I currently have banners for most of the towns (and yes, Yew is by far the worst to get in my opinion). Like many others the grind is annoying but I do find it challenging in a way and yes, I'm much happier that decay has been lessened. It's actually manageable to have loyalty on multiple characters now. But yes, this event could have been better, and here is how it would have been more enjoyable for me - though perhaps not for others.
1) DECAY - let decay drop as you rise in status with your city. This makes RP sense as well. An NPC citizen isn't going to remember some stranger doing a random good deed once in awhile, but if you're always helping out then they're not going to forget you as quickly. So decay should be high at the lower levels, but once you hit ADORED decay should stick where it is now, and by the time you hit Venerated it should drop to almost nothing.
Along that course of action, you should gain greater loyalty if other players aren't helping that town. Everyone works Skara because it's easy and most avoid Yew cause it's brutal. So make the loyalty rewards greater, just as you would reward a player for killing a challenging monster, and not for slaying mongbats.
MORE ACTIVITIES to gain loyalty - I dont' know how complicated this would be to program, but implementation would have to be careful.
2) BUILDING DAMAGE - let the shops and building actually take damage - not on the scale of Magincia, but using the Ship damage model. Once a building takes too much damage it can no longer buy/sell goods, give BODs, stable pets, etc. So that mage shop can't sell anything until someone gives the shop owner some lumber, and sand (for glass windows, displays, etc), etc to get the building fixed up. Or go further, use the Elf city quests to get rewards for turning in stools, benches etc - a burned down building needs furniture. Now this could get very bad given that the rioters are going 24 hours a day, so either give the buildlings a ton of hit points or make it so that only raiders can do real damage. Now some critics are going to say - "who cares, I hardly buy anything from NPCs and I can always get what I want from a different town." True, so let's give some random bonuses for helping out towns
i) Reduced prices at their shop (for 24 hours or longer)
ii) Extra BODs
iii) An occasional thank you from the NPCs either in the form of gold, jewels, crafting supplies or a small chance of getting a very rare item.
Have to be careful of abuse in this area, lest players actually let buildings get down to zero health just so they can reap greater rewards. The NPCs wouldn't appreciate this kind of tactics.
3) RAIDERS - these raiders don't seem to accomplish much. Let them act like true raiders - have them steal from the shops, burn down and attack the citizens, and let us assist by stopping them and recovering the goods they take and heal the NPC shopkeepers. Perhaps if rumor gets out that a town is decaying Pirates might actually start to dock their ships and raid the towns. After all , they're getting that stolen loot from somewhere.
4) THIEVES & BEGGARS - don't know how many old timers are still around that remember this but there was a time when NPC beggars would hassle and follow you around town begging for gold. Some were quite persistent and would follow you for great distances. And if I remember correctly I think the NPC thieves would even steal from you. Basically a town should have levels of decay. If players don't help to arrest rioters, stop raiders, put out fires, etc, then the town should start to go through various levels of decay. As decay gets worse, more undesirables show up (i.e. more beggars, thieves, raiders, fewer goods provided). And no there doesn't have to be lasting consequences - in the long term there is nothing to prevent the devs from sending out the army to get the towns back in the long run if they don't really want players to be able to change towns.
5) GREATER RESISTANCE - seems to me if you arrest a rioter, other rioters or angry protestors might be tempted to sympathize with their fellow citizen -
i) throwing trash at you - using the snow ball graphic to do minor damage - maybe even damaging your fame in the process (after all, walking around covered in trash doesn't look very heroic).
ii) attacking you (thus becoming raiders) - this could make it a little to challenging for non-combat types trying to get town loyalty
iii) trying to block you or free your prisoner - yes this could get annoying - so make it a rare occurence.
6) RECOVERING STOLEN GOODs - odd that these starving citizens are just tossing garbage around and not taking what they need. Finally people with the Forensic skill could have some fun! Let them go around town tracking and figuring out who has stolen recently, arrest them and return goods to the shop keepers. Or let players donate goods that the citizens need to keep their shops open. Maybe Animal herders could bring flocks of sheep, or herds of cows to grateful weavers and butchers alike. The quest engines are really under utilized and haven't changed in ages.
AS for the Juka/Meer grave robber thing going on - yes, getting a little tired of the devs simply giving outrageous hit points to make something challenging and the only reward being statues (So yes, I get to toss more statues into a crate that I look at every few months). I was killing the grave robbers and they were standing toe to toe with two greater dragons for over a minute despite only wearing clothing and wielding a pickaxe! At least give us a chance to find some items that have higher turn in value , or some rare items that we get to keep so as to actually reward us for the grind. Hell they could at least have some gold and jewels on them.
I'll stop there, but you get the idea. And yes this would be a lot more work to implement but I'm fairly certain that once they implement this kind of thing, they could find other future uses for these design changes. And more importantly it would actually make the game fun and imaginative again.
1) DECAY - let decay drop as you rise in status with your city. This makes RP sense as well. An NPC citizen isn't going to remember some stranger doing a random good deed once in awhile, but if you're always helping out then they're not going to forget you as quickly. So decay should be high at the lower levels, but once you hit ADORED decay should stick where it is now, and by the time you hit Venerated it should drop to almost nothing.
Along that course of action, you should gain greater loyalty if other players aren't helping that town. Everyone works Skara because it's easy and most avoid Yew cause it's brutal. So make the loyalty rewards greater, just as you would reward a player for killing a challenging monster, and not for slaying mongbats.
MORE ACTIVITIES to gain loyalty - I dont' know how complicated this would be to program, but implementation would have to be careful.
2) BUILDING DAMAGE - let the shops and building actually take damage - not on the scale of Magincia, but using the Ship damage model. Once a building takes too much damage it can no longer buy/sell goods, give BODs, stable pets, etc. So that mage shop can't sell anything until someone gives the shop owner some lumber, and sand (for glass windows, displays, etc), etc to get the building fixed up. Or go further, use the Elf city quests to get rewards for turning in stools, benches etc - a burned down building needs furniture. Now this could get very bad given that the rioters are going 24 hours a day, so either give the buildlings a ton of hit points or make it so that only raiders can do real damage. Now some critics are going to say - "who cares, I hardly buy anything from NPCs and I can always get what I want from a different town." True, so let's give some random bonuses for helping out towns
i) Reduced prices at their shop (for 24 hours or longer)
ii) Extra BODs
iii) An occasional thank you from the NPCs either in the form of gold, jewels, crafting supplies or a small chance of getting a very rare item.
Have to be careful of abuse in this area, lest players actually let buildings get down to zero health just so they can reap greater rewards. The NPCs wouldn't appreciate this kind of tactics.
3) RAIDERS - these raiders don't seem to accomplish much. Let them act like true raiders - have them steal from the shops, burn down and attack the citizens, and let us assist by stopping them and recovering the goods they take and heal the NPC shopkeepers. Perhaps if rumor gets out that a town is decaying Pirates might actually start to dock their ships and raid the towns. After all , they're getting that stolen loot from somewhere.
4) THIEVES & BEGGARS - don't know how many old timers are still around that remember this but there was a time when NPC beggars would hassle and follow you around town begging for gold. Some were quite persistent and would follow you for great distances. And if I remember correctly I think the NPC thieves would even steal from you. Basically a town should have levels of decay. If players don't help to arrest rioters, stop raiders, put out fires, etc, then the town should start to go through various levels of decay. As decay gets worse, more undesirables show up (i.e. more beggars, thieves, raiders, fewer goods provided). And no there doesn't have to be lasting consequences - in the long term there is nothing to prevent the devs from sending out the army to get the towns back in the long run if they don't really want players to be able to change towns.
5) GREATER RESISTANCE - seems to me if you arrest a rioter, other rioters or angry protestors might be tempted to sympathize with their fellow citizen -
i) throwing trash at you - using the snow ball graphic to do minor damage - maybe even damaging your fame in the process (after all, walking around covered in trash doesn't look very heroic).
ii) attacking you (thus becoming raiders) - this could make it a little to challenging for non-combat types trying to get town loyalty
iii) trying to block you or free your prisoner - yes this could get annoying - so make it a rare occurence.
6) RECOVERING STOLEN GOODs - odd that these starving citizens are just tossing garbage around and not taking what they need. Finally people with the Forensic skill could have some fun! Let them go around town tracking and figuring out who has stolen recently, arrest them and return goods to the shop keepers. Or let players donate goods that the citizens need to keep their shops open. Maybe Animal herders could bring flocks of sheep, or herds of cows to grateful weavers and butchers alike. The quest engines are really under utilized and haven't changed in ages.
AS for the Juka/Meer grave robber thing going on - yes, getting a little tired of the devs simply giving outrageous hit points to make something challenging and the only reward being statues (So yes, I get to toss more statues into a crate that I look at every few months). I was killing the grave robbers and they were standing toe to toe with two greater dragons for over a minute despite only wearing clothing and wielding a pickaxe! At least give us a chance to find some items that have higher turn in value , or some rare items that we get to keep so as to actually reward us for the grind. Hell they could at least have some gold and jewels on them.
I'll stop there, but you get the idea. And yes this would be a lot more work to implement but I'm fairly certain that once they implement this kind of thing, they could find other future uses for these design changes. And more importantly it would actually make the game fun and imaginative again.
