Virtues Impact

I just wanted to say Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar for NES changed my life, literally. The virtues impacted me in such a way as a child that I changed who I am as a person to try to live up to them. Without that experience, I don't know how I would of turned out. Thank you. Sounds crazy, but I made me the person I am today. That's why I supported this game.
As for questing. I'd really like to see the virtues play a significant role in our decisions during questing, when possible. I'd love to try my best to be the knightly or paladin type of player and have it show to others that I chose this path and promote this behavior. I hope this game can impact and change some other young person's life as well. I want to have a clan (if they are possible) that promotes living up to the high standards of the virtues. That's all I wanted to say, is to please place the virtues heavy in the top of the list like previous games. But I'm sure that was intended regardless of my rant. Virtues, virtues, virtues.

 

I admit that the implementation of the virtue system is one of my favorite parts of the Ultima experience. Ultima IV was a bit of a revelation. I, too, would like to see the virtues utilized to a great extent, and not only via quests. If the same, or a similar system is used in SotA, various skills could also be associated with certain virtues, such that having a good standing on a virtue (let's say Compassion) gives one a slight boost in the speed of raising certain skills, such as healing and bard skills (as bards were associated with Compassion). Bear in mind that this is but one example, and more related to Ultima, as this is my only model.

Admittedly, behaviors associated with certain virtues would be a bit more difficult to track than others, though not impossible, and esp. not with the inclusion of quests. Humility could be tracked via living a simple, humble life, with little gold, maybe owning a humble dwelling (or none), renouncing titles, for example.

If such a thing were instituted it would be nice if the benefits went beyond mere mechanical, game-oriented aspects (such as "buffs"), but rather had broader, perhaps subtler affects. Additionally, my personal thoughts on the subject would be to exclude "negative" or "opposite" virtues (vices, I suppose), but to likewise not punish anyone for not following the virtues. Thus a character would gain certain subtle benefits for increasing virtue, but would suffer no effects of any kind for not following them (thus no Dread Lord So-and-So trying to increase his "Dishonesty").

While we're at it, just as a thought, how about re-instituting the old gypsy card reading for character generation, but instead of it choosing a character's class (since this is, thankfully, a classless game) it provides the player with a token virtue (known only to the player), thereby granting an increase in the speed of gains in skills associated with that virtue (if that virtue is followed, that is). Granted, a player could manipulate the system to choose her virtue, but what if it were slightly more complex, and granted slower gains for skills related to virtues that the player scored lower in, and did not effect those in the middle. Perhaps one token skill (with added gains, in both the virtue and certain skills) and one opposing virtue (slower gains, again for both the virtue and the skills associated with it). The system could perhaps be randomized to a degree, to make it more difficult to intentionally select the opposing virtue. Just an idea I have been tossing around.

Lastly, it would be nice if gains in virtues were subtle and hidden from the player. Gains in each could also be capped over a certain period of time, but the cap would not be known (and perhaps even randomized). Or perhaps the could atrophy quickly and/or be easily lost for acts going against them; some manner of insuring that characters continue to maintain their virtuous behavior and do not make of it a mere mechanic.

 

Well my thoughts are several...

1) I think the virtues should impact how various people interact with you. (they have mentioned this in specific with the chat with Iolo he mentions something like people will treat you different based on your virtue level).

2) Virtues should be as broad as possible. Start with the acts that would affect virtues in U4 and 5 and add more

3) Virtue impacts should be twofold, a permanent effect to your virtue and a timed effect to your virtue. So say for instance you attack a human unprovoked (one of the acts that dropped virtues in U4) you would take say 20 virtue points permanently but say 100 for half an hour or 15mins or something. This could replace the need for red flagging or anything. So if you have a certain level of negative virtue, guards would attack you. Attacking someone would put you over that threshold for 15 mins or so and then go back to a "normal" level that had dropped by the act.

4) Virtue gains/losses should be scaled... unlike U4 where you got the same amount of virtue by giving 1 coin to a beggar, the amount of gain should be granular based on the level of the act. And in some cases by your current status yourself. So say you had 10coins in your entire extended possessions (bank, home, etc) and you give a beggar 1 coin, that would give you more virtue than someone who has 1m coins net worth giving 10,000 coins.

 

<blockquote>I am one of the rare Ultima players that didn?t liked Ultima IV, as it was way too much restrictive. The only way to progress in the game was by becoming the avatar, and the game, even though it gave an illusion of choice, would just force you to behave in a certain way, or else, you wouldn?t get anywhere.</blockquote>

I am honestly curious, where did you think you were going in U4? Unlike other games at the time there was no "bad guy" the whole point of the game was to become partial avatar and seek the knowledge of the codex to bring you to full avatar status.

 

Virtues only have depth if they have real trade offs. Either you're trading one virtue for another or make a serious game play sacrifice to live by one. If I can just grind the virtues, they have no depth and no meaning.

 

@PrimeRib - I agree to a point. Not all acts of valor lack compassion for example. But living by all them should not be something easily accomplished... just accomplishable.

Definite agreement on the grinding... that is why I think they should scale.

 

@Wyse: personally I don't know... if I were transported and say put back in the prime of health with my knees fixed.. I am not sure what I would do.

I might actually try to go on the quest. Then again I might say neat, screw work I am living here... hey Iolo want to open a bow shop?

 

@Elvish

Ya, I'm not trying to write the story. (Unless someone wants to pay me.)

But if you want to show valor, flag yourself to drop full loot, or permadeath. Get rid of your ability to disengage.

You're scaling is just a steeper grind. Tell me that I can only ever have 100 gold worth of possessions and everything else is given to the poor.

I have nothing against someone being basically balanced and not giving up too much here and there. But if someone wants to embody a virtue (or even a couple) they should go all in. None of this grind your way to 8 parts of the avatar.

 

@Wsye: nah, britannia all the way, that way you could head up to the castle to lord british... no lord, this is taking longer than expected, turns out becoming the paragon of virtue is harder than it looks, but in the meantime, I have this hangnail can you 'HEAL' me? Figure since he never leaves the throne could probably get away with that for a decade or so

 

@PrimeRib: or you can make it so any one act can only get you so many points... so you can't max out your virtue by just donating to the beggars, that might get you 1/10 of the way there in compassion at max but you have to show other acts of compassion to max compassion.

 

@Elvish

I still think something has to give. In a pure single player game, you can put in you 40-100 hours and win. That's what you expect. But with no win condition, I'm wary of anything that feels like progress. I only want to see trade offs. Why should I not just max out all my virtues? There needs to be a reason.

 

@PrimeRib: keep in mind that the core story of each will be about 40-100 hours long according to RG. The play after the end of the story is more a case of PCs coming up with their own reasons to play... in the latter part I don't see the virtues playing a large role in "quests" and the like although it will play a background role in NPC interaction and the like. In short basically they can afford to tailor the virtue progression to the 40-100hr mark since the parts of the game between stories (after the end of episode 1 and before the next game comes out that is) are going to be largely unaffected by it.

 

@Elvish
If the point of episode 1 is to start as "some guy" and finish it as the avatar, and you're talking about the content I burn through in 4 days before I encounter another player, then I agree with you completely. Max the virtues, get your "eights" or whatever.

But for the thousands of hours of dynamic content, I get highly skeptical of anything that feels like a progression, rather than a trade off. Because somehow it becomes a grind where time played = win. And that's just not sustainable.

In U4, I could give blood to some guy, then talk to LB and get healed. Repeat ad nauseam. Diversifying the quest just makes it a longer grind. It doesn't actually fix the problem.

I'd rather see:
Sacrifice = you give up a kidney. This permanently costs you 20% of your HP. But it makes you much better at parry/block/dodge. So if you're a really skilled player (or just want to RP) the trade off might be worth it. But it's not for everyone.

If you have forward progression, you then need to have state of the art when nullifies your progression (e.g. as you level up, you fight tougher mobs so nothing actually changes). Then you need a way to catch up so new/casual players don't get left behind and you're left with a WoW style treadmill. I would like to see the game not do this.

Your other opting is some kind of sideways progression. Where you're really just adding richness to the story, collecting achievements, trophies, and cosmetic stuff. You have a lot of trade off s which are different but not really better. This is much more of what I'm hoping for.

 

I'm hoping that everything you do in game will affects how the entire game reacts to your actions. We definitely need more back story on the virtues and the virtue system itself.

- NPC interaction: nicer? meaner? indifferent?
- Vendor prices: related to above? higher? lower? won't sell to you?
- Enemy MOB aggro: more? less?
- STAT impact in some way?
- Skill impact in some way? Skill trees locked out? New ones opened up (that may have been unknown prior)?
- Combat: related to above, enhanced? reduced?
- Creature reaction? Do animals react differently to you? Are you less likely to be successful at hunting, fishing? Taming? Or even moreso? Maybe it's different for each creature.
- Plant life? Does it grow faster or more or slower and die more often in our presence? Perhaps they won't even bloom? Perhaps only certain ones do bloom based on evil actions?

...and so on. How deep the simulation goes, nobody knows yet. And I'm not talking about just punishing "evil" actions. The virtue system will likely punish and reward both good and evil actions in some way.

We don't know much yet about all of this, and we don't even know if attaining avatarhood, maxing out virtues, etc, even means in the context of SotA, or if any of that even applies. The virtue system could be as highly complex or as simplistic a model -- we just don't know.

All we know is that Richard has continually said our actions will impact how the world reacts to us, in some meaningful way. If that's the case, it doesn't matter if it's just the core story quests, or how players simply live out the dynamic world. I'm hoping it's everything, as that can drive a lot of new emergent behavior and content even after the core story is "completed" in Episode 1.

 

@smack

Thank you!

I hope it's what you said.

The thing I liked about UO was that it took the old D&amp;D alignment system and unlocked it.


What I'm not sure about is: Why wouldn't the leader of the thieves guild (NPC) talk to a Lawful Good character? You can't tell someones alignment by looking at them. As a game mechanic though I think all NPCs should have the ability to detect alignment.

A lawful character should never be part of the thieves guild and a thief should probably not be a Paladin.

 

@smack

I like your ideas.

I just don't want a system where

1) "be good and all things will come to you" Because that just ends up being a grind. There's no choice, being "good" is the is the only right answer. (even it there's a temporary setback like losing a few coins)
2) You're in any way encouraged to be evil. No player should be evil. People say "you could do anything you want in ultima IV including killing people". That's only partially true. Because you also would be blocked from progressing and could never finish the game doing that.

The only way to avoid either of these outcomes is to make things choices. Like the ultima IV questions I keep coming back to. "Do you forgive the guy who stole bread to feed his starving family". +compassion, - justice

 

@PrimeRib

The Paradox of the Avatar aspect should certainly be there, but I think evil should also be there in the form of temptation. You can do something evil, and possibly get some sort of immediate benefit from it, but it's going to hit your virtue which will cause trouble in the long term, THEN you have to grind to fix it. But if you don't do evil things in the first place, then yes, I agree "grinding virtue" seems wrong.

 

@Acrylic 300: Yeah, I don't know how NPC reactions will be handled. Perhaps there will be something in the lore that says the people of this world are affected by virtues subconsciously in some way. Heck perhaps the plants and animals and MOBs etc all are. But yeah, a game mechanic that NPCs also can use to discover this is a good solution if not lore-based. Perhaps some NPCs will talk to you, maybe others won't.

If darkness provides evil with more power and make them more active, and that is true for the in-game lore with NPCs and MOBs, I will even support their decision if they say PCs also benefit from the day/night cycle accordingly.

@PrimeRib, @Hai-Etilk Dragon: Excellent points. I love complex decisions and outcomes, not just obvious binary ones. It makes choices that much more meaningful.

Without knowing more about the story, yeah, it is hard to predict if story progression is blocked in any way due to your decisions. Ultima IV was in that respect one-sided, you couldn't really "win" the game unless you attained avatarhood. Perhaps SotA may be the same, but I'll be just as happy if Richard and Tracy say that evil triumphs over good as well