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Feature Request make use of loyalty system

Pieter Boelen

Pieter Boelen

Navigation Officer
Administrator
Storm Modder
Hearts of Oak Donator
I'd say: Tie morale into the effective loyalty of your officers.
Then have loyalty go up if you do actions that are in line with that officer's alignment.
Good officer likes your reputation going up, so when it does, increase loyalty.
I've been planning that for months now anyway.
Only extra thing to add is to have loyal officers result in a happier crew.
 
Pieter Boelen said:
I'd say: Tie morale into the effective loyalty of your officers.
Then have loyalty go up if you do actions that are in line with that officer's alignment.
Good officer likes your reputation going up, so when it does, increase loyalty.
I've been planning that for months now anyway.
Only extra thing to add is to have loyal officers result in a happier crew.
Click to expand...
I guess we also need a way to present the loyalty level to the player and maybe also the allignment
 
My initial thought was to deliberately not show it.
Have the players notice their effect through gameplay rather than by directly showing the numbers.
Showing that is quite unrealistic anyway.

If you do good actions and an officer's reputation does not increase, then apparently that officer has a bad alignment.
If you keep doing that, eventually loyalty on him will drop to rock bottom and the officer will Mutiny, leave or pick a fight with you.
 
Pieter Boelen said:
My initial thought was to deliberately not show it.
Have the players notice their effect through gameplay rather than by directly showing the numbers.
Showing that is quite unrealistic anyway.

If you do good actions and an officer's reputation does not increase, then apparently that officer has a bad alignment.
If you keep doing that, eventually loyalty on him will drop to rock bottom and the officer will Mutiny, leave or pick a fight with you.
Click to expand...
maybe show a hint of the loyalty in the dialog with the officer instead?
If the loyaly drops below a certain point he/she will react more blunt etc.
 
I would say that the indication of the officer's alignment has to be visible, at least during development. That's how you know if the system is working - if he's opposite alignment to you and doesn't drop loyalty, or if he's the same alignment to you and doesn't gain loyalty, then you know it is not working.

There should also be a mechanism by which you bring him round to your way of thinking, perhaps linked to your "Leadership" skill and maybe the "Iron Will" perk.
 
When I write it, I'll definitely check using Trace that it does what I think it should.

Not all characters should be able to be persuaded to come round to your way of thinking.
If they're bad at heart, they're bad at heart.
 
Someone who is that bitterly opposed to your methods would make it blatantly obvious pretty well at once. You'd notice a lack of enthusiasm to carry out your orders and a tendency to disagree with them.

The problem which I see is that first we've gone to a lot of effort to make the player more dependent on officers. Now we're going to make officers unreliable. Logical conclusion: forget officers, rely on your own skills again...
 
To Grey Roger's point, if alignment is either displayed or quickly can be determined accurately, I am just going to hire good aligned people who will agree with my actions, or quickly fire the ones who don't fit.

Meaning, I will always be getting the morale bonus for my officers liking me. And the only real penalty is my officer recruiting will be slowed down to 50% its original rate. Which sounds like it will mostly just add power to the player, without causing much interesting to occur.

Pieter's plan of disguising it and making it take time to determine is the only way it is actually going to change the game beyond boosting morale.

But I also wonder about whether it is treating good and evil as too simple reflections of each other. If you come across a women being chased in the jungle by bandits, and you kill the bandits and loot their corpses, why would the scoundrel's in your party object? If they are bloody and ruthless they just got the chance to kill and loot. If you give 20 coins to a begger, why would they be upset?

Viewed from the other direction, why would an evil/ruthless person be any more loyal to you because you have done bad thing? They wouldn't, they'd be as likely to betray you as they would a good person. They just wouldn't care. Basically, evil/ruthless people should be less loyal to anyone, regardless of their reputation or the good vs evil nature of their actions, and more focussed on success vs failure, and how much money they are getting.

My proposal: Officers with bad alignments would be made more loyal by success in battle, or by being paid more--because they just care about results and profit. Good alignment officers should instead have loyalty based on the morality of your actions, like in the current proposal--and extra money or success/failure should have a much smaller effect on their loyalty.
 
@Grey Roger: Someone who is that bitterly opposed to your methods won't know that immediately upon being hired.
But after a while of seeing you in action, he'd get the point and that is when the trouble starts.

The lack of enthusiasm you describe could play well into what was suggested before by having some sort of efficiency that is directly related to officer loyalty.
So as loyalty drops, efficiency does too.

What my suggestion will do for gameplay is that you won't know for sure when you hire an officer if it will be a good one or not.
This is something you'd discover later during gameplay, which adds an extra layer of complexity.
You may have to start using the "you're fired" option then, which I doubt many people currently would use as there is virtually no point to it.
And it also means that "hiring officers" is not something you do only once at the start of the game, but something you may need to do again later.

I do not believe that this would be an inherently bad thing for gameplay. :no
It would complicate matters, yes. But that's the whole point!

@Tingyun: Any small act of goodness or evil would not cause a huge change in loyalty.
You'd have to continuously do good (or bad) for it to drive your officers "over the edge".

I am admittedly intrigued by your suggestion of unloyal officers staying with you anyway as long as there is profit in it for them.
This sounds more complicated and would probably have to wait for a second update to this (after the first more simplistic version), but it could definitely add something.

I do wonder how to handle that though.
If you use Divide the Plunder Mode, then the Crew Share Ratio is a measure of how profitable you're being, so that could be used for this purpose. But what about Salary Mode?
Simplest would be to limit it only to Divide the Plunder, which would actually be an extra advantage to that mode.
So if you Sign Articles, you could keep even unloyal officers around as long as you're doing well, while you couldn't manage that just with Salary.
 
Pieter,

That make a lot of sense. Divide the plunder mode does make for a good implementation. I do have an idea for non divide the plunder play as well.

What about this proposal for a simple initial system? (Incorprerating a small difference in how evil and good officers approach allignment and profit, with evil officers more concerned about their personal profit and good officers more concerned about morality).

1) Implement a dialogue option when talking to an officer that allows you to give a bonus of 100 gold Multiplied by the level of the officer.

2) Evil officers experience twice as much loyalty change from such bonuses.

3) Good officers experience twice as much loyalty change from morality decisions.
 
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this is really interesting i didn't notice this before since i was using my phone or i would have joined a long time ago !!!

may i suggest some things
-- i think unloyal officers as Tingyun suggested don't care about what you do since you give them money and you are a profitable captain but maybe add (when they are at the edge of you and want to leave you or betray you ) for example when you are travelling in jungle and you fight some bandit they betray you and become on the side of bandits (they had to think of a way to get you) it would be even amazing if you can have a side quest here with maybe a title (Revenge on that traitor basta'd with some interesting dialogues with that officer) like you survived and you begin your hunt on them after finding your loyal men waiting for you in the tavern (i would be happy to do it if you can guide me) maybe make it if you have more then 1 ship (but i would prefer it when you have one so that you have to start from the beginning because of him which will make the player more angrier and more ready to kill that little basta'd XD) think about it and tell me your opinion

--i think if we add what i said above your loyalty with your officer well i mean their loyalty will increase since they didn't leave and stayed and didn't betray you make them get payed better and moral raise with them maybe make them stronger or give them a bonus (there are a lot of things we can do) but this could be how the loyal guys will show you their loyalty for you!!!


--and i like the dive plunder option to get the unloyal officers in place but what would happen when you are not doing good they could use it as a chance to betray you maybe as above or as a fight or just leave you when you are so strong

--and this is just in idea don't know about it what if you placed unloyal officers in a captured town!!
they would betray you and take the town for themselves or join a nation
or if you have one loyal the other isn't maybe a fight will break between the two as a revolution of a town in notification bar and you will have to fight some ships in sea then your way to land but if you take too much time you will lose the town that would be great and amazing but its just in idea

-- i would really love to see this loyalty system it would be perfect with an Asian town since they have loyalty as one of the bones of any places or nations
fighting your way through betrayers that would look amazing !!!

Edit: have you ever though of playing your self as an officer of a captain that would be great in my mod (this is just in idea after all) there is a feature made by fans that allow you to be a soldier under a general 'Freelancer feature) you will be in their armies move freely in towns when the generals enter it and you will see the general move while you are waiting for his move as he is you boss maybe that would be great in town you can move freely at see the ship will move on its own as the AI do it and maybe you can betray him and take his place if you don't like him or be his loyal men or even have a revolution in the town and take it if he conquered one !!!! again its just in idea XD!!!
 
Ideas aplenty. But not enough manpower here to implement them all, I'm afraid.
So we have to be selective and try to get the best possible outcome from the least possible effort.
Simplifying is key....
 
Pieter Boelen said:
Ideas aplenty. But not enough manpower here to implement them all, I'm afraid.
So we have to be selective and try to get the best possible outcome from the least possible effort.
Simplifying is key....
Click to expand...
i would really be happy if someone can guide me like a small tuto on what should i do and then off i go on my own i might trick some of my team members to work with me on it more menpower better no!!
 
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