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BattleMaster => Development => Feature Requests => Topic started by: Chenier on November 06, 2018, 03:18:03 PM
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Name: New class representing a new caste, aristocrats
Summary:
This proposal seeks to find a compromise between the desires for two characters per continent, and the advantages it brought, while bearing in mind and avoiding the major pitfalls that having two characters per continent brought.
Simply put, the aristocrat class would be an intermediate class between the existing "noble" classes, and the existing "non-noble" adventurer class. They would represent minor nobility, that have a clear and strong allegiance to their realm, but who lack many of the perks the full "major nobles" benefit from. A player could create an aristocrat directly if he can create an adventurer, and it would draw upon his adventurer pool for character limits. An adventurer who meets the requirements to become a noble would now become an aristocrat instead. To become a full on noble, it would require even more than he currently needs, possibly 5 recommendations and 20/10 h/p.
Details:
Aristocrats would not benefit from the major perks of nobility. They would not be included in the "message all nobles of the realm" chat. They would not be allowed to vote. They would not be allowed to become lords, dukes or hold government titles (but they would be allowed to pick an estate and become knights). They would not be allowed to lead troops. lord taxes on their estates would be doubled, and they would follow the same rules as adventurers for wealth and property taxes.
The aristocrat class would be turn-based, and have very few mechanics of its own. It would only have newbie mechanics available, such as visiting the locals and paid work. However, it would gain access to a number of subclasses, which would either be specific to them, or retweaked existing subclasses. For example:
Preacher: gets preaching and a few of the priest's abilities, but not the more advanced stuff like influencing region stats, auto da fe, or claim region. Gets to help morale of units that adhere to the same faith.
Officer: can target friendly units to improve morale, can evaluate how much stuff there is to forage, can make some activities (hunting, maybe looting, civil work, etc.?) more efficient, can recruit standard scouts.
Merchant: perks of the trader class, perhaps improved with some of the resource ideas.
Explorer: is essentially himself a scout, can look at a region to get a detailed report (perhaps including all the info from all the scout types?), can help troops find shortcuts?
Infiltrator: basically the current infil subclass
Administrator: basically courtier/diplomat stuff
An aristocrat, unlike an adventurer, would have his loyalties clearly displayed. On scout reports and when looking up a region, for example, they'd be there, showing their profession, family, and realm. Something like this:
Nobles here
nobody
Aristocrats here
John Poopoo, Administrator of Outer Tilog
Aroo Doodoo, Administrator of Outer Tilog
Bobby Looloo, Merchant of Outer Tilog
As a whole, aristocrats would have minor powers over realms compared to true nobles, but in numbers they will still be able to have appreciable impacts.
Benefits:
Many players crave for the possibility of a second character. But most importantly, the game was designed around two characters per continent. While the restrictions was wholly justified and overall beneficial, it did have many drawbacks that this proposal seeks to address. For example, the support classes... Having courtiers, priests, and diplomats was much easier back in the days, we had a lot more. Players didn't mind setting their secondary characters as support classes, because they were still able to fully participate in the team efforts with the "main" character. But nowadays? Most players I come across that play support classes do so because they feel their realm/religion needs it, but don't get much personal pleasure out of it at all. The loss of nobles overall, and the need to put some of these on support tasks, hurts realms' offensive capabilities, and thus the potential for war altogether. As it is, in many places, adventurers have been used as support alts anyways, for example with the wizard army of Angmar. But the problem with that is that adventurers are mostly hidden, weren't meant to be used as such, and aren't turn-based, so this class would help soothe that need while addressing that problem.
Downsides:
One of the drawbacks of 2 chars per continent was spying. This is addressed by aristocrats not being included in their realm chat. Another was grid-locking alliances, this is addressed by aristocrats both not being in the realm chat, as well as being unable to vote or hold office. A third drawback was drone characters, which were boring to interact with because they weren't really roleplayed, and again this is handled by putting them clearly on the sidelines.
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I have a feeling this will be rejected.
I actually wouldn't mind this being used as a way to separate courtiers from main noble characters.
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Addendum: nobles with units would still have the option to arrest them. Maybe not beat them up, though.
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Sounds like an awful lot of work for the Devs with lots of room for people to find ways to abuse this new "caste".
If people truly want the ability for a second "noble" type character on each continent, there are simpler ways to accomplish this.
First and foremost would be restricting both nobles of the same family to the same realm.
This would prevent spying and other such activities because both characters would/should share the same goals.
The elder of the two would have the current standard benefits of a noble.
The younger (maybe only available by working though the adventurer class to earn his nobility) could have many of the restrictions proposed by Chenier.
Can not hold any govt positions lordships etc, reduced income for them, limited to half-size units, only access the basic warrior class.
If the elder of the family decides to change realms, it is a family event that includes their younger member as well.
Essentially, the elder member speaks for the family, votes for the family, represents the family's interests...
While the younger is limited to being a warrior of the same realm.
Should a player decide that the younger is more fun to play, they can always retire the elder family member to make way for the younger to move up. Maybe even have an option for the younger to poison the older sibling to make way for his progression up the ranks.
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Agreed, the work load in establishing this new category is in no way matched by the advantages it entails. Really all this reads as is "lets create a class so we can shuffle all the stuff of priest/courtier/infil/trader into it, which pretty much sums up the old problem with 2 characters anyway, the bulk of them were faceless support characters to do all the crap that nobody wanted to waste a main character on (with the exception of infils).
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I like this idea very much. Frees up the actual noble slot for active warfare, leaving the other, non essential work like courtier, bureaucrat, etc to the Aristocrat.
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I like this idea very much. Frees up the actual noble slot for active warfare, leaving the other, non essential work like courtier, bureaucrat, etc to the Aristocrat.
If it is non-essential why do we do it? If it is non-essential why do we bother to model it and waste our time coding it and bug fixing it. This is exactly the mindset I talked about that everyone wants their cake and eat it too. If all we are going to do is offload this sort of work to a pointless 2nd character slot, we would be better off removing the features completely. Once players don't have to make a REAL choice about having a character undertake these roles, they lose all meaning.
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Well, what's essential, really? Some realms have never even been to war, despite being around for years. Some realms have gone about with 1-3 nobles for a long time, too.
The game always had support classes. It just had a lot more characters take them, back then, and people didn't mind taking them, because it allowed them to get more involved in their realms, without multiplying the message load.
I mean, allowing two nobles with basically the same restrictions might work, though I'm not sure how much less coding it would be. I do prefer the concept of a separate somewhat lesser group that doesn't clutter the main caste, though.
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I think this is a lot of work for the devs to do. Probably too much.
I do like the stated goals of making it easier for people to do the support castes and all the very necessary work they do, without at the same time forcing the players to abandon the rest of the game.
I for instance have been unable to play a warrior of any kind on Beluaterra since our second characters were taken away, and the religion game has suffered greatly because of the lack of players willing to make the same sacrifice I have.
I would love to see an option for a second noble, in the same realm only, who could do some of the necessary support work, or just help get larger armies out. And thereby limit the power of militias. I understand one of the reasons the second nobles were removed. Spying and cross-nation powerblocs. I think limiting the second nobles to the same realm, and not allowing the second noble to have any positions of power if that is possible to code, would greatly help to fix those issues. And would be a LOT easier to code than this entire new caste.
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Well, what's essential, really? Some realms have never even been to war, despite being around for years. Some realms have gone about with 1-3 nobles for a long time, too.
The game always had support classes. It just had a lot more characters take them, back then, and people didn't mind taking them, because it allowed them to get more involved in their realms, without multiplying the message load.
I mean, allowing two nobles with basically the same restrictions might work, though I'm not sure how much less coding it would be. I do prefer the concept of a separate somewhat lesser group that doesn't clutter the main caste, though.
So again if all we are doing is providing a new method for the old "clones" to reappear, what worth is there in the sub systems? If a realm must have people dedicate a 2nd character to be practical, would not the solution be to revise the systems that make it necessary and examine if they bring worth to the game? There were some people that did a good job RPing with 2 characters, that was the exception rather then the rule though. The most common outcome was a 2nd character that never spoke and had no purpose beyond propping up the realm against certain sub class mechanics.
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Concerning the aristocrat subclasses, I mean, that's an option to go the extra mile, really. If we just enabled the standard subclasses, plus a religious one (which I really think the game has been lacking anyways), then it would still have a similar effect. Aristocrat/Diplomat, Aristocrat/Trader, for example. The aristocrat class itself could be largely a courtier class clone, plus the extra restrictions. I'll leave those with more knowledge of the game's code to think of ways to recycle stuff and cut down the workload required to achieve the desired objectives, which is to find a compromise between the desire for many players to have 2 characters again, and the drawbacks that this used to have.
De-Legro, if a realm would need to have people dedicate a second character to be practical, then that would be because the game *already* does, but just didn't grant people the means to do anything about it. I'm not asking for extra maintenance work and debuffs to be imposed upon the realms so as to give these characters something to do. Rather, the point is to give players more options to tackle the needs already present in the game, without having to completely remove themselves from the main aspects of it.
The problem with clones, imo, was never that they were friendly with their main character. This game is set in a feudal society, after all, family was important. Rather, it was that these characters were eerie, in a roleplaying sense. Consistently inconsistent. And most of all, when something happened to the "main" character (wound, death, capture, etc.), these guys would just pick things up where the other guy left off. This was both bad for immersion and for making these mechanics meaningful.
Allowing a second noble that must belong to the same realm addresses none of that. However, adding a new class of characters that's excluded from realm chat and titles, THAT bypasses those issues completely.
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No matter how well you restrict them, allowing players to have characters in two different realms will always lead to trouble.
Sure, the odd player can pull this off and play both separately and equally different, but the vast majority of players will favor one character over the other. Human nature.
There are likely some that could play their newly developed infiltrator character that comes along and kills their other longtime family member from another realm, but there are not many.
I may be willing/happy to assassinate your longtime favorite hero character, but I would certainly think twice about killing my own.
If you think that allowing a second character in a second realm access to classes like Aristocrat/Diplomat, Aristocrat/Trader, or a religious variation can not adversely affect that second realm, you are dreaming. Diplomats, priests and traders CAN, very much, affect a realm. Normally, quite quietly and unnoticed until the damage is done and it is too late to stop them.
Allowing a second noble in the same realm limited to the (reduced) warrior class is more realistic and practical.
This game is set in a feudal society, after all, family was important. Rather, it was that these characters were eerie, in a roleplaying sense. Consistently inconsistent. And most of all, when something happened to the "main" character (wound, death, capture, etc.), these guys would just pick things up where the other guy left off. This was both bad for immersion and for making these mechanics meaningful.
Absolutely. In most feudal societies the first born or remaining eldest was the one that both decided and spoke for the family.
When the eldest died, the next eldest would normally step up to that position of authority for the family. Even if only temporarily (and limited) to fill in for a wounded or imprisoned elder.
It would be the younger that would more likely be sent off to serve the military while the eldest would take care of family concerns.
Allowing a second noble that must belong to the same realm addresses none of that. However, adding a new class of characters that's excluded from realm chat and titles, THAT bypasses those issues completely.
Allowing the second noble in the same realm allows for larger mobile armies and addresses the cross-realm spying/cheating because both members of the family share the same/similar concerns. I understand that not every family member will always agree or necessarily have the same views on all things, but the game does allow room for roleplaying things like this.
Ultimately the family is the most important thing. If the younger member decides that they do not like their lot in life, they will normally seek to "take control" of the family rather than to just abandon their family and move on.
Excluding characters from the realm chat and titles does little to prevent spying/cheating or other abuse.
Adventurers already have these and many more restrictions placed upon them and yet some players have found ways to work around them and abuse the class.
Giving players access to things like diplomacy, trading and courtier positions, in a second realm, is just inviting trouble.
Again, human nature.
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I'd have no issues with aristocrats being limited to the same realm a player has his noble in. Seems alright to me.
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To further differentiate between aristocrat and high noble, I think it would be nice if nobles could have aristocrats arrested/beaten just as they can with adventurers. I like the idea of these lesser nobles having to tread carefully around even the lowest of the high nobles. I also like the idea of high nobles having to be careful as to which families they offend and having the real ramifications of both play out in realm.
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To further differentiate between aristocrat and high noble, I think it would be nice if nobles could have aristocrats arrested/beaten just as they can with adventurers. I like the idea of these lesser nobles having to tread carefully around even the lowest of the high nobles. I also like the idea of high nobles having to be careful as to which families they offend and having the real ramifications of both play out in realm.
Not sure about beaten, but I agree about arrested. Beaten doesn't seem very appropriate for the caste.
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I know it's probably never going to happen, but this could be a good thing for every new player. You start with a squire/ junior noble with limited responsibility, under the tutelage of more experienced player. Once they've got the hang of it ( and you're sure they are going to stay around), you give them your recommendation and they get elevated.
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Concerning the aristocrat subclasses, I mean, that's an option to go the extra mile, really. If we just enabled the standard subclasses, plus a religious one (which I really think the game has been lacking anyways), then it would still have a similar effect. Aristocrat/Diplomat, Aristocrat/Trader, for example. The aristocrat class itself could be largely a courtier class clone, plus the extra restrictions. I'll leave those with more knowledge of the game's code to think of ways to recycle stuff and cut down the workload required to achieve the desired objectives, which is to find a compromise between the desire for many players to have 2 characters again, and the drawbacks that this used to have.
De-Legro, if a realm would need to have people dedicate a second character to be practical, then that would be because the game *already* does, but just didn't grant people the means to do anything about it. I'm not asking for extra maintenance work and debuffs to be imposed upon the realms so as to give these characters something to do. Rather, the point is to give players more options to tackle the needs already present in the game, without having to completely remove themselves from the main aspects of it.
The problem with clones, imo, was never that they were friendly with their main character. This game is set in a feudal society, after all, family was important. Rather, it was that these characters were eerie, in a roleplaying sense. Consistently inconsistent. And most of all, when something happened to the "main" character (wound, death, capture, etc.), these guys would just pick things up where the other guy left off. This was both bad for immersion and for making these mechanics meaningful.
Allowing a second noble that must belong to the same realm addresses none of that. However, adding a new class of characters that's excluded from realm chat and titles, THAT bypasses those issues completely.
Then fix the game to not require two characters rather then come up with new way to bypass the change regarding character limits. If all we are doing is creating pointless characters that exist so we have the correct buttons to push, we are wasting time both for the devs and for the players spending time just to push those buttons. Changes should be about driving more interaction in the game not just creating methods to push buttons we once pressed. Fix the buttons.
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Then fix the game to not require two characters rather then come up with new way to bypass the change regarding character limits. If all we are doing is creating pointless characters that exist so we have the correct buttons to push, we are wasting time both for the devs and for the players spending time just to push those buttons. Changes should be about driving more interaction in the game not just creating methods to push buttons we once pressed. Fix the buttons.
If some people don't want to push buttons, maybe they are playing the wrong game?
BattleMaster was the "button pushing" version of SpellMaster. BattleMaster is still around. SpellMaster died. Many times. Mechanics are a core element of this game, not "a necessary evil".
Players chose to have more characters, they weren't forced to. You weren't pressured to, either. I never saw anyone go "that guy only has ONE character in our realm, screw him!".
So if by "fixing the buttons" you mean "remove player agency by making everything automatic", then no, I don't see that as a solution.
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If some people don't want to push buttons, maybe they are playing the wrong game?
BattleMaster was the "button pushing" version of SpellMaster. BattleMaster is still around. SpellMaster died. Many times. Mechanics are a core element of this game, not "a necessary evil".
Players chose to have more characters, they weren't forced to. You weren't pressured to, either. I never saw anyone go "that guy only has ONE character in our realm, screw him!".
So if by "fixing the buttons" you mean "remove player agency by making everything automatic", then no, I don't see that as a solution.
Fixing the buttons can be as easy as making buttons that don't rely on a 2nd character. If I meant remove the buttons and the mechanics I would have said remove them, not fix them. We have constantly looked to change mechanics in response to lowering player numbers, modifying mechanics to avoid the need to inflate density via 2nd characters is no different.
Buttons are fine, characters need buttons. But characters that exist only to press buttons is not in my opinion good or desirable. Mind you that might be because I play M&F where 90% of characters exist only to cope with M&F's own version of this problem.
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Fixing the buttons can be as easy as making buttons that don't rely on a 2nd character. If I meant remove the buttons and the mechanics I would have said remove them, not fix them. We have constantly looked to change mechanics in response to lowering player numbers, modifying mechanics to avoid the need to inflate density via 2nd characters is no different.
Buttons are fine, characters need buttons. But characters that exist only to press buttons is not in my opinion good or desirable. Mind you that might be because I play M&F where 90% of characters exist only to cope with M&F's own version of this problem.
Except that this doesn't address the problem of lowering player numbers, it's a problem of reduced character limits. It's not about "we have less players, how can we compensate?", but about "we can't involve ourselves into our realms as we once could, how could we try to return to that while addressing the underlying issues that led to it being removed?"