Post by warwick on Apr 10, 2023 0:08:16 GMT
Dev-blog 2 - Rules, Mechanics and Professions
Hello everyone! For this week’s dev-blog we’re happy to outline changes to rules and mechanics of wealth transfer, banditry and some professions. Additionally we’re outlining major changes to the economy and crafting. As we’ve pledged, we’re taking into account both player wishes and the lessons of the past. Altogether, these changes simplify character and faction management.
We’ve updated the ruleset with our goal of a fluid scenario in mind - with changing character and faction allegiances and a constant flow of newcomers in the form of characters and organisations. Fluidity in roleplay is about character and faction freedom. With more factions the scenario isn't built on the predictability of two or three factions but of the freedom of several to interact and most importantly, react to each other’s actions. We’re encouraging near-complete freedom of roleplay, including the roleplay of consequences.
Rules & Professions
It can be difficult to accept these consequences, especially in high-stakes situations such as those involving character kills. We want to encourage bold actions and the willingness to risk your character’s story ending prematurely with a revamping of the wealth transfer system. Players whose character has been killed or forced off map will be much more easily able to return to the server through a comprehensive wealth transfer system; generous money transfers, gear progression, and an already open-handed equipment request list for biographies. If, God forbid, your character is killed you will be able to carry on and jump back into the server with a fresh mindset and new character, but keep what you’ve gained from time spent roleplaying.
Banditry will be encouraged - and the rules on it have been tweaked. For one, bandit applications have been removed. We feel that locking this position away behind a forum application, and making it an exclusive role, is poor for the freedom of roleplay and the paths players might want to explore with their characters. Guards will finally have something to do again! Ten players must be online for robbery to be committed, and 10% of a player’s coin purse may be taken, up to 1000 coins.
Foreigner applications have also been scrapped; we will look at ‘foreign’ characters on a case by case basis through biographies. We’ve got a hodge-podge of ethnicities on map, from Rhodoks to Vaegirs to Nords, and thus it’s only natural that these be playable with no limitations. Sarranid and Khergit characters in particular will be looked at with scrutiny, however, and will require considerable explaining. Jumnish, Balish and Geroian characters are not permitted at all.
Hunters as a profession will no longer be a thing - butchering knives are open to be requested by anyone in biographies. Limiting the number of huntsmen on the map and forcing people to apply for this position is limiting to roleplay. Furthermore, in a heavily impoverished region and in a society plunged into anarchy, we believe that the skill of butchering an animal would be widespread. The same applies for bards/musicians; flutes, lyres, lutes and vielles are open to be requested. Physicians and herbalists also have been merged. Note that any gear requested must be relevant to your character to be accepted.
The Economy & Crafting
As we alluded to previously, we’ve also been hard at work creating a server environment that rewards collaboration and fair competition, and limits the gains from obsessive organisation in the style of a PK clan. As part of this, the in-game economy has been reworked - some aspects have seen dramatic changes, and others have undergone tweaks to make fundamentally viable systems more fair and enjoyable for all involved. It goes without saying that material progression (through gear, assets, player homes, and the like) is an integral part of any enjoyable role-playing experience. As such, this progression has been kept in mind throughout our development cycle.
We began by rebalancing item values across equipment classes and categories in order to simplify material progression:
- Lower-tier equipment is generally easier to acquire across the board, especially in conjunction with the more generous equipment request system packaged with biographies.
- Helmets across all tiers have seen their costs reduced, encouraging players to acquire them as a priority (as would make sense for an individual seeking to protect one’s self!).
- Shields in particular have been made vastly cheaper, which in addition to allowing players with less combat experience to enjoy and make a contribution in a fight, has also helped better balance axes and ranged weapons. This will hopefully also eliminate the incentive to prioritize the wellbeing of a piece of wood over the character’s own during combat!
With a new item balance established, crafting has been the next aspect to see a major overhaul:
- A strict cap on the number of characters holding a crafting profession has been replaced with a limit of one craftsman per workshop, with workshops made substantially easier to construct to facilitate this. This encourages competition in the market for gear, as well as providing another option for players less interested in acquiring combat equipment to spend their money on.
- Item upgrades (with a select few common-sense exceptions) are gone, allowing players to experiment with different bits of equipment without worrying about being locked into an undesirable upgrade path, as well as creating a market for second-hand equipment, which will become especially beneficial later in the scenario as the gap between existing and new players naturally widens.
As part of these overhauls, craftable gear will initially be restricted to a modified T2 maximum. In doing this, we hope to combat two phenomena all too common in recent scenarios; one whereby factions and groups design their economies around rushing their best fighters to the best equipment available, and the other whereby individuals will goldfarm for weeks on end to obtain for themselves the same top-of-the-line equipment as faction leaders. The hope is that once this lower “gear ceiling” is attained, factions will turn their attention to equipping less experienced or skilled players, and individuals will have less incentive to save every penny for an endgame weapon, which largely came about as a result of the introduction of T3 crafting. In addition, this will take the pressure off both factions and individuals to constantly be focusing on their gear progression.
Superior equipment will periodically be made available via special events, and as the scenario progresses, opportunities will arise for craftsmen to discover new techniques and materials to advance their capabilities, rather than the simple hours-based formula used in the past to determine what can and cannot be created on-map.
For crafting to work, the policy on resources must also be coherent! Whilst many resources are at least nominally controlled by various factions, we have made sure these groups have a strong incentive to collude or compete with one another, rather than isolate themselves economically. By scenario design, attaining a total monopoly over any resource or craft will be extremely challenging, and autarky near-impossible. We hope this will encourage factions and individuals to form proper economic relationships with those outside their usual groups, and facilitate other forms of roleplay in the process!
Keep assaults, character kills and the revamped war system will be discussed in a subsequent mini-devblog which will be released during the week. These changes are important enough to warrant their own, separate post, so stay tuned for the upcoming announcement!
Hello everyone! For this week’s dev-blog we’re happy to outline changes to rules and mechanics of wealth transfer, banditry and some professions. Additionally we’re outlining major changes to the economy and crafting. As we’ve pledged, we’re taking into account both player wishes and the lessons of the past. Altogether, these changes simplify character and faction management.
We’ve updated the ruleset with our goal of a fluid scenario in mind - with changing character and faction allegiances and a constant flow of newcomers in the form of characters and organisations. Fluidity in roleplay is about character and faction freedom. With more factions the scenario isn't built on the predictability of two or three factions but of the freedom of several to interact and most importantly, react to each other’s actions. We’re encouraging near-complete freedom of roleplay, including the roleplay of consequences.
Rules & Professions
It can be difficult to accept these consequences, especially in high-stakes situations such as those involving character kills. We want to encourage bold actions and the willingness to risk your character’s story ending prematurely with a revamping of the wealth transfer system. Players whose character has been killed or forced off map will be much more easily able to return to the server through a comprehensive wealth transfer system; generous money transfers, gear progression, and an already open-handed equipment request list for biographies. If, God forbid, your character is killed you will be able to carry on and jump back into the server with a fresh mindset and new character, but keep what you’ve gained from time spent roleplaying.
Banditry will be encouraged - and the rules on it have been tweaked. For one, bandit applications have been removed. We feel that locking this position away behind a forum application, and making it an exclusive role, is poor for the freedom of roleplay and the paths players might want to explore with their characters. Guards will finally have something to do again! Ten players must be online for robbery to be committed, and 10% of a player’s coin purse may be taken, up to 1000 coins.
Foreigner applications have also been scrapped; we will look at ‘foreign’ characters on a case by case basis through biographies. We’ve got a hodge-podge of ethnicities on map, from Rhodoks to Vaegirs to Nords, and thus it’s only natural that these be playable with no limitations. Sarranid and Khergit characters in particular will be looked at with scrutiny, however, and will require considerable explaining. Jumnish, Balish and Geroian characters are not permitted at all.
Hunters as a profession will no longer be a thing - butchering knives are open to be requested by anyone in biographies. Limiting the number of huntsmen on the map and forcing people to apply for this position is limiting to roleplay. Furthermore, in a heavily impoverished region and in a society plunged into anarchy, we believe that the skill of butchering an animal would be widespread. The same applies for bards/musicians; flutes, lyres, lutes and vielles are open to be requested. Physicians and herbalists also have been merged. Note that any gear requested must be relevant to your character to be accepted.
The Economy & Crafting
As we alluded to previously, we’ve also been hard at work creating a server environment that rewards collaboration and fair competition, and limits the gains from obsessive organisation in the style of a PK clan. As part of this, the in-game economy has been reworked - some aspects have seen dramatic changes, and others have undergone tweaks to make fundamentally viable systems more fair and enjoyable for all involved. It goes without saying that material progression (through gear, assets, player homes, and the like) is an integral part of any enjoyable role-playing experience. As such, this progression has been kept in mind throughout our development cycle.
We began by rebalancing item values across equipment classes and categories in order to simplify material progression:
- Lower-tier equipment is generally easier to acquire across the board, especially in conjunction with the more generous equipment request system packaged with biographies.
- Helmets across all tiers have seen their costs reduced, encouraging players to acquire them as a priority (as would make sense for an individual seeking to protect one’s self!).
- Shields in particular have been made vastly cheaper, which in addition to allowing players with less combat experience to enjoy and make a contribution in a fight, has also helped better balance axes and ranged weapons. This will hopefully also eliminate the incentive to prioritize the wellbeing of a piece of wood over the character’s own during combat!
With a new item balance established, crafting has been the next aspect to see a major overhaul:
- A strict cap on the number of characters holding a crafting profession has been replaced with a limit of one craftsman per workshop, with workshops made substantially easier to construct to facilitate this. This encourages competition in the market for gear, as well as providing another option for players less interested in acquiring combat equipment to spend their money on.
- Item upgrades (with a select few common-sense exceptions) are gone, allowing players to experiment with different bits of equipment without worrying about being locked into an undesirable upgrade path, as well as creating a market for second-hand equipment, which will become especially beneficial later in the scenario as the gap between existing and new players naturally widens.
As part of these overhauls, craftable gear will initially be restricted to a modified T2 maximum. In doing this, we hope to combat two phenomena all too common in recent scenarios; one whereby factions and groups design their economies around rushing their best fighters to the best equipment available, and the other whereby individuals will goldfarm for weeks on end to obtain for themselves the same top-of-the-line equipment as faction leaders. The hope is that once this lower “gear ceiling” is attained, factions will turn their attention to equipping less experienced or skilled players, and individuals will have less incentive to save every penny for an endgame weapon, which largely came about as a result of the introduction of T3 crafting. In addition, this will take the pressure off both factions and individuals to constantly be focusing on their gear progression.
Superior equipment will periodically be made available via special events, and as the scenario progresses, opportunities will arise for craftsmen to discover new techniques and materials to advance their capabilities, rather than the simple hours-based formula used in the past to determine what can and cannot be created on-map.
For crafting to work, the policy on resources must also be coherent! Whilst many resources are at least nominally controlled by various factions, we have made sure these groups have a strong incentive to collude or compete with one another, rather than isolate themselves economically. By scenario design, attaining a total monopoly over any resource or craft will be extremely challenging, and autarky near-impossible. We hope this will encourage factions and individuals to form proper economic relationships with those outside their usual groups, and facilitate other forms of roleplay in the process!
Keep assaults, character kills and the revamped war system will be discussed in a subsequent mini-devblog which will be released during the week. These changes are important enough to warrant their own, separate post, so stay tuned for the upcoming announcement!
