Leveling the playing field

[Champie]

I don't like the idea of a life span. I am a weakling, but if my character survives a long time I am going to want to keep it. I do enjoy the game even though I am on the weak end. The need for even playing field for combat seems narrow minded.

Champie = Champie4 =me

It was just a thought related to the idea of balancing the game and introducing an element that is currently in another game produced by Paradox Interactive (Crusader Kings II) that I have played. While I have no intention of defending the idea, I think it is rather broad-minded in the way it bridges combat, social and political elements of the game to promote a shifting landscape of characters, organization and power centers. It is a transformation mechanic and encourages the creation of multiple characters simultaneously as a necessary activity and not merely an optimal activity.

As a bonus, such a feature would give lots of street cred to the devs for truly making a perma-death game, and not a Carebears versus Griefers forum. Everyone dies in my scenario, eventually.

To answer Grichmann's question:

How long should a character's life cycle be?

I think 12 months sounds reasonable, but it was just used as an example. But if you are suggesting that it is an impossible question to answer due to varying interests and commitments of players, then I would say, "It depends on what kind of game the devs want to make." The inheritance system is already in place, although it needs to be given some attention to formalize the process of designating heirs. The main question is what sort of progression the devs believe an average player can make in their lifetime, and what should be the recovery time of lost skills and proficiencies. Every good dev knows the expected progression of players through their systems. Despite what some people claim, I do not believe Jorbtar are a couple of douchebags drinking tears and muhahaha'ing through the development process between manic episodes of sexing each other and coding.


edit to add: What is the life timer started once you acquired a specific skill (murder?) or humors (150?). Does that change your perspective on the lifespan idea?

[Grichmann]

Life cycle is not the same as life span. It's more at which point are most characters expected to die. All design decisions dealing with character development and time-based activities should be made around this somewhat arbitrary date.

[Champie]

Grichmann, I failed to recognize the distinction between the two terms. Thanks for pointing that out. I'll have to give more consideration to the idea, but before I waste more of other people's time, I'd like to ask, Do you think that a character lifespan (however defined based on a character life cycle) is a worthwhile idea to further explore?

[bocage]

I play Crusader Kings II also and like the system. But life span is only one small aspect of that character system. The game involves the building of a dynasty with allies, enemies, wives, children, vassals, and court members all with varying skills and characteristics that can intertwine and relate in interesting ways. Salem design seems intended for a player to control only one character at at time. I think this is why you can't study inspirationals while offline like you could in Hearth and Haven. Life span wouldn't work so well with a single line of inheritance that can't be altered in any way, and where the heir is not played until after the inheritance.

Also note that life span in CK2 does not level the playing field in that game. A King with a small territority that didn't die would still easily get crushed by a young King with a larger territority and more armies. Just like a Salem limited life character would still easily get crushed by a raider village dedicated to always having a certain number of peak life characters to ensure they will always win versus a lesser number of players.

I do find it interesting to consider what this game might become if family members were introduced, in some kind of CKII, Virtual Villagers, or Sims kind of way.

Bocage

[Champie]

Bocage, thank you for all those fine points about CKII, H&H and your view on Salem. I will continue to contemplate the idea with all the responses here in mind. I think Salem is an excellent game and I enjoy it just the way it is, but at the same time it feels like 2/3 of a complete game. My posts in this thread were an attempt to figure out the missing 1/3. Of course, I could be missing the obvious, or not have the experience, skills, intelligence to know what is or isn't missing. Feel free to respectfully steer my in another direction

[Grichmann]

An explicit absolute lifespan (characters keel over after reaching a certain age), no. An implicit and/or relative one, could work; but with the way inheritance works right now, it won't change much.

[bocage]

The game isn't fully fleshed out. More content is being added. This is ideas and innovations so nothing wrong with looking beyond the obvious. The games I know that have a family aspect also have a player controlling or issuing orders to multiple characters that are in the game simultaneously, which is not how Salem currently works. I wouldn't want to leave my inheritence to another player and if heirs such as children and spouses were introduced, I would want them to be in the game, not only appearing after my characters death. That they would be able to be fed, cared for, sent to school, trained, and prepared to take over the household in the event of my primary characters death, whether that be by old age or ganked while on a stroll in the lumberwoods.