Looking for anti-chaotic alignment suggestions

[Davairus]

First of all let me start this by showing you this breakdown of ethos:

[rabidgecko]

I've read the chaotic helpfile, and it says basically chaotic people have absolutely no regard for the laws, whether justices are in town or not. I don't see anybody doing that, they're all acting as neutrals - attacking if the justice isn't in town, obeying the law if he is. I don't know what can be done about this, but it's always struck me as an rp problem

[kammkala6]

Being the guy who made a new chaotic not some days ago I have to say the penalties for chaotics or bonuses for others have to be ones that matter at the pinnacle also. If you make exping a bit harder it does not matter, people will just rank a bit slower and at rank 50 they can still use all the wild gear(bonus) and slower exping on shopkeepers(penalty) does not exist anymore.

Most logical would be to make some gear lawful only , instead of wild you would have balanced items. The item being too peaceful/balanced to use by a chaotic person. The same idea could also be used to make some items truly neutral...

[Stiehl26]

You could simply make the other ethos more favorable to play instead of taking away from chaotics. There could be lawful items that are useable by lawful only. These items could have some type of "lawful" affect or proc, maybe when in a room flagged "city" (excluding darkhaven and maybe some other areas). Or the lawful items could have a chance to proc when fighting someone who is not lawful (a greater chance to proc when fighting a chaotic rather than a neutral individual). It is funny that you brought this topic up, as I was going to post today about why anyone (other than cabal requirement and the ever declining rp reason) would play Lawful or Neutral, when Chaotic has the sweet wild weapons, which is a distinct advantage. The player base, who appear to be mostly favorable towards being chaotic, may react to a change better if the other ethos are granted their "own" items rather than making it harder on those who are Chaotic.

[Ergorion]

Let me start off by just asking: why does it matter that chaotic is overrepresented?

Allow me to digress a little before getting to a possible solution to this so-called problem. According to Dav's data, there are roughly two times as many chaotics as there are neutrals. If we look at the data taken from www.abandonedrealms.com/players, we find that:

There are 148 Lightwalkers, 155 Neutrals, and 251 Shadowspawns.

There are roughly twice as many evils as there are either goods. Of course, there are about as many evils as there are goods and neutrals combined, but why is evil overrepresented? Why are so many people choosing to play evil characters rather than goods. What remedies can we think of to fix this problem?


Back to the question at hand, Dav's three points are pretty much spot on. I think the wild tag on the weapons is probably the biggest draw for playing chaotic characters. You have good equipment that your neutral and lawful buddies can't steal from you and your weapons do some nice damage if you get good wild attacks. If you're going to want to make those ethos numbers more balanced, though I don't know why it is such a big deal, then I think the wild items are the most important aspect to change.

One change that I think would help balance the numbers and provide less of an incentive to play a chaotic would be to have all wild items be rotdeath, not just the wild gambled items. This would affect lowbies and pinnacles alike and would be, in my opinion, a fairly large disincentive. The question would be, would this turn off too many people?

[Insom]

wild gambled weapons are at a premium because the super gears are not available most of the time. I would say get rid of all wild weapons period.

[MrCarb]

Here's a suggestion, and I hope that it's simplicity will be its strength (though it probably just means I've overlooked something).

As has already been suggested, make a small but significant number of 'lawful' items to offset the 'chaotic' items to some extent. Perhaps tag the lawful weapons as 'reliable' or 'steadfast', and wielding one with a lawful character would counter chaotic attacks ("Your reliable blade and sensible fighting style comfortably supress his crazed assault"). You know, like the calm and disciplined jedi overcoming the bloodlust of the sith.

Neutral characters would be able to use both chaotic and lawful items (alignment permitting) but would get no special benefit from either and still be susceptible to wild attacks as per the current dynamic.

Chaotics would still be treated more harshly by the justice upon apprehension.

[MrCarb]

Orrrrrr....chaotic characters cannot increase skills above 95%. Someone who lives with chaos in their lives can never be truly sure of anything.

This would give battles the sort of feel I think they should have. The sane man generally has an edge, but never knows when he might endure a crazed onslaught from his less stable opponent.

[_Clifton_]

Pretty much agreed with insom. Those wild weapons are too easy and cheesy.

The first thought I had is, why are wild weapons pure benefit? First definition for "define: wild" on google is "marked by extreme lack of restraint or control". Why wouldn't wild weapons hit their owners? Hit for normal damage with a (much) smaller percentage change than wild strikes (50% of wild strike chance or 5% straight? - just throwing numbers out there). Putting this type of penalty on armor seems like it'd be too harsh though, cause wearing a full suit that penalty is going to add up.. or maybe just have the chance the weapon will strike yourself be dependent on the number of wild pieces you have on. Great power comes great responsibility yadda yadda.

Second thought is, why should chaotics get protection from the law when they obviously don't (or aren't supposed to) give a shit about laws? Remove protection from chaotic characters. If they roleplayed properly, they should all become outlaws anyway. And if you could tone down how much the (WANTED) flag and made it viable to survive with instead of just high tailing it with a justice on, then it'd give people more reason to attack in town and eat the flag. It's far too crippling right now, and should be reserved for (BOUNTIED). It's like in that new Depp movie Public Enemies, you use all possible options to bring down public enemy #1, but the regular girl that just helps PE#1 isn't a KOS target. Give special guards 50% of damage on (WANTED)s and have lawful mobs only report location instead of attacking. Same old same old for (BOUNTIED). This has the added benefit of making 'know alignment' semi-useful for lawfuls and neutrals.

[MrCarb]

Could just change the wild attack damage range from 50%-200% to 25%-175%. This would still offer an advantage, as making a character's damage inconsistent is inherently useful for finnishing PKs (particularly for classes who have trouble lagging), but it would not be such a bonus that everyone felt obliged to roll chaotics.

[MrCarb]

I did say it would still be an advantage, but there would be no 'free damage'. I adjusted the numbers specificaly to remove that. Over the course of a fight you would expect your damage output to be the same as a neutral or lawful character, unlike the current system where you get the twin advantages of unpreictability AND better damage output.

As a chaotic character I would MUCH rather have a 50%-200% range than a 25%-175% range, and I've got to question your maths if you think this would leave the incentive unaltered.

[Arishel]

Instead of having gate guards attack chaotics, make them act like little june sort of. Make them stop the chaotic a bit from entering town, emphasizing that they don't want any problems.

Lawful people could get discounts at the shops from seringale. Have a seperate list for lawful players, or simply raise the price for chaotic players. If you buy anything in seringale and you are chaotic, the shopkeepers stiff you a little more, but haggle will moderate it to where it's not too much.

Lawful could also apply to certain gear, you would just have to plug in what the lawful gear is and what it would do. An idea of mine would be that wearing certain lawful only gear would make you earn more gold from chaotic mob kills and a little bit more experience.

I think with these ideas that you have a good base to start from. Hope that helps.

[Xerties]

I also think that's it's mostly the wild weapons that bring all the chaotics around. That's why I roll chaotic. The only other weapons worth a damn are the starfoil ones in winter, and you can't use those till 50. Plus, there's only a few. Best bet to ease the chaotics is expand that weapon shop and dull down the one in darkhaven.

[RebornShadows]

Well I like the idea of lawful only items. Mabye have lawful shields that do the same as the justice kite shield (rebuke wild attacks) but to a lesser degree. Lawful weapons could do something nifty like wild attacks but not as much damage. I dont know I just woke up so meh

[MrCarb]

ANOTHER idea... (persistance is a virtue, you know)

Chaotics can't use banks.

DEPOSIT 10000

"Investment isn't really your style. Why don't you try the roulete wheel?"

A true chaotic doesn't plan for the future. This is one way, at least, in which we could force chaotics to ACT chaotic.

[wudst]

I would just like to note that I totally disagree with MrCarb's most recent post...

As for Chaotics not attacking in town enough, self preservation is part of anyones mindset. You weigh cost and benefit.

Being wanted, as Clif said, should not be nearly as bad as it is. The cost is just way too high. I think guard being cut and the xp penalty should be cut aswell. However, I think becoming an outlaw should come infinitely quicker than it currently comes. You could tone it so it would be worse for chaotics. I think... I mean you get your hand cut off the first time, branded the second, and killed the third... So I think three times and you have zero prot. Also being outlawed should come with the xp penalty and the full bodied guard attacks.

I think this would provide a more aggressive chaotic crowd, make Justices much more popular to play because they would actually do something sometimes, and would really be a negative aspect for all chaotics, because people get greedy and the eq loss is nasty.

I will also throw in my agreement that Chaotic weapons are just too buff. I think Chaotic stuff in general is pretty lame (even though I absolutely never play anything except a chaotic char) but weapons are more so. Again agreeing with Clif saying that the weaps should be buff, but should bite you in the ass a bit too. 12k is just not enough of a bite, especially at 50 when you can get 100k in a surge with a warrior.

I will also ask the question: why does the chaotic stuff exist?

[Davairus]

[Viggs]

reexamin the races or classes that can caotic

[Stiehl26]

There are only 71 lawfuls because there is no incentive to play them when you can get cool wild items as a chaotic. I guarantee you that if there were no wild items for chaotics and there were some "cool" lawful items, then there would be double that number or lawfuls and half the number of chaotics.

[_Clifton_]

No. Lawful wouldn't change because being gimped in not attacking in town is not attacking in town. And everyone would be neutral since there's no reason to be chaotic anymore if you got rid of all the wild scrap. Anyway, the wild stuff makes the distinction between neutral and chaotic distinct.