Ryzom

svayvti wrote:You know, I was long excited about outposts from the beginning when Nevrax announced them as having Dynamic content.

<snip>

Now that Nevrax has dumbed it down to yeah another PvP land battle I've lost most of my interest in it.

Unfortunately, I echo these sentiments after reading the "detailed description" on the outposts.
The seeming dumbing down of this feature is a big disappointment.

The original stated intention was that outposts could be obtained by co-operation with the tribe that owned the outpost, by doing missions or other activities for them, or by force if this approach was desired. Already, half of this method of acquirement has been removed, and seemingly, it will be difficult for a guild that has mainly harvest/craft members to obtain/maintain a decent outpost now.

Since early beta, i was led to believe that building and maintaining the outposts themselves was to be achieved at least partly by the use of "mission mats" (prospecting with "knowledge" still currently brings up a source description of eg. "Construction", "Food" etc.) and this could have been an ideal opportunity to utilise these materials meaningfully, rather than the bland usage that they have now merely as quest items.

Neither of these issues is mentioned in the details released.

Time will tell how this feature will pan out, but i fear that it is an opportunity lost, and will not have as big an impact on the current/future player-base as the developers would hope for. A year overdue, I dont see this as a game-winning feature....

vguerin wrote:I am guessing they will be similar to the troops that formed during the invasion when we crafted gear for them ?

What I mean is, the defender purchases squads at their outpost, which then help defend their outpost.

The attackers, however, seem to get units to attack with too. What are these and where do they come from?

The attackers, however, seem to get units to attack with too. What are these and where do they come from?

<cough, cough, sidling up to Jyudas> May I interest the gentleman in our new Fairhaven Public Mercenary Guild? All members fully trained, equipped, and absolutely loyal as long as payment is provided. All of course also fully discrete with an absolute 'No Kill And Tell'-policy.

Hmm, this cross of PvE and PvP should lead to some very varied tactics. I'd be like to know what happens to either side if they wipe/respawn during a battle i.e. is the battle over or can they continue, is there dp? And how are the outposts taken in the first place, is it just a mad rush to be the first to challenge or will there be a few weeks of challenges and whoever reaches the highest level gets it? Also, I take it we can't heal our guards, but will they take splash damage from area of effect attacks on the opposition?

It may get a bit hectic if you capture one, then every 24 hours you've got to fight to defend it. Some people might just say "sod it", others might start a new game like "outpost griefing" where they try and take as many so they've got a fight every night. Maybe the max level thing will help prevent this, but I'd prefer a safe period of a couple of days at least, plus the slower level decay that was previously mentioned.

If you own an outpost you will get some mysterious bonus so you've got something to lose (plus the kudos of owning one, the work put in winning it, the dapper spent on guards). If you're attacking you have nothing to lose so why not go nuts?

IMHO with attacking you should stand to lose something as well - maybe you have to pay the guards medical bills for how many you kill (ok life insurance payouts ) if you lose. Maybe you have to pay for a declaration of war permit, or do missions to gain points and the favour of the local ruling body.

It's not mentioned but I hope there is some way crafters/harvesters can make themselves useful to outposts - upgrading it so it has a defensive bonus, making guard equipment. Of course, the danger is of a guild making an outpost impossible to conquer, so maybe the attacking side should have similar powers - seige weaponry? Perhaps the dapper that harvesters bring in to pay for new guards will be enough - are we going to see prices on mats going lower and lower as the market changes?

If I understand the turn-based thing correctly it means the attacker can choose their 2h spot and then the defender theirs at some other time (but within 24 hours?) This is a good thing at least and means that two guilds could even fight for the outpost without meeting. Before this I thought it would be a straight fight, last team standing. This also allows two non-PvP guilds to fight for the same outpost with a non-interference pact (backed up by the local heavies).

Greater numbers in an attacking or defending group is always going to help. Even if outposts were won by most mission points gained/mats dug/yubos killed in a time period, most forms of competition then more will generally be better. Smaller groups might get bullied but perhaps the community will do something about that. Alliances will be formed, maybe even 'taxes' paid to powerful groups for their support. Time will tell if it's better to sink your dappers into buying more NPCs or hiring your friendly mercenary group

Lots to think about anyway and last but not least, I doubt outposts will be the be all and end all of Ryzom. Seems like there's plenty of other stuff to come if they don't turn out to be your thing.

This sounds...umm...unique?

Fighitng against waves of NPCs, and if you kill enough of them fast enough, you win? I think i got that right...

Anyway, the piece I am still concerned about is the 24 hour lapse between the delcaration of war and the commencement of activities. Obviously on a ocean-spanning server, this could have undesirable consquences. I would like to see an adustable scale that lets the defending guild add up to 24 hours to the end of the "preparation period", allowing them to choose the time when most of thier members will be on in order to effectivly defend thier territory.

Well, what I would really like to see is this entire idea scraped for something that does not promote PvP conflict, as there really are a lot of better ideas that could be implemented in SoR...but they seem to really want us to love this, so.. *shrug*.

Well it's about time..

This was a bit overdue.. considering the fairly short time in which outposts are meant to be implemented you'd have thought the inital concept would have been thought of and shared long ago.

The concept as it stands now does seem to be reasonable(ish) Needs some improvments and we could use alot more detail..
I'm worried that at such a late stage Outposts wont get the attention/feedback (ideas, alterations, programming, testing, even totaly different concepts) it should have to make it as great as posible.

While we shouldn't be doing Nevrax's job for them, we also shouldn't be landed with something we've not had the time to get just right. (at least, right for the majority of the community) After all.. we're the ones that pay for it.

mrshad wrote:This sounds...umm...unique?

Fighitng against waves of NPCs, and if you kill enough of them fast enough, you win? I think i got that right...

You basically fight wave after wave until you cannot continue. There is a minimum, and apparently a maximum. This sets the bar for the defenders. It's indirect PvP.

mrshad wrote:Anyway, the piece I am still concerned about is the 24 hour lapse between the delcaration of war and the commencement of activities. Obviously on a ocean-spanning server, this could have undesirable consquences. I would like to see an adustable scale that lets the defending guild add up to 24 hours to the end of the "preparation period", allowing them to choose the time when most of thier members will be on in order to effectivly defend thier territory.

I can see where this would be a beneficial feature of the system that they are proposing. Shadowbane tried to something similar to this with "Bane Circles". The problem was precisely that people set them up for times that one side or the other couldn't attend. This should alleviate that issue, so that North American guilds don't have some sort of time advantage over United Kingdom guilds, and vice versa. You can schedule the guild event for times when the most members interested in attacking or defending can attend. I see this as a beneficial and positive feature of the proposed system.

mrshad wrote:Well, what I would really like to see is this entire idea scraped for something that does not promote PvP conflict, as there really are a lot of better ideas that could be implemented in SoR...but they seem to really want us to love this, so.. *shrug*.

Could you please detail some of those ideas? This is a quite innovative way to run a PvP encounter of a specific piece of virtual real estate. If they'd allow crafters/harvesters to build battlements, troop equipment, and siege engines, I'd say they'd have it pretty much where anyone in-game could contribute to the guild effort.

It will also add a more political atmosphere to this game, which is normally only bred by tension. Conflict, in here or in the world, promotes danger, and danger is an immersive element in any game. We see it in its current form by the PvE aspect of the game. It is dangerous to explore, as many creatures out in the world find you a tasty snack.

I read it twice and then went to the german site and read the translation

This seems to be somehow interessting. Much less PvP then i thought.

What i want to know is if the number of players and/or NPCs are limited somehow ? Or is the size of a squad dynamicaly adjusting with the number of the attacking group ?

mrshad wrote:This sounds...umm...unique?

Fighitng against waves of NPCs, and if you kill enough of them fast enough, you win? I think i got that right...

Few MMOs actually have any kind of "raid" engine Nevrax first bragged about for launch and was supposed to be a key part of Outposts. Plenty of MMOs have land battles, notably DAOC, Lineage, Lineage 2, Neocron 2, Anarchy Online, World of Warcraft, Shadowbane and of course the upcoming City of Villians. Ryzom is just trying to play a game of way-behind catch-up with this version of outposts. Most of which burn out players with griefers and force people out of guilds they want into uber guilds.

but not very many games have triggered invasions and defenses (I can think of Anarchy Online - Alien Invasion), Guild missions (can't think of any), or a way for tradeskill and gathering classes to participate in land control.

This PvP idea might be good for a limited number of outposts (maybe Prime Roots) to keep them competitive, but I hope Nevrax can hold to the vision they sold us on originally. The vision that players have been waiting for, not just PvP.

Right, after thinking on this a while..

Me thinks the rounds idea is fine, had to happen..
The NPC's also have a place I feel but.. it almost apears to be NPCvNPC rather than PvP. While >some< NPC involvement would be good, couldn't we have some other systems in place also?
Maybe defenses of some other kind. Harvest mats to build Obstacles, small wall sections, trenches, mounted range weapons?
I'm not saying turn it in to Battlefield, just saying we could use other defense types too. As it stands at the moment we might aswel go back to playing sonic the hedgehog with the wave after wave of computer bad guys rather than an online multiplayer game.