Hello,
I discovered PFO just four months ago, and catching up on info from old blogs, gobbocasts and forum is a bit messy. Hoping for some answers from the veterans around here!
I’m currently in a PvP focused guild playing Elder Scrolls Online. Unfortunately ESO PvP has turned out to be a huge disappointment. I’m hoping to convince my guild members to have a go at PFO, and that we can form a company and join a settlement later in EE.
I have some concerns when it comes to alignments, and which settlement to join.
Is there some form of built in minor disadvantage for Good aligned companies who would like to PvP a lot? Is it possible for a Good aligned settlement/nation to be expansionists and aggressive without taking alignment hits or suffer any other penalties that would not apply to an Evil settlement?
I think I’ve read somewhere that those who PvP a lot, would slide towards evil, even if following the rules for “sanctioned PvP”?
I guess I find the whole alignment system and its possible restrictions the most confusing part of PFO at this stage. I’ve never played the tabletop, and have no preference on alignment to begin with, but I’m reluctant to be Good if there might be any extra hinders for Good players who like to PvP and expand through warfare.
Goblin Squad Member
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The rules that have been explained so far is that the evil shift *only* comes in if you attack someone who is not hostile to you. So if your target is an enemy because of a feud, a war, or a faction war, then it's not an evil kill. Likewise, if your target is a hostile because he's a criminal, or a heinous slave-trader or necromancer, then there's no evil shift. I think that good settlements/nations will be able to be expansionist and aggressive.
The advantage that evil has is that they can - within limits - get a few kills against non-hostiles without using Influence or DI for feuds and wars. So if there's some guy you're pretty sure is a spy, you can kill him and take the rep hit, instead of making it all formal with a feud. It remains to be seen if that advantage is significant.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A major mechanical difference between Good and Evil in PFO, according to Ryan, will be that Good is more limited in its options to deal with a given situation. Evil will be able to do pretty much anything, while Good will be more circumscribed by the need to maintain their Alignment.
Good might have to find a way to warn interlopers away from their territory, while Evil might just hire the nearest Chaotic Evil mercenaries, who won't care about their Reputation, to kill them all off until they stay away. That touches on the other major "control" factor: Reputation.
Reputation will reflect how well one adheres to the rules of the game, and avoids randomly killing anyone one runs across. One will need to have a certain minimum Reputation in order to be able to enter Settlements to trade or to train; get too low, and you've cut yourself off.
Others'll be along shortly to fill in more, probably call me a misguided over-simplifier, and keep the conversation going.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hello,
I discovered PFO just four months ago, and catching up on info from old blogs, gobbocasts and forum is a bit messy. Hoping for some answers from the veterans around here!
Welcome! If you haven't already found it, you might find the Guild Recruitment & Helpful Links lists useful.
Is there some form of built in minor disadvantage for Good aligned companies who would like to PvP a lot? Is it possible for a Good aligned settlement/nation to be expansionists and aggressive without taking alignment hits or suffer any other penalties that would not apply to an Evil settlement?
Kinda/sorta. Urman and Jazz covered it pretty well, but in essence if you're willing to work within the Law and only attack targets that you have Feuds or Wars with, you'll be okay. However, you will always be at a disadvantage to Evil in the sense that they have a lot more leeway to casually kill.
I think I’ve read somewhere that those who PvP a lot, would slide towards evil, even if following the rules for “sanctioned PvP”?
If your target is Hostile (via a Feud or War or some other reasons) you suffer no Reputation or Alignment consequences.
I guess I find the whole alignment system and its possible restrictions the most confusing part of PFO at this stage. I’ve never played the tabletop, and have no preference on alignment to begin with, but I’m reluctant to be Good if there might be any extra hinders for Good players who like to PvP and expand through warfare.
Lawful Evil is for powerful bad guys. If you want to be powerful and don't mind being a bad guy, that's your best bet.
Lawful Good is for powerful good guys. If it's important to be a good guy, that's your best bet.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What has been left out or forgotten in the above discussions is the creation of the "Hostile state" from raiding Outposts and POIs.
If you are raiding an Outpost, and raiding is a crime in that settlement, you will shift chaotic in alignment. If no PC defenders show up, you can depart with your loot with just that chaotic shift (if illegal) or no shift at all.
If there are PCs present, then you most wait until they defend their holding, and become hostile to you. Then you can continue your attack, without reputation penalty. You will then get both the chaotic shift (attacker flag) and evil shift (killing) if you kill them.
This interpretation is based on older Dev Blogs, but they have not been repealed or readdressed since then.
Outposts and POIs are significantly "down the road". The other systems, likewise "down the road" is the Stand-and-Deliver (SAD) system and the Caravan System.
The last we heard from the Devs is that Bandit / Merchant / Guards may end up in competing factions and therefore eliminate all alignment and reputation implications.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I’m currently in a PvP focused guild playing Elder Scrolls Online. Unfortunately ESO PvP has turned out to be a huge disappointment. I’m hoping to convince my guild members to have a go at PFO, and that we can form a company and join a settlement later in EE.
I have some concerns when it comes to alignments, and which settlement to join.
...
I guess I find the whole alignment system and its possible restrictions the most confusing part of PFO at this stage. I’ve never played the tabletop, and have no preference on alignment to begin with, but I’m reluctant to be Good if there might be any extra hinders for Good players who like to PvP and expand through warfare.
Since the Land Rush is over and the next stage is the War of the Towers, you might be in a great position to try the game and figure out if good is too much of a hindrance. You can try the game, maybe starting as good (or maybe not), and see if it cramps your style too much. Pick a settlement to join, at least through the war of the towers, and play. Your actions will guide your alignment - see what's fine for you. After the war of the towers, like 6 months in, you can join a settlement that closely matches your play style.
You could use the same method later on, of course. Join a company; if your alignment shifts too much from your actions, join a different company more in line with your alignment. Same with settlements.
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Goblin Squad Member
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> I guess I find the whole alignment system and its possible restrictions the most confusing part of PFO at this stage.
There are three dimensions to keep in mind when thinking about this part of the game system: Good vs Evil, Law vs Chaos, and Reputation.
Of those, Reputation is the most important. You lose reputation primarily by initiating PVP with non-hostiles. The lower level and the higher reputation your victim is, the more rep you lose. Reputation is important because the quality of infrastructure a settlement can build is limited by the reputation threshold it sets: if you let any old riffraff join your town, you will not be able to offer high-level training or other advanced services. So keeping a high reputation is going to be important for everyone who isn't deliberately embracing a highly-penalized playstyle.
In general, high-reputation play corresponds with Lawfulness and Good, and low-reputation play corresponds with Chaos and Evil. The dev comments on alignment indicate that they expect people will be able to maintain high rep while playing either Evil or Chaotic but not both.
The Good/Evil alignment dynamic has to do with PVP as well as other factors. When you attack a non-hostile, you become more evil as well as losing reputation. If you attack a low-rep murder-hobo, you will still become more evil even though you lose very little reputation. So, players who take on roles as bounty hunters, caravan guards, bandit slayers and so forth may tend to slide towards evil if they don't wait for the bad guy to swing first. You can also become more evil by casting evil spells (i.e. necromancy), using slave labor for harvesting or crafting, killing NPCs, and similar actions.
The Law/Chaos alignment dynamic is, in large part, about banditry and theft. If you stop merchant caravans on the road with a Stand and Deliver demand, you will become more chaotic. Harvesting resources from a hex where you're trespassing, likewise. You can become more chaotic by failing to complete a contract, or by trading with other chaotic individuals.
So, the four quarters of the alignment chart basically line up this way:
Lawful Good: The classic paladin. Doesn't steal, trespass, or spit on the streets. Rarely attacks first even against the most vicious reprobates unless formal hostilities already exist.
Chaotic Good: Robin Hood or Tasslehoff. Little to no respect for laws or property rights, but good natured and not at all murderous.
Lawful Evil: Judge Dredd. Upholds the laws, fulfills his contracts, and protects his territory with no regard for how many scum get killed in the process.
Chaotic Evil: The Joker. Murder, robbery, destruction, and obscene graffiti.
.@Fleksnes
Speaking numbers wise I believe the "Good Alignments" have a big advantage as far as raw numbers go, opposed to the "Evil Alignments".
My 2 cents and you can take it or leave it if it's going to be a solely focused PvP guild, you might want to go to the dark side. As they could use a number boost just saying.
That's just an idea of mine, and I am not saying you should play something you don't want to. If good aligned is something you really want to play, then you and your fellow guild mates should go toward that. It would be nice to see the dark side get some more numbers though.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The last we heard from the Devs is that Bandit / Merchant / Guards may end up in competing factions and therefore eliminate all alignment and reputation implications.
I missed that aspect of the faction discussion. Can you point me to a reference?
My impression was that faction membership would be optional, and that the factions would represent organizations like the Pathfinder Society and the Sczarni, as in tabletop Pathfinder, more than "occupations", like caravan guard or bandit.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My take on that post is that your impression is correct, but that they intend to implement a specific merchant faction (Kalistrade?) and a specific bandit faction (Shackles?) which will allow players who want to participate in caravan warfare to opt in by joining the appropriate faction.
If I were merchanting, though, it would take some serious bonuses from merchant faction membership to make it worth my while to give up my rep's protection.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My take on that post is that your impression is correct, but that they intend to implement a specific merchant faction (Kalistrade?) and a specific bandit faction (Shackles?) which will allow players who want to participate in caravan warfare to opt in by joining the appropriate faction.
If I were merchanting, though, it would take some serious bonuses from merchant faction membership to make it worth my while to give up my rep's protection.
I would think that bandits might feel the same way. I wouldn't expect most bandits to join a faction, and give guards from an opposing faction a reputation-neutral opportunity to take the first shot. Maybe they'd join if membership in the bandit faction was the only way to learn the Stand and Deliver action, for example.
One of the reasons I expect SAD to work is that merchants and their guards have something to lose if they attack bandits on sight. Take away that incentive to give the bandits a chance to talk, and it may undermine SAD.
Edit: Thanks, Guurzak. No wonder I missed it. Every SAD thread seems to quickly ramp up to hundreds and hundreds of posts, so I don't even try to follow them any more. (They also tend to attract the kind of vitriolic, two-year-long, argument-in-progress-with-no-resolution-in-sight posts that I prefer to avoid.)
To the Original Poster: Sorry to derail your thread, and please know that most threads on this board tend to be very cordial. Stand and Deliver just happens to be one of the topics that isn't always cordial.
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Goblin Squad Member
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And what of the case where the company plays both bandit and merchant to improve its profit?
Sometimes traveling as merchants, who sometime rob the competition, and then divert the cargo (back to being merchants).
I suppose that kind of meta-gaming is always possible, but I suspect that sooner or later the companies involved would pick up a bad reputation (in the non-game mechanic sense), and the rest of the local merchants would Take Steps.
"Hey Mr. Merchant, you look upset. Have some fresh bread and tell Tony all about it."
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Goblin Squad Member
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1. You don't necessarily need to join a faction to act as a merchant or a bandit. Threatening to attack people and selling goods aren't exclusive actions. (Issuing an SAD and getting the most profit out of the market might, but we don't know whether they will, yet.) Regardless, if an alt doesn't care about being chaotic, evil, and low rep, it doesn't need to use an SAD. It can just attack and take the caravan's goods off their bodies.
2. Members of the Lam's hypothetical group (which could contain two or more companies) could maintain some alts in the merchant faction, and some in the bandit faction.
3. If bandits can steal goods, as well as coin, they may need their own merchant-trained alts to get the best prices for them, anyway. They would already be playing both sides of the bandit/merchant fence, without the ruse.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Companies cannot join factions. Individuals join factions. You cannot join a faction if you are already a member of an opposing faction.
Has this been confirmed?
I would not be surprised if companies could join a faction, bringing all of their membership in with them.
In Fallen Earth, this is how it worked. Guilds could align themselves with faction and in order to join, you had to be that faction. This was of course, player enforced initially, but eventually the faction standings would drive opposing faction players from the guild.
Mixed faction guilds, had to run faction missions for all factions and by rotating around the faction wheel ("Spinning the Wheel").
In Eve Online, when a Coproration joined a faction, all of its members were brought along. They had no choice and could not belong to a different faction.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd prefer faction affiliation to be a personal choice. The game already has many mechanics (company, settlement, alignment) where your individual choices are constrained by the larger group you join.
I hope faction will be an optional, individual overlay on those group decisions. "Sure, my company is mostly dwarves, but I'm a halfling. In addition to being a member of the company, I can join the Bellflower Tillers, and do halfling-oriented stuff once in a while."
Further, my impression of faction membership was that it would be an optional method to increase your pool of reputation-neutral PVP opponents. Don't want any more enemies than your alignment, settlement and company provide? Don't join a faction (or don't progress very far along the faction track). Want maximum opponent variety? Join a faction and build up lots of 'faction points' (whatever they end up being called).
If faction becomes another group decision, then individuals lose another layer of control over their PVP availability. Both for those who want more and less PVP than the rest of their company, I hope faction remains an individual decision.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There is a difference between letting companies join factions, and not letting individuals join factions outside the company factions.
Your dwarven company may belong to some dwarven themed companies you get put in automatically but unless those factions are in competition with the Bellflower Tillers you could still go join them on your own.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If there are PCs present, then you most wait until they defend their holding, and become hostile to you. Then you can continue your attack, without reputation penalty. You will then get both the chaotic shift (attacker flag) and evil shift (killing) if you kill them.
I wouldn't count on this. I can't see defense of property excusing reputation loss from murder. If you don't want a rep hit, don't attack back.
If a target has you as a legal target, and you do not have them as a legal target, you should not be able to retaliate without rep loss.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If there are PCs present, then you most wait until they defend their holding, and become hostile to you. Then you can continue your attack, without reputation penalty. You will then get both the chaotic shift (attacker flag) and evil shift (killing) if you kill them.I wouldn't count on this. I can't see defense of property excusing reputation loss from murder. If you don't want a rep hit, don't attack back.
If a target has you as a legal target, and you do not have them as a legal target, you should not be able to retaliate without rep loss.
This doesn't add up, I think. If I don't have a feud with you, and you start attacking my Base Camp (for example), what am I supposed to do in my defense as a NG high rep player? Stand there and stamp my feet and swear at you?
It is not chaotic or evil to defend your property against persistent attack. If you were to disengage and try to run, that is a different story (but more difficult to separate mechanically).
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Goblin Squad Member
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If there are PCs present, then you most wait until they defend their holding, and become hostile to you. Then you can continue your attack, without reputation penalty. You will then get both the chaotic shift (attacker flag) and evil shift (killing) if you kill them.I wouldn't count on this. I can't see defense of property excusing reputation loss from murder. If you don't want a rep hit, don't attack back.
If a target has you as a legal target, and you do not have them as a legal target, you should not be able to retaliate without rep loss.
Read the Dev Blog on Outpost Raiding and Hostility. Outpost raiding is supposed to be the most common PvP in the game. It is not designed to cause reputation loss, otherwise there won't be enough PvP to sustain the game. Feuds are meant to be focused, mini wars, waged by company vs. company. Unless influence is incredibly easy to accumulate, feuds will be reserved for, genuine feuds.
From the Blog:
Going A-Viking
We have briefly touched on raiding in a number of previous posts and, while some of the fine detail is still in development, we thought it would be helpful to expand somewhat on how raiding works and what it is used for. As ever, we welcome your feedback on the system so far!
Raiding in PFO is going to be one of the most common events that initiates PvP. Raids are executed on outposts. As you would expect from the title, they are fast, destructive strikes by small groups of players. The intention might be to disrupt outpost production of bulk goods for a nearby settlement or to hijack significant resources for the raiders' own gain.
Outposts produce goods each hour, so every sixty minutes there will something worth stealing. Goods are produced even when outpost owners are offline and moving bulk goods to a safe location is more than a one man job. Thus, there may be some accumulation of goods left in an outpost for a well-planned raid. These goods are the low-hanging fruit for raiders and will be their primary target.
Initiating a raid is as simple as gathering allies, choosing an outpost, and timing your strike. Raiders must first kill any NPC guards at the outpost in order to gain access to the outpost's bulk goods container. They may then load up on its contents (an action that can be interrupted, just as any type of looting can be) and make off with the bulk goods. By default, outpost guards are few and far between. A settlement or Point of Interest (PoI) is able to dedicate some of their own NPC guards to the outpost, but hard choices will have to be made about how comprehensively to protect your supply chain. Do you weaken your major holdings to make your outposts harder to raid?
Although raiding doesn't necessarily require careful organization, there are benefits to be gained from better planning. Watching a PoI or outpost for a while to learn its collection cycles, making pre-raids to disrupt these cycles, or feinting to distract the defenders all might result in a better payoff for your main raid. As well as just building your team for martial might, it is also worth considering bringing along a player with some skill in cultivating the resource found at your target outpost. The more skilled your group is in cultivation, the better they will be able to take advantage of a process we call "strip mining."
Hostility
A lot of PvP complexity we were previously storing in flags is now summarized in the Hostile state. There are a variety of cases that can make a player appear hostile to another player (e.g., faction membership, being at war, criminal flags, etc.). If you see a player that is hostile to you, there is no alignment or reputation penalty for attacking or killing that player. Often, hostility will be reciprocal (i.e., both players appear hostile to one another because their settlements are at war or their factions are enemies) but this is not required. If hostility is not reciprocal (a player sees you as hostile but you see them as friendly or neutral), once you are attacked, your attacker now appears hostile to you as well. That is, you don't take reputation or alignment penalties for defending yourself, even if you were a sanctioned target for your attacker.
Attacking an outpost will make you and your group hostile to the members of that outpost's managing company (as well as the owners of the controlling PoI if that company has subcontracted outpost management). That means that they can attempt to stop you without penalties. Raiding does not automatically make you hostile to every member of the settlement that owns that territory, however.
To enable the whole membership to come to the aid of its outposts, a settlement might choose to make raiding a crime in its territory. In that case, initiating a raid will give all raiders the Criminal flag (making them more chaotic and making them sanctioned targets for anyone). However, like all crimes, Criminal flags from raiding may have a detrimental effect on the settlement; even lawful settlements may have to consider whether making raiding a crime risks that their enemies will steal their resources and increase their corruption from frequent raiding. Additionally, the criminal flag is always overcome by active feuds or wars, so raiding will be a legitimate action if you first declare a feud or war on the settlement, PoI, or management company associated with your target outpost.
Although this potentially seems complicated, the hostility system is designed and presented in game to simplify on-the-spot combat decision making. We will cover hostility (and related changes to PvP) in more detail in a later blog post.