Goblin Squad Member
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"Man! We've been out here all day and haven't found one good node yet. Let's head home. It's late."
"Hey man! You see that node over there? Wow! Would you look at that node?"
"Yeah, I think that's a mothernode! I've heard stories about mothernodes! Maybe that one's gusher!"
"I'd tap that node any day!"
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Goblin Squad Member
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For what it's worth...
Your interpretation is correct, so far as the blog is concerned. That said, we're internally batting around some adjustments based on forum feedback. :)I have a feeling the "adjustments" they're talking about are more in the direction of allowing those exclusive rights to be sold, rather than making them apply even after the Kit is placed...
I hope they do 'adjust' it so the exclusive rights can be sold. I just have no interest is setting up a large harvesting/mining site. But no problem scouting them out.
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Goblin Squad Member
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"Man! We've been out here all day and haven't found one good node yet. Let's head home. It's late."
"Hey man! You see that node over there? Wow! Would you look at that node?"
"Yeah, I think that's a mothernode! I've heard stories about mothernodes! Maybe that one's gusher!"
"I'd tap that node any day!"
"You cant touch it, its bound to that bandit guy."
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Goblin Squad Member
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The big thing is you want to have people want to guard your camp, regardless of how fast or efficiently you extract. ...
Add in the mini-game, and make it so that the guards can play the mini-game as well, giving a diminishing returns bonus to the extraction, but more importantly it gives the guards something to do between escalation waves.Great post with some good points. I just had one idea, if there is a lack of things to do between waves, how about adding the ability to "dial up" the tempo; increase the mining speed but also the frequency and number of spawned mobs?
That way the more players that help, the faster it will go and the more mobs there will be to fight. That way you don't need to add an extra minigame. The players can adjust the rate so that the guards are kept busy the whole time and everyone wins (especially if the mobs drop coin and salvageable materials).
I'm going to break some social taboos and bump my own post, surely someone must have some input on this idea? I get the feeling it got lost in the tide of posts. Sintaqx's post above mine (on page 2) that made me think of this idea is a good read.
The topic is: how to make it fun for people to help guard a harvesting operation?
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Goblin Squad Member
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That you somehow "own" it and can keep anyone else from wresting it from you and exploiting it seems oddly anti-PvP and anti-competition.That's not an accurate description of the system as described.
You "own" it in the sense that you're the only one who can place a kit. Once that kit is placed, all bets are off, and anyone with the power and the twisted desire to wrest it away from you can do so.
Is this a definite? If so, seems a nice balance.
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Goblin Squad Member
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"You cant touch it, its bound to that bandit guy."
That'd be an interesting character. A self-professed bandit who goes into a hex and gathers, rather than robbing the gatherers already there? Who spent a significant amount of his character's training time on gathering skills? Sounds more like a gatherer than a bandit to me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The topic is: how to make it fun for people to help guard a harvesting operation?
Pay them!
As someone who has done more than my fair share of guard duty, I can tell you, there is nothing more mind-numbingly boring. You will have to pay PC guards really well, if you expect them to spend their game time doing this. Even with high pay, they will still be hoping someone attacks.
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I'm going to break some social taboos and bump my own post,
And nobody complained, interesting. Apparently it's acceptable social behavior to break social taboos so long as you announce first that you'll be breaking social taboos.
Next time I'm in 7-11: Hey guys, I'm going to break social taboos here, and pee in the slurpy machine.
And nobody complained, interesting. Apparently it's acceptable social behavior to break social taboos so long as you announce first that you'll be breaking social taboos.
Next time I'm in 7-11: Hey guys, I'm going to break social taboos here, and pee in the slurpy machine.
"Mr. Dennit, with all due respect, and remember I'm sayin' with all due respect, that idea ain't worth a velvet painting of a whale and a dolphin gettin' it on."
Talladega Nights humor aside, I suspect the hook for the guards are the waves of attacking NPCs. In the context of helping their company or settlement, guards are probably willing to help out so long as they're not spending their precious playtime being bored. The pay would probably be insufficient regardless and just takes away some of the opportunity cost's sting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The topic is: how to make it fun for people to help guard a harvesting operation?
Pretty much from the first blogs that mention it, I have been under the notion that guarding a harvesting operation is like, the funnest thing in the game. Hordes of mobs come at you and roving PC enemies might stop by as well.
I'd go as far as to say Harvesting is the new Raiding.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Is this a definite? If so, seems a nice balance.That you somehow "own" it and can keep anyone else from wresting it from you and exploiting it seems oddly anti-PvP and anti-competition.That's not an accurate description of the system as described.
You "own" it in the sense that you're the only one who can place a kit. Once that kit is placed, all bets are off, and anyone with the power and the twisted desire to wrest it away from you can do so.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd go as far as to say Harvesting is the new Raiding.
Agreed: harvesting has always been identified as a big source of PvE combat. Escalations will be bigger, but likely less frequent. PvE combat against humanoids may be a faucet for coin as well. Now, grinding mobs isn't everyone's idea of fun, but some like it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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"You cant touch it, its bound to that bandit guy."That'd be an interesting character. A self-professed bandit who goes into a hex and gathers, rather than robbing the gatherers already there? Who spent a significant amount of his character's training time on gathering skills? Sounds more like a gatherer than a bandit to me.
Its called Ninja mining, you use an alt.
Since the node will be too much to ninja mine, then you just get it started and it dies off causing a hit to the hex.
Ninja mine in enemy territory.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Since the node will be too much to ninja mine, then you just get it started and it dies off causing a hit to the hex.
But you're only causing a "hit to the hex" in proportion to the actual resources you take out of the mine. There's no reason to believe that hit is front-loaded when you activate the Gathering Kit.
In essence you're wasting money - the cost of the Gathering Kit - in order to have a negligible impact on the Hex's Resource Pool.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I just had one idea, if there is a lack of things to do between waves, how about adding the ability to "dial up" the tempo; increase the mining speed but also the frequency and number of spawned mobs?
That way the more players that help, the faster it will go and the more mobs there will be to fight. That way you don't need to add an extra minigame. The players can adjust the rate so that the guards are kept busy the whole time and everyone wins (especially if the mobs drop coin and salvageable materials).
I was thinking more on this, and think there could be a "logical" way to dial up the rate of a node.
Finder places his harvesting kit. Mining speed is set based on his skill, spawn rate of mobs is set by whatever mechanism GW has in the background.
But if the group wants to extend their operations - to dig a branch mine, to widen their cutting operation, whatever - then perhaps another character, with permission from the finder, can place a second kit. This might increase the gather speed by some factor, partially based on that second character's skill (but less than the initial rate; diminishing returns). It could also increase the PvE spawn rate. Additional kits might be expended, each providing a lesser increase in speed and an increased PvE spawn.
The kits might even need to be separated by some distance, to make the guard operation become increasingly difficult as well. There might still be one collection point to make PvP attacks more tempting as well.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Since the node will be too much to ninja mine, then you just get it started and it dies off causing a hit to the hex.But you're only causing a "hit to the hex" in proportion to the actual resources you take out of the mine. There's no reason to believe that hit is front-loaded when you activate the Gathering Kit.
In essence you're wasting money - the cost of the Gathering Kit - in order to have a negligible impact on the Hex's Resource Pool.
The hit should be loaded to the hex once the node is discovered. But either way, once it is discovered or once it dies it will hit the hex toward resources. Sure one node may not be much, but its still a hit.
Do we know whether a gathering kit is reusable or not?
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Goblin Squad Member
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The hit should be loaded to the hex once the node is discovered.
Stephen Cheney clarified that the hit occurs as each unit of resource is actually removed from the Hex.
... if one person had a kit on hand and plopped it down immediately, and everyone else took half an hour to get a kit and get back, the first guy would have half an hour of really good production, then it would start to drop off as everyone else drained the well...
It seems a little strange that you would be arguing in favor of an implementation that would cause the very problem you want to avoid, while shunning the implementation that would avoid the problem entirely.
Do we know whether a gathering kit is reusable or not?
I believe we know they're single-use.
[Edit] It occured to me that I may be wrong in asserting that you wanted to avoid the problem.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The hit should be loaded to the hex once the node is discovered.Stephen Cheney clarified that the hit occurs as each unit of resource is actually removed from the Hex.
But when is it counted as removed? In the coding I mean, is it removed once mined? or in the case of a node is that once discovered since only 1 person can start mining it?
If it has to be mined in both cases, that removes a warfare tactic of trying to lower the resources index of a hex... which could be fun.
... if one person had a kit on hand and plopped it down immediately, and everyone else took half an hour to get a kit and get back, the first guy would have half an hour of really good production, then it would start to drop off as everyone else drained the well...It seems a little strange that you would be arguing in favor of an implementation that would cause the very problem you want to avoid, while shunning the implementation that would avoid the problem entirely.
Im not sure what you mean, what I want removed is the binding of anything at all (including resources)
Do we know whether a gathering kit is reusable or not?I believe we know they're single-use.
[Edit] It occured to me that I may be wrong in asserting that you wanted to avoid the problem.
Im not sure that we know for sure, I havent seen it anyway
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Goblin Squad Member
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You can lower the resources of an enemy hex without a weird method of coding which removes resources from the hex before they are received. But instead of a single ninja having a measurable impact, it needs to be teams of ninja miners, or else a large force to mine and defend kits.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The big thing is you want to have people want to guard your camp, regardless of how fast or efficiently you extract. ...
Add in the mini-game, and make it so that the guards can play the mini-game as well, giving a diminishing returns bonus to the extraction, but more importantly it gives the guards something to do between escalation waves.Great post with some good points. I just had one idea, if there is a lack of things to do between waves, how about adding the ability to "dial up" the tempo; increase the mining speed but also the frequency and number of spawned mobs?
That way the more players that help, the faster it will go and the more mobs there will be to fight. That way you don't need to add an extra minigame. The players can adjust the rate so that the guards are kept busy the whole time and everyone wins (especially if the mobs drop coin and salvageable materials).
I'm going to break some social taboos and bump my own post, surely someone must have some input on this idea? I get the feeling it got lost in the tide of posts. Sintaqx's post above mine (on page 2) that made me think of this idea is a good read.
The topic is: how to make it fun for people to help guard a harvesting operation?
That first sentiment is worth the reply alone. :)
For mobs I'd like to see (the waves):
1. Diverse variety of type (players find it v difficult to perfectly "match" mob opposition type).
2. Random assignment of power-level from easier to much harder
3. Range of numbers
I even think the above difficulty to defend against should not always allow players to win and they'd have to bail from a harvesting mother-node from time to time. If Mobs become "lambs to the slaughter" they're value as content imo drops once that has been experienced to be the reality of them.
And of course Hex Type to further vary the above with Monster Hexes being most unpredicatble/risky/dangerous upper range.
Conerning bandits and PC's escort detail of guards will be based on going-rate of contracts that's determined via the above and the threat of enemy PC's. Likely all gathering operations will have larger patrols in the same hex near enough to all them with a response time to reinforce the escort guards (who'll be a minimum deterrent level to PC's and sufficient to deal with most mob waves or at least wandering mobs and get reinforcements from "patrols").
If there is any way for same-alignment PC's to be able to pay mobs in a hex to "go kill these guys: here' coin/human ears!" that would be a nice decoy/distraction tactic.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Although I like the idea of an occasional "boss wave" popping up and being a real headache for the guards (and a great opportunity for waiting bandits to strike), I hope the number of times a player has to bail on a well-prepared Kit operation due to NPC mobs should be negligible to none. Make the difficulty too high, and only the most totally prepared/geared characters can do it, and the costs may become too high.
There's also this issue: if the players are struggling to survive just against NPC's all the time, then they'll be at a massive disadvantage when another group attacks them. It would mean an increase to the risk inherent in an already risky and preparation-intensive operation. If using a kit means you have to have all your guards tied up in fighting NPC's, then you're sitting ducks for any bandits in the area. You don't want to be too hard on Kit users, or nobody will use Kits, y'know?
On the other hand, the suggestion to have the NPCs' difficulty be scalable and player controlled would solve this problem, and open up options for players. Do you want a very profitable but very risky operation, where almost all your guards are needed for NPC killing, or do you sacrifice profit for the extra protection given by dialing the NPC's back a bit?
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Goblin Squad Member
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You can lower the resources of an enemy hex without a weird method of coding which removes resources from the hex before they are received. But instead of a single ninja having a measurable impact, it needs to be teams of ninja miners, or else a large force to mine and defend kits.
I agree, it should take a group of ninja miners to make an impact, but I would like to see it possible.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Although I like the idea of an occasional "boss wave" popping up and being a real headache for the guards (and a great opportunity for waiting bandits to strike), I hope the number of times a player has to bail on a well-prepared Kit operation due to NPC mobs should be negligible to none. Make the difficulty too high, and only the most totally prepared/geared characters can do it, and the costs may become too high.
One a kit has been placed, the harvest will stop when (a) NPC mobs have taken out the kit placement, (b) the hex runs out of resources, or (c) some count limit is reached. Note that (c) is a guess, this is not specified.
I would expect the NPC mob difficulty to typically rise over time (with there being a possibility of unusual spikes along the way), else the harvests would never stop until the count limit was reached. A rising difficulty would mean that even wildcat miners could get some small hauls before they had to flee. More significant groups could get larger hauls, but most would eventually abandon the node to the hordes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As far as keeping guards entertained while harvesting it goes back to auto-scaling the NPCs. The more players in the area of a harvest operation the more, bigger, and faster the NPCs come to put an end to the op. A few guards equals a slower trickle or a bunch of settlement mates hanging out results in an NPC warband.
Tuned correctly this isn't a disadvantage for getting bandit attacked in middle of a wave either. When new players (bandits) enter the area new NPCs scale and aggro to them. Since combat mechanics promote relatively steady wearing down of health without giant nukes any competent guards should finish their NPCs before the bandits end their spawns leaving the guards free to deal with bandits being additionally attacked by NPCs.
Trespassing inside the NPC scaling area can result in a criminal flag to resolve any flagging issues for dealing with strangers with banditry intentions. Allied reinforcements that happened to get flagged that way, group them up to remove the flag or just don't attack them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Since the node will be too much to ninja mine, then you just get it started and it dies off causing a hit to the hex.But you're only causing a "hit to the hex" in proportion to the actual resources you take out of the mine. There's no reason to believe that hit is front-loaded when you activate the Gathering Kit.
In essence you're wasting money - the cost of the Gathering Kit - in order to have a negligible impact on the Hex's Resource Pool.
The hit should be loaded to the hex once the node is discovered. But either way, once it is discovered or once it dies it will hit the hex toward resources. Sure one node may not be much, but its still a hit.
Do we know whether a gathering kit is reusable or not?
Stephen Cheney said in the other thread the hit is proportional to how many resources are actually removed from the hex. Placing a kit for 30 seconds will likely be a waste of a kit with no other notable impact.
Now, a hostile group going around gathering has been a viable economic warfare tactic since the days of mining the other guys' tiberium in the original Command and Conquer. That will be a material differential and do damage to the quality and quantity of the hex's resources even before getting to mothernode depletion. The enemy force would probably be very interested in fortifying and completely draining any harvest camp though because THAT is the settlement fuel they want to deny the other side.
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Harvest kits to me seem like one use items. It's a design goal to have crafters making a variety of essential items. It's a better economic regulation if there's a cost that goes into getting new resources. And it physically seems unlikely to have a blow-up camp you can use and fold up when you're done to reuse later.
BTW, for Wilderness Hexes under the 'control' of a Settlement, they will be able to make it a 'Crime' for non-members (or specifically authorized outsiders) to Harvest within the Hex? I assume that might apply to beginnning any Harvesting/Kit, and removing resources from the Kit's container (and if the resource is subsequently handed off to another player within the bounds of the Settlement's laws?)
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Goblin Squad Member
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It doesn't seem too complicated to allow mechanics for the controlling settlement to call it a criminal flag (caused by trespassing) if someone not linked to that settlement gathers or harvests at nodes in their territory. It wouldn't physically stop the collection just leave them open to some meaningful PvP for the choice they made to illegally collect at nodes in the area.
It's my guess all containers will automatically come with fairly strict ownership boundaries (a choice of personal to the character that places it, their company, faction, or settlement possibly with access permissions based on internal rank) and criminal flag for anyone else whether they're used with a harvesting kit or any other purpose. In that case nothing extra would need to be done in a harvesting kit context.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm going to break some social taboos and bump my own post, surely someone must have some input on this idea?
You pretty much have to on these blog post threads. Many topics of discussion could branch out from one blog, but the most frequent posters will tend to lock on to one or two. If there's a page of posts before you, you probably won't break into the discussion with anything new.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As far as keeping guards entertained while harvesting it goes back to auto-scaling the NPCs. The more players in the area of a harvest operation the more, bigger, and faster the NPCs come to put an end to the op. A few guards equals a slower trickle or a bunch of settlement mates hanging out results in an NPC warband.
I was thinking of this but there will be a disparity in combat prowess between characters, what is a 'fun' amount and type of monster to fight for some will be a snoozefest for some and impossible to defeat for others.
If there is some way for the players involved in guarding the placed kit to affect the difficulty of the mob waves it might make the guarding process more fun. It could be dependent on the quality of the kit but another possibility is that the players can 'dial up' the difficulty and be rewarded with faster extraction rate and more/better drops from the mobs.
I could see this being done by instructing the workers to 'pick up the pace', thus extracting faster but at the same time making more noise and attracting more monsters. 'Picking up the pace' could be activated through interaction with a gong or a drum for example and the pace selection should cover a couple of different options (pace 1 to 5?)
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Goblin Squad Member
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If there's a page of posts before you, you probably won't break into the discussion with anything new.
I don't think that's fair, and I think there are numerous counterexamples.
One of the problems Wurner faces, I think, is that his ideas are generally good without being obviously flawed, and he's generally thorough in describing them. People who generally like them might often feel like they have nothing to add.
@Wurner, I highly recommend you start a new thread when you have an idea like this. Not only will it give folks a place to discuss it, but it will also show up on the devs' radar.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If there's a page of posts before you, you probably won't break into the discussion with anything new.I don't think that's fair, and I think there are numerous counterexamples.
One of the problems Wurner faces, I think, is that his ideas are generally good without being obviously flawed, and he's generally thorough in describing them. People who generally like them might often feel like they have nothing to add.
@Wurner, I highly recommend you start a new thread when you have an idea like this. Not only will it give folks a place to discuss it, but it will also show up on the devs' radar.
Thank you Nihimon, I will keep your advice in mind. However, after my self-bump I think it's "mission accomplished" where getting attention to this particular idea is concerned.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As far as keeping guards entertained while harvesting it goes back to auto-scaling the NPCs. The more players in the area of a harvest operation the more, bigger, and faster the NPCs come to put an end to the op. A few guards equals a slower trickle or a bunch of settlement mates hanging out results in an NPC warband.I was thinking of this but there will be a disparity in combat prowess between characters, what is a 'fun' amount and type of monster to fight for some will be a snoozefest for some and impossible to defeat for others.
If there is some way for the players involved in guarding the placed kit to affect the difficulty of the mob waves it might make the guarding process more fun. It could be dependent on the quality of the kit but another possibility is that the players can 'dial up' the difficulty and be rewarded with faster extraction rate and more/better drops from the mobs.
I could see this being done by instructing the workers to 'pick up the pace', thus extracting faster but at the same time making more noise and attracting more monsters. 'Picking up the pace' could be activated through interaction with a gong or a drum for example and the pace selection should cover a couple of different options (pace 1 to 5?)
If there was anyything like that unction in the game I have to insist it's tied directly to the harvester's kit skill and not at all related to the ability of guards.
I'm assuming there will be a kit/harvesting skill on top of the basic originode gathering skill. If the minimum kit skill is 3 for the mothernode, and the harvester was skill 14 "pick up the pace" might be able to cause a huge increase but if the harvester's skill was 5 it might have a mechanical affect but so small players don't notice a difference. It encourages specialization and interaction.
The quality of material is confirmed tied to the amount of resources available in the hex. I can't see how the difficulty of NPCs would go up and down based on the amount of resources available in the hex so it shouldn't be tied to the quality of what's being harvested. It makes sense if the NPCs see either 5 or 12 individuals loitering at a harvesting op they respond in like with about 5 or about 12 of their own.
I'm thinking instead of sheer numbers the waves can include a tougher type of NPC too, or with more abilities so it's not just "here are 5 more goblins" every time. And I'm all for steadily increasing the difficulty of the waves (combat specialists having a place in economics too) if it's not too much of a programming or balancing challenge.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Now a question I have is, what happens to the big group of NPC's who attack a Kit operation if they successfully destroy it? Do they stay in the area, despawn after a set period, despawn immediately after the kit is broken?
I like the idea of the mobs staying indefinitely, but I'm afraid it could be used and abused. For example, set up gathering ops just outside starter town protection, and build up a ring of NPC's spawned through Kit gathering around the starter settlement, killing a bunch of unwary noobs and fencing them in.
Even if it wasn't used to intentionally grief, it could lead to every gathering field being plagued by huge groups of mobs that only the biggest groups can come in and clear, which would in turn restrict the smaller groups from gathering. I could see big groups using such a mechanic, and having a big NPC wave spawned to act as a "guard" on their favorite resource gathering area.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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A couple of things to think about.
Three scenarios.
Scenario A: A well-run, cohesive Settlement with full control of its Hex and maybe surrounding Hexes. Nobody is in this space that the Settlement doesn't want. Characters not on the security details are able to move around with little sense of threat and therefore don't encumber themselves with combat gear.
In Scenario A, nodes are harvested by dedicated harvesting teams, with max-skill, max gear characters. The Settlement may have a cadre of newer characters (note new characters don't imply new players) who are tasked with doing some crafting so they can earn merit badges and unlock advanced character abilities. There is very little "random harvesting".
In Scenario A, gushers are exploited to the maximum possible potential. The security forces defend them and the harvesting teams and logistics teams get as much value out of the gusher as possible. Since most harvesting teams are maxed out characters, most of the gushers are maxed out gushers.
This is an advantage of having a cohesive, secure Settlement zone; you get maximum efficiency from your local resources.
Scenario B: There will be places where the chance of meeting organized opposition is reasonably high. Maybe this is a conflict zone near two or more Settlements who are warring, or a place where the geography of NPC security creates opportunities for roaming hostile bands. Whatever the mechanism, harvesting teams assume they could be attacked.
There is a surprising amount of random harvesting in this scenario. Characters passing through this territory might take a small detour to hit a node if they detect one. Settlements won't want characters expending resources on organized harvesting teams unless the Settlement can also provide security forces, so when a Settlement tries to harvest the area in an organized fashion, they have to send in a mixed team of harvesters, soldiers, scouts, and logistics. It's a pretty hard thing to hide and it's likely to draw the attention of other hostile nearby forces. Those forces are almost obligated to respond because if they fail to do so they'll be giving an economic edge to their adversaries. Therefore an organized attempt to harvest is usually either a feint, a probe, or a prelude to a major military engagement.
In Scenario B, gushers might be found fairly often by random harvesters. Then the problem becomes what to do about it. Setting up an extraction camp is going to be very hard, given the security situation. I could see a couple of ways around this problem involving tithes being paid to the local powers by a 3rd party neutral group, or a hit & run approach where the camp is run as long as possible before the heat becomes too much, then the camp is destroyed and the gusher abandoned. It would still be more valuable than a single harvesting node.
This would be a high risk / high reward harvesting scenario for moderately large groups who aren't affiliated with cohesive, secure Settlements. It is a way 'round the problem of resource starvation for those not in control of their own territory.
Scenario C is pure wilderness, far beyond the ability of any Settlement to project its security forces in strength on a continuous basis.
In this territory, one would expect a continuum from single characters to large organized groups in a free-for-all for resources. A large enough group would likely attract the attention of whatever nearby powers there are, but the problem might not be easily resolvable leading to lots of skirmishes, ambushes, and fights that break down rapidly into chaos (with the result being a lot of character deaths and people fleeing).
It might be entirely possible for a single character to find a node, tap a gusher, and then proceed to set up an extraction camp with a small number of friends for help in fighting off monsters and transporting the spoils out to some safe zone. Individuals and small groups could get a foothold on the ladder to independent wealth in these kinds of zones, but the setbacks could be enormous. This could be a region where most go broke, and a few get rich.
Scenario A means that it doesn't matter if the gusher is locked to a character; although the Settlements would prefer it if they could transfer the gusher to the most efficient extraction team, they don't suffer in comparison to their competition if they can't.
Scenario C means that there would be a real value in being able to transfer a gusher. It would create a class of harvester/explorer characters making money by finding gushers, and a class of harvester/logistics characters who buy those nodes and exploit them as quickly and thoroughly as possible.
Scenario B is in the middle. For organized harvesting teams it doesn't matter if the resource node is locked, they'll already be at maximum efficiency. For "snipers" or lone wolves, being able to sell the gusher to a 3rd party would be a source of potential revenue. It is unclear, however, how much Scenario B territory will exist, and unclear how many resource snipers and lone wolves will inhabit it. It's possible that while such characters could operate in theory, in practice the role might be so unprofitable and risky as to be unused.
In Scenario B and C, having a character-locked gusher gives low skill poor characters leverage. Instead of being pushed aside by "the big boys", they'd be able to parley their lock into a share of the spoils extracted by larger, more organized teams. Rapidly the market will be able to value these gushers, so players who are paying attention will know what their discovery is worth, and will be able to negotiate from a position of some strength. Without a lock there will be a large number of characters who have no intention of exploiting the node, and who turn gusher nodes into commodities. Nobody will take a gusher-finder on a harvesting team "just because". They'd rather buy that character off with coin. That starves harvesters of the milestones they need to achieve merit badges and thus unlock improved harvesting abilities. In a world without a resource lock, new characters might find themselves unable to advance past a low threshold of efficiency, and thus be blocked from becoming competitors to entrenched, older harvesters.
So these are the kinds of things the designers are considering.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If there's a page of posts before you, you probably won't break into the discussion with anything new.I don't think that's fair, and I think there are numerous counterexamples.
One of the problems Wurner faces, I think, is that his ideas are generally good without being obviously flawed, and he's generally thorough in describing them. People who generally like them might often feel like they have nothing to add.
Okay, but how is someone to know the difference between everyone thinking the idea is sound but having nothing to add and everyone missing or ignoring it because it didn't engage with the ongoing argument, or even everyone thinking it was useless and not worth their time? I'm not assuming the most pessimistic or optimistic scenario, just figuring that less frequent posters are often lost in the noise of more familiar voices circling one another as they've done many times before. It often seems to me that something like a first-past-the-post problem is developing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Okay, but how is someone to know the difference between everyone thinking the idea is sound but having nothing to add and everyone missing or ignoring it because it didn't engage with the ongoing argument, or even everyone thinking it was useless and not worth their time? I'm not assuming the most pessimistic or optimistic scenario, just figuring that less frequent posters are often lost in the noise of more familiar voices circling one another as they've done many times before. It often seems to me that something like a first-past-the-post problem is developing.
I often tag solid ideas as favorites even if I don't agree with every detail. I'd rather do that than post "+1" replies; I'd like to think that if I don't have anything useful to add I don't need to clutter the thread.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Scenario A - If this happens then someone isnt doing their jobs correctly. LOL I should say, no settlement should be allowed (by the bandits or enemies) to achieve that status. If they do then there are too many players in one area and the hex will be depleted of resources quickly... Everyone will be fighting over the basic harvesting sites, and once a node is hit, the settlement will likely demand a share.
Scenario B - Should be a normal state
Scenario C - Should be a normal state
In B and C - Sure you could give the little guy a chance at some wealth... but if you are with a group that would push you aside to begin with... They will also be the group that will demand a portion from said little guy or said little guy will just be removed from the company.
To expand on Xeen's point, Scenario A should be hard because a given hex only provides a finite amount of raw materials. Even acknowledging trade to exploit comparative advantages, a settlement would either have to expand its territory or voluntarily half its population growth (but thereby reduce its capacity to internally balance against adversaries, real and imagined). This tension would spur conflict and emergent content. The largest polities may be able to establish buffer areas but in an environment with magical fast-travel and various means of stealth, there should always be a decent possibility for raids by competitors or bandits.
As an aside, I much better understand why GW wants to link harvesting with the discoverer. I wonder, though, if the merit badges might not be associated with the discovery rather than the exploitation? Successful prospecting would be the actual achievement on which advancement depends. To me, it's much less of a stretch of verisimilitude to sell deeds than the alternatives.
Scenario A - If this happens then someone isnt doing their jobs correctly. LOL I should say, no settlement should be allowed (by the bandits or enemies) to achieve that status. If they do then there are too many players in one area and the hex will be depleted of resources quickly... Everyone will be fighting over the basic harvesting sites, and once a node is hit, the settlement will likely demand a share.
Scenario B - Should be a normal state
Scenario C - Should be a normal state
In B and C - Sure you could give the little guy a chance at some wealth... but if you are with a group that would push you aside to begin with... They will also be the group that will demand a portion from said little guy or said little guy will just be removed from the company.
Gunna have to concur with Xeeny here, because if people are doing their jobs, no one should have that type of control of their resources, unless their low-level resources right outside their front-doors.
@Ryan - Couple quick questions:
1) Will people be able to take control, and make it "illegal" for people to harvest resources in a wilderness hex, JUST by controlling an outpost or two? Or will resources in Wilderness hexes always be "Fair game".
2) If someone is harvesting resources that AREN'T "fair game", are they then getting auto-flagged for PvP?
Thanks. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Maybe it's just me, but the developers seem to be spending an awful lot of time crafting a system that rewards ganking other players far more than exploration and adventure. This seems a bit odd when the basis of Pathfinder has always been "players v. Environment" rather than fostering intra-party squabbles. Granted, the move to MMO seems to require a degree of PVP, but that seems to be the emphasis here. The last RPG that I recall doing this was Ultima Online, and they tanked harder than that "teach a goblin to read" program I tried to set up.
And I don't think I fall into the "carebear" set - it's just that some of us have jobs and can't sit online for 47 straight hours leveling up to the point we won't be immediately assassinated on our first ore run.
It doesnt require a "degree" of pvp but rather the whole thermometer...
Pathfinder is not a PVE game, even paper and pencil... You are always fighting against the DM... in perspective that is. When you fight a dragon, the DM is supposed to play it to the best of its abilities or something is lost.
Also its a skill based game.
Catch up on the blogs, I suggest starting at the bottom and moving up from there. No offense meant, but it seems like you have the concept of the game all wrong.
We may need a new sticky on the forum: "Basics of PFO Design Philosophy - What we're doing, and what we're not." It could summarize some of the early blogs.
Cloakofwinter - PFO will be more like Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies and EVE Online than World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic and Lord of the Rings Online.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In B and C - Sure you could give the little guy a chance at some wealth... but if you are with a group that would push you aside to begin with... They will also be the group that will demand a portion from said little guy or said little guy will just be removed from the company.
In B and C it was already expected the little guy finder and extraction group split the take as the market dictates since neither party gets anything on their own. And a player might sell among a number of companies or factions as a contractor. A finder might get burned in the split by a group once but then won't partner with them anymore in favor of other groups. If you were sharing a criticism of the system I don't see what it was.
Also if badges are a consideration for advancing skill in this phase of the production chain then you definitely have to protect the skill developer and not allow an oligarchy of craftsmen in any of the areas.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Why would they not demand a portion from the little guy in scenarios B and C? If they're going to pay for a kit, and pay for a number of company members to protect and assist this guy, I'd expect something out of it as well. It's all well and good to make the one guy feel important for finding a big node, but any sensible company is going to use the opportunity to profit at the same time, instead of sink resources for one person's personal gain. As Proxima says, both sides gain an advantage here, because neither the little guy or the company is getting any of the mothernode's resources if nobody's collecting from it.
The way I see it is like this. Say a mothernode gives 8x what this guy could make through normal gathering practices. When he hits a mothernode, he contacts one of his companies he likes to deal with and makes an offer. Say something to the effect of "I take 25% of the resources gained, you take the rest and foot all the expenses". The solo gathering guy would still be netting twice as much resource as he would otherwise, while the company takes the rest, subtracts the expenses of the kit and the people to defend the kit, and makes profit from whatever's left. Truly a win-win for both sides there.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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Scenario A will be extremely common. Large, cohesive Settlements will be the norm, especially in the beginning of the game. Small, noncohesive Settlements will be knocked out and replaced, and it will be a race between the survivors for size & cohesion. It will be "get big, get organized, or die". Once that stabilizes, the large cohesive Settlements won't be displaced outside of a major disruption in inter-Settlement alliances or internal political breakdown.
Until we change how we build out territory, you can assume that the "older" a hex is (the earlier it was added to the game) the more likely it will be controlled by a large cohesive Settlement. The chaotic creation/destruction of brand new Settlements and newcomer groups will take place at the perimeter of the available territory.
Settlements aren't self sufficient. But that doesn't mean that a given area doesn't produce enough raw material to form the basis of a trade economy. Several Settlements exchanging materials harvested from their immediate areas should be self-sustaining. The Settlements will develop their ability to project security until they're able to hold enough territory to met this basic level of economic production. The larger, more cohesive Settlements will take more. They'll be limited by the security envelopes of their neighbors, not by staffing.
Our design challenge is to create the need for this economy to function over enough distance that the supply lines can be disrupted; the trade should not move within the security envelopes of the trading Settlements but should pass through territory controlled by other forces.
Remember that we expect and are designing for Settlement organizational structures with thousands of members.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Remember that we expect and are designing for Settlement organizational structures with thousands of members.
That's something that's very good to remember; if I understand right, a single settlement will have some hundreds of members, so a nation will number in the thousands. I know I myself often forget this when talking about nations, settlements, and companies. This'll be something hugely different from the MMO's I've played before, and I'm definitely looking forward to it!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Remember that we expect and are designing for Settlement organizational structures with thousands of members.That's something that's very good to remember; if I understand right, a single settlement will have some hundreds of members, so a nation will number in the thousands.
I think GW expects a settlement will have thousands of members, not hundreds. Nations will be even bigger. A settlement will have 20-50 companies (or more) with different interests and focuses.
Each of the settlement's outlying hexes will have one company as an owner and additional companies holding the manors and other resource collection structures. That's maybe 2-4 companies per hex; x6 bordering hexes means 12-24 companies before you even get into the heart of the settlement.