Physicians oppose Infrastructure?

[Niamh]

Added to talking points list.

[Starstarfish]

To the original point ... I remember once it being mentioned that messengers (and possibly mail?) can indeed deliver to the wrong person and/or not deliver at all if Infrastructure is low enough. Accurate? Total hoax?

[Buzz K[ir]ill]

Again, I think the wording under CITY REPORT is a bit misleading. The Merchants probably aren't "against" or "in opposition to" class relations. They simply benefit (somehow) when class relations aren't great. The why or how of it isn't defined, though maybe it should be for our understanding... I'm not quite sure how Merchants benefit from poor class relations, myself. (You could say the Merchants benefit by charging higher fees from the NPC shops they own, but would that be enough to overcome the fact that the shopkeeps are selling only to certain classes? Dunno.)

In any case, like I said, subverting a metric can simply mean diverting attention away from it in order to focus on other things. It doesn't mean you have to be purposefully undermining that metric. If you don't want to subvert your guild's second metric, simply support the first?

[LonelyNeptune]

It's not really a complaint about 'needing' to subvert a second metric. It's that the effect these metrics have on our guilds make no sense whatsoever. Low class relations would actively hurt the Merchants due to trade grinding to a complete stop.

We could definitely do with a reshuffle of which metrics are assigned to which guild. They were assigned randomly with no regard for theme or reality.

[Temi]

It's not really a complaint about 'needing' to subvert a second metric. It's that the effect these metrics have on our guilds make no sense whatsoever. Low class relations would actively hurt the Merchants due to trade grinding to a complete stop.

We could definitely do with a reshuffle of which metrics are assigned to which guild. They were assigned randomly with no regard for theme or reality.

I think you're conflating the on-grid effect of shops not selling to people outside their targeted class (thematically not a significant portion of their customers) with trade being significantly impacted. Instead, class relations is more focused on how the classes interact on a larger scale. High class relations would be a more accepting, open view of the lower classes with more equality and good treatment of workers, etc, whereas low class relations may sometimes manifest in revolts, but a lot of the time would result in taking advantage of the poor freemen and the upper classes doing more to set themselves apart with rich luxuries and sumptuary-focused items. I definitely think there's room there for the merchants to take advantage, even if it may not always be good for their members for other reasons.

The metrics were not selected at random with no regard for theme or reality. They were selected with consideration for both of those things, but also with a mind to spread out metrics so each guild had a different one and so that no two guilds are directly opposite each other across both of their metrics. Those considerations are the more gameplay oriented ones that we had to balance the theme-based choices with. So obviously some of them are better than others.

Something that may help you is to change how you think about metrics in some cases. The metrics aren't necessarily just the state of that quality in the city, but also how it is viewed and prioritized. The physicians make more money when health is high not because there is more disease and their support is needed, but instead because what disease there is is handled , and effectively, and people trust the physicians to do it. If health is low, not only are more people sick, but the problem is also not getting solved. Maybe there's no trust in the physicians and everyone is carrying lucky charms, maybe people are just putting off their visits until their on their death bed when it's already spread far further than it had to. The same is not true of the opposing metric: if infrastructure is low, that has no effect on how much the physicians are trusted to handle health or how quick people are to handle their health issues. But it would potentially have a large effect in the number of injuries that occur in the city as the infrastructure isn't maintained. Maybe even trouble from wild beasts. Does this mean physicians are opposed to having good infrastructure in the city? Probably not for the most part. But they could benefit from it.

In general, all of the metrics are viewed as good things and society at large wants all of them to be 100%. But that cannot be supported or sustained. The opposing metrics are more 'what could the most selfish people in this guild take advantage of the best'. Even the brotherhood's goal is not for lawfulness to be low. Their goal is class equality and advantage of the common people beyond the preferences given to the upper class. Lawfulness being low is simply a tool that they use to be more effective in achieving the redistribution of wealth to themselves.

[LonelyNeptune]

It's the Health metric, not the Royal Physicians Brand Perception metric. The helpfile for metric definitions even goes as far as to state that the additional sicknesses and injuries caused by a low Health metric causes the "strain upon the Physicians to increase to unmanageable levels". I think it's reasonable to say that the Physicians benefit from less illness and injury overall, giving them the time and manpower to focus on preventative medicine and improve procedures.

Health: The health metric represents the overall state of health in the city of Lithmore. When health is high, common infections are minimal to invisible, and wounds are at little risk of souring. When health is low, ill citizens are a common sight around the city, and the mortality rate of diseases soars as the strain upon the Physicians increases to unmanageable levels. When people go untreated, disease is free to spread. Epidemics and plagues are a reasonable result of low health.

The perspective you proposed on metrics simply isn't in line with established theme. It is a twisted excuse to try to explain how exactly the Physicians could possibly benefit from more people falling ill and less people falling ill, simultaneously.

On the Merchant side of things, you are asking players to ignore the on-grid reality that they are severely crippled by the shutdown of vendors for important craft materials, and will likely need to spend time and a finder's fee just to obtain these materials. In favour for some notion that off-screen, class discrimination might result in ... vNPCs buying more luxuries, for some reason? Do you think it is good game design for the on-grid reality and the imaginary theme explanation to be completely opposite situations?

I can certainly sympathise with the fact that it is difficult to assign each guild a metric that makes sense. Eventually you're running out of metrics to assign and one or two guilds might need to make do with a less than perfect explanation. But it right now the majority of guilds are unhappy and confused by their current assignment, and would prefer a different one. While trying to come up with a better distribution of metrics, I realised that achieving a perfect distribution is impossible after the deletion of the Mage's Guild, since we have 8 metrics to cover and only 7 guilds. One metric will remain unsupported and one will remain unopposed.

And that leads into my final thoughts. It is my understanding that this feature was introduced to balance the metric system so that each guild had an opposing force for their metric - similar to how the Reeves and the Thieves struggle over Lawfulness, but extended to the other metrics. If two metrics are still going to be unopposed due to a lack of participating guilds, we're falling short of this goal. What are we really achieving here? Does this new feature make the game more enjoyable to play? Does it solve a real problem?

[Geras]

Yah Temi... that sounds great and all for the Merchants, but the reality is poor class relations means the Grand Magnate can't buy yeast (and can't blacklist those damned freeman NPCs who won't sell him yeast). So time to give bread to the masses.

[Geras]

That being said, so long as these aren't considered cast in stone for IC motives, I don't have a huge problem with it. Maybe the most guild income isn't in Merchants' interests all the time. I don't mind there being trade-offs.

[Godfrey]

Maybe the most guild income isn't in Merchants' interests all the time.

I'm certain that's the number one point of the merchants.

I think there's a lot of work going into making up a reason why these mechanics should work the way they do.

Everyone should take a step back and ask the critical questions:

• Does preventing new players from purchasing basics like tools for their trade and resources cause a problem?

• Does limiting the grid and preventing players from interacting with each other via different cultural districts cause a barrier to roleplay?

• Should players have to chose between being tired all the time or not being allowed in certain parts of the city?

• Should metrics be zero-sum?

• Do we need guilds to invert a metric? Why?

A lot of these issues can be solved by removing the promote / invert aspect of metrics and moving to something to improve player retention - like metric scores based on the active populations of guilds.

[Godfrey]

Second point:

If you consider metrics to be the distribution of effort and wealth among projects for the city, you could suggest that a guild picks which metric to take funding from so they can relocate it to their metric. I would suggest that spoil metric isn't cast in stone