Suviont's page

Notmyrealname wrote:

So , all player owned housing in the future will be purchased from the store? That's a new idea, can I craft a bedroll to go with my campfire and bean pot?

Boy do I hate that form of interrogatory.

Posing a worst-case scenario as the actual fact and then commenting as if that fact were in evidence.

NO all player owned housing will not require a future store purchase. There will be player owned housing you will be able to craft from purely in-game resources.

The wording in the blog posts had me worried. I may have missed something but it seemed to me that if you weren't a part of a settlement, the store was how you got housing.

So there will be options for small companies to craft housing from in-game resources?

No Cayden Caliean?

Blasphemy!

I believe the Linux community could really stand some love too, plus they are by and large the very folk who might be among the most interested in Pathfinder Online.

Based on what, exactly?

I wouldn't be surprised by Mac/Linux stretch goals, but I think Mac would come before Linux, if they're not the same goal.

Valkenr wrote:

The blogs have the answer, but most people either ignore it or missed it, because there was a bunch of discussion on the topic. Blogs around 3-6 are probably the best to read, and contain the most information that is constantly repeated on these boards.

Short version:
Stop thinking of PFO in terms of Pathfinder mechanics. Attributes effect how well you train skills attached to them. If you have high strength you are not stronger, you are able to get stronger faster. Someone with a lower strength can become as strong as you, but they must work at it longer.

The only way I can see PFO working well is if they divorce the mechanics of the RPG and make their own systems. One game is turn based strategy, the other is real time combat. The 'flavor' that is retained should be mostly the lore, setting, and the general idea behind most spells, like 'fireball' casts a fireball.

Then they should be calling it Golarion Online or River Kingdoms Online since its limited to that small part of it.

Because Branding is for suckers.

Here's the thing: Goblinworks has many reasons for not just translating the PFRPG mechanics straight into the MMO. They discussed some in the early blogs. These are well thought out, intelligent reasons. But in addition to those reasons are legal reasons.

Pathfinder is in a tricky legal position when it comes to adaptations of its mechanics. Pathfinder was made using the Open Game License created by Wizards of the Coast with the Third Edition of Dungeons and Dragons. This allows them to use the mechanics of Third Edition and 3.5 in their tabletop products. It does not allow them to adapt those mechanics into a video game. Paizo and Goblinworks are cannot make a video game using the Pathfinder mechanics.

Being a well-known/respected bounty hunter and mercenary would be cool. Some of the best fun I've ever had in an MMO was bounty hunting in SWG pre-NGE. Though from the sound of it, the market for this role may be pretty saturated.

Maybe a bandit leader. Try to keep the group somewhere in Neutral, rather than evil. Maybe sell our services as privateers to nations at war.

I don't know if the game will support or allow this one, but it's been on my mind: Anarchist. Running an underground organization bent on the fall of powerful governments and settlements. Has the attitude that order is a disease imposed on the world by oppressive, selfish individuals who only build empires so that they may sit at their head. Trouble is, this would call for not being a member of a settlement, or at most a small one. I don't know if that would leave any way to really attack or harm the big keeps and cities.

I think a big part of the problem is the children.

Okay. Stop. The average age of a WoW player is 28. Many theme park MMOs have subscriptions, making children a weaker target for them, as, barring willing parents, children don't have disposable income to drop $15 a month on a game.

You don't like WoW or other theme park MMOs? That's fine. But insulting games and the people that play them purely because you don't enjoy that particular style of game? That's childish.

This thread seems horribly unnecessary and hostile. Playing a lycanthrope or other animal race does not even come close to being a furry.

If even the availability of such a race at some theoretical point in the future would make you not play this game, I'd say that's a very personal problem.

Emotes & proper chat bubbles are the only tools we need from day 1.

All we need is speech bubbles and emotes, yeah, but we're here to throw out some ideas.

Goblinworks, hear me on this: If there's a chair, I want to be able to sit in it. If any of you know anyone on the SWTOR team, pass it along, since they apparently missed the idea on that one.

Emotes with visual representation are always welcome. Especially persistent ones. I'd love to be able to continually have my character read a book or have a drink while sitting, give some variety to the scene instead of everyone standing/sitting around like automatons.

Harrison wrote:

Tyveil wrote:

Completely immersion breaking. I hate, hate, hate the way games do this. It's not a "skin", it's a weapon. If your character is showing it, that's the weapon you're carrying. Same goes for armor. I'm fine with clothing you wear over your armor, but not with "cosmetic armor" that replaces the look of what you're really wearing. It doesn't make sense and it's a stupid mechanic. I highly doubt that PFO will be using this mechanic.

Having gear be able to magically change their look is immersion breaking for Pathfinder?

If 99% of the population is doing it, absolutely it's immersion breaking. We have everyone walking around with sticks and pigstickers when really they are wielding greatswords. I think anyone could understand how ridiculous and immersion breaking that would be. Works fine for PnP, not so great in an MMORPG. I'm sure Goblinworks will put some thought into it and make it not nearly so easy to do (if at all) as it is in the PnP version.

Of course there would be equivalencies (as there is in almost every MMO that uses cosmetic systems). Plate armor must be made to look like plate armor, a greatsword must look like a greatsword, and so on.

I could see some bandit groups falling into chaotic or true neutral, depending on their approach to thievery. More toll roads and ransoms than murders and looting corpses (though still some murder and looting corpses =P).

I don't think they should be inherently unlootable, but I also don't see any problem with them having a reduced thread cost; say 75% or 50% of the cost of an item with equivalent mechanical stats. That way it's easier for you to hold on to your special, unique items, but it may still come at the cost of other gear.

It just got real, people. Super excited for these.

Wow. You did say in another thread that you don't have a negative opinion of this game, right?

I mean, the level of unprovoked rudeness on display here, especially when this thread is ostensibly making a request? It's impressive(ly terrible).

If a chaotic group CAN kill them, beat them up, and open the area up for themselves or another group to step in, then you've got griefing. We didn't sign up to have our sand castle kicked over, and yet, there it sits. Now we have to fight back in PvP, or move, or quit.

That's not griefing. You may not like getting your settlement destroyed, but when you left NPC protected areas and set up on valuable resources, you agreed to the risk of other people coming to take them.

Say you're playing WoW or any other MMO. There's a rare ore spawn. You and another player of the opposite faction spot it and go for it. You start hitting the node first, and the other player hits you to stop you from getting it. That's not griefing, it's competition. Say they kill you and take the ore. Still competition. You run back to your body and spawn and they kill you again. Now they've crossed to griefing.

Any action that causes a player to be upset is not automatically griefing. If you duel someone and they win, they are not griefing you just because you do not want to lose.

Maybe I'm missing something core here, but that seems like a big issue. In Eve, this is handled by making all the player structures be put out in low-sec or 0.0 space, and anyone can come try to kick your sand castle over, and if you aren't ok with that you stay in high sec. Maybe PFO will work the same way.

That is exactly how it works, and how it has been described in several blog posts and threads. There are major NPC settlements which have guards protecting them and their surrounding areas. If someone tries to kill you there, very strong NPC guards will come to your aid, likely killing the enemy before they can kill you. The wilderness, where players establish settlements and kingdoms, do not have this protection.

Psyblade wrote:

I am slowly putting out the info about PFO to other friendly guilds that I know and see if they are interested. I might actually see if I know someone who is willing to post it on the eve forums and have the rabid dogs being released to this...

j/k about the eve forums :P

Why j/k?

That is the target audience for this game.

If the kickstarter is to succeed those are the people the devs should be advertising to.

Not pathfinder pnp players.

I don't like EVE. I want to play the crap out of PFO.

Your negative opinion of this game doesn't determine its target audience.

If bright names show up through trees, how do you expect it to work ground level? You'd have EXACTLY the same problem from ground view.

True. That's why it's a question.

Also, if someone on the ground can just see you, you haven't picked a very good hiding spot. Assuming anyone that comes your way will do so from the ground, you can pick your location such that you can monitor the avenues of approach, hide from the common ones, and set your self up to see them first. This is still possible when flight is included, but the avenues of approach for most locations have been increased exponentially. You can't cover or control them. The freedoms of movement and location afforded by flight are extremely potent.

As for flying over obstacles, how do you fly over a terrain obstacle if you can't get above it? A canopy could be in the way, overhanging rocks, and if you did get up, wind might host you in the opposite direction. Flight doesn't mean it can overcome an obstacle. If what you use to fly is too large, you might not be able to steer it over the obstacles anyway.

Canopy? Can't get above it? How low are you flying in this scenario? Why are you flying so low? Why do you not stop, move up, then proceed? Why are you getting so close to these obstacles when you're flying? I don't get this one. (Talk about winds below)

The sky would not have to be full of monsters- the air could be a zone in itself that spawns monsters when people are flying up there and not when they're not. Or they could have long above tree aggro ranges.

Monsters that spawn specifically to get you? That seems a little strange, but okay. If well tuned it could work. How far above the trees?

Wait, do you mean flying monsters in the trees that aggro those flying above them? What about the poor saps walking below, do they now have to deal with griffons, too?

You still have air currents to mean aiming somewhere in the air doesn't mean you'll get there.

You might be heading west, then hit a gust that sends you south, collide with a tree, plummet to the ground and find yourself in a hobgoblin camp having your head caved in. Flying again won't help if you just hit the same gust.

You're still approaching this like a wind/maneuverability system is a simple, given thing. I think there's a lot more work and design that would have to go into this than you realize. The physics, the UI, the controls, and all at variable intensities and levels based on location and skill of the flying character? That's a great deal time, work, and money being put into one part (Wind) of one part (Flying) of a much larger game.

Here's more considerations for the winds:

• How high before winds become strong enough to affect flight? Too high and people just fly below them. Too low and suddenly there's gale force winds tossing wizards 20 feet above the ground while a breeze lightly tickles flowers in the meadow someone is walking through below.
  
• How do you monitor wind direction to avoid getting tossed like a rag doll? Can you tell if there's wind when you're on the ground?

Flight only cheapens the experience because it isn't integrated, it's tacked on.most of the time the sole purpose of flight becomes to get from a to b in the fastest possible time, this while thread has been some people saying it doesn't have to be and the other half saying it is.

With the bandits and scout- that assumes your bandits don't have a flier to take out scouts, and that your ambush site is visible from the air. Neither of these can be assumed.
Ever been oin a plane and looked at a forest? You can't see what's underneath the canopy. But that doesn't mean they can't see you.

Several solutions have been offered to the objections, but we never hear WHY they wouldn't work, or how content is bypassed, just that it is.

The flier to take out the scout doesn't change the fact that the scout would see your flier or your party on the ground. Cover on the ground could help, I suppose that would be partly dependent on UI, whether or not brightly colored names will appear above heads. If they do, would they be obscured by foilage? Would tab-target be prevented by foilage?

I'm agreeing that a lot of these limitations and solutions to the problems that come flight could work. However, I think it will be a tricky balancing act to have these restrictions capable of keeping flight from being the go to form of transport for most players, and nerfing it into worthlessness. As much as I don't like or want flight personally, I'd also hate to see it implemented in such a way that those that want flight are handed a near useless version of it. Then no one really gets what they want.

Having it be something a character must focus on to get its usefulness sounds good. Having to spend training in flying specifically would make players choose between gaining flight or other, perhaps more practical skills.

Weight limitations seem to me to be a given, and would considerably help with preventing flying from becoming too powerful, but I don't see it as much addressing the problem of flight becoming too common.

Limited uses of flight from items would also be good. If its a finite resource, each use of flight will need to be considered, rather than "I need to get across town. Time to fly!"

I suppose I don't so much buy the "strong winds" bit that's getting thrown about. Building wind physics for it, as well as audio and visual cues to indicate its presence and direction, as well as a maneuvering system able to incorporate resistance in three dimensions is a lot of work.

The flying monsters solution doesn't seem a great fix to me either. In order to make it a real danger and limitation to flying, those monsters would need to be everywhere. A sky constantly full of griffons and giant eagles would be annoying to look at, and just wouldn't make sense in-universe.

And as for how content would be bypassed... it's on the ground. You fly over it. You avoid the dangers and risks of travelling where the people and monsters that can't fly are. You avoid geography that may be designed to present challenges and force you to make choices on how to deal with it.

Like I said, I know I'm in the minority against flight. I'm not trying to say there's no way it could work, or that the game shouldn't have it because I don't like it. I'm trying to point out that there are a lot of considerations to be made whenever the design of flight in PFO comes up. Some people are approaching flight as a given; that the issues its inclusion raises are trivial and easily addressed, and anyone opposed to flight is some kind of close-minded spoilsport. That's not really the case.

So if you're familiar with the PFRPG, you'll know how a character's class (fighter, rogue, wizard, etc.) defines the number of skill points per level they recieve.

Now I know PFO is using an EVE-style skill system (which I love, btw), so has anything been mentioned or does anyone want to debate/discuss the idea of your class having an affect on the speed at which your skill points accrue?

There's no class to affect your skill speed. The skills you train will unlock an archetype that models toward a class from the PnP, but you don't select a class.

Your attributes (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA) will be what affects the speed of skill training on different skills.

I believe it's also been mentioned that there isn't likely to be skills you train to make your training go faster, since it would just be time everyone will almost have to spend upfront training nothing practical to get the speed bonus.

I think the point I have been trying to make us flying doesn't have to be super powerful just because it is in-game. If sustainable flight requires significant training time, and consumes enough of your gear / ability slots, then is relegated to a scouting and harassment role, it will be a meaningful character choice like wearing heavy or light armor, or being a bard or fighter.

This I could get behind. If you want to fly, you have to set out to make a character that can fly. It makes you sacrifice other character options to pursue it, which can make it less desirable for some people, which would make it less common.

I do still worry that flying scouts would end up being the superior scouts in most any situation, though. The advantage of being high above the ground, unrestricted by terrain is a pretty big one. The distance for sight will likely be higher than the distance for attacking, and all a scout has to do is see someone to ruin a well-laid plan. "Alright guys, we've been setting up this ambush for a while now. They'll be coming along this road any minute, and-- ah crap. They've got a flying guy. He sees us... and he's out range. Well, let's pack it in, fellas. They had a flying guy."

I've only skimmed the thread, and I apologize if this has already been said...

Personally, I think using terrain features as impassable obstacles is a cop-out. A vast chasm or a high mountain range shouldn't be impenetrable absent flying. Flying should simply be one of many ways of dealing with that obstacle. Teleporting past it should be another. Grabbing some rope and a Sherpa should be one as well.

I know you skimmed, but that's not what we're saying at all. Terrain obstacles absolutely shouldn't be impassable. They should present choices as to how to deal with them. There's a mountain range ahead, do you A) go around? B) try and climb it? C) look for a pass through the range? D) try and find a cave to go through from underneath?

My own worry is that if there's E) Fly over it, then that's what people are going to do every time. I get the feeling from this discussion that flying's going to get into PFO eventually. I'm not going to say that "That's a bad idea and it will totally ruin the game, nyah!", I just think it should be added very carefully, with a mind to all the ways it can affect the world an the choices in it.

Keovar, we're presenting opinions and reasoning for our stance on flying and vertical spaces, and all you're doing is responding with how our thoughts aren't in line with yours so they must be lame and closed minded. You're not actually considering any of the reasons against flying, or trying to see any disagreeing points of view as having any merit. You haven't even really explained why flying should be implemented.

Forencith, I really like your ideas about vertical space through climbing and other movement spells. I would love to see a dungeon where you have to climb on ropes or throw a grappling hook. There could certainly be alternative routes for those who don't have the means to do some of the physical skills, though. Say the locked door for the rogue starts a very different passage to the same ultimate destination as the climb up to the elevated door.

Spoken like one who prefers melee, I suppose.

The Fellowship of the Ring also lacked a healer. Wouldn't life be more interesting if everyone only healed at at the same, slow pace?

Usually an archer, myself.

The LotR example was just a well known reference specifically dealing with flight in a fantasy setting. Not everything in LotR or any other popular fantasy story should be applied to PFO, it was a specific example.

I feel that making the sky an available, accessible place devalues the ground from a practical standpoint, which I think is a shame. The space of the ground has design in every facet, its features affect travel and combat in direct ways that make things interesting. You might have to divert around a canyon, or you can set up an ambush from the high ground.

When you're flying, you move in any direction as you please. This is a lot of nice freedom, but at the same time, a flight from one place to another is a straight line through the sky, and a fight in one patch of sky is virtually identical to a fight in any other patch of sky.

This is also all just opinion. We're perfectly free to disagree.

Marshall Jansen wrote:

...

I read about limitations on gear... not a problem. Any well-organized Chaotic Evil enclave is going to have some people invested in the LG side of things. All it takes is for a LG shell guild to craft a ton of consumables and gear, hire a band of stalwart adventurers to protect it, and go out into the wilderness. 30 minutes later I skype my evil buddies 'hey, got your shipment enroute, 20 guards, not much magic support. Kill them all, loot them, and take your stuff!'

A few days later, a team of LG (or LE, or any other alignment) vets raids the evil hideout and takes all of their stuff.

Yeah. I think it's important to note that not only will there be benefits to simply being LG, but that you earn those benefits and get more from killing the evil guys. The Good-aligned guilds won't simply be killing evil characters and griefers out of the goodness of their hearts. They get stuff for it. It is a defined objective with rewards. These guilds won't have raids to go on. They will have nightly hunts for murderers and thieves among the rest of playerbase.

Kakafika wrote:

Swimming, on the other hand, does not have a lot of the same drawbacks, since it's limited to areas with water.

Nope. Falling in water should lead to instant death and an unrecoverable corpse. Forests and hills too... people can only travel on roads or they die.

Seriously... flight is a challenging thing to implement, but it's also very cool. Fantasy MMO's rarely touch it, or as you mention with WoW, they do so at such a late point in their development that it comes out half-arsed. I think one of the big points of a sandbox MMO is a greater degree of freedom and less railroading. Themeparks are the ones that keep their rides on rails.

I don't think WoW's flying is half-baked. I think it serves a distinct purpose for a different game. The limitations on it don't mean the system is bad, just that Blizzard knows unrestricted flight everywhere would be a bad thing.

A game is defined by its affordances and constraints. There's a big differences between "railroading" and constraints. Not having or even limiting flying would not be "railroading". In fact, I think that it would open up more possibilities for the game.

There's the idea in game design of First Order Optimal Strategies (FOOS). It's the things people do in games because they are the simplest and most effective. It's the best builds for characters in RPGs, the best build order in an RTS, the best combos in a fighting game. The things that people do all the time because anything else is a waste. For the most part, designers want to have a great variety of choices that can reduce the prevalence of FOOS, or at least provide a good variety of FOOS that players will be willing to use.

To me, flying is the FOOS of travel. If it's attainable, it's going to be the way people get around. It's just too desirable. You don't have to worry about terrain or physical obstacles, you can avoid most dangers, and it's likely faster. Limitations like carrying weight or dangers in the sky might help, but I feel like these will simply be obstacles that people will quickly find the best ways around so that they can fly as much as possible. Very limited time of flight, or times per day, or maybe even flight items granting a limited total number of uses could be other good constraints to keep flying from becoming the go to method of travel.

Flight also breaks the feeling of distance and danger in the world for me. Almost every time a discussion about Lord of the Rings happens, someone always brings up "Why didn't they just fly the Ring to Mount Doom on the eagles?" There's lots of in world explanations for it (BECAUSE REASONS), but what it really boils down to is that it would have been a much shorter, much less interesting story.

I'd prefer it if we all walked to Mount Doom.

I know a lot of people are going to hate me for it... but I agree with Suviont, mostly for the reasons he gave.

There are some workarounds for some of the drawbacks which have been brought up, some benefits for flight, but all-in-all, saving the development time to not put in detailed flight mechanics and then to build the world around those is my preferred method.

I don't think there will (or at least should) be any hate over having an opinion on flying. :/

There are certainly games where the ability to fly as you please works. City of Heroes was a superhero MMO. Flight was kind of a given. You were in a big city, with skyscrapers. You were a hero, going around this city fighting crime. Flying was a good fit.

WoW handles flying pretty well, too. But it's a very different game, and even then, it still has restrictions. You must be a certain level to fly in each area. You must buy a license for each area. You may not fly indoors. You may not fly in dungeons, even those that are outdoors. You may not fly in battlegrounds or arenas. You may not fly in a lot of places. If you could fly in those areas, it would break the game, or at least run counter to the purposes the game has outlined for those areas.

The spaces between settlements in PFO have purposes: Harvesting, settling, exploring, and danger. I feel like much of these purposes would be subverted by allowing flight on a large or common basis.

Or hearken back to the AD&D days -- spells named after the archmage who crafted them!

Some new tier or add-on which lets you add a name (subject to approval) to a spell.

That way, if you play a wizard named Vaster whom you love in Pen and Paper, you can immortalize him by making it "Vaster's Acid Arrow" instead of just "Acid Arrow."

(Harking back to Melf's Acid Arrow, Mordenkainen's Disjunction etc).

Maybe a higher level to name a tier (aka Vaster's Faithful Hound, Vaster's Sword, Vaster's Disjuntion, etc).

Or some Wondrous Items had similar names in D&D. Heward's Handy Haversack, for example. If I had the money, I would absolutely drop some to have people carrying around "Suviont's Superior Sack". Wait. That sounds... wrong.

Still love the spell names idea, though. It's just a single word of text in the game, but it would definitely be a great reward.

I'd rather see the game stay grounded. Flight should be limited, in scope and ability if not also availability. Flight in games like CoH and WoW is neat and all that, but it also drastically changes the state of the game. Roads become irrelevant, travel through unsafe areas becomes trivial. These are things that are set up to be important in PFO. Also, think of all the art assets and great locations wasted as people fly right over them to the big city they want to visit.

That's pretty much the definition of chaotic in the alignment system. You have more personal freedom but you are odds with the law. I think the system makes all the sense in the world. Chaotic Good is the Batman/Robin Hood archetype and that means the local authorities want to arrest you. You are the vigilante, the anti hero. That is a difficult role to play realistically and this system gives you the chance to do it.

The quintessential CG settlement is Robin Hood's merry band and that's what CG settlements will mostly be, brigand outposts of adventurers. All of the chaotic alignments are individualistic, they are not nation building alignments and this sytem will capture it better than any other game ever has.

What I'm wondering is how well the personal freedom benefits of being chaotic will be implemented, or how they will stack up against what Lawful settlements get as awarded bonuses from the game itself. So Chaotic characters won't pay taxes, and can "do as they please", but only the lack of taxes is something actually afforded by the game itself.

Will Chaotic characters have any sort of bonuses or options afforded them specifically because they are Chaotic? I guess I wonder if there will be options to affect the world given to Chaotic characters, perhaps not on the scale of two organized Lawful nations going to war, but something notable and worthwhile.

Ostensibly, Chaotic and law are opposing ideals/forces, but it sounds like Chaotic groups won't have any real resources and ability to oppose Lawful ones.

Will it be possible to really embody a revolutionary? To carry out an actual agenda of freedom and chaos against the establishment?

I love so much of what I'm hearing about the PvP elements of this game. Some of my favorite moments in MMOs are from open world PvP; a game that embraces and encourages this side of MMOs is something I (and apparently much of the community anticipating this game) have wanted for a long time.

A love for the Pathfinder world and brand are what got me looking into this game to start with as well, but what got me to stay and pledge $100 is the game GW has envisioned, it's one that doesn't exist, and one I'm excited to see and play.

I understand frustration or disappointment from those who prefer PvE, and want to be able to enjoy PFO. They love Pathfinder, and found out they're making an MMO and got excited, only to find out it has strong PvP leanings, something they don't want at all. That must suck.

But at the same time, that disappointment that this MMO isn't what you want? That's something that a lot of us that want this type of game so much feel for almost all MMOs.