User:Urman/Alignment and priests

Purpose

The purpose of this page is to provide an answer to Rolf’s 24 Dec 09 post in the forums (this was in response to an outcry after random losses of alignment):

“Allright the new decreasing alignment itches me as well. So I'd like for you to propose a better way of how the variables praying, favor, and alignment should work together.

Remember that we tried praying for favor initially on the test server but it wasn't popular which is why we now have the old system with passive favor regain.

Write suggestions without too much detail because often they can't be implemented or make it hard to read. Also try not to introduce new variables.”

Short answer

1. Low alignment will effectively reduce prayer, preaching, and channeling skills, like damage reduces a tool.

2. Alignment steadily (not randomly) decreases towards zero based on time online. 30 minutes of “right actions” can restore the normal alignment loss from 3 hours online. Right actions are typically more meditative than valuable, like tending plants for Fo, prospecting for Mag, spinning cotton for Vyn, etc. Priests can also meditate for 60 minutes of meditation to restore the same amount of alignment.

3. Hubris. There is a danger in wielding power; the priest risks thinking he is the source of power; not the god. For every spell successfully cast, there is a small chance of hubris, a loss of alignment. More powerful spells and/or low alignment increase the risk of hubris.

4. Alignment can be gained by defeating designated enemies. Champions get twice the gain for kills.

5. All alignment losses are doubled in opposing religious areas (WL vs. BL) due to increased crises of faith.

Long answer

Assumptions.

a. All religion characteristics and skills need to have a discrete purpose or can be removed.

b. Soul characteristics have some impact on religion. Rolf understands it, but the effects are minor, generally hidden from players, and can be ignored for our purposes.

c. All character types are intended to be playable as primary characters: unbeliever, follower, priest, and champion.

d. All characters are expected to be played. It is not intended that spell casters will run primarily afk to recharge favor, cast, then go afk or offline again. Rewards follow effort for all characters.

e. Playing a follower may be a little more complex than playing a character with no god, playing a priest will be more complex than playing a follower, and playing a champion will be more complex than a priest.

f. The exact mechanism for enchantment can be considered separately from the alignment/favor recharge issue and need not be addressed here.

Definitions (special assumptions).

a. Faith (characteristic) is the current, stable, relationship between the priest and her chosen god.

b. Favor (characteristic) is the maximum effort the god might bestow on the priest at this moment in time.

c. Alignment (characteristic) is a measurement of the priest’s adherence to the god’s tenets. Note that alignment is gained and lost linearly.

d. Religion (skill) is the general knowledge of all religious and spiritual matters.

e. Prayer (skill) is the priest’s understanding of religious appeal to the god.

f. Preaching (skill) is the priest’s ability to explain the god to followers and others.

g. Channeling (skill) is the skill in channeling the god’s will into material form.

Relationships.

a. Favor is power or mana. This is used up through casting spells. It is regained over time. It regains slower if the priest is engaged in other work (1/2 regain). It doesn’t regain during prayer, but prayer may result in quicker regain for a time, or an immediate boost. Favor can also be regained though sacrifices. (Not materially different from how it currently works).

b. Faith is max store of favor. This is increased through special limited prayer. Faith can be lost through “sins”, where the priest is working against the relationship he has with his god. (Not materially different from how it currently works).

c. Prayer skill affects the success of prayers (probability and power) and sacrifice (probability only). Success in prayers increases faith or gives other benefit (gems, increase favor regen, etc.). Success in sacrifice increases favor by a standard amount. Failure in prayer or sacrifice will generally happen only if prayer skill is very low (<10) or if the priest alignment is suffering. Failure will result in no effect; sacrificed items are not removed from the altar, for example. Alignment can reduce this.

d. Preaching affects the success of preaching, confession, and conversion attempts; success increases follower’s alignment and/or faith. Success may also sometimes please the god (increase alignment or faith of priest). Alignment can reduce this.

e. Channeling affects success of spell casting with the difficulty of spell is taken into account. Alignment can reduce this.

f. Core religion skill will increase the effective skill level in prayer, preaching, or channeling in those cases where the skill used is less than religion skill. So a player that has raised religion skill through prayer and preaching has some innate understanding of how her god works, when it comes time to enchant. (Not materially different from how I understand core skills work presently).

g. Alignment is directly linked to all religious action. Low alignment will effectively reduce prayer, preaching, and channeling skills, like damage reduces a tool. It will also directly reduce the normal or trickle regeneration of faith.

g.(1) Alignment will steadily decline towards 0 (some amount per time online, suggested numbers below) through the small crises of faith we all have. Alignment will also decrease through willful forbidden action, like destroying pavement for Vynora. Note that while the loss of faith for sins is random, based on the god’s will, the loss of alignment is not, as the player has turned from the god’s tenets deliberately. Alignment losses are doubled when in enemy religion (WL/BL) areas due to the ever-present reality of the other god’s power.

g.(2) Alignment can be increased through actions aligned with the god, meditation, or combat victories.

g.(2)(a) Actions that regain alignment will be tasks the player can do through normal course of play, and 30 RL minutes of “right action” should be sufficient for the expected loss from 3 RL hours play (again, numbers below). The right actions should be tasks that are more meditative than valuable; for example, a Fo priest can spend 30 minutes tending fields (not sowing or harvesting, but just tending.)

g.(2)(b) Priests and champions may meditate, using a rug, instead of performing other actions. Meditation will restore less alignment than other tasks, but 60 minutes of meditation will still restore the loss from 3 hours of play. Note that this alignment gain does not require the priest to change location, although he will not gain meditation skill, only alignment. Followers do not have the religious understanding to use meditation to gain alignment.

g.(2)(c) All characters may gain alignment through combat victories. Champions gain twice normal alignment for victories. Relative value of victories are show below. Note that gods are all knowing, and they reward the character that lands the killing blow. When the killing blow is landed by a guard or pet, no player gets the god’s blessing.

g.(2)(d) Hubris. There is a danger in wielding power: a priest risks thinking he is the source of power; not the god. For every spell successfully cast, there is a small chance of hubris, a loss of alignment. More powerful spells increase the risk of hubris attack. If the priest already is in doubt (less than perfect alignment), the possibility of hubris is increased. There is also a small risk that the priest’s faith is damaged (hubris is a sin), and this increases with lower alignment as well.

Expectations.

Players running priests and champions will have to balance their actions to maximize favor regain, while trying to keep alignment at a high point. Leaving a priest afk will speed favor regain (no action has twice the favor recharge of an action), but will now result in an alignment loss. However, with a known list of tasks for the priest, and with meditation, the priest should be able to push up alignment before attempting prayer or channeling.

Numbers (very, very rough proposals).

a. Alignment decay. A priest that does nothing for his god will drop from 100 alignment to 1 alignment in 7 wurm days (online time only). So 99 alignment / 21 hours = -4.7 points, round up to –5 points per hour. -1 point per 12 minutes online. (-5/hr)

b. Alignment regain through actions. 30 minute of action : 3 hours losses, so 1:6. +1 point per 2 minutes of approved actions. (+30/hr)

c. Alignment regain through meditation. +0.5 per 2 minutes of meditation. (+15/hr)

d. Alignment regain through combat. I’d arbitrarily put this at 1 point per kill, times the multipliers shown. The god listed is the victor's god, the victim is the killed creature.

Victim	No god	Magnaron	Vynora	Fo	Libila
Non-Agro Animal	0x	0x	0x	-1x	-1x
Agro Animal	0x	1x	0x	1x	-1x
Monster	2x	2x	2x	2x	-2x
Humanoid Monster	2x	2x	2x	2x	0x
Allied People	-10x	-10x	-10x	-10x	??
Enemy People*	0x	1x	0x	0x	-1x
Religious Enemies*	0x	5x	5x	5x	-5x

Player Champions get twice the shown multiplier for victories.

Victories against a champion animal or monster will score twice the shown multiplier. Victories against player champions will score four times the multiplier.

Killing of an allied champion will result in immediate loss of all alignment.

* Kills of people for alignment gain may be subject to limits based on effective fight skills or combat rank, etc., to prevent players from just keeping a tame enemy character for grinding alignment regain. This could be based on affinity loss; if the character had no affinity to lose, the god is not impressed and there is no alignment gain.

Other comments.

Followers should have a minimum alignment (70+) to become priests.

Priests should likewise have a minimum alignment (90+) to become champions.