|
5 people marked this as a favorite.
|
I'm concerned somewhat about difference between in-game mechanics and actions of player-controlled characters. In most MMO games (not only theme park ones) devs provide rich, colorful and distinct background – and then players came and start to do it their way. You know all these “our guild had Sauron on farm” (LotRO), “LFG BT palatank”, alliance assault on the guards at Crossroads in Barrens (WoW), amarr player camps at minmatar noob systems, camping would-be fighters of faction warfare (EVE). This not only breaks immersion – this defiles inner logic of the world, and players must separate two pictures – background and their own interaction with the world, just to be effective, to have fun, to keep opace with other players.
PFO (if it succeed) will set new standard for a MMO genre. Some of the features of new game will be working alignment system, rich player interaction and player-build in-game situation. In a couple of last months, when I heard about PFO, I got the feeling that devs will implement most good ideas similar to my thought about “better” MMO games for a last 3-4 years. That's good (IMNSHO). But I want to propose some details about intertwining game mechanics and actual gameplay.
Switching action bars.
Why not to implement several action bars and switch them automatically or manually? One bar for
combat, automatically active in open PvP zones (heroes with weapons in hands, crouching in battle stances). One for social interaction, automatically on in friendly cities (no weapons in hands, straight posture). One for recon/stealth (crouching, with weapon/devices from actual action bar slots). One for crafting/gathering. And one or two for custom-made activities. If devs will give us bunch of basic activities, people will invent useful combinations of them in no time. I have some ideas about scanning areas and socializing, but I don't know if they will be useful in conjunction with what the devs made already.
In-game description of real-world events.
River Kingdoms now suffers strange fate. Maybe it's Worlwound effect on nearby land, maybe something other – but weird things happens. Many people, wandering into this region suffers from so-called “mark of Pharasma”. They are changed. Now they returns from the dead, every time they were killed. This is immortality of sorts. But marked ones think about it as a curse. Because no one of these people can leave borders of tiny patch of land, called Crusader's Road. Watching all the other people, freely wandering back and forth may be torture.... Or new challenge for these branded souls.
Even their immortality is not absolute, some of them will be devoured after death by the demons of the Other World. This event is rare to the extreme and what are these soul-devouring demons is unknown, but wise scholars, at least, have divined name of one of these entities –
Banhammer. :)
Even time is distorted now in River Kingdoms. One of the days of the week is now called Darkday. For it's noted by the many, that part of this day is missed by all inhabitants of this land. Nobody know what happens to the land and people at this time. Worse yet, memory of the people falter after those days, for world sometimes seems somewhat different from the days before.
(patches are coming!)
Ugh, this is a wall of text already, so my other ideas will be in another thread.
|
4 people marked this as a favorite.
|
It's not a bug, it's a feature! Part II
Mark of Pharasma had weird effects on the souls of humanoids. Sometimes they have strange malady, speaking about things from other times and places, or acting as madmans, or simply sitting in stupor, unable to do something aside from simplest kinds of activity. World goes on and they are locked in strange pattern of behaviors.
(OOC, afk, out of game)
But people adapt, so even these strange abilities and deficiencies can be used by clever leaders. These undying warriors are usually at the forefront of all things risky. Ordinary people will die and be done, but as long, as there is chance to win, marked ones can try – and succeed. When they are awake, they are among the most talented fighters, crafters, scouts and arcanists. Their knowledge of thing from other places leads them to many of the most innovative concepts – and most unthinkable crimes in the River Kingdoms. So wise ruler offers them protection and privileges in exchange for their help or service.
Marked ones also suffers from another curse – almost as vampires they can't enter places not their own or public. It's weird, because most of other people also have difficulties with entering into the houses owned by marked ones.
So there is there are two policies for storing your valuables – in the houses of marked ones or in the houses of the ordinary people. Sadly, communal storages are public by definition, so anyone can use them. Bankers can work as individuals, not as world-spanning company. Vaults can be safe, even from the most cunning marked rogue.
Simplified/Not so simplified tool for grouping/questing.
When we type or read in local chat, most of our attempts to find the group ended with spamming several times short phrases (so the people will not scroll chat window back to read from the start). GW already said about taverns as information hubs. (Yay! At last!)Why not to place in taverns big lists for groups, with terms and conditions defined by the group leader? Want to join – go to the most popular tavern, see the offers and sign up, maybe you will be accepted. Want to recruit people to explore your new finding – go to the tavern and set the invitation. If there will be set of predefined options for group rules and set of predefined goal types (not exactly name for the dungeon or resource gathered or caravan to rob, but herb gathering , beast lair exploration, small group robbery, scouting the area etc.) - all things will be set quicker, imo.
And why not put these invitations in one table with so called “NPC quests”? Why bounty on someone's head must be in separate lists, if placed by PC or NPC? Why not to allow PC to formulate their own goals (and rewards) for the quests as NPC do? Devs have said about contracts (EVE style, essentially courier missions and trade propositions), guard contracts, so why not scout contracts (hey, this newly found dungeon must be intact, or payment is void!) or patrol contracts (trespassers deducts from your payment!)?
I'm sorry if my English was hard to understand – foreign language is difficult thing when you're tired. :/
And all these ramblings are only ideas/suggestions, not heated opinions. If devs will like something from that – I'll be happy. If not – I'll think about other ideas.
Thoughts? Suggestions?
I love it. don't stop typing. devs you should really take some of this in.
It's not a bug, it's a feature Part III
Keep a lot of different activities on a lot of space.
EVE caters for a different styles of play – and most of these activities are meaningful. You can scout for anomalies – and raid them, mine asteroids to get basic minerals, scout and fight wormhole pocket spaces and its guardians, trade on local markets and haul goods to sell them with more profit,... PvP in EVE also can be meaningful, but more often than not it's simply improvement of your score (killboard, where you can store all records of your kills and losses) or sheer fun of fighting. Keeping systems (hexes) clear of robbers and gatherers is one of meanings for PvP in EVE. Bashing player-owned structures (POS'es) of other players and defending your own POS'es is activity for alliances and coalitions, not for single players and small corporations (guilds). Well, some people in wormholes.... but I was carried away.
Lore says that farmers and ranchers are kept in much higher regard in River Kingdoms than in many other parts of Golarion. So why not to put food as moderate buff for some strenuous activity – be it trail rations before long road to slow down loss of endurance, be it meaty breakfast before battle, hearthy meal before crafting session (so if you want your henchmen to do their work a bit faster...), some vegetables to enhance your vision or hearing, or even famous blue milk to keep you in tune with the (magic) Force. :) This way Farmville part of the game can be important for efficiency of any activity. And, please, insert the options “eat my food when I'm hungry automatically” - I'm not the only one who regularly forgets to renew my buffs in MMOs.
Respawning nodes' mining is current imitation of mining in most MMO I've played. For replenishing resources (as herbs, berries) this is adequate. For the resources with long period of restoration (wood, bee hives) this is acceptable, but I'd prefer to think about you quickly cleaning forest around your camp and then hauling the timber from the far end of your hex. With mining... Let's say I can propose underground nodes(which can be cleared off from the surface in the tens of minutes at the beginning), each time these nodes respawn, they will be longer and longer to dig out (to reach and start mining). I propose this to reflect the fact ,that even near-surface deposits of ores can be found on different depths and so they may take different times to dig. This may lead to all the kinds of “ore wars” on hexes, but as palliative for “real deep mines” (vertical hexes) to be implemented later this will do. After some time hexes should become not so time/cost effective in regard to the ores, but this will lead to further colonization and a gold fever or two.
You may have guessed this already, but my main in EVE is lowsec miner and one of my characters in PFO will be dwarf :)
Trailblazing. This thing will be viable only if devs will put modifiers to your speed for different terrain/undergrowth. Why not to set some “nav points” in the terrain, giving you (or your employers) time-efficient route. Well, with time sands will shift, bushes will grow, old trees will fall and discovered trail will lose its value...
Devs already stated this as feature of PFO, but I must mention this feature of EVE which should be kept IMO at any cost - interconnection of different crafters and resource gatherers. Sheep are source for the wool, meat and parchment, berries are food, dyes and medicine. Forges need coal, from the coal mines or from the wood. And sooth is a component for black dyes. To keep your animals healthy you must use some unusual food ingredients. Getting a bit of gum arabic in the middle of River Kingdoms may be a problem – but alchemists can help you. Well, some of economic simulators have very detailed picture of medieval economics. These systems can be simplified for the use in PFO. And this will keep players with different play styles interconnected. SWtOR did horrible thing - locking each craft with two gathering professions. So every player can (and will) be “army of one”.
And a small proposition slightly off-topic:
Limited field of vision .
This kind of work belongs to the fine art of graphic design. It's difficult thing to do properly, but this is critical factor for “cat-and-mouse” game of PvP-PvE. Places with long-range LoS are common, but big part of the hexes will be hills, swamps, bayou or other places with very limited field of vision. Btw, server lag will be much less on these hexes. :)
Developers probably have implemented some of these ideas already, but maybe something from this text will be of use for them.
It's not a bug, it's a Law, Alignment and Reputation. or Part IV of my ramblings
AGAIK we have things below as set:
Fixed absolute alignments
Law-Chaos, and Good-Evil axis of alignment system
Reputation score as a measure of your fame, authority, whatever
Let's think in these ramifications.
First thing I came up with is – killing of marked one is a less crime than killing mortal NPC. (Devs never said anything about NPC also marked by Pharasma - I hope such NPC will be in game. Love to have literally recurring villains :) ) I can't propose use of my char as training dummy for NPC guards, but killing (again) some immortal entity may be qualified as robbery, torture, intimidation and forced prevention of my activity, but not murder. Griefing is absolutely in-game crime of intimidation and stopping the people from carrying their tasks (if here are some english-speaking lawyers please, suggest some more definitions for this crime). Griefing may be against the rules of many lawful governments (including3 starting NPC locations). This is just an idea.
Most law system make a difference between subject of law (sentient person open for meaningful social interaction) and some objects, usually viewed as some kind of obstacle or resource, sometimes both. So any sentient animals, sentient guardians of Nature and even poor lone elementals can be a subjects of law. Animals and plants with whom you can't make any meaningful contracts, are not. So the druids may get some very special role in this system... well it's not relevant here and now.
But any law system can stumble upon some persons or groups with whom meaningful interaction fails repeatedly or who can defy the law system at the whim. These groups and persons usually are declared “out of Law” - yes, dear outlaws, this is about you :) Such people became threats and resources for the working local social system. No more words or attempts to redeem – KOS, that's all.
In reality this move never was good one. By this “outlawing” of some people current government states: “Hey, folks we have some problems and these problems are out of reach of our divinely sanctioned almighty Hand of Law. Try to solve them by yourselves”. Serious reputation hit for whole government, I must say.
Wars.
This is fine instrument to solve problems. In RL in medieval times there were plenty of private wars. As long as you have some suzerainity over someone (and are ruler of something), you can declare war to the other souvereign. But this is divinely sanctioned and regulated activity. Simple raid is a crime. War is not. But war must have declared cause (casus belli), declared goals other than “rob him blind”, and must be waged in accordance with the rules of warfare. I'm not so good with Golarion's lore to speculate about these rules, but there must be some.
One of the more interesting effects of rules of warfare – you invade enemy's territory, crush any formal resistance, grab what you declared as your goal – and be done. Non-combatants (farmers, merchants, other PC/NPC) will not be hurt. They will be robbed, maybe, but no unnecessary deaths, please. War is lawful affair and, in some case, even not evil.
Raid is another thing. It's chaotic, It has no special rules and restrictions – and it strikes reputation of participants really hard.
Here is a problem – for IRL totally lawful war for one side may be viewed as bandit raid by other side. But I think we can work this out.
Any thoughts? Suggestions? Thread about last blog goes too long, so I prefer to hear you guys here (reading every day 150+ posts is too much for my current schedule, sorry :( ).
Nine Hells man... start a blog or something. How are we supposed to discuss this stuff if you don't stop typing!
Lol. Ok. I'll wait for a few days, but then...
Then here will be next devblog and we'll get some new stuff to ponder.
If a person has a flame of invention in him don't trip him up asking him to slow down: let him run with the ball while he has it. We're all on the same team and the goal is the best game possible.
@ Marlagram
I'm using the "Jack´s the ripper strategy" here to analyze your long and creative post: spliting it in small parts, and will give my oppinion part by part.
So lets start:
For the switching bars I like very much the idea. If the player don't want it to change automatically he can always disable that option and go manually. Nice suggestion!
@Marlagram
I see lots of good ideas that should be considered by the DEVs as possibilities to include in the regional lore in your "in-game description of real world events" good job!
Also, I like the grouping ideas you present in the next subject paragraphs. The idea of turning the Inns and taverns in some kind of "hub" were many player activities will start is a very nice one. It will probably simplify the game mechanics. Actually that is the idea I like more so far.
@ Marlagram
In relation to the item "Keep a lot of different activities on a lot of space":
Excellent ideas, I would take all in consideration if I was in the DEVs team. I especially like the idea of vegetation growing and deccaying with time as well as the mining ideas.
I would only include a suggestion in it: I would like to see an option to people grow forests as well. So an area where all the trees were chopped out could be replanted or seeded to regrow trees. That could be a settlement concern though. So settlement leaders would need to take care of regrowing the forests or would be out of wood in their hexes. Obviously trees would take time to fully grow, what adds to your vegetation sucession ideas. Druids may have an important role in this kind of activity IMO.
@ Marlagram
I also like the "limited field of vision" idea. That is the way I would like to see things if technically possible. I would like to see a role darkness too, at least in some specific dungeons/caves/lairs, and obviously the racial abilities taken in consideration in ths case (Darkvision/low light vision etc). Again, only if it is technically ok, a subject that I have no proficiency with.
Another thing I want to see taken in consideration is that some classes, like rangers and druids, should have considerable advantages regarding spot, detection, field of vision, listening etc while in natural environments such as forests and swamps. That could be provided through access to specific (or better) skills though. I'm sures DEVs are already working in this kind of stuff or will do in the future.
@ Marlagram
The idea of recurring NPC vilians also marked by Pharasma is just wonderfull.
The possibility to declare groups as outlaws is a good one too, that could be one of the settlements' allowed functions. I'm pretty sure the DEVs are working something similar to that based in their recent posts in the flagging subject.
I like your insights in the war subject as well. The distinction between war and raid is very interesting. I also think there is some material to the DEVs look at and take in consideration. Maybe the settlers' alignment will take an important role in how they will decide to make war or raids against their enemies. I also think we can have war in different levels: Charted companies x charted companies, aliances x aliances, realms x realms etc. To declare a group as outlaw can be considered some sort of Settlement (alliance) x Charted company war IMO.
I believe I've adressed all points I was able to consider in your posts.
Keep posting if you have new ideas!
Just to correct my first post (didn't allow me to change anymore) Is Jack the REAPER , not ripper... Bad english.. Its difficult for Dwarves you know... you don't have runes, your alphabet is kind of weird...
LordDaeron wrote: @Marlagram
Also, I like the grouping ideas you present in the next subject paragraphs. The idea of turning the Inns and taverns in some kind of "hub" were many player activities will start is a very nice one. It will probably simplify the game mechanics. Actually that is the idea I like more so far.
This idea is of GW origin, actually. They mentioned it in one of the early blogs, iirc. As a sandbox game must have some limitations on information spreading and distribution, information and socialisation hubs became taverns naturally and in accord with the Golarion's lore.
LordDaeron wrote: @ Marlagram
The idea of recurring NPC vilians also marked by Pharasma is just wonderfull.
The possibility to declare groups as outlaws is a good one too, that could be one of the settlements' allowed functions. I'm pretty sure the DEVs are working something similar to that based in their recent posts in the flagging subject.
I like your insights in the war subject as well. The distinction between war and raid is very interesting. I also think there is some material to the DEVs look at and take in consideration. Maybe the settlers' alignment will take an important role in how they will decide to make war or raids against their enemies. I also think we can have war in different levels: Charted companies x charted companies, aliances x aliances, realms x realms etc. To declare a group as outlaw can be considered some sort of Settlement (alliance) x Charted company war IMO.
Recurring monsters, tbh is concept omplemented in most theme-park MMO. But here, it seems, we can have "one-shot" PVE enemies as well as "recurring" ones. And all this will be in full tne with in-game logic, which is wonderfull, imo.
What I wrote about wars and raids is not may idea, too :) This is slight conversion from real world legal basics of armed conflicts. I've got this when I was studying history in university, but imo students of the art of law :) also may know this stuff.
And post more I will. But somewhat later :)
Another wall of text hits you for 5000 letters of divine damage :)
Another idea how to unite lore and game mechanics. We know that people will have reputation with the gods too, so some propositions about the ways to bring this reputation up:
(Name of the god/goddess, then her/his portfolio from PF Core Rulebook)
Iomedae: valor rulership justice honor
Fight for just (justified) case only
Always strive to make equal deals
Protect the weak
Put your resources for prosperity of the people of your settlement
Never retreat from the battle you initiated
Lead the people if you're best leader, obey better leaders if you're not the best in your group
Abadar: cities, wealth, merchants, banks
Put your efforts in your settlement, even if only in your own establishment
Amass wealth
Build great storages of wealth, lore or resources
Support the trade, participate in restocking the storages of your settlement
Asmodeus: tyranny, slavery, pride, contracts
Make deals where you gain more than you lose
Keep your end of bargain at any cost – and punish word breakers thereafter
Get as much people under your command as it is possible
If you see weak ones nearby – make deal with them, for some service, not coin or goods, in exchange for protection.
Do not serve others without some personal gain, if they are your equals or weaker ones.
Conquer or rob the weak, but always justify your actions. Enforce River Freedom «You own what you can hold».
Obey the Ruler
Shelyn: beauty, art, love, music
Create works of art! (Masterworks)
Share your passions and creations! (I hope there will be system analogous to entertainment in SWG)
Don't hold the grudges (don't spend your rep to lower rep of your attacker)
Use music to heighten the spirits (no musical debuffs, please!)
Gozreh: water, weather, sea
Respect the water, offer some of your gains to the rivers (destroy items by tossing them out in the river terrain)
Make amends if you kill some river folk (offer some tribute if you do fishing or hunting on the rivers)
Don't run from the storm (first two minutes of any heavy weather conditions or first water effect in battle – do not move on the other locations)
Do to others what they did to you (try to remain neutral)
Norgorber: greed, secrets, poison, murder
Keep at least one secret cash/hideout/safehouse
Wear disguise as much as game will allow you
Make poisons, use poison attacks, sell poisons!
Kill for your own gain (bounties, defense of your turf, assassination contracts)
Desna: dreams, stars, travelers, luck
I have no idea right now
Gorum: strength, battle, weaponry
Keep Strength as your highest attribute (one of the two highest at least)
Fight as long and as much as you can!
Make weapons and use them!
Do max damage, it is irrelevant how, to whom or by what!
Lamashtu: madness, monsters, nughtmares
Use mind-affecting debuffs on as much people as possible
When you cull monster pack – let last of them escape
Breed more monsters!
It'll be fun to have at least some of these in the game.
Desna: dreams, stars, travelers, luck
The road is your home: make adventure your guide
Be open to opportunity, and when the stakes are high roll with gusto
Being wrote: Desna: dreams, stars, travelers, luck
The road is your home: make adventure your guide
Be open to opportunity, and when the stakes are high roll with gusto
Spending rest periods in outdoor camps - yes, I agree, game can register that.
How the server can register your other proposition? I'm not a pro in Golarion's lore (or in computers either), so my opinion may be wrong.
My guess is that there will be dice games and maybe card games? Games of chance? Horse races? Any form of gambling/betting.
Also we know that locating the lore markers scattered about the countryside will give achievements: this could be incorporated into the exploration/travel angle.
This will be great.
Then adepts of Desna will have some morale guides for sure.
Recent threads in Pathfinder Online
|
Goblin Squad Member
