Search Posts
Like Vadaryl says, escalation kill quests typically cause a lump reduction when the quest is successfully completed. For example, there is an Ustulavian quest that requires killing 100 strike force members. When that quest is successfully completed, the escalation strength is reduced by 1150 points; effectively 11.5 points for each mob named as a strike force member. BUT if the quest expires before you can kill all of the required targets, then you failed and get nothing. So the clearing team gets to weigh the lump reduction against the reduction for killing other mobs and their chances of completing the quest in time. (There are also quests, like Usti drill sergeants, where the named drill sergeants give this lump sum when the quest is successfully finished. The drill sergeants are surrounded by other mobs who give normal escalation strength reduction when killed.)
(OOC) While some have asked for the ability to directly aid escalations, the game already does allow more subtle manipulations as you suggest. When an escalation source hex is killed off, its satellite hexes are normally orphaned. A special case exists when they are adjacent to other satellites of the same type, when they will be subverted and taken into the orbit of that other monster hex, reinforcing it. So if someone wanted to aid your bonedancers - to stymie you - they could clear all of the monster hexes attached to the mass of bonedancer satellite hexes, in hopes of a new bonedancer spawn that would take over the mass. (This could be done willfully, but could also be done out of ignorance.) On the other hand, encouraging the growth of another escalation type might chip away at the bonedancers. There are certainly possibilities for the long game. I think in the long term, more settlements will grow to appreciate the risks and possibilities of manipulating the spread of escalations. In time, I'd expect to see more settlements limiting farming escalations in their territory as a result.
TEOs initial concept was to be a PvP force that provided a space for people to be mostly safe from random player killing (to include simple banditry). I don't think we have renters, yet. I think that our goals and ambitions are still such that we'd let individuals and companies live in our space without belonging to TEO, provided they are good citizens.
I've wondered how easy it would be to scale agro range. If the agro range could be scaled, then more advanced escalations might appear more aggressive and possessive. I think current agro radius is 20m. If it were 25m for escalations at 25-50%, 30m for escalations at 50-75%, and 35m for escalations at 75-100%... It wouldn't be such a walk in the park - it would be seriously dangerous to try to pass through a territory claimed by mobs.
@Bluddwolf, if a character is created and joins a company, her subsequent activity will earn influence for the company. If the character then departs the company, through leaving or being deleted, the company doesn't lose the influence. (The influence ceiling will dip when the character is removed from the roster) It still takes time and player activity to grind up influence this way, and characters can only be deleted and restarted once a day. I'm guessing GW recognizes this as one possible use of 1000xp alts, which we'll
I'm in the process of waiting 18 days to buy my next level of Tanner. Don't tell my company leader, Fierywind, but I sometimes give myself permission to buy 100 or 200 xp of combat skills every three or four days. Seriously? If I weren't allowed to spend my exp as I wish, why in Pharasma's Name would I post it publically and mention my company leader's name? Hello? The reality is that having a top-tier tanner is in my company's (TEO) interest. I'm willing to play my character - my main character, not an alt or DT - in a way that meets my company's needs. I'm having a great time. I refine and I gather. I go out on major PvE raids up to and including Tier 2 escalation clearing; we killed Ogg last night and I was there, shooting away at the purple brutes. I head to the sound of the fight when there's PvP. I might not be an stone-cold killer, but I can scout and debuff and add damage. I'm a freeholder and the game is my oyster.
Well, it's certainly fun when you can can buy something from your accumulated XP every other day or so, rather then having to wait for weeks. That sounds like a much better Skinner Box, to be honest. I'm in the process of waiting 18 days to buy my next level of Tanner. Don't tell my company leader, Fierywind, but I sometimes give myself permission to buy 100 or 200 xp of combat skills every three or four days.
... All of these actions, flagging or punishing, would be logged so GW can likewise review the moderator's patterns of behavior and possible favoritism. I'm trying to not make assumptions here. GW might use paid moderators or GMs (which I'd prefer) or they might use volunteers. Either way, they likely need some form of quality control to try to detect problems before they get out of of hand. There will always be people who make accusations of favortism, whether it's there or not, but it's in GW's interest to have most players have faith in the mods. I think that to some degree, general chat has some expiry date. But there will be always be chats like in the starting towns and the help chat that will need some policing.
PFU provides graduates. Its primary asset is the dedicated recruiters and instructors. To one degree, it is going to be in competition with every other organization in the game. In 90 days a new character can earn a very large amount of achievements. Companies and settlements would do well to recruit their own new players. At the least settlements should try to lure people out of PFU after some time shorter than 90 days, like a basketball team recruiting players after 1 year in college. To another degree, while PFU may invest time and effort into River Bank, the land isn't critical. If some large organization were to grab that that land, the map is dotted with possible settlement locations. Al they need is a patron or group of patrons willing to give up one settlement spot and enough hexes to support the university.
I was scouting to the west of PFU Riverbank today. I would note that the three tiles that are two tiles out to the SW, SSW, and S of Riverbank are in fact patrolled hexes (public high roads). They are unclaimable thru the holdings mechanics. I think it would be good to leave the resources there for the PFU students. The road access is a nice asset for PFU. But I don't think you have any actual claim or any means to enforce a claim on those hexes, except by aggressively expending counters like Reputation and Influence (thru Feuds). Edit to add: I wonder if Riverbank should make any claim at all on the three hexes. They'll be limited to T1 resources. Riverbank law will never extend into these hexes. And giving Riverbank a claim on these hexes (which can't be easily enforced) sets the stage for others to claim public high roads.
I agree that removal of in-settlement smallholds should only be by burning them down or smoking them out. That's the price to be paid for releasing things without full support of mechanics. However, as permissions evolve, I think it's perfectly reasonable for a settlement to not allow someone to build something within that hex (but this must be done in a timely manner; I'd suggest one hour, the same as the cooldown period). If no one from settlement leadership is around enough, then there's no real argument for them being able to stop the build. The act of burning out a squatter could take time and effort. But on lands legitimately taken and held by a company, members of that company and its settlement allies should suffer no reputation loss or chaos or evil shift for evicting the trespasser. If the smallholder wants to keep a smallholding in someone else's lands, he or she can make such a deal as is necessary. A company placing a holding has expended in-game effort and resources as a group to stake their claim on the hex. A smallholding is moveable and an item that can be bought in the cash shop. The claim of the smallholder should not trump the claim and efforts of a company in game.
@Forencith, I'm not sure whether we agree or not. Whatever their intent, my betters (as I might call them in soft sarcasm, lost to some) failed to shape that intent into words that they would swear to. The treaty appears to cover towers, and towers alone. The treaty says nothing whatsoever about territory, or resources, or the contents of our husks once dead.
2) If policy needs to be explicitly stated, shouldn't change of policy be explicitly stated too? Case in point, a large portion of the map had a treaty at the beginning of the WoT that was built upon the idea that each settlement "owned" its core six. That treaty may not exist anymore, but why should anyone who would actually cares about other settlements' sovereignty think that policy had changed? I always understood the treaty to be that each settlement was entitled to its core six towers, to ensure it could train at least to the level of an NPC settlement. If the intent was that a settlement held sovereignty over the core six hexes and everything in them, including towers, I'm sure my betters would have included that in their treaty. I've never once been told that every settlement holds exclusive rights to all of the resources in it's core six, though individual settlements have claimed such, and lands further away than the core six. I've been attacked five hexes from Golgotha, for example, traveling in the Northern Cragthorns. (I was killed after I left the Cragthorns, but I didn't expect otherwise.)
Interestingly, the developers have told us little or nothing regarding this situation, plundering from those dead of misadventure. If a character were to kill a monster, and another player were to steal from the kill, it would be stealing, and win the thief a Criminal flag. (eventually) If a character kills another character, or a character is killed by a monster, though, it doesn't seem to cause either a Criminal flag or a Reputation loss, not according to the game mechanics. It might fall into the "not worth programming, not right now" category. If players think it should be a crime, or a Rep loss, they could raise the suggestion. I personally wouldn't steal from such dead, but I'm a squishy freeholder, not interested in gaining excessive emnity. On the other hand, I recognize that there are no rules preventing my husk being looted, and I just plan to suck it up and drive on when that happens.
Last week was the first time I had traveled to the SE, and when we (there was two of us) entered Keepers Pass, we were attacked. Well, to be clear, I attacked Nihimon first when I saw him attacking my travel partner. Just curious, who was your travel partner? It seems to be relevant to Nihimon's action that you report.
One of the larger semi-independent companies in game, that Gemstone company stopped doing any banditry of any kind apparently because of the complaints from EBA. That's an interesting take on it. The thread that I read was Who is TEO at war with. In my reading, it appears that TEO (my settlement, for the record) was in an escalation hex, as were members of the Gemstone company. The Gemstone guys had a bad pull or a glitch and a character died. TEO didn't attack the fellow, but did loot his body. When the Gemstone guys And additionally, Gologtha has now seemingly stopped doing raiding as well after the players in Blackwood Glade (an EBA settlement) complained on the forums here and some rage quit. And some Golgothans were still killing people near Keepers Pass two-three days ago. The departure of the settlement leader of BWG a week prior didn't put a halt to the raiding.
Each role has their own armor feats, so training up any of the Cleric armors won't translate directly to Paladin. However, if you're going to be a melee paladin it's a safe bet you'll want your paladin in Heavy, so if you want to train up Crusader for the time being that would be the best match. It might be good to train up to heavy proficiency 2 and maybe a Fighter armor feat like Crusader 6, to use Tier 2+2 armors... I'm not sure training beyond that point would be a good use of xp. Depends on how long we wait for Paladins, I guess.
* Would you be satisfied with a PFO where everyone just farmed escalations, gathered tansy, and crafted increasingly pretty suits of armor, with no significant quantity of PVP content? No, but I have no expectation that will be the case. There will, in time, be more competition for resources, just like there is currently some limited competition for towers. There will be PvP. * Do you feel comfortable that if everyone on the map were playing the same way you do, there would be enough content to keep the game interesting and afloat? Hmm. I explore, I gather, I participate in clearing escalations, I participate in 'sanctioned' PvP: taking and defending towers and defending allies from flagged bandits. I wait for the implementation of the Freeholder role, Outposts, and Holdings - and with holdings, raiding and eventually feuds and war. Yes, I'd be comfortable if everyone restricted themselves to sanctioned PvP, but I don't imagine that everybody will. * Have you seriously considered engaging in content creation? Have you done so? If not why not? If by "engaging in content creation" you mean attacking unflagged characters, no I haven't considered it. Why not? Because, as a member of The Empyrean Order and Brighthaven I'm sort of committed to the NG alignment. Because as soon as members of Brighthaven attack unflagged characters, we'll get criticized here in the forums. On the other hand, if by "engaging in content creation" you mean venturing out into the world, accepting risk and potentially being a target for bandits, I do that every day. * Have you ever seriously considered initiating hostilities with anyone who isn't NC? Have you done so? If not why not? No. I'm a member of Brighthaven. If you look at the map, we don't share a border with anyone except our allies. That's deliberate. We don't hardly share a border with the NC. Why would I go more than half-way across the map to cause problems for my settlement? * If the NC is the sole target of all non-NC content creators, how long do you think that dynamic can realistically be expected to survive? That's a pretty big if, there. Even if we just assume away all of the potential for conflict over resources and territory, PFO is attached to the internet. I have no doubt there is a good supply of players out there who will come to the game and create whatever justification they need to attack their fellow players' characters. -- As an observation - I think the NC's biggest problem is that they are in a self-inflicted alliance between the two groups that are the most obvious aggressors. By deciding on a course of non-aggression between the LE groups (led by Golgotha?) and the CN bandit groups (led by Aragon?), they effectively shut down their best potential source of PvP - each other.
I think those are somewhat valid. If someone send me a text while I'm fleeing, I'll ignore the distraction. If I even see it - as often as not my chat is covered by the mini-map. Chat could be used by bandits before they attack: "Hey! We are stealthed and have you surrounded. We won't kill you if you can hand over 50 items." But right now, there's not much reason to not kill the target.
I think that is bound to change. We'll have Outposts soonish. They will provide the bulk resources that are required to build and maintain our settlements. They will have a fixed location, and will be very targetable. Anyone who doesn't defend their Outposts when they are attacked is going to lose bulk resources, either detroyed or stolen. They might be attackable only during PvP windows, but they're still a fixed target - defenders can't just run away.
Crafted camps also don't have a 5 day duration. With a 4 hour cool-down for camps, you'ld have to deploy 6 high-end camps a day for 5 days to equal the power regen of a base camp. And with the base camp, in 15 days you can place it again for no additional cost. Add in the storage capacity and that base camp has a pretty significant capability to allow heavy gathering or PvE in an area.
If secondary companies can hold, er, Holdings, then there might be some space for Holdings to provide limited training support as well as training. A watchtower might, for example, support the Fighter role. A shrine outside of a town might support the Cleric role. Of course, secondary companies can't pledge to a settlement, so they might be vulnerable to aggressors.
... Despite all the talk of trade and swap, gathering and crafting are essentially solo activities. Gathering in a group achieves nothing other than reducing the take for everyone gathering. While there are no mechanical benefits to grouping for gathering, if gatherers coordinate their efforts and split up the space in a hex they can dramatically reduce their "run around looking for node" time. Every time a node is cleared it will respawn elsewhere in the hex, and nodes will often respawn within site of another gatherer.
I'm not sure why crafter settlements are expected to thrive at this time, compared to other settlements? All settlements have some crafting capabilities; crafting settlements have the advantage of all crafting stations *plus* an auction house. Just speaking as a EBA member, I have spent more time in KP than in any other settlement during the last 6 weeks. I don't need to belong to Keeper's Pass to use their crafting stations or auction house. I think the crafting settlements' likely recruits are looking for a crafting and trading game, which will need to wait for the improvements to the markets.
My experience was that scavenging nodes drop the types of materials not found in the current hex's nodes, plus the materials that are only found in scavenging nodes. So if there are plant nodes in the hex, the scavenging node won't drop material that would be found in a plant node. Mountain hexes have no scavenging nodes. Forest, Cropland, Swamp, and Badland/Rough hexes have plant, essence, and scavenging nodes. The scavenging nodes drop pelts, cloth, and stuff found in mining nodes. I don't know what nodes are found in the hills in the NW. If the nodes are mining, essence, and scavenging, I'd expect some of those scavenging nodes to drop plant node materials. If they drop plant node materials, but no T2 materials, the drop tables might be bad.
Just out of curiosity: why do you think that players not being part of a company (and what exactly is that?) is so bad "for the future of the game"? Mind you, I'm not at all versed in MMO games, so I don't know about any genre conventions, but your post felt strange somehow. So, why is bad for the game as such if I, for example, were simply to strike out on my own? Due to the game mechanics in PFO, a character can't effectively get into Tier 2 attacks and gear without belonging to a settlement, and the settlement has to have a certain amount of holdings. So you can strike out on your own, but after 3 weeks or a month, you'll be bumping up against Tier 2.
@Lahasha, KOS means Kill On Sight. So when Doc was shooting auction-shoppers and people at the bank in Keepers Pass, a week or two ago, he was setting the stage for you getting killed. He's your friend, and that's fine. Just understand he wrote some checks that you might end up paying.
Light armor: Dart in, do some serious damage (once rogue feature feats are fixed), dart back out before you get pummeled. Yup. Let the medium or heavy armored guy go in first to get targeted, then the lights go in with their fancy cutthroat feat and supporting reactives. They evade back out if they get targeted. It's not rocket surgery.
T2 arrows are going to be expensive. The xp outlay to use a T2 bow (for 6 feats) is 11.5 days. Who in their right mind is going to waste that much xp for the rare event when it is worth firing a T2 arrow? Is not as if it even makes sense to carry T2 arrows just in case that rare event occurs, due to the chance of losing them on death. The T2 arrows use Dwarven Steel Blanks and Maple Shafts. Both of those will be readily available; A basic gatherer can get those at rank 7 in the appropriate gathering skills. The T2 Bow and the T2 Arrows are a package deal. They will be very useful, almost required, to deal with T2 armors in PvP. The T1 bows and arrows will likely still be carried by PvE crews clearing low-end escalations, but even those PvEers will likely have the skills to use a better bow in base defense. I anticipate the arrows will be very, very common, and not particularly expensive. @Ravenlute: quiver/charge gem is slotted in off-hand, opposite bow/focus/wand.
I'm offering a good selection of refined leather items in exchange for coal. If you have raw leather you want refined, you can use those in lieu of coal; I'll effectively tan the pelts into hides and give you the refined items (taking a cut, of course): Item for Sale -- Price in Coal/Raw Leather Basic Strip +0 -- 1/4 (.25)
Basic Hide Sheet +0 -- 2.2
Basic Leather Sheet +0 -- 2.2
Parchment Sheet +0 -- 1/5 (.20)
Advanced Strips +0 * -- 0.80 * Unfortunately, I have limited gathering ability. I can make Tier 2 items, on request, but the buyer will need to provide the required monster or creature pelts. To arrange for trades, contact Yrme in game, or if she is not available, Fierywind. All sales in Keepers Pass.
In the early days of the Marked in the River Kingdoms, there is little use for coin. Many of the adventurers choose to hoard their coin against the future and rely on barter instead. The settlement of Keepers Pass, in the southeast, is becoming a crafting and trading center for the many settlements in the area. In the interest of encouraging travelers to come to Keepers Pass to trade, some crafter and traders will offer a selection of goods for a fixed price, priced in bartered goods. If you wish to sell goods on a recurring basis in Keepers Pass, for coin or barter, feel free to list your wares below.
ACE roles are full classes. Gatherer is not synonymous with commoner. The fact that refiners are better gatherers than anyone else doesn't mean that gathering itself is a standalone job. I think this is the intent, that Freeholders can work within their role. There are two gathering skills, Miner and Dowser that have corresponding refining skills, Smelter and Sage. I think that Forest and Scavenger might be more problematic. Even leveling these skills in parallel to Rank 7, the character will not have enough Wis to advance to rank 8. And there are no refining skills that advance Wis. (There are crafting skills that advance Wis, but that's expecting a character to multi-class Freeholder/Expert. It's like expecting Rogues to multi-class Rogue/Crafter.) (Imho, after rank 7, characters should just expect to dip into roles outside their class - and that goes for ACE roles *and* Adventure roles.)
In the long term, GW might choose to have Reputation affect trade. That is, trading with low Rep characters might drag down one's Rep. (Trading with high Rep characters doesn't have to have the same effect. Rep entropy.) Note that when you trade, you see your trading partner's Reputation now - players who don't want to trade with low Rep types can choose not to. Having a Rep drain from trading with low Rep allows for some players to act as fences, balancing their Rep above the "Low Rep" threshhold. There could even be a Fence skill, which could reduce, but might never quite eliminate the Rep hit for such trades. More interaction, not less. If we had the ability to do drops into each other's banks, and also had a Rep system for trades, then characters would have to be able to specify the lowest Rep that could drop to their bank.
TBH, how would gathering in a group look like right now? Constantly running towards the same node? Or fan out and each do a quadrant of the hex but lose the safety of the group? Or each gets a certain node-type appointed and then stand idly by because your node is not that ubiquitous? When I'm bumping up against my allies that are gathering, I check to see what type of nodes they're gathering. If we are gathering the same type of node, I ask to split the hex in half, or thirds, whatever. The number of nodes of a given type remains constant for that hex and nodes respawn instantly when cleared. With 2 harvesters, each only has to sweep their half of the hex rather than making complete circuits, so less time (individually) to thoroughly check your zone for nodes. I think up to six gatherers in a hex would be pretty easy to manage, but it might depend on the node density. Yes, your buddies aren't in view, but if one gets hit by an attacker, the others can rabbit - or all jump in on the attackers, depending on the numbers.
Displaying my ignorange: what group bonus currently applies in PvE? Won't gushers, requiring a group effort to harvest lots of resources, effectively provide a group bonus? I also thought it had been said that when we get gushers, the normal node gathering will be less productive than it is now. Gushers (group gathering events) are intended to provide a good chunk of our resources. (Formation combat may likewise effectively provide a group bonus to PvP.)
Yes, it has been promised. Under "Local Vault Storage" in Blog "How the Auction House Works" Eventually Companies and Settlements will have shared credit accounts and Local Vault options but those functions are not yet in the game. From your link (bolding added): "Each character has their own Abadar credit account and Local Vault and credit accounts and Local Vault storage is not shared across all the characters on an account. Eventually Companies and Settlements will have shared credit accounts and Local Vault options but those functions are not yet in the game." So Company and Settlement banks have been promised. Shared banking between character on one account has not, at least according to that link. --- IF your characters belong to the same company and/or settlement, they would be able to pass stuff back and forth through that connection they share. Such characters would generally have compatible alignment, reputation, and in-game goals. Imo, There's no reason or logic (or advantage to the game) behind two totally dissimilar characters, like a CE bandit and a LG monk equitably sharing all of their worldly possessions. |
