"Til Death" option for Hero characters.
Heroes are the only characters that can die in Battle, and on very few occasions they get to recruit locals and raise region morale. They can't do police work or civil work if I understand it correctly, and get only marginal unit advantages. (Does their Swordskill even add to the unit CS anymore?). This is why I propose they get an additional option. A "No retreat, no surrender" option in their Unit settings.
Let's say this raises the chance of the Hero dying to something nearer 90%-95% (since in BM you apparently can never have certainty over anything, though I would also be in favour of a total 100%), with the very slight chance that instead of dying they are just Critically Wounded.
There are plenty of times in actual Medieval History when Knights fought without retreat and died doing so, which seems like the very epitome of what a hero should be.
(See Sir Geoffroi de Charny at Poitiers, Sir Simon de Montfort at Evesham. etc).
Sure, you'd have to calculate what their unit would do, perhaps almost every man retreats when the unit reaches the values for when they would usually retreat, and only the Hero and a few other men as a close personal bodyguard stay the field and ultimately die alongside them. (When a Hero dies the unit disappears anyway, so if 5 men staying the field for that little bit longer swings a battle then .. well .. all the more fame to the dead Hero, epic roleplay etc.) I can't imagine that would be too hard to implement.
So as well as making Heroes that little bit more interesting and desirable it also allows players to .. dispose, of a character they otherwise have no other use for. I had Sextus do a one-man-cavalry-charge against the besiegers in Valkyrja before Averoth fell, and then roleplayed he simply "disappeared". Had I had the option to actually have him die in that battle it would have been much more appropriate. (but then .. maybe he did ;p) The fact Heroes are otherwise useless is the reason I've never played one. Their abilities are seemingly so rare to enact they're the only character class that has almost no reward for a binding-subclass, save for the slight chance the character might die. And then it's just a termination of the character, a one-off and often not very consequential end.
It's better than simply having to "Retire" a character, or suddenly having them spontaneously die. This doesn't make the game any "easier" like so many other suggestions, doesn't over-power or give any real advantage to a character, save for letting a player enact a powerful roleplay before sending their character to what would hopefully be their glorious demise in battle.
Thoughts, comments, criticisms, the usual -
I like the idea - it certainly is better than manually retiring.
I think a 95% chance is too high. It may be better to lower the odds to a point where some people might "risk it" for RP purposes even if they don't want to absolutely die. 25% seems a good number (with maybe a 95% chance of wounding). If you absolutely want to kill your character, repeating over two or three days will certainly do the trick.
Eh... this will probably get exploited by fame whores. Create a disposable hero they don't have attachment to, have him die in some random battle for no reason other than getting the fame, and collect the fame.
Quote from: vonGenf on September 21, 2011, 05:57:01 PM
I think a 95% chance is too high. It may be better to lower the odds to a point where some people might "risk it" for RP purposes even if they don't want to absolutely die. 25% seems a good number
Well, don't Heroes "risk it" in every battle? The point of this is that it's a (nigh)Certain-to-Die choice. If the odds don't massively reflect that .. it makes it pointless. If the higher chance is simply you get wounded I can see more people lamenting how their Heroes spend more time Wounded and unplayable instead of dying off when they want them to.
Quote from: Sacha on September 21, 2011, 07:17:19 PM
Eh... this will probably get exploited by fame whores. Create a disposable hero they don't have attachment to, have him die in some random battle for no reason other than getting the fame, and collect the fame.
Yay for a single Fame point? I think we can afford the one-up on Fame. It can't exactly be exploited that much. No more exploitable than someone making an adventurer just so they, or someone else, can execute them.
Quote from: Maxim on September 21, 2011, 07:25:27 PM
Well, don't Heroes "risk it" in every battle? The point of this is that it's a (nigh)Certain-to-Die choice. If the odds don't massively reflect that .. it makes it pointless. If the higher chance is simply you get wounded I can see more people lamenting how their Heroes spend more time Wounded and unplayable instead of dying off when they want them to.
The chances of getting killed in any given battle are very, very small. Well under 1%, I would say.
Quote
Yay for a single Fame point? I think we can afford the one-up on Fame. It can't exactly be exploited that much. No more exploitable than someone making an adventurer just so they, or someone else, can execute them.
Four fame points: one for regular hero death, three for legendary.
That's enough to tempt almost anyone who cares at all about fame into, ah, indiscretions.
I've seen people deliberately asking for their characters to be executed so they could get one fame point. Some people will ask to have stuff done to them because they think it will get them fame, even if it doesn't.
Quote from: Anaris on September 21, 2011, 07:33:39 PM
The chances of getting killed in any given battle are very, very small. Well under 1%, I would say.
Sort of why this option is needed then ..
Quote from: Anaris on September 21, 2011, 07:33:39 PM
Four fame points: one for regular hero death, three for legendary.
That's enough to tempt almost anyone who cares at all about fame into, ah, indiscretions.
Extend the time qualifications or prestige requirements for a Legendary Hero status to be achieved, or reduce the reward granted if you choose this option. Family fame is largely unimportant from what I've seen. Unless you're playing for 'stats', which I'm pretty sure BM has never been about. Besides, it's only really risking 1 family fame gain, since you never know if a Hero is Legendary until they die, so anyone trying to just 'fame-up' on the Legendary death wouldn't know if their character yet qualifies.
Maybe a few of the very old old heroes will be popped off this way, and will subsequently be Legendary deaths. Oh well, new blood, and the opening up of realm positions for younger characters. If people want to sacrifice real IG established characters for some barely noticeable family fame .. more fool them.
Family fame may be 'unimportant' in that it has no real mechanics effects, but unless you don't give a flying !@#$ about the roleplaying side of the game, it can be very important. If only because of the fact your character from a 30 fame family can look down on less famous ones ;D
Personally, I like the idea very much. It would create some very top notch roleplay (hopefully).
As for Fame, you could just make it so that the Hero needs certain prerequisites for it... maybe even permission from the Marshal as well (after all you may be frakking up their battle plan and war plan!)
On the surface of it, this *sounds* interesting. Sure, in some circumstances it might be nice to finish out your character's story by having him die rather than force you to delete them. And there's the whole "He died heroically fighting the enemy!" thing.
On further review, though, I think that perhaps this is not really a desirable option.
- First, there is the fame-whore aspect. People will go to great lengths to try and get single unconfirmed fame point. I could easily see people abusing this to gain 4 guaranteed fame points. To compensate, any hero death using this option would have to be immune from gaining the family fame.
- Second, I don't necessarily like the idea of a player essentially "forcing" someone else to kill them. Just like (for the most part) your character can't die without your consent, you should not be able to force someone else to kill you. I could see a few possible abuses of this.
- Third, if you want things to happen in a certain, specific way, then RP it yourself. Just because you want something to happen in a specific way doesn't mean you get to have it happen. That's the nature of a multi-player game, where the story is driven not just by the player, but by game mechanics and by more than a little random chance. Even so, you can still do nearly all of what you want. When you delete a character, you are allowed to specify that the character died, and enter a reason. If you want your character to die in battle, and the game won't cooperate, then just wait til they get wounded, delete them, select the "character died" option, and enter something like "Died from wounds received in the Battle of Keplerville". Congratulations! Your hero just died in battle.
Quote from: Ramiel on September 21, 2011, 08:18:13 PM... maybe even permission from the Marshal as well (after all you may be frakking up their battle plan and war plan!)
Wut? You have to get your Marshal's permission to die in battle? This doesn't even make any sense...
"Don't you dare die on me in battle today, Sir Kepler. And that's an
order, damnit!"
First point - change the fame stat? Or make a whole new one. Like I say I find it bizarre anyone would waste a character for a fame point. How about you get the single fame point for choosing the option and dying, regardless of whether you should get three, and it counts as the non-legendary hero death? Pretty much sorted. I won't begrudge anyone a single fame point if it means so much to them.
Second point - forcing .. some guy in the other noble's unit? Let's face it, all of this "Yeah my character totally >killed/wounded/captured< that other guy personally" we see is such rubbish. It's the unit that kills the Hero. It's the unit as a whole that is noted as doing so. The chances are 'Just some guy' in your unit is the one who does the wounding/killing/capturing. Easy enough for anyone to 'avoid' the responsibility if they want to or claim it if that so floats their boat. Jesus .. it's .. a Battle. People Kill Other People. If their character doesn't like the idea of that maybe they shouldn't be fighting ;p
Thirdly - A certain, specific way? Like having a tiny amount of autonomy about whether your character stands his ground and dies or retreats? Having this option is about the same amount of choice as actually setting travel to take part in the battle anyway. Or as simply pressing "delete". The difference is the realm sees it as a hero death. The continent sees it as a hero death. It's noted in the Battle reports, it can be put up on the realm Wiki. It plasters itself onto your Profile as a big, indisputable banner ... simply "Deleting", regardless of whatever sentiment you may wish to express in the deletion message to your realm, doesn't say it's a Hero death, and doesn't note it as such. It just says "He snuffed it". If you're all in favour of people deciding their character's died in the battle .. why not simply make it so they >can< say that.
"My father died in Battle!"
".. Not according to your family page"
-sigh.
Quote from: Maxim on September 21, 2011, 09:40:52 PMFirst point - change the fame stat? Or make a whole new one. Like I say I find it bizarre anyone would waste a character for a fame point.
I find a lot of things that people do bizarre. That doesn't mean that they don't do them, though. I
know that people have gone to great lengths, including creating new characters and making them jump through tortuously stupid behavior patterns, just to get a single fame.
And no, I don't think that just because a single fame point means a lot to someone that we should just let them have it. That demeans the entire point and basis of the fame system. You get fame for doing special things. (Yes, I know some of them are more special and rare than others.) You do not get fame for clicking a button on the page that says, essentially, "Give me a fame point, please."
QuoteSecond point - forcing .. some guy in the other noble's unit?
Yes, that is correct. Adding this option would essentially allow you to force someone to kill you. Whether you choose to call it the character doing the killing, or the character's unit. You could
force someone to kill you. You could take a deliberately inferior unit and ambush a army, or an individual character with a superior unit, and force them to kill you in battle. Even if you aren't currently at war.
QuoteThirdly - A certain, specific way? Like having a tiny amount of autonomy about whether your character stands his ground and dies or retreats? Having this option is about the same amount of choice as actually setting travel to take part in the battle anyway. Or as simply pressing "delete". The difference is the realm sees it as a hero death. The continent sees it as a hero death. It's noted in the Battle reports, it can be put up on the realm Wiki. It plasters itself onto your Profile as a big, indisputable banner ... simply "Deleting", regardless of whatever sentiment you may wish to express in the deletion message to your realm, doesn't say it's a Hero death, and doesn't note it as such. It just says "He snuffed it". If you're all in favour of people deciding their character's died in the battle .. why not simply make it so they >can< say that.
Except that it's not really a really a hero death. Hero death is "you pay your money, you take your chances" thing. What you're proposing is not. It's a "click this box to die" option. Call it assisted suicide. A "death by cop", if you will. That doesn't fit within the current mechanics of heroes.
Given all the possible abuses and other things that this could cause, I just don't see it as a worthwhile addition just so someone's family history page can read "died in battle" as an "official" note.
Remember that just because
you personally would not abuse a feature, or take it to the extreme and use it for unintended purposes, doesn't mean that other people won't do that. The dev team has to consider the fact that abuse is possible, and weigh that against the possible benefits of the feature.
I think that placing the restriction of "no fame points gained by this action" would be pretty much ok.
Regarding forcing someone to kill you, when you attack someone with lethal force you /are/ basically saying: "defend yourself or die". It is not "execute me while I'm unarmed", but "use self-defense if you want to live". It is something every Hero is doing every time, though with very slight chances of death. What would be the problem? If the other player's unit is set to Defensive or Normal and you are at peace with him, you will have to be the aggressor (your fault), if it is set to Aggressive or Murderous then he /was/ picking up a potentially lethally (to the other) fight.
Don't you think?
If the only issue is the Fame Point, why not just say, "Don't grant the fame point if you use this option"?
I don't personally find an issue with giving a Fame Point or 3..as it's been said, they have little impact on the game itself.
Quote from: JPierreD on September 21, 2011, 11:01:21 PMRegarding forcing someone to kill you, when you attack someone with lethal force you /are/ basically saying: "defend yourself or die". It is not "execute me while I'm unarmed", but "use self-defense if you want to live". It is something every Hero is doing every time, though with very slight chances of death. What would be the problem? If the other player's unit is set to Defensive or Normal and you are at peace with him, you will have to be the aggressor (your fault), if it is set to Aggressive or Murderous then he /was/ picking up a potentially lethally (to the other) fight.
You could use the same logic to argue that every character should be able to die in every battle.
"You're going into battle, of course you could die." But actual in-game trials have shown that this is not a good option that players simply don't want.
I personally don't like the idea that some other player could decide that my character will kill them, without my consent. What if I don't want to kill them? What if I want to capture them? What if I specifically instruct my soldiers to take him alive? Is that RP not as valid as someone else saying they want their character to fight to the death? What makes their choice more valid than mine?
Sorry, I maintain my original position. If you get to choose when to not have your character die, i.e. not be a Hero subclass, then I get to choose when I want my character to not kill yours.
You don't get to make that choice for me. And that's what it's all about.
Quote from: JPierreD on September 21, 2011, 11:01:21 PM
I think that placing the restriction of "no fame points gained by this action" would be pretty much ok.
Regarding forcing someone to kill you, when you attack someone with lethal force you /are/ basically saying: "defend yourself or die". It is not "execute me while I'm unarmed", but "use self-defense if you want to live". It is something every Hero is doing every time, though with very slight chances of death. What would be the problem? If the other player's unit is set to Defensive or Normal and you are at peace with him, you will have to be the aggressor (your fault), if it is set to Aggressive or Murderous then he /was/ picking up a potentially lethally (to the other) fight.
Don't you think?
You miss the point, because this almost guarantees the Hero will die, it could be used to provide motive for wars extra. Basically you could create throw away heroes to try and influence the political and diplomatic game via this. I am sure people can think of other ways to make this almost certain death work in their favour as well.
Quote from: Maxim on September 21, 2011, 05:36:02 PM
"Til Death" option for Hero characters.
Heroes are the only characters that can die in Battle, and on very few occasions they get to recruit locals and raise region morale. They can't do police work or civil work if I understand it correctly, and get only marginal unit advantages. (Does their Swordskill even add to the unit CS anymore?). This is why I propose they get an additional option. A "No retreat, no surrender" option in their Unit settings.
Let's say this raises the chance of the Hero dying to something nearer 90%-95% (since in BM you apparently can never have certainty over anything, though I would also be in favour of a total 100%), with the very slight chance that instead of dying they are just Critically Wounded.
There are plenty of times in actual Medieval History when Knights fought without retreat and died doing so, which seems like the very epitome of what a hero should be.
(See Sir Geoffroi de Charny at Poitiers, Sir Simon de Montfort at Evesham. etc).
Sure, you'd have to calculate what their unit would do, perhaps almost every man retreats when the unit reaches the values for when they would usually retreat, and only the Hero and a few other men as a close personal bodyguard stay the field and ultimately die alongside them. (When a Hero dies the unit disappears anyway, so if 5 men staying the field for that little bit longer swings a battle then .. well .. all the more fame to the dead Hero, epic roleplay etc.) I can't imagine that would be too hard to implement.
So as well as making Heroes that little bit more interesting and desirable it also allows players to .. dispose, of a character they otherwise have no other use for. I had Sextus do a one-man-cavalry-charge against the besiegers in Valkyrja before Averoth fell, and then roleplayed he simply "disappeared". Had I had the option to actually have him die in that battle it would have been much more appropriate. (but then .. maybe he did ;p) The fact Heroes are otherwise useless is the reason I've never played one. Their abilities are seemingly so rare to enact they're the only character class that has almost no reward for a binding-subclass, save for the slight chance the character might die. And then it's just a termination of the character, a one-off and often not very consequential end.
It's better than simply having to "Retire" a character, or suddenly having them spontaneously die. This doesn't make the game any "easier" like so many other suggestions, doesn't over-power or give any real advantage to a character, save for letting a player enact a powerful roleplay before sending their character to what would hopefully be their glorious demise in battle.
Thoughts, comments, criticisms, the usual -
Not every class is designed to be equal in the mechanics of the game. Heroes are largely a RP class, you create them because you want to RP being a hero. We don't need to have a stack of them running around, in fact the rarity of heroes due to the fact they don't add particular attractive game mechanics ensures they stay special within the game RP. The more heroes we have running around, the more diluted the title Hero becomes.
What about giving Heroes the ability to set retreat percentage to 100%, and giving them a flat bonus to whatever value makes troops break (morale?)?
I can see Heroes inspiring their men to fight to the death more frequently.
The only reason I even want fame is to get more noble character slots. If you just give all the character slots that people would get from fame when the player starts out instead, I think there would be a lot less fame whoring. It would just become a statistic, fun to compare, but not effecting a players experience of Battlemaster. Right now it has a huge effect, namely how many characters you can have at once, giving people a big motive for fame whoring.
On to the "Til Death" option, I would like this. It would give more weight to me RP'ing Gustav Kuriga as having near-suicidal faith in Allison Kabrinski, and secondarily the Blood Stars (yes, he puts her above the Blood Stars, though he'll never admit it).
Quote from: Gustav Kuriga on September 22, 2011, 07:05:53 AM
The only reason I even want fame is to get more noble character slots. If you just give all the character slots that people would get from fame when the player starts out instead, I think there would be a lot less fame whoring. It would just become a statistic, fun to compare, but not effecting a players experience of Battlemaster. Right now it has a huge effect, namely how many characters you can have at once, giving people a big motive for fame whoring.
On to the "Til Death" option, I would like this. It would give more weight to me RP'ing Gustav Kuriga as having near-suicidal faith in Allison Kabrinski, and secondarily the Blood Stars (yes, he puts her above the Blood Stars, though he'll never admit it).
There was plenty of fame chasing long before fame was tied to the character slots.
Quote from: De-Legro on September 22, 2011, 02:52:59 AM
You miss the point, because this almost guarantees the Hero will die, it could be used to provide motive for wars extra. Basically you could create throw away heroes to try and influence the political and diplomatic game via this. I am sure people can think of other ways to make this almost certain death work in their favour as well.
It would make characters even less important than they are now: "oh, there goes another hero!"
Hmm, true.
Quote from: Maxim on September 21, 2011, 07:53:11 PM
Family fame is largely unimportant from what I've seen.
Oh, bless ;-) It's the little things. Having more fame than families established around the same time as yours means your successful and powerful and people know that. Getting oodles of fame means no-one can ask your young nobles to mix with peasants or other sordid things: people the world over know your blood bleeds blue without your even saying a word. New nobles in your house start with a little bit more honour and prestige than your standard younglings. Not to mention that others respect you simply for the name. It lends weight because they know all members of that House have a stellar upbringing and can be relied upon in the best and worst of times. Fame is wonderful. The game within a game every one of us ought be playing ;-)
Quote from: Maxim on September 21, 2011, 05:36:02 PM
Thoughts, comments, criticisms, the usual -
I'm of the Heroes are for roleplay faction here. In the early days of my playing all those years ago, I had three characters that I made heroes at the same time as each other. This was in early 2005. One character was killed in battle quite soon after. A second was killed later on in the year in farcical circumstances. The third, Malice, still lives today. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't considered just pushing 'delete' on him once or twice for similar reasons of dead realms and wanting a new start with someone new. I can't tell you how glad I am I've kept at it because I've enjoyed some very good times since.
I don't want to cut Malice' tale short or to take that final battle away from him. I have, if anything, enjoyed the slow descent in to decrepitude where Malice' greatest glories are behind him and each battle gives another minor wound that sees him longer with the healers. Makes for some interesting RP when I get the time and where once players got to know Malice as this dashing young General with a penchant for a good drink, now they meet an old bitter has-been living in the past.
I don't think any other class gets across the passage of time, of ageing even as close as well as the Hero class where you can no longer make the journey's to battle as easily, your skills start to whither, your hours become ever more precious and harder to use for even basic martial tasks like foraging battlefields or scouting, leave alone using hero skills. The hero class should be perfectly preserved as is. Stage management of one's death should not be allowed. It's better for the atmosphere and you can't abuse any of it, only live with it.
I don't like this option. I can't see it being used for anything but an attempt at getting the hero fame.
That being said I'd like to see heroes get a few more class specific options, or perks. A unit morale bonus would be nice, and perhaps decreasing the chance of routing in battle since the hero is there fighting too. I can't really say because I don't know what they have now.
Quote from: Bedwyr on September 22, 2011, 03:04:06 AM
What about giving Heroes the ability to set retreat percentage to 100%, and giving them a flat bonus to whatever value makes troops break (morale?)?
I can see Heroes inspiring their men to fight to the death more frequently.
I like both these ideas.
For the retreat % that is tied to the character's leadership skill right? So maybe just a flat bonus to the max percentage they can set. I would still want it connected to their leadership skill at least somewhat, rather than letting a hero with hardly any leadership skill be able to command his troops to fight to the death.
Quote from: Sypher on September 24, 2011, 05:01:57 AM
I like both these ideas.
For the retreat % that is tied to the character's leadership skill right? So maybe just a flat bonus to the max percentage they can set. I would still want it connected to their leadership skill at least somewhat, rather than letting a hero with hardly any leadership skill be able to command his troops to fight to the death.
Yes, a 15% max and min retreat percentage bump would be cool.
Heres an idea. You get allowed the "certain death" option after you've gotten all the hero fame ;)
Quote from: Shane "Shenron" O'neil on September 24, 2011, 12:26:45 PM
Heres an idea. You get allowed the "certain death" option after you've gotten all the hero fame ;)
Ohhh - that's a good point. Do we have the ability to do these kind of checks?
IG, your family has a history of legendary heroes so the descendent generations have a greater likelihood of trying to emulate their fallen forefathers.
Quote from: Darksun on September 24, 2011, 03:26:23 PMOhhh - that's a good point. Do we have the ability to do these kind of checks?
Yes.
QuoteIG, your family has a history of legendary heroes so the descendent generations have a greater likelihood of trying to emulate their fallen forefathers.
No thanks. You still haven't solved any of the other problems that this would cause. The fame is the least important, though most obvious, of them.
Quote from: Indirik on September 24, 2011, 04:23:34 PM
No thanks. You still haven't solved any of the other problems that this would cause. The fame is the least important, though most obvious, of them.
While this wasn't my solution, merely an agreement that a game mechanic made sense in an IC way. Perhaps you could catalogue all the other problems that this would cause because I've only read of two being discussed:
1) Fame Whoring
2) "Forcing" another character's unit to kill you
Quote from: Darksun on September 24, 2011, 08:58:53 PM
While this wasn't my solution, merely an agreement that a game mechanic made sense in an IC way. Perhaps you could catalogue all the other problems that this would cause because I've only read of two being discussed:
1) Fame Whoring
2) "Forcing" another character's unit to kill you
3)It would make characters even less important than they are now: "oh, there goes another hero!". People should care about their characters and not try to kill them--that's unrealistic. We are supposed to RP nobles, not madmen who care nothing for their lives. Heroes do not
try to get killed, they merely fight and accept the risks.
Quote from: egamma on September 25, 2011, 05:06:27 AM
3)It would make characters even less important than they are now: "oh, there goes another hero!". People should care about their characters and not try to kill them--that's unrealistic. We are supposed to RP nobles, not madmen who care nothing for their lives. Heroes do not try to get killed, they merely fight and accept the risks.
Indeed, I could totally see people creating expendable heroes like this just to grief an enemy by making them look bad for killing so many nobles.
I think egamma and Chenier have summed it up pretty well. For me, the major problem I can foresee with this is the possible abuse angle of disposable characters.