Renowned Avatar Title

Many times I like to try and think of things that HAVE actual choice and consequence of your various actions throughout the land of New Britannia. We have a few things that do react to your various levels of virtue like the Jack of Diamond Bouncers or the Mages of Mystery, The Sylvan weapons, killing Unicorns, the Shroud etc...

Something that I think would add a kind of added dimensional layer to our game would be a Renowned Avatar Title that is displayed on every player character who has finished the Episode 1 Main Quest. Upon further reflection, if such a system were to be added, it really *should* be added specifically when the Avatar actually acquires the Dire Prophecy of Edvard.

This title would be set to which ever virtue (or anti-virtue) value is that players highest value principle (positive or negative). This title then would be a visual display of the players renowned deeds through New Britannia. This title is not optional, and would always be displayed, once the player has finished the Episode 1 Main Quest.

The various titles for this would then be: The Avatar of Truth, The Avatar of Love and the Avatar of Courage. And then The Avatar of Falsehood, The Avatar of Hatred and the Avatar of Cowardice.

And now imagine, as you run around the World Map, you will from time to time, come across various players with The Avatar of Falsehood above their name. Or perhaps The Avatar of Truth on another player, The Avatar of Love on another... I think this would add an interesting and reactionary element to the game. I think it would also add another interesting achievement element to new players (who would not have this title yet) and would probably like to someday get one.

It would also add another element in that the player could now specifically go and do various deeds just to achieve the wanted title.

This is just something that I believe would be a vey interesting additional layer added to the game. But that's just my own opinion. And just wanted to share.

What do you guys think?

 

Overall, I like the idea. Just to clarify, would the title change as their virtue changes?

I can also see other time that could come into play. A title for their lowest virtue, titles for each virtue based on positive/negative values in the virtue, etc.

 

Yes, which ever of the three principles is highest positive (or lowest negative), is the title displayed.

 

I like the concept but I think the virtue system is an area of the game that needs a lot more transparency before we start branding people with titles for supposed "choices" they make, when the game gives you zero feedback about which choices have impact either before OR after you make them!

When you suddenly see one of your virtues drop for no reason you can think of (just failing the daily test, or back when it was a good item to actually wear, seeing your shroud change color) - and there was no correlation. Asking the oracle on one such occasion I was told "I ignored the plight of others". So basically...I walked within bark distance of someone who was asking for help and was on my way some place and didn't stop (or probably didn't even see it since I keep my chat window usually set to whisper/guild only) and I get penalized. I would HATE to see my character have a big label on them for virtue decisions that aren't decisions at all. There's countless examples of quest where its not even evident there is more than one way to do it, the quest journal rarely gives you any useful feedback, and unless someone tells you "Oh hey, you know you coulda done that different" you'd likely never know. This is exacerbated by the fact that there is no real reliable way (other than carrying the shroud or other artifacts around and using them as a sort of level-stick) to see what your actions are doing. Sometimes things that really SHOULD make a difference, don't seem to do anything, where other things are downright baffling. Its further exacerbated by sometimes things simply don't work as intended.

Spoiler

We tested this extensively in offline mode (since you could view the virtue change values in the save file) - going into a random encounter and killing a sheep hurts your virtue, taking decorative props that are obtainable in NO OTHER WAY "somtimes" hurts your virtue, depending on where you do it, and hurts your virtue irrespective of if the items are flagged as stealing (or not). Telling some NPCs your true name increases your truth virtue, but not all, and no way to know which are which. Typoing when they ask your name? Tanks your truth virtue. Killing herd animals in an encounter hurts your virtue, and there's various other examples of just running around with immolate on can completely screw you, however killing cabalists increases courage virtue so much that even if you "wanted" to be a "coward" there's simply no way to actually do it, unless you decide never to kill anything and thus effectively not play. I tried for months to get my shroud black again after it flipped to white during a dev-summoned-loads-of-cabalist-in-town event and despite doing everything I could do try and "be bad" it remains shiny white because of where I choose to fight. The fact that arbitrary combat kills swing it so much, whatever "choices" you made when you did the original questline are quickly eclipsed by later gameplay so as to be meaningless.

Now I get it, some people want mystery, and immersion, and that's fine - but personally, if you're going to put a sign over my character's head defining my choices, then they had better be MY choices, and not just a consequence of where my virtue scores ended up after years of random things happening. (look at SWTOR as an example, where each choice you made would give you a light/dark indicator and you could actively, deliberately choose how you wanted your charater to develop) - that is what it means to make a choice. Everyone says SOTA is about choices and I always laugh, because it really isn't - the virtue system is extremely poorly implemented, oblique, and downright frustrating at times. And that's ok, since its possible to completely ignore it at the moment. If that changes, and we can't ignore it, then we need to fix it first. There's so much potential of what we could do, with virtue playing a key part in character development - but it needs to actually make sense, and not be in a situation for example where "stealing" hurts "truth" virtue. Why is this? It makes no sense. I'm not lying, or being sneaky, I'm stood right in front of this shopkeeper just helping myself to their stuff. I could see it hurting love (blatant disregard for another person's property?) or even courage but I certainly wasn't being dishonest about anything. And almost all the virtue "changes" in the game are equally arbitrary. So I mean, yeah, it would be cool to have virtue be more important, but not as its currently implemented.

 

Some polish with the virtue system could really be nice to the overall day to day gameplay. And I think that has been something the developers have really been spot on with lately. I think Virtue could easily be polished up a bit to include a lot of the daily quests, possibly by just adding different turn ins for a few of the daily quests we already have. It could even stay somewhat mysterious overall, as long as there are at least a couple obvious ways to raise a specific virtue. Or maybe a toggle so we can actually see the values going up or down. Is this info available for Lua? I don't think there is any reason to hide this info for those of us that want to see it. If you must, leave it hidden by default, but I would love to have an option to see the values so I can actually try and make meaningful decisions. As it stands now I still haven't figured out what I'm doing to lower my courage, but every one in a while I notice it's dropping.

This idea in op @Anpu is awesome, and kind of ties into the great lord, dread lord concept of uo which I love. Would love to see some titles associated with something like this, but def agree it needs some work first.

 

When I was thinking about this idea, I was looking at a completely different perspective. And thankfully kaeshiva you reminded me of why (currently) this proposed idea isn't rather a good idea, because it's based on the current implemented virtue system. Which currently is... well, we do have a virtue system.

Let me word this idea a little differently: If a Renowned Avatar Title system was added, and we had a currently functioning virtue system, that has adequate information presented to the Avatar, to determine various choices, would you like this idea @kaeshiva ?

 

I am trying to lower virtues on an alt, courage and truth seemed easy to keep low. Killing fauns drops courage. However I have not figured out how to lower love. I have to answer Yes about love to the oracle. When I did my shroud quest I was trying to speedrun it and the fastest options gave me a white shroud. Even though I lied to everyone and stole a lot.
vj

 

Well said. I started a similar reply, but got bored and gave up.

 

Great idea.

In hindsight, SOTA's virtues - the game's underpinning that could most differentiate it from others - feel too obscurely implemented to be meaningful.

Systems that bring the virtues, and our choices for them, further to the forefront can only help differentiate the game and its brand more.

I understand not wanting to be saddled with a virtue one might not think is 'theirs'. That's perfectly understandable. However, anyone that's taken a personality / strengths test for work or leadership development faces the same outcome. Our virtues are defined by our actions, not the word we wish to advertise over our heads.

In that regard, I'd only modify the suggestion above to enable players to turn off any overhead display. No player should be forced to bear a banner over their heads they don't want to see, IMHO. The rest is in the devs hands to strengthen the value of the virtues system in game.

 

Personally, I think the virtues system (while certainly in line with past Ultimas) was implemented poorly for an MMO. It makes sense for a single player game, but I think something that allowed for more variety in playstyle and disposition would have been a better choice. Especially if paired with a faction system, as the devs want to implement.

 

They still do?

 

Whether it ever happens is another matter. But I mean factions as in storyline factions, not player factions. Like how you earn reputation in Tanglemire. (Though it doesn't actually do much as of yet. I think there's one quest that is only offered if you've done all the other ones, that's about the extent of it.)

I should have been clearer, I'm not an MMO player by nature, so I forget some things mean other things to other people.

 

If we operate on the assumption that we have a logical, well implemented, transparent virtue system that tracks deliberate choices you make about your character's growth? Then absolutely, bring on the titles, bring on more virtue-locked areas or virtue-influenced gear and virtue-everything. I think its a great bundle of potential for lateral character growth as well, working on building virtues (or anti-virtues) to unlock/achieve/progress your character in ways that aren't simply a measure of combat prowess.

 

This is almost direct link to the Ultima Online karma/fame system. I remember there you can be a Glorious Lord if you good, and Nasty Lord if you not.