Goblin Squad Member
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I know some people here want so desperatly for PFO not have the same culture as the average Open World PVP MMO, but it will. Shortly after the release of OE, the MMO players will outnumber the EE (more TT RPG centric players or the more Theme Park MMO players)and the gamed will become your typical sandbox, Open World PVP MMO.
Duly noted in my List of Predictions :)
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I'm confused about why the position is being suggested that characters that don't have a pattern of behavior where the kill everyone not in their clique would be at the bottom corner of CE.
If it takes thousands of characters to develop the top settlements, then a clan of a few dozen or hundred players who fight everyone else they meet wil never develop a top settlement.
Darkfall dynamics, where the typical behavior when two characters meet is a fight to the death, won't be the dynamics practiced by the group that cooperate with lots of strangers to build large settlements.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The flaw in your assumption is that MMO players care about alignment. I can telly you as a very experienced MMO player, I couldn't care less. If I find out that one alignment is optimal, as compared to others, I'll set my core to that. Then I will do whatever the heck I want, and only when I feel the need I will grind my way back to my core.
The solution is to not allow people to play "however the heck they want" and maintain the "optimal" alignment then to make the slide from "optimal alignment" to "however the heck I want" alignment quick, but the redemption process slow.
At that point, people can still game the system by making occasional kills whenever they build up some extra alignment points, but they certainly can't go out and play "however the heck they want" on a regular basis and still enjoy optimal alignment.
If the goal is to remove all non-consensual PvP than this will never work, but if it's to reduce killing for the sake of killing, it will certainly make an impact if the penalties for sliding from the optimal alignment are heavy enough.
Note: I think this is entirely doable within the reputation system as well, and that's still where I'd like to see the real penalties exist.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm confused about why the position is being suggested that characters that don't have a pattern of behavior where the kill everyone not in their clique would be at the bottom corner of CE.
I think it's pretty obvious, actually:
The flaw in your assumption is that MMO players care about alignment. I can telly you as a very experienced MMO player, I couldn't care less. If I find out that one alignment is optimal, as compared to others, I'll set my core to that. Then I will do whatever the heck I want, and only when I feel the need I will grind my way back to my core.
The hardcore MMO players will play CE as long as they believe they will be able to optimize their game for maximum ability to attack others. They expect/hope to have minimum in-game inhibition, with full ability to meta-game the social aspects.
When some people protest that they need to have the game balanced, so they can role play as a CE, remember the above quote. If they are self-identifying their character as a CE (or close to it), they may not actually care about alignment. They may just plan to maximize attacks on other players - because we're not fighting good NPCs in PFO.
If the designers build a slightly unbalanced game which pushes the non-roleplaying MMO types into the Law and Good sectors, they might thereby increase the amount of war/feud and faction warfare and limit (but not eliminate) the small irritating stuff. The MMO players will adapt just fine.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The flaw in your assumption is that MMO players care about alignment. I can telly you as a very experienced MMO player, I couldn't care less. If I find out that one alignment is optimal, as compared to others, I'll set my core to that. Then I will do whatever the heck I want, and only when I feel the need I will grind my way back to my core.The solution is to not allow people to play "however the heck they want" and maintain the "optimal" alignment then to make the slide from "optimal alignment" to "however the heck I want" alignment quick, but the redemption process slow.
Yep. Remarkably consistent.
The solution to most of your objections can be summed up by "don't let people make easy recoveries from evil acts".
The most important thing is not that characters can kill other characters. The most important thing is that there are consequences for doing that. And it's a corollary of that statement that the more often a character kills other characters, or helps a character killer, the harder it must be for that character to recover from doing so.
(BTW, I love the fact that "some people" can only counter this statement by complaining about it being quoted)
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I'm confused about why the position is being suggested that characters that don't have a pattern of behavior where the kill everyone not in their clique would be at the bottom corner of CE.I think it's pretty obvious, actually:
The flaw in your assumption is that MMO players care about alignment. I can telly you as a very experienced MMO player, I couldn't care less. If I find out that one alignment is optimal, as compared to others, I'll set my core to that. Then I will do whatever the heck I want, and only when I feel the need I will grind my way back to my core.The hardcore MMO players will play CE as long as they believe they will be able to optimize their game for maximum ability to attack others. They expect/hope to have minimum in-game inhibition, with full ability to meta-game the social aspects.
The social aspect that I find interesting is the idea that the only place where they are allowed to craft their stuff is filled with people who behave the same way, and for them to run a gathering operation, they either need to go far away from where they need to get the materials to craft, or they need to do their gathering near people who are much more likely to murder them while they do so.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The social aspect that I find interesting is the idea that the only place where they are allowed to craft their stuff is filled with people who behave the same way, and for them to run a gathering operation, they either need to go far away from where they need to get the materials to craft, or they need to do their gathering near people who are much more likely to murder them while they do so.
While I think that social aspect *could* be interesting in a RPG, there's nothing that we've heard of for PFO that would incentivize CE characters stealing from their buddies or knifing them in their sleep. It's a sandbox MMO and will be meta-gamed by social groups. Whether they run a bunch of LG or a bunch of CE they will not attack their settlement members.
I think there will be self-identified crafters, who will gravitate to stable or protected areas. But because of meta-gaming, the CE may be as safe as anywhere else. It all depends on the mechanics.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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The reputation system inflicts collective punishment for the behavior of individuals. Since the quality and nature of the structures in your Settlement is dependent on your reputation, and the abilities of your characters are dependent on the quality and nature of the structures in your Settlement, if a character is eroding your reputation and thus degrading the quality and nature of the structures in your Settlement, every character in the Settlement is affected.
So reputation will drive the collective to expel people who refuse to conform to the collective's will with regard to reputation.
The alignment system segregates players. It drives players with similar playstyles together. If we do a good job of making you make meaningful choices with regard to things like Settlement building selection and how grouping works at various scales, people who want to play an alignment in one corner of the graph will have a very hard time being in the same Settlement as people in the opposite corner of the graph.
Therefore, characters who behave in a manner consistent with CE will tend to group together. CE behavior will be consistent with low reputation. Low reputation Settlements will produce characters that are disadvantaged vs. other kinds of Settlements because the quality and nature of the structures in CE Settlements will suck.
We're creating a funnel that pushes people who act like jerks into a situation where they are stuck playing with other jerks, and one cost for being a jerk is that they are less powerful than people who are not jerks. If some non-jerks who want to be CE "just because" get swept up in that funnel, frankly, I'm ok with that. I'd rather have a very good and effective jerk funnel that unfortunately traps a few non-jerks than a wide open playing field for jerks that relies solely on moderation and community peer pressure to control bad behavior.
(And frankly, I think it will be reasonably hard to be CE and not be a jerk)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd rather have a very good and effective jerk funnel that unfortunately traps a few non-jerks than a wide open playing field for jerks that relies solely on moderation and community peer pressure to control bad behavior.
For those reading this post and thinking it's too harsh on chaotic evil players. I'd like to point at a couple of old posts that are much more lenient on the evil alignment you could support, that still focus on Ryan's end goal of not forcing the community to rely soley on self-moderation.
Balancing Alignments
Alignment and Reputation at the Settlement Level
I think Ryan's plan is acceptable but those are a compromise I would back.
Given the way core and active alignment works in the game, I think if my main goal was to be a "jerk", I would choose LG as my core alignemnt, to give me more "alignment currency" on which I could spend on my jerkey behaviors. The people who choose CE as their alignment are looking to play the game, because if they just wanted to be jerks and didn't care about what happens in-game, or about role-playing, they'd choose LG.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm confused about why the position is being suggested that characters that don't have a pattern of behavior where the kill everyone not in their clique would be at the bottom corner of CE.
If it takes thousands of characters to develop the top settlements, then a clan of a few dozen or hundred players who fight everyone else they meet wil never develop a top settlement.
Darkfall dynamics, where the typical behavior when two characters meet is a fight to the death, won't be the dynamics practiced by the group that cooperate with lots of strangers to build large settlements.
Lets take Darkfall out of this and focus on the rest of your statement. I do not intend to take it out of context, its just that Darkfall is not a good game...
If we have the typical behavior that people when they meet in the wilds will fight. We can assume that for this argument.
Those types of people will band together and form PVP Companies. A couple of these companies will form together into a "settlement" or Alliance, even though they do not own a settlement.
They will look at the non pure PVPers settlement. Declare war and lay seige.
Know who has a settlement with no hard work in building it?
Know who recruits a few crafting based companies to run said settlement?
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Goblin Squad Member
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The reputation system inflicts collective punishment for the behavior of individuals. Since the quality and nature of the structures in your Settlement is dependent on your reputation, and the abilities of your characters are dependent on the quality and nature of the structures in your Settlement, if a character is eroding your reputation and thus degrading the quality and nature of the structures in your Settlement, every character in the Settlement is affected.
So reputation will drive the collective to expel people who refuse to conform to the collective's will with regard to reputation.
The alignment system segregates players. It drives players with similar playstyles together. If we do a good job of making you make meaningful choices with regard to things like Settlement building selection and how grouping works at various scales, people who want to play an alignment in one corner of the graph will have a very hard time being in the same Settlement as people in the opposite corner of the graph.
Therefore, characters who behave in a manner consistent with CE will tend to group together. CE behavior will be consistent with low reputation. Low reputation Settlements will produce characters that are disadvantaged vs. other kinds of Settlements because the quality and nature of the structures in CE Settlements will suck.
We're creating a funnel that pushes people who act like jerks into a situation where they are stuck playing with other jerks, and one cost for being a jerk is that they are less powerful than people who are not jerks. If some non-jerks who want to be CE "just because" get swept up in that funnel, frankly, I'm ok with that. I'd rather have a very good and effective jerk funnel that unfortunately traps a few non-jerks than a wide open playing field for jerks that relies solely on moderation and community peer pressure to control bad behavior.
(And frankly, I think it will be reasonably hard to be CE and not be a jerk)
Why does CE have to be consistent with low reputation? This part I do not understand, someone can play CE completely in the game as so far intended and not be low reputation.
Why will it be hard to be CE and not be a jerk? This part I do not understand, someone can play CE completely in the game as so far intended and not be a jerky a$@!~#!.
So, CE will suck and LE will be all powerful?
We have had this conversation before, and Torq came in and made it clear. Can you send in Torq to discuss this again?
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Goblin Squad Member
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LOL
Do you mind if I negotiate? Turns corner, puts bullet in head of opposition leader.
(its true though, last time this came up, just like this, the forums were in an uproar and Torq showed up to set it straight... this time though the forums are not in an uproar.... yet, this thread has probably been unwatched long ago by a large number of people)
Pathfinder has 9 alignments. If you punish CE people, that's 1 out of 9 alignments, and most like CN and NE people will get dragged in as well to some extent, which means you're alienating potentially 1/3rd of your audience.
There was a discussion in another thread about how many people are playing Neutral/Evil alignments these days, and it's a lot, so, you might not have too many people interested in your game. If the whole world is just full of good people who're as close to LG as they can be, I think we're in for a pretty boring game experience.
Woops, its Tork and not Torq, sorry about that
For the record, the "Q" in my name makes a "K" sound. Hope that helps.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Why does CE have to be consistent with low reputation?Because it is a game, and as a game it has rules. One of the rules apparently is that having a low reputation will funnel that player into CE alignment whether they understand why or not.
Why does CE have to be consistent with low reputation? This part I do not understand, someone can play CE completely in the game as so far intended and not be low reputation.
Why will it be hard to be CE and not be a jerk?
Because non-Jerks may become trapped by the mechanism(s) that funnel jerks into CE alignment, and that is a risk the designers find more acceptable and manageable than the consequences of any alternatives that they have imagined in their case studies.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A solution is to roll your character NE or CG; search for ways to grind Lawful when needed. Look for ways to either grind Reputation or game it. Don't concern yourself with role playing alignment, use it simply as a mechanic to min/max the system.
Don't fall in for the nonsense that there must be a siphon that will draw you into one community. Disperse your numbers into many communities and use dilution to mask the impact.
Even if you do end up in an all CE community. Disregard your in-game alignment, and meta game your company and govern your settlement as Lawful Evil.
Don't concern yourself with the power curve that you maybe denying yourself. The Devs have said they intend for the power curve to be slight, making little difference between veteran and new. Compensate for any nominal power loss throw numbers.
In the end, the players that wish to play their characters as chaotic evil, without griefing, will be able to do so without suffering significant penalties. Whatever the Devs can build, the player base can game.
The one gaming of the system the Devs could never counter is "indifference". The one group they can not counter is indifferent griefers.
Ryan Dancey has said about this much in his post, when he "departed off the reservation".
My second prediction, and this is based on the trend that the Dev Blogs and Posts have been moving in....
Almost all of PVP will be sanctioned and not result in Reputation loss or Alignment shift. Only the very blatant forms of griefing will incur those losses and shifts. This I believe is the only way for them to make the Reputation / Alignment system work specifically against griefers.
As the discussion seems to be going on this thread it appears to me that those systems will only lend to both systems being stripped of their meaningfulness (particularly Alignment). Min/Maxers will find a way to do what they do, and Griefers won't give a damn about consequences.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Why does CE have to be consistent with low reputation? This part I do not understand, someone can play CE completely in the game as so far intended and not be low reputation.
Ryan said CE behavior will be consistent with low reputation. We've been told that the actions that bring chaos and evil hits will also bring reputation hits.
A player can call his character CE and never rob or murder people and possibly gain high reputation. But he isn't committing chaotic or evil acts. He isn't playing CE at all, not based on his behavior.
If a character robs and murders and collects C and E hits, he'll typically also be collecting Rep hits. So CE behavior is consistent with low reputation.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Why does CE have to be consistent with low reputation?Because it is a game, and as a game it has rules. One of the rules apparently is that having a low reputation will funnel that player into CE alignment whether they understand why or not.Why does CE have to be consistent with low reputation? This part I do not understand, someone can play CE completely in the game as so far intended and not be low reputation.
Why will it be hard to be CE and not be a jerk?
Because non-Jerks may become trapped by the mechanism(s) that funnel jerks into CE alignment, and that is a risk the designers find more acceptable and manageable than the consequences of any alternatives that they have imagined in their case studies.
I think the simplest way to view this is that the same actions that will grant Evil and Chaos are also tied to actions that will lose Reputation.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My second prediction, and this is based on the trend that the Dev Blogs and Posts have been moving in....
Almost all of PVP will be sanctioned and not result in Reputation loss or Alignment shift. Only the very blatant forms of griefing will incur those losses and shifts. This I believe is the only way for them to make the Reputation / Alignment system work specifically against griefers.
Addressing just the elements of the second prediction.
I think that the first part is right: the great bulk of PvP will be wars, feuds, faction fights, and other types of PvP that do not result in reputation and alignment shifts.
I think the second bit is off: other PvP will still occur, the normal attacks that incur alignment and or reputation losses. It will include lots of acts that aren't griefing.
I don't think the intent is to make the Reputation / Alignment system work specifically against griefers. I think it's to encourage people to be involved in meaningful PvP, the bulk of which will be declared wars and feuds fought to further the goals of companies and settlements.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My second prediction, and this is based on the trend that the Dev Blogs and Posts have been moving in....
Almost all of PVP will be sanctioned and not result in Reputation loss or Alignment shift. Only the very blatant forms of griefing will incur those losses and shifts. This I believe is the only way for them to make the Reputation / Alignment system work specifically against griefers.
Addressing just the elements of the second prediction.
I think that the first part is right: the great bulk of PvP will be wars, feuds, faction fights, and other types of PvP that do not result in reputation and alignment shifts.
I think the second bit is off: other PvP will still occur, the normal attacks that incur alignment and or reputation losses. It will include lots of acts that aren't griefing.
I don't think the intent is to make the Reputation / Alignment system work specifically against griefers. I think it's to encourage people to be involved in meaningful PvP, the bulk of which will be declared wars and feuds fought to further the goals of companies and settlements.
I think, but may be wrong, that Bludd's prediction is that those other forms of PvP will become 'sanctioned' and that only griefing will ultimately be penalized.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the second bit is off: other PvP will still occur, the normal attacks that incur alignment and or reputation losses. It will include lots of acts that aren't griefing.
I don't think the intent is to make the Reputation / Alignment system work specifically against griefers. I think it's to encourage people to be involved in meaningful PvP, the bulk of which will be declared wars and feuds fought to further the goals of companies and settlements.
You are missing the point that Ryan had made. In almost every circumstance raids on outposts, and POIs will also be consequence free, because they are an important part of the "meaningful PVP" menu.
My prediction is that more than 90% of all PVP will be consequence free (sanctioned), and the only instances of "being a jerk" will fall within GW's definition of griefing.
I believe that caravans will be revealed as legitimate (sanctioned) targets, for the very same reasons that outposts and pois are. Ryan has said in previous posts, that the zoning in PFO will be non contiguous. In other words, you can not travel from one settlement to another in without being exposed to the possibility of PVP attacks.
I have no problem with lone characters remaining unsanctioned. But any group, and particularly any caravan, should be sanctioned. Taking part in the broader economy, on a large scale, is essentially PVP.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Why does CE have to be consistent with low reputation?Because it is a game, and as a game it has rules. One of the rules apparently is that having a low reputation will funnel that player into CE alignment whether they understand why or not.Why does CE have to be consistent with low reputation? This part I do not understand, someone can play CE completely in the game as so far intended and not be low reputation.
Why will it be hard to be CE and not be a jerk?
Because non-Jerks may become trapped by the mechanism(s) that funnel jerks into CE alignment, and that is a risk the designers find more acceptable and manageable than the consequences of any alternatives that they have imagined in their case studies.
Your not really answering my questions... Your just repeating what Ryan said.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think, but may be wrong, that Bludd's prediction is that those other forms of PvP will become 'sanctioned' and that only griefing will ultimately be penalized.
You are not wrong, that is exactly what I'm saying. That is the trend that GW has been following these past few months. They have done nothing but add to the types of PVP activities that would be sanctioned or consequence free.
I think, but may be wrong, that Bludd's prediction is that those other forms of PvP will become 'sanctioned' and that only griefing will ultimately be penalized.
You are not wrong, that is exactly what I'm saying. That is the trend that GW has been following these past few months. They have done nothing but add to the types of PVP activities that would be sanctioned or consequence free.
Really? To me it feels like PvP itself is becoming more and more "Unsanctioned". That being said, WHY NOT make it so that all PvP is fair game except for griefing?
You kill someone one time, no rep loss. You kill that same person again within 20 minutes, 500 points rep loos, again; 1500 points rep loss, again, 4000 points rep loss or something. Just make corpse camping extremely hard.
What other forms of griefing are there? Fill me in.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Bluddwolf, what you say is "gaming the system" I read as "working inside the system as intended". If they want to play CE, but they find it's a poor choice mechanically and they switch to CG, well then they'll have to be avoiding Evil acts to keep their CG alignment, which means they'll have to stick mostly to unpenalized PvP and other content which doesn't shift their alignment. Same for LE. Those players are allowed by the system to very occasionally act CE, that's a built in function and not gaming the system. I really don't see how the system is useless and gamable and broken if it directs them away from consistently repeating certain actions while incentivizing other actions. If 29 days out of the month someone acts Lawful to "grind Lawful", and then one day they act Chaotic, it seems to me like the system is working and not being gamed. To me that's no different from a character who wants to be Lawful, and very occasionally has to do something Chaotic for the betterment of his settlement/company.
You've made the argument before that "people will just ignore the system" but that's an impossible claim at the moment, as we don't know whether the specific punishments are light enough to just gloss over. For all we know being a low-rep, CE character will cut your combat effectiveness to a third of another character. The shallow power curve can't be used as an argument for either side until we know more, because if your character's combat effectiveness is cut in third then you'll be consistently crippled no matter how much training you pour into your character (a 5-year old character who's been cut in third would likely lose to a 6-month old character). I think any argument that goes "well we'll just zerg past any penalty" is also invalid, because it assumes you can double or triple your own number while your enemies' remain the same.
Though I agree that the system will be gamed in some ways, as all systems are, I don't think it will be as drastic as a widespread ignoring of the system like you seem to believe. However, at this point it's only a matter of "I believe..." on both sides, so there's no point in throwing out statements of what will happen in game. It's better to indicate that it might happen, and should be carefully planned for.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think, but may be wrong, that Bludd's prediction is that those other forms of PvP will become 'sanctioned' and that only griefing will ultimately be penalized.
You are not wrong, that is exactly what I'm saying. That is the trend that GW has been following these past few months. They have done nothing but add to the types of PVP activities that would be sanctioned or consequence free.
Really? To me it feels like PvP itself is becoming more and more "Unsanctioned". That being said, WHY NOT make it so that all PvP is fair game except for griefing?
You kill someone one time, no rep loss. You kill that same person again within 20 minutes, 500 points rep loos, again; 1500 points rep loss, again, 4000 points rep loss or something. Just make corpse camping extremely hard.
What other forms of griefing are there? Fill me in.
I think PvP hasn't changed that much recently. They ditched Alignment-Flags and added Factions. Nothing significant has changed beyond that. The consequences have not changed, merely been discussed more.
'That being said, WHY NOT make it so that all PvP is fair game except for griefing?' Because they are trying to appeal to a more broad audience. They want to drive players toward designed and meaningful aspects of the game such as territorial control and resource acquisition and not have roving bands of murderers wandering the woods because they think killing is fun and who needs another reason?
Back to the old Football analogy... PvP is to PFO as tackling is to Football. You do not tackle people in football just for the fun of tackling them. You tackle them to stop them from scoring against you. In PFO, it is undesirable for you to PvP for the sake of PvPing. PvP is intended to be the means to another end.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is not to say there won't be roving bands of murderers wandering the woods. There definitely will be! It is just that nobody is going to 'Win the Game' by playing as a band of bloodthirsty lunatics that haunt the wilderness.
And not all roving bands of murderers in the woods will be low rep and sucking. They may be high rep individuals who have decided they can afford to burn some rep on mindless slaughter. The hit will merely be a speed bump to them if they only do it now and then but otherwise play to the intentions of the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Your not really answering my questions... Your just repeating what Ryan said.Lifedragn said it better.
I think the simplest way to view this is that the same actions that will grant Evil and Chaos are also tied to actions that will lose Reputation.
You asked why. The answer is because it is the way the rules work and I tried to pronounce what the rules are said to be, so of course it was the same in meaning as what Ryan said. You might not like it but that doesn't mean a different answer from what Ryan said is the right answer. It is like you are shopping for an untruth because you dislike the facts. For as long as they remain facts and don't change, anyway.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So, being chaotic and evil are tied to player interaction only? OK
Not necessarily. But the majority of the game is intended to be about player interaction and not NPC interaction. Therefore the majority of CE players are expected to have fallen into CE due to their relations with players. Ryan allows for the case where players choose to be CE and manage it through other interactions (such as NPCs) but has stated he feels the number is small enough to be sacrificed.
I am not claiming I agree with that entirely, but it is what I read out of it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Why does CE have to be consistent with low reputation?Your not really answering my questions... Your just repeating what Ryan said.Why does CE have to be consistent with low reputation? This part I do not understand, someone can play CE completely in the game as so far intended and not be low reputation.
Why will it be hard to be CE and not be a jerk?
To expand on Being's answer, the function of the rep/alignment system is to shape the social landscape of PFO, not support a range of alignments. The specific goal is to make desired behaviors relatively advantageous to undesired behaviors, and to do so at the margin. So players will have to make decisions at the margin (even if they aren't self-aware of the choice). Maybe my LG paladin has a reason to kill another player--that transaction costs me something, and depending how close I am to the margin, the impact of that transaction has a different impact. An occasional loss transaction doesn't impact me at the margin--I stay in the upper left hand quarter. But if I start regularly making those kind of loss transactions, I start sliding--until my settlement kicks me out.
That's their goal--to let your [i[marginal[/i] choices funnel you into more or less advantageous positions as a system of behavioral control. Their reason is pretty straightforward--Ryan has pointed numerous times to games without this kind of system (e.g. UO) that quickly become toxic.
I can understand why someone who's intended playstyle is going to funnel them into the less-powerful social state wouldn't like this--it's against their specific interests. That's a pretty good sign their on the right track :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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The whole concept of "sucking" is based on a false assumption that players that play that way, care about sucking according to what you believe. Let me put some numbers to my arguement:
Let us assume that the highest level a CE, Low Rep character can achieve is 15, and the norm is 20.
Your average player may say, "Man that sucks, I won't do that".
The Griefer is saying, "Who gives a @$&@ I can kill noobs all day at level 15. I'm on it to harvest their tears. That is my game!!"
Now we have the contradiction. First GW says that if you are CE and Low Rep you will be limited. Then they say, but the power curve will be slight. One offsets the other, you can't have it both ways.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Bluud, that's just you're wishful thinking :)
Sure, a bunch of players are going to spend hours on-line so they can laboriously schlep across the wilderness and countryside to find a newb who's ventured out, then IF they managed to not get killed by high rep people, they have a shot to maybe gank one newb before they get killed and sent back to suck-town :)
Yeahhh, there are just tons of griefers who are willing to trade 3 hours of game time for a kill, when the target can just dust off and run back in 5 minutes. Sure :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Don't concern yourself with the power curve that you maybe denying yourself. The Devs have said they intend for the power curve to be slight, making little difference between veteran and new.
When you are a "new" character, you'll be fragile and weak...
At some point, you move into the "normal" power curve of the game; what we've talked about being equivalent to the kind of power you typically see from about 6th level to about 10th level (what I call the "heroic adventuring" part of a Pathfinder tabletop RPG character's career)...
There will likely be a small number of old, experienced, wealthy, well equipped PCs who will be really dangerous. You won't want to cross them.
If they show up in a fight, they can tip the balance quickly. If they act in concert as a group, it will take a lot of Heroic Adventurers to keep them in check.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The whole concept of "sucking" is based on a false assumption that players that play that way, care about sucking according to what you believe. Let me put some numbers to my arguement:
Let us assume that the highest level a CE, Low Rep character can achieve is 15, and the norm is 20.
Your average player may say, "Man that sucks, I won't do that".
The Griefer is saying, "Who gives a @$&@ I can kill noobs all day at level 15. I'm on it to harvest their tears. That is my game!!"
Now we have the contradiction. First GW says that if you are CE and Low Rep you will be limited. Then they say, but the power curve will be slight. One offsets the other, you can't have it both ways.
I think you are crossing intentions. Griefers are certainly expected to fall into the reputation and alignment nets, but they are not the targets.
Reputation and Alignment are meant to be somewhat visible guides to play by as a means of guiding the game. They are soft to allow for divergence, but not so much that the nature of the game takes a fundamental shift. It is a known factor that people will play in a low-rep fashion regardless, so they are adding controls so that it is not the default choice of play. Those folks are still expected to be part of the game, but are not meant to be considered the "winners" of the game but rather the "content" of the game.
There is a different tool for the griefer. That tool is not the RepNet, or Alignment Funnel, it is the BanHammer. GW has stated that punishment for griefers is going to be arbitrary and severe. The line is invisible because it is not meant to be gamed against. Griefers are not meant to be relegated to "content", they are meant to be removed entirely. Though, they will likely live in Low Rep before drawing enough attention to be acted against, reputation is not meant as a measure of griefing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The reason I asked those questions is exactly because only Ryan or the Devs could answer them.
As I see it now, with what we have, you can play CE and have a high reputation...
Chaotic - SAD and always honor it
Evil - Assassin and make good on contracts
You can have CE, be high rep, and not be an a**!%!@ or jerk or whatever other name Ryan has for his players.
Im annoyed that these things would be put into the game then be pre-game-nerfbatted.
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Goblin Squad Member
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First GW says that if you are CE and Low Rep you will be limited. Then they say, but the power curve will be slight. One offsets the other, you can't have it both ways.
Fib alert! Bludd knows the powercurve differential is about absolute power between different level characters both with access to gear and training. The access to gear/training is separate, tied to rep/alignment. Two separate systems that complement each other.
Caught you again, Bludd ;)
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Goblin Squad Member
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The reason I asked those questions is exactly because only Ryan or the Devs could answer them.
As I see it now, with what we have, you can play CE and have a high reputation...
Chaotic - SAD and always honor it
Evil - Assassin and make good on contractsYou can have CE, be high rep, and not be an a~!!@*! or jerk or whatever other name Ryan has for his players.
Im annoyed that these things would be put into the game then be pre-game-nerfbatted.
If you were going to be using only the SAD and Assassin contracts for your robbing and killing to maintain high rep, then you would be better served by plying your skills from a CN, N, NE, or LE settlement.
If your reputation is high, then you are playing the game as it is meant to played, and the nets shouldn't pull you into the worst settlements.
Reputation is going to restrict the access to skills, and the acts that cause your to loose reputation will also be the acts that lead to CE.
Therefore, most CE settlements will also be low reputation settlements, and thus those settlements will be disadvantaged. But there is nothing stopping you from being a High rep CE player in a non-CE settlement.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The reason I asked those questions is exactly because only Ryan or the Devs could answer them.
As I see it now, with what we have, you can play CE and have a high reputation...
Chaotic - SAD and always honor it
Evil - Assassin and make good on contractsYou can have CE, be high rep, and not be an a++~@+! or jerk or whatever other name Ryan has for his players.
Im annoyed that these things would be put into the game then be pre-game-nerfbatted.
Interesting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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First GW says that if you are CE and Low Rep you will be limited. Then they say, but the power curve will be slight. One offsets the other, you can't have it both ways.... the powercurve differential is about absolute power between different level characters both with access to gear and training. The access to gear/training is separate, tied to rep/alignment. Two separate systems that complement each other.
I think you're right; the power differential between characters of different "levels" and the differential between characters' access to training/gear/feats based on things like reputation are two different things. I don't think that we've been told that the second one is slight. I think they've suggested that basic weapons, for example, will be much less powerful than the best weapons with lots of keywords.