Dùath diddy diddy dum diddy dee.
Thank you, @LilCassiopeia for your contributions thus far for the betterment of the Principality and furthermore for helping to contribute to an atmosphere that is constructive and productive for all members and future members of the Fractured community.
There is some issues with a corner piece snapping into place on the south side of Zenith. We could get it to snap, but then it would not let us actually place the item.
It may be too close to the edge of the "city" zone because that is also a primary area where we get the "you must be inside of the city" bug as well.
@Alexian said in What challenges should guild alliances face?:
Alliances will exist in Fractured and apparently feature in-game UI options.
Nothing necessarily wrong with that, of course, but I wonder what challenges and obstacles the devs will put in place for guild alliances?
I'll disagree here with one exception: I think it is fine for the UI to list whomever you have written into your Alliance. For a truly hardcore game, however, that should mean about diddly squat when it comes to invisible advantages/forced mechanics.
For example, alliances in AO lack friendly fire, so invasion day battles often become giant zerg fests for territory, since there's no challenge or difficulty in just throwing bodies at the enemy and spamming AOE attacks.
This is why magic doesn't necessarily lend itself very well to hardcore games, and why skills and abilities that are TOO high fantasy become boring in them.
Additionally, though AO advertises itself as a hardcore game of subterfuge and diplomacy, there's no effective way to betray alliances - no Red Wedding style assassinations can occur, since in order to pull it off you'd have to drop out of the alliance UI in the first place and telegraph your attack.
I agree here. Alliances should be in name only. I should be able to show up to the battlefield, yawn as you charge, then walk through your flank like a knife through butter. The political consequences of alliances should be left to the player, and the in game consequences, in this case, should be created by the players not left to mechanics that force a certain mechanic into the game.
Progress! One frame at a time 
@Jetah said in Writing books?:
while intentions are good about writing in game, it'll be used for anything to bypass filters parents may have setup. it's a liability for DS even if they're in another part of the world.
This has already been implemented in numerous games since the late 90s and I have YET to see a report about such things. While times have changed, we should encourage people to be better, not use game mechanics to force them to be better (though I concede there may be times when a hand is forced). You could always remove it later if necessary.
if you give the players a creative way to express themselves some will use it wrong and it'll get removed.
By this logic, anything that promotes creativity should be preemptively removed. Want to design the crest you paid for? Nah, promotes creativity. Want to chat to your guild? Nah, you may wax poetic; Better to just make everyone mute and pass the buck to a third-party program like Discord. That will keep people playing and immersed.
Are there people out there who may abuse these things? Sure. There always are. However, the proper way to deal with these events is to foster an environment of productivity and help and don't glorify the "git gud scrub" crowd who tends to build on these sentiments.
And THEN if people want to abuse the system, you can revisit it as a concept.
@AjaxHeadsplitter For you, we have room for 3 more. Welcome, my friend.
@Roccandil said in What challenges should guild alliances face?:
Enabling friendly fire on Tartaros makes sense, since it's supposed to be the free-for-all planet, but due to the griefing possibilities it represents, I'd be much more leery of enabling it on Syndesia.
Which griefing possibilities are you referring to here? If someone is just sitting back and attacking your men over and over, he's either not trained, in which case you train him, or he's sabotaging, and you deal with him or his guild as necessary. The punishment for sabotaging is to remove someone from your alliance and thus not have to worry about thinking they are your friend anymore.
There is a difference between sabotaging and griefing.
A better example of griefing would be someone camping new player areas and just murdering them over and over again until they quit, or in the case of unfettered building, someone building a wall of something to trap players.
Of course, there will always be some trolls who live only to make people's lives miserable, but in these types of games, their names should be noted, blacklisted, and they shouldn't surprise anyone at that point (at least that's what we used to do).
Actually, what if friendly fire were up to the players? That is, you could have AoE stances: wild versus controlled. Wild AoE would do more damage, but damage everything, whereas controlled would do less damage, but only damage enemies.
Please note that I'm talking intra-alliance here. I'm perfectly willing to let guilds be immune to other guildies. I just don't think that alliances should be anything more than what the members inside make them with the exception of client-state and vassals, whom I think should be able to be charged taxes systematically.
@Roccandil said in What challenges should guild alliances face?:
@Alexian said in What challenges should guild alliances face?:
@Roccandil - you raise some good points about the considerations a zerg might make before the fight starts, but that doesn't quite refute @Bardikens' point that when the battle actually commences, it usually becomes a numbers and AOE game.
Take away AoE entirely, and it's still a numbers game. If I wanted to improve Albion's alliance system, the ability to mass numbers is where I'd hit it. I'd leave AoE/friendly fire alone.
It's a numbers game in the sense that numbers are the difference with all things being equal, but this obfuscates the fact that without AoE, things like hemming and bridge defenses and bottlenecking would be more than just initiation tactics. We know there will be AoE in the game, so we can't assume these fully, but making people consider unit positioning, movement, logistics and when and how to use reinforcements and their AoE abilities SHOULD be an important part of a hardcore game that is horizontal on the power scale.
Also, the more I do zergs, the more it looks like friendly-fire AoE would primarily affect tanks, since they have skills specifically designed for them to deliberately jump into piles of enemies to pull them together and lock them down for AoEs. (If your DPS or healers are in AoE range of your tanks, you're probably doing it wrong!)
This is really a fault in game design that revolves around mobas. While Fractured has an isometric perspective, it will utilize a more action-based combat and would hopefully negate the need for the traditional triad in that regard. There's nothing that i know of that says the game will focus heavily on CCs either, which is another gameplay flaw that mobas tend to over-utilize.
What we need in Fractured is more regimental style play that relies on lines and movement (since there may and SHOULD be unit collision) that mirror battles moreso from antiquity than a dogpiling mess where tanks can run through opposing lines with little thought to their own safety.
Friendly fire simply doesn't make sense to me in that context (all griefing aside). You'd need to rework the roles of tanks, which would have a cascading effect on the entire game balance.
And friendly fire is the only thing that makes sense to me. Ive played Albion since beta, played Archeage, played LoL, Smite, Heroes, etc., so I understand where you are coming from.
Albion is a good example here because it is forced to do what it does because of poor decisions made in development. Say what you will about their Alliance system, but their Alliance system is pretty much the sole reason why the game died twice, why the Outlands were expanded, and why seasons were implemented with catchup mechanics to help smaller guilds. Nothing else could break the monopolies and nothing still has to this day (though now new ones form in the expanded areas). You can enjoy the system and it is not wrong to do so, but it should stay faarrrrrr away from any other game that purports itself to be hardcore. Having an alliance should be hard. You should have to deal with people and ideas and tough decisions. It shouldn't always be a vassal relationship like it is in Albion. It shouldn't dictate who you can or can't kill or betray in-game arbitrarily (I'm willing to concede this up to the guild level, but no further).
In conclusion, I feel that friendly fire is the only option, at least when it comes to alliance members (you could probably argue for protection in a group if the group had a fair cap). There's simply no need to copy a failed system and just see if it works when we can instead demand people to think harder, do more, and really fill the niche of field generals. This will both utilize your idea of limiting battle size by making people deploy their units strategically and have them ready (since allies cant just mob in) while also still allowing AoE to be a tool utilized by the groups (with more caution being exercised).
I think you had the better argument when you were discussing griefing, because at least then conceits and considerations would need to be made when implementing friendly fire adjustments.
And on a less serious note, I hope you are having a great start to your week.
@Alexian said in Bardikens' Compendium of Suggestions Part 2: Logistics/Economy:
I think it's fantastic that you decided to proceed with this. There are a lot of great suggestions and insightful commentary in this compendium, folks!
Thanks!
Completely agreed here. I'm happy that Fractured is employing a relatively realistic system for large item movement and transportation. It is, as you say, "tedious but rewarding."
And that's okay so long as there are rewards. Look what people do in other games.
100% agreed here. Fractured's vision for gathering, construction, trade, and logistics will hopefully be so realistic that it will inspire some guilds and groups to pursue filling this niche.
I'd love to see a group of traders come together and, instead of wasting time trying to claim territory and build up their own cities, organize into a merchant guild that purchases or rents chapter houses/offices in other cities. You could also have mercenary groups who specialize as hired security forces for trade caravans.
Fractured should not simply be comprised of guilds striving to be conquerors and empires. We should see guilds of various types across all three planets that serve a particular and lucrative niche. This is something that distinguishes Fractured's vision from games like Albion Online, where such things are possible but not encouraged and far from necessary.
Hopefully we see the growth and development of many different types of guilds that will work with one another in some way, shape or form. If a guild wants to be a trading guild, perhaps they should have a presence in many areas inside of other people's guild towns.
Economics isn't my forte.
That said, I'm pleased that Fractured plans to have job boards/notice boards. Hopefully, in conjunction with player quests, this will facilitate your suggestion.
I think they go hand in hand and provide that much more for players and leaders alike to do.
@PeachMcD said in Bardikens' Compendium of Suggestions Part 3: Towns/Cities:
again
I esp like the idea of a 'laws checklist' that simplifies setting up a town's constitution and enables players to avoid reinventing the wheel - but that checklist would need to be pretty exhaustive AND open to input from player community.
Agreed. I was thinking a checklist like you see in most city building games lime SimCity or Cities: Skylines where you can set rates and laws and such. In this case, it would probably be more simplistic, but the list should be quite exhaustive as you said.
@GamerSeuss said in What is your biggest want in this game?:
@Razvan it's pretty much up to the player base how big the alliances get. Even if the Devs put a limit on things like Clan/Guild sizes, that doesn't stop players from forming coalitions outside of the game of multiple Clans/Guilds to still build what they want, so this is a hard, if not impossible ask.
This is why there needs to be some form of friendly fire, even within alliances. Yeah, you can do it, but you'll have to think about it and manage it.
@GamerSeuss said in Markets and Merchant Guilds - A Reimagining of the Current System:
@Bardikens Although your suggestion is interesting, it goes against the concepts the Devs have stated for the game.
They want a player driven economy, where individuals need to spend the time going from place to place to get their goods. The one allowance is the fact that merchant minded players can physically buy goods in one city, physically transport them to another city, then fulfill orders/list goods in the new city, and thus create trade routes.
This is fully possible in my system. In fact, this just expands upon what is already in the game and allows there to be fully codified gameplay for people that dont WANT to pvp or PVE and want to spend their time trading.
In no other way do they want to have a linked marketplace. Shoot, the Global Wallet might even end up going away once they put the current mode into practice, or the ability to search other markets might go away. Finally, the Global Wallet might get changed somehow to restrict it to only Merchant transaction funds being deposited by the Marketplace, but Deposits go into the bank's Gold fund, not the Global Wallet, and the Gold Fund remains local, so you can't as someone said in another thread, 'Search for something on the Marketplace, get the price and quantity, deposit enough gold to cover that exactly, run to the new city, and then purchase" thus keeping the Gold itself safe during the travel aspect of commerce.
I am fully against the global wallet AND fully against marketplaces that can be searched globally. The system I created is a compromise of the two systems already in play. I am a proponent of the most realistic, simulator-based hardcore gameplay you can imagine (I would want crafting to be full fledged mini games that take lots of time, for example.)
What my system does is take what is in the game already and puts in the hands of the player rather than just allowing for a global search by default.
They DO NOT want to turn all the merchanting over to merchant guilds and guild charters, they want individual players to do the work whenever possible. The marketplace is more for selling off your excess locally, and encouraging trade, not for making it easy to get those things that are rare in one area, because someone else joins up with a Merchant Guild to deal in them.
Again, my vision doesn't really go against this. What we NEED in Fractured are ways for people to live out second lives in game. If they never want to go out and PVP and want to spend their entire life crafting, they should be able to sit around hammering out steel and have just as much fun as someone grinding monsters.
The only way in my eyes to do this is to codify gameplay that will encourage these niches to exist. They DO NOT functionally exist in any other game (excepting perhaps Star Citizen which is a second life simulator) with any true depth.
What I am proposing in no way takes the individual responsibility from the game - just gives more options to those who are playing. You could dump off your wares on the merchant guild for a pittance knowing that you have guaranteed money, or you could run it to another town yourself and make full profit but assuming all of the risk.
You can even still put your stuff on the local marketplace. Those would be truly local as in previous tests. Previously a lot of the "trade" in the game was between polities (aka guilds set up for conquering and owning land) buying and selling to one another to fund their war chests or PVX requirements. This system adds an extra wrinkle with more opportunity for non-polities to have something to do in the game by adding guilds that aren't focused on death and destruction specifically.
The "rare" in one area bit will largely be a farse once larger guilds dominate the land and send their 200 hive-members to bully others out of their local resources anyways. The Devs said no one would walk halfway across the map to get resources not in their area but we see how that worked out last test.
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No, this would incentivize Guild play, and deincentivize solo play...there are already a ton of advantages to guilding up, and the Devs have said they want to make the game equally encouraging to solo'ists, yet even if you allowed a guild of one to join a commercial charter, what town is going to allow a solo guild to join their charter if they have limited charter space? The solo'ist gets annexed out again.
Just to respond to this point, I believe the merchant guild would be limited in charters. The idea would be to have a network of linked cities with different merchant guilds so that one or two could not have a truly "global" marketplace.
Also, we should be encouraging guild play as much as possible in an MMO. The solo opportunities are still there in my system, but guilds who work together for a common goal should easily be able to crush a single soloist with regards to time and efficiency.
That's how it always works in MMOs and what differentiates MMOs from single player games. This does not prevent you from becoming the most powerful trade baron in the lands - it just adds the ability for people who want to play as a merchanting guild to do so and be rewarded for it.
We may fundamentally disagree on solo/guild play in MMOs.
@spoletta said in Markets and Merchant Guilds - A Reimagining of the Current System:
I can see the merit in something like this, but I have the following concern.
It is too soon to talk about this.
This is really just taking what they announced and reimagining it in a way that puts more gameplay in the hands of the players.
We'll, of course, have to see how everything plays out, but my idea in Fractured is that there needs to be rewarding gameplay loops for different types of people and organizations.
@spoletta said in Markets and Merchant Guilds - A Reimagining of the Current System:
I'm a huge fan of Spice and Wolf novels, so I obviously love the idea of Merchant guilds in Fractured as a second power parallel to nations, but until we know in which scenario they are going to deployed, we can't understand if they are a good idea or not for the health of the game. That's where my concern lies.
I absolutely love those books. It's also what basically convinced me that trading and merchanting in games needs more depth and gameplay initially.
One final note: we didn't have food issues in the start of the test, because there was the possibility to gather wild wheat (and there was also the starting town wheat exploit). After that was removed, gathering food has become much harder.
We were just pointing that out as something to keep an eye on in the future. Outside of a few ranks to get off the ground, food scarcity needs to be pretty much instantly an issue. It still may be, but I think it is worth noting nonetheless.
