Addressing the state of game

[Caloss2]

Don't get mad if I use your words against you. You are the one that said, "doesn't make it right or moral, just the exploitation of a situation to serve ones self." I was agreeing with you but I wanted to make sure you did not make "exceptions" to that philosophy that just served ones self.

Now I did say..."you have a philosophical difference of opinion of what is "cheating" and we can leave it at that." But I can only assume you wanted to debate the subject further so...I am in debate mode now and you better bring your A game.

You cat argument holds zero weight if I came from a culture that hates cats like you might hate getting the flu, I wouldn't care if a cat was stomped. A better way to spell that would take it another step, some Asian cultures worship cows and would never think of eating them. But in the USA no one blinks at a slaughter house before having a burger and fries. Further still some people believe any form of killing is wrong, stomped cats, insects, plants, and bacteria.

Its still a matter of opinion pure and simple. Some things you might look at as no big deal or small potatoes, while others might think it is huge. Multiboxing personally is no big deal to me because I don't have towers, and rarely go to battle station. But to others that log on exclusively for towers or bat station might find it a big deal. Get it?

I think it's hypocritical to say your way of playing is the only "legal" way and anyone who doesn't play like you do is "cheating".
You have logged multiple toons on in AO and guess what so has the multiboxer.

Well firstly lets dispense with some of your illusions, as in what you think you have done verses what you have actually done.
You still have no argument as you have just clearly demonstrated, again dragging in more and more misdirection "oh cows this culture" "oh imaginary culture that hates cats" You are simply furnishing a perfect abstract with more abstracts, that is not debate, that is monkey see monkey point.
So is your argument there is no such thing as morals or that you don't possess any, or that whatever they are they can't belong in a game with rules, because when you introduce rules you have also introduced morals.

The reason you can't hope to argue your point, is because you don't have one, I thought that was obvious from my former post, but it seems I have to spell it out for you,.

[Psikie]

As someone that plays mmorpg's (as opposed to single player rpg's) I pretty much lump sum things into two categories: 1. Actions that promote teamplay and encourage active subscribers. 2. Actions that do not.

I think what most people mean when they say that activity X is wrong is that it doesn't fall in what I listed as category 1 above.

Would you categorize solo daily missions as category 2?

(im just bored at work and like to debate lol)

So is your argument there is no such thing as morals or that you don't possess any, or that whatever they are they can't belong in a game with rules, because when you introduce rules you have also introduced morals.

I am sooo glad you said that. Last time I checked per FC Devs, multiboxing is NOT breaking any rules, therefore by YOUR OWN definition it is not morally wrong. Unless I misunderstood your meaning that in order to stand on the moral high ground you must follow the rules correct? Because as of today MB is NOT breaking any rules per FC.

O SNAP- <insert cool animated gif>

[Anonimofied]

Nevermind what is right, wrong, good or bad, dont be happy or sad
By accepting nothing, you wont concerns about anything
Too much good creates jealousy, too much bad breeds courtesy
Harmony does not exists in one or another, but in balance between all together

[Caloss2]

Would you categorize solo daily missions as category 2?

(im just bored at work and like to debate lol)



I am sooo glad you said that. Last time I checked per FC Devs, multiboxing is NOT breaking any rules, therefore by YOUR OWN definition it is not morally wrong. Unless I misunderstood your meaning that in order to stand on the moral high ground you must follow the rules correct? Because as of today MB is NOT breaking any rules per FC.

O SNAP- <insert cool animated gif>

Actually no, the last time the DEV's spoke about it, they agreed it was harmful to the game in pvp but had no way to enforce a rule against it.

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...ou-close/page9

It's harmful to the game that's why I'm against it, morals can be applied to that also.

[Psikie]

Actually no, the last time the DEV's spoke about it, they agreed it was harmful to the game in pvp but had no way to enforce a rule against it.

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...ou-close/page9

It's harmful to the game that's why I'm against it, morals can be applied to that also.

Are you kidding here? roflol I believe Macrosun said the following directed at you... "Good job with the selective reading and missing the point entirely."

and also this... "From an entirely technical standpoint, and without saying multilogging/boxing (which are essentially the same thing) is bad or good, I don't really see how you expect to be able to tell the difference."

You know I can sit back and laugh now because you dont want to debate. You want to QQ for attention. You do realize i have zero vested interest in MB i dont do towers and rarely do bat station so i could care less. You on the other hand have already shown how emotionally attached to this subject you are. All I stated was it is not against any rules. Which is isn't. You can say it's bad all you want but it is still just an opinion.

All your opinions are based around pvp. Guess what pvp is less than 10% of the game.

[Caloss2]

Are you kidding here? roflol I believe Macrosun said the following directed at you... "Good job with the selective reading and missing the point entirely."

and also this... "From an entirely technical standpoint, and without saying multilogging/boxing (which are essentially the same thing) is bad or good, I don't really see how you expect to be able to tell the difference."

You know I can sit back and laugh now because you dont want to debate. You want to QQ for attention. You do realize i have zero vested interest in MB i dont do towers and rarely do bat station so i could care less. You on the other hand have already shown how emotionally attached to this subject you are. All I stated was it is not against any rules. Which is isn't. You can say it's bad all you want but it is still just an opinion.



All your opinions are based around pvp. Guess what pvp is less than 10% of the game.

Ah thought your posting style looked familiar... Mensa troll
http://www.somethingawful.com/guides...-posting-on/2/

Yup pretty textbook example in that last post.
Firstly, I don't concern myself with attention either way.
Its "I couldn't care less"
When a situation causes people to leave a game, then I THINK it's bad for the game, not FEEL it's bad for the game.
My opinions are not based solely around pvp, nothing I've said specifically states that, my opinions are based around concerns for the game collapsing.
PVP is less than 5% of the game, so many players left over the MB situation; did you notice how much quieter it has gotten this year, and numbers are not seasonally climbing again at the end of summer.

If you want to know what my opinions are actually based on, it's on a real concern for this game that I've played since launch collapsing, key players leaving is causing a trophic cascade in over all active players and in game activity's.

But that aside, I'm done wasting my time with a wannabe mensa troll.

[Pafpuf]

The first step towards fixing pvp in this game is to remove level-lock ranges which would effectively make it engame only, low levels are incredibly imbalanced (not saying 220 isn't but pales in comparison really) and splitting an already low population across a dozen level ranges certainly doesn't help either. Plus that would fix the common "they always bring high levels to gank low levels" complaint.

Of course this will cause a rabble among the lowbie-twinkers population but lets be honest here; even though I understand the effort in twinking a lowbie char to their limits all that mechanic does is create even more imbalance (after you consider how badly some perks, weapons, and nanos scale with levels) because not everyone has the time or will to spend countless hours and billions of credits on a character who's sole purpose is to fight the very few other active players in their level range who can put up an actual fight.

Then and only then can balancing of notum wars really be taken into considersation.

As for battlestations, I've written down suggestions on how to improve them by removing teleporters, how to prevent spawn camping and increase overall activity by adding worthwhile loot for victory points dozens of times by now. They all fall on deaf ears, as usual.

[Xootch]

The first step towards fixing pvp in this game is to remove level-lock ranges which would effectively make it engame only, low levels are incredibly imbalanced (not saying 220 isn't but pales in comparison really) and splitting an already low population across a dozen level ranges certainly doesn't help either. Plus that would fix the common "they always bring high levels to gank low levels" complaint.

Of course this will cause a rabble among the lowbie-twinkers population but lets be honest here; even though I understand the effort in twinking a lowbie char to their limits all that mechanic does is create even more imbalance (after you consider how badly some perks, weapons, and nanos scale with levels) because not everyone has the time or will to spend countless hours and billions of credits on a character who's sole purpose is to fight the very few other active players in their level range who can put up an actual fight.

Then and only then can balancing of notum wars really be taken into considersation.

As for battlestations, I've written down suggestions on how to improve them by removing teleporters, how to prevent spawn camping and increase overall activity by adding worthwhile loot for victory points dozens of times by now. They all fall on deaf ears, as usual.

i'd rather titlelevellock pvp. what's annoying about low level pvp is that once a level gets popular, people built higher twinks just in range to gank these twinks. make tl5 tl5 only. may want to readjust the ranges but i agree that the current concept doesnt work with the population thats left imo.

as for the battlestation. i really dont care about all of these, the first thing is to stop 2 vs 6 round and the like. that is the most game killing experience if you wait for hours to get up there only to find yourself ridiculously outnumbered and then have to wait for hours again to have another go at getting farmed by zergs. how they could publish a separate extension basically for battle stations and not have the queuing mechanics worked out half decently is beyond me. and it literally has been years now.

[Pafpuf]

i'd rather titlelevellock pvp. what's annoying about low level pvp is that once a level gets popular, people built higher twinks just in range to gank these twinks. make tl5 tl5 only. may want to readjust the ranges but i agree that the current concept doesnt work with the population thats left imo.

as for the battlestation. i really dont care about all of these, the first thing is to stop 2 vs 6 round and the like. that is the most game killing experience if you wait for hours to get up there only to find yourself ridiculously outnumbered and then have to wait for hours again to have another go at getting farmed by zergs. how they could publish a separate extension basically for battle stations and not have the queuing mechanics worked out half decently is beyond me. and it literally has been years now.

Title level lock would effectively be the same as level locking pvp to the highest level of their respective title level. Without the possibility of lowbie ganking there's no purpose to twinks of varying levels and who in their right mind would make a lvl 120 char to fight lvl 150s, for example. Title levels if anything should remain in game only as a cosmetic thing as they do not follow any pattern of scaling or balance.

I know most, if not every mmorpg have lowbie battlegrounds or whatever they like to call them. What they don't have (and AO does) is lots of levels, level locked items perks etc. that are very imbalanced throughout levels 1-220 which means that balancing this game would require redoing all items, perks and nanos which is a lot of work. Considering funcom's AO team don't have the knowledge and/or manpower to make a cup of coffee in the morning I'm suggesting the simplest, least harmful and most reasonable solution to make pvp in this game actually viable. Considering the very low population it simply has to be centralized around something and the most logical choice would be - endgame.

Of course the outnumbering on battlestations (and NW) is a huge problem as well, it's a reason why I never took NW seriously to begin with.

[Xootch]

Title level lock would effectively be the same as level locking pvp to the highest level of their respective title level. Without the possibility of lowbie ganking there's no purpose to twinks of varying levels and who in their right mind would make a lvl 120 char to fight lvl 150s, for example. Title levels if anything should remain in game only as a cosmetic thing as they do not follow any pattern of scaling or balance.

I know most, if not every mmorpg have lowbie battlegrounds or whatever they like to call them. What they don't have (and AO does) is lots of levels, level locked items perks etc. that are very imbalanced throughout levels 1-220 which means that balancing this game would require redoing all items, perks and nanos which is a lot of work. Considering funcom's AO team don't have the knowledge and/or manpower to make a cup of coffee in the morning I'm suggesting the simplest, least harmful and most reasonable solution to make pvp in this game actually viable. Considering the very low population it simply has to be centralized around something and the most logical choice would be - endgame.

Of course the outnumbering on battlestations (and NW) is a huge problem as well, it's a reason why I never took NW seriously to begin with.

1.well with titlelevel locks you would fight your tl battles with 189s. nothing higher could attack it, and staying 174 would make no sense whatsoever. tl 4 toons would be all 149 etc. but this is meh. i'm ok with any change here.

2.yeah, but in nw theres not much you could reasonably do without changing the way it works (only solution i can come up with is to limit the number of players in a field of each side) but for battle stations it simply is broken game mechanics. no that sounds too friendly. game coding incompetence. yeah, that's better.

[Psikie]

Ah thought your posting style looked familiar... Mensa troll
http://www.somethingawful.com/guides...-posting-on/2/

But that aside, I'm done wasting my time with a wannabe mensa troll.

Hahaha That is awesome. Can I add that to my signature?

You try to quote a Dev and instead got caught with your hand in the cookie jar so you turn around and try to insult me lol. I will accept title of mensa troll if you accept the long title of..."I can't debate so instead turn to name calling when I get busted posting falsehoods." I don't expect a response because you don't have time to feed the trolls right? You aren't looking for attention or the last word either right? You just post in 5-10 different threads about how your opinion of MB is the only correct one. roflol

[Xarliana]

Ok, I am resurrecting this thread with my own input.

I agree to adding global incentive to NW. Now, I imagine that it would be somewhat of a major task to implement something like this. However, I have a few ideas:

- Spawn an NPC that provides a buff to the winning side similar to the gauntlet buff.
- Provide new items that can only be worn by the winning side (based on total number of towers controlled), 0% effective if your side goes to losing.
- Create a similar currency to VP that is geared towards purchasing new items. Physical tokens get mailed to the guild leader every week based on the number of owned sites (and QL).
Currency is able to be traded (new incentive to earn credits?)
- Tie NW to entry into a new instance (only winning side can enter) that gives new loot.
- Tie NW more into vehicles, add new turrets that are immune to player damage (and take a lot of damage from vehicles) that provide substantial stats for placement.

Now, that is just the tip of the iceberg, but I think you get the idea. Just implementing one of those would provide a great deal of influence for people to participate in NW. Now, here's where things get interesting. If we have a lot of people interested in doing NW, we should build upon that. Take that interest in NW and apply it to BS as well. I think a really good solution to that would be to make towers, contracts etc. cost VP instead of credits. Remove the ability for towers to be tradeskilled, and sell them in QL 1-300 @ increments of 10/20/25. Additionally, these towers should be No Drop. As a precursor to this, all player VP should be wiped (with substantial time to allow players to spend their saved VP).

I am no big fan of the current state of BS. Low level, high level, I think it's a mess. One of the major issues is that people will go to sign up, be low in queue, and then go do something else. In the middle of their other endeavor, the queue pops so they decline it. This also causes the ghost BS's and a host of other issues. Here are my proposed changes:

- Remove the queue/play/reset structure from BS, instead, have it be a static instance that anyone can leave or join at any time - think Fusang in TSW.
- Drastically increase the amount of VP you get for a kill.
- Capping a control point nets VP to every friendly player.
- Repurpose control points to have PvPvE.
- Spawn sided controlled APT & AVT at control points once they have been capped, they must be destroyed to cap a point.
- NOTE: This prevents a very small number of players (i.e. 1 or 2) from being able to easily cap everything.
- A point cannot be interacted with by apposing faction until the APV & AVT have been destroyed.
- Repurpose center point to provide a buff to controlling players (for example, increase damage in vehicles. No APV/AVT spawn here, allowing for a more direct PvP approach.
- If one side owns all points, spawn a "helper" boss that aids players in taking the middle point (which in turn helps them take the outer points).
- Attempt to balance the numbers in BS to within +1/-1 or +2/-2.

I think this would add a lot of diversity to BS. Players who are not well geared or under level can provide support by taking out APT/AVT. Higher level/geared players can focus on the middle point, trying to maintain their sides vehicle damage buff. I feel like LE added a lot of functionality to the game that has been completely underused. I think that you guys should push to bring more vehicles to PvP in both BS and NW (I am sure that some people may disagree with me here, but I think it adds a lot for lower level or less geared players).

I know it has been mentioned before, but I'd really like to push for some new PvP content. 5v5's, 3v3's, 2v2's, even a gladiator arena would be nice. Just something simple that involves a queue like BS (although in a much much smaller map) but is based off kills rather than PPT (points per tick). AO is an amazing game, I really do love it, but I'm afraid that it will lose all of it's PvPers unless some things start to change (and that would truly be a catastrophe.)

Anyways, I don't know if anyone from FC will ever read this, but if you do, I hope that you will take the time to revitalize PvP, freshen it up and make it worthwhile. And thank you, thank you for doing all you do and for taking your time to read this.

Cheers

[McKnuckleSamwich]

I like your ideas generally, but I think you're giving the population too many places to PVP.

For instance, if you want towers to be an active venue for PVP, then that's where the players will be. But if you want to make players only be able to buy towers with VP, then the players are torn between going to BS and going to towers. Further to this point, because BS requires both sides to run, if one side continually goes to towers and kills all the other sides towers, then the destruction rate far exceeds the replant rate, so one side could essentially grief the other side to the extent that no side ever will have towers.

The difficulty is always in managing the incentives. And while you've gone to some extent to flesh out incentives, I really don't think having these extreme world changing lockouts will make anyone want to PVP more than they already do or don't, it'll just alienate people.

The best systems for PVP are those that confer immediate awards but don't make long lasting systemic changes. For example, if you removed towers COMPLETELY from game... people would only go to BS.

Would people complain that they don't have their tower bonuses? unlikely, because no-one else would either.

Imo, BS should me the focus, side XP could be controlled by sided wins in BS. for example: Omni/clan start at 12.5% each, then each subsequent BS win advances the side XP 1% to that side for 3 hours. A series of wins in a row would get the side XP high to the side that is winning.

If you want PVP bonuses, add something to the side XP, make it side XP, and side PVP bonus, where the total bonus is, say 250 AAO, 250 AAD and 250 add dmg, both sides start at +125/+125/+125 and each subsequent win adjusts the side bonus for 3 hours the same as the side XP.

Then there's no long term loss, but there's a clear benefit to pushing hard to win so your side can carry it on. With less long term repercussions, it makes it a lot easier to get involved.