Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not aware of any way to "sacrifice" a tower at the moment. The only open PvP is towers that have been taken by non-aligned companies.
The PVP windows for settlement-aligned companies are working now. Towers held by non-aligned companies are special because their PVP windows are open 24/7, but they are no longer the only towers that can change hands.
Note: By "working", I mean that the windows open and close. There might still be some issues with scheduling the times when they open and close. Last I heard, it was possible to include downtime in the PVP window, which isn't supposed to happen.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the default open window time is pretty late at night on Server Time (PST), and I'm not sure whether the duration of the window varies by number of Towers held yet. I often see Outsiders (Tavernhold) PVP windows open when I'm online, and I've participated in capturing a couple of Towers held by another settlement-aligned company.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm such a downer lately! I just didn't enjoy that PvP events at all. It was just players mindlessly mashing their one good ability, not fun! I'd love to see some strategy implemented and a clearer picture of abilities and the affect they have on players.
Combat logging will help us make better strategy choices.
I definitely saw the value of Slow effects in PVP. When we got a couple of them on the Commander, he was much easier to catch.
I'm such a downer lately! I just didn't enjoy that PvP events at all. It was just players mindlessly mashing their one good ability, not fun! I'd love to see some strategy implemented and a clearer picture of abilities and the affect they have on players.
I was reflecting on this some last night. My archer build is now quite robust compared to what it used to be. I pretty much use- and have use for- every attack in my line-up, plus my utilities, tokens/potions, expendables, and reactives. But I think I am an exception in that area.
I think one thing I would like to see, though is more team PvP- and I mean TEAM PvP. Not just 6 random people versus 6 random people. I'd like to see 6 coordinated people versus 6 coordinated people. In that kind of setting, I think more strategy can come out. (Or even just 2 versus 2, 4 versus 3).
One other thing that is worth noting: It is a stated game design that Roles and their abilities be very "Paper-Rock-Scissors." So in a 1v1 encounter, someone is going to have the Paper and someone is going to the Rock, and they're going to spam their abilities until someone goes down. In a team PvP setting, Paper, Rock and Scissors will be flying all over the place, making combat more interesting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I haven't tested the tower capture window lately, but I was able to rack up some points from a Settlement captured tower a few builds ago. I will try again today.
For teams, I think we should have a few rival companies get together for a friendly free for all. If we can capture the tower that would be the easiest game and there's no limit to the number of companies that can compete. If we can't capture the tower then I'm sure we can come up with a few ideas.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think tower capture would be more interesting than a free-for-all or an X-on-X free-form battle, because it has an objective, and a defined win condition for each side. Taking and holding the tower platform provides opportunities for effects like Knockback to share priority with straight damage. The platform also makes a convenient target for AoEs.
Well, bring that you can't heal a flagged player. It's hard to have any coordinated pvp really :(
Not necessarily. Clerics can't do their heal and buff things if their target is red. But Clerics, Rogues, Fighters and Wizards can still coordinate their assault on their foes or set up alternative defensive strategies. One dynamic of a Cleric, defensive party support, is currently not fully available. Clerics have quite a few offensive party support options, as well, though, in the form of debuffs and status appliers.
One strategy may be, "Player A wait for an attacker to flag themselves, then unload on them while the Cleric keeps you healed and buffed up."
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Goblin Squad Member
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Does a 'teammate' get flagged red if they are in the same party as you are? Seems to me party members should be able to heal other party members but not the red flagged enemy.
Or is the bug that red flagged players are red to everyone including their party members?
I was never actually in a party while PvPing at Brighthaven the other day.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Does a 'teammate' get flagged red if they are in the same party as you are? Seems to me party members should be able to heal other party members but not the red flagged enemy.
Or is the bug that red flagged players are red to everyone including their party members?
I was never actually in a party while PvPing at Brighthaven the other day.
You don't get a red flag for attacking your own party members, but once you are flagged red, you are red to everyone. Not only can nobody heal you, you can't even heal yourself.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The PvP window for settlements is in place. The time ramps up slowly - so with 16 towers I think you look at 2 hours window.
Yep - we had to stay up past midnight to capture back our own towers when Emerald Lodge reset. So there is a (limited) window and you can also take towers from different companies.
Phaeros took 5 from us early on and we took the same amount albeit mainly different ones back.
But there wasn't a fight as I haven't seen a single tower being protected so far (monsters don't count).
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Goblin Squad Member
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You don't get a red flag for attacking your own party members, but once you are flagged red, you are red to everyone. Not only can nobody heal you, you can't even heal yourself.Does a 'teammate' get flagged red if they are in the same party as you are? Seems to me party members should be able to heal other party members but not the red flagged enemy.
Or is the bug that red flagged players are red to everyone including their party members?
I was never actually in a party while PvPing at Brighthaven the other day.
Wouldn't that make banditry a pain in the rear if it stuck around? "We have to finish killing these gatherers, loot their husks, and run for it before anyone can respond, because we won't be able to heal until our flags wear off."
Nobody would ever want to strike first in PVP, which would definitely mess up the plans for large-scale player conflict.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You don't get a red flag for attacking your own party members, but once you are flagged red, you are red to everyone. Not only can nobody heal you, you can't even heal yourself.Does a 'teammate' get flagged red if they are in the same party as you are? Seems to me party members should be able to heal other party members but not the red flagged enemy.
Or is the bug that red flagged players are red to everyone including their party members?
I was never actually in a party while PvPing at Brighthaven the other day.
Additionally, current flagging makes targeting the correct person harder for combat. At the Brighthaven PvP event, 2 of my Red team mates were flagged and the tab target would preferentially target them and not target the unflagged Blue opponent. It took multiple attempts at manually click targeting before I could contribute to bringing him down.
Ah yes, manual click targeting. When we trying to chase down Captain Kills-AFK'ers, I had to try to click on him, a moving target, several dozen times before I would finally get a target lock. What a pain!
We can heal ourselves if we are red. We have to target ourselves, first, though. I'm not sure if that is an all-the-time thing or hit-and-miss.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ah yes, manual click targeting. When we trying to chase down Captain Kills-AFK'ers, I had to try to click on him, a moving target, several dozen times before I would finally get a target lock. What a pain!
We can heal ourselves if we are red. We have to target ourselves, first, though. I'm not sure if that is an all-the-time thing or hit-and-miss.
Would be harder still if we replaced target locking with floaty crosshairs for ranged weapons tho ... just saying :D
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Goblin Squad Member
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I hope those AFK characters were "naked" (no armor and weapons equipped) when they were dropped off near the shrine, because they certainly ended up that way by the end of the evening.
I parked several un-equipped characters and returned to find one of htem sprawled on the ground with zero hit points, though to all the others he appeared to be floating about 3-5 metres in the air, dead.
I hope those AFK characters were "naked" (no armor and weapons equipped) when they were dropped off near the shrine, because they certainly ended up that way by the end of the evening.I parked several un-equipped characters and returned to find one of htem sprawled on the ground with zero hit points, though to all the others he appeared to be floating about 3-5 metres in the air, dead.
Oh that was you? That was priceless.
About 20-25 at peak count. No lag or other desync issues.
Wow.. if those numbers are even somewhat correct that is staggering...
Kudos to those who attended, but 20-25 isn't even a large Battlefield or Call of Duty server. I should hope there was no lag.. :)
I guess if they really want a stress test they need to give away free keys on a large site such as MMORPG.COM
You do realize how much money supports a typical Call of Duty Server as compared to PFO's servers, right?
Also, 20-25 with no lag is progress. A week ago, 20-25 would have been laggy as hell. We're not raving about how good PFO's servers are (yet). We're celebrating the rapid progress a very tiny but hardworking team of programers has made in the last month or so.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Right now population is capped at 100 characters per hex, so 1,000s of characters would have tested the entire cluster, rather than a single server.
I do think we're seeing the effects of Alpha burnout. I also think that they're going to have to expand the stable population limits per hex very quickly once EE begins, or they'll risk the kind of permanent losses Bloodwulf was referring to. The last thing PFO needs is a launch like, say, the latest Sim City, on a much smaller scale.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Those people not reading the other thread, we had 42 people no lag.
I agree with Saiph, we need to be able to heal. Also, Saiph, if the the blue on red battle at BH was coordinated a bit better, and it showed in our beginning onslaught and winning the woodshop almost immediately. Probably because we were casting divine/arcane spells in conjunction with Melee. Then it just turned into a FFA after that.
A team taking a tower from someone might be fun, but the biggest issue there is having everyone show up, and have joined two separate companies.
Bluddwolf, I agree the numbers were horrible, with all the people saying they were going to show up, I thought we would get 100 people. A lot of people just didn't show up, and GW was moving apparently, so no one from there showed up either. I feel there is burn out though, as well as it being the holidays, still felt like we should have hit 100.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think one thing I would like to see, though is more team PvP- and I mean TEAM PvP. Not just 6 random people versus 6 random people. I'd like to see 6 coordinated people versus 6 coordinated people. In that kind of setting, I think more strategy can come out. (Or even just 2 versus 2, 4 versus 3).
Thundeeraa, Bovro and I were on TS for the Brighthaven PvP. Even though we were in different groups in the Blue team we were able to co-ordinate reasonably well, even if it just meant calling out specific targets in the Red team, or calling for heals.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Those people not reading the other thread, we had 42 people no lag.
I agree with Saiph, we need to be able to heal. Also, Saiph, if the the blue on red battle at BH was coordinated a bit better, and it showed in our beginning onslaught and winning the woodshop almost immediately. Probably because we were casting divine/arcane spells in conjunction with Melee. Then it just turned into a FFA after that.
A team taking a tower from someone might be fun, but the biggest issue there is having everyone show up, and have joined two separate companies.
Bluddwolf, I agree the numbers were horrible, with all the people saying they were going to show up, I thought we would get 100 people. A lot of people just didn't show up, and GW was moving apparently, so no one from there showed up either. I feel there is burn out though, as well as it being the holidays, still felt like we should have hit 100.
To be clear, I wasn't saying the numbers were horrible as a refection of what commitment the players that do show up have. Even in the earliest stages of alpha, remember those Adventure Times w/ Bonny, the TS would often not hit 100 and even fewer on the server itself.
When Ryan posts that there are 10,000 alpha invites and less than 100 people are actually using them, that is not good. It shows that they have come, seen what they needed to, and then left. Many weeks ago many of us had said, "We have dozens of alpha invites and we can't convince people to take them and give the game a try."
A recent review / impression I read on MMORPG "Bland, bland, bland, bland", for every aspect of the game.
I get how many of the people from these forums are "happy" where things stand. They have a small server population and the game does have strict controls on player actions (very limited PvP). These same individuals will most likely be happy with this state of the game lasting another six months, and would probably be willing for it to be considered EE MVP.
I'm of the belief now that GW started the alpha stage too early, and opened it up to too many, too early. I believe the kick starters have become a detriment, because they created the perception that EE needs to take place sooner, rather than later.
I suspect that the belief at GW is that once the stability issues are sorted out, EE will be just around the corner. I'm hopeful they look at the competition and realize, they can't compete with their MVP philosophy, the consumers are not buying into it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You do realize how much money supports a typical Call of Duty Server as compared to PFO's servers, right?
Yeah... about $30/month to host your 25 people.
http://allgameserver.com/gameservers/call-of-duty-ghosts-server-hosting/I mean... come on man. Now you are just being downright silly.
We have a server for Life is Feudal, 64 clients for $30 per month. Then if I include our forums and TS server (50 clients), that is another $20 per month.
Total $50 per month for 64 members = 78 cents a month per person
As opposed to PFO which would cost $980 per month or $15.31 for each person.
Maybe that is the route PFO might consider going in? Private client server, granting the server owner GM abilities and every server has its own set of rules.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Why is the population capped at 100 per hex in PFO? Surely this is temporary?
Yes it should be temp. The issue is to sort out desync issues. 100 active per hex are a lot right now I would think.
Places most likely to have issues:
Starter settlements
Thornkeep
Brighthaven
Brighthaven has around 200 members according to the landrush - this would mean 50% online AND in Brighthaven. So even there 100 seems plenty right now.
Can't tell about starter settlements - but I would leave it anyhow as soon as possible for my own settlement.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I get how many of the people from these forums are "happy" where things stand.
It has more to do with having reasonable expectations based on what we've been told over and over. Early Enrollment will be an incomplete game. The value proposition of taking part in it is that you'll have more impact on the development of the game than any other company has ever offered, and you'll have a much more developed Character when the game is officially launched a year or more later.
... they can't compete with their MVP philosophy...
PFO isn't trying to compete with those other games in the normal way. Again, they're not offering a complete game, and they're not expecting tens of thousands of players to flock to PFO on day one of Early Enrollment. The original plan called for having 4,500 players in month one of Early Enrollment, and anticipated about 30% attrition so they'd only keep about 3,000 of those 4,500 players.
Note: I'm responding to Bluddwolf, but I'm writing for the benefit of other readers. I have absolutely zero desire to get into a debate about any of these points with Bluddwolf.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So again I will suggest a "Free Alpha Weekend" where they give away thousands of keys on a big MMO site.
Remember that Paizo didn't ask us to stress test this weekend. They did not organize it, and they did not attend (aside from GW Bob in Rotter's Hole). It was quoted before that they are aware of what they need to do to improve stability and they are working on the code right now. Now amount of stress testing or overexposure of players will help them with their solutions.
If and when Goblinworks wants current accounts to stress test they will have several methods before inviting people in from a big MMO site.
They could promote an event here on the boards. Having their official support and encouragement might have boosted numbers slightly last weekend.
They could send out an email to everyone. Not everyone follows the message boards and an email that says 'we need you to start EE' would give people an incentive.
They could also offer rewards to existing players. These could be as simple as Tier 3 gear for the last week of Alpha, something that would be relatively free and easy for them but would be treated as a 'major award' to those who can attend.
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You do realize how much money supports a typical Call of Duty Server as compared to PFO's servers, right?Yeah... about $30/month to host your 25 people.
http://allgameserver.com/gameservers/call-of-duty-ghosts-server-hosting/I mean... come on man. Now you are just being downright silly.
Call of Duty Ghosts shipped over $1 BILLION of product in its first day. With that kind of dough, they can have the best damn servers on the planet- and make a killing off it too.
PFO has raised $5 million in 2-3 years. With that kind of dough, we're pretty happy to have nearly 50 people on a server and not have any lag whatsoever.
I'm not the silly one here.
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So again I will suggest a "Free Alpha Weekend" where they give away thousands of keys on a big MMO site.
I am going to be bluntly honest about the game here (sorry Ryan, etal!), but if this game were offered up on a big MMO site for free with an acknowledgement that there would be a $15 sub at EE launch, it would get laughed out of that site pretty quickly- mostly for superficial issues like not having character emotes or the grass not being pretty enough. Those that got past the superficial issues with the game would be stymied by an in-game tutorial and out-of-game support materials that do a pretty bad job of explaining the game. "Easy to get into," is something no one said about this game ever (although, hopefully that will change as the community continues to develop player-based resources for the game).
The current plans for this game are not targeted to the typical gamer. They are targeted to a niche gamer who likes being in the door early and having an influence over actual game development, and who has the patience for dealing with many of the games early-development quirks.
From everything I have heard on the forums about PFO as it compares to other games, PFO is also fundamentally different from most other MMO's out there, such that most MMO gamers would not even like the style of gameplay PFO has to offer.
Putting this game, in its current state, up for free to the kindless masses of MMO players and critics on a major MMO website wouldn't kill the game; but it damn sure would be a lesson in demoralization.
Also, I am a little pissy right now, if yall can't tell. Time to get back off the forums and cool my rant-jets.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You do realize how much money supports a typical Call of Duty Server as compared to PFO's servers, right?Yeah... about $30/month to host your 25 people.
http://allgameserver.com/gameservers/call-of-duty-ghosts-server-hosting/I mean... come on man. Now you are just being downright silly.
Call of Duty Ghosts shipped over $1 BILLION of product in its first day. With that kind of dough, they can have the best damn servers on the planet- and make a killing off it too.
PFO has raised $5 million in 2-3 years. With that kind of dough, we're pretty happy to have nearly 50 people on a server and not have any lag whatsoever.
I'm not the silly one here.
You seem to not understand how these things work...
The servers are not hosted by Activision... (at least not exclusively) they are Mom and Pop servers that are from a hosting company that players pay a monthly fee for...
Same as Battlefield 4.. or Minecraft.. or any number of similar multiplayer (but not MASSIVELY multiplayer) games. So yes, when you say that the MMO stress test had 25 people it does raise concerns for those of us beyond the hardcore dozens. And when you say "You do realize how much money supports a typical Call of Duty Server..." it is quite silly as it's roughly $30 a month. Your home PC has plenty of power to act as a server.. for most it's simply a bandwidth issue that drives business to hosting companies.
Both of you are comparing apples and oranges. FPS servers and MMO servers are architected entirely differently.
CoD servers are cheap to host because they are written specifically to hold roughly 30 players. They do not scale well beyond that. The scope of a CoD server is very tight, and thus easier to write and cheaper (CPU time wise) to host.
PFO's cluster being designed to hold thousands of simultaneous connections. This is a massive technical challenge (on which Ryan has done one or two really good posts about in the past). This takes time, and time costs money. This is why 40 odd people in a hex constitutes progress, as each increase in numbers potentially exposes a new bottleneck in the server that couldn't previously be observed.
Add this to the fact that FPS server code is very easy to re-use (as really, how different are different FPS' mechanically?), where PFO is building its server architecture from the ground up (of necessity - there are no off the shelf products that scale as PFO needs to). So even comparing the effort involved is erroneous.
In short, there is no facet in which comparing PFO to CoD makes sense. So please stop.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Remember that we have multiple servers each covering a couple of hex. If the servers can handle 42 in combat in a single hex on a single server than that suggests the capability to handle several 1000 players is already there.
I think the real issue is not a technical one of servers handling more than 100 people in one hex - its going to be crossing that sustainable threshold where we get a big enough population to keep more than a couple of people in settlement hex outside Brighthaven and Thornkeep more or less 24/7. That is going to require a sustained effort by settlement leaderships to organise local events and keep people interested once the initial flurry of EE passes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What you say COULD be true... but would it not be prudent to actually test that with several thousand players prior to launching EE and finding it can't?
Can some please post the links to Ryan's multiple post on the PFO servers and technical challenges different to other Fantasy MMORPGs?
It will help Calidor (and other new posters) get up to speed as to why 40 people in the same hex is progress and on the amount of people GW would like to see in the early months of EE (also different than the expectations/experience of players from most MMORPGS).
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Calidor,
A conversation is not equal to bickering. There is no evidence to suggest 4500 people will be playing on day 1, or even month one.
There is another option that is very likely;
4- Early Enrollment begins with a small amount of dedicated and passionate players (those willing to actually participate in a game that is 2/5 years into its development cycle), and the server holds up. As the game improves and more features are added, server capacity increases accordingly.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Keep in mind that the entire Early Enrollment period is to develop the game. That includes constantly tweaking the servers to get better and better performance. Early Enrollment is not a complete game. What we're experiencing with PFO is unlike anything we've ever experienced before with respect to the release of an MMO.
Remember that we have multiple servers each covering a couple of hex. If the servers can handle 42 in combat in a single hex on a single server than that suggests the capability to handle several 1000 players is already there.
I think the real issue is not a technical one of servers handling more than 100 people in one hex - its going to be crossing that sustainable threshold where we get a big enough population to keep more than a couple of people in settlement hex outside Brighthaven and Thornkeep more or less 24/7. That is going to require a sustained effort by settlement leaderships to organise local events and keep people interested once the initial flurry of EE passes.
Dancey has cited he is looking for 20k players within 6 months of EE at 100 cap per hex that is a minimum of 200 full hexes.
A while back I asked the question of what he saw as mass battles. Dancey answered.."lots tee hee hee". I was roundly declaimed for daring to ask such questions....guess it doesn't seem so silly now
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Goblin Squad Member
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100 cap is a current, deliberately imposed, temporary, limitation, and is not a good predictor of how the game will be in a year.
Even if it did, over a thousand hexes, limited to a hundred clients each, implies they think they can carry upwards of 100,000 clients currently. (Probably not, but it is the implication, which makes it seem a safe bet that unless 4500 people want to play in a small number of hexes [which they can't because of aforementioned deliberate limition] they are easily able to handle their expected startup numbers.)
As for comparing a server that holds thirty people to a group of connected servers intended to support interactions between thousands, including warfare between large fractions of that, WTF are you thinking?
Edit: weird typos from phone in hospital with no sleep in 30+ hours