Goblin Squad Member
|
As some understand it, reputation only affects the player and his access to utilities, however it does not directly affect the Settlement he belongs to. Not sure if this is true though. What I think I know:
An Individual with a low Reputation will have access to *less* utilities(training, skill support, Marketplace etc), because Utilities/Buildings can be *set* to a certain Reputation treshold(need XXXX rep or higher to use)?
An Individual with a low reputation may be barred(or killed by the NPC guards) by his (or any) Settlement because the Settlement has set laws that are tied to certain Reputation tresholds?
Will a player with low reputation gain less influence for his settlement, and thus be detrimental to its D.I. (and thus for the Settlement)?
Would that be how low reputation players can actually ruin their own *Settlements* rather then just their own access to their Utilities?
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Well, I don't know how plans may have changed, but as of 6 months ago:
Higher end structures, like tier 2 and 3 training and crafting facilities, require the settlement have its minimum Reputation set to certain levels to function. So if you want your town to have awesome training and crafting facilities, you have to set a high minimum Reputation to enter the settlement. This means characters that do a lot of PvP outside of wars, feuds, and such will be forced to visit less developed settlements that are wretched hives of scum and villainy.
So seems to me that if you want access to nice settlements, best watch your behavior.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
In addition to what Toombs said above:
The Reputation system is a major addition to the game system we inherited from the tabletop. Reputation adds a new dimension to the way the game tracks the behavior of characters. As your characters engage with others in PvP, your Reputation will change. Attacking and killing neutral or friendly opponents will have significant impacts on your Reputation. The lower your Reputation, the less desirable you will be as a member of a Settlement. Your character's Reputation affects the Settlement your character is a member of, and you may find that your fellow members would rather kick you out than tolerate your misbehavior.
As a part of our game design we have built in systems that will tend to shift gankers and griefers towards chaotic evil alignment with low Reputation. And we have designed the Settlement system such that Settlements which consist of members with those characteristics have degraded structures which limit their member's skills and abilities. In other words, as your character loses Reputation and is forced into a low-quality Settlement, your character will suffer mechanical penalties vs. other characters. Your character will lose power and be more easily defeated by others as a result of your actions.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
If Goblinworks truly thinks Reputation needs to serve as a counter to griefers, I hope they will be conservative with what causes Reputation loss. It'll be bad enough that I have to take a hit whenever I kill someone for being a dick—I don't want to get locked out of my town for loot ninjaing, too.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
If Goblinworks truly thinks Reputation needs to serve as a counter to griefers, I hope they will be conservative with what causes Reputation loss. It'll be bad enough that I have to take a hit whenever I kill someone for being a dick—I don't want to get locked out of my town for loot ninjaing, too.
All of this.
Especially since the Criminal flag will already be making things tough for me. The last thing I need is to be getting hit with anti-griefer measures, too.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Especially since the Criminal flag will already be making things tough for me. The last thing I need is to be getting hit with anti-griefer measures, too.
That's what I'm talking about - it is a good example of what you said earlier. I would imagine that there will be plenty of cases of certain individuals ninja-looting corpses after a nasty duel. And those individuals will most certainly be flagged criminal, and will most certainly lower their lawful/chaos axis. But to lose reputation for trivial things like this and otherwise get "kicked out" of your settlement for it... that seems unfair. Especially if belonging to a chaotic settlement. -_-
Honestly, that's my big problem—I don't really get if Reputation is supposed to be a meta thing (how much of a douche is this guy?) or an IC thing (how much do people hate this guy?).
If it's IC, it should be easily lowered, but not actually penalize the player. No shame in playing an honorless scumbag. If it's meta, though, the current system is fine.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I believe their intention was always to discourage chaotic game-play (more specifically "griefing"). People initially had concerns about PFO being a PVP game at all, but they were reassured early on that measures would be taken to reduce the amount of involuntary PVP and banditry.
The consequences will likely be severe since it is something they try and discourage in general.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If Goblinworks actually wants to discourage or minimize banditry and involuntary PVP, I am extremely distressed. If you want to avoid involuntary PVP, stay in town.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Unlike other Open World PVP MMO's currently on the market, Pathfinder Online actively discourages meaningless PVP. A meaningful alignment system that actually offers mechanical advantages to lawful and good aligned organizations, and a functional bounty system that allows the player to choose which players and organizations can collect the bounties they set discourages random and meaningless killing. Beyond this, the admins are taking a hard stance against 'griefing', in which players specifically seek to ruin the experience of other players, often through using game mechanics in ways that weren't intended. Griefing in PFO can be a bannable offence.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Well,
In most areas of the game world your character can be attacked by other characters. This system is not optional. Some players are very concerned that this kind of system leads inexorably to what we call a "murder simulator" - a game that degenerates into endless ganking, griefing, and harassment that ruins the experience for everyone.
Goblinworks is committed to the idea that we can re-introduce PvP as a meaningful part of the ways players interact without allowing the game to degenerate in that fashion.
We don't believe there's a magic bullet that solves all the problems with PvP with one shot. Rather we think the solution is a layered approach, ranging from in-game mechanical effects that impact characters who behave badly, to out-of-game moderation activities by our team to identify and reform or remove players who persist in being toxic to the community.
This post is kinda interesting too:
If a player sets their core alignment to CE, and they do not kill outside of feud, war, faction of self defense, will the alignment still suffer mechanical disadvantages?You'll have to find a Chaotic Neutral or Neutral Evil Settlement that is actively trying to keep their rep high enough to compete with other Settlements which means that de facto you'll be playing with and like less chaotic and less evil characters - the whole Settlement may be playing in ways that tend to drift their alignment away from Chaotic Evil.
So if the Settlement is well managed, you will likely have access to a fairly broad range of character abilities, but still not the absolute most exotic. That may or may not matter materially.
If you want to play your Chaotic Evil character Chaotically and Evilly, you'll probably not be able to remain a part of that Settlement - they'll boot you to protect their own Development Index.
Just some random stuff I thought was interesting on the topic, even if it's a little more alignment-related than reputation-related
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Basically, they are trying to create some kind of balance... keeping the game from turning into a 'murder sim' while still allowing some PVP conflict. I don't know if they will be able to pull it off, but ideally going out into the world would be about as dangerous in the MMO as in a tabletop RPG.
If Goblinworks actually wants to discourage or minimize banditry and involuntary PVP, I am extremely distressed. If you want to avoid involuntary PVP, stay in town.
Risk and Rward should be equal period. Otherwise there is always ArcheAge for those who just want to gank and grief.
I like this alot and hope it works
Banditry is already risky. Assassination is already risky. It is combat—the most risky part of the game.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
It's not really that risky when you get to decide who to engage and when to engage them. Merchants shuffling their goods around aren't rampaging about looking for a fight; if someone decides to take their shot at the caravan it is entirely on the attackers' terms. And worst case scenario, you lose, you still prepared for that eventuality and probably aren't losing all that much from the defeat. The merchant, however, stands to lose a lot more.
And the merchant avoids Criminal flags. The merchant can also decide what he wants to gather—with a bandit, you have to take what you can, with no guarantees it'll be useful to him. He also doesn't know what target will have lots of good stuff and what target will be broke. Worse, the richer the target, the bigger the challenge will probably be.
In other words, the merchant is already getting more practical profits. The tradeoff is the bandit is more likely to survive. Rep done wrong will be overkill, and imply that GW sees all bandits as borderline grifers.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
KC: As far as I have read, Rep losses will only occur (1) for attacking unflagged characters/characters that do not appear hostile to you, and (2) as penalties for certain behaviour in chat. So they're sort of meta - if you stick to feuds, war, and 'correct' conflict, you shouldn't see rep losses.
If you're robbing kills, you might get the Criminal flag which makes you a legitimate target (and you can legitimately defend yourself when attacked), but I've read nothing suggesting a rep loss of committing crimes.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I'm more than a little curious to see how the reputation system and force-locking people out of character advancement is going to go. Because from what I'm seeing, the reputation and alignment system seem to be heavily geared towards forcing people to play a certain way. While this is all well and good, it seems like it could also be better served by just locking everyone down to only being able to PvP in stringent circumstances. Why allow for open PvP while (to me) over-harshly punishing random attacks?
It feels a lot like they want to have the experience of emergent open PvP games, while also stripping away the very freedoms that make these possible. I can't predict exactly how this will go, but my current impressions are 'not well'.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I'm more than a little curious to see how the reputation system and force-locking people out of character advancement is going to go. Because from what I'm seeing, the reputation and alignment system seem to be heavily geared towards forcing people to play a certain way. While this is all well and good, it seems like it could also be better served by just locking everyone down to only being able to PvP in stringent circumstances. Why allow for open PvP while (to me) over-harshly punishing random attacks?
It feels a lot like they want to have the experience of emergent open PvP games, while also stripping away the very freedoms that make these possible. I can't predict exactly how this will go, but my current impressions are 'not well'.
I prefer heavy penalties to flat restrictions because then, if somebody is really douchey, I have the chance to decide whether the penalty is worth it.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
KC: As far as I have read, Rep losses will only occur (1) for attacking unflagged characters/characters that do not appear hostile to you, and (2) as penalties for certain behaviour in chat.
I am not aware of any statement from Goblinworks to indicate that there will be Reputation penalties for "certain behaviour in chat". Although there was some talk of "salute" and "rebuke" being ways for one Character to raise or lower another Character's Reputation at the cost of their own.
Crazy Idea: A propaganda company that sells Reputation by getting really high-rep and then just shilling for people.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Wow - actually able to catch one that Nihimon doesn't know of.
Reputation can also be lost if the player is flagged for abusive behavior, such as racist comments, camping, abusing new players, etc. All the specifics of reporting and verifying such behavior are still being worked out but we hope to create a system that allows as much community control as possible.
Any racist comments, for example, would have to be in chat.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Having been a chat moderator elsewhere, I was impressed when I first read that. Giving chat mods sanctions with teeth might dissuade some of the people that seemingly log on just to break chat. At some point such characters will become actual outcasts within the game, not wanted by any settlement and frankly, hunted by various evil characters who might want PvP kills with little Rep loss.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Yeah, the whole Alignment & Reputation things is, to me, one of the top 3 greatest things about PFO. If you want to use an effective Character to do something dastardly, you're going to suffer for it. And if you want to do something dastardly and not face the consequences, you're going to have to do it on a basically ineffective Character. I think it'll go a long way to encourage established Characters not to be jerks.
Honestly, I would rather it focus on encouraging established Players not to be jerks. :P
I'm just pointing out that going after actions that are jerky in-character is not going to do all that much to stop jerky players. It's more likely to make it harder to play a jerky character, really.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I'm just pointing out that going after actions that are jerky in-character is not going to do all that much to stop jerky players. It's more likely to make it harder to play a jerky character, really.
Lol. I am not sure why this is coming up again but essentially you are spot on there. Working as intended and in a way that is possible.
It's intended to make it harder to roleplay a bad guy? Brilliant plan there. Not like we need those guys or anything.
It's intended to balance how Chaotic guys work. I still don't support actually trying to make them disadvantaged. They really don't have any edge. Evil guys do, but we're fine with Evil guys. It's Chaos that seems to be getting kinda screwed right now.
Anyways, I'm off. Gotta do rules.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
...Lawful Evil will have benefits over Chaotic Evil...
They'll have advantages over Lawful Good, too, according to Ryan. Lawful Evil will have more flexibility to "do what's needed", while Lawful Good will find themselves more constrained at the buffet of human behaviour.
He's warned Lawful Good won't be a walk in the park, and I perceive some of our friends in the Vigil like it that way.
As far as I have read, most Evil acts (e.g. murdering), will cause you to lose rep when you lose good/evil. Therefore, most of these evil acts will be punishable by having sifficulty fitting-in at most towns/settlements. :(
But Evil has advantages to counter that, as Jazzlvraz mentions.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
It'll be quite interesting when we start to learn the mechanics. I believe some folks might be surprised if they find there are significantly more ways to move toward Evil than toward Good--possibly also moving faster toward Evil as well--but it'll ensure meaningful human interaction, for certain.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
It's intended to make it harder to roleplay a bad guy? Brilliant plan there. Not like we need those guys or anything.
You didn't write bad guys. You wrote "jerky". That does not cover all jerky characters either. Just ones that kill enough outside of faction, feud and war. Also apparently a bit of rude chat and maybe some other stuff we don't know yet.
I wrote jerky characters. Meaning, the character is jerky, the player isn't. I'm not trying to hide behind roleplay to excuse bad behavior, but right now, I'm not sure Goblinworks knows, or cares about, the difference.
But seriously, I gotta homework. I'm closing my browser. If I show up again, whap me with a newspaper.
EDIT: Note not sure. I'm not positive that GW is acknowledging the difference right now, but I'm not espousing the firm belief that they don't give a cluck, either.
But seriously, I gotta homework.= change alias and post in other threads
Hey, I was just winding down my list of tabs I'd already opened.
Now, however, I'm waiting to get some login info for a magazine's website. See? I have more excuses than Paxman has eggs.
Cuz he's broody.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I wrote jerky characters. Meaning, the character is jerky, the player isn't. I'm not trying to hide behind roleplay to excuse bad behavior, but right now, I'm not sure Goblinworks knows, or cares about, the difference.
But seriously, I gotta homework. I'm closing my browser. If I show up again, whap me with a newspaper.
EDIT: Note not sure. I'm not positive that GW is acknowledging the difference right now, but I'm not espousing the firm belief that they don't give a cluck, either.
I'm just pointing out that going after actions that are jerky in-character is not going to do all that much to stop jerky players. It's more likely to make it harder to play a jerky character, really.
Hmmm, I can't help but think that you were around last time this went through it's cycle. Perhaps you weren't and/or perhaps you just don't agree. Either is fine.
I see it like this: There is no way to really permanently punish a "jerky" player outside of the character that is doing the unwanted actions. The exception being that he has more than one toon on his account or more than one account in his actual name. So, they punish the character that does the unwanted actions. The theory is, that will make that character less fun to play.
If you don't intend to play in a way that gets your rep so low that the character suffers, you will be fine.
If you do intend to play that way and pursue it, I can see why you would not like the system...