PlaneShift
Gameplay => Wish list => Topic started by: Zorium on June 05, 2004, 10:12:24 am
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Did a search and I don\'t think there has been any discussion on this...
With guild wars and the like it doesn\'t seem very realistic that there will be only player troops so...
If there are 1000 people on planeshift at the time of the war (I think this will happen when PS reaches a more \"final\" state) and there are 10 major guilds each having 80 people on at the time and there are 6 guilds involved that means 240 players per side. Thats 480 fighters plus about 60 support people (healers, weapon repairers etc.....) per side, thats 600 people all up or just 300 a side.
Now 300 people side (bear in mind not all of those are actually fighting) is not a very large battle and can be easily dominated by one or two really powerful people, this makes such events really boring for and unproductive for weaker players.
What i\'m suggesting is that some more powerfult players will control a group of npc troops, the most powerful players control several groups (through the lesser players) and the weak players (heh probably me) will supplement the untis of npcs.
Though this means that large guilds would have at least a few hundred (if not a few thousand) npcs on the guilds list though these numbers may be supplemented by mercenaries.
This idea reflects common military structure from at least Roman times (obviously minus the npcs :P) possibly the ancient Egyptians did something similar....
Anyway those are just my thoughts...
-Zorium
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300 People on each side isn\'t a very large battle?! ?( Are you high on crack? PS isn\'t WW3, it\'s a MMORPG. We are talking about guilds at war, not entire nations.
Being able to hire NPCs is still a cool idea though, but some of your arguments are just wacko.
BTW, there are never just one or two really powerful people, always a bunch. If they\'re all on one side, well then the other side is screwed. But that\'s what you get in wars, one side loses (yeah yeah I know, only losers in war, no winners).
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Remeber first 240 of those 300 are fighting, and when you think about it thats not a very large number consider this....
Some really powerful mage comes in and casts there big blow kaboom spell (you know the type I mean :P) and wipes at 20
weak as guys in the middle of your formation, this attack also heavily injures some middle strength people.
So now your minus 20 people maybe 30 due to some guys being heavily injured and not able to fight.
That is an eighth of your entire army with one shot.
So next a really powerful swordsman rushes through swinging at everything that moves (right through where the mage attacked)
so he kills 40 people (he polishes off those invalids as well).
Your now 60 people down (taking into account that the swordsman would have killed the people who couldn\'t fight).
Now thats a quarter of your army gone because of two powerful people.
I could go on on this vain but it will take so long and you get the idea anyway. I think that you will agree that having a small group of people
dominate the battle is like one side having a tank and the other side throwing stones, not realistic is it? I\'m trying to say that larger numbers in
battle are better as a small group massively powerful players can\'t decide results of entire wars.
Sorry if this sounds like a rant it\'s not supposed to.
Anyway thats enough from me for now.
-Zorium
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All your arguments come down to this: and then strong people come and kill a lot of weak people.
YES OFCOURSE! That is why some people are called strong, and others are called weak.
Ofcourse that situation is somewhat realistic. If the USA would go to war with Luxembourg (in a world without NATO), it would be the same.
If those two individuals were really THAT powerful, doesn\'t that side deserve to win the battle? What\'s wrong with the strongest people winning? Nothing IMO.
But you are also really exagerating (sp) it. I hope the devs balance the game better than that a mage\'s aoe spell can kill 20 warriors and a swordsman slashing 40 people to death (the time it would take even if they were sitting ducks lol). Ofcourse they might kill 20 \'weak as guys\', but that\'s what they\'re \'weak as\' for. If they\'re so \'weak as\', what are they doing on the battlefield?! That\'s like sending a 6-year old to war with a plastic golfclub against battle-hardened veterans.
Try to see things in perspective and don\'t exagerate (sp).
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The numbers etc are exagerated for a reason, to make a point. They are of course not going to be entirely realistic but the fact of the matter is
in other games the power dfference between the top players and even the next level down is so huge they could slay them without raising a sweat.
What i\'m saying is this sort of thing to some extent or another is going to happen in PS no matter what the devs do as you can\'t stop people spending
10 hours a day getting stronger and stronger.
Moving right along, If the USA went to war with Luxemburg you would find that the USA would lose (it may take a while but it will happen) due to the fact
that Luxemburg is conveniently placed right between Germany and France (also Europe isn\'t the largest continent in the world and England, Spain etc... would get involved).
That last comment wasn\'t designed to offend anyone just think of the consequences of attacking the middle of Europe.
Yes the strongest people people in a war \"should\" win provided they actually have the right tactics etc.... but what i\'m saying is that one side having the mega powerful mage
should not win the war purely because they have that mega powerful mage, it\'s like saying that they German\'s should have won WWII because they had the best technology but
of course as we know they didn\'t and thats because they made some tactical errors.
Have you heard of the 80-20 rule? In planeshift this rule would say that 80% of the players would have 20% of the power while 20% of the players would have 80% of the power, though
in some games this leans more to 95-5, I would hate to see PS go this way so hence my idea.
-Zorium
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There is some point to what Zorium suggests.
I don\'t think guild wars will be so big (although it\'ll be awesome if in very late versions it\'ll be possible), but it should be possible for guilds to pay for npc warriors.
The strongest doesn\'t necessarily win. There\'s still the richest in his way.
If guild wars will only be about who\'s the guild with the strongest players, it\'ll encourage powerleveling.
However, if a guild can hire npcs for guild wars, it\'ll be the richest vs the strongest, and the strongest won\'t be the obvious winner.
Of course, npc warriors shouldn\'t be cheap. You should be able to choose between diffrent types of npc warriors (races, AI levels, etc), and you should buy better armor and weapons than those that they come with.
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I like the idea to change the weapons and armour of your mercenary troops it allows variety so no two mercenaries will be quite the same :)
SaintNuclear you say different types of mercenaries do you mean swordsman, archers etc... or are you being more specific?
I think that you shouldn\'t be able to buy certain types of mercenaries in certain races (ok that wasn\'t very clear). What I mean is that races like Kran\'s will be abused because of there strength (though they might be slower than other races in future releases). Anyway if people always hire Kran mercenaries everyone will want to be Kran because the would be used in alll the wars, so it might look a bit like attack of the clones :P
I wonder if the devs will have entire armies for hire. This could be useful for a merchant guild or somesuch as they probably wont have many strong fighters.
-Zorium
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Originally posted by Zorium
With guild wars and the like it doesn\'t seem very realistic that there will be only player troops so...
I think you should look up for a difference between \'guild\' and \'army\'
yes, it is realistic
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OK I will Draklar so long as you reciprocate look up battle, skirmish and war.
You are now free to do with your dictionary as you wish.
-Zorium
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war: an active struggle between competing entities
battle: a hostile meeting of opposing military forces in the course of a war
skirmish: a minor short-term fight
done :P
not sure why I had to look for the last two, but it doesn\'t say anything about being uber-huge none the less...
anyway, having guilds as real military forces instead of organisations that gather people with same classes, goals and so on is quite stupid in my opinion.
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I think you have the wrong idea, I was not suggesting that guilds be military forces with as you put it \"uber-huge\" armies (though some may be like this). I personally would hate it if a lot of guilds were like this, but I would like the ability to have large (or even moderately large) scale battles, this would undoubtably be a war which may be comprised of several battles. While with the numbers likely to be involved it would be more a skirmish (see I managed to use all three descriptions :P).
-Zorium
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so you want huge battles in guildwars without guilds being huge military forces? That sounds... impossible? :P
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Heh no I don\'t want guilds to BE huge military forces. NPC\'s could be in the guild and be used in war time for troops but they are not military forces in themselves they are just NPC guild members (other uses for these NPC\'s could be found , selling goods etc...).
-Zorium
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Originally posted by Zorium
Heh no I don\'t want guilds to BE huge military forces.
that\'s what I just said...
well besides that this idea isn\'t realistic at all (sending merchants and alike as troops for war), guilds in PS will be players-only...
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When did I say merchants would be sent to war?
-Zorium
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Originally posted by Zorium
NPC\'s could be in the guild and be used in war time for troops but they are not military forces in themselves they are just NPC guild members (other uses for these NPC\'s could be found , selling goods etc...).
don\'t tell me you\'d leave selling things to a warrior... -_-
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You know what I mean, it\'s a group of NPC\'s that do important things for the guild which conveniently can aide you in guild wars.
-Zorium
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no, I don\'t know what you mean. Job of a warrior is to fight, some will do quests given to guild by other people, but that\'s nothing you\'d leave to NPC. So all they can do is to fight. And if you set NPCs on things like selling, crafting items and so on, what will be left to players? hack&slash?
Important things should be left to players. What fun is there in belonging to guild if you leave it to NPCs?
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OK maybe i\'m not being very clear, also maybe important was not the right word.
I\'ll try to explain, Vengence has said previously (I think it was Vengence anyway, i\'m sorry if it wasn\'t) that they would like a GTA level of NPC\'s and if you ask me NPC\'s should get involved in society to the best extent there AI allows. This means they would have to get involved in guilds as well.
To me it seems that these NPC\'s should be able to ASSIST the guild in it\'s functioning, this would include battle.
-Zorium
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well probably it would be nice to see
encouragement for powerleveling instead of crafting and so on in guilds;
guilds not being organisations made of people sharing same goals anymore;
enormous lag durring battles...
...but I still don\'t think that\'s a good idea...
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Originally posted by Zorium
I\'ll try to explain, Vengence has said previously (I think it was Vengence anyway, i\'m sorry if it wasn\'t) that they would like a GTA level of NPC\'s
Right, it was said, but whoever said it was talking about pedestrians.
SaintNuclear you say different types of mercenaries do you mean swordsman, archers etc... or are you being more specific?
Yes, swordsmen, archers, magicians, and also diffrent races, and diffrent AI levels.
There won\'t be a problem with letting guilds choose between diffrent races. Each race got it\'s pros and cons, otherwise certain races won\'t be chosen by anyone.
Draklar, as I said above, if guilds won\'t be able to hire warriors, the only guilds that will be left will be powerleveling guilds. Any guild that won\'t have most of it\'s members extremely strong will be crushed by strong guilds.
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well if that guildmembers are stupid enough to accept challenge from another guild...
but let\'s have at least a bit hope in intelligence of humanity, shall we? ;)
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well if that guildmembers are stupid enough to accept challenge from another guild...
but let\'s have at least a bit hope in intelligence of humanity, shall we?
Two things, one do you know there will be challenges to start guild wars? Two don\'t you think your asking a bit much?
-Zorium
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Originally posted by Zorium
do you know there will be challenges to start guild wars?
well as long as devs won\'t change their minds :P
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Maybe the could have a system like so....
One guild decleares itself hostile towards another guild, the other guild may or may not choose to decleare itself hostile towards that guild.
Becoming hostile would give you certain \"rights\" to things such as trade embargos, open pk (the devs might agree to this as hostility between guilds could be seen as a challenge) and of cours guild war (as well as anything else you could think of). So if that system were to be implimented (or something similar), leaving yourself open to war would not be the same as accepting a challenge.
-Zorium
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No Zorium, there will not be PK unless both sides agree to it.
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guild war in CB = open pk between both sides
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the npc thing sounds good imagine a mini game/event called defend the town ? wouldent that be fun ?
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Skizzik if the \"hostility\" system I mentioned were to be implimented becoming hostile would mean
that you would accept such consequences like the ability to have a guild war initiated, this IS agreeing
to it (just it\'s not necessarily the case).
-Zorium
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Originally posted by Zorium
Skizzik if the \"hostility\" system I mentioned were to be implimented becoming hostile would mean
that you would accept such consequences like the ability to have a guild war initiated, this IS agreeing
to it (just it\'s not necessarily the case).
-Zorium
You mean guild A declares war on (becomes hostile to) guild B. As soon as, and no earlier than, guild B declares war on guild A, the open PKing can begin. If that\'s what you meant, I think you\'re correct.
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That is correct Skizzik.
-Zorium
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Why hire NPCs for your army when I\'m sure you could just call your neighborly guild and ask to hire some of them? We don\'t want to put the mercanery guild out of business be giving their jobs to NPCs. I you dn\'t have any friendly guilds to help you, tuff luck, you should have played better deplomacy. And I don\'t think NPCs should be able to be in guilds. I\'d hate to see a guild consisting of 10 people and 100 NPCs. The point is to meet people, if the guild can\'t handle evething on its own it either needs to get more members or just die.
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If you actually had read my first post in full you would discover that I had factored into the equation that there were three guilds fighting a side.
Also I was not suggesting to put the mercenary guild out of buisiness (or any other guild with similar objectives) far from it, which would you prefer an army of npc\'s or an army of players.
What was said in my original post is that npc\'s would be there to bolster numbers and to be the \"grunt\" troops (some exceptions to the latter possibly, anyway who wants to be a \"grunt\" when you can be a CO).
-Zorium
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Originally posted by Zorium
If you actually had read my first post in full you would discover that I had factored into the equation that there were three guilds fighting a side.
I did read your first post, and if 3 guilds doesn\'t supply with enough troops for an army, those guilds probobly shouldn\'t be involved in the guild war.
Also I was not suggesting to put the mercenary guild out of buisiness (or any other guild with similar objectives) far from it, which would you prefer an army of npc\'s or an army of players.
Well then whats the point of NPC troops? People are always going to be smarter(at least for now) and better then a NPC army
What was said in my original post is that npc\'s would be there to bolster numbers and to be the \"grunt\" troops (some exceptions to the latter possibly, anyway who wants to be a \"grunt\" when you can be a CO).
-Zorium
Are you a RTS fan? You must really like the tank rush. It\'s not just about huge numbers, a good army actually uses strategy and tactics to win. You don\'t need huge numbers to have a fun time. What NPCs will endup being is nothing but cannon fodder playing the crucial role of Operation Human Shield.
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I did read your first post, and if 3 guilds doesn\'t supply with enough troops for an army, those guilds probobly shouldn\'t be involved in the guild war.
Maybe but if the other three guilds have similar numbers to the other three guilds then they wouldn\'t mind would they :P
NPC troops come in larger numbers than player troops (hence the entire point of the idea) and also even though players will be smarter the npc\'s have the capacity to be better fighters (they will be programed to fight efficiently and effectively, if they are implimented of course and if the devs can do suffisticated AI).
Are you a RTS fan? You must really like the tank rush. It\'s not just about huge numbers, a good army actually uses strategy and tactics to win. You don\'t need huge numbers to have a fun time. What NPCs will endup being is nothing but cannon fodder playing the crucial role of Operation Human Shield.
Actually I have not played a RTS which I have thought gave me enough control over my troops I also think that tank rushes while effective are cheap they involve about as much skill as is required to hit a beach ball with a sledge hammer.
-Zorium
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Zorium, I don\'t see why you think guild wars will always involve battles between armies. Two warring thieves guilds will make little impression on the common person. Why does every guild need an army to attack each other with?
Also, where do you think these battles will take place? City streets? Maybe names like Dark Empire have confused you, but most of the time, a guild is not a country. It\'s a guild. NPC soldiers may be in wars between governments, if those are implemented, but the concept of soldiers in a guild is uncommon.
A guild war is simply open PKing, and probably the occasional (or frequent) raid/ambush. Anyway, we don\'t need NPC mercenaries. *points to Mercenary Guild HQ*
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Originally posted by Zorium
Actually I have not played a RTS which I have thought gave me enough control over my troops I also think that tank rushes while effective are cheap they involve about as much skill as is required to hit a beach ball with a sledge hammer.
-Zorium
Tank rushes are simply building a large enough force to simply overwhelm the opposition regardless of the strength of the individual unit. Though it is effective, it is the equivalent of kamikazie and not very realistic.
I must remind you this is a RPG not a RTS and as Davis said GUILD WARS not NATION WARS, the battles will not and should not escalate to the scale you seek. How a battle with 800+ people is going to work when guild HQs are only a couple blocks away from eachother is still beyond me.
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I never said their HAD to be 100\'s of but I said that I would prefer the option to be able to do so. You\'re right battles may not neccesarly take place on battlefields, but possibly in city streets although I would imagine large guilds would effectively control entire cities.
Melbourne I think you missed my point, I HATE tank rushes.
-Zorium
EDIT: (heh don\'t usually do this) just changed your to you\'re (and yes Melbourne I do know the difference I was obviously a bit slack that day :P)
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Originally posted by Zorium
I never said there HAD to be 100\'s of but I said that I would prefer the option to be able to do so. You\'re right battles may not neccesarly take place on battlefields, but possibly in city streets although I would imagine large guilds would effectively control entire cities.
Melbourne I think you missed my point, I HATE tank rushes.
-Zorium
Oh, I did miss your point, sorry about that. Fighting in city streets will limit the number of effective combatants that are fighting at the same time, making larger armies less effective(there will be more chances for bottlenecking).
Also, people please learn the difference between there, they\'re, and their and your and you\'re.
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Geez, I think Davis\' post sums it up. :-/
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Why is that Entamis?
-Zorium
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Originally posted by Melbourne
Also, people please learn the difference between there, they\'re, and their and your and you\'re.
Hear here! :) Too many people take this forgranted, and it can be annoying and sometimes even confusing.
Back on topic, wouldn\'t a guild war be more like a general open hostility? Like two people of warring guilds meet in a tavern and start attacking each other because their guilds are at war. If it were to come to actual battles, these would be very case-specific. Most guilds will have guild houses, so a seige is likely. But some houses are built in the countryside, while others in a city. I suppose it will all be up to guilds. But guilds based in the countryside will also have the option of fighting between trees, etc.
So where the fight takes place is decided by the guild, and really the options are as vast as those in real life. And since the key element the devs want to accomplish is realism, this is good.
As for the mercenaries, I think a guild should be allowed NPC members. This would add realism (many guilds RP as though they have many members, but in fact only have ten or fifteen. NPCs would make their RP more than words) and encourage RP.
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Perhaps for guilds with HQ\'s in different cities you might want a huge force to overwhelm their HQ?
Mabye a warning of a big attack should be implemented? (a seer)
Also The Mercenary Guilds mercaneries will probable be slightly supirior to NPC
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I know that if I was responsible for the City Guard, I would outlaw violence within the walls, and send soldiers to clean up anyone fighting, guild war or not.
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Why not have all guildhoses built like a fort just outside the city with the guildhouse as a keep and walls and stuff around it and have all the houses which are owned by players who belong to that guild along with workshops and smythies etc. inside the walls. It would make for dramatic seiges!
Why not have it so that any player can walk into a barracks and hire a certain number of NPC troops for their guild.
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There\'s a thing i really hate in mmorpg\'s and that\'s the mixing between \"clans\" and \"guilds\".
- Guild is a community of people with samiliar jobs and is formed in a distinct hierarchy.
any sign of a self-political power is looked upon as rebellion against the government.
- Clan is more like a game term (which is renamed as \"guild\" to give it more of a medieval tone, although it actually does the opposite in my opinion), for a group of people, ussually with basic hierarchy (leader, sub-leaders and members) trying to be as much self-efficient as possible - politically, physically and economy wise. (therefore clan is a more suitable term here).
That actually brings a point to zerius way of view, clans are actually a (very) miniature attempt of a government, therefore we aren\'t talking about guild wars, we\'re talking about clan wars with troopers, and to have it make sense he suggested that there will be npc troopers, because it seems a bit odd with this small quantity.
Must towns are formed by some kind of political entity (government), so being a hardcore roleplayer, if it was up to me i would execute every so called \"guild\" (clan) member in the equisation of a rebelleion against the emperor (or whatever that big boss is named) ^^
A few people mentioned in this thread that guilds (clans) should have their own dwelling place (buildings/towns/castles - outside known town)
and Cyberchu i believe suggested a nice thing i have seen in a few other games, where there were player run towns, and to upkeep such a town, governors could recruit a certain number of defense units, for example gate keepers, archers, etc.
This wasn\'t done to give a certain side an advantage (since must guilds hire the same number of npc\'s) but it\'s an atmosphere thing because clan are ussually small, and it gives it a more realistic tone to the clanwars, and more length to the war.
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You could have one main guild HQ outside town (see my previous post) and several guild buildings inside different towns so that ordinary guildless players could offer to fight for that guild.
But if a guild leader wanted to arrange something with the head of the guild then he/she would have to got to the HQ
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I\'d like to express support for the \"clan\" vs. \"guild\" distinction - \"guild\" has somehow become a term for a tribal group, with some sort of \"alignment\", instead of a business entity responsible for ensuring that its members a) have access to the services they need to perform a specific trade and b) meet some minimum standard. While I don\'t oppose the formation of these \"clans\', I don\'t think that they should be called \"guilds\".
I think that in an advanced clan-supporting RPG, hireable NPCs are necessary - with some basic assignable roles (i.e \"guard the gate\") or even for mercenary use (although they might not be the brightest..) If a clan owned a fortress, that fortress would probably have some NPC population (perhaps created by request to GMs, maybe requiring some sort of payment). In a larger city, there would probably be several mercenary agencies, some run by players, some NPC merc-for-hire.
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I\'ve thought about it before several times too, and I agree with Aeterus. I\'m just curious as to whether the developers had the idea in their minds of actual guilds or clans which has happened.
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I don\'t think the devs really thought of the possible distinction between the two....
Though since they named them guilds it\'s probably safe to assume that they intended
guilds at least in the short term.
-Zorium
P.S. Probably a bit off topic that but I don\'t have much time to say things.
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For Guilds V Clans see http://www.planeshift3d.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=9356&boardid=11&styleid=3&sid=b54c87f0f602c149df1d53d84f087cd8 and chat about it there then this can get back to topic
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my two cents:
I\'d love the idea of large battles but then you can really slow the connection down, I mean there would either have to be one or two huge worlds or a bunch of small inter connected ones and you\'d be loading one after the other (like runescape which is one of the many reasons why it sucks)
ofcourse if PS decides to make a MMORPG server and a seperate server for MMOWarRPG then I have a seperate twenty $ bill for that server
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Yes large scale battles could (actually almost will) slow the connection down, this would obviously be a \"small\" problem.
A few options around this in my view (I\'m no programmer though).
1. Invent an entirely new and original way of loading things so that there will be no massive slow down. As I said I\'m not a
programmer but maybe completely loading the players fov (to a certain range) and then loading a fuzzy area around the players
fov so that the slowdown is reduced when changing view.
2. Prioritise events so that things like a large spell going off gets more processing time than a sword parry 100-200 metres off.
3. As was suggested different \"worlds\" this system is useful for such events but are a massive gameplay killer (and emmersion
goes out the window as well especially when you get *LOADING PLEASE WAIT*)
4. Simply get rid of large scale battles all together until everyone has at least athlon 256bit processors, radeon10000000\'s and 3 terrabytes of ram :P
Also Covetski I remeber that one of the devs said that there would only be one world so a war server would be highly unlikely. Then again the devs might want your $20 :P
-Zorium
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Originally posted by Zorium
4. Simply get rid of large scale battles all together until everyone has at least athlon 256bit processors, radeon10000000\'s and 3 terrabytes of ram
By the time these battles are implemented everyone will have probably have athlon 256bit processors, radeon10000000\'s and 3 terrabytes of ram
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There you go then no need to worry :P
-Zorium
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Well said :D