Feedback:User/Avaera/Alternate Advancement Mechanics: Politics
Alternate Advancement Mechanics: Politics | |
|---|---|
| User | Avaera |
| Categories | Mechanics |
I realise that a suggestion entailing a completely new alternate advancement system is probably not going to be implemented so close to the release of the game (presumably within a few months). Nonetheless, if the idea has any merit it could still form the basis of a later patch or expansion, and I would feel terribly guilty if I didn't at least try to offer an alternative to crafting and combat.
I'd like to suggest an interactive Politics game, heavily tied to the idea of guilds.
Premise[edit]
The idea that I'd like to suggest is that there be an alternative 'mode' of combat in which players engage in diplomatic battles of words and ideas instead of physical blows.
While you can only attack hostile (red) and neutral (yellow) NPCs, you would have the option to engage in diplomacy with friendly (green) and neutral (yellow) NPCs, as well as in a form of diplomatic PvP with other consenting players.
The goal of diplomacy would be to convert your opponent to your viewpoint, and by doing so gain experience, tangible rewards and intangible 'influence' that improves the prestige and standing of your guild.
Basic Mechanics[edit]
The way in which a diplomatic contest occurs uses the same basic mechanics as physical combat, with some special additions and restrictions.
The 'Town Clothes' option in a player's character window would be changed to a toggle called 'Formal Clothes', which causes the player to enter Diplomatic Mode. This mode would cause the following changes:
- the player switches to an alternate equipment set, with armour and 'weaponry' (now called accessories) providing politics-only benefits;
- the player's health globe is hidden (or shrunk) and instead there is a Conviction globe in its place;
- the weapon, utility and class mechanic ability buttons are replaced by politics ability buttons;
- the three Attitude icons become visible at the top of the Conviction globe in place of the dodge bar.
Conviction: Political 'health'[edit]
In a very basic sense, diplomatic battles consist of attempting to take your opponent's conviction value down to zero, in the same way that physical battles involve reducing your opponent's health value down to zero.
Where health is coloured red, conviction would be coloured a deep blue.
Attitude: Your persuasive mindset[edit]
When a player switches to Diplomatic Mode, three Attitude pips or icons become visible above the Conviction Globe.
Each pip can be filled by either:
- Ferocity
- Charm
- Dignity
(coin images used for illustrative purposes), which correspond to the existing personality mechanics in the game.
These pips represent your current mindset or conversation style, and will change frequently over the course of a battle.
Your initial pip configuration is determined by your current personality. Note this is your fluid balance between dignity, ferocity and charm on your character sheet, not the choice you make in character creation. For example:
- A very charming person would default to three pips of charm at the start of a battle ()
- A balanced personality will start with a mixed attitude, such as or perhaps
Politics Abilities: Collectible and item-swapped[edit]
The abilities that you can use in politics battles are gained both through accessory sets (just like weapon sets), and from collecting or earning them like utility skills.
Some skills will cause boons or conditions, some might increase or buffer your level of conviction, and some may rearrange your or your opponent's Attitude, but the majority of accessory-set abilities would be focused around reducing your opponent's conviction. Each conviction-damaging ability has a Source type and an Exploit type, which is again one of either Charm, Ferocity or Dignity.
Source type[edit]
The Source type of an ability causes a pip corresponding to the Source type to be added to your Attitude set, and the oldest pip 'falls off' the triad. For an example, imagine that a new pip enters on the left, and the old pip exits from the right.
Example:
- Your current Attitude is balanced -
- You use an ability that sources Ferocity. This causes your Attitude to become ()
- You use another ability that sources Ferocity. Now your Attitude is ()
- You next use an ability that sources Charm. Your attitude becomes ()
Exploit type[edit]
The Exploit type of an ability is what type of Attitude the attack is strongest against. The more pips your opponent has of this type when you use the ability, the more Conviction damage that you deal against them.
For example, imagine that the Exploit type of an ability is Dignity.
- If your opponent has a very low Dignity Attitude (), you might deal 10 conviction damage.
- If your opponent has an average Dignity Attitude (), you might deal 20 conviction damage.
- If your opponent has a very high Dignity Attitude (), you might deal 50 conviction damage.
Politics boons and conditions[edit]
Like physical combat, it would add complexity to political battles to have temporary status effects that can apply to either yourself or your opponent. Some examples could be:
- Over-confidence (Aegis) - causes the next conviction attack against you to do no damage
- Eloquence (Might) - causes your conviction attacks to deal additional damage
- Ego (Regeneration) - causes your conviction to regenerate over time
- Fallacy (Confusion) - causes your next damaging conviction attack to decrease your own conviction
- Discombobulated (Bleeding) - causes your conviction to deplete over time
- Irrational (Weakness) - causes your conviction attacks to deal less damage
- Gullible - causes your opponent's Attitude to be concealed from you
Rewards and Effects[edit]
In PvE, the outcome of a politics battle against an NPC may have one or more of the following effects:
- losing will cause:
- a small amount of diplomacy equipment repair damage
- a temporary debuff visible to other players that reduces conviction by a fixed percentage for a few minutes
- a temporary debuff visible to other players that shows something like "Recently lost an argument to <victor NPC>"
- a small amount of experience loss
- winning will cause:
- a chance for diplomatic loot or a token of the NPC's esteem in the form of money
- a chance for a clue that leads towards a single randomly selected NPC in the area that might contain more valuable loot/money
- a small amount of experience gain
- (if in a guild) the NPC to be influenced to your cause, and become more supportive of your guild.
It is this last effect that is the most valuable and interesting of the idea, I think.
Growing influence: NPC Opinion[edit]
Each NPC that can be targetted by politics attacks has a certain regard for your guild, for example:
- Dismissive (<500 opinion)
- Curious (<2000 opinion)
- Supportive (<5000 opinion)
- Aligned (5000+ opinion)
Diplomatic victories by you or your guildmates increase the opinion the NPC has for your guild, and slightly decrease the opinion the NPC has for all other guilds.
For each NPC you target with diplomatic battles, your victories will only count once per day to affect their opinions, however you may continue to battle them repeatedly within that timeframe for the other rewards. Clearly there would need to be some sort of cooldown in place where after losing a battle to any player, that NPC becomes uninterested in politics for a short time, of about the same timeframe as a killed NPC would take to respawn.
Aligned NPCs not only give your guild additional guild points over time, they also represent the influence of your guild across an area or city, so a large number of NPCs that are aligned to one particular guild might trigger dynamic events that are focused on politics goals and mechanics.
The exact details of what these rewards might be I'm afraid I haven't yet explored, so I leave that open for further development.
In the event that recording individual opinions for each NPC becomes unwieldly - either because of the potential database bloat or because of replication issues - an alternative might be that the general opinion of an area or city is recorded in the guild details window, and it is this figure that each guildmember is able to affect by winning over NPCs in that area.
Further notes[edit]
Additional refinement to this idea may be added at a later stage!
