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Post by Shylah.Sedai on Feb 24, 2014 21:59:39 GMT -6
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Post by Seitaarin on Feb 25, 2014 1:23:42 GMT -6
Oh sorry, yep. Sort of ... again the responsibility for preventing this is in the hands of the players, as well ... if you are a glass cannon, wearing wool undies and toting big weapons, though, at the top end of levels ... well don't expect to be able to take a pounding and still have anything in the tank to deal with the aftermath. A bunch of you guys broke Rasina's stam, and belted her equipment down to 7x% in the process, and she was still winning duels against equal level people ... it was significantly easier for the higher levels, but I still think lower level characters would not have been able to score any significant points.
An option available to you, if you don't want it to happen, is to simply build a defensive gear set for when you log off, if you want to wear wool undies into the real battles.
EDIT: I can't stress enough how much flexibility there is in the item/build department in this game, and the measures you can take to protect YOURSELF with a bit of mind bending, rather than having a coder place additional restrictions into the world. Every bit of additional code is an additional point that takes away freedom, forces you to conform to specific rules, applies additional points for code errors, and also additional points to find loopholes.
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Post by Jenlyn on Feb 25, 2014 13:36:08 GMT -6
Eeeegads no! Please tell me you can see how that would get exploited to HELL with people deliberately putting on broken gear and not healing to prevent themselves from being hit?!? Even thinking legitimately, think this last LB scenario, where there were very few targets available ... If you couldn't get points from any because they have been beaten down, where would that leave you?? Big fat disagree with that one, already covered my thoughts on lowby upduelling. I think the big points are the problem. If lower levels only got the big points when they beat a higher level who is in fairly good condition, then it would solve much of the problem. They should be rewarded for having eaten all of their spinach like good little accounts, so to speak, but to be equally rewarded for coming along and kicking a carcass isn't fair. My big thoughts: Pretty much everything has been covered by other posters, but I like to read my own posts, so here goes. The player base is increasing, which has been the game's biggest issue for awhile, and for the first time since Aria and the Forsaken quit, we have a viable Shadow contingent. The new players were amazing! It's a shame so many of them went to the Shadow, but the game is blessed by their presence, and we got a few good newbies for our side this round, too. I agree with Fearless pretty much word for word, so ditto on his post. I also agree with KR; let's let this version play for a bit and see where we are after another round or two, before making any more big changes to it. It seems to be working pretty well, so let's all get comfortable with it the way it is, and if there are serious problems, they will reveal themselves as we go along. That being said, we need to figure out something a bit better as far as clan battles go. Seitaarin is right in that the city should automatically fall if the aggressor shows up and the defender does not, and Shylah is correct that there needs to be greater cost and consequence for declaring clan battles (but not so great that distraction is removed as a strategy), and that for the aggressor, there should be no (or at least reduced) hiding. Please give us an outbox for sent messages, and if we could do a CC: thing, that would be great, too. It is hard on the leaders to discuss clan issues with with small relevant groups of players. It would be better if they could start a clan message with the option of sending it to the entire clan all at once or to select members only. I know it can be done, because Bhaal did it, but I don't know how hard it is. We had to ask for it for a long time before he did it, so maybe it sucks to code. Names of estates showing up would be kinda cool... I am all for anything that means less clicking, so yay for the suggestion to opt for buying in quantity instead of going back through three menus again and again in order to buy 5 knives for a quest or what have you. I would be against not letting people leave a clan of their own accord at any time, but I understand and empathize with Shylah's frustration. I don't really have anything of my own to add. A lot of my suggestions from the past have been implemented, so I'm pretty well pleased with the game as it stands. Thank you, Tim, for all your hard work at this. This game is really fun now! Ooh, one thing, though. I hardly got to hit any hordes at all, and then when the final phases came along, the armies were much easier to kill and the hordes were often insurmountable, so I'm not sure what, if anything, needs to be done, but the hordes didn't add much fun to my experience this round at all. They tended to hit at inconvenient times for me, and the horde hunters slew them too quickly, until the end of the Age, when the armies were easily killed off and the hordes rampaged. The game is weighted towards the Shadow, as it should be (because the books are, too), so I don't expect it to be completely equal, but I really felt like the Light was behind the eight ball this round. We fought uphill from the first horde. In response to obnoxiously farming horde builds on the basis that horde hunters shouldn't set their gear and skills up that way, the Light is forced to deal with the hordes, so horde builds are every bit as viable as PvP builds. Points should reflect the reality of what took place. A level 1 Paladin slaying a level 10 Shoemaker should not result in the same amount of glory as the level 1 Paladin slaying a level 10 Assassin would, so to speak. Since we probably can't code that, we're likely stuck with what we have, although like I said earlier, less points should be given to the level 1 Paladin if that Shoemaker or Assassin is already unconscious when attacked... EDIT: I guess I didn't see page 2 of this thread before posting, but yes, a defensive set of gear would help mitigate it a bit, but no one should be punished for not participating in the PvP side of the game, so when beaten down, fewer points should be given to the low level winners.
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Post by Seitaarin on Feb 25, 2014 13:53:24 GMT -6
I don't duel shoemakers, candlestickmakers, butchers, bakers etc ... I limit my duelling to Outdoorsmen, Wanderers, Armsmen etc that are capable of fighting entire hordes of shadowspawn and coming out victorious I'm not sure where you got the idea that armies of guard dogs and Aes Sedai etc were easy, but NUTS TO THAT~!! lol ... it's random, some were easy, but some were BLOODY hard! Just like the hordes. Shadow is forced to deal with armies just as much as light is forced to deal with hordes ... have to blow up cities to win, that's equal footing there. Yep, sure ... but the game is an open world pvp game, that's an inarguable fact. If you completely ignore that fact and build purely to excel in the non-pvp aspects, then it's on your own head if someone with a pvp build kicks your butt 6 ways from Sunday. You have to consciously make that decision, and trying to have the game recoded to pander to that is tantamount to saying "I don't want to have to deal with the entire pvp aspect of the game thanks, I just want to hit hordes, so if you could write a bit of code to exempt me from people who build to hit people, that would be really great, thanks!" ... how is that fair in any way for the people who build to hit people? They have to deal with hordes, too ... I, personally, changed my gear completely when I hit hordes, then switched back to a more appropriate gear set when hunting people ... it's not difficult to do, it's just like dressing to suit an occasion. Admittedly I did less damage to a horde than you, MAYBE ... Only Tim can say ... but no lower levels ever got points from me, so that issue is addressed, by me, using current mechanics, right? No code changes required.
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Post by Jenlyn on Feb 25, 2014 13:57:25 GMT -6
I see what you're saying. Of course, even though I'm a blended player who runs a lot of NPC turns, I love the PvP aspect and don't shy away from duels (although I tend to hunt for people whom I have a reasonable chance of winning against), even if I'm not as good at it as you are. I guess it looked to me like you were saying, "My preference for PvP overrules another's preference for NPCs," but you clarified it for me. What do you think of getting fewer points for winning against a foe who has already been stomped into the ground?
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Post by Seitaarin on Feb 25, 2014 14:06:50 GMT -6
Honestly I think that would get exploited by people, unfortnately. As soon as you introduce restrictions, you introduce a ruleset to exploit. Example ... Rasina doesn't want to give points away while she's offline ... so she just swaps gear to a broken set while running around doing some item quests to run down her stamina ... then goes off to bed happy, because she's gone to sleep in 0% gear with 0 stam, so nobody's getting points for her tonight
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Post by Jenlyn on Feb 25, 2014 17:38:54 GMT -6
Well, there needs to be something done to correct it. That way might be best. She will still give some points, and her stamina will heal a bit over time. It is that way in another game from which we've already borrowed a bunch of ideas. It is a funky mechanism, and one that is exploited in that manner in that game, but it is better than the way it is now. Rasina won't be giving out many points anyway, because she is among the best, if not the best, PvP account, so few will attack her, and most of those will lose anyway. Meanwhile, people will not be getting huge rewards for dogpiling a higher level player that someone else beat down for them, so it is a trade off. No solution will be perfect, but that's no reason not to implement any solutions.
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Post by Seitaarin on Feb 25, 2014 19:00:16 GMT -6
There's the other side of it as well, which may sound a bit familiar to you, and isn't even based on exploitation ... Let's say an age has, oh let's say a huge imbalance of numbers at the top end of the level scale, and you are on the Light side, and there's only 5 characters in the LB that your entire alignment can gain points from ... so your team 'dogpiles' as you put it so succinctly on a few of them, and within a few rounds, they have been beaten to a bloody pulp, so now you're getting no points for them ... so once an hour someone gets a few points, because they take that regenned stamina point .... What do you do now? "something" needs to be done? Yes ... education of players, and implementation by said players of measures to protect themselves from being able to be exploited, using the currently available game mechanics. Tell your cohorts to NOT go to bed wearing nice comfy woolies, because you are, in fact, at war ... and people WILL hit you while you rest ... so going to sleep unprotected is really an open invitation for the enemy to exploit your silliness. I keep trying to say this in a different way ... but why ask for the game to conform to your sense of how it should be, rather than using the available tools at your disposal to prevent the problem? If you are silly enough to allow yourself to be exploited by ignoring available mechanics, why penalise people for doing so? If someone below me finds a way to farm my ass, I don't say "hey! that's not fair! CODE!!!" ... I find a way to fix the problem with the tools available. You can too, everyone can, the option IS available to you to prevent it from happening. I just thought of one other way I can express what's got my back up about this issue, and then I'll not comment again ... "Hi Tim, I WANT to wear paper thin armour and carry really big weapons all the time so that I just do lots of damage ... but I don't want little people to be able to hit me, because I'm big. I know I have the option to protect myself, but I just want to wear paper thin armour, so I have more points for my weapons. Can you write some code to protect me from the little people who want to take advantage of my paper thin armour please?"
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Post by Jenlyn on Feb 25, 2014 19:15:09 GMT -6
It doesn't matter what you wear, you can still get beat down. If you cannot, you have one of the top PvP builds, which not everyone is going to (or should be required to) have. The easiest fix is to reduce the amount of points given for beating a beaten down player. That is also the fix that makes the most sense. Under what rationale should a player be given equal points for beating a dead horse as they would for taming a bucking bronco? The problem is not one or two people who can build a PvP account that is good enough to win against mediocre accounts ten levels above them. If you go and beat someone who is a higher level than you and is in good shape, you can and should be richly rewarded for it. If you go spit on their dead body as it hangs from a tree, you get less of a reward. Why should it be any other way?
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Post by Seitaarin on Feb 25, 2014 19:17:10 GMT -6
Updated post, rather than creating a new one ... the answer to your question though is the legitimate scenario of a numbers imbalance.
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Post by Jenlyn on Feb 25, 2014 19:19:40 GMT -6
A numbers imbalance is just that--an imbalance. It means things are jacked up, anyway. To ignore a problem that exists with or without a numbers imbalance because of that is just silly.
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Post by Shylah.Sedai on Feb 25, 2014 19:19:56 GMT -6
There's the other side of it as well, which may sound a bit familiar to you, and isn't even based on exploitation ... Let's say an age has, oh let's say a huge imbalance of numbers at the top end of the level scale, and you are on the Light side, and there's only 5 characters in the LB that your entire alignment can gain points from ... so your team 'dogpiles' as you put it so succinctly on a few of them, and within a few rounds, they have been beaten to a bloody pulp, so now you're getting no points for them ... so once an hour someone gets a few points, because they take that regenned stamina point .... What do you do now? "something" needs to be done? Yes ... education of players, and implementation by said players of measures to protect themselves from being able to be exploited, using the currently available game mechanics. Tell your cohorts to NOT go to bed wearing nice comfy woolies, because you are, in fact, at war ... and people WILL hit you while you rest ... so going to sleep unprotected is really an open invitation for the enemy to exploit your silliness. I keep trying to say this in a different way ... but why ask for the game to conform to your sense of how it should be, rather than using the available tools at your disposal to prevent the problem? If you are silly enough to allow yourself to be exploited by ignoring available mechanics, why penalise people for doing so? If someone below me finds a way to farm my ass, I don't say "hey! that's not fair! CODE!!!" ... I find a way to fix the problem with the tools available. You can too, everyone can, the option IS available to you to prevent it from happening. I feel the need to really clarify what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about getting no points for being dead, and someone who is the same level as you battling you. That's bound to happen. What I'm talking about it the explotation of beating someone down then having the level 70 alts, who should be too weak to do anything to you, come up and pound you and get MASSIVE points off of it because of the level difference. That is my only problem with this. Player A, who is level 100 and down to 0 stamina and 0% armor health, should be giving points to Player B, who is also a level 100, when player B wins. That's not the issue. The issue is that as Player C, who is level 70, comes and hits Player A, they not only get the points for the duel, but an extra +1 point every every two level difference, up to five additional points. Adding up to twenty five to thirty battle points, maybe higher. That is the issue here. You can have the best defense mode in the world, but get enough people to gang up on you, and your equipment will be down to nothing and still Player C can get massive amounts of points for hitting you, and there's my issue.
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Post by Jenlyn on Feb 25, 2014 19:21:21 GMT -6
And there's no reason that you can't go hit a glass cannon and get a reward for it, but like with any pinata, there just comes a point where all the candy is gone. Go find a different one when that one's empty. You are asking for an everlasting one, which is unrealistic.
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Post by Seitaarin on Feb 25, 2014 19:24:00 GMT -6
There is definitely a problem with lower level players gaining big points for LOSING battles. If you stop lower players from defeating you, even broken, and the points for losing issue is resolved, then we've killed 2 birds with 1 stone.
1. the losing +points issue and 2. making people be less complacent about how they build their characters, so they don't leave themselves open to be exploited in the first place.
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Post by Jenlyn on Feb 25, 2014 19:31:03 GMT -6
I thought you hated "best builds," yet you are stumping for something quite similar.
And yeah, you should not win any points for losing. Just like you should earn fewer points for beating someone who is already beaten senseless than for beating them when they're fully conscious and ready to go in their paper-thin armor.
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