Posts made by Whisper

@Farlander said in The End of most Sandbox PVP Games-The losing side.:

PvP seems to always be the most argued point in any MMO I've ever been associated in lol. It boils down to this, everyone isn't going to be happy and you just have to be able to try to please the majority of the players so the game doesn't tank.

Or, it boils down to, "Everyone isn't going to be happy but with one point leads to the death of the game, and the other one might not".

For example. This is an influence map of Atlas shortly before their wipe when what I was talking about was in affect.

https://i.redd.it/d4ha3450ypi21.png

You can sail from your home Island for nearly 2 hours without ever moving out of your Alliance territory. If you were in AoP you could sail for around 4 hours without ever moving out of your alliance territory.

Luckily for Atlas the game wiped before one side was able to dominate but the death grip of 2 factions was already there.

To put it in perspective just two months prior the map looked like this.

https://i.redd.it/4ho65f9zz9821.png

Allowing sides to rapidly gain power with no checks, balances, or trade off for it leads to the death of Sandbox PVP games.

I do agree at the very start it is more fun. But whether you are on the winning side, or the losing side, it quickly loses the fun once a victor is made and the game dies.

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I would also recommend finding a guild. The Shadow Empire tends to play together in other games while we wait.

It's always good to start networking

@Znirf said in The End of most Sandbox PVP Games-The losing side.:

Hello everyone, it is still too early to speak about this kind of things, we didn't have cities or sieges yet!
Anyway, it is a tough topic to discuss, and we are aware that it will be one of the main things to care about in the future. From our side, we can say that our will is to maintain a balance between guilds, we won't give too much power to the biggest ones and we will try to avoid that. For sure, there will be bigger and stronger guilds, and we won't apply any members caps. Remember that spaces for city buildings will be limited, and if a guild decides to have more members than the city could host, it will be forced to have different settlements with following problems about communication and mobility (especially for resources transports). Another thing that will make things harder is the knowledging system and the "need" for exploring and discovering. Guilds will be tempted to reach different parts of the planet to be competitive (maybe conquering a crucial geographical point or a relic); in this way, having too many cities concentrated in the same place won't draw a critical advantage.
Last, if a guild will succeed to conquest a settlement, it will force the losers to pay taxes and ONLY if they won't be able to do that the city will pass to the winners.

Thanks for the reply!

But sounds like the perfect time to see this discussion played out! I wouldn't recommend doing it afterwards as an afterthought.

Though, no matter which side you pick some people will be upset. Or on the bright side, no matter which side you pick some people will be happy

I just see so many great PVP sandbox games die from this reason when they were incredibly fun at the start from both sides of the coin (Small guilds and mega-alliance guilds). But if you are even acknowledging this point you are ahead of a lot of sandbox pvp games lol.

@Gothix said in The End of most Sandbox PVP Games-The losing side.:

And... things can always turn around... people just need to be taught that they need to work for it, rather then expect this to be gifted to them by game mechanics.

That's a great straw man fallacy tactic there. No one here said, "We all need to be gifted everything".

I have been in both sides of the coin. I have been in a small (40-60 guild) in a small alliance (150ish-250ish member alliance) that was out numbered by guilds that were 300+ in alliances that were 900+ (Atlas). And I have also been in the huge dominating alliance that steam rolls everyone (Shadowbane).

And it comes down to the same thing. One side winning, and no one ever having the chance to compete after that. As fun as it is to easily dominate a pvp game, where no one else can even pose a challenge to you, it kills the pvp game.

When one guild is allowed to dominate in a sanbox pvp game there is no way to come back from it. Even if you decided, "I know I will recruit mass amounts of people" you will not have the infrastructure or resources to compete and in your aim to get them-You get destroyed.

This isn't me saying, "Give everyone everything". It's me saying, "There needs to be a trade off for that dominance otherwise the game dies".

Some people here suggested taxes. I like that.
I suggested buffs/debuffs. I would probably prefer the taxes if it can be done right.
I noticed Znirf said that if people lose a settlement they can keep it if they pay taxes. That is a solution I haven't seen at all.

And lets not get it twisted. You can take a gander at my signature. I am in a guild that has ambitions to be one of those large and powerful guilds. This isn't me saying, "I am in a small guild and want all the things!".

This is me saying, "This PVP game looks awesome and I don't want it to die in the same way that most sandbox PVP games die even if they are crazy fun".

@Gothix said in The End of most Sandbox PVP Games-The losing side.:

It's not because games are sandbox. It's because people are care bears, and seek the safety by joining the more powerful guilds.

I've always been in a guild where we went us vs. the rest of the world, no matter the odds. And we always had more than enough PvP and fun.

Solution: don't change the game, change your play style.

Well regardless of the reason, we should be looking for solutions.

I understand what you mean. I played Atlas and was part of the K4 Alliance (40ish members) and we had to fight CSTG (300+ Chinese) everyday for a month. Only for CSTG to merge with another Chinese/American guild and stomped us with 500+ member assaults.

But smaller guilds shouldn't accept that they will lose and enjoy fun pvp for a few months and let the game die. We should strive to find ways where PVP can last for years, or indefinitely.

@Lightspoon said in The End of most Sandbox PVP Games-The losing side.:

Strenght in number is the most logical way to get a dominant position and keep it. You cannot avoid it, expecially in a sandbox game like Fractured.
A bigger guild will provide protection, access to multiple resources, large safe areas where travel and many cities where you can trade and so on. It's the obvious choice to join it unless you want to go rogue.

The only, cluncky, way I can think to avoid this scenario is to put a limit to the PvP invasion: instead of an open world event, you have an istanced fight with a cap to how many people per faction can join. That way you will reduce the impact of having a massive guild by limiting their influence on the open world node control for resource gathering, while having the control of each city will be spread also on smaller group.

But I don't know if such system may work in the end.

And it shouldn't be that way. It doesn't make for a fun game. It doesn't make for fun PVP, and it is why I am here to discuss ways to mitigate it. Because it can be avoided.

A bigger guild should provide protection, access to multiple resources, large safe areas, and so on-But it should do so at a cost. Otherwise there is no reason to be in any other guild. And once there is only a few large guilds left, and the table tips in one direction the game is pretty much done at that point.

I suggest debuffs the larger a guild gets, or buffs for people attacking the larger guilds or being attacked by them. These can offset the number difference. Especially if we make it stack per time it happens.

With this system larger guilds will still have the advantage but the game won't come down to, "Who has the most members? Well they win and the game is done because no one will ever be able to combat them".

We see it in all sandbox pvp games. The first one I remember is.
ShadowBane-Amazing game. But eventually 1-2 factions gobble up all the smaller ones and then eventually one faction takes the lead and the server/gameplay stagnates.

The most recent example. Atlas. Open world PVP Pirate game.

Started off extremely fun. But then the medium guilds took out the small guilds and then the large guilds took all the medium guilds. Then all the super/mega guilds took all the large guilds. And the game went from survival PVP pirate game that was fun to being surrounded by allies and having to travel/prep for hours if you want to PVP because everyone within an hour or so radius is an ally.

This is always the case in sandbox PVP games I play. I don't know if Fractured has a way to handle one side ending up dominating the server by just absorbing all other players/guilds.

I know Crowfall plans on finally beating this problem by reseting the game once a guild "wins". I don't feel like that is the way to do it though. There has to be a better way.

I recommend that each time a guild takes over an enemy city they either get a debuff per city they have taken, or their enemies get a buff per city that has been taken. This will do a few things. It stops one or two guilds from just dominating every single city/resource in the game. And more importantly it makes it so the best guilds don't just dominate low member guilds over and over before deciding to try and look at each other. It will make those elite guilds think, "We better attack our rivals before the debuff/buff stacks too high"

I brought up this topic a year ago but it is the Achilles hill of Sandbox PVP games. It is something if not looked at gives us an awesome PVP game that dies after a year or so as the game eats itself.

TL:DR PVP Sandbox Games tend to have one/two guilds who absorb/dominate the others and it ruins the game. How can we fix this?

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@TekNicTerror said in The Shadow Empire:

Do not join this guild, Vyr (the leader) will kick you for asking questions without even trying to work it out.

Sometimes people aren't a fit. I would say dragging this in the forums to attempt a smear campaign would reflect far more poorly than kicking someone out because they aren't a good fit.

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@lovechildbell said in The Tides of PVP:

@pluto I'm not saying to disband per say but more throwing fights, allowing time for others to catch up, back room politics and drama as some way to splinter a group into smaller chunks

You are a good person. I see what you are saying. I agree with Pluto though. What you are suggesting isn't the way I ever seen a guild on the verge of dominating a game acting. In fact it is the complete opposite. Once a guild/alliance has a clenched fist on a game normally it strengthens and others tend to be the ones that splinter under the pressure while the ones on top get stronger from it.

It's why I am proposing a way to offset a guild in total control. Or maybe it's not possible, but it is still worth discussing in my opinion.

@target said in The Tides of PVP:

@Eurav
We know that the guild member cap is determined by the amount of cities owned and is potentially limitless. Even if the guild member cap was hard and finite, you would still have groups creating multiple guilds and using alliances to hold all their members. To prevent that you'd have to somehow come up with incentives or deterrents strong enough to outweigh the benefit of having a huge alliance, which I've never seen done successfully.

I haven't really seen anything that convinces me that huge alliances controlling everything on Syndesia and Tartaros isn't a possibility.

The guild limit seems like it would almost encourage the snow ball effect. But it also gives a pretty good incentive for guilds who want to expand cities as well which is good.

I kind of like my Emergency situation where the game would give incentives for other guilds to rally against a guild that is getting too big/taking too much and rewards them for succeeding.

Or a soft reset (in a way) where if a guild controls too much of a planet 80%+ of land claims or major cities? And no one can take them down on that planet then trigger an event where the other planets are allowed to stay on that planet but can only engage with that said guild so they have to consolidate their forces on what they want to keep and the three planets can attempt to reign them in power wise in a PVP free for all. Then after wards give them a bonus/buff/reward for accomplishing that feat so even though they might lose a lot they can still count themselves as a winner for triggering the event (Kind of a, "We won the game" kind of moment without needing a server reset).

I guess my second idea is kind of complex but I think it would be a fun way for everyone to break apart a strong grasp on power. My first idea (stolen from civ 6) might work but it can also just not work at all.