From reading some of your other posts, I think you see the "design of the game" as only that which is implemented. In other words, if the game systems allow you to do something, then that is legitimate because it's part of the "design of the game".
Didn't we already do this? Wait, stupid question. Didn't we already do this a few days ago?
If a player group is large, patient and organized enough to conquer every one of the 33 settlements through the use of feud, faction and warfare, no matter how far fetched that may be it is still legitimate.The fact remains that not every aspect of the "design of the game" is implemented in software.
And would you argue that the scenario Bluddwolf describes—one group taking over all thirty-three settlements—merits moderator intervention?
Let the game mechanics...do nothing that the players can not do for themselves.
Does this mean you hope for game mechanics such as Reputation to be eventually removed, to be replaced with a self-policing community?
Goblin Squad Member
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Let the game mechanics...do nothing that the players can not do for themselves.Does this mean you hope for game mechanics such as Reputation to be eventually removed, to be replaced with a self-policing community?
If the community were able to do that, yes. I think that would be a true measure of PFO's success, if it could sustain a community without a reputation system.
Now if you asked the follow up question, do I think the community can, my answer would be "doubtful".
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Goblin Squad Member
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Let the game mechanics...do nothing that the players can not do for themselves.Does this mean you hope for game mechanics such as Reputation to be eventually removed, to be replaced with a self-policing community?
With the nature of humanity and the anonymous nature of the internet, this will never happen. I don't trust any MMO community to self-police themselves. For policing of the community to work, there must be game mechanics for both a carrot and a stick which Reputation will hopefully successfully cover the stick part in PFO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Does outcome determine legitimacy?
If a settlement decides that they are going to dedicate all of their time, preparing for conquest and they are almost always successful, at what point might their conquest become illegitimate?
* They are more numerous, better organized, equipped, etc.
* They use Feuds, Faction and War with all of the costs associated with those
As Kobold asked, should the Devs step in and intervene to limit their success?
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Goblin Squad Member
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How necessary is it to hash out such a topic--laden as it is with contentiousness and little else of use--right now, before we even have a game to play anywhere except the boards and Alpha? Is it possible, perhaps, to wait to see what conditions are like on the ground, in case those conditions obviate the entire discussion?
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Goblin Squad Member
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How necessary is it to hash out such a topic--laden as it is with contentiousness and little else of use--right now, before we even have a game to play anywhere except the boards and Alpha? Is it possible, perhaps, to wait to see what conditions are like on the ground, in case those conditions obviate the entire discussion?
Well part of the concern, although not on my part, may come as early as week 10 of the land rush.
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Goblin Squad Member
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How necessary is it to hash out such a topic--laden as it is with contentiousness and little else of use--right now, before we even have a game to play anywhere except the boards and Alpha? Is it possible, perhaps, to wait to see what conditions are like on the ground, in case those conditions obviate the entire discussion?Well part of the concern, although not on my part, may come as early as week 10 of the land rush.
I would not be at all surprised to see a mega-guild capture as many Settlements as possible with "shadow guilds" in Week 10. I don't think Ryan would necessarily do anything about it, but I wouldn't presume to tell him what he should do one way or the other.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I can't stand out neighbors!
Those Golgothans, they smell like fish and have a weird look in their eye placement. I'm surprised they did name their settlement Innsmouth.
Those Freevalers, the noise that comes from that place at night. Not surprising honestly, it is the home of lizards and birds!
Our neighbors in "T", well its location is aptly labeled, T = trailer park. Never there for more than a week.
Those mystics, I haven't had much contact with them. They seem quiet, and keep to themselves. That is probably the best kind of neighbors you could ask for I suppose.
;-}
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Goblin Squad Member
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All politics aside, it's an interesting take to state that those intent on destroying the game, be they the Goons or whoever, are "high producers".Err, who said that?No one did.
Err, yes you did Bludd.
You've managed to tidily conflate Lisa and Ryan rebalancing things to stop people who are actively trying to destroy PFO with rebalancing in general, though, so I can see where Jiminy was confused.From where I stand, "Goons" is more of a generic adjective than a name. It represents a big meta-guild, entirely focused on just messing up the game.
With Lisa & Ryan's objective of making a game a little more open to the large audience, I think that they will have to, from time to time, stepping to balance the world.
For example, if 90% of the game becomes of a specific alignment, LG/LE/LN whatever, then I think that they should step in.
If their intent is to destroy PFO, they will do just that. Players like to follow the rules and over time gain expertise and power. What you're suggesting is that if they become to powerful and or are too successful due to their hard work and effort, that a "balancing" should take place to re level the playing field.
Socialism doesn't work in real life, it will be even more unpopular in a sand box MMO.
So Jiminy is still confused, as nowhere in that quote does Bluddwolf mention anything about high producers, which was the crux of my questiom. That was in a tangent about socialism.
But hey, I see you kissed and made up later in the thread, so all good I guess.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Let the game mechanics...do nothing that the players can not do for themselves.Does this mean you hope for game mechanics such as Reputation to be eventually removed, to be replaced with a self-policing community?
If after two or three months, it seems that the situation is not going to change, I don't see why not.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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And just to clarify my point of view :
My ideal situation is that every alignment has strongly and compeling advantages, so big players don't all go in the same category. I want the structure of the game to be balanced that way.
And I think that the game should have a strong system, making it very very hard even for a big, organised, international meta-guild, to conquer the map. The chaotic and shifting nature of the River Kingdoms should be enforced on players, as much as it is enforced on NPC. Because it is easier for IRL players organised with modern communication tools, to unify a big map, than for NPCs in a book.
Dev' intervention should be a very last resort, if they failed to make a balanced world.
It isn't just an idea, but it could be interesting, that past a certain number of settlement with the same alignment, said settlements start getting a "decadence" debuff. It could enforce some variety, encourage players to join an existing settlement and not creating a new one, and even give some compelling reasons, to start wars with identically aligned sentiments.
Of course, the limit should be high so a specific alignment could have a general dominance on the map, but it would, I think, limit some abuse and balance problems.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Every alignment shouldn't be equally compelling. People who want to play anything but neutral with good surface tendencies needs to be making a choice to ignore or embrace the veneer of civilization. Each person outside that narrow slot is (and should be) making a conscious choice.
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Caldeathe, I think I didn't understand your statement. Because the meaninful choices from alignments are not opposite of differents alignements have strongly and compeling advantages. Because in essence each alignment have to have differents aproaches, different dis/advantages, etc... Could be equally compelling AND totally different to represent a conscious choice.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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a very simple example which is not necessarily a good idea, but which is good for explaining my point :
Lawful = Bonus for development,
Good = Bonus for defence
Evil = Bonus for attack
Chaotic = More Influence to declare feuds
Neutral = Well, they have a lot more potential players, since you can have access to more alignments.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Access to more alignments does not equal access to more players; you shouldn't assume that the population will be evenly distributed.
Ryan thinks that organic play will drive players to the four corners the alignment chart. Neutral alignments will represent a continually-managed conscious choice, or a transitional temporary state after a playstyle change.
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Expanding the Audoucet idea (exactly not about the idea itself but the exemple):
Lawful - Bonus Develpment, Debuf on Feuds/War
Chaotic - Bonus on FEuds/War, Debuf on Development
Good - Bonus PvP defense, Debuf PvP Attack
Evil - Bonus PvP attack, Debuf PvP defense
Neutral - Absence of bonus/debufs
So:
Lawful Good: Bonus Develop, bonus defense, debuf feud, debuf attack.
And so on.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Caldeathe, I think I didn't understand your statement. Because the meaninful choices from alignments are not opposite of differents alignements have strongly and compeling advantages. Because in essence each alignment have to have differents aproaches, different dis/advantages, etc... Could be equally compelling AND totally different to represent a conscious choice.
Nature has spent millions of years breeding us to put ourselves and our genes first, followed by those who can help us with that task, followed by those who have no effect on us, followed by those who are in opposition to that.
We've been selected to be superficially neutral good. Judging everything in terms of how it will help our clan grow. Putting ourselves and our gene pool first, and helping those that might be useful one day. Everyone else is either a non-issue or an impediment. If they're a non-issue, we behave well toward them unless it costs too much. (Sending money either directly, or through the church, to help starving children in other parts of the world.) If they're an impediment, we turn ruthless in a second.
Alignment is nothing more or less than a game mechanic adapted from that drive. Anyone who wants to behave differently than that is making a conscious choice to put specific in-game goals ahead of our underlying drive. The playing field should not be balanced so that every alignment is equally attractive.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The playing field should not be balanced so that every alignment is equally attractive.
I would have said that the playing field doesn't need to be balanced, as long as there's distinctions between alignments. It's sort of like the thread regarding Paladins- oh, LG gets a high-Personality fighter type, that's terribly unfair to all of us that aren't LG. Well, they don't have Assassins. There are no CE monks.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Anyone who wants to behave differently than that is making a conscious choice to put specific in-game goals ahead of our underlying drive. The playing field should not be balanced so that every alignment is equally attractive.
Perhaps I should clarify that. by in-game goals, I meant role playing goals, not desire to win. Cal will be Lawful Good because I think it will make an interesting character. Cal's goal will be to be a shining beacon of righteousness that makes his family proud and protects them until they can rejoin Erastil.
Neither of those choices will happen because because LG is easier or harder or offers advantages or is as easy to play as NG or NN. It will, in fact, be in spite of the fact that playing LG will be difficult.
People who want to play anything other than an average human should do it because they want to do it, and should experience a cost (meaningful choice) for being other than normal.
And yet having one alignment be "better" than the rest (an inevitability when you refuse to balance them) will lead to that one alignment dominating the map.
It depends on if people are able to work out which alignment is the best. If PFO is successful, however, there will be enough dedicated players that the "metagame alignment" will be found. At that point, almost every new company or settlement will choose that alignment.
Domination becomes inevitable simply because nobody bothers trying out the others.
Marlagram, that assumes the devs want all the alignments balanced. Caldeathe is proposing that they not be.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Another wrinkle is that it isn't necessarily easy to change a settlement's or even a character's alignment. Early settlements (6 or fewer months into EE) will choose an alignment based on perceived benefits. Later settlements may decide those perceived benefits never materialized, and choose differently.
As GW does any tweaking later to balance (or just adjust) things, the perceived benefits of different alignments may change. The older settlements and characters will have already chosen alignments and must deal with a lot of inertia to change.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think it's possible to find a one best alignment when there are so many dimensions to optimize on. One alignment may be mechanically better for pve, another for pvp. An alignment that has a mechanical advantage you want may put you at odds with an NPC faction you like.
I think alignment will turn out to be a "best for me" proposition, not a single best.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Marlagram, that assumes the devs want all the alignments balanced. Caldeathe is proposing that they not be.
Actually, I think I'm proposing that the alignments don't need to be balanced in order to get a good play and be realistic. Their stated intent to make certain resources are insufficient (scarce) should drive people toward the alignments that are (at least superficially) mechanically less powerful. Groups that want to play lawful/good will have access to power but constantly face the inability to acquire enough of the resources they need to dominate, while the groups that are mechanically less powerful (superficially) should find it easier to acquire the resources they need at the expense of power.
I think their design is an excellent basis for keeping us constantly at war with each other and ourselves.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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We do not have a design objective "make all alignments equally interesting and/or balanced".
Of course you don't, and I am perfectly okay with that, but if the game end up being "Lawful Evil Empire X" vs "Lawful Good Empire Y", my personal opinion will be that it is a failure.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If the game's political landscape collapses into just 2 power blocs, that will be a failure regardless of whether alignment is a polarizing factor between those blocs.
That's one of the reasons I'm concerned about the size of the map relative to speed of travel- but we'll see what happens. Regardless, I don't think alignment is going to be the defining factor in whether this happens or not.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Its highly likely any alignment bias in game will be towards lawful and against chaotic.
Its the law and chaos axis that is the most relevant to larger organizations, good versus evil is just moral flavor.
This makes me wonder if they chose the wrong setting. If they wanted a Lawful bias, why is the setting the River Kingdoms which is predominantly chaotic ruled?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Its highly likely any alignment bias in game will be towards lawful and against chaotic.
Its the law and chaos axis that is the most relevant to larger organizations, good versus evil is just moral flavor.
This makes me wonder if they chose the wrong setting. If they wanted a Lawful bias, why is the setting the River Kingdoms which is predominantly chaotic ruled?
For now.... ;)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Its highly likely any alignment bias in game will be towards lawful and against chaotic.
Its the law and chaos axis that is the most relevant to larger organizations, good versus evil is just moral flavor.
This makes me wonder if they chose the wrong setting. If they wanted a Lawful bias, why is the setting the River Kingdoms which is predominantly chaotic ruled?
Not sure they wanted a lawful bias just seems to have worked that way to me. Remains to be seen what happens in game.
In EVE there is a very distinct law (highsec and null sec) versus chaotic (lowsec and WHs) divide but very little in the way of good/evil.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Exactly. We've seen hints that our actions might be allowed the chance to affect the future development of an updated supplement to a certain area of Golarion......why is the setting the River Kingdoms which is predominantly chaotic ruled?For now.... ;)
I very much hope something can be arranged. I would suspect that our characters would belong to Goblinworks regardless. The issue that I would see arising is if given the nod, some organizations might take a strikingly different course due to internal conflict that from an RP perspective, wouldn't make very much sense. The same thing can be said for players that maximize the mechanics. A mechanically LG organization siding with a CE organization over a CG group due to politics doesn't fit the script, but could prove to be mechanically beneficial. From an RP standpoint, that makes no sense. It doesn't make for a compelling story.
Hopefully those that care enough about telling a story that is plausible in the eyes of Paizo win out over those that simply work the mechanics.
Players affecting IP directly through their actions over the course of years would be the culmination of the DND Legacy and the DND inspired EQ/WOW revolution.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Forgive me. The rarity of those events plays a major role. One that hits closer to home is the lore surrounding Rovagug. I just think that those against the grain stories will happen more often than Paizo is comfortable with.
What makes them compelling is the rarity. When it becomes common place, it loses value.
/two copper
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Goblin Squad Member
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Another wrinkle is that it isn't necessarily easy to change a settlement's or even a character's alignment. Early settlements (6 or fewer months into EE) will choose an alignment based on perceived benefits. Later settlements may decide those perceived benefits never materialized, and choose differently.
As GW does any tweaking later to balance (or just adjust) things, the perceived benefits of different alignments may change. The older settlements and characters will have already chosen alignments and must deal with a lot of inertia to change.
Corner alignments will be the hardest to move away from.
Any alignment with some neutral ... not so much.