Post by Crom Cruach on Feb 4, 2011 3:44:48 GMT -6
I'd like to clarify my view on the NPC battles, which I only hinted at in the other thread, because I think that's the real cause of the loss of interest GoS is facing.
Let's start by looking at our winning rate against NPC: I have 90%, the top guys have in between 90 and 95%, down in the ranks I can't find anyone with less than 70%. Even people I invited to the game and therefore I know have only started playing, have 70 or 80%.
That's because it's easy to put together a decent gear for NPCs, even at lower levels (I'm not talking here about PvP duels, which I think are OK). The NPC's available range being from -2 to +2 of our level (if I'm not missing any change) doesn't take into account that NPCs can't be competitive against human players of the same level once the latter have understood the basics (which only takes you a few days). Shifting that range to level from -1 to +3 could perhaps balance things for the better, but I think it's not enough.
And that's because the single losses from NPCs are meaningless. Players barely take note of them, as they only count for a small % of the battles, and can be considered an acceptable compromise.
When defeated, the human player only loses a little stamina. But let's face it, most people don't even care about it and keep fighting. Because if you lose let's say 3 battles in 30 you only lose about 3 stamina pts, the effect of which is touchable only at low levels. Above level 10, you can ignore that stamina loss, and still get the same average winning % as before.
After 30 battles you have to go back into town anyway, because the gear has to be repaired, and you can easily recover your stamina (inns are too cheap: the price doesn't rise proportionally to the player's level). That only causes you to take maximum 2 or 3 trips to town every session.
A side consequence of this is the fact that very few players make any use of consumables, and expecially food.
Talking about the gear's wear and tear, that does endanger your winning %, but that can be easily avoided by keeping a spare set at the ready. And the 2 extra body slots have made things worse, because as your equipment points go down, you can add some small terangreal there, whose stats can make up for the wear and tear effect. Resizing the personal storages (they are too big, or rather the big ones are too cheap) could help, but wouldn't make it harder for people to make one or more spare gear sets. The real problem is the abundance of drops.
I don't know what's the drops rate, but I reckon it must be at least 50%. Let's say I have a 70% NPC winning rate, and suppose the drops rate is 50%, the real rate by which I get drops is then 35%.
If I spend my 50 daily battles doing only NPCs, I'd get 50 * 35% = 17 items. Now, it's hard to determine how many "useful" items you get among them, but if you consider that you can always sell them and buy good virgin items in shops, you have to realize this amount of drops is too big. And that's if I pretended my winning % was 70%, which actually is only the newbies' case!!
So let's recap.
If you lose you face no consequences: I won't consider the wear and tear effect because that isn't a consequence of losing alone, and I won't consider the winning rate's decrease, as that is not a ranking index.
If you win you get Experience, 1 win (both of which are ranking indexes), and at 50% chance you also get an item, which is always useful because at worst it can be changed into money.
You have to admit this isn't fair on those poor Trollocs...
Ed proposed a cutting in the battles' hourly regeneration rate. Although that would probably slow the process, and prolong people's interest, it wouldn't make the NPC battles harder, so the interest would eventually die down.
There can be many solutions, but the point is that NPC battles, which were introduced as a "filler" back when there were enough users to make the PvP duels the main feature of GoS, have become the real main feature themselves, and they're killing this game by making it too easy and repetitive.
I posted an idea in the suggestions section. If it was possible (depending on the coding difficulty) to implement that, it would be a "soft" change, as NPC battles would still be easy, but not as profitable as they are now.
Let's start by looking at our winning rate against NPC: I have 90%, the top guys have in between 90 and 95%, down in the ranks I can't find anyone with less than 70%. Even people I invited to the game and therefore I know have only started playing, have 70 or 80%.
That's because it's easy to put together a decent gear for NPCs, even at lower levels (I'm not talking here about PvP duels, which I think are OK). The NPC's available range being from -2 to +2 of our level (if I'm not missing any change) doesn't take into account that NPCs can't be competitive against human players of the same level once the latter have understood the basics (which only takes you a few days). Shifting that range to level from -1 to +3 could perhaps balance things for the better, but I think it's not enough.
And that's because the single losses from NPCs are meaningless. Players barely take note of them, as they only count for a small % of the battles, and can be considered an acceptable compromise.
When defeated, the human player only loses a little stamina. But let's face it, most people don't even care about it and keep fighting. Because if you lose let's say 3 battles in 30 you only lose about 3 stamina pts, the effect of which is touchable only at low levels. Above level 10, you can ignore that stamina loss, and still get the same average winning % as before.
After 30 battles you have to go back into town anyway, because the gear has to be repaired, and you can easily recover your stamina (inns are too cheap: the price doesn't rise proportionally to the player's level). That only causes you to take maximum 2 or 3 trips to town every session.
A side consequence of this is the fact that very few players make any use of consumables, and expecially food.
Talking about the gear's wear and tear, that does endanger your winning %, but that can be easily avoided by keeping a spare set at the ready. And the 2 extra body slots have made things worse, because as your equipment points go down, you can add some small terangreal there, whose stats can make up for the wear and tear effect. Resizing the personal storages (they are too big, or rather the big ones are too cheap) could help, but wouldn't make it harder for people to make one or more spare gear sets. The real problem is the abundance of drops.
I don't know what's the drops rate, but I reckon it must be at least 50%. Let's say I have a 70% NPC winning rate, and suppose the drops rate is 50%, the real rate by which I get drops is then 35%.
If I spend my 50 daily battles doing only NPCs, I'd get 50 * 35% = 17 items. Now, it's hard to determine how many "useful" items you get among them, but if you consider that you can always sell them and buy good virgin items in shops, you have to realize this amount of drops is too big. And that's if I pretended my winning % was 70%, which actually is only the newbies' case!!
So let's recap.
If you lose you face no consequences: I won't consider the wear and tear effect because that isn't a consequence of losing alone, and I won't consider the winning rate's decrease, as that is not a ranking index.
If you win you get Experience, 1 win (both of which are ranking indexes), and at 50% chance you also get an item, which is always useful because at worst it can be changed into money.
You have to admit this isn't fair on those poor Trollocs...
Ed proposed a cutting in the battles' hourly regeneration rate. Although that would probably slow the process, and prolong people's interest, it wouldn't make the NPC battles harder, so the interest would eventually die down.
There can be many solutions, but the point is that NPC battles, which were introduced as a "filler" back when there were enough users to make the PvP duels the main feature of GoS, have become the real main feature themselves, and they're killing this game by making it too easy and repetitive.
I posted an idea in the suggestions section. If it was possible (depending on the coding difficulty) to implement that, it would be a "soft" change, as NPC battles would still be easy, but not as profitable as they are now.
), but no solid plans yet. This would allow players a way to more quickly use up turns, but still have the option to slowly use turns through individual NPC battles. I also have some ideas to make dueling more attractive, so people might spend more turn on duels.