Goblin Squad Member
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@Banesama, here's a quote from the Core Rulebook, which can maybe make the arguments for Evil-only assassins a little clearer:
Alignment: Due to its necessary selfishness and callous indifference toward taking lives, the assassin class attracts those with evil alignments more than any others... Neutral characters sometimes become assassins, frequently thinking of themselves as simple professionals performing a job, yet the nature of their duties inevitably pushes them toward an evil alignment.
Now, I can see the case of assassins who only assassinate "for good", taking down despots, corrupt officials, etc. However, whatever their motives, they are relentlessly hunting people to murder them in cold blood without a chance of fighting back; that's what the prestige class does. Their methods are decidedly Evil, so they would become the sort of "Evil character who thinks they're Good".
A noble figure who disguises himself to infiltrate the evil tyrant's chambers and slay him is not an assassin (well, doesn't belong to the prestige class detailed in the CRB); he'd probably just be a rogue or fighter with ranks of Disguise. The thing that defines an assassin is he dedicates his training and his entire life to the pursuit of killing others in cold blood with no chance of them fighting back.
Edit: reread your post, realized you may not be opposed to Evil-only assassins at all. But nonetheless I'll leave the post here; it might prove useful to others.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I view every character as an opportunity. Sometimes they will be a possible target, others a possible employer to generate another stream of targets.
Few if any will be trusted (Blue), because our contracts will be short term and based solely on providing coin and a target rich environment.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Im not saying people cant be friends, im not saying that everyone is going to be territory hungry. What I am saying is that organizations who dont prepare themselves will be vulnerable.
Am I going to go around ganking everyone, no. Am i going to go around killing everyone who is gathering, no.
But If i take a look at your settlement and I honestly think I can take it from you while not bankrupting myself or opening myself to being taken over, im going to probably do it, and when I do it I will not be nice about it. What i mean about that is that me directly attacking the settlement to start the siege will be the final step in the war after everything else.
as for assassins, i dont see why not. Ryan confirmed that doing things like going after a settlement's crafters/merchants/gatherers is fair game. I dont see a better way to get to ensure that high value targets (say merchants with contracts...etc) are dealt with without staining your hands.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...and then we come to the question: Will Assassins have a place in PFO?I don't see why not. By the rules they have to be evil. But there are many situations where an Assassin can do good by killing.
Kill the Tyrant that wants to start a war against the peaceful neighbor, get hired to kill a slave boss that stole your sister, etc...
If Assassins must be evil then I suspect there will be many a Good leader who will wish to avail himself of the services of evil.
If the Kingdom of the High Palatinate became embroiled with the Evil Empire of the Sultan of Schlep, whose client companies are countless as the sands on the beach and the stars in the sky, whose economic base is so great the gods themselves seek loans from him, whose smithies are the finest in the world and who commands the tides to stop for his bath and they comply, there might be no other recourse than to find a mediating lawful neutral to act as intermediary to hire a devotee of the Mantis guild to intercede.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If Assassins must be evil then I suspect there will be many a Good leader who will wish to avail himself of the services of evil.I certainly hope that Assassins aren't necessary to weaken a Settlement prior to attacking it.
That is one of their primary functions, I don't see why anyone would not employ them for that purpose.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That is one of their primary functions, I don't see why anyone would not employ them for that purpose.If Assassins must be evil then I suspect there will be many a Good leader who will wish to avail himself of the services of evil.I certainly hope that Assassins aren't necessary to weaken a Settlement prior to attacking it.
I anticipate it would mean an alignment hit for a good character, settlement, or Kingdom to contract an assassination directly.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I anticipate it would mean an alignment hit for a good character, settlement, or Kingdom to contract an assassination directly.That is one of their primary functions, I don't see why anyone would not employ them for that purpose.If Assassins must be evil then I suspect there will be many a Good leader who will wish to avail himself of the services of evil.I certainly hope that Assassins aren't necessary to weaken a Settlement prior to attacking it.
So they would be contracted in directly, through meta game or use of alts.
Alignment and Reputation are infinitely gameable through the meta game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Being, now you make me want to play a Keleshite sultan with a ridiculously long title. "Sultan Abu, great and masterful diviner and gourmand, ruler of the Thousand Thorns and destroyer of... etc, etc, etc" And of course, every person who wishes to speak with me must address me by my title before making a proposal.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I choose to view all who are not in league with those who are in opposition with me as friends. Partially because I honestly believe seeing the economy, and more importantly this game succeed are indeed good for me. Partially because I view it as a self-fulfilling prophecy.And this, even with all the things we do not agree upon (and there have been many), is the reason Phaeros will friends, if not allies, with Brighthaven.
Please keep in mind that Brighthaven's stance towards political arrangements cannot yet be defined until a council is formed. That being said, I would like to see a Brighthaven that extends friendly status to most non-hostile groups, even if they may be competing in some similar spheres.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That this is a PvP game with some pve elements, not that its a pve game with some pvp elements.American Football is not a game about tackling.Yet everything you do in football involves tackling, being tackled, or avoiding a tackle.
Everything in PFO will be directly or indirectly linked to PVP. In some way shape or form.
But then again we are talking about an Open World Sandbox PVP game not American Football.
Nobody scores more points than the kicker, who almost never tackles or gets tackled.
Don't try me I can do football analogies ALL DAY LONG.
LOL, no one tries to tackle the kickers, if they did it would cost them. But instead they always try to block him. And trust me, they would tackle him if they could.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Actually no, I would expect the indirect contract would be through the game. The LG player would contract an LN player to contract the LE Assassin. The benefits to Lawfuls for contract fulfillment and contract honoring will likely be too great to miss for Lawfuls.
Then the contract will be made by a character someone could care less about.
Say an alt with only the skills needed for contracting.
One way or another, assassin contracts will be made without the originator having any drawbacks from it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Eh. I've seen plenty of people who don't touch Crafting or PvE in games like EVE, WoW and GW2. I mean in WoW there's the whole "twink" culture of getting the most badass character possible at level 19 just to dominate PvP. If they do any PvE at all (as opposed to getting it all from the Auction House), it's because the item they want is Bind on Pickup.But let us at least be honest about what is reflected in the market. PvP-favoring players rarely avoid games that feature other elements and often see them as value adds if they feel like doing something a little lighter for the day. PvE-favoring and Craft-favoring players frequently avoid open PvP because they have the perception (rightly so from many games) that their play styles serve primarily as prey and content. This is why so many games just build out PvE and PvP server rulesets differently.Your right, PVP favoring players do not avoid games that have crafting and PVE content.
Then again, the people who are PVP favoring and do not want anything to do with crafting and PVE... dont play MMORPG's.
You missed it.
PVEers and Crafters that want nothing to do with PVP will play themepark games. (or the so called sandbox game that is missing some sand)
PVPers who want nothing to do with Crafting or PVE will still play themeparks and Sandbox games.
PVPers who do not want Crafting or PVE in their games do not play MMORPG's.
Also, the people who have the badass PVP character at 19 can still PVE. It will have all the combat skills needed.
And a final thought... WoW PVP to me is just a joke, kinda like SWTOR PVP... You have no risk, whats the point exactly? To get the next tier of gear? Whats the fun in that? May as well play a FPS.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Actually no, I would expect the indirect contract would be through the game. The LG player would contract an LN player to contract the LE Assassin. The benefits to Lawfuls for contract fulfillment and contract honoring will likely be too great to miss for Lawfuls.
If i was running a good organization, not just for the alignment advantages but i want to be known as the "good guys" not a single character who is known to be associated in any small way with my settlement will ever even close to be seen with an assassin or trying to hire them. it will not happen.
I will create alts specifically for this purpose. Said alts will fund the contracts by killing/SADing my merchants and gatherers to transfer money to them without raising suspicions. Ohhh poor me i was moving a bunch of T3 items when some CE *^&&%^'s kill me and looted all of them off my corpse, and i thought that 5 AM would be safe for me to do so.....ohhhh woe is me. Now my alt has a decent amount of money to do the contracts i need to do.
im not worried about GW knowning the alts are mine since thats not against the rules, I just need to make sure that other players can never inside or outside the game connect those characters.
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Goblin Squad Member
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And a final thought... WoW PVP to me is just a joke, kinda like SWTOR PVP... You have no risk, whats the point exactly? To get the next tier of gear? Whats the fun in that? May as well play a FPS.
It can be quite fun. Else why would people do it? FPS's make me yawn, though, so why would I play one of those when I could play another game that is actually fun with just as meaningless PvP?
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Actually no, I would expect the indirect contract would be through the game. The LG player would contract an LN player to contract the LE Assassin. The benefits to Lawfuls for contract fulfillment and contract honoring will likely be too great to miss for Lawfuls.Then the contract will be made by a character someone could care less about.
Say an alt with only the skills needed for contracting.
One way or another, assassin contracts will be made without the originator having any drawbacks from it.
Suppose part of the cost of getting the contract that has the benefits is measured in influence or DI? How would you negate the drawbacks of a price that had to be paid in a (presumed valuable) currency?
Suppose part of the cost of getting the contract that has the benefits is measured in influence or DI? How would you negate the drawbacks of a price that had to be paid in a (presumed valuable) currency?Actually no, I would expect the indirect contract would be through the game. The LG player would contract an LN player to contract the LE Assassin. The benefits to Lawfuls for contract fulfillment and contract honoring will likely be too great to miss for Lawfuls.Then the contract will be made by a character someone could care less about.
Say an alt with only the skills needed for contracting.
One way or another, assassin contracts will be made without the originator having any drawbacks from it.
If you make the cost of assassination contracts DI or influence you cut out the possibility of middlemen to a certain extent unless you make DI and influence a giftable item so I can pass it to the middleman to pass on the assassin.
I suspect people would think this is quite a gameable feature however
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Middlemen work just fine- there just needs to be a mechanical way of designating a middleman or transferring an assassination contract.
Personally, I like the idea of the contract being literally created out of influence and coin, with a completed contract being redeemable for the coin and a captured contract being destroyable for some portion of the influence.
There would have to be some significant benefit to using said contract, to counteract the expensive risks and make using the contract item appealing to anybody.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you were an Assassin, why would you require a contract? Why couldn't you just use your own skills / feats for your own purposes?
It the contract is the mechanism to make the kill "sanctioned", then could an Assassin with the appropriate skill(s) draft his/her own contracts and then fulfill them him/herself?
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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The kill isn't the goal of the assassin. Any brigand can run in and get the kill.
The goal of the assassin is the extra effects provided by the assassination: so far, severing a bind point, and possibly denying the target the use of settlement-wide beneficial abilities.
Further effects might be things like a contract executed against a manager damaging settlement DI, or impairing the functioning of the settlement or a PoI. If a general is providing organization-wide benefits, then an assassination contract executed on the general might turn a morale bonus into a morale penalty (as opposed to the noneffect caused by a regular kill).
And remember that assassination is more than simply stepping out of the alley and performing a tracheaectomy on the target: The PFO Assassination involves dark magic attacking the dead character's soul in a harmful manner.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you were an Assassin, why would you require a contract? Why couldn't you just use your own skills / feats for your own purposes?
It the contract is the mechanism to make the kill "sanctioned", then could an Assassin with the appropriate skill(s) draft his/her own contracts and then fulfill them him/herself?
Well i suspect this was done because an assassin killing a contracted target doesnt suffer the penalties associated with killing that target. So an assassin killing a LG merchant does NOT take the reputation hit that some random person would.
So an assassin could just kill whoever they want, but they wouldnt receive the protections and the bonus from observe debuff.
The only thing I am worried about is the player creates an alt or has a friend do contracts so that the cost of the contract doesnt get paid and they can target whoever they want.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Very good points; care will need to be taken in making sure assassinations cannot lead to easy, repeated kills on a target of your choosing. How that's achieved, I dunno; I'm not some game designer person. :)
Yeah, this is a tough call, when does "repeatedly" cross the threshold of becoming griefing?
But at the same time, there might be a legitimate reason to assassinate the same target multiple times (ie there is some condition on their part that must be met).
Assassins will be very expensive, especially since the system implies that they are more effective when working in a team. That means you are hiring a group, rather than one individual. Of course to avoid some of that cost, most wealthy and unscrupulous individuals, companies or settlements will have a cadre of Assassins on retainer.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Exactly. for example one reason to keep hitting a target is pre warfare. So im going to target settlement X's merchants. First thing im going to do is have bandits target those merchants. Then Ill have an assassin to assassinate the merchant after they give up their goods for SAD. If i keep targeting those people i weaken the settlements ability to resupply when the actual war happens.
However from the outside it might look like greifing, when its just a plan going into action.
As a result I would like to see minimum gold cost and a decently hefty rep cost to create a contract.
I think that if it ends up being buddies abusing the system then at that point GW should step in and stomp on it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Exactly. for example one reason to keep hitting a target is pre warfare. So im going to target settlement X's merchants. First thing im going to do is have bandits target those merchants. Then Ill have an assassin to assassinate the merchant after they give up their goods for SAD. If i keep targeting those people i weaken the settlements ability to resupply when the actual war happens.
However from the outside it might look like greifing, when its just a plan going into action.
As a result I would like to see minimum gold cost and a decently hefty rep cost to create a contract.
I think that if it ends up being buddies abusing the system then at that point GW should step in and stomp on it.
Why SAD then assassinate? You should just assassinate. If you are doing both to the same person, this seems like you are exploiting the system in undesigned ways.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Very good points; care will need to be taken in making sure assassinations cannot lead to easy, repeated kills on a target of your choosing. How that's achieved, I dunno; I'm not some game designer person. :)
If GW wants assassinations to be special, rare-ish, and significant events, the factions that train assassin skills like the Red Mantis could need to always be involved.
By that I mean (1) every assassination contract could have a not-trivial overhead cost; coin that leaves the game to the Red Mantis, and (2) the special poison used to sever binding threads is tightly controlled by the Red Mantis, only to be used in officially contracted assassinations. Doing assassinations without a contract and/or diverting the special poison to other targets results in the Red Mantis severing their ties with the character.
By severing ties, I mean permanently. They'll never do business with that character again - just like a PC organization would cut off someone who betrays their trust. They could also alert all of the NPC and PC settlements that Character X is an assassin as well, especially if he does any assassinations after leaving the Red Mantis.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Why SAD then assassinate? You should just assassinate. If you are doing both to the same person, this seems like you are exploiting the system in undesigned ways.
The reason to do both would be to encourage the bandits to keep operating there since if i can pull it off i would want a 3rd party bandit to do the SADing. After getting hit with a SAD the merchant is basically safe from having it happen again for a time. The assassin would be to make sure that even after dealing with bandits he has to deal with something else and keep the pressure going.
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Goblin Squad Member
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After reading this forum, the level of PVP that is going to be used means I am highly unlikely to support it, play it or spend money on it. Many of my friends feel the same way. Unless there is a way to flag or unflag PVP or at least set up "no PVP" servers then it is a deal breaker to me. Not every one enjoys PVP and most of the time I have played in mmo's that included it there were always griefers out there that kill players just for the sake of killing them, no matter what the level difference, no matter if it gained them nothing. Most of the time these types of players ruin the fun I have when in a mmo.This game will not be to everyone's taste. This is not good and it is not unfortunate, it is just a reality.
I wish you luck in your search for a game that is to your liking.
It is funny how this comment still has at least one individual butt hurt, and no it is not Realmwalker.
Realmwalker would probably thank me for saving him the money. The PvP in PFO wil not be significantly different than a majority of MMOs out there, it is almost identical to the majority.
