[PVP/Crafting related] We need consequences for overworld and economy.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by John Markus, Sep 11, 2019.

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  1. John Markus

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    I am someone who has been always saying, "Fast travel should be plausible, and PVP should have a role in the world".

    AFAIK, SotA uses a HEX map system for the over world map. Having a HEX map system means that:
    • You can calculate route between point A and point B.
    • If you can calculate the route, you can calculate the cost.
    • If you can calculate the cost, you can cause it to have an effect in the world.
    What I propose is to have the state of overland map have effect to the economy (banking/crafting), so that the players need to actively maintain the over world to keep various costs down, and so that some people can disrupt it.

    For the overland maintaining, I propose following items.
    1. For beginning players, let's add street lamp to the HEXes that are roads (allow encounters in all road hexes). If the street lamp is turned on (fuel burns out in few days), cost is lowered and encounters are weakened. If lamp is turned off, cost increases, and monster and loot is strengthened. Let crafter community periodically issue player-quests to beginners to have those lamps maintained.
    2. For expert players, let's have passes and control points have effect on the HEX cost. If a control point is occupied by a guild at certain time of day, cost is lowered. Make control points PVP zone.
    3. Add a time limited friendship relationship between guilds, so that control point occupied by friend guild will similarly lower the move cost (Make the friendship auto-expiring after some time so that it is possible to contract PVP guilds to do the control point capturing).
    (optional)
    1. Add rumor indicator to town criers in NPC towns and Player towns. Periodically issue new rumors at strategic locations (like "Skeletons are invading! Boost your local food supply!"). Player carry rumors to the nearby towns to update the town criers (must NOT use teleport scroll). Add credibility score to the players that will affect information update effectiveness. This will produce quantitative map of how the players are getting involved with the world. Penalize towns that are performing badly, reward players that have high credibility score.
    Doing this changes does few things:
    • It makes the New Britannia world more organic. It adds consequences to the player's actions (and inactions).
    • It makes fast travel and NPC logistics more plausible by adding overland factors to the costs.
    • It allows people to disrupt the movement, and have disruption take effect not only in PVP community, but on the economy.
    • This provides, time, location, and reason for an organized PVP. It strengthens the ties between crafters, PVEers, and PVPers. It adds reason to eliminate opposition forces not just in the PVP realm, but for the sake of entire Economy.
    • This means player generated content.
     
  2. marthos

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    There's merit to these ideas. There are good systems in place, that with the right tweaks, can really give Shroud a unique feel and identity in the ever-growing pile of MMOs out there.

    From an economic perspective, you can identify the source(s) of each of the consumable fuels used in crafting. Coal from a nearby mine, for example. The "worse" off the path from the vendor's town to the source, the higher the cost. If all the lampposts are unlit, and the control points are occupied by hostiles, merchants will jack up the price of fuel.

    What's interesting, when the first when persistent, there were enough people in Owl's Head to trigger a supply/demand mechanism that would increase the cost of coal to 20-30gp each. I used to make a decent chunk of change buying cheap coal and walking it over to Owl's head to sell at a markup. I miss this type of mechanic - it made the world feel alive.
     
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  3. Sol Stormlin

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    This is intriguing but I wonder if people would just use teleport and recall scrolls to avoid this. That's kind of what happened with the sieges. When I started playing this game about three years ago, I was under the impression that we would have sieges INSIDE of our towns. Where we would defend our town from our castle walls and such. But instead they implemented the sieges on the over world right outside your town. It was fun at first, but then it was annoying because the only way to get to your town was through the siege. So they gave sieges an option to bypass, and now that's all I do. Unless for some reason I want to play a siege. I still think your idea is very interesting and maybe it would be cool to try it, I just think it will be another one of those things that might get in the way and become something people want to just bypass. I do love the idea of adding a rumor indicator though.
     
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  4. John Markus

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    Rumor indicator can be one of the things that can address the bypassing issue. If an area is properly maintained, NPC population will be able to fight the threats off without help.
    If an area is not properly maintained, NPCs might need additional help. You may not be able choose "Bypass", or teleport directly into town.
     
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  5. Sketch_

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    this is complicated weird stuff
     
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  6. oplek

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    I've been thinking about travel lately, in similar a vein.

    The fact that people can cross Novia in 3 minutes is baffling. It shouldn't be 3 minutes. It should be 3 hours.
    • The global bank change should be reversed.
    • Teleport scrolls can remain, but have a max weight limit of 25. Sort of analogous to Eve's "jump clones". You can meet up with friends, still, or just go to new scenery.
    • Resources should be better regionalized. Gold would be dirt cheap and available near Graff mines, but more expensive the further away you get.
    • Most resource are removed from overworld encounters.
    • Sort of an auto-pilot can be implemented, which can go even if you're offline.
    These would be the first steps in adding depth to the game.
    • Instead of having two basic professions - adventuring and crafting, we could have more. Such as human and resource transport and mercenary defense of that transport.
    • POTs would have more potential than being either a) Yet-another-merchant-town or b) derelict. Places like Jade Valley would be a port of call for silver trade... because it's physically near where those resource are gathered. Some POTs would be a good midway stop for people.
    • Mounts would have a frekin' point. For hauling more stuff.
    • There's be a point to having a "camp" system. It'd be basically your own overworld encounter, except you have a houseless row lot, in whichever biome you happen to be in, with your lot and stuff, so you can rest. Depending on how dangerous the area you're in, you may have to fight off bandits to dragons.
      • Edit: You can rest, manage your stuff, or even make your camp available for others to enter, for person-to-person encounters.
    We really should be aiming for more possibilities than people who make stuff, and people who fight stuff. But instead for the sake of "quality of life" the game is dumbed down, making it less and less interesting with less and less potential, when in fact, it should be dumbed up.
     
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  7. oplek

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    Part of my point is, they need some vision. They need to do something bold to stand out from other games, instead of just maintaining the status quo... too afraid to rock the boat.
     
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  8. kaeshiva

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    I've always felt that Novia kinda just functions like a 'lobby' - especially since most skills etc. are disabled on it. Its a holding area to get from point A to point B.
    Over time we've seen the significance of this "lobby" lessened with zone teleports, the ability to use speed buffs to traverse it quicker, etc.

    While the original vision of the game was a more regional/compartmentalized one, the way that housing and player towns were implemented kind of killed that possibility.
    While it may make sense that gold ore should be localized around Etceter and Graff, the reality is people weren't going from the mines to the next town over and listing it to sell, they were recalling home. And why wouldn't they? A commission free vendor on your front porch vs. paying exorbidant taxes to sell on a local vendor seems an easy choice. Any regional economy kinda went out the window at that point. We've also seen player towns form dedicated market hubs to try and mitigate the pain that is shopping for something you want.

    Some of these proposals would reverse years of quality of life improvements, create (pointless) artificial restrictions to gameplay, obstacles to getting anywhere, all in name of trying to enforce a regional system that, unless fast travel is completely scrapped, is simply not going to work unless we were to completely re-envision housing and vendors, too.

    That's not to say that there's no merit in trying to improve the overworld experience.
    I like the ideas of 'building up Novia' as community projects. It would also serve as a resource sink to build up the roads and bridges, construct landmarks that could be perhaps visited for some sort of daily quest, and essentially unlock the potential of Novia through community shaping it.

    I'm not really keen on closing all the control points again or removing bank globalization just to create obstacles to getting yourself or your stuff where you need to go. I don't see this as adding any sort of benefit or improving things in general. Creating artificial "hassle" does not a fun game make - at least, not for everyone. Spending hours simply to travel from point A to point B doesn't add anything meaningful to gameplay - unless that travel required you to actively fight/work your way somewhere, which on Novia, it doesn't - its just navigating around the rivers and trying to avoid the waste-of-time-load-screen-encounters that most of the time you're not going to even clear since there are better rewards at your final destination.

    The thought of transporting trade goods and regional commodities and etc. is all very enticing, but unless we rethink housing, rethink the vendor system, rethink the world map, etc. its not something that can just be tacked on. And at this stage and development I can't see them taking that many systems back to the drawing board.
     
  9. Sketch_

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    I agree with @kaeshiva

    Its not like they aren't neat ideas.
    And thats kind of the problem.

    Im sure if warranted fun changes like these could be implemented properly.. But there are many reason things are the way that they are currently.

     
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  10. oplek

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    Yes, that's one of the ways that the system has always been fundamentally dysfunctional. They keep sabotaging their own plans. I am talking about scrapping that.... at least over an extremely low carry limit.

    Yes, artificial restrictions. A game. That's the purpose of a game - to provide challenges to be overcome. In the end, any game mechanic is "pointless". The only question is which pointless restrictions people want to encounter.

    But to assert that these are pointless is false for reasons already stated. They are steps to turn this two dimensional oversimplified sims game into one that can have some kind of meaningful economy, allow for the sandbox to have enough resolution for additional professions.... something more than a dance party simulator.

    Unfortunately, players of this game want dumbed down, easy and uninteresting gameplay. That's a big reason why it's failing. The so-called "quality of life" improvement are subjective. They're anti-"quality of life" changes to me.

    I don't disagree. It is, however, why the game is doomed. They had one shot to get this right. They didn't.
     
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  11. golruul

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    Fine idea, but need to flesh it out more to somehow avoid the "I'll teleport to town with low cost to buy things, then teleport back" that will inevitably become the standard.


    Regarding the overland in general, they can't just change it today so it takes real-life hours to go somewhere (while simultaneously disabling teleport scrolls). This would instantly kill the game. Guaranteed. There needs to be reams and reams of enjoyable content (i.e. not 10-20 scenes of level 1 bandits ambushing you) to fill in those hours for it to even approach a remotely acceptable level.
     
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  12. Chatele

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    I would be fine with the removal of teleport to anywhere scrolls when horses and mule mounts come into the game.... Just keeping the recall to home scrolls, that one we need to keep. :) THis would then make owning a mount and a pack animal a must have and useful and a money maker for the devs …..
     
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  13. Bedawyn

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    Almost every time I've read about a fantastic feature planned for the game -- it turns out to be something that was in the original plan but that has since been removed because the devs were listening to people who want to god-mode with no challenges. :-(

    I'll never support anything that requires PVE-ers to depend on PVPers or solo players to depend on guilds, but maintaining the roads in general is a good idea, if perhaps a bit too complex. It might require too much work to create separate version for online and offline modes. I'd rather see the map divided up into zones, where you have "settled" areas immediately around towns, "trade route" across some roadways, "frontier" on other roadways and beyond the roads, "wilderness" and "deep wilderness" beyond that. Tie the overland encounters and travel speed to which zone you were in. This wouldn't have the same effect on the economy the OP is suggesting, though.

    For the economy sake's, I'd definitely make scrolls much harder to come and much harder to use. No teleporting over a weight limit, as Oplek suggested. Keep recall scrolls for convenience's sake, but they can only be used if you're within a certain safe distance of the destination. Allow multiple bind points, but no more than a handful. Make teleport scrolls much, much harder to acquire and harder to use. (This would also help with the progression problem Chris was talking about yesterday, where newbies teleport to advanced players in advanced zones before they've finished the newbie areas, and end up having nowhere to progress to.)

    I'd definitely bring back the control points, and would prefer to add more scenes along the roadways that can't be avoided, scenes where as long as you stick to the well-traveled road, you're safe and can just rush through, but if you wander off, you'll find adventure. But yes, the loading times would be a problem for that; still need more improvement there before that would be feasible.

    But most of all -- please, please, make the sieges meaningful -- and NOT bypassable (except for newbies who need to bypass it for a quest). I'd want to tie them into NPC vendors. Each vendor should have different kinds of stock: staples that they can source locally and thus never run out of, stuff they bought from a player character and are going to turn around and resell, and imports that they stock regularly but have to bring in from out of town. If a town is under siege -- those imports can't restock, and the vendors might run out completely. POTs will have to think twice about how many sieges they're inviting, and players able to bring goods in through the siege (or to stockpile them beforehand) will make more money. The overworld caravans carrying the import goods may take shelter in a town they wouldn't normally go to, or hire adventurers to escort them to their original destination. Or they might get captured in the siege, giving adventurers a chance to rescue the goods (and either take them where they belong or steal them).

    And yes, I'd kill bank globalization too, except for things like gold and crowns.
     
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  14. Sulaene Moon

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    Did he says this is an issue now?
     
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  15. Bedawyn

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    He was specifically referring to gear -- new players being handed top-level gear, so that anything they might loot or buy or craft later is going to be second-rate comparatively, even though it might have seemed great if they had been using actual newbie gear until they earned something better. But I look at the progression problem more broadly -- whether you're talking gear/loot, mobs, skills, or whatever, you always need a progression ladder to measure your achievements against.
     
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  16. Sulaene Moon

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    Gotcha! You are correct on this. When I first came in and met a Hospit. they gave me a decent gear set to help me out and I use most of it still to this day. I understand where you're coming from and I can agree it is hurting the players/game a bit.
     
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  17. Cora Cuz'avich

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    The ship has sailed, but I always wanted to see the underworld expanded and turned into the way to get around control points. Make them all tier 1-2, triple their size, and add plenty of tier 5 and up areas behind breakable walls and secret doors. If you were high enough level, you could run through control points; if you were lower level, you could take the long way underground, or wait for a lunar rift. Plus, as a bonus, they could constantly add new areas to the underworld by dropping in a new breakable wall. Maybe even make some cash by letting POT owners buy entrances that lead directly into the underground areas.
     
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  18. Bow Vale

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    By allowing Dungeon owners to connect to the underworld would be a fantastic idea. By allowing this especially with the hopefully incoming quest/npc system it would result in an exciting ever changing/dynamic underworld to adventure through with content produced by players. This needs to happen.
     
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  19. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Oooh, hadn't even considered that one. I was just thinking POT owners could have a cave entrance or something to drop somewhere that went to the nearest "passage" zone. Being able to link dungeons would be super cool.
     
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  20. Bedawyn

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    I love all of these ideas. I'm a simulationist -- the real world has already been playtested, and the more game elements mirror the real world, the more intuitive they will be for players. And in the real world, there's always multiple ways to accomplish things.
     
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