PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Garris Shrike on February 13, 2007, 11:53:52 pm
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Hi, I have a OOC question concerning the factions and such. First off, what are they, how do they work, what are they going to do? Are they like guilds, or are they separate? I would like to know, so thanks to anyone who can answer it. Any ideas on em might help too. :thumbup:
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Coming from other games factions are usually just the opinions of groups of NPCs about your character.
Simply put, if you help them advance their ideas etc.. they like you and will give you greater acceptance with their group. \\o//
On the other hand if you harm them it is usually an uphill battle to win back that trust or respect they had for you. :@#\
I am not sure how it works here but that is just my past gaming exp in a nutshell. ;)
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Umpapa is close, but there are going to be some slight differences.
What differences are those?
You'll find out in the coming weeks! So stay tuned, and thanks for your interest.
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Check this post by Karyuu:
http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=21038.msg295540#msg295540
I'm thinking the Factions may be less like WoW and more like Oblivion. Your actions will affect NPC behaviors towards you, and it won't be as sculpted in stone as it is in WoW - not something you choose at character creation once and forever, but instead malleable through in-game actions.
Not very detailed though.
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Sure it is. Just greeting an NPC could probably raise your reputation with that "faction."
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Not really. Quests is a more likely path. Anyway, there weren't specific examples given, so it's not very detailed, hence, no point to speculate. ;)
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I wonder if having a very positive reputation to Amidison Stronghand for example, will guarantee a character opportunity to benefit from the government and to influence it(With the aid of some "donations" of trias to Vigesimi as well perhaps :devil: ).
Also I hope this system will also influence the future "tribes system".
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hmmm well if it's going to work with quests we will have to get a few more "choice"quests where you have to chose how you will finish it ;)
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Not really. Quests is a more likely path. Anyway, there weren't specific examples given, so it's not very detailed, hence, no point to speculate. ;)
Well, saying hi to your neighbor when they first move in instead of just ignoring them is a good way to become friends with them. =P
Same with factions. You can start the quest unless you at least say hi and get to know them. After all, how else would they trust you to complete their task?
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hmmm well if it's going to work with quests we will have to get a few more "choice"quests where you have to chose how you will finish it ;)
Some already exist. As we said, stay tuned. :)
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Well, saying hi to your neighbor when they first move in instead of just ignoring them is a good way to become friends with them. =P
Same with factions. You can start the quest unless you at least say hi and get to know them. After all, how else would they trust you to complete their task?
Just saying "hi" to a stranger doesn't mean you will become friends with them or that they suddenly trust you. That's just being polite. Getting to know someone involves more than a simple "hi". ;)
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Not really. Quests is a more likely path. Anyway, there weren't specific examples given, so it's not very detailed, hence, no point to speculate. ;)
Well, saying hi to your neighbor when they first move in instead of just ignoring them is a good way to become friends with them. =P
Same with factions. You can start the quest unless you at least say hi and get to know them. After all, how else would they trust you to complete their task?
The people of Yliakum are very trusting :P
"You have quest???"
"Okay, don't tell any random strangers because this could get me fired, but I think my boss is a demon. Could you kill him for me? Thanks."
Probably owing to the psychological environment of only being able to attack someone if they 'accept' it :P
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Sweet. So factions are mainly involving NPCs. i was thinking they might be some sort of guild or such, so I am glad i was wrong there.
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Well that is the first implementation that comes to mind, but combined with the tribessystem it might become more ;)
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I currently have "Guards 5" under my faction tab... and others who have apparently done some winch-related quests don't seem to have this.
At first I figured this was the number of winch-related quests I'd done... but now I'm just confused.
Can anyone shed any light on this?
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At first I figured this was the number of winch-related quests I'd done... but now I'm just confused.
Its not ;)
Some quests seem to give faction points and some dont. Ive done loads of the prerequisite winch quests and only managed to earn some faction points when doing a random quest last night.
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You should always get a system message when you finish a quest that will tell you if you get an increase or decrease of a faction other then by that no one can tell you how you got the one you got.
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I already have Laanx and Xacha faction points. They just appear with certain quests .. usually quests that involve helping said faction :P
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Hold up there... you get -told- if your faction goes up or down, and you have a little number telling you what your faction rank is?
/me shakes his head in a very disappointed way. The following is why:
"Hey, you do the Shining Tree quest yet?"
"No, I have to raise my faction status with the City Gardeners from 5 to 7. And my Facton is too high with the Treecutters, so that has to come down."
"That sucks."
"Ya, I am going to ask around to see who knows how to get to 7."
random noob shout "how do I get to level 10 guards? help plz!!!"
Add Power-factioning to the list.
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Hold up there... you get -told- if your faction goes up or down, and you have a little number telling you what your faction rank is?
What the? Even in Deus Ex(that isn't a 100% RPG) there was no way you could know beforehand that if you did *spoiler* you would become in bad terms with NPC(s) *spoiler* and in good terms with NPC(s) *spoiler*
Really, that is a bad idea
Add Power-factioning to the list.
For a game that should focus on roleplay.
It comes again to the old and beaten phrase:
Testers first, Roleplayers(and players) second
What's next? A quest you need to have level 70 in sword to be able to complete?
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What's next? A quest you need to have level 70 in sword to be able to complete?
Are you suggesting it's odd to have a quest require a certain amount of skill for doing a task?
You're not told beforehand what faction statuses will change. It happens after you finish a quest.
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What's next? A quest you need to have level 70 in sword to be able to complete?
Are you suggesting it's odd to have a quest require a certain amount of skill for doing a task?
Not exactly, just that under the current game engine( :beta: ) it will encourage powerlevelling.
You're not told beforehand what faction statuses will change. It happens after you finish a quest.
Still it would be much better if the message was more subtler and using a less accurate and relative measure than numbers, like for example "slightly better" for the change and "neutral" for the rating as default instead of "0", and perhaps all of this would be better if it was only reflected on the way NPCs from a certain faction treat you(The more hostile the tone of a NPC, the more the NPC's faction dislike you and vice-versa).
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I think none of our quests right now (nor will they ever) require high stats or skills when you cannot gain them in a way that would not be OOC. So basically if a quest requires a high fighting skill, that is because it is asking for a fighter - and if you roleplay a simple poet, the quest is not aimed at your character. However the number of such quests, again, is incredibly low as far as I know. As more skills and more opportunities for various methods of training are presented, they will all be used in quests. Xillix sees quest material in everything :]
I really like the suggestion for a word-description of your faction status, too. I'm hoping Xillix will see this - and if not, I will pass it along.
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Faction huh? sort of like horde and alliance in WoW or what? I volunteer the faction of pimps and wenches...
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More like in Oblivion. Various NPC groups are in factions - Laanx/Talad priests, guards, etc. Depending on what quests you do and how you do them, your relationship with these factions will change. And in the future, this will have all sorts of consequences - for example having a high score with a merchant faction may get you discounts, a low score in the guard faction will make guards more suspicious of you, and the like.
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As about skill dependent quest. It's not really good idea. This goes against supporting different solutions and endings for the same quest.
Let's say there i ulbernaut said to be terryfieng a village.
You go to guard and say you can deal with the problem.
Guard: you don't have high enough skills
I do have _proper_ skills and i can solve your problem.
No, you can't, you need skill.
I don't need skills you think i need.
No, you can't, you need skill.
Even though to solve the problem you don't have to slay the creature, or you are smart enough to do it in a way guard isn't expecting, you can't get the quest.
If this happens, people will powerlevel more, because they will be training like crazy skills, they don't normally need, but wich are needed by the guard script. Even though they don't use the skill, they will train it, while they could do something more constructive.
As about points in factions... I gues it's somewhat good. Can't say much good or bad about it, since this is completly new to me.
I wonder though... if you are completing quests by GMs, can they give you faction points? I so much more like these quests, not only because there is no this dump problem with understanding, but because i like to work in group, while NPC quest don't support accepting the quest by a group.
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Nikodemus: I don't think we will ever have quests demand skill levels like that. You've explained well why that's a bad choice and I believe our Settings team would agree. The right way to do it (and they way we do it now) is to simply assign a task and leave it up to the character to figure out how to do it. For example if you're asked for Ulber hearts but you can't scratch a single mark on them, you can obviously try to buy them from others.
LR said "level 70 in sword to be able to complete" a quest, you explained it as "level 70 in sword to be able to receive a quest" - but in the end it's the same thing, a system we don't want to use. So no worries.
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I have no pity for those who fear powerfactioning; :D none at all. One can hardly get more realistic than people vying for supremacy with various groups it occurs in life every day. The factions are another means of drawing players into quests which are a big way to learn more about the history of the game and the relationships of the npcs to one another. We show the #'s yes it is and OOC factiod so a player may have greater understanding of their character's integration into the world. Quests are now being generated (largely by jeraphon) that encompass many options for how you resolve it, this is just a system of consequences and rewards for those choices. Again the fact that you can see faction and the faction of other players etc. should only be thought of as a general reputation about a person. Much like descriptions which many of you also dislike.
Numbers for faction are not the most aesthetic choice and we can discuss that although the engine deals more readily with them and there is less room for confusion.
Gone are the days of features being added and neglected by the settings team, this system is being integrated as quickly as possible.
Factions will eventually be what most of you expect they will be.
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You are right Xillix but I think what UtM frowns upon is the matter it is handled in. OOC numbers are too tempting to use when your characters are talking. That's why I'd also prefer to see the following ..
Factions:
Diaboli: "You are held in very high esteem by this race. Most Diaboli enjoy your presence more than that of a fine glass of wine and some beautiful company."
Laanx: "It's a surprise that you can get by for a day without being struck down by lightning. Laanx must be waiting for you to die so he can shred your soul to pieces."
...
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sure as i said, the nomenclature can be discussed with the engine folks in time.
I doubt however any system will be enjoyed by every player :D
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Words instead of numbers sounds like a better idea. Like in WoW you get reputations like hated, revered, honoured and so on (in addition to the numbers). I like to think it wouldnt be these words in PS but more like Despised, disliked, untrusted, indifferent, liked, favoured, trusted and Highly regarded. Makes them sound a little more realistic than the WoW versions. And it would stop people knowing exactly how many points they would need to 'level up' than in WoW, also stops them asking about the levels in open chat.
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I've seen some "numberless systems" work to great effect (including in your levels for skills and stats) but there will always be people who will try to convert those to numbers and still play a numbers game. I'm not saying it's a bad idea to make them words, and it would make the numbers make more sense besides. If people want to play quests as acquiring numbers, not as roleplaying choices according to personal ethics or preferences, there's no true way to stop them. It's just a lot more FUN to do it the latter way. I think so, anyway. :)
Let's also keep in mind that factions are extremely new. And as xillix said, we're not going to neglect this feature, and I think it'll add an extra dimension to a player's characterization if you let it. So give it some time.
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Of course, it's always the player's choice and noone can stop them from guessing the numbers. However, I'd also go for the faction representation in words, when the feature gets implemented.
I like it very much how Zan put it:
Factions:
Diaboli: "You are held in very high esteem by this race. Most Diaboli enjoy your presence more than that of a fine glass of wine and some beautiful company."
Laanx: "It's a surprise that you can get by for a day without being struck down by lightning. Laanx must be waiting for you to die so he can shred your soul to pieces."
...
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Uhm. Thing is, people can powerlevel in a game like world of warcraft because it has so many options for armor and weapons and thousands of quests, different outcomes and tons of different mobs. No offense but since this game is so new and the main mob is a rogue and we have so limited armor and weapons, doing this so soon would not be as better as doing it later on when the settings and all the equipment and quests are figured out.
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Uhm. Thing is, people can powerlevel in a game like world of warcraft because it has so many options for armor and weapons and thousands of quests, different outcomes and tons of different mobs. No offense but since this game is so new and the main mob is a rogue and we have so limited armor and weapons, doing this so soon would not be as better as doing it later on when the settings and all the equipment and quests are figured out.
Do you actually think that this game is being designed to enhance peoples abilities to powerlevel? If so I think you should re-read this thread and re-assess what this game is about (for most of us.)
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By power-factioning/leveling, I mean the race against numbers as it becomes visible to other players.
If someone has no help from readily visible numbers, and is to say, "My skill in sword is low, and I have need to increase it. Can you tell me who may help me." That is good.
But, with numbers in your face -all- the time, I hear this more often than not, "What trainer goes above level 20 in sword?"
I fear to see the same thing in factions with NPCs as well. And I am not suggesting using words instead of numbers to tell you your standing with an NPC faction. I am suggesting you see -nothing-. No numbers, no "You are in good standing with the guards", no bar graph telling you what groups like or dislike you. Nothing. Make factions a completely hidden system.
Instead, how about you just -talk- to the NPCs (once you can talk to them, that is). Your standing with them would be obvious by how they respond to you. At worst, you could walk up to an NPC and ask, "What do you think of me?"
NPC looks you up and down slowly...
As for power leveling, I have said before I have no problem with it, and will likely do it myself if leveling ever becomes fun, and more RP-able. But I am against the high visibility it has, and the mood it brings. Despite what many people think, the game could be done almost entirely without easily visible stat/training/faction numbers.
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I know I'm making some excess of references to Deus ex but...
In that game skills were measured as "Untrained" , "Trained", "Advanced" and "Master" instead of using numbers. In my opinion it's much more appropriate for keeping things IC to know that your character is "trained" is a certain skill than to know that your character is level x in a certain skill. EXP, Spawnable Mobs, all of these elements are commonplace in MMO(RP?)Gs as well(Kill a mob with a dagger to improve your ranged weapons skill, etc.)
It is time to think whether Planeshift will follow with the tried and tested stuff of the genre or innovate to create systems of character's skill improvement that are more appropriate for roleplaying than for powerlevelling and more realistic than "kill rogue to get PPs to then train crafting".
I am one who would be glad to see EXP and PPs completely removed from the game, leaving it only with the need of finding the teachers("trainers") for learning skills and the practicing period to level them(In this way, you would have to craft to improve crafting, to use daggers to improve daggers skill instead of the old "kill mob 1000x and...")
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no, what I was saying was for people who want to powerlevel.
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There is this wonderful game you should try. Its called Runescape.
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There is this wonderful game you should try. Its called Runescape.
First, I would advise to have this site ready to translate the exotic languages used by the "1337 d00dZ" that play it:
http://home.no.net/hellshl/main/translate.html (http://home.no.net/hellshl/main/translate.html)
And it's not Runescape, it is called:
Run35c4p3
or(in the worst cases):
|2|_||\|3$(@|*3
Really "wondeful"...
I hope PS will have a realistic character development system that is tailored to roleplaying instead of powerlevelling soontm
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Yesterday, I completed two quests which stated that my faction with certain groups has increased, yet none of the values changed when looking over the stats. One concerned an increase with Klyros, which doesn't even appear in my listing. Are the factions values active? Or is the increase so subtle that an increase would not be obvious. Finally, has credit been given for tasks completed prior to the appearance of the factions tab. Thanks
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I had the same some days ago. The next time I logged on, I could see it.
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Faction points always only appear after logging back in. They will appear the next time you do so. For your second questions ... no, quests or tasks you did before they got their faction reward coded in aren't included in your factions. The best thing you can do is retake the quest and complete it again to get your reward this time. I'm not sure if all quests have their appropriate faction rewards coded in already.
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I do not think it really matters much if you can see the numbers or not because ultimately they are there. Even if you were to increment alphabetically, e.g. aaa, aab aac, etc. these can be mapped to an ordinal system and you are back to numbers. You could make it so it was completely invisible to the player but then people might do things their character would not knowingly do, for example anger a faction they seek to impress.
OT: As far as skill ranking goes, I think there should be some kind of system to identify the levels which a specific trainer can train, perhaps something like the belt system in martial arts so that the first trainer will train you for your white belt and then tell you to seek out a yellow belt instructor. People only use numbers because there is no other easy way to ask for a particular trainer. Instead of asking for specific level of skill they could ask for rank of trainer.
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The bug that faction points are only visible after logging in again, is already fixed the CVS code, so that should work in the next release.
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OT: As far as skill ranking goes, I think there should be some kind of system to identify the levels which a specific trainer can train, perhaps something like the belt system in martial arts so that the first trainer will train you for your white belt and then tell you to seek out a yellow belt instructor.
Most NPC trainers (but not all) have the ability to tell you (without using numbers) what levels of what skills they can train, if you ask them what they train. So as far as skill ranking goes, I think it's just about already there.
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Well, I like the faction idea and it has at least done one positive thing for me so far: got me doing quests with pleasure. I so hate having to do quests to enter the Winch, but doing quests for merchants to get their favor, now that's something good.
Now it's just a question of seeing it's effects implemented. Nonetheless, good job so far with it!
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I know this is an old thread .. but it seems like the best place to put this question ...
Just curious .. How will the new faction system deal with conflicting faction points ?
If you have +50 in good and +50 in evil .. are you seen as good, evil, neutral, both good and evil?
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hello
me i am not a "dev" but i think i can answer you stay in mind this : ps can be a lot of thing for a lot of people but it is still a "stupid softwar" and the "faction system" is another part of the "stupid softwar" !
If i understand your "faction" in something when the systyem implemente the faction let you or not let you make something !
for exemple one quest can be opened only if you have +50 in "good" only because of this
and if you have +50 in "evil" another quest can be opened somewhere else i never hear about "faction play whit other faction" !
But yes it is still intersting to ask "if i have +50 in "good" and +50 in "evil" what hapened ?
But i think the dev have never thinking the faction system like a place where the "evil" stop the "good"!
This is how i see the faction system and "how" i uinderstand it (and i hope to not make to mutch mistack )
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If its a problem then I would also wonder if a faction wipe is being planned ?