The Ghost of Christmas Future, II

[LadyV]

I still think my options are a benefit but the points you have made can be directly addressed. Make walls scalable by those with say murder and vandal scents. Only when you possess those scents on you and the perpetrator is inside HF ,or whatever the new system will have, you can then go after the criminal.

Scents would have to be valued and assigned options. Say maybe assualt gives a bonus to ramming walls so its easier.

This adds vitality tot eh scent system while preserving defence for those who do not commit crimes.

[TeckXKnight]

The issue then isn't that the aggressors would be in any danger, it is that they wouldn't be. Invaders break through the walls, destroy your stuff, leave tons of scents, and then leave the character that did it off in the wild to be killed. At no point does the aggressor risk anything, they merely have free reign to destroy as they please.

[Potjeh]

IMO you should be able to do that for theft to a limited extemt, but vandalism should somehow involve leaving a trail to your production center.

[RubyRed]

The items stolen could drop cents to where they have gone as they travel, first one as they are stolen. That way the character and the items can both be hunted down on there own.

[painhertz]

You'll probably hate this because realism but what if you had tiered government system: hedge knight, landed knight, barony, countship, duchy, kingdom (don't actually have to be named like this or at all the structures could be enough if you want to larp democractic states). Every level has their own defensive structure: hedge knight has a camp fire, landed knight has hearthfire, barony has a fortified tower, countship has minor keep and can build minor walls, duchy has a major keep with walls and towers and the kingdom has a full grown castle with better towers and walls. As long as your biggest structure is up and running you cannot be permakilled. You can be rendered unconscious you can be robbed and your character development can be put on hold for a period of time. You declare allegiance to some structure and if you're accepted you're protected by it and at the same time it gains more hitpoints/more damage for the defensive parts. Here's the kicker if your subjects get messed with aka rendered unconscious their property stolen or vandalized then your place loses prestige which lowers defensive bonuses so there is a reason to both want neighbors and to not just add them to your system without actually having to interact with them. The closer you are to the bigger structures the bigger the bonus you get defensively (maybe even include how long it takes for the arson system to ruin your stuff). This would concentrate players would force them to interact peacefully with their neighbors would force them to protect said neighbors.

The lower tier structures make you safer than the big ones say you take 7 days of bed rest (very severe stat/skill penalties) no xp/stat gain etc if you lose campfire/hearthfire and fortified tower but you're still under the influence of a castle but you only lose 6 hours if you get knocked out if you still have your heartfire but of course it's easier to destroy the small ones.

Walls would be climbable, defensive towers would be able to "kill" attackers if the kingdom behind it was strong enough and it wouldn't matter all that much since it wouldn't have to be fair you don't lose months of work you just lose some time for char development (bigger better kingdoms being the death of you would just put you out for longer time). The bigger defensive structures would need to be very expensive but also need mostly low tier materials so your influence could help out with it. How you convince them to help out should be left to the particular kingdom imposed taxes enforced by fear of exclusion, communism, whatever the kingdom and the people in the area decide. Walls would keep out faster means of vandalism: battering rams, catapults whatever but some wall jumper should still be able to set fire to your house and it slowly burns away. Repair costs should be the reason why you would care to bring in a ram or catapult or whatever.

Stealing natural resources, harvesting not your fields etc should still be possible but it would need more time if done against a bigger/better kingdom (you declare your intention in some way then you wait until you can actually do it). Stealing already harvested resources / high value items should be the preferred action of a criminal (remember legal wall jumps) and the removal of teleportation shennigans outside roads would take care of carting away entire bases worth of resource. As for how to handle dumping on the ground of all containers maybe way longer despawn times of items coupled with some sort of gather all crap on ground interface option and maybe a trash pile structure with basically infinite inventory if you want to get rid of stuff (would maybe have arson length timers as well as dumping stuff on the ground but you wouldn't have to see the stuff).

Kingdom size should also boost bonuses since it would be easier to just build a high population fortified stacked area and ignore or drive out other neighbors otherwise.

Ranging would be possible and encouraged just wall jump the perpetrator and put him out to pasture for a while. His kingdom will take a prestige hit and everyone is happy until they come for you or your peasants then you keep going back and forth.

Would this remove permadeath practically? Yes I guess so but I don't think it's such a huge loss I mean we haven't had it since forever due to alts let's not pretend we're actually losing something that we had.

+1

[painhertz]

I have no answers to any of these issues but i just want to say I love that actual, good ideas are being passed about for change.

[Avu]

Only 2 people mentioned my post in 2 pages in a half even though it would solve the whole
-walls not being essential while still remaining valuable and desirable
-can't steal anything without risking months/years of character developement or I can murder any noob hermit but since I'm behind a vault nobody can touch me duality we have now
-vandals dropping everything to the ground (as an added incentive the more scents one has the longer bed rest the char gets when he is eventually killed)
-gives flexibility to the arson/building destruction system; my kingdom ram prestige bonus versus your defensive structure prestige to determine how much damage you have to repair and how much time it takes for a broken down structure to poof
-makes you want neighbours both for bonuses and they wanting to be part of something bigger than their only hut without having actually to move inside the town, they would want to help out with resources the civilization center so they get eventually their own tower/walls or just to keep their "death" timers low strong kingdom strong citizens and all that and of course interaction would breed more trade between the capital and the people it's only natural
-stealing peasants carrots should be a tiny hit against a kingdom prestige but punishing a criminal that kills a peasant should take the perp out for a lot longer time than just taking out a warrior (warriors obviously keep their hearthfire in the castle) and punishing that said warrior should bring the oposing kingdom a big prestige bonus
-conflict is encouraged and is not binary heck it's even quantified you can claim wins without the whole we murdered 10 alts/naah we have 100 more alts you did nothing, we get now

[burgingham]

stuff

I like the ideas and feel they could actually work and be fun, but it just seems like a completely different game.

That's my feeling about your post too, avu. At least the whole feudal hierarchy part of it. Not sure Loftar and Jorb want such a tightly fit role system for our characters.

I for one, like the idea of a vault. I like that people try to protect their stuff in something further then a village. Also that if you come by an active vault you know its worth breaking into. I think the problem with 'vaults' is that it is fairly easy to make a vault unraidable. Not unraidable by using a glitch but unraidable in the sense that if you log on once every day you can stop the raid. If we could find a fix for these issues of making 'legit' unraidable bases then I think vaults would be a nice thing for the game.

tl;dr don't ruin vaults find ways to make vaults less effective.

Also making walls useless would effect villages more then vaults.

The smaller the base, the easier it should be to raid.* Vaults turn that principle upside down. Now something like secret stashes hidden within the landscape - under a rock or whatever - are a whole other topic. Not much actual security in the form of walls, but with the benefit of being hard to find.

*That is a bit of an over simplification. A gigantic base with nobody actually living in it to protect it should of course be rather easy to break into as well.

*rant*
I dunno. I guess that's my rant.

Maybe something like melting down armor back into metal would do the trick here. Though I am not sure the missing incentive to kill someone is really a problem in Haven. People still kill, with no incentive. That's the real issue we tried to address before.

Interesting that much of the discussion circles around "bad habbit" socialisation and not about "positive habbits" socialisation which has it's reason probably in the lack of govermental (-management) functions. We don't even have functions that would make "society building" possible, that's why we circle about "war game" issues but not talk about what's needed in an MMO like this.

Atm it's up to individuals to try "society building", but we all know how that goes and that those that tried on a bigger scale failed or got somewhat annoyed by their people that don't get the intention or just don't care. Sadly enough even factions like AD or DIS seem mainly halted on the invader status and didn't develop further. (i.e. Vikings / Britain / Normandie)

If we had tools for "society building" (you may call it nation building if you like) that even allows us to go further than Lawspeaker and Chief, discussions about how hard it is to build walls and secure them would go *poof*. (i.e. vassalage / jarl/ eastfrisian or germanic headmans /Fír flathemon /frisian consulate constitution)

That might incentivise living in societies. What about those outside though that try to just destroy everything in their way? You cannot really incentivise them to stop that with positive reinforcement. Maybe that problem would solve itself though if there were actually "peaceful" superpowers again, hunting small groups of bandits down to keep their lands save.

[jorb]

Also, never suggest that the limiting factor for being able to utterly destroy a village just be resources. Cost never scales well. What seems expensive to a lone hermit is pitifully cheap to an advanced group. If you make it so woefully expensive that even massive end-game organizations struggle to afford it, no one else will ever be able to. Cost should only ever be there to limit excessive use, engage in realism or immersion, or to guide the player to understanding the game better.

I commend you for this wonderful observation, sir. I agree completely.

[LadyV]

Also, never suggest that the limiting factor for being able to utterly destroy a village just be resources. Cost never scales well. What seems expensive to a lone hermit is pitifully cheap to an advanced group. If you make it so woefully expensive that even massive end-game organizations struggle to afford it, no one else will ever be able to. Cost should only ever be there to limit excessive use, engage in realism or immersion, or to guide the player to understanding the game better.

Teck since we are talking about walls would you like to clarify this since jorb brought it back up? I fully agree resources should not be the limiting factor. But as your end sentence states about excessive use they are everywhere. That's the point!

Walls in themselves are a very strong deterrent. It creates a defence a single player and many smaller groups can not breech. Walls should exist but such value should be greatly limited to the very determined and very powerful. ie. large villages or groups working a lot of over a long time.

As for being so expensive that no one would use them...really? You know as well as I do they will still get built. They will just get built by fewer people. And honestly Im ok with that. If some large or powerful group can muster the resources for a vastly increased cost and time commitment by all means let them have their wall.

Walls need to be rare. Can you think of any other way to solve that? I've put forth a few and so have others. I dont think the wall is the enemy so much as its easy availability. Completely removing them also hurts the game by punishing those who can assemble them. I think they just need balanced even if in minor ways.