1
Conduct & Design Discussion / Re: Activity & Activity Buildings
« on: October 21, 2017, 01:10:24 AM »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.