minor keyword matched with the feat and +20 damage per matched major keyword. You get one major keyword at Tier 2 and another at Tier 3. When a keyword matches between gear and feat I call it "kp" for keyword points (or keyword power if you prefer) where each minor is 1 kp and majors are 4 kp up to a maximum cap of 12 kp on an attack.

Gear tells you what keywords it has at each level of enhancement i.e where Longswords say "grants keywords based on upgrade: Slashing (+0), Sharp (+1), Balanced(+2), Razored (+3)". If you have a starter Steel Longsword that is +0 so it only has Slashing to pair with feats no matter how highly trained they are for 1 kp total. A Steel Longsword +2 has Slashing, Sharp, and Balanced for potentialy 3kp or +15 Base Damage. A Tier 2 Dwarven Steel Longsword +1 has the Masterwork major keyword with Slashing and Sharp minors for 4+1+1= 6 kp or +30 Base Damage. It takes a Tier 3 + 3 weapon with two major and four minor keywords to have the most powerful possible weapon at 12 kp for +60 Base Damage (if your feat is trained to match all of those keywords).

Weapon feats gain potential keyword matches in a specific order from rank 1 to rank 6: +0, +1, +2, Tier 2, +3, Tier 3. At rank 4 you can match the T2 major keyword on a weapon but not the +3 minor keyword, you have to train up to rank 5 for that.

Proxima Sin's Armor Bonus
Armor itself gains keywords the same way weapons do. Armor feats gain words slightly differently but it's the same basic idea and the words are listed with each rank. Remember to have the right armor feat slotted on your paper doll window (squares are for feats, circles for gear). The two heavy armors will severely lower your total encumbrance limits, while the medium does but much less so. Trained at the Fighter College:

Unbreakable - matches best with Pot Steel Plate at Tier 1 (Ornate Steel Plate at Tier 2) and gives just slightly more hp than Dragoon with a very small amount of energy resistance. The most defensive armor.

Dragoon - matches best with Hide and Steel Banded armor at Tier 1 (Dwarven Steel Banded at Tier 2) and gives bonuses to light and heavy melee attack and Improved Critical bonuses. Armor that thinks offense is the best defense.

Archer - is medium armor that matches best with Soldier's Chainmail at Tier 1 (Captain's Chainmail at Tier 2) and is meant purely for full-time archers. It gives a ranged attack bonus and very small speed bonus.

Notes

* You need the weapon active in your hand to see the feats in the feat window to slot them in the hotbar. If you know you slotted the weapon on your paper doll and trained feats but can't see them in the feats window, push the green button to the right of the hot bar to swap weapon sets.

* Don't start a chain with very low stamina. The set up condition might fall off before you can get the higher stamina finishing feat activated.

* It will take 6,000 kills with a weapon before you can train rank 6 of the feat, so the ones with strong AoE will have an easier time with that.

* The two most important things about writing a guide are never tell everything you know and

Goblin Squad Member

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With the recent hiccups of the big map icon vanishing after a death I've started doing a lot of navigating-by-nature, using hex types and hex changes to keep track of where I am as well as the WoT towers which are in the centers of a hex. They're a major landmark I use to navigate with.

PoIs are going to be in the center of the hex to.

And that's what a "landmark" is, a dominant feature in a geographic area. Just like the docks, farm, hunting lodge or quarry will be the dominant feature in their hex.

Instead of the awkwardness of enunciating P-O-I and adding even more abbreviations to an MMO, we could be talking about outposts that are connected to the landmarks.

Commoner was just changed so it's a great time to update the term for landmarks too. What does the crowd forge, is it a thing?

Goblin Squad Member

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And it works fine... if you want to trash something.

So when are we going to be able to shift-click stacks to split into a trade or vault window?

Goblin Squad Member

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This is NOT a company. This is not affiliated with any settlement. This could be a secondary company someday when we get unsponsored extra companies.

Money is useless, markets are hit and miss (mostly miss), and we have a lot more materials stockpiled than we're using. It's only a matter of hussling those materials around to whoever can improve them into something more useful. This is an idea to take the place of trade contracts to specific people until we can get those. A network of people who have some things and want to trade them for other things, hopefully building an entente with different members of the collective effort to get raw materials and refined goods to the characters that can use them.

I think it could make production a lot easier during Early Enrollment to have that network. These last weeks of alpha are a great time to practice the system and build those connections so they're well-established once everything becomes persistent and we get impatient to do as much as possible as soon as we're able. If there are three people that know you're always looking for beast pelts and keep goods on hand to trade with that they want, it may become difficult to run out of beast pelts.

We can work out trades in forums or in-game.

No centralized official leadership, and no official charter. It runs the way societies did before money was invented- relationship history, referrals, and personal accountability. Depending on how you feel about another character you may let them walk off with a sack full of your goods with an understanding they'll get something back to you soonish, or whatever arrangements you work out one on one.

The penalty if someone makes a habit of breaking those understandings is word gets around and damages their personal reputation so they lose opportunities to trade. Maybe the jilted even go to a bread store and talk about their problems. It's old school.

Goblin Squad Member

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I have a bug to report
but it's not what you think.

It's not about teleportation
that's caused by desync.

I trained Encumbrance Bonus 4 today along with both ranks of Strong Back
because we smelt ore like crazy and I want bigger stacks.

I can carry more
with Encumbrance Bonus 4.
But my jaw hit the floor
when I saw I carried MORE
than 2 x .5 per ore.
It was more like three or four
when the trainer distinctly told me each rank would increase my encumbrance by one.

The smoothness of my
training got more knotted

when Strong Back didn't
appear as slotted

until I closed and reopened the window for paper doll.
But two ranks of it didn't increase my encumbrance at all!!

As a last retort
I file this bug report
so you can fix this sort
of paper doll wart.
I roll Save vs. Fort
when bugs distort
my gameplay time but I know alpha is alpha so thanks for your work and I'm done.

Goblin Squad Member

Thinking in the mid-term, a lot of us are going for the race and classes on-deck after these essentials are taken care of.

Will you tell us what the primary attributes are going to be for those classes and race?

Extrapolating from the Handbook, Gnomes will get racial bonuses in Personality and Constitution based skills and penalties to Strength related ones.

Bards will need to develop Personality and... ? Hard to decide between Dex or Int or maybe it's a Fighter situation where you have some more magicy bards and more roguey bards.

Paladins are Personality, Strength, Wisdom?

Bonus Barbarian! Constitution and Strength, probably?

Can you give us just that foundational design element, what attributes will we need to focus on to develop those classes when they become available to play (and strengths/weaknesses of Gnomes) so we can start our characters on the right broad track?

Thanks Lee and Stephen. Wink wink nudge nudge.

Goblin Squad Member

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First, I think it's great that Bob talked to me about ideas, concerns, and questions I had about escalations for practically the whole time he was able to be on Sunday, which might have been his day off anyway. (Unless he just relogged to a character I don't know? :o)). We had a good talk and even came up with an idea to make escalation fighting go more smoothly for PvEers. It left me in a much better spot to understand the big picture of what escalations are this week and what to look for.

Later that day, The Empyrean Order had some new friends over for punch, and by punch I mean longbows. We fully cleared an escalation out of a hex adjacent to Brighthaven.

We used two separate groups totalling 6-11 characters during the scrubbing- two or three healers, two melee heavy tanks, and practically all the rest longbows. It took a touch over two hours to take the Ripping Chains escalation from 32% to eliminating the map tab.

There were two quests active during the time, killing zealots and stealing banners. We completed both quests twice, and in all cases ran into he x-1/x display error but DID get a text message conveying our success. Five to ten minutes later the display would reset. I was busy with constant hordes of elite goblins all up in my grill trying to kabob them on a spear so I didn't notice if the count stayed accurate during the display error. Also at the elimination of the escalation from the hex we didn't get any text notification or special fireworks, the strength just read 0.0% for a couple minutes and the tab quietly slinked out of the room.

------

I was thinking that you wouldn't even need to display quest timers for players if a bit more time was added instead of failing at 0:00 as long as someone had been advancing it. And lack of ticking timers feels more RPG too.

Except in cases where you WANT to add race-against-the-clock dramatic tension to the quest. In our big groups the fighting wasn't so difficult or anything so in the "Stop them before they report back to the main force" quest it would add a layer of challenge (split up further for coverage or keep bigger groups for winning combat?) to have a somewhat short timer that gets extended a few minutes for every three advances or something. Not only do you have to win the fights, but you REALLY have to go find them in time before they can report back. In that limited context seeing a timer tick down makes the quest more engaging (as long as the time isn't so short we don't think why bother).

------

2 Questions

1.) What is supposed to happen when two different escalations converge on the same hex?

2.) There are skeletons in the north. Could players, given cooperation and time, cultivate that escalation straight down the side of the map to the south, then scrub all the hexes in between (eliminate the escalation), resulting in two independent pockets of skeleton escalation that we can prune as needed but keep around to farm Divine points?

Goblin Squad Member

Quick old business - @ Stephen the discussion we had about runs that output (25) and (30) items far underproducing the 19% goal of bumping up quality is still going on from what I can tell. Even accounting for our low levels, the aggregate information I get from crafters in game is about the same dismal rate I reported before.

-----

The leading edge of characters are harvesting T2 materials from nodes and salvage now. Are there any recipes for Tier 2 refining enhanced inputs (I have my eye on Dwarven Steel Ingots +2 or +3) or uncommon goods not automatic with levels that will drop for us in the 9.2 loot tables?

Goblin Squad Member

Is there a mechanical benefit from +1 or +2 gloves, boots, hats, belts, etc. over the flat versions? I don't see them offering extra keywords or bonuses or anything, really.

Same question for alchemical consumables e.g. is my Bloodblock +2 any more useful than flat Bloodblock?

Goblin Squad Member

The devs are busy making a game and only have time to read one forum, which isn't here anymore.

I understand we're all used to coming to Paizo forums to talk about the game but GW has gone to the trouble to make their own forums, that's where the devs are reading, and that's where all of these comments and discussions about alpha and EE should be happening from now on.

Also for the sake of the devs, give hard data and measurable information. "Finding starter weapons is stupid!" doesn't help where "According to achievements I've killed 637 things and only one starter weapon has dropped" might clue them in to a problem with loot tables, etc.

Goblin Squad Member

Great idea for a boss monster!!!

Goblin Squad Member

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This is a post that will hopefully come up in the inevitable searches about keywords and gear not just granting stats outright.

The basic idea: Keywords are lonely and they want their friend.

Feats and expendables have keywords they try to match to a certain piece of gear (weapon feats to weapon, expendables to feature feat, utilities to boot/glove) and the more words that match the better affect you get. If you're wearing super awesome +5 1/2 Armor of Win but the keywords in your armor feat don't match the keywords on your armor, you get very little of what the armor could do for you because that feat can't use what the armor offers it.

Feats

The higher you train a feat the more keywords it can use so you can potentially get more from it (the more + on weapons and armor the more keywords they offer). The longsword skill Slash 1 can only apply one keyword to your attack, but Slash 3 has the ability to apply three keywords to your attack to do more damage... if your longsword offers three matching keywords.

Gear

A starter longsword is +0. At that level it only has one keyword (Slashing). The longsword attack Slash 1 looks for that keyword so it will match and add damage to your attack. Slash 3 could have matched two additional keywords to add even more damage; but since the sword doesn't have them that potential is wasted, and each attack comes out with the same damage as Slash 1.

A +2 longsword has three keywords (Slashing)(Sharp)(Balanced) and the Slash feat looks for all of them. Slash 1 only has the ability to apply one keyword to its attack so the other two keywords on the +2 longsword are wasted. Slash 3 can apply three keywords to damage so the full potential of the +2 sword is realized. Slash 6 can apply six keywords, but since the +2 sword only has three keywords, you guessed it, Slash 6 does the same damage as Slash 3 with that sword and the feat's extra potential is lost.

If you manage to get a longsword +5, congrats!, Slash 6 is the only rank of that feat than can use all six keywords on your very fancy +5 longsword.

Wrong Keywords

Let's say you're using the Dragoon armor feat that looks for the keywords (Heavy)(Martial)(Distributed)(Dense) and you're wearing (I'm making this armor up for example) +2 Crusader's Plate that offers (Heavy)(Blessed)(Wrathful) which are three keywords but two of them don't match the feat so they aren't going to activate. Only one of the keywords on the armor matches the keywords of the feat, so the rest give no benefit. You'd get an identical result from +0 Crusader's Plate that offers only (Heavy). If you trade that armor to a cleric for +2 Dwarven Plate that gives keywords (Heavy)(Martial)(Distributed) you're now matching all three available keywords and getting the most out of your armor!

There's More!?

Yes, there's more about different tiers of gear and major and minor keywords, but that is the 102 class. For now shouldn't you be checking all your stuff with the feats you've been using?

Goblin Squad Member

Everyone send Stephen And Lee and the unnamed developers that never get credit for anything imaginary internet cookies.

You can relive the epic tale here
or here with access to the alpha forums.

Goblin Squad Member

Stephen Cheney in the Alpha forums, Monday evening wrote:
From emails I've received today, it sounds like the vast majority of remaining description tooltips should be showing up in the next build.

I asked for details. I will mouse over that post in the near future to see what's there.

Goblin Squad Member

Now after I log in (no error messages) the client is getting hung up at Connecting to Server... I just sat on that screen for 10 minutes before I retried again (over half hour now), I've restarted everything I can think to restart.

I'm just trying to get Edam Ladik the fancy armor I made for his cleric...

I have to go to work soon but I will what, download the client again to see if it's something with that?

------------------

UPDATE: I left the client going for 15 minutes so far this time and I have advanced to Waiting for Character List...

We probably broke the poor little guy, all blinky lights and popping sounds with smoke like a Steve Guttenberg comedy from the 80's.

Goblin Squad Member

The ground is much less slippery than last build and that's a great improvement. Let's keep going!

Closing with targets for melee combat is a bit hit-and-miss (pun intended). It's like the game doesn't know when our hitboxes have come together, sometimes they ricochet off to the side, or end with gap remaining.

Charge still doesn't know where to stop (even on targets heading directly towards me in a straight oncoming line) making it still functionally 95% useless. A few times it never started.

=== Knocking ===

This is a thing I've been doing where once agro is initiated and most of the gap is closed I'm trying to stand my ground in a good spot so my opportunity falls off and let NPCs approach me so I can knock them around with opportunity affects still active on them for running around in combat in my melee range. But most of the time nothing happens; I click the button and no sword goes swinging. I stand there waiting and pressing an attack button but my avatar does nothing, the opponent's opportunity drops off, then yet another moment passes, then the attack happens that I pressed the button for oh those long eons ago.

Shoot man I had a great idea for a system here, what's the monkeywrench? Is it:

A. Purposely designed so I can't attack in that moment they run into my melee range and still have opportunity (which I doubt because I've been able to successfully do this a handful of times, just not the other 90% of tries, but so far I can't identify the difference to build on)

B. Getting stuck between out-of-range and a built in delay on enacting an attack I input? Too far away, can't start an attack, can't start, can't start, ok close enough to initiate the attack!, wait for the attack to actually happen, wait for the attack, (NPC is stationary long enough opportunity drops off), wait for attack, attack happens on the target now lacking opportunity.

THIS IS MUCH LONGER THAN 300ms AFTER I PRESS THE ATTACK BUTTON.

Nearly a full second much of the time (when I don't have lag issues in any other respect at all).

I prefer actions to happen as soon as I push the button, that's why we push them. If there are going to be huge delays on attacks actually engaging after I've told my keyboard what I want to happen, then please let me lead the target even if it's out of range and I'll accept responsibility for making sure I get my timing right.

This will be especially bad in pvp where taking advantage of those quick flashes of in-range opportunity are what (are supposed to) make up for the extreme disadvantage of short melee range and reduced time on target.

It's ridiculously frustrating watching an enemy with opportunity flashing all over his head and being forced to stand motionless and unmoving (pressing the attack button) while he runs around in combat near me, all that opportunity fizzling away.

Goblin Squad Member

It's hard to steer, I think I read that from GoblinWorks somewhere as I was downloading the client. Oh man where do I start?

50% of raiding and pvp is where you stand. Half of what makes melee pvp so broken right now is you cant get to position of two objects the right way to make melee contact.

Want to Hoist a target with Opportunity to get the knockdown affect? Good luck. If your target has taken four steps at any point since the Eisenhower administration the mechanics will find a way for you to slice air.

I push the Charge button, nothing happens.
A second or two later I Charge to where the target used to be when I pushed the button. But it's useless to make a follow up attack because the target has moved 20 feet since then.

A Simple And Pleasing Concept

When you press a button you move, when you release the button you stop the motion.

This is all I want. No overturn after I stop turning. No running past the target while closing to melee (then overturning trying to find them again).

Using a utility or attack feat that moves you does so instantly. (This leads into the other way combat is broken, the extreme delay in your attacks going out and more delay in seeing what affects it had, but that remains moot until you can stand in the right spot).

Goblin Squad Member

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The tooltips are much more important!!!! (Though the last paragraph is about a fundamental part of combat and could help that get smoothed out asap) I'm putting this down in writing while it's fresh.

By splashes I'm talking about the text that pops up over your head when you get a new achievement, or damage numbers in combat floating up into the sky, etc.

they are so tiny. Apparently they're tied to the object that created them so when I'm zoomed out to be able to see my surrounding area the splashes are so tiny I can't read them.

I can't tell the difference between damage I'm taking and damage I'm doing. I can use context to figure it out, but even if I zoom in enough (all the way, basically) to see the numbers I have to focus on them instead of fighting to get useful information from them.

Is it very simple to unattach splashes from their source avatar and use an area on the screen? Just "You have achieved Bandit Slayer 3" splashes in a convenient part of the screen, the same readable size every time, regardless of how zoomed in or out someone likes their camera.

Also some color and size/font distinction between my damage/healing and enemies would make that cornucopia of math actually useful. Red/green for myself in a certain font and bigger size. Maybe yellow/lime or something and thinner font for enemies. And when my cleave/aoe hits could I see all the damage I did not just for what I have targeted, please? An icon to indicate a critical hit that goes with the damage number instead of "CRITICAL HIT!" is all that's needed.

Also if a condition initiates on an enemy it would be great if I can see the icon for that condition splash over them just like a damage number. In combat I was trying to apply strings of conditions (fictional example - opportunity so I could use another skill to apply flat-footed if target has opportunity so I can use a third skill for Critical 20 Bleeding 40 if target has flat-footed). It was pretty hard to decipher if/what conditions were on my target to strategize what feat can take advantage of it best.

Thanks for making the game. Now I'm going to pester you for 18 months with all my ideas how to make it the best game out there.

Goblin Squad Member

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Oh Em Gee tooltips. THIS IS DEFINITELY A MVP SITUATION.

Available Feats
(Assumption: trainers will show the same tooltip as in character windows/hotbar once it's trained) It's my opinion that we need need need to see two pieces of information that weren't in Alpha 6.

Most importantly, the keywords that feat is looking for, so I can know if I can even make use of it if I train it. It can be smaller nondescript 1-6 words at the very bottom of the tooltip window that don't stand out at all unless you're looking for them, but matching keywords between gear and feats is designed by you guys as a fundamental principal in the game and we need the information to be able to do it. By the way, where can I see what keywords are active for my character is there a single place?

Also, I'd like to know the feat's core attribute, the one that gets raised when you train that feat. Raising attributes through training so we're able to train the next feat we want has been designed as a huge part of character development strategy. This is again providing information to players so we can make informed, strategic, meaningful choices with limited xp as we grow our characters.

Personally, it would be easier for me to understand what a feat does if the information was listed as Self: (positive things that happen to me; negative things that happen to me after a semi-colon break to distinguish them) and Target: (Critical +10, Lose Date 10 if attacker has Gossip) instead of the Effect, Restriction, Other format it was in that kept bouncing between what happens to me or the target.

Unavailable Feats
I'll assume this tooltip won't be staying underneath the window forever but I have one other idea. Can the pre-reqs we have be greyed out so only the pre-reqs we still need to get to make the feat available are high contrast and easily visible? Conveying maximum information to players again. I suppose we can get by this with some extra work but it would be super awesome if this was implemented by September 15.

Skill Trainers
I really think we should see the core attribute, the one that will be increased upon training, from the skill trainers too. Oh and even just the simplest sentence of what the skill does. Turn essences gathered in the wild into tonics for use by alchemists. Create shields, rogue kits, and other utility kits.

I trained engineering because it sounded cool and had no idea what I could do before I found the door to click on (or that Int was being built which was useless to me in that respect). I can guess Knowledge: Dungeoneering increases chest loot in dungeons And Nature might do the same from... animals?, harvesting nodes? I remain completely clueless what Knowledge: Local does.

------------------------------------

Question for devs: What will Survival do for us in the computer version of the game other than allow crafting of campfire kits for engineers?

Goblin Squad Member

I can't connect to the alpha server Friday morning and want to make sure it's not me. I looked through the blog but other topics were posted during the time of Alpha 6's run; though the most recent hours indicated starting Thursday running straight through the weekend. Is it something else now did I get fireworks at sunrise?

Goblin Squad Member

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Okay. Rogue, fighter, wizard, cleric are classes and damage dealing, healing, control/support, etc. are roles and each class has their own class-based skills and ethos towards fulfilling those roles. You know it, I know it, the role playing universe in general knows it, GoblinWorks knows it, and I can prove it:

AlphaInstructionsv1.doc wrote:

Achievements

When you complete achievements you get category points in one or more of the categories below...

Class: These achievements are gained by reaching the requirements to advance in a role. They are needed by all roles and each role has its own set.

The type individually for fighters, wizards, etc. they keep saying each "role" is what you're advancing in the description but what do they name it? Class Achievements.

In the GoblinWorks.com Store there is a $10 add-on called the Class Pack, because they know if they called it a Role Pack no one would know what they mean and therefore never buy it.

Attempting to redefine already very well established terms in role playing and fantasy gaming is only going to cause worse confusion in players the more get exposed to it. Disrupting basic understandings, stuff players take for granted, in something as core as developing their characters (is this thing for a fighter role also good for my ranger or does it mean class-specific like implements?) is only going to influence on-the-fence players away from finding their Pathfinder Online niche. It shouldn't be something we have to work around to otherwise enjoy the game. That's why it matters much more than if we should call buildings civic assets or support structures.

I want to have an intervention. It's still alpha it's not too late to go back to calling classes classes and roles roles the way 100% of possible future customers understand it. Maybe it came about because you thought the gamer population would assume their character is stuck as one class permanently if you called them classes, but switching to another word that already means something else doesn't help.

Saying "Our game has an open class system; a single character can train to be anything if you have the pre-requisites" is a very attractive feature! No one understands why they should care when you say "Play any role you want to play" because they can already be a tank or healer in any other fantasy game too.

For a potential new customer, having to learn a new lexicon for classic well-established concepts is off-putting and an unnecessary barrier in their evaluation if they want to purchase the product. As a paying customer the blurred meanings between class and role being used interchangeably is a hindrance to my playtime that adds no value.

Please do this. In part because I passed up the pun "have some class" but mostly because it's the long-term right thing to do.

Goblin Squad Member

Remember a couple of weeks ago I made a post talking about how game mechanics and code can't do everything for us and there are some areas where players have to decide in aggregate how things are going to be (whether they're cognizant of that decision or not) and make it that way?

This is one of those times!!!

We have a lot of crowdforgers that are worried the War of Towers is going to have the affect of turning our game into Every Other Murder Hooligan Game Online; specifically if they put one toe past the town gate a horde of murderbros will swoop by aiming for their death so they can't manage to do anything fun in game. Yet we have a bunch of people looking forward to a quick start of the pvp excitement that are really looking forward to the WoT.

This is a summit to help both those groups of players enjoy gaming in digital Golarion with a meta experience that doesn't offend their sensibilities about what is fun. Some quick definitions:

Alpha Tower - one of the six towers surrounding a protosettlement
Beta Tower - every other tower

So here is my bright idea: a meta agreement between players to leave alpha towers off the table and do our fighting, empire building, and settlement scoring with beta towers for most of the War of Towers. When we're getting signals from devs that the WoT is coming to a close, roughly the last two or three weeks of it, and we're heading to the Great Catastrophe then every tower, alpha and beta, meta goes up for grabs.

There is a significant segment of players that has paid a significant amount of money to be here and don't want their good time wrecked by the perception of never being able to go anywhere or do anything without being interrupted by death, no matter how much meaning is attached to it. So while nothing is mechanically protecting their alpha towers we could, as a community, decide to give those players a little bit of space for a short time to help them experience the game in degrees and transition from wherever their outlook is now into the seams of Pathfinder Online as fellow players.

It's not asking for a total concession from the pvp'ers (I am one, by the way) who will still get to fight as much as they want at any beta towers. And still grab as many foreign alpha towers as they can muster the will and ability to achieve during the last period of the WoT; that is a concession the currently-murder-sim-worried make to the pvp'ers in exchange for the alpha tower buffer at the opening of EE.

--------

I think the main rebuttal to this will go something like

But when OE brings the russians and the goons they're going to be VICIOUS you cant wrap everything up in kittens and flowers now you NEED to be just as VICIOUS as those hypothetical boogeymen from Day One to harden up these pansies so they don't get crushed at OE and think GW lied to them about the game they made

Well, we can't do anything 18 months from now, right now. We can only do right-now-things right now. Russians and goons and shadowy murderbros are not an extant factor right now. It's those voices calling for immediate maximum viciousness in the name of potential future characters that are the source of 80% of the total amount of current viciousness. If they would shove some fruits and vegetables into their pie holes, a large majority of the theoretical viciousness evaporates freeing up lots of energy to deal with things that actually currently exist. What DOES exist this very day are the perceptions of exaggerated doom and aggravation that I think nearly everyone wants to squelch.

The first Great Challenge we face years before merciless swarms of ruthless murderbros is the reputation in the public at large that Pathfinder Online generates from our first impression with EE as either Yet Another Gankfest Online or Oh Hey Look At What They're Doing. We have an opportunity to tackle that First Great Challenge head-on by creating a VERY different first impression than a lot of the public at large is expecting.

OE is a hypothesis, nothing more than a very fluid concept; it is just us for about the next 18 months. So if you want to make the case for being a complete d-nozzle right from the get go, that never lifts a finger at any time to integrate anyone into the game community if they're not giving you everything you want your way, then stand firm on that platform of being an inconsiderate self-serving twerp from Day One of EE and make your case in this thread. But DO NOT dress it up as "preparing" our tabletopers for a hypothetical condition in 2016.

Brought to you by the Golarion Non Offending Meta Experience Summit.

Goblin Squad Member

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A subsection of the regular map, it would add an information overlay (heat colors with mouseover numbers?) of how many character deaths had occurred in each hex in the last hour.

If you want to avoid any type of pvp events, whether it be towers or feuds and wars later on, or a roaming squad of mean guys, or whatever, you can have a general idea of where to go or not go.

To keep it simple, only tallying each death event- the odd monster victory would be indistinguishable from an arbitrary gank, executed bounty contract, or really boring feud: 1 death.

But no one will have to feel helpless! It doesn't guarantee your safety so that principle of the game isn't violated, but players aren't walking around blind, or need a complex intelligence system to feel like they're doing something to preserve their own safety. If you see a hot red blob on the Map of Doom that is 27 deaths in the last hour (could be the same 12 characters dying over and over again during an outpost raid, too) you know to steer clear if you don't want to be bothered by everything that comes with it. You can do your thing over in that other part of the Map of Doom that is always ice cold. At the same time if you're keeping an eye out for activity near you and allies the Map of Doom assists with that too.

A tool to help every kind of player share the game.

DEVS: It doesn't seem like horribly complex coding or too resource intensive. Can you get behind the idea of it?

Players: Would this help you regain some self-agency about the recent hypothetical pvp run amok worries?

(Sure this could have gone into the IdeaClicky place but since I dislike registering for websites left and right I'm foregoing that for now until EE accounts are linked to the posting and voting so it's, you know, meaningful.)

Goblin Squad Member

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THE SKY IS NOT FALLING.

I thought it's important everyone see that.

I notice a distinct grouping going on between readers from the last few months and those from 2013 and how all y'all are feeling about the WoT.

Every time GW announces a new feature of the game, there soon ensues at least one several-hundred-post long thread of how it's going to ruin the game. Raiding... will ruin the game. Alignment... will ruin the game. Stand And Deliver... ruin the game and eat your children. There is a principle called the SAD seal which states you don't talk about SAD in a thread unless it's a thread about Stand And Deliver because it kept igniting huge venemous flame wars in multiple threads for months that were frequently moderated and locked.

You folks who started reading the forums in the last few months haven't seen this because nearly everything has been announced and fretted over at this point. In June of 2013 it happened about every five weeks. All the new people feel just fine now about things that a year ago were not the game they backed and were destroying the title. That's the pattern.

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WHY THIS IS GOOD FOR SMALL GROUPS THAT HAVE SETTLEMENTS IN THE LAND RUSH

Small groups can't hold full-on settlements.

15 or even 50-60 people can't run all the PoIs, defend the outposts, war to keep their territory, manage the daily routines, and still have an out of game life and not quickly burn out. If you stay small, small, small the BOOM full settlement you won't have it for long; either through conquest or just fizzling out from chores.

War of Towers means you're going to make friends, that's it. Get allied with companys holding towers for the protosettlement that will be yours someday. More important than the noobskill training or having a certain building a week sooner, the friends you gather and form bonds with may very well stick around and run a PoI hex chartered by your settlement. More people to do the work means less burnout, less obligation to log in or everything will crumble, and more people to talk to and have fun with when you're online.

When you get a full settlement, you won't be 15 people alone in the world, and you might actually be able to hang on to your settlement then.

Goblin Squad Member

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... is what I would say if I were in Alpha.

Goblin Squad Member

This is not about non-lethal duels or NL damage, those discussions have been done.

This is regarding two rather prominent outstanding issues we're going to have the first day of EE that can be mostly or entirely solved with the same thing:

1.) Ryan has said there's not going to be much to do other than attack each other that first day, but he doesn't want the place full of arbitrary murder.

2.) We're loaded with people inexperienced at MMO pvp that would like to learn as expeditiously as possible for purposes of playing Pathfinder Online to its deepest possibilities.

What would be really handy is a way to fight without Reputation or Alignment change, interference from NPCs, or exposure to additional outside player interference than we already had, i.e. no extra flags or being out in the middle of nowhere without the deterrent of NPC protection.

If we can have individual or party-based duels in town that last until either death or surrender, we can start training our company mates and settlemates *TM* in the concepts of pvp and everyone can start to practice this combat system's form of pvp execution (free pun!). It would be impractical to constantly form and reform companys to use feud mechanics to conduct training exercises among allies.

Players can also fight each other in a somewhat orderly-seeming and not-so-arbitrary way, and potentially start developing ad hoc brackets of duelling to keep each other entertained.

I'm no programmer but I can't think of a conceptual reason it would be extraordinarily resource consuming to fiddle with the existing hostility mechanics to turn it on for just two characters or parties and with a hard cancellation condition.

All you need is a checkbox to auto-decline duels in the options window (it could even default as checked after character creation) to prevent exploitation or harassment with it.

Goblin Squad Member

Most regular forum readers won't have to work too hard to find the parts of the map I am referring to as the Emerald Prairie, Roseblood Mountain, Zombie Kitten Peaks, and Loincloth Pass.

What else is out there? It's time to name some /sit!!

Goblin Squad Member

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THIS IS NOT A THREAD ABOUT MECHANICS

Alpha is HERE and expanding likely on the 16th and even more after that. Goblinworks isn't going to do any major overhauls of their code because one of us was righter than everyone else in a heated forum thread during the next month. We should be spending our time on things that we can do something about.

Culture - learned knowledge passed from one generation to the next

This is what we are in charge of. GW does the code, we decide to approve and applaud, or ignore (functionally the same as approval), or disapprove and correct what our fellow players are doing around us in the game we play together.

In Murder Simulator Online, when Jack A. can find a relatively new character and completely overpower them causing death and loss of goods or use the threat of character death to extort behavior, he gets applauded by his peers for pwning. The more loss he can cause to others while keeping his own losses low he gains status among his peers. These are traits of murder simulator culture, what Jack is taught by the other players in the game (by their accolades and awarding of status) that are signs of success.

If Jack entered the game rolling hard and everyone around him asked "What was the point of that?", said "Don't do that or the best guilds won't accept you if you get the reputation as THAT GUY", or mocked him for seeking fights with characters that had no real ability to fight back, the players around Jack would be teaching him those are actions that get him nothing good so are a waste of his time.

Are you with me how more established peers teach cultural attitudes and belief systems to the newborns? Good let's take it up a step.

That old code of conduct has been reinforced for Jack, possibly for years and over several games, as "what winners do" and gaining him rewards even in the face of hate from the losers he pwned. If he comes to yet another game and gets hate from some Carebear miner he killed that's completely expected. If he is corrected by a group of bandits and pirates, Jack will think they are mistaken; the first few times.

When something works people don't give it up easily. Jack needs time to have multiple experiences repeated over and over again where the majority of time his old code of conduct does not reward him like he expected, even got him left out or disadvantaged, before he starts to learn a new set of tools for how to be successful in the new environment.

1.) Consistency - It has to be most of the time, so the old code never has a chance to work, for the new one to become meaningful.

2.) Correcting when he does things that are taboo.

3.) Educating what things actually do lead to success, to replace the corrected actions.

4.) Education from peers carries more weight than from enemies - while a consequence is a consequence, they're felt more strongly from people Jack identifies with, not the loser "others" he preys on. This makes good bad guys especially important.

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I want a situation like the old Western movies. For most of the movie you know what the sides are, what their interests and goals are, but the entire thing isn't a cacophony of random gunshots. The sides butt up against each other with more and more pressure until the friction gives out launching the climactic shootout scene at the end. Just a small portion of the movie, with the results for winners and losers well known ahead of time.

If little brother Jeb went around shooting everyone he saw that didn't kow tow, big brother Willy would slap him over the head and tell him to stop making things harder for the gang.

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Normally I try to keep posts brief so y'all don't roll a save vs. wall of text, but in this case this is what was needed to get the full explanation out. As always, contribute on-topic ideas and principles, but keep it civil or so help me I will pull this thread over and we won't go to EE.

Goblin Squad Member

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Are you in Early Enrollment and just now starting to pay attention to Pathfinder Online? Maybe because of the Land Rush and wondering if you'll miss out if you don't join someone? Feeling drowned in company recruitment threads? Wondering what a company is in the first place?

Well grab a cup of something that bites back and plop your brain on the table because I'm about to cast Summon Wall of Text and you're about to do some learnin'!

The difference between a company, a guild, and a settlement

A company is the basic unit of permanent* association in Pathfinder Online, you know, more than just a group for an afternoon of fightin' or adventurin'. *-You can still leave, don't panic or get commitment issues, other companys still find you attractive but there's just something special about this one... Companys can be a few characters up to a few dozen, gain Influence by doing stuff, and spend their Influence to get other stuff. Companys can have Feuds with other individual companys.

A Settlement is the physical group of buildings in the game world that makes a town; and also a collection of companys that are all together basically on the same Pathfinder Online team. Settlements have hundreds of characters. Everything that affects the Settlement affects all of its companys and all the characters in them, like the strength of its Development Index which determines how snazzy your buildings (and training, and crafting) can get, and going to War with another Settlement.

Guilds, the way you're probably thinking of, don't exist inside the game. A small guild can be a company, but a large "guild" might become several closely tied companys inside the game world. So when you see "guild" during the Land Rush, think of a group of people (it could be several different companys or out-of-game player groups) all working together to get a Settlement in a particular spot they want.

Some people have already been playing for two years

For reals, some of these people have been interacting on the forums for a long time now and there are... histories.

There are so many Settlements!

Three of the Settlements -Brighthaven, Callambea, and Phaeros- have already won locations. Thirty more settlements are going to be awarded after 10 weeks of the Land Rush. When you see people talking about the "cutoff" for winning a Settlement at #33 on the Leaderboard it's because those first three are also on the board but aren't in the running for the 30 Settlements still up for grabs.

The game isn't starting with player-run Settlements from Day One

At first we'll only have the NPC Settlements. But when they are added as part of Crowdforging, the 33 that won spots in the Land Rushes will have basic buildings in place for them (instead of having to clear monsters, spend resources, wait for building, etc.)

If I don't join somebody during Land Rush will I be up Sellen River without a paddle when Early Enrollment starts?

No. Settlements need hundreds of people so you'll still be recruited after we're playing the game, but there are advantages to finding a group now. Your vote in the Land Rush will help your group get the best spot you can. It's good to start getting to know your Settlemates (TM, that's trademarked to me as of right now) and potential neighbors, and forming alliances.

Oh man, there are my commitment issues again

The Land Rush is only about deciding placement of some buildings, you aren't obligated to join the companys or the Settlement you vote with once we start playing. You can even change your vote before the Land Rush is over.

SO WHO SHOULD I JOIN UP WITH!!!???

Ow, no need to yell. If you tell us what your character is about -alignment, playstyle, interests, special considerations, etc- we can point you in the direction of some "guilds" (remember the special definition for that) and their Settlements for you to look at. Leadership people might look at this thread a lot and recruit you from it too. Well time to stop just sitting there reading, get typing!

Goblin Squad Member

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THE RIVER KINGDOMS PLEDGE

We the players of every character -heroic, villanous, goofy, and profane- pledge each time we log in to follow Wheaton's Law with all fellow gamers around the MMO table, and to never forget to be awesome.

By making our marks below we signify our dedication to the principle of creating ongoing stories of excitement, adventure, intrigue, and the unexpected that will be retold through the ages to new players and non-players alike in a manner that inspires those entertained by our tales to pull up their own keyboard and become a part of the next story. Game on.

Goblin Squad Member

A rough draft of actual words is in the works for my pre-EE project.

It's going to be a short, simple, clear statement that as players when we log in we're basically sitting around a honking gigantic table to play Pathfinder Online together to have fun. Like sitting with our friends around a physical table our characters will clash like storms and lightning in pursuit of fun and great stories but we the gamers will never forget to be awesome to each other.

In spirit of the setting and River Freedoms, it's going to function as a meta oath among us as players, and you know how the RK feel about oaths.

What do you think is the coolest name for such a thing?

THE GREEN HAT PLEDGE - based on ancient forum discussions about the difference between meaningful interaction and arbitrary aggravation.

THE RIVER KINGDOMS PLEDGE - simple and all-inclusive

THE FIRST LIGHT PLEDGE - when a telescope first opens to receive starlight, when a forge or kiln is fired for the first time, these are examples of First Light. This accord is trying to shine a light upon our humanity as gamers. "Knowledge can explain the darkness, but it is not a light."

Write-in suggestions are accepted*, please include a short explanation of its coolness.

*- This poll is not a cheerocracy, it's a cheertatorship, so numeric counts in this thread are not the final deciding factor for the agreement's name.

Goblin Squad Member

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I'm making this my pre-EE project. The goal is for a final product before EE is playable.

This is completely separate from The Roseblood Accord.

There is no proposed text of it yet, but this post is a summary of the idea and place to collaborate on it.

This is going to be an agreement, based on good will between fellow gamers rather than parsing semantics, that acknowledges there are certain actions that players can make their characters do outside the intended game design and expectations of a territory and resource based RPG that unduly inhibit the ability of other players to have fun, and those actions don't have a place in our gaming time.

Our characters can be Good or Evil, paladin or assassin, raid, plot, rob, vanquish, rescue, and war as characters in fantasy games do.

We, as actual people behind keyboards playing a game with our recreational time, recognize that there are boundaries to a sandbox and some actions as players are going too far which inhibit the recreational enjoyment of other real people.

Signatories of the accord would agree that 98% of the time we collectively know throwing the sand in other people's eyes when we see it, and agree that shouldn't be a part of our gaming time. Leadership players who act as agents of their companys and settlements to bring those groups of players into the accord agree to promote that mindset of good gamesmanship and staying within the intended bounds of the sandbox in their groups, have some sort of official code of game conduct along those lines for their members, and enact disciplinary measures on their member players if they make their characters act outside the spirit of the accord too often.

If it is the consensus among members that a particular signatory is not doing enough to uphold the spirit of the accord from the in-game actions of the group's members, it may be removed as an active participant of the accord until there is a consensus those issues are resolved. This may become important in the meta game aspect of playing.

------------------

A few points to work out:

1. The Name In my first hashing out of the concept in another thread I called it the Pathfinder Accord as a placeholder name. I don't know if Paizo would want me using THAT name willy nilly. If there is another name in Golarion lore that applies well or something that just sounds cool I'm all for hearing it.

2. Version 2.0 The game itself will go through an evolution of patching, features, player fads, and things to do. I want the accord to be broad and open enough to apply to all the game's incarnations without having to change itself.

3. The Controversial Cases Standing outside of Noobtown ganking day-old characters as they try to walk somewhere for the first time is obviously outside the boundaries of good gamesmanship.

What about 3am calls to siege an in-character-enemies' settlement while most of the players are asleep or otherwise logged out and not present to defend?

Are there times when it's acceptable to kill the same character over and over again? During official feud/war in general? During a specific operation when you need that enemy removed from the target?

The accord is going to avoid specific enumeration of allowable things vs. disallowed for reason 2 above (I actually plan on having it shorter than this post). But I thought it will be constructive to have a few examples of how the spirit of the agreement is applied in grey areas for players considering its merits or potential players worried about a toxic, anything-goes game environment.

Goblin Squad Member

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During Kickstarter 2: Twins were offered to Explorer level and above as a bonus for backing; that's what sealed the deal for me and I'm sure many others. It came with the context of both characters paralleling their lifetimes.

More Recently: Ryan has said the Destiny's Twin link won't be available on the first day of EE even if we want to start our twins right away. That's not ideal but understandable with the complexity and time pressures of MVP launch.

What I think is fair and ask the devs to consider is a policy that when the feature is ready and a character gets twin-linked its available xp is set to an amount equal to that accrued by the older anchor character; to simulate if they had been linked since creation as was implied during KS2.

That's not an automatic win condition for the new twins because xp is only one of several prerequisites needed to gather feats and grow in power. The new twin will have a little easier time for a while but still has to go out into the world to make achievements, earn badges, build attribute points, find trainer time etc. before they can use that pool of xp for anything.

Why robust Twins are good for GW and us as players: Being able to build two characters for the cost of one more strongly motivates account holders to be involved earlier on rather than sitting out some of EE waiting for more developed features. With vital twins we'll be doing twice as many things so devs can get a lot more feedback on a broader array of features and we'll find a lot more ways to break the game. The more people are actively engaged at an earlier time, the more they show their friends what they're doing to get enthusiastic about Pathfinder Online and want their own accounts.

Yes this is something I benefit from and so do the the other KS backers and developers at no resource cost and I don't see any functional negatives to it so I'm putting the idea out there to take the temperature on it.

Goblin Squad Member

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This is something I've been thinking of because I spend much longer in character generation than the music any game provides. You usually* only do it once per character so I want to get it right.

POINT ONE - How basic are the basics?
Choose a name, race, core alignment. I expect there will be just a few selections for body type (maybe?), general faces, basic hair colors, but nothing on the order of height slider or tweaking nose width yet. You better eventually have light blue as a hair option!

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I don't know how easy this is to do but I HATE when everything looks fine on that super huge doll during creation but running around in the game it looks like the character has a wedge of cheese sticking out of their skull from certain angles, or something. Is a character preview possible running around in a small area as rendered by the game where we can see them moving around from different angles, zooming, and what our character will actually look like in the game for the next few years. Not that useless romanticized supergraphic doll we make so pretty that ceases to exist after generation is over.
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POINT TWO - Oh god
Should we all pick a personal deity from the get go? Would most options become greyed out due to being too far away from the core alignment we selected? Just a brief description of what each stands for with their alignment and list of domains to get a feel for them, changeable later. Most of the time it adds character flavor but will become important to anyone who trains clerical (and later paladin/ranger) abilities.

POINT THREE - Useless hunk of meat
What's life like if we start out with absolutely zero skills? I'm thinking each character should start with a small amount of skill; always the same number of xp (one or two day's worth?) but differently distributed based on an archetype the player decides on. Perhaps a few background questions about what your character was doing right before they arrived in the River Kingdoms and why they've come here to do can help the code decide between some starter packages of general feat training that we'll definitely need to get anyway. With that each character can start out able to swing a sword, pick, wand, purse, or anvil in a basic way or the tutorial or straight to eager exploration. I don't think players should be required to self assign skills directly on creation because they're total noobs at that point.

* - POINT FOUR - What's come before shall all happen again
Would it be so bad if at some distant point EE characters could have one trip through something that looks similar to the full character generation suite but keep our name and accumulated xp? Many of us will want to change to a race currently unavailable and there are plans to let us switch once. More options in face and body customization will be available later, etc. so as long as GW is preparing a time window for some characters to institute major updates I think it would be nice for everyone to have one crack at the full monty when it's ready. (Cosmetic updates are a winner at the MTX so this is very much in line with that and not a dead end of code at all).

Goblin Squad Member

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Ryan has mentioned several times the Goblinworks crew are increasingly on the run-up to alpha which is the run-up to Early Enrollment.

What I would like to suggest to everyone in the forums enough to read this post is that we agree to temporarily put the discussions about far off game features on a back burner and focus our topics as much as possible on what GW is focusing on as they work to build a good quality MVP to release on schedule. When they post in those topics at least we're not pulling their attention off into the weeds of what they want to be working on.

Possible subjects:

Character generation
The environment of the initial NPC settlement
The environment immediately around the NPC settlement
What will there be to do besides randomly stab people?
Is it better to have an alpha NDA or not, if that's on the fence.

Question for GW: What subjects are there for us to talk about that coincide with what you're focusing on but might change between now and Q3?

Goblin Squad Member

Will an eventual sorcerer or bard character be able to get much training progress from the magic skills that are going to release for wizards in EE? Or is their version of magic soon going down a different branch of the training tree (e.g. totally different skills that key off of Cha instead of Int) so there's not very much crossover between Charisma and Intelligence based magic planned for now?

Goblin Squad Member

Is there something being planned where we will be able to

  • On a player's first day in EE create both characters that will eventually become Destiny's Twins

  • Have both characters accruing xp in parallel from the time they're created (even if we have to purchase additional game time or something for now)

  • When the characters are eventually linked, be credited the equivalent game time as if Destiny's Twin had been in place on those two characters since their creation? (So if we never link them we've paid as normal, but when we do link them functionally some sort of game time refund happens in whatever way is easiest for GW)

I want to hit the ground running with both twins; get started on that 2 1/2 year journey to a traditional class capstone with one and there will be lots of ACE (aristocrat, commoner, expert) crowdforging to do with the other during EE. It's a hard choice of only one to train, and doesn't seem like I should have to permanently pay extra for the second character since Destiny's Twin feature was a major selling point to Kickstarter Backers. It would be a lot easier if there's a plan for a pseudo-Twin procedure until the DT mechanic goes live.

It seemed like this is a situation that probably applies to a majority of KS backers so here I am asking about/requesting it.

Goblin Squad Member

The actual lyric goes, "We will teach you how to make boys next door out of..."

This is a survey to find out what the forum goers think we should do about low Reputation characters once we have some.

Should we aspire make the game so unbearable to anyone who dips into each player's personal estimation of "low" Reputation (that will vary from person to person) that they just don't want to be in the game anymore?

Should we try some way to salvage them into beneficial participants of the community? What could that be?

Goblin Squad Member

Oh wait we can't just kill them huh? I guess we're going to have to figure out something else to do with them.

Reputation is meant to reflect if the character generally contributes positively or negatively to the game. Nihimon has advocated a stance that if a character is 1.)hostile and 2.)low Reputation we should all don the robes of righteous Death and cleave the chaff from the wheat with an unrelenting fury. They're low Rep so they must have done something bad somewhere, right? (and hostile so our own Rep isn't lowered from instant face stabbing) Kill! Kill! Kill!

The component of that plan I see becoming problematic is that it's reflexive and automatic without any context, as if all Low Rep characters are one monolithic block of ooo-scary Boogeymen clad in shadows and newborn puppy tears whose single-minded goal is to ruin yet another online game.

There are some sociopaths who will be like that and it's fine with me if we run them out of PO. The River Kingdoms will also be getting flooded at some point with new characters who've been instilled with open pvp survival instincts that run counter to the PO game culture we'd prefer. They can get low rep before someone explains enough of the game to them and the way they need to modify their expectations to be successful in this game. Maybe that player is relieved to shed the hyper-aggressive pvp demeanor but then here comes a lynch mob determined to run him out of the game.

Leave the room to get dinner and your kid brother or 5-year-old spawn goes on an NPC killing streak or something. Not only do you have to regrind your Rep but along comes this homicidal freak and his friends in green hats shouting something about purges and quotes and chasing him all over the Seven Hexes trying to chain kill him for what, the low Rep bar they can see?

There will be some people we just don't want in PO. There will be a lot of people who initially come in acting like idiots but can be reformed into beneficial players, but not if they get labeled kill-on-sight (KOS) and from that view all the high Reps as sadistic self-righteous jerks who they don't want to associate with anyway.

There will be SO MANY kinds of low rep players and so many possibilities of what they could be to the game six weeks from the time you encounter them. Here are my questions for discussion:

Should we instantly make the game so unbearable to anyone who dips into each individual's differing personal estimation of "low" Reputation that they just don't want to be there anymore or should we try to salvage them into beneficial participants of the community? Is Kill! Kill! Kill! a good way for PO supporters to refine the best of the possibilities from those wayward players?

Truth resists simplicity.

I think those questions resist simplistic answers too.

Goblin Squad Member

Finally, honesty in a thread title, right? Nope sorry this is an idea about another layer to turn seemingly random toxic pvp into healthy more meaningful pvp.

Settlements and companys each have their pools of limited resource that are spent to engage within GWs structure of meaningful pvp. How I see it is, the decision whether or not it's worth spending that limited resource for this fight or saving it for something more advantageous tomorrow is the primary thing that makes it meaningful compared to randomly just doing it whenever.

Individuals don't have that from what we've been told. We can engage in pvp through the structured Hostility paid for by our settlement, company, or faction (leaving SAD out because so much is TBD, more on it below). The only way for individuals or temporary parties to engage in pvp outside of those institutions is for one of them to break GWs rules.

So maybe, individuals and parties should also be able to make a meaningful choice to spend a limited resource and get GW-approved structure pvp scaled to their level. Power hasn't existed for most of development but now it does.

Start A Fight (SAF)

  • The Subject spends Power from his own reserves to start the fight.
  • There is a brief delay before a mutually Hostile state where the Object is made aware of the Subject's imminent attack. This simulates the puffing of chests and functionally gives the other player a few seconds to not be entirely caught off guard like in unstructured face stabbing.
  • The mutual Hostile state applies only between the Subject and Object of the SAF, all other regulatory factors for other players are still in place. The Hostility lasts 10? minutes (allowing for combat state if the timer ends in combat), just long enough to have a single fight.
  • There can be a party version of this with higher Power cost because it's more individuals split among all members of the issuing party and all are Hostile to all for the slightly longer (20-30m?) time period.
  • Here's where I call a s&^$storm down on my head: SADs are also initiated by the SAD issuer (solo or party) spending Power.

It has meaning, in spending Power the issuer is diminishing his ability to use his best fighting/healing tactics just in starting the conflict and he can't do it all day long either.

For players it's an option that allows us to be in pvp without the sense of unfairness that Ryan talks about making the game feel toxic. The Object can call for help, ready his escape abilities, or face up to give more than he gets, the player's decision.

Think of the implications for challenging trespassers in your territory. It's much easier to maintain a NRDS policy if you can still deal with anyone you feel is a threat at any time. This covers all the cease and desist territory we talked about a while ago before Power existed.

While the danger of instantaneous face stabbing is sill omnipresent, when players have the option to use a pvp structure 100% of the time GW can give an even bigger shock to the system and crash the suckitude down even harder on players that come into the game looking to attack early and often.

Goblin Squad Member

Will we know WHY we just flagged up criminal? Things other than stabbing faces will be illegal so is it designed to catch us by surprise or will we get a confirmation screen before certain potentially vague crimes? It can happen in character. "You've seen several no mining/no poaching/no trespassing/etc. signs posted. Do you want to continue anyway?". With a checkbox option to remove confirmations if you plan on being plenty chaotic.

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Ryan said they're avoiding bottlenecks and from the terrain in videos so far it looks like you can cross hexes nearly anywhere along their borders i.e. there aren't unpassable mountains or trees that function as walls with only a few road/doors to change areas. For exploratory and conflict reasons is that impression that hexes can be crossed nearly anywhere correct?

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While SAD can theoretically be for Good, let's face it basically ALL THE TIME you're harming someone else materially, physically, or both for your own personal gain and River Freedoms or not that is the corest type of Evil.

For game mechanics won't the initiator have to choose what financial "account" the SAD payment will go to? Robin Hoods can select the needy NPCs of PoorTown and get shifts in Chaotic and Good (while never having the funds themselves, they give it away remember, if GW doesn't mind an arbitrary gold sink). That could raise or lower that town's Unrest too depending on context.

But if the initiator chooses the SAD ransom to go somewhere like My Settlement, My Company, or My Pocket that is harming non-hostile others for personal gain which I think warrants a shift toward Chaotic and Evil.

Bludd can go kill heinous slavers also to stay Chaotic Neutral.

Goblin Squad Member

Will we know WHY we just flagged up criminal? Things other than stabbing faces will be illegal so is it designed to catch us by surprise or will we get a confirmation screen before certain potentially vague crimes? It can happen in character. "You've seen several no mining/no poaching/no trespassing/etc. signs posted. Do you want to continue anyway?". With a checkbox option to remove confirmations if you plan on being plenty chaotic.

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Ryan said they're avoiding bottlenecks and from the terrain in videos so far it looks like you can cross hexes nearly anywhere along their borders i.e. there aren't unpassable mountains or trees that function as walls with only a few road/doors to change areas. For exploratory and conflict reasons is that impression that hexes can be crossed nearly anywhere correct?

----

While SAD can theoretically be for Good, let's face it basically ALL THE TIME you're harming someone else materially, physically, or both for your own personal gain and River Freedoms or not that is the corest type of Evil.

For game mechanics won't the initiator have to choose what financial "account" the SAD payment will go to? Robin Hoods can select the needy NPCs of PoorTown and get shifts in Chaotic and Good (while never having the funds themselves, they give it away remember, if GW doesn't mind an arbitrary gold sink). That could raise or lower that town's Unrest too depending on context.

But if the initiator chooses the SAD ransom to go somewhere like My Settlement, My Company, or My Pocket that is harming non-hostile others for personal gain which I think warrants a shift toward Chaotic and Evil.

Bludd can go kill heinous slavers also to stay Chaotic Neutral.

Goblin Squad Member

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The Need: Scammers and those that use poisonous language are players that GW wants to keep out of PO. They could roll LN and run rampant creating a toxic game environment; the fact that CE settlements suck won't impact them one bit (actually they can "drift" into the "strongest" alignment to have best access to training and markets) and I haven't read anything on how the Reputation system will concretely mitigate their negative affect on the game or reform their behavior.

A Solution: Reputation isn't from D&D. It's not from Pathfinder. It was invented by GoblinWorks to do one job in Pathfinder Online so let's accept that and use it that way.

* At -1500 Rep a character loses the ability to use most skills, feats, consumables, keywords, tricks, etc. Just about every new thing you can do with Tier 2 and 3 gear for sure. They can no longer be a part of any inter-player Rep transfers (to avoid their friends boosting them up or enemies sabotaging them against the intent of the Rep system). They also lose the ability to issue or accept any form of contracts (for scammers) including placing buy and sell orders (they have limits to complete orders that others placed). Stay in the upper 60% of Rep and you're golden; there's plenty of room for an honest misunderstanding or naked noob bomb before a mechanical behavior penalty kicks in. It's hard to assert you lost 2,500+ Rep before you understood what was going on.

* At -4000 Rep a character loses all but a fixed set of skills and stats equal to a new character. They are mechanically ejected from all factions, company, and settlement of which they were a member and cannot join any until they are above this threshold again. Maybe other stuff TBD to close loopholes that I haven't thought of.

For those that try to use PO as a murder simulator this system quickly makes that endeavor mechanically very difficult then near impossible even before human oversight can step in, protecting players. For scammers, inflammatory commenters and other toxic players repeated Rep penalties issued by humans for their behavior (of course with an explanation of what they did and why it's undesired in PO, whatever responsible and effective behavioral modification system we end up with) will dip them into DefCon 2 then DefCon 1 of not being able to do much of anything and probably not have fun in the game.

Malleable personalities will alter their behavior to what is community accepted and incorrigible ones will leave the game. Alignment of individuals and settlements is free to be only a role playing tool in a D&D fantasy game. And that, as far as I know, is what we all want.

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