or will I be attacked?
Lets face it: Sure, villains may surrender - but there are times you need to beat some respect into them. Or beat important information out of them.
Will I be able to enter a police building and get a mission without being attacked by the cops?
If I am attacked, will my "hero" get experience for teaching cops to respect my authority (Cartman voice)?
Lets face it I stop crime...I just do it a little differently. I call it "tough love."
—
[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/z9bk1znkb/Black_Falcon_Sig_in_Progess.jpg[/img]
Sure!
Mission 1: Guard the inside of this cell for a number of years.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
since there are numerous police officers employed by the city, it seems likely that some number of them will be sympathetic to your toon's methods
I suspect it'll all depend on how the combination of your alignment and your reputation interacts with any given faction. It's possible that alignment (by itself) might not affect -any- relationship with -any- faction and thus the only determinate factor for "would you be attacked by Faction X" would be based on your reputation alone.
Tannim already confirmed (in another thread) that reputation with each faction is going to be maintained by a unique number spanning between +1.0 and -1.0. So if your reputation is "negative" enough with say the Titan City Cop faction they may shoot at you on sight.
Theoretically you should be able to have a good (or bad) reputation with a given faction despite your alignment values. Unfortunately the details involved with how this will actually work in the game have not been disclosed yet.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
It's a tricky subject especially in RP, but one I've tackled plenty of times. Realistically, a wanted vigilante [i]shouldn't[/i] be able to just waltz right in to an area like a Police Station or City Hall. This is an issue easily fixed when secret identities come into play and an inside man who works with capes would be the guy to go to. Another solution is a mission that has a level of force cooperation. There are times when GPD might not like working with Batman but out of necessity have to. A lot of the mission architect scenarios I've been working on have different branches and starts based on if your alignment with certain groups is allowed to come into play in the designing of them.
[B]Revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest...[/B]
Roleplayer; Esteemed Villain
[img]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/5.jpg[/img]
I think police attacking you would be more dependent on reputation and not alignment. Even if it was based on alignment I would suspect that the Law alignment would be more of an indicator of how police will react to you and not violence.
It was mentioned that like in R.L. there are "bad" cops in the TCPD. So, yes, I can see a "less than savory character" getting missions from a cop or two.
If make some violent choices with my character(s) I hope the police oppose me. This reminds me of the carnage "heroes" make outside police stations in DCUO. Wreaking cars, scaring civilians I'm surprised none of the players have been arrested but then again I see the cops their are probably as apathetic as the devs of that games. Anyway having a fragile alliance with the police depending on your choices would definitely make your choices have more weight.
I accidently ate a bowl of radioactive soup....ok I guess that makes me a Soup-er Hero
If make some violent choices with my character(s) I hope the police oppose me. This reminds me of the carnage "heroes" make outside police stations in DCUO. Wreaking cars, scaring civilians I'm surprised none of the players have been arrested but then again I see the cops their are probably as apathetic as the devs of that games. Anyway having a fragile alliance with the police depending on your choices would definitely make your choices have more weight.
I accidently ate a bowl of radioactive soup....ok I guess that makes me a Soup-er Hero
I think people are confusing violent with unlawful.
Those are two completely different axes.
There are plenty of perfectly legal violent responses to threats. A violent character is one who chooses the violent choice in dialogues and/or chooses "eliminate opponents" mission success criteria versus other forms of mission success (such as stealth, for example).
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Will there be morality in CoT? Like GTA, will toons be shot at upon arrival, or unrealistically, will you be able to waltz in a police station? Or better yet, are cops and good npc able to be attacked by the player? Most of the top AAA games have some sort of morality; GTA, Elder Scrolls, etc. Morality makes the world much more vibrant.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
We already know that there will be both an Alignment system and factional reputation in CoT. Both have been talked about in many previous threads (and even earlier in this thread).
But to answer your specific question about "whether the cops will ever shoot at you or not" that's going to be more likely handled by your reputation rating with the Titan City Cop faction. Tannim has already mentioned that a character's reputation with each game faction will be kept on a scale from +1.0 to -1.0 so that you can rate anywhere from super positive to super negative depending on your previous interactions with them. It's also likely that certain reputations you have with one faction would affect your rating with other factions (for example if you're super friendly with the Mob that'll likely give you negative mods against your Titan City Cop rating).
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
And most likely other rival factions.
Or at least I hope so since it would be boring to only separate it into good vs. bad/evil imo.
...from breathing.
Cool, thanks.
The last part is interesting.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
I doubt the various reputation interactions in CoT would only lead to simple binary "hero vs. villain" adjustments in all cases.
I suspect in a system where there's a whole bunch of morally dubious factions (A, B, C, etc.) that becoming friendly or unfriendly with Faction A might (for example) simultaneously give you a positive bump with Faction B -and- a negative downgrade with Faction C and so on. There's probably no practical way that any single character could ever be fully +1.0 or -1.0 (in other words 100% positive or 100% negative) with EVERY faction in the game at the same time.
That's not to say that every faction in the game will or must be interrelated to each other by some universal web of relationships. While your rep level with some factions might affect your relationship with certain specifically related factions (i.e. Cops and Mob) I'm sure there will also be other random factions beyond that which your rep level with won't have any impact on anything else one way or the other.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
It would cause a lot less headaches and be easier to develop if reputation/alignment only affected availability of stuff (missions, shops, items in shops, base locations, etc) and how you progress through stories. This would mean questgivers and vendors would always be available to those that could use them and not dead or running around punching other players.
CoX actually worked this way. Sort of. You had to move your reputation "good" or "bad" enough to enter hero or villain areas, which meant the devs could simply make all npcs in every area that weren't meant to be part of combat friendly to all players. The only players that could get there to talk to them would be appropriately good or bad already. CoT could do the same thing, but tweak responses based on individual alignment/rep. They don't necessarily have to say friendly things to all players, maybe criminals tell super boy scout that they don't serve his kind here, watch yourself, we're wanted in twelve systems, etc. They can be surly and still be noncombat npcs.
This kind of setup means that you would be making interactive noncombat npcs unable to participate in combat at all, at least out in the open world. Just make them invulnerable and immune to aggro.
You could still have those characters in instanced content as allies or enemies of course, but out in public areas they would be safe. As mentioned, CoX essentially worked like this.
This would also mean groups would never have to worry about a party member turning an entire zone hostile while you are trying to buy a new hat.
I'm pretty sure all the main contact NPCs in CoH were designed to be "untargetable" by default just to make sure they couldn't be molested/killed by anyone regardless. I don't think it had anything to do with any underlying "alignment" concerns based on which zones they were in or anything like that.
I suspect those same types of NPCs will still be untargetable by default again in CoT but the new dynamics of reputation/alignment will (as you say) likely flavor their responses to PCs. I imagine some of them will end up being so diametrically opposed to certain PCs that maybe hostile MOBs could pop up around the NPC whenever such a PC tries to talk to them. But even if that happens I'm sure the contact NPC itself would remain neutral and unkillable.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Which makes me think CoT needs to have the NPC heroes attack near by enemies, like in CO.
When they didn't in CoH, people just made fun of the heroes :p
Really? I'm not sure I ever gave it a second thought but I guess it would have been a bit weird to see a "famous hero" just stand there as a group of villains just ran past him/her. Most of the time those contact NPCs were located in places where "killable MOBs" didn't really come close to them anyway.
It's been so long since I played CO I don't recall how that part worked. Did the "NPC contact heroes that attacked nearby enemies" become killable when they attacked or were they just allowed to fight while still remaining invulnerable? I get that it "makes sense" for those NPC contacts to fight when bad guys are nearby but there's actually good reason for them to NOT fight. It would seem a bit unfair for people to herd MOBs towards those NPCs just so that they could "trick" them into fighting and/or to grief other players who just wanted to interact with them as contacts.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Lothic, I think Brand X meant that contacts had other npcs around them to act as guards.
The contacts behaved the same as they did in CoX iirc, they just had other npcs there for window dressing so they could make it look like an area was dangerous. Soldiers fighting aliens, police trading shots with mobsters, etc. They were effectively friendly stage hazards. It also helped with the general storytelling in the area they were trying to do. It really helps the player buy into the "stop the alien invasion" story if it feels like the whole world is fighting back but losing ground and your heroics turn the tide. Lots of games do similar things. Even games that have attackable quest NPCs tend to do this, sometimes especially because they want to discourage players from bothering said npc.
OK I could see that. I actually sort of suggested that idea in my earlier post when I offered the hypothetical of when a PC with an extremely diametrically opposed reputation tried to talk to one of the contact NPCs.
For example let's say there's this super-heroic untargetable NPC contact, let's call him Captain Paladin, who's a member of the "hyper-hero club" faction. Then let's say there's this villainous-leaning PC who's got a -0.95 negative rep with the "hyper-hero club" faction. If that PC was dumb enough to try to talk to Captain Paladin the game could suddenly spawn several "junior hyper-hero club" members next to Captain Paladin who could instantly attack the PC. These "junior" MOBs would be normal, killable critters that would technically "protect" Captain Paladin even though he's still untargetable/unkillable.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
No. In CO, if enemies got near Ape Cop for example (forgot the name) he would fight them.
No, one couldn't get a mission from him at that time, but I never saw issue with it.
Again I could see that being "griefable" in at least a couple of ways. First you could herd a bunch of MOBs towards such a NPC contact to force that contact to act as a sort of "pseudo teammate" to help you kill a bunch of critters you might not otherwise be able to handle solo. Also while you're doing that you could potentially keep that contact "engaged" in order to prevent/delay other players from being able to interact with the contact.
Frankly even though it might seem "unnatural" I'd rather NPC contacts not be griefable/exploitable like that. Like I said it never really once bothered me that they remained untargetable/inactive in CoH. As a compromise (as suggested earlier) maybe the contact could spawn "minion MOBs" as guards/attackers while the contact themselves remains safe and ungriefable.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I think you’re referring to Millennium City PD’s Kodiak (who looks like a Sasquatch in a police uniform to me).
And again, I never saw any griefing of it in CO and it made it better imo that they would take on the enemies near by, if they got to close.
And thanks Atma, yes, Kodiak.
Never "seeing" it happen doesn't "prevent" it from happening. ;)
Were the CO contacts still unkillable or could they be killed during those times? Either way would actually be bad (how do you "explain" a NPC that can't be killed [b]OR[/b] if they could be killed the game would have to worry about re-spwaning them so that people would still have the contact available).
Having contact NPCs engage in combat might be more "realistic" but it also opens up a bunch of extra problems. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I don't think they were killable. But remember, this is CO, so the enemies they attacked were NPCs, not evil PCs.
Better to have contacts that will fight if an enemy is nearby imo.
OK.
Yeah I got that.
I get that you'd prefer that because it might "look better" or "make sense". But that doesn't really mean it's a good idea for the overall game. I honestly DON'T like the idea of unkillable NPCs being able to smack down other NPCs - seems like the perfect recipe for griefing/exploitation.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
To add onto this, most every NPC that is around Enemy NPCs is vastly higher level than them (or the same level but just outclassing entirely with higher health and damage similar to that to a Lair boss) and usually one shot the poor criminals. For those that weren't, kiting the enemy NPCs to their location is near impossible as the leash distance in CO is extremely small.
[B]Revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest...[/B]
Roleplayer; Esteemed Villain
[img]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/5.jpg[/img]
I don't like even the "possibility" that someone could prevent me from interacting with a contact because it's too busy pointlessly smacking down a bunch of other NPCs. CoH didn't allow NPC contacts to fight - good enough for me.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Having played many MMOs where this can happen (WoW being one of them).
1) Yes it’s annoying when it happens.
2) It usually doesn’t happen all that often.
3) You get used to it.
It’s only a problem if you’re, say, playing WoW and you’re a low-level player trying to do quests in a remote area. A handful of high-level jerks of the opposite faction kill all the NPCs in that area (because that’s a thing you can do in WoW, there are even achievements tied to it - killing a named NPC, not being a jerk). And they hang around and kill them all again on respawn. You log out because you can no longer quest.
Generally it only sucks if the NPCs you have to interact with are killable. You can’t use them for exploits because if an NPC kills or does any significant damage to your target you get no credit for the kill (no XP, no loot, your quest isn’t advanced, etc.). Usually you want to stay away from them in combat so they don’t kill-steal. The only advantage in bringing an enemy to them is if you are trying to escape that enemy (not much of an exploit).
All I'm saying is there's absolutely no need for us to have to "get used" to these various problems. CoH had the strict policy where all contact/mission NPCs were by definition non-combatant and non-killable so there was never ANY problems like this at all. CoT should work exactly the same way.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
CoH didn't allow for one to respec their secondary. Good enough for me.
CoH didn't allow for blah blah. Good enough for me.
If we're gonna do the "CoH didn't do this...good enough for me." game, we can go all day :p It's more immersive. Which, if the CoT player base is like the CoH player base, I'd like it, because one thing a lot of the CoH player base wasn't, was able to seperate the meta from the narrative. :p
Having quest givers be killable doesn't make it more immersive, sorry. Lothic is right.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
Could easily have them be fightable but not killable. Instead of dying the NPC just takes a knee. It could then call in a bunch of reinforcements to help handle whatever griefer.
Having the NPC and their back up award absolutely nothing would prevent a lot of people from bothering.
Could also have the NPC still be considered a quest NPC for those who don't care about the shenanigans. So you can talk to them while they're fighting or taking a knee.
Could also make it so if you have enough negative rep you can't enter where the NPC is. The easiest way would be to have all the quest NPCs be in their own instances (for instance a TCPD station). If you have too low of a rep the guards would attack you and the door would be inaccessible to you. This could also be done in overworld locations with some sort of barrier, though that seems more immersion breaking.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
No one ever said make them killable. Infact, the examples given, the NPCs weren't killable. They just fought. :p
Regardless, if someone can keep you from interacting with said NPC quest giver then it isn't immersive.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
I'd argue it is immersive. It's just not fun.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
I have played (and still play) so many freaking MMOs over the years they can blur together a bit and it’s hard to keep them straight. But I think TERA Online is a game with unkillable quest NPCs that will attack hostile enemies that get too close.
If you’re chatting with one, reading the text of the quest, looking at rewards and chat responses, etc. and an enemy gets close suddenly the quest window will vanish. You look around and there are a half dozen random enemy mooks and the NPC you were talking to and a couple of guards are attacking them. You can wait a few seconds for the enemies to get killed, or join the combat and end it quicker.
After it’s done the NPC runs back to their spot, the little icon reappears over their head, etc. You can talk to them again to start the quest dialog once more.
A tiny bit annoying. But no big deal. And people aren’t bringing enemies in for an intentional exploit because again they get nothing out of it. Typically what happens is they’re riding along on their mounts, ignoring enemies they aggro along the way because they’re moving too fast to be attacked. They stop to turn in a quest, sell to vendor, etc. Apparently they didn’t outdistance everything because a handful will show up just to get slaughtered by the NPCs there.
Again, it’s not a big deal. I’m not sure if it’d be worse to have the NPCs ignore the enemies and break immersion, or if it’s worse that they join in and attack and interrupt player interactions. There’s an argument for either design.
Immersion always has to take a back seat to actual gameplay and fun. If your questgiver is screwing around and runs off mid sentence when you try to talk to them, it is annoying. You lose nothing by having them stay out of combat. Worried about realism? Put them in areas where there isn't combat, you don't have to wonder why they don't get involved. Everyone wins. They are always available and they don't weirdly ignore crazy stuff going on nearby, since it isn't.
Feel free to use other characters in combat situations, in missions, what have you. You can even have recurring characters show up in a variety of ways, I'm sure we'll see a character that gives out missions and is also in missions as an ally or enemy. But NPCs whose job it is to perform a function need to perform that function and not run around uselessly or get killed.
I still remember oldschool EQ (and later games like wow that are heavily based on them) where important NPCs can and would be murdered by players.
I have a friend that delighted in griefing people back then by doing things like perma-charming a quest npc that only spawned every few days (at best) and people would wait in line for and take time off of work to just sit around in game until this particular character spawned. Then she used a spell to talk to them through the npc while hiding. This was a pretty vile thing to do and didn't really serve any purpose in the game, it was just exploiting the limited and amateur craftsmanship of the game.
I'm not saying CoT will have that specific problem, it is an extreme case. Just that there is no reason to ever get close to a scenario where anything like that could happen. At launch CoX had other things people could do, like nonconsentually teleport your friends off a rooftop.
Players will tend to find silly things devs didn't expect and changes will have to be made sometimes, but some things are relatively obvious and predictable and preventable.
And it's fun with the quest giver gets involved. I loved seeing it. :p
So, really, what does it do to gameplay other than "Hmmm...I get more xp and do what you do in all mmos and kill things." :p
There was and I imagine still is a big greifing issue in WoW with this. In my experience it's never been "a tiny bit annoying"; it's always more than a hassle. You say it is immersive...somehow...I say it's not. Even if it was, it's less than a minor part of the game so if greifing is possible with it then it shouldn't be allowed.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
Except the xp is going to be negligible compared to the xp from turning in a quest or getting one to go on, especially when compared to the inconvenience of the time wasted waiting for the NPC to 'come back'. Also, "kill things" is not the sole premise of CoT.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
Apples and oranges my friend. The griefing in WoW is real and I previously related my experience with that. But that involves NPCs being killed off, which doesn’t happen when they’re, you know, unkillable. A small but pretty important detail.
I’ll say it again, as long as the NPCs can’t be killed it won’t be a big deal if they can participate in combat. If they can be killed though, it can be pretty awful. As in, can’t play the game anymore awful.
I don’t get how you don’t see the immersion difference?
“Greetings citizen, I am Captain Strongheart, defender of the innocent and guardian of the city!”
Pack of gangs members runs up, beats newbie player to death. Captain Strongheart gazes off to the horizon stoically, completely oblivious.
“Perhaps in time you can be as renowned a hero as I am!”
You don’t see the issue? I’m not saying it’s necessarily worth the inconvenience but it’s pretty silly to suggest that there’s no loss of immersion if a so-called hero doesn’t act heroic in any way.
Sure you can set things up so that it’s impossible for that situation to happen. Set up NPCs in places where there are no enemies, where combat can’t happen. Maybe tuck them away in instances or in city hubs far from the action. But now you’ve restricted where you can have NPCs.
There’s no perfect solution. Whatever you do is going to have trade-offs and a downside. The trick is finding the method that fits the game and that leaves players with the best experience. It’s not simple.
It is simple...it's a game. I'd be willing to bet that most players would never think that far into it. No one likes having an 'unclickable' NPC, so don't allow the NPC to ever become 'unclickable'. That gives players the best experience. Simple.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
Which, we know at least one player disagrees with you, so, you're wrong. :p
Seriously, a few second wait, because OMG XP NOW right after you said there's more to CoT than combat, which will be the main thing of the MMO. Always is.
While I don't like having unclickable NPC's that I'm supposed to interact with (quest-givers, vendors, and such) I'd rather have the increased immersion (and annoyance) that they aid in taking down "enemies". Though that said the aid should be appropriate in that not all NPC's should do it, at least the non-super kinds of NPC's (normal reporter, average citizen, etc) and undercover ones shouldn't aid you.
Hmm, that gives me an idea for a little more cheeky undercover agent that when you get attack by the faction he is undercover in they'd do [i]/em popcorn[/i].
Also the NPC's who do aid would be placed in such a way that the chances of it happening would be extremely small, a.k.a the exception to the "rule".
The quest-giving NPCs I recall in CO have been unkillable. They can still run out of health, it's merely a flesh wound. Such NPCs make great places to retreat to when you've bitten off too much. There's a stag-headed fellow that gives you a side mission in one mission who works this way. He's very useful for backup, almost too useful (why do you need me, mister stag-person?). But that's a story/game balance to to be achieved. In another mission my side-kick followed along, and was unbeatable (to permit him to tell some part of the story). Yet he later becomes destructible (also for story purposes). That change of mechanics could be confusing, would need to be handled carefully.
I don't mind waiting for an NPC contact to deal with a foe before we talk. If it's that important I'll help the NPC out.
[size=14]"The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths." - Pushkin[/size]
[size=14] "One piece of flair is all I need." - Sister Silicon[/size]
Another good option to mitigate this is limiting the amount of times a player needs to go talk to an NPC face to face.
If you just need to talk to the NPC in person to start a mission chain, but then can just call in completion and get new missions that way then there's a lot less chance that the NPC will be busy (fighting/being dead) when you actually need to talk to them in person.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Project Hero brings up a good point that could be taken a step further. Why talk to npcs directly for missions at all? Talk to them for story, interact with them for flavor and fluff, but get your actual goals from other places like clues and radios and phones that don't have this problem at all. No one wonders why a newspaper doesn't stop being a newspaper to fight crime.
You can and should still have lots of interactions with "real" npcs, but as PH mentioned, make that part of the story, not required to start things going. Let players read over a job and think about it on their own without having to cluster around some guy that is busy running around or being dead.
Instead, by someone gets to that NPC, they are ready to say "oh hey you're here for X alright let's get this party started". Use of phasing and similar tech means you can always have a version of that npc ready for anyone that comes up regardless of what quest they are doing. If they have more than one relevant to that NPC they can respond to whichever the player has selected as their current focus, or whichever is first on their list. Phasing also means you can have those NPCs do more than be static set pieces that hand out quests and rewards, they can move, talk, fight, act like an actual character. This is much more engaging than acting like a billboard and vending machine, and you can have individual copies of them for each player or group doing the quest since they can be in their own bubble for the duration. To make them feel more like a living and breathing character, build in something many games have done and have them able to be interrupted mid sentence but then pick back up again saying something like "sorry where was I before that rudeness".
Of course you can still have story decisions that give you new quests during story interactions with real NPCs. You just don't have them standing around in the middle of a firefight all day like many old school mmos did.
TLDR let the job of billboards and vending machines be done by billboards and vending machines, make the characters actual characters.
I'm not sure we should go to this "extreme" either but somewhere in between should do nicely.
I think your idea is more applicable to the "quest givers" that are out in the field so to say and the ones that are in safe areas can be the standard type of quest giver. Though even out in the field not everyone will "advertise" their need for help, nor do I like the idea of relying on the tips system for more than the one-off quest.
PH essentially described how DCUO handles quest chains in that you only need to talk to an NPC to start the quest-chain and at the final turn-in. Combine that with CoH's "phone" system for quest givers, where you could phone them up after having "proven" yourself to them, and it's possible that will only need to be face-to-face one single time for quest stuff.
Well. We have a talking dog for a police commissioner. Why not an NPC in the park with a collie on a leash? The NPC knows nothing. But the dog knows the low down on the Aether Pirates.
[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/z9bk1znkb/Black_Falcon_Sig_in_Progess.jpg[/img]
Why not just have the quest giving NPC call in an allied faction to deal with the trouble-making NPCs? Say it's a hero NPC quest-giver and a group of punks is harassing someone in her vicinity. Instead of dealing with it herself, she instead radios the police, or some vigilante group, or whomever, and that group of NPCs then appear and duke it out with the punks. The quest-giving NPC is thus 'involved', immersion is maintained, such as it is, and the PC isn't griefed.
While it sounds like a good one I'm not so sure it actually ups the immersion factor that much since the call-in can easily be missed.
Thing there is no solution that fits every situation perfectly. While I think most that are mentioned here can be used in some capacity choosing only a single one would be a mistake.
Well if the last few posts in this thread prove anything is that each of us have fairly different points of view where it comes to how we experience playing a game like this. For instance I played CoH regularly for 8.5 years (which probably amounted to 20k hours at least) and up until [b]yesterday[/b] when Brand X brought up this novel idea that "NPC contacts that didn't attack anything in CoH was apparently weird to some people" had never even occurred to me once. All those years of playing and it never bothered me in the slightest. *shrugs*
If CoT manages to figure out a way to allow their NPC contacts to bounce around and play "tag" with other NPCs without that susposedly "realistic looking activity" wasting [b]any of my time[/b] that I need them to be serving their primary function as contacts then I'm not strictly against the idea. I just don't see the need for the Devs of CoT to waste the time and effort to make that all work. That little "nugget" of realism is simply pointless and I'd rather the Devs work on clearly more important things.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Just to follow up - I'm of the belief that this bit about the NPC quest giver is a rather unimportant issue. There are numerous immersion breakers in video games - this is a minor one. A quest giving NPC who is always located in the same place, let alone one who doesn't interact with its immediate environs, isn't something I'm bothered much by and, until the topic was broached, had neither noticed nor given thought to, which may just mean I'm a dullard...
If this is a time/effort resource sink for the devs, and I assume it is because of the number of NPC quest-givers and the necessity to program for their behavior, then I'm all for continuing the hallowed traditions of yore and leaving them as immovable, non-killable (and therefore non-griefable*) objects.
*Please note: the griefer in me appreciates the sublime utility of griefing toons via their mission givers =)
It was. Not to mention, as an RPer, I could just as easily imagine they were anyways. However, what break immersion for me, is when other RPers bring up such ideas. :p More than once it was mentioned how the NPC just stood there. I was on Virtue though, so this may not have been an issue on other servers. :p
Like how Longbow attack civilians, because their CoV concept wasn't a villain, or was undercover in civvies.
So, I guess the thing that really breaks immersion is other players :p
This assumes it would take all that long. Not to mention the game is already years later than they said it would be with the KS, so time/effort/resource sink...I almost wonder if it's not just an excuse anymore. I'm sure the game will come out at some time, however, if the idea is to keep waiting to get everything perfect, why does the idea of making something perfect better than other things perfect? :p
The NPC thing can be weird in the sense that in other MMOs NPC contacts/quest givers would tend to attack you if you were of the opposite faction and you could defeat/kill them unless they were an very special NPC like say children NPCs.
Thats probably how it may end up breaking a roleplayer's immersion as their is no reason that a cop contact would be perfectly fine with a dangerous villain waltzing right infront of them.
Albeit to be fair City of Heroes was ahead of its time with the phone system for quest/mission chains. Other MMOs took years to put in features were you did not have constantly run back to turn in quests/missions.
Ironically enough I played about 98% of my time in CoH on Virtue and again not only did I never consider the "non-attacking NPC contacts" an issue but I'm reasonably sure I don't remember anyone else bringing it up as a problem either. So much for the idea that it was a thing that mainly annoyed "RPers" - maybe you just hung out with extra weird people on Virtue. ;)
At best this once again seems like something that's "non-essential" that could be addressed after launch, if at all.
Again I get that "realistically speaking" NPC contacts should be able to attack diametrically opposed targets around them. I'm just stressing that could directly lead to players griefing other players by depriving them of the ability to reach their contacts and was a "problem" completely (and wisely) avoided in CoH by specifically NOT allowing them to attack. Sometimes realism in games has to be made secondary to measures that prevent griefing.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
If we're going to do something because it may grief someone, can I be the judge of all character names, because I'm much more grieved by names of some players :p
Except player names can't change your game play. Griefing someone by causing an NPC to become 'unclickable' is changing gameplay to impede another player, a name can't do that.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
And I'm not even asking that CoT do anything extra or different than CoH did. CoH managed to get along pretty well for 8.5 years without having NPC contacts ever be a griefable "thing" to worry about. Why break things that aren't broken?
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I thought part of CoT was doing things better. :p
It wasn't broken that we didn't have power and animation tied together. Now we won't. Why change that, if it wasn't broken in CoH? :p
Also, seeing a terrible name, totally hampers my gameplay, as I have to see it and go "Seriously, we have free name reign, and you use xXxBIGFATFISHHEADKILLERxXx :p
You're conflating doing things which would [b]improve[/b] CoT as a game versus things that would actually make it [b]worse[/b]. Changing something that was grief-proof in CoH to be a potential source of griefing in CoT is NOT progress.
And seriously what do character names have to do with the issue of whether NPC contacts can be griefed or not?
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
You said don't allow something because it causes grief. Didn't cause me grief in CO or WoW. So, it must be a you personally feel grieved by it. As such, I personally feel grieved when a dumb name is used and OMG, I know I'm going to be grieved by someone using the name "IAMHEALOR"
Not to mention, fighting along side the hero NPCs is ALWAYS a better thing :p
*sigh* It's not a matter of whether you DID or DIDN'T get griefed by it in CO or WoW. The difference is that the POTETNIAL for it to happen (to anyone) existed in those games. The potential for that did NOT exist in CoH by design. That means as a matter of FACT (not opinion) CoH was the least griefable game of the three when it comes to NPC contacts.
Frankly I'd like to play the game that [b]by design[/b] is less griefable. You're free to enjoy games that are more potentially griefable, but honestly that's simply sounds a tiny bit insane to me. ;)
This is absolutely 100% merely your opinion on the matter. I'll stick with my fact that CoH was by design the least griefable in terms of NPC contacts.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
So you want to restrict freedom of players being able to choose their own name? I guess you should submit a name list that we have to choose from in order to play. By your logic can I have CoT take out pink since I don't want to see that color on my screen?
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
Ahhh, sorry didn't see you make that argument before. Makes sense.
City of Heroes already did this. No big copyrighted names. Other MMOs and big multiplayer games also tend to filter out or even target players with immature names. I know Blizzard in Overwatch will actually make you change your name if its something obnoxious and immature and they catch it.
So no this wouldn't restrict people's freedom as much as some may think and from what I have seen so far it doesn't cause an slippery slope.
Well, you need to learn to read first to submit a list. :p
I said, if we should limit things based on what others may consider grief while others may consider it fun, then let's limit the names to what I want, because I find terrible names like XxXColeverinaXxX way worse than a named hero NPC contact fighting along side me for less than a minute before the contact gets back to their spot, way more fun. :p
I'm pretty sure Dark Cleric wasn't suggesting CoT filter our names through a relatively small "[b]restricted[/b] name list" to check to see if we picked one that was forbidden. Given the context I think he rhetorically wanted Brand X to submit the relatively small "[b]allowed[/b] name list" that would satisfy the supposedly extremely few names that Brand X would consider "reasonable". Without being too obtuse about it Dark Cleric was hyperbolicly implying that Brand X was being way too hyper-picky about people who apparently created names that were not up to the extremely exacting standards of being "good enough" for CoH as defined by Brand X.
P.S. I -still- don't know why anyone's talking about character names here. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Again none of this has anything to do with what people may or may not have ever been griefed by in another game. Handling the NPCs contacts one way in CoT would allow for the POSSIBILTY of griefing and the other doesn't. That's not a subjective matter of what's "more fun" or not - that's a cold hard fact. CoH handled things in a way that made NPCs contact griefing impossible - let's stick with what works shall we?
The limits of your definition of fun doesn't extend into the realm of opening up overtly unnecessary scenarios that could lead others to be griefed. You're effectively arguing FOR a new way to grief people in CoT that didn't exist in CoH and your only justification for the change is that you'd "think it'd be fun".
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
And limiting fun [b]in a game[/b] for the possibility of an extremely unlikely and easily avoidable chance for a slight inconvenience that might last a few seconds?
Again, the games that I’ve played that allow this to happen, it’s not a big deal. There is no griefing. You’re inventing a non-existent problem, and your only concrete reason is because CoH didn’t do it that way. Maybe CoT has a chance to avoid one of that old game’s flaws?
Again, as long as interactive NPCs aren’t killable, there will be no griefing. You don’t even need to have dialog interrupted if a fight breaks out nearby. Tether the NPC so s/he won’t run off, make the NPC invincible, there’s really no downside to it.
The only downside is if this feature requires too many resources to implement, in which case I’d assume it’s not worth the cost.
I'm not "[b]inventing[/b]" a problem. People like you and Brand X have already admitted that OTHER games had the potential to have people griefed by this. It's not my responsibility, as the person arguing my side of this discussion/debate, to prove how often anybody ever actually got griefed in any other game by this scenario. All I need is the fact that it was POSSIBLE due to what was very arguably -their- flawed designs.
Now in order to allow NPC contacts in CoT to actually react and/or fight (even if they are made to be unkillable) you are talking about ADDING a capability that CoH did not have. In effect you are asking the Devs of CoT to waste time and effort into order to transform NPC contacts from something that had a 0% chance of being griefed into something that has a [b]non-0%[/b] chance of being griefed. I'm sorry but that seems to be at the very least a bad waste of Dev time and effort.
One more time CoH managed to "survive" (and I used that word very jokingly) for 8.5 YEARS with dozens of NPC contacts that were 100% ungriefable and again up until a few days ago (thanks to Brand X) I NEVER ONCE ever heard anyone complain about that fact. I'd simply prefer to rely on the evidence of what actually happened in CoH and realize that certain game design decisions are made for good and wise reasons.
Bottomline I remain unconvinced (even as you yourself imply) that spending extra time and effort to make NPC contacts "active" would add anything positive to CoT and would only serve as a means for possible griefing. Possible griefing is all it takes - again I have no need to quantify that because any possibility above 0% is categorically intolerable. Trying to paint a design decision that prevented a form of griefing as a "flaw" of CoH is the epitome of trying to spin-doctor your way out of being on the wrong side of this issue.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
By killing NPCs. That’s the only way. Period. Nobody has “admitted” anything else.
You don’t know that at all. I acknowledged that if it’s a drain on resources it’s not worth it. But you can’t just assume that.
I’m not suggesting that CoH couldn’t survive without the feature. That’s a ridiculous leap to take. And I don’t think you really want to use the line of reasoning that MMOs with longevity need to have each aspect imitated, because otherwise the next logical step is to look at every MMO that lasted longer than CoH and start imitating those. Because Champions Online, another superhero MMO, is over 9.5 years old (yes it launched November 2009) and hasn’t shut down yet. But nobody wants to imitate every aspect of that game either. So again, don’t go down that road.
Okay, aside from glitches, it’s 0%. It won’t happen.
Also, just to clarify, it’s not a critical feature. I don’t think the game would necessarily suffer without it. (It could, potentially, all it would take is someone turning the “non-super-hero” thing into a meme to make bad PR for the game but I don’t want to invent problems either.) My entire point is that there’s no way to enable “griefing” unless you’re stupid about it and make NPCs the way WoW did. That’s not a legitimate argument. Saying it’s not that important seems like a fair argument, and I’m not a huge proponent of it unlike Brand X.
Pretending an issue doesn't exist because you don't have personal experience with it is absurd. Reasonably preventing obvious issues before they happen with common sense solutions that have no impact on gameplay is a good thing. Doubly so with methods proven to work well in prior application. CoX was ahead of the times in many ways, having invulnerable contacts was one of them. At the time EQ had long used oldschool MUD style interaction with every NPC. You could easily accidentally attack your own town guards for example. This was extremely common for new players since they had to type "hail" to talk to npcs and A was the default auto-attack key. It never ended well.
There are definitely people in the world happy to spend the finite time of their lives doing nothing but trying to ruin other people's good time. If you have lived an extremely sheltered life you may never have encountered anyone like that but it does not change reality.
This is also assuming ill willed players are the only thing that would get in the way of using these contacts. Any random wandering mob could do this by itself, especially during special events or quests that cause unusual spawning and movement of mobs.
It’s not absurd when nobody has had personal experience with it. I’m not suggesting it be done like EQ or WoW. Again, that would be dumb.
You are, possibly willfully, conflating two seperate terms.
A griefer is someone who intentionally harasses other players.
To feel grief is a completely separate thing.
The only way a name could be considered griefing is if the character intentionally chose something inflammatory, or that directly targets another player.
IAMHEALOR doesn't do this. Not griefing.
If their name was "BRANDXISADUMB" then it would be.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Wait, what? How can you say no one has ever had personal experience with this when that is what started this conversation?
No one is making up an imaginary problem that never existed in order to solve it. They are operating off of well known events as well as personal recollections. It is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer of human behavior that people can be jerks given the opportunity. To say no one has ever had personal experience with such is madness.
This question about the NPC contacts being "combat active" or not in CoT isn't going to be decided or solved by us. Obviously the Devs will decide what they want to do with this.
Now just to be absolutely fair it is certainly possible that the CoT Devs could probably figure out a way to allow NPC contacts to abandon their posts just so that they can hop around and beat up on some random NPCs that run past them while at the same time keep the ability of players to exploit that behavior via greifing others to an absolute minimum. This could be done software-wise.
My simple argument [b]against[/b] this idea is two-fold:
A) It would require more Dev time and effort to implement that than it would the K.I.S.S. solution that was proven to work in CoH. The work to figure out the contact NPCs' various responses to other nearby NPCs and how they would remain "unkillable" represents EXTRA work our Devs likely can't afford to waste no matter how small that effort might actually be.
B) It would open the door to a host of various new issues that would likely become unforeseeably problematic. For instance how do you explain an NPC that can both engage in combat and that can't be killed? How do you explain an NPC contact that a PC might technically still be able to "talk to" while they're busy fighting other NPCs? How do we know players STILL won't discover ways to exploit/grief this? (i.e. herding NPCs over to this unkillable NPC in order to exploit it for power leveling).
Again the straightforward solution of following CoH's lead by keeping NPC contacts non-active solves/prevents ALL of these potential problems while ALSO being the simplest way to implement it. It's a classic win-win scenario.
So sure it's always possible the CoT Devs might choose to waste MORE time/effort on this in order to make it MORE likely to cause a wide range of different extra problems. My guess is that all other things being equal they'll take the easy way out on this one.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Nobody has provided personal experience being griefed in a game like TERA Online or Neverwinter Online, games with invincible NPCs that will attack hostile mobs that move within proximity. The people with griefing experiences were relating games where those NPCs can be killed. I was one of those people who related such an experience. That’s why I’ve said repeatedly that CoT shouldn’t and I’m sure would never have anything like that.
My assumption is that CoT will have NPC characters that you interact with that will basically be furniture. They’re indestructible, untargetable, and will ignore any nearby threats or combat. And I’m sure it’ll be fine, it won’t ruin the game or anything.
But imagine this possibility... Let’s say there’s a vigilante hero who hangs out in the south part of town by a warehouse, call him Kunckleduster. You can walk up and talk to him and he’ll work as a contact, providing missions or discussing lore. You’re in a part of town where enemies won’t wander in (who wants to tangle with the mighty Knuckleduster?) but enemies aren’t far away.
You chat with KD and some other player runs in with a few gang members chasing him. He runs up to KD. KD casually swings his fists, knocking the gang members out easily (because he’s awesome) and takes them out in a few seconds. He doesn’t move very far, just a few yards at most (he has a tether that won’t let him move very far). Your dialog window with him doesn’t close, because taking out these lowlifes is nothing to a hero like him and he can keep chatting as he pounds the street scum.
The player who brought the gang members doesn’t get credit for defeating them because KD did it for him. He just avoids whatever death penalty the game has. Your dialog with KD isn’t interrupted. KD can’t be killed (or even hurt), he doesn’t even have a health stat. He also can’t be targeted by another player to attack.
I can see this as a way to add immersion without inconveniencing anyone. I think it would be pretty cool and better than having Knuckleduster standing there ignoring someone needing help. [b]As long as it doesn’t take too many resources to develop it.[/b] It’s not a big enough deal to bother with otherwise.
You’d also have NPCs like reporters, the hotdog stand guy, the street bum, regular non-hero types who wouldn’t intervene in a fight. It would just be certain characters that would act like that.
You don't know that for sure.
Again weighing the pros and cons I could survive having a few inactive contact NPCs to avoid [b]ALL[/b] of the alternative issues/problems.
Again WE collectively have no idea how much extra time and resources this would take to implement. It's not a big enough deal to bother with [color=red]in the first place[/color].
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I'm confused. If this is for 'immersion', how does that work if the NPC doesn't even have a health bar? Why would a immortal god be there in the first place handing out missions to wannabe heroes compared to him? That was sarcasm to make a point.
I can understand wanting the 'immersion' of playing with NPC good guys; I'm sure there are going to be missions where we can fight along side NPC heroes. But if the immersion people want in mission-giver NPC's is that they want them to act realistic (like not ignoring someone who needs help) and be realistic, where do the devs draw the line? If they can attack and kill any bad guy without even getting hurt, I can see that as 'the place' to run to when you are being chased. During high traffic times you could potentially have streams of enemies constantly 'taunting' the NPC. And if this rule was applied to every NPC contact...you essentially have these 'safe-zone' areas where everyone being chased, anywhere on the map, can run to to get the NPC to take care of it. If that is how it was, why not herd a large group of bad guys close to the NPC so that if you start losing you can just hop over to the nearest NPC to save yourself. And that's not even to grief other players, that's to maximize xp gain by killing as many as you can at once with a safeguard always close by.
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
Kodiak, defender of new players.
[img]https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/championsonline/images/9/90/Kodiak_%28West_Side%29.png/revision/latest?cb=20091205064401[/img]
Got aggro? Run to this ugly guy
I like certain elements of The Elder Scrolls. For example, "Wait..I know you!!"
It may not always be confrontational, but npc recognize a wanted man or woman when they see them. It came off as the guards being afraid to act or something. When you do talk to them, your dialog differs from a lawful hero. Your choices are usually a fine or jail-time.
As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.
There's a big difference between whether or not it's a good idea to allow contact NPCs to run off and attack other NPCs versus whether or not it's reasonable that NPCs (of any type) react appropriately to [b]PCs[/b] based on your current reputation with their factions. One situation deals with how NPCs react with each other - the other deals with how NPCs react to PCs.
So for instance there's no problem at all with guard NPCs in a fantasy MMO reacting to players differently based on how "lawful" they might be in a given town - if you've gained a "bad reputation" you should be chased/attacked by the guards.
Same thing in CoT. NPCs that are [b]NOT mission contacts[/b] should be free to react to PCs in whatever manner your reputational standing with their faction would dictate. So if you're on good terms with the Titan City cops they'll treat you nicely - if you're a "wanted criminal" they might shoot first and ask questions later.
When it comes to mission contact NPCs they too should also be able to react to PCs nicely or not depending on reputational standing. The only difference is that at worse (because they should ALWAYS remain non-combative) they'll simply tell you to "get lost" or something equivalent.
Now for those folks who are totally in the "mission contact NPCs should be able to attack" camp the reason why they would NOT NEED to attack the PC is that more than likely they are always going to be surrounded by plenty of non-contact NPCs that are going to be busy attacking the PC regardless. For example let's say you're playing a character that's so villainous you've got like a -0.95 reputation with Titan City cops. For the sake of argument let's say that's bad enough that the cops will pretty much "shoot on sight" whenever they see you. Now the Titan City cop NPC contact (remember, the guy who can't attack anyone) is likely going to hate your guts too, but because he lives in the middle of the main Titan City police station you would basically have to fight your way though dozens of "normal cops" before you'd even get to the point where you'd have to worry about whether it "makes any sense" or not that the contact NPC isn't attacking you too. More than likely he can just stand there and yell "Get'em Boys!" while you're getting slaughtered by an overwhelming "NPC guard" response.
Bottomline NPC contacts would never need to attack anything themselves. They could easily be designed so that they spawn a bunch of temporary NPC guards that would be strong enough to plant any offending PC's face into the proverbial dirt (just like they work in games like ESO). In this sense a "NPC contact" in CoT could be designed as CoT Commanders that spawn defensive "guard pets" (that are temporary and worth 0 XP) but otherwise don't personally move or attack themselves.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I am behind this idea. I never liked it when the heroes would stand there and watch a beat-down in progress and do nothing to help. Nothing said "I am nothing but a quest hub" more than that.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
It may happen. May. You don't know if it will.
Part of your argument against it was the weaksauce, "CoH didn't have it." The other part is possible grieving that could occur. My point was that anything can be seen as grief. For me, as my example showed, was someone using a name like IAMHEALER.
I'd also feel grief from the name "Wolferine" or "Volferine" or "Wulferin3" and the likes :p However, I'm guessing you and Dark Cleric are totally okay with these names. So it's not grief to you. Which makes it okay for you. So, should allow it. :p
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