Who wants to discuss tile flipping and karma?

[Teksura]

Congratulations! I am giving you an offer to be deputized onto the dev team for the purpose of discussing tile flipping and karma. By posting in this thread, you accept that offer and agree to help build a better system for tile flipping and karma. The goal you agree to help us reach in this thread is to polish off and finalize a better way of doing tile flipping and karma.

It would be greatly appreciated if thread clutter was kept to a minimum. Don't just post "I like this" or "I don't like this". Instead, post an explanation of why you like something (detailing the advantages gained by going that direction), or the the reasons why you do not like something (such as problems caused by the idea, or goals not accomplished by the idea) AS WELL AS A BETTER ALTERNATIVE. The breath 4 dev cycle is run on a theme of reason, and by agreeing to be a deputy on the team you agree to offer reasons behind your position.


That disclaimer said, here is another: This is not a recruitment thread for new dev team members (although you could certainly point to your involvement here the next time you apply to the team). This is a trial to see how cleanly we can develop a part of the next breath here in the Rules Discussion forum. I hid a message in the last thread and nobody saw it. I could put anything here and nobody would ever see it. Half of the time when I'm at my computer I'm not wearing any pants. Don't let me down, because if this is successful then we'll be able to do this a lot more which will give you a lot more say in what is going on in the development process as well as giving you far more insight into why certain things are a certain way.



TILE FLIPPING & KARMA



For those of you who have not yet heard, infusion is going away for breath 4. For the entirety of its existence, it's always been a dull AP dump that nobody really wanted to do. The entire experience was stepping out from the stronghold, clicking a button until your AP is low, and going back. Infusion wars have rarely been fun, and and abuse accusations have been thrown around the matter pretty often since it'd difficult to check and see if someone is using multiple alts against the same infusion field.

Without infusion, we need a new means to flip tiles and deal with faction karma.



Tile flipping is fairly easy, and ties directly into the Stronghold/Outpost/Totems. Simply put:

Totems will ALWAYS flip the tile they are placed on, regardless of any other factors.

Outposts will ALWAYS flip the tile they are placed on regardless of any other factors, plus they will extend influence (equal to its faction level) to all adjacent tiles.

Strongholds will ALWAYS flip the tile they are placed on regardless of any other factors, plus they will extend influence (equal to faction level) to all tiles within a radius equal to half the factions level (rounded up).



When a faction extends its influence to a location, it is best to think of this as infusion for the entire alignment. 2 good factions will have their influence stacking together.

If an opposed alignment has overlapping influence, they counter each other. So lets say you have a level 6 faction with a stronghold set up, and a level 4 evil faction also sets up nearby close enough for their influence to overlap. The tile has 6 influence for good, with 4 influence for evil. The net result is 2 good influence. If a level 2 or higher neutral faction sets up, this is also subtracted. So, if a level 2 neutral faction were also nearby, the tile would end up with 0 good influence, which obviously would not be enough to flip.




So, what makes a tile flip?


Simply put, each tile is assigned a certain threshold. Once it reaches a certain amount of influence, it flips. This flipping does not work in the same way we currently know. The entire tile type does not change. It converts into an aligned version of itself, a Blessed Hospital, a Corrupted Library, or an Empowered Gun Store for some examples. We see 4 things happening:

1: The color for the tile will change depending on the alignment, creating a visible map change.
2: The area description is changes slightly to reflect the influence.
3: A search bonus is granted to characters of the same alignment as the flipped tile.
4: When you search and find nothing, you have a 10% chance to instead find something from the appropriate aligned search table. This gives a small chance to find items which otherwise would not appear in the location without negatively affecting existing search chances. In other words, we're adding things to the table in place of finding nothing, so you're not missing out on ammo or other desired items by having aligned items added to the search results.






So, how does Karma work?


Each faction may select 1 patron (Elder Power) if they desire. While this is optional, it does help with karma requirements. We might be doing something else with this later as well.


Characters count towards their faction karma requirements equal to their level, but with the following modifiers applied:

* If the character is the same alignment as the faction, their karma requirements are multiplied by 2/3 (A level 30 angel in a good faction only requires 20 karma)
* If the character is in the guild of the faction's patron, in addition to being of the same alignment, their karma requirements are further multiplied by 1/2 (meaning that level 30 angel in the good faction now only requires 10 karma)

Karma is gained by any action which grants Orthodoxy. When Orthodoxy is gained, 1 point of karma is also gained, and this lasts for a week.

IMPORTANT: This is all done with placeholder numbers. Exact figures will be adjusted, readjusted, and most likely hotfixed after the breath goes live and we see exactly how far off we were.
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[TTHSK]

Infusion thoughts: There are a few people who like infusion >_>.

With the way influence is exerted: Does it add up over time (aka does the faction stronghold add 'points' over time to the squares, or is it instant)? I can't tell from what's written above. If it is over time, it seems pretty cool. If so, does the outer edge of the stronghold radius influence at a slower rate?

What I like about infusion is that (despite being really dull/straightforward) it adds an extra thing to do to the game - one with quite cool effects. I think we should have a means to interact with it beyond strongholds/outposts/totems.

A couple of ideas:
-> Requiring some sort of interaction to 'flip' an influenced tile - perhaps requiring certain (varying?) items/crafted objects/additional participants/ap+hp+mp/faction honour.
-> A means of 'directing' the influence, so the stronghold's influence could be focused onto certain tiles (differing from infusion in that it's more 'fire and forget').


Karma thoughts: The system proposed seems like it will be... minmaxed, I guess? Lots of factions dedicated to whichever elder power has the 'best' guild power.

Perhaps dedication to one power should come with a consequence, such as those dedicated to other powers (especially those the patron hates) requiring additional karma? That might make the uniformity worse, :s.

Is there more information available on how orthodoxy is going to work next breath?

[Aeneas]

What are Totems? Who can place them? What are the requirements for doing so? What benefit does a tile which has a totem on it have, compared to one that does not?

The bigger the faction is, the LESS work it seems they have to put into maintaining their karma, with SH and Outpost flipping.
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[Teksura]

[Sihoiba]

Tek you're lack of pants means something very different if you're reading it as a Brit.

Possible alternatives to having all faction of the same alignment share infusion to give factions a bit more control over their influence (pick one):
1) Only allies of the same alignment share influence (deliberate choice to work together).
2) Hostile factions contest influence (deliberate choice to not work together)
3) Allied factions gain bonus to influence (allows a group of allies overwhelm a single foe - could scale with level so smaller factions working together gain more than big factions working together).

An enhancement to the idea, flipped tiles automatically gain description text as selected by the controlling faction (faction who exerts the highest influence), e.g.

"You are standing outside house, [house description] EUPD Neighbour watch stickers can be seen in a window."

"You are standing outside a corner store [corner store description]. The walls have been tagged with EOG gang signs."

[Dissident]

Before I put in my opinion any further...questions.

Does flipping tiles only influenced by Stronghold, Totem, & Outposts? Or are we considering other things?

[Arimith]

[Trialist]

How would this work for Unaligned factions?

[Note: Numbers made up for examples. They are not intended to represent recommendations or anything like that.]

Tile flipping for Good and Evil factions seems pretty self-explanatory. If it requires 3 Good to flip a Library to a Blessed Library, then you need at least 3 fastions to do it. If it requres 3 Evil to flip to a Corrupted Library, then you need at least 3 factions. Even if you have 9 Good factions and 6 Evil factions all within range, you still have the required 3 factions to flip the tile.

Unaligned factions have always been at a disadvantage thanks to not having access to angels and demons, while Aligned factions have always had access to transcendents. It should be easier to flip tiles to Empowered tiles in this case, moreso than simply having more Unaligned factions influencing the area than Good/Evil. However, I don't like the idea of a contested tile being flipped to neutral just because it is contested. Transcendents are supposed to be a third part of the war, not just the result of not being an angel and not being a demon. A Library influenced by 3 Good factions and 3 Evil factions should just remain a Library, not become an Empowered Library.

How about, if a tile is influenced by the minimum number of factions to flip it (3, in the above example) and it is "neutral" enough not to be flipped to either Good or Evil, AND it is influenced by an Unaligned faction, then it becomes flipped to Unaligned. For example, 3 Good factions and 3 Evil factions influencing a Library keep it as a Library. 3 Good factions, 3 Evil factions, and 1 Unaligned faction turn it into an Empowered Library. 3 Good factions and 1 Unaligned faction turn it into an Empowered Library. (+3 Good, -1 from Unaligned)

Or, in short:

• 3+ Good, 3+ factions influence = Blessed Library
  
• 3+ Evil, 3+ factions influence = Corrupted Library
  
• less than 2 Good, less than 2 Evil, 3+ factions influence, at least one Unaligned faction = Empowered Library
  
• less than 2 Good, less than 2 Evil, 3+ factions influence, no Unaligned faction influence = Library
  
• less than 2 factions influence = Library
  

As an aside, I'm not sure how this would affect the outer planes, such as Unaligned factions setting up Strongholds in Elysium. I've just been thinking about influences primarily on Valhalla.

Re: Infusion
I don't much care for the idea of actively requiring actions (infusing) to flip the tiles. In this case, it seems like the presence of a Stronghold/Outpost nearby is what's changing the tile. There is such a powerful Good/Evil presence nearby, or such a powerful high-tier competition with Unaligned influence, that is shifting the nature of the tile.

On the other hand, the idea of infusing to keep a tile is an interesting one. That is, if a Corrupted Library is infused by an Evil faction, and the Evil Stronghold/Outposts are taken down enough to remove influence in the area, the other tiles would return to normal but the infused tile (Corrupted Library) could remain as it is.

This can even occur when influence shifts but no Strongholds leave. If, say, we had 2 Good factions and 1 Unaligned faction in the area, we'd end up with Empowered Libraries and other Empowered tiles. The Unaligned faction could infuse the Empowered Library if they wanted to keep it. Later, we might see 5 Good factions and 1 Unaligned faction in the same area. Most of the tiles would now be Blessed. However, the infused tiles to the Unaligned faction are still as Empowered Libraries, and remain that way as long as they remain infused.

[Teksura]

[Trialist]

Aha, thanks for the correction. Taking a look back over the first post, what you've said seems quite clear. I'm not sure how I missed that after reading it again. Thank you for explaining it anyways.

I'm still wondering if giving the Unaligned-flip a lower threshold than Good and Evil might be practical to help the Unaligned factions. I recall Unaligned being a rather unpopular faction choice, and looking at the current factions, that still seems to be the case. I'm not sure if you want to worry about that with this situation, though.

Other than that, it does sound like an interesting idea. I don't have any alternate suggestions for anything else, so I'll come back if I have some more thoughts.