Activity & Activity Buildings

[Andrew]

So, it occurred to me that I could load the buildings in now, before all the code that will be attached to them, for the activity-centric structures.

This will be things like Jousting Grounds, Solo Match Rings, Free for All ranges, etc., but I'm kind of on the fence about how I want to implement them.

They will have buildings associated, at least for the major ones--jousting grounds are drastically different setups than say, a fencing hall.

But I'd also like to know what activities you'd like to see added, so please, share your ideas here. Both on what the activity is, how it'd work, and what building(s) you'd need for it.

Oh, feel free to discuss what skills you think would affect everything as well.

[willy]

I like the idea of a few buildings/tools for mock battles and duels. The more people have to do during peace (or as knights), the better. Especially if it promotes visiting neighbors and interacting.

Are 'skills' being created for characters? I wouldn't mind the glory/battles/capture records being used, that might be a neat thing to tweak/integrate, but I grew tired of the "farm such-and-such skill" you see in Battlemaster and everything else. Human soldier proxies for duels would work, too. Get a mini-game of cock-fights/human-pokemons.

[Andrew]

Hoenstly, I was hoping for more feedback on this.

I was planning something similar to BM's implementation in my head, or atleast something similar to how the Elder Scrolls games function. That being, the more you do something, the better you get at it. I was planning on having some delayed, slow degradation of skills as well.

I also want to factor in different strategies though, especially for things like one on one combat, with a bit of luck being thrown in just to mix things up.

I hadn't thought about having mortals fight in a tournament though. Something worth considering.

[cred]

 I like the idea of an Elder Scrolls type of progression.

As for skills, all I can think of is mostly concerning movement on the map, sight radius, administrating or taking over settlements, speeding up training if you are in a settlement,  or maybe a skill that will make soldiers consume less food or be less inclined to desert if supplies run low.

[willy]

Skills developing as you use them does sound neat. Just implementing the traits to have an impact would tickle my fancy, even if they were static/flat. Maybe making traits into skills that you can build would be a neat combo. Letting skills/traits naturally build with use until you have a leviathan W/W FO or levee master R/R. Maybe a nice secret bonus for roleplay traits. Might be harder to balance but would be interesting.


As far as tournament/dueling/jousting grounds, I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask what mini-game you want to introduce. I think letting people show off their best human warrior would be neat, a kind of 'game of swag units'...help build npc's with interesting backgrounds, maybe find a way to give access to histories. I'm not fond of the Battlemaster style skill investment for tournament/duels. I'd rather duels between player characters be pure rock/paper/scissors (or some other even match between players) than the same time/effort route to supremacy. I have thoughts about combining dungeons and tournaments. Make FO teams and the monsters are humans. It's an idle thought I haven't fleshed out, but there's something there.

[Andrew]

I've toyed with the concept of using the dungeon skills outside of dungeons, in some type of special tournament or melee. It'd give people more incentive to go into the dungeons, if they could get some fame from them other than just saying they tackled a dungeon.

I'd like to add more differentiation to dungeon characters as well, perhaps by adding classes, or if we add skills by having skills unlock when your character gets to a certain level of progression. Something to let people specialize.

[De-Legro]

As I have said before I am against skills and skilling up. Last thing I want to see is characters doing silly thinhs to game the progression system or have the rich hang around training all the time like in BM. Skills to my mind belong in single player games

[The Vintroth]

The game should be, in my opinion, focused on character relations. Skills would, I expect, only lead to attempts at min-maxing First Ones. It is as De-Legro rightfully points out, people would simply game the system and do silly things if allowed if it gave them any kind of advantage. So while I admit specialization, progression and skills sounds nice in theory, I believe it would be a larger mistake in the long run. However, if they're only for dungeons, I don't mind. Largely because I haven't touched a dungeon since year 10 in game.

Furthermore, if skills, as was suggested earlier improve with use. Players who have played for longer will have an even larger advantage than they already do. It would help for history, culture etc in game to be more continuous, which I believe is good. Yet, I can't help but feel it is the wrong way to go about it.

[Cipheron]

The game should be, in my opinion, focused on character relations. Skills would, I expect, only lead to attempts at min-maxing First Ones. It is as De-Legro rightfully points out, people would simply game the system and do silly things if allowed if it gave them any kind of advantage. So while I admit specialization, progression and skills sounds nice in theory, I believe it would be a larger mistake in the long run. However, if they're only for dungeons, I don't mind. Largely because I haven't touched a dungeon since year 10 in game.

Furthermore, if skills, as was suggested earlier improve with use. Players who have played for longer will have an even larger advantage than they already do. It would help for history, culture etc in game to be more continuous, which I believe is good. Yet, I can't help but feel it is the wrong way to go about it.

Hey guys. Yeah, I have a few thoughts on that.

One thing is the random nature of the current traits. If implemented as-is then people could min-max by just spamming ancestors and cross-breeding. Which is sort of grindy and boring. As a general design rule, the optimal way of doing things should also be the fun way of doing things. You can get a lot of mileage out of merely aligning what is the most efficient or powerful way of doing something, with whatever other design goals you have.

One good thing about traits is that getting access to new traits could become a carrot-and-stick approach to encouraging players to intermarry more. e.g. make it so you can pick traits instead of having them chosen at random. This will eliminate any possible character creation grind for "ideal" traits. And also limit each account to only a few available traits, while saying you need to intermarry to get other ones. Allowing the creation of children to choose wanted traits would make that more reliable and attractive as an option. This would be a better way to organize the existing traits system, even if it remains a flavor-only thing.

[willy]

One good thing about traits is that getting access to new traits could become a carrot-and-stick approach to encouraging players to intermarry more.

Letting people choose traits would be a quick way to balance it but I feel like it takes some of the proceduraly generated "neato" factor away. I think random traits are still enough carrot to intermarry on it's own...the how/why of genetics just needs a bit of work. Maybe a bit of both random chance and choice, let people choose a few 'dominant' traits for their account (that pop up at a higher rate). The stick would be useful to curb abuse (at least quickly). Something like "Oh, you're into the 20th character this IG year by killing/creating characters...your bloodline is now weak and only has one trait rather than that double duelist character you pushed for". Any advantage will be optimized by some, just make them do it over time. Then you can just call it FO-husbandry by the gods(players) and it's a mini-game.


As long as the traits aren't too powerful it won't be incentive for min-maxing to me. Say, a warrior trait is only the equivalent of 1.2k experience for the character rather than the 1k base xp. Fairly marginal but still desirable. I'm more worried about people becoming overly attached to their killable characters based soley on "oh, a good roll that I'll get salty over losing"... rather than being attached to characters because they've built a story they don't want to end.