Characters as an expendable resource
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Jety Posted Sep 29, 2008, 7:16 pm |
*still in the idea stage, would love comments*
It has been accurately pointed out on a number of occasions that it is the risk of losing well trained characters, more than anything else, that prevents a variety of activities like PvP, risky scouting, deathracing, and in general, activities that might lead to death and destruction and removal of items from the game. It has also been a long standing position that slaves were a part of this game and would eventually be added, somehow, in some capacity. Why not start by doing something like this. Give each gang an additional 10 member slots that can be filled with slaves. Slaves could be bought, traded, or looted on scouts. The idea behind slaves is that they are disposable. So you use them for risky missions. You put them in PvP and deatraces. Slaves start with pretty good skills, but never skill up, thus enhancing their disposability. Maybe at some point after some milestone is reached they can 'earn their freedom' allowing you to initiate them as an actual gang member. |
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Dr Mathias Posted Sep 29, 2008, 8:07 pm |
Interesting. Good idea.
Slaves could also try to escape periodically, or join other gangs, etc. Maybe slaves can be "freed" and retained as a full member only when there is an open member slot. This would be way sweet if a ransom/capture feature was implemented. Since we can currently sell captured cars It doesnt seem like it would be terribly difficult to treat people like objects as well. Maybe instead of a meaningless number (10) the number of slaves could be related to a new slavemaster leadership spec. You can only take slaves with that spec, each 25 points in LDR gets you a slave or something. |
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Flaming savage Posted Sep 29, 2008, 8:09 pm |
my,keyboard,is,broken,so,i,have,to,type,like,this.  If,this,were,implemented,itwould,be,very,high,infl,mabey,like,u,get,2slaves,per,good,scout.
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*Tinker* Posted Sep 29, 2008, 8:33 pm |
lol | ||
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Alocalypse Posted Sep 29, 2008, 8:52 pm |
Sounds good in theory, but in practice its paradise for griefers to use slaves to kill off someone's 'real' characters and I'm overall a bit vary of this because it could result in big imbalances...
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Mad Mike Posted Sep 29, 2008, 9:02 pm |
there is no real solution to people who use their gang to just kill other gangs and do not care about raising their skills.
in real life this tactic is a way to fight a war. the chinese can just overwhelm an enemy in sheer numbers like during the korean war. waves and waves of men running in not caring if they lived or died, the machine gun barrels were melting.... this tactic will be used in this game eventually. a benefactor will just supply the guns and vehicles to a gang that will then that gang will just attack over and over. ALO will cry till its over but I think this will happen enough to the point that the game will even itself out. eventually the cold war will be over and all the members each side have built up to 200+ skill will be down to 50+. Cannon fodder is a fact of war. the real test will be the ability of players to control many vehicles the players that can control 17+ vehicles will be more safer because they will have CR well above other players. but back to the topic, no slaves. each powerful player will fund a less powerful player to attack other players. Not fair? look all through history at who funded what war against who.... there is always BIG players funding small playuers for the benefit of BIG players |
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Kime Dennory Posted Sep 29, 2008, 9:08 pm |
I find the idea of slaves personally distasteful, and this would give those of us who won't employ slaves even in a game a distinct disadvantage.
Plus, why would the slaves be higher skilled than starting members? Ye gods, if I could get someone who started at a higher skill than 20, I'd free him in a heartbeat. How about mercenaries instead? You can hire them on a per mission basis, just like rental cars. They don't want to join your gang, they're fine renting their skills by the hour. Couldn't be used to establish a presence in a city because they're done as soon as they reach the destination. And there's a reason for them to be higher-skill than starting characters, though of course they shouldn't be as high skill as a good gang member. -KD |
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Alocalypse Posted Sep 29, 2008, 9:35 pm |
Sure, fighting a war of attrition is a valid tactic, but in online games it's usually called griefing and there are measrures developers can take against that.
I don't really see why you single me out as being the only one who would 'cry' about this as I'm not as anti-pvp as other people. Sure guerilla type tactics might work better against successful players who otherwise couldn't be touched, but I trust that I would be able to adapt to it. |
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Mad Mike Posted Sep 29, 2008, 11:19 pm |
since having multiple gangs is very very wrong here it would require at least 2 people to support the attack. griefing? thats what this game is about... defeating your enemy. darkwind as of now anyway is a single player game. not alot of people that play often enough to form alliances.
CID tried to do the PvP only way of playing and could not keep up. it takes too long to build up resources and money to be able to "grief" against another player so I dont think the type of attacking you describe can be done here, yet. besides, when all out PvP happens the high level char will get killed off and everyone will be with lower level characters. then we can attack each other all day long and not worry about losing high level characters. those that stay neutral will be the ones that have the high level characters besides, griefing would be attacking with no valid end. the valid end here would be the player that has cannon fodder will be funded by the high level player.. the lower level player will gain in money and equipment. thats a valid reward for using your gang members as cannon fodder for someone else. isnt the definition of griefing would be to kill another player just for the sole purpose of killing that players characters off with no reward or benefit? |
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Ivan Kerensky Posted Sep 30, 2008, 7:51 am |
I think that promoting slavery as a valid model is WRONG.
BTW, giving a vehicule and weapons to slaves is a sure way to have them turn on you or try to flee, that is plain stupid. Slaves have bad moral and no will to die fighting for their masters, especially as they could perceive their master ennemy as their friends. Only thing you could use slave NPCs for would be mechanical, labor work... I make a distinction about using slaves in an arena because in this kind of setting there is not a lot of choice for them as it is kill or be killed... but in a scout ? lol... dont expect to see any of your cars come back... So for me it is a stupid AND distatefull idea... and I pretty think it would be rated as illegal as promoting slavery in some countries... |
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Alocalypse Posted Sep 30, 2008, 7:59 am |
I also see (ab)using game mechanics to attack without any possibility for the other player to retaliate in a meaningful way as a griefing tactic. Though it's more the fault of the flawed game mechanics than the players. |
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*Chase Bansi* JohnBMan033@aol.com Posted Sep 30, 2008, 8:31 am |
Ivan makes some very good points about using slaves for scouting. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend".
Using them in an arena is one thing, setting them loose in the wilderness with vehicles and weapons is another. |
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darthspanky Posted Sep 30, 2008, 9:57 am |
i think you should be able to decide what to do with survivors of a gang you demo on a scout, kill em or sell em or ransom or even grind em up for food, the npc can eat you,kill you, or let ya go if you loose a scout, this is a game not real life nobody here is premoting slavery and i would love to play a slaver gang like the fl manhunters, but in real life very much against it, just remember this is a game and let people choose to play the way they want to | ||
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Valiance Posted Sep 30, 2008, 12:12 pm |
Agree with your point that this is a game, darth. Gladiator was a film about slavery: Maximus was a slave and I don't think that game was banned globally. And nor should it have been: free speech is pretty damned important.
I think slaves are a mistake as part of your core gang: morally, practically and for game design reasons. And while I agree Darth that being able to do what you like with demo'd gangers matters, it has pretty far-reaching game implications (bounties, morale, rep, the rapid decline in skills of NPC gangs if we all automatically kill their gangers). IMO it is a huge design change and should be considered accordingly. Althought I do like the idea of a Thunderdome in Firelight (perhaps populated by slaves, phew, back on topic) and ped missions to rescue them. |
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Ivan Kerensky Posted Sep 30, 2008, 12:23 pm |
There is also the wrong conception that slaves are cheap, wich they are not.
Of course you dont have to pay them a salary (even if you could and be well advised to do so ) but you have to provide for their basic needs ( food and shelter ) and for the way to keep them into your custody ( barracks, guards, fence, 24/24 sentry duties ). As the North American and European discovers it is far cheaper to just use unqualified worker, they work as long as slave, require minimal wages, dont cost anything to shelter, feed or cure and when they die you dont lose the price you paid them you just sign another one. I think the kind of slave we could see in Darkwind are prisonners - enforced laborers, thoses can be kept in the camps but there is the risk of their friend mounting a rescue party and this take a lot of infra-structure and people employed to guard them. Enslaved gangers wont do well in a town settings, especially as many of their friends roam around freely and nothing excepts perhaps chain could separate them from free gangers. Basically you could sell prisonners to a slavers to earn some money or try to ransom them to their gang, but there is no real way for you to use them... at least not more profitable than your own gangers. |
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darthspanky Posted Sep 30, 2008, 12:43 pm |
if ya captured a high skill npc ganger with a nickname he might be profitable to sell back to his gang, why kill him when his old npc gang might pay for his return or even the people posting a bounty i bet hed be worth more than a few hundred dollars to his old gang, perhaps npc could do the same to us when we loose i know id pay to get guys back. | ||
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Ivan Kerensky Posted Sep 30, 2008, 1:19 pm |
Yep, I will gladly part with some hefty buck to have some of my surrendered pilots back 
Of course I could just as well blown them up with a massive ambush when they come to collect the ransom 
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Mad Mike Posted Sep 30, 2008, 9:45 pm |
kill all ya want, we'll make more | ||
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*goat starer* Posted Oct 1, 2008, 6:29 pm |
Special Circumstances meets any gang with Slaves and they will be going on our special list! | ||
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*goat starer* Posted Oct 1, 2008, 6:32 pm |
thats not what i heard... i heard you run a sweatshop full of child slaves making darth spanky branded merchandise, feed them on gruel and make them work 18 hours a day in the dark. |
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Kime Dennory Posted Oct 1, 2008, 6:42 pm |
Gives his name a whole new slant... "GIT TO WORK! OR DARTH SPANKY!" -KD |
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Mad Mike Posted Oct 1, 2008, 7:16 pm |
we know he had child sweat shops, he used to be the klingon girlscouts and sold cookies. if you didnt buy the cookies he killed you |