Thoughts on this.

[vampireiv]

Hi all I played RO and loved the pvp and team work iv moved away from it when every one I knew stopped getting on. Now to what I want to ask you guys there is a game that is going to have a pvp of WvWvW which is 3 servers 2k people in total fighting much like in RO you take a keep and castle but you take mines and lumber mills and so on and build cannons and catapults to fight with and hold your keeps and castles and it goes on for 2 weeks. Now my question do you think this style will work with all the other mmo pvp who think that pvp is just kill kill kill? I came here because iv seen some amazing things come out of the strategies that people have made here. Thanks

ps. if this is in the wrong place please move it really dent know were to put it thanks.

[GreenAngel]

I do think that, if we get these mills/dungeans/mines that you can capture, the game would be more fun and also a bit more of a challenge (since it will be harder to defend all the forts/mines/mills and the castle etc. etc.

About the rest... Hmm I dont know.

[_Enio_]

I wouldnt give too much weight on such "candy", rahter try to see the implications behind. When you design a game you start simple. With 2 sides that fiht eachother. Then you add some steps to give the sides more handle on how it goes. The question that matters in this case in the end is how much handle do you have with capturing these locations. Like - is it just something to slow things down (not neccessarily bad) or do they actually supply a new layer of tactics, and if so - what qualities those tatics have? If theres just one perfect way to achieve the win it will get boring. All sides will just follow this simple path and it boils down to just fights at different locations.


But i.e. if theres some rock-paper-scissors game on that layer. like you have the lumber mill and the mine and are well set, but if your opponent captures the water supply these recieve heavy cuts thus a dynamic gameplay evolves on that more global tactical-layer as well - then it might get interesting. Just, if theres imbalances with numbers it will always boil down to boring fights that end in the same manner evry fucking time. Like the WoW world PvP-event zones. Back when i played it, Winterspring i.e. was a nice idea but it got totally fucked up by number imbalances, and not even blizzard managed to come up with a working plan to resovle it.

Greetings.

[Honestly]

Originally Posted by _Enio_

The question that matters in this case in the end is how much handle do you have with capturing these locations. Like - is it just something to slow things down (not neccessarily bad) or do they actually supply a new layer of tactics, and if so - what qualities those tatics have? If theres just one perfect way to achieve the win it will get boring. All sides will just follow this simple path and it boils down to just fights at different locations.


But i.e. if theres some rock-paper-scissors game on that layer. like you have the lumber mill and the mine and are well set, but if your opponent captures the water supply these recieve heavy cuts thus a dynamic gameplay evolves on that more global tactical-layer as well - then it might get interesting.

Actually it's far from candy. What you get in Regnum is actually candy, i.e it provides no real use. Controlling a fort in Regnum serves you no real purpose other then what you as a player imagine it gives you. There is no purpose in the mechanics themselves, yes, a fort can give you a strategic position, but because it collides with other poor mechanics in the game nothing really clicks together and it only looks nice in theory. It's just a playground with a simple break gate, capture flag, errytime erryday scenario. An example: Ranged classes have walls to stand on, but do they use them to their full advantage, or in better terms, does the game provide such a scenario in the fort itself where the combat experience can be subject to change based on where someone is standing? In this game in question someone shooting with a bow from a parapet would receive a bonus like increased range and damage to accommodate their position.

Expanding on resource points, lumber mills, mines and the like will generate NPC caravans to the controlling faction, which will deliver resources to the nearest outpost/fort/castle in real time, and of course they can be attacked, so it isn't enough to simply control something and magically get what you want as in Regnum. Resources can be used to purchase bonuses or physical upgrades such as boiling pots, ballistae, or cannons, and you can decide where to place them. The game decides very little for you and instead give you the options and tools to create your experience, thus, you as a player create your own experience and can carve a different battle everytime. Regnum is a linear experience where you follow what happens and repeat the same objective everytime, because you have to OR ELSE (Stupid mechanics like invasions where one side basks in glory and the other suffers, oh my how rewarding and caring for players).

Just, if theres imbalances with numbers it will always boil down to boring fights that end in the same manner evry fucking time.

Except that no matter what your numbers are you can always make a difference. Because there are more capture points in different sizes to accommodate 5, 20, 50, or 100 players fighting. A group of 5 players can raid caravans and disrupt the flow of enemy resources or capture a lookout tower. So even controlling something relatively small like a tower will give your an immediate bonus and aid your effort, moreover it's something you did for the good of your entire team since the effect is actually rather noticeable. Of course there are also working scaling systems in place for player versus environment in the world PvP itself. There will not be any imbalances in team sizes, there will only be imbalance where players make it themselves.

Furthermore these battles end every 2 weeks, and they rotate your next match depending on how you performed. If your server wins, they will fight their next match against another server who won. If your server loses, you will fight against another server who looses. Thus, if I as a player play to the best of my abilities and wish to be rewarded for it, I will be pitted every 2 weeks against harder players, surely providing a different and more challenging experience.

[pieceofmeat]

So this game world is not really persistent?

[Honestly]

PvP is completely persistent. PvE has small instances like player homes.

[standistortion]

Capturerable locations giving benefits to the occupying realm and with their benefits interlinked for extra tactical complexity? Cool, not sure how well it would work in RO though, we don't even have balanced gem and castle locations and would end up with the lumber mill located in Skolheim or some such madness.

Siege weaponry and fortifications would be nice but it's hard enough to balance 6 classes and their associated powers, it would be almost impossible with these kind of additions, look at the damage done to balance in RO just by warmaster powers. Balance is almost impossible to achieve while keeping individuality between classes, that's why so many games have all classes almost equal in attack and defence and hide the issues behind never ending level raises and equipment upgrades.

[Honestly]

Which is why such a working concept had to be worked on from the ground up for 5 years. Not to mention NGD lacks the resources for such a massive project. Do I still think they could do it? More or less something similar could have been worked on, but had they started work on it long ago. Preferably instead of a forced concept like invasions.

[standistortion]

Look up a book called 'Little wars' by H G Wells. It was written 100 years ago and described war games using toy soldiers, it got a large following and led to MMORPG's via Dungeons and Dragons. Chapter 2 deals with rules and balance, many of the issues they had then are still issues today and a lot of time and resources have been spent trying to fix them. Not saying it can't be done, it's just stone scissors paper on a larger scale, but every addition adds another layer of complexity.

[_Enio_]

Originally Posted by Honestly

Actually it's far from candy.

Well in many games it is. Im just hinting on looking on the implications of those secondary missions or "steps" to victory. If well done it can supply nice dynamics, still its kind of a task to not let it slip into a numbers game.