I've repeatedly emphasized it's not the player, but the character, that is being jerky. Jerky players are bad, but you shouldn't penalize non-jerky players for playing jerky characters.
My character is a virtually honorless madwoman who robs and cheats, holding only to the River Freedoms. I am concerned that "loose cannons" are going to not only be difficult, but virtually unplayable.
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I've repeatedly emphasized it's not the player, but the character, that is being jerky. Jerky players are bad, but you shouldn't penalize non-jerky players for playing jerky characters.
My character is a virtually honorless madwoman who robs and cheats, holding only to the River Freedoms. I am concerned that "loose cannons" are going to not only be difficult, but virtually unplayable.
**Whack! Whack!** "Bad Kobold! Do your homework!"
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I think the system they've outlined makes sense. If someone wants to play a half-troll 'madwoman' that goes out of her way to piss off as many people as she can - in a society where half the people are open-carrying swords... Well, if her Reputation drops, its exactly like she's pissing everyone off and they don't want her in their town. And when some person with less than half a load of scruples does her in, even the paladins will say, "That's a relief. Who's turn is it to kill her if she comes back?"
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KC, you are clearly a delight to this community.
But lets be honest, most players that have jerky characters are jerks themselves.
Any system is going to have to generalize to a point and GW is going to punish jerky behavior. I think this is a good thing over all, even if your character isn't as well received in society as you might like.
Look at the big picture here and don't just think about how a game mechanic might affect you as an individual. GW can't make everyone happy.
I'm fine with Reputation having consequences. I'm concerned that these consequences are going to flat-out cripple any character who practices "unsavory" pastimes.
We'll see how things go for Gricki. I'm going to bed.
By the way, Gricki is "mad" in an IC sense. OOC, her actions are usually very deliberate. She'll attack those I OOC think should be attacked—bandits going after newbies, for instance. But that's not necessarily gonna make a difference for her rep.
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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.
There are a lot of words there but they say nothing. It does not describe how a character's rep mechanically affects the Settlement. I have yet to see anything that accurately describes how a character with low rep hurts their settlement and not just themselves. It may as well be saying, "if you are bad, you'll be punished."
Think on this, if having low rep does hurt the settlement then agents of enemy groups will purposefully fill your settlement with characters that all suddenly go low rep to hurt and hinder your settlement before and during a siege. Is that something you want to see in the game?
Finally, make note that like Alignment, your Reputation can slowly climb back up over time if you stop causing it to fall.
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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.There are a lot of words there but they say nothing. It does not describe how a character's rep mechanically affects the Settlement. I have yet to see anything that accurately describes how a character with low rep hurts their settlement and not just themselves. It may as well be saying, "if you are bad, you'll be punished."
Yes, this is exactly what I am trying to get clarified.
I know when you have low rep then life is miserable since you will not have access to high tier structures (treshold for acces) or get killed by NPC Guards(treshold for Kill on Sight).But I do not see the explanation where low rep characters actually *cause* the Settlement to downgrade in any way, other then that these "jerky" characters will not bother to upgrade their settlement to Tier 2 or 3 since they will not be able to use those facilities anyway?
This part from Nihimons quote seems important(thanks Nihimon):
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.
The bolded part in there seems to *imply* that there is some direct mechanical way that a low rep character causes the Settlement to downgrade. However the sentence after that, does not really explain or confirm that: it just tells you once again that if you have low rep, you have no business in a settlement with high tier buildings and high standards when it comes to reputation(guards) so you will only be welcome in low-tier settlement that have crummy NPC Guards that are OK with low-rep characters. We know that.
What we do not know is, taking Ravenlutes example: When you have a settlement with 300 members that all have a rep of 5000+, with lots of high tier buildings and Guards that attack anything that has a rep lower then 0; and then a 100 of them go on a "spree" and come back to town with a rep of -5000; what will the effect have been on their settlement, right there, right now?
Will some tier 3 buildings have gone down to tier 2, thus not being able to give tier 3 services even for characters with high reputation?
(we get that those low rep characters can not access that facility anymore)
Will the DI of the settlement immediately have gone down from 3000 to 2000, thus disabling (or even Poofing)some buildings, because the DI has become too low to cover so many buildings?
Or simply, as per my OP, will a character *directly* lower the Settlements DI when he becomes low-rep all of a sudden?
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My prediction and answer to the question in the thread title:
Only if the settlement chooses to attach a meaning to it.
I can see the reputation system working in a very simple mechanical way. It is a gate keeper. A settlement will set a minimum reputation to enter without being attacked by NPCs and that is it.
If a settlement sets its minimum too high, fewer people will go there. It will wither on the vine and die. If a settlement sets its minimum too low, it will probably have an influx of people who care little for rules and laws and settlement corruption may rise.
Nothing more than that in spite of what the Devs have said. They will never admit they promised too much and they couldn't deliver. They will say nothing and just not deliver. Some will be upset and leave, others will be happy and the majority won't care one way or get other. As long as the first group is the minority, GW will still make $$$. That us the bottom line, literally and figuratively.
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This part from Nihimons quote seems important(thanks Nihimon):
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.
So, how I read that bolded part is a vague way of saying that a Settlement that allows its low rep members to continue to have access to it and be able to use its facilities must have a low Reputation Threshold, which means that it would not be able to have upgraded structures because upgraded structures would require a higher Reputation Threshold. By not having upgraded structures then it is obvious that Settlement members will not have access to higher tiers of training in that settlement which results in limited skills and abilities.
To me, it doesn't seem to say that low rep characters cause damage or devolve structures in any way. Only that if the Settlement wants to keep those characters around and give them full access that they can't upgrade those structures past a certain point.
Bluddwolf is absolutely correct when it comes to this point; in regard to Settlements, Reputation will simply act as a gate that either allows or denies a character access to the Settlement itself or its facilities.
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To me, it doesn't seem to say that low rep characters cause damage or devolve structures in any way. Only that if the Settlement wants to keep those characters around and give them full access that they can't upgrade those structures past a certain point.
Bluddwolf is absolutely correct when it comes to this point; in regard to Settlements, Reputation will simply act as a gate that either allows or denies a character access to the Settlement itself or its facilities.
I don't know about devolving the structures themselves or causing damage to them, but Member Reputation is more than just a "gate" to determine whether or not they can enter the Settlement.
Ryan you seem to have a preconceived notion that Chaotic = Stupid. Are you saying that a Chaotic settlement can not set its PvP windows wider, allowing it to have a higher DI and thus offer more than basic structures and low powered residents?I'm saying Development Index is a function of how high the reputation of the Settlement's members is.
What you are saying is Chaotic characters should not bother to run settlements at all. What is their benefit to spend weeks or months building something, only to be under powered and a target for the stronger and far more abundant lawful settlements?Why do you think there should be a benefit?
You are, perhaps, confused.
This is not a game that promises "play any character you want, any way you want!" Those games, in my opinion, usually suck.
This is a game where if you play within a range of accepted archetypes for heroic adventuring, kingdom building, territorial control, and exploration, you will find nearly limitless potential for playing characters the way you want to play them. (Adventure, Develop, Dominate & Explore)
If you want to be those player's content, you will not find unlimited opportunities. You'll find a very challenging, very limited range of options.
This should not be a surprise to you. We keep saying it over and over and over. We've been very consistent.
It's one thing to say that the developers will fail to effectuate their intent, and Bluddwolf has made very clear that's his position on a number of things. It's quite another thing to suggest that their intent is something other than what it is.
It would be foolish for Goblinworks to force a Settlement to suffer the effects of Low Reputation Characters without giving the Settlement Management an opportunity first to remove those Characters from the Settlement. There's no reason to assume that Goblinworks is foolish, and there's no reason to assume that the effects of Low Reputation Characters on their Settlements need to occur immediately in order to be meaningful.
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Thanks Nihimon.
I'm saying Development Index is a function of how high the reputation of the Settlement's members is.
That seems clear, but still not sure we are talking an actual mechanical relation here.
If he means that low rep members will be pretty useless(can not train) so management should throw them out, that gives a bit more leeway for high tier settlements to tolerate (some temporary) low-repness. Even if these members may not be able to enter town because the guards will kill them.
I agree that the effect of having many low rep members will be felt quickly for any Settlement, if only for the constant hostility, and the fact that pacts and agreements will be very hard to make. This separately from the fact that the low rep members themselves are gimped.
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My understanding has always been that each Member's Reputation will be factored into some aggregate for the entire Settlement, and that number will modify the Development Index directly.
But, personally, the actual mechanics don't really matter unless you're looking for a way around the design intent. The design intent is very clearly that Low Reputation Characters should be detrimental to a Settlement so that Settlements are encouraged to either get those Characters to moderate their behavior, or just kick them out, in order to avoid the negative impact on all the other Characters in the Settlement.
There will still be Chaotic Evil Settlements that cater to them, but they're going to be filled with other Characters that have accepted the consequences.