Factions (What are they? How do they Work?)

[Idoru]

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.

[Jeraphon]

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.

[Ralleyon]

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."

...

[Volund]

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.

[Idoru]

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.)

[Under the moon]

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.

[lordraleigh]

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...")

[Volund]

no, what I was saying was for people who want to powerlevel.

[Parallo]

There is this wonderful game you should try. Its called Runescape.

[lordraleigh]

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

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 soon^tm

[Fyre]

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

[Myriel]

I had the same some days ago. The next time I logged on, I could see it.

[Zan]

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.

[bilbous]

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.

[Lanarel]

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.