Goblin Squad Member
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@Onishi, Ryan has said the reason he wants characters to keep their weapon and armor is so they can still be somewhat effective when trying to get back to their husk. This means bandits will still be somewhat effective if that's all that they're wearing. Given that battles will mostly be decided by which side has greater numbers, I think it's safe to assume that bandits will choose to equip themselves in a way to minimize their losses and will choose prey that they believe they can defeat.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Onishi, Ryan has said the reason he wants characters to keep their weapon and armor is so they can still be somewhat effective when trying to get back to their husk. This means bandits will still be somewhat effective if that's all that they're wearing. Given that battles will mostly be decided by which side has greater numbers, I think it's safe to assume that bandits will choose to equip themselves in a way to minimize their losses and will choose prey that they believe they can defeat.
Still be effective enough to cut through or dodge NPCs (possibly strong and dangerous ones) to get to your husk. Which is a very different thing than being competent enough to lead any sort of offense in PVP against a character who is fully geared, and yes I do believe if they start getting the DaoC flaw of teams of 10 naked mages, killing and robbing with 0 risk, GW will need to quickly eliminate the possibility of 0 risk attacks. GW's seen it in eve, we know of it in DaoC, and I don't think it is particularly unpreventable, the consumable can be the larger portion of the weapon, common effects of other portions could lessen damage from other items etc...
Second, if gear is only moderately noticable... why will people be focusing on building up such an elaborate supply chain? Why waste time hunting dragons, why waste time building up etc.... Just focus on forming the biggest group you can and take them out.
Bottom line IMO, a well equiped group person, vs unequiped groups, should hold up in at least 3:1 possibly closer to 5:1 battles.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The intent of this system is to create a zone where an attack on a target may succeed... but the attacker will almost always be slain as well. At the edges of the security zone, it may be possible for a swift assault to destroy a target and still give the attackers time to flee before the marshals arrive. Those attackers will still be flagged as criminals, and they may also suffer alignment shifts as a result of their actions. There will be a cooldown timer imposed as well, and if the targets reenter the secured area during this time, the marshals will respond again. After the timer expires, the marshals will not respond to the reappearance of the target in their patrolled lands.
This looks to me like high/low/null security space from EVE online.
In EVE Online, pirates could control choke points to high-sec, killing everyone passing by. With a single scout in high-sec, they could also easily avoid fights with bigger fleets. And on top of that, they could totally live off NPC stations that they didn't need to fuel, maintain or protect. Being a pirate was low-risk and low-cost so we saw thousands of them.
In PFO, I would like to see a dynamic mechanism for security ratings. Say a bunch of pirates want to control an hex, they could achieve specific goals/requirements that would allow them to drop the security level, slowing down the marshall response. On the other hand, law enforcing players could achieve other goals/requirements to increase it.
That would give bandits something to defend, they would have to stand their ground if they don't want the marshalls in their way. They would still be able to gank noobs but if any organized force decides to fight back and get rid of them, they could.
I guess that system would take care of griefing problems without banning banditry as a valid play style. Bandits would have big drawbacks to fighting naked, whatever the looting mechanism ends up being. And overall, player interaction would increase.
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Its not about bandits, bandits actually try to achieve something for their character (usually getting booty) but rather it's to avoid greifers who aren't trying to achieve anything beyond causing other players problems.
Your idea is good but they still need to avoid zero cost attackers.
Nihimon, what did you think of my idea?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Nihimon, what did you think of my idea?
I'm not sure which idea you're talking about, but here goes...
I vote that gear takes a durability hit and you take a mana loss that can't be refreshed until a timer goes off, and a temporary neg level that can't be healed until the timer goes off.
I don't like any solution that takes players out of the action for a set amount of time. It's tempting to want to put in a Penalty Box, but that only works in the real world because the player being penalized is also being payed to play. In a situation where the player is paying to play, you can't expect them to keep paying when they're sitting in a Penalty Box.
I think there should be a cost, but it shouldn't be tied to wasting time.
I say each style has different types of expenses, melees spend large on initial equipment then spends low on maintianence, alchemists/disposable users spend medium but for each attack, mages have low equipment cost but must eat insane amounts of food to keep their energy up, etc.
they all spend on completly different things, yet they all have costs and without those costs being for the same dohickey by a different name.
The devil's in the details, but there's nothing that jumps out at me as bad.
Personally, I think I'd rather see each character spend roughly the same on gear and upkeep. The trick is finding reasonable ways to model the cost of upkeep.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I say each style has different types of expenses, melees spend large on initial equipment then spends low on maintianence, alchemists/disposable users spend medium but for each attack, mages have low equipment cost but must eat insane amounts of food to keep their energy up, etc.
they all spend on completly different things, yet they all have costs and without those costs being for the same dohickey by a different name.
Well I see a huge flaw to the concept of 1 huge upfront cost, vs regular maintnence... it's clearly cheaper to do the 1 upfront cost unless upgrades are frequent, with dozens of tiers continuing to move up. Once that is in... there is no fair way to balance a one time purchase with cheap upkeep, vs continual mid cost purchases when we are talking a multiple year timeline. even at a form where it is prohibitive to get it with less than a year's worth of work, it still comes out ahead in 2 years
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Frankly, that may be true but plenty of people go either way in paying real life bills for one, two it could be balanced compared to other aspects, you have to think of the whole concerning balance not just the one choice. Plenty would be on any side of the choices I presented.
You only considered the money in your analysis but you have to think of other things as well, money wise the wizard is cheapest of my options but it is the most limited, it has a set number of uses per time period, the fighter spends more but has near unlimited use per time period, the alchemist option has limited use but that scales with the money spent.
You don't need each individual part balanced among everybody, you just need the "total" to be about even, and since they are not paranoid about balance this becomes a great way to go, besides in real life people have different expenses by doing things in different ways, so why would they all flock to one method in a game, just don't OP one choice and you're good?
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Goblin Squad Member
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You only considered the money in your analysis but you have to think of other things as well, money wise the wizard is cheapest of my options but it is the most limited, it has a set number of uses per time period, the fighter spends more but has near unlimited use per time period, the alchemist option has limited use but that scales with the money spent.
Actually if you were paying attention, I was saying by that model, wizard was more expensive, assuming you are looking at the long run.
In my book up front one time costs, are virtually non-factors, sure it takes a month or 2 to get X, but then you've got X and are in the clear, for years. Now that can be made greater by stretching out the gear treadmill, which adds in its own issues. IE if the difference is small between each upgrade, than your fighter is going to go for one at the bottom, one maybe in the middle, and then save up for the best he can get that sets him for life. If the difference between each tier is larger... well now we are moving closer to the issue of each tier winning 80% of the time one gear tier below, 95% on 2 tiers, and 3 or more, well he should just stay out of the fight altogether as he'll have no meaningful impact.
One thing that to me is a plus, and to you seems to be a minus. Is characters not using the best they can all the time. To me the idea of people not wanting to overkill, the strategic choice of wanting to use just enough to be able to have an edge, but not risk above what is needed, is a good thing. More close fights, weaker armies having a shot at winning if they are underestimated etc... To me those are all huge pluses that make the game more exciting. The greatest humdrum in a game to me, is when you get things on farm status, IE you now are strong enough that you can clobber X every time etc... But when you throw in weapon + armor consumables, well bringing what will make it easier could nullify your profit margain, or worse a very good ambush by NPCs or PCs could cost you everything. In my view, characters that aren't at 100% most of the time, should lead to a much more exciting game, especially in cases of unpredictable enemy power.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the biggest issue the devs will have to deal with in this arena is figuring out how to impose a failure cost on bandits who aren't carrying anything. Otherwise, you'll have groups of bandits who aren't carrying anything at all, and who know they won't lose anything if they lose.Exactly.
They could design it such that the belt, gloves, boots, helm, rings, amulet, weapon consumables, etc. were a significant portion of your power, say 25-50%, so if you don't have anything on the line, you can also be pretty sure of being defeated without having a much larger group, but then when a character dies in the wilds and goes to retrieve the corpse, he/she will also have to be pretty cautious, lest the same creature kill him/her again.
So as long as they outnumber you they will still easily win? I was thinking nothing on the line vs. a ton on the line would equal more like 300-500%. Whatever the scale of gear cost vs. gear power in Darkfall is, is a good proportion. They got some things wrong but they were spot on with gear power vs. costs.
Remember, unlike WoW this isn't a one time investment. It is a continual cost. That balances it out a lot.
I think you are confusing pathfinder with world of warcraft....
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think you are confusing pathfinder with world of warcraft....
Obviously you aren't doing enough thinking then. I'm talking about meaningful gear loss which Is not a concept found in WoW.
In WoW when you grind a tier of gear you have it. Forever. You have to make repair costs on it, but it's only a small fraction of the value of the gear.
Incredibly powerful gear that can be lost is a concept found in EVE, Darkfall, Wurm, Mortal... but not WoW.
It's about economics not character strength. You don't grind raids week after week to get gear that will make you unstoppable forever more. You invest massive amounts of money in a set of gear that lasts until you go down in battle. Then it's over, and you make that investment again or you go back to cheaper gear.
This drives the economic engine of war and is something that IMO will be crucial to the success or this game's economic system. If powerful gear isn't worth the cost, people will not buy it. That means all people will need is mass produced cheap gear, or the chest slots and weapons which never have to be replaced. That hurts crafting, that hurts trade, and it makes combat less meaningful. It's an issue that has to be addressed one way or another so I'll pose it to you.
What would you propose to do to make drop-able equipment and consumables worth it? What system do you have that will keep making equipment a viable trade with demand enough to justify it?
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@ Onishi
Don't forget durability, fighters would have to replace things when the durability runs out, which leads to the idea of being about what equipment to use.
I don't like the ackward gear loss concept they are using for death right now, but I certainly don't mind needing to be careful with what equipment to use for each fight (though I would rather be able to make this choice out in the field, so I can spot an enemy, examine, then prepare for how I want to handle it. Going back to town means it could be gone when I return, not that I mind too much though).
The fighters "up front" cost is recurring but at larger intervals then the others, thus larger cost when they do.
Throw all the wrinkles you like, and I will solve them without doing the ridiculous stuff (It's good exercise for me, and leads to better more solid concepts.)
Right now my idea for durability is that the durability goes down with use, and the max durability goes down when repaired, the lower durability had gone before repair = the more the max durability reduces, thus it better to constantly repair it rather then wait. And repairing costs money.
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Goblin Squad Member
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How about something like losing 5% of your gold, 90% of the time and the other 10% losing a random inventory item?
It's enough to fear death but doesn't punish too badly. I don't think you the punishment can be too dire in an online game for the mere reason that DC's happen. It sucks to lose your 100k gold item every time the lights go out.
What I meant is that is a roleplay game and not a videogame. For what concernes me, dying is one of the way a character can go out of scene: they can retire, become a landlord or a merchant or whatever, or die... There is no cartoon style ghost walking from respawn point to claim the corpse, recovering gold and items; your group might want to resurrect you and keep your stuff for you, not that is easy to resurrect someone.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What I meant is that is a roleplay game and not a videogame. For what concernes me, dying is one of the way a character can go out of scene: they can retire, become a landlord or a merchant or whatever, or die... There is no cartoon style ghost walking from respawn point to claim the corpse, recovering gold and items; your group might want to resurrect you and keep your stuff for you, not that is easy to resurrect someone.
This is an open world PVP game. EVERYONE will die. A lot. Dying will not be a major part of a characters story unless someone chooses to make it so. The game mechanics should assume players only see death as minor setback because 99.99999% of the time that will be the case. Accurate role play? No. True to the tabletop? No. Necessary for this game's concept to work and what the developers allude to every time they talk about death? Yes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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How about something like losing 5% of your gold, 90% of the time and the other 10% losing a random inventory item?
It's enough to fear death but doesn't punish too badly. I don't think you the punishment can be too dire in an online game for the mere reason that DC's happen. It sucks to lose your 100k gold item every time the lights go out.
I'm still strongly against it, under the entire grounds that I'm pretty certain the entire idea is not to have everyone decked out in top of the line gear all the time. The actual benefits to people not being decked out all the time are huge, both for PVP and PVE.
When people are decked out in the best they have, either 1. The goals of obtaining things are negligable and not worth the time, or 2. There is a huge power level difference.
In PVE that leads to mass segrigation, the reason why in WoW, You've got your 1-10 zone, your 11-20 zone, etc... etc... Your friends are ahead of you... well you either have to catch up, or just not team up with them ever, the lowbie game, mid game, and high game, and end game are entirely different games.
PVP, the difference is even greater, lowbies are just speed bumps, essentially no point in even showing up in war.
Bottom line is the more often gear is lost, the better, people work to have enough for spares etc... you don't deck yourself in armor unless you have enough to buy 5 sets, so essentially you split it up.
Now durrability can also accomplish it, which I also am OK with on the whole, but the difficulty of it, as well as the general hopelessness of it. Lacking the ability to possibly mitigate the loss with skill, luck, planning etc... does make it a bit worse to me.
Edit:
Oh I also forgot on the attacker side of things... if the probable reward of money... which should be worth more
A. The team who just spent all of his money, making the most deadly suit of armor money could buy.
B. The group in excessively weak armor, crappy weaponry because they are saving up and waiting for a better suit of armor.
Now keeping risk/reward balance in check... A is clearly higher risk. If the reward is 5% of their gold... it's a pretty crappy negligable reward... not to mention it could be entirely negated by mules... After all why carry gold out to slay a dragon, leave that with your friend who's staying safe in high sec territory, now you only have a 10% chance of losing anything...
While adventurers B. shouldn't be worth crap, they have crap, they own crap, but perhaps they were too inexperienced to think of leaving all of their money with a friend or back in their settlement etc... So for a bandit, the lower risk generally would equal higher chance of goods.... which is entirely backwards and actually encourages preying on those least capable of defending.
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Goblin Squad Member
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lI'm still strongly against it, under the entire grounds that I'm pretty certain the entire idea is not to have everyone decked out in top of the line gear all the time.
That is exactly what I am thinking of as well. The gear someone uses for gathering herbs and hanging around town will be cheaper than the gear used for hunting orcs, exploring, or patrolling their territory. And all of that will be cheaper than the gear used for guarding major trade convoys, slaying dragons, or in a battle which decides the ownership of a hex. Smart players will have trash gear, general gear, and the gear they pull out when winning is very important.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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If gathering and scouting for materials is as extensive a gameplay element as PvP combat, I think that a top-end set of gathering equipment and abilities should be roughly as difficult to obtain as the PvP equivalent. Likewise for crafting and bulk hauling if those are intended to be major axes of gameplay and strategy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If gathering and scouting for materials is as extensive a gameplay element as PvP combat, I think that a top-end set of gathering equipment and abilities should be roughly as difficult to obtain as the PvP equivalent. Likewise for crafting and bulk hauling if those are intended to be major axes of gameplay and strategy.
I don't anticipate there will be crafting or gathering gear so much as gear of various strengths, and the players chooses what strength they want based on how effective they want to be if attacked. I know when I am gathering I will make frequent trips to somewhere those resources can be hidden or safely stored, and probably carry nothing but a simple weapon and my tools. If you wanted to put on your masterworked adamantine gear or robes of compete incineration that is your choice.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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If gathering and scouting for materials is as extensive a gameplay element as PvP combat, I think that a top-end set of gathering equipment and abilities should be roughly as difficult to obtain as the PvP equivalent. Likewise for crafting and bulk hauling if those are intended to be major axes of gameplay and strategy.I don't anticipate there will be crafting or gathering gear so much as gear of various strengths, and the players chooses what strength they want based on how effective they want to be if attacked. I know when I am gathering I will make frequent trips to somewhere those resources can be hidden or safely stored, and probably carry nothing but a simple weapon and my tools. If you wanted to put on your masterworked adamantine gear or robes of compete incineration that is your choice.
You have me wrong- I think that gearing up to perform top-tier gathering needs to be exclusive with gearing up for top-tier PvP. You can wear your adamantine robes, gloves, socks, and helmet to gather if you want, but you won't be particularly effective while doing so.
Or, phrased differently: A naked gatherer should be as effective at gathering as a naked combatant is at fighting. Part of the cost of materials is the risk that the gatherer is taking.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You have me wrong- I think that gearing up to perform top-tier gathering needs to be exclusive with gearing up for top-tier PvP. You can wear your adamantine robes, gloves, socks, and helmet to gather if you want, but you won't be particularly effective while doing so.
Or, phrased differently: A naked gatherer should be as effective at gathering as a naked combatant is at fighting. Part of the cost of materials is the risk that the gatherer is taking.
Ah. I would think if things are done that way high end gatherer gear should be equivalent to medium grade combat gear, AKA the most commonly used grade of gear. ( I say combat gear because I oppose the idea of PVP and PVE gear)
This is assuming that all gathering tasks are not performed by camps.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You have me wrong- I think that gearing up to perform top-tier gathering needs to be exclusive with gearing up for top-tier PvP. You can wear your adamantine robes, gloves, socks, and helmet to gather if you want, but you won't be particularly effective while doing so.
Or, phrased differently: A naked gatherer should be as effective at gathering as a naked combatant is at fighting. Part of the cost of materials is the risk that the gatherer is taking.
Ah. I would think if things are done that way high end gatherer gear should be equivalent to medium grade combat gear, AKA the most commonly used grade of gear. ( I say combat gear because I oppose the idea of PVP and PVE gear)
This is assuming that all gathering tasks are not performed by camps, because otherwise camps and labor would be the big investment.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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If the top end of gathering-focused equipment is equivalent to the standard combat equipment, what do even the riskiest poachers have to lose?
I'm more strongly opposed to the same set of equipment being ideal for every combat situation, and then trying to balance that out with production costs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If the top end of gathering-focused equipment is equivalent to the standard combat equipment, what do even the riskiest poachers have to lose?
I'm more strongly opposed to the same set of equipment being ideal for every combat situation, and then trying to balance that out with production costs.
Fully agreed, I personally would like to see foremans outfits of some sort for managing the npc harvesters etc... Though admitted I am a bit less concerned on harvesting, simply due to the large bullseye, and the fact that the wagons headed back will certainly have a large bullseye planted on them. Even if harvesters are carrying notable gear going out, were I a bandit, I'd stay hidden and let them walk right past me... Odds are the same people, with the same gear, will be rolling past going the other way, but with a wagon full of harvested goods.
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Goblin Squad Member
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How about something like losing 5% of your gold, 90% of the time and the other 10% losing a random inventory item?
I find it easier to come up with solutions when the problem is clearly defined. So, in my opinion...
The Problem is if bandits have no risk in their risk/reward calculations. That is, if they can equip themselves in such a way that they are still effective, but have no possibility of losing anything of value.
Stated that way, several things come into focus for me:
1. It's very likely that bandits will simply not be effective if they don't have things like "R=ings, cloaks, belts, gloves, headgear, boots, potions, scrolls, wondrous items, etc." (see Ryan's post on looting)
2. There might be other ways of making characters less effective after they've been killed, such as long-term, high-powered buffs that have a significant cost to cast and must be recast after death.
3. There might be a simple durability cost that gets imposed on all gear that isn't destroyed, which forces the defeated to either pay a repair cost or risk breaking their gear if they die a second time.
I have a feeling #1 will be sufficient to impose the kinds of costs I've been asking for.
I'm glad I made the effort to state the problem as clearly as I could. Doing so helped me see that it's probably not a problem at all.
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Goblin Squad Member
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1. It's very likely that bandits will simply not be effective if they don't have things like "R=ings, cloaks, belts, gloves, headgear, boots, potions, scrolls, wondrous items, etc." (see Ryan's post on looting)
My initial problem with #1 is purely superficial. As Alexander pointed out on the first page, not crafting breastplates, greaves, and swords very often is different than what we are used to in a fantasy RPG, and is potentially 'less cool.' Who wants to be a do-hickey crafter instead of a swordsmith? I really don't care too much about this either way, but I thought it was an interesting perspective and wanted to see if there were many others that felt the same.
My second problem with #1 is that if it makes players ineffective without those items, then it makes retrieving your corpse much more difficult. This is fine for me; I played EQ for a long time, after all. It could be a significant barrier to newcomers enjoying their start in PFO, however.
I suggested a durability-like system where gear could become 'damaged' and then 'broken' when used/on death to address both of these issues (see posts above). With such a system where even protected equipment could be damaged, you could allow these sorts of hypothetical bandits to be effective (though still less so) but also make any PvE/PvP action dreamed up by a player have some cost.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My second problem with #1 is that if it makes players ineffective without those items, then it makes retrieving your corpse much more difficult. This is fine for me; I played EQ for a long time, after all. It could be a significant barrier to newcomers enjoying their start in PFO, however.
I suggested a durability-like system where gear could become 'damaged' and then 'broken' when used/on death to address both of these issues (see posts above). With such a system where even protected equipment could be damaged, you could allow these sorts of hypothetical bandits to be effective (though still less so) but also make any PvE/PvP action dreamed up by a player have some cost.
I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of the durability loss methods, in fact prior to the clarifications of what is lost on death (back when it was assumed that anything that was currently equiped was exempt) I had a pretty detailed concept of a way to do equipment loss
but I have still found a lack of solid methods to deal with 1 key portion.
1. What do bandits take? If it is money what is to stop you from unloading all of your cash before entering a dangerous zone? Essentially rendering the bandit proffesion nul and void. Via gear loss with gear having a large impact on your capabilities in the fight, your effectiveness is directly proportional to what you lose when you fail.
As far as the corpse run, I think the biggest mis-assumption, is that your corpse run involves killing everything between you and your corpse... It is a run, and odds are at least one or 2 people in your team are also going to be rushing back to try and meet you in the middle (assuming of course that you are the person with resurrection magic who died, if not well the person with resurection capabilities is alive, well then the whole corpse run is a null point). I think the majority of the panic, is revolved around people imagining going into dangerous areas alone... Which IMO is and should be treated as a very large and usually unwise gamble.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the majority of the panic, is revolved around people imagining going into dangerous areas alone...
Not for me. My main concern is ensuring that there's some risk for the bandits who already will have the element of surprise, and the option to engage or not engage. Bandits will probably be focusing on attacking trade caravans and harvesting operations, rather than attacking adventurers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think we have a pretty good idea of what can be taken. I'm pretty sure that coin can not be taken on death, though I could be wrong on that; that discussion took place a long time ago.
We know that the looting player will get a random item from the player's inventory, and the rest of the inventory will be destroyed. We also know that bandits can take items being hauled in a caravan (wagons full of goods? pack horses?). These will likely be the main targets of organized banditry, as there is a much higher reward.
I see a possibility that the devs will make it so they get 'a few' random items from a corpse.
Corpse Runs
As far as corpse running is concerned, I have a lot of familiarity with it. A good amount of the time, I could run straight to it easily and not worry about the mobs in the way. Most of the time, I could reach it so long as I had good experience with avoiding mob aggro and knew where mobs were positioned, where they would move to, and what I had to look out for. Sometimes, I found myself in a situation where retrieving my corpse took many attempts; sometimes days, sometimes never.
Some classes were easier to corpse-run with: Classes that could buff movespeed, stealth/invisibility, high hitpoints, crowd control, pet companions, monks, and casters (sometimes).
If the gear not lost on death like weapons, chest armor, and leg armor (maybe vambraces? shoulderguards?) is the majority of 'effectiveness,' then there is a lot less chance of dying multiple times trying to reach your corpse or your party. If they are only 10-50% of 'effectiveness,' more situations will be put in the final category of corpse run situations, instead of the first two.
Now that I've laid all that out, I will concede that corpses will have a much lower value in PFO than they did in EQ, most of the time. It is only when heading back to a settlement to unload our wares that we might be so interested in our corpse that we will risk dying many more times to get to our first, goods-laden corpse.
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If the current system as explained by Ryan does make the gear that is lost on death 50-90% of a character's effectiveness, I do believe that it is a robust system that accomplishes many goals. I'm not sure that is what he envisions, though, as that would mean that after a PvP death, whether in a small skirmish or a full-out battle in a war, players would have to go buy replacement gear or go to their storage to get replacement gear before they could hurry back to the fight.
Then again, we already know that large-scale battles will be fought by units, which will likely slow down the pace of warfighting anyway, as it takes time to organize people into formation. So maybe the devs aren't too concerned with that adding even more time for soldiers to effectively reinforce their armies.
TL;DR
If the gear that you lose on death is a significant portion of a character's effectiveness, it should be changed in the opposite direction and then combined with a durability-like system. Otherwise, it should just be combined with a durability-like system. I think we could accomplish the same goals, lower the difficulty of corpse runs, and decrease the time it takes to get back into PvE and PvP fights.
Open question: What value do you put on these goals? Is it worth the development time?
Personally, I don't mind being a do-hickey crafter (too much), I don't mind difficult corpse runs, and I don't mind slower-paced battles. I'm more-or-less playing devil's advocate because I think these could be concerns shared by others on these forums and especially other prospective players in the wider audience that PFO could capture.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If the top end of gathering-focused equipment is equivalent to the standard combat equipment, what do even the riskiest poachers have to lose?
I'm more strongly opposed to the same set of equipment being ideal for every combat situation, and then trying to balance that out with production costs.
Because I would envision the strongest combat gear in the game to represent the profits of a week or more of active play for most players, and standard combat gear to be more representative of 15 min - 1 hour (I don't know about you but I call the loss of 15 min - 1 hour or my time a meaningful loss).
Top of the line combat gear should be something only a madman or someone with more wealth than God would pull out unless it is a situation where victory is of incredible importance, such as a battle deciding the ownership of a settlement, or to guard a wagon loaded with highly expensive goods.
Not something they wear when going out to kill some monsters for profit, which is what gathering would be more comparable to. To draw another EVE comparison it's like battleship vs. hulk in EVE (Commonly used but fairly expensive combat vessel vs. most expensive gathering equipment which is roughly the same price.) as opposed to mothership or titan vs. hulk (Highly expensive ships generally only seen in major battles that cost many times as much as a hulk.)
If you make gathering equipment of that price, it won't be used unless the player is surrounded by a friendly military and 30 seconds away from where they can stash it. Even hulks are only used inside territory controlled by friendlies, and docked the minute someone unknown comes into the system. It simply will not be used for poaching by sane individuals, and if you make it a requirement, you will simply turn people off to this game.
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I don't like getting a random item from someone you killed. If I can't have everything, at least let me choose.
Also the durability system should be used because then everyone is replaceing gear not just the people that die. And using the durability system means they don't need to make everything dissappear when you die, yes I like your pack being let behind, but if I come out wearing a chain shirt then I should be fully dressed (running around pantsless is creepy)
Using the durability system and keeping equipped gear and picking up whatever wasn't stolen even if someone looted your corpse gives the illusion of permanent items while still making item loss a major drain and means that I can a master swordcrafter (because I have no desire to make dohickeys)
Me I am fine with needing to replace things when they get old but the idea that things go poof! disterbs me greatly.
If someone loots my corpse full of stuff but only one item was important to me (because it was the last I needed for a project) so I want to go get it back from the guy who took it rather then spend another week searching for it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm just going to say this since I don't believe I have before on these forums. I never really considered that this subject may be up for debate.
I favor a full drop, full loot system. Having used it in several games before I can say it is not as bad to lose all your gear as people coming from gear- centric theme parks would assume. Everyone is subject to the same gear loss. You just learn to use what you can afford to replace rather than the absolute best you can afford period. You learn when to fight, and when to run. If you pair this with a meaningful item decay system the loss of gear doesn't sting so badly.
It's a different mentality but it is one I find highly enjoyable once you've adjusted to it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't like getting a random item from someone you killed. If I can't have everything, at least let me choose.
If someone loots my corpse full of stuff but only one item was important to me (because it was the last I needed for a project) so I want to go get it back from the guy who took it rather then spend another week searching for it.
IMO I believe that is the entire point, the valuble items, need to go out of the economy, frequently, to make room for more to be crafted. The better the item, the more valuble to the economy of the game as a whole as it remains increasingly scarce.
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Goblin Squad Member
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IMO I believe that is the entire point, the valuble items, need to go out of the economy, frequently, to make room for more to be crafted. The better the item, the more valuble to the economy of the game as a whole as it remains increasingly scarce.
While I'm not opposed to death as the system that removes items from the game, decay through usage is always a perfectly viable option as well. EVE does death, Darkfall does decay, and they both work.
I will add that death seems to sting more in EVE, and I find it is more costly/ time consuming to outfit yourself as a ship can theoretically last forever. In Darkfall items circulate quickly and it is easier to gear up / less stinging when you die as gear is not expected to last longer than a couple hours of combat for anyone.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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It sounds obvious, but every time a player makes a PvP kill a player takes a PvP loss. Major penalties, either in coin or in open-market equipment, favor those who suffer them the least: the losers get weaker and the winners stronger.
No-drop death brings a different set of problems, and compromise positions have all of the drawbacks of the two extremes without significantly changing them.
It's most vitally important that the same system be used to design every aspect of the game as is implemented. That means an early commitment to a basic concept, since so much needs to take that decision into account.
I don't even have a real preference about what it is, only that everything be consistent.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It sounds obvious, but every time a player makes a PvP kill a player takes a PvP loss. Major penalties, either in coin or in open-market equipment, favor those who suffer them the least: the losers get weaker and the winners stronger.
Agreed to an extent, but also with a counter point, deaths are inevitable to both sides. Numbers etc... can overwhelm wealth and odds (Note I am not talking naked attackers, rather people in cheaper gear), while when winning the rich do get richer, and they have better odds, when they lose, they lose more. The rich will rarely ever use their full potential, but the poor might actually find it worth it to bet the farm and actually wind up with a gear advantage over the rich.
For simplicity we'll use numbers here, 1 being dirt cheap, 10 being the best you can possibly use.
The strong currently have potential for gear up to 5,
The weak only up to 4.
The strong assume that the weak only go up to 2, they prep gear at 3 to minimize losses, (as even if they win, a no casualty win is almost implausible). So, the weak actually going for bust, have a gear advantage in this scenerio
Second thing to factor in, is even with the strong, they take heavy losses in battle... The strong aren't likely to remain going against the weak nonstop, sooner or later they are going to get into a battle with a similarly strong group... at which point both sides are going to knock each other down a peg or 2 in the battle. Possibly into reach of the weak.
The thing with 80% of the loot being completely destroyed, the strong don't get much stronger when they pummel the weak. Actually with less than 5:1 kill/death ratios, they still lose more than they gain, and that's against an equally geared opponent, if their opponents gear is worth half as much, well then 10:1 is needed etc...
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Goblin Squad Member
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... the losers get weaker and the winners stronger.
I'm not sure that's really the way it will work. I can easily see a dynamic where the losers go back to town to re-equip themselves in their "now you're in for it" gear, and go back to take on the previous winners, recover their goods and/or burn down the bandits' Hideouts.
Granted, we won't really know how viable this is until we're actually playing in-game. But I don't think it will be a ratchet, where each loss makes the next success more difficult.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The strong getting stronger is just something that has to be accepted. With gear loss and and decay the strength they gain is subject to loss at any point.
One thing I can gaurantee is no one group will stay decidedly on top for long. I know this the hard way. On our Freelancer sever Great Legionnaires and The Lord Clan were the most powerful groups. We started as rivals but I knew that if we allied we would be unstoppable. Eventually I succeeded in securing an alliance not only with Lord but a powerful faction on the rise named Freelancer Nation. And we were soon joined by an old ally of GL's named Delta Core, creating an alliance known as The Great Alliance. We were so powerful there were people calling on the admins to force us to break apart, and the few clans willing to fight us were all quickly and soundly defeated. The rest of the server was unwilling to unite against us as we were good aligned, and didn't oppress them.
Eventually our own success killed us. Boredom was our greatest enemy. Freelancer Nation got tired of having nobody to fight so they cooked up some false charges against Lord and the GA tore itself apart.
So no one kingdom will reign too long.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Gosh, I really thought Nihimon would have chimed in by now with some quotes about gear loss from the initial discussions several months ago... Where is that guy when you need him? This is no time to take a vacation! =P
Hmm, I'll try to find something.
PS - Happy Thanksgiving weekend, everybody
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ok, from To Live and Die in the River Kingdoms:
Your character will re-enter play at the soulbinding point holding and wearing whatever gear they had equipped when they died, so you won't have to start without your armor, or the weapons, wands, or staves you were using. However, until you return to your husk, you are in danger of losing the rest of your inventory. If you get to your husk before anyone else, you'll be able to get all your stuff back. However, if another player finds your husk before you do, they'll be able to loot it. They won't recover everything that you had in your inventory—just a random selection—but the rest of your inventory will be destroyed and removed from the game. If you die surrounded by allies, they can't just pick up all of your equipment for you, as doing so would cause some of it to be removed from the game, but your allies could attempt to defend your husk until you return to it, so that you lose nothing but travel time.
There is some incentive to strike down other players within this system, but it doesn't reward attackers with the full value of the defender's inventory. And it gives the chance of fully recouping all of their inventory to characters killed in player-vs-environment (PvE) encounters and characters with strong allies.
And a portion of a post by Ryan from the thread of the blog post:
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.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.
And another portion from that thread:
Will some powerful items be exempt from potential destructionAlmost certainly.
Will coinage be conservedYes, coins are virtual and aren't actual items.
Will there be an option for storing things you own, like a safe deposit box?You'll have storage that's perfectly secure. You may be able to create ad hoc storage in the wilderness but it will not be perfectly secure.
I just thought I'd post all that here just as a refresher. Note that in reference to money, Ryan does not state whether it will be looted or not, just that it won't be destroyed. I was looking for the discussion where we got into that more but couldn't find it, and I can't remember if Ryan ended up posting about it or not anyway.
Keep in mind this info is almost a year old, and so may have changed now that people are at work fleshing out these ideas.
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IMO I believe that is the entire point, the valuble items, need to go out of the economy, frequently, to make room for more to be crafted. The better the item, the more valuble to the economy of the game as a whole as it remains increasingly scarce.I don't like getting a random item from someone you killed. If I can't have everything, at least let me choose.
If someone loots my corpse full of stuff but only one item was important to me (because it was the last I needed for a project) so I want to go get it back from the guy who took it rather then spend another week searching for it.
I'm not refering to worn combat equipment, I'm talking about materials or a special item I made for someone, etc.
If I spend a week to find a flawless diamond I need to finish a masterwork sword, then Some bandit kills me, I should be able to recover it from either my corpse or the bandit (once I kill him). Yes it should apply to everything since that masterwork sword just might need delivery to the customer, but it seems ridiculous that death leaves no recourse to recover something specific other then to start from scratch. That is my biggest problem with stated intentions, I don't really like the whole thing anyway but the other problems I have with it are minor enough for me to accept with only a little grumbling.
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No-drop death brings a different set of problems, and compromise positions have all of the drawbacks of the two extremes without significantly changing them.
It's most vitally important that the same system be used to design every aspect of the game as is implemented. That means an early commitment to a basic concept, since so much needs to take that decision into account.
I don't even have a real preference about what it is, only that everything be consistent.
This I agree with except I very much prefer item decay rather then destroy on loot (note that is not the same as no-drop death).
If items are going to be destroyed by decay they should be permanent until that point except for very special cases, like having fallen irretrievably into the bottem of an abyss, etc
Let them loot the bag I leave behind but leave whatever is not looted, so that it can either be looted by someone else or retrieved by me. Though a timer till it dissappears is fine, if I log out after dieing before I retrieve my stuff then I shouldn't expect to be there anyway.