Some of us yet cling to the mythical. Us few who sadly enjoy 1v1 more then any other form of combat.
Anyways, my thoughts:
- Seconding and thirding the buy-in. It would be great if you could get at least transcendent guild skills just by reaching level eighty or so. More people can participate more easily this way and besides, people that then go on to decide they enjoy the game are likely to want to buy credits in order to then learn other skills or whatever not. In fact, I think they are more likely to find the game enjoyable if they can at least have their guild skills sorted!
- Some form of open PK. I know there are champions now, but for people like myself who loathe hunting it is a chore to get it back every time you die. Maybe make champion status something you enter into for a set time. Maybe a new type of champion. I'm not sure. Just something where people who enjoy open PK can do so without endless hunting.
- Return of automated arena events. It can be hard to rally a support for an event sometimes. Also, if only a single person joins the event, they should get the favor. More encouragement for others to try and stop them getting an easy win!
1. Easy. Increase the number of bound credits earned on levels 20, 30, etc. It should be enough to get at least one trans skill -- currently, you can really only earn about 1200 lessons or so leveling from 1-100 without credits. Increasing that to maybe 2000-2500 would give people a trans skill with some lessons capable of being put into other skills, and won't significantly impact credit sales.
2. Open PK already exists in the form of "if you have a reason to PK someone, you are allowed to PK them". That reason can range anywhere from "He insulted me" to "He murdered my parents, kidnapped my sister and raped my cat." If you mean a type of open PK as in "kill everyone you want with no consequences just because you can", then maybe a persistent, open arena, or an area that continually spawns shards, or something, would be appropriate. Consensual open PK is great, but nonconsensual open PK opens up the doors for griefing and asshattery.
3. Ask someone with arena powers in a city to host an arena event! You know we can do that, right?
You're someone who likes to talk, typically people get into forced PK doing that because they say dumb things and don't realize it gives other people a reason to kill them for it.
- Seconding and thirding the buy-in. It would be great if you could get at least transcendent guild skills just by reaching level eighty or so. More people can participate more easily this way and besides, people that then go on to decide they enjoy the game are likely to want to buy credits in order to then learn other skills or whatever not. In fact, I think they are more likely to find the game enjoyable if they can at least have their guild skills sorted!
They've got to make money, somehow. Tri-trans by level 80 is a bit much, I think. I lean more towards something like "Almost single-trans by L80, with a fairly cheap one-time-only lesson package".
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
For someone who doesn't like pvp, you sure post about it a lot.
I like PVP. I just don't like forced PK.
It would be obvious that the open pk would be opt-in. If you don't want to be randomly jumped, don't do whatever gives you that status. Just because its open, doesn't mean it has to be forced.
You're someone who likes to talk, typically people get into forced PK doing that because they say dumb things and don't realize it gives other people a reason to kill them for it.
And this is why I don't say dumb things unless I'm ready to PK.
It would be obvious that the open pk would be opt-in. If you don't want to be randomly jumped, don't do whatever gives you that status. Just because its open, doesn't mean it has to be forced.
The phrase 'open PK' to me means 'kill anyone you want without consequence or reason'. Like Ultima Online's Felucca, or WoW's PVP realms.
An open PK area would be cool, but it'd have to have some incentive, like being a bashing area where the mobs drop a lot of gold/temporary low-level artifacts/etc or being an area where blue and red shards spawn over a constant period of time.
For someone who doesn't like pvp, you sure post about it a lot.
I like PVP. I just don't like forced PK.
It would be obvious that the open pk would be opt-in. If you don't want to be randomly jumped, don't do whatever gives you that status. Just because its open, doesn't mean it has to be forced.
There is a lot of truth to this. In the past I used to do a lot of stupid crap that got me jumped all the time. Most of the time, I wasn't even sure what it is I did that got me jumped. Then after being told, even though it was upsetting, I clearly had deserved it. I don't think there's much down the lines of forced PK. It's what you did that got you jumped, not what somebody else forced you to do.
Jarrhn tells you, ""Jarrhn has been sucked through Jarrhn's wormhole, and perished in the Dream Realm." Inception'd."
You're someone who likes to talk, typically people get into forced PK doing that because they say dumb things and don't realize it gives other people a reason to kill them for it.
And this is why I don't say dumb things unless I'm ready to PK.
It would be obvious that the open pk would be opt-in. If you don't want to be randomly jumped, don't do whatever gives you that status. Just because its open, doesn't mean it has to be forced.
The phrase 'open PK' to me means 'kill anyone you want without consequence or reason'. Like Ultima Online's Felucca, or WoW's PVP realms.
An open PK area would be cool, but it'd have to have some incentive, like being a bashing area where the mobs drop a lot of gold/temporary low-level artifacts/etc or being an area where blue and red shards spawn over a constant period of time.
"I can get into combat here whenever I want, and being here tells people I'm up for a fight" is also an incentive.
I am the righteous one... the claims are stated - it's the world I've created
The phrase 'open PK' to me means 'kill anyone you want without consequence or reason'. Like Ultima Online's Felucca, or WoW's PVP realms.
I think you are missing the point, that just because you are a champion or whatever it will be, you won't get to just go around killing whomever, but if you are a champion/whatever and someone else is too, then bam its free game. As such, it is completely opt-in open combat.
More opportunities for 1v1 centric classes to either be remade or made relevant again - I'm talking about Bard, Cleric as is right now, Druid, Knights, Druid, Hunter, Renegade, Assassin, Malignist. Sure, some have applications in team combat (Druid - Mega DPS, Knights - Stun Bots and Tanking, I guess Hunters), but they are relics of an old age where team combat wasn't accounted for. I would like to see them brought back in to relevance. I would prefer we introduce some duel-centric mechanics - Champions may be the place to do that. Remakes to make them group-centric are also acceptable, though.
It sounds like you are asking for classes to be made better for group combat?
If so, here is my answer. If not, feel free to mock me.
I doubt we will ever seriously try to balance or make classes better for group combat (on purpose). It is hard enough to try to balance 1v1 combat. Balancing team combat is impossible.
The opposite: I want more things to encourage singular/duel-centric combat. I am in a vast minority amongst my peers, and I may even be becoming one of those 'white knights' that Khizan mentioned, but I really miss the frequency at which I could get those kinds of fights. Even 1v2 was fine. Despite our argument on this topic two months ago, I will insist that duel-centric combat occurred more in the past and I often find myself wishing I could go back to that time. I think one of the best ways to ensure that is to finally do away with the last bastions of escape skills that are instant/difficult to stop - pathfinder, universe, hermit, mark return, etc. Hell, even pilg. I am a firm believer that most 'escape' skills should be on roughly the same code or concept as crystalhome and grove return.
What I am REALLY asking for is duel-centric classes like Bard and affliction classes to become relevant again by introducing reasons for people to fight alone - as this is where their killing power truly shines, or at least used to shine.
<div>Message #2062 Sent By: (imperian) Received On: 1/20/2018/2:59</div><div>"Antioch has filed a bounty against you. Reason: Raiding Antioch and stealing Bina, being a right</div><div>ass, and not belonging anywhere near Antioch till he grows up."</div>
I just don't see the point. I mean, not all classes are really capable of actual 1v1 combat at the higher tiers. 1v1 is fine, and it serves its purpose, but I would rather focus being on small group combat.
But I'm also a Justicar who doesn't have 3000cr worth of offensive artifact on Druid, so I'm probably biased.
‘Least I won’t have to carry it no more. You see how bloody heavy it is?’
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
I'm gonna go ahead and call you(@Sarrius) on that one. You're a fan of it now because Sarrius is heavily artifacted to the point where you can expect to win a great percentage of 1v1s just through sheer facerolling damage.
In the past you would not have been a fan of increased emphasis on 1v1 because you wouldn't have been able to power down those duelist/affliction classes before they got rolling.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
The buy in factor was what got me purchasing artifacts in the first place.
I reached a spot where I realised I was never going to kill Icarius, Eldreth or Tahm without investing and obviously as the years have gone on, the issue continues to the point where you're facing more of an uphill battle.
I don't know the answer to the problem however, because ultimately as a business it is required in order to remain open and accessible to everyone.
As was suggested previously, discounted entry level purchases to encourage more people to invest for a greater than before benefit might help.
I'm gonna go ahead and call you(@Sarrius) on that one. You're a fan of it now because Sarrius is heavily artifacted to the point where you can expect to win a great percentage of 1v1s just through sheer facerolling damage.
In the past you would not have been a fan of increased emphasis on 1v1 because you wouldn't have been able to power down those duelist/affliction classes before they got rolling.
I beg to differ: when I was only Arlith, you may have been able to say that with truth. Since I started playing Sarrius almost exclusively, however, I barely owned any artifacts but improved greatly as a player in the PK department to the point that I would have gladly taken my lumps in duels against heavily artifacted players (and did). In fact, I did and even killed some of them. I was never the best, I have always preferred duels over team combat since playing Sarrius. Granted, at some times, I was playing those duelist/affliction classes, but many times I was not and still had fun with it.
You can call me, but I definitely will tell you that you are wrong. I would love nothing more than to sell my artifacts and go play a duelist class but they just aren't viable or feasible in the environment the game now cultivates actively.
<div>Message #2062 Sent By: (imperian) Received On: 1/20/2018/2:59</div><div>"Antioch has filed a bounty against you. Reason: Raiding Antioch and stealing Bina, being a right</div><div>ass, and not belonging anywhere near Antioch till he grows up."</div>
While @Khizan may be right about @Sarrius and his change in attitude towards 1v1 I'm more inclined to agree with Sarrius. Team combat for the most part is a numbers game, and while there are some things you can do to turn the odds in your favour, its still in large part just a numbers game. I personally don't feel a challenge in it, win or lose. Two omni-trans people duking it out waiting for one person to make a mistake however is exciting to me, and something sorely missing outside of Freeforalls.
I dunno. I think numbers are definitely a factor, but I've taken out groups bigger than mine solely through having better personnel, better organization and playing it more intelligently. Most of the time 1v1 comes down to who is not playing the legacy class. Runeguards, Templars, Summoners, Malignists, Monks, Wytch (who admittedly got a skill change, but uh, how do they kill people?) and who is playing the new hotness, Druid, Hunter, Outrider, Defiler, Bard.
‘Least I won’t have to carry it no more. You see how bloody heavy it is?’
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
That would stand to reason that legacy classes are a drawback of emphasizing duels - which is MORE incentive to trash the legacy classes at a faster rate. I see no problem with this, because it means we can create our classes with both shardfalls/group combat and duels in mind. I feel like that is how Druid was designed and how classleads are leaning some classes.
I agree with Delrayne that team combat is mostly a numbers game and an organization game over all else. Nothing else matters in team combat except how many swords you can swing and how many people listen to hit one target or do one specific job. There are outliers, like the powerful Magick deathtrap nonsense (see the on-site forums post from Sanai for more on that hilarious gem of a strategy), but in general it comes down to numbers. I hate that.
<div>Message #2062 Sent By: (imperian) Received On: 1/20/2018/2:59</div><div>"Antioch has filed a bounty against you. Reason: Raiding Antioch and stealing Bina, being a right</div><div>ass, and not belonging anywhere near Antioch till he grows up."</div>
See, I don't see that at all. Two omni-trans people going at it is all too often two people throwing preventable kill methods at each other hoping lag or curing orders wins the fight for them. There's a reason so many FFAs end in coinflips between the highly skilled, and it's because the fights aren't interesting or fun enough to be worth the time.
On the other hand, small group combat makes it possible to actually overwhelm somebody. Intelligent target calling and switching, proper timing and combination of skills, group composition, tactics... all these things go into making a good group fight. Numbers matter, but I've routinely engaged larger groups with smaller ones and won because my side was more skilled. Better coordination, better tactics, better targeting, better communication. All these can easily give a smaller team the advantage.
Alpha strike Trez and watch as the other seven or so members of Team Stavenn start flailing and splitting DPS. Or, for that matter, watching Trez give the order to direct all fire into the runeguard while the mage gets to freecast synched holobombs. Or, for that matter, drop Juran and watch his team do a lot of the same things. All these things can cost a numerically superior team an 'easy' victory.
If you say team combat is nothing but numbers, you're probably bad at it.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
No. He's just a notable example of a somewhat-decent leader who proved to be a hilariously huge failure point on his team. If you dropped him his team reacted like a bunch of headless chickens.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
<div>Message #2062 Sent By: (imperian) Received On: 1/20/2018/2:59</div><div>"Antioch has filed a bounty against you. Reason: Raiding Antioch and stealing Bina, being a right</div><div>ass, and not belonging anywhere near Antioch till he grows up."</div>
While @Khizan may be right about @Sarrius and his change in attitude towards 1v1 I'm more inclined to agree with Sarrius. Team combat for the most part is a numbers game, and while there are some things you can do to turn the odds in your favour, its still in large part just a numbers game. I personally don't feel a challenge in it, win or lose. Two omni-trans people duking it out waiting for one person to make a mistake however is exciting to me, and something sorely missing outside of Freeforalls.
Team combat is a numbers game if everything else is equal.
Fortunately, everything else is never equal, and that's how small group vs zerg clot sometimes still ends in favor of the small group.
I did say there were factors that could sway the odds in your favour(see @Khizan point those factors out a few posts up). I don't try to lead to team frays, because it'd be pretty obvious I'd be pretty horribad at it. But on that note, I don't really care to learn to lead it because it just doesn't interest me the way it does you. Will I participate in team battles? Sure. Is it what I call ultimate Imperian fun? No. This is a game for multiple people, not just the groupy combatants. There is no reason why we both can't get what we want. You don't have to participate in the 1v1 skirmishes if you don't want to, just like I don't have to lead group battles if I don't want to. But to say its dumb, boring, or not worth trying to bring back is just a matter of your perception. Everyone's perception is different. What you think is the greatest thing ever, someone else might think is just sort of meh.
Group combat got a major initiative with the shardfalls and to a lesser extent the obelisks. Show a little a love to the other side of that coin for second is all we are asking.
Emotional appeals aside, the thing is that with the general state of the game.. team combat is more inclusive than 1v1 is really capable of being, and the effort required to dig it out of that incredibly deep pit is both monumental at best and something that would probably require IRE to take a tack involving making less money.
The classleads and class redesigns will come, but statements like 'we can't balance for team combat' don't bode well for anyone. We need an eye for both, but when they come into conflict, team combat really and honestly should be the development priority if only because it is the best way to get the most people involved in combat. The entry barriers are lower, the burden of knowledge is reduced, the skill factor required is variable (leading: hard. being the crybot: easy), more classes are viable at it, more strategies are viable in it, etc.
I don't think anyone is saying 'NEVER DEVELOP ANYTHING FOR 1v1', but rather that 1v1 shouldn't be the primary focus above all else. And that, in all honesty, I don't think can really be argued with.
Unless you believe that autocuring is ruining the game and things were better when most people had linear systems at best and ciguatoxin/aconite could lock up 90% of the game. Looking at you, bad posters on the Imperian facebook group.
I'll agree with that @Sanai team combat does deserve the primary focus, and the entry barriers are certainly lower. But from what I've seen team combat has been the primary focus for quite a while now. Its in a pretty good state for the time being with shardfalls every three hours, so why not get the ball rolling on something for some 1v1's then? By all means, don't detract from what will keep players actually playing the game. But at least throw some ideas on the wall and see what sticks and begin developing them alongside everything else. Give the "white knighters" one thing and they'll be happy for quite awhile, I think they would anyway.
Okay, fair enough. I will not say that we will not try to fix major issues in team combat. Obviously we will. What I mean is that there is absolutely no way we will ever be able to make team combat super fair. Trying to fix every little team combat possibility is just not feasible.
I am thinking about creating more opportunities for 1v1. This revolves mainly around things where two people are want the same thing and have to fight to decide who gets it (like shards). This opens many little other problems of course, but I am looking into it.
Okay, fair enough. I will not say that we will not try to fix major issues in team combat. Obviously we will. What I mean is that there is absolutely no way we will ever be able to make team combat super fair. Trying to fix every little team combat possibility is just not feasible.
I am thinking about creating more opportunities for 1v1. This revolves mainly around things where two people are want the same thing and have to fight to decide who gets it (like shards). This opens many little other problems of course, but I am looking into it.
This is the kind of post you should have made in the classlead thread, not "No we are absolutely not going to balance for team combat, the variables would be ridiculous." :P This one is reasonable and accurate.
I just don't want to see mechanics that basically become forcible 1v1 duels, like the Aetherstorm things were. I'm not too fond of mechanics that force me to try to 1v1 tanky artifacted affliction classes in confined spaces, etc, etc.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Are there any plans within the short term to finish the generic defense messages project? It started optimistically, but after two years still only has perhaps 10 defenses listed.
For reference if you're unfamiliar, you can 'config defmessages on' and see 'You will see generic defence messages.', which results in things like: "You have gained the anti-weapon field defence." being displayed. Unfortunately, the number of defences that it currently shows is disappointingly small and it has been this way now for a long time.
Comments
Anyways, my thoughts:
- Seconding and thirding the buy-in. It would be great if you could get at least transcendent guild skills just by reaching level eighty or so. More people can participate more easily this way and besides, people that then go on to decide they enjoy the game are likely to want to buy credits in order to then learn other skills or whatever not. In fact, I think they are more likely to find the game enjoyable if they can at least have their guild skills sorted!
- Some form of open PK. I know there are champions now, but for people like myself who loathe hunting it is a chore to get it back every time you die. Maybe make champion status something you enter into for a set time. Maybe a new type of champion. I'm not sure. Just something where people who enjoy open PK can do so without endless hunting.
- Return of automated arena events. It can be hard to rally a support for an event sometimes. Also, if only a single person joins the event, they should get the favor. More encouragement for others to try and stop them getting an easy win!
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
the claims are stated - it's the world I've created
What I am REALLY asking for is duel-centric classes like Bard and affliction classes to become relevant again by introducing reasons for people to fight alone - as this is where their killing power truly shines, or at least used to shine.
But I'm also a Justicar who doesn't have 3000cr worth of offensive artifact on Druid, so I'm probably biased.
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
I'm gonna go ahead and call you(@Sarrius) on that one. You're a fan of it now because Sarrius is heavily artifacted to the point where you can expect to win a great percentage of 1v1s just through sheer facerolling damage.
In the past you would not have been a fan of increased emphasis on 1v1 because you wouldn't have been able to power down those duelist/affliction classes before they got rolling.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
You can call me, but I definitely will tell you that you are wrong. I would love nothing more than to sell my artifacts and go play a duelist class but they just aren't viable or feasible in the environment the game now cultivates actively.
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
I agree with Delrayne that team combat is mostly a numbers game and an organization game over all else. Nothing else matters in team combat except how many swords you can swing and how many people listen to hit one target or do one specific job. There are outliers, like the powerful Magick deathtrap nonsense (see the on-site forums post from Sanai for more on that hilarious gem of a strategy), but in general it comes down to numbers. I hate that.
See, I don't see that at all. Two omni-trans people going at it is all too often two people throwing preventable kill methods at each other hoping lag or curing orders wins the fight for them. There's a reason so many FFAs end in coinflips between the highly skilled, and it's because the fights aren't interesting or fun enough to be worth the time.
On the other hand, small group combat makes it possible to actually overwhelm somebody. Intelligent target calling and switching, proper timing and combination of skills, group composition, tactics... all these things go into making a good group fight. Numbers matter, but I've routinely engaged larger groups with smaller ones and won because my side was more skilled. Better coordination, better tactics, better targeting, better communication. All these can easily give a smaller team the advantage.
Alpha strike Trez and watch as the other seven or so members of Team Stavenn start flailing and splitting DPS. Or, for that matter, watching Trez give the order to direct all fire into the runeguard while the mage gets to freecast synched holobombs. Or, for that matter, drop Juran and watch his team do a lot of the same things. All these things can cost a numerically superior team an 'easy' victory.
If you say team combat is nothing but numbers, you're probably bad at it.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Fortunately, everything else is never equal, and that's how small group vs zerg clot sometimes still ends in favor of the small group.
Group combat got a major initiative with the shardfalls and to a lesser extent the obelisks. Show a little a love to the other side of that coin for second is all we are asking.
The classleads and class redesigns will come, but statements like 'we can't balance for team combat' don't bode well for anyone. We need an eye for both, but when they come into conflict, team combat really and honestly should be the development priority if only because it is the best way to get the most people involved in combat. The entry barriers are lower, the burden of knowledge is reduced, the skill factor required is variable (leading: hard. being the crybot: easy), more classes are viable at it, more strategies are viable in it, etc.
I don't think anyone is saying 'NEVER DEVELOP ANYTHING FOR 1v1', but rather that 1v1 shouldn't be the primary focus above all else. And that, in all honesty, I don't think can really be argued with.
Unless you believe that autocuring is ruining the game and things were better when most people had linear systems at best and ciguatoxin/aconite could lock up 90% of the game. Looking at you, bad posters on the Imperian facebook group.
This is the kind of post you should have made in the classlead thread, not "No we are absolutely not going to balance for team combat, the variables would be ridiculous." :P This one is reasonable and accurate.
I just don't want to see mechanics that basically become forcible 1v1 duels, like the Aetherstorm things were. I'm not too fond of mechanics that force me to try to 1v1 tanky artifacted affliction classes in confined spaces, etc, etc.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."