Goblin Squad Member
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Each settlement has an Alignment that is set by the founding company when the settlement is created. It must be within one Alignment step of the leader of the founding company and the company itself. Once set it can only be changed by leaders of the settlement with sufficient permissions. Only characters within one Alignment step in both their Core and Active Alignment can join the settlement, and if your Core Alignment falls out of that range you are forced out of the settlement.
Some are taking the bolded statement to mean that this is the only way a Settlement's Alignment can change. Since that's a significant departure from prior statements, I was hoping we could get a clarification.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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It's, indeed, a departure. The current thinking is that your alignment changes don't impact your settlement. Your settlement sets an alignment range for members and only changes if the leadership changes it deliberately.
Some of the things Tork mentioned a couple months ago were mid-discussion. We identified some particular ways the "member alignment drives settlement alignment" would result in some things we didn't want, and also that the way we'd planned on tracking it would have been technically cumbersome for minimal benefit anyway.
That said, it's one of those things where we may revisit it if we have a bright idea or see that's it's necessary once players are using it. It's just a lot of technical work and potential unintended behaviors for a benefit that seems relatively small due to those concerns.
Thanks for the clarification Stephen
So the one step is for core alignment only and where does that leave the individual character who's core and active are not in sync with each other?
I could see one step having no effect.
Two steps May or may not have an effect.
Three steps probably should have an effect.
Latest statement was they weren't sold on the idea of a penalty for mismatch
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's, indeed, a departure. The current thinking is that your alignment changes don't impact your settlement. Your settlement sets an alignment range for members and only changes if the leadership changes it deliberately.
@Stephen - Would you happen to be able to tell us what those ranges look like right now and how they function?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Latest statement was they weren't sold on the idea of a penalty for mismatchSo the one step is for core alignment only and where does that leave the individual character who's core and active are not in sync with each other?
I could see one step having no effect.
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Two steps May or may not have an effect.Three steps probably should have an effect.
I know, but if I had said it it would have been received differently. I knew it wouldn't matter based on Ryan's agreeing with me that it would be a good idea to rubber band active alignment stArting with NG, going to Chaotic Neutral, then back again.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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@Stephen - Would you happen to be able to tell us what those ranges look like right now and how they function?
Declared alignment plus one step, as previously described. Saying your settlement is LG is the same as saying that your settlement will accept the range of LN - LG - NG.
Didn't mean to confuse things :) .
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thanks, Stephen, for clarifying that.
I'm very curious how a Member's Alignment will impact a Settlement (if at all), but I can wait for the blog :)
I suppose it makes sense to me if the only thing that has an impact on the Settlement is its Members' Reputations.
He just answered that... It won't.
I'm guessing that Reputation will have an equal impact, it won't. It may impact the individual character, and his access to training, but his individual reputation won't impact a settlement of hundreds or even thousands.
The law of averages, if anything is diluted enough, it has no noticeable effect. You can eat small portions of poison and still not get sick or die from it.
@Stephen - Would you happen to be able to tell us what those ranges look like right now and how they function?Declared alignment plus one step, as previously described. Saying your settlement is LG is the same as saying that your settlement will accept the range of LN - LG - NG.
Didn't mean to confuse things :) .
So it's one vertical/horizontal step. Diagonal steps don't count?
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Goblin Squad Member
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So it's one vertical/horizontal step. Diagonal steps don't count?@Stephen - Would you happen to be able to tell us what those ranges look like right now and how they function?Declared alignment plus one step, as previously described. Saying your settlement is LG is the same as saying that your settlement will accept the range of LN - LG - NG.
Didn't mean to confuse things :) .
Right. I was corrected in another thread on this. Diagonal steps don't count.
Right. I was corrected in another thread on this. Diagonal steps don't count.So it's one vertical/horizontal step. Diagonal steps don't count?@Stephen - Would you happen to be able to tell us what those ranges look like right now and how they function?Declared alignment plus one step, as previously described. Saying your settlement is LG is the same as saying that your settlement will accept the range of LN - LG - NG.
Didn't mean to confuse things :) .
Seems a bit restrictive. What if you want a charter company that's any Non-Lawful, any Non-Good, Any Non-Evil? Can't be done, it looks like. I was hoping to make my Chartered Company any Non-Good.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Seems a bit restrictive. What if you want a charter company that's any Non-Lawful, any Non-Good, Any Non-Evil? Can't be done, it looks like. I was hoping to make my Chartered Company any Non-Good.Right. I was corrected in another thread on this. Diagonal steps don't count.So it's one vertical/horizontal step. Diagonal steps don't count?@Stephen - Would you happen to be able to tell us what those ranges look like right now and how they function?Declared alignment plus one step, as previously described. Saying your settlement is LG is the same as saying that your settlement will accept the range of LN - LG - NG.
Didn't mean to confuse things :) .
True Neutral and Chaotic Neutral
I don't think TN is allowed, last time I checked, and CN would only give me CG, CN, TN, and CE... I don't want CG, and I would want LE, LN, and NE. So, going CN wouldn't really work, and neither would TN, even if they allowed it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think TN is allowed, last time I checked, and CN would only give me CG, CN, TN, and CE... I don't want CG, and I would want LE, LN, and NE. So, going CN wouldn't really work, and neither would TN, even if they allowed it.
TN Kingdoms and Settlements are in question. But I don't recall reading anything about Chartered Companies not being allowed TN but you are right about wanting LE and CE.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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I should say that I think we have work to do on how character alignment changes affect (or don't affect) Settlement alignments, Settlement membership, and Chartered Company participation. Right now I feel we have a bit of plate spinning going on. It will start to get better defined in Q1 and we'll do a lot of public theorycrafting to avoid loopholes.
Diagonal steps imply all Setlements would be Neutral Neutral.
One way to handle that is to make it one diagonal step for all the alignments except for TN, and make TN one vertical/horizontal alignment. I know that would make it so ALL settlements allow TN, but I don't see that as such a huge problem, so long as alignment is meaningful enough that people don't just pick TN for this sole benefit.
So, LG, LE, CG, and CE would have access to 4 alignments.
TN would have access to 5 alignments.
NE, NG, CN, and LN would have access to 6 alignments, allowing people to make their settlements "Any Non-Good, Any Non-Evil, Any Non-Lawful, as listed above"... Could work.
yea
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Goblin Squad Member
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He just answered that... It won't.Thanks, Stephen, for clarifying that.
I'm very curious how a Member's Alignment will impact a Settlement (if at all), but I can wait for the blog :)
I suppose it makes sense to me if the only thing that has an impact on the Settlement is its Members' Reputations.
You're welcome to read it that way. There's been so much talk about how Settlements are affected by the actions of their Members that I'm just having difficulty accepting that a single line in one blog has undone it all.
I'm guessing that Reputation will have an equal impact, it won't. It may impact the individual character, and his access to training, but his individual reputation won't impact a settlement of hundreds or even thousands.
That seems like an extreme departure from longstanding plans, and quite unlikely.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm very curious how a Member's Alignment will impact a Settlement (if at all), but I can wait for the blog :)
There is at least one way it could impact the settlement, without directly changing the settlement alignment. (If they so chose,) having a number of settlement citizens whose active alignments were two or more steps from the settlement alignment might cause corruption or unrest.
This might fall into the category of "some sort of debuff when your Core and Active Alignment do not synch up."
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Goblin Squad Member
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That seems like an extreme departure from longstanding plans, and quite unlikely.
The law of averages, if anything is diluted enough, it has no noticeable effect. You can eat small portions of poison and still not get sick or die from it.
My quoted comment is completely consistent with GW's long standing plans, and not an extreme departure in any way.
GW has always said that an average would be used. It is a mathematical fact that when an average is used, the larger the population the less an individual unit of that population will affect the average.
I honestly don't see how anyone clicked end up low reputation, unless they intend to be low reputation.
Even attempting to kill a noob in the starter zone is probably impossible. The NPC wardens will kill you before you have a chance of killing that noob. There is virtually no alpha strike (ie critical hits) system in place.
Outside of the starter zone, there are apparently more ways to engage in PvP that will not result in rep loss, than there are rep losing PvP actions. Again, you have to go out of your way to get rep loss.
This will all show one way or the other in EE, but I'm obviously hoping that GW gives us more than enough sanctioned reasons for PvP that rep costing actions would be rare.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm very curious how a Member's Alignment will impact a Settlement (if at all), but I can wait for the blog :)There is at least one way it could impact the settlement, without directly changing the settlement alignment. (If they so chose,) having a number of settlement citizens whose active alignments were two or more steps from the settlement alignment might cause corruption or unrest.
This might fall into the category of "some sort of debuff when your Core and Active Alignment do not synch up."
It was said that alignment would not be known, short of magic means, so his would these out of sync individuals be identified?
Secondly, if magic is used, which alignment would be revealed? Core, Active or both.
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Goblin Squad Member
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GW has always said that an average would be used. It is a mathematical fact that when an average is used, the larger the population the less an individual unit of that population will affect the average.
Bludd - I'm seeking clarification on this line. Are you saying that GW has always said that an average (of member reputation) would be used (to determine settlement reputation)?
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Bluddwolf That's a valid question on alignment. I think settlement leadership would be a little upset if out-of-alignment characters cause unrest/corruption and they had to detect evil on everybody. As to whether the spell shows core, active, or both, I don't know. I'm not a wizard or developer.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think testing for the mean would sub-optimal, for the reason Bluddwolf is advocating it for: if you test for means, a big settlement allows you to in practice get around alignment by skewing the distribution of alignments.
I could have two towns that are both founded LN, and a test for the mean tells us that indeed, in practice they are both LN on average.. But if we look closely at the actual distribution of members, we see that "Accuratetown" has a regular distribution: a few LE members, a few LG members, but the solid majority are LN. In this case, the mean is a good test.
But in "Bluddtown," what we find is very different: all the members are either LG or LE, and not a single member is LN. But a test for the mean shows Bluddtown to be exactly the same as Accuratetown--because the distribution is irregular, the mean is an inaccurate test.
I think non-parametic tests for regularity of distribution (e.g. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test) that showed us what the actual regularity in a community of what we are testing for (lawfullness, goodness, etc.) would be much more useful.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would think a fairly simple system would be to total up the net value of out-of-sync Alignments and devise effects that are not mirrored - that is, effects where +Good doesn't cancel out -Good.
For example, if Accuratetown is Lawful Neutral then Member Alignments of +2,500 to +7,500 Law/Chaos and -2,500 to +2,500 Good/Evil would be considered in-sync. A Chaotic Evil character at -7,500 and -7,500 would account for -10,000 Law/Chaos and -5,000 Good/Evil.
WoW! The devs really have their hands full of alignment. :)
World of Warcraft is implementing an alignment system?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Diagonal steps imply all Setlements would be Neutral Neutral.
I think the solution is still to make the settlement's alignment have major impacts on what services and development options that settlement has access to.
So your The Seventh Viel can say "Come live in Phaeros. We accept members of any alignment! We offer the best training available to neutral players! Our greatest temples are dedicated to (neutral-gods) and they have blessed Phaeros with their favor."
Meanwhile we can say "Come to Brighthaven! We accept all who are not evil! We offer the best training available to good players! Our greatest temples are dedicated to (good-gods) and they have blessed Brighthaven with their favor!"
Meanwhile Peace Through Vigilance can say "Come to Lawfulgood-Town! We accept all who are not evil or chaotic! We offer the best training available to lawful-good players! Our greatest temples are dedicated to (lawful-good gods) and they have blessed Lawfulgood-Town with their favor!"
I think you can see how, despite the fact that Phaeros can cater to anyone, Brighthaven has valid reason to stick to the good alignment that will attract it's target audience.
Should you still decide to go with a hard alignment system I would say ditch the 9 point system as the measurement of who can and can't join. Make it so neutral alignments cater to +5000 to -5000 on that axis and law/good/evil/chaos cater to +7500 to 0 or -7500 to 0 on that axis.
Given you have said some abilities require an extreme in an alignment, that's a pretty meaningful choice. It also makes more sense that neutrals would shun "extremists" instead of players that fall slightly outside neutrality on two axis.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think they've said anything contrary to that.Diagonal steps imply all Setlements would be Neutral Neutral.I think the solution is still to make the settlement's alignment have major impacts on what services and development options that settlement has access to.
They haven't, but what I'm saying is that alone should be the system that keeps every settlement from going true neutral. Not hard 1 step restrictions.
They haven't, but what I'm saying is that alone should be the system that keeps every settlement from going true neutral. Not hard 1 step restrictions.I don't think they've said anything contrary to that.Diagonal steps imply all Setlements would be Neutral Neutral.I think the solution is still to make the settlement's alignment have major impacts on what services and development options that settlement has access to.
I agree. The simple solution is, as I stated above, only allow TN settlements to allow one vertical/horizontal step, and make it one diagonal for everyone else. And as you said, make the choice more meaningful.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Mbando,
That is actually not the argument I was making, but your distribution model of 50/50 split of LE and LG would equal an average of LN is correct.
What I was arguing was that in a large population, a small portion of a different alignment or reputation would not significantly alter that average.
Example: a settlement of 5,000 with an average of LN could be made up of:
1700 LE, 1700 LG, 1550 LN and 50 CN
The 50 Chaotic Neutral will not significantly alter the average from LN. They would have a supporting impact on the Neutral axis. Their Chaotic of 50 would be stacked up against 4950 Lawfuls, essentially becoming lost in the mix.
What this might look like is a block or even a small neighborhood of the city would be chaotic neutral, kind of like a seedier part of town.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Diagonal steps imply all Setlements would be Neutral Neutral.
Not if you limited their maximum training to just neutral based skills. Then factored in the access to all 9 alignments would force the settlement managers to prioritize which constituencies would get support in a rotation (Batting Order)
A Corner Aligned settlement would only have four such constituencies and so the time it takes to get through the rotation.
This system would make the true neutral settlement advantaged in the variety of devices, but less efficient in delivering their growth because of the size of the batting order.
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Goblin Squad Member
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They haven't, but what I'm saying is that alone should be the system that keeps every settlement from going true neutral. Not hard 1 step restrictions.I don't think they've said anything contrary to that.Diagonal steps imply all Setlements would be Neutral Neutral.I think the solution is still to make the settlement's alignment have major impacts on what services and development options that settlement has access to.
What is going to keep settlements from going TN and generalizing is the lack of resources to do so effectively. You are going to spread your facility locations and DI to thin for your settlement to be effective.
I'm perfectly fine with a TN settlement catering to LN and NG, or CG and NE for that matter. I think them doing so should be a choice they make, not one we make for them. If they want to support LN, TN, NG, NE, and CN, I'm fine with that as well so long as they can only allocate as much as any other settlement can.
If you've got 1000 DI and 20 facility slots, splitting that among 5 alignments will be tougher than 3.
As long as development options are equal, I'm fine with what you've said, but I don't think it will be necessary. Simply make catering to more than 4 alignments significantly less appealing.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Diagonal steps imply all Setlements would be Neutral Neutral.I think the solution is still to make the settlement's alignment have major impacts on what services and development options that settlement has access to.
So your The Seventh Viel can say "Come live in Phaeros. We accept members of any alignment! We offer the best training available to neutral players! Our greatest temples are dedicated to (neutral-gods) and they have blessed Phaeros with their favor."
Meanwhile we can say "Come to Brighthaven! We accept all who are not evil! We offer the best training available to good players! Our greatest temples are dedicated to (good-gods) and they have blessed Brighthaven with their favor!"
Meanwhile Peace Through Vigilance can say "Come to Lawfulgood-Town! We accept all who are not evil or chaotic! We offer the best training available to lawful-good players! Our greatest temples are dedicated to (lawful-good gods) and they have blessed Lawfulgood-Town with their favor!"
I think you can see how, despite the fact that Phaeros can cater to anyone, Brighthaven has valid reason to stick to the good alignment that will attract it's target audience.
Should you still decide to go with a hard alignment system I would say ditch the 9 point system as the measurement of who can and can't join. Make it so neutral alignments cater to +5000 to -5000 on that axis and law/good/evil/chaos cater to +7500 to 0 or -7500 to 0 on that axis.
Given you have said some abilities require an extreme in an alignment, that's a pretty meaningful choice. It also makes more sense that neutrals would shun "extremists" instead of players that fall slightly outside neutrality on two axis.
I fully expect that a corner-alignment settlement could offer facilities about 2.5 times as desirable (to their target audience) as a TN settlement can offer, and that the edge alignment should be able to offer facilities about 1.5 times as desirable as the TN settlement.
That's based only on the ratios of alignments prohibited to alignments allowed; TN has 4:5, edges have 5:4, and corners have 6:3, for fractions equivalent to .8, 1.25, and 2, as the ratio of alignments that can't join to alignments that can.
If TN settlements allowed all alignments, then the facilities of edge settlements should be infinitely more valuable, a textbook case of " 'Wouldn't X be awesome' means 'Nobody does X' "
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Goblin Squad Member
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The more I think about it the more I think settlement restriction should not be restricted along the 9 points system but the 225,030,001 point system of +7500 through -7500.
It makes way more sense to give true neutral 5000 through -5000 on both axis and lawful good +7500 to 0 on both axis than to prohibit +2501 / +2501 from joining a TN settlement and +2499 / + 2499 from joining a LG settlement.
With the confirmation that some abilities will require extremes such as +7000 in certain alignments I can't see a good reason not to do this.
I'm still not convinced we need a hard alignment system but if we do that's how it should work.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have to admit, I am still a fan of letting a settlement simply choose any desired contiguous area of size 75,000,000 on the 225,000,000 point plane Andius mentioned above. Especially if the members' alignments are no longer going to affect that of the settlement.
Give each represented alignment bonuses and disadvantages, as well as synergy bonuses and disadvantages...the effect of each directly proportional to the percentage of a given alignment space selected. Chose half of LG? Get half the bonuses, half the disadvantageous.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't really feel like settlements need to be balanced. I have no problem with true neutral settlements catering to the widest audience as long as there are valid reasons for me to pick another alignment beyond. "I like that alignment!"
If 75% of the settlements end up true neutral that will just make ones that cater to other alignments more desirable to players of those alignments.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't really feel like settlements need to be balanced. I have no problem with true neutral settlements catering to the widest audience as long as there are valid reasons for me to pick another alignment beyond. "I like that alignment!"
If 75% of the settlements end up true neutral that will just make ones that cater to other alignments more desirable to players of those alignments.
I don't see your reasoning behind this. If one alignment is clearly more competitive than the others, why would anyone nerf themselves deliberately?
When it comes to the flowing alignment, then I'd say GW works would have to implement a lot more extreme choices(+7000 etc) through out the alignment scale than I see them doing to make the game balanced and intriguing and it still wouldn't be certain that anyone would play corner alignments if there weren't any other mechanical benefits.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It won't be 75% of Settlements. It will be 100% of big successful Setlements. Everyone else will end up serfs.
There are easy ways you can make the settlement leaders accept trade offs for the meaningful choice of being open to more or fewer alignments than the one step rule allows.
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Goblin Squad Member
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To expand further on the idea....
Assuming skills cap at 300, and some skills will be gated by certain alignments.
Core Alignment: 300
One Step: 275
Two Steps: 250
Three Steps: 225
Four Steps: 200
NPC Settlement for Any: 200
An example if Four Step would be LE core trying to train CG. The CG character would be better off getting the same training from an NPC settlement, so Four Steps are highly unlikely.