[Balance/Customization/ETC]

[Zibens]

Hello fellow pilgrims,
I've recently thought about past years, and got some ideas in my head..

So let's begin the list:

1. Stockade. Current system, in my opinion, looks pretty awful..
You bring evidence, pay 500s and the criminal is there...

Solution: Instead of bringing the criminal to stockings (which the lower biled characters, pretty much ALWAYS dies), you could put a contract on the evidence (To the criminal) by which completing it (Scalping the criminal) would reward the executor. We need more player action, than NPCs
Even then, if he is higher biled character, he would buyout. Then what's the point?

2. There are still proficiencies without actual usage.

* Hunting & Gathering - have a chance to increase purity And/or more rare item drops //''gorniksam'
* Faith & Wisdom - Higher resistance against witches, lower darkness drains
* Arts & Crafts - Crafted artifacts have lower difficulty
* Cloak & Dagger - Lowers the timer, how long scents will exist in world(Random chance, random amount)

3. More, More, More Customization.

3.1 Barber Shop @ Providence. The pilgrims, would wish to change their hairstyle once in a while, by paying the barber
3.2 More Hairstyles
3.3 More clothing, more from which to choose.

4. Witchcraft & things.

We have witchcraft, why wouldn't we have anything to counter it? At the moment, pilgrims can only choose the darker side of the new world. Why wouldn't one become a monk? They would have abilities:
* Have a sermon - By doing this, Town's monk would increase the resistance from witchcraft to Townsmen (For some limited time), and sermon could be repeated once in 2-3 days?
* Craft Crests (Opposite of Crab on spike) lowers the insanity over time
* And many more...

5. Artifacts

* Cooking artifacts (Increased purity on food, when cooking (random amounts)
* Stamina - (Lower's phelgm drain)
* Gardening - (Increased purity?)
* Intelect - (Increased inspiration gain, by some amounts?)
* Hideworking - (Reduced time for drying hide, tanning?)
* Building - (Reduces Black-Bile usage, Increases speed for building, increases hitpoints for structures (random amounts))
* Fisher - (Higher purity fishes)
-- Many more --

6. Raiding / Defence

* We have mortar, as defence artillery. Why wouldn't we have offensive cannon? Let's say big Howitzer, which can be placed(let's say, unload time 3-6hours), Load time (24hours??), Which can be moved around, with massive drains of phelgm, and require 2x more resources than Mortar. We would have artillery fights??

* Traps - Well placed traps (Bear traps/Spikes) - Which are invisible, and do damage to criminals(to the claim) - Would have possiblity to break bones, and do bit of Black Bile + Blood damage. Maybe some traps would cause Concussion aswell?
There could be skill, to detect traps(Adventure tab) Which would drain black bile, but show up traps, which then could be dissarmed?

*** Tracking skill - Would require somewhat medium level proficiencies - Allows you to track? So the alts need to sweat a bit, to track stuff..
*** Crime artifacts increase chance to not leave Scents (Trespassing/Larceny ONLY)

7. Sparring.

It was probably been suggested few times.. But why does this isn't implented in game, how do new players train in combat, without leaving scents (I mean PvP combat).
Ability to ask for friendly duels (Friendly duels, when confirmed by both sides, SHOULD NOT be crimes???(Can be enabled/disabled - So there are no spams)


So basicly, i think, that game needs to offer more customization to players, more artifacts to choose from... And the raiding should be somewhat fixed.

Thanks for readin,
Your opinions?

[Dallane]

Your opinions?

This thread is really long and bad to the point where im not going to tear it apart

[Zibens]

Your opinions?

This thread is really long and bad to the point where im not going to tear it apart

That is why i label them in categories.

[Spendo99]

I think there are some interesting ideas here. No clue if any of it could be easily implemented but I think these ideas deserve a look over

[gorniksam]

* Hunting & Gathering - have a chance to increase purity

...and/or more chance for get rare items from monters and animals

[TotalyMeow]

Many of these have been suggested before, there are reasons they aren't in the game...

Hello fellow pilgrims,
I've recently thought about past years, and got some ideas in my head..

So let's begin the list:

1. Stockade. Current system, in my opinion, looks pretty awful..
You bring evidence, pay 500s and the criminal is there...

Solution: Instead of bringing the criminal to stockings (which the lower biled characters, pretty much ALWAYS dies), you could put a contract on the evidence (To the criminal) by which completing it (Scalping the criminal) would reward the executor. We need more player action, than NPCs
Even then, if he is higher biled character, he would buyout. Then what's the point?

On the surface, this looks good. However, if you offer rewards worth the effort of hunting down a criminal and scalping him (no easy endeavor), then most people will just commit several crimes with a small alt, scalp it, and collect the reward themselves. It could be very lucrative and wouldn't act as a punishment system at all.

The forums already offer the opportunity for someone to offer a bounty on the scalp of a raider if that is what you want to do. Most people aren't interested in such a thing though, so even if we added a more structured bounty mechanic to the game, we wouldn't remove the stocks.

2. There are still proficiencies without actual usage.

* Hunting & Gathering - have a chance to increase purity
* Faith & Wisdom - Higher resistance against witches, lower darkness drains
* Arts & Crafts - Crafted artifacts have lower difficulty
* Cloak & Dagger - Lowers the timer, how long scents will exist in world(Random chance, random amount)

The new Profession masters are working on this problem right now, actually. They are coming up with some fun ideas, which is great because we're looking to add a little more to this than just shoehorning them into mechanics that already exist.

3. More, More, More Customization.

3.1 Barber Shop @ Providence. The pilgrims, would wish to change their hairstyle once in a while, by paying the barber
3.2 More Hairstyles
3.3 More clothing, more from which to choose.

1 John has reasons he doesn't want you changing your hair all the time. I think partly because it's not in character with the game, but you'd have to ask him his other reasons. I don't remember now what he told me.

2 Sure, I too would love more hairstyles, especially for the female characters. The ones we have are kinda sucky. But artwork is the most expensive and time consuming development thing, so getting models for things that don't exist yet is usually higher priority than redoing stuff that already exists.

3 Clothing has been added. Mostly capes and masks, yes, because they are the easiest and quickest. But several times when players have given a good description of a clothing they want, it has been added. Corsets, for example.

4. Witchcraft & things.

We have witchcraft, why wouldn't we have anything to counter it? At the moment, pilgrims can only choose the darker side of the new world. Why wouldn't one become a monk? They would have abilities:
* Have a sermon - By doing this, Town's monk would increase the resistance from witchcraft to Townsmen (For some limited time), and sermon could be repeated once in 2-3 days?
* Craft Crests (Opposite of Crab on spike) lowers the insanity over time
* And many more...

A monk doesn't really fit the style of the game. These are pilgrims, mostly from England. We do have the mechanic that higher Faith will protect you from curses more.

We have so many ways to lower insanity and madness, we don't really need more unless you come up with something more fun and interesting than just crafting a chest. It also has to make sense with the mechanic. You're going insane because of the strangeness and wildness of this new and unknown land. You need relaxing, comforting, or intellectually stimulating things to bring you back to reality.

5. Artifacts

* Cooking artifacts (Increased purity on food, when cooking (random amounts)
* Stamina - (Lower's phelgm drain)
* Gardening - (Increased purity?)
* Intelect - (Increased inspiration gain, by some amounts?)
* Hideworking - (Reduced time for drying hide, tanning?)
* Building - (Reduces Black-Bile usage, Increases speed for building, increases hitpoints for structures (random amounts))
* Fisher - (Higher purity fishes)
-- Many more --

We have mechanics for purity and would rather not make that too complicated. As for the other things, some of them might work in the game, but would probably work a lot better in other mechanics than in artifact/artifice. We already have so many artifices, that most people make themselves several suits to wear for efficiency. We don't need to take that to extremes.

6. Raiding / Defence

* We have mortar, as defence artillery. Why wouldn't we have offensive cannon? Let's say big Howitzer, which can be placed(let's say, unload time 3-6hours), Load time (24hours??), Which can be moved around, with massive drains of phelgm, and require 2x more resources than Mortar. We would have artillery fights??

* Traps - Well placed traps (Bear traps/Spikes) - Which are invisible, and do damage to criminals(to the claim) - Would have possiblity to break bones, and do bit of Black Bile + Blood damage. Maybe some traps would cause Concussion aswell?
There could be skill, to detect traps(Adventure tab) Which would drain black bile, but show up traps, which then could be dissarmed?

*** Tracking skill - Would require somewhat medium level proficiencies - Allows you to track? So the alts need to sweat a bit, to track stuff..
*** Crime artifacts increase chance to not leave Scents (Trespassing/Larceny ONLY)

Cannons already exist on Popham, which is the server where we want people to do more raiding and be in more danger. Providence is supposed to be a lot more easy to defend and be more 'carebearish'. Sure it's not working perfectly yet, but we've learned a lot from the first expedition, Popham. The next one should be much better.

Trapped chests exist on both servers already.

Tracking has existed for a very long time and can be done by anyone who finds a scent.

We have a criminality artifice and several artifacts to go with it.

7. Sparring.

It was probably been suggested few times.. But why does this isn't implented in game, how do new players train in combat, without leaving scents (I mean PvP combat).
Ability to ask for friendly duels (Can be enabled/disabled - So there are no spams)

You go to Dock Club and fight. You can also fight on claim where people will hopefully not get your scents. Or just don't learn to spar. You take a risk either way, and Salem is much about risk taking.

[Argentis]

I like the stockade idea of bounty hunting. But in my opinion it could be made in another system entirely. You could just put a bounty on anyone you have saved in your list or who have been described to you. The bounty accumulates with other players. Turning a scalp in gives you a % of that bounty (20% or so King's tax).