Posts made by Roccandil

As to limiting zerg sizes, one effective mitigation I haven't seen described yet is an anti-scheduling PvP philosophy.

For example, a huge part of assembling a zerg in Albion is knowing when to assemble it. Key PvP activities always happen at certain times that everyone knows in advance, thus maximizing attendance (everyone's ready for it).

For PvP activities that are -not- on a schedule (say, enemy mage raiders or gergs), it's much harder to assemble a zerg to counter the enemy. No one's prepared for it, fewer people are online, and those who are online are out doing other stuff already.

So, if you want to limit zerg sizes, one means of accomplishing that is to avoid creating in-game PvP schedules. (Of course, this really only limits response sizes; those on offense can schedule activities whenever they want. But, then that can be spied on. )

I'm increasingly persuaded much of the anti-alliance, anti-zerg sentiments I see here and elsewhere (Albion) are merely attempts to defeat dominance by changing the rules.

The problem is that dominant guilds and alliances tend to be dominant, not because of the rules, but because they're simply that good. As long the rulesets you throw their way apply equally to everyone, they're going to be the best. (Of course, it's standard human behavior not to like admitting that.)

As such, the only real way to cut them down to size is to get good. (Of course, you could always try a Harrison Bergeron, but I'll be heartily opposed to that!)

@Gothix said in What challenges should guild alliances face?:

@Roccandil we didn't say "eliminate zerging". But they would certainly reduce it. And then in addition of some other mechanics, zerg can become more trouble then what it's worth.

And that is the goal.

Hmm. I don't think friendly fire would reduce zerging (see below), nor is that my goal.

@Jetah said in What challenges should guild alliances face?:

@Roccandil

combat will/should have a first contact, first damage. it was mentioned in the KS that a tank could intercept damage destined for other players. IF that system system is setup and the friendly fire has a limited amount of friendlies (lets just say it caps at 5 players in a party) then any other 'friendly' will get hit by said abilities.

when you bowl you can't hit the back center-pin first. you have to hit the front row first, either center or left or right. by these assumptions, it's logical that a group of 200+ can't attack a single wall or player. they'll have to attack the closest object which will be their own guild/alliance members. we may see more small group fights than zerg fights.

when i say abilities i also mean spells. i just didn't want to type it every time.

Some ranged abilities (like magic missile), appear to rise over whatever is in front of you, Also, it would be silly if you couldn't do the same with archery.

Even so, all a larger group has to do is fire front-line to front-line. They will almost certainly have a bigger semi-circle, be able to focus fire better, and easily obliterate the smaller group (that's exactly how it works in World of Tanks, which has both collisions and friendly fire).

And unlike World of Tanks, where sides are actually even, a zerg will be able to cycle replacements into their line.

@Specter

Ya, I like it!

@Tuoni

Ya, with nine toons available, that shouldn't be difficult (in theory).

@Krutag

See my reply here.

@Jester2189 said in Bought the Governor pack:

I have the immortal pack and would interested in checking this out if i dont try to claim a town myself, i would be very interested in management of some sort i think? Ive always liked running towns or guilds in games so if i am unable to get my own town i would like to check yours out

If you want to join my town, I'll be in the Arboreus side of the Shadow Empire guild. I assume you'll be able to visit, either way.

@Jairone said in Opinion on Monsters after the alpha:

@Roccandil One problem with the rare resource thing is that many PvE focused players aren't really looking for just a gather and sell type deal. Too many games have already shown that to be a rather small niche overall within that demographic (one that exists, certainly, but small). Further, the competition aspect there would be a direct turnoff to many of the people who I would expect to go toward Arboreus.

Fractured has a unique chance to say "Sandboxes don't have to relegate PvE to this tiny little box". It is something I have personally heard from a fair few people. The better they can do at allowing a wider variety of play styles within Arboreus (exploring, crafting and interdependency mixing crafts and combat goals for both groups and solo will be important for actual town style groupings, and so on) the more likely they will be to get recognition for doing exactly that... the more they do what every other game has done the more such people will dismiss it as a disappointment.

It cannot be all grind either, of course, because that is indeed as you noted

I agree that one focus of PvE endgame needs to be cooperative play. Otherwise, you've just got "soft" PvP or a single-player game (neither of which is inherently bad, but excluding cooperative is I think bad).

And Albion lacks that for PvE: anything cooperative and endgame is done in the context of hardcore PvP.

I'm used to Might and Magic's age system (and it's been a while, so maybe I don't remember all the steps!):

• Young Behemoth: pretty easy kill
• Mature Behemoth: not too bad
• Old Behemoth: now it's getting hard
• Ancient Behemoth: run for your life

@Alexian

Setting aside collisions as a lag nightmare, a much larger guild will still be able to swallow up that smaller group holding the choke point:

• Leave a defensive force at the chokepoint, to spar and pretend to fight
• In the meantime, take another large group around the obstacle (I've seen very few, if any, single chokepoints on the Fractured map that couldn't be bypassed with a bit of walking)
• Hit the smaller force from two sides -or- force them to retreat (if they've done the smart thing and set up scouts to watch flanks)
• Profit!

@Gothix, @Jetah, and @Alexian:

I'm curious: where have you all seen evidence that friendly fire and collisions are actually a serious consideration for limiting the size of armies? I've never heard of that in the real world.

The bottom line is that the larger your army, the more options you have, even with friendly fire and collisions. I can't see those mechanics deterring zerging.

@Xzoviac

But I -like- zergs. And in Fractured, I suspect they will be hard to assemble, since the territory is so huge.

Another effect of guild restrictions is stasis. That is, if you punish expansion attempts, you will get fewer of them, leading to what happened in World of Tanks: clan territorial contentment, and a lack of large-scale action.

And that can happen even if there is no single dominant guild/alliance. World of Tanks and Albion attempt to mitigate that problem by having seasons, resets, and relatively easy takeover of territory, but I don't think that will work in the design of Fractured.

Wurm Online tried to break up stasis with a regular world challenge (the Hunt of the Ancients), but to me that felt contrived and obvious: it didn't fit a kingdom-level political storyline.

I wonder if the real lure of expansion will be control of scarce resources on limited areas of the continents. If so, however, that risks a snowball effect (once a guild controls the resource, they can leverage it to become more powerful, and thus expand to control more).

Bottom line: I think I'd like to see guilds constantly wanting to expand, and trying to, but mostly failing.

World of Tanks is an example of hard caps not preventing guild domination. Been a while since I played, but this is what I remember:

• Clans could have a maximum of 100 members
• No in-game alliances between clans

Despite those restrictions, a few top clans dominated clan wars, taking most of the valuable territory. Why? Their recruitment requirements were extremely high, and the top players crowded to those few clans. No one else could compete with them.

Furthermore, the top clans often wound up in de facto alliances/ceasefires, once they had carved up the map to their liking.

I'll add that's one reason I like unrestricted, zerg-based warfare: it encourages guilds to recruit everyone, not just the best, and provides opportunities for new players to hop right in.

@SilverLocust

Good point: I was assuming beastmen would be able to wear that armor, too!

@Gothix

I don't think friendly fire would matter that much, not with how the Fractured map is structured. You'd simply need to coordinate guilds to varying useful positions (presumably you're fighting over a point on the map, a dungeon, rare resource, town, something, which provides a context for positioning).

In other words, each guild army would be occupying different ground, perhaps flanking the enemy, blocking retreat, locking down the enemy in a firefight while another guild maneuvers, etc.

Guilds that could do that would have a huge advantage, friendly fire or not.

I suspect direct caps (soft or hard) won't have the intended effect. Rather, guilds will police their members harder, to only recruit the best players (a metric of skill + activity, among other things).

This means that the best players will naturally gravitate towards guilds with the best players, and even though guild sizes may be relatively similar, a few guilds will still dominate.

@Medic

Yeah, I'm in Alpha. It's fairly lean on content at the moment (including the knowledge system), but one difference that's obvious is the immersive quality of the enormous world. I feel very small, in a survivalist kind of way.

Albion simply doesn't have that at all for me. I like Albion, but it feels more like a board game.

@Medic

Some big differences:

• Albion has vertical progression, but Fractured has horizontal progression, as implemented by the knowledge system.
• Albion is based on NPC PvE-only cities. In Fractured, as far as I know, all cities will be player-built. This will likely make the Fractured world far more immersive (more like EVE Online).
• Albion has many small maps. Fractured has a few much bigger ones (entire continents, at this point). The single Fractured continent in Alpha feels huge compared to AO's world. Also, I get the impression there will be much less teleporting around.
• Albion's endgame is PvP only, basically. Fractured will have a planet devoted mostly to PvE (Arboreus), although it can still be invaded to an extent.
• Fractured has RNG in combat (Albion, as far as I know, does not).
• Fractured characters will be combat-ready quickly, due to the starting attribute system, whereas in Albion, you are simply what gear you wear.

A few conclusions:

Friendly fire

This is what I want to see:

• Arboreus: PvE without friendly fire
• Syndesia: PvP without friendly fire
• Tartaros: PvP with friendly fire

Imposing friendly fire on Syndesia would remove a significant choice from the game, and "disenfranchise" a significant number of players.

Collisions

While I understand the desire for player-to-player collisions (more realism and immersion), collisions are expensive to develop and model. Consider, if you will, an Albion Online reset day with thousands of players zerging. AO does -not- have player-to-player collisions, but what if it did?

The servers suddenly have a great deal more work to do: tracking collisions between every last player across the world, notifying clients of legal movements, and being notified of proposed movements that must now be verified against other moving objects. That would only make the lag issues in AO worse, and imagine what lag would do in -that- situation!

Furthermore, while I understand the argument to allow collisions on even one world for the sake of choice, in this case, I see it as an all-or-nothing proposition. Why? Because every weapon, every skill, every attribute should be expected to behave differently in collision-based combat versus non-collision-based combat.

The developers would thus have to balance everything against two very different combat systems, and that would be a nightmare.

So, my vote (if it matters to the developers at all), is against player-to-player collisions.

Conclusion

Arboreus is PvE, and Tartaros is no-holds-barred, anything-goes PvP. Syndesia, however, is the balance between the two, the neutral world between good and evil. It should not be surprising if Syndesia winds up with a significant number of PvE-like protections in its PvP.

At that, limited PvP -is- possible via invasion on Arboreus, and demons get periodic free invasions of Syndesia, thus the balance of the world of Fractured is already tipped in favor of PvP.

It doesn't need to be tipped further.

@Znirf

Awesome! Am rocking the mage armor.