Posts made by Jairone

@Tsoo Aye, if there's no alignment hit it won't be so bad. There will likely still be some abuses if they use a path based friendly fire, but I can deal with that at that point.

I agree with making each group as equal as possible in these regards. I just had a huge concern with that (and still do, did you have a source that such accidents won't be ruining the work of people to maintain a good alignment beyond that video?)

I can think of at least a few reasons why no alignment loss would apply while having the friendly fire, from being neutral to not downing to party and beyond. I'd be happy to accept anything concrete, but there is too much speculation with the video to be accepted as such a solid answer.

@jetah Sorry, but I have seen far too much of what people do to agree with you there. Where I like the freedoms, and where I like having some good PvP, people abuse anything they are able to abuse.

Let abusing happen, and the game dies really fast.

And, just in case you missed it, I'll repeat it once again. I don't have a big problem with having to think about skill use like that. I merely know that the consequence of good characters (for whom murder of their own unintentionally would be a big alignment hit most likely) would be people aiming to grief by jumping in the way of attacks to purposefully ruin their experience. That is NOT PvP in a way I can accept, and if that's the goal of anyone I hope they get the help they need from a professional.

@jetah Griefing like that ABSOLUTELY should be protected against. Because otherwise the game turns to having very hard advantages toward making people who otherwise cannot be harmed without consequence, but will ruin your battle if you don't. AKA, good players would be essentially screwed.

P.S. I agree there is an imbalance there with the current friendly fire as people are noting, but that's a little different from what I am noting as something that needs to be watched. I very much agree that good should have to watch what they do as well, and the only thing I think needs protections is the possibilities to grief that apply most specifically to those who can't just say "Yeah, you are a jerk, die." without major problems.

Either it needs rules against it, or you have to have the systems work around it and preclude it. Currently we have preclusion. I'm on the side of fixing that, but at the same time that means the issue needs to be handled with rules. Sandbox does not mean no rules, go outside and try to do something with sand that violates the laws of physics and tell us that there's no rules!

@tsoo I actually think it would be interesting for humans to be more adaptable. Since humans can run the gamut of alignment, instead of having those who live off world be focused on technology maybe they can adjust to their surroundings?

I'm imagining a human on Tartaros gaining exceptional power as they struggle to survive, or a human who lives on Arboreus slowly becoming more attuned to nature and thus augmenting themselves that way. Of course, that should be roughly aligned with the technology progression...

Either way, it should indeed be something that is looked at.

@tulukaruk Agreed, so long as everyone can keep it a little fun and light hearted. There's good venting, and then there is the kind of stuff that turns into bitterness.

I think we have stuck pretty well to the first part. I think that Specter is trying to keep people from feeling too frustrated as well. I don't think the goals are really at odds, so much as people having different perspectives.

I expect it will be reasonable to get stuff as noted. What I hope is that it won't be TOO easy. AKA some other sandbox games with a similar design in terms of crafting all gear, where people would just continually zerg with new equips since they had 20,000 sets stored up.

@jetah I know that, my point was more that the developers need to be aware of certain things with regard to friendly fire. For example, if a fireball spell is cast and it moves in a line outward to explode on contact... you will have some people who look for fights just to jump into that fireball and harm the side that cast it.

This is true for every alignment. It is something that they must not only thus be aware of, but have a strategy to combat.

Honestly I do think that once a battle is going, friendly fire should be on, my concern remains though. What is to prevent people with ulterior motives (and we all know that the people who do these things exist) from abusing that? AKA, there also needs to be a look at what happens when people start jumping into the path on purpose to disrupt a side, while not officially on the other side.

So long as the devs are willing to work to fix any problems coming from that, friendly fire is a good thing. Having to decide what to use, and when, and where to aim is much better than just 'Spam!!!'

A lot of that potential for abuse depends on targeting and detonation methods (whether you can just step in front of an aoe and make it boom on 'friendlies'). So long as the developers pay attention to that as a potential issue, I'm cool with this.

I do think they need to be careful about different rules. It may be easier for them to leave it off, if the other option results in impact to the good alignment of the players. I say that because, if that is what would happen, it would only be expected to see various 'good' characters who had the goal of being hit.

After all, people are why people can't have nice things.

I like little touches like that myself. As to combo spells, there's a couple things to be wary of there as well. Some things can easily become too strong, and thus why so many games that do anything with it limit what can be done.

Just for example, in DND you can use low level spells to do things that obliterate large numbers of enemies of high level with some creativity. The problem there is that once you start doing so the higher level spells and every other class starts becoming weak, unless every situation where those spells apply is avoided.

So where the ideas are good, they need strong rules to bind what happens to some extent to avoid those issues.

@tulukaruk Yeah, I was just agreeing with Evol there that there was fun to be had with that.

Obviously doing something like that can wreck havoc on an online game, especially when dozens of people have hordes of followers.

Look like Lost Ark is super linear. I agree it looks like a casual 'kill a bunch of enemies' type game. Not that those are bad every now and then, but I don't think these two games are going to be in competition as suggested in the OP.

@evolgrinz Yep. Although I still liked it with Gothic 2 endgame best. Just keep casting Summon Army of Darkness and watch the masses of skeletons trying to kill the strongest enemies in the game. And they do. Eventually. Even the end boss. So long as you keep putting enough of them out to keep the damage going. Something about having dozens of them doing the dirty work was just so satisfying.

Not a terrible idea, but the abilities need to fall in line with the relatively low power curve of the game. AKA, maybe something with a T3 ability where unlocking it requires finding knowledge and going out to do specific things.

Assuming that the guild you are fighting is Good/Neutral then likely there will be a war system.

The key things with any war system need to be as follows:

1. Not too expensive (such that small guilds can declare war against other small guilds).
2. Not too abusive (such that a guild cannot declare war against everyone to cheat the system as a KOS guild against all).

Those two points are where I see so many war systems fail in these games. The second in particular is common, and results in the entire system being nothing but a waste of time on the part of the devs.

The question becomes "Do we have NPCs that are a major factor in production?"

If yes, they should work to supply their own crafts with needed goods via transport of other materials to some extent. If no, then players should be moving the needed goods, and indeed the DEMAND for such should inspire some players to take up the effort for profits.

As others have noted, this is a troublesome thing to keep clean. If it is too limited, then it is better just to have a sign system with town leadership working on the town signs (and possibly allowing things like stores to have one)!

Less spam means it is easier to tackle offenders who want to produce rotten stuff. For example, in a not too long ago sandbox style game I had fun writing SOS on a beach (because the map showed terrain changes such that it showed up for everyone). I actually did this with a screenshot and report to highlight the abuse potential. The next day, the world had a dozen dicks strewn across the landscape. As soon as the cool something that was fun was seen, it was abused. Sadly, that game never really learned it's lesson.

Where it is easy to clean up things where people in charge can be held accountable, any game will see a swarm of alt accounts used to produce such... 'wonderful art' if it is something so simple as sprays or landscape terraforming.

@chrightt But that's ASIA for you. They are only just beginning to understand just how different the mentality is in the rest of the world toward such systems. Their online games are full of gacha and P2W stuff.

Some are starting to get it, though. Less and less of that, slowly, is making the trip overseas. Whether any of the other design things that are different make much change, that at least has been heard. To what extent that will happen is anyone's guess, but... there's at least some hope for future projects.

@grofire Even with a contract system there will likely be some level of trust involved, but it gives more options for dealing with problem people (such as if somebody joins to run mail and absconds with the goods, they can be held in breach of the contract, lose alignment, and be put on guard attack lists).

Still, there's likely to always be some level of risk in trusting anyone in a game like this. Any system which went so far as to make there be no such risk would be effectively turning it into the mail of so many other MMOs.

Part of the reason why, then, having a dedicated group to this would be nice is that they would not only be punitive toward any players that did such things, but also toward any groups that sheltered such players. Meaning we would likely end up with a good/neutral mail, and an evil mail. Which turns into options for both sides to have various gameplay and strategies around that.

Speaking of which, since there would then be an evil mail service it might potentially be possible to attack them for positive reasons in the good/evil spectrum, which would be an interesting way for alignment points to the positive.

Engagement... the best way to storm the castle. Grats to all the other winners, thanks to all who cheered us on, and best wishes to everyone who would like to win and did not this time!