Right now there are 3 ways (same as before) to become competitive, humour and pvp wise.
1. Have a town build you up, this might be a shared account- like a wall basher.
2. Be an insane person.
3. Exploit the **** out of mechanics/bots fall into this as well.
Fair enough for HnH, there was no monetary incentive and the game could be made to reward top tier (top 5%) of playerbase with the best features. We all want Salem to succeed though, and it needs to be possible for mid-range characters to compete in PvP. The problem isn't so much that there are people with 300+ humours stomping about, it's that there's no good way to Identify these threats until it's far too late. (In real life if a guy could tear down a stone wall and smash a brick house single-handed, there would be some visual cues not to mess with him)
There's a reason why more and more games are using matchmaking services now.
So here's the idea, I gave it some thought and think it could work, enhancing the perma death feature, reducing rage quits (loss of revenue) and emboldening all mid range characters to interact with the world more, and hide behind walls less.
Cap Humours. yes. Cap them at 100 or use a pool of Humors (so you could have a 400 point cap to build the type of character you want). There is a limit to human strength and this shouldn't be meant as a WoW like fantasy game. An old idea for sure, but my addition is how this could work and retain the soul of Salem/Hnh.
How it could work: The way it is now, In the beginning you grow from a child to an adult before shipping off to the new world. With this cap in place, you would ship off as an adolescent. Once you passed 200 Humours total (so 50 in each or any combination of) you would become an adult. Once you reached 360-400 (100 in each humour or combination of) you would become a bit more grizzled/grow a beard or whatnot.
Humours would drain slowly while you were offline. The drain being capped at 10 (or something) in each Humour. You would need to be gone a while, say a week or two, to cap the humour drain. Being gone for a day might only drain 1 of each. This means you would start your day with a hardy meal, to replace what you lost while you slept, and keep your character at top cap. Food would never become useless this way. Beds and furnishings (pillows/quality sheets/etc.) could be used to slow the drain.
Armour/weapons/specialized clothing would become much more valuable and useful, allowing you to specialize your character further. When everyone PvPing is more or less the same strength (depending how they specialized) it becomes very important to have the best weapons and protection you can afford. Or perhaps to offset having a high phlegm/low yellow bile build. The combinations could be endless and this would add a visual indicator. Are you getting charged by a desperate bandit dressed in Jute? Or should you maybe consider backing off from the musket wielding plate armour Raiders. And when you finally die in glorious combat, it's not so big a deal to raise yourself a new Pilgrim
Finally, to nip a common complaint of this in the bud:
-High tier players will just make tons of alts-
Yes, they will. Good! Id much rather have 3 alts with 100 humours rush me, than a single guy with 300. I would run, knowing i was outnumbered. Id much rather fight 3 separate fights on equal-ish footing, than get KO'd in a punch by a guy dressed in pilgrims robes. Fight or flight is broken right now- we all know which we will do before the encounters even begin.
Alright that's pretty much it, I feel teeth gnashing as i hover over Submit. go on- get it out of your system. Consider the idea afterwords though
it would need lots of tweaking and balancing but the bones are there. Any constructive thoughts?
