Greetings Mortals,
In this development update, we will be detailing one of the features of the upcoming patch, and in particular asking for your feedback and opinion about some things yet to be decided!
New Party System
The Party system allows players to form a Party with each other to further aid with communication and organization when grouping up to experience content together. Players in a Party are essentially in a mini-guild, which is more temporary in nature.
The expected use case for the Party system is primarily players forming on-the-spot groups in towns before embarking on a trip to complete a task or dungeon together. The ability to communicate easily with Party members should allow those using the system to more easily form new connections, make new friends and thereby create lasting ties to the game world.
Due to the low commitment and high quality of life nature of the Party system, it is expected to enable normally-solo players to be more willing and able to experience group content with strangers.
Party Mechanics
Being in a Party gives all Party members access to the [Party], /party, /p chat channel, which may be used to communicate with other Party members.
This allows Party members to more easily communicate compared to using the Whisper system, as they may chat with all Party members at once rather than individually, while also not requiring them to join the same guild as each other.
Being in a Party will either override the flag color of your Party members to another color, or display a different icon below their name while targeting them for easy identification.
There will be a maximum number of players who can be in one Party, although the exact number has not yet been finalized.
To avoid people using the Party system to grief other players, Party members are not effectively Local Grey to each other, and are not able to attack or loot each other freely if the player’s base flag is Blue (Innocent) or Yellow (Fledgling).
Party members are able to loot each other’s killed-AI bags freely regarding the Loot Priority system.
You may only be a member of one Party at a time.
Clade Gift Warcries affect Party members.
Earning Glory While in a Party
While in a Party, all Glory earned from AI killed by any Party member is split / divided between the current Party members who are in the local area.
For example:
A Party of 5 players kills an AI which awards 100 Glory.
Each player will receive 20 Glory each regardless of their individual contributions to the AI’s Health or healing other Party members.
When an AI is being damaged by both players in a Party as well as additional players who are not in the Party, the players in the Party are considered one entity, so the Glory from the AI will be shared normally for the player not in the Party, while the remainder is divided among the Party members.
For example:
A Party of 5 players is killing an AI which awards 100 Glory, and combined they manage to deal 50% of its Health in damage.
An additional player who is not in the Party is also killing the AI, and deals the remaining 50% of the AI’s Health in damage.
The player not in the Party will receive 50 Glory, while the players in the Party will each receive 10 Glory (50 Glory / 5 Party members).
Earning Task Progress While in a Party
While in a Party, all AI kills will contribute to task progress for the current Party members who are in the local area, regardless of their individual contributions.
Forming a Party
A Party is formed by one player inviting another player to a Party. This creates a new Party with the player who sent the first invitation becoming the Party Leader.
Party Management
Only the Party Leader may manage the Party.
The Party Leader can:
Invite new Party members
Kick Party members
Disband the Party
Transfer their Party Leader role to another Party member
Leaving a Party
If a player in a Party logs out, they are automatically kicked from the Party.
If the Party Leader logs out, they are also kicked from the Party and another player becomes the new Party Leader.
If there are no other players in the Party besides the Party Leader, such as when all other players have been kicked or left the Party manually via the UI or logging out, then the Party is automatically Disbanded.
Let Us Know What You Think!
As this is a new system for Mortal Online 2, there are several potential aspects the new Party system could have which we are still evaluating in regard to their projected impact on the game.
One such aspect is showing the names, health bars and status effects (buffs & debuffs) of your Party members in the UI, similar to the information you currently see for your own pets.
This decision is related to and will affect various different gameplay outcomes, such as additional tactical information being available to Party members than to guild members, which incentivizes certain behaviors such as guilds forming essentially squads which may then more efficiently coordinate amongst each other, with players inside a Party being more aware of and responsible for one another.
Another important factor to consider, and one that is vital to us to get right, is whether or not showing such information would be adding or taking away from our game’s specific and unique atmosphere and gameplay tone. Sometimes operating without critical information can form a different and memorable type of experience, with a simple parallel being the fact that you cannot see yourself on the in-game map.
Ultimately the decision we make will be the one that we believe will best allow for the Party system to have the greatest positive effect and use cases, however we are very interested to hear your opinions about this!
As such, the link below will take you to a questionnaire where you can make your stance and thoughts about this heard.
https://forms.gle/9tSqHHbX6Y5ejfbq6
Note
Please keep in mind that as development progresses, any details described above may change or be adjusted where necessary.
See you in Nave,
The Star Vault Team