Ryzom

Hello all

first of all, it's not really true that low level players cannot participate to OP battles. I started doing OP battles at around lvl 100 healing. It's true tho that only healing is really usable at low levels.
About the possibile changes on the rules, i'm not sure changing the levels of players would be of any benefit, unless you say also to raise the lower players at the same time you lower the higher.
But, I want to speak about what I have seen in another game, where there is a similar concept of Outposts. In that case there are towers that can be built on land and defended/attacked by players. Similar to Outposts, they can be of different levels, depending on the land they are built.
Well, in that game the rule is different: there is a level range that limit the peeps (owners and attackers) that can participate. The level range is based on the tower level.

The main problem in ryzom for this such behaviour is that we didnt got a single overall level, but we can be any level, depending on the actual skill used.

This means that the mechanic would be a bit complicated, but still doable:

What I mean is:

1. Make an Outpost of, ie lvl 100, attackable/defendable only using skills between 80 and 120 (just as an example).
2. All the other skills would be disabled, weps unusable, etc...

In this way we can have:

Players of all levels can (and must) participate at OP battles.
High level players (in some skill), to defend a low level OP must use a low level skill.
This encourage the diversification on the skill leveling priority.

People too high in all the combat skills will be out of a battle for Outpost of low levels, and this seems logic to me as killing level 50 or level 100 guards is really easy with skills at 250. If you want to be 250 in every skill, be prepared to fight only for lvl 250 Outposts and leave the attack/defence of lower OP to lower peeps.

The main cons of this is that still higher level players take some advantage because of their stats still higher than the lower peeps.

The possible solution is that to attack/defend you must have your highest skill in the level range.

In this case, If any of you just wanna say that no one would battle for lvl 50 OP because there are no players in that range, I say that the lack of new players is not an argument. If you want to attack a lvl 50 OP you must recruit peeps to do the job, same if you want to defend one acquired before. The game don't get new people? It's not a problem regarding the OP battles mechanic, but a general problem of the game. A guild can't defend a previously acquired lvl 100 OP? It will lose the OP or must have some allies helping (already happens today).

Not sure this can work (it worked pretty well in that non mentioned game), but I think this is much easier to implement than changing 'on the fly' the actual skills of the players involved.

Just my 2 dappers.

tigrus wrote:I got one thing to say.

NO.

this screws over those that work hard to have advantages. Dont make this WoW... Battlegrounds in WoW anyone?

Yeah sense is so fun fighting 100 QL guards... 'I' have worked hard on the skills I have leveled, without the use of cats, and 'I' personaly wouldn't mind them making it so I couldn't fight at a 100 or even 150 QL OP. Maybe there would be a real point to having alts then, so you can fight at lower OPs for fun or something... Wont be too much of a loss, if a high lvl guild wants to hold a 100, then let them keep a steady flow of new players, OR just alot of low lvl friends.. Will really ge newbs in on the OPs more I think...

Istead of just healing.

Blocking higher level people from participating at all would work technically.

Though, my biggest concern would be there not being enough people to support a decent battle. Would depend on how many alts joined I guess.

btw --> http://forums.ryzom.com/forum/showpost.php?p=372030&postcount=33 old post now, but I'd still like to see something like this done to OPs

(EDIT)

sehracii wrote:Though, my biggest concern would be there not being enough people to support a decent battle. Would depend on how many alts joined I guess.

Yeah thats why I say 50/150/250 instead of 50/100/150 and so on. could jus do 100/150/250 or something like that. (Or even just 150/ 250)

Also atm, there are not many fights at 50/100/150 OPs compared too 200/250 anyway, so maybe if new guilds stood a chance this would change that.

I do agree that lower levels can have some use in OP battles, even if just for distraction, for morale, whatever. I have been in OP battles and had an absolute BLAST (it's ok to have fun in 'em right? hehe) by running around, charging, trying to distract the other side, throwing insults...all that fun stuff. When I got serious, some of my measley heals actually helped alot of homins!
I'm not a huge fan of OP battles, but low levels CAN play with higher..you just have to know what you can and cant do.
Beau

sehracii wrote: Though, my biggest concern would be there not being enough people to support a decent battle. Would depend on how many alts joined I guess.

Please define "decent" battle. I don't know enough about the mechanics to understand.

Now, for some other babble:

The feeling I get from the discussion is that we have some cultural differences going on - and I'm not referring to physical RL location or Faction or race in game.

I think I see a few "oldbies" who are focused primarily on end-game matters, OP battles and uber-crafting. Sometimes I think newer players or those with other interests are nearly invisible except as cannon fodder or as people who might someday be important if they stay around and get their levels maxed. Not a conscious thing, just a matter of perspective, having seen so many come and go without ever being "significant". Probably a completely normal thing. In "some other games (tm)" that perspective dominates. Here I think it is a tiny fraction.

I think I see also a reaction against that perspective.

And plenty who just don't care and go on about their business of having fun. Most of those probably avoid this forum like the black death.

I'd like to think, and actually I *DO* think, that we are all close enough and mature enough in this small community to think about and respect the other perspectives people have and temper our own opinions and desires. I've seen it happen, and it makes me proud to be part of this thing.

I seriously doubt that anything we say in this thread will ever make it onto a developer's to-do list. It's just interesting discussion. But what might come out of it is better understanding of other peoples' viewpoints and maybe even some events or spontaneous happenings. That would be cool.

iceaxe68 wrote: I seriously doubt that anything we say in this thread will ever make it onto a developer's to-do list. It's just interesting discussion. But what might come out of it is better understanding of other peoples' viewpoints and maybe even some events or spontaneous happenings. That would be cool.

Rest assured that the devs do read the forums Though they rarely make an appearance in forum, they do read these threads to get player based insight. I'd like to thank all involved in this thread for the good discussion and encourage the community to participate in these kind of discussions. It builds the community and gives the devs and event managers food for thought.

iceaxe68 wrote:Please define "decent" battle. I don't know enough about the mechanics to understand.

Take a lvl 100 outpost as an example. Now, the number of people on the mainland with every level under 100 is kind of small, doesn't take that long to pass it. Also, many of these may not have chosen a faction or joined a guild yet, so probably wouldn't participate, if they knew a battle was going on at all. And no matter the time chosen, some people simply won't be able to make it.

So maybe only 8-10 people show up on either side. Now considering the NPC guards at the OP will be lvl 100, the attackers would have a hard time fighting the guards alone, as they're all under lvl 100 themselves. Put some other players fighting alongside the NPC guards and it's really not a fair battle. With low level players and small numbers, the guards would pretty much run the show. I can't see that being a fun battle.

9v9 master level players at a Q250 outpost is pretty much no chance for attackers as well. It's just even worse for low levels as they're still new and learning the game, and don't have the kind of skills or equipment that masters do.

Perhaps limiting the level of participants to the outpost lvl +50 would be a little more likely to work. When you have some players higher lvl than the guards its easier to have a fight instead of a massacre

All good points,

sehracii wrote:Perhaps limiting the level of participants to the outpost lvl +50 would be a little more likely to work. When you have some players higher lvl than the guards its easier to have a fight instead of a massacre

and good idea.

Today many lowlevel outposts change hands through internal alliance agreements. They're simply not interesting enough to fight over. Instead, a QL50-100 outpost COULD be rather interesting for an aspiring new guild.

And, I've seen quite a few new players who want to PVP come and go, whe they realize that they must grind their way up to 250 to make a difference (or be secondary healers) instead of having a more natural progression of adventuring and PVP throughout the game.

Personally, when I begun play Ryzom 2 years ago your level meant nothing - the game was basically the same kind of fun from level 1 to level 250. When PVP was added, things like that changed and a great portion of the game was "endgame" only. Of course I can always remind myself that the good old PVE game is still there and intact and leave the outposts to the big guys.

Just a though that struck me, can there be cross-shard outpost-like battles, through some kind of an official permanent Ring variant? That could deal with the problem of too few people showing up. It would be sort of like how City of Villains/City of Heroes do it - with a twist of RF Online (since we are three shards and cross shard diplomacy would matter. Aniro/Leanon vs Aris one time, and a different setup the next). There's a BIG lore issue to this though...