XP Loss/Enemy Territory

Jarrod

Comparing Achaea's XP system to "nearly every single game" where those games have level caps required to play the game in its entirety is a useless comparison.

Caladbolg

Sarapis said:

Tharvis said:

Sarapis said:

Eld said:

 that's the source of people's complaints about deaths being essentially meaningless for dragons, in terms of xp loss.

That is going to be fixed as part of the next phase of the PvE changes. (And this will be the most fun of the phases because it involves everyone getting new abilities.)

But I already don't have enough keys to keybind everything

??? As someone who manuals everything in MUDs, I have used a LOT of keybindings and never ran out of space. Can't you do control-<key>, alt-<key>, control-alt <key> etc variations? 

I have this 17 button mouse that I bought for warcraft right before I finally got a job and stopped playing warcraft.

If we could just ..I dunno.. Let these buttons not go to waste on Achaea by coding in a system to allow me to keybind cleave 17 times that'd be great.

Go ahead and send me a message when you guys got it complete

                           Love ya, Caladbolg
                               Not real love tho that's for @Karai

Caladbolg

Daeir said:

Gee, nobody would care about XP if there wasn't a tangible risk of losing it in most PK encounters, except for city defense during sanctioned raids.

Maybe if there was some form of XP share that made the PK experience a net positive overall rather than a reshuffling of XP around in most cases, people who do actually value their time and don't want to repeat a heedless, inane task to return their character back to their original strength from a period where they indulged in something actually entertaining in the game.

I've said this before and I'll say it again - XP loss on PK deaths is such a pointless and dilapidated mechanic. There's a stark reason why nearly every single game in existence has moved away from that paradigm as a design choice - it creates barriers to participation, and heavily polarizes activities into being full of people that are in the position to not care about XP - either from them being at the top of the ladder (so to speak), or being deliberately negligent of their own character development in exchange for entering that portion of the game.

There is no reason to leave it in, beyond abject stubbornness. It does not add a thing to the game. It does not add this coveted sense of "risk and reward" as many seem to feel it does - there are plenty of consequences for death in Achaea beyond the XP aspect that are far more meaningful and long-lasting (reputation, city destruction status, so on). If it were removed entirely, I would eat my own shoes if participation in PK activities did not at least double in numbers.

To late to edit.

But also you have to consider exp loss to player death like gambling

You could win, and get EXP!!

Or you could die and lose EXP!!

Some people will avoid gambling because they know the odds are highly in the houses favor.

Im walking home naked because I had to start betting clothes.


---

Double post but to late to edit other post

Herenicus

It's fine, @Caladbolg! Thanks for the helpful gambling comparison.

Raiders get to set their own odds by waiting until the right people are available to raid (or unavailable to defend). It isn't surprising where they stack the deck in their favour: like the house, raiders are playing to win and not necessarily for your good time. At the same time, raiders need defenders willing to roll the dice or face death by boredom. Maybe removing XP loss from pre-sanction defense would help.

Jarrod

You just stated the problem. Lots of raiders only play to win.

Your suggestions just mean that the norm will be even more lopsided raids to account for any increased downsides to raiding. Making smaller scale raids more favorable for raiders (in terms of potential rewards) is the only thing that will get more than the people who really enjoy raiding to participate in raids potentially unbalanced against themselves.

Herenicus

Thank you, @Jarrod.

Those little fights sure can be fun. Personally, if I am entertaining PvPers with my organization, I'd rather host one or two larger, 30-60 minute raids than repetitive, low-grade bids for attention in the form of onesies or twosomes. If only one or two people want to PvP, there are countless options to enjoy it without presuming everyone does. It's why I generally make my sermons opt-in instead of forcing someone to sit through something that I might enjoy more than they do.

Jarrod

You initially stated that you want raids to be a happy, involved scenario for raiders and defenders.

That last comment seems you're advocating a 30-60 minute completely lopsided raid.

Your suggestions would inevitably lead to the latter, but I doubt anyone who actually enjoys PK in any form would call it a happy or involved scenario.

Herenicus

Jarrod said:

You initially stated that you want raids to be a happy, involved scenario for raiders and defenders.

That last comment seems you're advocating a 30-60 minute completely lopsided raid.

Your suggestions would inevitably lead to the latter, but I doubt anyone who actually enjoys PK in any form would call it a happy or involved scenario.

Oh heavens, Jarrod. I don't think you're being very generous with your assumptions, but I hope I can fairly address myself to your comment.

People in charge of organzing large raids, people like the Ministers of War, should consider themselves teammates, at least OOCly, for the purpose of pulling these events together in a way that is fun and maximizes participation.

And I apologize for sounding like some insufferable Emily Post, but touching base with each other to see if there's time and personnel available for an impromtu fight just makes sense to me. Maybe some of this goes on, already. If so, I'd like to encourage more of it. 

Nemutaur

Herenicus said:

Jarrod said:

You initially stated that you want raids to be a happy, involved scenario for raiders and defenders.

That last comment seems you're advocating a 30-60 minute completely lopsided raid.

Your suggestions would inevitably lead to the latter, but I doubt anyone who actually enjoys PK in any form would call it a happy or involved scenario.

Oh heavens, Jarrod. I don't think you're being very generous with your assumptions, but I hope I can fairly address myself to your comment.

People in charge of organzing large raids, people like the Ministers of War, should consider themselves teammates, at least OOCly, for the purpose of pulling these events together in a way that is fun and maximizes participation.

And I apologize for sounding like some insufferable Emily Post, but touching base with each other to see if there's time and personnel available for an impromtu fight just makes sense to me. Maybe some of this goes on, already. If so, I'd like to encourage more of it. 

I always expect a hostile force to ask if I have time to defend. I'm sure that the USA does the same before it goes into war. No such thing as a surprise attack to give you an advantage, that's just unsporting.

What we will do is one of two things. Either we want an objective and will just raid to complete it no matter who is on. This is the rarer of the two for us in Ashtan.

The second more common is we check which cities have people to defend, we'll look for known gemmed and qw and then the one with the most citizens wins, lately that's been Mhaldor.

Herenicus

Nemutaur said: 

I always expect a hostile force to ask if I have time to defend. I'm sure that the USA does the same before it goes into war. No such thing as a surprise attack to give you an advantage, that's just unsporting.

What we will do is one of two things. Either we want an objective and will just raid to complete it no matter who is on. This is the rarer of the two for us in Ashtan.

The second more common is we check which cities have people to defend, we'll look for known gemmed and qw and then the one with the most citizens wins, lately that's been Mhaldor.

Because this is a game for willing participants, the applicability of psychological tactics we might use IRL to surprise, discourage, and rout an enemy are mostly inapplicable. Even as you create a bad time for someone here, Steam is spending millions of dollars to advertise good times, still only a mouseclick away.   

Nemutaur

One side always loses though. That's the nature of conflict or combat in Achaea. And when one side loses there's bound to be grumbling. Lately I've been a little negative, but it's up to your fellow players to convince you it was ok, we did quite well actually.

I mean we've gone into cities with 3 people, died a couple of times vs 10 but if we killed 2-3 people before being wiped we called it a win. I know this sounds an awful lot like 'get good' but its more 'find the silver lining' and develop better strategies for next time.

Like I realised that level 2 tank thing? Even though we blew the level 2 there's still things we could have done better like rotate people out to stop the buildup of font stacks.

Herenicus

I appreciate your perspective, Nemutaur, and I'm glad you felt comfortable to share in this thread. 

I still believe that our shared OOC goal of maximizing participation should trump any IC differences. We organize games with friends all the time with the understanding that someone loses, right?

Take chess, for instance. If I want to encourage someone to play chess with me, I wouldn't force them to decide between playing on my terms or walking away, especially if I know I'm better at chess or happen to enjoy it more. And besides, maybe they just finished playing with someone else, or played a game earlier this afternoon? It doesn't hurt to ask. 

Nemutaur

What I don't get is why you want to make is so penalising for someone who is willing to die over and over just to get a fight. Do you think that makes us less willing to do something?

We'll just tryhard so bad so that we never reach that 4-5th death penalty or whatever.

The problem is shrines right now I think.

There was an interesting discussion the other day on how we should limit every Order to 5 shrines outside of cities. Each area would only get 1 shrine max, if another order wants to kill the shrine they have to raise their own mini shrine and channel with 1 person for 10 mins or 2 people for 5 mins in order to get theirs to large size and that would then kill the other shrine.

If your order owns an area there is a passive benefit for that Order or maybe city or Order members and order allies. Something like +regen on the level of half a boar tat and moon tat. Or more essence being gained by that shrine.

To fix worldburn it shouldn't be a shrine power anymore. It should be a font power. That way there is no more offensive shrines raised to worldburn and anybody in the army can activate the font for worldburn and rush on it. I'd suggest making it variable too, so empower font burn 1 - 30, each tick would be 1 second extra and cost 1% more font power.

5 Shrines would make you happy since it would be around the clock combat, nobody would have to hunt for ages to raise shrines. Dropping shrines wouldn't require essence so that's half the hunting there already.

Herenicus

Nemutaur said:

What I don't get is why you want to make is so penalising for someone who is willing to die over and over just to get a fight. Do you think that makes us less willing to do something?

I appreciate what you are trying to say, Nemutaur, but let's please try and extend each other a little more credit; the options in the OP are only suggestions to make defending more enjoyable for every raid, regardless of the odds the raiders choose to gamble with that day.

If defending raids/skirmishing/shrines is net positive in terms of XP, people that enjoy pushing their XP totals higher will find reasons to jump in. Defending should always be a positive experience, anyway.

edit: I like your idea of capping shrines at a reasonable number.

Nemutaur

Herenicus said:

If defending raids/skirmishing/shrines is net positive in terms of XP, people that enjoy pushing their XP totals higher will find reasons to jump in. Defending should always be a positive experience, anyway.

Should it? If you need to reward defenders with xp then you really need to take a good hard look at the people in your city. That's what city favours and perms to the city credit sale is for. Its up to you to incentivise good behaviour as well, don't lay it all on the admins.

Herenicus

Nemutaur said:

Herenicus said:

If defending raids/skirmishing/shrines is net positive in terms of XP, people that enjoy pushing their XP totals higher will find reasons to jump in. Defending should always be a positive experience, anyway.

Should it? If you need to reward defenders with xp then you really need to take a good hard look at the people in your city. That's what city favours and perms to the city credit sale is for. Its up to you to incentivise good behaviour as well, don't lay it all on the admins.

I don't think we need to pick and choose; encouraging participation is work for many heads and many hands. Participating should be its own reward!

Nemutaur

Herenicus said:

Nemutaur said:

Herenicus said:

If defending raids/skirmishing/shrines is net positive in terms of XP, people that enjoy pushing their XP totals higher will find reasons to jump in. Defending should always be a positive experience, anyway.

Should it? If you need to reward defenders with xp then you really need to take a good hard look at the people in your city. That's what city favours and perms to the city credit sale is for. Its up to you to incentivise good behaviour as well, don't lay it all on the admins.

I don't think we need to pick and choose; encouraging participation is work for many heads and many hands. Participating should be its own reward!

So what you're saying is all you care about is the Stick for attackers? Because from that I gather you obviously don't believe in the carrot for defenders.

Herenicus

Nemutaur said:

Herenicus said:

Nemutaur said:

Herenicus said:

If defending raids/skirmishing/shrines is net positive in terms of XP, people that enjoy pushing their XP totals higher will find reasons to jump in. Defending should always be a positive experience, anyway.

Should it? If you need to reward defenders with xp then you really need to take a good hard look at the people in your city. That's what city favours and perms to the city credit sale is for. Its up to you to incentivise good behaviour as well, don't lay it all on the admins.

I don't think we need to pick and choose; encouraging participation is work for many heads and many hands. Participating should be its own reward!

So what you're saying is all you care about is the Stick for attackers? Because from that I gather you obviously don't believe in the carrot for defenders.

Now, now. It isn't very generous to suggest that anyone only cares about one aspect of Achaea. Our game is deep and multifaceted; there are as many reasons to care as there are things to care about.

I believe in periodically reviewing the mechanisms and player behaviours that encourage participation. Raiders, by definition, come to the fight with all the encouragement they need. Defenders should be equally enthusiastic to participate, even where the raid wasn't their idea and even if the gambling odds are terribad. Everyone should be having a good time.

Mishgul

I don't think there is anything wrong with the shrine system. It was my second favourite source of conflict after exterminations. The thing with shrines is that it is almost entirely optional, the Sartai sometimes don't even bother announcing it if we have better things to do, and i could always go out and defile once against other people, and measure the response to see what I'd get it to see if people were willing to play. They are also a good measure of how much influence a city has within it's own walls. Mhaldor has always had an extremely strong one, and our shrines tend to be everywhere because our players tend to be a bit more fanatical. Even when we are down and being counted out, we'll have people going wild about keeping the shrines up. I love it.

Nemutaur

Mishgul said:

I don't think there is anything wrong with the shrine system. It was my second favourite source of conflict after exterminations. The thing with shrines is that it is almost entirely optional, the Sartai sometimes don't even bother announcing it if we have better things to do, and i could always go out and defile once against other people, and measure the response to see what I'd get it to see if people were willing to play. They are also a good measure of how much influence a city has within it's own walls. Mhaldor has always had an extremely strong one, and our shrines tend to be everywhere because our players tend to be a bit more fanatical. Even when we are down and being counted out, we'll have people going wild about keeping the shrines up. I love it.

I don't mind the current system, more shrines for me to drop. Its just some people seem to be tired of having to defend and raise them all day. So I was offering the option of less targets so that they don't have to do it all day.

Mishgul

Less targets could easily be put on the table. In my experience you just told white lies about essence running out and that it needs to be offered and then we can raise later.

Jarrod

Herenicus said:

I still believe that our shared OOC goal of maximizing participation should trump any IC differences. We organize games with friends all the time with the understanding that someone loses, right? 

2015/02/21 04:28:52 - Aegoth, Ainly, Atalkez, Cresil, Florentino, Hasar, Herenicus, Kitiara, Lideron, Melodie, Mycen, Oren, Saeva, Saibel, Ulrike, Vadimuses, Vaxarn, Xer, Xinna, and Zulah have destroyed The ruins of a radiant aviary.


Yeah?

Today we give thanks to the IRE Toolbar, for bringing us these wonderful lolz.

Melodie

Lol. How about getting your facts straight, like the fact that a) They brought 17ish to 8-10 of us less than 12 hours before? b) That they -wiped- us the first time, and we came back and it was only then we got our crap together and got the room?

The smugness is not becoming, Jarrod.

Dracen

Melodie said:

Lol. How about getting your facts straight, like the fact that a) They brought 17ish to 8-10 of us less than 12 hours before? b) That they -wiped- us the first time, and we came back and it was only then we got our crap together and got the room?

The smugness is not becoming, Jarrod.

Sounds awfully familiar. Love ya, Mel, but pot, meet kettle.

Jarrod

Melodie said:

Lol. How about getting your facts straight, like the fact that a) They brought 17ish to 8-10 of us less than 12 hours before? b) That they -wiped- us the first time, and we came back and it was only then we got our crap together and got the room?

The smugness is not becoming, Jarrod.

None of this changes what I posted. Good try though, it's charming.

Nim

Jarrod said:

Herenicus said:

I still believe that our shared OOC goal of maximizing participation should trump any IC differences. We organize games with friends all the time with the understanding that someone loses, right? 

2015/02/21 04:28:52 - Aegoth, Ainly, Atalkez, Cresil, Florentino, Hasar, Herenicus, Kitiara, Lideron, Melodie, Mycen, Oren, Saeva, Saibel, Ulrike, Vadimuses, Vaxarn, Xer, Xinna, and Zulah have destroyed The ruins of a radiant aviary.


Yeah?

Today we give thanks to the IRE Toolbar, for bringing us these wonderful lolz.

On the contrary, without knowing the effect the list of raiders had on the defenders side of things, technically having twenty (as opposed to, say, ten) raiders does fulfill the stated goal of maximizing participation, presuming that the defenders did not dwindle as a result.

It goes against some of the other things hinted at and discussed in the thread, but not that particular quote!

Melodie

Neither of you were even there. My enemy list was full, and I think maybe 3 left during. It was a close raid we almost lost at first. It was also after Targossas had initiated conflict multiple times throughout the day.

But whatever, you can keep assuming if you like.

Saeva

Yeah I definitely had a full enemy list and I imagine they did too. That was a bad comparison. That's just bad song writing, Petey! You wrote a bad song!. 

Jarrod

I'd love to see your full enemy list to compare to that raider list, will be fun comparison I'm looking forward to making.

Saeva

Morthif, Carmell, Aelios, Halos, Khalaz, Avianca, Kyttin, Kellonius, Reonna, Havyn, Iskla, Kard, Szareine, Draqoom, Siduri, Garis, Tesha, Noak and through the course of both of those raids there were others like Daeir, Achilles and a few other general Targs around. A few others. I don't know, I was in Dragon so I just stopped trying to keep up because you know what, sometimes a good breathstorm isn't worth it! There were that many people!