Feature Request Leadership gain for "Bad" character

[Skyworm]

Cheers mates,

after having some time to play this now, there are some things I stumbled over.

I thought that talking and questing would increase leadership. It does, but not always. For example, protectuing a maid from rapers increases leadership, while talking a group of brigands in joining my crew does not. The whole quests around smuggling does not increase anything, neither leadership not luck (except the gambling).

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I thought that talking and questing would increase leadership. It does, but not always. For example, protectuing a maid from rapers increases leadership, while talking a group of brigands in joining my crew does not.

It all depends on whether it was ever added or not. Probably it never was added to the brigands dialog.

 

[Skyworm]

Thanks Pieter,

that explains it. I just tried to find out how to increase leadership and read doing quests will increase it, so I wondered why a quest did not do it. So there are quests and quests ... hmm.

I believe there is a general difficultie with leadership then. This is when you play an evil character (I actually started as Milady de Winter). You can't do a lot of normal side quests because of your bad reputation, also no one would entrust you his carago to move or his ship to escort, and you are ot powerful enough to do the governors quests. Also, a lot of normal side quests you can't reasonably do according to roleplay ... just think of Milady helping a poor woman and her son ... not an option ;-)

So for an evil character who signed articles instead of paying salary and who sticks to his roleplay, it is very hard to get leadership in the early game.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Enabling play for bad reputation characters is indeed the #1 mod I would really still want to add to the game!
That combined with some other changes to reputation and a link to fame too.
It could be so awesome! But I can't do it until I find the time AND the game is in a stable state (for fear of me temporarily breaking stuff again).

While many quests do give Leadership, it all depends on what quest it is.

@Levis: You reckon some XP could/should be given upon completing any Smuggling Runs?

 

[Levis]

Does the pirate govenor at the moment provide ship hunting quests or something like that?
Those could provide a leadership income for bad characters ...

Making a ship surrender also provides leadership XP right?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Does the pirate govenor at the moment provide ship hunting quests or something like that?

After you join them, the Tortuga and Turks governors become "normal" governors for Pirates.

Making a ship surrender also provides leadership XP right?

Don't think so, no.

 

[Levis]

After you join them, the Tortuga and Turks governors become "normal" governors for Pirates.


Don't think so, no.

Ok, do you mind if I change the captain to a Privateer Captain for these quests? I think that would be nice .
But that means a bad character is at least able to get some leadership XP by doing these quests.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Ok, do you mind if I change the captain to a Privateer Captain for these quests? I think that would be nice .

Privateer or Naval Captain would make sense. Merchant indeed doesn't.

Would be fun if Privateers as NPCs would actually show up anywhere at all!

 

[Skyworm]

I think playing evil is generally more difficult. There are several aspects.

Having a hard time gaining leadership is only one of them.You also have more difficulties selling your stuff and getting better equipment, becaause with a bad reputation, most merchants will not even talk to you.

A solution would possibly be to pimp the pirate and smuggler camps that are already in the game. Actually, only Nevis and Tortuga are "pirate ports" where evil characters can sell their stuff and get pirate governor quests. There are already several more "evil camps" in the game. I speak of the smugglers camp on the portuguese island, the pirate fort on Bonaire, the Buccaneers Camp on Hispaniola. Giving all of these a store, a shipyard and a leader acting as sort of governor would really help.

Just an idea.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I think playing evil is generally more difficult.

No surprises there. Basically, there is virtually nothing in place to actually give any advantages to evil characters.
Which is completely unfair and is probably the #1 thing I still want to address one day.
For example by:
- Making it harder to become AND stay evil (or good!)
- Having Fame scaled by your reputation
- Giving Fame an actual positive impact on the game (I liked @Tingyun's suggestion of higher Fame leading to better officers wanting to join you)
- Have high/low reputation affect what happens during sea battles
- While I'm at it, get the "alignment" of officers taken into account (invisibly!) so that your officers get a bit more "personality"

I think all of that combined would add a massive improvement to the role playing potential.
But until the current game as it is has been released in a stable(ish) version, I cannot start on such a bit job that will affect so many things.
Plus I'd need to find the time, which currently I'm really quite low on.

 

[Grey Roger]

Having a hard time gaining leadership is only one of them.You also have more difficulties selling your stuff and getting better equipment, becaause with a bad reputation, most merchants will not even talk to you.

A solution would possibly be to pimp the pirate and smuggler camps that are already in the game. Actually, only Nevis and Tortuga are "pirate ports" where evil characters can sell their stuff and get pirate governor quests. There are already several more "evil camps" in the game. I speak of the smugglers camp on the portuguese island, the pirate fort on Bonaire, the Buccaneers Camp on Hispaniola. Giving all of these a store, a shipyard and a leader acting as sort of governor would really help.

Those are supposed to be small outposts, not full size towns. This is why they don't have the facilities of full towns.

If you go all the way to "Horror of the High Seas" (or "Femme Fatale", which is how Milady should start out) then you can scare hostile stores into doing business with you - useful if you want to go full-blown evil pirate and be hostile to everyone.

A Letter of Marque may help, too. Even if you're evil, stores will trade with you if you're in the service of their nation. Of course, in that case Pirate stores might not want to do business with you, but then if you're going this route then you didn't find the Pirate stores to be all that useful anyway.

 

[Grey Roger]

No surprises there. Basically, there is virtually nothing in place to actually give any advantages to evil characters.
Which is completely unfair and is probably the #1 thing I still want to address one day.
For example by:
- Making it harder to become AND stay evil (or good!)
- Having Fame scaled by your reputation
- Giving Fame an actual positive impact on the game (I liked @Tingyun's suggestion of higher Fame leading to better officers wanting to join you)
- Have high/low reputation affect what happens during sea battles
- While I'm at it, get the "alignment" of officers taken into account (invisibly!) so that your officers get a bit more "personality"

It's already harder to reach the higher "Good" levels - you can only attain "Dashing" or "Hero" status by doing more significant things. I don't think there's a similar limitation for "Evil" - you can go all the way down to "Horror of the High Seas" just by going round robbing people.

I don't think Fame should be dependent on Reputation; rather it should be more dependent on what you've achieved. Earning ranks while having a LoM, making lots of money while having a Merchant Licence, sinking lots of ships and especially raiding a fort - those should earn you Fame even if your reputation is exact centre "Neutral".

The main problem, though, is that most of the side quests were written under the assumption that players want to be the hero, or perhaps to encourage them - see also the thread Interest in Piracy, which touches on the morality of playing a game which encourages you to be a villain. The only way you're going to get a balance between good and evil characters is if someone writes some side quests which require a low reputation and drop it further when you complete them.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I don't think Fame should be dependent on Reputation; rather it should be more dependent on what you've achieved. Earning ranks while having a LoM, making lots of money while having a Merchant Licence, sinking lots of ships and especially raiding a fort - those should earn you Fame even if your reputation is exact centre "Neutral".

I like the idea of Fame and Reputation going down when you stop doing things again.
Only way to do that is to apply the "Morale" trick to Reputation so that it slowly nudges back to a "default" value of some kind.
And then apply Reputation as a scalar on Fame. Doesn't have to be a straight scalar though; could also be 50% fixed and only 50% scaled.
Then at least you won't go all the way back to "Unknown" if you let your reputation drop back to "Neutral".

But anyway, for the past year, this has just been an idea in my head. Good chance it will stay that way for a while longer.
If I do get the chance to implement it some time though, it is for sure open for changes depending on how it actually works out.
Because I honestly have no clue. I just think it is an intriguing idea.

The main problem, though, is that most of the side quests were written under the assumption that players want to be the hero, or perhaps to encourage them - see also the thread Interest in Piracy, which touches on the morality of playing a game which encourages you to be a villain. The only way you're going to get a balance between good and evil characters is if someone writes some side quests which require a low reputation and drop it further when you complete them.

I think that is a separate issue. The game should be playable and enjoyable in Free Play even if there were no sidequests at all.
That being said, of course some "being evil" sidequests are welcome for sure!

We've got a few: Nigel Blythe and Hitman spring to me. Still quite a limited set compared to the "being Mr. (or Mrs.!) Nice Guy (Girl?)".
So I wouldn't object to that being evened out one day at all.

 

[Grey Roger]

Neither "Nigel Blythe" nor "Hard Labours of an Assassin" - or, for that matter, "French Pirate in a Tavern" - require you to have a low reputation, the way "Help the Church" and "Toff Oremans' Daughter" require you to have a high reputation. "Nigel Blythe" starts off with an evil, or at least not outright good, action, which is stay out of the fight and let him kill Artois Voysey, but after that I'm not sure if there's anything actually evil to do, let alone anything which actively drops your reputation.

One possibility for evil sidequests might be alternative versions of existing quests, played from the other side. For example, Hero gets to rescue Lucas da Saldanha; Horror of the High Seas gets to kidnap him. Or maybe you can join the Animists. According to dialog, the people who grabbed Padre Domingues "were just your usual cutthroats", which could be where you enter the quest from the other side. Do some other evil stuff, end up in the cave, help repel the hero who tries to interrupt things - and then double-cross the Animists and steal the Mefisto. Evil enough to be fun gameplay without being really evil - we presumably don't want the player character to do truly evil things such as kidnap children... (One way to earn good reputation is to save a woman from rapists. We really don't want to play that one from the other side!)

As for Mrs. Nice Girl, that brings up another point of balance, because at the moment I know of exactly one way for Mrs. Nice Girl to have a husband. In general gameplay she's going to have a wife. Very modern, but not very realistic for Age of Sail, and not much of a difference between playing male or female characters.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Neither "Nigel Blythe" nor "Hard Labours of an Assassin" - or, for that matter, "French Pirate in a Tavern" - require you to have a low reputation, the way "Help the Church" and "Toff Oremans' Daughter" require you to have a high reputation. "Nigel Blythe" starts off with an evil, or at least not outright good, action, which is stay out of the fight and let him kill Artois Voysey, but after that I'm not sure if there's anything actually evil to do, let alone anything which actively drops your reputation.

Very true. I imagine there might be some options though to make them a bit darker for any deliberately evil players.

One possibility for evil sidequests might be alternative versions of existing quests, played from the other side. For example, Hero gets to rescue Lucas da Saldanha; Horror of the High Seas gets to kidnap him. Or maybe you can join the Animists. According to dialog, the people who grabbed Padre Domingues "were just your usual cutthroats", which could be where you enter the quest from the other side. Do some other evil stuff, end up in the cave, help repel the hero who tries to interrupt things - and then double-cross the Animists and steal the Mefisto.

I like that idea very much!

Evil enough to be fun gameplay without being really evil - we presumably don't want the player character to do truly evil things such as kidnap children... (One way to earn good reputation is to save a woman from rapists. We really don't want to play that one from the other side!)

Agreed. Fictional style evil is acceptable enough.
But allowing REAL style evil is a bridge too far for me.

As for Mrs. Nice Girl, that brings up another point of balance, because at the moment I know of exactly one way for Mrs. Nice Girl to have a husband. In general gameplay she's going to have a wife. Very modern, but not very realistic for Age of Sail, and not much of a difference between playing male or female characters.

Completely true.

 

[Levis]

@Grey Roger I would love it if you could add those scenario's to the sidequests.

We could look if we could at least add a "leader" to the smugglers camp so you got two person to get jobs from, instead of only the pirate leader. I could use this leader later with my smuggling stuff also.

 

[Grey Roger]

Sorry, but apart from minor tweaks and bug-fixes, any quest-writing I'm doing for now is on my storyline. After that, I have another idea for a side quest but it won't be specific to evil or good characters. Someone else can either take the above suggestions and do something with them; or more likely, anyone dedicated enough to write a side quest probably has ideas of his own.

The smugglers' camp on La Grenade already has a leader, Desmond Ray Beltrop, doesn't it? He plays a small part in "Tales of a Sea Hawk" but he appears in "PROGRAM\Characters\init\Conceicao.c" so presumably he's there permanently. The trick is to make sure that any general side quest stuff he does will not get in the way of his role in that storyline.

 

[Levis]

Sorry, but apart from minor tweaks and bug-fixes, any quest-writing I'm doing for now is on my storyline. After that, I have another idea for a side quest but it won't be specific to evil or good characters. Someone else can either take the above suggestions and do something with them; or more likely, anyone dedicated enough to write a side quest probably has ideas of his own.

The smugglers' camp on La Grenade already has a leader, Desmond Ray Beltrop, doesn't it? He plays a small part in "Tales of a Sea Hawk" but he appears in "PROGRAM\Characters\init\Conceicao.c" so presumably he's there permanently. The trick is to make sure that any general side quest stuff he does will not get in the way of his role in that storyline.

I think we should be able to make that work .

 

[Tingyun]

Agreed. Fictional style evil is acceptable enough.
But allowing REAL style evil is a bridge too far for me.

It's interesting, I would say that a pirate player character is about as evil as they come, and causing the deaths of 1000s of people over the course of a play through to enrich yourself is actually far more evil than the jungle bandits who rape a girl (certainly, the magnitude of the evil is far greater, if not the kind). Real pirates were often desperate, the usually uber wealthy player doesn't have that flimsy excuse even. And just because you don't slaughter the remaining crew after grapeshotting and slaughtering half their compatriots doesn't make the initial actions less of murder.

Yet I understand someone wanting to play a mass murdering pirate and it seems perfectly valid as a way of appreciating a historical period, yet just as you Pieter, if someone wanted to commit rape in this game, I would not be ok with that at all. And I would wonder about the person.


Yet for other things I have a really high tolerance if it is done well. One interesting game on the broader subject of evil gameplay is Crusader Kings 2. If the player chooses, they might pay a wet nurse to smother to death a baby, all in the name of seizing the baby's lands or title for someone in their dynasty. It somehow works though, because the point of the game is the lust for political power, and the player learns something about themself as they consider whether to engage in acts they would generally consider unspeakable (but which many people seem to engage in given the right circumstances and self interest).

And the player might ask themself, if I avoid a war that would cost tens of thousands of lives by killing a baby, is it truly evil? While at the same time experiencing the temptation to forget the war might only be needed anyway because of their own lust for power.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Before we start teaching anyone morality in the game, we first have to give it some meaning.

But really.... there's enough real style evil in the real world. Don't need it in a make-belief world too.