I think there's an overemphasis on how important the 'Tier 1 economy' should be during the first month of play. I don't think it should matter if it's the first few weeks or a year from now. Tier 1 recipes and crafting should be easy whether a person wants to stick around a starter town or head into the wild. We'll outgrow this after a month, and the only 'benefit' of the starter goblins for a Tier 2 character would be diversifying into other class roles through easily targeted achievements and not for the gold/gear/recipes. The 'race' to be the first person to craft a steel greatsword +2 or whatever is really insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I would hate to see a major change to the build we've been playing for months end up causing some other problem. Remember the crafting tweak? How would it feel to have the same issue happen during the first few weeks of EE. Seriously, is it worth the possibility that no recipes drop at all? There are not that many areas to fight starter goblins. Just wait until the game starts and you'll see people fighting over them. It's a good place to socialize starting out too, for better or worse. Leave it as is for now, please.
The way he explained the macro set-up, the character doesn't choose targets and attack them. It autotargets whatever attacks it - and the Thornguards won't attack him unless he's super low rep. Another 'sandbox' player driven solution: Just cast something with knockback on him until he's out of range of the goblin's aggro.
If you want to play with conditional effects then Thousand Cuts plays off distress and False Edge and Understrike can cause distress. False Edge can't be interrupted but the damage is very low. Whirlwind is your best choice for PvE. The longsword acts as Tier 2 if you have proficiency 2 trained but you won't see any added base damage unless the attack is rank 4.
Ten years ago my local hobby shop closed its doors. Our community of ~100K people in Northern California did not have a local retail place to play within an hour drive. Every few months in letters to Dungeon, Dragon, Knights of the Dinner Table, the WotC site and on EN World I would see the topic of 'how do I recruit players'. Fortunately I just put up a website and a few flyers around town and within a month I had over 100 members joining us at a local cub scout hall to play games. Over the years I have learned that the best players, the ones that I'm most attracted to intellectually, the ones I want to spend my time with, are those who seek my interests and not those who I try to 'convert'. If someone is into Magic the Gathering, then I'm not going to even try to convince them to play D&D. If that same person reads about D&D and approaches me I will gladly try to fit them into my game schedule or find a table for them to play. When 4th edition came out it splintered our group. I tried to be on board, running daily games of Living Forgotten Realms. I am not a salesman. No matter how logical my arguments might seem to me, ultimately people had to do the research on their own and decide if it was right for them or not. Ultimately it was not right for me, and I converted back to 3.5 (Pathfinder). If I had one thing to say to someone to try PFO I would say 'goblinworks.com'. I can't think of any scenario where I would want to stop someone from trying PFO. At a convention last year the Pathfinder Society GM next to our table stopped a husband and wife from joining their group because his game style was very intense and their characters were sub optimal. He told them they would not have fun. I'm not the type of GM who would share an opinion like that. I host my games and let players decide through an actual play session how the game makes them feel. If they are unhappy then so be it, but I'd rather have them experience first and make their own conclusions. Now if someone is being a jerk in the game the one honest thing I would say to them is 'EN GARDE!' :)
Not being able to heal flagged players needs to be addressed. As well as healing abilities only useable in melee range. It really isn't fun for clerics to chase down running allies to heal them. Tell them not to run so much. If they know you're supporting them then they need to change their tactics accordingly and pay attention to us too. It is challenging though, especially trying to support multiple party members at once. In the long run I don't see spam healing as a viable playstyle option. Charge gems are craftable now, and when they become required for focus ammunition then orison healing will be expensive. This is in line with tabletop wand charge limits; nobody spam heals orisons in combat. Actual spells and power consumption should be the main feature of the cleric, and best when the fight is going south or during important PvP battles. Fighting today is like gathering yesterday. When the 'encumbrance' of combat is turned on then attacks, cantrips and orisons will seem much more like tactical decisions of resource management. Some people might not like it, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it might feel.
I'm still having fun in Alpha. I log in every day for hours. I'm learning little nuances to every combat option, I meet someone old and new, engage in a fight here and there, help a few people out, gather materials, craft pretty much anything Tier 1 I want and make a little progress. Just when I think my goals are complete I find another one to try. I don't see how this will be any different after EE starts. If I had known that Alpha would last for three extra months I would have planned things a little differently, but that's neither here nor there. Personally I don't care if there's a wipe. I'd rather Goblinworks 'sticks to their guns' though. They said they were going to do something so they should do it. Don't underestimate credibility. Missing a quarter is acceptable; changing plans radically midstream questions competence. Everyone should log in and help test. If they REALLY want to get people to play, here is my suggestion: Offer prizes. Yes, it sounds silly and shallow but if Goblinworks said 'log into Alpha this weekend for your chance to win some post EE game time, a special temporary perk or boost your Alpha character to level 20' then I think we'd see a population swell. I think it's a better method to achieve what you're trying to accomplish Thod.
(stuff about maintaining and taking towers)Towers are a short term anomaly meant to carry us through the early parts of EE, and any discussion of them as bearing on the game in the long term will be of little or no value. True but it's still relevant to this topic. The game is in a state of flux, and I'm referring to actual game mechanics in play today. Were the feat limits explained exactly as implemented originally? If so then why the need for the PSA? As the map expands into Open Enrollment how will the new land and new settlements compete? Will players who are not attached and who did not spend their experience actually have an edge? Who knows, but the idea that there's a central committee of settlement leaders that everyone will be forced to pay tribute to without any consideration of leverage sounds like ludicrous fear mongering to me. In the current state of the game unattached companies like the Allegiant Gemstone Company have more power to influence settlement recruitment than vice versa. There's no reason to magnify long term concerns based on current implementations because nothing is set in stone.
I just don't see it as the Settlement Leaders having the power in this case. In EVE, can one low level noob force a corporation to spend dozens of hours monitoring an area in fear that the entire corporation will lose their high level progress? In PFO the door swings both ways. If a settlement kicks out a player they are the ones risking an enemy. Patrolling towers is much easier if you don't have disgruntled applicants ready to pounce. Dealing with the chaos of rogues who do not adhere to non aggression pacts will result in incentives for joining settlements, not kowtowing and sacrificial demands. Two or three Tier 1 characters can harass hundreds of higher level characters by forcing them to constantly monitor their towers every day for hours. The easiest solution is to just let them into the group. I could understand if there was a downfall to allowing more people into the settlement. If there were only so many slots or if you had to feed them. The only issue I see is over harvesting but that's yet to be seen in play.
Explaining the lore behind the mechanics is difficult when the mechanics are in a state of rapid flux during development. Right now I see it as a scenario where, for understanding how a character can roleplay within the simulation, I say ask not what the developers can explain to you, but what you can explain to the developers. Does it make sense that a wizard must get proper rest and a daily regimen of study and practice in order to cast spells? This is iconic to this genre. At the tabletop we don't force a player to roleplay sitting for an hour studying their spellbook; it is handwaved. The same could be said with PFO. There are things happening in the game world that we must imagine. There are peasants tending to crops, there are scholars copying research in libraries, there are sparring partners helping to train warriors. We see the sunrise every 6 hours. When a settlement is higher level you are benefitting, behind the scenes, by a support network that allows you to perform at your peak. What training loss, specifically, takes you out of your suspension of disbelief? Concepts like hit points, defense scores, attack bonuses and skill are very abstract. To a fighter in game it would just feel like you're not at your best. It doesn't mean you've really 'lost' any training, you just don't feel like you're fighting as well as you should. This is perfectly reasonable if the other 18 hours of the day that we must imagine involve varying degrees of stress, practice or pleasures from the support of your homeland.
I disagree with the carefully cultivated part. Golarion is a hodgepodge of anachronisms. It's a homage to Greyhawk, the beloved setting of the Paizo staff, and it was developed to allow freedom of creativity for home campaigns and not a biblical stranglehold of events, locations, physics and logic. The world is imaginary. It contains intentionally unexplainable fantastic, magical mysteries. You have to be willing to accept and even embrace nonsense for the world to be immersive. Is there something specific in this topic of settlement development restricting player advancement that you find inconceivable? Do you feel the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game's massive deviations in gameplay from the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game make it less 'Pathfinder'? In the Pathfinder book Ultimate Campaign and the Kingmaker Adventure Path there are rules for advancing cities and managing cities. These are optional, willful deviations from the core rulebook. Why would this prevent you from enjoying varying mechanics and added or even conflicting lore? It does not invalidate your traditional tabletop experiences; it's just another way to play. This is not some fly by night operation from half a world away fishing for a game world to shoe horn and tack on to a preexisting game. PFO has the full support and development of Lisa Stevens and the rest of the staff at Paizo. Doesn't this give you any reassurance for brand loyalty?
Immersion requires imagination. Why are you marked by Pharasma? What is the nature and origin of your magic, strength and power? This is fantasy. People within the game world, IMO, should not always think logically. Sometimes weird things magically and mystically happen for reasons beyond comprehension. Let's try to make some reasons though, because we are modern computer gamers and not magical medieval citizens. What does your character eat? There's no food currently in the game, but you can imagine that the croplands provide nourishment. How are you resting at night? Do you have other obligations and duties beyond what we see abstractly presented in the game space? It is logical to assume that if you have a stressful daily life and a home in disrepair then you may not always have the time to put in the daily regimen required to perform extraordinarily fantastic stunts. A wizard may be trained in casting fireballs. However, if he can't sleep at night because his camp is under constant siege then he won't be able to cast it in the morning. That's basic D&D 101 and should be easy to grasp.
Pure Legion Enforcer - God Botherers - Kill 15 powerful cultists.
But They Say The Sky's
The Nodes are Bad, They're Bad-
Thanks Lisa, I'm glad it has street cred. :) Someday in a few years it'd be fun to see Freeholder as a Pathfinder tabletop class. Maybe even a new Pathfinder Online sourcebook or campaign.
Show the land rush. Show the Goblinworks leaderboard for guilds, and show the settlements as tied to each guild. Emphasize that settlements are named, constructed and directed by guild leaders. The leaderboard and land rush info will attract PvP gamists. Show some aerial footage to demonstrate the size of each hex. Show the different icons for each terrain type, showcase what each area looks like and the resources available to collect. Hexes and terrain will attract simulationists. Show the goblins. Show them dancing, show them killing, show them dying. Show them in all the different types of escalation possibilities. The goblin design is the best branding for Paizo, Pathfinder and Pathfinder Online. Seeing Wayne Reynolds designs in 3D will ping the subconscious of millions of people exposed to Magic the Gathering. It will wet the appetite for people looking for a narrative experience.
I am starting to see recipes for expert toolkits. Someone else mentioned 'holdout weapons' which a dev confirmed is a weapon for commoners. From the combat guide we know commoner armor feats boost gathering skills. Tier 1 seems like a free for all where anyone can be a jack of any trade and master of all at some point. Some players will qualify and spend enough training on all roles, all gathering and to some degree all crafting and refining. After Tier 1 I'm assuming the intent is to require characters to highly specialize. At Tier 2 it will be very difficult to specialize in more than one role and keep up with a dedicated player and impossible to simultaneously 'adventure' vs 'craft'. At Tier 3 I'm assuming it will be even more specialized, where even within Roles you'll have hard choices to make (class features, armor, attacks). For crafting you'll have to choose refiner, crafter or gatherer. The same will probably apply to 'nude gathering'. Enjoy it at Tier 1, because once the training and gear is in place I think the economic system will be tweaked to favor it in Tier 2 and require it in Tier 3.
A better tutorial might be a good thing. Maybe even role-based tutorials that are far more in depth and don't make permanent expenditures of your experience that you don't want to make. The main complaint from people (other than crafters) has been "I really just have no idea on direction or what to do in this game."
BASICALLY - the real difference between a Rogue and a Fighter or cleric using rogue weapons and feats is going to be the Rogue Kit and the maneuvers that go with it. A true rogue will have an advanced rogue kit of some sort and level 2 or 3 maneuvers. I think Tier 1 'roles' have relatively simple requirements in general. I like this. In the first few weeks of a new character I can switch gears and not feel too much at a loss. Around level 7 or 8 for all roles advancement decelerates sharply. 'Tier 2' (role, not gear) is very difficult to achieve with even one attribute gate. I can get from 0 to 6 or 7 with a few days of training. To reach just one attribute point it takes more than a month of investing in one or more role features, attacks, armor, reactives, etc. After a few months I might have a very dedicated fighter or cleric or wizard or rogue for 'Tier 2' opponents (PvE and PvP), but I can easily sub for any role in 'Tier 1', as will anyone.
The 'ending' in Alpha does feel like a race to see how high my ranks can go before the wipe. What can't you use Kradlum? Ranks in attacks feel pointless without the gear to match them, but like you said the long run will make all the difference. The versatility will become a strength when you're trying to find vulnerabilities. Keep your enemy guessing what you have up your sleeve!
In PvP, expect to be brutally punished for Provoking Opportunity. Running away while healing or buffing yourself helps negate those 'punishments'. If you're so outnumbered or outgunned that you can't even heal yourself and run away then fighting back is going to be futile. Best advise if you cannot win is to strip naked (til player looting is enforced anyway).
After the first few days of playing I also felt like this, but looking back after six weeks of xp spending a few thousand here or there on anything can be helpful. All training is tied to gear. If you gather something and you spent a few xp on gemcutter 2 that you regret no worries. When you're a few months in and it takes tens or hundreds of thousands of xp to boost a rank in something you'll be going back to relatively 'cheap' upgrades to see more progress in your character even if it doesn't fit your original 'concept'. This game doesn't really reward pure optimization, IMO. The player who can swap out gear and has lots of feats to reward them will do quite well if not better than a specialist. Even someone who can refine basic +0 or +1 resources they're gathering can save some time and help influence the economy. No matter how you spend your experience you will get the satisfaction of improvement. I lamented spending so many feats on armor to boost my cleric's Con because pre-Alpha 10 that was a prerequisite. Even though I don't need this training it's still helpful. I have the versatility of benefitting from a wider pool of items being developed. What is the 'worst' xp choice you made and why do you feel it's bad?
I'll throw in a dissenting opinion. A few weeks ago I pondered if it mattered, to me, if the majority of players felt the game would be 'ready' for them when EE starts. I came to the conclusion that it didn't personally matter. My primary concern going into EE at the time was wasting points on training that would be radically changed. After rereading the older blog posts and some soul searching I've realized that no matter what the state of the game is in at EE, my first character is going to inevitably train in options that will be modified or obsolete. My cleric Haagen now has armor feats I chose for the Alpha 9 constitution gates that he doesn't need anymore in Alpha 10. I'm ok with this now. No amount of preparation in Alpha is going to help me cope. I don't care about paying for beta. Others might but I also don't care about that either. Even if the diehard majority, let alone the rest of the gaming community at large, vehemently complain it doesn't really change my playstyle as long as people in my company and settlement are still playing and providing support. The bugs, the rollbacks, etc aren't showstoppers for me. I've had a few, but nothing that will prevent me from climbing right back onto a horse I'd like to ride for 10+ years. Towers are new, but so was the auction house last month. There will always be new things to iron out, so it doesn't bother me if the state of the game needs significant tweaks from now until 2016. I'm ready for the game to be more meaningful. I'd like to feel like any progress, even if it's sometimes rolled back, will have long term weight in the game. I want to collect achievements, gather resources, craft items and build my settlement without the feeling that everything will be destroyed soon. I don't need two weeks or any changes to make that switch right now.
Can you remind me the point of the achievement system ? It rewards a reasonable amount of gameplay. I think for the intended audiance players would not consider playing 7 hours a day for two weeks straight 'reasonable', but spread out as you say over two years it's perfectly acceptable. You're also assuming the time will increase linearly and you're probably wrong there. Consider that in two years the political landscape may make it incredibly difficult for a previously parked character with to solo high level content at the same rate. Even in this build Ryan used help to get the elite achievements. This was just a demo of average play required for the first few months for one particular cleric build achievements using the Alpha 9 rules. I don't think it has a great deal of value for conclusions beyond that.
I like the idea of looking at Achievements as a minimum amount of actual gameplay prior to being able to train. I'm not sure if I like the idea of this timing being up to the developers arbitrarily though. Let's look at the current system. Adding Skeletons to Divine helped diversify play style reward. Bandits could give points in Subterfuge. Shamans and bombers are the only ones logically connected to Arcane but there could be more added. How about tying it to to escalation type too? Participate in an escalation area, kill a bonedancer of any monster type and get Divine. Or for Razmirans Arcane. Or Broken Men Martial. Don't forget that killing Elite creatures then lets you 'triple dip'. Have they said if this is in the works? I don't see why skeletons would be the only one creature type segregated. I also think the same system should be used for PvP. Players should get whatever achievement advance for the weapon used PLUS an achievement based on the role of the target. If I kill a player who has the highest level role in wizard then I should also gain Arcane points. It should be possible, though much slower, to gain all achievement types solely through PvP, right?
fury of the fanbois While I don't consider myself furious or a fanboi, going forward I will definitely side with the status quo. As early enrollment begins and I start to irreversibly spend xp in the system I'm sure my position will 'dig in'. I'm sure I'll resist any changes that may invalidate my original character choices. This does not make me a fanboi anymore than SWG players who resisted the New Game Experience. I can be a Grognard holding onto 'old ways'. I'm attracted primarily to this game because of the license which is based entirely on a system 'dug in' to an older version of D&D.
Think about those that plunked down $5,000 for a Tavern if the server population never gets above 8-10,000. I don't need to think about them at all. People paid $5,000 to have their name in a Leisure Suit Larry game. Even if their purchase was based on speculating future fame and name recognition value, why should I, as an end user reviewing a product from my purchase perspective, be sympathetic?
Also Andius I'm looking for this manifesto of yours. You are talking about this product as if it's a stock in a portfolio. You critique the game as an investor and not a consumer. Have you considered, perhaps, that you, personally, are not the target audience to be pleased? Your biased opinion is going to radically differ from the normal player so shouldn't it have less weight?
One I actually sold for over double it's original price and made hundreds of dollars off of. Do you have a link to your manifesto? My wife tells me I shouldn't enjoy red meat as much as I do for many reasons. I enjoy hearing her reasons. I haven't followed any of your crowdforging suggestions. I'd like a summary. I've been playing Alpha for 2 weeks. I would pay $15 a month for the game right now for character achievement persistence. I'm probably not alone. Let's pretend Goblinworks stopped development today. Let's say, hypothetically, that my subscription along with those of a few other fanatical Pathfinder fans could pay for the server maintenance required to keep the game running. Please tell me why you or anyone else who does not like the game should be so 'worried' about growing the user base at all, let alone take in all the Life is Feudal, wow, Destiny, Farmville, Michael Bay or whatever other 'competitive entertainment dollars' are out there?
Playing the game right away (upon activating) rather than effectively paying to do nothing for a few weeks. I could play and rack up achievements and earn money and gear without spending xp. If someone plans on playing this game for any considerable xp accumulation I do not understand waiting why they would choose to wait a few weeks before beginning play. I am debating on if I should spend my experience points as I earn them or wait a bit to see how quickly the rules change. Once I do choose to spend xp, whether it's a week or a year afterwards, I would hope the game does not make radical changes and instead has a long term plan for how the basic system works.
If everyone who purchased early enrollment were given a chance to play the game in its state prior to game data being persistent and were asked if the game was 'ready' then does it matter to you if the majority said no? After considering my own question my current view is that it doesn't matter to me. I'm playing in Alpha. I'm thankful to play. I enjoy the characters I'm making right now. I feel like gameplay would be far more meaningful to me if I knew the consequences of my actions weren't going to be deleted. I can't really judge the game overall until 's*** gets real'.
With the Guie to Korvosa and the primarily urban setting in Curse of the Crimson Throne (for the first ten levels 'There is no world outside the walls of Korvosa'), I was very much hoping to use Paizo's material to create a narrative campaign filled with intrigue. I was hoping for encounters that: 1.) Do not need to be played in an exact linear order
These encounters can paint an interesting story, and the end result is a plot that is more adventure module than setting sourcebook. Edge of Anarchy did a good job with #1 and #3, but IMO are somewhat lacking on #2 and #4. I don't have PF8 yet, but I'm reading that it is more 'cohesive', which I'm guessing means it's a linear plot that demands PC attention. Granted, I'm already running Crimson Throne unconventionally, so the purpose of this thread isn't to simply tell Paizo how disappointed (and please) I am. I'm looking for help, and I'm also presenting my methods of making the game what I want it to be. The first issue is the Guide to Korvosa. It is missing a few key features that make it a good reference source: lists. If my PCs ask 'Where's a good place to buy a weapon?' or 'Where do we want to stay for the night?', it's tough to answer these questions without reading through the entire book, making notes and having a good memory. I've broken down all of the locations by purpose and included proper names if they were presented. I may have missed a few, and unfortunately there's no way to go back and edit this list so I may report it as a revision in the future: Antiquities
Banking
Commerce
Communication
Companionship
Criminal Purposes
Dining
Education
Employment
Entertainment
Exotic Services
Healing
Legal Aid
Magic Items
Pilgrimage Destinations
Places to Stay
Research
Spellcasting
Transportation
Worship
In addition to the locations, I also listed all of the organizations involved: Government
Military
Prominent Families
Criminal
Secret
For my campaign, I want the majority of the players to belong to one or two Houses. Here are all of the houses listed in the Guide, along with some notes on what they do: Prominent Families
(* Peerage Review Member) In my camppaign, I am requiring the majority of the PCs to be noble scions. They need to pick from the following houses: PC Houses
I asked James Jacobs last night in chat, and he said he would check the boards and possibly reply due to spoilers. What happens to these houses, if anything, during the Adventure Path? Can you give us a brief overview of how all of the Houses may change? I have also compiled a list of all of the plot hooks given in the Guide. The biggest problem I have with all of them is they don't seem to have any impact on any of the Houses. What I'd like to do is tie the majority of properties listed above to each of the Houses listed above. I also plan to have the party members start out at Orisini's, hobnobbing with all of the nobles. By exploring the city before the AP starts and finishing the problems listed below, the PCs will gain prestige amongst the other Houses. I listed the positive influences, but I could use help explaining the extent and reasoning, as well as possible negative influences from these (or new) hooks. Spoiler:
Influences Jeggare
Arabasti
Ornelos
Bromathon
Arkona
Zenderholm
Leroung
Endrin
PC House
I want my players to be spoiled, to be fat and happy and successful before all hell breaks lose. That's what, IMO, made Game of Thrones such a good story. Throwing the group immediately into this AP is great for a traditional everyman hero saves the day scenario, but it's not very good for courtly intrigue, IMO. |
