Expedition vs. Providence PVP Ruleset Vote

[ReardenMetal]

You do realize you will not achieve this by merely adding wagons and removing boston teleport, right? Most of the economy would have to be reworked to give players incetive to actually spend their time and materials on trading like this instead of simply producing everything themselves. It must be damn boring to ride a wagon for 2-3h to buy / sell something

As I said, I realize it would be a massive undertaking. I think most trade would take place between nearby towns, with only a few close towns actually making the journey to Boston proper for greater profit. I would also imagine that a number of people would dedicate themselves to being traveling merchants so in theory you could have a thriving town without ever actually having to hall your goods into Boston.

[Kandarim]

I'll have to consider carefully what I want to write it, as I'm completely split up on the matter.

On the one hand, I would really like to see more warfare on plymouth providence. On the other hand, you must now consider that with the current system (time-limited gluttony, however much you and I love it or not) there is a time limit on how long it will take you to get back where you were.

In this viewpoint, I do not like the direction you are going with professions. The new skills you are introducing have such high requirements that losing, say, the one high-end tailor you have, will set you back for months will you build it back up. In my opinion, permadeath can only really work (and not work in the way we have now, with only low-end criminals falling to the big factions due to ignorace/bad defences) when the characters involved are -to a large extent- replaceable.

To me, the permadeath experience must be weighed against the time investment required for a character with which one can reasonably partake in it. Right now (and definitely with the new soaks on walls) that balance is -to me- tipped hugely against partaking in fights/permadeaths. You will not see big faction wars right now as the loss of a single character is by far not worth the satisfaction of destroying one of the other factions' characters. Definitely when you consider that you are pretty much inviolate from said other faction due to things like waste claims and the requirements for high bile fighters because of wall soak.

But back to the question at hand. Maybe such a carebear (as I freely admit I am) approach is not a bad thing for the persistent(ish) server providence is supposed to be. I too have voted for the first option. Keep providence as it is now (more or less).

Give us expeditions with ridiculous rulesets. Expeditions without the ability to build walls. Expeditions where every character dies after a week. Expeditions without personal claims or with no skill requirements for crimes on a tiny map. Expeditions without the possibility for quicktravel (but then, logically, also without the need for silver upkeep). Maps where only tiny portions of the map allow for building stuff (on the order of 10x10 patches), except for fields and some island-like nodes. Maps that consist largely out of islands. Go crazy!

But keep in mind that the fun of permadeath should be weighed against the time investment required to partake meaningfully. Speed factors are a dirty way of doing it, but boosting gluttony speed with fancy new ingredients/recipes is another option. If you arrive at the right point here, then towns will gladly go on expeditions for even the tiniest of benefits on providence.

Well, that became longer than planned have a

[JinxDevona]

Most of my ideas on this are in this thread... viewtopic.php?f=12&t=10806&start=60.

I find it strange that Darwoth is taking the carebear vote and I am taking the opposite...lol. I voted No. As much as I don't want to die or lose all my hard work, I don't think Salem would be as interesting without the threat of doom. As long as death without scents is harder or has more severe punishments to discourage just random noob killings and bases cannot be completely leveled in a single raid, I don't see what the problem is. Expeditions can still be fun and special and reap special rewards.

However, if Prov was more of carebear environment we might see more interaction between players. Without everyone being terrified of random death and base leveling, they'd be more likely to have more town members or even talk to strangers they meet out and about or get to know their neighbors.

BTW... I hate the idea of taking out teleporting to Boston. Some days I teleport to Boston several times to sell, buy, or trade. To walk/ride across the entire map to buy a bottle or sell a few charms seems extreme. Only the higher tier players would benefit with faster modes of transportation.

[Jackxter]

Upon further thought, I'm personally not too keen on having there being two servers for several reasons. For one, I think the joys of warfare and the joys of carebear can be actively encouraged on the Plymouth/Providence server with some refinement to the permadeath system (as in get rid of it and replace it with another harsh, but not as harsh punishment for death. One that would set hardcore players back a week and not months). All the special stuff you could find in the expedition server could instead be found in the Darkness. My main objection comes from the fact that Salem already has a relatively small playerbase, and even now, encountering other players (which is a very fun part of Salem, as it leads to a lot of tension) is a rarity. Unless the population were to expand gratuitously by now and the time this system comes into play, I believe it'd only hurt the game more than it would help. It'd probably be much easier just to concentrate on refining Providence.

To be fair, though, the population does seem to be increasing slowly but steadily, so who knows what the future will hold?

[Potjeh]

I mostly see these expeditions as a great opportunity to thoroughly test out major changes before applying them on the main server. We need conflict so that people don't quit out of frustration, but we also need a certain degree of stability for retaining players.

[Kandarim]

I mostly see these expeditions as a great opportunity to thoroughly test out major changes before applying them on the main server. We need conflict so that people don't quit out of frustration, but we also need a certain degree of stability for retaining players.

This is what is done in path of exile (testing new rulesets on short-lived servers to see their viability).
I would like to see the expeditions as more of special fun though. Something that cannot be played with a half-decent presence in the persistent server but something that is also sufficiently different from the persistent one so the community will not be fragmented so much as be pushed towards playing both servers.

[Dallane]

I mostly see these expeditions as a great opportunity to thoroughly test out major changes before applying them on the main server.

This

I'm a little mixed on the carebear situation tbh. Right now it's almost impossible to raid unless you infiltrated but before it was just silly to lose everything in 30 mins. I think things need to be a bit balanced but not over the top.

[Feone]

I think it's important that crafters are relatively safe as long as they don't leave scents.
It takes extremely long to develop these chars now and losing them just because someone with high biles decides the town is next seems a bit too much.

On the other hand I don't think total safety is a good thing.
I think a system that rewards towns that are completely peaceful (a seperate town for the crafting chars I guess) with relative safety (as it is now I suppose will do) while still encouraging fighting amongst non-peaceful towns. Details would be tricky though.

[JinxDevona]

I think it's important that crafters are relatively safe as long as they don't leave scents.
It takes extremely long to develop these chars now and losing them just because someone with high biles decides the town is next seems a bit too much.

On the other hand I don't think total safety is a good thing.
I think a system that rewards towns that are completely peaceful (a seperate town for the crafting chars I guess) with relative safety (as it is now I suppose will do) while still encouraging fighting amongst non-peaceful towns. Details would be tricky though.

In my opinion, I don't think it should have anything to do with towns. It should be about the toons. Some "crafters" never erect a town. Some, like myself, live alone and peacefully just playing the game and trying to grow.

[Potjeh]

With the new purity system, I'd say the infrastructure is even more important than crafters, and you can't log that out, so yeah, please tread carefully on PvP balance.