Mortal has the bones to make it much better, not only through TC, which will do a lot to create safer zones for guilded players at least. But I agree, reliance on one single mechanic to improve the game is silly. With that said, allow me to expand the topic a little.Exacly, i rather see the simulation of a law system thats more than just "punish behavior", rather see a wider spectrum of player driven events instead of automated justice features to create some sort of illusion of fairness by generating in this case time loss to the victimizer".
Of course it would be silly to speak of mortal's law in terms of reality" exclusively this is why i choose not to compare the game to reality most of the time, compare it to punitive systems in different historic moments and on a diversity of cultural realities can be done to certain extent and we could" think of a number of possible adaptations from those social configurations depending on the desired outcome.
I completly agree mortal lacks certain degree of development to lubricate social interaction and to give it meaning. People say sieging will give meaning to the world, but it would only give "a little more" meaning, its a little naive to think that particular piece of content will make the game suddently good when it won't specially considering how it will be made but thats another story.
Theres a problem with the gaming industry when many games instead of simulating an environment for organic meaningfull interaction so it "feels alive" they rather simulate something that looks alive when its actually the opposite.
Why does that happen?
Basically because behavioral conditioning, its naive to pretend theres no behavioral conditioning or there shouldn't be" any, because its not possible. But the real element is how to condition behavior in which terms and under what structures.
And thats where mortal fails when it comes to placeholder content. Because they chose not to reinforce the strong aspects of the game to make it more "mainstream" or steam friendly, to dumb it down for getting to a wider public. But the balance is off, for diversifying the amount and quality" of players you want to include in your world" end up making shitty content that does not respond to what makes mortal in the first place.
Arbitrary pk ruleset is fantastic, let players organize themselves and give them tools to do so. Do not apply behavioral hardbrakes to limit the overall game experience so a few rotten apples can afk gather right next to town, thats just poor design.
While i agree guilds shouldn't be the only possible social configuration of the game and the design should encourage diversity over polarized groups i also think guilds are an important part of the game. Its just theres no reasons for solo to play solo or small-mid sized groups to compete when the game is clearly directed to zerg-gameplay.
I completly agree theres a massive need of social configuration tools, so theres a wider and more meaningfull degree of player interaction thats not only guild gameplay. But for that to actually work it would require PVE to be good for a change, crafting classes to actually be something thats not complete placeholder poop.
Theres no meaning in the game because the game has so little content you can exhaust in a month, and thats the reason under-developed survival games do periodic or seasonal wipes. Because resets work, to a certain extent for that kind of games.
I've played almost if not all paradox titles and yeah they are great games, devs know what they do and they make incredibly excellent systems and i've even played stellaris when it was a completly different game and it has actually changed a lot during the years of development.
But paradox makes other types of games, what they do really great is the game experience, you navigate these universes built under a tight ruleset that contemplates player "choise" to a certain extent. But everything is framed and nothing goes oustide that system, idk if you understand what i mean.
Now, one of the most interesting assets mortal ever had was the ability to give players this "feel" they can do what they want, the eternal promise of a sandbox, where you can't really do "what you want" but at least theres no idiotic npcs giving 2 liner repetitive quests or theres no true safezones or not that terrible behavioral hardbrakes.
Thats the essence of mortal, that you are not "forced" to be a good person if you don't wanna endure the penalties for being a criminal. That being good or bad develops (and should) in the collective imaginary plane of social structures and interaction. That someone can chose to be good or bad without the game limiting your gameplay in a static unrealistic" themepark tourist ride.
The caos component in mortal has to be preserved and encouraged and with love made better, so theres a lot more caos. Obviously having in consideration how this caos affects the gameplay of a diversity of players. Im not saying the world should exist for criminals, im saying if theres any law it should be in form of something that players can control, exercize and not exploit, that requires actual gameplay to achieve something instead of die to report retarded mechanics.
Im tired of watching people in these forums say dubass shit like "criminals have it easy, they need more penalties" dude, so called "vets" were saying this type of garbage not long ago. Thats the quality of the debate on these forums, they ask for arenas to take the "bad" pvp off the streets. So they can duel spin in town till they quit in a week because the game is GARBAGE.
The game right now is just a promise of something good, i see no long-term solution unless they remake a lot of features, changing the law only won't do much unless its thought, ment and accompanied by a number of meaningfull changes that support the main concepts of the game.
The Repuation system has a lot to be desired, bones are there, but like many things, much work to do. Right now it's only keyed to drop when you murder, and only affects your ability to go into towns when you hit 0. In the vein of the topic thread at hand, it would contribute to making the world much more realistic by making NPCs react to you more at the varied levels of rep. Here's my example:
Encourage people to get a better reputation (or to remove a bad one) by having guards (the most mobile NPCs) behave differently towards you based on the rep. If you want to be PVP and indiscriminate, once you reach the bottom of the rep pile in that area (can't go any lower) it makes no difference how you play, so you can keep at it, but if you ARE at that bottom level, the guards chase you further from town than if you are simply at 0 or under by a couple points.
To make it fair in the sense of the mechanical balance, the players with the highest rep in an area can call those guards from further away and farther from town. With an overlap area for both sides where you have to play the gamble, does this player have enough rep to call a guard all the way out here? Can I get away with murder because the guards will have to run that far?? Can I defend myself long enough for the guard to reach me?
TL,DR; the guards would leash back like any mob at a certain distance, but with a low rep the leash goes farther so they run a greater risk hitting players near towns. Flip side, good rep players can call guards out further, but run the risk of getting killed anyhow because the distance is too far.
To combat people abusing this by making a guard run out every 30 seconds, in that overlap zone, you can't call them more than once every 10 minutes (or whatever timer works best) so if you try and get a guard to stay near you, they leave and refuse to come back on a timer. Get hit in that timer and you are fair game, and if you try and call them from the normal range and enter the overlap with a guard following, that timer starts and the guard auto-leashes, so you've poofed your defense before you even start.
I would think that an overlap zone where extreme rep affects the guards would have to start where the current leashing for guards ends, and would move out in increments of 5 or 10 to the bottom. Better Rep will change the timer length and the distance covered by the guards.