[FaeLenx]

I posted a thread pretty much about this problem already.

Almost all of the regional successors can be chosen with non-violent means, and honestly SHOULD be chosen non-violently to keep their theming alive. Geladyne is the big problem in that they are lore-determined to have a strict successor system where the only way to become the new Geladynian ruler is to be nominated as a successor by the old one. This is the single most difficult position to aspire towards, and it's also incredibly the opposite of autocratic which is meant to be their theme.

Similarly to the whole excursions PVP thing I suggested above, rulership transfers should be something that happen mechanically first and roleplay second rather than something that people have to determine and agree on. The only reason I don't think this will be the case is because that would be a lot of systems to introduce by the time Korvara comes out and if it's not done well and fully then we're just gonna have 4 more water sourcers on our hands.

[Autumn]

I posted a thread pretty much about this problem already.

Almost all of the regional successors can be chosen with non-violent means, and honestly SHOULD be chosen non-violently to keep their theming alive. Geladyne is the big problem in that they are lore-determined to have a strict successor system where the only way to become the new Geladynian ruler is to be nominated as a successor by the old one. This is the single most difficult position to aspire towards, and it's also incredibly the opposite of autocratic which is meant to be their theme.

Similarly to the whole excursions PVP thing I suggested above, rulership transfers should be something that happen mechanically first and roleplay second rather than something that people have to determine and agree on. The only reason I don't think this will be the case is because that would be a lot of systems to introduce by the time Korvara comes out and if it's not done well and fully then we're just gonna have 4 more water sourcers on our hands.

I acknowledge that but your thread has a slightly different topic and seems to be more of a discussion piece that I've been thinking of a good way to contribute to, while this thread is a genuine opinion collection from a GM who probably will end up influencing some of the decisions being made up and coming. 

There should obviously be different methods of obtaining rulership, and in most cases it should not ever result in fighting over it, which is also why I am not overly concerned that pvp will dictate the landscape either.

I'll have a more constructive post when I think of one.

[Fern]

Forgive my lack of elaborate wall of text, I just want to quickly chime in on the notion of locking classes/promotions behind applications.

This is an idea that is bound to backfire because the majority of people that play SL2 do it as a casual gameplay sort of thing - no stress in not being active or having a life and not hopping on for some time, play whenever you want sort of deal. Making people have to sink a lot of time to play the class the enjoy (because not everyone is a powergamer wanting to just ruin the lives of everyone) will just make them feel as if they're playing Eternia or an equivalent and start treating the game as a job. I don't think that should be done, and feel that will reduce the appeal of Korvara if it happens.

[K Peculier]

Thanks for the posts so far folks.

I need to stress that there isn't any single right answer here so its more valuable to have more differing opinions.

SO FAR. Reading most of these has me leaning towards a very minimal ruleset and just trusting that most players are looking to have fun and roleplay.

Will there be a handful of players looking to optimize their builds/authority as soon as possible with less than scrupulous means?

Yes absolutely. But to be more optimistic maybe there won't be as many this time.

PvP conflicts still seem to be a complicated issue, but the gist is that if we follow something similar to what we have now, you cannot be forced into it UNLESS both parties consent which should discourage players from going for the most optimal thing each time hopefully.

After all, someone with a more 'fun' oriented combat build is less likely to walk into their doom against someone with old reliable and tested when stakes are on the line.

[Collector]

There isn't much of a point in debating most of this without some kind of proper roadmap from dev.

As it stands right now, all we have on Korvara is 'player controlled environment', 'separate from the main continent', and 'large expansion'. I'm sure there's several dozen small addendums to throw in here, but I'm still unsure what the goal of Korvara is meant to be. Is it official player positions? A secondary roleplay environment that players control? A setup for something later? Could dev himself maybe shed some light on what he wants Korvara to look like? What Korvara would look like a year after release?

I could go on about how mechanical PvP should be binned in the environment entirely, but there's no real reason to yet. Dev has final say on Korvara's initial release and later development; since I have absolutely no idea what it's going to entail, I don't feel comfortable weighing in on anything yet. I'm not content to just sit and watch, but I'm not going to ride on hype alone either. Worst case? I go back to what I was doing and ignore Korvara entirely. 

That said, I still want to kill Korvara superboss day one. I need the OOC tag to reasonably achieve that with the Glykin Gank ™.


(They're standing in poison mist while beating you to death)

[Shujin]

Yeah I most certainly wouldn't trust any player further than I can throw them. Must be nice having the general experience that people sort stuff out by roleplay to further their stories but in my experience that is ONLY the case, if you are not playing an antagonistic character.

As soon as you are Morally grey/black people start to play to "Win"(WIth the Exception of personal Character stories with people that specfically create for these scenes).  The general mindset seems to be that "Evil" characters shouldn't be allowed to win, cause everyone is a Hero and especailly in Sigrogana we have this very dumb system where we allow people to just paint job their characters real quick and then go and challange whatever 'Villian' they want as a "Random Mercenary" (Sometimes just tell a freind OOCly to hire them so its totally IC and accurate to the rules!) and trust their luck in a Deathmatch. If they lose? Whatever just use another of your infinite attempts! If you win? GG haha the guy building their story has to kill that character for that random person thats not even going to exist afterwards anymore cause they just paintjob their character back (Or had a new one grinded for that sake and drop it then, probably a vampire too so it has more chances) Not to mention that this community is very emotionally loaded OOCly. I had plenty of grief squads just showing up because they think something happened OOCly and blow everything out of proportions. 

So no. Rules please that a fair for both sides so there is a safety net for cases like that. No "Trust System" that can only backfire and will only support the Cliques who back each other up. It assumes that every person now and future will be a perfectly fine individual and I believe we had banned plenty of people already that played rule shark in that moment or were just a bunch of dickheads (Grindy bois for example). I think thats inviting anarchy.

To topic 
1. PvP Prevalance - Ideally I'd like for the whole progression system to change. A reason why people are Trigger happy is because there is no real work behind their characters anymore and veterans literally can mass produce maxed out characters in a couple of days. So there is also no "Risk" in betting the characters in those situations. Its hard for me to see the PVP scene there currently as something healthy either way for many reasons others have already pointed out. eventually Korvara too will just be a Factory for mass produced builds with a couple of blanket or barely fleashed out characters that are just there to solve your conflicts with as little risk as possible. I certainly do not like that idea and think thats a mistake of Sigrogana that needs to be fixed.
Of course I'd also much prefer if PVP isn't the only way to go about things, political positions should be worked towards with RP and PVP should probably mostly used for small scale/Personal business (Or if everyone generally agrees).

2. OOC Grind Races -I am generally against the OOC tag, or rather...An OOC tag everywhere, except for some safe zones, but avoiding dangerous zones with it is kinda meh. While I understand the problem I think a better solution to it would be that Legend Extension doesn't reset your levels anymore and change the system abit. Most of the time people go grind cause they want to get the levels back and in that moment its really unfair to "Gank them" when a previously powerful player is suddenly back at level 5 or something. That just feels weird and wrong and I am sure most people just kinda OOCly agree "Nah thats not cool." and let them be. if the system was changed it could mayhaps become more IC.
Its a bit outdated to begin with. Back then it was put in cause we had growth systems and kinda needed to be level 1 Again. Now with stat allocations, we just kinda accepted it as a relic of the past and a Gameplay mechanic. 
I think we could have OOC tags then only in "Save zones" like cities or common RP spots equivalent to the Badlands Arena just to watch. Or with permission of the people there. Everywhere else would be IC, especially in danger zones.

3. Travelling - With the map being big and all of that...I think all we really need is "Scene Locking" so people don't call OOCly for friends that then rush across all the country while they stall. Artifically increasing it further is probably more annoying than it helps (I am sure the people then just stall longer anyway in those cases). Another way where you could probably increase travel time is that you have a "Carriage System". Something that arrives somewhere like a Taxi and takes a few minutes to take you to the next zone (Maybe with a small room you can wait and RP in meanwhile).
But I am not sure if thats going to be needed given Autumns statement about the size of the map. Just an idea to artifically increase travel time. But I kinda sometimes like to have convenience over super realistic travel times, especially if I have to walk somewhere to RP, Then I do not wanna spend half an hour Traveling/Waiting. 

So yeah, Scene Locking is basically all we need to prevent people jumping into a scene they have no business being in, without explicit permission of everyone involved.


just my two cents

[FaeLenx]

So yeah, Scene Locking is basically all we need to prevent people jumping into a scene they have no business being in, without explicit permission of everyone involved.

Pretty much everything you said was correct. I once saw someone go to hit someone in Cellsvich Square, and four guards were there before the person even finished emoting being hit. This kind of response is a bit of a coin flip. The number of guards who arrived wasn't too important, but it shows just how many people are more than happy to jump to a bit of action if it means their character can be involved in something.

I'm not sure if scene locking is best, but then I look at the flee rules which seem to be made with this in mind with their reference to...




But I know I've seen guards jump in on singular random criminals mid combat, meaning that they were never given the opportunity to even opt to flee knowing the party(ies) they'd be fighting, and I'm worried that anything less than scene locking will just mean that this kind of thing keeps happening any time someone feels like they can get away with it.

But as far as 'the good guys think they should always win' kind of narrative goes, the truth is that everyone thinks they should just be allowed to win. It's why the game needs arbitrary rules that don't look at any particular character archetype or allegiance to determine how conflict is resolved.

[Snake]

Eh. These rules will be essential, plus I do agree with us needing also Dev's intent behind this update. What he wants to offer, and what he expects out of us when he finishes wiping the sweat off his forehead once all's done and through.

Because it's as I've said several times now. The game in its current state is not very mechanically balanced, PvP being a main attraction or PvE being a challenge where you won't have your OP gear won't be that much appealing if enemies can casually hit you with everything they launch your way. It will streamline us anyway, make us gravitate to what currently works, not what we think it can work, or funny gimmicks.

What I want to see gone from my Korvara are people who, when thinking about making a character for it, they go "I wanna have this cool fist fighter who's an all rounder", not the usual SL2 train of thought "What can I do to not be completely made a laughing stock to my enemy and not fold to Hexer's afflictions, multiple Youkai or Engineer Bots having 999 turns of advantage over me, or Narcus returning most of my damage back, or how to crawl through a Black Knight with Bellplate + Fang-Faced Shield Mirrored without losing 600 of my HP for just attacking them, or get 1-shot by Evokers, Void Assassins, Rune Magicians."

Which yeah, it's pretty sad. We really need a big balance patch, to make what's currently weak and unusable a little more usable, and pelt down what is at the moment too good to let people ignore over going for something more thematic. For people to build a character based on their IC, not build a character around their mechanical superiority.

Nothing stops someone from being a Glykin Summoner/Priest, for example, if they say "it's my IC lol" even though the class combination plays in the farthest spectrum of Shounen and anime-looking. (Really, it's dull and boring, but it outperforms a Kensei's swish-swooshes by a mile!)

Nothing but these two classes getting tuned down, and other alternative options bumped up.

Or hell, even counters to those strong gimmicks in the form of new abilities for other classes! Bring back our rock paper scissors, and remove 'bazooka' from the equation.

That, and boy oh boy. I'm not even adding Evade's current situation in the list of concerns...

[FaeLenx]

Saying 'we should balance the game' is nothing novel or even helpful for the short term. The community generally needs to come up with a lot of the guidelines it will expect itself to follow in lieu of any mechanical restrictions that force them to do that. While I'd love it if the PVP was balanced around conflict and all of the positions were given mechanical requirements that encouraged roleplay for their use and passing off, the reality is that we'll probably go through a lot of growing pains when this starts and will need to really consider beforehand what we want out of it and what we expect from everyone else.

[lalchi]

1. PvP Prevalance - How should PvP be treated in Korvara when it comes to contesting points of authority (i.e. territory/leadership roles/IC power levels) 

The majority seems to agree that PVP, while inevitable, shouldn't be the main way to go around to build stories or taking powers.

So, instead, i will point out that even if Korvara is player managed. NPCs are still a things.

Telegrad isn't composed of only one duke ruling on two humans and a felidae livng on seperated house.
Telegrad is full of people living their life. There's an authority with guards and a hierarchy. It just happens that part of the people and that hierarchy but, the duke/duchess as well, are players.

The presence of NPCs is something that is forgotten and dismissed very often, if not always. Today, on the great six.
Resulting to people smacking other player in the middle of the town or doing lich thing and being pikachu surprised when guards stop them.
No we are not alone. We are in a town, full of people living their life and guards patrolling the streets. They're just NPC and not mechanically visible because we don't want our game running in 3 fps.
( this is even pointed on lock scene rules. Lock scene can't happen inside of towns because that just doesn't make sense.)

So why am i pointing this out ?
Because the simple idea that one country is full of people on every side and aspect should tell us that PVP isn't the simple way to do things.
If we're going to assasinate a ruler just by kicking the door. Guards, even if NPC, aren't just going to watch it while t-posing in the corner.
This is a suicide mission at this point.

It's all about making a coherent scene.
And when making a coherent scene, one thing we should ask ourselves is : "Can i swing my sword around while screaming really hard, win and take power ?"

There's so many more way to take power without being forced to go pvp. And i'm not only talking about protagonist way.

Betrayal.
Assasination.
Diffamation.
Revolt.
Corruption.

As said. PVP can't be avoid. There will be PVP at some point. While we still can take mesure with dice and/or rp text instead.
I just wish players would think more on the way to go than just unga bunga.

Of course all i say is in the context of conflict inside of city/kingdom.
When it's outside, context changes.

I'm still interested and excited to Korvara. But if it's end up to be "Meta over RP". I'd just forget about Korvara and stick on the great six with dissapointment.

And i've been into conflict resulting to PVP. Even when i really don't have good PVP builds, as they are build through IC reason in priority rather than pure number.
I've won some.
I've lost some.
And it was all fine.
It is all fine when everyone agrees to it.

2. OOC Grind Races - Assuming there's nothing to stop players from tagging themselves as (OOC) and choosing a spot to grind levels/items do we want to put a rule to stop this and get players to focus on roleplay in their perspective regions? 

Admidetly, i've fallen myself into diving for grind as OOC.
Because most people do it and i don't necceserally want to force IC to someone grinding.

Seeing people exploring, fighting mobs and progressing ICly would be wonderfull and I would join on the trip happily.

But, as painfull as it is. It's going to happen. 100%.
Maybe not for the first months.
But later on, for point already said like LE.
AND ESPECIALLY once the gate for the great six will open.

I don't have much to say on the subject. Because I understand why people do it. And i even helped some to power level before.

But my preference would be to encourage people to keep it IC.

An another subject i can say about however which i've seen often here.
Is about locking Class and Races.

Why ?

And i'm not even talking about OOC matters. Am talking about IC matters.

Dev said mech, papillon and dullahan will be lock. (if i remember correctly.)

And to be honest, mechanation and papillon being locked is the only races that makes sense to me to be lock.
Because Mechanation are made with a Llarian scar. Lalrian scar which can be obtained only in the mechana forest. Which doesn't exist in Korvana.
Papillons come from that same forest.

I guess i can understand dullahan because, Mallus, etc... Even if that seems stretched for me.

So aside of Mechanation. Why lock anything else ?

I'm going to say this because i've seen people suggesting it :

Korvana aren't aware of the gods and the great six. Their beliefs are different and their approach different in result.
BUT THEY STILL LIVE IN THE SAME WORLD.

Dark zones still exist and Iahsus too ! Why would it make sense to lock Sheitan or any corrupted (except papillon) ? It's not great six exclusif. It's happening on the whole world.

Why lock Kaelensians ? Yes Egwyn is mostly populated from them but that doesn't mean no Kaelensians may be born in Korvana.

Why lock reapers and Apertaurus ? Korvaran don't know about it but Lazarus still exist. Souls of dead people don't just go to a Korvana exclusif heaven. And therefore Reapers and Apertaurus still are there to do their jobs.

Same goes for Omina, redtails, serpentkind. Even ancients.

The onyl thing that would be different is the lore related to those races.
Lore that would need to be rewritten on the perspective of Korvana.

Of course they aren't going to say redtails comes from the golden thief. They going to have an another believes, studies and observation on the existence of such race.
(or heck, they maybe just don't care.)

Doesn't make sense to lock any class either.

I've seen suggestion of Rune mage being lock.
Why ? Korvana have mages. They don't slap magic together without trying to understand it.
If brains were able to come up with runes. Then Korvana's brains are able to as well.

Why lock engineers ? Same for runemage. Engineers machines are made through focus energy. If Korvana have mage studying magic. They have people to progress technology.

Why lock kensei ? Yes in context of great six it is said it is a oniga tradition. But that just the thing. Korvana don't know about oniga. They don't care if the tradition already exist elsewhere in a place they don't know about.
In the end it's a class about mastering the fight art of swords.
And there's so much more than just katanas that demands a great mastery.
Rapier, sabre, longsword, and more...
I don't see why they should wait to discover oniga to unlock that "chakra" on their brain to use swords better.

This is the same for Boxer.
This is the same for monks.
This is the same for black knights. (black winds is just void. The rest is big weapon and armor. Seriously.)

In the end it's the same as engineer and runemage.
If their was one brain to come up with those skills in the great six. Then there's brain to do such as well in Korvana.

Yes, OOCly, having certain class will encourage the mass grind. But lock everything that has a little potential of such, and you just suck the fun and creativity potential of other players.

3. Travelling - Assuming there's no real barrier to stopping players from just casually running everywhere in a minute. Should there be any rules to a player zipping back and forth each city/area without any limits?

I really don't mind if there's no way to fast travel. I love exploring anyway.
And i even think that it would encourage players to travel in group and do some nice travel RP with camps or just stop by one of the marvellous spot made by our mappers and having a chill RP.

If there's fast travel at some point. I just hope there's something that puts a limit or make the pass of time relevant.

That's about it :v








WEW what a dumb long post.