guard system sucks

Haven't been playing P2 so far, so don't know the details, but weren't they meant to just guard the nodes themselves?

Cause if that's the case and they kill flagged people in nodes - I support and like this change

It'd be nice if they became weaker during node sieges of course, but I'd imagine that's already the plan, cause otherwise no one would be able to siege.

Ludullu wrote: »

Haven't been playing P2 so far, so don't know the details, but weren't they meant to just guard the nodes themselves?

Cause if that's the case and they kill flagged people in nodes - I support and like this change It'd be nice if they became weaker during node sieges of course, but I'd imagine that's already the plan, cause otherwise no one would be able to siege.

They wander around town with some kind of aoe/sight range of when people attack each other.

When a node seige is declared we have a 2 day countdown. The players from the enemy node show as red everywhere in the game, able to be tab targetted and attacked. There are many places in town where the guards dont see you, so you can kill people in front of the storage, for example, and not be punished.

Essentially, the enemy team can lock down/the node storage and force players to drop citizenship or stop doing professions, or just go play something else.

Yesterday, I tried to transfer some material out of storage so I could drop citizenship and at least build a caravan so i can continue to play the game, but I got killed with the mats on me as I was transferring.

So, if you are already behind on gear (as I am) there is no way to catch up after the node seige is declared. I feel like I am on an endless hamster wheel of doing inefficient PVE to catch up to the other players in order to PVP with them. So my PVP content is locked out and my catch up PVE mechanic is locked out. Guards didnt really do shit.

At this point I'm considering just taking another break until P3... None of the remaining game loops available to me are that appealing, I just wanted to finally have some fun PVP, but looks like I missed the power curve for that option.

So wait, what's the concern?

Is it that there are guards or that they aren't working 'properly'?

This sounds like a basic 'harmless noob trap' to me, a learning experience that only affects most characters once, but I'm genuinely asking because I feel like I'm missing something.

By contrast, if someone were to tell you 'well your guild is supposed to gear you up' I'd call bs, but... I can't 'see' what the guards have to do with this.

Azherae wrote: »

So wait, what's the concern?

Is it that there are guards or that they aren't working 'properly'?

This sounds like a basic 'harmless noob trap' to me, a learning experience that only affects most characters once, but I'm genuinely asking because I feel like I'm missing something.

By contrast, if someone were to tell you 'well your guild is supposed to gear you up' I'd call bs, but... I can't 'see' what the guards have to do with this.

I'm just saying that the guards arent preventing the actual thing that people have a problem with, which is being able to still access your storage or do professions. They give a false sense of security, by protecting a few areas that aren't important.

And they dont even "protect", they just kill someone when they see them attack another player. So players with 600 MP can still 1 shot people in the node before they get killed, preventing them from doing professions, and as long as they got repair cash they can keep coming back and camping storage. Meanwhile the players of that node are put in a situation where they have to drop citizenship to continue playing the game. But since their node has all their storage, if they drop citizenship they lose access to the materials that they would be using to continue playing the game. So then they are left with very low efficiency PVE options if they want to keep playing, or just take a break from the game.

So I dont even know what these guards are for anyways. They dont protect the players, and just kill people in a few areas of the node when they see an attack. Pretty useless.

So it's THE case in point for my hate for the pvp event death penalty change. Real fucking stupid change.

And then that issue is compounded by the dumb ttk and by weird guard placement. So yeah, if the issue is "guards aren't doing their god damn jobs" - I totally agree that it should be fixed. This is just yet another weird move by Intrepid, considering that this exact interaction has been the main issue since P1. People have been complaining about dying RIGHT AT THE STORAGE/CRAFTING TABLES for months now, yet the "solution" didn't even address this.

And if there's no guards near storages, I'm fairly sure the attackers can even run away for free, cause at least in one node layout you can jump over the fence somewhere riiight around the storage location.

Do we have a reason to assume that the change was intended to fix the complaint, though?

Generally I assume that MMO Devs fix things the way they 'want it to be' and 'hope/check that the players don't mind it that way'.

(I know you put solution in quotes, I'm just wondering if I missed something that indicated they were even trying to solve the 'death at storage' thing).

Azherae wrote: »

Do we have a reason to assume that the change was intended to fix the complaint, though?

Generally I assume that MMO Devs fix things the way they 'want it to be' and 'hope/check that the players don't mind it that way'.

(I know you put solution in quotes, I'm just wondering if I missed something that indicated they were even trying to solve the 'death at storage' thing).

If the guards arent there to protect players from pvp then what is the point? And then why even use guards in the first place, when you can just make it a non pvp zone. The whole thing makes no sense to me. I dont know what the guards are for other than to piss people off. I dont see anything good about them.

Xeeg wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Do we have a reason to assume that the change was intended to fix the complaint, though?

Generally I assume that MMO Devs fix things the way they 'want it to be' and 'hope/check that the players don't mind it that way'.

(I know you put solution in quotes, I'm just wondering if I missed something that indicated they were even trying to solve the 'death at storage' thing).

If the guards arent there to protect players from pvp then what is the point? And then why even use guards in the first place, when you can just make it a non pvp zone. The whole thing makes no sense to me. I dont know what the guards are for other than to piss people off. I dont see anything good about them.

I'm not saying that I agree with the decision, it's just that I'm always really careful about assuming that Devs are trying to solve the actual 'problem' players are complaining about or having as a 'negative experience' because different devs don't see these as problems.

Azherae wrote: »

Xeeg wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Do we have a reason to assume that the change was intended to fix the complaint, though?

Generally I assume that MMO Devs fix things the way they 'want it to be' and 'hope/check that the players don't mind it that way'.

(I know you put solution in quotes, I'm just wondering if I missed something that indicated they were even trying to solve the 'death at storage' thing).

If the guards arent there to protect players from pvp then what is the point? And then why even use guards in the first place, when you can just make it a non pvp zone. The whole thing makes no sense to me. I dont know what the guards are for other than to piss people off. I dont see anything good about them.

I'm not saying that I agree with the decision, it's just that I'm always really careful about assuming that Devs are trying to solve the actual 'problem' players are complaining about or having as a 'negative experience' because different devs don't see these as problems.

I understand what you are saying. The thing the players think is a problem is not necessarily something the devs think is a problem...

But i still dont understand what function the devs have planned for the guards. Like what is the purpose of them in the first place?

Xeeg wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Xeeg wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Do we have a reason to assume that the change was intended to fix the complaint, though?

Generally I assume that MMO Devs fix things the way they 'want it to be' and 'hope/check that the players don't mind it that way'.

(I know you put solution in quotes, I'm just wondering if I missed something that indicated they were even trying to solve the 'death at storage' thing).

If the guards arent there to protect players from pvp then what is the point? And then why even use guards in the first place, when you can just make it a non pvp zone. The whole thing makes no sense to me. I dont know what the guards are for other than to piss people off. I dont see anything good about them.

I'm not saying that I agree with the decision, it's just that I'm always really careful about assuming that Devs are trying to solve the actual 'problem' players are complaining about or having as a 'negative experience' because different devs don't see these as problems.

I understand what you are saying. The thing the players think is a problem is not necessarily something the devs think is a problem...

But i still dont understand what function the devs have planned for the guards. Like what is the purpose of them in the first place?

Well, you could technically still run toward them to get away from attacks if the TTK was better, right?

Or maybe eventually they will implement an Elite Dangerous style Node Reputation, so people with very low Node Reputation wouldn't be able to just walk around town freely to even reach the Storage, at which point they have some purpose.

Azherae wrote: »

Do we have a reason to assume that the change was intended to fix the complaint, though?

Generally I assume that MMO Devs fix things the way they 'want it to be' and 'hope/check that the players don't mind it that way'.

It is in fact an assumption that's based purely on the sheer fact that guards got buffed and, afaik, changed to attack flagged people as well. And the only reason I could see for that change is to address people's complaints about dying in nodes. From what I've seen, majority of said complaints were related to dying around storage/crafting tables, losing their mats in the process.

If Intrepid implemented this change, while explicitly avoiding THE main problem that the change was supposed to address (from players' pov) - I don't fucking know why the change was even implemented.

So yeah, I don't think we've gotten explicit explanation for why they changed it (unless it's buried somewhere deep in the discord), but if it was done not due to one of the main complaints related to the change - it was a weird damn change. If the devs are fine with people dying in nodes - just say so and don't change a thing. If you're not fine with that - explain why you don't address the main point of player feedback. I'm sure there had to be SOME reason for not putting a guard right between (if not on top of) storage and tables, so I'd imagine that "open development" would present that reason to players, so that players can know how to address their testing experience in their future feedback.

Ludullu wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Do we have a reason to assume that the change was intended to fix the complaint, though?

Generally I assume that MMO Devs fix things the way they 'want it to be' and 'hope/check that the players don't mind it that way'.

It is in fact an assumption that's based purely on the sheer fact that guards got buffed and, afaik, changed to attack flagged people as well. And the only reason I could see for that change is to address people's complaints about dying in nodes. From what I've seen, majority of said complaints were related to dying around storage/crafting tables, losing their mats in the process.

If Intrepid implemented this change, while explicitly avoiding THE main problem that the change was supposed to address (from players' pov) - I don't fucking know why the change was even implemented.

So yeah, I don't think we've gotten explicit explanation for why they changed it (unless it's buried somewhere deep in the discord), but if it was done not due to one of the main complaints related to the change - it was a weird damn change. If the devs are fine with people dying in nodes - just say so and don't change a thing. If you're not fine with that - explain why you don't address the main point of player feedback. I'm sure there had to be SOME reason for not putting a guard right between (if not on top of) storage and tables, so I'd imagine that "open development" would present that reason to players, so that players can know how to address their testing experience in their future feedback.

It could be that the guards bugged out and werent defending the storage at the time the attack was placed. Regardless, the TTK is so low that they can easily kill people before guards stop them.

Either way, people are still getting killed at the storage. I have to assume that the design intent is for people to get killed at the storage, otherwise they would just make it a PVP free zone.

Thanks, you're usually more up to date than me since you have more PI members you can ask.

Maybe it's unfinished, maybe it's intended, maybe it's placation, and maybe they just don't have enough of an internal consensus to say anything about it.

In any case, I'll hope for the 'Node Reputation' thing.

Having checked discord for "guards", the main talking points seem to have been about emberspring camping and guards were a response to that. Though Steven did also say this

So just in general, guards are meant to help citizens to survive against war enemies. To me, that should include storage/tables locations too. THOUGH NONE OF THIS BS WOULD EVEN BE A THING IF WE DIDN'T CHANGE EVENT DEATH PENALTIES FFS

Ludullu wrote: »

Having checked discord for "guards", the main talking points seem to have been about emberspring camping and guards were a response to that. Though Steven did also say this

So just in general, guards are meant to help citizens to survive against war enemies. To me, that should include storage/tables locations too. THOUGH NONE OF THIS BS WOULD EVEN BE A THING IF WE DIDN'T CHANGE EVENT DEATH PENALTIES FFS

How do you want event death penalties to change?

Xeeg wrote: »

How do you want event death penalties to change?

To go back to what they planned them to be before the change. You only get gear decay on death. That's it. All the pvpers can pvp to their heart's content, while people who are getting destroyed only lose some durability instead of, as you yourself say, "just leaving the game until the war is gone" or "leave the node to avoid the war".

Pvp events should be about fun organized pvp. Keeping big penalties there would just remove as much pvp from the game as possible, and the remaining pvp will always be a "who's got more shit they can lose" situation, which always favors the strong and creates a bigger snowball for their power.

Ludullu wrote: »

Xeeg wrote: »

How do you want event death penalties to change?

Pvp events should be about fun organized pvp. Keeping big penalties there would just remove as much pvp from the game as possible, and the remaining pvp will always be a "who's got more shit they can lose" situation, which always favors the strong and creates a bigger snowball for their power.

Yeah, right now it is just a "camp storage and kill lowbies/randoms at storage with the most decked out toons in the game". Thats the war/preseige. Sucks balls bro.

Not even worth going around and gathering or trying to get ahead, cause we are perma red flagged against the other node everywhere in the game for the whole weekend.

Ludullu wrote: »

Xeeg wrote: »

How do you want event death penalties to change?

To go back to what they planned them to be before the change. You only get gear decay on death. That's it. All the pvpers can pvp to their heart's content, while people who are getting destroyed only lose some durability instead of, as you yourself say, "just leaving the game until the war is gone" or "leave the node to avoid the war".

Pvp events should be about fun organized pvp. Keeping big penalties there would just remove as much pvp from the game as possible, and the remaining pvp will always be a "who's got more shit they can lose" situation, which always favors the strong and creates a bigger snowball for their power.

fuck im an idiot. Turns out I had flagged "defender" when the seige was first declared because i didnt know wtf. Thats why i was red. I just turned it off... Thought it was node citizen vs citizen.

Still doesnt help with the guards being dumb.

OK, maybe the guards could be cool... But so far I haven't seen a good system. I dunno what it would take to make them cool tho, like an enjoyable experience for players.