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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  Archived: We distort. We decide.  |  Topic: Gaming: Levels of Separation 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Author Topic: Gaming: Levels of Separation  (Read 31760 times)
Daeven
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Reply #70 on: March 29, 2004, 12:11:22 PM

Quote from: Xilren's Twin
The problem with pvp in most mmorpgs is this part..."competitive challenge".  In FPS games, barring exploits and outright cheating, the playing field is level so you can kill asshole#984 just as easily as he can kill you.  In mmorpg's with their typical large differntial power curve, this is usually not the case; you might be a better player than the griefer, but if he is level 50 and your level 20, the conclusion is foregone who will win (especially if they wait to gank you while you're hurt from fighting mongbats...). Which is why non-optional pvp turns so many people off.  I dont think most people mind dying so long as they feel they had a fighting chance.


Which nicely illustrates why I think the ‘level differential’ that occurs from time played needs to be minimized as much as possible.

Here are my operating axioms:
Leveling and PvP are incompatible in every respect.
One of the most reasonable and effective forms of ‘end game’ is player generated conflict.
Most people would prefer to get to the ‘fun part’ (aka UO 7xGM) sooner rather than later.

Therefore: power differential must
1.   not be extreme in scope – any 5 ‘newbies’ should be able to take down a ‘grand master’ (for example).
2.   not be linked to time in game.
3.   be mostly reliant on player skill.
4.   be influenced by items and skill differentiation, but not defined by such things.

In other words, these games need to be less like traditional cRPG’s and more avatar driven PSW’s.

If you feel that the current games are fine, and ‘epic raiding’ is the epitome of the MMOG experience, then ignore this. Otherwise, I really don’t see any other way out of our current hole.

(Of course, another piece of this puzzle will be content derived from state-driven AI as opposed to hard coded spawns, but that is another post entirely.)

"There is a technical term for someone who confuses the opinions of a character in a book with those of the author. That term is idiot." -SMStirling

It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion
zubey
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Reply #71 on: March 29, 2004, 02:40:52 PM

Quote from: Daeven
Here are my operating axioms:
Leveling and PvP are incompatible in every respect.
One of the most reasonable and effective forms of ‘end game’ is player generated conflict.
Most people would prefer to get to the ‘fun part’ (aka UO 7xGM) sooner rather than later.

Therefore: power differential must
1.   not be extreme in scope – any 5 ‘newbies’ should be able to take down a ‘grand master’ (for example).
2.   not be linked to time in game.
3.   be mostly reliant on player skill.
4.   be influenced by items and skill differentiation, but not defined by such things.

In other words, these games need to be less like traditional cRPG’s and more avatar driven PSW’s.


I believe Planetside meets the criteria listed here.

Which begs the question:  Could a game like Planetside add more RPG-like elements to become a MMRPG that meets these criteria?   Or would the additions themselves cause it to fail to meet the criteria?

For instance, what if the game had auto-generated missions?  Or medals for specific accomplisments?  An economy?
kuro
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Reply #72 on: March 29, 2004, 08:22:23 PM

Quote
Arnold wrote:
 In UO, it was common for the more skilled players from a zerg to break off and form a new, smaller guild.  


This certainly happened in DAoC. However, it was just as bad because these really strong high powered guilds would form gank groups that would roam the less populated PvP zones and absolutely decimate pickup groups and solo players.  Fights were not even close and that's the problem.

Hard core players have no sense of fair play and will leverage every advantage to decimate the casual player.  

That's why I firmly believe that PvP has to be a completely separate game from the level based MMORPG. You make your persistant MMORPG and then you make a separate  PvP FPS type game that is small scale, not persistant, and autoballances teams.  Then you add strong tie-ins between the two games. I.E. Do good at the PvP game and you win items, xp, etc. for your character in the persistant game.  Advance to high level in the persistant MMORPG, you can now have access to different character models, classes, weapons, etc. in the PvP game.
Romp
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Reply #73 on: March 29, 2004, 10:58:00 PM

Quote from: Xilren's Twin
Quote from: Romp
You dont need a human umpire, that is most definitely not the way to go to try and limit asshole behaviour.

You need to give players the tools to mete out justice.  


This is pretty offtopic to the centrail thread, but I thought it was generally accepted as axiomatic around here that any such tools used to "mete our justice" were always able to be utlitized or avoided by "griefers" to escape said justice more easily than it is to enforce said justice.  In your simple example, an equally simple response to get around the restriction is use mule/friend to buy and sell through...

The problem with pvp in most mmorpgs is this part..."competitive challenge".  In FPS games, barring exploits and outright cheating, the playing field is level so you can kill asshole#984 just as easily as he can kill you.  In mmorpg's with their typical large differntial power curve, this is usually not the case; you might be a better player than the griefer, but if he is level 50 and your level 20, the conclusion is foregone who will win (especially if they wait to gank you while you're hurt from fighting mongbats...). Which is why non-optional pvp turns so many people off.  I dont think most people mind dying so long as they feel they had a fighting chance.

Xilren


actually I forgot a crucial part.  Like in SB, your character must belong to a guild and have a hometown to bind at.  And anyone can easily find out your guild name and home city.  If you do not have a home city you respawn at a desolate place.  However unlike in SB, there is no bank at this place and there are no easy teleportation spells like summon (at least not without reagents which you wont have on you after you die).  So if you die and dont have a guild city you spawn somewhere which is likely to be camped and is a long long way away from anywhere.  So every time someone with a town dies he has to run his character for a long time to meet up with a mule character to pass the gear.  Which would likely be so much of a hassle not to be worth it in the long run.

It's not possible to stop griefers from griefing.  But it is possible to give people the tools to fight against griefers.  Yes its possible for griefers to use those same tools in all likelihood, but thats beside the point.  They can be held accountable, if a guild of griefers is able to kill you and your guild and knock down your city then thats part of the game.  But you have the ability to knock down their city too, to get revenge.  And one thing will always remain true - the griefers will always be outnumbered by the average player, so this means when it comes to a straight up numbers game, the griefers will lose.  If the rest of the population arent able to ally together and knock down the pk city for example, then too bad, but the game does give them that option.

This is just one example of a player justice city anyway, modelled on SB's version which didnt work because it wasnt harsh enough on people without guilds.

Quote
PvP is not the answer. I know it's the answer some of you want, that's too bad. Manage your expectations. UO will never come again, the victims have choice now, the best you can hope for is Shadowbane. Or Lineage 2. Or M59. Of course, these games are filled with people who want to kick your ass, instead of sheeple waiting to get their asses kicked. That's not quite as much fun!


most pvpers are happy to have a game which is made for hardcore pvpers, ie a game which is full of wolves, with no sheep and which doesnt suck.  Just we are still waiting for that game.  Darkfall is the next hope.

But I dont admit that player justice cant work, I think the system I have described would work (although it would have sideeffects which would annoy a lot of people)
Dark_MadMax
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Reply #74 on: March 30, 2004, 06:49:55 PM

Quote

And one thing will always remain true - the griefers will always be outnumbered by the average player, so this means when it comes to a straight up numbers game, the griefers will lose. If the rest of the population arent able to ally together and knock down the pk city for example, then too bad, but the game does give them that option.


 And thats a problem- without good tactical combat managment systems numbers  are just "zerg"."griefers" guilds zerg too and we have zerg vs zerg. -Thats what happened multiple times in SB - you have zerg of "griefers" vs zerg of "antis" .  Knocking out ooponent cities just lead ot other side leaving the game in mass -as  losing a city was too harsh penalty for A GAME (a game which was supposed to be fun ,not boring) .


Quote
This is just one example of a player justice city anyway, modelled on SB's version which didnt work because it wasnt harsh enough on people without guilds.



 Thats wrong . - It wasn't hard enough for girefers guild ,not for ppl  without guilds. - Thats a big differnce. If SB ahd real in-game politics systems which would  held accountable ppl attacking allies/neutrals things would be a lot different.

Such as for example guild whihc attacks its allies cant purcahse guards ,can't use banks ,can't  govern bane time ,etc...  Coupled with automated "justice" (such as near outlaw in lawfull  zone immediatly a bunch of powerfull guards spawn)  that would put outlaws in outlaws place - no home ,no bind points, percistently  chased by bounty hunters and law enforcments.

 In SB the easisist life was for random PKer - best shops rates ,fastest travel. ABsoultely zero penalties.While a good "citizen" was at the             same time penalized wiht farming and boring ass travel times.
Romp
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Reply #75 on: March 30, 2004, 07:42:24 PM

Well you could design a city siege system which is a lot better than SB's and doesnt just revolve around zerging.

I agree it was too easy for a random pker.  But if they took out summon spell, banks and runemasters at ruins and removed all repledging then that would pretty much kill the non guilded pk in SB.

Then all pks and griefers would need a guild and would need a town which could be attacked.  Then the rest of the population could gang up on them and defeat them, and we would have player justice.
Dark_MadMax
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Reply #76 on: March 30, 2004, 08:58:28 PM

Quote from: Romp
Well you could design a city siege system which is a lot better than SB's and doesnt just revolve around zerging.

I agree it was too easy for a random pker.  But if they took out summon spell, banks and runemasters at ruins and removed all repledging then that would pretty much kill the non guilded pk in SB.


 Random Pkers were not killers of SB gameplay .Slow ass trtavel time and lack of pvp modes except "sieg" ( 3 hours wait -lag -zerg- fest " and raid (1 hour run -2 minute pvp)

Quote

Then all pks and griefers would need a guild and would need a town which could be attacked.  Then the rest of the population could gang up on them and defeat them, and we would have player justice.


 Funny thing - all "pkers" and "griefers" had towns and guilds. - Often huge ultra big towns on the map. And "rest of the population" ganged up together and banes went mad -ppl baning each other left and right . Sometimes even this "evil town" got defeated (e.g. on Scorned Death on corruption) . And what? Did it make average player happier? Did it make sieges or pvp more fun? -nope ,core gameplay was extremly boring and after a while in those wars player get burned out on farming/runnin/waiting . Was especially frustrating for losers - months of catassing go down to toilet in 3 hours of "siege".

 If anything SB should have teached designers is that penalties in pvp game shouldn't  be heavy burden ,so losing side dont quit after first defeat. Also that game shouldn't require camping some bane for hours each day -its unhealthy for players real life, and boring too.
Romp
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Reply #77 on: March 30, 2004, 09:50:13 PM

SB had a lot of faults, too many to name, but in the end it failed because the pvp and sieging just werent that fun.

But in this thread I'm just talking about a player justice system which is similar to SB's and how it could be used to give players the tools to deal with griefers and pks.
Pug
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Reply #78 on: March 31, 2004, 07:38:43 AM

It won't be long now before we have proof of concept for a lot of the ideas being tossed around. I just hope for the sake of online games that RazorWax can make their ideas work. There are lots of great ideas. We need a great implementation.

It's pretty well established that level based games where time spent playing is more important than individual player skill do not make good PvP games. I completely agree that the majority of MMOLG PvP sucks and should not be replicated.

Zergs are not a problem. Zergs are a fact of life. The majority will win the majority of the time. The problem isn't giving power to the masses, the problem is in what games allow massive groups of players to do.

DAoC's PvP is a prime example of what not to do. DAoC rewards using overwhelming force instead of encouraging players to take on a challenge. Want to hit a BG or raid a keep? Bring as many friends as you can find. The more people you bring the better your odds.

I tend to see solutions to MMOLG PvP issues in what first person shooters do, and zergs are no exception. Take for instance the FPS mod Capture The Flag. Try to think of the entire CTF mod's population as representing the population of a DAoC server. It would be stupid to allow hundreds of players to cram into a single server and compete over a single pair of flags yet that's pretty much what DAoC does. Too many players, too few goals, and so all you're left with is mindless deathmatch style killing. The team that has the most players overwhelms everyone else and is the only team that is able to capture any flags.

What does CTF do about zergs? It splits the player population and attempts to balance the teams. Only XX players can fight on any given server, and only so many  of those players can be on one team. Translate this back to DAoC and you'd get a system where only XX players can participate in a BG or keep raid, and only half of XX can be on either team. This can be done either through unrealistic code that limits the number of participants (like private zones where population is strictly controlled) or by discouraging extra players from participating through game mechanics (like limiting how many players can bind near a BG or keep and removing the ability to rez in a BG or near a keep).

I'm anxious to see how the upcoming PvP MMOLG named DarkFall handles player justice and zergs.
Mr_PeaCH
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Reply #79 on: April 05, 2004, 09:10:22 AM

Bumpage

Hey Haemish, you still planning on updating this one... I thought you had some specific thoughts on it after the rest had their say.  Inquiring minds, etc.

***************

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HaemishM
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Reply #80 on: April 05, 2004, 09:21:00 AM

I do have some thoughts on it, I just haven't gotten a chance to sit down and write it yet.

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