Title: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Azazel on November 18, 2010, 06:53:55 AM Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. :awesome_for_real: 2, 3, 14, 72. It doesn't matter, it's a population/participation issue, not a number of sides issue. If we want to really discuss this again, toss up a new thread for it and I'll rant about it for a few days if you want. :grin: Discuss. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: K9 on November 18, 2010, 07:10:03 AM What is there to discuss? There's no real space in lore for this, nor a logical position within the framework of the existing game. This would take an inordinate amount of effort to implement and balance and would do fuck all to even out PvP.
Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: 01101010 on November 18, 2010, 07:12:17 AM How about a zone of Free-for-all PvP? :ye_gods:
...with ladders. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Malakili on November 18, 2010, 07:32:23 AM I like the idea of more than 2 factions in a game, but I don't particularly think its worth implementing in WoW of all games. If there is a game that has made 2 factions work the best, its WoW.
Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Lantyssa on November 18, 2010, 07:53:10 AM It's WoW. Why does existing lore matter?
It's be easy enough to have the "Play Whatever You Want With Your Friends Since We Love Shitting On Continuity Anyways" faction. The PWYWWYFSWLSOCA is something I'd play, since I find both sides are incredibly annoying, and then I could have my Trolls and Draenei in the same guild. Does that sound Welsh to anyone else? Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Typhon on November 18, 2010, 08:43:30 AM What is there to discuss? There's no real space in lore for this, nor a logical position within the framework of the existing game. This would take an inordinate amount of effort to implement and balance and would do fuck all to even out PvP. There is a TON of space in the lore for multiple factions - the original concept for WC3 was five factions: Human (Ally), Night Elf, Orc, Scourge, Legion. They ended up having to scrap Legion. Alliances formed, alliances can break again. To make Lantyssa's PWYWWYFSWLSOCA a reality simply have undead be their own faction and unite Scourge and Forsaken. The undead faction becomes the faction that can be any race. Current undead in the horde stay with the horde cause they are special - but no new horde undead (I enjoy the salty tears of people no longer having the option to pick a race. It just makes me happy). Undead capital is in Northrend. Pretend the "always need to be a Lich King to keep undead plague from overrunning the world" never happened or Bolvar changed his mind after being undead a bit. It would take an inordinate amount of effort for what would probably be tepidly received (except, of course, by Lantyssa). The real argument here is - does three sides inherently blunt population imbalance issues. I don't think Blizzard is convinced that DAOCs three sides mitigated PvP imbalance enough to justify having to create 3x the content (versus the current 2x the content) for each release (which is why there are only two sides... well, that and WoW isn't a PvP-first kind of game). In a game where you aren't having to create N times the content for more factions I think that N > 2 is better because it allows player-base some degree of self-adjustment for population imbalance. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Dren on November 18, 2010, 09:14:19 AM I said it in the original thread but I'll say it again. No matter how many factions you have, if there isn't a active balancing mechanism in the programming, it won't matter. Sure some servers will be ok, but most won't be. Now if players could change faction with no major investment (sorry not paying $40 for that,) maybe the population would self-adjust, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Everything needs to be instanced so the software can adjust automatically. It can be done and done well with enough creative coding. I'm sure we could list out hundreds of ideas and designs necessary. If you want world differences to be made from the results of the battles, then put that in too. Just because the battle is instanced doesn't mean the outcome can't alter a zone or two accordingly. People can actively join as the event is going just like world pvp, but you might have to wait for a corresponding enemy to join to keep the numbers even (within some amount, maybe a sliding scale depending on total population.) If server population is a problem, then open it up to cross server implementation. Maybe after the event has been running for 10 minutes and your still at 10v10, the queues open up to cross server. All of a sudden you have a 40v40 or 100v100 insta-party. If you manage to maintain at least 20v20 past 10 minutes, it stays that way. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Chimpy on November 18, 2010, 09:21:29 AM You could have 1 faction and free for all PvP and it still would come down to "which side has more people" with regards to open world shit.
It just is not possible to really balance PvP in these games other than forcing them into instanced battlegrounds with set parameters. Because, contrary to the belief of everyone who wants the next big MMO to have "epic RvR and open world PvP that MEANS something", you cannot balance that because like in a real war, attrition hurts the side with fewer people more. And every death/disconnect due to "this lag is shitty, fuck this" is a form of attrition. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: DraconianOne on November 18, 2010, 09:40:28 AM It's WoW. Why does existing lore matter? It's be easy enough to have the "Play Whatever You Want With Your Friends Since We Love Shitting On Continuity Anyways" faction. The PWYWWYFSWLSOCA is something I'd play, since I find both sides are incredibly annoying, and then I could have my Trolls and Draenei in the same guild. Does that sound Welsh to anyone else? Almost. Can you get it to be PWYYWHYNNY? Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: AcidCat on November 18, 2010, 09:46:32 AM I like the idea of more than 2 factions in a game, but I don't particularly think its worth implementing in WoW of all games. If there is a game that has made 2 factions work the best, its WoW. Agreed. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Nebu on November 18, 2010, 10:09:08 AM How about a zone of Free-for-all PvP? :ye_gods: ...with ladders. If everyone had identical gear, I'd resub just for this. Gear ruins the WoW pvp game even more than the class imbalances do. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Dren on November 18, 2010, 10:23:28 AM How about a zone of Free-for-all PvP? :ye_gods: ...with ladders. If everyone had identical gear, I'd resub just for this. Gear ruins the WoW pvp game even more than the class imbalances do. To be fair, a lot of the class imbalances are purely driven by gear imbalances. Class A doesn't do well until they have at least XX gear. Class B can melt faces from the beginning, but gets more even with Class A at gear XX. Once everyone has the top gear, I predict class imbalance wouldn't be near as much of a factor. I would think this would be an interesting experiment to say the least. How hard would it be to just implement a server that let you create an 80 character that was insta-born with full top tier pvp gear for the selected class/spec. Everyone has every glyph to select from. Maybe to let people have some control of tweaking, you let everyone choose their own gemming and enchanting, etc. All of that is free, of course, and can be changed whenever you want (outside of combat.) I would love to see how popular that kind of server would be. My guess is that it would keep a lot of people that leave between expansions for longer. That's my guess for player housing too, but that's another thread. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Threash on November 18, 2010, 11:35:29 AM Aion forced faction balance during launch and for a good while the sides were balanced. Without the forced balance there is no way to even out sides, once they stopped forcing people into a faction the servers became unbalanced. The only way i see a third faction helping is if they were forced to fight with the outnumbered side.
Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Chimpy on November 18, 2010, 11:41:29 AM Aion forced faction balance during launch and for a good while the sides were balanced. Without the forced balance there is no way to even out sides, once they stopped forcing people into a faction the servers became unbalanced. The only way i see a third faction helping is if they were forced to fight with the outnumbered side. The issue with Aion's balancing was that it was done by total characters created, not actual people playing. So all those thousands of lvl 10 alts to get a cheap guild bank for storing your extra crap counted. It also didn't take into account people who had cancelled. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Azazel on November 18, 2010, 12:45:11 PM What is there to discuss? There's no real space in lore for this, nor a logical position within the framework of the existing game. This would take an inordinate amount of effort to implement and balance and would do fuck all to even out PvP. I'll have to come back to this thread later, since I need to head into work, but almost every high-level third-party rep-grinding faction that springs out of nowhere in the game is made of Horde and Alliance-race NPCs that have set aside their personal differences to work together for the greater good blah blah blah. - Cenarion anything, Argent this and that, Ebon Blade, Kirin Tor, Shattered Sun, Shattari Skyguard, Ashen verdict. This is without touching the "go do shit for us" third parties, like the Ogri'La, Netherwings, Sons of Hodir etc who are made of NPC races and therefore don't work for the argument. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Fordel on November 18, 2010, 12:49:30 PM Yea, it isn't just about the raw numbers (though that is also very important obviously), but the participation as well. Having 500 max level people online doesn't mean shit if they are all cruising the AH or spamming trade.
More then two sides doesn't fix anything it of it self either, nothing about multiple sides promotes equality in population or participation. The mythical "the two weak sides will band together for freedom and justice!" is bullshit. It's far more likely that the two stronger sides will farm the smallest one to extinction until it's irrelevant and then we are back to the same 1v1 issues of population and participation. WoW specifically is never having more then the current Horde/Alliance split, and having more factions would not fix their world pvp problems either way again. Especially now, that the game is so old an established, you just aren't going to have people split to a third evenly. You'll have a sudden influx due to the 'newness' of the faction, then people will filter back to their original spots once they new car smell wears off. Or if you make the so called Merc (bandwagon) faction, everyone will just pile into that one and/or completely ignore it, depending how they interact with the world PvP rewards in WoW. If you sign up for the Merc faction and help the Horde take WG, do you now get to do the VoA bosses with the Horde that round? Do you have to go back to your original faction once its over? What happens when Horde+Merc still isn't enough to beat the Alliance Zerg? How do you handle the Alliance players who have nothing at all to gain by hitting the merc faction to help their 'enemies'? Or the reverse, what do you do when the Horde+Merc faction is enough to win every time? Whats to stop everyone from just going merc all the time to always win? This is all assuming the Merc faction has to team with the losing side to begin with. If the merc's are able to pick any side they want to team up with, then you are just going to end up with a even worse situation as all the Horde tired of never getting WG go defect to the Alliance via Merc. I'm not saying multiple factions is a bad thing, there are many reasons to have them, but they don't in of themselves fix any of the population and participation problems inherent with World PvP. The only thing that would fix those, is a game focused on it from the ground up, in all respects. Each faction has to be equally desirable for all aspects of the game and for all types of players AND you need a lot of balancing mechanics that encourage participation and somehow enforce population... while also not making the game inaccessible to anyone. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Threash on November 18, 2010, 12:58:48 PM Aion forced faction balance during launch and for a good while the sides were balanced. Without the forced balance there is no way to even out sides, once they stopped forcing people into a faction the servers became unbalanced. The only way i see a third faction helping is if they were forced to fight with the outnumbered side. The issue with Aion's balancing was that it was done by total characters created, not actual people playing. So all those thousands of lvl 10 alts to get a cheap guild bank for storing your extra crap counted. It also didn't take into account people who had cancelled. Right, but there is no reason to assume either of those things would affect one side more than the other. I just know that for a few months after launch most of the servers were extremely well balanced, with a 51/49 split at worst. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Fordel on November 18, 2010, 01:13:55 PM Right, but there is no reason to assume either of those things would affect one side more than the other. I just know that for a few months after launch most of the servers were extremely well balanced, with a 51/49 split at worst. That's a mistake, it is entirely likely that one side will attract more casual or hardcore types, or more pvp vs. pve types and so on. Players divide themselves across sides/servers like this constantly. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: DraconianOne on November 18, 2010, 01:32:42 PM I'll have to come back to this thread later, since I need to head into work, but almost every high-level third-party rep-grinding faction that springs out of nowhere in the game is made of Horde and Alliance-race NPCs that have set aside their personal differences to work together for the greater good blah blah blah. - Cenarion anything, Argent this and that, Ebon Blade, Kirin Tor, Shattered Sun, Shattari Skyguard, Ashen verdict. This is without touching the "go do shit for us" third parties, like the Ogri'La, Netherwings, Sons of Hodir etc who are made of NPC races and therefore don't work for the argument. Plus, after the pre-Wrath zombie hoe-down event when there was a third faction for a short while, there was quiet hope that a new faction might be introduced as a result of the Wrathgate shenanigans. (Yeah, it would have been Forsaken only and that would have sucked but still...) Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: K9 on November 18, 2010, 04:59:56 PM What is there to discuss? There's no real space in lore for this, nor a logical position within the framework of the existing game. This would take an inordinate amount of effort to implement and balance and would do fuck all to even out PvP. I'll have to come back to this thread later, since I need to head into work, but almost every high-level third-party rep-grinding faction that springs out of nowhere in the game is made of Horde and Alliance-race NPCs that have set aside their personal differences to work together for the greater good blah blah blah. - Cenarion anything, Argent this and that, Ebon Blade, Kirin Tor, Shattered Sun, Shattari Skyguard, Ashen verdict. This is without touching the "go do shit for us" third parties, like the Ogri'La, Netherwings, Sons of Hodir etc who are made of NPC races and therefore don't work for the argument. I would accuse you of moving the goal posts on this argument, but I'll admit I could have been more specific. Lorewise perhaps you are right to an extent, but most of those factions are pretty tiny, that said wowlorelol. Structurally though the amount of work to fit a third faction into the game would be huge, and not worth the effort if the only goal is to balance out Wintergrasp. So much of the game is built on the notion of two factions, from the quest structure, to reputations, battlegrounds, cities and such; that a third faction would require some serious shoehorning. I realise some of these points are trivial, but equally none of them would be a trivial effort to adapt into the existing game. Maybe the next expansion will bring a third faction; I doubt it, but then they are running out of space for class roles and races, so who knows. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Paelos on November 18, 2010, 06:39:05 PM Fuck lore, I want to be a merc and stab both sets of elves in the face equally.
Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Lantyssa on November 18, 2010, 07:05:17 PM I want to use elves to stab other elves!
Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Ratman_tf on November 18, 2010, 07:31:40 PM Fuck the third faction. I want a neutral faction!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ussCHoQttyQ Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: DLRiley on November 18, 2010, 07:40:31 PM WoW releases new faction. WoW charges $15 dollars for more character slots.
World of Warcraft figuring out new ways to make more money at the player expense :drill: Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Azazel on November 19, 2010, 03:40:56 AM I'll have to come back to this thread later, since I need to head into work, but almost every high-level third-party rep-grinding faction that springs out of nowhere in the game is made of Horde and Alliance-race NPCs that have set aside their personal differences to work together for the greater good blah blah blah. - Cenarion anything, Argent this and that, Ebon Blade, Kirin Tor, Shattered Sun, Shattari Skyguard, Ashen verdict. This is without touching the "go do shit for us" third parties, like the Ogri'La, Netherwings, Sons of Hodir etc who are made of NPC races and therefore don't work for the argument. I would accuse you of moving the goal posts on this argument, but I'll admit I could have been more specific. Lorewise perhaps you are right to an extent, but most of those factions are pretty tiny, that said wowlorelol. Structurally though the amount of work to fit a third faction into the game would be huge, and not worth the effort if the only goal is to balance out Wintergrasp. So much of the game is built on the notion of two factions, from the quest structure, to reputations, battlegrounds, cities and such; that a third faction would require some serious shoehorning. I realise some of these points are trivial, but equally none of them would be a trivial effort to adapt into the existing game. Maybe the next expansion will bring a third faction; I doubt it, but then they are running out of space for class roles and races, so who knows. I was pretty much replying to your first point. But it'd still be easy enough to do a 3rd faction if they really wanted to. Just have them shift allegiances every so often so you can do either horde or alliance-side quests, or drop down a few tent-camps here and there because they're mercenaries. Or have them start at 55 like DKs, or run them like the Skaven in WAR. Start them at 85 as part of the next expansion when they introduce another lost continent and 3rd-faction support designed in from the start. or.. whatever - if they wanted to, it wouldn't be that hard. (FWIW, I don't actually care, I'm just playing devil's advocate) Yes, a lot of those facitons are tiny, but both the Cenarionoids and the Argentinians are pretty substantial, especially if you add in the ebon blade/Ashen verdict into the Argent camp. Having said that, Twilight's Hammer seem to be a slightly-relevant badguy version of the joined Alliance/Horde-race guys. As are the Scourge/cultists throughout Icecrown. For the Greater Bad, I guess. Yes, lorelol indeed. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: K9 on November 19, 2010, 03:47:17 AM Yeah, I hear you.
Maybe they will do it for their next expansion, I suspect it would only create more problems than it solves though edit: I just had a thought, one reason why you can't have a neutral faction is because it violates the most fundamental law of WoW: thou shalt not communicate with the other faction :grin: Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Azazel on November 19, 2010, 04:58:23 AM Yes. The only orcs/tauren/etc that humans can speak with and understand are in the Argent Dawn/Cenarian/Shatari Skyguard/Twilight Hammer/Thrall and Cairne etc
Though, Blood Elves used to be High Elves. Shouldn't most or at least some Alliance be able to understand them? And surely the BEs can understand the Human tongue at the very least. :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: SurfD on November 19, 2010, 01:31:46 PM Yeah, I hear you. Ooooooo. A thought just occured to me:Maybe they will do it for their next expansion, I suspect it would only create more problems than it solves though edit: I just had a thought, one reason why you can't have a neutral faction is because it violates the most fundamental law of WoW: thou shalt not communicate with the other faction :grin: They Already Did a 3rd Faction! Unfortunately, the 3rd faction was brain eating zombies, and all the Carebear AH farmers whined about zombies turning their Auction Masters so they couldnt make their gold quota fo the day. Remember, Zombies could talk to each other, even TRADE with each other, across factions. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Azazel on November 20, 2010, 12:55:06 AM I think I've shared my thoughts on why the Zombie invasion sucked hairy balls once before. I'll reiterate a key point, though.
In Shattrath, it's flagged as "sanctuary" so you can't attack other players in the couse of normal play. However, Zombies could of course be the exception to this, and so could attack anyone. What was especially fucked, though was that normal players could not attack Zonbies until the zombies had initiated an attack on players. I'f I could have enjoyed my zombie-bashing without needing to wait for them to hit me first, I wouldn't have hated it so. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: SurfD on November 20, 2010, 02:10:25 AM Odd. Were you on a PvE realm by any chance? I can not recall ever having to wait for a zombie to "flag" itself before i could blow it to smithereens on Tich when the event was going on. They were always hostile on sight that I can remember.
Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Sheepherder on November 20, 2010, 05:26:51 AM You weren't allowed to attack ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE players in Shattrath, which sucked, but was irrelevant, because if you really fucking needed to use the bank the portals were right there.
Hellfire Peninsula was far more fun as a zombie anyways. Zombie sprint rotations were the coolest thing ever. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Azazel on November 20, 2010, 05:31:52 AM Yes. PVE.
Sheephereder, are you retarded or just obtuse? Zombies were in the other cities as well. What the fuck do nearby portals have to do with banking, or not being able to fuck up zombies in Shatt without letting them tag you first? Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Selby on November 20, 2010, 07:45:03 AM Part of the issue with the zombie apocalypse was the high level players in Shatt just mounted up and flew out of reach of the zombie hordes and thus were immune if only slightly annoyed. Those of us leveling plebes had to deal with trying to level and seeing this HORDE of zombies come flying at you. It was fun, for a while. But if I was trying to level up a character it got slightly annoying.
Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Simond on November 20, 2010, 09:06:15 AM Complaints about the zombie event is why the Cata one is so incredibly underwhelming.
Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: WindupAtheist on November 20, 2010, 09:09:59 AM What he said. The pre-expansion events are like one week every two years. I'd have done something even more crazy and let people suck it up.
Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: March on November 20, 2010, 09:18:40 AM What if the 3 Faction Alliances were game controlled rather than player controlled?
I could imagine such a system possibly working in DAoC: 1. Alb Dominant = Hib/Mid Allies 2. Alb Primary, Hib Secondary = Mid/Hib "Collaborators" (Mid could "betray" Hib only in Alb territory) 3. Parity = Free for All Floaty names: Enemies = Red Allies = Green Collaborators in non betrayal situation = Green Collaborators that you could attack = Yellow Collaborators that could betray you = Blue To my untrained math mind, it would seem that 3 nobs could tune better balance than 2. Sure, I die a little inside to give up player control, but when I really think back on it... what I actually liked about DAoC was that each night the situation was dictated by how the game was being played by other players, not how the game was playing me. This model would prevent the curb-stomping of the under-dog, plus give the weakest faction a special tool that they could use as a faction as a group or as an individual in a very particular set of circumstances... it would approximate parity in that they could chose the time and nature of their battles... play spoilers, play allies, or play betrayers. In a WoW type instanced scenario model, 3 factions allows for more dynamic team building A+B vs. C ... the goal here is not some sort of metagame, but fast queues. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Paelos on November 20, 2010, 10:14:54 AM What he said. The pre-expansion events are like one week every two years. I'd have done something even more crazy and let people suck it up. Agreed. Seriously, who's trying to actively get a ton of shit done two weeks before expansion? The only thing that would have gotten me to log in prior to the release would have to have been something crazy. Not this mess with shitty loot that's meaningless. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Fordel on November 20, 2010, 12:58:07 PM Scenario 1 is just 1v1 again, multiple sides did jack and shit to balance it.
Scenario 2, you've just created a system where no one has any incentive to attack anything BUT the weakest side. :why_so_serious: . Scenario 3 is the "design the entire game from the ground up to somehow ensure equal population and participation across all factions." Once someone figures out number three, I'm sure they'll make a crap ton of money on their awesome pvp MMO. -edit- That doesn't even get into how you actually work out who and what is flagged for Scenario two. Does it work on a individual player basis, a group basis, raid? Proximity? Zone? Does one random stealther jacking a random mage suddenly mean the 'collaboration' is open season again? Will the shitty realm have to constantly try to police it's own members from now spoiling their 'alliance' with the other realm? Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: pxib on November 20, 2010, 02:11:59 PM What if the 3 Faction Alliances were game controlled rather than player controlled? PvP systems in multi-player game are always player controlled. They figure out how the game works, either consciously or unconsciously, and then alter the environment until it suits their needs. "Altering the environment" includes "I stop playing the game". The more complicated the system is, the less conscious their decisions are and the longer it takes for the realization that they're not having fun to sink into their skulls.To judge the popularity of your "allies, collaborators, betrayers, enemies" system, imagine it with more than three factions. Imagine the situation with every single race in DAoC (or WoW) in their own faction. More realistically, imagine relations between guilds allowing them to regularly fight (or merely "betray") other guilds. Consider whether this would make the game more or less fun. As Darkfall regularly showed, most people just want to cooperate. Getting in fights all the time is stressful, and worrying that people will betray you is tedious. If "Free for all" gameplay were genuinely available, it's likely some servers would wind up with exactly one big happy faction to which everyone was a member. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Sheepherder on November 20, 2010, 02:50:16 PM Sheephereder, are you retarded or just obtuse? Zombies were in the other cities as well. What the fuck do nearby portals have to do with banking, or not being able to fuck up zombies in Shatt without letting them tag you first? 1. Take portal to non-sanctuary Capital. Ride to bank/AH. 2. AoE. Seed of Corruption or Holy Wrath if you've got it. 3. ... 4. Drink zombie tears, profit. Occasionally someone would plaguebomb the AH and turn the auctioneers, then immediately have their shit ripped apart by a paladin. Fucking boohoo, I have to wait 30 seconds to buy a void crystal. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: March on November 20, 2010, 06:21:19 PM Scenario 1 is just 1v1 again, multiple sides did jack and shit to balance it. Scenario 2, you've just created a system where no one has any incentive to attack anything BUT the weakest side. :why_so_serious: . Scenario 3 is the "design the entire game from the ground up to somehow ensure equal population and participation across all factions." Once someone figures out number three, I'm sure they'll make a crap ton of money on their awesome pvp MMO. -edit- That doesn't even get into how you actually work out who and what is flagged for Scenario two. Does it work on a individual player basis, a group basis, raid? Proximity? Zone? Does one random stealther jacking a random mage suddenly mean the 'collaboration' is open season again? Will the shitty realm have to constantly try to police it's own members from now spoiling their 'alliance' with the other realm? 1. Yes it did. 2. Depends what you mean by weaker, if by weaker you mean the strong side that has its shit together is being attacked by two lesser sides, then yes the game is encouraging them to attack the weaker side. 3. Parity is simply a state, not an end-point; at certain points in the game you may have parity in others not... that's the point. Stop hoping the knife will balance on its point forever and design for the absence of parity. Betrayal is a mitigating factor for #2 so that the sum of the two lesser sides can never be calculated at 100% against the strong faction. I agree that betrayal as a gank mechanic would not be fun... perhaps I should simply have said that you could chose to flag yourself or your group or your Raid to be hostile in the Alb frontier only. On the other hand, you could join a group or a raid of the collaborating faction, which would make you "Green" - with a cooldown (1, 5, 15, 30 min?) after you drop so you cannot flip willy-nilly. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: sinij on November 20, 2010, 06:44:40 PM There's no real space in lore for this Lore should never take precedence over player's fun. Adjust lore. Wizard did it. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Fordel on November 20, 2010, 07:37:39 PM 1. Yes it did. 2. Depends what you mean by weaker, if by weaker you mean the strong side that has its shit together is being attacked by two lesser sides, then yes the game is encouraging them to attack the weaker side. 3. Parity is simply a state, not an end-point; at certain points in the game you may have parity in others not... that's the point. Stop hoping the knife will balance on its point forever and design for the absence of parity. Betrayal is a mitigating factor for #2 so that the sum of the two lesser sides can never be calculated at 100% against the strong faction. I agree that betrayal as a gank mechanic would not be fun... perhaps I should simply have said that you could chose to flag yourself or your group or your Raid to be hostile in the Alb frontier only. On the other hand, you could join a group or a raid of the collaborating faction, which would make you "Green" - with a cooldown (1, 5, 15, 30 min?) after you drop so you cannot flip willy-nilly. What do you do when A > B+C in scenario one? It's the same problem as A vs. B without CDEFG at all. It hasn't fixed shit. What prevents B from just going into C's realm and shitting all over them instead of trying to play the "maybe C will work with us against A, or maybe they'll just fuck us in the ass." game. Nothing protects C from that and nothing makes attacking A an appealing choice for B. A can continue rolling them both for shits and giggles with impunity as well. Multiple sides doesn't change the fact the smallest fish is still the smallest fish, just adds more fish. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Soulflame on November 20, 2010, 09:44:25 PM I played DAoC for years. Two weaker sides almost never gang up on the stronger side. It was by and large the weakest side being a playground for the two stronger sides.
Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: 01101010 on November 21, 2010, 04:53:45 AM It worked pretty well in Planetside in the beginning, however the theme of the game was different. There were alliances every once in awhile, but those usually broke down fairly quickly.
edit: Of course you have ship-jumpers and it's a bigger problem now. But at first, there was empire loyalty when it was about empire ownership and less about individual kill counts. Yes they had old scoreboards, but only a few people paid attention to them until the game shifted to more of a persistent Counterstike-type style more tuned to kill counts and k/d ratios than the intended purposes the game started out with. Planetside started out with huge fights but became smaller and more individualistic the longer it went. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Simond on November 21, 2010, 05:12:05 AM Bollocks did it. Google "planetside fourth empire".
Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: March on November 21, 2010, 06:57:32 AM What do you do when A > B+C in scenario one? It's the same problem as A vs. B without CDEFG at all. It hasn't fixed shit. What prevents B from just going into C's realm and shitting all over them instead of trying to play the "maybe C will work with us against A, or maybe they'll just fuck us in the ass." game. Nothing protects C from that and nothing makes attacking A an appealing choice for B. A can continue rolling them both for shits and giggles with impunity as well. Multiple sides doesn't change the fact the smallest fish is still the smallest fish, just adds more fish. If A is so great that B+C is meaningless, your game has other issues not related to _any_ faction balance mechanic - most likely broken class(es), Strong-get-Stronger RvR bonuses, or art. Fix those. In the rough sketch I outlined, B cannot attack C. Period. That's the anti-curb-stomp device. So when you say "nothing protects C from that" it tells me that you are not reading what you are arguing against. It might indeed be a completely horrible and flawed concept, but not for the reasons you are throwing out. I agree that multiple sides does not in and of itself create auto-balance, it just gives the rule-makers a better system to try to calibrate it or (more importantly) keep it playable when out of balance. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Merusk on November 21, 2010, 07:58:39 AM If you're trying to balance for population, no hardcoded sides will ever make sense. If you're going to do PVP, you just open it up and let the players decide which "side" they're on.
Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: 01101010 on November 21, 2010, 08:09:11 AM If you're trying to balance for population, no hardcoded sides will ever make sense. If you're going to do PVP, you just open it up and let the players decide which "side" they're on. This makes me wonder though, given the tendencies players in PvP games have these days. Once a strength is found without an equal counter to it you will have players shift to the more powerful one which inevitably leads to population imbalances - ah la the fourth (or X) empire. Obviously if you give both sides the same equipment thus equaling the playing field in terms of character composition within the game, but then you have to have a reason for choosing sides and a purpose for each side. Negating gear advantages leads to ability problems, when a few very good players are on one side and people migrate over to that side in order to be on the winning side. Granted, this all has to do with the players and not the game itself. It's a fatal flaw in any competitive game which unfortunately lies outside the box of the game. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Chimpy on November 21, 2010, 08:15:07 AM You cannot balance PvP in level based DIKU.
That is the simple solution to this whole problem. It is not about "skill" or "determination" it is about a ridiculous number of variables along with the psychology of people in general who want to be on the "winning side" and if they are on the bottom of a huge mis-match, they will just walk away or switch sides to be on the advantaged side. Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Fordel on November 21, 2010, 11:15:13 AM It worked pretty well in Planetside in the beginning, however the theme of the game was different. There were alliances every once in awhile, but those usually broke down fairly quickly. edit: Of course you have ship-jumpers and it's a bigger problem now. But at first, there was empire loyalty when it was about empire ownership and less about individual kill counts. Yes they had old scoreboards, but only a few people paid attention to them until the game shifted to more of a persistent Counterstike-type style more tuned to kill counts and k/d ratios than the intended purposes the game started out with. Planetside started out with huge fights but became smaller and more individualistic the longer it went. That pretty much described DaoC as well, where when the game was released, there was this collective "REALM PRIDE WOO" where you were on Team Alb/Hib/Mid and fuck those other two guys, we are going to totally take their giant magical hammer and horn! Then over time the game became less about that and more about personal point totals, the old gank group mentality. March: If B cannot attack C anywhere, only retaliate after the fact, then B becomes the new 'C' and you still haven't fixed A. As long as the population and participation across factions (any number, 2, 3, 52 doesn't matter), isn't equal, then someone is getting fucked over by everyone else. Maybe a better way to put it is this, is it easier to split something in half, or into thirds? What happens when we end up with fifths? Where Albs and Hibs are both 2/5ths and Mids are only 1/5th? Which A + B / C * D^EFG equation is going to fix that? None of that actually addresses the issue of actually obtaining equality in a 3+ realm system, where A=B=C but A and B just decide to farm C anyways, because C is where Emain Macha is and that's just where the community goes to farm kills and keeps? You also better damn well get your population and participation right on day 1, because servers NEVER get any better, only worse. People will bandwagon or just flat out leave and it only gets worse. -edit- I feel like I am doing shitty algebra now. :why_so_serious: Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Furiously on November 24, 2010, 04:05:52 PM The problem is you will have people that will want to play on the "winning" side no matter what and will reroll regardless of how many realms there are. You're going to have an extra realm of side switchers no matter what.
Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: March on November 29, 2010, 07:59:11 AM @ Fordel... I'll be the first to admit that this idea is not anything more than a throw-away... but since you are serially systematically misreading the proposal, I feel compelled to defend it :why_so_serious:
Quote 1. Alb Dominant = Hib/Mid Allies 2. Alb Primary, Hib Secondary = Mid/Hib "Collaborators" (Mid could "betray" Hib only in Alb territory) 3. Parity = Free for All Bolded the relevant part... C can only "betray" B in the Leading Faction's (A), territory... putting a voluntary subset of C at significant risk, but protecting both B and C from the Bandwagon effect. In a nutshell, it (theoretically) shifts the fight to A (the strongest) with a small voluntary perq for C (the weakest) to play spoiler. The "nice" thing about the spoiler perq is that as soon as people flock to it, they become a stronger faction and thereby lose the perq. Regarding the question of the rules working for a 3-sided game... I'm not sure I follow why it is required that the same rules must _also_ work for an n-sided game? I am not aware that this is a definition of failure in game theory? Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Rendakor on November 29, 2010, 08:35:30 AM @ Fordel This isn't twitter.Title: Re: Yea, the bandwagon faction, that will fix EVERYTHING. Post by: Fordel on November 29, 2010, 10:20:01 AM Bolded the relevant part... C can only "betray" B in the Leading Faction's (A), territory... putting a voluntary subset of C at significant risk, but protecting both B and C from the Bandwagon effect. Why does B ever go to A's territory then? They can just go to C's and not worry about possible ass fuckings, only have to worry about guaranteed ones from A also going to C's territory. |