PVE to create more PK

... sit down, kick back and relax, and talk about anything that doesn't belong on one of the other forums.
Elysia
Posts: 7952
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2015 1:29 pm

Re: PVE to create more PK

Post by Elysia » Tue May 07, 2024 2:53 pm

Taziar wrote:
Tue May 07, 2024 11:57 am
remember there is only one way into the waste, so it satisfies your main stated goal which is more interaction.
The course we've set is to concentrate things around central zones like Andor, not an outlier zone like the Waste.

Reyne
Posts: 1422
Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2017 2:46 am

Re: PVE to create more PK

Post by Reyne » Tue May 07, 2024 4:03 pm

Comment on Draz's post: I did like that IoMM had a boat to enter/leave. It is fun to worry about / set up ambushes. The lack of an easy escape is amazing. The rewards were good but you had to take a certain amount of risk as escaping wasn't just as simple as getting past someone spamming a chokepoint.

Most frustrating thing about PK for me is that people turtle up on patrols then basically run all the way home if they get lowish - which isn't them being 'bad' but prudent. I feel like it really relies on someone to take risks that aren't good odds just to keep things going. Then they're in a position of deciding between benefiting themselves or their character vs potentially benefitting the group or "the game." IE do they hit that patty knowing full well they're more than likely going to die or do they just go home, saving themselves but potentially ending PK for the group.

It often becomes a waiting game of: "who is going to get bored enough to make a foolish move first in the spirit of 'keeping PK going?'" Which is, well, boring.

Would love to see terrain / mobol / whatever that splits groups up a bit and/or prevented super easy access to the area for whatever size group. Like I get that IoMM was way out of the central area - but what about a small river little boat that can only hold 3-4 people at a time which ferries people to/from a little secluded area in the Black Hills or Haddon Mirk?
Last edited by Reyne on Tue May 07, 2024 4:10 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Mer
Posts: 93
Joined: Wed Jun 17, 2015 5:24 pm

Re: PVE to create more PK

Post by Mer » Tue May 07, 2024 4:08 pm

Agree w/ Elysia's comment about centralizing things - segmented island PK just doesn't make sense to me. Travel to and from was restricting, often (I think) one side just wiped they other. It left anyone on the mainland in a very hard to participate state.

That said, breaking up groups..what if we put Shara mobol into the middle of a PK zone, and how much would that lag the mud?? >:D Sounds fun to try.

Elysia
Posts: 7952
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2015 1:29 pm

Re: PVE to create more PK

Post by Elysia » Tue May 07, 2024 6:19 pm

Mer wrote:
Tue May 07, 2024 4:08 pm
how much would that lag the mud?? >:D Sounds fun to try.
A lot. :P

Also, people killed captains on IoMM to prevent others from coming there...

Mer
Posts: 93
Joined: Wed Jun 17, 2015 5:24 pm

Re: PVE to create more PK

Post by Mer » Tue May 07, 2024 8:48 pm

Elysia wrote:
Tue May 07, 2024 6:19 pm
Also, people killed captains on IoMM to prevent others from coming there...
Yeah, incentivising people to PK on those islands (through PVE rewards drawing PKers to the PVErs or whatever) is just awful.

Draz
Posts: 605
Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2017 9:14 pm

Re: PVE to create more PK

Post by Draz » Tue May 07, 2024 9:25 pm

I mean 3 different captains on different pop times; if I found someone had killed a captain I was a lot more likely to get a smash group together.
Far more often I saw it the other way around, DS would see humans had gone IOMM, and would kill the human captain, then catch their own, to strand the humans. Wouldn't have been a hard solution to make captains actually strong/narrate names if attacked.

Mer
Posts: 93
Joined: Wed Jun 17, 2015 5:24 pm

Re: PVE to create more PK

Post by Mer » Tue May 07, 2024 9:55 pm

Point stands imms are trying to centralize things. Any "fix" would just make that a less bad thing, but still a bad thing.

Tusty
Posts: 43
Joined: Tue May 05, 2020 3:42 pm

Re: PVE to create more PK

Post by Tusty » Wed May 08, 2024 7:54 am

There’s 7.9 billion people alive right now. I find it hard to believe that only 25 of those are interested in playing this game. I’ve played off and on for 22 years and the reason is because of PK. I’ve always enjoyed the personal aspect of fighting someone and the risks connected to losing.

I think maybe Elysia said this a few posts ago and I’m of the same opinion that currently the game is stuck in its ability to grow because of the intense min/maxing. I’ll add to that the overabundance of OP bonuses which tilts the balance in most pk situations to where you’re left with either playing extremely lame, which admittedly I’ve been known to do, to playing extremely conservative which is boring for all.

The original point asks for more PVE to encourage pk but as some have said this would require some extent of player cooperation and there’s a probably only a handful of players willing to do it. I guess there will always be the issue of the experienced hardcore wotmudder craving relevance.

Taziar
Posts: 957
Joined: Sat Mar 21, 2015 10:28 pm
Location: !Discord

Re: PVE to create more PK

Post by Taziar » Thu May 09, 2024 1:52 pm

Tusty wrote:
Wed May 08, 2024 7:54 am
There’s 7.9 billion people alive right now. I find it hard to believe that only 25 of those are interested in playing this game. I’ve played off and on for 22 years and the reason is because of PK. I’ve always enjoyed the personal aspect of fighting someone and the risks connected to losing.

I think maybe Elysia said this a few posts ago and I’m of the same opinion that currently the game is stuck in its ability to grow because of the intense min/maxing. I’ll add to that the overabundance of OP bonuses which tilts the balance in most pk situations to where you’re left with either playing extremely lame, which admittedly I’ve been known to do, to playing extremely conservative which is boring for all.

The original point asks for more PVE to encourage pk but as some have said this would require some extent of player cooperation and there’s a probably only a handful of players willing to do it. I guess there will always be the issue of the experienced hardcore wotmudder craving relevance.
How many copies of Wheel of Time have been sold to to those 7.9 billion? That is the number of people that the game should be focused on drawing in because of the theme of the game, this isn't pkMUD, it is named WoTMUD. The thing this game is missing to make it "work" is more players. This is what more PVE to make more PK means: buy in to the theme and create a world where more people want to be here, so you can have more sheep to kill.

Crag
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed May 01, 2024 3:20 pm

Re: PVE to create more PK

Post by Crag » Thu May 09, 2024 1:59 pm

Hey folks, I haven't played in almost two decades so I hope my opinion isn't off the mark and still has some merit!

I played back in the early 2000's and it was some of my best memories of high school! I was in a Sanctioned Player Run Clan (SPRC), the Andoran Cavalry, and the amount of fun we had was something I never thought we could have in a game.

The bureacracy of putting together a clan, developing quests, creating ranking requirements, and then chain smobbing with the clan was so much fun for me. I got to be an actual character with agency in Randland!!! The clans were Imm sanctioned and supported, even some equipment retools I think, and the comraderie was next to none. And this was in addition to new zones being introduced for me to explore, alone or with a chicken, or to spend some time in the Waste RP'ing an Aiel (The character Craig was my initial foray into this before I traded them away, wonder what influenced this name!!!)

Of course, being a SPRC for the then Lion Warden was asking for trouble. I never died more to Black Talon, Iron Fist, and the plethora of general baddies like Bryan and other pre-darkfriend lightside villains. I never was good at PK, slow reflexes, slow connection, equipment neurosis from a time when a black-tasseled spear was my heron long. I managed to get through the dying because the wonderful environment brought me back and I didn't worry about whether my 17 12 11 14 18 warrior was competitive, there were players with better stats than me but they were better at PK in general.

When I stopped playing, it wasn't only because of the game. I was graduating high school, going to college, had a new job and relationship. But as time went on it seemed like the opportunities to thrive as a mediocre, mostly solo, casual player dwindled. Player stats continued to increase, thankfully it seems like there are new ways to keep up with the restat/reroll system, but that continues to put players who would be better anyway even further ahead. I never experienced holiday events because I was never good at grouping with people, mostly I'd get left behind because I didn't know where to go or what to do, or I would die to another big group doing the holiday event. I feel like many of the bonuses people get and care for are the ones that put them above other player; master mobs, stances, and weapons all seem to widen the gap between what some might call the casual and hardcore player.

I totally get where this is coming from, if these players are so dedicated, why not reward them? Especially for their playstyle, which is PVP? However we get to the point where I see a lot of other competitive multiplayer games get to, where the skill gap is so large between new and veteran players it becomes difficult to integrate. I played Titanfall 2 when it first came out and it was a world of difference playing against loads of people who had no idea what they were doing, me included, compared to now when it's full of very good players with fast reflexes and map knowledge. I'll play a game or two for old times sake and then I realize I'm not going to get far with the very skilled playerbase and power my system down, it's the same thing that happens with WoTMUD.

I apologize for airing my frustrations, I still have lots of love for this game and wish I was better at it! I would never want to take away from what players love in a game, if that's PVP then more power to you! I possibly don't even know what I want, rereading the forums it looks like there have been a ton of new and cool changes by Imms who volunteer their time to make this magic happen. I miss playing, but I'm not sure what I would want to do. I've leveled this character and a couple others past 30, which itself was a monumental task for me in previous times. I love playing World of Warcraft and running old dungeons I never could do in groups to see what they were like, I love filling out my achievement tab, I love reading quests and being a player in the World of Warcraft (Coming from someone who spent too much time on Orcs and Humans!)

Thank you for your time and I appreciate being able to talk about this game again.

P.S. Oak, Rhent, Kesumi, Brent(?). I can't remember half the names of the fellow Cav's, I can't even remember my own character from back then! But I had a hell of a time with you all and hope you're all doing well. Does anyone have any logs or remember the website that was used? My nostalgia is killing me!

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