Why I fear PvE min/max culture for this game...

With a PVX game like this, my fear is the min/max folks are going to figure out the optimal way to do things and then everyone will just follow suit and no one has conflict.

We need conflict and to fight over resources in a way to where folks will want to engage in PvP, otherwise folks will min/max their way to no fun land. Also how to we make it so massive guilds do not simply take over anything, then there is just no room for conflict if the same guild controls everything.

This goes to one of the things i already find concerning. Caravan's... The pop up that gives random people the ability to defend a caravan should be disabled. The fast majority of folks that are solo, or in a small party are simply going to sign up to defend, and no one will fight over the resources.

The only pop-up that should happen is an alert that you are going to be flagged for pvp if you stay in range of the caravan... that's it.

Anyway, i know it is a very difficult needle to thread, making a system fun enough people want to do it, yet don't make the path to optimal a one way street, because everyone will follow it.

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Noaani

Unsure why you are referring to anything as PvE min/max.

If there is a single optimal path to something, everyone will follow it. You don't need to be a min/maxer, nor a PvE player to do so. In fact, min/maxers are the people most likely to NOT follow that one path, because they often min/max for a slightly different goal than the bulk of players.

Or are you saying PvP players don't like to be as good as they can be?

I mean, I get your over all concern, but it is the group of players you have placed your crosshairs on that is just wrong.

Slipree

You aren’t going to stop min/maxing ever. Also, most pve’ers will cry and quit about the third time they get jumped while trying to do their optimal rotations on mobs. Hard to min/max damage when other players can attack you at any time.

ekeefe41

I think you guys are missing my point..

I get people will always try to min/max their character, my fear is that with everyone doing what is best for themself, they will in fact create political/node systems that are not set up for conflict.

Think of AV in WoW, no one does PvP, they rush to objectives that feed them honor as fast as possible with minimal effort.

There are game theory papers written on this effect
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
If you would rather listen to someone explain it, you can watch this video, it is in the context of social media, but it is game theory.

https://youtu.be/hPeSctbWya0?si=QHvuJwm-rBC82MRD

Some of the inspirations for this game came from Archage, and in Archage the game could be broken down in a very simple way:

Labor=gold (labor was a resource you gained over time, more if you were logged in)
Gold=opportunity to upgrade gear

So one great way to get more gold, was to take it from other people.
A person would use labor to create a trade pack, then move it to a location that gave more gold as a turn in.

If you just killed them and took it, you had more gold, and more chances at gear.

Now AA was ruined because they added a feature where you could just buy labor pots... and so the game was P2W, you could just chuck labor pots and do gold making activities.

My question is, what systems are in place that will drive conflict and not make this game devolve in to a PvE utopia where people min/max their way to the best gear?

Arya_Yeshe

Basically the devs fault then

Azherae

This is, as far as we know right now, an intended option.

If peace is more profitable, then peace we shall have.

If the game was a PvP game, then the devs would make constant effort to make people fight. A PvX game has no reason to do this, whatever incentive works for the playerbase, works.

Kilion

ekeefe41 wrote: »

I get people will always try to min/max their character, my fear is that with everyone doing what is best for themself, they will in fact create political/node systems that are not set up for conflict.

This is the core point I will adress: There is no homogenous "best" for everyone. The systems are designed in a way that the 'best' interests of player will not align with one another and cause conflict.

Example would be

Not everyone can join the same Node, prices will be too high.
With benefits existing within Nodes, the outgroup has to pay to access them, this creates resentment or desire to build up similar low cost access.
Since Nodes block each others progress at a certain point, another outgroup is created, one that is part of a Node which access to more benefits is blocked by bigger Nodes - leading to conflict.

Other examples that fuel conflict would be:

Players don't all want the same. Some cant stand fiery environments, they have seen enough in the games they played previously, so a Node making the highest level dungeon a vulcano and fire dragon lair, is not for them. They however need to get rid of the Node to get other content in that region, this can only be done through sieges or disrupting the caravans so heavily that maintaining the Node level becomes impossible and it gets demoted.
There are only 5 castles and the guild in control of the castle levies taxes on nearby Nodes. If they crank up the taxes too much, that leads to resentment and ultimately full war against the castle owner, the alternative is to come to an agreement which would most likely mean giving up something else so that the castle doesn't raise taxes too much. But some people in the node might think it would be better to just own the castle since they are the ones doing all the work in the economic taxation zone anyways = again conflict
Dungeon bosses have respawn timers and if you have fought 2 hours to get to the boss chamber your guild will not accept waiting 3-4 hours for a new respawn of that boss, just because another group roled in and also wanted the loot.
Lastly with nodes deciding on what content there is min/maxing will take a lot of time and be overthrown everytime the world shifts due to events, node changes or economic disruptions.

So min/maxing will be a thing for sure but I don't see how that would lead to PvP dying down. At least not yet and based on the system design as I have seen it.

JudgeMentalOne

To stick to example given, unrelated players likely will just join defending the caravan for a bit of reward. Many players that spot you on the otherhand might suspect your caravan is from a competing node over there and if your caravan succeeds thier attmpts to level their node will be hindered. So they will attack it to hinder you and help their node be the one that levels first thus locking your nodes development.

Many systems are in place to ensure conflict.

Nemeses

ekeefe41 wrote: »

With a PVX game like this, my fear is the min/max folks are going to figure out the optimal way to do things and then everyone will just follow suit and no one has conflict.

We need conflict and to fight over resources in a way to where folks will want to engage in PvP, otherwise folks will min/max their way to no fun land. Also how to we make it so massive guilds do not simply take over anything, then there is just no room for conflict if the same guild controls everything.

This goes to one of the things i already find concerning. Caravan's... The pop up that gives random people the ability to defend a caravan should be disabled. The fast majority of folks that are solo, or in a small party are simply going to sign up to defend, and no one will fight over the resources.

The only pop-up that should happen is an alert that you are going to be flagged for pvp if you stay in range of the caravan... that's it.

Anyway, i know it is a very difficult needle to thread, making a system fun enough people want to do it, yet don't make the path to optimal a one way street, because everyone will follow it.

What does min/max have to do with the drivel you posted, or did it just sound nice, so you stuck it in?

ekeefe41

Nemeses wrote: »

ekeefe41 wrote: »

With a PVX game like this, my fear is the min/max folks are going to figure out the optimal way to do things and then everyone will just follow suit and no one has conflict.

We need conflict and to fight over resources in a way to where folks will want to engage in PvP, otherwise folks will min/max their way to no fun land. Also how to we make it so massive guilds do not simply take over anything, then there is just no room for conflict if the same guild controls everything.

This goes to one of the things i already find concerning. Caravan's... The pop up that gives random people the ability to defend a caravan should be disabled. The fast majority of folks that are solo, or in a small party are simply going to sign up to defend, and no one will fight over the resources.

The only pop-up that should happen is an alert that you are going to be flagged for pvp if you stay in range of the caravan... that's it.

Anyway, i know it is a very difficult needle to thread, making a system fun enough people want to do it, yet don't make the path to optimal a one way street, because everyone will follow it.

What does min/max have to do with the drivel you posted, or did it just sound nice, so you stuck it in?

Min/Max is about finding the optimal path and being as efficient as possible in getting best gear. I thought i made that obvious in my post.

In the best way to become powerful is 1 mega guild and it's sister guilds control the entire server, that may become the norm.. Hence no conflict.

Did you read what I wrote? Or are you just being an edgelord?

Noaani

ekeefe41 wrote: »

Nemeses wrote: »

ekeefe41 wrote: »

With a PVX game like this, my fear is the min/max folks are going to figure out the optimal way to do things and then everyone will just follow suit and no one has conflict.

We need conflict and to fight over resources in a way to where folks will want to engage in PvP, otherwise folks will min/max their way to no fun land. Also how to we make it so massive guilds do not simply take over anything, then there is just no room for conflict if the same guild controls everything.

This goes to one of the things i already find concerning. Caravan's... The pop up that gives random people the ability to defend a caravan should be disabled. The fast majority of folks that are solo, or in a small party are simply going to sign up to defend, and no one will fight over the resources.

The only pop-up that should happen is an alert that you are going to be flagged for pvp if you stay in range of the caravan... that's it.

Anyway, i know it is a very difficult needle to thread, making a system fun enough people want to do it, yet don't make the path to optimal a one way street, because everyone will follow it.

What does min/max have to do with the drivel you posted, or did it just sound nice, so you stuck it in?

Min/Max is about finding the optimal path and being as efficient as possible in getting best gear. I thought i made that obvious in my post.

In the best way to become powerful is 1 mega guild and it's sister guilds control the entire server, that may become the norm.. Hence no conflict.

Did you read what I wrote? Or are you just being an edgelord?

So what does PvE have to do with the drivel you posted, or did it just sound nice, so you stuck it in?

Githal

ekeefe41 wrote: »

With a PVX game like this, my fear is the min/max folks are going to figure out the optimal way to do things and then everyone will just follow suit and no one has conflict.

We need conflict and to fight over resources in a way to where folks will want to engage in PvP, otherwise folks will min/max their way to no fun land. Also how to we make it so massive guilds do not simply take over anything, then there is just no room for conflict if the same guild controls everything.

This goes to one of the things i already find concerning. Caravan's... The pop up that gives random people the ability to defend a caravan should be disabled. The fast majority of folks that are solo, or in a small party are simply going to sign up to defend, and no one will fight over the resources.

The only pop-up that should happen is an alert that you are going to be flagged for pvp if you stay in range of the caravan... that's it.

Anyway, i know it is a very difficult needle to thread, making a system fun enough people want to do it, yet don't make the path to optimal a one way street, because everyone will follow it.

You dont get it. You answered your own question, but you still dont see it.

Having optimal place to grind exp means that there will be tons of groups aiming to farm that spot, and only 1 of them will prevail (since if you split the spot then your exp gained will be halved). So you will see great number of PVP there. So when a lot of those groups give up on the top spot after losing in the PVP, they will go to other good spots, where again will have a lot PVP (less, but still will have). And this will repeat till only the least wanted farm spots are left where you can farm without pvp.

Also why would some randoms defend your caravan? (you even said "majority"). Like what you get by defending some random caravan? Coz if you attack it you can win the loot.

And about the mega guilds - A place may be optimal for exp, but this doesnt mean that it can support 100+ players. Like the more players you bring the less exp each of them will be getting per minute. So if a zerg guild bring 500 players to the best farm location, they will be getting less exp than 20 man farming average exp location.

RedLeader1

There will be an optimal path through the game. Game theory is correct.

However, I think finding it is going to be almost impossible. First of all, even if we assume that no content is randomized, not even the mobs that populate dungeons, or the high level mats they drop for gear/relics; those raids/lawless zones/world bosses/dungeons/mobs/loot are only going to be revealed if the nodes are developed to the maximum level, and possibly the right story arcs are triggered.

You may think you have the best in slot gear, but really the recipe for the best in slot gear may be crafted from an item/recipe that drops from a religious node dungeon, and the node that drops it, is (on your realm) is a vassal node trapped at level3, and in any case it requires a specific religion at that node which never got started. That is one example, but repeat that for things that drop from POIs requiring a certain combination of events from all adjacent Nodes, and a crafter that has specialized into just the right niche, possibly even needing an RNG roll when creating the item, and it may be that not even Intrepid can tell you what the BiS item is for a given slot/class/role, or the optimal path trough the game, on any one server.

People have to understand that this is not a theme-park game, the available content is neither known, nor static. Theory is fine, but practice may be entirely different.

nanfoodle

1. No DPS counter
2. There is over 7000 augments planed

Go ahead and try and min max that lol

Noaani

nanfoodle wrote: »

1. No DPS counter

Do you honestly think I don't have one running already?

abc0815

Hating on Sandbox game play thread NR.9000 (which this game seem to have less and less)

Githal

Noaani wrote: »

nanfoodle wrote: »

1. No DPS counter

Do you honestly think I don't have one running already?

Yep you dont. And yes there will be in the future, but it will be only for yourself. You wont be able to measure other players dps

Noaani

Githal wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

nanfoodle wrote: »

1. No DPS counter

Do you honestly think I don't have one running already?

Yep you dont. And yes there will be in the future, but it will be only for yourself. You wont be able to measure other players dps

There are four statements in this post.

One of them is correct, three of them are incorrect.

daveywavey

With the number of murder-hobos on just the forum itself, we're not going to be short of conflict in-game. It's a gamer's nature. You don't need to worry.

Githal

Noaani wrote: »

Githal wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

nanfoodle wrote: »

1. No DPS counter

Do you honestly think I don't have one running already?

Yep you dont. And yes there will be in the future, but it will be only for yourself. You wont be able to measure other players dps

There are four statements in this post.

One of them is correct, three of them are incorrect.

Calculating other players dps is not dependent on the tool, but on the game design.
The tool just calculates PUBLIC information of players dmg on the target, and converts it to dps and structures it so you can see. For this to work you need to have access what dmg the other player does with each attack.

This means its possible to calculate dps of other if he attacks you. But if you cant access info of him attacking a mob for example. then it wont work

Noaani

Githal wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Githal wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

nanfoodle wrote: »

1. No DPS counter

Do you honestly think I don't have one running already?

Yep you dont. And yes there will be in the future, but it will be only for yourself. You wont be able to measure other players dps

There are four statements in this post.

One of them is correct, three of them are incorrect.

Calculating other players dps is not dependent on the tool, but on the game design.
The tool just calculates PUBLIC information of players dmg on the target, and converts it to dps and structures it so you can see. For this to work you need to have access what dmg the other player does with each attack.

This means its possible to calculate dps of other if he attacks you. But if you cant access info of him attacking a mob for example. then it wont work

Yes, my combat tracker needs to know the combat figures of any player in order to track those figures.

This is correct.

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