Talk:Feature Requests/Hierarchy Bonus to Honor and Prestige

Issues

I thought this had died on the D-list, but I still see a few issues with this. In short, I don't see it creating the benefits listed, and I see a lot of opportunity for abuse.

1) Currently there is no great use for H/P beyond what is needed to play certain classes, so I don't see the Benefits listed as being positively affected by this change. Lords will continue to behave as they do.

2) If changes are implemented that would make H/P more valuable, then this is far too easy to abuse.

a) money from the Duke or Realm often supplements the knights income, but the Lord would be getting the benefits, even though he is not really contributing.

b) most people already understand that H/P comes quickly up to a certain level, then slows. It would not take very much powergaming to keep rearranging knights so that low h/p knights were given to the lords in need of H/P, and older ones were sworn to some high honor Duke.

This kills the idea of an oath being of any sort of "sacred importance"

c) like b) above, two lords on different islands could just swap their 2nd characters back and forth; honor is lowered when you change island, so you stay until you reach the "slow point", then immigrate to reset it lower and swear a new oath to your counterpart.

d) variations on c) with infiltrators; both infil actions and immigration reset honor to a low level.

--Paulandon 01:25, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Some very good points. Personally, I wouldn't worry so much about point 1. Just because there's little tangible use for H/P beyond a certain point right now doesn't mean there won't be some in the future. For 2a, yes, everyone gains from money from the realm. I don't see this as a big deal. Even in the richest realms, knights still get the majority of their gold from their lord. Perhaps this would even encourage dukes to be more selective in who they pass out money to. Perhaps they would be more likely to give money to nobles in their duchy, to encourage the H/P gain for themselves.

Your points in 2b, c, and d are more serious, and would require some work to prevent. Perhaps if this were done, then there would need to be some kind of hidden counter that tracked the total honor and prestige gained by a noble over their entire lifetime. H/P gains for lords could then be calculated somehow based on that. i.e. a noble going from a total lifetime honor of 210 to 215 wouldn't give the lord as much potential bonus as someone going from a lifetime honor of 10 to 15. But then again, there could be honor in "rehabilitating" a noble gone astray? Perhaps the effects could be somehow related to the age of the noble, or the number of previous lieges the noble has had. I think that the devs can probably come up with some way to prevent these types of abuses. But even so, a few potential abuses to gain a couple lords some H/P are, IMO, more than offset by the potential good this could do for new players. --Indirik (talk), Editor (talk) 02:44, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, the abuses would be relatively difficult to hide, and thus easy to report to the Titans. --Anaris 17:19, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

However, it wouldn't be an "abuse", would it? RP two families with close ties, and it is all in the framework of the game.

Also, I don't think that it would be "relatively difficult to hide" - there is no way to track who is sworn to whom over time, and can't imagine anyone keeping tabs on that. I think no one would notice, and it could be easily covered up with a min. RP, if anyone questioned it.

Finally, What are you going to report to the Titans, exactly? "Knight X keeps running of to fight in the war on BT, then returns to his original liege?" That's not an allowable action in game? How can you prove it is for abuse and not some RP reason?

--Paulandon 23:44, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

If it's not an abuse, then why is it a problem?

There may be no way to track who is sworn to whom over time, but the hierarchy at any given point in time is clearly visible. If someone keeps leaving for no good reason, then coming back and swearing to the same lord, that's going to be noticeable.

And, again, if there are legitimate reasons for it, and it's not something that can be reported to the Titans, then why are you so worried about it?

--Anaris 12:43, 1 October 2009 (UTC)