Goblin Squad Member
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The concern. So, we were discussing the leadership dynamics for settlements...specifically as it relates to assassination. I know at one time, assassinating a settlement leader would either cause a deficit for the settlement (or remove a buff gained by having the leader).
Our concern was that this system would drive settlements to utilize the simplest government in game and keep that leader logged off except for when either training or changing the UI.
Then, using standard philosophies, we must assume if some will do it, everyone will do it...and then question spending the resources to implement the system at all.
A solution we came up with:
A leader flag. Settlements (and/or residents) receive bonuses for having a active leader. Similar to how the flags worked for bandits and assassins, the longer it is active, the more of a bonus the flag gives...and that time only accumulates while the leader is online.
Another cool thing about this idea is that it does allow the leaders to sort of set the focus of a settlement. Also, it could create a larger set of targets for assassins, by creating a system that is easily expandable to the leaders of any in-game association. Companies and Nations will have leaders, those leaders could also create an "Officer Flag" for their constituency.
Focus. Another idea or twist on this idea would be to make the nature of the bonus depend upon the build of a leader; ie. a very "combat" build for a leader would give their constituency a bonus to combat oriented activities.
Organizations with several leaders, get the "average" of those leaders.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I recall Ryan or one of the Devs saying that some of your settlement's bonuses are only realized when its leaders are logged on. So if you tried to have a shadow government (logged on only when needed) you would deny your settlement DI and other advantages.
I also like the idea that an Assassin can be hired to kill anyone, not just settlement leaders. The UNC intends to use our own cadre of Assassins to kill whomever we feel needs to have a message sent to.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Bluddwolf, thanks for the info.
The problem with only getting the bonus when the officer is on is that then the system itself encourages a player to join organizations in their timezone...eventually stratification that is not desired, could occur.
I would prefer a slow bonus increase as the officer is online, and a quick bonus decline when the office is offline (ie. A week or two to max with daily 8 hour play, 2 or 3 days logged off to completely atrophy from max).
_____
That said, I am still advocating assassins primarily targeting leaders of organizations, but broadening to including Companies and Nations, any officer or leader as defined by an in-game mechanic.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Bluddwolf, thanks for the info.
The problem with only getting the bonus when the officer is on is that then the system itself encourages a player to join organizations in their timezone...eventually stratification that is not desired, could occur.
I would prefer a slow bonus increase as the officer is online, and a quick bonus decline when the office is offline (ie. A week or two to max with daily 8 hour play, 2 or 3 days logged off to completely atrophy from max).
_____That said, I am still advocating assassins primarily targeting leaders of organizations, but broadening to including Companies and Nations, any officer or leader as defined by an in-game mechanic.
It already does that by having the company managing the settlement to set its PVP window to a certain time. This in effect will funnel players to settlements that share their time zone, as much as their alignment, their outlook, their desired reputation level, etc....
Be careful while walking in this sandbox! You may trip on one of the multitude of partitions that divide it into different play areas.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It already does that by having the company managing the settlement to set its PVP window to a certain time. This in effect will funnel players to settlements that share their time zone, as much as their alignment, their outlook, their desired reputation level, etc....
Be careful while walking in this sandbox! You may trip on one of the multitude of partitions that divide it into different play areas.
Good point and well said.
_____Then I certainly hope this system comes with a democratic "settlement reboot" option for bad or missing leaders.
I would love to see the option for 80-90% of a settlement to vote to forge a new government...without regards to the wishes or status fo the current settlement leaders.
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Goblin Squad Member
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True, but allowing it this way adds a rebellion factor as well as leaving it to the players to "reboot" settlements whose leadership has gone stagnant...without burning down the home they have worked to build. For instance TSV will essentially own AB to start, if we manage to keep it for 4 years, we will not be the only residents. Imagine if TSV slowly dies off and other guilds living in AB become more active. Why would they want to burn their own home down?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think a mechanic for replacing leaders that have gone AWOL for a long period of time is a great idea.
Not so much for bad leaders, that is just going to be a fact of life.
Where as one causes the settlement to suffer through neglect of absence, the other is still a form of 'meaningful player interaction', and as such really should not be circumvented. Missing/defunct leaders offer no player interaction, and that seems to be something that GW is trying to avoid.
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Goblin Squad Member
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When the leader logs off, the second in command (or highest ranking person online) could become acting chief, temporarily being granted some of the leader priviliges and providing the settlement with some/most/all of the buff and also becoming a potential target for assassination.
This could either be forced by the system or be up to the settlement to decide for itself.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I prefer the idea of direct appeal to GW for help with AWOL leaders. I like the idea of "majority vote displacement" IF it is set up in the charter of the settlement and "displacement by rebellion" if it is not.
Edit: That intimates some basic controls be programmed in, but not so many that it is overly complex.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There shouldn't be a mechanic for replacing leaders, unless it has the consent of the leaders.
You don't join a settlement, if you don't like how it is run.
There should be some sort of upkeep that requires the attention of a leader. If the upkeep isn't met, the settlement starts a path towards crumbling to the ground. Later they can add a mechanic that names successors in the charter, if upkeep isn't met.
Any form of voting to overthrow 'bad' leaders, can be used by a 'bad' group to overthrow 'good' leaders.
There should be no mechanic, outside of war, that allows a charter to be changed against the will of the current ruling party.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In Eve (only game I have seen this) if the corporation CEO does not log in for a certain amount of time (6 months? maybe less) then that person will be replaced by one of the directors. All they have to do is petition a GM and have them look into it. They do this because the corp has assets that belong to its members, for instance a Settlement (Player Owned Station).
If the leader is not playing anymore, no need to punish the members for it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There shouldn't be a mechanic for replacing leaders, unless it has the consent of the leaders.
You don't join a settlement, if you don't like how it is run.
There should be some sort of upkeep that requires the attention of a leader. If the upkeep isn't met, the settlement starts a path towards crumbling to the ground. Later they can add a mechanic that names successors in the charter, if upkeep isn't met.
Any form of voting to overthrow 'bad' leaders, can be used by a 'bad' group to overthrow 'good' leaders.
There should be no mechanic, outside of war, that allows a charter to be changed against the will of the current ruling party.
While that is possible, is it not one of the dangers/benefits of a choice of "Democratic" as a form of settlement government, already planned for in the system?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Active ruling parties should stay as such unless removed through the actions of players using mechanics already confirmed.
Inactive ruling parties have no will, it is these instances that are of primary concern, to avoid an active settlement from decaying simply because its leaders are not playing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Active ruling parties should stay as such unless removed through the actions of players using mechanics already confirmed.
Inactive ruling parties have no will, it is these instances that are of primary concern, to avoid an active settlement from decaying simply because its leaders are not playing.
Agreed. I believe that somewhere back in The Dawn Times, Ryan had talked about that. If I remember rightly, he mentioned that GW would possibly step in (on appeal) to set things right (in such cases).
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Goblin Squad Member
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We have gotten a little off course from the OP.
@ Forencith
If, what you described, turned out to be the standard to avoid assassination attempts, and nothing was done about it, I could go for the flag thing. I could actually go for it if it becomes obvious that it is too hard to identify the target, for some reason.
At least the incentives for being "on site". Something to encourage vulnerability for gain. It is a meaningful risk for reward and makes sense if the numbers are not crazy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A democracy is a calculated risk, you have to hope that your loyal subjects will outnumber the malicious ones.While that is possible, is it not one of the dangers/benefits of a choice of "Democratic" as a form of settlement government, already planned for in the system?
I like the idea of a Democracy or a Representative Democracy IRL. In my MMO, I like the idea of having a "King/Queen" or the equivalent.
Of course, in an MMO you can move on if the leadership sucks, far easier than IRL.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As an assassin, I would like to chime in with the idea that I don't like "Flags" on leaders so that they are picked out in a crowd. I actually WANT to work for my money. This is a perfect opportunity to use gather info and knowledge local type skills. Use them to locate and identify leaders that you contract is for and then stalk them to find a good time/place to kill them.
If you stick a flag on them and a ping on the map when you hold a contract, then you might as well bring a "I win" button that is pressed, the leader flag blows up killing leader and all in a 15 foot burst.
Seriously though, use this opportunity to dive into the game and use skills that are not commonly used outside of this sort of situation to solve this "issue" and not a OOC flag that takes the fun out of it.
As to the off topic side convo here, inactive leaders should have some sort of debuff or auto resign "mechanic" to remove them and replace with a more active member. This is just because of RL and lose of interest/money to play happens and not always at opportune times. With this in, the mantel of leadership can be passed without causing a war or "burn down and restart" option. Rebellion could be a potential option. Something along the lines of how corruption penalizes the settlement as people break the laws and such, having a leader that isn't around much also does the same thing. Once it reaches a point, the highest ranking active member takes the role and it restarts.
Just a thought, not sure honestly but this is something that would need to be considered.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is a perfect opportunity to use gather info and knowledge local type skills. Use them to locate and identify leaders that you contract is for and then stalk them to find a good time/place to kill them.
...Seriously though, use this opportunity to dive into the game and use skills that are not commonly used outside of this sort of situation to solve this "issue" and not a OOC flag that takes the fun out of it.
Well, as such skills haven't been detailed yet, how do you think Knowledge (local), Diplomacy, etc. could be made into a mechanic? Remembering of course this is an extra mechanic that has to be developed in addition to the whole assassination system, and thus needs to be "worth it" to develop for the developers.
I myself am not having a lot of creativity flowing in that direction, so it might help to kickstart my noggin to hear someone else's ideas. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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And, for clarification, I actually assumed such a mechanic would not be implemented with flags because the other flags I compared it to, such as the assassin flag and bandit flag have been removed. It was just a general idea for discussion.
I feel like the important part of your post is that settlement leadership needs to have a reason to be "available" to make an assassin mechanic realistic. We haven't any idea how easy or difficult it will be to find out who does what in any given town. It might be easier than is being assumed. The assassin will still have to find that person in the settlement, stalk them until the right place and right moment, then "observe" them while avoiding detection, and finally strike. No easy list of tasks...
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Goblin Squad Member
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In Eve (only game I have seen this) if the corporation CEO does not log in for a certain amount of time (6 months? maybe less) then that person will be replaced by one of the directors. All they have to do is petition a GM and have them look into it. They do this because the corp has assets that belong to its members, for instance a Settlement (Player Owned Station).
If the leader is not playing anymore, no need to punish the members for it.
If it weren't for the assassination system, I'd say what works in EvE in this respect will work in PFO. But if assassinations are supposed to hurt a settlement by targeting specific leaders, there may be reason to make sure there are available targets online at least some of the time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The assassin will still have to find that person in the settlement, stalk them until the right place and right moment, then "observe" them while avoiding detection, and finally strike. No easy list of tasks...
I think marking your target notifies them that they are being watched. So being detected is a foregone conclusion, not being spotted is going to be key.
Edit: If this has changed and marking your target no longer lets them know there is an assassin in a settlement, I suspect there are going to be a lot of happy assassins, and more nervous settlement leaders. ;)
On that note, what is to stop a settlement leader from logging out as soon as they become aware of an assassin?
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Goblin Squad Member
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The assassin will still have to find that person in the settlement, stalk them until the right place and right moment, then "observe" them while avoiding detection, and finally strike. No easy list of tasks...I think marking your target notifies them that they are being watched. So being detected is a foregone conclusion, not being spotted is going to be key.
Edit: If this has changed and marking your target no longer lets them know there is an assassin in a settlement, I suspect there are going to be a lot of happy assassins, and more nervous settlement leaders. ;)
On that note, what is to stop a settlement leader from logging out as soon as they become aware of an assassin?
I should have used "spotted" or "pinpointed", good catch as that was what I meant. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think marking your target notifies them that they are being watched. So being detected is a foregone conclusion, not being spotted is going to be key.
Edit: If this has changed and marking your target no longer lets them know there is an assassin in a settlement, I suspect there are going to be a lot of happy assassins, and more nervous settlement leaders. ;)
On that note, what is to stop a settlement leader from logging out as soon as they become aware of an assassin?
The relevant mark was called "Observation", and it was indeed planned to be visible to the person targeted by it. You only learned about the assassin's presence in the settlement once the assassin uses the skill, and it doesn't tell you who or where they are.
As for the second part of your edit, the logout timer stops them from immediately logging out. If you do log out, you leave your body as a sitting duck for the assassin to move in in the next 30 seconds and do his work. Logouts are not instant, and combat cancels them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If it weren't for the assassination system, I'd say what works in EvE in this respect will work in PFO. But if assassinations are supposed to hurt a settlement by targeting specific leaders, there may be reason to make sure there are available targets online at least some of the time.In Eve (only game I have seen this) if the corporation CEO does not log in for a certain amount of time (6 months? maybe less) then that person will be replaced by one of the directors. All they have to do is petition a GM and have them look into it. They do this because the corp has assets that belong to its members, for instance a Settlement (Player Owned Station).
If the leader is not playing anymore, no need to punish the members for it.
Actually, it works for PFO as much because of the assassination system.
It gets playing people into the leadership spots, so they can be assassinated.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I kind of like the gather information skill idea
since theoretically everyone of the npcs in town should know who the leader/leaders is/are and may even have tiny bits of other info on them depending.
This comes with the risk that if the skill check fails they may be found out and may have to get out of town quick
so no officer flag would be needed
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Goblin Squad Member
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I understand that any sort of mechanic would take time and resources from other things and I don't have any idea how easy or hard it would be as I am not a programmer or developer. That being said, I was simply stating that giving a reason to add those non-combat skills and giving them a use would promote characters not entirely combat focused.
I would like to see PFO move away from what I see very often in TT, players making characters that are focused on combat and do nothing else. Only time they put ranks into diplomacy and knowledge skills is when they have extra skill points. I know not every group and every player does this but I see it often enough. Bounty hunters and assassins should need those skills, as well as perception and stealth and disguise, to do their jobs. Unless they work as a team and have the "hunter" be a person that trains all those "hunting" skills like knowledge local and gather intel, while the "killer" trains more combat and stealth skills to perform the kill once the hunter finds the target. But to be a solo act, requires training in all of those skills.
130 different types of crafting materials is what GW decided it needed to make a varied and meaningful crafting system. It is my belief that adding this skills to the more popular and common skills would make the skill system, and therefore the "class/role" system more varied and meaningful.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree; was hoping you had some specifics in mind just to bounce some ideas around in here. :)
Personally the kinds of incarnations of Knowledge (local) and such that I can come up with seem like they'd just be better served as a normal function of the UI, rather than a trained skill.