Tuoweit's page

Tuoweit wrote:

Giorgo wrote:

I am wondering why the Golgothians were not the first to put lines on a map and declare "this land is ours"

Being self-declared Lawful, putting lines on a map would create expectations for them to (appear to) abide by those lines.

Exactly, just seemed like the right LE thing to do. Clearly mark thier territory, state thier intent to hold it and kill any trespassers, account for future "natural growth", and let all players know where the "hot zone" is.

I disagree. Lawful Evil may follow the rules, but that doesn't mean they like rules for their own sake: Rules are to be used cleverly from a position of weakness to leverage advantage, and from a position of strength to reinforce that strength. Creating laws that limit oneself (like defining the extent of one's own territory) without giving advantage (they already kill who they want, both inside or outside "their territory", however ambiguously that is defined) would be self-weakening, from a LE perspective.

Tyncale, there's no question in anyone's mind that predators need prey. My question is, how many of those who are currently playing primarily as prey are prepared to step into the role of predator?

I don't consider myself to be "currently playing primarily as prey", but I will raise my hand and say I'd be willing to step into the role of predator should the game be lacking. That's not to say I would replicate Xeilias' methods, though.

What! Surely any red-blooded barbarian (or wannabe) wouldn't be put off simply by having to fight their way to a fight. ;) Of course, be sure to give yourselves an extra couple of hours' of travel time....

4 faves for a pun.

Yes, but when we "spend" our rep, it takes MUCH longer to get it back. For instance, after one good pvp night at "Usties" I'm not able to participate in "unsactioned" pvp for pretty much the rest of the week. So you get the added danger once a week maybe 2-3 at most if other groups are involved. that's less then half the time of a raised danger level.

But there are many possible attackers for any one group of targets. If it's possible for a single small group of attackers to continually harrass a hex all week, then that throws the risk:reward out the window when there's several groups looking to do the same.

All I'd ask people to compare is the risk to reward ratio, and to judge for themselves (as new arrivals with nothing to hide or be defensive about and with dev permission to exploit-ish) whether they'd have bug reported Ustalavs within minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months of hunting there.

As I'm sure you're aware, many of the forum population will judge based on the forums alone, and not bother to go and see for themselves in game. I'm just trying to provide more complete information for comparison on the forums.

There's many AI problems. If mobs get stuck pathing to you, would you just shoot them down from a distance anyway or do you run away to reset them so they behave correctly? If you pull a mob in a big group and it doesn't aggro the rest of them when you know it normally should, do you reset and try again until you get the proper response, or do you just kill the one mob?

When the Mordant Spire respawns somewhere everyone will be able to visit them, and I welcome other players to fight Mordant Spire in T1 gear (especially with 70,000 xp characters) and compare the 2 experiences.

Not really a fair comparison. It's worth noting that the Mordant Spire mobs are significantly higher level on average than the Ustalav ones - Ustalav escalations have many white/yellow/red mobs mixed in with some purples, Mordant Spire has only a handful of reds and mostly purples. That difference alone makes Ustalav way better for farming in Tier 1 gear than Mordant Spire, regardless of any AI differences.

Even if the Ustalav casters were changed today, for Tier 1-equipped groups it would still be way better (easier/better risk-reward ratio) to fight Ustalav than Mordant Spire.

Quote:

Yes, it is. Lots of people are "negatively affected" by stuff not in the game. Some people want to play classes that aren't implemented. Some people want to run dungeons that don't exist yet. Some people want to engage in formation combat, assassination, market manipulation, caravans, and dozens of other features which are not in the game yet.

And if somebody doesn't get to train their character past level 8 because a *few* other players don't like them, is that OK?

If the social compact existing within PFO, being critical to the functioning of the whole system, is to have any meaning at all, then yes, that's OK. Maybe that somebody should ask themselves why "a few other players don't like them" and how they managed to get themselves into such a situation for no gain.

Re: Buy Orders for the AH

I'd like to point out that Buy Orders for the AH can solve a lot of the problems folks are hoping to solve with Shared Storage, and it can solve some of those problems much better. It just needs to come with Price Discrimination for Allies - that is, being able to fulfill Allies' Buy & Sell Orders first even if they're not the best price. I would also hope that the Auction House Tax would be changed from a flat rate for all to a Rate that can be set by Settlement Leadership, and can be set differently for Allies.

I think those kinds of uses would be better served with a Contracts system rather than hijacking the Auction House (which would badly skew any Auction House statistics, for those who like market analysis).

A hero to some, a witch to others.

A slam-witch?

While I'll say the FUN is almost purely PvP, it seems one could ignore it and PvE endlessly.

Well, you COULD do PvE endlessly at the moment, but once you have enough resources, enough recipes, enough gear, it loses a lot of its relevance to the bigger picture. Just like, given a steady supply of gear, you could just PvP endlessly with a willing opponent for no purpose - but both of those on their own (in their current form) would be boring after a few weeks, IMO. The sum of the two is greater than the whole.

The fact that everything having any relation to PvP has to be couched into the realm of meaningful or purposeful or indirectly consensual (by activity) shows that the development of this game has been firmly directed away from "PvP-centric" and gradually more towards "I-Don't-Like-PvP" friendly.

The game needs both PvP'ers and PvE'ers in order to function as envisioned. Hostility from "extremists" directed at the other end of the spectrum is counter-productive.

So what timezone would that be then - ESlT (Eastern Slammy Time)?

In addition to the auto-application of Freedom/Mind Blank from receiving debuffs (PFO's version of diminishing returns for CC):

Liberation, a cleric Orison, adds 60 stacks of Freedom on the target and a Shrug Off.

Battle Rage, a cleric Orison, adds 40 stacks of Mind Blank and 2 rounds of Riposting to the target.

Bulwark, a fighter utility, adds 30 stacks of Freedom and Mind Blank to self.

Soothe Syrup, an alchemy product, adds 30 stacks of Mind Blank and 2 rounds of acid resistance.

Twitch Tonic, another alchemy product, adds 30 stacks of Freedom, one round each of electrical and physical resistance, and a Shrug Off.

All this info is from the PFO Data spreadsheet that Nihimon shared in another post, it may or may not be up-to-date with what's in game at the moment.

I know I happen to be in the minority for most MMORPGs, but Roleplaying is part of the core of this game. In my mind, Cheatle, you have it all backwards. This is a roleplaying game with elements of war and politics. Not a war and politics game with elements of roleplaying. I'd prefer if the majority of the forum was roleplay, and out of character discussions were pushed into a dedicated subforum. :)

I suspect Cheatle would be totally on board with that, as long as he didn't have to keep guessing one way or the other.

If you don't like the default keybinds, you can change them by editing the config file (instructions given at the top of said file for properly overriding the defaults). As I have used ESDF in place of WASD for >20 years of gaming, without this PFO would be nigh unplayable for me :)

"Kill for Thrillers", Murderhobos and Bandits will swarm in and the River Kingdoms will become more like what they sound like when you read the River Kingdoms Guide.

I am probably among the least-steeped in Golarion lore here, but I suspect Paizo's and GW's intention is to forge ahead with a new story for the River Kingdoms, generated by PFO players, not try to replicate its history in perpetuity. Certainly, though, (assuming that suspicion is correct) one is free to roleplay a reactionary voice seeking to maintain the status quo against a huge influx of more civilized settlers, and that's an interesting contribution to that (to-be-)evolving story.

Being concerned about PvP in a game that has been billed as a PvP focused game is like being concerned about your electric bill before you turn your computer on.

I use my computer all the time, and I am concerned about my electricity usage. That's why, when I built my computer, I specifically picked components designed with a better wattage:processing power ratio in mind rather than just going all-out with computational power. "Concerned about" doesn't equate to "anathema", it's not an all-or-nothing choice, and neither is PvP in a game.

No one is obligated to accurately interpret and then follow the spirit of anything.

True, and hence the existence of the concept of Integrity: Rules you follow when nobody is making you follow them. A concept that, incidentally, could also be applied to the use of anonymous forum alts to stir up controversy.

Golgotha and UNC are the most outspoken about either being evil or having evil elements. I don't doubt there will be a lack of evil, but I have a feeling, especially those who frequent the forums, see the amount of crap UNC deals with on a daily basis defending the "evil" way of life and decide to remain quiet and in the shadows as to not draw attention to themselves.

And yet Golgotha seems to have no such troubles; on the contrary people seem genuinely happy to see them on this forum. Maybe then, just maybe, that's due to a difference in style and presentation, rather than the actual topics?

We can't provide a list of behaviors which promote positive gameplay, because then that list of behaviors becomes perceived as our terminal goal. There are a few things which are never part of positive gameplay, such as kicking the metaphorical sand into other players' eyes, or flipping the sandbox end-over-end. But those actions are expected to be covered by taking the offender out of the playground entirely. There are exactly zero finite, closed sets of actions which are 100% always sufficient to make one's overall contribution positive. We could create any finite number of rules, and there would exist enough people who saw it as a personal challenge to follow all of the rules unwaveringly while opposing our core goals to pervert all of our actions.

It's like trying to draw a fractal space using only a straightedge and a pencil.

I question whether or not a newcomer to an MMO actually asks him / herself, "I wonder if this game's community is pleasant?" I think it is more likely, questions of the quality of the game play, will there be enough to do, will it be fun, is it graphically appealing, etc.

If we were talking about any other genre of game, I'd agree with you. However, given prior examples of other PvP sandbox MMOs, I think it's a perfectly reasonable question for a prospective player to ask themselves when looking at a new PvP sandbox MMO. This wouldn't even be a topic for discussion on these forums if that wasn't the case.

Nihimon wrote:

I expect clearing Escalations will be kind of like Raids...

Yup, I fully expect 'advancement guilds' to have set days and times where everyone is required to log in and clear escalation cycles to gain the special crafting mats or set up gathering stations.

Anything that requires the coordination of dozens of people is going to need scheduling in advance and preparation. Using a regular weekly schedule is of the simplest ways of doing that. Not the most secure in a hostile environment like PFO, naturally, but certainly simple.

Proxima Sin wrote:

Papaver wrote:

Clearly this has to be The Accord of Eon.

please 'splain

Wouldn't you want to be a member of the AccordEon?

If that's the name of this Accord, I guarantee it's going to fold.

As far as the comment, from a personal and military standpoint as a Staff NCO for over 3+ years, Andius's line of reasoning makes tactical and logistical sense for the most part.

I agree with you, it's sound reasoning, if you accept the premises. However, I don't agree with the premise that the Southeast area will be a pit of evil, for a couple of reasons.

One, Goblinworks wants players to be the main influences in the game, not PvE content. I do not believe that the NPC towns will be such huge influences on the overall alignment that players will be unable to outweigh them, especially at such a large remove from either town.

Two, OE will be many months after EE, during much of which there is no Fort Riverwatch. Initially, all new unaffiliated players, including Good-aligned ones, will start at one of the two neutral NPC towns of Fort Inevitable and Thornkeep. And those months are ample time for those so inclined to create their own area of good-aligned influence.

In conclusion, I strongly disagree with the premise that there's any significant predetermined "theography" to the map that might hinder the long-term prospects of an organization, unless they decide to settle immediately beside one of the NPC towns. The game is meant to be a sandbox, the map will become what we the players make of it.

Aaaaaaand, we are always looking to recruit like-minded people!

Or even better, differently-minded people, as long as they agree with our core values :)

We want a game people care enough about winning to engage in robust espionage and sabotage. That's a sign we're succeeding, not failing.

I think the fact that people are expressing their unhappiness with the latest statements of direction is ample demonstration that they care about the game. Caring about a zero sum win condition may be A sign of success, but not one I would like to see (unless it's strictly in-game espionage as Avari3 suggests).

You have captured the essential drift if this thread. The question that I ask is, what skills, features and activities that we use for PvP could also have PvE applications?

I think that the escalations may provide the short answer to that question.

I would be very happy to do away with the PvP vs PvE skill dichotomy, or at least minimize it as much as possible.

I'm fairly certain one if he Devs, during the Gobbocast interview, had mentioned in the settlement controls there would be a menu of options that could be toggled to create just such a list of activities, alignment or reputation levels that would be excluded.

All of that is fine. It's the direct impact on the settlement DIs I objected to, but my initial post on the subject was rather too vague.

1. Immediate exile to a random border of the settlement or its controlled hexes.

2. Fine, but allowed to enter (toll)

3. Fine, and exile

4. Flee or Die ( engaged by NPC wardens or PC guards).

All of these fulfill the requisite penalty that Ryan discussed as a time sink, the only real penalty that matters. But none too onerous that it will drive away the casual player or the determined traveler seeking entry.

1. Abusable as instant travel.

Tuoweit wrote:

While I don't really like the monolithic switch you present here...

It strikes me as the only rational switch. Effectively, it's either a Whitelist (NBSI), or a Blacklist (NRDS). There's really not another way to implement it, is there?

I meant that I didn't like it as a switch that automatically activates some hard-coded settlement bonus/penalty, like "[t]oggling to NBSI should have a very negative impact on your development index. At least as far as economy is concerned. It could possibly raise the security index."

Nihimon wrote:

Ryan has previously given us reason to believe there will be a lot of pressure for Settlements to have a largely "open door" policy when it comes to allowing non-Member Residents.

If I gave that impression, it was in error.

I expect most Settlements to be NBSI (Not Blue Shoot It)

This is rather unfortunate, IMO.

Call me an idealist, but I envision settlements etc... having the ability to create huge lists of people to kill, things to get, locations to map out, dungeons to find, dungeons to clear etc... that can be dynamic, changing, and

...never finished? :D

A bandit not using the flagging system, and attacking an unflagged target would be breaking the rules of the game and be subject to (rightfully so) very steep reputation hits and possible banning.

The bandit would also incur the attacker flag, and aggressor stake, which would quickly lead to the 24 hour flag that allows the bandit to be killed, repeatedly and without consequence, without the flag being dispelled by death.

Your doomsday scenario would only happen if the bandit is repeatedly attacking unflagged people in quick succession. I think I'm starting to see your point of view: that Bandits should be, will be, attacking many people over the course of a couple hours, like an EVE gate camp.

I believe the reputation hits for killing unflagged players are to prevent exactly that. Champions will have to limit their attacks on unflagged evil characters. Enforcers will need to stick to flagged Criminals most of the time. Unflagged bandits will have to pick and choose their targets carefully, striking infrequently.

Obviously this is not a restriction unique to bandits, its purpose is to protect those who are unflagged from constant aggression. In fact, those flying the Outlaw flag are the ONLY ONES who will be able to engage in unrestricted aggression against unflagged characters, as long as they SAD first.

Saying that unflagged banditry would be unviable is laughable - the truth is, unflagged bandits would be on even terms with everyone else, including those flying other PvP flags, regarding attacking unflagged characters.

If you have nothing to regulate, how much you actually bring to market, the Devs will shut down the nodes to artificially control the supply. Instead of them doing that they will provide a system where bandits can do that regulating for them. It adds content to the game, their words, not just mine.

when it is clearly explained in the Dev Blog, only speaks to the greed of the merchants, that want uninhibited access and a risk free environment. That is a mentality that is detrimental to an Open World PvP MMO, equally detrimental as is the other abusive activities, on the other end of the spectrum, directed mostly at new players.

You really think that bandits are the sole regulatory mechanism? That GW does not plan on tweaking resource faucets, crafting times and costs, shipping costs, and such? That there won't be losses to PvE encounters, and enemy settlements?

Yes, adds content. Not "the only content" like you are making it out to be, as if the whole game would collapse without your brave, selfless work. Bandits are only a small part of the "big picture" you keep claiming nobody but you can see, and I think I'm not the only person tired of your self-inflating posturing.

If it were not for bandits the life of a merchant would be boring.

Yes, I'm sure merchants go into it because they want to experience banditry. Not because they are excited by working the markets, scoring and losing big wads of cash on price fluctuations, and so on....

The perception is, and this is a problem if true, is that unless you are a member of a settlement that matches your alignment, you will not have access to upper tier training. This does not just apply to CE alignment, it applies to all alignments.

This would not be such an issue if the 1-step rule treated all alignments within that one step, equally. Instead of a settlement having a core alignment, it could have a limited range of alignments that are all treated equally.

Can you clarify what you see as a problem with this scenario, and how you think the "non-core alignments" are treated unequally?

Bludd,

I never said you don't RP, I just don't want the game to become a place where RP takes a very very far back seat to constant conquest and competition.

Bluddwolf RPs so much he even RPs during these game design discussions. As you can imagine (and I'm sure have witnessed), this creates a lot of difficulty when your discussion partner only views the game design from the point of view of a single perspective inside the game.

I think the plans already account for buildings that increase DI, and we also know that some buildings will have named managers which will have to have the right skills to make those buildings operate at their full potential, so it seems like this is effectively already in the design.

To add to this, the idea has somehow got into my head that buildings themselves may need to be designed and/or built by appropriately-trained crafters. I could just be imagining that part, though.

First of he jumps to a conclusion that is a) false and b) not in the slightest explained. Secondly his points of reference are WoW, the themeparkiest of them all and Firefall, a MMO first person shooter with no economy what so ever.

So at first glance, I respectfully disagree, this statement is of no relevance to this context.

I was thinking it over last night , and while I don't agree with you that the conclusion is false, I do agree that it doesn't apply to PFO, because in PFO the *only* source of gear is crafting (unlike WoW and Firefall). Because of that, in PFO if the cost of resources goes up, so will the cost of gear.

Thanks for making me think harder on it :)

Actually i think the LG+ character is even worse off.
For example: lets look at a Paladin, that goes on a killing spree.
his Alignemt will change toward CE his Rep will drop.
he will lose the ability to keep his Paladin(or any lawful&good&highrep) skills.
so he will be left with low rep-requirement skills that are neither good nor lawful, for at least the time till his alignment goes back to LG, and then he will still have the low rep, making him an outcast in most settlements.

And this is why it's a bad idea to offer to LG characters consequence-free PVP areas, a lot hinges on the player's ability to maintain that alignment.

I read something on another game forum (Firefall) on the subject of repairing crafted equipment, which I think is relevant:

[Suppose] resources take the place of [currency] in terms of repairs. This creates a sort of weird meta-economy, where the value of the things that are used to make items has more value than the item created (You can ask anyone who made “Ornate Mithril” gear during their Mithril Order questline in WoW about how this feels). We definitely want to avoid solutions that create these problems.

I think he makes a good point. If the demand for resources is a lot higher than the demand for crafted gear (because both crafting gear and repairing existing gear takes resources), the prices will be skewed.

How else can two LG competing settlements fight over them with still holding to a sense of good for their people...

The main obstacle for Lawful Good is figuring out how to get what you want WITHOUT resorting to violence. Having FFA zones where LG groups could go and get everything they need while bypassing the alignment system would be broken, and result in LG groups crushing everyone else (because they would ALSO have the best settlements).

FFA zones with valuable resources would be an unwarranted and unbalancing buff to LG groups.

Hideouts have been (rather vaguely) noted as giving its resident bandits the ability to gather better intel on travellers in the area, the implication being this also referred to what said travellers are carrying (in order to be able to effectively select worthwhile targets). This may or may not extend to getting some measure of the contents of a caravan - whether that's a sampling of the contents, the total encumbrance of the contents, or (unlikely) a complete listing of the contents, remains to be seen.

But IMO it's very unlikely that completely empty caravans will be an effective decoy against bandits with a well-equipped hideout, it will be too obvious. If you want to send decoys, all well and good, but the decoy will have to be more along the lines of bait than a worthless replica.

On the other hand, if bandits can only get a random sampling of the caravan inventory (my preferred idea), it definitely allows for merchants to hide valuables among large amounts of low-value stuff. And if that's a regular practice, it makes picking out decoys a lot harder as well - if the "intel report" comes back showing only low value cargo, the bandits will have to make a judgement call whether (a) it is what it appears to be, (b) the merchant is hiding something, or (c) it's bait/a decoy. The better bandits will become adept at reading the signs and making good judgements. The better caravaneers will become adept at the smoke and mirrors and keep the bandits guessing incorrectly.

The Goodfellow wrote:

If Champions (or enforcer, I forget) has the ability (according to the flags blog) to attack ANYONE OF EVIL ALIGNMENT flagged or not, without penalty.

I Shot a Man in Reno Just To Watch Him Die wrote:

Champion (Good)

Champion is for players who want to proactively take the fight to the forces of evil. It allows players to more easily engage evil characters and earn reputation. As long as you limit your kills to evil characters, you get increasing benefits, but killing neutral or good characters ends your benefits; you still can suffer reputation and law vs. chaos loss for attacking evil characters. This flag is automatically disabled by gaining the Attacker or Heinous flag.

If they attack someone who is not flagged, they immediately lose the Champion flag, which means they will take a +Evil hit if they kill them.

So, yeah, "Champions don't get free ganks", indeed.

Not quite - Champion still gives the following benefit:

They're still not "free", since there's a reputation hit for attacking an unflagged character, but the Champion flag will remain active as long as the Champion restricts themselves to Evil targets.

Doesn't the same negative repercussions apply to transporting valuable resources from unsettled hexes?

The act of transporting valuable resources from unsettled hexes doesn't exactly inflict unwanted PvP on anyone...

Plus, part of my relative advantage in this community is in math.

Decius Brutus: Numeromancer!

This is a concern I have with players wanting to be assassins or bandits. By the looks of this it will not be worth it at all. They will not have options to truly increase their characters. Then it falls back to what do the bandit hunters hunt exactly?

Should people not bother with these types of professions?

My interpretation:

If you're interested in roleplaying a "bad guy" in the game, then go for it. You'll get to explore the consequences thereof, rather than some glorified anti-hero version.

If you're just interested in maximizing personal power, then you should probably avoid them.

***These bonuses reset to the minimum upon gaining the Attacker flag unless the target was offered and rejected a stand-and-deliver trade within five minutes of the attack.***

That looks pretty clear to me. If you offer a SAD, and it was rejected you can attack without gaining the attacker flag.

Maybe it's just the scientist in me, but I cannot figure out how you can arrive at that interpretation through a logical analysis of the sentence.

"These bonuses reset to the minimum" is the part that is conditional, and the condition is "unless the target was offered and rejected a SAD within 5 minutes of the attack."

"[U]pon gaining the Attacker flag" is the point at which the condition is checked; it always happens when you initiate combat.

In any case, according to Bluddwolf's quote, it may all be moot ;)

A Robin Hood style outlaw to me is one who only goes after evil / corrupt targets.

Personally I think the more relevant part of the "Robin Hood" label is the giving (back) to the poor part, not the selection of victims.

Also I hate the phrase "steal from the rich and give to the poor." It makes him sound like a communist, aside from the fact he didn't pocket most of it. He was stealing from the corrupt government and giving back to the overtaxed population.

In the context of the time period, the rich WERE the government, practically by definition.

(Idle curiosity tangent: I wonder how many more decades it will take before "communist" and its neighbour "socialist" stop being bad words in America.)

In EVE Online or in Pirates of the Burning Sea, to enter a PVP designated zone (null sec; red zone, in both games respectively) eliminates all perceived limitations of the civilized world. You have entered the "Kill Box", of your own choice, you bear the consequences of your choice.

This concept of "kill box" or "pvp zone" doesn't really exist in PFO, nor for that matter does "eliminating all perceived limitations of the civilized world," because there's *always* reputation and alignment - only legality varies by area.

You're simply trying to fit the square pegs of PFO's design points into the round holes of your preconceptions and desires. Try to see PFO for what it is instead of what you wish it to be.

I (and I imagine others) see open world PvP as a means to an end, that end being interesting settlement interactions. Some others see open world PvP as an end in and of itself - to me this is just sad and missing the point, and my hunch is that GW agrees, because of the limitations they are designing.

I am reminded of an old quote about UNIX, which I think is apt: "UNIX doesn't prevent you from doing stupid things, because that would prevent you from doing clever things." On the other hand it most certainly doesn't *advocate* doing stupid things.

I view PFO in a similar fashion, though substitute "stupid things" with "bad behaviour". UNIX punishes you brutally for doing "stupid things" by letting you do them and thus shooting yourself in the foot. PFO I think will do the same regarding "bad behaviour" via the reputation and alignment systems (among others). The tools for engaging in "bad behaviour" may exist in the game (and be a main feature, even), but that's not really their intended purpose.