Calistarius;n7255900 said:
Definitely agreed.
And factions in ES games (at least from Oblivion onwards) are more "attempted egostroking" busywork factories than anything else.
Definitely agreed.
And factions in ES games (at least from Oblivion onwards) are more "attempted egostroking" busywork factories than anything else.
kofeiiniturpa;n7255970 said:
Yeah... I always saw them more as "another quest-tree to earn XP and loot", rather then anything else.
Which is fine really... but if I got to choice... I would rather it would be something like "All/several of those other factions in the game will be mad as hell at you since you did X and Y things, to acheive Z thing, within or for what ever faction... which results in a varried set of things to happend, and or effect your character due to it, like factions shooting at you on sight, or refuse to trade with you, etc... AND give you quests/missions/etc which you can earn more XP, and gain you some epic lootz as well, from!" XD
In the original EverQuest I spent days (literally) doing faction quests just to increase my standing high enough to be able to traverse their territory without getting splattered by the NPCs. It was worth it because it opened up shortcuts and sea travel to/from places I'd have had a very difficult time reaching otherwise.
I am getting there to... 37 at the moment. XD
And I still spend as much time, maybe even more, playing videogames as I did when I was younger. The upsides to not having much of a life, I get to do what I really feel like doing... which is playing games (of all various kinds, tabletop to computer, etc), watching tv-series and movies, and spend hours upon hours in writing way to big forumposts on sites like this. XD
Maybe we can call the faction "Young at Heart" or something. XD
And I still spend as much time, maybe even more, playing videogames as I did when I was younger. The upsides to not having much of a life, I get to do what I really feel like doing... which is playing games (of all various kinds, tabletop to computer, etc), watching tv-series and movies, and spend hours upon hours in writing way to big forumposts on sites like this. XD
Maybe we can call the faction "Young at Heart" or something. XD
Back on topic ....
If you look at factions in Elder Scrolls, I agree they're laughably simplistic ego stroking and nothing more.
What I see is each street gang, poser gang, corp, law enforcement (private and public, immigration, what-have-you), religious group, Anonymous2077, The Daughters of the Confederacy, you name it is a faction sometimes with ties (good or bad) to others. Your actions ... and perhaps even lack of action ... will alter your reputation with that group thus with the others it interacts with. If you're in good with them they'll offer you jobs, perhaps better pay, special items, maybe even assistance. If your rep with them is bad ... no jobs or less pay, or you may not be permitted into their turf, and if it's REALLY bad they may attack you.
This sounds complex, but once you've determined the relationship each faction has to each other (which you have to anyway unless each is fully autonomous) it's no more then a single database entry with your total rating (positive or negative) with that faction that determines what jobs, pay, assist or oppose options come up. Allied or opposed factions would use some fraction of your rating with other factions they assist/oppose as input for what they offer you.
This alone would do wonders for replay-ability as you could not only play a different character with different skills (assuming it's not an FPS and character skills matter) but chose to ally with or oppose different factions which will dynamically alter what you can do in the game.
If you look at factions in Elder Scrolls, I agree they're laughably simplistic ego stroking and nothing more.
What I see is each street gang, poser gang, corp, law enforcement (private and public, immigration, what-have-you), religious group, Anonymous2077, The Daughters of the Confederacy, you name it is a faction sometimes with ties (good or bad) to others. Your actions ... and perhaps even lack of action ... will alter your reputation with that group thus with the others it interacts with. If you're in good with them they'll offer you jobs, perhaps better pay, special items, maybe even assistance. If your rep with them is bad ... no jobs or less pay, or you may not be permitted into their turf, and if it's REALLY bad they may attack you.
This sounds complex, but once you've determined the relationship each faction has to each other (which you have to anyway unless each is fully autonomous) it's no more then a single database entry with your total rating (positive or negative) with that faction that determines what jobs, pay, assist or oppose options come up. Allied or opposed factions would use some fraction of your rating with other factions they assist/oppose as input for what they offer you.
This alone would do wonders for replay-ability as you could not only play a different character with different skills (assuming it's not an FPS and character skills matter) but chose to ally with or oppose different factions which will dynamically alter what you can do in the game.
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Some factions could be "smart".
If you act as a double agent and betray one and by some indirect/direct decision you make, they happen find out about it- they should act like all is cool when you come to them.
Then they can offer you a mission, send you on your way and when you arrive you are ambushed. Or maybe they let you do the dirty work and then call the cops on you and leave you on the scene of crime. Or perhaps they just "take you for a ride". In which case you better start thinking fast and make the first move yourself once you get out of the car.
Or when you return from a mission you see an unusual amount of guards at the quest guy, surrounding the area. If you scout the from afar you can see this,
but if you just walk in and they see you, you better keep walking to the quest guy and try to explain things or make a deal. If you turn and run they will aggro you and kill on sight, and the entire faction become permanently hostile.
There should be some clues to figure out if they know or not, but nothing obvious. Maybe if you have a partner within the faction you betrayed he/she/sexbot can warn you not to return, or not. This is just a risk you have to take if you plan to do business with two rival factions.
If you act as a double agent and betray one and by some indirect/direct decision you make, they happen find out about it- they should act like all is cool when you come to them.
Then they can offer you a mission, send you on your way and when you arrive you are ambushed. Or maybe they let you do the dirty work and then call the cops on you and leave you on the scene of crime. Or perhaps they just "take you for a ride". In which case you better start thinking fast and make the first move yourself once you get out of the car.
Or when you return from a mission you see an unusual amount of guards at the quest guy, surrounding the area. If you scout the from afar you can see this,
but if you just walk in and they see you, you better keep walking to the quest guy and try to explain things or make a deal. If you turn and run they will aggro you and kill on sight, and the entire faction become permanently hostile.
There should be some clues to figure out if they know or not, but nothing obvious. Maybe if you have a partner within the faction you betrayed he/she/sexbot can warn you not to return, or not. This is just a risk you have to take if you plan to do business with two rival factions.
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Oh and I want factions to really matter. Not just being quest hubs with massive xps and fat loots.
For all factions I don't expect this but for the core ones.
It should be very favorable to earn the respect of one, giving you different advantages other than items. And it should be dangerous to become enemy with some, that could haunt you for the rest of the game - unless there is some option to destroy that faction. Killing the leaders or something.
Which by the way must be made very difficult to do, as to match the significance doing such a thing would have in the game.
Difficulty which is not because of them having a million health but because of being surrounded by guards, or that you can't enter their presence without having weapons confiscated..
For all factions I don't expect this but for the core ones.
It should be very favorable to earn the respect of one, giving you different advantages other than items. And it should be dangerous to become enemy with some, that could haunt you for the rest of the game - unless there is some option to destroy that faction. Killing the leaders or something.
Which by the way must be made very difficult to do, as to match the significance doing such a thing would have in the game.
Difficulty which is not because of them having a million health but because of being surrounded by guards, or that you can't enter their presence without having weapons confiscated..
Goes without saying. The potential is endless for factions: Corporations, cops, nomad packs, gangs, Hell, even military units and mercenaries.
NukeTheMoon;n9381941 said:
They don't have to be. The way I'd do factions is pick some which would have different outlooks on how the world should be run or something like that. Something like a spectrum or an allignment chart. I've said it before somewhere, something along the lines of: corporate vs anti-corporate, pacific vs violent, information needs to be free vs no it doesn't, individualistic vs communitarian, state vs libertarian, pro-cyber vs anti-cyber... But there should always be both redeeming aspects as well as uncomfortable ones, so that the choice (or lack thereof, as in the Witcher you could choose that your high moral ground was not siding with anyone) would be meaningful.
And I would have most factions available, independent but also relevant in some way for each role:
E.g.:
A rockerboy can be a corporate sellout or instigate any kind of revolution.
A cop can be all for the privatization of their precint or against it. And what do they think of that Militech enforcer that they just assigned as their partner?
A pack nomad may be resentful towards the corps that pushed them away or grateful that they're getting shitty jobs from a new one.
The way that I look at things like Classes, Professions, Roles (as it's called in Cyberpunk 2020), is that all they are is what your character spend their life on befor "this moment" when your character starts being roleplayed. The base that your character was built on, what made them into the character/person they are today.NukeTheMoon;n9381941 said:
They don't still have to be said Role when they start being roleplayed though, they could be something else entirely (a cop turned private investigator... a corporate who for some reason works as a bouncer at a bar... a rockerboy turned vigilante... etc)... but their training, the stuff they spend most of their life on doing to make a living and all that, up untill the point in time where you start to roleplay the character in the gameworld, was their Role/Class/Profession/etc... it might still be of course, and as you roleplay they might still be the role that they where created from, but I really don't see your character being bound to continue to work and make a living as what they used to be.