Discussion: How Would You Feel About Crop/Resource Blighting?

Tyranthraxus

When the day comes that we hear more in-depth details about the Divine Nodes, it'll signal that the game dev crew has moved into the side, ancilliary systems; It'll be a sure-fire sign that the game's content is nearing full 1st-pass completion! As far as Divine-based guilds and Clerics go, yours truly has a few thoughts to fish out there about Crop / Resource Blighting as a means to provide agitation/instigation by a Divine Node to its neighbors:

= As a way to cause agitation, what about accomplishments and content-missions that have Divine-Noders / Clerics travel to Freeholds in neighboring Nodes to "blight" their crops and/or resource harvestors?

= As a counter-measure, could this create a live in-game market or demand for Divine-Noders and Clerics of opposing worship, as a way to lift the blights?

= Would it be fair to provide the Mayor of a Divine Node city with a power at level 4 or 5 to control the weather over themselves or neighboring Nodes for so long, in order to provide a light, mass-blight of crops/resources?

= Would either of these ideas in-fact cause a desire to oppose/resent/fight a neighboring Divine Node?


It all sounds reasonable, to me.

Sathrago

I don't think you could get away with a system that just hands out flat percentage losses or speed increases. If these blights and curses were spawned events via spending favor in a divine node, similar to world of warcraft invasion world quests in legion but actually difficult to deal with(needing some sort of decent guild to take it down), I could see it working.

While one of these events is spawned it could take up an important resource gathering area or give the above debuffs until defeated. These would have to be costly and rare but I think the payoff would be interesting to say the least.

Katak

I am all for stuff like that as long as the end result isn't simply a nuisance or boon. It should be hard to pull off and have major repercussions or benefits.

I definitely like the idea of either chosen action resulting in 'job postings' for specific class types. I think that there should be a lot of that sort of thing to keep things interesting and create demand for various skillsets.

Vhaeyne

I think there should be some challenges and losses expected in farming. It should not be, log in, water plants, wait, profit. There should be other factors. Having the gods play a factor is a realistic idea as far as fantasy goes. I would worry about a system that is overly harsh and punishing to those not near a divine node. Having some buff to farming available from a specific god may be good and having another possible buff for being within the domain of a divine node under some conditions, like the Pope asked for it. Would be ideas I would like to see explored. I don't think randomly hitting people with the blight unless they worship a certain god is a great game mechanic, but it could be done right.

daveywavey

Don't see why it'd have to be restricted to a Divine node. Maybe the Gods could do it there, but a Militaristic node could maybe poison the ground, an Economic node could pay NPC marauders to ruin the crops, a Scientific node could use some sort of tech, etc.

But, it'd mean we'd have to have some kind of similar system for the other artisan types. Seems a bit mean to single out farmers for the hit.

ariatras

Having it attached to only Divine Nodes seems silly.

However, regarding crops and such. I do like the idea of crops being an upkeep of sorts for the cities. Perhaps not players per-say but NPCs and guards would require food. And the bigger the city, the more varied foods you need. Some of which you can only get by trading with other nodes. Giving people with a "bandit" style of gameplay a chance to attack those caravans. And players and guilds a chance to protect them. It could be affected by seasons and stuff. Like, sorry, corn doesn't grow in the winter.

Any choice that let's people PvP organically is good to me. I hate PvP for the sake of PvP. But having a reason for it. That's gold.

To keep on topic a little, though. The ability to therefore poison, destroy or otherwise harm a city's crops is a most welcome one.

Miinstrel

I love this idea.

Sangramoire

Having a system like this single out certain people with specific playstyles and not others seems like a bad idea to me. I think it should be more like an event rather than player triggered. It would give more of a realistic approach and less chance for exploitation. I also don't think it should be limited to Divine Nodes or even just farming.

They could make area of the world be blighted rather than specific things. Depending on what is on that area is what will be affected. Like if an area is blighted and there's no crops but there are monsters, have the monsters become a bit more resistant to damage and maybe give players a speed debuff while they remain in the area or something along those lines. If there's a forge in the area and someone is crafting weapons they may have a chance to ruin the weapon, needing extra resources to fix it or something.

Tyranthraxus

Vhaeyne wrote: »

I think there should be some challenges and losses expected in farming. It should not be, log in, water plants, wait, profit. There should be other factors. Having the gods play a factor is a realistic idea as far as fantasy goes. I would worry about a system that is overly harsh and punishing to those not near a divine node. Having some buff to farming available from a specific god may be good and having another possible buff for being within the domain of a divine node under some conditions, like the Pope asked for it. Would be ideas I would like to see explored. I don't think randomly hitting people with the blight unless they worship a certain god is a great game mechanic, but it could be done right.

I definately agree with the more-than-just-upkeep approach; There should occasionally be more that challenges Freehold owners!