- Joined
- Jun 29, 2012
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The Noble System on Massive has always been a story of revisions and reworks to keep things fresh, fair, and optimal for the gameplay experience of the players. Many would argue the constant change is disruptive, but we would argue it is exactly the hallmark of constant self-improvement that makes sure the system never stagnates, and is able to evolve with the times. The last complete rework is now several years away, since it has essentially been running at the same pace for at least a year and some now, leading to several problems along the way. Here are just some of them:
- By using an assessment of the 9 virtues of nobility, only 10 of the 34 families actually complied to what we consider "competent nobility".
- The amount of noble families, 34 in total, was becoming cumbersome and dangerously bloated concerning paperwork. We found that instead of processing fun events for the world progressions, most of our time was spent processing numbers and lines, not actually coming up with something new. The Military System was a particular victim of this, as it was constantly sidelined to make more time for noble processing.
- Many of the Noble families maintained a very complacent and inactive intent towards the system, and didn't quite fit in it, but still didn't quite fit with commoner status either, there was no middle ground.
- Every Noble Family who failed to attain title weight 4 or higher is degraded to Patrician Status. This was largely done because the vast majority, we would say almost 90% of the Patrician families, are actually just fine being Patrician. They want to be the RBB Families (Rich, Bold & Beautiful) thus powerful, but had no actual lust to engage in the anxiety inducing politics. This bloating of people who wanted something else from the system than it was actually giving was causing severe paperwork slowdown. Many of them will now find that staying in the Patrician ranges is suitable for them, and still affords them the RBB status that they want, without the constant hounding to get involved in politics so they can continue focusing on their own Teahouse rp.
- House Drache, who did qualify, willingly gave up their family and made new characters in House Kehlen.
- House Valeur merged into House Tyrannian.
- House Everhardt who did quality became Patrician instead, and then stepped out of nobility altogether some days later.
- House Haagenvig merged with House Viduggla.
- Generally speaking, the Patrician Houses were given the advice to merge with greater Houses. This is because we consider the perpetual splitting and halving of nobility (the process of members splitting off and making 1-2 member noble families) to be cannibalizing the noble community and making the whole collective weaker. We have given a strong incentive and advice for the various Patricians to either merge together, or merge into existing Noble Families to strengthen both narrative potentials as well as activity.
- In the end, only House Howlester, du Pont, Kehlen, d'Vaud, du Lioc, Sorenvik, Yoatl and Harhold remained noble, 8 out of the 34 original families.
- All title evaluations were stripped and re-assessed. A new sheet was compiled with a new format for calculations and ease of reference: Sheet Link
- Noble Families were each given their own page so that future members being added would not cause the entire sheet to be moved some rows down, which would require almost half an hour of code fixing on dependency pages.
- Patricians were all given the same page, because Patrician families are expected to rise and fall less.
- Kade Council favor was split between Kade Favor (which still represents the Syndic Council & relevant members back in Anglia), but also Emperor Favor. While the Emperor is no longer present, the ex-Emperor's opinion still weighs heavy in nobility. Besides that, the nobility had all grown accustomed to giving Effleur gifts based on the tastes of the Emperor to the court, and suddenly had to adapt to the new tastes of the Kade Court which were far from clear. Splitting these opinions twice-fold and then merging them back again means that there are now more venues for favor gain than there were in the past, with more techniques applicable.
- Synod blessings/writs have been changed from -2/-1/0/+1/+2/+3 into either -1/0/+1, but can be applied to any member of any family and multiple members may be awarded with Synod favor. This is largely because the drop up and down from Synod disapproval was too severe in the past, and also because the Synod is inherently noncompetitive, and as such should not control such a large portion of title evaluations.
- House Guard points were replaced with a more organic Human eye in terms of loyalty. This comes two ways. Now, it should be made clear that these assessments are done by a Human that relies on rumor, vision, event attendance, skin usage, and some other factors, so there is a margin of error. That being said, the vast majority of the nobles were in favor of this more Human assessment approach, as it is essentially a more simplified return to early 2017 Valentinian Noble implementations.
- Noble street power is now either assessed in troop loyalty or common loyalty. Troop loyalty stands for the amount of people who would take up the sword to defend this person in the streets, which is usually garnered through maintaining a house guard and a charter, which is then summarized in multiples of 5.
- Commoner street power is based on how many commoners would speak well and gravitate around a character on the street. This is a rough assessment based on events hosted by noble members, as well as businesses maintained and the general commoner posse that tends to surround them.
- For Patricians, these numbers are applied noble-wide, as opposed to person wide as they are in the Noble system.
- Legacy points, the main point of contention, have been expanded to imply "Anything said family should be respected for and remembered for" instead of just "Crushing another family and getting away with it". Certainly the latter is still there, but families are now also rewarded for positive activities, and generally remembering worthy achievements. While the Street Loyalty is something that can be contested, we've decided that Legacy points are solely at the interpretation of the Noble Manager Lead.
- Title Weight is now also available in 0.5 margins to show where progression or degression is taking place.
- The Regalian Statistics sheet was completely overhauled and renewed: Link to Sheet
- Province lands were split between Core lands, occupation and lost lands to emulate procince loss gains during war and peace time.
- Income is now generated for nobles based on 10,000 + 10,000 per province, and 20,000 for patricians + 10,000 per power gravitas point. This is to emulate the fact that Patricians don't need servants to pay for.
- Taxes were split into State (Finance Minister) tax, which is no longer a treason crime not to pay, though whether or not someone gets prosecuted is entirely up to the finance minister and state council IC now. Further is now Kade Tax, which is an optional point booster. Paying money to House Kade as gifts increases Kade relations. Finally, Military Tax is a contribution boost, which is also not a mandatory tax, but can lead to a whole host of advantages if a family has contributed in a winning war.
- Tax is once more collected onto a state sheet where the state also has a weekly expense. This means that for the first time in forever, the Finance Minister has a job again. The system is tied to proportional costs, which avoid the problem of the last system where it had to be constantly revised when a new noble family entered, or left.
- Mercenaries can be bought once more at a 3x cost to regular levies.
- Money can be transferred between families by weekly payments or lump sums through progression orders.
- Supply for troops is based on 40,000 +10,000 per province. This is done up this way to give lower end noble families a bit more of a fighting chance against the higher up families who have proportionally speaking less troops to the amount of provinces owned.
- Troops now need to be mobilized, they are no longer an endless pool. In fact, mobilizing troops (levies from peasants and craftsmen) now emulates the cost of war by reducing the working force from income, thus emulating that farmers go to war and no longer tend to the farms. 100% mobilization leads to -50% income loss. Troops now also need to be mobilized a week before they can be used, to emulate armament stages and defcon situations.
- Troops can still be split and sent off to war or kept. Troops off to war contribute to the war effort, which eventually also leads to Kade favor or other factors to benefit.
- Patricians differ in the system in that they do not have any troops at all, own no land, and cannot buy mercenaries. Patricians are not allowed to field private armies, but they do have a much higher income. Patricians have no tax duty, so any and all payments made to State, Kade or Military are gifts, with proportional benefits in tow. Patricians act as the new banking families that can support the Noble Houses with their investments, and as such gain alliances and climb the ranking.
- Treasury data and state treasury data is processed on a weekly basis. Furthermore, really notable commoner families can personally appeal to Noble Management to be included as Patricians. Families who have the eventual aim at reaching nobility still need to go through the vouching system, but families like the Haaven Family who are really famous, have a lot of member, but will not ever transition into nobility can still appeal to Noble Management to be included into Patrician status for relevancy sake, though this is up to the Noble Management personal approval.
- Speaking of Patricians, Patricians still have the means to progress into Noble Status once they reach Power Gravitas 4 or higher. They may also choose to stay Patrician at this point, because the higher ranked they become, the richer they get, while still not having to pay taxes. High end Patricians are richer than low and middle end nobles after all.
- Speaking of the Voucher System, it is changing somewhat. We currently have 8 Noble Families. The new Voucher system will require a vouch from 5 of the 8 Noble Families to support entry into Patrician system. This evaluation is:
- Entirely IC, thus no OOC agreements are allowed to be made. We've had to boot a family and reject an application for this in the past.
- Based on IC competency. The Nobles will be asked to evaluate the vouch applicants based on how competent they think their roleplay is, and how likely they think they will be at succeeding in nobility like they have.
- Vouchers can then be collected in the time span of 2 weeks, much like the old system, except patricians don't have a say in it anymore, and all noble families have the same weight.
- Finally, to equalize opportunity in the government, Yoatl, Sorenvik and d'Vaud have forcibly been given a seat in the government to increase the State Council to 10 seats, 1 per noble house, +1 Kade +1 Synod speaker. Any future House that makes it into Nobility will automatically gain a seat in the State Council, unless the State Council passes particular legislation against the family gaining a seat before it happens. This is done to ensure equal entry opportunity in this system revision, to ensure the few remaining nobles don't get shafted by block forming in the council against them having a say in the government.
- Countryside Estate systems will be changed soon. The current title weight system is being replaced with a viability status, where every noble & patrician family will be rated Low, Medium or High or None, and depending on their rating, they are allowed to pick a Countryside estate appropriate for their rank. This will be based on activity, competency and general roleplay provision. After all, we no longer reward direct points for events, but there are still intrinsic event rewards, such as loyalty of the commoners, and involvement rating which can lead to Countryside Estates.
- Titles are now also attached to brackets. Either you are Basic, County, Ducal or Grand, and you can choose any title for your character in that bracket and it will persist between 2 or 3 title weight. This causes titles to be more personalized, as well as more consistent. For example, switching between rank 4 and 3 and back to 4 wont cause your title to go from Duke to Count to Duke. Now you will simply stay at Duke level. Here is a link to all the title brackets.
- Arendan is still working on improving the online barony map which has not quite caught up to the changes yet, but will soon upon the next sunday progression.
- The Noble Repository has been updated according to all changes.
- The Noble Discord (Invite link) will eventually be phazed in and the Skype chat phazed out. We have finally decided to retire Skype in favor of Discord. The Discord still needs to be reorganized however, as it is currently a bit messy and un-updated.
- Noble Status applications will be re-opened hopefully tonight after I clean up the thread a bit.
