Planned Feature Encourage Play for Evil Characters

[Grey Roger]

The reason is, a merchant who believes your false flag has his relation to you set to "REL_AFTERATTACK", then the reputation check does this:

if(rel  >= REL_AFTERATTACK && rep >= TRADEREP_NEUTRAL  )   return true;

Perhaps change it so that if the merchant believes your false flag then his relation becomes "REP_LEAVEMIN"? You're in Port Royal under an English flag and Thomas O'Reilly believes it, so as far he's concerned you're English and he ought to treat you as such. Though even then, the only condition which passes is the one which checks that you can intimidate him by having enough force to take the town. So we'd probably need another section:

if (rel >= REP_LEAVEMIN) return true;

So that if you're friendly (or the trader thinks so, at least) then he'll do business with you.

Otherwise there's no point in being evil. Apart from losing out on several side quests, your peaceful trading activitied are seriously reduced. I found this out when trying "Ardent" as the evil character and, having stolen a ship at Santiago, went to Port Royal to get some crew and supplies, then found that being evil, I couldn't get the supplies - and didn't have enough food and rum to make it back to Santiago to continue the quest. Fortunately I'd moored at Rocky Shore and when I put to sea, there were a couple of small merchant ships nearby, so I pirated one of them and got some food that way. (And then I couldn't sell the pirated cargo until I later went to La Tortue, and then only under a pirate flag because going in under a false Spanish or French flag had the same problem as a false English flag in Port Royal.)

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@Grey Roger: Indeed this section of code does need reconsidering.
It is my intention to tackle that after Beta 4 has been released, because that is when I want to start addressing the whole "playing as a bad guy" thing.
At the moment indeed that isn't a feasible way of playing the game. But it should be.

 

[Grey Roger]

Major changes to make playing a villain worthwhile can certainly wait, as that probably involves someone writing a sidequest or two that only work for villains, to balance out the existing sidequests which only work for heroes. But a couple of tweaks to "tradecheck" to allow villains to trade under false flag and to allow "Horror of the High Seas" to trade everywhere the same way "Hero" can, should be relatively easy and could go in right now. Probably within the week, if you don't object to me trying it.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Major changes to make playing a villain worthwhile can certainly wait, as that probably involves someone writing a sidequest or two that only work for villains, to balance out the existing sidequests which only work for heroes.

My own personal focus would be to get the general game functionality working for villains at all.
I'd consider sidequests a bonus. Maybe tweak some existing ones to support being evil though.
I think you suggested something along those lines before.

But a couple of tweaks to "tradecheck" to allow villains to trade under false flag and to allow "Horror of the High Seas" to trade everywhere the same way "Hero" can, should be relatively easy and could go in right now.

Ideally I'd like to think through the consequences of doing that properly, but at the moment I cannot really spare the attention to do so.

Probably within the week, if you don't object to me trying it.

I would never object to people trying stuff. In fact, I'd very much welcome you to get involved in this sort of stuff!

 

[Grey Roger]

My own personal focus would be to get the general game functionality working for villains at all.
I'd consider sidequests a bonus. Maybe tweak some existing ones to support being evil though.

Most quests don't care whether you're good or evil and the ones that do really shouldn't be for evil types. The church in this game are the good guys so won't employ a villain, which puts villains out of the "Help the Church" and therefore also the "Strange Things Going On" sidequests; and Toff Oremans will only talk to you because he thinks you're better than the villain who ran off with his daughter.

Ideally I'd like to think through the consequences of doing that properly, but at the moment I cannot really spare the attention to do so.

The obvious consequence is that people with a naughty reputation will be able to trade and repair ships without having to go full-blown pirate. Storekeepers and shipyard owners won't care whether you're a good guy or a bad guy so long as they get your money. That's the only thing I'm planning to change.

I would never object to people trying stuff. In fact, I'd very much welcome you to get involved in this sort of stuff!

Well yes, but messing with main game files affects everyone's game, a wider impact than playing around with a storyline that people can take or leave as they choose. So I'd prefer to let people comment on what I'm proposing before actually dumping it on them.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Most quests don't care whether you're good or evil and the ones that do really shouldn't be for evil types. The church in this game are the good guys so won't employ a villain, which puts villains out of the "Help the Church" and therefore also the "Strange Things Going On" sidequests; and Toff Oremans will only talk to you because he thinks you're better than the villain who ran off with his daughter.

True. The only "evil" one I can think of right now is Nigel Blythe.

The obvious consequence is that people with a naughty reputation will be able to trade and repair ships without having to go full-blown pirate. Storekeepers and shipyard owners won't care whether you're a good guy or a bad guy so long as they get your money. That's the only thing I'm planning to change.

The main thing I would be cautious about is whether this might have the effect that "reputation no longer matters for trade at all".
If that ends up being the case, we might as well remove those limitations altogether. But that would seem like a bit of a shame to me....

Well yes, but messing with main game files affects everyone's game, a wider impact than playing around with a storyline that people can take or leave as they choose. So I'd prefer to let people comment on what I'm proposing before actually dumping it on them.

That's how I try to handle it as well. Of course more often than not, I ask and then get no feedback, so then make the changes anyway and then people get confused.
Oh well.... then we just deal with that. Can't get it right at first try anyway.

 

[Grey Roger]

The main thing I would be cautious about is whether this might have the effect that "reputation no longer matters for trade at all".
If that ends up being the case, we might as well remove those limitations altogether. But that would seem like a bit of a shame to me....

The one reputation aspect I would preserve is that if your false flag has been recognised, or you're not using one at all because you moored at a beach and walked into town, you can only trade if you're "Hero". This aspect is to be expanded so that you also get to trade if you're "Horror of the High Seas". "Hero" gets in because you're just such a great guy that the owner doesn't care if you're on the other side, and "Horror of the High Seas" gets in because the owner doesn't want to find out what you'll do to him if he refuses to serve you.

Otherwise, the basic question is exactly that - should reputation matter for trade? Should the store keeper care whether you're "Matey" or "Swindler" as long as he gets your money? Why does the store keeper care when the loan shark, the one who is more likely to lose money if he lends to someone disreputable, doesn't care? Thomas O'Reilly really shouldn't care and probably neither should Arnaud Matton as they're both involved with smugglers, so they're used to dealing with disreputable types.

Meanwhile, it's a good thing I kept the burglary code in "Ardent" because as things are now, the only way the evil character is going to get the Cuba map is by stealing it.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Otherwise, the basic question is exactly that - should reputation matter for trade? Should the store keeper care whether you're "Matey" or "Swindler" as long as he gets your money? Why does the store keeper care when the loan shark, the one who is more likely to lose money if he lends to someone disreputable, doesn't care? Thomas O'Reilly really shouldn't care and probably neither should Arnaud Matton as they're both involved with smugglers, so they're used to dealing with disreputable types.

I want reputation and nation relations to matter somewhere. Ideally in a LOT of places so that it actually makes a difference.
Otherwise they're just text and numbers that serve very little real purpose.

So I do believe that reputation and/or fame should have an effect on trading.
Maybe a different effect than it has now? Or handled in a different way? I'm open for suggestions there.
Perhaps it should primarily affect pricing?

But I do like the idea that in certain cases, traders and such will refuse to do business with you.
What cases would be appropriate though?

Rather than asking "why does the store owner care when the loanshark doesn't", maybe a better question would be: "why does the loanshark NOT care?"
Because it seems to me that he SHOULD!

 

[Grey Roger]

I want reputation and nation relations to matter somewhere. Ideally in a LOT of places so that it actually makes a difference.
Otherwise they're just text and numbers that serve very little real purpose.

Nation relations is already reasonably well covered - you can't trade, get your ship fixed or find missions if you're hostile and either your false flag has been recognised or you didn't have one in the first place. The exception is if you're "Hero" (and I've suggested extending that to "Horror of the High Seas" as well).

So I do believe that reputation and/or fame should have an effect on trading.
Maybe a different effect than it has now? Or handled in a different way? I'm open for suggestions there.
Perhaps it should primarily affect pricing?

One possibility might again be that it's not whether you're good or evil that affects price, but how good or evil - again, have the extremes get the bonus.

But I do like the idea that in certain cases, traders and such will refuse to do business with you.
What cases would be appropriate though?

As is already the case, they can refuse to do business if you're from an enemy nation and they know it. But, as is currently the case, if they refuse to do business with evil types then it's not merely pointless to play evil, it's actively discouraged - why play an evil character who can never sell anything except by being a pirate and going to Tortuga, when you can play a good or neutral character who can sell his stuff anywhere?

Rather than asking "why does the store owner care when the loanshark doesn't", maybe a better question would be: "why does the loanshark NOT care?"
Because it seems to me that he SHOULD!

Ideally, first move division of plunder to the ship's deck - the only reason a pirate would visit a loanshark is to rob him. Then have the loanshark refuse to do business with disreputable types. Or maybe generate a short side quest for evil types - put some random character in town, who has fallen behind with repayments, so your job is to go and beat the gold out of said character. But if you try to leave town without bringing the payment to the loanshark, you get jumped by a squad of his thugs. Extra gameplay value for evil characters and a test of the revised "RapidRaid".

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Nation relations is already reasonably well covered - you can't trade, get your ship fixed or find missions if you're hostile and either your false flag has been recognised or you didn't have one in the first place. The exception is if you're "Hero" (and I've suggested extending that to "Horror of the High Seas" as well).

So basically if your reputation is below Swindler, you cannot normally trade.
UNLESS you go all the way to "Horror of the High Seas", when you again can. Right?
That would indeed give an advantage to being MASSIVELY evil instead of being only slightly evil.

I've read about RPG games in the past though where being either massively good or massively evil is a valid way of playing,
but trying to play the game in some sort of "grey area" doesn't work so well. Ideally I'd like PotC to not be like that.

I suppose if you're a Swindler, then the "intimidation" component kicks in. So it is just "Bloody Terror" where you're stuck then.
Then you'd have to decide if you want to be MORE evil or less. But does it make complete sense to handle it like that?

One possibility might again be that it's not whether you're good or evil that affects price, but how good or evil - again, have the extremes get the bonus.

That sounds similar to what I had in mind as well. My thinking was to have a price bonus based on Fame.
Fame could be scaled by Reputation, so Neutral gives the lowest fame and Hero/Horror would give the highest fame.
I definitely see potential in that idea....

As is already the case, they can refuse to do business if you're from an enemy nation and they know it. But, as is currently the case, if they refuse to do business with evil types then it's not merely pointless to play evil, it's actively discouraged - why play an evil character who can never sell anything except by being a pirate and going to Tortuga, when you can play a good or neutral character who can sell his stuff anywhere?

Very true. You don't need to convince me though; I also would like "playing as an evil character" to be properly possible.
We should do some good thinking through of it though so that "evil", "shady" and "hero" are all good ways of playing the game, but notably different.
"Neutral" wouldn't give you any bonuses (or penalties) then.

Ideally, first move division of plunder to the ship's deck - the only reason a pirate would visit a loanshark is to rob him.

I think Divide the Plunder mode was added before you could ever visit your deck.
Moving it to talking to crewmembers instead certainly sounds feasible to me.
Maybe this should be possible ONLY while moored in port though. Otherwise the crew who leave have nowhere to go.
And you shouldn't be able to Divide the Plunder anywhere, should you?

What about "a neutral party to oversee the proceedings" so that the crew is ensured they get a fair share though?
That was probably some of the reason for the Loanshark being involved in the first place.
Based on the TV series of Black Sails, maybe it should be a dialog option exclusive to your Quartermaster then, who would play the role of this "neutral party"?
Is that a good idea? Does mean you cannot do it unless you DO have a quartermaster.
But that does play into this wish of mine: Planned Feature - Special Game Features for Officer Types | PiratesAhoy!

Then have the loanshark refuse to do business with disreputable types.

Makes sense to me.

Or maybe generate a short side quest for evil types - put some random character in town, who has fallen behind with repayments, so your job is to go and beat the gold out of said character. But if you try to leave town without bringing the payment to the loanshark, you get jumped by a squad of his thugs. Extra gameplay value for evil characters and a test of the revised "RapidRaid".

Sounds like fun.

 

[Grey Roger]

So basically if your reputation is below Swindler, you cannot normally trade.
UNLESS you go all the way to "Horror of the High Seas", when you again can. Right?
That would indeed give an advantage to being MASSIVELY evil instead of being only slightly evil.

Only in hostile ports where either your false flag was recognised or you didn't hoist one in the first place - same as "Hero". Anywhere else, lesser villains should have the same trading rights as lesser heroes. Otherwise we're back to the current situation in which you're actively discouraged from playing evil.

That sounds similar to what I had in mind as well. My thinking was to have a price bonus based on Fame.
Fame could be scaled by Reputation, so Neutral gives the lowest fame and Hero/Horror would give the highest fame.
I definitely see potential in that idea....

I'd prefer to keep fame and reputation separate, and perhaps develop fame to reflect how you've done in your chosen career. Navy and privateer characters should earn fame based on how many ships they've sunk or captured (which is definitely recorded somewhere because it appears on the ship's log page). Merchants can continue to earn fame as now, by how rich they are. Fame is how well known you are; for those people who've heard of you, reputation is what they've heard. So you could be very famous but still neutral, e.g. a merchant who has enough personal money to buy an island outright and got it by entirely legal but non-heroic ways - you're not known for being good or evil, you're known for being capable. Of course, if you did get the money by heroic means, or did lots of nice things along the way, that's what people will know about you - likewise if you gained the money in evil ways or did lots of nasty things along the way. It makes things a bit more interesting if characters are two-dimensional rather than one-dimensional.

I think Divide the Plunder mode was added before you could ever visit your deck.
Moving it to talking to crewmembers instead certainly sounds feasible to me.
Maybe this should be possible ONLY while moored in port though. Otherwise the crew who leave have nowhere to go.
And you shouldn't be able to Divide the Plunder anywhere, should you?

I had in mind the scene in films in which the pirates have just taken a rich prize and then divide the loot immediately. But that does make sense, yes - give them their share when they have a chance to go ashore and spend it. The main advantage of this would be that you're not limited to finding one of the few towns which actually has a loanshark. (I got caught out that way right after the bug about crew never losing morale after years of not dividing the loot was fixed - I was somewhere around Hispaniola and had to keep paying to raise morale until I made it to a loanshark-equipped colony.)

What about "a neutral party to oversee the proceedings" so that the crew is ensured they get a fair share though?
That was probably some of the reason for the Loanshark being involved in the first place.
Based on the TV series of Black Sails, maybe it should be a dialog option exclusive to your Quartermaster then, who would play the role of this "neutral party"?
Is that a good idea? Does mean you cannot do it unless you DO have a quartermaster.

You can always get a quartermaster. Just pick one of your officers who isn't one at the moment and re-assign him. But perhaps give some bonus based on the quartermaster's skill - a quartermaster with Commerce 6 can count more accurately than one with Commerce 1, so the crew trust him more to give them their fair share and are less willing to take their chances on another ship whose quartermaster can just about make 1 + 1 = 2, which means higher skill means fewer crew leave. Thus you can just re-assign someone to be quartermaster, but you're better off getting a genuine quartermaster.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

By the way, for the sake of the Bug Tracker, technically this issue is "Not a Bug". Currently this functionality does work as it was designed and intended to.
However, it does need improving. So unless you have any objections, I'd propose moving this discussion to a "Planned Feature" on the Build Beta & Brainstorming forum.

Only in hostile ports where either your false flag was recognised or you didn't hoist one in the first place - same as "Hero". Anywhere else, lesser villains should have the same trading rights as lesser heroes. Otherwise we're back to the current situation in which you're actively discouraged from playing evil.

What are the chances of people bothering to go into hostile ports to do trading there?
Eventually that is meant to become even harder, so that would end up being something that is not done all too often.
So if any character can always trade in non-hostile ports, regardless of reputation, then effectively the whole TradeCheck function might as well be removed altogether.
Surely that isn't the general idea...?

I would imagine that if you are "slightly evil", then (some?) traders should NOT want to trade with you based on principles.
Until you become MORE than "slightly evil" and they fear you too much to resist you.

Since characters now randomly get assigned an "alignment" (good/bad), maybe that could be used to influence this?
So good aligned traders would not want to deal with bad reputation players, while bad reputation traders wouldn't care.
Would that make any sense?

I'd prefer to keep fame and reputation separate, and perhaps develop fame to reflect how you've done in your chosen career. Navy and privateer characters should earn fame based on how many ships they've sunk or captured (which is definitely recorded somewhere because it appears on the ship's log page). Merchants can continue to earn fame as now, by how rich they are. Fame is how well known you are; for those people who've heard of you, reputation is what they've heard. So you could be very famous but still neutral, e.g. a merchant who has enough personal money to buy an island outright and got it by entirely legal but non-heroic ways - you're not known for being good or evil, you're known for being capable. Of course, if you did get the money by heroic means, or did lots of nice things along the way, that's what people will know about you - likewise if you gained the money in evil ways or did lots of nasty things along the way. It makes things a bit more interesting if characters are two-dimensional rather than one-dimensional.

I am thinking also along the lines of practicality. My thinking would be:
- Fame remains calculated similar to how it is now, BUT scaled by reputation; "neutral" would be multiplier 1 and "Hero/Horror" would be, say, multiplier 10
- High fame means higher chance of false flags being detected, but ALSO affects ship surrender chances and provides a discount during trading
- Reputation would get a system similar to Morale so that if you don't do anything to increase it (either for good or bad), it will slowly change back to Neutral

Effectively this would mean that you can DECREASE YOUR FAME ON PURPOSE, rather than it being a number that just continuously goes up.
You might want to make use of that in preparation of some sort of "enemy town infiltration business".
On the flip side of that coin, making and KEEPING your reputation would take continuous effort. It isn't a "do once, then you're done" thing.

You could still become proper famous with a Neutral reputation, because I am NOT suggesting "Neutral reputation = Zero fame".
But building your name purely on money would take much longer than doing making use of reputation.

To me Fame and Reputation are certainly related and have them as two completely individual parts of the game doesn't make so much sense to me.
Therefore some sort of link between the two does seem to be in order.

But that is the way I envision it, based partly on gameplay but also on how easy it would be to implement.
I'd be curious to know exactly how you would propose handling this instead, if we decide to not go with my thoughts on it.

I had in mind the scene in films in which the pirates have just taken a rich prize and then divide the loot immediately. But that does make sense, yes - give them their share when they have a chance to go ashore and spend it. The main advantage of this would be that you're not limited to finding one of the few towns which actually has a loanshark. (I got caught out that way right after the bug about crew never losing morale after years of not dividing the loot was fixed - I was somewhere around Hispaniola and had to keep paying to raise morale until I made it to a loanshark-equipped colony.)

Alrightee then; sounds like it might be time for a Feature Request on that one.

You can always get a quartermaster. Just pick one of your officers who isn't one at the moment and re-assign him. But perhaps give some bonus based on the quartermaster's skill - a quartermaster with Commerce 6 can count more accurately than one with Commerce 1, so the crew trust him more to give them their fair share and are less willing to take their chances on another ship whose quartermaster can just about make 1 + 1 = 2, which means higher skill means fewer crew leave. Thus you can just re-assign someone to be quartermaster, but you're better off getting a genuine quartermaster.

Very true. So basically you agree with my suggestion to have it as dialog option in the Quartermaster officer dialog?

That means this should require only editing Enc_officer_dialog.c (or was it just Enc_officer.c?).
Check the officer type and, if it is a quartermaster, enable the "Divide the Plunder" option.
The "Prisoner_dialog.c" file already contains a check on whether the ship is moored in a port, so that logic can be reused.

Then the only thing that would be missing is the Commerce skill of the Quartermaster actually influencing the division.
And some sort of method for players to know how to do this now (eg. another sort of Tutorial business).

 

[Grey Roger]

By the way, for the sake of the Bug Tracker, technically this issue is "Not a Bug". Currently this functionality does work as it was designed and intended to.
However, it does need improving. So unless you have any objections, I'd propose moving this discussion to a "Planned Feature" on the Build Beta & Brainstorming forum.

The original problem which was that an evil character is pretty well stuffed at the moment could count as a bug, which is why I reported it here. The discussion has moved on a bit and is indeed more suited to the brainstorming forum.

What are the chances of people bothering to go into hostile ports to do trading there?
Eventually that is meant to become even harder, so that would end up being something that is not done all too often.
So if any character can always trade in non-hostile ports, regardless of reputation, then effectively the whole TradeCheck function might as well be removed altogether.
Surely that isn't the general idea...?

Not regardless of reputation. As things stand, if you're not evil, have hoisted a false flag and it hasn't been recognised, you can trade. If it has been recognised (or you never bothered in the first place) and are "Hero" then you can still trade. All I want to change is that evil gets the same trade rights as good - a false flag which hasn't been recognised lets you trade, and so does "Horror of the High Seas" regardless of flag. If your flag was recognised and you aren't one of the extremes then you can't trade. As to why you'd trade in a hostile port, there are several reasons. One is that almost all ports are hostile, e.g. "Early Explorers", or you're playing as a pirate and don't want to wait until you get to one of the few pirate ports. Another is if you have other business there, e.g. you're hostile to France but went to Martinique anyway because of all the sidequests.

I would imagine that if you are "slightly evil", then (some?) traders should NOT want to trade with you based on principles.
Until you become MORE than "slightly evil" and they fear you too much to resist you.

Then we run into the original problem, which is you're actively discouraged from playing evil because you can't trade.

Since characters now randomly get assigned an "alignment" (good/bad), maybe that could be used to influence this?
So good aligned traders would not want to deal with bad reputation players, while bad reputation traders wouldn't care.
Would that make any sense?

And once again, the logical conclusion is that you should always play good as that way you're guaranteed to be able to trade (unless prevented by national relation and a recognised false flag).

I am thinking also along the lines of practicality. My thinking would be:
- Fame remains calculated similar to how it is now, BUT scaled by reputation; "neutral" would be multiplier 1 and "Hero/Horror" would be, say, multiplier 10
- High fame means higher chance of false flags being detected, but ALSO affects ship surrender chances and provides a discount during trading
- Reputation would get a system similar to Morale so that if you don't do anything to increase it (either for good or bad), it will slowly change back to Neutral

I can see how there could be a link between fame and reputation, but multiplier 10 is to me excessive - maybe 1 for neutral and 2 for "Hero / Horror", with the dominant factor for fame still being what you've done career wise.

Effectively this would mean that you can DECREASE YOUR FAME ON PURPOSE, rather than it being a number that just continuously goes up.
You might want to make use of that in preparation of some sort of "enemy town infiltration business".

OK, but fame would need to decrease independently. You don't stop being a famous privateer by refusing to do good deeds, you stop being famous by not attacking enemy ships for a while.

Very true. So basically you agree with my suggestion to have it as dialog option in the Quartermaster officer dialog?

It seems to be the most practical way, yes.

That means this should require only editing Enc_officer_dialog.c (or was it just Enc_officer.c?).
Check the officer type and, if it is a quartermaster, enable the "Divide the Plunder" option.
The "Prisoner_dialog.c" file already contains a check on whether the ship is moored in a port, so that logic can be reused.

Then the only thing that would be missing is the Commerce skill of the Quartermaster actually influencing the division.
And some sort of method for players to know how to do this now (eg. another sort of Tutorial business).

You don't even need a tutorial. There's already the questbook entry which pops up when you have enough money that the crew demand a share of it, so that could include a mention of the quartermaster's role. Then there's the screen under "Crew" which explains how you're paying the crew, which probably includes a mention of loansharks now and would change to mention the quartermaster instead.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The original problem which was that an evil character is pretty well stuffed at the moment could count as a bug, which is why I reported it here.

I suppose it is arguing over semantics. At the time when that code was written, it was written by design to work exactly like it currently does.
That makes it technically not a bug, because it is intentional. Of course we do want something different now.

As things stand, if you're not evil, have hoisted a false flag and it hasn't been recognised, you can trade.

That isn't entirely true. If your reputation is Neutral, you also cannot trade with merchants of nations that are Wary to you.
That is intentional on my part to make starting with Personal Nation (no enemies, but Wary to all) not too much of a cheat, but rather an alternate challenge.
More importantly, that ensures that "Wary" effectively means something notably different than "Neutral/Friendly". I don't particularly want to lose that.

As to why you'd trade in a hostile port, there are several reasons. One is that almost all ports are hostile, e.g. "Early Explorers", or you're playing as a pirate and don't want to wait until you get to one of the few pirate ports. Another is if you have other business there, e.g. you're hostile to France but went to Martinique anyway because of all the sidequests.

I can think of reasons aplenty. I was mainly considering a situation where we have the game to the state where I'd like to see it.
Because going into enemy towns like that will be RISKY, like it should be. Should you'd think twice before doing it.

Then we run into the original problem, which is you're actively discouraged from playing evil because you can't trade.

That isn't necessarily a bad thing if there are other elements in the game that actively encourage you to play evil.
If playing both good and evil doesn't make much of a difference, then we go back to the stock game where reputation basically meant nothing much.
What I would like to see is that both are quite possible, both have advantages and disadvantages and, most importantly, both are different.

And once again, the logical conclusion is that you should always play good as that way you're guaranteed to be able to trade (unless prevented by national relation and a recognised false flag).

Correction: Based on my current thinking, you should play good IF trading is the main thing you care about.
If you're playing evil, wouldn't you mostly be doing other things than honest trading?
Smuggling, for example? Or good, old-fashioned pirating? Doesn't make all that much sense to me to play as "an evil trader".

I can see how there could be a link between fame and reputation, but multiplier 10 is to me excessive - maybe 1 for neutral and 2 for "Hero / Horror", with the dominant factor for fame still being what you've done career wise.

The actual number and formula can be determined once the system is in place; that is just balancing after all.
Definitely giving reputation a not-too-huge (but still noteworthy) impact sounds fair enough to me.

My main point is that the two shouldn't be completely independent, but related.
Are we agreed then on that concept itself?

OK, but fame would need to decrease independently. You don't stop being a famous privateer by refusing to do good deeds, you stop being famous by not attacking enemy ships for a while.

If you are a Heroic Famous Privateer and stop doing stuff to make your name known as a hero, it does actually make sense to me that your Fame would decrease.
I imagine a Neutral Privateer with equal "normal fame" to a Famous Privateer would be less well-known (and liked/feared!) than his famous counterpart.

You don't even need a tutorial. There's already the questbook entry which pops up when you have enough money that the crew demand a share of it, so that could include a mention of the quartermaster's role. Then there's the screen under "Crew" which explains how you're paying the crew, which probably includes a mention of loansharks now and would change to mention the quartermaster instead.

That'll work.

 

[Grey Roger]

I suppose it is arguing over semantics. At the time when that code was written, it was written by design to work exactly like it currently does.
That makes it technically not a bug, because it is intentional. Of course we do want something different now.

My point was, I regarded the inability of evil characters to trade under a false flag which had not been recognised as a bug, and reported it as such. It may or may not have been a valid bug report then; it certainly isn't now. Move it to "Brainstorming" whenever you like.

That isn't entirely true. If your reputation is Neutral, you also cannot trade with merchants of nations that are Wary to you.
That is intentional on my part to make starting with Personal Nation (no enemies, but Wary to all) not too much of a cheat, but rather an alternate challenge.
More importantly, that ensures that "Wary" effectively means something notably different than "Neutral/Friendly". I don't particularly want to lose that.

That's fair enough - they know you're dodgy (either from a nation they don't trust, or you're not declaring allegiance to any nation) and you're not known to actively be honest. My point is, if you're flying a friendly false flag which they haven't recognised then as far as they're concerned you're friendly and should be treated the same as if you genuinely were. You have a French flag which Arnaud Matton believes, so why would he refuse to serve you when he'd serve a Frenchman, which he thinks you are?

I can think of reasons aplenty. I was mainly considering a situation where we have the game to the state where I'd like to see it.
Because going into enemy towns like that will be RISKY, like it should be. Should you'd think twice before doing it.

Agreed, so if the shopkeeper does recognise your false flag and says "Get out or I'll call the guards", make him mean it! But that should be nothing to do with reputation and everything to do with being the wrong nation, except for "Hero" (and possibly "Horror") being allowed to trade anyway. Besides, you still have to get to the store, which might not happen if a patrol guard challenges you.

If playing both good and evil doesn't make much of a difference, then we go back to the stock game where reputation basically meant nothing much.
What I would like to see is that both are quite possible, both have advantages and disadvantages and, most importantly, both are different.

Agreed, but it needs to be practical to play evil, which it's not if you can't trade. Anyway, I'm not sure that reputation meant nothing. In the standard storyline, you're at Quebradas Costillas / Nevis searching for Rheims, the tavern keeper has just told you she knows nothing, then you leave and someone wants to sell information to you - and if you're evil, you can threaten him to make him tell you for free. Also, when you're in Conceicao / Sao Jorge and confront Ferro Cerezo about Padre Domingues' papers, if you're evil you can intimidate him into giving you the papers for free. (And, of course, there are the side quests you can't do if you're evil.)

If you're playing evil, wouldn't you mostly be doing other things than honest trading?
Smuggling, for example? Or good, old-fashioned pirating? Doesn't make all that much sense to me to play as "an evil trader".

Indeed. But you still need to get basic supplies - food, rum, planks, sailcloth, ammo. That's where I came unstuck while trying to play evil Ardent - short of food and rum, and no time to get to Tortuga to stock up there. Pirating is fine if you are lucky enough to find something small enough to take on when it's early in the game, though even then you're liable to run out of rum because merchant ships don't always carry it. Smuggling is even worse, you need to buy goods where they're legal and sell them where they're not, which won't work if you can't buy them in the first place.

The actual number and formula can be determined once the system is in place; that is just balancing after all.
Definitely giving reputation a not-too-huge (but still noteworthy) impact sounds fair enough to me.

My main point is that the two shouldn't be completely independent, but related.
Are we agreed then on that concept itself?

Yes, there's just disagreement on how much influence reputation should have on fame - major or minor.

If you are a Heroic Famous Privateer and stop doing stuff to make your name known as a hero, it does actually make sense to me that your Fame would decrease.
I imagine a Neutral Privateer with equal "normal fame" to a Famous Privateer would be less well-known (and liked/feared!) than his famous counterpart.

Francis Drake wasn't famous for rescuing damsels in distress, he was famous for clobbering the Spanish.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

My point was, I regarded the inability of evil characters to trade under a false flag which had not been recognised as a bug, and reported it as such. It may or may not have been a valid bug report then; it certainly isn't now. Move it to "Brainstorming" whenever you like.

Doing so right now.

The main reason why I didn't consider changing it yet, is because I was planning the larger overhaul described above once Beta 4 has been released.
I consider the current situation more a "design flaw" than a "bug". Not sure if that is actually better though. Might be worse.

That's fair enough - they know you're dodgy (either from a nation they don't trust, or you're not declaring allegiance to any nation) and you're not known to actively be honest. My point is, if you're flying a friendly false flag which they haven't recognised then as far as they're concerned you're friendly and should be treated the same as if you genuinely were. You have a French flag which Arnaud Matton believes, so why would he refuse to serve you when he'd serve a Frenchman, which he thinks you are?

Let me see if I can get this straight:
- Flying a friendly flag, Wary relation, Neutral reputation = no trading because of the Wary relation
- Flying a friendly false flag (not recognized), Hostile relation, Swindler reputation = do trade?

I do believe I am misunderstanding something there....

Agreed, but it needs to be practical to play evil, which it's not if you can't trade. Anyway, I'm not sure that reputation meant nothing. In the standard storyline, you're at Quebradas Costillas / Nevis searching for Rheims, the tavern keeper has just told you she knows nothing, then you leave and someone wants to sell information to you - and if you're evil, you can threaten him to make him tell you for free. Also, when you're in Conceicao / Sao Jorge and confront Ferro Cerezo about Padre Domingues' papers, if you're evil you can intimidate him into giving you the papers for free. (And, of course, there are the side quests you can't do if you're evil.)

Here and there in the quests, yes. But in general play, not so much.

Indeed. But you still need to get basic supplies - food, rum, planks, sailcloth, ammo. That's where I came unstuck while trying to play evil Ardent - short of food and rum, and no time to get to Tortuga to stock up there. Pirating is fine if you are lucky enough to find something small enough to take on when it's early in the game, though even then you're liable to run out of rum because merchant ships don't always carry it. Smuggling is even worse, you need to buy goods where they're legal and sell them where they're not, which won't work if you can't buy them in the first place.

The supplies carried by ships needs to be reconsidered as well. I was hoping to tackle that as part of this item:
Planned Feature - Use Generic Captain and Ship Generation Functions | PiratesAhoy!
It should use the GiveShip2Character function (which includes Auto Supply) instead of doing it completely separately like it does now.
But I was hoping to postpone that for a while longer.

There are some pirate/smuggler outposts on Nevis, Bonaire, Grenada, Hispaniola, Tortuga and Turks, though I am admittedly not 100% sure which ones have a store.
Some of them do, that much I know.

Once you get up to Commerce level 5, you can trade with merchants (at double price) even if TradeCheck returns false.
Rather than making it (too) easy for TradeCheck to return true, I'd rather see dishonourable players making use of that functionality instead.
Otherwise that particular feature ends up having almost no purpose again....

For the smuggling, I was thinking of that mainly as a way to get rid of the supplies you stole from other ships.

Yes, there's just disagreement on how much influence reputation should have on fame - major or minor.

The influence needs to be big enough to actually be noticed as a worthwhile gameplay element, or we might as well not bother.
But the influence shouldn't be bigger than it needs to be. How much seems right can only be determined from testing in the game.

Francis Drake wasn't famous for rescuing damsels in distress, he was famous for clobbering the Spanish.

Who says that rescuing damsels in distress is what should make a player a "Hero" in the game?
My intention is to change things so that only LARGE good acts can get you up to Hero. And rescuing damsels in distress certainly doesn't fit the bill.
"Clobbering the Spanish while being an English privateer" most DOES though.
So by my reckoning, Francis Drake would very easily become a "Heroic Famous Privateer" simply by doing what he does.

Also by that reckoning, if Francis Drake STOPS clobbering the Spanish, then indeed his Reputation and Fame would end up dropping.
Sounds fair enough?

 

[Grey Roger]

Let me see if I can get this straight:
- Flying a friendly flag, Wary relation, Neutral reputation = no trading because of the Wary relation
- Flying a friendly false flag (not recognized), Hostile relation, Swindler reputation = do trade?

Friendly flag, Wary, Neutral = no trading because of Wary relation and the Friendly flag is recognised. (If his nation is Wary of you then that Friendly flag has to be false.)
Friendly flag, Wary, Neutral, flag not recognised = do trade because store thinks you're Friendly
Friendly flag, Hostile, don't care about reputation = no trade and call guards because you're Hostile
Friendly flag, Hostile, flag not recognised = do trade because store thinks you're Friendly and would trade with a Friendly Swindler

Here and there in the quests, yes. But in general play, not so much.

The original game didn't have as much general non-quest play. Free-play is a relatively new invention.

The supplies carried by ships needs to be reconsidered as well. I was hoping to tackle that as part of this item:
Planned Feature - Use Generic Captain and Ship Generation Functions | PiratesAhoy!
It should use the GiveShip2Character function (which includes Auto Supply) instead of doing it completely separately like it does now.

GiveShip2Character can include Auto Supply, which doesn't always give enough. That, in fact, is how I ran into trouble as evil Ardent - you steal a ship at Santiago, which in game code is given to you with GiveShip2Character with AutoSupply enabled, then you're supposed to sail to Port Royal to get new crew. The AutoSupply gives you enough food and rum to get there but you'll need to buy more to get back. Which you can't, if you're a Pirate. Despite not recognising your false flag, the store refuses to trade, which is where this thread started...

Where can an evil Personal character trade? Not in any nation's port (they're all Wary) and not in a Pirate port either (they're Hostile).

There are some pirate/smuggler outposts on Nevis, Bonaire, Grenada, Hispaniola, Tortuga and Turks, though I am admittedly not 100% sure which ones have a store.
Some of them do, that much I know.

Yes, and if you have time (and enough supplies) to reach them, you can restock.

Once you get up to Commerce level 5, you can trade with merchants (at double price) even if TradeCheck returns false.
Rather than making it (too) easy for TradeCheck to return true, I'd rather see dishonourable players making use of that functionality instead.
Otherwise that particular feature ends up having almost no purpose again....

And presumably that works if you have a quartermaster with Commerce 5 as well? If so, I think I've just figured out how to solve Ardent's problem, though it might not help someone playing an evil character from another storyline which doesn't give you a free quartermaster...

For the smuggling, I was thinking of that mainly as a way to get rid of the supplies you stole from other ships.

I think you're confusing smuggler with pirate. Pirates might indeed end up with contraband among the plundered cargo, but non-pirate smugglers tend to get their cargoes by more peaceful means. And indeed, having pirated a ship to steal its food, I did lug the looted cargo around until the time-critical part of the storyline was over and I could divert to Tortuga to sell it.

Who says that rescuing damsels in distress is what should make a player a "Hero" in the game?
My intention is to change things so that only LARGE good acts can get you up to Hero. And rescuing damsels in distress certainly doesn't fit the bill.

I'd think that fighting off a bunch of rapists in the jungle certainly does fit the bill! So does doing overnight guard duty in someone's house.

"Clobbering the Spanish while being an English privateer" most DOES though.
So by my reckoning, Francis Drake would very easily become a "Heroic Famous Privateer" simply by doing what he does.

Not according to the Spanish - remember that little poem you quoted in the text for his free-play? So he'd become famous (lots of ships sunk/captured) and earn rank and title with England (sinking enemy ships as a privateer in a legal war) but not a "Hero" (sinking enemy ships doesn't affect reputation).

Also by that reckoning, if Francis Drake STOPS clobbering the Spanish, then indeed his Reputation and Fame would end up dropping.
Sounds fair enough?

Reputation shouldn't be affected by clobbering enemy ships, though he'll lose his hostile relation to Spain if the reason he stops clobbering Spanish ships is that Spain makes peace with England. What will cause his reputation to drop toward Neutral is that he reads what you said above about rescuing damsels in distress not being heroic, and stops doing that as well.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Friendly flag, Wary, Neutral = no trading because of Wary relation and the Friendly flag is recognised. (If his nation is Wary of you then that Friendly flag has to be false.)

False flag checking only applies to hostile nations. Ships of Wary nations are just as neutral at sea as those friendly to you.
We'd have to change that while ashore for your logic to be possible.

The original game didn't have as much general non-quest play. Free-play is a relatively new invention.

Very true.

GiveShip2Character can include Auto Supply, which doesn't always give enough.

It gives enough for 30 days with your current crew. If you have few crewmembers, then indeed you wouldn't get maximum supplies.
Should it use MAXIMUM crew instead? That is technically quite easily changed.

Where can an evil Personal character trade? Not in any nation's port (they're all Wary) and not in a Pirate port either (they're Hostile).

That's not true. Pirates will trade with hostile characters too, as long as they don't have a LoM.
If they do have a LoM, they need to be wary/neutral with the pirates.

And presumably that works if you have a quartermaster with Commerce 5 as well? If so, I think I've just figured out how to solve Ardent's problem, though it might not help someone playing an evil character from another storyline which doesn't give you a free quartermaster...

Not entirely sure. If it doesn't, let me know. Should be a simple matter of using a different function call.

I think you're confusing smuggler with pirate. Pirates might indeed end up with contraband among the plundered cargo, but non-pirate smugglers tend to get their cargoes by more peaceful means. And indeed, having pirated a ship to steal its food, I did lug the looted cargo around until the time-critical part of the storyline was over and I could divert to Tortuga to sell it.

I'm just trying to figure out how "evil trader" is supposed to work.

I'd think that fighting off a bunch of rapists in the jungle certainly does fit the bill! So does doing overnight guard duty in someone's house.

All the way up to Hero? I was thinking that to be a Hero, you need to do REALLY large acts.
The examples you mention are what I'd consider for the level below Hero.

Not according to the Spanish - remember that little poem you quoted in the text for his free-play? So he'd become famous (lots of ships sunk/captured) and earn rank and title with England (sinking enemy ships as a privateer in a legal war) but not a "Hero" (sinking enemy ships doesn't affect reputation).

Being promoted as a Privateer does affect reputation.
Anyway, "not according to the Spanish" is already reflected by them being hostile.

Though I suppose you do get into weirdness if you become a Hero that way and suddenly the Spanish are willing to trade with you.

Reputation shouldn't be affected by clobbering enemy ships, though he'll lose his hostile relation to Spain if the reason he stops clobbering Spanish ships is that Spain makes peace with England. What will cause his reputation to drop toward Neutral is that he reads what you said above about rescuing damsels in distress not being heroic, and stops doing that as well.

I'm actually not yet entirely sure on what would constitute true, massive acts of heroism.
I figure those should be acts that aren't all that common, really.
If it is common and/or easily done, it shouldn't bring you all the way to Hero.

 

[Grey Roger]

False flag checking only applies to hostile nations. Ships of Wary nations are just as neutral at sea as those friendly to you.
We'd have to change that while ashore for your logic to be possible.

We'd need to have the store and shipyard owners do the false flag check, or even just a check against Fame (if false flag check is anything other than a check against Fame). The logic is the same - do they know you're someone they can't trust? If you're recognised as someone not trusted by their nation and not actively good then they don't serve you.

It gives enough for 30 days with your current crew. If you have few crewmembers, then indeed you wouldn't get maximum supplies.
Should it use MAXIMUM crew instead? That is technically quite easily changed.

Probably a good idea, and not just for my storyline. Otherwise anyone who uses AutoBuy needs to remember to replace lost crew before going to the store. One thing I've found is that store, shipyard and residence open earlier than crew become available for hire (morning, 6:00, as opposed to day, 10:00). So if it's before 10:00, I can't hire crew, so I go to the store, buy supplies, then with any luck it's now daytime and I can hire crew. Of course, I never use AutoBuy anyway, but anyone who uses the same trick and does use AutoBuy is going to get less supplies than they may need.

That's not true. Pirates will trade with hostile characters too, as long as they don't have a LoM.
If they do have a LoM, they need to be wary/neutral with the pirates.

So if you're playing a privateer, you'd better be good.

I'm just trying to figure out how "evil trader" is supposed to work.

Not necessarily trader, i.e. making his money by trading. But unless you're able to steal all the supplies you need from pirated ships, you'll have to trade to some extent. Besides, a smuggler is a trader, in that he buys his stuff legally; it's the selling part that's illegal and doesn't involve stores.

All the way up to Hero? I was thinking that to be a Hero, you need to do REALLY large acts.
The examples you mention are what I'd consider for the level below Hero.

You're risking your life and not asking for a reward. I'd regard that as heroic. Since you only get a couple of points each time, you need to make a habit of doing it, which means lots of people are going to be spreading the word. Of course, it wouldn't do any harm to have a rare oppotunity to get enough points to go from borderline Dashing right up to Hero in one go, but in addition to, not instead of, the current methods.

But I'd agree that the really minor good acts, e.g. telling someone they've dropped their purse, should lose the random element so you always get the +1 if you're lower than Matey - they're nice but don't involve risk, so don't earn more points to get you beyond Matey.

Being promoted as a Privateer does affect reputation.
Anyway, "not according to the Spanish" is already reflected by them being hostile.
Though I suppose you do get into weirdness if you become a Hero that way and suddenly the Spanish are willing to trade with you.

I'd suggest removing the reputation gain for promotion, otherwise you can't play an evil privateer. Besides, reputation affects everyone's perception of you, so why would Spain think better of you because you earned a promotion for sinking their ships? Promotion is a reward for service to your nation so the increase in rank and occasional material reward are appropriate. So is an increase in fame. Reputation is good versus evil. Laurens de Graaf was a pirate so he'd be hated officially by all nations, but he was a good guy so individuals might like him.

If you're Hero then you're a Really Nice Guy and, unofficially at least, people like to be associated with you. Of course, as an English Hero, you might be able to trade in Spanish shops; the problem is not getting caught by patrolling guards on the way to or from the shops, if the plans to make hostile ports dangerous ever get anywhere.

One other piece of reputation weirdness. If you hit someone over the head with a sandbag, leave them stunned and take their stuff, you get at least a -1 reputation, and possibly a -3 along with no stuff if the attempt to take the stuff fails. If you keep hitting them until you kill them and then take their stuff, you don't lose reputation. Apparently it's a worse crime to rob someone than to murder them and then rob them. Which is why, if someone has picked your pocket, finish them off before taking your stuff back.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

We'd need to have the store and shipyard owners do the false flag check, or even just a check against Fame (if false flag check is anything other than a check against Fame). The logic is the same - do they know you're someone they can't trust? If you're recognised as someone not trusted by their nation and not actively good then they don't serve you.

The false flag detection chance is based largely on fame, but also modified by difficulty and luck skill.
Some other things as well; can't 100% remember the specifics.

Since that just returns a "fixed" chance number, I think it should be quite possible within the TradeCheck function to use it even for non-hostile nations.
That should make it possible to consider a flag "false" in those cases even for Wary nation relations.

Alternatively, @morgan terror's changes to "pirate recognition by soldiers in the taverns" just makes use of the "fame number divided by 12".
Maybe that would be an option here too?

Probably a good idea, and not just for my storyline. Otherwise anyone who uses AutoBuy needs to remember to replace lost crew before going to the store.

At the moment there are three functions related to Auto Buy (unfortunately):
1. Function called by the Auto Buy button; this one does the buying and charges you money
2. Function used by GiveShip2Character to supply the ship (this one does not charge money)
3. Function called by ships_init.c to determine the space needed for the "default auto buy supply" and to ensure that does actually fit in the cargo hold of all ships

At the moment these are all completely independent, though I did ensure they are properly in line with each other.
Would be nice to combine them into one at some point. I hate having separate stuff like that.

I'm not entirely certain if #1 uses "max crew" or "current crew". I was referring to #2 there, which does use "current crew" at the moment.

On the subject of Auto Buy: I do think medications should be added to the default supplies.

One thing I've found is that store, shipyard and residence open earlier than crew become available for hire (morning, 6:00, as opposed to day, 10:00). So if it's before 10:00, I can't hire crew, so I go to the store, buy supplies, then with any luck it's now daytime and I can hire crew.

Drunk crew is sleeping in during morning time!

Do you think those times should be in line? If so, should the stores open later or the crew be hired earlier?

So if you're playing a privateer, you'd better be good.

Uh?
If you're a Privateer, you can make use of all towns of your served nation(s) plus their allies. That should normally be a fair few at least.
In Early Explorers, if you serve a nation without towns (England/Holland), then you are deliberately set to be Neutral with the pirates so that you can still trade with them.
So that should all already be covered.

Not necessarily trader, i.e. making his money by trading. But unless you're able to steal all the supplies you need from pirated ships, you'll have to trade to some extent. Besides, a smuggler is a trader, in that he buys his stuff legally; it's the selling part that's illegal and doesn't involve stores.

That is why I suggested having the "don't trade with bad guys" based on "merchant alignment". That is randomly assigned, though can be manually set for quest purposes too.
Then if you want to smuggle/trade while being a bad guy, you can do so at approximately 50% of the stores. You'd need to figure out which ones though, because they're randomly assigned.
But that could be considered a deliberate part of the gameplay.

You're risking your life and not asking for a reward. I'd regard that as heroic. Since you only get a couple of points each time, you need to make a habit of doing it, which means lots of people are going to be spreading the word. Of course, it wouldn't do any harm to have a rare oppotunity to get enough points to go from borderline Dashing right up to Hero in one go, but in addition to, not instead of, the current methods.

It just seems to me that an act that is easily repeatable shouldn't be the way to become a Hero.
Otherwise you can do "reputation grinding", which doesn't sound very good to me....

One other piece of reputation weirdness. If you hit someone over the head with a sandbag, leave them stunned and take their stuff, you get at least a -1 reputation, and possibly a -3 along with no stuff if the attempt to take the stuff fails. If you keep hitting them until you kill them and then take their stuff, you don't lose reputation. Apparently it's a worse crime to rob someone than to murder them and then rob them. Which is why, if someone has picked your pocket, finish them off before taking your stuff back.

Remember that; we should address that when we start changing what triggers reputation changes and to what extent.