The core mechanic that (I think) needs to be Scrapped: Renown
Again this is a lot of text
Hello, so this isn’t a hot take I have been thinking about this for a while now. Being to organize my points and possible counterpoints. So to the main point: I think that renown needs to be scrapped to make the game better.
If you don’t know how renown works, please read the
"Guide to Renown"
Summary (recommend)
Summary:
So if you somehow don’t know what renown is and for some reason here: "Renown" is a point-based reputation system that depending on how many points in the positive or negative changes how the game/NPCS interacts with the player.
When you first start the game you start with 0 points with the first few quests normally give you positive points called: “fame” However this can quickly change to becoming “bounty” by going into the negatives by doing “evil” actions.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages and Disadvantages:
As I just said being in the positive makes you a “hero” and being in the negatives makes you a “villain” with each having different advantages and disadvantages.
Both have the same advantages at high numbers (in the positive or negatives):
- Deckhands “Traveler NPCs can be found in any town, and when spoken to, they will show what stats they will offer as a Deckhand when recruited.” from the Trello
- all-important bragging rights of course
This is where they split Positive/“heroes” advantages generally are:
- being able to join the “Grand Navy”
- safely from "Positive/“heroes” bounty hunters
- some factions won’t attack the player
- allied NPCS get a renown shield
- higher reward from Castaways
- being hunted won’t jail the player
As for positive/“heroes” disadvantages generally are:
- less ship and bounty-hunting targets
- unable to access Criminal variants of shops
- harder to gain renown
- players have to buy cargo crates
- unable to freely break property without losing renown
- unable to free jailed players without losing renown
negatives/“villain” advantages generally are:
- being able to join the “Assassin Syndicate”
- being able to access Criminal variants of shops
- freedom to hunt/attack anything the player wants
- easier gain renown
- able to free jailed players without loss of renown
- able to damage property without loss of renown
- some factions won’t attack the player
- instant reward from Castaways
- “free” cargo
As for negatives/“villain” disadvantages generally are:
- non-Criminal shops will mark the player on the bounty board
- everyone can hunt the player
- player get jailed when are hunted
- being executed will drop another bag of money if possible
- notoriety system (I will go deeper later on, keep reading)
"gaining and losing" renown
“gaining and losing” renown:
many actions change the player renown and can be organized into positive, negative, or neutral actions that reward or punishments actions made by either side
“positive” neutral actions are any actions that intensify the already-gained renown
(villain players gain more bounty/hero players gain more fame) :
- bounty hunting
- “neutral” quests
- defeating enemies
- attacking pirates or Assassin Syndicate ships
- mentioned in the Agora
“negative” neutral actions are any actions that lessen the already-gained renown
(villain players lose bounty/hero players lose fame) :
- resetting renown
- being hunted
- combat “logging”
positive actions are any actions that always cause fame to go up and bounty to go down:
- saving castaways
- killing a player with a bounty if the player is neutral or has fame
- “positive” quests
negative actions are any actions that always cause fame to go down and bounty to go up:
- stealing “private storage chests”
- stealing cargo
- Assassinations (on positive/“heroes”)
- robbing(and killing) castaways
- killing a player while the player has a bounty
- killing a player that has fame
- breaking others out of jail/stopping an execution
-
attacking grand navy soldiers (Edward Kenton quest)
- attacking grand navy or merchant ships
Notoriety System
“Notoriety System”:
The Notoriety system is a negative/“villain” only system acting as one of the primary Disadvantages.
Acting similar to GTA(games) wanted system spawning waves of grand navy. As notoriety gets to greater amounts, both ships, the number of grand navy, and as well the power/level goes up
Ways to gain Notoriety are:
- stealing “private storage chests”
- stealing cargo
- Assassinations (on positive/“heroes”)
- killing castaways (stealing doesn’t give Notoriety)
- breaking others out of jail/stopping an execution
- Getting broken out of jail/execution
- attacking grand navy soldiers (sinking ships doesn’t give Notoriety)
- attacking Merchants (sinking ships doesn’t give Notoriety)
(as you see most “perks” of being negative/“villain” gives Notoriety)
As if right now the only way to clear notoriety is to pay a sum of money based on the total notoriety they have to talk to an Assassin Syndicate NPC doing so will also disable notoriety gain for a short time
there is no cap to the notoriety the player can have.
The game is only able to display 5 stars/levels however the player can go past as seen by the cost of clearing the notoriety still going up
players are also able to avoid Notoriety up to 3 stars by staying on an island without a town allied with the grand navy staying in the sea won’t work
chart of Notoriety cost of clearing and attack waves
|cost | ships | Marines | Vice Captains | Captains | Lieutenants | Major|
|? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ?|
|? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ?|
|? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ?|
|? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ?|
|? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ?|
and also the tables aren’t working
rant thing (hide this they are here to learn about the system not why you are covering it)
Now if you have seen the “Advantages and Disadvantages” it may seem like the “villains” both have more Advantages and less Disadvantages than “heroes” while yes that is true.
It doesn’t count how big each Disadvantage is
while most effects can be sussed out (like being jailed) there is one Disadvantage that gets confused more than any other, being the “Notoriety System”
So renown while a “core mechanic” that interacts with many things, if it were to be removed they generally make each mechanic that interacts with it better but at the very least: NOT WORSE
list of interactions
Deckhands
alright let’s start with the biggest one: Deckhands
so yea most people know that connecting PVP with a stat reward is to be blunt a: really really mean move as it forces players to PVP like it or not, it shouldn’t be this way simple as:
so how would I fix it?
simple attach it to the total quests done
or do any other of the suggested reworks be right now
but how i would do it? if there was an unlimited time in the world?
bring back the random quests from World of Magic and give it to the deckhands as they in a sense a “lesser” quartermasters.
it would give reason to the “tier” beside a different name color and a bigger number
being harder quests
but if you have a counterpoint I would love to hear it in how deckhands are good for the game as a PVP reward
asymmetrical gameplay
renown and proxy being on the “good” and bad side doesn’t change a lot about your character itself or how you play the game so if you are a villain the stays mostly the same as if you were a hero besides relatively small changes
a better way would be to just make it binary being your wanted or not
that is reset whenever when the player is killed or “got away”
the Notoriety System would be great to reuse for this
it would give way for the perks and downsides of being evil stronger as it closer temporary effect
Roleplaying
not counting the fact how “good” and “evil” you are is just based on numbers is not a very good
but it seems like our player character has no personality besides hating the order so they are at best morally ambiguous
so no one picks good because they want to be a “good guy” They do it to void jail times because well no one roleplays in the game: the most I’ve seen is people hell-bend to jail people because it makes the game safer…
the fact is if you want to roleplay as an evil or good player there is not a lot you can affect about the world
(yes I know about the Grand Navy Influence system)
there isn’t a way to fix this unless a large investment of time is put in to give more players more ways to mess around the world and cause changes Grand Navy Influence system is a great starting point if more factions were also given this and the effects larger and explained
content lock
but this locks out content for players when some missions have an evil or good only lock on it as seen with the “Assassins In Tiberia” quest this just isn’t fun to know there is content/awards simply locked out due to how you want to play
the most simple fix is to just let all players do the quests
if given time I would like to see ALL quests be given a twin of some sort
for “Assassins In Tiberia” what if you were a “hero” it was a miniboss quest
leader boards
a lesser but still a large reason why Renown is “needed” as a way to give bragging/Badges to sole players but only the top what? 0.2% of the player base is going to interact with it in some way
at least avg the Renown in the game and use that to make new ranks and up the total players that can be in each
even more so for Rank in-game factions
but without the number-based renown, how would get my bragging rights just join a guild
or a faction if you don’t want to talk to anyone because top ranks in the faction i would still stay low but the non-leader-boards ranks would be able to get by player
with time I say just make it an arena for top PVP ranks and another set of ranks for PVE ranks
Summary of changes
so the list of interactions is a bit of a madhouse I’m going to sum up the changes that would happen to the game with
removed
- Deckhands would be based on how many quests you have done in total giving another reason to do them
- All quests can be done by everyone
- players that do anything “illegal” will be marked as wanted and can be hunted down
(being wanted is a high-risk high reward but getting killed or away is not stuck with long-term consequences) - leader-boards would be removed and bragging rights given to guilds
- if you want to play only as a “villain” or a “hero” you have to join the factions
- the way to rank up in factions is now point based
- All Renown is made in faction ranks points
full rework
This is what I wanted to type this whole time…
- deckhands are given the WOM quest system with higher-end deckhands giving harder quests this can be done like watchdogs where each character can have a random small story to them
- players that do anything “illegal” will become wanted while wanted they are able to have many more options to get loot but if they would be under attack the whole time were to die they would be jailed they won’t get long-term consequences (this goes for getting away and paying off your crimes too just without any jail time)
- not a lot would change about roleplay but you would have to join a faction if you want to play as always good and/or always bad
- leaderboards (titles too) would be given to guilds
- solo players’ that want bragging rights would have to join a faction or make do with titles
- faction ranks would be based on kinds 3 of points PVE PVP and “war” low ranks/unlimited ranks would only need PVE points gained by just playing the game limited ranks (IE top 100) would need PVP points that reset every month gained from duels
last notes
hey so thanks for reading
for one please at least rate the Effort as high i typed a lot for this
while at it rate Quality as you see fit and rate Reasonability as low I really don’t see this happening but i doesn’t change the fact i see renown as a something that needs to be purged
so I’m be hanging about the comments till this gets locked
also please give feedback in the Guide part i plan on uploading it to the “Guide”
how i know i made a good suggestion: the bot breaks
yea every suggestion (2) i made so far breaks the bot 10/10
