[SUGGESTION] 'Open Loot' Slider

If you look at the most popular online games in the world:

League of Legends - no death penalty
World of Warcraft - no death penalty
Guild Wars 2 - minor death penalty (can't be revived for a while)
DOTA 2 - no death penalty
Counter Strike - no death penalty
Team Fortress 2 - no death penalty
Battlefield 4 - no death penalty

These games have massive, thriving PvP communities. The fact that you are defeated and have to respawn doesn't dissuade people from playing these games. The ability to quickly rejoin the action after dying is a good thing.

Removing people from PvP so that the victor has no one to continue fighting, or removing the loser's ability to try again is a bad thing.

PvP has a network effect where the more people who want to partake, the better experience everyone has. When your mechanics are constantly removing people, you hurt that network effect.

 

Heh, I totally understand what you're saying, but you have to remember you're dealing with an audience made mostly of Ultima fans. To us, PvP is simply the act of one player character attacking another. The reason is up to the player. Surely you are aware murder is a fairly effective approach to robbery?

 

I haven't played most of those games. I have played STO, where if you die you just have to wait a while to respawn, always in the same scene. Because of that there are often huge numbers of ships involved in battles. In some battles, you can't always tell whats going on. All you do is go in, click buttons, then if you die, you start over, go in and click buttons again, die, start over, go in and click buttons again. Its completely boring to me. No matter how many people are involved, I'm not interested in playing that. If that's how PvP is in SotA, I won't PvP (because I'll find it boring).

When I asked about respawning, I meant in a different location, where it'd be a task to get back to the battle.

 

SotA has instances and they can control how many people they want max in an instance to cut down on utter chaos as you described.

 

Yea, but whether its chaos or not, I still find it kind of boring. Its just a form of grinding, at least as far as I see it.

 

Why do people still play Halo or Battlefield all day long? Or Counter Strike? Or DOTA 2? Or Team Fortress?

All they're doing is repeating the same gameplay mechanics, often on the same maps forever.

Yet these are the most popular games on the planet.

The key is having great mechanics that you don't mind repeating that don't feel like a grind/chore.

If SotA has great combat, then you'll want to engage in it. Players will often provide a greater challenge than NPC mobs. So people who enjoy great combat will want to PvP. I'm all for providing rewards and incentive to encourage people to jump into PvP and keep at it. I don't want to see systems that drive people away from PvP and stop them from playing.

 

I don't know, maybe they enjoy different things than me. Combat in most single player games, or single player MMO is also boring to me, except it at least has the role of advancing the story. The combat system may have good mechanics, but for me, one of the most fun aspects of combat is planning ahead and preparing. Getting your gear and coming up with a strategy. And then your strategy either succeeds, or it fails. And if it doesn't fail, and you get a free pass, its a whole lot less interesting.

 

I think part of the problem is that most single player RPGs don't have great combat. So the combat feels like a grind/chore. (There are exceptions like Skyrim, Fallout, Icewind Dale, Final Fantasy Tactics).

The challenge is to create combat that people enjoy.

 

The problem is that the current method Darkstarr talks about would have you stuck at 5% anyway. This would at least give you a chance to get more from the battle presuming the other player in the battle set theirs higher hoping to get more.

Cause what you are asking is irelivent with out a loot slider. Cause the current proposal is something much less. This would at least give you a chance to get more.

All the features they discussed so far were up to their streatch goals which were about half of their current funding. So I dont think any worries there.

Based on all the requests for Open PvP full loot in these forums combined with the reward for going "all in" as I outline with out the risk of being more exposed than your opponent might be; I would suspect there are a lot. Me for one.

i'm not sure about the "who has more loot" question. But I think its a question for Darkstarr cause I dont even think their system addresses what you are asking... and if it does... this system can follow those rules too.

I thought about the 1v1 question as you outline... but that hasnt ben answered by Darkstarr so I figured its not worth addressing(worthless speculation and all). So i focused on what has been address. And if Darkstarr addresses the 1V1 issue, I dont see why it cant conform to what ever their poposal is for it.

i'm not too concerned about cost to implement with them about to hit $4million. Plus its litterally about 5-6 lines of code. Check slider setting on Player A + Player B > which one is less > Set reward amount Darkstarr outlined to match this new value.

Exactly, and being that Darkstarr said they would be calculating all this 'stuff' for looting... the proposed slider would have that.

I agree. If anything I think it would encurage people to be more active in PvP. Their current proposed system just locks you in to "a" number of some kind. I would be happy to tune mine up if it meant I didnt have to risk more than the other guy, but could get the same reward as him.

I like what you said here. For me its role playing me the brave warrior defending himself against a mad murderer. So long as the game mechanics are in place to make sure they stay true to their role(getting attacked by guards, hunted by some other game mechanic, or what ever) its a fun game.

 

For reference, I believe many know my stance about PvP — and how I absolutely refuse to take part in non-consensual PvP — here.

Of those games, I don't play LoL or DotA2 (not really into MOBAs), never played much PvP in WoW (dabbled in it, but without an even playing field I didn't find it any fun), and never purchased any Battlefield game (I tend to avoid EA games if there is any alternative, and won't purchase anything at all from the Origin store because the name reminds me of how EA killed Origin Systems).

But the other ones... GW2 is a game I currently play mainly for the PvP (the instanced, arena PvP, more specifically, though I do find WvW fun in the rare occasions when the fight is reasonably balanced), and I've spent more hours in Counter Strike and TF2 than I care to remember. It's not uncommon for me to spend half my play time any given week playing PvP, but I tend to only play PvP in games without setbacks for losing and where the game itself and/or the matchmaking system guarantees a more or less even playing field.

 

Yeah, agreed 100%. From a pure tactical perspective, those games work and I could play all day.
The next interesting level is to add meaningful spill over into the RPG. i.e. holding the castle actually matters even if you're not part of the PvP.

 

Yet I agree with PrimeRib! *such a clever fellow*

I once fought a war on UO's SP shard that lasted 3 months of 24 hour bashing until I was left with only my plate pants, a club and a hat... no one was truly interested in any loot in the fight (a few were because in the early days of SP things were hard to come by) yet more than 80% didn't have time to loot anything because that 3 month battle involved some 600+ players which at any time fielded between 400-60 of us round the clock 24 hours a day"FOR 3 SOLID MONTHS!"
And that's what I call Fun!

"Memories of the Fellowship"
~Time Lord~

 

While those grand adventures certainly made for great times, they also overshadow their very causes. I've seen several such wars break out in some of the more ruthless PvP games simply because one player stole something from another. Many new gamers have never seen the kinds of tension that real conflict between players can cause, especially when all participants are willing and able to (try to) defend themselves.

 

I totally disagree Lord Trenyc,

Because those battles were made by me a very long time before there was ever that many to have such a battle
it's about drawing the fun... not because of any beef with another...
~Time Lord~

 

Surely you appreciate that five people doing the same thing are not at all likely to all be doing it for the same reason? Try 600! You don't get that level of conflict without some interest in it, and besides, many players find conflict (or perhaps call it competition) fun.

 

If you're the Time Lord you do
There are ways that escape you that you have not perhaps seen. Yet I rarely divulge my secrets to starting such a fire ...
~Time Lord~

 

As my last post sounds like conceit,

It takes many strange hands that come together at the right place, the right mind set, and at the right Time... and it is all we here, that will some day decide when, where and what time that will be, once the parameters of our game's restrictions are better known and everyone remembers what anything epic can taste like...
Ever My Friend.. our time will come, it's only a matter of the when, because the who are all around us
~Time Lord~

 

We can't fight. We each bear the other's color. Friends and enemies alike would be terribly confused. No, it should never do. We shall be allies, if even by chance. You shall see.

 

Watch out, he will only ally if you turn Loot Slide to "Full Loot". Shortly after you will need to pull the knife out of your back.