PlaneShift
Gameplay => Wish list => Topic started by: Rongar Elani on August 05, 2007, 08:58:34 am
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This might have been brought up before, but via search, I didn't find anything similar.
I don't really like the fact that 'you must be grouped with X to attack Y'. I know it has been created to prevent kill stealing, but it's somewhat unlogical. In my opinion, the best would be, if you could request your assitance, by attacking the mob, someone else is already fighting, without the need to group up with the person.
Example:
You see someone fighting an Ulber and want to help him. You target the Ulber and hit your attack shortcut. But instead of getting the denial message, your attack try should let a confirmation box pop up for the person you want to assist. Of course, a pop up is often quite annoying, especially in the heat of battle, and requesting a group has about the same effect. But, if you had the option to macro your confirmation, just like with the PvP request (always accept, ask each time, never accept), you could easily determine your attitude concerning the feature. I for one, would like to have the possibility of providing, aswell as receiving assistance and think, it could be an interesting feature.
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Agreed. One of my characters was killed once because a Rogue randomly poped up in the middle of a play sesson with friends. As I was typing something at the time, I did not have enough time to get away. As I was not in the same group as them, my character's friends had to stand by helplessly as she was killed in front of them.
The system is flawed if you need have creatures 'owned' by a player to prevent killstealing. Instead, let anyone attack and get XP from any creature, even if it is being attacked by another player, but have the person who originally attacked the mob get the looting/sharing rights, unless the attack is broken. PP... get rid of them completely.
It makes more sense in code, leveling, and RP.
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Yeah, and it would also make RPing a ranger.... Erm... Possible?
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Isn't this basically the same as or in the same spirit of the old /assist command. It doesn't work anymore but you used ti be able to type it and help the person fight a creature.
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I believe /assist only targeted the NPC the targeted player was fighting. Not totally sure
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As long as I am playing, /assist only targetted the npc, the player in target was fighting, just like Farren said, but still we were not allowed to attack it. Though, if any possible, I'd like to have a working /assist-script to be included in the /attack-script, so we would just have to attack the mob, to request assistance to the person, who is fighting it. Much easier than having to deal with typing it, or trying to remember the shortcut, since it won't be in use THAT often, I guess.
And I like the idea from UTM, about the sharing rights. :)
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First you guys go on and on about killstealing, then you turn around and say "Just do it anyway." Make up your minds :]
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I have always said "just do away with it". Killstealing, and the reasons for it, are all based on hack-n-slash/Geet-the-lootzORz-and-XP!! games, not roleplaying.
I could lay out a system that would work very well and be fun for everyone (PLers included), with no opportunity for grieving or KSing (both OOC actions), but it would take a lot of changes, both in code and mindset, as it is based on a concept often rare in MMORPGs.
Sharing... and benefiting from it.
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Wasn't the original term of 'kill stealing' used to describe a bug, which allowed player B to attack a mob Player A had already attacked and also prevented Player A to attack the mob again? If so, then of course, we're not saying 'please, dear developers, give it back to us' :)
My idea is about the possibility to share mobs, because not everyone likes the idea of a mob to be reserved by attacking it. With a simple (i just presume it to be simple) option in the options window, one could determine, how he thinks about sharing, by deciding for one of the three possibilities: always accept, ask each time, never accept. But however someone decides, the looting rights should be reserved for the first attacker, to prevent high level players of abusing the feature against low level players, or to have a second option to determine the looting rights: first damage, most damage, last damage.
Either way, i just think it would be more realistic.
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I think that if you are going to allow that kind of thing then the possibility of misguided blows hitting the wrong combatant ought to be significant. Wading into vigorous altercations is a dangerous pastime. Of course this would render the challenge system impotent as someone wanting to fight another player would only have to "assist" the person he wants to kill and "accidentally" beat him about the head a few times.
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They would also need to make the exp for PP earned per hit instead of per kill I think. That would make it a bit more fair :)
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Things used to be like that. You get experience for the amount of damage you did and anyone could attack a monster.
Then newbies started whining about grievers stealing their kills and there not being enough NPC spawns for all the players so the Devs changed the system and made sure you couldn't attack something as soon as it was attacked by someone else.
Me, I never minded the initial system because I've never been much of a leveler but I could easily take advantage of it and irritate quite a few people if I wanted to.
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I am probably going to be hit with a comically oversized mallet for this, but actually the way WoW dealt with that issue seems pretty straightforward and effective to me: Engaging a mob that already is in combat with another player, who is not grouped with you, is perfectly possible, however you don't get any experience and loot from it.
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Engaging a mob that already is in combat with another player, who is not grouped with you, is perfectly possible, however you don't get any experience and loot from it.
that would indeed work well...
cause you take away every reason to steal monsters, so just 2 intentions stay:
a) helping other players that are in real danger - thats what we want
b) annoying other players - this shouldnt be a real problem because of the way the community is structured + if the same person keeps being a dick, he will be banned
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It could be made so that any characters could assist on a kill, but the original character that had the target lock got the PP and loot. In this manner, players could help each other, and "killstealing" would be worthless and so would stop. Of course, with the target lock the way it is now, there is no killstealing per se... it's just whomever gets the target first. Blah blah blah...
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I am probably going to be hit with a comically oversized mallet for this, but actually the way WoW dealt with that issue seems pretty straightforward and effective to me: Engaging a mob that already is in combat with another player, who is not grouped with you, is perfectly possible, however you don't get any experience and loot from it.
Yep, couldnt agree with that statement more. I think the system works perfectly in WoW. You even get those from different factions helping you out (well, on PvE realms anyway). Id love to see something similar introduced here, would dispense with the need for another confiirmation box (being able to be used to spam a player and annoy them when in combat) and would allow people to assist at will. I can see some complaining about the lost training points on weapon skills and armor skills though (as also happens in WoW but none complain). But, that seems a bit more realistic than the current system.
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I believe the complainers forget something about PS. Its RPing game, where every NPC is like us. [SARCASM] If there were 2 players fighting and third would join and kill one of them, would the surviving complain about lost training points? [/SARCASM]
Mentality of way to many people there is screwed. If you think you may be one of them, please wake up and start thinking as RPer.
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I believe the complainers forget something about PS. Its RPing game, where every NPC is like us. If there were 2 players fighting and third would join and kill one of them, would the surviving complain about lost training points?
Mentality of way to many people there is screwed. If you think you may be one of them, please wake up and start thinking as RPer.
Wouldn't it be more RP-like if you could jump into any battle? After all, being told you HAVE to be in a group to attack a monster is a forced event, which is the opposite of RP.
Granted it would anger a lot of players if you took PP from them, but I'm certain in future updates, there will be MANY more MOBs. As it is now, when there are 150+ players online, you have to sit and wait your turn. Where's the RP in that?
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Err, simple question, why are you quotting me? EDIT: and then writing what you wrote.
And there is no RP at all involved into current killing NPCs the way most do it.
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My reference is to you commenting that joining a combat already in progress is not RP.
Unless I misunderstood. ???
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yes you misunderstood ;)
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Then, my apologies, friend :D
I still believe jumping into the fray is more an RP element than not being allowed.
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To a certain extent the mere existence of PP is perhaps non-RP, however that aside I tend to agree that if your character is the type to wade in and help kill a mob, then it should be freely allowed, however it may be the case that to allow this at present would mean a complete overhaul in the experience/PP system to allow a more balanced system that would allow a certain sharing of experience with players, after all, if your going to help kill a mob, then there should be a reward of some sort, and if we're going to get away from the grinding, levelling, hack and slash MMOrpg genre, and really promote RP, then you can expect 'knight errant' types to assist you if they think you may be in trouble, and really, in an immersive RP world wouldn't you be grateful and offer to share your kills? if you were the sort of character who did this that is ;)
If we truly wish for an immersive RP experience, then we have to expect others to act in ways that are IC for them, certain characters will happily pass by on the other side of the road, or even stand by while you get killed, and then finish off the damaged but victorious mob and get the loot, there are others who will risk life and limb to assist others without thought of reward, I feel we should have the freedom to help or not as our character demands, to expect reward, or merely gratitude, or simply be altruist, as long as it's IC then it should be allowed.
I do see the various problems involved with this, and as yet can see no coherent way of dealing with those I do see, obviously the system in place at present rewards the victor with experience points, and loot in random amounts, and this is consistent with many if not all MMO games, so there must be a reward for assisting another player, however this also causes problems for those who wish to advance their stats, since the one assisted in this way may feel that they have been robbed of part of this reward, and in fact this assistance may not have been required or in fact desired.
I feel perhaps a 'karma' system may perhaps be a partial answer, leaving the initial attacker with the experience, and rewarding assistance by the accumulation of karma 'points', although i'm not certain how these would be used, perhaps an easier passage through the DR after death, linked to karma might be an option to be explored also.
I admit it's a problem that has no simple solution, tied as it is with a non-RP experience/PP system, and the desire to offer assistance to those who may be in need of it.
In fact the solution may lie far ahead in the development of the game, perhaps the system is the best compromise for the present state of play, and that other factors may prevent a successful resolution until the game is as ready for it as some of the players seem to be.
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So if I enjoy fighting the most challenging monsters I can and you step in and deny me my accomplishment should I be grateful? or should I turn around and force you to kill me too?
Oh wait that takes a /challenge... If you are going to allow people to get involved in others' fights you really should allow for "misplaced" attacks.
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I would say that the idea about the pop up box with a macro would work best. As far as the idea of someone helping you and getting no prog points, that may work, but it could be abused in a way where an extremely low leveled player attacks something extremely high, and runs while an equally high friend kills it. Then the weak one gets an easy ride for points. How could that be prevented is the next question, the only thing that I can think of is limiting it to you have to do 50 - 75% of the damage to get any points, but other than that I don't know. If that issue could be solved, I's agree more with that.
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I would say that the idea about the pop up box with a macro would work best. As far as the idea of someone helping you and getting no prog points, that may work, but it could be abused in a way where an extremely low leveled player attacks something extremely high, and runs while an equally high friend kills it. Then the weak one gets an easy ride for points. How could that be prevented is the next question, the only thing that I can think of is limiting it to you have to do 50 - 75% of the damage to get any points, but other than that I don't know. If that issue could be solved, I's agree more with that.
The 50%-75% idea has extreme griever potential. Just imagine a noob trying to gain his first few levels in anything, while a stronger player keeps on killing his rats before he can do considerable damage.
A solution to the "running noob" you describe, would be that standing by or running away would remove your claim on the NPC.
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Wasn't the original term of 'kill stealing' used to describe a bug, which allowed player B to attack a mob Player A had already attacked and also prevented Player A to attack the mob again? If so, then of course, we're not saying 'please, dear developers, give it back to us' :)
My idea is about the possibility to share mobs, because not everyone likes the idea of a mob to be reserved by attacking it. With a simple (i just presume it to be simple) option in the options window, one could determine, how he thinks about sharing, by deciding for one of the three possibilities: always accept, ask each time, never accept. But however someone decides, the looting rights should be reserved for the first attacker, to prevent high level players of abusing the feature against low level players, or to have a second option to determine the looting rights: first damage, most damage, last damage.
Either way, i just think it would be more realistic.
You made some good points. I agree that it might be annoying not to be able to attack a npc who has been attacked by another player before. It happened to me that I got attacked by an ulbernaut but could not attack back because another player attacked that ulbernaut before, run through me so that the ulbernaut switched his attention to me. I dont know if this is fixed, but I guess not. I think attacking rights can need an overhaul. At least when an npc hurt me I want to be able to make an counter attack.
Now imagine following scenario with three players a, b and c.
Player a made the first damage but has loot rights set to most damage.
Player b made the most damage but has loot rights set to last damage.
Player c made the last damage but has loot rights set to first damage.
In such cases of 'cyclic looting rights' the devs need to set a prefered looting right. I could imagine other systems of looting rights and whatever the devs will implement there will be people who will complain. Furthermore I think 'looting rights' cannot be based on realism.
Realistic would be that the first looter gets the loot and people will have an argument about ninja looting. Not a good alternative as the GMs would be called to every second loot: "Buahhaa, player x took my shiny loot and wont give it back".
Fair would be a random loot distribution based on damage done. The player who made x% damage has a x% probability to win the loot. But this would allow high level players to griev.
The issue seems to be pretty complex, but the current solution is not the best one IMHO. My proposal:
The option you proposed to have an "Exclusive fight" or "Share fight" is fine. First attacker sets the mode of the npc. When the npcs switches attention to another player the mode is switched to if the other player has another option set. Furthermore the other player must be able to make counter attacks.
Experiance is shared according to damage done. The first attacker can loot for 10 seconds exlusively. Then all players can loot.
Kind regards
Zwenze
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The idea of this thread has big issues only if "griefiers" grief online 24/7.
Some people will talk about griefing, while others will tell about the damage caused to RPing, because of lack of freedom. Because the more the basic rules of the real world in a game are changed, the more you restrict RPing inside it.
Besides, if that happens, this means there are too many people wanting to kill things. Maybe some of them should change their proffesion if they find the previous too hard?^^ This is very natural way of life.
In the end all the philosoply, that "I go killig things and do not disturb it" is at the very beginning of PowerLeveling. In reality it is you who has to defend most of the time. Of course many of us are attackers, but most of the time we all are defending ourselves against the threads. Invasions from stone labyrinths, NPC rogues and so on. The idea of this thread is for mayority.
People fear that idea, completly because of OOC reasons. RPing is like you would behalve in real life under certain conditions. You don't hunt aligators to increase your skills. You hunt them for the money.
The skills come by the way! Always. What matters is who takes the .. "loot"
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There's always the third possibility, treat NPC killing like duals. ie "Do you want to accept a challange by Ubernaught" ... "Tefusang doesn't accept your challage" .. There, all solved and every one keeps there fights to a one on one basis be that PK or NPCiK, that is, if and when they accept.
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Let’s switch gears a bit and equate this with something else: Building a house.
Joe starts to build a small house to sell, but does not seem very good at it. At one point, a wall is starting to fall on him. Bob (who is a complete stranger, and about equal in skill), sees the danger Joe is in, and runs over to help, then decides to stay and help finish the job. Sue also comes by, and decides she could brush up on her hammering skills, so joins in.
At the end of the day, the house is built by the three complete strangers. Joe owns the house, as he started it, but Bob and Sue get a bunch of experience helping put it together. Now, you might think Joe is losing out on experience, as Bob and Sue did most of the work. But this is not the case, as he was able to watch the other two ply their skills, and learned from that. Next time he goes to build something, he will be better due to their help. Joe -could- be a nice guy, and offer up some of the money for the sale of the house, but that is his choice.
If Joe had up and vanished while the house was being built, then rights would now belong to Bob, followed by Sue if Bob did the same.
Now for some numbers:
If Joe had build the house entirely on his own, he would get 100% experience added to his house building skill, but it would have taken a lot more time.
With Bob helping, and doing half the work, Joe and Bob only get 50% base experience each, but get it twice as fast (and with less danger), plus, they would get a certain percent bonus for working together (as it is always easier to learn with more than one person doing a task). So each may get 60% of possible experience.
Now we get to Sue, who is very good at the skill, and does about the same amount of work as Joe and Bob put together. So, Sue gets 50% base experience, plus 10%ish extra for working with others. Joe and Bob both get 35% with the bonus. Plus, since Bob and Joe were working with someone who was better than them, they get a free training bonus without having to pay a teacher!
So, is this unfair to Joe, who loses about 65% experience on building the house, but gets to keep all the money if he wishes, and also gets free training (to be converted to actual skill when used)? Add into that how much faster the house was built.
Is it unfair to Bob, who gets 35% of the experience, plus the extra training just for stopping by to help out?
Is it unfair to Sue, who could have skipped the small house and built a mansion instead, based on her skills?
All in all, I think this would be a better way of doing things (but only if PP was shot, killed, and buried in a deep grave).
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"Do you want to accept a challange by Ubernaught"
US, come back to reality please.
What you mean is a fight at arena with gladiator most likely and no, not in the corridor where a fight should not happen anyway.
UtM
yeah, sounds very good, I only think exp bonus or Joe should be very slight. What Joe is happy of most of all are the matrial good he gained.
In short, from 100% of exp you can get for a single person from one activity, the 3 people got like 120% or so.
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Instead, let anyone attack and get XP from any creature, even if it is being attacked by another player, but have the person who originally attacked the mob get the looting/sharing rights, unless the attack is broken.
The second part of this sentence is very important.
edit: It's probably been said, but you'd have to prevent people from exploiting this for the purpose of leveling weak characters.
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Grouping up in general should be rewarded with some boni. In order to encourage teamplay. There could be better loots, in trias or in the amount of items given out, there could be an XP bonus, there could be a lower hit rate of mobs, or a lowered attack power, there could be factions for group/teamplay (although I must admit, that I don't really know what factions will be good for at some later point).
There just could be so much more demand in groups. From my own personnal experience, groups are mostly used for talking privately with a bunch of friends, since groupchats are much easier to handle than tells. Of course groups are also used to fight mobs, stronger than the individuals, but in 70% of my cases, it was only for private chat. 5% for GM events, and the other 25% were for the Ulber hunts I have done with the entire guild. Aah, that brings back good memories... ::)
However, grouping up needs to be more encouraged, if you ask me, and that is most likely only possible through boni. But back on topic. I really like how the thread evolved. Many players have given their feedback and critique, came up with ideas on how to realize the idea with the least chance of being exploited, and I am thankful for each and every one of your posts. All in all, most players who joined the discussion, seem to be - like me - against the current system of a mob being reserved for the first attacker. In order to reflect the opinion of the whole community though, there would need to be more posts here. Or perhaps I should open a poll, but on the other hand, I remember a request for polls to determine the general opinion of the community concerning features to be negated by the devs though, for good reasons by the way. So I guess we are bound to making this thread larger and more colorful, so the devs are even more interested in it. So I'd like to ask for your assistance, keep the thread going, with endorsement, critique and ideas. :)
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I like the current system. I don't think there's only one "right" way to do things.
Some mobs could be invulnerable unless attacked by groups.
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In short, from 100% of exp you can get for a single person from one activity, the 3 people got like 120% or so.
Actually, it would be 130% of what a -single- person could get, but that does not apply to a group. Look at it this way. Even if Sue did 100% of the work (doing 1000 damage to a 1000 HP mob), and got 100% of the exp, and was even the one who got all the loot by first strike/claim, even by standing by and watching (by selecting Sue's target), Bob and Joe would still learn something. Though yes, then it would be a tiny amount of exp, like 1%, but the small training bonus should still also apply.
I would also say whoever does get the final hit could get an additional (but once again small) exp bonus. Not sure about that, though.
All of this could still be set as optional by the first attacker ('all in' should be the default setting), but I would change the message to something more like this:
"You try to attack <mob> but <first attacker> blocks your way."
On the other hand, to prevent 100 people from all standing around and 'milking' one Mob, I would say each mob should have limited number of people able to target it at once, giving anyone over the limit a message similar to this:
"You attemt to attack, but there are simply too many people in your way."
I know these are thin and barely IC explanations, as stronger characters could easily push weaker out of the way, but it is better than being told you need to be in a group with so and so to attack this creature.
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To prevent 'milking', there could additional to the boni, also be some penalites. For each player joining, there could be a bonus of 5% XP and a penalty of 5% to every attackers' agility, since the more people join, the less room you have to dodge or block. This would counter attack parts of my idea above, but sometimes you have to compound.
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Actually, it would be 130% of what a -single- person could get, but that does not apply to a group. Look at it this way. Even if Sue did 100% of the work (doing 1000 damage to a 1000 HP mob), and got 100% of the exp, and was even the one who got all the loot by first strike/claim, even by standing by and watching (by selecting Sue's target), Bob and Joe would still learn something. Though yes, then it would be a tiny amount of exp, like 1%, but the small training bonus should still also apply.
120% or lower, thats why i used "slight" word. Something like that.
And you don't want afkers, really.