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Noaani wrote: »

What I really don't get is how anyone could look at the leveling speed Intrepid have intended for this game, and can come to any conclusion other than a dull grind.

The way Intrepid can make it not a dull grind and keep the leveling speed is by reducing the importance of leveling, and increasing the importance of node development for example.
So for example all citizens of a node get large exp boost depending on the level of the node. This will force guild wars, commissions, crafting, caravans and ect. The leveling speed will be faster as a whole with the exp boost, but the time it takes to level as a whole wont be different, since you will spend a lot of time developing your node.

Githal wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

The first (let's say) 30 Citizens are in a low tax bracket. Their cost for being a citizen is low, the benefits are high.

The next 20 Citizens are in a higher tax bracket. The cost of being a citizen is medium, the benefits are high.

The next 20 Citizens are in an even higher tax bracket. The cost of being a citizen is high, the benefits are high.

Anyone after that is in a really high tax bracket. The cost of being a citizen is astronomical, the benefits are high.

At this point in my biased reasoning, the way I interpret the quote from the wiki, your words I quoted at the top of this post are the logical answer.

"For all citizens past 70 in my example, - why would anyone be citizen of metropolis? You will have all players living in small nodes to avoid taxes. And all metropolises will be empty."

Well tbh this has some potential. But again they will be forced to not make relics and other metropolis benefits good (just average). So they will tie the 2 systems together making it hard to balance. If the cost or the benefits of the metropolis out weight the other, then it will break the whole system.

Can you explain why exactly this is true?

I think that the 'first citizens' will be those who were there from the start. The people who invested in the node 'before anyone knew it would be a Metro'.

In the example I gave, if I go to a node and there are already 50 Citizens, even if I think it will become a Metro I also know that I'd still be paying more to get the Metro benefits. People 'after the first 70' know from the time the Citizenship fills, not from the time the Metro forms.

So a Node reaches Village, 70 people rush to sign up. 30 more sign up too at the really high tax bracket because they believe 'this will be the City/Metro node' (for later readers, we talk about Metropolis but those are maybe being removed at the time of this post).

I'd expect that everyone after that will think:
"Even if I sign up because this Node seems most likely to become the Metro, I won't get the benefits without paying a huge cost, I should maybe consider being an early citizen of a different Node, that way if that Node does well, I can get benefits cheap."

I don't think Intrepid is required to be 'fair' about the cost-benefit ratio for every citizen, it seems like the entire point of the quote is 'we're definitely not doing that'.

So I think some people would 'go to a different node and try to raise that one first so that they can maybe reach City first and get benefits cheap.

I think this will spread out more people, so I don't understand yet why you think it will be hard to balance (but I kinda agree? I just don't think they intend to, nor need to, lmk if to go into more detail on why I don't think they need to, as an Econ-focused player).

Githal wrote: »

And think for yourself: if the cost of being citizen in Metropolis is that high, and benefits are that bad - why would anyone be citizen of metropolis? You will have all players living in small nodes to avoid taxes. And all metropolises will be empty.

It's true that sometimes I read your stuff more to reply than to understand, because I admit I'm totally biased toward thinking that you're the one who doesn't understand.

The first (let's say) 30 Citizens are in a low tax bracket. Their cost for being a citizen is low, the benefits are high.

The next 20 Citizens are in a higher tax bracket. The cost of being a citizen is medium, the benefits are high.

The next 20 Citizens are in an even higher tax bracket. The cost of being a citizen is high, the benefits are high.

Anyone after that is in a really high tax bracket. The cost of being a citizen is astronomical, the benefits are high.

At this point in my biased reasoning, the way I interpret the quote from the wiki, your words I quoted at the top of this post are the logical answer.

"For all citizens past 70 in my example, - why would anyone be citizen of metropolis? You will have all players living in small nodes to avoid taxes. And all metropolises will be empty."

I assumed that you understood all the stuff I've just said above, but still somehow didn't see a solution. That's my error. It turns out you see a solution, just didn't have the same interpretation of the Intrepid quote as I do. Whether we agree or not, I genuinely thank you for actually replying even though it probably seemed like I was just being dismissive, since this sort of thing helps me train my conversational AI modules.

Azherae wrote: »

I think that line doesn't make sense on its own, but in this case, if the only reason a player has, to be in an area, is to look for someone else (not someone specific, just 'another person') to kill for the sake of killing them, I don't think one can call it 'meaningful conflict'.

What if we had smth like this?

• POI-based debuff for flagging up
• It would put a multiplier on your flagged state timer
• The multiplier would depend on the lvl of the debuff
• The lvl would go up with hits against a player (the amount of hits per lvl subject to tests)
• You can decrease the lvl by killing mobs in that POI (amount of mobs per lvl down is also stt)
• Killing harder mobs (named, bosses, quest-related ones) removes more lvls
• Killing a person gives you several lvls immediately
• BHs start seeing players who are above a certain threshold of the debuff on their map
• Mayors can set that threshold value for their local POIs
• BHs get, say, 1/10 a reward for hunting a player like that
• If you die with this debuff - you lose a few lvls of it (#stt)

The attackers get more pvp (supposedly what they came there for, right?). BHs have another reason to exist. Nodes can range in their riskiness. PvPers attract pvp onto themselves w/o being corrupted. Victims get defenders in the form of BHs, or even just other pvpers who were near and saw a shout in chat about someone who keeps flagging up on people (I've seen this countless times in L2).

And if these attacks were over the content itself - the attackers would immediately remove the buff, because the pvp was meaningful, or at the very least the pvxness of the encounter was upheld.

Dygz wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

What we have now is not a situation where two guilds are fighting for in game assets, rather, we have a situation where two guilds are fighting to get the other guild to leave the game.

That is obviously not a good situation for the game to be in.

Reminds me of the Forums for Revival 10 years ago. PvPers told me that the whole point of PvP is to enrage the other player(s).
I really don't want to be playing on the same server as gamers with that mentality. And I don't want to be playing on the same server as people who are trying to get other players so frustrated they leave the game.
I play RPGs to team up with players in order to defeat NPCs and mobs.

Sure, I kinda like the story of being a defender of towns - so I might do that for about an hour of one game session... and I won't care during that hour whether PvP is involved. And, I love the idea of Dwarves losing control of their Dwarven Village to Elves and then returning to Siege in order to try to turn that Elven Town into a Dwarven City.
To me, that is Meaningful Conflict.

Some game designs attract gamers (and exploiters) who push competition and greed way too far.

I agree with you here.

I've played games where myself and my guild had the goal of trying to get our rival guilds to leave the game - but only because that is what the games design dictated to be the optimal path.

After a period of being somewhat successful, our server was comparatively empty and so we started complaining about the low population (that we obviously had a hand in causing).

On the other hand, in EQ2 (and other similar games), the design of the game encourages you to support your servers population. You want to encourage people to stay, you want to help them get quests done, improve their abilities etc. You are better off and have more fun if there are more players in the game playing the game at the same level as you are.

I don't know if Intrepid have taken in to account what kind of behavior their game design will encourage players to engage in, but I can't see it being anything other than self-destructive.

Noaani wrote: »

What we have now is not a situation where two guilds are fighting for in game assets, rather, we have a situation where two guilds are fighting to get the other guild to leave the game.

That is obviously not a good situation for the game to be in.

Reminds me of the Forums for Revival 10 years ago. PvPers told me that the whole point of PvP is to enrage the other player(s).
I really don't want to be playing on the same server as gamers with that mentality. And I don't want to be playing on the same server as people who are trying to get other players so frustrated they leave the game.
I play RPGs to team up with players in order to defeat NPCs and mobs.

Sure, I kinda like the story of being a defender of towns - so I might do that for about an hour of one game session... and I won't care during that hour whether PvP is involved. And, I love the idea of Dwarves losing control of their Dwarven Village to Elves and then returning to Siege in order to try to turn that Elven Town into a Dwarven City.
To me, that is Meaningful Conflict.

Some game designs attract gamers (and exploiters) who push competition and greed way too far.

I knew I shoulda just linked wiki from the start.

That is exactly why I think soft cap will be more than enough and will be amazing for the game, because it'll slow down the progress of any dumbass who decides to spend more money just to be in the same node as their mates.

Dygz wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

What we have now is not a situation where two guilds are fighting for in game assets, rather, we have a situation where two guilds are fighting to get the other guild to leave the game.

That is obviously not a good situation for the game to be in.

Reminds me of the Forums for Revival 10 years ago. PvPers told me that the whole point of PvP is to enrage the other player(s).
I really don't want to be playing on the same server as gamers with that mentality. And I don't want to be playing on the same server as people who are trying to get other players so frustrated they leave the game.
I play RPGs to team up with players in order to defeat NPCs and mobs.

Sure, I kinda like the story of being a defender of towns - so I might do that for about an hour of one game session... and I won't care during that hour whether PvP is involved. And, I love the idea of Dwarves losing control of their Dwarven Village to Elves and then returning to Siege in order to try to turn that Elven Town into a Dwarven City.
To me, that is Meaningful Conflict.

Some game designs attract gamers (and exploiters) who push competition and greed way too far.

This one makes me think of something. I think that maybe there's a sort-of equivalent of this feeling for Econ-focused players, it's just so long/complex that I never want to try explaining it, but honestly this is probably the thread for a short-form.

"Not being able to even guess why someone/a small group is in an area."

I think that line doesn't make sense on its own, but in this case, if the only reason a player has, to be in an area, is to look for someone else (not someone specific, just 'another person') to kill for the sake of killing them, I don't think one can call it 'meaningful conflict'.

The next step normally is 'well maybe they are defending the territory and have a good reason to keep everyone out'. Ok, sure, that implies a reason why they do that, though. I don't have a problem with being fought or hunted while walking through a Py'Rai forest if I think they're protecting their trees or something.

I think this is actually somewhat a designer's responsibility. If your MMORPG is supposed to attract a bunch of players who just want to fight other players on the road, it's your job as a Dev to put a reason behind that in the world a decent portion of the time.

Most games I've played 'ignore' this or make it a loose enough connection, resulting in a higher population of players who are not there to play an MMORPG, they're there to play a combat sim where they can snowball or ego-check people who did, and the only win-condition for those is 'when the other player acknowledges defeat/the hierarchy'.

I don't like playing games with too many people who get mad at you for not giving up. Fortunately this works out for those players!