Best Of

I’ve thought about this some more, and ultimately my conclusion is that I like the spirit of these changes. I especially think the denizens hiring on people could be really interesting, and ocean combat extending to land would provide additional recourse against people that otherwise were untouchable.

However, I think in both cases where it falls flat is the involvement of the mark system, and I think that has highlighted some ways that the mark system has changed from its original inception.

I recall when marks were released, the idea was that it would be self regulating, that there might be marks of different combat levels and lets say a level 70 person wanted to hire on another person around their same might, they likely wouldn’t have a ton of gold to throw at it, so it’d get a lesser amount on that contract. The idea was that the higher tier marks wouldn’t want to work for a pittance, and that’d be left for the lower tier marks. Over time, this has adjusted as these things do. Lower tier marks is not really a thing anymore, and most contracts are picked up regardless of their financial reward because it gives you a reason to fight. Functionally, this concept alone would be enough to box out lower tier fighters from maintaining their mark status, on top of the fact that they will be constantly attacked by those same high tier fighters. I’ve heard that some high tier fighters take pride in the number of people they’ve forced out of the mark. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it demonstrates how that initial idea of self regulation has mutated into being unrecognizable.

Now with the oceans changes, if you’re a pirate, and you shoot an enemy ship that has 9 people on it, that’s now nine contracts that can be filed against you, and again, these contracts are adjudicated by the top tier combatants that line the marks.

I think if the goal is to make the world more dangerous, but also living and breathing, this misses (pardon the pun) the mark. In reality, When people have issues, they turn to their friends and people aligned with them to execute justice on their behalf, not a random nameless faceless organization.

The Mark system in its current incarnation actually removes a large portion of roleplay that might be created if that system did not exist, and instead tends to act as a tax on entering into conflict with someone else. Not only is it then decreasing roleplay, it’s also decreasing conflict, because if I’m not a top tier fighter, why would I create conflict when it’s just going to lead to the top tier fighters collecting my conflict tax.

I think there are a -lot- of solutions to this problem, Personally, I’d love to see more of something like groups allying with those denizens, similar to the GoM. And ideally, if you ally with one group, it makes other groups of denizens less likely to want to work with you if there are people willing to work with them and are unaffiliated. This would both spread out the people participating in this conflict more, but it’d allow you to actually roleplay as being allied with these groups.

In mechanical terms, this might play out that you could go to Mhunna and see which contracts are available. The contracts available to you would be based on your reputation with that faction, obviously if you are hated, they wouldn’t want you arbitrating justice for them, and similarly if you’ve failed a number of contracts, or you have active contracts for other factions, they’d only give you the contracts that nobody has wanted to pick up and have lasted out there for a long time. If you complete the contract, maybe that increases your reputation for that group, and you’ll start getting access to those contracts earlier after they are posted, and they’ll pay you a bit more because you’re a trusted ally.

Again, I’m not terribly committed to this is the way it needs to be but I don’t like saying things could be done better without giving practical examples of how.

Thank you for reading my Thesis. Why the mark misses the mark, and how to do better.

I don't post on the forums anymore, thankfully (I'm sure others are thinking the same as I am). These forums are mainly built around flaming and insults. Alas, this is actually something that made me want to post, unfortunately.

This change is dumb.

"Just go pve, you don't HAVE to pvp." - jk.

"I just wanna silo myself away and get dragon." - Enjoy those deaths on the way, cause oof, that grind to logosian probably just got worse.

"BUT MY IMMERSHUN" - No... comment. Just stop.

This game, is literally just PVP now. Non-comms were already being pushed out, this just more solidifies the way the admins want the direction of the game to go.

I'm glad I'm 99% dormant atm and not shitting money into the gambling promos anymore. Hopefully ya'll figure it out, maybe the game will somewhat live up to the game it used to be.

@Namino 1tear. Beautiful.

Logging in is opting in...you dummies...just don't log in if you don't want to get roflstomped by marks after every bashing run....duh...

@Cyra said:

@Truax There was simply an ANNOUNCE post which mentioned the change. No RP build-up.

If this is true...what a missed opportunity.

Personally, I would like to see a way to offset aggression beyond not hunting, i.e. Influencing of some type to right old and new wrongs.

I think this is an incredible RP change. This should have been a part of the game from the beginning, but it wasn't. I do have issues with the suddenness of the change itself as it really and truly does change the meta of the game for some people.

There seems to be a big disconnect in how a lot of the playerbase view the world and story we have been building together. This runs the gamut of people who see denizens as xp packets there should be no issue killing all the way to seeing them as real as any player (which to be fair is how the meta of the game is being seen as right now with the new changes). This does create a richer RP environment, but it does put people out in the cold who play for different reasons.

I personally play this game for low stakes RP and a pretty stress free way to unwind. I want to do this while staying in character as a goofy tinkering inventor and merchant of sorts. My character is not overly violent. Thibs hunted sentients he had issues with (but I did kinda morph his RP to have issues with certain people.) I will probably be steamrolled by anyone hired on me and I understand this is a repercussion of hunting those sentients. I get that. I don't want a game where I play alone in a world full of people. I want my actions to have lasting consequences and I want to contribute to the story we all write together.

The issue I have is feeling that my playstyle is being pushed out and not considered by this change. I will still try to eek out my place in it as it changes, but I think there are a few things that could be done to make people with my playstyle feel welcome while still keeping the realism and frankly awesome RP mechanic of villages hiring Marks.

The world building in the past has always been about adding sentient hunting areas and tethering things like talisman pieces to those full of sentient beings like villages, cities, and settlements. Before this moment it never felt that I COULD play a pacifist or someone who avoids killing sentient beings in order to grow. I think the best thing to do at this point would be to release some new hunting areas with animals and magical beasts to leave room for those players like me and people who want to contribute, but choose not to do PVP. I get not everyone plays like me. I get I am not a part of a demographic that is a big money maker. I know I opt into any and all interactions when I log in. I know building areas takes a lot of work and manpower. I just think having more options going forward would be great for everyone/

Some alternate suggestions. Upping the amount of animal denizens in places with them (like bears in the Southern Vashnars, lions in the northern Vashnars, and wolves in the forests) would also a really nice thing to do as well. Also possibly opening up the Great Hunt Caves to give more options could help too.

So TL:DR, this is an RP change that makes the world richer and it needed to happen. It as a change should not be walked back. Please give more options for hunting that don't include murder. Everyone plays for different reasons and have different lines, there are ways the community can be happy if we listen to each other and compromise a little!

@Aegoth - Yes. I do treat my Sims that way.

To be perfectly honest, the bulk of the criticism surrounding most changes recently has come from people who just straight up don't play the game. Like, not the "lol what are you doing" kind of not playing the game, the "I have not been seen in-game for longer than 2 minutes for the past 3 months" kind of not playing the game. Puts a damper on things a little bit.

Wouldn't that just make the newbies bash the sentient areas? Inb4 Mizik roflstomps 3 level 25s in a row

actually I'm all for it, i wanna see how many level 25s @Mizik can fight at once and beat.

@Thaisen

Fair enough! You'll now be warned when you're creeping close to a contract being filed. Its an IC message, but should be pretty obvious and indicate that if you don't want a contract to get put out, you might not want to do whatever you just did again.

So, I almost never comment on any changes that are made to Achaea, because for the most part they don't change how I play the game. I am one of the very few people in the game that is a non-combatant. I do not opt-in to combat of any sort, usually not even verbally, because it quite literally gives me a panic attack out of the game. But lately, every time a change to combat (or theft) has come about, there has been an overarching theme that goes with it "the world is not supposed to be safe". I'm sorry, but no. Parts of the world absolutely are not supposed to be safe, and if you opt-in to those parts you should know that your risking your character. But I do not opt-in, I will never opt-in, and now I am being told that I have no choice, because that is the way its going to be.

Achaea is a Role-Playing game. It says so right in the description on the games front page. It does not describe it as a game where your character is going to be at constant risk of being killed because they stepped into the wrong location at the wrong time, or because a group decided to mass attack everyone standing in an area, regardless of their status in the army or not, or because they were raiding and swept up defenders and bystanders alike and rather than give anyone time to sort themselves out and let the non-combatants get out of the area mindlessly attacked everyone, killing the people that did not defend themselves.

I hear a lot, in character and out, that my recourse for this is to either log out, sit on a ship, hop in a journal, or otherwise isolate myself from my RP experience in the game because its too much effort to take a moment to consider, "oh, that person isn't in the army, maybe we don't try to kill them?" Or I get told "oh, just learn a little combat, you'll be fine once you learn a little." No. I won't. I will be stuck dealing with the effects of a panic attack for the next however long depending on the severity of the attack. For those who have never felt the effects of a panic attack, please do not tell me that its not a big deal, which I have also heard a number of times, or that perhaps Achaea is not the game for me, because I have a lot of fun in Achaea.

I rather enjoyed @Synthus's idea of the Pacification collar that he suggested a couple pages back. I know most people probably don't, but I think it would be helpful for those of us who are non-combatants to know that there is actually a consequence in place for people who don't take the few seconds to make sure that they are only going have people who opt-in to combat. At this point though, I'm going to leave it there because this is about as much confrontation as I can handle.