OP Mechanics suggestion

[jamela]

As far as I learnt in these last 4 years of playing MMOs once you give the player base a toy you cannot get it back. Not without a loss of population anyway. It can be more or elss harful, more or less liked but you can't still get it out....

How about feeding it gradually into the storyline? Is there really an inexhaustible supply of materials in Atys' nexuses? Let them dry up slowly, drop by drop, and a hunt ensue for alternative sources. That way content is added rather than simply removing something overnight.

[riveit]

How about feeding it gradually into the storyline? Is there really an inexhaustible supply of materials in Atys' nexuses? Let them dry up slowly, drop by drop, and a hunt ensue for alternative sources. That way content is added rather than simply removing something overnight.

I've always wanted more dynamism in the outpost system. A stagnant distribution of outposts is no fun and leads to big imbalances and belief in ownership of outposts. One of my favorite ideas is that once a week, a new outpost becomes available for drilling. The first one to notice it and declare can take it from marauders. A day later or so, an established drill dries up. Such a mechanism would allow outposts to move around somewhat without huge battles between alliances. Of course, the alliance battles would still occur.

[sprite]

I've always wanted more dynamism in the outpost system. A stagnant distribution of outposts is no fun and leads to big imbalances and belief in ownership of outposts. One of my favorite ideas is that once a week, a new outpost becomes available for drilling. The first one to notice it and declare can take it from marauders. A day later or so, an established drill dries up. Such a mechanism would allow outposts to move around somewhat without huge battles between alliances. Of course, the alliance battles would still occur.

Now that sounds cool, provided the outpost that dried up and the time of day when a new on appeared was truely random (Probably insanely complicated to code though...)

I can imagine it now "Ack! The kamis got the new OP this week and our 250 maga OP just dried up "

[mithur]

Hehe... maybe...maybe not... imagine the best generals on Arispotle with their teams, imagine a supplementary tag to show how many wins one has had.

Imagine a lot of people losing the fun of an OP battle. Imagine the deception of not being in the OP team. Imagine Ryzom as a game where you need to grind levels even faster to access to an important part of the game. Imagine a Ryzom without such massive battles.

Damn! That things are one of the better things in game, when a newcomer can join an OP Battle and take part of the fun, and the massive battles... I really think about this as a bad idea...

[arfindel]

Imagine a lot of people losing the fun of an OP battle. ...

... mmm imagine ,)

[jared96]

Again...OPs are not FvF...they are AvA. That the alliances are faction-based might be true, but it is due to player action, not design. That you have built a large part of your disscustion on a false premise sort of leaves you teeteering.

The majority of the nation's highways have a 55 mph speed limit. So, by your argument, us engineers shouldn't bother designing crash barriers, guide rails, highway curves, bumper systems, etc for anything greater than a 55 mph impact (or 65 mph where so designated) . I tend to lean towards the "real world approach" knowing that peeps routinely drive 75 in a 55 and deal with "what is" rather that than what someone thought it would be.

On the other hand, you have essentially "closed my argument". If the designer's vision hasn't been realized than the design needs to be fixed until that result is obtained.

We have talked about why that effect sounds fun in theory but how it is limited in practice (if it were true, the kamist would still hold the majority of OPs, like they did in the beginning.)

Your presumption is without support as you fail to take in all relevant factors. In the beginning there was a state of flux....all OP's were "up for grabs" and the kamists as you call them had the advantage in numbers and player level. In the beginning various "new alliances" formed and broke and then three things happened:

1. About half the player base left the game consisting mostly of non PvP oriented players for reasons that not need be repeated.

2. The largest and most advanced of the kami guilds, as well as other guilds left the game to play elsewhere for reasons that again not need be repeated. Some guilds even switched sides. Many others are playing on Cho.

3. Numerous kara guilds that played neutral shall we say had a "change of heart" .

You can't equate a stable situation with an unstable one. Various possibilities exist when there is a state of flux and numerous parties vying for control. Once the situation becomes stable and down to just two sides, "it's a whole nother ballgame".

And you can't argue the fact that more access to better materials and twice the advancement rate results in an extreme advantage. If ya gonna argue that point.... "show me the math"

The ONLY thing that can waver is commitment. So if one side wins 20 battles in a row, then, as we have seen, many players won't feel the need to stay up till 4 am to do battle. Let that side take a lickin or two and then it becomes important again.

Anyway...the Kamist are getting more new recruites than the Karavan...so again, the theory of what you are saying sounds good, but in practise, it doesn't play out.

I'm half expecting to hear that the kamis have weapons of mass destruction. You got Dubya's intelligence crew supplying this information ? Where's the evidence of this mass recruitment ?

As a neutral character in a neutral guild, I get a lot of PM's from new players asking about both sides. About 85% of them have already decided their faction when I talk to them and most of these start the conversation with "I am going kara...." . The ones that haven't are asking which group is larger ? which group controls more territory ? which group is in power ? which group will have the most "stuff" to offer me and help me level.

When an involved party in a dispute defends a position, it is from their PoV. That's because all opinion from interested parties comes from "where you are sitting". I am not sitting on either side but watching from a distance. As in any such vocal campaigns what one side decries when the other side does it is perfectly fine when their own side does it. The only argument that rings true is that when an outcome becomes predetermined, it's not fun.

IIRC, there were 28 OP"s .... let's set aside 4 for the neutrals for the moment as 24 is an easy number to work. At 12-12 things are gonna be most interesting. The greater the imbalance, the more it favors the winning side. At 16-8 there's a 2:1 advantage. Guilds with the alliance with the advantage can recruit twice as many people who will level twice as fast. Win just 2 more OP's and it goes to 3:1 Win 2 more and it's 5:1

Being in a Fyros based guild, I'm quite confident that none of the significantly sized guilds based there have more players than they did 6 months ago (mergers excluded). I am absolutely sure that the number of players leveling in Fyros is way way down ..... I do repeated /who's in region every time I am on....and while the Void remains active, its certainly no where near the level of activity "in bygone days".

OPs are NOT FvF by design, but by player choice. Aris is unique in being the only server where the struggle is still alive. Implementing heavy handed controlls to overrule the world the players have created is not a very good idea.

Again you make my point, doubly.

1. You say that the designer's vision has not been realized. In civil engineering design we call that a design error and correct it. If the roadd I designed is not moving the required people in the required direction in the required time, we redesign the problem areas..... in product design, we call that a "recall" or release a "new and improved" model. In software design, we call that a basis for a patch.

2. If there's a lack of a struggle on the other servers ... OK what next ? No struggle, no challenge, no reason to log on or keep paying the bill.

If the designer's intent is not being realized then his design is a failure and needs to be fixed. How is this heavy handed to make a change which better realizes the intended goal or an alternate goal which better serves the subscribers ? All it would do is insure that there would always be a challenge....as one takes more and more spires / OP's the difficulty in getting the next one is harder. Is that any different then the leveling system itself ? Isn't level 240 harder to get that level 210 ? Don't you have to fight harder mobs to get any decent xp the higher you get in level ? Or is the stated desire of "we want a challenge" really a guise for " we want easy wins" ?

Recognize the fact that server population is a problem .... the amount of players leaving the game is a problem. A "typical" technical oriented office operation incurs 2 - 3 times salary costs (to keep the doors open....let's use 2.5 (1.0 to cover direct salary .... 1.5 to cover rent, utilities, furnishings, computers, insurance, taxes, etc)

1 person x 8 hours / day x 3 shifts x 30.4 days per month = 729.6 hours

So to employ 1 person at a mid clerical / low technical professional rate of $20/hr...

729.6 x 20 = $14,592

$14,952 x 2.5 = $36,480

$36,480 / $15 per month = 2,432 subscribers to support 1 staff person

You think aris has 2,500 paying subscribers ? You think it can be kept up with one staff person ? If you don't then I would hope you take player's stated reasons for leaving the game seriously.

If you don't like my numbers use your own. But coming up with one that shows anything near profitability is going to take some real creative mathematics.

How would this "heavy handed" system as you call it detriment either side ? Ever play in a bowling league ? Golf ? These games include a similar balancing system (handicap). What it does is put both sides in a position where they have reason to try and improve their skills and where each "battle" is important and the outcome is always in question. It allows the stronger side to hold more but greatly reduces the ability to hold all. Each incremental advantage comes at a higher and higher price. The lore supports this in the sense that neither "god" has overcome the other meaning they have a balance of a power. That power is also limited. It stands to reason therefore that the god "boosting" 20 people can't do as much individually for each of the 20 as the other god "boosting" 10 people as ecah has only so much of their own pwer to darw on.

As a neutral player, I do not have a vested interest in what side wins. I do have a vested interest in the subscriber base as if ari fails, my game fails. As I watch my friends list dwindle.....as I watch guilds we are friendly with on both sides lose members .... as I watch the returns from /who commands shrink I do get concerned. And when people state to me their reasons for leaving and I hear that they are either too disheartened because of the odds or lost interests because the odds present no challenge, I figure there's something that can be done to make more of a balance.

If one is are gonna argue that they want PvP for "the challenge" and they argue against every proposal that makes the fights more balanced and the outcome more in question, then one should just admit that they wanna win every time and drop the "challenge" guise.

Doesn't matter to me "gamewise" either way as I don't partake. But those that do will have to weigh their opposition to "balance" against the long term survival of the game because many people are unhappy to the point of not playing anymore.

[jared96]

I will never play basketball better than a pro-player will, does that mean the game is unfair? No, the rules are the same for all, and his combination of dedication and natural talent obviously give him an advantage.

Again your analogies support the other side of the argument. To make your ryzom analogy work in basketball it would have to be set up like this.

Team which wins the most number of games gets first draft pick. They continue to pick until the number of players they pick is the difference in no. of wins. So if team A has 100 wins and the next best team has 90, then TEAM A has the 1st 10 picks. Then team B picks until the number of players equals their wins advantage over the next best team. As we all know, basketball is not set up like this. This perpetuates the winning team always being the winning team. Of course you could have scouts with bad judgment and idiot General Manager's but the situation would be set up, as in ryzom, to favor a dynasty.

What the NBA does in fact is INCLUDE A BALANCING SYSTEM. The team which comes in last gets first pick of potential resources. The system in place works to improve the worst team (picking first) to the detriment of the best team (last pick). To bring your analogy into Ryzom, if you win an OP battle, the loser should have 1st crack at potential resources.

[jared96]

To put it in an easy arithmetics:
there are people who don't like pvp at all
people who enjoy pvp from time to time
who enjoy pvp for pvp's sake (reward is winning)
and who enjoy pvp only with a reward.

The current OP's implementation favours the last cathegory only.

- first cathegory is unhappy because pvp happens at all;

I don't know a single individual who feels that way. I know dozens of individuals (many of them now playing other games) whose only objection to PvP in Ryzom is that there is no PvE equivalent to the rewards that come with it.

If GF were to implement the following, I would bet that any and all objections by non PvP'ers would disppear:

1. provide quests where the reward is an OP mat.

2.a dump xp crystals

or

2.b Provide a means for neutral or non OP owning guilds to obtain them

There are no lore arguments against either of these. One option might be to let the inactive OP's be owned by NPC's who could call on these guilds to defend them against a kitin raid their scouts have deemed upcoming.

[danolt]

I do not think the OP imbalance has anything to do with the vast majority of players leaving. I think it is a lack of purpose. A lack of things to do, things to build, things to discover. It is irrelevant who has the OP's as far as story line. Folks train up to support their guild or faction only to discover that you have to take an OP from someone else to do it. That is not alot of fun for people who like to cooperate with other people. So they leave, they would have actually left a bit earlier but the OP thing keeps them for an extra couple weeks.

I think the answer to keeping players lies in an attitude. There has to be something more, something to build, foster, protect, preach etc.. OP's as they are now do not offer enough of that. Even if they did it would still exclude most players in the game.

Getting into the engineering allegories I would say the OP's are designed just fine. The problem was they did not do an environmental study first.

Bottom line: There really needs to be a mechanism for guilds/indviduals/factions to contribute to advancing Atysian culture without doing violence to someone else.

[jared96]

I do not think the OP imbalance has anything to do with the vast majority of players leaving. I think it is a lack of purpose. A lack of things to do, things to build, things to discover. It is irrelevant who has the OP's as far as story line. Folks train up to support their guild or faction only to discover that you have to take an OP from someone else to do it. That is not alot of fun for people who like to cooperate with other people. So they leave, they would have actually left a bit earlier but the OP thing keeps them for an extra couple weeks.

Well it did.....when introduced, we had a mass exodus.....and after sustained period of forum flaming another load just up and left. The rest have been straglers.

I think the answer to keeping players lies in an attitude. There has to be something more, something to build, foster, protect, preach etc.. OP's as they are now do not offer enough of that. Even if they did it would still exclude most players in the game.

Getting into the engineering allegories I would say the OP's are designed just fine. The problem was they did not do an environmental study first.

Yup. In addiiton, i think you want to avoid having 'classes" who feel that other classes are getting benefits that they aren't getting as this forments disatisfaction. I was originally attracted to this game because the early descriptions talked about an engineering / building skill ... we haven't seen that implemented yet and who knows if it's still on the "to do" list.

Bottom line: There really needs to be a mechanism for guilds/indviduals/factions to contribute to advancing Atysian culture without doing violence to someone else.

Well said.