Hi guys,
the world of Mortal is full of fighters and heroes/villains. Everyone is playing a main character, so to speak. It's a game, so this makes sense.
There is a missing element in this, though, and it makes the game feel cold, less alive and real. I am talking about the role of the peasant or caretaker.
Mortal thrives of small communities. It has a real sense of place and belonging because of the huge map and no fast travel. Even though that is the case, when you ride through the game world, every settlement feels abandoned and lifeless. Nobody is home. And why would they be? They are out there on an adventure.
So you meet people primarily on the battlefield, in dungeons or at POIs. NPC cities are the only real places where communities actually hang out. But its in many regards a community of egos, I would say.
The silent and peaceful caregivers are a rare sight in mortal and this shows. The vibe of the game is not welcoming but hostile. Especially to players just wanting to exist in this world. This cold atmosphere will forever hold back the game from being truly successful.
What I want to suggest are features and systems that are primarily directed towards players that enjoy settlement building, "life skills" and community oriented content.
I believe that there is a huge opportunity in developing rich systems in these areas to get the attention of an untapped playerbase that has so far disregarded Mortal as a pvp game.
The one thing those type of players would need, though, is some form of freedom to go about their business and engage in these systems without being constantly killed off.
So my actual suggestions are 1) ideas for systems those players might enjoy and 2) a system that provides those players with the safety that this playstyle requires.
1)
- a farming system: crop farming plots, greenhouses, tools and resources to tend the land. Every settlement should have a need to produce food. Make a progression system out of this and tie the current food system into this. Food can serve a variety of purposes in regards to TC, buffs for players and pets.
- Flesh out town building. Add new building types, roads, variance of building designs and give players long term goals to work towards. At the moment, once your settlement is built, there is nothing left to do. Give us building types and new designs or decorations that are tied to a long term progression system.
- building stuff should actually require the construction of parts and be a profession in itself. This is especially important when future systems like wagons and boats get implemented but should be required for any type of building and siege machinery currently in the game. Let players specialize in building these things and make it require resources, skill points and time to create the parts of a building and to complete the whole thing eventually. By bypassing a system like this and just making buildings a ready-to-build blueprint bought from an NPC you are denying yourself a perfect opportunity to provide those types of players I am talking about with an impactful/important piece of content.
- other systems that have already been mentioned to be "on the list" (but nowhere to be seen on the roadmap) are pet breeding, taverns, board games and TC brokers.
2)
- one thing that needs to change is the criminal system of Mortal. Murderers are punished way to little and peaceful players are rewarded way too little. Interesting gameplay systems for players that want to play as bandits or assassins are missing. Interesting pvp content that draws players away from just killing randoms helps, but will not be enough (talking about systems like relics, arenas and dimensions runs).
- this next idea might be a bit far fetched, but I still want to share it: Imagine a 3rd character slot that is unlike the other 2 and can only be used to create a "peasant" character. This character would not be proficient in fighting, but would give a much bigger penality for those players that kill it. It is essentially a "worker", not a "fighter". It can be either actively played or be used (with a penalty on resource gains) as an automated "farmer". It could be instructed to chop wood, mine stones, fish or do any other type of mundane labor. This would add an element of aliveness to towns, let players that prefer this type of playstyle have a relatively chill time because they would be killed less often and it would give everyone a character that (usually) resides in their settlement so they can engage with "town" and community stuff and check their towns broker, play a bordgame or just chill with the guys easily.
I'm curious what you think about this so let me know!
the world of Mortal is full of fighters and heroes/villains. Everyone is playing a main character, so to speak. It's a game, so this makes sense.
There is a missing element in this, though, and it makes the game feel cold, less alive and real. I am talking about the role of the peasant or caretaker.
Mortal thrives of small communities. It has a real sense of place and belonging because of the huge map and no fast travel. Even though that is the case, when you ride through the game world, every settlement feels abandoned and lifeless. Nobody is home. And why would they be? They are out there on an adventure.
So you meet people primarily on the battlefield, in dungeons or at POIs. NPC cities are the only real places where communities actually hang out. But its in many regards a community of egos, I would say.
The silent and peaceful caregivers are a rare sight in mortal and this shows. The vibe of the game is not welcoming but hostile. Especially to players just wanting to exist in this world. This cold atmosphere will forever hold back the game from being truly successful.
What I want to suggest are features and systems that are primarily directed towards players that enjoy settlement building, "life skills" and community oriented content.
I believe that there is a huge opportunity in developing rich systems in these areas to get the attention of an untapped playerbase that has so far disregarded Mortal as a pvp game.
The one thing those type of players would need, though, is some form of freedom to go about their business and engage in these systems without being constantly killed off.
So my actual suggestions are 1) ideas for systems those players might enjoy and 2) a system that provides those players with the safety that this playstyle requires.
1)
- a farming system: crop farming plots, greenhouses, tools and resources to tend the land. Every settlement should have a need to produce food. Make a progression system out of this and tie the current food system into this. Food can serve a variety of purposes in regards to TC, buffs for players and pets.
- Flesh out town building. Add new building types, roads, variance of building designs and give players long term goals to work towards. At the moment, once your settlement is built, there is nothing left to do. Give us building types and new designs or decorations that are tied to a long term progression system.
- building stuff should actually require the construction of parts and be a profession in itself. This is especially important when future systems like wagons and boats get implemented but should be required for any type of building and siege machinery currently in the game. Let players specialize in building these things and make it require resources, skill points and time to create the parts of a building and to complete the whole thing eventually. By bypassing a system like this and just making buildings a ready-to-build blueprint bought from an NPC you are denying yourself a perfect opportunity to provide those types of players I am talking about with an impactful/important piece of content.
- other systems that have already been mentioned to be "on the list" (but nowhere to be seen on the roadmap) are pet breeding, taverns, board games and TC brokers.
2)
- one thing that needs to change is the criminal system of Mortal. Murderers are punished way to little and peaceful players are rewarded way too little. Interesting gameplay systems for players that want to play as bandits or assassins are missing. Interesting pvp content that draws players away from just killing randoms helps, but will not be enough (talking about systems like relics, arenas and dimensions runs).
- this next idea might be a bit far fetched, but I still want to share it: Imagine a 3rd character slot that is unlike the other 2 and can only be used to create a "peasant" character. This character would not be proficient in fighting, but would give a much bigger penality for those players that kill it. It is essentially a "worker", not a "fighter". It can be either actively played or be used (with a penalty on resource gains) as an automated "farmer". It could be instructed to chop wood, mine stones, fish or do any other type of mundane labor. This would add an element of aliveness to towns, let players that prefer this type of playstyle have a relatively chill time because they would be killed less often and it would give everyone a character that (usually) resides in their settlement so they can engage with "town" and community stuff and check their towns broker, play a bordgame or just chill with the guys easily.
I'm curious what you think about this so let me know!
