Goblin Squad Member
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I am fairly new to Pathfinder Online and I did contribute to the Kickstarter without knowing much about the game. I liked the idea of the sandbox MMO which sounded like it would be fun. I just finished with all the dev blogs and have been looking over the forums and I must say that I do not see this project doing well without some further thought given to human nature and how the game mechanics can be abused by those who like to bully and grief other players, even within the rules of the game. First let me list some assumptions about the game that may or may not be true as I have not seen many of them listed, but are necessary for my discussion.
1. PvP is major part of game (80%+ focus) with plays always flagged as PvP
2. Players will regenerate hit points while not in combat
3. Players can have more than one account
4. Players account will have multiple characters (let's say 8)
5. There will be a free to play option
6. Building can be destroyed faster than they can be built
7. It takes longer to setup and gather resources than to steal them after they have been gathered.
8. Characters cannot be killed permanently
9. When a character is logged off they are out of the game world
10. In game reputation is by character and not by account (player)
You can always count of people to take the least path of resistance to get something they want, it is human nature. It is normally faster to destroy than build and easier to steal than to gather and unless there are some mechanics for "good citizens" to punish wanton destruction and theft of their stuff the "evil doers" will dominate the game and destroy the enjoyment for the majority of plays. If this is the case then this will cascade into driving all the players who want to build and develop the environment to leave the game thus leaving only the ones who want to bully and grief others left and then they will leave since there is no one left to bully and grief resulting in a dead game.
The only thing that can curb this are if the consequences for wanton destruction and theft are harsh and controlled to a large extent by the players. So far I have read about a bounty system and a reputation system that are supposed to prevent players from abusing one and other, but I do see either working. There is a great divide between the real world and an MMO so that the way society handles criminals in the real world is ineffective in an MMO.
1) In the real world a person cannot disappear into thin air, but in an MMO if a player logs out then the character is gone and cannot be interacted with. This simple fact kills the Bounty Hunter aspect since all I as a play have to do is have multiple bandits that I rotate through, let's say bandit1 though bandit7, that I attack with on a rotating basis, let's say one day each a week. The Bounty Hunter cannot touch them as they are not in the game and will not be until the bounty has expired. As far as the loot goes, I setup a front man in the city that I send it to that reaps the rewards of my ill gotten gain. As for reputation, the player would not care, as the only character that ever interacts with the city has a good reputation and if the bandits need anything from town then the front man simply takes it to them or they can use what they steal off the other players. In addition, since damage regenerates over time, I can attack multiple people each day, maybe stealing 1 to 2 weeks of in game gathering of resources.
2) People can die (and stay dead) in the real world, but in an MMO that is just a minor setback. Given this fact then a wizard can, by himself, destroy a town with a little perseverance. Since it is easier to destroy the build all the wizard has to do is sneak into town and blast a building with a AOE spell (assuming that they will damage building), get killed and come back and do it again and again until each building is destroyed. Why not, they cannot be permanently killed. The same goes with armies or any other player attack on a fixed target. So if I have 10 players attack a town, after the attack, win or lose, I still have 10 players to attack the town again. Assuming I can do a little damage to the town then eventually I will destroy it.
Possible Solutions:
1) Hit points do not regenerate in the wilderness. Hit points only regenerate in a town or while logged out of the game (i.e. resting) or with magic. This is consistent with the PnP game and will prevent bandits from attaching multiple caravans a day as they are more likely to get kill on successive attempts. It also makes being able to go to a town more desirable and emphasizes the reputation system.
2) There needs to be a way for gross offenders to be removed from the game by other players. let's say that a town is given the ability to arrest and incarcerate a player character who's reputation with that town is below a given "very low" level. The effect would be to either not allow the character to log in or if the character logs in it is in a jail cell within the city. The duration could be anywhere from a day to a week and could only be done in case of low reputation with that particular town. There need not be an exclusion for a declared war because would not a town want to remove as many of the attackers as possible from attacking the town.
The whole idea is to make the consequences of breaking the social laws severe and allow the players more control over how they can deal with bullies and griefers. Also there needs to be some way to avert the "Undead" factor where the same character keeps respawning and coming back to attack. If you are worried about preventing a player from playing the game, remember that each player can have multiple characters and so can play another character while the other one is unavailable. Besides this gives the opportunity for a jailbreak scenario if someone want to break them out.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Victor I submit there is a difference between meaningful PvP and griefing. Griefers will be purged by Goblinworks.
The developer is only building the environment and what can or cannot be done. If the game were a story they are handling only the setting, and that is fashioned to resemble part of Golarion. The rest of the story is ours to make, the players. We will devise the plots and flesh out the content. We will organize and set events into motion. What we do will depend on us.
Some of us will pretend to be evil, some good, and some of us intend to be balanced or neutral. Some of us will be lawful and others unlawful, wheter good bad or indifferent.
The reason there is so much emphasis right now on the mechanics of PvP is because while it is the most sensitive of issues it is also part of the world we will populate. It is also most complex, requiring most of the effort. It is possible to harm one anothers' characters because that is how it is in Golarion. We aren't a small party adventuring about in the midst of a vast world populated by NPCs, we are many. And we will have conflict because a tale without conflict is a tale about nothing: without conflict there is no plot, no story at all.
Stick around. Avoid forming judgements based on ignorance. Become better informed before making your decisions.
There are only two kinds of decision: Informed decisions and lucky ones. Everything else is just a mistake.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Welcome Victor!
Nihimon has posted a useful summary of links that may interest you if you have not seen this already (due to forums structure): Guild Recruitment & Helpful Links
This thread or Ryan's post on the subject of open pvp is worth a quick look:
Kickstarter Community Thread: Player vs. Player Conflict
Looking at those points 1-10, to add:
1. Open Pvp + gradations of security and different laws in different settlements
2. Serious injuries will force more serious consequences requiring visiting a location.
3. Players can have more than one account
4. Players account will have multiple characters (let's say 8)
5. There will be a free to play option (Not for the early enrollment period)
6. Settlements will have serious defences & 'windows of security', we don't know about POI buildings atm.
7. The risk/reward gradiant leads to value of resources in the economy
8. Characters cannot be killed permanently
9. When a character is logged off they are out of the game world (as far as we know)
10. In game reputation is by character and not by account (player) (yes, but I'm sure settlement's will have various player checks - so other a/c's will be the bigger "threat of spies").
/obligatory "Nihimoned" just to save time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Victor I submit there is a difference between meaningful PvP and griefing. Griefers will be purged by Goblinworks.
The developer is only building the environment and what can or cannot be done. If the game were a story they are handling only the setting, and that is fashioned to resemble part of Golarion. The rest of the story is ours to make, the players. We will devise the plots and flesh out the content. We will organize and set events into motion. What we do will depend on us.
Some of us will pretend to be evil, some good, and some of us intend to be balanced or neutral. Some of us will be lawful and others unlawful, wheter good bad or indifferent.
The reason there is so much emphasis right now on the mechanics of PvP is because while it is the most sensitive of issues it is also part of the world we will populate. It is also most complex, requiring most of the effort. It is possible to harm one anothers' characters because that is how it is in Golarion. We aren't a small party adventuring about in the midst of a vast world populated by NPCs, we are many. And we will have conflict because a tale without conflict is a tale about nothing: without conflict there is no plot, no story at all.
Stick around. Avoid forming judgements based on ignorance. Become better informed before making your decisions.
There are only two kinds of decision: Informed decisions and lucky ones. Everything else is just a mistake.
My post was not meant as a complaint or objection to the concept, I was just pointing out some issues that will, in my option, occur and to make some suggestions. My post was just to point out that the current proposed environment was ripe with griefing possibilities, also that the environment seem slanted toward the Chaotic and Evil side with much less recourse to the side of Law and Good. Chaos destroys where Law builds, but it much easier to destroy then to build so there needs to be a balance that currently I do not believe is there. Same goes with Good and Evil, since Evil cannot be killed (literally), how do you stop it. Most good does not go out and seek evil, but most evil will actively seek good to conquer. If you think I am wrong that is fine, but I would rather point these thing out now and discuss them then to stay silent. If no one agrees with me I am ok with that. You will note that my proposed solution mealy gave the players more options in dealing with those that would disrupt their city and did not change anything that was proposed by the pathfinder team.
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Goblin Squad Member
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1) In the real world a person cannot disappear into thin air, but in an MMO if a player logs out then the character is gone and cannot be interacted with. This simple fact kills the Bounty Hunter aspect since all I as a play have to do is have multiple bandits that I rotate through, let's say bandit1 though bandit7, that I attack with on a rotating basis, let's say one day each a week. The Bounty Hunter cannot touch them as they are not in the game and will not be until the bounty has expired. As far as the loot goes, I setup a front man in the city that I send it to that reaps the rewards of my ill gotten gain. As for reputation, the player would not care, as the only character that ever interacts with the city has a good reputation and if the bandits need anything from town then the front man simply takes it to them or they can use what they steal off the other players. In addition, since damage regenerates over time, I can attack multiple people each day, maybe stealing 1 to 2 weeks of in game gathering of resources.
A paid account will be able to allocate incoming xp (time based, not quest based xp) to one character at a time. If you get the destiny's twin option from supporting the kickstarter, then two characters. And from the sounds of it there will be options for pay to play for more. So most people won't have 8 competitive characters.
As far as reputation, good reputation is needed to access a settlement to gain access to the trainers of that settlement. You can't do that via dummy characters. So low reputation weakens the potential of a character.
And there is no mention at all of hit points regenerating automatically over time, in or out of combat. The only mention the blogs make so far of healing is actively healing (ie. divine magic).
2) People can die (and stay dead) in the real world, but in an MMO that is just a minor setback. Given this fact then a wizard can, by himself, destroy a town with a little perseverance. Since it is easier to destroy the build all the wizard has to do is sneak into town and blast a building with a AOE spell (assuming that they will damage building), get killed and come back and do it again and again until each building is destroyed. Why not, they cannot be permanently killed. The same goes with armies or any other player attack on a fixed target. So if I have 10 players attack a town, after the attack, win or lose, I still have 10 players to attack the town again. Assuming I can do a little damage to the town then eventually I will destroy it.
I don't know how to even discuss that. It's all built on assumptions that are not supported by the blogs or other dev comments. Highlighted some of them.
If your assumptions are correct, then there may be something to discuss.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Greeting Victor,
Just wanted to mention two things....
1. Goblin Works Devs have said that they will be looking fir and dealing with acts of griefing.
2. Ryan Dancey has said that Chaotic Evil settlements will be the most difficult to function in, and would likely suffer penalties in settlement development, skill training and other set backs as well.
Now the 10 points you raise either have nothing to do with griefing and or are not features found in any MMO I've played in the past 10 - 12 years.
PFO is advertised as an Open World PvP MMO. That does not mean open wold griefing, but it does mean that you may not always be able to choose when, where and under what circumstances you will be drawn into PVP.
For some, that is griefing, and perhaps Open World PvP is not for them. For others, that helps make the world feel like it is alive, with suspense and danger.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Greeting Victor,
Just wanted to mention two things....
1. Goblin Works Devs have said that they will be looking fir and dealing with acts of griefing.
2. Ryan Dancey has said that Chaotic Evil settlements will be the most difficult to function in, and would likely suffer penalties in settlement development, skill training and other set backs as well.
Now the 10 points you raise either have nothing to do with griefing and or are not features found in any MMO I've played in the past 10 - 12 years.
PFO is advertised as an Open World PvP MMO. That does not mean open wold griefing, but it does mean that you may not always be able to choose when, where and under what circumstances you will be drawn into PVP.
For some, that is griefing, and perhaps Open World PvP is not for them. For others, that helps make the world feel like it is alive, with suspense and danger.
It appears that no one is actually reading my post.
The 10 points are assumptions for the purpose of the discussion and the discussion is just that. I am not saying in any way that I hate the game or it will not work. I am also not saying that all PvP is griefing. I am trying to point out that there are issues that need to be resolved. It was my opinion that the whole idea of the Kickstarter was to allow contributors to have some input into the game design. All I am doing in this post is give my opinion and pointing out some issues that I have not seen discussed. I realize that there are not dev blogs saying that they are going to do any of this. I am trying to point out what I believe will happen if the issues are not addressed and give some suggestions.
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Goblin Squad Member
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1) In the real world a person cannot disappear into thin air, but in an MMO if a player logs out then the character is gone and cannot be interacted with. This simple fact kills the Bounty Hunter aspect since all I as a play have to do is have multiple bandits that I rotate through, let's say bandit1 though bandit7, that I attack with on a rotating basis, let's say one day each a week. The Bounty Hunter cannot touch them as they are not in the game and will not be until the bounty has expired. As far as the loot goes, I setup a front man in the city that I send it to that reaps the rewards of my ill gotten gain. As for reputation, the player would not care, as the only character that ever interacts with the city has a good reputation and if the bandits need anything from town then the front man simply takes it to them or they can use what they steal off the other players. In addition, since damage regenerates over time, I can attack multiple people each day, maybe stealing 1 to 2 weeks of in game gathering of resources.
It is worth pointing out that, 1. Individual bandits will not likely be able to kill anything but the weakest of characters (as only the most foolish, or the ones with little to lose, would be traveling alone).
Second thing to point out... the f2p alts, will also be the least effective characters, and most likely not be able to succeed as bandits, as unless their training time is being paid for, they aren't advancing in any way, and well odds are being played 1/7th of the time, is not going to make enough money to buy training time. (Training time is subject to supply/demand... Unless there are a whole ton of people buying lots of extra training time every month,
2) People can die (and stay dead) in the real world, but in an MMO that is just a minor setback. Given this fact then a wizard can, by himself, destroy a town with a little perseverance. Since it is easier to destroy the build all the wizard has to do is sneak into town and blast a building with a AOE spell (assuming that they will damage building), get killed and come back and do it again and again until each building is destroyed. Why not, they cannot be permanently killed. The same goes with armies or any other player attack on a fixed target. So if I have 10 players attack a town, after the attack, win or lose, I still have 10 players to attack the town again. Assuming I can do a little damage to the town then eventually I will destroy it.
This one is already covered... spells will not destroy structures such as settlements. That will take siege engines, which will take quite a bit of time, co-operation to get the resources to make, and a settlement to launch the attack from. Again in PFO, an individual is pretty much throwing pebbles at a tank if he's going up against an organized group.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I also went back and read in more depth, and as fir the last section on punishment, to be handled by players.... When someone else handles my subscription cost, they can handle my play time, thank you very much.
You do realize that you can gain negative Reputation from PVE as well? That and we have a global reputation score, not one for each settlement, so how could one settlement or player remove me from the game, if maybe 50 settlements love me?
I do welcome you to keep on reading and get involved in the forums. You will find that the Devs are really striking a good balance between the various interests that you find in an Open World PVP Sand Box MMO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have read all blogs that I know of, but not all the dev posts. The whole idea of this post was to point out POTENTIAL issues so that they could be addressed in development and not reach the end product unless desired. Your comment that they "may or may not end up being true" goes to prove the point. The question is should this be part of the game or not. If it should be then fine, but if not then is it not best to point the issue out so it can be addressed by the developers?
I am truly unclear as to why the animosity for my post. I listed the assumptions I based my comments on and that I did not know if all the assumptions were correct. I then gave my option as to how the current structure could be abused base of those assumption and a possible solution to the issue. Now I admit that I am new to forum posts. Maybe this is how they are, but I was honestly just trying to make the game better.
The issue seems to be that I mentioned griefing and everyone took offence to that. Griefing is an issue that I see the dev team talk about all the time so it must exist. While not all PvP is griefing should all non griefing PvP be allowed without sufficient risk? For example, I set up an ambush point for a caravan route and start attacking and stealing the caravans goods. The caravan owner then gathers a group and take out my bandits. Great, but what has the caravan owner accomplished. My bandits respawn and continue to sack the caravans anyway. The caravan owner is out all his goods and has died in the process. Now granted my bandits have died, but they also have all the goods and can still sack his caravans. I believe this is an issue that needs to be addressed. I posted a solution that might solve the issue. Now if my bandits, if caught, could be removed from the game for a couple of days, I might not stick around to be caught. It makes the role of bandit/thief more exiting, at least it would for me, and it gives the caravan owner some recourse and a sense of justice. I look at this as a win/win. The having the character locked up is just part of the game.
If you don't like this idea then what do you think might be appropriate or you might this that this is not an issue. In either case let me know.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Disagreement =/= animosity. Nobody has said anything hostile to you.
I get what you're saying, that you want to have a conversation based on certain assumptions. I personally don't think the assumptions are solid enough to consider. If others do, they're free to chip in and have that conversation with you.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I hope that the perceived animosity was not from my post, unclear who you are responding to. The written language, especially on the Internet is devoid of tone, positive or negative, and this often leads to miss perceptions on how things were meant to sound.
Then we have F.....ing IPad and IPhones that write the words they want to.....
Just another point about you caravan scenario.... The bandits I'll only be able to steal what is not threaded and what they can carry away. In most cases the merchants will not lose everything. I recommend you read the Dev Blogs dealing with flags, The Deadliest Game, and the types of hexes. Basically, the last five or more blogs, and you will have a better idea of PvP as it stands at this point.
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Goblin Squad Member
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2) There needs to be a way for gross offenders to be removed from the game by other players.
Griefers are ruthless at gaming the system. If the system allows one group of players to remove another player from the game, you can bet your bottom dollar that this will be used by griefers more than by "legitimate" players.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I also went back and read in more depth, and as fir the last section on punishment, to be handled by players.... When someone else handles my subscription cost, they can handle my play time, thank you very much.
You do realize that you can gain negative Reputation from PVE as well? That and we have a global reputation score, not one for each settlement, so how could one settlement or player remove me from the game, if maybe 50 settlements love me?
I do welcome you to keep on reading and get involved in the forums. You will find that the Devs are really striking a good balance between the various interests that you find in an Open World PVP Sand Box MMO.
I understand you concern that this is a paid for service and that is a big downside for my proposal. I had the same thoughts as well, but feel that I could always play a different character if it occurred. As for the reputation being global, I was unaware of that, but in any case it could change to by settlement as any aspect of the game could change during the development process. I personally believe that it should be by settlement instead of globally anyway. That way evil players might have a very high reputation with their chaotic evil city where as a lawful good paladin would have a very low reputation. By the way my proposal goes both ways, a lawful good paladin could be locked up by a chaotic evil city. Note that his would apply to only those characters with extremely low reputations with the given city and if you do not want it to occur the player merely need to keep their reputation above that level so it is really up to the individual player where they can be incarcerated or not. Just like it is up to the player to stay in a safe city or not to avoid PvP.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Greeting Victor,
Just wanted to mention two things....
1. Goblin Works Devs have said that they will be looking fir and dealing with acts of griefing.
2. Ryan Dancey has said that Chaotic Evil settlements will be the most difficult to function in, and would likely suffer penalties in settlement development, skill training and other set backs as well.
Now the 10 points you raise either have nothing to do with griefing and or are not features found in any MMO I've played in the past 10 - 12 years.
PFO is advertised as an Open World PvP MMO. That does not mean open wold griefing, but it does mean that you may not always be able to choose when, where and under what circumstances you will be drawn into PVP.
For some, that is griefing, and perhaps Open World PvP is not for them. For others, that helps make the world feel like it is alive, with suspense and danger.
It appears that no one is actually reading my post.
The 10 points are assumptions for the purpose of the discussion and the discussion is just that. I am not saying in any way that I hate the game or it will not work. I am also not saying that all PvP is griefing. I am trying to point out that there are issues that need to be resolved. It was my opinion that the whole idea of the Kickstarter was to allow contributors to have some input into the game design. All I am doing in this post is give my opinion and pointing out some issues that I have not seen discussed. I realize that there are not dev blogs saying that they are going to do any of this. I am trying to point out what I believe will happen if the issues are not addressed and give some suggestions.
Agree, it's an area that needs to be looked at. I think people (myself included) are working out where you're coming from ie do you have an attitude that is:
1. "PvP is the sound of inevitability towards griefing: It's impossible! This is a horrible, horrible mistake!", or if you are more along the lines of,2. "Currently the devs have no clue how hard their current design will fail - there is still time to fix that, however, I see little evidence...", or as it seems to be:
3. "I understand the intention, it's going to take a lot more work to make it realistic given these mmorpg specific, tools of the trade for griefing (eg accounts/fp2 etc)".
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I think one of the more significant aspects you have not discussed concerns the develop index of settlements and the alignment interaction with skill-training facilities eg
LG: Will have high in all these
CE: Will likely be low in most/all of these
Not sure if index ties in or is independent, but either way end result is significant for members of settlements and repercussions on settlements for alignment shifts and fluctuating conditions of the indexes.
After this info, some people have complained that evil/chaos will be the ones in the dog-house..
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am in the #3 camp.
I also do not necessarily agree with what they are doing with the evil side. I understand that they want to make evil less attractive by limiting them, but I think a better approach might be to give good players more ways of dealing with them. Probably the best approach might be a little of both. I honestly think my suggestion is a good one. It would curb some players from getting their reputation too low giving sever in game penalties controlled by other players. Effectively allowing the player base to police themselves. This would apply to both good and evil. Do I really want my paladin to have a reputation below the threshold and be subject to incarceration by the evil city. The same goes with bandits, should I wait a week before sacking the caravan for city X and get my reputation back up a bit (assuming reputation decays with time) and sack the caravan for city Y instead as my reputation is not that low with them.
I ask everyone to take some time and think about all the issues it solves. I realize it is a bit draconian and out of the box, but it is truly up to the player where it happens to them or not as they control there own reputation.
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Goblin Squad Member
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"Meaningful PvP" means that:
Bandits stealing, as bandits will do, is not gong to result in alignment to shift to evil or dramatic reputation loss. As a matter of fact, a bandit can increase his reputation by using the Stand-and-Deliver mechanic.
An Assassin, kills as assassins are known to do, so like the bandit they will not be punished for playing their role. This is provided they use appropriate flags and against a contracted target.
Paladins can fight and kill evil, as Paladins will do, and they will not become chaotic for crushing evil beneath their steel boots, provided they are using he appropriate flag vs. the appropriate target.
The system of "Meaningful PvP" is meant to encourage what the Devs consider valuable PvP, while discouraging griefing. The Dev Blogs detail this as well.
If I may suggest that you go back and retread those blogs and perhaps you would see that your "draconian" (your adjective, not mine) are unnecessary.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So the suggestion is that Goblinworks takes the griefing aspect of the game, a game that is putting food on their tables, and put a significant portion of control of griefing into the hands of players.
This is the kind of thing that if it works out well, that's awesome, but if it doesn't - it will break the game. Good players can go bad, and many forum reputation systems have demonstrated exactly that.
So to distance myself from arguing for one side or the other of the notion of putting anti griefing power more into players' hands than GW has already suggested, I would conclude by saying this: it better work and it better work consistently, or the game is screwed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Bandits stealing, as bandits will do, is not gong to result in alignment to shift to evil or dramatic reputation loss. As a matter of fact, a bandit can increase his reputation by using the Stand-and-Deliver mechanic.
That's not what the blog says. Is there some comment on the forums that sheds new light on this?
From the blogs:
If the victim refuses, the Outlaw gets to carry out his threats of force without losing reputation.
"without losing" =/= "increase".
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Goblin Squad Member
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Bandits stealing, as bandits will do, is not gong to result in alignment to shift to evil or dramatic reputation loss. As a matter of fact, a bandit can increase his reputation by using the Stand-and-Deliver mechanic.That's not what the blog says. Is there some comment on the forums that sheds new light on this?
From the blogs:
If the victim refuses, the Outlaw gets to carry out his threats of force without losing reputation."without losing" =/= "increase".
And if the caravan accepts the SAD, and the bandits let it go without further harm ( 20 minute time limit), the bandits will earn maximum Daily reputation gain.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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1. PvP is major part of game (80%+ focus) with plays always flagged as PvP
Anyone can be attacked at any time (save possibly some very rare no-PvP zones), but there is a whole spectrum from "and your attacker takes an alignment hit, one or more flags that make him fair game for others to attack, and is pasted by NPC guards before he can hurt you too seriously" to "you have deliberately chosen to make yourself a certain flavor of fair game because you want to fight other players all the time and it gives a cool bonus." Approximately in the middle is "you're in a spot where your attacker may take some mild penalties to alignment and reputation but can potentially kill and loot you before help can show up; if you feel that he was griefing you rather than killing you for a legitimate reason, you can petition a GM."
2. Players will regenerate hit points while not in combat
Probably true; we haven't completely worked out the exact details on out of combat healing yet. As noted, you will take long-term injuries from crits that apply penalties and will be most readily removable in civilization, so you will get gradually worn down regardless of your HP recovery.
3. Players can have more than one account
True. This isn't something we could realistically prevent.
4. Players account will have multiple characters (let's say 8)
As others have noted, we're not 100% sure how many characters you can have on an account, and only the ones you're paying for can gain XP (i.e., it's functionally similar to having several accounts with one character each, but encouraging you to put them all on one account is hopefully more convenient all around). If you have a bandit for every day of the week, and they're all advancing in XP, you've dedicated a pretty significant amount of funds into your plan. Additionally, even if they are all gaining XP, the achievements you'll require as prereqs for training may require enough effort that you won't be able to spend all your XP for each if you're splitting your focus between that many characters (and if they're low enough rep, there may be a severe lack of places for them to train anyway).
5. There will be a free to play option
As noted, yes, eventually. FtP characters will not gain XP (past potentially an introductory amount). Players spawning free accounts to use fire and forget characters for griefing are both unlikely to be a real danger to anyone and also something we'll try to curtail as best we can.
6. Building can be destroyed faster than they can be built
Sorta true. We're trying very hard to keep the durability of player-made things in line with the difficulty of creating them, such that if you work hard on making something your enemies have to work hard to destroy them. A death-running wizard shouldn't be able to use unlimited free time to destroy all before him: building defenses are being tuned to vulnerability to big groups (likely with siege weapons) such that even a best-case scenario for a single character probably can't destroy them (and you're more likely to quickly have little gear and lots of injury penalties from constant deaths, not to mention a potentially long run from wherever you respawn, further lowering your chance for a best-case scenario).
7. It takes longer to setup and gather resources than to steal them after they have been gathered.
Mostly true, and a key part of the risk vs. reward that encourages you to try for the rare resources in dangerous territory precisely because if you do get them to market, they'll be worth more. Bandits that rob you will only take a fraction of what you had on you, destroying the rest, and have to balance their own risk vs. reward on properly identifying their targets and making sure they continue to have gatherers to fleece. To a certain extent this should reach a natural equilibrium; it's not going to be much more fun for bandits to sit in a bush all day hoping a high-value, low-defense target happens by. If an area becomes unprofitable to gather at due to banditry, gatherers will stop coming, the bandits will get bored and some of them will leave, and it will eventually become a risky but not hopeless place to gather again.
8. Characters cannot be killed permanently
True.
9. When a character is logged off they are out of the game world
Almost certainly true, though there are probably cases where we'll leave your character present for a little while after you disconnect. In general, the case of "I can log out as a way to game the system for my many crimes" doesn't outweigh "I have a valid reason for logging out of the game and don't want to be controlled by NPC AI at best, completely vulnerable at worst while I'm gone." It's also a lot of extra work on the server to keep all player characters always online and vulnerable, whether or not their account is logged in.
That is to say, yes, people will probably log out to lie low for a while, and the consequences of preventing that may be worse than allowing it. We're also thinking a lot about what kinds of problems actually expire if you log out, and what kinds just pause their timers.
10. In game reputation is by character and not by account (player)
True. Doing otherwise would just encourage players to make multiple accounts. If people are genuinely using disposable sock puppets to cause grief, it's something we can hopefully investigate via customer service rather than trying to set up a nigh-impossible programmatic solution for. As noted, the time-based power curve should work against disposable characters becoming serious threats anyway.
So that's all to say, we share the same worries that you do that the internet tends to inspire more sand-castle kickers than sand-castle builders than a beach in the real world, and we're creating a wide variety of systems to try to balance that impulse.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You're right, there it is a little further down.
When an Outlaw receives a ransom from stand and deliver, they get reputation up to a daily max.
That puzzles me: I get that this happens when the bandits don't kill, but they still robbed the people at knife point. So I'm trying to figure out how that reasons out to society thinking more highly of them (ie. reputation)
I mean, I get how it makes people think "wow, that's a skilled bandit" but not how that makes people think "ya, let's let that guy come into our very lawful good settlement".
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Goblin Squad Member
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And it says the same thing about assassins killing the target of a contract.
Ok, the issue here has to be me misunderstanding what is meant by "reputation".
I get it if they mean he has a good reputation as an assassin, but not that he has a good reputation as a good upstanding citizen.
Ok, from the blogs:
Characters with low reputations may also find they're not wanted in certain places. Settlements can set a minimum reputation to enter the city; players who don't meet the requirement are warned, and become trespassers if they continue to enter. Settlements may also be selective about permitting players with low reputations to join, since maintaining a high minimum settlement reputation is key to building several prestigious and useful structures.
Nope, that's not making any sense to me.
If my reputation is so low that towns won't let me in, I can fix that by assassinating more people? WTF?
As someone who intends to focus on playing an assassin - ya, I'm ok with that. I don't understand it, but I like it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You're right, there it is a little further down.When an Outlaw receives a ransom from stand and deliver, they get reputation up to a daily max.That puzzles me: I get that this happens when the bandits don't kill, but they still robbed the people at knife point. So I'm trying to figure out how that reasons out to society thinking more highly of them (ie. reputation)
I mean, I get how it makes people think "wow, that's a skilled bandit" but not how that makes people think "ya, let's let that guy come into our very lawful good settlement".
The reason is this.... Bandits will be able to tell the relative strength of their target. This probably depends on banditry skill, but lets leave that aside for now.
So my company of bandits and I know we can wipe out this caravan. But we don't. We give up surprise, and give the caravan an offer. If they accept the offer, and we let them go, we get daily maximum rep. Why?
Because we could have killed them ll, taken everything, and then what would the caravan have?
We gain Rep because we could have killed, but we did not. We cold have taken all, but we did not. We even gave the caravan a choice, when we did not have to.
Chaotic behavior, yes..... Evil, no.... More likely neutral.... Good, depends on what we do with the money....
If bandits are smart, and I plan for my company to be smart, they (we) will be Chaotic Neutral. For me the ultimate, " How ya like them apples" moment will be when I'm a Chaotic Neutral, Millionaire, Bandit with a High Reputation!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Reputation is not based on morals, it is based on how you treat other players within the mechanics of he game.
If you use flags properly, contain your PvP to war decks be PvP zones and leave players that are unflagged alone, unless you are robbing them or have a contract in the, you will have a high reputation.
Take a look at the list if PvP that the Devs encourage, in the blogs. Stay away from the ones that they discourage. If you follow that, you should have a decent reputation. If not I would question the Devs on the metrics, during EE. They might have to tweak the numbers a but.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Neutral? No, it's definitely evil to threaten someone with death and then take valuables from them. Killing them on top of the threat would be more evil on top of it.
Just because they didn't put up a fight and gave a reasonable offering, that doesn't change the morality of the situation. The threat of violence for something you want is not neutral - it is anathema to neutrality.
But that's alignment, and alignment is a separate matter from reputation.
You're saying that the following scenario makes sense:
Me and my boys can't get access to most towns. Our reputation is too low. What can we do to convince the towns to let us in? Simple: we can hold up a bunch of merchant caravans! As long as we don't actually kill the merchants, but merely take valuables from them while making it very clear that not cooperating will result in us killing and robbing them, then yes, civilized and proper towns will begin to like us again!
Now that's clearly how the blogs say it will work, so you're not wrong in saying that's the system. Just makes no sense.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Reputation is not based on morals, it is based on how you treat other players within the mechanics of he game.
Exactly. So put yourself in the shoes of a merchant. Bandits jump out of the trees and point weapons at him and threaten to kill him and take everything he has. Or, he can pay a "fine" to pass through.
Do you genuinely think the merchant is saying to himself "Golly gee! I'm sure glad I ran into bandits today. I now think more highly of those lads than I did before. An hour ago, I was just thinking to myself about those very bandits, and how I hope they never be permitted into my home town. But now! Now since he didn't kill me, and my pockets are a little lighter, I like him enough that I just might reconsider how comfortable I feel about him entering my town!"?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I also do not necessarily agree with what they are doing with the evil side. I understand that they want to make evil less attractive by limiting them, but I think a better approach might be to give good players more ways of dealing with them. Probably the best approach might be a little of both.
I disagree that is the intention or desired result (the above CE eg is the extreme case). It's more about consequences for actions and giving players interesting choices to RP and formation of different player groups across the map framed by the choices taken, playing by similar game sanctioned-rules (or lack of!) - and ensuring anti-social griefing is in check, additionally.
Effectively allowing the player base to police themselves. This would apply to both good and evil.
I could see a layer of player just underneath GW that fits the bill. It would be effective and add another level of diversity. +1
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Goblin Squad Member
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Here's another analogy:
A bunch of locals are standing around town talking about the Bluddwolf. There is a general opinion about him.
During the conversation, one person says "ya, that Bluddwolf robbed me outside of town the other day"
"Gasp!" from the collective.
"Oh no! Don't misunderstand, he just waved a sword under my nose, then took all my gold. He never actually hurt me."
"Bluddwolf? I've never heard that name before, but I'm starting to like him. If he continues to threaten to kill people for their money, then take their money and not kill them, I just might vote for him for mayor!"
So you're suggesting that even though people have just been informed that you're a crook, your reputation still goes up in their eyes because at least you're not a murderer and a crook? And not just you, but the wording of the blog as well. I think this may merit a new thread to see if that's the precise meaning GW wants to convey.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Reputation is not based on morals, it is based on how you treat other players within the mechanics of he game.Exactly. So put yourself in the shoes of a merchant. Bandits jump out of the trees and point weapons at him and threaten to kill him and take everything he has. Or, he can pay a "fine" to pass through.
Do you genuinely think the merchant is saying to himself "Golly gee! I'm sure glad I ran into bandits today. I now think more highly of those lads than I did before. An hour ago, I was just thinking to myself about those very bandits, and how I hope they never be permitted into my home town. But now! Now since he didn't kill me, and my pockets are a little lighter, I like him enough that I just might reconsider how comfortable I feel about him entering my town!"?
[IC] I quite honestly don't give a rat's ass if I have his gratitude, I only want his gold. He can save some face and give me a portion of it, or I can put a blade through his face and take it all.
Eventually I will build up a reputation amongst merchants in my area, that I favor letting them live, in exchange for a "toll" payment. But, I know that every once in a while my company will have to make an example of someone and really put them to the sword!
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Greedalox like Robin Hood. No, that's not a good example because he did a lot of good things for people. His challenge was more with law, not reputation.
But ya, it makes sense that there be a way of measuring someone's reputation regarding how good they are at what they do. How skilled a bandit, or assassin, or smith, or whatever.
But that shouldn't be muddied with how likely a town is to permit you entrance, which is the primary consequence of the currently described reputation system. They need to be separate systems.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Reputation gating isn't really about what your town wants. There are just buildings that you can't install or keep running if they're going to have disreputable folks around them. For whatever reason, they don't have any problem with charming bandits and gentleman assassins, but don't want to deal with kill-happy paladins. Maybe the people that you have to hire to work there just hate drama, and don't care about ideology.
At the highest level, though, we will often do things that maybe don't make total sense from a simulationist view because what would make more sense would also be way less fun (e.g., permadeath and prison).
Do note that the Outlaw and Assassin flags are designed as something you won't want to reset very often (because then you have to restart accumulating bonuses), so you're still often going to want to go to an Outlaw or Assassin-friendly settlement because lawful and/or good ones may happily slaughter everyone they see with such flags even if they can technically pass the reputation gate.
We're also in a fantasy realm, and fantasy stories are full of places where outlaws and assassins are admitted, if not appreciated, into polite society if they're not indiscriminate killers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Reputation gating isn't really about what your town wants. There are just buildings that you can't install or keep running if they're going to have disreputable folks around them. For whatever reason, they don't have any problem with charming bandits and gentleman assassins, but don't want to deal with kill-happy paladins. Maybe the people that you have to hire to work there just hate drama, and don't care about ideology.
At the highest level, though, we will often do things that maybe don't make total sense from a simulationist view because what would make more sense would also be way less fun (e.g., permadeath and prison).
Do note that the Outlaw and Assassin flags are designed as something you won't want to reset very often (because then you have to restart accumulating bonuses), so you're still often going to want to go to an Outlaw or Assassin-friendly settlement because lawful and/or good ones may happily slaughter everyone they see with such flags even if they can technically pass the reputation gate.
We're also in a fantasy realm, and fantasy stories are full of places where outlaws and assassins are admitted, if not appreciated, into polite society if they're not indiscriminate killers.
I want to make sure I understand what the intent is so I am going to ask some question. Note that these are questions and not statements. Please let me know if they are true or not and if not what am I misunderstanding. These are not meant as judgments, I am just trying to understand what the actual current thinking is.
Question 1: If a group of bandits extort money from caravans entering a city, but not attack them, then they can, due to their reputation, enter the city and train there.
Question 2: Multiple groups of bandits set up camp around a city extorting money from caravans entering the town, but do not attack them, and a group of paladins goes out and attacks them to drive them off, then the paladins would not be allowed in town (due to low reputation for killing the bandits and the reputation loss would be large due to the high reputation of the bandits), but the bandits would be since they would have high reputation for extorting money from the caravans.
Question 3: Can a caravan be attacked by more than one group of bandits while traveling from the gathering point to their city? Rare resources might be far away and it is possible that more than one ambush point may be setup by different bandit groups along the route.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As best as I understand the system, mind you it is not completely fleshed out.
1. Yes, provided the settlement does not have laws against certain alignments from entering, otherwise the bandits would still get the trespasser flag.
The bandits could still eneter, but they would have to sneak in and or use disguise, but that is a whole other discussion.
2. This depends on the flags, for both parties. If the Bandits are flagged (Outlaw) and the paladin is flagged (Enforcer) then yes, the Paladin can attack without loss of reputation or shift to evil. He will still shift a little bit towards chaotic, but his other actions and the flags themselves will keep him solidly Lawful.
If the bandits are just sitting around on the side of the road, drining a few beers, and their flags are not active, and they are not evil or of low reputaion, then the Paladin would lose a lot of Rep for killing them.
Ryan Dancey had written in a post one time, (Paraphrased) "What if when the Paladin saw these men that he knew were bandits and killed them all, but the bandits at that moment were in the act of attoning for their chaotic and or evil acts?.... The Paladin would not be acting very much like a Paladin."
3. Yes, the caravan could be attacked multiple times, but if the same group (not company, or guild, or settlement members)attacks it within 20 minutes of the previous SAD or Attack, the bandits will lose double the reputaion for it.
The devs (Cheney mostly) have said that bandits and merchants will ahve to strike a balance in an economic sense. If the bandits are overly aggressive and drive off the merchants, the bandits will have little to do. If the merchants never get SAD'd or attacked by bandits, their product will reach the markets in such a high supply, that the prices will drop, earning them less income.
Both need each other to balance the economic system.
Now this makes economic sense, until we ask one question... what are the bandits doing with what they steal?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thank you all for you input and responses. let me preface this comment with the fact that I want to like this game and want to be able to enjoy playing it and have it succeed. I have also read the entire blog posted on the Kickstarter and some of the forum messages, but not all there are just too many and I do not have that much free time. I am not trying to put down the game and I REALLY want someone to honestly convince me that my impressions are incorrect.
It appears that most of the posts in this thread are from people who would like to play bandits, assassins, bounty hunters, etc. as that is what most have indicated in the posts. I on the other hand would like to craft, gather and build. My issue is, given the information available, why would I play this game. I do not see the fun in doing the thing that I want to do. Believe me this is an honest question and I would like someone to tell me where the fun is in building the actual town and craft items for other player, because frankly I do not see it. Everything seems to be slanted against the player who wants to build and create and towards the ones who want to steal and destroy. Why should I as a player organize camps, hire guards, spend time gathering materials only to have all the stuff I gathered taken from me with my character having little or no recourse. In a prior post someone said that they did not what their character incarcerated, because they are paying a fee to play the game. Well the people gathering the goods are paying a fee also, why should their hard work be stolen from them. I do not believe, at least for me, that the bounty system and reputation system (especially since the reputation system encourages banditry) are good enough. According to the blogs gathering materials will be a very difficult organizational and time consuming process. High risk, high reward. Well where is the risk to the bandits.
Again, bear in mind that I like the idea of a sandbox MMO and want to like and enjoy this game, but given the information presented I just do not see it being fun for the ones who want to create and therefore I do not see it succeeding . Please someone convince me that I am wrong.
One last thing. If you want to say "just don't play then", that is fine, but without players like me who what to create the world, there will be no one to steal from, no towns to battle over and nothing for the bandits, assassins and bounty hunters to do. I really think the Dev's need to take a close look at the game from the town builders and crafters perspectives.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It isn't all doom and gloom for town builders. There are NPC guards who are going to provide fast effective protection in many areas of the world. On the frontpage at the moment there are two seperate guilds/kingdoms devoted to good and building a world, and groups such as the Seventh Veil (Nihimon) who are going to help people find safe places to play their game. There are companies devoted to spreading good and eradicating evil, who are going to be out and about quashing bandit encampments and the like. I am sure there will be towns and settlements with multiple hexes between them and the nearest bandit company.
Sure, there are going to be areas where if you travel alone, you will get killed, but those areas will be well-known to players. The main reason that bandits and assassins responded so vehemently to your post, is that in every thread people are complaining about the griefing possibilities of every new mechanic that the devs introduce, and the title you gave the thread is pretty inflammatory.
The devs have a LOT of MMO sandbox experience behind them, give this a chance, if it doesn't work, well that is what alphas/beta are for and they will look at doing it differently.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yes, that is the blog I am talking about, the one they post ever two week.
I do not look at my post as doom and gloom, I look at it as pointing out an issue that I believe needs to be addressed or at the very least better expressed to the community. If there are a lot of posts pointing out the possibilities for making the game less enjoyable for a group of players then it might be appropriate to address these concerns in the bi-weekly blog post by telling players what the intent is for that group and how the dev team is envisioning that style of game play. This might go a long way to alleviating the concerns of these players. Right now I understand their concerns as the dev posts have been leaning in favor of one play style at the expense of the other. There needs to be a balance and currently I do not see it. Now, they may have it all worked out, but if so then please let the community know what it is as there appears to be a lot of concern in the community about it.
As for myself, I realize that everything is subject to change and I will definitely be checking out the alpha and beta to see how everything works out. It is just given the blog and the dev posts I have seen, I think that this game is not going to do well in its current incarnation and would like to express my concerns so that at the very least someone is aware of the issues I am raising and possibly will give it some consideration. Again I want this game to work and I am serious about not being able to figure out how it will be any fun for those who want to do building and crafting. Can anyone give me 5 things that they think will be fun and not frustrating with regards for building and crafting?
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Goblin Squad Member
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OMG! Victor...
All of us Bandits, Assassins, Bounty Hunters, Paladins, Warriors, Mages and Merchants...all of our conflict and struggles against each other are for one purpose, to provide meaningful interaction as we support or compete against the growth of settlements.
None of us can train in advanaced skills without settleemnts. None of us can equip ourselves without crafters, living and working in settlements.
As of now, only settlemenst can declare wars. Before those can happen, settlements have to be large enough to feel they need to compete, to slow others down or to wipe them out.
You should specically read Ryan Dancey's posts and Blog s on the role of the settlment in PFO. For him, other than player interactions, the Settlements are the Big Picture.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree with everything you said, settlements are important, crafting is important, but if building the settlement and crafting that sword is overly difficult and frustrating (i.e. work and not fun) then why would anyone pay to do it. My concern is that no one will want to do the actual building and crafting, that is not to say that someone might do it out of necessity, but it would be nice if there were some mechanisms to make it fun and advantageous to so. Right now I cannot see where it will be fun or advantageous for anyone to actually be the one doing the building and crafting. If you can, then let me know how.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have bantered about numerous topics with other posters when I disagree with something in a blog, a poster's opinion, etc., so I certainly don't have a problem with you or anyone expressing their opinion on any topic. What I have trouble understanding is that if you're well informed on the type of game PFO is planned to be and the founding principles around which it is being constructed, why would attempt to turn that game into something it isn't meant to be?
The vast majority of MMOs out today are not what PFO is attempting to be and far more what you seem to be asking for. No game can please every type of player...if it attempts to please everyone, it often fails to be a great game for any style. You often end up with a watered down, factionalized mish-mash of a game with various play styles only interacting with their particular peer group. GW has stated that they are trying to cater to a niche market by providing a game that will cater to a specific group of play styles. If you don't care for the game presented, even before it's been released and proven (in your opinion) unsatisfactory, then it would seem far more constructive to seek a game in keeping with your play style. I would bet that the vast majority of people who put good money into the quickstarters want to play the game PFO is making. Again, not every player will like every decision a company makes, but that doesn't make the game as a whole faulty.
As an analogy, I'm a wrestling coach. Especially at middle school level, we're sort of the forgotten sport in the building, but those of us who love wrestling really love wrestling. I would be very displeased if someone who likes football, a far more popular sport, came in and tried to make wrestling more like football, simply because that's the game they rather play. There's hundreds of football teams...leave my little niche sport alone.