New Estate System - Discouraging Loyalty?

[Shenron]

I was just combing through the new estate options and when I read this: "If you are unhappy with your estate and want to go looking for a new one, you can abandon your estate at any time," a few alarm bells raised in my head.

While I love the new estate system in general, should we have some penalties for abandoning your lord? And before anyone mentions the benefits of increased flexibility, I'm also a big fan. I'm simply worried about knights thinking they can walk all over their lords. What about the whole "oath of fealty"? Should this be emphasised more on the estate page perhaps?

[De-Legro]

Why add a mechanic for this though, there are plenty of IC methods through the Judge etc in which to seek redress from a knight that has disregarded their solemn oath. Or you could appeal to the new Lord or whatever. I'm a big fan of having player initiated consequences for these things.

[Draco Tanos]

But at the same time, shouldn't breaking ones oath likely cause an honor hit?  For a Lord seizing an estate of a sworn knight and a knight abandoning their oath to their Lord.

[fodder]

but the thing is, a lord can rip off a knight at any time and boot him out too. estate sizes / lord's share can change on the fly at any time, 1 sided.

[De-Legro]

but the thing is, a lord can rip off a knight at any time and boot him out too. estate sizes / lord's share can change on the fly at any time, 1 sided.

Yup if the realm turns a blind eye to things like this, the Lord has a lot of power.

[fodder]

which is why a knight has direct ability to redress things himself. leave and find another lord.

[Shenron]

Why add a mechanic for this though, there are plenty of IC methods through the Judge etc in which to seek redress from a knight that has disregarded their solemn oath. Or you could appeal to the new Lord or whatever. I'm a big fan of having player initiated consequences for these things.

I also agree, but the problem I'm talking about is not really a power problem more of a (I don't know what I should call it) tradition problem. Both a knight and a lord should be encouraged to stick with each other based on their mutual oath.

While I don't really think penalties would make a positive contribution, I think there should be some flavour text on the estate page to remind players how important these things were to medieval blokes.

[Indirik]

Yup if the realm turns a blind eye to things like this, the Lord has a lot of power.

Or it's just players doing what players normally do, and only dealing with the things that directly affect them.

I asked Tom about this back when we first started testing the estate system on the dev server. His statement was something like "I want the players to give it consequences themselves, instead of he game mechanics doing it."

While I think this is an interesting idea, I don't see it working. I've never really been a big fan of "player justice". In my experience, it leads to three things: 1) Someone who can write a nice fancy letter is more likely to be believed than someone who can't, 2) Only the major offenders ever get a bad reputation, and 3) Players usually only hear about things that happen in their own realm. This all adds up to people generally not being held accountable for anything but the most severe and reoccurring problems, and even then the chances are that they can just move to the next realm over and get away completely free.

[vonGenf]

I agree with the sentiment, but these kind of things are the reason why Honour is not seriously considered as a meaningful stat.

It's a vicious circle: people don't look at honour because it does not reflect honourablr or dishonourable actions, and code isn't made to reflect honour because no one uses it anyway and we prefer player driven action.

If people RPed that a loss of honour was a bad thing, then coding a loss of honour would tie in nicely with the player induced consequences. But that's not going to happen in its present state.

[fodder]

depends on the definition of honor, doesn't it. looting gives h/p for example.

[Tom]

While I love the new estate system in general, should we have some penalties for abandoning your lord?

Oh, absolutely. But this time, I want to leave it to you, the players, to do so. I don't want a game mechanic. You should pick out the loyal and selfish people yourself. But if you need something from the game to aid you, like history entries for that, let me know.

[Tom]

I agree with the sentiment, but these kind of things are the reason why Honour is not seriously considered as a meaningful stat.

It's a vicious circle: people don't look at honour because it does not reflect honourablr or dishonourable actions, and code isn't made to reflect honour because no one uses it anyway and we prefer player driven action.

If people RPed that a loss of honour was a bad thing, then coding a loss of honour would tie in nicely with the player induced consequences. But that's not going to happen in its present state.

I agree, and I've wanted to re-work the Honour and Prestige system for a long time now. I'm sure once the estates thing is done, I might find time to actually do it.

[Jens Namtrah]

Picking an lord should be like picking a job - you don't ALWAYS rush to where the most money is, but you can.

I'd like to see it stay as it is, but where influential Lords often work for the advancement of their knights. So picking a Lord based on his reputation in the realm can help move you along, giving you a reason to stay with him. And a Lord working on behalf of his knights can build his own power base.

So, instead of this intangible game concept of a "solemn oath", push it more toward players actual making the knight-lord relationship a real one.

I don't know if it will really work out, with the player base issues and things, but that's my argument for leaving as is for now.

[Chenier]

The way the system is designed, though, it doesn't feel like you are picking a lord at all. Rather, it feels like you are just looking at a real estate market for free lots, and the lord feels like a modern landlord to which you became a tenant he can evict at will and which you can dump at will.

[Jens Namtrah]

The way the system is designed, though, it doesn't feel like you are picking a lord at all. Rather, it feels like you are just looking at a real estate market for free lots, and the lord feels like a modern landlord to which you became a tenant he can evict at will and which you can dump at will.

again, that's left to the players. Under the current system, half the time the lord just sends an Oath link without saying anything