Goblin Squad Member
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I believe it's the True Neutral kingdom, not settlement, that may be disallowed - specifically to avoid allowing any one kindom (nation, whatever) to have membership from all points of the grid. Excluding a TN kngdom, the most you can get is seven alignments in a single kingdom, which leaves out two of the corners.
ETA: Ah ha... knew I'd seen it! (Bolded for emphasis.)
While we haven't talked much about them lately, nations as a group of settlements are still in the design (they're just a little further out than settlements). I believe the expectation is still that you can link several differently aligned settlements within one step of a nation. We may or may not let you make a true neutral nation, though, so there may be two corners of the grid that you can't get in a single nation.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm pretty sure they have said characters one step from Settlement and settlement one step from kingdom. So yeah that should work. Summon Nihimonicon on this one.You can manage with three settlements and still as a kingdom be one step.
LN
TN
CN
I'm not Nihimon, but this is correct. TN Kingdom with a TN Capital settlement. Allied LN and CN Settlements. This would allow the entire alignment spectrum in the same kingdom. However, Paladins will not work with evil unless it is an exceptional circumstance.
While she may adventure with good or neutral allies, a paladin avoids working with evil characters or with anyone who consistently offends her moral code. Under exceptional circumstances, a paladin can ally with evil associates, but only to defeat what she believes to be a greater evil. A paladin should seek an atonement spell periodically during such an unusual alliance, and should end the alliance immediately should she feel it is doing more harm than good. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Settlement alignement and the one step rule effectively cuts a groups players off from certain class choices thus changing the game play available.
Changed game play does not always mean worse gameplay or less desirable gameplay.
Choosing a faction in most other major MMO's is mere background flavour.
IMO, this a failure of those other major MMOs that I hope PFO avoids, which is why I am strongly in favor of the alignment system having significant game mechanics to back it up.
Btw, Steelwing, I hope you continue to investigate PFO and join the game if it looks fun.
Many of us have a lot of hopes invested in PFO and can get a bit strident advocating for our opinions on the forums, so please don't feel like we're jumping down your throat on purpose.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I did point out I wasnt familiar with the pathfinder system the fact that some classes I cited were wrong does not change the point. Settlement alignement and the one step rule effectively cuts a groups players off from certain class choices thus changing the game play available.Choosing a faction in most other major MMO's is mere background flavour.
As to your other point "As are Assassins. Anybody who plays Pathfinder paladin or sin should be used to that by now" frankly this is a pretty ridiculous point. The vast majority of players will not be Pathfinder TT players. They will come from EVE,Lotro,WOW,SWTOR,SWG and like me have no real knowledge or concern about pathfinder or its TT ruleset. They come looking because it is meant to be a fantasy based sandbox
In both Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons the Paladin and Assassin are special alignment cases. I'll tell you what is ridiculous, somebody who says they play Paladins and doesn't know it's a LG class. The D&D rules have been around a LOT longer than the WoW ones.
WoW players don't even care about Paladins, they care about "party buffing, tank with terciary healing" and there are plenty of ways to do that in an open class game.
And yes you are wrong on the other classes because rogues for instance can be any alignment. The class restrictions are only for one or two cases and the alignment restrictions are just a more complex version of what you would call flavor.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The vast majority of players will not be Pathfinder TT players. They will come from EVE,Lotro,WOW,SWTOR,SWG and like me have no real knowledge or concern about pathfinder or its TT ruleset. They come looking because it is meant to be a fantasy based sandbox
To be fair, all fantasy MMOs have some background lore that influences character options.
I can't login to WoW and roleplay Varian Wrynn's Tauren bodyguard.
Btw, Steelwing, I hope you continue to investigate PFO and join the game if it looks fun.
Many of us have a lot of hopes invested in PFO and can get a bit strident advocating for our opinions on the forums, so please don't feel like we're jumping down your throat on purpose.
Don't worry I have played Eve long enough to have a pretty thick skin by now.
On the other point however I would say that as far as the person who cannot choose their desired role is concerned the game play is definitely changed, definitely worse and definitely less desirable.
While I fully understand that you may see this as a good trade off for the benefits you think you will get from it (benefits I would say I am dubious will materialise it should be said). For those groups not currently invested in the game such as mine this scenario is going to play out a lot.
ME: "Hey guys I have been looking at this game its sort of a D&D style sandbox game based on territorial control"
Player A:"Great I have always fancied myself the [insert gated class]"
Player B:"Sounds interesting I want to play a [insert gated class]"
Me: "Sorry guys one of you won't be able to play the role you want if we want to be a group"
Player A & B "Meh that sucks"....lose interest and selling the game to them now becomes a struggle.
Now Player A & B may be a small portion of the group say 20% however if I can't convince them then we as a group probably go "Meh there are other games coming up we can look at"
The vast majority of players will not be Pathfinder TT players. They will come from EVE,Lotro,WOW,SWTOR,SWG and like me have no real knowledge or concern about pathfinder or its TT ruleset. They come looking because it is meant to be a fantasy based sandboxTo be fair, all fantasy MMOs have some background lore that influences character options.
I can't login to WoW and roleplay Varian Wrynn's Tauren bodyguard.
Most people who play MMO's are not role players nor have much interest in roleplay. Indeed I would hazard a guess that most players don't even bother much with game lore and don't read the quest back story. Arguing that faction choice matters from a roleplay perspective is perfectly correct while at the same time affecting such an insignificant portion of the player base that it can't reasonably be used as an example of faction choice affecting gameplay for most people.
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Goblin Squad Member
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ME: "Hey guys I have been looking at this game its sort of a D&D style sandbox game based on territorial control"
Player A:"Great I have always fancied myself the [insert gated class]"
Player B:"Sounds interesting I want to play a [insert gated class]"
Me: "Sorry guys one of you won't be able to play the role you want if we want to be a group"
Player A & B "Meh that sucks"....lose interest and selling the game to them now becomes a struggle.
Now Player A & B may be a small portion of the group say 20% however if I can't convince them then we as a group probably go "Meh there are other games coming up we can look at"
Steelwing, as I understand it, the business strategy for this game isn't centered on attracting the most players at the beginning, but rather on making the game so rich and compelling that PFO can grow (and retain) pating membership. Part of what makes a game compelling (in this approach) is that choices are meaningful and have consequences.
Not everyone likes this--we've had similar outbursts over PvP consequences, multi-classing vs. dedication to a single class. Some of us really get that forcing these meaningful decisions will make the game richer, while others just see that they can't do something they wanted to do.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Assuming TN is not an option for nation cores I see the options for those wanting to allow good and evil as:
(Middle is Nation Alignment)
LG-LN-LE (Focused Lawful)
CG-CN-CE (Focused Chaotic)
For specializing evil:
LE-NE-CE
For specializing good:
LG-NG-CG
And non specializing:
LN-LG-NG
LN-LE-NE
NG-CG-CN
NE-CE-CN
(Or working the corners)
This is how I am looking at it. It is built on an ability to move one step on either side of the nation core. Someone let me know if I have missed something.
Other notes:
Chaotic Evil has been stated to mechanically suck so much that it is probably best to take it as a design intent. That to me makes Chaotic Neutral one step along the good evil axis from sucking, and is probably not as favorable as Chaotic Good at two steps and might not be a favored build to settlements.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Most people who play MMO's are not role players nor have much interest in roleplay. Indeed I would hazard a guess that most players don't even bother much with game lore and don't read the quest back story. Arguing that faction choice matters from a roleplay perspective is perfectly correct while at the same time affecting such an insignificant portion of the player base that it can't reasonably be used as an example of faction choice affecting gameplay for most people.The vast majority of players will not be Pathfinder TT players. They will come from EVE,Lotro,WOW,SWTOR,SWG and like me have no real knowledge or concern about pathfinder or its TT ruleset. They come looking because it is meant to be a fantasy based sandboxTo be fair, all fantasy MMOs have some background lore that influences character options.
I can't login to WoW and roleplay Varian Wrynn's Tauren bodyguard.
It is true. Many if not most players bring the same play style to every game they play and if it doesn't work optimally consider the game a failure. Every game they enter is played exactly the same as every other and then they wonder why they keep bouncing from game to game to game bored silly because they are still playing the game they just left behind.
It is almost an argument that there is no reason to design a new game because the players won't play the brilliant new design you poured heart and soul into, they'll try to play WoW there anyway and then either complain its because of bad design, or else if it does accidently work for them they'll complain its just a WoW clone.
ME: "Hey guys I have been looking at this game its sort of a D&D style sandbox game based on territorial control"
Player A:"Great I have always fancied myself the [insert gated class]"
Player B:"Sounds interesting I want to play a [insert gated class]"
Me: "Sorry guys one of you won't be able to play the role you want if we want to be a group"
Player A & B "Meh that sucks"....lose interest and selling the game to them now becomes a struggle.
Now Player A & B may be a small portion of the group say 20% however if I can't convince them then we as a group probably go "Meh there are other games coming up we can look at"
Steelwing, as I understand it, the business strategy for this game isn't centered on attracting the most players at the beginning, but rather on making the game so rich and compelling that PFO can grow (and retain) pating membership. Part of what makes a game compelling (in this approach) is that choices are meaningful and have consequences.
Not everyone likes this--we've had similar outbursts over PvP consequences, multi-classing vs. dedication to a single class. Some of us really get that forcing these meaningful decisions will make the game richer, while others just see that they can't do something they wanted to do.
I think you are missing the point I am making here MBando. Frankly I don't care one whit how they set the game up.
What does concern me though is (assuming I find I like what I see of PfO) how I sell the game to my group. I can assure you that I can tell them how rich and vibrant PfO is till I am blue in the face and it won't move them in the slightest. What they will concentrate on is mechanics intially....this is what I want to do in game and the playstyle I want to play sort of thing. If enough of them feel they can't do the roles they prefer then it will be a no go.
I suspect for most people how rich and wonderful PfO will be (assuming it is for the moment) won't actually become apparent until they play. Most people are pretty cynical these days as the wonder games touted by their friends fail to deliver the promise on a massive scale so most take any eulogising of a game with huge clumps of salt (me included).
I do not believe the group I commonly play with to be exceptional in this regard and if I can't persuade them to join in the first place then even if PfO is the new messiah of MMO's then it won't matter a damn because they won't try it in the first place.
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Goblin Squad Member
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ME: "Hey guys I have been looking at this game its sort of a D&D style sandbox game based on territorial control"
Player A:"Great I have always fancied myself the [insert gated class]"
Player B:"Sounds interesting I want to play a [insert gated class]"
Me: "Sorry guys one of you won't be able to play the role you want if we want to be a group"
Player A & B "Meh that sucks"....lose interest and selling the game to them now becomes a struggle.
I see the theoretical problem, but will this really happen in practice? Every D&D campaign I've played has started with a quick survey of the players to make sure their characters are at least minimally compatible, and I don't think anyone's decided to drop out of a session rather than adjust their character choices.
If you can't even agree on a broad set of alignments, how are you expecting to cooperate in defending a settlement?
Edit: Here's a thought, would they play a game in which Paladins simply didn't exist, rather than a game in which Paladins exist but aren't allowed to cooperate with Assassins?
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I get your point Steelwing. I'm explaining to you why you're out of luck--the design choices that will lose GW your revenues will gain them more revenues over time than lost. It's a good business decision, while making the game that would attract your group would be a bad decision.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you can't even agree on a broad set of alignments, how are you expecting to cooperate in defending a settlement?
Edit: Here's a thought, would they play a game in which Paladins simply didn't exist, rather than a game in which Paladins exist but aren't allowed to cooperate with Assassins?
I agree with this fully. If your kingdom is, for example, LN, your settlement choices are everything in the Lawful and Neutral columns of the chart, with only chaotic being disallowed. You get 2/3 of the chart to play with, and one of the remaining parts is "CE-sucksville" anyways, that most people are going to avoid (by design). If that doesn't work for you, have a LG Kingdom, which would allow a CG and LE character to live in the same kingdom (not the same settlement though). Everything within 2 steps seems like more than enough leeway to me.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I think that failing to attract players who cannot understand the consequences of alignment, or who think that having consequences for alignment is bad, is a feature.
I expect that a character of any alignment will be able to train abilities and competently fill any one niche at a time. I also think that some niches will be filled better by lawful, good, chaotic, and evil characters because of the alignment effects.
In WoW, you could play a tank regardless of if you were alliance or horde. In fact, you could play an IDENTICAL tank (in all significant aspects) regardless of affiliation. Prohibiting evil clerics from channeling positive energy is barely a consequence, but it is certainly a consequence of alignment. If that means that good clerics are better mass healers than evil clerics and people care about that, it means that the choice of alignment is at least a little bit meaningful.
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Goblin Squad Member
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if you can't even agree on a broad set of alignments, how are you expecting to cooperate in defending a settlement
Easy answer to this, provided by Ryan Dancey. The settlement should expect them not to place their individual alignment or reputation concerns first, but the settlement first. Common cause breeds strange bed fellows.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Steelwing:
I think you have been clear on that point. Just there's different emphasis on different ways of deciding between:
1) All roles are open to all settlements
2) Some roles are exclusive to some settlements
For any given individual they have their preference. For any given group they have diverse individuals with different preferences.
The key thing I think is that PFO is focused on GROUPS. And the carrot is different constituent roles and gameplay form different groups. I think that means built-in deficiencies and dissatisfactions because, what GROUPS have to do is promise new players they can cater to their needs the best of any other group and therefore they should join them.
But they can't promise everything to everyone which leads to different GROUPS.
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Goblin Squad Member
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ehhh im not worried about it. lets look at LE and LG characters. They can still group with each other. They can still hang out and talk and have fun. They can both be in a company and settlement together LN. not a big deal.
Role playing wise it wouldnt make sense for say a paladin and a assassin to be best of friends, but in a video game they can be. They just need to make sure that their alignments can fit into the same company/settlement. Just remember that overall alignment doesnt have much mechanical ramifications other than for folks like paladins and clerics. What is alignment doing?
It basically decides what formal organizations you can join and which ones would be best fit. Paladins are basically the only class that require extreme alignment dedication. So another character might be good, but they dont have to be at +7000, they can just be +1500. Even clerics were not mentioned to require high level of their appropriate alignment. So for almost every other character out there the only reason to watch alignment as a mechanic is to ensure that you dont fall out of the one step of your company and settlement. And something like this would require stupid amounts of work since if you were LN in a LN company you could swing between LE and LG WITHOUT ANY ISSUE. You would have to go two steps before you were no longer compatible. So if you were LG but not a paladin and you wanted to go on a rampage? You could and now you end up as LE. Then guess what, you are still in your company. The only ones who have to worry are Paladins, clerics (and a LN cleric wouldnt have this issue, a LG one would, and barbarians but they are only worried about having to be non lawful).
This is why i dont think alignment is as big a deal as people things. You need to sit down and think about who you want to join and that choice will decide what organization you can join. remember that it does NOT decide who you can group with and who you can hang out with. Sure if you are a paladin joining your assassin friend while he murders bunches an bunches of people you just ungroup while they do those things and hang back so you dont get flagged.
Overall I do not mind alignment separating people, it adds another element of interaction. If forces settlements to work together. This will be better if they add selling training time. In that case settlements can trade training which will be a valuable commodity.
it also means that forming relationships with others will be helpful. So you are a paladin and your settlement isnt LG so you dont get the top tier skill training and your settlement does NOT have a treaty with that LG settlement. Well you spend time with those folks since you are a paladin and you help them out and group with them and fight evil with them. Now you have a connection and you ask, hey folks i was wondering if i could train Smite level 4 if you had spare training time? They go, sure let me ask my commander. Hey commander there is this paladin from LN settlement, he has been helping us fight evil and such he is cool, since no paladins need it can he train Smite here? The commander goes sure if you think he is good, the battle against the darkness is never ending and we need all the help we can.
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I get your point Steelwing. I'm explaining to you why you're out of luck--the design choices that will lose GW your revenues will gain them more revenues over time than lost. It's a good business decision, while making the game that would attract your group would be a bad decision.
I think whether it is a good business decision remains to be seen frankly and it is far too early to judge . If they decide at some point to loosen this prescription I presume you will be quitting then as they will then be making it plain that groups like mine are welcome and people that think its a bad idea to loosen up are not?
In any case I am sure Goblinworks will be thrilled to find you are telling prospective customers that they aren't wanted.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I get your point Steelwing. I'm explaining to you why you're out of luck--the design choices that will lose GW your revenues will gain them more revenues over time than lost. It's a good business decision, while making the game that would attract your group would be a bad decision.I think whether it is a good business decision remains to be seen frankly and it is far too early to judge . If they decide at some point to loosen this prescription I presume you will be quitting then as they will then be making it plain that groups like mine are welcome and people that think its a bad idea to loosen up are not?
In any case I am sure Goblinworks will be thrilled to find you are telling prospective customers that they aren't wanted.
It is of course a balancing act. If they get the balance off in either direction, they lose subscriptions.
Not knowing the play style you're looking for, it the alignment you feel you would most likely follow (as a group), it's hard to tell how you could fit in.
No matter what, I welcome you and your group to at least try PFO. You will either be an ally, prey, or an enemy and all of these provide me and my group something to do.
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Goblin Squad Member
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if you can't even agree on a broad set of alignments, how are you expecting to cooperate in defending a settlementEasy answer to this, provided by Ryan Dancey. The settlement should expect them not to place their individual alignment or reputation concerns first, but the settlement first. Common cause breeds strange bed fellows.
Right, so if 15 of my friends want to play NE assassins, and I want to play a paladin, then I should change my character concept so the settlement doesn't have to do try to find loopholes in the alignment mechanics to scrounge up some training for me.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Right, so if 15 of my friends want to play NE assassins, and I want to play a paladin, then I should change my character concept so the settlement doesn't have to do try to find loopholes in the alignment mechanics to scrounge up some training for me.if you can't even agree on a broad set of alignments, how are you expecting to cooperate in defending a settlementEasy answer to this, provided by Ryan Dancey. The settlement should expect them not to place their individual alignment or reputation concerns first, but the settlement first. Common cause breeds strange bed fellows.
Sure, just like if your friends want to play horde races and you want to play an alliance race. Or if your friends in a PnP game want to play assassins and you want to play a paladin. There are combinations of roles that are simply incompatible with each other, but there should be a way to fill any major niche from any alignment. The Paladin might be the way a LG character can slot out to fight evil outsiders, while the Demoniac provides a way for Evil characters to defeat or bind the same. All of the starting roles are alignment-nonspecific.
It is of course a balancing act. If they get the balance off in either direction, they lose subscriptions.
Not knowing the play style you're looking for, it the alignment you feel you would most likely follow (as a group), it's hard to tell how you could fit in.
No matter what, I welcome you and your group to at least try PFO. You will either be an ally, prey, or an enemy and all of these provide me and my group something to do.
I have as not talked to my Eve group about the game apart from the fact I am looking at it as a prospective new game and will report back when I have a feel for it. Likewise other members are looking at other games for the same reason.
When I feel I have a good handle on how the game will be then we will chat and discuss. I suspect that most of the groups really focussed on a Pathfinder mmo are already here and now it is groups like mine that having played EvE for a number of years are looking for new pastures that they need to start enticing in. GW has the problem of course that there are many games in the pipeline that we(groups like mine) can go to.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I get your point Steelwing. I'm explaining to you why you're out of luck--the design choices that will lose GW your revenues will gain them more revenues over time than lost. It's a good business decision, while making the game that would attract your group would be a bad decision.I think whether it is a good business decision remains to be seen frankly and it is far too early to judge . If they decide at some point to loosen this prescription I presume you will be quitting then as they will then be making it plain that groups like mine are welcome and people that think its a bad idea to loosen up are not?
In any case I am sure Goblinworks will be thrilled to find you are telling prospective customers that they aren't wanted.
Again, I think you're speaking past each other.
You, Steelwing want your group to be able to play together. In pathfinder your group has to decide a focus for their energies. What will that be: Could it be Miner experts? Could it be Raider experts? Could it be dogs of war mercenary Soldiers for hire? Could it be peaceful-crafter?
It depends how big your group is.
- If your group is 50 odd people a Chartered Company specializing in any of the above makes sense that then fits within a settlement.
- If 500 then a settlement and you will have to choose an alignment which will have specialisms for skill-training to choose to cater to the market of players for.
The constant theme is making a choice and organizing the people to be happy with that choice for the group. The individual has to accede I believe? Ideally your group will have it's hands full doing whatever it is doing to worry about missing out on a (hopefully) ever expanding skill-tree that feeds different role requirements for different groups.
It takes about 2.5yrs for reaching level 20 in one single "path/role" for eg to put things into perspective on the roles (combat) that we are fully aware of so far in development.
Again, I think you're speaking past each other.
You, Steelwing want your group to be able to play together. In pathfinder your group has to decide a focus for their energies. What will that be: Could it be Miner experts? Could it be Raider experts? Could it be dogs of war mercenary Soldiers for hire? Could it be peaceful-crafter?
It depends how big your group is.
- If your group is 50 odd people a Chartered Company specializing in any of the above makes sense that then fits within a settlement.
- If 500 then a settlement and you will have to choose an alignment which will have specialisms for skill-training to choose to cater to the market of players for.The constant theme is making a choice and organizing the people to be happy with that choice for the group. The individual has to accede I believe? Ideally your group will have it's hands full doing whatever it is doing to worry about missing out on a (hopefully) ever expanding skill-tree that feeds different role requirements for different groups.
It takes about 2.5yrs for reaching level 20 in one single "path/role" for eg to put things into perspective on the roles (combat) that we are fully aware of so far in development.
I think people here are not actually reading what I wrote frankly. No where have I suggested they abolish the system.
I made two comments about the system
1) about the one of the suggested reasons for it not stacking up (the paladin and necromancer reason)
2) In response to that Gaskon replied that he wished them if that was the case to tighten the system even further which to me seemed was only possible by restricting settlements to one alignment
At that I raised the point that the current system causes problems selling the game to an established group due to them wanting to use different roles
Somehow me pointing out this is an issue in persuading a group to come play has morphed in various peoples mind into me claiming they should abandon the system.
If my group plays we will play within whatever restrictions are currently applicable. The restrictions applicable MAY have a bearing on whether the group as a whole decides to come play.
Hardly a contentious statement, apart from to certain forum dwellers here it seems.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I get your point Steelwing. I'm explaining to you why you're out of luck--the design choices that will lose GW your revenues will gain them more revenues over time than lost. It's a good business decision, while making the game that would attract your group would be a bad decision.I think whether it is a good business decision remains to be seen frankly and it is far too early to judge . If they decide at some point to loosen this prescription I presume you will be quitting then as they will then be making it plain that groups like mine are welcome and people that think its a bad idea to loosen up are not?
In any case I am sure Goblinworks will be thrilled to find you are telling prospective customers that they aren't wanted.
I'm certainly not telling you that you're unwelcome. I'm telling you what you're asking for would make for a relatively sucky game within the marketplace, and therefore be bad business. It's really up to you what you do with that understanding. Maybe you guys figure out a way to play together where you can't do every single thing (like a mixed company of LE necromancers and LG paladins), but you can do enough to satisfy (like a mixed company of LE necromancers and LN martial warriors). Maybe you'll break up your play group--my regular gaming guild isn't going into this game as a whole because some of us want to RP good players. Maybe you'll give it a pass. Hell, maybe GW is wrong, and the game will fail because they're shooting for rich complexity in game choices :)
Please don't be irritated at me for articulating the reasoning behind this choice. You can start making good choices as you understand the rationale.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Personaly, I understand what GW is trying to do with this system and it's not a bad goal. However, I'm very skeptical whether it will work well in implimentation and I'm very skeptical whether it will, in practice, actualy end up achieving the results many here seem to expect it will. I also believe it comes with certain costs.
As a role-player, it's a bad system...in part because it doesn't support the deeper nuance of persona. In part because automated systems are severely limited in thier decision making capapabilties. For example, in most situations people would judge someone who attacked a murderer who was about to plunge a knife into the heart of an innocent child as commiting a "Good" and altruistic act, saving an innocent life. In PFO's alignment system it would be adjucated an "Evil" act because the system has no way of recognizing "about to" and no way of recognizing a "murderer" before the act of murder has actualy taken place. That's just a small example of the limitations surrounding an automated system that will result in seemingly incongruent results.
As a side note to throw fuel on the theological fire, I would like to point out that in most pantheistic societies, individuals most commonly worship ALL gods of the pantheon, including those of (seemingly) wildly divergent alignments. Generaly individuals are more practical in thier choice of worship, worshiping Gods based on thier individual needs of the moment and what domain or activity the god is patron of. So if the individual is about to harvest thier crops, they might pay homage to the God of the Harvest that day; if they are about to take a sea voyage, they would worship the God of the Sea, go hunting and worship the God of the Hunt, etc.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@GW , I would like to know more about the one-step alignment rules with regard to settlement membership and the Chartered Companies. Is there going to be a core alignment and a one-step rule for CCs? or can anyone join a CC making it possible for players who cant join the same settlement to belong to the same CC?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Right, so if 15 of my friends want to play NE assassins, and I want to play a paladin, then I should change my character concept so the settlement doesn't have to do try to find loopholes in the alignment mechanics to scrounge up some training for me.if you can't even agree on a broad set of alignments, how are you expecting to cooperate in defending a settlementEasy answer to this, provided by Ryan Dancey. The settlement should expect them not to place their individual alignment or reputation concerns first, but the settlement first. Common cause breeds strange bed fellows.
Or you could answer this with one of your own responses...
ME: "Hey guys I have been looking at this game its sort of a D&D style sandbox game based on territorial control"
Player A:"Great I have always fancied myself the [insert gated class]"
Player B:"Sounds interesting I want to play a [insert gated class]"
Me: "Sorry guys one of you won't be able to play the role you want if we want to be a group"
Player A & B "Meh that sucks"....lose interest and selling the game to them now becomes a struggle.
I see the theoretical problem, but will this really happen in practice? Every D&D campaign I've played has started with a quick survey of the players to make sure their characters are at least minimally compatible, and I don't think anyone's decided to drop out of a session rather than adjust their character choices.
If you can't even agree on a broad set of alignments, how are you expecting to cooperate in defending a settlement?
Edit: Here's a thought, would they play a game in which Paladins simply didn't exist, rather than a game in which Paladins exist but aren't allowed to cooperate with Assassins?
So either you adjust your play style so you can play with the group or the 15 other people have to change theirs. Then of course is the actual way its going to happen, where people ignore their alignments, play what they want, and join settlements they wish (or a Kingdom that has a broad choice of options.)
Im not sure what your thinking with the defending the settlement statement. If your gaming with a group, they will either work together regardless of alignment (shouldnt be a challenge in any regard) or you lose your settlement.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree the game will cause that perception in groups who take a cursory look and find out different roles and different settlements aren't always included with each other and that leads to a prospective problem. But hopefully reputation as a game where groups really work and and the rest of the game is actually fun, then come a second look it might lower in significance as the appeal of the game as a whole increases over time?
Maybe not during EE and maybe not for year 1 but somewhere along the line it starts to shape up and individuals have fun more as parts of successful groups than alone; as the players effectively build the game to be more fun for future players.
It's a gamble to get involved in EE: Be there at the beginning or be there when the game is a shadow of it's potential - that may never be reached.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I get your point Steelwing. I'm explaining to you why you're out of luck--the design choices that will lose GW your revenues will gain them more revenues over time than lost. It's a good business decision, while making the game that would attract your group would be a bad decision.I think whether it is a good business decision remains to be seen frankly and it is far too early to judge . If they decide at some point to loosen this prescription I presume you will be quitting then as they will then be making it plain that groups like mine are welcome and people that think its a bad idea to loosen up are not?
In any case I am sure Goblinworks will be thrilled to find you are telling prospective customers that they aren't wanted.
I'm certainly not telling you that you're unwelcome. I'm telling you what you're asking for would make for a relatively sucky game within the marketplace, and therefore be bad business. It's really up to you what you do with that understanding. Maybe you guys figure out a way to play together where you can't do every single thing (like a mixed company of LE necromancers and LG paladins), but you can do enough to satisfy (like a mixed company of LE necromancers and LN martial warriors). Maybe you'll break up your play group--my regular gaming guild isn't going into this game as a whole because some of us want to RP good players. Maybe you'll give it a pass. Hell, maybe GW is wrong, and the game will fail because they're shooting for rich complexity in game choices :)
Please don't be irritated at me for articulating the reasoning behind this choice. You can start making good choices as you understand the rationale.
Mbando, I'm a supporter of PFO and look forward to playing it but I think your remarks are rather off base in this regards as they are assuming facts not in evidence. I'm not certain that what the preferences of Steelwings group seems to be would make for a "sucky game"....just a different game. I've played many games that aren't PFO and make very different design choices then PFO and quite a few of them have been quite good games.
By contrast, I haven't played PFO yet and really have no idea whether it will end up being good or sucky. I have no evidence whether the mechanics at issue will end up being good or bad for the game....and I certainly have no idea whether PFO will end up a commercial success or not.
I'm hopefull that PFO will turn out to be quite fun....but I think we start getting way off base when we try to tell others that their preferences are somehow wrong and would make for a poor game. Frankly there are 50 million different ways to design fun and successfull games (just as there are 50 million ways to design poor ones). I, myself, am not convinced that PFO is making a good or successfull design decision here.....and frankly we really won't have solid evidence of that one way or another until we see it in practice in a live release of the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Im not sure what your thinking with the defending the settlement statement. If your gaming with a group, they will either work together regardless of alignment (shouldnt be a challenge in any regard) or you lose your settlement.
My point was that if your group can't even decide out of game what alignment they want to play and find a solution that everyone is happy with, they are likely incapable of effectively running a settlement together.
My point was that if your group can't even decide out of game what alignment they want to play and find a solution that everyone is happy with, they are likely incapable of effectively running a settlement together.
Completely misses the point. The people in my group won't care about alignment in the least. I won't hear them going awww the settlement is going to be CG ...I wanted to be Neutral aligned. They will come out with statements such as I want to be a Paladin, I want to be a barbarian, I want to be a monk etc.
If I have to turn around and say to a small portion of players some of you can't have your wish because we won't be able to be all part of a single settlement. The initial response will be then why don't we go play one of the other games where we can all pursue our chosen playstyle without any such issues and I will have to try and talk them round.
What this has to do with defending our settlement I fail to see. We have proved in a real game with real opponents we are capable both of defending our own territory and assaulting the territory of others. I think that sort of trumps the statement as we have done it
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Steelwing: Depending on how many of you there are, could form different CC's (Chartered Companies) and go your separate ways but depending on how extreme, form alliances or work as part of a bigger whole in a bigger group?
I think overall the skills are mostly any alignment, it's just some such as Paladin or Necromancer that are corner cases? I'm not sure... someone might be able to help out here?
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Goblin Squad Member
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These are Alignment-restricted roles in the tabletop PF:RPG: Paladin(LG Only), Assassin(Any Evil), Monk (Any Lawful), Barbarian (Any non-Lawful), Druid (Any Neutral), and Cleric (Must be within one step of deity).
Necromancer is not restricted by alignment, but creating undead is an evil act.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I doubt that an LN settlement will be able to offer Paladins the perks an LG settlement would and neither would that LN settlement be able to offer Necros the perks an LE settlement could. An LN settlement might be able to offer TN players better than they can find in a TN settlement.
LN would be ideal for merchants.
At root then I don't think it will be an issue that LG and LE could both cohabit an LN settlement.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The initial response will be then why don't we go play one of the other games where we can all pursue our chosen playstyle without any such issues and I will have to try and talk them round.
I don't know the specifics of EVE combat and roles, so perhaps this example doesn't make sense, but here goes:
If the group wants to go play EVE, and person A wants to play a fast, lightly armored ship that fires lasers, and person B wants to play a long range missile platform, and it turns out that combining those two ships in a single fleet significantly reduces their combat effectiveness, wouldn't one of those players have to choose a different ship type for the good of the group as a whole?
Did you have players in EVE that flatly refused to modify their desired build options in order to contribute to the success of the group?
Did that make defending your own territory easier to accomplish or harder?
EDIT: another example.. if you are putting together a raid group in WoW, player A says "I want to play a Orc Warrior" Player B says "I want to play a Dwarven Paladin", and no one in the group wants to play a healer.
Won't at least 1 or 2 of those people need to change their chosen playstyle in order to make a successful raid group?
It seems pretty consistent across most games, that a randomly chosen selection of roles is a poor way to create a successful in-game entity, whether that entity is an EVE fleet, a WoW raid or a PFO settlement.
The initial response will be then why don't we go play one of the other games where we can all pursue our chosen playstyle without any such issues and I will have to try and talk them round.I don't know the specifics of EVE combat and roles, so perhaps this example doesn't make sense, but here goes:
If the group wants to go play EVE, and person A wants to play a fast, lightly armored ship that fires lasers, and person B wants to play a long range missile platform, and it turns out that combining those two ships in a single fleet significantly reduces their combat effectiveness, wouldn't one of those players have to choose a different ship type for the good of the group as a whole?
Did you have players in EVE that flatly refused to modify their desired build options in order to contribute to the success of the group?
Did that make defending your own territory easier to accomplish or harder?
Once again your example misses the mark. Yes sometimes people were asked to fleet up using particular ships or equipment options.BUT and its a big but that was for one particular fleet action. This is a lot different to telling them they can't ever fly a light armoured laser ship.
I fully expect that this will be a necessity in PfO as well where despite someone mostly having trained for a rogue role sometimes for the good of the settlement they may be asked to don plate armour and swing a sword in a formation. That again is different from telling them they can never train rogue skills because our settlement doesn't support that skill set due to alignment (disclaimer I don't know if rogue skills are gated this is merely an example)
The Eve example you are looking for is you can only use lasers if you are amarrian,drones if you are Gallente,projectiles if you are matari and missiles if you are caldari. We decide our typical fleet doctrine has to avoid the use of missiles for some game mechanic reason we cant circumvent. Suddenly all the Caldari players can't fleet up with us anymore
Maybe security status is a better analog for alignment than ship options?
In EVE, if player A wants to hang around mid security and mostly abide by the Concord, and player B wants to be a null-sec pirate, can those two characters comfortably be members of the same corporation?
Yes they can
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Goblin Squad Member
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for Steelwing- They only advice i can give for you is... if some one is sold on a paladin type character and doesn't want to play a LG character, or any of the other classes that have restrictions they will have to do some thinking on how to create that character.
Paladin could be built by combining a cleric and a fighter. They wouldn't get smite but a smite evil ability it doesn't make much sense if the smiter can be evil.
Barbarian could be a sorcerer with the right buffs and and spells. buff spells and rage spells, right bloodline would give them claws and even more str buffs.
Monk could be just an unarmed fighter with huge selection of feats to flesh out the unarmed fighting style of choice.
Guess my point is PFO while not pathfinder RPG is still based on it, and some classes with the shiny toys do have some restrictions on who gets to play them. You can achieve the concept you want other ways it will just take some work and thought on how to get their.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I really don't expect to see Paladins in game until well after OE, and they are the only role that have Serious Alignment restrictions. You can make a character that does everything a "Paladin" does in the EE period by taking skills from Fighter and Cleric trees anyway.
There is also the fact that based on dev comments, Paladins are probably going to be a PvE focused role, designed to fight Demons and Devils. I don't see them being an optimal choice for a group that is focused on PvP conquest and defense.
for Steelwing- They only advice i can give for you is... if some one is sold on a paladin type character and doesn't want to play a LG character, or any of the other classes that have restrictions they will have to do some thinking on how to create that character.
Paladin could be built by combining a cleric and a fighter. They wouldn't get smite but a smite evil ability it doesn't make much sense if the smiter can be evil.
Barbarian could be a sorcerer with the right buffs and and spells. buff spells and rage spells, right bloodline would give them claws and even more str buffs.
Monk could be just an unarmed fighter with huge selection of feats to flesh out the unarmed fighting style of choice.
Guess my point is PFO while not pathfinder RPG is still based on it, and some classes with the shiny toys do have some restrictions on who gets to play them. You can achieve the concept you want other ways it will just take some work and thought on how to get their.
As I said I am not actually particularly arguing it has to be changed just pointing out it makes it a tougher sell to bring in established groups.
The work arounds idea tbh while it is certainly something I will try if all else fails is probably likely to be rejected. Why you ask? Simple these are Eve players they know that victory is built up from all the small edges you can grab here and there. I believe there is some sort of role bonus you get for slotting skills all from one tree, the typical reaction then will be that while a cleric/fighter mix has some of the paladin feel it will be a sub par imitation of the real thing.
The real issue of course first of all is I have to believe that PfO is worth pushing out to the group as a suggestion and this conversation is therefore moot until I have learnt enough to jump one way or another :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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In EVE, if player A wants to hang around mid security and mostly abide by the Concord, and player B wants to be a null-sec pirate, can those two characters comfortably be members of the same corporation?Yes they can
Interesting. So corporation affliation doesn't provide any clues to predict likely behavior?
If members A and B are ruthless killers, I can't use that information to predict the motives or responses of member C when I encounter them?I'm not sure what I've learned from this conversation, other than to agree with you:
an EVE group planning to join PFO together will likely feel like their choices and in-game actions are more restricted than they were in EVE. And you could have gotten that information just from reading the kickstarter page and the dev blog.