The Coming Conflict (Factions)

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Rias
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The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by Rias »

I've been plotting and planning for some time to have some more supported CvC (Character vs Character) conflict in the game - namely by way of opposing factions. I figured it might be good to prepare people for what's in the works, both to help them be ready and to get feedback. One of the big overall goals here is to give players a way to engage in CvC in a supported and meaningful way, both OOC and IC. Here are some of the ideas:

- A second faction with its own town. This town and Shadgard will be in open conflict with one another. This new faction's town would be on the opposite side of wilderness, with the guild facilities (Stormholdt, Library of Qamar) between it and Shadgard.

- Neither faction is meant to be a bastion of "good" or "evil". This isn't Alignment Wars, or Villains of Darkness vs Heroes of Light. That said, the new faction will have fewer quibbles over usage of sorcery, the presence of people with afflictions, dedication to the spookier Immortals, ends justifying means, and things like that. It will have an overall feel of being the darker shade of gray of the two factions. This new faction does have rules and laws to support a functioning society, so it is not some chaotic lawless place where people can get away with crimes consequence-free. They have their own ideals to uphold.

- Players are not required to get their characters into the thick of the faction conflict by any means, but they should still feel affected by said conflict in some way. For instance: A farmer character isn't required to take up arms and go fight the opposing faction. However, if the opposing faction takes over a resource site or otherwise cuts off some supplies that said farmer prefers, the farmer will feel that and therefore have some interest in the conflict even if they're trying to stay uninvolved personally. This will hopefully encourage people to at least notice and acknowledge the faction conlict in some way rather than just pretending the conflict situation doesn't exist.

- To the above point: No third faction or town is planned. I am intentionally avoiding a "neutral" haven. There are various minor outposts people can hang out in of course, but there will not be a full-featured third town or faction to support staying entirely out of the two primary factions.

- Capturable resource sites that can be claimed by one of the two primary factions, as well as any of various NPC factions.

- Smuggled market goods. One concern with this opposing player factions idea is that it will disrupt the player community economy. The solution I'm considering is that either faction can pay extra for delivery of goods smuggled from the opposing faction's market. This means players will still be providing for other players even cross-faction. Common goods could be cheaply and easily smuggled. Rarer goods or those made of rarer materials might be far more expensive or difficult (take a much longer time) to smuggle, in order to help maintain relevance of factions claiming resource sites, or having better player character suppliers.

- Similar to the above, the market in New Emberlight could serve as a neutral market. Overflow from either of the two main towns could end up here. I think I prefer the smuggling idea more, though, and may end up replacing the New Emberlight market with a few shops where specific common resources can be sold for cash, but don't get resold.

- Construction characters could have opportunities to build, repair, and maintain defensive fortifications in specific areas.

- Sneak over and attack or sabotage your enemy's buildings! Again, people with the Construction skill can help repair these.

- I'm considering giving ESP communications separate zones of effectiveness, with a third zone between the two. This should help avoid constant bickering and trash talk over the ESP waves, and also means when someone of an opposing faction is defeated and sent back to respawn in their town, they can't immediately take to ESP with vengeance-filled tirades or claims of cheating and so on, and should help avoid cheapening the feeling of their opponent's victory in that way. And also avoid smug victors gloating too much over ESP. And lastly, people can communicate on the Gray channel in their local zones with less fear that the opposing faction is always listening to everything they say. (These things were all brought up several times as issues in "the other game".)

- I really don't want to allow people having active characters in both factions at the same time. I feel like this would really water down the experience and enable various meta problems, like making a character in the opposing faction just to spy or sabotage from within or whatever.

==========

These are some highlights of what I'm looking into. I'd love to hear any feedback and suggestions.
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Navi
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Re: The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by Navi »

I really like this concept. Some of the things I see as potentially problematic when considering capturable resources is making them permanent fixtures. There will always be people who are more aggressive or more passive than others. This might lead to some of these fixtures becoming incredibly well fortified to the point that they might as well belong to the other side. This isn’t a huge problem until a group of new players or characters decide they want to take action. At that point it’s just a very difficult uphill battle. Even if the resource is captured, there’s the whole part about defending it against another faction who has been building up stockpiles of resources and whatever else to use in reclaiming it.

To counter act this, I propose that these capturable resources be temporary and randomly generated. The process might go like this. Rangers from faction A explore and locate a potential mine that will produce iron or gems or something else valuable to both sides. Faction A begins to fortify and defend while processing the resource. Faction B doesn’t have very many players who are able or willing to engage in claiming the area, so they allow it to go largely unattested. Time goes on, and finally faction B as some characters who are willing to engage in conflict. At this point, faction A has processed the resource completely, causing it to run dry and a new resource area to be generated. Now both factions can begin the process of scouting and exploring to find the new resource location. Faction A still has all the resources from the first resource location, and faction B has had time to gather strength and their own resources to fortify the location against faction A.

I also propose there be at least a couple different types of resource areas generated. Perhaps locations where things to make healing salves can be gathered, and another location for mining. How many locations are generated can be determined by the size of the map, and where the locations are in relation to each other. I could see the current map supporting two locations at a time personally.

Timers and other mechanics can determine how often these resource locations are generated and how long they last for. I wouldn’t expect a mine resource that has just been drained to cause another resource location to spawn right away. The act of finding the resource could generate its own conflict, as opposing faction’s rangers or scouts might encounter each other while exploring.
wander without wanting, thrust into lands unknown. the shadows shift and change, and the worlds with them.
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Navi
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Re: The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by Navi »

Additionally, if your supported faction ends up taking possession of a resource and is able to hang on to it for a time, a slight bonus to morale for the duration of its defense would be nice. Maybe half a point or a full point.
wander without wanting, thrust into lands unknown. the shadows shift and change, and the worlds with them.
I'm not a soldier but I'm fighting
Can you hear me through the silence?
I won't give up 'cause there will be a day
We'll meet again
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Rias
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Re: The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by Rias »

Good ideas!

Also recall I mentioned NPC factions getting in on this, which can help prevent any one faction from getting too settled in on a permanent site. There should never be an expectation that any one site can be held indefinitely, so people will just have to accept that even if they hold a site successfully against the other player faction, they'll still eventually lose it one way or another, so they should take advantage while they can. Maybe a powerful Liberi force decides they want it for themselves, a disease takes out the occupying force, some crafty Dunwyr manage to poison the local food or water supply, a rampaging pack of yeti show up and smash the place, a lich and her horde of nethrim swing by ... all sorts of "fun" opportunities. Chances for these events could increase the longer a faction managed to hold a spot.
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Acarin
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Re: The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by Acarin »

Yes, please, on the rampaging yeti (I hope they can be skinned).
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Re: The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by Agelity »

Rias wrote: Thu Jan 14, 2021 9:55 am - I really don't want to allow people having active characters in both factions at the same time. I feel like this would really water down the experience and enable various meta problems, like making a character in the opposing faction just to spy or sabotage from within or whatever.
I suspect this'll create some questions for those with alts and how to better address that since, while I'd be okay exploring those thoughts with my existing characters, does make me think about how I'd play into that. In the case of my two active characters, both would (currently) tend to align a bit more with Shadgard, but one in particular I could see as willing to go elsewhere, the other I could see being more neutral over all but if they had to choose... likely would stick to being a Shadgard citizen. Definitely something for me to think about, including just completely overhauling existing character concepts or starting a new character (or just shelving one and sticking to one character).

I'd also be curious how to balance things like having the strongest warriors go to one faction and the other consisting largely of peaceful farmers who, even if they turned heel and decided they wanted to fight back, are probably going to be militaristically at a disadvantage (without support from other areas). I've played on MMO servers in the past where there is a heavy power imbalance and it makes the servers themselves pretty difficult to want to be on since you either 1) have no effective opposition or 2) are always getting the short end of the stick. Curious how we'd wish to address that here.
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Re: The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by Acarin »

If all resource sites were for seeds, the farmers would mobilize! I assume that these resources sites would be for more special materials though rather than for things that would hinder progress if not available?
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Ephemeralis
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Re: The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by Ephemeralis »

One good way of keeping the factionalization from an OOC perspective in check is to periodically run world events where both factions have to work together temporarily against a greater threat for their own benefit. Roleplaying awkward frenemies is also uniquely satisfying when done right as well, plus the Lost Lands has so many threats running around it that you should have no problem thinking of things up a bit.

There's a few other things I'd suggest as well:
  • Don't introduce kill-on-sight guards for either faction for all but the worst offenders. While this might make the outposts 'safer' from an IC and OOC perspective, it often just results in people never making any efforts to interact with the other faction.
  • Similarly, have NPC third parties periodically come in and trash resource claims so that they at least have a chance to be retaken by the opposing side. This plus shifting windows in which these sites can be contested should make for interesting content that doesn't immediately end up in the side of whoever has the most combat players forever.
  • Consider some sort of "outrage" system that works with disguising currently to enable players to converse with their friends/contacts in the other faction's outpost/city for shorter periods of time. The way I'd see this working is you can disguise yourself to enter as a 'neutral' person to an outpost/city your faction is opposed against, but eventually your disguise will slip enough for someone to figure out who you are and alert the guards. The more physical/active you are in said city, the quicker that'll happen.
  • Be careful about limiting ESP usage. Communication in games that is limited by distance/design tends to push the communication into third party programs like Discord - you used to play GS4, so you know how it was with Lichnet. Having gray be a global channel with each faction getting their own colour upon citizenship should be fine. Having the odd whiner over gray every now and then is better for the game than having comms moved out of it entirely, which *will* happen if comm restrictions are too intrusive.
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Re: The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by nobody »

I have so many questions.

- The new faction will have rules and laws, their own set of ideals, and Shadgard will have its, though perhaps made a little more rough around the edges by contrast (I'd expect additional anti-nether RP for example), but how civil will the conflict be? Will there be rules of engagement, so to speak?

- Since no third/neutral town is planned, are we saying goodbye to Porto D'esilio, or will it be the home of the new faction, or will it be re-introduced as a sad ruin of a town (either like New Emberlight, more of an outpost, or like Terueka, overrun and no longer habitable)? To be clear, I'm not against sad ruins, they're delightful.

- I love that NPC factions will also be in the mix, would it be correct to assume that no PCs will be able to join those other factions?

- Presently the best items on the market tend to not stick around for very long, in part because they're not being mass produced (I believe that is desirable). For example, one cannot simply buy a crossbow. How will items like that, which rarely touch the markets factor into smuggling?

- If you go the neutral market route, that would prove a valuable tool for traitors/sympathizers. Will extensive selling to neutral markets become an offense (IE, penalized faction standing)?

- You might also consider a 'black market' type of opportunity for crafters, where they can sell wares that they know will go to the other side.

- I love the ESP zones. It will make things complicated for rescuing failed missions in enemy territory, making those attunements more valuable for sure. Would you consider extending attunements so that the gray channel is limited depending on area but the faction attuned channels are available everywhere? I don't know if I'd even want that, but it would deal with the issues noted above just as well.

- Are the factions intended to be static (like guild and class) or will they be able to change over time? If it is intended to be static, will that become a part of character creation?

- How will the Shadgard/Not Shadgard faction dynamics interact with societies?
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Re: The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by Rias »

Acarin wrote: Thu Jan 14, 2021 11:49 amI assume that these resources sites would be for more special materials though rather than for things that would hinder progress if not available?
Very good point to bring up. These resource sites and such would be for the rare and exceptional stuff, not the base stuff required to employ one's profession. People should be able to pull off their role just fine by ignoring all this type of thing. If there are miners that want that special ore, or physickers that want that powerful extra-strong-and-quick healing ingredient, or crafters that want that workshop required to process that special rare material, arcanist wanting access to a repository of rare glyphs ... things like that are what we're talking about with this system.

Basic everyday activities should be able to go on unhindered even if your faction has control over zero special sites. But when you want to start doing the more exceptional stuff and getting your hands on rare resources and facilities, that's when you consider supporting the war effort in some way.

Ephemeralis wrote:Don't introduce kill-on-sight guards for either faction for all but the worst offenders. While this might make the outposts 'safer' from an IC and OOC perspective, it often just results in people never making any efforts to interact with the other faction.
This is how I'm leaning.
Similarly, have NPC third parties periodically come in and trash resource claims so that they at least have a chance to be retaken by the opposing side. This plus shifting windows in which these sites can be contested should make for interesting content that doesn't immediately end up in the side of whoever has the most combat players forever.
That's the plan.
Consider some sort of "outrage" system that works with disguising currently to enable players to converse with their friends/contacts in the other faction's outpost/city for shorter periods of time. The way I'd see this working is you can disguise yourself to enter as a 'neutral' person to an outpost/city your faction is opposed against, but eventually your disguise will slip enough for someone to figure out who you are and alert the guards. The more physical/active you are in said city, the quicker that'll happen.
I'm not so sure on this one as I don't want disguises to invalidate entry defenses, but I'll happily continue to hear suggestions along these lines.
Be careful about limiting ESP usage. Communication in games that is limited by distance/design tends to push the communication into third party programs like Discord - you used to play GS4, so you know how it was with Lichnet. Having gray be a global channel with each faction getting their own colour upon citizenship should be fine. Having the odd whiner over gray every now and then is better for the game than having comms moved out of it entirely, which *will* happen if comm restrictions are too intrusive.
Yeah, definitely something to keep in mind.
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