Bormun von Eastbourne's page

Hi, yes, I also only have the Mac OS to play PFO with.

From various threads, there seem to be two main worries that get mentioned again and again.
- the murderhobo
- organised gangs preferentially targeting lower level PvE groups.

This is about the second one.
E.g. Level 10 bandits avoid not only the level 15 traders, but also the level 10 traders, and instead repeatedly own the level 5 traders.
This being also true for settlement raiding, wars, etc.
To summarise The Art of War, the acme of generalship is to only start fights that you know you will win.

Imagine the Emerald Spire dungeon, but where you arrive on a random level, and have to complete it before you can get out. It would suck because of the high % of encountering one-sided fights, which are boring to win, and frustrating to lose. The encounters would not be level-appropriate.

For PoI based PvP there is a solution: the best loot is in the star metal craters, which are high level, and only usable by high level settlements. So the lower level groups won't be there, thereby avoiding the higher level PvP ers.

Perhaps we can experiment with putting the Towers also into tiers? The first 10 settlement points would come from regular Towers, but once you have those 10, the next settlement points need "expert" towers, and there is no value in collecting any more regular towers? These higher-tier towers would of course be rarer, so the big groups would travel one distances to fight over them.

Any other thoughts?

Okay, for me, the problem is with meaningless PvP.

Meaningful PvP includes:
Banditry, guards, feuds, wars.

Meaningless PvP is a new player hearing that PFO is world PvP, decides that means it is a murdersim / ganking / griefers paradise, and signs up to be a jerk.
Those players need a repeatable shock to their system.
That is where I would be interested in jail time.
So it would be driven by the Murderer flag, and require capture, and otherwise designed to focus (ideally exclusively) on where new players will start out.
So the murderhobo gets caught, and put in the stocks / jail for 5 mins, with no ability to switch characters, and a big red warning on his screen that the next offence is 10 mins, then 20, then 40, then 80, then 160. etc.

For me, none of the meaningful PvP actions should trigger this, either absolutely, or failing that as a matter of practicality.

Possible. Still, there could be prison play (unlimited PvP, maybe). So they do have access to their accounts. They just can't do everything in the game for a while. Of course, the company who had their outpost raided needs to waste precious time gathering new resources to rebuild as well, so it's not really a one-sided thing. It's merely opening up the attacker to some consequences as well (and note, I'm not suggesting an automatic imprisonment, the bad guy still has to be caught. If he spends the next week staying out of the "law's" sight, he's fine as well.) Talk about meaningful...

Yes, being stuck in the PvP Colosseum for the duration of the sentence - meaningful, appropriate, punishment, that fits the crime, and does allow the player to do suff - specifically, to do PvP, which is what they are into anyway - but in a way that prevents harm to the regular players.

DEJA VU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously dude we had this flame war a year or so ago.

Do a search for "very bad ideas" and the threads will probably pop up.

Well, in that case, this time can you help us make it a non-Flaming productive discussion instead?

"Repeated Shocks to Modify Behaviour"

Yes, lets do this.
Or, at least, try it.
Why not try it? Trying stuff is what beta test is for, right?

We know it works, because that's what we do IRL.

Seriously, we know it works because IRL.

Having a game that implemented prisons as the result of PvP would be awesome.

"- interactions between prisoners might still be possible, maybe even intra-prison-play could be a way to pass the time (or find future partners in crime) "

Even more awesome!
Prisoners would be doing gang-fights within the prisons - PvP between PvP players, giving CP and achievements, and even criminal training.
In LE settlements, the prisons would be Roman Collosseums with all the fighting that implies!

Open-field PvP could include capture, and the historical practice of Prisoner Ransom.

Some thoughts from being a player in various games with fast travel:
- Players will pay a lot for fast travel.
- Even a small increase is worth it to a player, since it gives them more play time.
- Big speed increases significantly alter the play experience, often in a bad way. (It removes content.)

So I would suggest keeping the speed buffs really low - like the bonuses you get from better gear are much lower than in other games. They don't need to be big to be worth it.
E.g. A pack mule gives +20% move speed, a riding horse +40%, a (hideously rare) thorough-breed horse +60%.
Honestly, you could probably halve those bonuses for a game, bit it becomes a bit too unrealistic…
(After all, equines are sprinters, good at short bursts, but trained humans can run down horses by jogging long distances after them. Their 'strategic' speed is not that good.)
The big advantage of horses is that you don't need to carry food for them, their encumbrance capacity can be all cargo, since they can eat ambient flora.

...
I've been playing DDO since the first year it launched and I've seen how the game has been ravaged by the uncontrollably desire for more powerful characters and equipment. It's natural, as Gary said, to desire to be become strong and powerful, but the game has devolved into a zergfest where players race from 1st to 25th level, again and again, soloing huge portions of the content with barely the slightest danger of failing a quest. The difference in power between those who grind 12 hours a day and those who are solid players but don't dedicate their lives to clicking has become huge, creating large imbalances which make PUGing an increasing rarity. Regardless, the quests, which were once challenging, have all become cake walks.
…

Yes, it has been considered.

Goblinworks are planning on using Players As The Content for exactly the reasons you are worried about, as attempting to constantly create NPC content (theme park) is too expensive to be viable, leading to old content that - as you note - ends up being a cakewalk.
So the only viable long-term challenge are other players fighting over finite resources.

Hi,
I've signed up, transferred account, and voted, so just waiting for it to start now.
My rank = Adventurer, so I won't be with you initial guys, but not far behind.

Whenever building fortifications in other games (eg minecraft) it is very important to be able to shoot at enemies standing right next to the wall. There must not be any blind spots.
So can you please allow Machicolation in the walls?
Also, please make sure that the towers stick out far enough from the wall to allow enfilading fire, and are close enough to protect each other.

It would be a nice option to allow scorpions & springalds to be emplaced on these towers.

Hi,
Lurker here. Not read the boards for a while.
Not affiliated to anything yet.

GMT timezone.
Class = Likely to play a mage or the like.
Playstyle = Exploration and dungeons, but also some crafting.
Alignment = good.

MMORPG experience = WOW from general release until 2011.
Reasons I stopped playing WOW:
- Dungeons were anonymous rushes.
- Player interactions became anonymous.
- My IRL time availability rules out signing up for raids.
- No support for alignments. Some of the quest lines instructed the player to do evil acts. When I rejected the quest, nothing interesting happened. Worse, I'd sometimes get locked out of areas that should have had a non-evil way of unlocking.
- Developer support for professions, especially how they (failed to) address player dissatisfaction.

I'm also in the UK, and like good characters, so I'm very pleased to find you.