Ryzom

Missed the original post Seh, will have to get back to it tomorrow, just setting out on a guild hunt.

This thread's been pretty good so far.

Land control, by it's very nature, is exclusive and will always favour the veteran players. Can game mechanics change that? No, it has been tried time and time again and every attempt so far has failed.

The closest to the OP system we have here are probably the Towers from AO's Notum Wars (here we go again...) the system used in AO uses level ranges so that everyone involved in a tower battle is roughly the same level.

Theoretically that should even the play field. In practice it still favours the vets as they have amassed so much wealth and rare items their low level alts will always beat the "newbies".

The only reason for land control in an MMO is to justify PvP, to serve as a reward for PvP battles and as such it will promote power leveling and other means to get an egde over your opponents (rare loot, boss camping, etc) This will result in a (small) number of powerfull guilds that will divide the spoils and the longer the system is in place the more those "land owners" will "entrench" themselves and the harder it gets to seperate them from their prize.

The established guilds will absorb new (smaller) guilds and steal members from weaker guilds and the situation becomes stagnant to the point that people stop caring.

What makes OP's so interesting is the fact that there are so few; not every guild can have one but that also means some guilds will never have one. This is the biggest flaw in every land control design and the only one that can't be corrected as it is the basis of the whole system.

Deal with it...

sehracii wrote:Was this really necessary? This entire thread has been point-counterpoint on pros and cons of GvG, AvA, FvF, etc forms of an outpost system. I don't see any of the flames you mention- they may be in other threads but they're not here.

With all due respect Sehraci, I think it was.

While all the issues I referenced in my little rant apply to a broader spectrum than this thread, the some of the people participating here are the same people who participate in the rest of the threads that faction becomes an issue, and it's quite tiresome, unnecessary, and quite frankly it's overly unfriendly.

I don't know what it is about the forums, but in game, most... dare I say all... of the people I have met who also post on the forums are generally wonderful.

If the non-English servers have such a severe factional imbalance, it could happen here as well. Simply because it hasn't, certainly is no indication that it won't. I'm tired of all the bickering. I'm tired of all the arguing.

There is no denying that the OP system needs some work, unless you're nicely situated in an alliance which dominates a large portion of the OP's. The unfortunate thing is that OP's have become predominately end-game content... even the little ones... and their resources can be used to offset the balance of faction.

I personally believe the system needs to be revisited with an objective look at how to better allow for more participation, for both PvP and non-PvP, new Guilds, etc. I'll post more about my ideas when I've thought them through some more.

My whole point is that it is time people stop squaring off on different sides of the "argument", and start working with each other to come up with some ideas which might actually benefit the majority. Less arguing, more positive community.

I apologize if I have offended some, but seriously folks, nobody gains anything from 13 pages of "Nuh uh"... "yeah huh"... "nuh uh"... "yeah huh"

This thread has been good, just seemed you were taking it off track.

There are better ways to deal with it, and it can be done in a manner which doesn't alienate players based on preferred RP stance. I can think of another MMO which did it beautifully... but I don't like to discuss other games here, unless bashing EQ2... which I am still bitter about.

And I am dealing with it. I'm just dealing with it in a different manner.

michielb wrote:Deal with it...

sehracii wrote:This thread has been good, just seemed you were taking it off track.

I apologize for that... perhaps I am simply being a little too jumpy in this thread over the strife that ends up in most of them. The thread which led into this one was full of what I was expressing frustration with. I should have left my frustrations in the other thread, I apologize.

rothimar wrote:I can tell you first hand that there are a lot of US based players that would choose Kami over Karavan if the balance were more equal in appearances. Regardless of whether you believe Kara vs non-Kara is balanced (notice I didn't say Kara vs Kami), it certainly doesn't appear so in the Outpost holdings thread.

With the unfortunate FvF aspect afflicting the Outposts, a Guild like Covenant has no chance of ever attaining an outpost without siding with one alliance or the other. Regardless of whether or not we wish to align with a faction or alliance... the choice simply isn't there.

<OOC>
Actually, I think the use of Kami v Karavan (FvF) over simplifies the current situation on our Atys. The 'Karavan Alliance' is more like an alliance of mainly Matis Karavan guilds, with many of the Tryker guilds rejecting the imperial Matis domination and going their own way, whether Karavan, neutral or Kami.
Many of the Tryker based guilds will come and help defend Kami OPs against the 'Karavan Alliance' aggresion, but won't necessarily help a Kami attack against the Alliance.

I too would like the OP battles to be smaller, based more on guilds fighting, rather than alliances. Personally, I would favour OPs only being given to a guild for a limited time. Make the threshold drop steadily to zero and then have the NPCs take over again and have a random time before the OP can be attacked again. Limit the number of homins allowed to be involved in a take over and limit the level of skills that can be used in the battle to the level of the area where the OP is. 'Standard' attacks would still be allowed, until the threshold drops below, say, 3. Limit guilds to only having one OP at a time as well.

andypur1 wrote:(...). Personally, I would favour OPs only being given to a guild for a limited time (...).(...) Limit the number of homins allowed to be involved in a take over and limit the level of skills that can be used in the battle to the level of the area where the OP(...). Limit guilds to only having one OP at a time as well.

Now that we are at it, allow 1-homin guilds own a q250 outpost, being able to select dynamically the op mat it produces, from vedice to egiros.

What? everyone is asking, why can't I ask too?

iphdrunk wrote:Now that we are at it, allow 1-homin guilds own a q250 outpost, being able to select dynamically the op mat it produces, from vedice to egiros.

What? everyone is asking, why can't I ask too?

Cool, Zok is up for it. Do 1 1/2 homin guilds count? Zok is a bit worried about how he is going to take out the guards though.

grimjim wrote:I got into a long chat with a guy from one of the servers the other week, apparently the domination on one server is a cross faction alliance, rather than a factional domination.

Question. How is that any better or worse than a dominating alliance being only one faction or even only "part" of one faction?