The need for Feudalism

[Original]

How is it abusable? Would the 1 vassal per IP not solve any potential abuse?

Proxy and then use alts to feed a main.

Tie it in with the EXP system as well then. You can't just camp curios like that anymore as well. You need to walk around and discover things and adventure.

And if someone sets up multiple proxies and create multiple bots to wander the world to discover EXP while mass producing curios for them to consume, maybe they would deserve that 10% boost...

But if you had an ingame tree/vassalization leaderboard I'm sure you could easily guess who had the horde of alts.

[TeckXKnight]

Lots of curios are pretty easy to gather in huge bulk. You don't need each alt to be super effective if the sum of their life is gaining lp to feed you. Just give them boar tusks, bat wings, and dragonflies. Tie it into the exp system how?

[venatorvenator]

I've suggested something similar before, feudal titles, and they could be applied here as well. Now we have bonds of blood which are really just land titles, passed on to heirs or enemies, and so on. Further instances of claims could be used to improve political interaction, beyond pc and village claims and also including duchy/jarldom claims, made by several villages, with special options for trade etc.

The issue I have with your idea is that loss of vassals must also be punished in order to keep game balance. If the 10% LP tax is a fact, there should also be some % LP loss if the vassal dies. This encourages protection of the vassals and might even make them willingly join a stronger group and pay said tax.

To prevent usage of alts to feed a main an alternative could be that vassals pay in XP and not LP, or that their LP tax goes directly to the lord's pc claim upkeep, or to village authority.

[Cajoes]

Ignoring that what you are describing is more akin to serfdom and that the feudal contract was more about defense from raiders and bandits in exchange for food and support between the farmers/carls and the warrior/thanes/kings for a moment, what if a family playing hafen n hurf together wishes to form their own feudal contract? Would they have to use proxies too?

On that note, what is to stop a press-ganged newblet from just ditching his new vassal-liege and moving a few hundred grids away.

Lastly: I much rather doubt you can incentivize away murder. Sometimes it feels the only reason some hearthlings play is to see the world burn.

[TeckXKnight]

You don't have to disincentivize murder so much as having to incentivize behaviors that protect players from murder. Getting people to band together ultimately leads to safer situations for them. Being in a village is a huge boon and working with other players takes large pressures off of each person so that everyone can be stronger for it. Ultimately a straight tax on players will just lead bigger groups to terrorize other players and force them into the contract because they're now a resource that can be exploited.

[Original]

Ignoring that what you are describing is more akin to serfdom and that the feudal contract was more about defense from raiders and bandits in exchange for food and support between the farmers/carls and the warrior/thanes/kings for a moment, what if a family playing hafen n hurf together wishes to form their own feudal contract? Would they have to use proxies too?

On that note, what is to stop a press-ganged newblet from just ditching his new vassal-liege and moving a few hundred grids away.

Lastly: I much rather doubt you can incentivize away murder. Sometimes it feels the only reason some hearthlings play is to see the world burn.

Going with the theme of permadeath, once you get vassalized, you are stuck with it until you die or your liege dies. Or do some penalty to remove a liege. Like how it costs 30k to buy the ability to murder people. Like, you got your ass beat into submission, you shouldn't just get out of it so easily. Plus you would have potential retribution from a lord because you aren't loyal.

Of course there are going to be the hearthling's that want total destruction. That's part of the game. That's the thing though, you don't have to take incentives. They are simply offered. But there will still be those who seek to vassalize. And I believe that will make the game more flavoured. Forum post about someone killing innocents or other peoples vassals just because. there will be different levels of murder, different types of raids.

For the family I have no idea. I'm sure someone else can figure that out. I'm sure I could figure it out given enough time but I am losing mental ability due to it being late ;l

The naming is loose. I was originally thinking of it being called "thralling" someone...

That actually might be better.

You don't have to disincentivize murder so much as having to incentivize behaviors that protect players from murder

That's exactly what I am proposing. There is no additional penalty for murder, other than the original scents. The incentives are LP gain for thrallers and protection for thrallees.

Getting people to band together ultimately leads to safer situations for them.

Exactly

Ultimately a straight tax on players will just lead bigger groups to terrorize other players and force them into the contract because they're now a resource that can be exploited.

This just in. People are resources that are exploited. Welcome to the real world.

You protect your resources don't you?

That is exactly what I want this game to end up like. Bigger groups already terrorize other players. If you treat them like a resource, then they manage to survive lol.

I want a couple of large groups vying for supremacy. I want everyone to be a part of these groups. There will still be hermits and independents. Even if you get vassalized, you can still get vassals. If you get 10% of 100, you get 10, and if they get 10% of that, they get 1 LP. It ends up at 90 for tier 3, 9 for tier 2 and 1 for tier 1.

So If you manage to unite hundreds of players you are going to get a constant trickle of LP, and rightly so, because you are the motherfucking king. The big ballers should get a bonus for keeping players in the game and keeping jorb's wallet full.

I'm willing to bet dozens of players, right now, would willingly vassalize under Bob Dole to be his actual friend. A 10% tax would be nothing for that tbh.

And you still have renagades and rogues fucking shit up, doing their own things. Only now they get stigmatized in a slightly different way, and it would also enable larger wars.

Imagine this. A super low level vassal of one liege kills another low level vassal of another liege. He could get pissed and kill that low level vassal. His liege gets pissed and kills that liege. That lieges liege gets pissed and kills that liege until the entire thing dissolves into a giant clusterfuck where two entire realms are at odds with each other. All because scrubs did something stupid.

And all during that, because deaths are happening, ties are cut and people become independent again. But because so many people are becoming independent due to people dying there is also infighting as to who is now the strongest of the bunch, leading to cascading civil wars until dominance is once again established.

Or people could realize that things like this could very well happen and take diplomatic approaches in order to quell tensions before they erupt.

[Hervarth]

Why do you guys want to encode in rigid game mechanics things which should be emergent? To me that is the whole fun of Haven!

What there needs to be is plenty of ways for weaker players to be useful to stronger ones. Like making bricks, gathering blueberries, etc. There are already incentives for cooperation, people just sometimes find it more fun to kill each other.... Making someone a slave (/vassal/worker) using game mechanics is just non-fun. My group is essentially (anarcho-)communist, this and other societies should not be discouraged in artificial ways.

More in game options for organizing large groups is always good however, but they shouldn't be tied directly to the character progression, that should be down to social interaction.

[Original]

I don't trust SuperNEET's to social interaction. I trust them to crave LP.

And its barely a rigid game mechanic. That's like saying Kinning someone is rigid. As my previous post explains it leads to a whole bunch of emergent behavior which I think is wildly more interesting than what we have now.

[tableman]

Looking forward for some landlord to obey, come and force me. Simple and great suggestion, hope it will come to live. The sole idea of using real players as slaves (by threatening them) is really cool. And its a legit way of socialisation for hermits.

[An_Infinity_of_War]

Like the idea but can see how it would make the current XP/LP system seem moot later on. It does sound like fun though; forced community via blood & steel is best community.