Splinter Topic: Micro-Competition vs Macro-Competition

People misunderstand forced-PvP-averse vs owPvP-enjoyer in MMORPGs because of some stuff. Here's some of that stuff. If you poke me, I'll add more stuff or expand on this stuff.

1. A PvE-enjoyer (let's use a fisher), enters the game with the idea of getting good at fishing, building up knowledge, skill level, understanding of systems (plz donot assume they 'don't care about PvP'). That person is in micro-competition with every other fisher. When another person shows up at their fishing spot in a game with no forced PvP, their 'competition' is in 'who understands the fishing mechanics better and who honed their skills more'. In a game with forced PvP, their 'competition' can instantly become 'who is better at PvP'.

2. A PvP-enjoyer (let's say me, a 'fishing rights enforcer') enters the game with the idea of getting good at controlling an economic space. That person is in micro-competition with the PvP skill or the organizational ability (or zerg factor) of anyone who wants control of that economic space. But there's one catch to consider. In this case, the PvP-enjoyer has a vastly diminished incentive to cooperate compared to even a Survival game (but let's look at games where some attempt at simulating a world is happening, instead).

The 'flaw' in forced-PvP MMOs is contained in those two things above and all the fundamental issues relative to them that these games nearly never address, or cannot address because it would drastically warp gameplay. The result is, that all the 'real world equivalent' outcomes that 'would need to happen in the game, for it to make sense as a proper macro-competition', end up happening in terms of 'players existing in the world'. Basically, characters 'die' when their players leave the game due to the 'flaws', which are really just 'the equivalent of what would happen irl if too many immortal people with low incentives for cooperation entered an area'.

For a game to be enjoyable for most PvE-focused players, something must enforce the micro-competition within their skillsets. Otherwise, the only micro-competition they can be assured of getting to experience is PvP. This was the original failpoint of New World.

If I can 'help my friend win a fishing contest' by killing you, it is no longer a fishing contest. If you take nothing else from this post, let it be that. No matter how much someone likes PvP competition, if they also want to have 'fishing skill competitions' and the game allows another player to 'win the fishing skill competition by using PvP skill', it is a 'PvP game'.

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Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Over 70 comments while I was asleep

Azherae, what's your party's opinion would be on smth like this setup?
The game tracks account-wide PK Count History (i.e. even if your current count is 0, the game would know that you have 10 PKs overall; and the count itself is not account-wide)

Military nodes have access to the PKCH of players that have PKd people in the vicinity of allied nodes

Other nodes can request the full PKCH list by sending a Mayoral caravan to get it (requires a full back&forth track to do)

PKCH info needs to be retaken every month (could be more often)

Guards in nodes operate according to the available PKCH

Guard power exists on a sliding scale of "can kill a weak mob" to "literally immortal and hits like a truck" (controlled by the mayor choices)

Guards are positioned across the node in predetermined places, with a predetermined patrol route

Guards aggro onto mobs that enter a certain radius and onto PKers who enter x2 of that radius

Guard-killed targets don't drop loot ("killed" here means "Guard did any dmg to the target") and Guards don't aggro onto bosses

After a certain PKCH value Guards aggro onto a flagged player with that value

If there's been a PK, Guards over a certain lvl (let's say 3/5 minimum) will go to that location and stay there for a certain amount of time

Amount of Guards and the duration of their presence in that location is set by the Mayor (debatable)

All of the above don't apply to military nodes themselves

As I see it, this would be a player-controlled TL-like system. There'll be nodes that are very good for pvers, but the system itself doesn't remove the possibility of being killed at least once. The economic macro-competition is still present in the form of mayoral actions (and any influence on them by other players), node wars/sieges (wars could have a goal of "destroy the guard post in the node", which disables it for several days) and caravan attacks to prevent the Guards from knowing the latest info about PKCH.

And this would also enforce pve-based micro-competition on the spots themselves, while not removing a casual PKing as the last resort. In other words, your enforcer might not be able to PK as much as yall might need, but a random person can still use the system for their benefit. Obviously this doesn't prevent your entire party going corrupt one after the other, but this too would only be doable up to a certain extent.

I feel like this system would be a nice way to have a not-as-gamey application of TL's events.

As usual, you have solved the problem in the same way that Developers of a game I play did.

You've basically now described how this works in Elite:

Your bounties for attacking nonhostiles (players and NPCs) are separate from your Notoriety from actually killing them
You can check the bounties of up to 10 (sometimes there is overlap) players who have been scanned within the star system, and there is some distinction between people who have Notoriety and don't)
You can therefore send someone (a player) to check, in any system, if a high Bounty player has been seen there (but if they don't get scanned or somehow interact with the network, they don't show up, so you can lose track of them if they are careful
Notoriety wears off after a while if you don't do anything else illegal, or hide out in the right system (in Ashes, think like 'you killed a person who was not a Citizen of any Node, in a Dungeon)
Automatic, but in this case there's no way to clear bounties without also clearing Notoriety (except that Bounties were tied to a ship, not a player, so you can change ship to resolve it)
NPC pilots range from 'basically patrol squads in the tiniest ships' to 'fully engineered juggernaut groups' and the response is proportional when certain things happen
Would prefer a more flexible patrol route and the chance to deploy them, but this only works in Elite because Elite TTK is massive (one battle between two skilled pilots is like 8 minutes, in Low Security systems the guards don't even show up until 5 minutes in)
No issues if guards attack mobs, presuming that the mobs are usually not near the guard patrol routes.
No issues if guards sometimes take the mob loot, but I don't feel that they should disqualify players from getting loot just by dealing any damage.
In Elite aggro onto players just for having their weapons 'drawn' this is a reputation type thing, rather than a Notoriety thing, but I view it as the same overall.
The equivalent of 'more guards showing up and hanging around at a location due to illegal activity' is a core experience of Elite Resource Extraction sites, we send newbie pilots to certain ones to train with the guards.
Number of guards and effectiveness are set by the system, but you can influence it by providing certain things, raising 'morale', and in a few cases even doing something similar to training with them. You can do this in FFXI too, but only for Campaign, so it probably isn't relevant here.
Elite does contain 'Anarchy' systems where anything goes, and 'Hazardous Resource Extraction Sites' where the NPCs may not show up, in Low Security systems. If you are pursuing certain NPC pirates (or players who have high reputation with pirates) they may go to a 'blind spot' in the system where the transmission of your being attacked won't reach the main stations, so system Security will not respond and you have to beat them head-on, or hope that there was a randomly patrolling one nearby (in the extremely rare case where this happens, that NPC Security agent will also not be able to transmit a specific call to others for help)

So, as for 'what we think of it', usual answer:
"This is my normal."

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Any content in which you can't see the entierity of the thing you are after, rather than chasing someone off that is also interested in that content, you would ensure that you kill them.

If you can't see the whole thing and you just chase someone off, they will just go to a part of that content where you can't see them.

Ok, I might be understanding what you mean. Pretty much the resource you were talking about, where travel times are huge, so you wouldn't even know if they're at other spawn locations. Is this what you're saying?

But this would then return to what I was talking about before. How does killing them prevent them from simply going to that spot afterwards? This is the "immortality" Azherae keeps mentioning. Killing a competitor doesn't do shit, especially in this current context, if they simply respawn and go to another locations with the same content.

Or am I still missing something in your point?

You gotta understand that ArcheAge is huge.

Like, 600km^2.

Only like three games beat it, if you don't count MineCraft (MMOs, that is).

It's one of those things people like to make videos and articles about, so you can look it up more whenever you like.

Archeage is big enough that killing someone might remove them from your space, if they didn't 'already live there', if that makes sense.

This is also a harshness question, for example, in FFXI you have one respawn point. You can choose where it is, but if you move it, and you die, you will respawn there if no one raises you, and can even get caught in death loops as a result.

So if you took an FFXI equivalent, I'd be 'taking a risk' by setting my 'Home Point' off in enemy territory, and I might prefer to take the risk of 'not being able to easily continue gathering if I lose in a contest over the gathering spot'.

If Ashes had this...

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Or am I still missing something in your point?

In this situation, farming those materials required a farm vehicle.

Killing the player would destroy that vehicle - and that had a repair cost and reuse time.

If you killed someone while they had their vehicle out, they likely wouldn't attempt to harvest again until you had finished. if you just chase them off, they would just be chased off and go somewhere else.

I omitted these details because they weren't relavent to the point that sometimes people will chase you down and kill you, because that is what the content requires. Those details really don't matter - all that matters is the point I made right back in the beginning.

Noaani

Azherae wrote: »

Archeage is big enough that killing someone might remove them from your space, if they didn't 'already live there', if that makes sense.

In a lot of cases, this was true.

The game fishing example I gave absolutely is like this. It could sometimes take people an hour or more to get back to you if you killed them.

Killing someone in the open ocean usually took them out of the fight for good.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

As usual, you have solved the problem in the same way that Developers of a game I play did.

Sometimes I really wish I wasn't an incarnation of a lazy neet and went with my initial plan in school of "making games"

I really feel like I would've done at least somewhat nicely as a game designer.

Azherae wrote: »

No issues if guards sometimes take the mob loot, but I don't feel that they should disqualify players from getting loot just by dealing any damage.

I mostly included this to avoid any obvious abuses of "this node has immortal guards with huge attack, so let me use them to farm some hardcore mobs". Obviously this also comes down to mob leashes and mob distribution, but I thought that completely removing this as an option is just a simpler way to address this.

Azherae wrote: »

This is also a harshness question, for example, in FFXI you have one respawn point. You can choose where it is, but if you move it, and you die, you will respawn there if no one raises you, and can even get caught in death loops as a result.

And this is exactly why I've been bringing up respawn points in pvp/pk discussions for years now. I really think that a good system of respawning could alleviate some of the PKing fears. We already have no corpserunning in Ashes, so camping that is not an option, and I believe that having at least 2 options for respawns would be a nice way to make things even better for players.

Obviously those options would need to have some limitations of penalties on them, so that they get abused in the most obvious of ways, but that's more of a balancing issue rather than purely a design one (or at least I'd think so).

But on the topic at hand, unless we have player-set respawn points as the only option - I doubt what Noaani said would apply (as I understand it at least). If the desired content is distributed across a huge dungeon and a killed player from that dungeon respawns within a 1-3min distance of said dungeon - killing them does nothing.

If that content is distributed across half a continent - first of all ya ain't farming it yourself either way, but even if you somehow did, killing the player still doesn't matter cause, if anything, death might respawn them closer to the next respawn of this content.

This was mostly why I had issues understanding Noaani's point. Even with longer travel times, I don't see how killing a person changes the situation of "I don't want to have a competitor at the next part of my content". And this is also why I kept bringing up content respawn timers in relation to player movements, because then killing a player might be the opposite of the preferred option. If you have a perfectly optimized sync, interacting with a competitor is detrimental to your farming, unless you're worse than that competitor in pve. But if you are, then you're probably weaker in pvp as well and if the competitor doesn't pvp you - then you've simply lost the content (cause you either PK or move onto other content).

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

In a lot of cases, this was true.

The game fishing example I gave absolutely is like this. It could sometimes take people an hour or more to get back to you if you killed them.

Killing someone in the open ocean usually took them out of the fight for good.

Yeah, I expect Ashes to be the same, but open seas are also a pvp zone, so that's kinda completely out of the window for the context of this thread.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

In a lot of cases, this was true.

The game fishing example I gave absolutely is like this. It could sometimes take people an hour or more to get back to you if you killed them.

Killing someone in the open ocean usually took them out of the fight for good.

Yeah, I expect Ashes to be the same, but open seas are also a pvp zone, so that's kinda completely out of the window for the context of this thread.

I mean - all of Verra is a PvP zone.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

In a lot of cases, this was true.

The game fishing example I gave absolutely is like this. It could sometimes take people an hour or more to get back to you if you killed them.

Killing someone in the open ocean usually took them out of the fight for good.

Yeah, I expect Ashes to be the same, but open seas are also a pvp zone, so that's kinda completely out of the window for the context of this thread.

I'll only say that in the hypothetical FFXI+L2, I would absolutely always expect the game to be balanced such that if you were relatively deep in an area gathering or fighting mobs, and a competitor appeared, and you straight up PK'ed that competitor once, to get them to leave, you would (if in an area challenging for your level) be able to work off the Corruption JUST before that specific person got back if your PvE skills were up to par.

You could then potentially kill them again, and maybe even repeat that by changing your location a bit so that they didn't find you before you cleared it again.

This is because such a game would have a map size at least ArcheAge size to work, which is what Ashes intends. Everything I know about L2 indicates that its map was slightly too small to work for this while still incorporating certain gathering options.

I was discussing with my group that this is currently a flaw in TL, actually. The experience they seem to be going for, doesn't match the current sizes of their sub-areas (there's a lot here about how exactly gatherables and terrain features are distributed, too, so it might just be an issue of early areas, with any luck I'll know more in two weeks, but supposedly won't be able to talk about it if it's different than Korean Live server state now).

But as of Alpha-1, Ashes definitely had respawn points that seemed more focused on 'getting people back into it', which fits some of their design parts, but not others, imo, so I wouldn't even be able to guess which direction they intend to go with it.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

I mean - all of Verra is a PvP zone.

Getting killed in the open seas w/ 0 repercussions for the killer is not the same as getting PKed on land. And this thread is more about the "pvers disagree with pvper's corruption-related arguments for these reasons", so seas would be a completely separate topic here. Though as I've stated before, I still kinda disagree with free pvp on the seas, but, again, that's a separate discussion.

Azherae wrote: »

I'll only say that in the hypothetical FFXI+L2, I would absolutely always expect the game to be balanced such that if you were relatively deep in an area gathering or fighting mobs, and a competitor appeared, and you straight up PK'ed that competitor once, to get them to leave, you would (if in an area challenging for your level) be able to work off the Corruption JUST before that specific person got back if your PvE skills were up to par.

You could then potentially kill them again, and maybe even repeat that by changing your location a bit so that they didn't find you before you cleared it again.

If you, by chance, remember some of my posts from 2-3 years back - this is precisely the respawn balancing I was asking for

Azherae wrote: »

This is because such a game would have a map size at least ArcheAge size to work, which is what Ashes intends. Everything I know about L2 indicates that its map was slightly too small to work for this while still incorporating certain gathering options.

Me coming mostly from private L2 servers, that usually had higher rates (meaning more xp, etc), the timing of corruption removal would roughly match the time it would take for the victim to come back to your spot, as long as that spot was relatively deep in a dungeon (cause overland had more TP options for it).

And that's exactly the kind of timing I was asking for in Ashes. The "standard" respawn point for a death in any given location should be calculated by the speed of corruption removal at the deepest point of that location, given an optimal speed of mob kills and 0 PK count before the PK.

Everything else would simply be a variable in the risk/reward equation both sides of the PK do in their head.

Azherae wrote: »

But as of Alpha-1, Ashes definitely had respawn points that seemed more focused on 'getting people back into it', which fits some of their design parts, but not others, imo, so I wouldn't even be able to guess which direction they intend to go with it.

And this is exactly why I've been giving this feedback for a long time. Because the sooner we can test if my theory is correct - the easier it'll be for Intrepid to implement any balancing tools (if there'll be a need for any).

I'd assume that moving the respawn point is somewhat easy code-wise, so I hope we get to test this once Intrepid decides it's time to test corruption-related gameplay.

Azherae

Right, but you and I want the same game, like, very very explicitly.

And therefore, obviously, since this is how I believe MMO design works, you and I could therefore 'sit down for a week and work out the balance of every single aspect of that game on the whiteboard because we know exactly how each piece is supposed to feel when the game is done'.

But big studios don't have that luxury. They have to have roundtables, concepts of their audience, etc. In fact, nearly every larger MMO lately has been built from three or more competing perspectives, then had to be retooled (or just faltered due to not unifying).

Save us, Jake Song!

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

But big studios don't have that luxury. They have to have roundtables, concepts of their audience, etc. In fact, nearly every larger MMO lately has been built from three or more competing perspectives, then had to be retooled (or just faltered due to not unifying).

When it comes to stuff like TL - yeah, but wasn't the entire point of Steven starting Intrepid that he wanted his own blackjack and hookers? Of course we all like to think that it is MY SUGGESTION that's gonna be chosen by the sandal and most definitely assuredly bring best gameplay to the game - but this will ultimately be Steven's choice of what to do.

I just hope he keeps sticking to whichever guns he has chosen to stick to.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

But big studios don't have that luxury. They have to have roundtables, concepts of their audience, etc. In fact, nearly every larger MMO lately has been built from three or more competing perspectives, then had to be retooled (or just faltered due to not unifying).

When it comes to stuff like TL - yeah, but wasn't the entire point of Steven starting Intrepid that he wanted his own blackjack and hookers? Of course we all like to think that it is MY SUGGESTION that's gonna be chosen by the sandal and most definitely assuredly bring best gameplay to the game - but this will ultimately be Steven's choice of what to do.

I just hope he keeps sticking to whichever guns he has chosen to stick to.

I admire Steven's passion deeply but by his own admission, he is not directly a designer, he barely even has time for that anymore.

Steven wouldn't even necessarily have time to read through the better threads we have, and the forum is basically just us at this point, in that regard.

My point is that I don't think you can ask Steven 'hey do you want this or this?' and get an answer, because Steven wants to make the best game he can and for any part he doesn't deeply care about personally, it's best left to someone else.

What you're discussing here, though, is 'perspective'. Steven would need someone to translate every single thing on the whiteboard into every other thing on the whiteboard to make any granular decision. That's why the whiteboard exists.

Technically that's why this thread exists. Ashes has to decide 'Is it worth the effort to implement something to preserve micro-competition for PvE-focused players, at the cost of (giant list of other things) and to what extent?'

All you need for 'trouble' to stir up in a big studio is for the Devs to act like we do sometimes, both sides arguing about why it 'could work' or 'would be more fun' for hours instead of working out exactly what to 'put on the whiteboard'.

tl;dr Steven doesn't have enough guns anyway.

daveywavey

NiKr wrote: »

yeah, but wasn't the entire point of Steven starting Intrepid that he wanted his own blackjack and hookers?

Blackjack and hookers?! Screw the Fighter Preview, I wanna watch that livestream!

Azherae

Actually, sure, let's roll with that one then.

"The distance of respawn points and the number of respawn point options, in Ashes, is directly connected to the macro vs micro-competition 'enforcement' slider for the game's design, which ties into combat balance moderately and economic balance slightly, before we even consider overall fun factor. Steven, where would you like that slider to be set?"

Imagine a world in which Steven is not like you or me and can't answer this question in a single phonecall/e-mail. Now what?

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

Imagine a world in which Steven is not like you or me and can't answer this question in a single phonecall/e-mail. Now what?

As much as I'd hate agreeing with his take on this, Asmon's "just let people test it and you'll find out" works here.

Obviously, given that changing the respawn point does not require huge gamebreaking changes every time you implement the change.

So to answer this directly, it'd be smth like "let's leave this entire whiteboard for later" kinda thing. I understand that the overall design process might not even allow to "just leave it be", but I'd assume there's several things that require broader testing than just the in-house can provide, so it would have to be added to that list.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Imagine a world in which Steven is not like you or me and can't answer this question in a single phonecall/e-mail. Now what?

As much as I'd hate agreeing with his take on this, Asmon's "just let people test it and you'll find out" works here.

Obviously, given that changing the respawn point does not require huge gamebreaking changes every time you implement the change.

So to answer this directly, it'd be smth like "let's leave this entire whiteboard for later" kinda thing. I understand that the overall design process might not even allow to "just leave it be", but I'd assume there's several things that require broader testing than just the in-house can provide, so it would have to be added to that list.

Ah, no, because as I sorta said before, these things really matter.

TL has a flaw built into it now because the zones 'need to be bigger'. Since they cannot redesign the entire world map, they have to now work around that flaw every time.

The longer an MMORPG goes without this sort of thing done, the more entrenched the design becomes just because things like 'world map design space' is changing.

Like, if I wanted to do the econ design for Ashes, I would need to see their entire world map and every node and road location, or the algorithm that generated it. Then, since I wouldn't have been the person to write that algorithm, I have to work within what it produces.

It is possible to have built a world where it is not possible to properly place the respawn points for specific values of the slider, just by 'telling your world design team to just keep going for now'. And then we all get into Alpha-2, and no amount of testing seems to help, and...

We Riot.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

TL has a flaw built into it now because the zones 'need to be bigger'. Since they cannot redesign the entire world map, they have to now work around that flaw every time.

In a theoretical "fix" of TL, how big of a pain point would it be to remove TPing and/or add a small timer on the respawn button?

Obviously adding it now would probably get too many complaints from players, but if the map was what it is right now and a theoretical you came into the development just a few months from release and tried to find a fix. How much would what I said influence other parts of the game?

Azherae wrote: »

We Riot.

I am REALLY interested in what they come up with. Simply to see what a "new approach to mmos" would even mean.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

TL has a flaw built into it now because the zones 'need to be bigger'. Since they cannot redesign the entire world map, they have to now work around that flaw every time.

In a theoretical "fix" of TL, how big of a pain point would it be to remove TPing and/or add a small timer on the respawn button?

Obviously adding it now would probably get too many complaints from players, but if the map was what it is right now and a theoretical you came into the development just a few months from release and tried to find a fix. How much would what I said influence other parts of the game?

Azherae wrote: »

We Riot.

I am REALLY interested in what they come up with. Simply to see what a "new approach to mmos" would even mean.

The 'problem' in TL isn't related to TP-ing, it's about player incentives and behaviors while in the zone itself, and how it affects how they feel about the game. I think removing Teleports would make it worse. Also, for clarity, the TL one isn't related to respawns after death, but to some specific things about how the game feels overall during the leveling process. Long story.

As for what would change if 'I' was to try to fix it (note that I literally can't come up with a way so far, but I have only been thinking about it on and off for 8 hours), I'd love to speculate on it (well, only sorta) but it's Market Open, so time to go make some $$.

Azherae

Ok NiKr, back, and super cranky, but in a way, this converts well into what we're talking about so I'll vent and explain at the same time.

The current broad stock market trend, partially fueled by some algorithms, is that most mid-to-low impact businesses will rise in the 3-4 days before their earnings. The algorithms can't find anything to profit from 'at earnings time' lately, so they 'bet' and feed into each other.
(Ashes equivalent, players not being able to find ways to make money and more or less guessing and distributing themselves randomly)

If you can guess what the algorithms (and other people who realize this) are doing, you can get gains from 5-20%.
(Ashes equivalent would be buying the cheapest item that you think will be expensive later if you hoard it now)

The outcome has nothing to do with how good the earnings are, in fact, optimally you should always sell just before them. This is an entire emergent 'structure' that 'built itself' out of a huge number of factors.
(Ashes equivalent would be getting the gains just before people start competing over the resource and the supply dries up).

The challenge for me (and the equivalent, Ashes designers) is to work out the exact inflection point for each stock (resource) based on player feelings about how difficult it will be to collect it if they try to.

Moving just two respawn points near certain PoI could be the equivalent of 'something boosting a single economic sector so that their earnings actually go up, giving the algorithms something to focus on other than this (quite frankly frustrating) period model.

Except that Ashes has to consider respawn point locations for every possible configuration of the nodes around the PoI as well, and if we go so far as to have different respawn points lock or unlock based on changes to the node or PoI, it then relies on testing that would take about a week, equivalently

This is borderline insane to do even if you had a simulation, because the simulation type most people have available has to collect targeted data first to get a large enough predictive model, for something as unique as Ashes. Even mine, which are more like 'support sims for my own intuition' still have to collect the data and sometimes the model changes before they even get enough to be helpful to me.

Game developers' lives are hard, as I said, I don't envy them when the goal of a system is this level of depth.

tl;dr Changing two respawn points is the equivalent of 'having to remember the metric' that I forgot today. I don't wanna talk about the amount of potential money I just missed, but it be a lot.

Ethanh37

@Azherae have you watched this vid.

https://youtu.be/hzK_EAdCFEU

what his point seems to be is that the servers are watching the data at all time, in real time so that if they move a respawn its done with the latest data. this is what I meant when I say that ashes devs better have worked out the wheel. and why I believe ashes to be a new breed of MMO. but we have yet to see any of it play out in a game setting.... Alpha 2 has a lot of expectation riding on it.

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