Life is Feudal Official Forum

[Jezbelle]

If you've read my previous post, you know that i've been toying with how to make 'politics' a more robust part of the end-game. This is simply a way to implement that into the game mechanics. Please be open minded and read it all the way through before coming to conclusions.

For those few that want to rule (lead a kingdom)....

We could consider adding a new skill line under "peaceful professions" called 'Ruling'. Both "Landlord" and "Politician" could be two different skills within the tree. This would make being a politician/ruler an actual end-game play-style. Additional skills could be "strategy" and "subversion". The "king" would obviously have to sacrifice his "common profession" in order to learn this more exclusive one. I do think this is appropriate in terms of realism too.


Example abilities a king/highly ranked official could garner from this new tree could be:

1) (strategy) If you (the king) are present during a fight, surrounding guild members receive a combat bonus. There could even be lesser bonuses for nearby slightly lower-ranked officials.
2) (landlord) The more land you (the king) personally own in your kingdom, you receive an increase to your "luck" bonus.
3) (politician) The more subjects you control in your kingdom, you receive an increase to your "luck" bonus.
4) (subversion) For the "secret puppeteer" ruler. Your rank is not revealed to other guild members, unless they outrank you.

[Telakh]

*notes down the promice not to read "great idea" posts*

Frankly speaking, most of the professions you suggest are rather pointless.
1. Leadership skill provides bonuces in combat and there is no real need for another AOE buff skill. It rather makes sence to have bonuces based on the unit count rather than on some virtual skill.

2. I think your understanding of luck is incorrect. Yet, not speaking about it, any skill bonus from land size will result in creation of a twink character who would own the land instead and receive the bonus, not influencing the primary character skillcap. Anyway, I can't see how landlord skill level correlates with land size. You suggest to get bonus from from skill level multiplied by the land size?

3. The more subjects you have - the better your defence and economy is, no need for some private bonus. It would make every player to attempt to form his own guild in order to get the bonus and thus will result in many tiny guilds instead of powerful kingdoms. Again, how does the skill level correlate with unit count?

4. Whats the point of hiding your rank in the guild? All decisions are made verbal in VoiceIP and OOC, there is no way you can link a man's roleplay rank to his influence inside the guild.

Please take more time to think of your suggestions' griefing possibilities. And posting headers like "the best suggestion ever" is a bad manner. I may be subjective yet I don't see a diamond here.

[Saxxon]

Leaders naturally rise to the top of any social group as they aspire to lead. No artificial skill will help you to lead players.

Earning players respect and trust and good communication will allow players to be leaders.

As in the real world there will be betrayals, treachery and debauchery surrounding power struggles.

No game mechanic can fill in for the good old human characteristics such as honor, loyalty, deception and betrayal.

Players will earn their place in the history of the game.

[Jezbelle]

Telakh, first of all, please step off your high horse for a minute.

If you didn't think these ideas were formidable to begin with, you wouldn't even have bothered to post, in my opinion.

1. Leadership skill provides bonuces in combat and there is no real need for another AOE buff skill. It rather makes sence to have bonuces based on the unit count rather than on some virtual skill.

I'm not sure what you mean, so this skill already exists? Anyways, this AOE buff is fun, it adds an element of like "protect the king!". A morale boost when the king is on the field. (Ever watch GOT? or any other fantasy book/movie).

2. I think your understanding of luck is incorrect. Yet, not speaking about it, any skill bonus from land size will result in creation of a twink character who would own the land instead and receive the bonus, not influencing the primary character skillcap. Anyway, I can't see how landlord skill level correlates with land size. You suggest to get bonus from from skill level multiplied by the land size?

Luck was only an example, and i'm not a math guy. But what I can tell you with certainty is that the king (and other high ranks) should receive rewards for the better their kingdom does. If you've read my previous post, you'll understand why (because there's no end-game, and many players won't be motivated to continue to play for years after they have all the best armor). Yet, you can infinitely try to obtain more land/subjects without actually getting it all, and if it scaled with your character's stat(s), players would stay on for a very long time in order to "win" politics and make their character the best it can be.

PS. if the king is stronger than everyone, it makes for a fun strategy mechanic in battles, like a "boss". Do you ignore him and kill his army? Do you trick his guards into leaving his side and then sneak attack from the back? More tactics = More realism, too.

3. The more subjects you have - the better your defence and economy is, no need for some private bonus. It would make every player to attempt to form his own guild in order to get the bonus and thus will result in many tiny guilds instead of powerful kingdoms. Again, how does the skill level correlate with unit count?

That's the point - smaller, more efficient guilds. There will still be "kingdoms" though. I don't know how a king's "stats" would scale, i'm not the one to figure that out, Bobik is. Anyways, this will cut down on the chance of larger "zerg" guilds, and encourage healthy competition between smaller factions.

4. Whats the point of hiding your rank in the guild? All decisions are made verbal in VoiceIP and OOC, there is no way you can link a man's roleplay rank to his influence inside the guild.

Again, only a suggestion because I've read so many requests for this sort of thing. It's in the suggestion pool because it is not fully realized yet, and I need your guys help. Positive criticism would be really great.

[Grimfest]

I am not familiar with healing in this game or buffs or debuffs, I believe I read something about priests and prayers rather then magic so I am going to go with that. A skill for a king would be a waste of time as there wont be that many kings. Also, would some peasant be able to learn this skill? what unlocks this skill?

I understand your idea and to further improve on it, I would put this skill in the combat skill list and call it something along the lines of a "warlord," Thus allowing anyone to use it if they want to lead a battle and give bonuses as they are calling the shots. buffs might only apply to their formation.

They way it is presented now, would be a waste of time and a skill. Think bigger picture.

Something I mentioned might already exsist, I have no idea.

[Arrakis]

Clarification about skills that you talk about:

Piety - On level 60 if I remember correctly you can bless others, that blessing adds 3 luck.

Healing - Is an actual skill, but it's not pew pew magic and can't be used during battle.

Formation skills - They already provide different bonuses to units inside it depending on chosen formation.

[Grimfest]

Clarification about skills that you talk about:

Piety - On level 60 if I remember correctly you can bless others, that blessing adds 3 luck.

Healing - Is an actual skill, but it's not pew pew magic and can't be used during battle.

Formation skills - They already provide different bonuses to units inside it depending on chosen formation.

Well there Ya have it, this skill is already in place where it needs to be .

Thanks for the info Arrakis

[Jezbelle]

They way it is presented now, would be a waste of time and a skill. Think bigger picture.

You're right, only a few people would take this skill line. There's nothing wrong with that. Only a few people rule kingdoms.

I was trying to devise a way in which we could implement my previous idea. This IS pretty "big picture". It's a way to create a GOT-like endgame.

[Grimfest]

Not that I agree with the idea in its current state, but how would you suggest it be implemented?

Could anyone take this skill?
What limitations does it have?
what if someone is king but then loses his crown? Does the skill go poof?
Why do you think they should spend their resources on a skill that few would use or few could use, rather than something that many could use? or are you suggesting they add this a year from now? down the road?

End game is so far from now I am not sure its the best mechanic to focus on right now, Once they release YO and Alpha on steam I have a feeling they will be tweaking many aspects of the game they feel are solid right now, example, "Alignment, Clan wars and the early game stuff, that will help keeping population.

Again back to darkfall1, literally thousands left the game within the first 2 months of release. Why?

[Telakh]

I apologise if you took it as offence.

As I have said, the ideas are not so great for me, yet we are discussing them and I am pointing you in the possible problems.

I'm not sure what you mean, so this skill already exists? Anyways, this AOE buff is fun, it adds an element of like "protect the king!". A morale boost when the king is on the field. (Ever watch GOT? or any other fantasy book/movie).

Units and Formation skill provides the formations and bonuces.

the king (and other high ranks) should receive rewards for the better their kingdom does. If you've read my previous post, you'll understand why (because there's no end-game, and many players won't be motivated to continue to play for years after they have all the best armor). Yet, you can infinitely try to obtain more land/subjects without actually getting it all, and if it scaled with your character's stat(s), players would stay on for a very long time in order to "win" politics and make their character the best it can be.

This makes no sence as you kingdom is your value. If one doesn't see any other reason of creating and maintaining a large plot with many citizens other that receiving some buff, then what is the point of playing such a game?
The game provides you political, roleplay tools to build up an empire, there is no need of some buffs as the gameplay itself is a sufficient reward.

PS. if the king is stronger than everyone, it makes for a fun strategy mechanic in battles, like a "boss". Do you ignore him and kill his army? Do you trick his guards into leaving his side and then sneak attack from the back? More tactics = More realism, too.

It is more of a wow-thempark games element. It has nothing to do with battle tactics.

That's the point - smaller, more efficient guilds. There will still be "kingdoms" though. I don't know how a king's "stats" would scale, i'm not the one to figure that out, Bobik is. Anyways, this will cut down on the chance of larger "zerg" guilds, and encourage healthy competition between smaller factions.

This will result in fewer zerg guild to spread control over a larger ammount of smaller guilds.

Again, only a suggestion because I've read so many requests for this sort of thing. It's in the suggestion pool because it is not fully realized yet, and I need your guys help. Positive criticism would be really great.

People ask for some thievery/incognito/stealth functions though they can't realy explain what do they need them for in a medieval world. Again, it is more kind of a korean themepark MMO function.

Consider it as a consructive critics =)

[SirWinston]

Why do you absolutely want game mechanics for being a king / lord ?
The way I see it, you're a leader if people accept to follow you because you have actual charisma and they trust you, not because you farmed for days to max a particular skill...

[Flannery]

Why do you absolutely want game mechanics for being a king / lord ?
The way I see it, you're a leader if people accept to follow you because you have actual charisma and they trust you, not because you farmed for days to max a particular skill...

+1 This!

I think you have way tooo little faith in people, in human nature - and the nature of this game, Jezbelle
All these things you ask for will happen naturally - as it should.

Do not dumb that process down with mechanics where it is not needed.

Those who need mechanics for this to happen are those that (most often at least) would not become or apprehend such a role in RL. Maybe they should earn it the right way here as well?

There are more than enough people who will show themselves as naturally gifted for such roles - without some game mechanic holding their hand...

As stated before by others - boarders, kingdoms, guilds, towns and villages will change over time, so will the shift of powers.
Let each guild set up their own hierarchy - and then let the guilds that form alliances choose their king themselves.

Kings will come and go, as anything else in this game.
If you do not have what it takes to be a king - good or evil as it be - you will probably fail anyway, and either be removed, or your subjects will remove them selves from you and your kingdom to some place else.

Let the mechanics decide rules, physics and functions - leave the society building, culture growfth and rank systems to the individual guilds and players who have to fit in, or choose to live outside it.

in the end it comes down to one thing that will make it interesting over time - the freedom of choice.

And this will make the map and the game not look the same at all from month to month - year to year.

Only the impatient people who need mechanics to hold their hands to make things easier or to get a fast fix - without needing to put much effort back into the game - will have problems with this... and honestly... in my opinion... Let them have that problem...

There are plenty of games out there for them to play, that have everything served on a plate.

I personally do not want LiF to become just another one of those.

And THAT freedom is MUCH more like GoT than any game mechanics can provide...

But hey... that's just my take on the matter

[Jezbelle]

Let's stay on topic... this has nothing to do with "choice" or the "freedom of choice" in any way!

The only reason i suggest implementing these mechanics, or similar ones (like in my other post end-game-very-interesting-idea-t1243/ ) IS because I want the average player to infatuated with the end-game for 10 years.

The only reason I suggest giving bonuses to land/ownership is because it will double every player's greed. Their need to have it. Land struggles will keep them occupied for years to come because the result is that it "improves their character". Just like raiding in end-game kept WoW players occupied. Because it had the reward of loot to entice you.

You put too much faith into the average player. He is not like you or me. He is not a role player. He is not interested in anything past making his toon better than everyone. After that, he quits. Why not prolong that process?

[Crusader316]

The end game is perfect as it is. You can't get a better end game than the struggle for land, power and wealth in a living and dynamic world. Aliiances and power struggles is far better in creating interest in a game than endless grinding.

The game should focus on improving and expanding the realistic game mechanichs that exist i.e the feudal system, land claims, sieges etc. Maybe they could add in-depth, in-game systems for creating laws and succesion laws, that kind of stuff. They should avoid creating artificial skills which serves no other function than to keep players grinding. imo.

[Flannery]

I apologize in advance... this is going to be a long one.
Hope you all bare with me

Let's stay on topic... this has nothing to do with "choice" or the "freedom of choice" in any way!

The only reason i suggest implementing these mechanics, or similar ones (like in my other post end-game-very-interesting-idea-t1243/ ) IS because I want the average player to infatuated with the end-game for 10 years.

The only reason I suggest giving bonuses to land/ownership is because it will double every player's greed. Their need to have it. Land struggles will keep them occupied for years to come because the result is that it "improves their character". Just like raiding in end-game kept WoW players occupied. Because it had the reward of loot to entice you.

Do not get me wrong, Jezbelle - I find your ideas interesting and also creative.
I just do not find them right for this game. Telling you so IS being on subject in my opinion...

What you must realize is that the End-game in LiF is the constant changes in the world, the changes of power, the dangers of being sieged, raided, what politics are played out and living in it all, having to deal with the results of all this. Whether you want to participate in planning/conspiring to those changes, or simply just be affected by them in your "daily-life" chores.

If you have read what Bobik visioned and why he wanted to create this game, you would find that many of the things you are suggesting with your "End-game" thoughts and ideas - even though good ideas - are exactly what he is trying to get away from.

And the fact that he is trying to avoid them is one of the key factors that I personally burn for this game.

A large portion of this community are the ones that LEAVE the type of games you speak of, because there is nothing to do BUT End-game grind fests... But these people are not any less loyal - they just do not have that many games to be loyal to...

Why do you think games like AO, UO and SWG kept on living as long as they did? Well... those are the people I speak of, and others like them.

LiF - if it delivers like it has promised, and without to many "holding-hands" mechanics - has the potential to live for 10-15 years - with its vibrant RP/PvP/Craft community. Probably longer as well.

In Lotro i led a successful Heavy RP/Raiding kinship for over 6 years. And most of the old kinships still present in Lotro today are not the ones that concentrate on end game content.
Its the ones that concentrate on RP, PvP - or using the game and the world in other ways that the game dev's never thought of.

I personally do not play Lotro anymore - as I am seeking something more, and also work with game development - in addition to being a film/Game music composer - I simply do not have the time anymore.

The people I speak of are the ones that would like to actually LIVE and BREATHE the LiF world, and who like to be a part of something that is in constant change - WITHOUT any of the "grind-to-win" stuff.

You put too much faith into the average player. He is not like you or me. He is not a role player. He is not interested in anything past making his toon better than everyone. After that, he quits. Why not prolong that process?

you are absolutely RIGHT and WRONG!
- RIGHT:
The Average Player is definitely not like you and me

- WRONG:
I do not put ANY faith in a player who needs to be led through every aspect of the game - Those are the type of players who ruin every good game in my opinion - IF the dev's listen to them, that is... Like I said earlier - there are tons of games for them to play, and leave us who seek something a little more interesting, and with more challenging depth, a few good games to play.

After all - many of the over 18.000 members on this forum came to follow this game exactly from that point - that it offers something with allot more substance than themepark games do. And mechanics like the ones you are suggesting here are after all typical for themepark games.

This game has been hidden as it has not had much press coverage, so the community has for the most part found LiF because they were seeking something different and pretty specific. And they found it. Lets leave it different and specific - please...

I personally do not put WoW as a milestone to how to keep players for a long time... on the contrary... WoW is a childs game as it is now - and that is also the only reason for its survival.
It was ground breaking at one point, but thats a long time ago.
WoW is everything I personally DON'T want in a game...

I do however think you are -pardon me using such a word - naive - if you think that a average WoW player stays for long in WoW today... (No offence meant by that)
The old ones who were that type has left for more mature games a long time ago, I even suspect many of them now are the type that wish for LiF to be as Bobik visioned

What you find there now are mostly immature children who play for periods, then leave. Its just that the flow of children with access to it is so large the numbers have stayed "stable" for quite some time. It does of course have its hard "core" of stayers - but they are very few - just so loud or visible they seem more.

And all of those are the ones you will get here if too many of these "End-game" mechanics find their way into LiF. And again... the mature and loyal crowd would leave, and the "mob" of children would ruin it, and leave it broken and barren in the end.

Keep the sandbox game a sandbox...

Kings and lords should be self acclaimed, or chosen by the players - as it already is, and was intended - and it should be up to each player to follow or disobey, work against or not care.

Having skill bonuses for being a King as a mechanic leans towards "magic" and "fantasy" for me personally - and thats a "no-no". And it is not even necessary. Cause the leaders, lords and kings who will be good leaders, lords and kings will have something natural that is far more powerful than what game mechanics can offer...

[Arrakis]

@Up:

[Telakh]

I want the average player to infatuated with the end-game for 10 years.

Not speaking about suggested skills but about the idea to stretch gameplay experience for years - this game has an UO skill system. You can't stretch gameplay of a skill-based game by level-based-game methods. Meaning you can't increase player skills' limits, can't add higher levels.

UO was a good example how to tie players for years. Add new content, add new non-combat but crafting skills. For example, gardening, underwater swimming, sailing; add new elements to combat - new weapons, new siege machinery, charriots, et.c.
And of course, some additional social interface will help - diplomacy, taxes, laws, multy-level guild hierarchy, e.t.c.

[Svarog]

I want the average player to infatuated with the end-game for 10 years.

Not speaking about suggested skills but about the idea to stretch gameplay experience for years - this game has an UO skill system. You can't stretch gameplay of a skill-based game by level-based-game methods. Meaning you can't increase player skills' limits, can't add higher levels.

UO was a good example how to tie players for years. Add new content, add new non-combat but crafting skills. For example, gardening, underwater swimming, sailing; add new elements to combat - new weapons, new siege machinery, charriots, et.c.
And of course, some additional social interface will help - diplomacy, taxes, laws, multy-level guild hierarchy, e.t.c.

+1

[LordWiese]

My in game will be allowing large kingdoms to form up, then watching them burn, then allowing other large kingdoms to form up, watch those burn as well, and repeat. It will not get old.

[Reincubo]

I want the average player to infatuated with the end-game for 10 years.

Not speaking about suggested skills but about the idea to stretch gameplay experience for years - this game has an UO skill system. You can't stretch gameplay of a skill-based game by level-based-game methods. Meaning you can't increase player skills' limits, can't add higher levels.

UO was a good example how to tie players for years. Add new content, add new non-combat but crafting skills. For example, gardening, underwater swimming, sailing; add new elements to combat - new weapons, new siege machinery, charriots, et.c.
And of course, some additional social interface will help - diplomacy, taxes, laws, multy-level guild hierarchy, e.t.c.

+1

this