Goblin Squad Member
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Just a note on gimping raiders. Kill the horses, break the wagon wheels. If a player group transporting oar, timbers, etc. know they are going to lose a fight to raiders by taking out the ability to transport their loot it would give you time to mount a counter attack. And even if the raiders brought their own horses and wagons unloading, loading, then transporting would be slower than the original owners fresh and fleet footed mounts that are now bearing down on them after their resurrection.
Also.
I am against the idea of the majority of items being destroyed wile keeping one random item. Instead what about looting items causes a high% of damage to all items looted. I mean it makes perfect sense that kicking someones butt into the dirt is going to wreak his stuff. In such cases highwaymen would have a reason to offer their victims a "toll" for safe passage. Here is the kicker though, if anything happens to players that pay the "toll" even if it isn't caused by that group of highwaymen everyone that engaged in extortion is flagged as a criminal (more so than charging "tolls"). Like how the get away driver for a crime is also charged with the crime even though all they did was drive.
This would require a more robust system than criminal or not-criminal. I would love to see murder trials, fines for using illegal magic in city limits, etc. Auto generated wanted posters for exceptionally prolific criminals, things like that. The alignment of the community could set the law for a region. If a different minded community overthrows another it replaces that communities laws with its own.
Regional alignment could also determine taxes (highest in lawful evil, and least in chaotic good), quality and availability of infrastructure (nothing gets done in a neutral evil community without a bribe for instance), etc. The alignment of communities should have real mechanical effects. Taxes are the best and easiest way to tackle this.
As much as I love some of these ideas, I don't quite see how practical it can be. The penalty for dying is pretty darn light, almost non-existant if you are anticipating it (as you'd have unloaded all of your resources), while I like the idea of trials etc... how does that really play out moreso then a simple you get killed by X you put a bounty on him. Rather then simply having him killed back, he has to be restrained, brought back into town, thrown on trial, and then killed? I mean with death being so light, and really what penalty can be stronger than death?
How does one greatly damage ore, wood, etc... in a way that is any different than destroying a large portion of it. Now as far as your full equipment weapons/armor, I do think those should take some extent of damage as I do think that they need to be destroyable and broken on a regular basis to have a stable economy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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With respect to having trials, one possibility here is if, instead of "just" killing the offender, they could be imprisoned for some time instead. Basically, a death sentence is actually a pretty light sentence in PFO, whereas being locked up for a week or something is a much, much harsher sentence.
Another possibility would be to sentence offenders with a Skill Point deficit that they had to burn off before they could begin to progress again.
Please note, I'm not actually proposing any of this, I'm just brainstorming :)
Please make certain exceptions for quest items, specific reputation, gathered...
I don't think there will be 'quest items' in the sense you are thinking of. "Bring me twenty pristine wolf livers" isn't the core of sandbox games. There might be a NPC who pays a bounty on rat tails or wolf pelts, but that is just a mechanism for gold to enter the economy.
And having the gathered or manufactured resources be lootable is important.This is NOT "WoW in Golarian" and it shouldn't be. Just because WoW had a core gameplay element doesn't mead PFO will, or should. If open PvP with significant corpse looting were to be implemented in WoW, with no other changes, it would break the game in a bad way.
So you and your friends have the quest to help the village by lifting the curse placed on it by the son of Sauron the party must retrieve the unholy ankh from the Sauron's pit. So after a 10 min ride to the pit you encounter greifers and they kill the party. The party then looses all their pots. So they decide to make the pots inside the dungeon after another 15 minutes your party finally makes it inside the dungeon So the party makes their pots and has a successful adventure. Seelah even finds a missing page of a holy codex. Upon exiting the dungeon the griefers kill the party again and they loose all the items.
unholy ankh = quest item
mats for pots and pots = gathered resources and profession items
missing page of a holy codex = rep item
Im not saying that the entire stack should be safe, just have certain constraints so that griefing meta-game doesnt overpower the actual game, and create unpleasant gaming sessions.
Hey Ryan,
If a player pick pockets another then can a bounty be placed on their head?
If I log out in a room or near a campfire will the time-to-leave be reduced?
I suggest making the log out time longer than the timer for placing a bounty.
Is there a default ‘soulbinding’ spot for a new character?
I like the idea that majority of the looted items being destroyed and the surviving ones being damaged too. If a highwayman fireballs a fur trader then they need to be ready for the possibility that their ‘phat lewt’ is damaged too.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't believe there will be quests like "help the village by lifting the curse placed on it by the son of Sauron" which will require you to get quest items like an "unholy ankh".
I think the only time you'll be sent out from a village to gather something is if you get sent out by other players to gather things that those players need, or want to resell.
Ultimately, there aren't any constraints that can be defined clearly enough to keep the griefing meta-game from overpowering the actual game. Rather, there will be tools the community itself can use to punish griefers, and hopefully make the whole prospect simply not worth their while.
With respect to having trials, one possibility here is if, instead of "just" killing the offender, they could be imprisoned for some time instead. Basically, a death sentence is actually a pretty light sentence in PFO, whereas being locked up for a week or something is a much, much harsher sentence.
Another possibility would be to sentence offenders with a Skill Point deficit that they had to burn off before they could begin to progress again.
Please note, I'm not actually proposing any of this, I'm just brainstorming :)
I could see a sliding scale based on past behavior, ie. getting tossed in jail (no play time) for an hour for the first offense. Then, for a second two hours, then four, then eight.
In this way there are actual *consequences* to the *player* for deciding to become the bane of civilized society. He or she cannot play "Murray the
Merciless" bandit for four days because he got caught, but he or she could play on an alternate character (assuming they allow more than one character slot) under the same rules.
Brainstorming.
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Goblin Squad Member
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With respect to having trials, one possibility here is if, instead of "just" killing the offender, they could be imprisoned for some time instead. Basically, a death sentence is actually a pretty light sentence in PFO, whereas being locked up for a week or something is a much, much harsher sentence.
Another possibility would be to sentence offenders with a Skill Point deficit that they had to burn off before they could begin to progress again.
Please note, I'm not actually proposing any of this, I'm just brainstorming :)
I could see a sliding scale based on past behavior, ie. getting tossed in jail (no play time) for an hour for the first offense. Then, for a second two hours, then four, then eight.
In this way there are actual *consequences* to the *player* for deciding to become the bane of civilized society. He or she cannot play "Murray the
Merciless" bandit for four days because he got caught, but he or she could play on an alternate character (assuming they allow more than one character slot) under the same rules.Brainstorming.
But outright jailing/temporarally banning a character is an act that cannot and should not fall to the players or automatic systems, If it's automated some players will figure out how to trick it to either not get caught or to catch innocents, and if it is player run, than evil communities will do false arrests and bogus trials to intentionally lock up innocents.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I don't think there will be 'quest items' in the sense you are thinking of. "Bring me twenty pristine wolf livers" isn't the core of sandbox games. There might be a NPC who pays a bounty on rat tails or wolf pelts, but that is just a mechanism for gold to enter the economy.If crafting is as great as some of us hope...and can be a primary source/reason of play for us...and with this looting system, there will be gathering quests.
I as a blacksmith may not waste my time trying to gather and defend myself, instead I will pay you x gold for y piece of z ore. How you gather them, via trade routes or off a fence, I may not care. But, true to the sandbox...these missions should be player driven.
That proposal makes ore a valuable. That's the biggest reason that it should be lootable. Making a percentage of it be destroyed means a lot for the math: The highest average profit comes from sharing, instead of stealing. If 75% of my ore is lost on looting, I can pay 30% protection, and everyone gets a better result.
It probably doesn't matter to the blacksmith who delivers the ore, unless he is part of a group which boycotts known raiders and their collaborators.
So you and your friends have the quest to help the village by lifting the curse placed on it by the son of Sauron the party must retrieve the unholy ankh from the Sauron's pit. So after a 10 min ride to the pit you encounter greifers and they kill the party. The party then looses all their pots. So they decide to make the pots inside the dungeon after another 15 minutes your party finally makes it inside the dungeon So the party makes their pots and has a successful adventure. Seelah even finds a missing page of a holy codex. Upon exiting the dungeon the griefers kill the party again and they loose all the items.
In this case the bandits either sell the item to someone else competing for the quest, or finishes the quest themselves ("Hey, look, we're not all bad!). They use the acquired potions (They might not be able to access top-tier alchemists tools themselves) and they sacrifice the holy page to their own deity for their own boon. Your party lost, and theirs won. Why should you get the benefits, instead of them, when you didn't complete the quest, and they did?
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Some more questioned answered:
Will there be some mechanism which rewards players for carrying things that aren't equipped?Unlikely
In general then, the expected material gain from killing a player is roughly zero? I can live with that. In the special cases where a player is transporting goods, they should take additional precautions to protect whatever they are transporting. That might even mean -equipping- the item(s) being transported, even if the character is much less effective wearing the robes of arcane might than they would be in plate mail, or vice versa.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Honestly I think the idea that looting players destroys most of their items is not a bad idea, it doesn't just minimize the rewards for the would be bandit but it could encourage some player interaction to avoid such things.
Here is me, a simple dwarf blacksmith, on my way back to town after gathering a lot of ore for the smelter. Griefer Bandit guy shows up to kill me.
"Look Buddy, you could kill me and get a thing or two off my corpse or, you could escort me back to town and I'll make you a weapon or something."
I don't want to loose everything I just spent all that time collecting and he might see the reason in getting something better out of me than a lump of rock or two.
I won't like it much but I can always report him to a Player Guild of Bandit hunters laters.
Personally I am not too fond of destroying most items from death, I'm ok with losing them but making them disappear sort of bothers me. Would looting player(s) get a x percentage of items while the supposed destroyed items are scattered around the location of murder so scavengers (either players or npcs) may take them (if the murders haven't taken them all) and use them?
Equipments / containers can be named after character titles at towns so if some random lawful good characters/npcs pass by and find them, they may return the lost items to the town where the items are named?
Will there be merits based on how many you've murdered/how many death you've experienced which allow the players to loot/preserve (higher) x percentage of items? Also, can players have "traps" that would trigger when someone searches their dead bodies, such as explosives in fragile containers that may explode upon touches.
If a player in a party murders your character, can you put bounties against all of the party member or just the one who deal damage? -omitted, missed that part about buffing - What about party that has member who doesn't listen to other players and simply wants mischief, went on killing other players. Will this cause the rest of the party members as guilty?
Also, do we always get resurrected at the soulbinding point? Is it possible that we may be saved by the lone outcast druid in a forest who asks a favor for saving you, get captured by enemies and woke up in a prison/cage with only tattered clothes on without equipments, placed in Pterosaurs' nests to be fed to its babies, or some other different situtations?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Things sound like it'll be nearly impossible, but will there be a place and playability for assassins? Using the framework for 'bounties' rewritten as 'contracts' sound feasible, however, without permadeath and with the Might Morphin' Power Marshals, it seems like that character concept is as dead as Altair's marks.
Did I forget to mention that if you're a murderer you can't fast travel while in a security zone? And the Marshals always know where you are? And they may be on flying mounts? Or maybe they're Phantasmal Killers. Or worse. Oops - my bad. :)
I have a query concerning this, by saying, "that if you're a murderer you can't fast travel..." are you confirming that fast travel, as of now, is forseen to be included into this game? If so, what will we expect to see from the fast travel system? Will it completely ruin the immersion of having a large and persistent world and discourage exploration? Why would someone venture out with their "goods" if they can just fast travel? It seems to me that depending on the system, fast travel could very well ruin the whole looting, economy, and death system in the game.
Although I could be jumping to conclusion and anything is still up for change at this point. From what I have seen (in other MMOs, which I know PFO isn't like other MMOs) fast travel generally ruins quite alot of things within the game. On the other hand you could just have been being sarcastic and my over analytical (spelling?) mind is just being an idiot right now :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is VERY interesting! The blog is great, and a lot of great ideas have been included in the design! Many of these are features I always wanted without knowing! But, at the same time, a lot of great stuff have been said.
[Out of topic, but I think it deserve a mention]
I like that the talks here are gradually evolving int more and more intelligent discussions. Early on, there was a lot of useless whining and "doom speaking". Last month, I didn't want to enter the community because of the bickering, but as I see in the thread, intelligent arguments have started to happen more, and I like that.
Good work to all of you having great spirit, even those that don't agree. It is what makes a community great, and I can now see that PO have great chances to have one!
[end of out of topic]
That said, will we be able to craft or build a place that can accept Soulbinding? If so, will it be soon after we start, or it will be a power we'll get only after a while?
Will there be some way to "up" the security level of a sector with the actions of the players? Like a gang of players protecting a mine or something from brigand?
I like the Bounty mechanic... But will the bounty be a fixed amount of cash or will the player get to choose? (I'm pretty certain he'll get to choose, but I'm asking anyway)
And, even though I like the bounty system, there should be a way for the player that created the bounty to call it off if the culprit try to make amend for his crime. The "amend" part could be locked by a contract between the two of them, with great penalty if the contract his broken. The deals could be a set of preset deals the two parties would agree, like protecting the old victim for a certain amount of time, giving him a certain percentage of all the money the murderer makes over a set period of time, or even forcing the murderer to undertake a big quest to shift his alignment to "good", or some other things. It could lead to great storytelling... The guy, victim of bounty calls for the 10th time for the same murder, fully understanding he won't ever get away with killing people, trying to get to his past victim to plaid his case, hoping the guy will listen... And then the victim propose him to call his bounty off only if he becomes his body guard for a while. Surprisingly, after some time, the two of them start to know each other and become friends (a bit of a stretch, but the possibility would be there, and it was featured in quite a lot of fantasy literature).
You said as a reply to a question that very good and/or important items will be somehow protected from destruction from looting... does that mean they,ll almost always get looted or there will be a way to get them back if they aren't looted? I'm pretty sure it's the former, but I try to keep hope for the latter.
This is starting to get longer than I wanted at first, so I'll keep some more for the next time I'll post.
Thanks a lot for your transparency, your frankness and all the listening you're doing. It's great to read your replies. And as I future game designer, I can understand a lot of the more controversial decisions you have been making. Keep the good work, and I can't wait to read the next Blog post! :D
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Goblin Squad Member
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And, even though I like the bounty system, there should be a way for the player that created the bounty to call it off if the culprit try to make amend for his crime. The "amend" part could be locked by a contract between the two of them, with great penalty if the contract his broken. The deals could be a set of preset deals the two parties would agree, like protecting the old victim for a certain amount of time, giving him a certain percentage of all the money the murderer makes over a set period of time, or even forcing the murderer to undertake a big quest to shift his alignment to "good", or some other things. It could lead to great storytelling... The guy, victim of bounty calls for the 10th time for the same murder, fully understanding he won't ever get away with killing people, trying to get to his past victim to plaid his case, hoping the guy will listen... And then the victim propose him to call his bounty off only if he becomes his body guard for a while. Surprisingly, after some time, the two of them start to know each other and become friends (a bit of a stretch, but the possibility would be there, and it was featured in quite a lot of fantasy literature).
Yeah! Exactly! I'm all excited about the different types of stories that can be told with this system, which seems like a solid mechanic unto itself. I'm also excited because it was mentioned that "spies" would be a viable option, so I'm looking forward to stories where a ne'er-do-well infiltrates a Good settlement and slowly finds his admiration growing for the spied-upon parties. Does he warn his new friends about the impending attack? Does he quit the mission due to conflicting interests? Will his new friends still accept him if they find out he's been working under false pretenses?
Or a Good or Lawful spy going undercover in Thornwatch, cozying up to notorious murderers and thieves, but finding one guy who just joined that faction because it was what his friends were playing, and his heart isn't really in it. Does the spy risk blowing her cover to save this reluctant villain from a life of crime? Does she secretly come to enjoy the thrill of banditry, and find ways to put off returning to her old life?
I am a huge RP dork, and I'm just speculating, but it's still fun to imagine what scenarios other people will dream up. (Probably something less cliched than my examples... ^_^;; )
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would like to see this myself. Players 'entering' a Faction and then working from within as a Spy.
Imagine a tavern owner in the Bandit town, quite, unassuming, doesn't make a fuss when the Bandits (PCs, NPCs) brawl and break his furniture .... and has a basement containing the kegs in which he stores his brews.
One of those giant kegs is false, containing a door that has been painstakingly dug out of the solid rock by the owner and his employees to a small cave-system just outside of town, hidden behind some scrub they planted there.
On the eve of the planned raid on the Bandit Town, the Tavern Owner unlocks the door and the Hellknights sneak into the tavern, and from there work their way into other safe-houses scattered through-out the city.
And then the Raid begins ... all the Guards on the Walls mean jack when the opposing team is already inside.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... what will we expect to see from the fast travel system? Will it completely ruin the immersion of having a large and persistent world and discourage exploration?
I've never before bought the argument that Fast Travel ruins immersion. However, in a system like PFO, where we are the content, it's a totally different ballgame. I don't see a way around requiring us to actually travel through dangerous areas to reap the rewards of moving goods from one island of civilization to the next.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Will there be merits based on how many you've murdered/how many death you've experienced which allow the players to loot/preserve (higher) x percentage of items?
I hope not, since this would just lead to the kind of bizarre behavior meta-gaming that the Skill Progression System is meant to avoid in the first place.
Also, can players have "traps" that would trigger when someone searches their dead bodies, such as explosives in fragile containers that may explode upon touches.
Fantastic! Yes, please let us place traps out in the wild, and appropriate bait, too!
If a player in a party murders your character, can you put bounties against all of the party member or just the one who deal damage? -omitted, missed that part about buffing - What about party that has member who doesn't listen to other players and simply wants mischief, went on killing other players. Will this cause the rest of the party members as guilty?
I believe the other party members have to do something actively, and acknowledge the warning that what they're doing will flag them as a murderer. Ryan was very clear that you wouldn't "accidentally" be flagged a murderer.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like the Bounty mechanic...
I do too, but I'm worried about griefers using non-murder griefing techniques to taunt other players into killing them to get them to go away, and then putting endless bounties on the players they were griefing.
I would really like to have a discussion on the pros and cons of having a system whereby I can Challenge a player to leave the immediate vicinity (maybe even the hex) and if they don't, I could kill them without being flagged a murderer. Are there drawbacks to this that I'm not seeing?
... there should be a way for the player that created the bounty to call it off if the culprit try to make amend for his crime.
I'm not sure that's really necessary, since the player can already simply refuse to re-up the bounty after the first kill. There's something I like about there being at least one death required once the bounty is placed. It also takes away the possibility that a player would be bullied, by threats of future violence, if they don't withdraw the bounty.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like the Bounty mechanic...I do too, but I'm worried about griefers using non-murder griefing techniques to taunt other players into killing them to get them to go away, and then putting endless bounties on the players they were griefing.
Well it is their money, odds are in your own territory/guild etc... There will likely be rules against killing fellow citizens/guildies for bounties placed by outsiders, and odds are someone trying to grief this way will not likely be including people of said territory in their allowed to collect bounty list anyway, as you would be able to fully abuse it yourself quite easily (toss your gear in storage, friend kill you, collect money, repeat). So the only ones you have to worry about going after this bounty, are likely the "griefers" own guild and fellow griefers, which would most likely have been an equal threat to you without the bounty in place (as the money is coming from the original guy anyway, he could have arranged a similar payment system without the bounties if it were worth the money to him).
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Goblin Squad Member
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... odds are someone trying to grief this way will not likely be including people of said territory in their allowed to collect bounty list... So the only ones you have to worry about going after this bounty, are likely the "griefers" own guild and fellow griefers, which would most likely have been an equal threat to you without the bounty in place...
That's a very compelling argument, but I worry about the bounty being assigned to one of the larger bounty-centric organizations that isn't my primary faction, but might be much closer to home than you allow for.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... odds are someone trying to grief this way will not likely be including people of said territory in their allowed to collect bounty list... So the only ones you have to worry about going after this bounty, are likely the "griefers" own guild and fellow griefers, which would most likely have been an equal threat to you without the bounty in place...That's a very compelling argument, but I worry about the bounty being assigned to one of the larger bounty-centric organizations that isn't my primary faction, but might be much closer to home than you allow for.
True, though I suppose that is a matter of money etc... a bounty would have to be fairly high cost for an organization to consider it worth their time to hunt you down. As well I'm pretty sure that a bounty kill should still be valid for a counter bounty. I do think one of the main concepts of the game will be about diplomatic relations with your neighbors, which would include bounty hunters themselves. Perhaps the best response would be to cut a deal with said hunting organization. A merciless mindless group of bounty hunters, will likely find themselves quickly becoming the hunted, and demanded to be forced out of the area.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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So this is a bit of a tangent, but related to PvP. Will the only way to protect yourself from PvP be to be bigger, badder, stronger (or have a group of allies that in total is bigger, badder, stronger) than potential attackers/murderers/bandits? I'm hoping that stealth would also be an option. If you're a really stealthy ranger or rogue, etc. I'd hope that you can use those skills to avoid detection not only from NPCs, but from aggresive PCs.
Also, along those lines, what about disguises? If you could disguise yourself to appear either more powerful than you are, or poorer than you are, you might simply not appear to be worth attacking. What kind of information will you have about other PCs in the area/in your line of sight? Will you automatically see them and their names? What about armor and weapons, or "level badges" to get a sense of their power? I think this is a pretty significant piece to determining if you want to take the risk of attacking someone for their stuff.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So this is a bit of a tangent, but related to PvP. Will the only way to protect yourself from PvP be to be bigger, badder, stronger (or have a group of allies that in total is bigger, badder, stronger) than potential attackers/murderers/bandits? I'm hoping that stealth would also be an option. If you're a really stealthy ranger or rogue, etc. I'd hope that you can use those skills to avoid detection not only from NPCs, but from aggresive PCs.
Also, along those lines, what about disguises? If you could disguise yourself to appear either more powerful than you are, or poorer than you are, you might simply not appear to be worth attacking. What kind of information will you have about other PCs in the area/in your line of sight? Will you automatically see them and their names? What about armor and weapons, or "level badges" to get a sense of their power? I think this is a pretty significant piece to determining if you want to take the risk of attacking someone for their stuff.
Well no matter what stealth will likely be a benefit, though in some cases it could be completely impossible to do some things via stealth.
IE you can slip through dangerous lands most likely by taking an unexpected route, and there may be a stealth skill that permits some degree of avoidance if you are near someone, but sneaking with a giant wagon full of goods will be on the difficult side.
Disguise I really do hope they actually make disguise work that way, if you could forge membership of an enemy guild etc... I think that would create a whole new class of spies, that would make much better gameplay than just creating an alt to join enemy guild. Odds are they should immediately be able to know if you aren't really a member of their own guild (as there will almost certainly be a members list/guild chat), but if you spoof their allies, or their preffered bounty hunter/merchant alliance you may be able to pull a fast one on them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... I'm pretty sure that a bounty kill should still be valid for a counter bounty...
If you mean that I am flagged as a murderer and thus eligible to have a bounty placed on my head when I fulfill a bounty on another character, I highly doubt it will work that way.
I strongly suspect that fulfilling a bounty will not flag me as a murderer. And I don't believe I'll be subject to a bounty, at least under the rules discussed in the blog, if I'm not doing something that flags me as a murderer.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... I'm pretty sure that a bounty kill should still be valid for a counter bounty...If you mean that I am flagged as a murderer and thus eligible to have a bounty placed on my head when I fulfill a bounty on another character, I highly doubt it will work that way.
I strongly suspect that fulfilling a bounty will not flag me as a murderer. And I don't believe I'll be subject to a bounty, at least under the rules discussed in the blog, if I'm not doing something that flags me as a murderer.
True but I don't think the murderer flag stays forever, but from the sounds of it a bounty can be re-upped as long as the victim has money in his pockets... hmm... no idea how that one will work now that I think of it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think you could successfully compete head to head with WoW - role flexibility and good combat would be more than enough to distinguish PO from WoW.
It'll be interesting to see if Ryan responds to this directly.
While I agree that the role flexibility would be a great way to distinguish PFO from WoW, I don't think you're really considering the size of the investment they would have to make in order to create a game that could potentially capture WoW's target audience, and the incredibly high risk that their investment would not see anything remotely resembling a reasonable return.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan, your current target market may be fine and I certainly hope it is, but I think you could successfully compete head to head with WoW - role flexibility and good combat would be more than enough to distinguish PO from WoW.
Well I think there while you are right, you do also have to note that WoW is only the leader in a ludicriously saturated market of PVE theme park MMOs, and IMO WoW is only the leader due to timing, they hit gold, with the right theme and the right timing to draw in a huge fanbase at once, once it had that fanbase, it had the budget to keep them at which point no low/mid budget game will be able to quite keep up with it and no game with an appropriate budget to match it, will quite be able to break even in a timeframe any investor with an ounce of sanity would ever support.
As far as the flexibility and good combat, it would distinguish PFO from WoW, but not WoW, Guild wars, DDO, Lunia, everquest 2 (insert list of 200+ current PVE Theme park MMO's here). I believe that is why they are not competing in that arena, it isn't just that WoW has a solid stranglehold on a very large portion of the potential customers, it is that the remaining customers, are all split between literally hundreds of current MMOs fitting the standard PVE themepark format.
As a casual gamer what I'd like most in an MMO is a game where I can have solo activities when I don't feel social, can run with one or two of my RL friends in our own private dungeon when they are on-line, or can meet some new people if I'm feeling particularly outgoing. I don't want to be attacked by other players or have to attack other players to advance. I also don't want to be stuck in the kiddie pool just because I don't want to be attacked by other players. I want to fight the challenging monsters for big rewards (that I get to keep).
You may want to check out MMO site, there are no shortage of games out there that may be worth checking out that may be in line with your interests, many of which are f2p, most of which are very supportive of solo and small group play for 90% of them. For me that is actually my biggest hindrance to finding a game I like. Most games are hitting the solo angle so hard, that everyone is soloing and finding people to group with is extremely difficult.
Pathfinder Online could do this without losing the persistent world.
I can't think of anything left to be persistent in the themes you are describing. Instances that are limited to just you and your friends that reset as you leave (or at least have no effect on others), a lack of PVP means castles etc... will be more or less meaningless and may as well be their own instances that only you and your guild mates see (similar to DDO's airships).
While your views are appreciated, I'm pretty sure there are quite a few MMO's out that will meet your needs better, and if not I believe there should be another 10 coming out each month until one does match your tastes. The sandbox PVP genre on the other hand has nearly nothing to show for it, we have eve... and then a handful of games that were attempted but botched so badly at the core that they never went anywhere.
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I don't see any reason one can't solo this. just because others can kill you doesn't mean you can't explore without constantly running into PC enemies. You might even run into PC friends. When I played mabinogi I often helped or healed players who I found out in the wild that had gotten in over their heads.
Also it would be better if instead of ones inventory completly dissappearing when your corpse is looted, it should be that when someone looks they see all but can pick only a certain amount from your body, this allows for you to kill them and to retrieve something specific but it also allows for multiple people to loot a corpse(first come, first serve) yet when you return there might still be something left depending on how many got to your corpse before you returned.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't see any reason one can't solo this. just because others can kill you doesn't mean you can't explore without constantly running into PC enemies. You might even run into PC friends. When I played mabinogi I often helped or healed players who I found out in the wild that had gotten in over their heads.
Also it would be better if instead of ones inventory completly dissappearing when your corpse is looted, it should be that when someone looks they see all but can pick only a certain amount from your body, this allows for you to kill them and to retrieve something specific but it also allows for multiple people to loot a corpse(first come, first serve) yet when you return there might still be something left depending on how many got to your corpse before you returned.
Well IMO I think the ideas behind the looting are pretty straight foward
1. Keeping the consequences for death high but manageable. Too many games these days have death as a complete non-consequence.
2. Keeping the reward for PKing present but not huge.
The biggest thing this system does is it keeps it so that it costs enough that people will want revenge, and it is profitable, but it is not so profitable that you are gaining 3 hours worth of legitimate work per kill, but you may be costing it. This makes it so that killing needlessly will likely be frowned upon on a larger basis, and revenge etc.. over it will be more common, it prevents the WoW/RIFT style of issues where nothing is lost, and in rifts some things are gained.
As far as multiple people looting, to me that is counter intuitive. The higher the risk the higher the reward should be. A team of 5 people jumping 1 person would be a lower risk than being alone and jumping one person, but now the reward is equal for the killers when they massively reduce the risk.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... Too many games these days have death as a complete non-consequence.
I'm having fun playing SWTOR, but I have to admit the fact that I can just click a medical droid and not even have to run back to my corpse seems a bit much.
2. Keeping the reward for PKing present but not huge.
This is something it took me a while to process, but I think I'm finally there. It was hard for me to accept that the developers would actually want someone to occasionally gank me and take my stuff. But having tried to objectively assess the requirements of a game like this, I realize the absolute necessity of it.
The single most important thing to me in my ultimate MMO is Dynamic Content. That is, a changing world where I am not Sisyphus pushing the same rock up the same hill day after day in some Greek hell. The only cost-effective way to deliver Dynamic Content is to have the players themselves be the content.
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Goblin Squad Member
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But a reasonable alternative to truly dynamic content is so large a content pool that you could never get through it all.
Count me in! But can you even imagine the cost?
User contributed content could be produced at that rate (NW2) and be vetted cost effectively...
To me, this is the proverbial Holy Grail. I truly am hopeful that we will see, in the relatively near future, an evolution in the toolset required to create content for this type of game. And I'm hopeful that PFO will be a proving ground for that toolset to evolve. I've written elsewhere about this. Based on Paizo's history supporting smaller designer groups in creating adventures in Golarion for the tabletop, I believe there is a real opportunity for Goblinworks to provide those same designers, and others, with tools for creating Theme Park adventure packs in PFO. I see that as a viable route for developing the tools that will eventually find their way out to the community at large, and will eventually make it possible for sufficiently dedicated DMs to host their own private MMOs without them being hopelessly buggy or far too complex to create.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well in general in the wilderness you bring friends, you acknowledge that it is dangerous to go it alone, if not the bears than the other players that may be specifically attacking for it. From the sounds of it, near town in the lower/mid sec areas with marshals patrolling, there won't likely be much in the way of "Mother of all bears" type enemies, considering the safeish zones are considered low risk low reward in the ways of both monsters and players.Focusing on the extremes of my argument, especially the allegorical parts, to invalidate it doesn't really work. My point stands. If I can lose everything I've gathered by the actions of some other player, that's a nonstarter for me. It's even worse that the stuff they don't loot is destroyed. Now not only do not get it, the random jerk who looted me doesn't either.
You can't blog about people forming bounty hunter guilds in order to exploit an aspect of the game world and then pretend you didn't think through the implications of this too. People are going to form scavenging groups that do nothing but wander through areas and pick the corpses of players who die in PvE and PvP.
I can understand the urge to increase the consequences of death, but this is not the way to do it IMO. Corpse looting makes people unhappy. I don't even need to use MMOs as an example of this. How popular is the version of CCGs where the winner gets a random card of the losers? Answer: Not.
I think you are assuming that PFO will have a much greater emphasis on gear then it may actualy have...and that your gear will be permanent even without losing it on death.
It may be that gear is much closer to the way RTS style games treat it then the way something like WoW treats it.
I.E. you don't RAID/Grind for days to aquire your +57 Sword of Uberness that makes you 3 character levels better in combat. Instead you spend 20 minutes gathering resources/cash for your Quality Longbow who's only advantage range of 44 yds rather then 40 yds for the standard one you get for free....and it's expected that you may need to replace it after a week or so's use anyway.
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Goblin Squad Member
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will there be a place and playability for assassins?People who accept contracts to kill other characters for pay?
Oh yeah, there's a place for that.
Thank you, so very much.
Is there any info you can/are willing to provide on this front, especially with regards to the murder flag, Marshals, and managing to pull something like this off in a city? Or what kind of "special consequences" might happen, such as a Guild Leader is assassinated, sure he soulbinds, makes it back to his corpse in time, but loses the "Guild Leader" "title"?
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In the sandbox, YOU are the source of the loot drops that Themeparks provide via meaningless endlessly respawning non-persistent mobs.
I get this. I'm on board with the sustainability argument. I'm in favor of partial looting as well--full loot is a bad idea, and some winning/losing just makes sense.
Here's what doesn't make sense to me:
What makes all this effort and risk worthwhile? If you're involved in a territorial dispute, you want your opponents to suffer from the attack. Getting "Free stuff" from the husk doesn't do that. You want to deny them access to whatever the target was harvesting or transporting. If you're involved in economic warfare you want your to disrupt your adversary's logisitics chain - here you not only want your enemy to be denied access to the resources but you want to benefit by gaining them yourself. If you're just out for the lulz you're happy to get whatever you can get; the economic value isn't driving your actions anyway.
This isn't a win/lose scenario. This is the killer getting a win/win (win/win/win?) and the loser getting a lose/lose. From the loser's perspective, it might as well be full inventory loot. I would prefer if the winner got a win/meh and the loser got a lose/shrug. The obvious emergent behavior is that people won't carry inventory. But how does this affect the looting issue? You kill someone, they die, you loot them, you get nothing. They lose nothing. Win/meh, lose/shrug.
The only time this will ever change is when people go out to harvest materials. Which, given what we now know about pvp looting, will require a raid group. Because every time you go out to farm, the enemy will be waiting for you. They will do everything they can to make sure of this, because it's their only opportunity to gain anything from killing you, and the only persistent way they can hurt you.
So begin the 4 AM raids (reminiscent of the worst aspect of EQ). The only way to reliably farm in peace is to do it when almost no one else is online. Whoever is willing to farm at 4 AM will pull far, far ahead of everyone else in terms of wealth. Now you've made the leap from "mediumcore pvp game" to "hardcore 4 AM farming game."
Unless the enemy is also online at 4 AM, waiting for you. Now it's "super-hardcore 4 AM pvp game."
I get that this type of looting is designed to instigate pvp, but people will go far out of their way to avoid losses. This kind of behavior will make pvp rare, because people will actively avoid each other unless they have nothing to lose.
What Do You Get Out Of The Deal
You harvesters, crafters, and transporters? You're in business to provide consumables and durable goods to the characters who are out there fighting your opposite numbers in the other factions. The actions those folks are taking are generating the demand for what you're producing which allows you to sell it at a profit, and thus invest your profits into more harvesting, crafting and tranportation.
It's a virtuous cycle: The more PvP there is, the more need for PvE there is. And the more activity there is in between the PvE and the PvP, driving a vibrant exciting economy.
If people are actively avoiding pvp, they won't be experiencing the losses you anticipate. Or if they do, it will be in a cycle of long periods of stagnation and then sudden booms of loss and economic activity. This kind of cycle will extend the "4AM-ness" of the game into pve, because the people who are online at the time of the boom and are able to deliver the goods will make sweeping profits in a short time, leaving everyone else behind in the dust.
I Can't Stand The Idea That My Stuff Gets Taken Or Lost
Yup, I hear ya. Luckily, there are umpteen dozen themepark MMOs for you where you don't have to worry about it. We already know how those games develop: They have a big spike, a maximum level of success, then a collapse followed by server consolidation and a starvation of future development investment due to a failure to "compete" with World of Warcraft. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is one of the definitions of insanity.
The only way for Pathfinder Online to be successful is to carve out its own niche and be different from those umpteen dozen other games. This is one of the ways we're doing it. Pathfinder Online won't be all things to all people. Instead, it will be a great thing for the people who want what it is. And that thing includes a world where you will face consequences that are meaningful and persistent. It's not a place where you go just for easy fun and no stress. Instead, it's a virtual world that's going to be as meaningful to you as parts of your real life.
I know PFO needs to distinguish itself, but the little we know about the game so far makes it stand out. I know the game needs a goldsink to drive the economy, but there are other goldsinks.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So begin the 4 AM raids (reminiscent of the worst aspect of EQ). The only way to reliably farm in peace is to do it when almost no one else is online. Whoever is willing to farm at 4 AM will pull far, far ahead of everyone else in terms of wealth. Now you've made the leap from "mediumcore pvp game" to "hardcore 4 AM farming game."
NZ guilds for the win!
Anyways, Hudax has convinced me...it may not be exactly what he was suggesting but I agree with partial-random loot available to the winner, looser can recover the rest if they bother; win/meh, lose/shrug. But, we will see how the current method turns out.
Well, I am unhappily back in the probably-won't-play-this-now camp. If I can work for hours and hours to gather stuff, and then get killed by some random mob, and then some random guy wanders by, takes a random selection of my stuff and the rest is destroyed forever, what exactly is my incentive to gather stuff?
"You there, I need you to go and collect the 20 bear paws."
Several hours pass, many bears are killed, much loot is gained. On the way back to town, the Mother of All Bears descends upon me, enacting vengeance for her children slaughtered this day. I die (it's the Mother of All Bears people). Sir-Noob-Alot wanders by, sees my bear ravaged corpse, and decides to loot me.
"This guy had some great stuff, I can sell this for pretty decent cash!"
Now, not only am I out my loot, I'm out the quest items, and Sir-Noob-Alot has gained cash at my expense, without risking the Mother of All Bears? Thanks but no thanks.
Same here it also makes the game easier for griefers and such as well. People that just wait around for you to pull just a bit too much then they take your stuff and leave. It seriously screams that they are going to support PvP more than casual play with this type of set up and PvP is not something I like to do.
I also like solo play, playing at odd hours because of work means I don't always have access to a group to make sure some griefer does not take advantage of the fact I'm a tad bit more likely to die so he can get my stuff with out having to quest like I did.
The more I hear the more I'm finding out that my friends and I won't play this game, damn shame I love the concept of a Pathfinder MMO but not if it will be like this.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think GrumpyMel is right. The assumption here is that what you have on you is going to be painful to replace. It may be that most of the things we'd typically carry are fairly replaceable. This isn't to say that these items are worthless, but that they are readily accessible.
I didn't play EVE much, but I'm told that you didn't carry anything that you couldn't afford to replace. I believe this applied to both PVE and PVP, since my understanding was that ships were completely destroyed in both cases. The penalty is even less in PFO - we're only replacing whatever harvestables/loot we've picked up.
In an MMO today, there's often a repair fee when you die. What if the cost of replacing the loot/components you typically carry on you was no worse than paying that fee? I realize this is an oversimplification, but I suppose I'm just trying to suggest that this might sound worse on paper than it will be in practice.
Yes, there's risk. But the things we risk losing will probably be the product of minutes or hours worth of time, and not weeks/months/years.
I think this will encourage frequent trips to secure our items in safe areas, keeping cities and towns populated.
I'd personally like to see loot being more rare than in your average MMO. Make crafters build the bread and butter equipment, and have loot show up at the end of dungeons or particularly long questlines. Some loot is equipment in it of itself, and some are components for crafters. I hate getting a bunch of trash loot in SWTOR and LotRO that only serves to bog me down. But this is a somewhat separate issue.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thanks for the clarification on the blog post!
Why Partial Looting Is Necessary
Imagine that you have a chance, when you kill an opponent, to get a range of value from nothing to Wahoo! Wahoo! being potentially complete sets of gear, very valuable resources, maps, quest items, spell components, etc.
The folks who happen to get lucky in this scenario win lottery tickets. Their wealth jumps massively compared to their peers. For the same effort expended they get a disproportionate benefit vs. the average or the mean return. This is a problem that goes all the way back to the tabletop; if you let the PCs loot NPCs for all their gear they'll end up with way better stuff from killing NPCs than from anything else they do.
To manage the economy we want to see characters primarily advancing their wealth through effort and being clever, not through luck. Luck will play some role, but it should not be the decisive, overwhelming factor that separates the haves from the have-nots.
Random loot is a tool that we use from a game design perspective to limit the chances for lottery ticket wins.
I suppose now I don't understand why the NPC have such uber gear. I admit that my P&P campaigns are low-fantasy with lots of grittiness, but my players can always full loot. It is absurd to deny them the ability to grab stuff off a corpse that the pre-corpse was just using. Of course, armor is sized for individuals and require like sized pieces for individuals to wear...a 6'5" human is not about to take and put on the gear from a 5'5" elf...but weapons are fairly standard in size, and random non-wearable gear and resources are also not size dependent.
To me, it seems a bit absurd that some random roving NPC bandits are going to be carrying life altering wealth...and I am fairly sure few PCs will be either in a full PvP game.
Normally NPC have half of the PC wealth. Standard Pathfinder rules. And then they use it in combat, so generally some of it is consumed.
As my player like to say: "Stop him, he is drinking our potions." ;-)Then a lot of NPC are under geared for their level. Think about the city guards. If they are Warrior 2, would it be wise to have all of them in masterwork armour with masterwork weapons?
Or the burg Major. You (the GM) can make him a level 10 aristocrat because you want him to have a decent ST and some combat capability, but that don't mean that he need or should have +x weapon, armour, stat enhancing items and so on.
The sage your PC are consulting for informations can be a even worse case. He need a specific level to be capable to reply to your questions. But if he has " gear appropriate to his level" some player will simply see him as a golden egg goose.
So NPC tend to have the gear they need, not the gear dictated by their level.
In PFO it should work in a similar way. The NPC should generally drop only basic items: Higher level stuff should be a rare occurrence, with them dropping mostly components for crafting.
Slain PC dropping advanced loot is a must (for the kind of game that is in the making), but making so that most of it is lost (or at best replaced by damaged components) is necessary to keep the economy going.
I am already worried by the idea that part of your gear will always be safe. As things stand with what I have read so far (I haven't read all the thread) I am worried that weapons and defensive gear will never be lost. That will be a big problem for crafters.
The problem is this, you give griefers the opportunity they will take it. If PvP is the mainstay then casual players will suffer for it. Hate to say it the main reason for a good portion of changes to WoW were done because they bowed to the whims of PvP players and started to lose the casual players. They gave the ability for PvP players to kill things like Quest givers and such and it became a problem.
It seems to me that they are going make PvP very important which means you are going to have the types that go where low levels or new characters are and they will GANK them because it is fun take their crap and camp the zone because they can. Sorry but that is not fun to me.
I work hard get a decent item that I could either sell for a decent amount or actually use at a later level only to be killed by some griefer douche who then takes it from me. Sorry it does not seem to be a whole lot of "fun" to me.
Been there done that and it is not all that fun. If this game is going to be fun to me it needs to go by the "Don't be a Dick" rule, which means you have to make it hard for the griefers and realize not every body enjoys PvP.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Normally NPC have half of the PC wealth. Standard Pathfinder rules. And then they use it in combat, so generally some of it is consumed...
Ah, I have actually never looked at those rules (I also never bothered with the crafting rules). I did not realize this was the standard. As I mentioned I play a dirty low-fantasy type of campaign, so Masterwork gear (by definition the type of gear a Master would make) would not be wasted on anyone PC or NPC of low level. In fact, in my campaigns, it is the choices you make that make you heroes, not the pluses on your gear...a level 5 PC is equal in all ways that I am able to control...a level 5 NPC. My last adventure ended with me having a level 9 bard that uses all standard gear (except for a masterwork bow and masterwork leather armor on one arm), because that is the best he had access to or found in the adventures.
I do realize that I and my group are not following what is evidently the standard loot rules.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I Can't Stand The Idea That My Stuff Gets Taken Or Lost
Yup, I hear ya. Luckily, there are umpteen dozen themepark MMOs for you where you don't have to worry about it. We already know how those games develop: They have a big spike, a maximum level of success, then a collapse followed by server consolidation and a starvation of future development investment due to a failure to "compete" with World of Warcraft. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is one of the definitions of insanity.
While I can understand why you are doing this, unfortunately corpse looting / gear destruction means my interest in the game just died. I get my fun in games, at least when solo, from taking extreme amounts of risk; this obviously results in a copious amount of deaths. Thus, my play style is not really compatible with harsh death penalties; I end up enjoying better an average game with no death penalties than a really good one with harsh death penalties.
In my mind your position sum up to:
"I like to take extreme amounts of risks" "The risk I take should not have any consequence when I fail".That translate to:
"I don't want to take risks, I want hard fights without any consequence when I fail"
Fully acceptable as a game stile, we have all played games saving them before the hard battles, but it is not the philosophy that will shape PFO.
The idea is that in this game death will have consequences. You will have to adjust to the idea that a high risk is fighting a battle where you have a 10% chance of being killed, not one in which you will fail 9 times out of 10.
As losing will have consequences you will still be taking an "extreme amounts of risk". Simply it will not translate to a high number of no-consequence deaths, the risk will be that when you die the consequence will be there and it will be dire.
We need a way to safely store backup gear. My pen and paper players almost always have a few back up pieces of equipment at home to substitute their main gear if it get broken or is lost. I don't see why we can't do the same in PFO. Keep a our lesser gear in reserve at home, near our souldbond spot, and gather it when we need to replace what we have lost.
I think people are fixating on the idea that they will usually run around with the Sword of Gankbook, that can be only gained by killing Gankbook umpteenth times, until he drop it.
Instead (as far as I get it) we will be running around with the "+3 flaming sword that Joe Magesmith of Tornkeep has crafted for me". If I would lose the sword Joe will be still there and (for the appropriate sum of money or items) he will again craft the sword for me. And Joe will be another player, not a NPC fixture.
So our gear will be reasonably easy to replace as long as we have enough money.
Resource wise they should be dispersed and replaceable enough that losing what we have gathered will not break us. After all, how many tons of ore (or wood or other substances) we will be carrying around?
If someone were to block our access to a specific source of raw materials it should be possible to chose a second (or third, fourth and so on) location where it is possible to gather that material. They could be less convenient (further on from civilization, less rich or simply on the wrong side of the map from my starting location) but it should never be possible to completely block a kind of resource for being gathered be people outside a specific group (or at least it should require plenty of work on the side attempting to control the market of that resource).
The only point where I can agree with you is the loss critical of quest items, if there will be quest items at all in the game.
If some quest require to gather a specific item like "the tiara of queen Isolde" it should never be destroyed by looting.
I am a bit uncertain if it should be possible to loot it or not.
On one side the mechanic of buying back the item from the bandits or recovering it by force can be interesting, on the other hand it can generate a lot of griefing opportunities.
If the item could not be looted the looter should not even see the item and know that it exist or body camping will be a problem.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do have a question unrelated to the looting issue:
At what point is the "Criminal" flag raised?
If A attacks B in a (relatively) "safe" zone, is A automatically a criminal?
Can B defend himself from A without fear of being labeled a criminal?
What if B kills A after provocation - is B now a murderer who can have bounties put on his head by A?
Somewhat related - could we have nonlethal duels in "safe" zones to settle disputes?
Okay... I lied, I have many questions. I figure the answers to my first set should be that you're only a criminal once you actually kill someone, since if you fail to kill them it's sort of a no-harm-no-foul scenario. Self-defense should of course be an absolute defense to murdering someone.
And I would love to see nonlethal duels.