New perspectives for non-combat oriented characters

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Nedoral
Posts: 90
Character: Matteo Ponz (deceased)

New perspectives for non-combat oriented characters

Post by Nedoral » May 3rd, 2022, 9:45 pm

I've been musing on this topic for quite a while and I think now is a good time to put it all as a suggestion. There were a couple of good posts in the recent past (Commerce, maybe a new skill and a brush on Chapter VI's economy) that addressed some of what I'm going to write in here, so maybe a refresher on the material is a good call.

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TL,DR: I voice a few of my concerns as a non-combat oriented crafter, regarding the hurdle of amassing coin and (sometimes) finding goals to keep your char busy IG, referencing a few interesting events I witnessed in the actual shard or through the form of story archs on the forum.

* * *

1) What it takes to opt for a non-combat character

You don't mix well with hunting parties. Period. Even if players with strong chars don't mind you tagging along (and this is generally the case in Requiem as veteran players are truly nice folks), you are really just dead weight. Most of the time you stay back or even risk doing something reckless, since you probably don't have any armor to avoid encumbering yourself because you want something from a dangerous place and would want to maximize the amount of loot you can carry back.

That in itself is not a problem, but in practical terms it ends up becoming one. An interesting solution would be the peaceful character hiring the hunting party, which makes a lot of sense (but runs into a problem I'll address later). If you're paying the others, then it's a service and each character has a well-defined role in the event.

1.1) You are hard-pressed to spend coins, yet earning them is very hard (in my opinion)

As stated, maybe you'll refrain from hiring people to do your bidding if money is hard to come by if you don't hunt. In my experience (had a gaming spell lasting for about 3-4 months last year, other than the current one) a few circumstances make it very difficult to earn coins IG:
  • Almost every important/desirable element in the game costs coins: you need to hire vendors in a good sot and hope that people buy what you are selling, because you need to pay him by the week no matter what. Your workshop? also weekly rent, and you better have it. The only alternative to have a shop rent-free is by using the custom housing system - which is by far the best feature coding-wise of the shard, and the freedom it provides for your chosen spot + trade is off the charts (but I don't think you can place vendors in your custom house, please correct me if I'm wrong);
  • People don't buy ordinary stuff: I noticed normal everyday stuff is almost never on display, I know I had trouble buying simple stuff back then (about two weeks for a lantern and a pair of sandals) and now (still looking for a straw hat and maybe overalls). I see numerous good sets of EO/MW armor and weapons, but maybe 50% of the vendors disappeared from the FP market area. This could be caused of course by player inactivity, but it doesn't make it any easier to find just common stuff for sale, and aside from tools you'll lose money if you load your vendor with them;
  • Vendors are quite handy, but they are not the solution: even if we consider adding higher prices on vendors and discount anything people buy directly off you, either combat-oriented chars have so much money that it hardly makes a difference for them or the chance to get something right away is more important than saving a few bucks waiting for you to log in. While the absence of vendors may excessively hinder the playtime of people in mismatched time zones, I do compare vendor transactions to correspondence chess - you make your move and go about your day and maybe check if the board has changed before dinner; it may suffice if there's no alternative, but in no way it's even close to a live match against someone sitting on the opposite side. I confess I don't have a suggestion on this one other than maybe limiting stuff that vendors are able to sell, so that people can trade more and allow haggling and bartering. Not to mention they can also sell repair deeds, meaning not even for repairs people need to seek other chars IG;
2) On the importance of goals

I addressed the coin part before what I deem my main point to be: setting goals for yourself. Alongside having less time, the secondary reason I stopped playing Requiem was due to the fact everything was sort of "in order": we have achieved the construction of quite a few buildings in the rural Foundry area (formerly Miltown, alas no more), supplies of raw materials were well-stocked and we managed to hire a bodyguard for menacing wildlife in the area. What then?

If you're not strictly associated with a Faction, you may not have the same opportunities to contribute to an ongoing story arch as you'd hope (two good examples are here and here, although the latter was more open to citizens collaborating in an "extra" capacity). I bring this up to mention an event that, in my opinion, can be considered as a "missed opportunity" in regards to offering a hand to the less-combat oriented playerbase: there once was a search party inside a mysterious cave in order to return a prized item back to the FP museum. As with most things, the idea was getting some able-bodied people to come along and launch a location finished by the Req team. And that's awesome, staff works non-stop to bring all this stuff to life. However, I think it could have been better if the expedition found an odd treasure nobody was expecting, let's say an unusual scepter, which they'd need an expert jeweler to help identify, while said jeweler needed the help of more people because he didn't have the right tool at his disposal, and so on. Of course, this back-in-town half of the quest could be offered to interested parties amidst the crafter residents to take part on, I know I'd be delighted to participate in something like that. At the end of the day, it'd be the brawny ones who bring stuff home, and the crafty ones who tell everyone what it is (or how much it's worth).

I have more or less the same feeling with the Foundry events: they arrange a meeting with a few citizens with means in order to discuss rennovations or future installations of machinery. While the meetings themselves are fun due to our quirky characters, the main plot of these archs is to relinquish a hefty portion of a handful of materials so the Foundry can put their plans into motion. I feel there's more that could be done with these types of plot, like maybe electing a representative to pass the word forth towards something the Foundry would particularly like to fall on positive ears, or even hire some discrete individual for espionnage on a particular matter. I don't know, but I always feel half-empty when our share of collaboration ends and the Req team releases the result of the gathered materials in form of a cool map.

I'll end this already awfully long post with an example of something I've seen once in another shard: at some point, the staff wanted to delegate control of certain areas in the shape of "fiefs", so these chars could report to a man who was a type of seneschal to the King. The landlord aspect of it was interesting on its own, because we had a budget to spend on services we deemed necessary, so we reached other characters within our means to keep the I-need-you-you-need-me ring going. And I know I have ideas to actually pester characters around with a few tasks (which may turn into other archs, who knows), Matteo just has his pockets full of lint.

Note: I remember one rather lazy shard as well that chars had a way of earning coins from NPCs by crafting a few units of the same stuff (bowls of carrots, ten short pants, etc), but it was way too easy because the daily limit was a bit high. Maybe some sort of ridiculously low daily income could work, like 100 copper a day for providing X materials or finished goods to some NPC merchant. Even if it's really low, we could make it work in the long run.

Please don't take this enormous text as a massive rant, because it isn't. Quite on the contrary: I've left other shards because I didn't care enough for any changes as I was half outta the door already. And I did have amazing RP scenes which made quite a few nights (such as Matteo's first hut catching fire with the KM&A guys and the late night story time with Milton, Aster and a few wine bottles). I see a very commited staff and playerbase, which is more than enough for me to say what really bugs me and what I could offer as mind fodder to improve it. As for the need of goals, I'd say that I'd be pretty down to being kidnapped by some wicked party and forced to break rocks or chop logs for them at sword point, because that becomes both a story and a hook for others to get involved (in whatever way).

If you read it all, I really appreciate the effort. Moreover, if you do think I made a mistake in some portion of the post (or its entirety), do reply with your opinion. This is by no means a "staff save me" post rather than trying to keep things interesting for more urban characters.

Archin
Posts: 110
Character: Archin

Re: New perspectives for non-combat oriented characters

Post by Archin » May 5th, 2022, 11:49 pm

Thanks for your feedback. We agree about about the lack of progression for non-combatant play-styles.

The crafting patch we're working on is in part one of the ways we were looking at non-combat playstyles to see how we can improve the overall experience. Once we’re out of this big crafting patch update we’ll be moving on to persistent world development - I wont go into details as not to oversell, but the stuff we’re working hopefully will address some of the issues you raise.

Approaching certain goals via craft skills, stealth, electing a representative, etc are all fantastic ideas. Players can always opt to try and use alternate methods such as those to approach challenges; we use players dialogue, emotes, and overall choices on how to present their goals and interest to the world (newspaper, NPC meetings, hosting public events, etc.) in those moments to determine what to call for via rolls, just like a TTRPG table. So for example, don’t be afraid to pull the Museum team aside and ask if they could use a good jeweler in the future, or a good bookbinder to help restore an artifact, it'll inform the NPC (and thus me) how to better hook players into upcoming events.

Players summarizing an event afterwards and submitting it to the newspaper, hosting public events, participating in faction verses, forum story post, and talking to the NPCs at events are all ways to help signal to us that you’re interested in more of that content. Basically, when we see our stuff promote activity and create player content, it encourages us to make more of that style of event.

Regarding getting plots of land to manage like a fief - the faction claims already have that ability with NPC guards, laws, set taxes, rentals, vendors etc. Unfortunately the two factions who made player towns both met tumultuous ends which made for great stories, but I strongly encourage anyone interested in that style to group up as a faction to explore those mechanics again.

Hearing you have some of the same concerns and ideas affirms some of the things we’re wanting to do moving forward, so again thank you for taking the time to write this up!

RestingLichFace
Posts: 6
Character: Ayame

Re: New perspectives for non-combat oriented characters

Post by RestingLichFace » May 8th, 2022, 6:18 am

I usually don't reply or use forums much but I felt this well structured state of affairs thing and the well written posts deserve some outsider feedback. Someone being on the outside/inside of crafting/crafters and organizations as well as many capable fighters - I fit right in the middle with my character.

I've definitely seen the discrepancy between the crafting coin and fighting coin and all other observations I find to be mostly true as well. With the suggestions and points covered in the main post along with the great job the dev team and staff have been working on, I not only believe in things getting continually better, they are constantly being developed and more so for the longevity of the server and for the actives still around. The only real major issue I see moving forward is that coin discrepancy and the need of a more player base. With issues being worked out by the team and players, numbers are slowly but surely starting to rise and we're constantly seeing improvement. Nedoral, great points and needed observance of our issues. Staff/Community- keep up the good work. We'll all rootin' for ya and appreciate what you do.

RLF ~ Aya

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