NPC Strength
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So, how strong should town NPC's be? They are a limited resource and time/experience makes them better at their jobs. Should an experienced guard NPC be able to 1v1 a player, or should they be mowed down like typical NPC's?
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Several categories of guards (I'll simplify to 3 groups):
- rookies, you can solo couple of them in same time
- average guards, balanced for 1 vs 1 with a player
- pro guards, couple of players are needed to bring only 1 such guard down
Those guards would be placed appropriately to importance of place they are guarding (are they only guards on entrance to the city, road patrols, or are they guarding governors halls, etc.).
Normal NPCs (vendors and such), non combat trained NPCs would generally be an easy kill, but if they are in city, there would be guards nearby to help them if they call for help. Perhaps some rare NPCs (weapon smith, class trainer, where it makes sense) would also have some skills, and could combat the player efficiently on their own.
Young NPCs should run faster then old NPCs when attacked.
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I'm not sure how many NPCs we'll see, really - and I imagine most of them will be immortal and non-offensive 90% of the time. A bit crass to build an emporium, hire a purveyor, and then have him die on the first day of work, don't'cha know?
Soldiers/guards seem like the obvious exception, and it seems to me that those will have abilities based on the sort of buildings a town has for the sake of recruiting and training them?
I mean, heaven help all of them if the town gets sacked, but short of that, I don't see any of them dying by anything other than old age (which they will), and possibly internal abuse - "pay" a purveyor too little, and they might, theoretically, starve to death, or quit. Get a reputation for stinginess and you'll need to put up a substantial incentive to woo a new one. Conversely, set up a cozy life for them, and NPCs might proposition your town to be hired for "free" because it is such a good environment.
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Based on this:
@prometheus said in A Delicate Question: Slavery:NPCs will play a big role in Fractured - guilds will be able to attract them to their villages / towns, where they can settle and start their own businesses. They'll have proper names, be more or less skilled in different activities and - to an extent - have different personalities.
I get the impression that attracting, collecting, and managing NPCs will be a significant part of town management. In regards to NPC strength, maybe the governor of a town will have to assign guard duty to the available NPCs that the town has acquired. Ideally you would want NPCs that are particularly skilled in combat as guards , but maybe the town hasn't attracted many suitable NPCs and would have to settle for lesser skilled guards (maybe buildings can play a role in the types of NPCs towns get).
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@target I'm assuming the buildings will have a lot to do with the nature of the NPC's you'll have in town - build a gym, and make the npc's go to it, and you'll get tougher npcs. Build a music hall, and maybe they will get more charming, upping your merchants' capacity to generate revenue.
Throw out the least productive 10% every month and they remainder will be awesome! And prone to heart attacks! XD
If you want the town full of non-morons, either build a school, or expel all the kids and hire new villagers every generation! (oh gods, the resumes...the on-boarding...!)
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TheRippyOne, each generation, kill off all the inefficient ones and keep only intelligent ones and invest into them. Your city might become ethically infamous, but it will be efficient.
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Unlike other games, I hope the guards will mean something. So many times the max level PC can pretty much ignore them because they know they can do what they want before the NPC has a chance to retaliate.
So the Guards should be on par or higher than the max level PC and adjusted as needed.
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Basically, in this thread, sensitive folk will ask for guards to be very strong so one guard can rekt several players easy and gankers will ask for guards to be weak so they do not interfere with ganking.
Normal players will ask that guards are balanced with players, for 1 vs 1. And then if players wish to raid the city they will generally need to outnumber the guards and use some tactics, and perhaps pay their own merc soldiers, so attackers + merc NPC soldiers have balanced fight vs defending players + defending guards.
And if solo player enters the city looking for trouble, he will need to pay attentions where the guards are so that he is not seen, and if he gets in trouble with a guard, he can have a fun balanced 1 vs 1 fight. Unless of course other players interfere, but that's how it should be.
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@cinnao I believe given that law and order is supposed to be a thing within the town rules part, that guards will likely be strong enough or have the requisite 'stop and arrest' skills required to make that work.
At the same time, I don't think guards will be made to hold up during things like wars or demon invasion of the human realm events. How exactly they do that will very much impact the gameplay around those, but my expectation would be guards act like a normal combatant at 1v1 level then.
For the rest of the time, I am in favor of the guards having a higher strength. Players tend to find ways around things, so only if they are a real threat will the entire law and order part hold up based on town rules. If that doesn't hold up, it isn't really a plus to the game. On the other hand, they should not be invulnerable either, and players who are up to no good should not be put on the spot with a guard who cannot possibly have seen them doing something wrong (unless they have something like a warrant system where that player is banned from town)!
I'd also expect guards to be realistic enough to use a buddy system, and even to have alarm/retreat options to gather more support. Not because they should stop all crime, but because that is fairly realistic.
Finally, yes, players will run toward their preference on a lot of this. I'm looking at where they should go based on players using meta and tactics that won't be predicted, and all that. I do believe that player war-bands may be something that will have to be addressed (because we all know that people have varying motivations, and those who want to PvP sometimes disregard that in those who do not and WILL drive players away... part of the reason that there are three worlds here and all that) but also that there should be some mechanics on the human world for raiding. It will be something that is difficult to balance at best. So many games have failed to look at how players will act on such things, and just lost a huge amount of their market due to that!
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Jairone, it's a sandbox PvP game, players are supposed to organize and stand up to aggressors, and not rely on guards being OP to protect them. At least on Syndesia and Tartaros.
If anyone is finding "ways around things" then stand in his path and stop him, with a mace to the face, or at least warn others and they will come to your aid, if you don't feel like fighting yourself.
OP guards have no place in sandbox PvP game. If you aren't bothered to aid in your towns defense yourself, then you do not deserve to have a safe spot to reside in. Or chose to play as Beast men then you will not need guards at all, you will be safe anywhere.
For Humans and Demons, OP guards would just ruin it all.
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@gothix where I do agree the NPE should not take the same stance so some very limited places should have things more stacked in favor of the guards
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@gothix said in NPC Strength:
@jairone said in NPC Strength:
For the rest of the time, I am in favor of the guards having a higher strength. Players tend to find ways around things, so only if they are a real threat will the entire law and order part hold up based on town rules. If that doesn't hold up, it isn't really a plus to the game.
Care bear alert
It's a sandbox PvP game, players are supposed to organize and stand up to aggressors, and not rely on guards being OP to protect them. At least on Syndesia and Tartaros.
If anyone is finding "ways around things" then stand in his path and stop him, with a mace to the face, or at least warn others and they will come to your aid, if you don't feel like fighting yourself.
OP guards have no place in sandbox PvP game. If you aren't bothered to aid in your towns defense yourself, then you do not deserve to have a safe spot to reside in. Or chose to play as Beast men then you will not need guards at all, you will be safe anywhere.
For Humans and Demons, OP guards would just ruin it all.
It's a game, and sandbox does not require that there be no protective elements and PvP ravage everything and everyone until the game dies. Getting around the limited mechanics of that is common, so since people want to exploit to cause other people misery we... can't have nice things.
Especially given that people will just offline assault, this is something that will quickly make the human world an abandoned wasteland that may as well not exist except as yet another note in the long and sordid failure of such things. That said, I fully expect some town areas to be a free for all in effect, with laws that do not protect.
P.S. Carebear I am not. I'm more than happy to join people in PvP, although I fail to see any charm in attacking random people who are busy with something else, asleep, uninterested in fighting, etc.
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@jairone said in NPC Strength:
- PvP ravage everything and everyone until the game dies
- I fully expect some town areas to be a free for all in effect, with laws that do not protect.
- I fail to see any charm in attacking random people who are busy with something else, asleep, uninterested in fighting, etc.
Random people who want to be busy with something else without a desire to be attacked have Arboreus, a whole planet where they can be left alone, and protected without even a need for guards.
Other 2 planets are meant to be ravaged with PvP and full loot, it's in the game description. If you don't like that you are looking at wrong game m8. Asking for OP guards on those 2 planets have no place in this game. Play in Arboreus if you are a PvE player, and stop asking to nerf PvP freedoms on other 2 planets.
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@gothix said in This game is a potential PVE gold mine:
Problem is that little part of entitled PvE players that always ask for more and more (one example is thread that asks for guards around the land to be OP so they crush players that engage in PvP). They get a whole PvE planet, and then they start asking to nerf PvP on Syndesia with playing in OP guards all around the place. If they get that, they will start asking for extra protections and turning PvP flag off on Syndesia, and if they get that they will start asking to nerf PvP on Tartaros because, hey they are PvE players and they are entitled to explore Tartaros without being disturbed.
It's players that don't care about others but only themself, and they will always ask for more and more, regardless of how much they already get. These are the players that I really dislike. They go from MMO to MMO, and constantly nag on forums until devs fall under their pressure and MMO after MMO gets ruined for PvP players. I'm not imagining this, this is a reality.
I hope devs here will not do the same mistake, and fall under pressure of that little part of vocal PvE players that ask for PvP nerf everywhere.
Current game design is amazing. Every type of player can have what he needs, PvE players have whole planet that is completely safe in most of its area, and majorly safe in rest of area. PvP players have a whole planet thats majorly FFA. And tactical / strategy players have a whole planet where they can affect current PvP rules, that they can change over time depending which guild is controlling which town and surrounding area.
Please people stop asking to change this. This is a great game design!
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@gothix said in NPC Strength:
@jairone said in NPC Strength:
- PvP ravage everything and everyone until the game dies
- I fully expect some town areas to be a free for all in effect, with laws that do not protect.
- I fail to see any charm in attacking random people who are busy with something else, asleep, uninterested in fighting, etc.
Random people who want to be busy with something else without a desire to be attacked have Arboreus, a whole planet where they can be left alone, and protected without even a need for guards.
Other 2 planets are meant to be ravaged with PvP and full loot, it's in the game description. If you don't like that you are looking at wrong game m8. Asking for OP guards on those 2 planets have no place in this game. Play in Arboreus if you are a PvE player, and stop asking to nerf PvP freedoms on other 2 planets.
Eh, I'm just being realistic. Syndesia is supposed to be a middle ground. Without there being some firmer rules and limits, it will just be another Tartaros. Everyone who has been in these games before knows it.
No harm in trying for a middle ground, but it needs things to keep it a middle ground. That is kinda how Syndesia is supposed to be, with areas of both law and lawlessness. Having the law be less than effective merely makes that an unrealized idea, and the lawlessness will be the standard. The choice is highly key, take away that and the world loses the entire flavor of being choice centric!
That's not amazing game design. Arboreus is fairly novel, although for those who want that middle ground it doesn't fit well. Doing the same thing as every other game that has failed on Syndesia merely ensures that there might as well just be two planets, and forget about the middle ground thing. It would be completely failing to learn from the failure side of things for decades, yet once more. Not that the games that have had such rulesets are failures, but that they have not achieved the balanced middle ground that has been talked about for those decades.
I suppose I could spew vitriol as well though, and be all like "PvPers already have Tartaros. Why they got to ruin Syndesia by pushing to make towns too easy to attack?" Maybe throw in a few terms I find derogatory and the context to make people feel like it is an insult... I just don't think that's constructive discourse in the least, and honestly it strikes me as not having anything but thinly veiled attacks to back up your thoughts. But, you know, maybe you have some deeper reasons hidden away there. Doubtful, given your post history, but do please surprise me!
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@jairone said in NPC Strength:
Syndesia is supposed to be a middle ground.
And this is where you are mistaken.
Syndesia is NOT supposed to be a "middle ground", it is supposed to be whatever dominating guilds make it to be. Syndesia is a planet where guilds that own cities will decide the rule set for their own areas and that's what Syndesia will be (and that can change over time as guilds rise and fall, or simply change their mind about rules).
This means Syndesia can end up being completely FFA like Tartaros if guilds that will own cities decide so, or it can end up being a planet that imposes alignment / flagging punishment on rule breakers if guilds that will own cities decide so. Each zone will have its own consequences depending on guilds that own it.
That's what Syndesia is supposed to be, constantly changing while guilds battle for dominance and for the right to decide the rules (or lack there of), and not some forced "middle ground" with a necessity for existence of bit of both.
Syndesia is supposed to be all about Guild vs Guild, and not about Guilds VS Guards...
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Guards will gain experience and ranks, I believe?
I'd expect an inexperienced guard to be beatable in 1v1 without having to work too hard for it, a middle-strength guard to be balanced for 1v1 such that the guard is just as likely to beat the average player as the average player is to beat the guard, and a highly experienced guard should require teamwork to take down.
Alternatively, if that turns out to be too trivial to beat, it might get balanced up so that an inexperienced guard is balanced for 1v1 against the average player, a middle strength guard requires a small group to beat, and an experienced guard could behave like a mini-boss requiring a team to take down.
But I think the first option is the better balance point. Will need to wait and see.
Something something game balance will be an ongoing exercise something.
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Making guards nearly impossible to kill is only going to push people to become strong enough to kill them. EverQuest proved it. Every major starting city was wiped out, just to say it could be done. Why? The developers said it would be impossible. They also did not create loot tables on dragons right away because they said they were currently unkillable with the item sets players had.... we killed them all... even without loot. Just to say it could be done. That is the nature of MMO's. Everything that can die will die.
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Hopefully mobs/NPC don't suck. I hate arpgs when they have little material or combat feeling to them. Pointless to just roll through crap in Diablo for me.
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@gothix said in NPC Strength:
@jairone said in NPC Strength:
Syndesia is supposed to be a middle ground.
And this is where you are mistaken.
Syndesia is NOT supposed to be a "middle ground", it is supposed to be whatever dominating guilds make it to be. Syndesia is a planet where guilds that own cities will decide the rule set for their own areas and that's what Syndesia will be (and that can change over time as guilds rise and fall, or simply change their mind about rules).
This means Syndesia can end up being completely FFA like Tartaros if guilds that will own cities decide so, or it can end up being a planet that imposes alignment / flagging punishment on rule breakers if guilds that will own cities decide so. Each zone will have its own consequences depending on guilds that own it.
That's what Syndesia is supposed to be, constantly changing while guilds battle for dominance and for the right to decide the rules (or lack there of), and not some forced "middle ground" with a necessity for existence of bit of both.
Syndesia is supposed to be all about Guild vs Guild, and not about Guilds VS Guards...
Yeah, it isn't a PvP no rules demon paradise, but it also isn't PvE only. A middle ground. Yep.
Guards being strong won't stop guild warfare. It will, however, make it less of a T2 demon world redux, keeping wars to warfare instead of just mostly spy gank squads. It isn't like many people are saying "Oh, guards who can't be killed and one shot everything!" They just want the rules put in place by guilds who own territory to actually be enforced.
If the guards are too weak, then what will happen is that off-time raids will become increasingly common, rules won't really matter as they cannot be enforced and people happen to have lives outside the game, and there might just as well then not be any rules.
That's what most of us want to avoid. We aren't suggesting guild warfare should revolve around it (in fact, I'd counter that guards should not be involved at all in that). This is all about the rules those guilds put in place mattering at all. Nothing else. All your problems with it are super-easy to solve. Questions?
