Kitsune9tails

Attacking the enemy in a PvP zone with the express purpose of preventing them from acheiving a PvE goal in that zone is not griefing. It's kind of the point.

Asking them to stop is a valid action; but they can refuse and that is also valid. It would be NICE of them to stop, but (sadly) the main reason those PvE goals are there is so that you will enter a PvP zone and get attacked (and hopefully discover a new world of exciting fun in the process).

The OP's point is that while there is nothing wrong with farming or powerlevelling per se, there is a maximum rate of reward gain for which the game is designed.

Hence: put a 'speed limit' on the maximum amount of reward gain, and be done with it. Then people can play the content however they want and worry less about nerfs. Heck, rewards could even be increased as a result.

Of course, there's no such thing as a free lunch: people who are already above the 'speed limit' would have to slow down. People who don't enjoy farming, but feel they 'have to to keep up' would end up repeating easy content and then complaining that the easy content is there to be repeated. People who feel they have to thwart or beat the game in order to have fun would move on to other games (not being facetious, these are all legitimate paying customers).

I don't know about the specific numbers quoted, but the Devs can figure all of that out: the principle, IMHO, is a good one. Arcanaville and I discussed this a bit (she had reservations about the idea, particularly how it could be implemented while accounting for 'spikes' in progress), but it's similar to one I suggested.

I feel confident that a 'speed limit' could be imposed that would allow devs to increase the amount and variety of rewards in the game, while impeding less that 5% (made up number) of the playerbase.

Omelets, eggs.

Some good points.

What if there were a few tiered zones, and an additional 'free for all' zone? So long as the noobs are warned when clicking to enter that they can face PvPers of all tiers if they continue, I don't see a problem.

Of course, some will not read the text and then whine, but that is unavoidable.

The 'free for all' zone would be where vets train noobs and SGs go to fight.

The main headscratcher for me is the gal who is 'accidentally' bumped to a higher tier by having one good day. My instinct is to say, "sink or swim, baby" (after all, its no worse a situation than the current one) but there may be a better solution I haven't thought of.

And any vet who makes a new character just to roll newbs is welcome to do so: the idea is that he's going to level himself out of the zone and have to rinse repeat with a new character soon enough.

It all seems to boil down to one fact, IMHO:

Noobs and Vets should be separated.

Vets don't really want to fight noobs: they are no challenge, they whine, and it just drives them away from PvP completely, resulting in a dead PvP zone.

Noobs don't really want to fight vets: they can't win against them, they can't escape them, all they can really do is hit the hospital button over and over. With the wrong build, skills, and mindset, they can't even form a strategy, and worse -- they have no incentive to. Since their experiences are telling them PvP "isn't fun", why should they want to get good at it?

In addition to vets taking noobs under their wing, what I think would help would be a revamp of the rep system:

Idea: There are seperate PvP zones for various Rep Tiers, and you can't play in a zone too low for your Rep.

It would have to be very difficult to lose Rep, to prevent players from sandbagging for a while via twoboxing and dropping down so they could snipe lower tiers. But it may be necessary to allow players to sometimes drop a tier, for the occaision when a lucky streak pushes you over when you aren't really ready yet.

Sure, you would still see the occaisional vet sniping for low tier players with a new character, but their own success would drive them out of the zone.

In general, players who were interested in PvP, but borderline, could go into the noob zone and probably do all right, facing players similar to themselves: Players on their PvE build, RPers, and those just there for the zone goodies.

Then, as they continued being successful, they could graduate to another tier. Sure, every time you to a new tier, you would get thrashed for awhile, but you could know that you are facing players of the same general skill at both builds and play.

Moreover, a setup like this would open the door for more PvP rewards: with PvP broken into tiers, you don't have to worry so much about someone who has earned an OMGCannon 9000 running around with it repeatedly one-shotting you: they will just level themselves to the next tier and be out of your hair. Hope they picked up some Skillz...

...just an idea...

Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!

Which begs the question: what are some of the things you would like to see implemented, and how would you like to see them done?

If the Devs are thinking in this direction, it isn't too early to suggest what we might want.

There is just so much stuff that is fun to do that it is difficult to fit it all into one game and have it all be good.

However, it seems that MMOs may have an advantage here.

Years after launch, if you think up an awesome minigame or a cool new area or a scary new boss, you can just add it.

In theory, anyway...

Okay good point.

Although one way of dealing with the fact that team capabilities have a wide range, you could uncouple the alternative path to victory from the capabilities of the team completely (or nearly completely). For instance, you can win by clicking 8 different glowies in seperate rooms within 1 second of each other. Or, you can beat down the bad guy, who was designed to be a challenge to 6 average players.

That way, a team that can't beat down the bad guy (due to bad powerset matchup or whatever) can try to recruit warm bodies and click the glowies instead.

Just a thought.

The issue with having 'partial victory' in a scenario is mostly one of presentation I think. "You were sent to the hospital, but you have gained x component that could be used to build a device that can hurt the boss' might be viewed by some as 'losing, but with a consolation prize'.

What if a Contact said something like:

- If you defeat all of the mook foes in this warehouse, I will give you x merits.
- If you defeat the named boss, I will give you this enhancement.
- If you destroy the Mac Guffin, I will award you with x influence.

...and so on, with each goal being clearly independent?

Good idea? Bad idea?

...and Samuel Tow: glad to make you smile.

I am definitely in favor of a 'third option' being present in MMO encounters, although I'd advocate a different direction than what Arcanaville expouses above.

For instance besides winning or losing a fight against an AV, what if the third option were "thwart the evil master plan" in some form seperate from winning or losing per se?

For instance, what if you could thwart an evil mastermind's plan by destroying his death ray device rather than clubbing him unconscious (but winning by beating him down were still an option)? We already have a bit of this in missions that require you to keep a foe from escaping or protect an object, but those missions themselves are still binary: you protect the object or don't.

Another way to do it would be to stock instanced areas with temp powers/manipulable objects that could be used to help defeat a foe, or combined puzzle-fashion, into a device that allows an alternative win scenario.

Of course the challenge there is balancing these 'minigames' so that they are equivalent challenges to just fighting it out.

Another thing I have also suggested before is a mission creation system different from the Architect, but similar in some ways to both it and newspaper missions. Having some outdoor enemies drop 'clues' when defeated that could be assembled into a tradeable mission. For instance, defeating a foe might drop a Clue that something was going on in Steel Canyon. Another foe might drop a Clue that a heist was planned. Yet another foe might drop a Clue that the Tsoo were planning something.

Put them all together and you create a mission to defeat Tsoo in Steel Canyon at a heist.

Both heroes and villains could use such a system to be more proactive in their stories.

This could even lead to an interesting type of character: an information broker kind of PC who collects Clues and manufactures Missions to order.

But to bring this back to the OP, I think that to be a successful MMO, you need interesting and rewarding ways for your Massive number of players to interact and interdepend.

I think the Tabula Rasa Devs launched a game they didn't feel was fun (if they did) because the contracturaly had to at that point. Unless you are Blizzard, at some point it is 'release what you have and let's see if we can fix it later', or else "well we can't fund this project any more; have fun in the job market".

The thing is, the Devs could think the game was crack on toast wrapped in bacon and it still might not hit a chord with the market. But they do have a responsibility to release a game they can stand up for and feel is fun. Unless the suits force their hand.

MMOs can only survive if they make a reasonable amount of money LONG AFTER you bought the box. Other types of games don't have to do that.

MMO devs beleive that the best way for a game to have longevity is if the players make infinite content for each other, because all MMO developers know that they cannot do what is essentially releasing a brand new 80 hour game every month, which is still to slow a rate of content production for many MMO gamers.

So we have to get the players to play together. But how? So far, the two answers are "PvP" and the 'trinity'.

Since it is a hassle getting to know other people and having them enhance your play, it has to be rewarded. Thus, MMOs give higher and faster rewards to teams, and create classes that both allow a player to feel needed for a team and therefore need the team to excel.

It comes down to the fact that there is a basic assumption that the type of gamer who wants to play in an MMO is the type of gamer who wants to feel needed on a team.

The problem is that increasingly, although a typical gamer wants to be needed for a team, at the same time she wants to not need the team. Paradox.

City of X has mostly solved the puzzle. However, there are those who complain even nw that villains don't synergize well enough and that heroes are too interdependent.

It has taken them a lot of time and cost them a lot of customers to get to where they are. Many other companies will not take the time and pay the price to get it right.

In that specific case, I'm not talking about the story in progress, I'm talking about the tendency of a new writer or editor in charge of a title to retcon the book, historically.

I just wish writers would respect the work of their predecessors, even if they disagree.

I don't like OMD or the death of Captain America, but if I were to become EIC of Marvel tomorrow, I most certainly would not sign off on a retcon of those events, despite the temptation.

If I want Spidey and MJ to be married, it's easy enough to write a story where they get remarried and then have to deal with the consequences of breaking their deal with Mephisto. You don't have to hand wave it all away.

If I wanted Captain America (Steve Rogers) back, there are plenty of ways to do that without 'revealing he was alive the whole time in hiding', time travel, or any of that.

But I probably wouldn't do either of those things, because of respect for writers and the history of a world. Cap died; it was (IMHO) dumb how it went down and unworthy of the character. But let's move on and tell stories about the future, not the past.

It's a story. You can have anything happen, and move the status quo into whatever you want it to be over time, and it will be more meaningful and permanent than having some handy reality warper just suddenly 'wish' reality was the way it was when you first got into comics.

It seems like too many writers and editors are more concerned with making their mark on the status quo (only to be hand waved away by the next writer) than just telling good stories and then building more good stories out the repercussions of what came before.

Now, there will always be retcons, even if it's just of the "it was a Doombot" variety. But the entire job of the editor is to build a fun universe and part of that is not trampling what got you here.

If you cause the fans to lose connection with what came before, they are certainly not going to form connections with the history you set forth either. They are just going to yawn and wait for the next regime to hit the reset button again.

I think that as the future rolls toward us, we are going to see more and more inventive niche MMOs, as more and more developers give up on sinking a bunch of money into a WoW clone in the idiotic hope that everyone who likes WoW is going to migrate to an identical game.

However, in order for these niche games to get noticed, purchased and survive, they have to advertise in a way that draws in an audience.

Part of that advertisement will necessarily be about in what ways they are similar to and different from existing games.

The 'holy trinity' of healer/tanker/dps is going to get mentioned due to sheer familiarity among MMO players, and most games are going to claim that they have some analog unless they are really wierd and have no 'classes' that can possibly conform to those rolls.

This is in large part due to a big puzzle in game design:

- If you design a game where a 'trinity' can be constructed and used, players will use it and complain that it is derivative.
- If you design a game where all characters are self-sufficient (or where a trinity of teamed specialists are no more successful than anything else), the social aspect of the game will die because no one will bother to team.

To me, it all boils down to MMO investors choosing to aim low and be pleasantly suprised when they get more, than to aim for the moon and feel burned when they fall short.

Put a large investment into a niche game and you have a better chance of having a better game that may expand beyond the niche because of its quality, because the money is being focused on appealing to the niche market.

Put a large investment into a 'lowest common denominator' game and you will have a mediocre game that does what everyone else is already doing, because the you are basically spending the same money that they spent on the same things they spent it on. You are seeling a red car that is funtionally identical to thei blue one.

You can replace the word 'game' with the word movie, tv show, music, whatever.

The delusion that investors cling to that it is possible to mitigate their risk is a fallacy that hurts everything. It's not possible because creating popular media is more of an art than a science. The quality of an entertainment product really has little to do with whether or not it will be popular.

For proof, I refer you to any list of highest grossing movies, songs, or whatever.

Nearly all products reach a point where there are certain things expected from it if it is going to be 'mainstream' (and thus have the best chance of making money). This especially includes stories, and most genre works are at base a story.

In order to have an innovative MMO (or tv show, or comic book, or movie, etc), you basically have to have one main thing:

Money from a source that is more interested in seeing the project realized than in making a profit.

Once you have the money, you can hire talented 'type R' programmers and acclaimed artists and excellent writers and superaltive showrunners. Of course, you also have to make sure the people you have hired are on board to innovate as well. Then you get your project made and you are done. At that point, you have won, whether the project makes money for you or not.

Whether your project makes money or not at that point is up to the people. You may spark a wave of imitators of your own, or vanish into the mists of obscurity.

However, it is a slippery slope indeed once you start trying to draw in specific markets or demographics or dumb things down for an audience. I mean, you have this wonderful innovative, dynamic world with decisions and consequences...why not add a bank? And you could make so much money if the first few levels were easier. And you should add a monster that you can camp for those people who like that sort of thing, and...

MMOs are made of the same thing as most other things: money molecules.