Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-31507215-20170516133334

The Shire has always been a beautiful place to me, both in the books, and in the mod as well. I believe that the mod captures the Little Folk very well, (metaphorically) however, there are still some things that could be improved on. In this suggestion, I will talk about some additions to the Hobbits' alignment system that would enhance gameplay, and be (in my opinion) very lore-friendly, as well as improve the Hobbits in general.

"This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected;" - The Hobbit, Chapter I

Currently, the only ways to get alignment with Hobbits are by killing Dark Huorns, and by completing Miniquests. These are most definitely not bad, but seem a little limited, and not particularly accurate. For instance, hobbits are keen folk, even if many of them are slow on the uptake, and it seems rather odd that they would trust one of us "queer Big-folk", just because we gave them 20 cherry pies, and hundreds of apples. I am not suggesting that this system be removed, just that a new system be added to upgrade it.

Many, many times in The Hobbit (and perhaps a few times in The Lord of the Rings) Tolkien mentions certain hobbits being "Respectable". The biggest example is Bilbo Baggins himself. Before the Unexpected Party, Bilbo had been a very respectable hobbit. He had come from a long line of respectable hobbits, and had never had any adventures himself. After the events of The Hobbit, however, he was known as "queer", because of his adventure. Many of the older hobbits lost respect for him, yet many of the younger hobbits became more curious, listened to his stories, and accepted gifts from him. In this suggestion, I am proposing the addition of a new mechanic that would allow Hobbits to treat players in a similar fashion - Respectability. (Or Respectable-ness, or Being Respectable. I think you get the idea.)

Here are the basics: Depending on how long you spend in the Shire, your "Respectability" (or something like that) would change. The longer you spend in the Shire, the higher it will be, and the longer you spend elsewhere, the lower it will be. Hobbits will then use that rating to decide how to interact with you; the higher your rating, the more adult hobbits will talk to you, give you miniquests, etc., but the less hobbit children will follow you around, and vice versa.

This mechanic could be implimented in many ways, but here is how I think it could/should work (in detail):

How it Works
First of all, the game should keep track of how long you play, and how long you spend in the Shire. (I know it already keeps track of total play time, but I don't know about your location.) Using this information, it would find out the ratio of time spent in the Shire to time spent elsewhere. This would be your Respectability. (Equation: t - s = e.   s ÷ e = r.  t = Total Play time, s = Shire Play time, e = Playtime not in the Shire, and r = Respectability.)  For instance, if I have played for exactly 15 hours (in a specific world) total, and exactly 5 hours of that have been spent in the Shire, then my "Non-Shire Playtime" would be 10, and my Respectability (Ratio of Shire to Non-Shire) would be 0.5. This number could be completely hidden, or it could be shown only in the L menu, or whatever. My personal preference is that it be shown as another number to the right of your Hobbits alignment, but i will leave it up to Mevans if this gets implemented.

Effects
Your Respectability would effect how hobbits interact with you, whether you are respectable or not. These effects would only kick in when you reach a certain alignment goal. (+100 perhaps?) Until you get to that point, hobbits will interact with you the same way as they do now. After that point, hobbits will judge you based on your Respectability. Note: The effects mentioned here may increase or decrease the more or less (respectively) Respectable you are.

Less than 0.75 - "Queer"
If your Respectability is less than 0.75 (and your alignment is over the requirement) hobbits will judge you as "queer". The adult hobbits will have fewer miniquests for you, and will have a different speechbank, generally talking about how queer you are, or how you are a bad influence on the children, etc. The children, however, will be much more interested in you than before. They will follow you much farther than usual, and may also have another speech bank, asking for stories, or talking about their Gaffer's opinion of you, etc. They would also have miniquests of their own. These miniquests would have no monetary reward, but instead would grant you much more alignment than miniquests normally would. The hobbit children would most commonly ask for foreign food and plant items, (such as mangoes or bananas, or crysanthemums) but would occasionally ask for things like Dalish Crackers, or Good faction daggers. In addition to them following you around, occasionally (the chance increasing the queerer you are) there would be an event, similar to the Shirriff Raids, (or whatever they are called) where 5 or so hobbit children will spawn at once, near you. There would be no warning, except for possibly a pitter-patter sound of little hairy feet running. These hobbit children would probably despawn after a while, but would have a much greater chance of having miniquests.

More than 1.5 - "Respectable"
If your Respectability is more than 1.5 (and your alignment is over the requirement) hobbits will judge you as "respectable". When you are Respectable, adult hobbits would have another speechbank that mainly reflects on how respectable you are, how queer the Tooks are, how they want their children to grow up to be like you, etc. They would give you miniquests more commonly, and would pay you more, and would occasionally reward you with a pipe and some weed (and possibly some ale) upon its completion. The hobbit children would not be affected as much, but would not follow you around as much, because you are Respectable, and therefore somewhat boring.

Between 0.75 and 1.50
If your respectability is between 0.75 and 1.5, hobbits will treat you the same as they do now.

Thank you for taking the time to read through this! I know that it is long, and rather complicated, however, I think that it would make the beloved Little Folk a little more accurate, as well as make the mod more in-depth.

As always, Suggestions and Criticism welcome!

 