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MannyNZ

Another suggestion to revive PK

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Hi,

 

I just came up with an idea which could make PK more interesting again.

 

Having lots of special days by now, my suggestion would be to remove all those 2X exp days and day stones.

 

Instead of those days, for each day there exist artifacts (1 artifact per day). Given some C1 pk map, so either KF or TD, there would be one shrine.

"Using with" the artifact on that shrine triggers the effect of that special day.

 

Conditions of artifacts:

Artifacts have special spawns (in bags) on that map. All artifacts remain inside that pk map! If one has an artifact in his inventory and dies, the artifact gets dropped into bag, even with rosto.

If someones leaves the map at flag, ttp, rings or any other way the artifact remains in a bag at the point where the player left the map.

 

Effect of artifacts:

Instead of giving 6 hours of 2x exp. Each artifact only works for 1 hour and then poofs just to respawn on the previous mentioned spawns in a new bag.

Depending on what artifact it is, this skill gets 2x exp during that hour, while all other skills get only 1/2 the exp. (This ensures some competition about different interests ppl have -> PK).

 

Even more PK: To enforce more team work, some ppl need to guard the shrine in order to ensure the full hour, because as soon as another artifact is "used with" on the shrine, the old one poofs (as described above) and the hour for the new one starts till it ends, or gets replaced.

 

Of course we still have normal special days (Day of Lenny, Green Day, Non drop day, half cooldowns, etc. ...) , which means the shrine only works on ordinary days!

 

In order to know the current status there should be a command (#shrine) to see what current effect there is and how many minutes more it lasts till its over.

 

So ... I hope I didn't forget to write down anything and as always I'm happy to hear about your opinions, ideas, suggestions and alternations.

 

Kind regards ;)

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Oh boy, we'll have fighters and random idiots forcing 1/2-experience time on the many people who aren't one or both.

 

You just killed the logins completely.

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Oh boy, we'll have fighters and random idiots forcing 1/2-experience time on the many people who aren't one or both.

 

You just killed the logins completely.

Hmm not too sure about it. <Player> was camping on hydro path for quite a long time but that didn't stop other people from doing hydro runs ;).

There were even some events where players of different guilds did unite their power against this <Player> in order to clear path to hydro.

So def. can imagine that players will sooner or later start to try to get the shrine under their control, thus PK action.

 

Besides as I have mentioned there are still the other special days, so e.g. for some pure mixer there still is half cooldown and there still is joules, which deactivates the shrine.

 

But thanks for your opinion, I'm curious about more opinions/suggestions/alternations.

 

PS: The main idea what i support that conflict of interests is, because if there is nothing in for you to win, why should one bother to got into PK and possibly loose stuff. The reward (2x exp) would drive ppl into entering those maps, either by pure PK, or invisible or any other tactics, but I'm sure this could bring back some of PK action.

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The basic gist: You never (ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever) give the power to any one group to harm the experience of *every single player in the game*. Ever.

 

An entire hour where every single skill bar one gets only half experience means most every single person trying to work on all those skills log out. Maybe for the hour. Maybe they'll find something else to do and not log back in.

And you're talking of doing that every single normal day.

There's honestly no way to say just *how bad* that is without a massive number of "four letter words".

 

You're not talking about a single specific task that a certain handful of people do, like hydro. You're talking about screwing with EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the game.

 

That doesn't fly, and it never will.

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Well I still can't imagine how those 1/2 would be that bad ... maybe I'm not addicted enough yet :)

 

Anyways I put this up for discussion including as I wrote alternation.

 

So one point we could modify about that idea: cross out the 1/2 exp for other skills and just give 2x exp for that specific skill.

 

More discussion please :)

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OK, what interest would the fighters have to:

1- let anything but SunTzu become active

2- interrupt or block use of SunTzu artifact?

 

Your proposal means that the fighters can collect all the artifacts, NOT use them, and just use the SunTzu one (since you propose a specific artifact per skill). And even if the 2x skill is random, they can just switch until they hit SunTzu...

 

OK, perhaps a few other specials would pass as well, but why would they let Eng, Scientists, Recycle, etc. run?

 

And no, even a group of mixers will not be able to force a change of special (build differences and perks will mean that fighters will always be a lot stronger than mixers for a given a/d).

 

So putting this in practice would royally ***** the ones that should provide the essences/potions/armor/weapons used in PK.

 

And if you want something to divide players in camps to stimulate PK, DO NOT pick something that would pitch harvers/mixers against fighters; We have more than enough of that already.

 

(NOTE: this is my private opinion, and in no way reflecting any official position)

Edited by revi

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OK, what interest would the fighters have to:

1- let anything but SunTzu become active

2- interrupt or block use of SunTzu artifact?

Well I don't follow all day stones used, but I can imagine that already some day stones other but tzu have been used by fighters. Correct me if I'm wrong here.

 

Your proposal means that the fighters can collect all the artifacts, NOT use them, and just use the SunTzu one (since you propose a specific artifact per skill). And even if the 2x skill is random, they can just switch until they hit SunTzu...

True this is one possibility, to collect all. After discussion this can be kept as such or altered that you only can carry one artifact at a time. Even then enough players could all just keep them one by one in their inventory. So this is def. a subject open to discussion.

 

OK, perhaps a few other specials would pass as well, but why would they let Eng, Scientists, Recycle, etc. run?

If you have read my post you would see that scientists and recycle day still would run as normal (I didn't suggest to touch them)

 

And no, even a group of mixers will not be able to force a change of special (build differences and perks will mean that fighters will always be a lot stronger than mixers for a given a/d).

Considering this, then the PK concept would be a total fail in this game, when u only can compete if you do Teh right build. And even then you wouldn't be able to catch up with higher level players, playing already way longer in time than you.

 

Side note: I do ~90% of time mixing, yet i think I'm not too bad in combat, at least i survived invasions and invances before. And of course I would suck in PK, but not because I'm mixer, but rather because I am a n00b player considering how long I have played compared to those 160+ oa levelers ;)

(maybe a/d limited PK maps would regulate that, but not topic of that thread)

 

I agree with you, that builds can make a change, but so does number of players, tactics, equipment, time of day... (baddies that want to dominate the system would need to watch/guard the shrine 24/7).

 

And if you want something to divide players in camps to stimulate PK, DO NOT pick something that would pitch harvers/mixers against fighters; We have more than enough of that already.

I agree with you here, as I never intended to divide those two groups, i rather wanted to divide two groups of PKers. And you are right, my main idea to stimulate PK is to create two groups having some interest for the same thing.

 

I truely welcome any further ideas how players can be divided into two or more teams, (ofc in a most possible fair way).

 

As always, any input is wanted in order to find a working solution together.

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OK, what interest would the fighters have to:

1- let anything but SunTzu become active

2- interrupt or block use of SunTzu artifact?

 

...

 

Well there's an easy solution to this particular problem: Just make it so once an artifact is activated it cannot be activated again for at least 3 hours (or 6, 2, pick a number, see how it works, balance it). Just like the instance / invance / whatever cooldowns ...

 

One more thing to think about: Maybe, in order to not have constant non-ordinary days (even more so than now), it could be made so that after a day where artifacts (any number of them) have been used none can be used on the next in-game day - or at least on the next ordinary day.

 

Just my unreflected two cents :goofy:

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In my personal opinion this is a very bad idea, for reasons already touched on by others.

Just a few thoughts:

- How are you going to deal with the stones already in peoples storage?

- What about the creatures that currently drop these stones?

- Half xp for other skill just means the few mixers still left in EL will leave the game, they are always getting the short straw.

- If you want to do something with shrines in PK maps, pick Theli and make the effect only possible around the shrine.

- Instead of punishing people using non-combat skills for the lack of pk, make this mechanism only work for pk related skills (magic/fighting/ranging).

- Dont remove the skill special days (6 hours) for 'random' one hour sessions. Often skill days are announced in forum and people plan for these and stock up. The skill days do not cause competition (except for competition for spawns on Tsu), but foster a sense of community.

- To summarise: Dont take away from the whole to give a bit to the part. This is not going to encourage PK, this proposal is going to drive away the last of the mixers.

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- How are you going to deal with the stones already in peoples storage?

Make them usable till they run out. So there might be a time where both stones and shrines work (ofc not both at exact same time)

 

- What about the creatures that currently drop these stones?

To be honest I don't know all creatures that drop those stones, 2xmanu isn't a stone iirc, and 2x crafting doesn't exist as far as i know... so I don't think it would effect too many stones. Those creatures related ofc wouldn't drop those stones anymore. Possibly there could be replacement stones for them, like mushroom day or others. This is open to discussion.

 

- Half xp for other skill just means the few mixers still left in EL will leave the game, they are always getting the short straw.

As already mentioned in my answer to Burn, if the 1/2 exp really is such a bad thing it could be dropped. I thought reviving PK is a good thing, but hearing that there are also only few mixers left I start to wonder what is still left (barely PK, few mixers ... ?? ) As a side note, how big (take away alts) is this game community?

 

- If you want to do something with shrines in PK maps, pick Theli and make the effect only possible around the shrine.

Please explain why you would prefer Thelinor? I decided to mention only C1 PK maps in my thread, as I wanted this feature to be accessible to all players, also to lower level ones who don't know yet about C2 or don't go there due to dangerous creatures.

 

- Instead of punishing people using non-combat skills for the lack of pk, make this mechanism only work for pk related skills (magic/fighting/ranging).

As already mentioned, it is not and never was my intention to punish mixers ;) Any suggestion to divide players into two teams (not punishing any minority) will be very appreciated.

I wonder if that is easy to realize (coding) to make that feature only related to combat skills, if it somehow is, I'd prefer it as it doesn't divide mixers and PKers.

 

- Dont remove the skill special days (6 hours) for 'random' one hour sessions. Often skill days are announced in forum and people plan for these and stock up. The skill days do not cause competition (except for competition for spawns on Tsu), but foster a sense of community.

I can understand that argument. Often people miss out on such days tho (RL or other reasons) my thought of 1 hours was to make it also possible for those players to catch this special time more often (or even make the special time happen on their own effort when they need it). But I also can understand that for some people fixed/announced days can be some community events.

 

 

Another side note as I didn't want to post just for saying thanks: Thank you for Gwaew suggestions and input. And ofc also thanks to all other input showing up problems of my suggestion. I really would like to find a way to solve those issues in order to come up together with a working solution how to revive PK (some kind of endless ongoing competition) in a fair way without punishing a minority group.

 

Kind regards

Edited by MannyNZ

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I have one question: who are you in-game?

Exactly...

 

I don't want to make that thread drift into off-topic, so any concerns of "who I am", please ask via forum PM. All I am going to say here is that I take that idea serious and am not trying to troll in any way!!!

 

 

Its a bad idea, thats all i say, the game has more then enough possiblities to advance in fighting as it is, even the special days for certain skills cannot make up for that

Sorry, but just saying this is "a bad idea" is too flat for me. Tell me what parts you don't like and why. What parts do you like? What needs to be changed/altered/improved? This idea focuses in improving a game feature called PK, so there is no way i want to suggest to make leveling a/d even easier than it is already (I agree, that 3 dailies with a/d reward already are enough)!

 

As I have mentioned I don't know the whole community yet. But I know that there are a lot of players with years of experience (even active in the forum). Yet players complain about "PK really is dead".

My concerns are to change that and give back some fun to a nice game feature and strongly invite anyone (including those mentioned players with years of experience) to contribute in order to find a working solution.

 

Some players have already mentioned: This part isn't good, so we need to change that. Some have suggested how to alter my initial idea in some aspects to make it a better...

I need more of that input please and not more of that off-topic stuff :)

 

To sum it up, I want to thank everyone for their input in order to find together a working solution with that most players can have fun in EL, including mixers and PKers and PVEers. (ofc "all" never works :) )

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Having lots of special days by now, my suggestion would be to remove all those 2X exp days and day stones.

I do not like this idea, as i as an allrounder do spend time and ressources on gathering those special day stones, and use them together with friends to be able to enhance our levels, as it is, the skills that need mixing, have very few items that are worthy of doing in larger amounts, (except for potions and alchemy) so getting a high level in them is lots harder then leveling a/d, and those rare days where you can get advantages on mixing like joule days, recycle day, or the more xp days make it really worthwhile to do it. And each of those days need lots of preparation, as i can mix inside 6 hours ressources that takes me 20 and more hours to harv. (if that time estimate is enough)

 

Instead of those days, for each day there exist artifacts (1 artifact per day). Given some C1 pk map, so either KF or TD, there would be one shrine.

"Using with" the artifact on that shrine triggers the effect of that special day.

I am not going into a pk map where stupid people wait to attack you when you do something that will help everyone in game. As it is I am avoiding PK maps whenever i can, because the pk system is fucked up and it really just depends on how much ressources ones brings into a fight to decide if one wins or not. Unless the a/d difference is to big, then the one with bigger a/d wins

 

Conditions of artifacts:

Artifacts have special spawns (in bags) on that map. All artifacts remain inside that pk map! If one has an artifact in his inventory and dies, the artifact gets dropped into bag, even with rosto.

If someones leaves the map at flag, ttp, rings or any other way the artifact remains in a bag at the point where the player left the map.

Gives just people the chance to jump others, and annoy possible lots of people because they decided to do a day.

Effect of artifacts:

Instead of giving 6 hours of 2x exp. Each artifact only works for 1 hour and then poofs just to respawn on the previous mentioned spawns in a new bag.

Depending on what artifact it is, this skill gets 2x exp during that hour, while all other skills get only 1/2 the exp. (This ensures some competition about different interests ppl have -> PK).

Why reduce the xp in some skills, there are people who can only play a few hours a day, and they want to advance in their selected skill, this game is hard enough for leveling everythign else but a/d) (I have leveled my a/d to over 145, and 2 other skills to over 100, and i consider myself a mixer not a fighter, so i rarly train)

Even more PK: To enforce more team work, some ppl need to guard the shrine in order to ensure the full hour, because as soon as another artifact is "used with" on the shrine, the old one poofs (as described above) and the hour for the new one starts till it ends, or gets replaced.

Your denying people the chance to use the time they gave others to enjoy, people will not do that. simply as it is.

Rest of the first post is of no interrest as i see it simply as an bad idea. Leave the special days as it is, maybe add a few more day stones.

 

The reason why PK is dead, is that there are quite a few people in game, who pk everyone and anything that is on a pk map, and annoys other with it. If you want to enhance PK, make it that everyone has to type a command to be able to do pking and get pked, and then make everyplace pkable

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First of all, thanks for that detailed explanation of why you don't like certain parts. This helps me to understand the why you think this idea is bad, much more :)

 

I am not going into a pk map where stupid people wait to attack you when you do something that will help everyone in game. As it is I am avoiding PK maps whenever i can, because the pk system is fucked up and it really just depends on how much ressources ones brings into a fight to decide if one wins or not. Unless the a/d difference is to big, then the one with bigger a/d wins

 

...

 

The reason why PK is dead, is that there are quite a few people in game, who pk everyone and anything that is on a pk map, and annoys other with it. If you want to enhance PK, make it that everyone has to type a command to be able to do pking and get pked, and then make everyplace pkable

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think most of why people think this idea won't work is due to the quoted parts. As PK seems to be very unbalanced at the moment, right?

 

One spontaneous idea of mine would be to make certain PK maps a/d limited. So if you are overcapped you can't attack other players with lower range. This would more ore less guarantee a certain fairness as a/d gap between players isn't that high anymore.

 

At the same time I was thinking of making this shrine thing only be possible for a low a/d level range:

* As everyone can make alts it should be possible for everyone to participate in it.

* As a/d gap wouldn't be high, more balanced teams in that competition could be made.

* For taking part in PK fun one wouldn't need to level a char for ages, as low levels are made quick

* Classes do play a role again as with low a/d cap a tank would be beneficial, maybe summoners too.

* Certain criteria would be needed on top: So that no uber-powered mage would take part and maybe some restriction

on gear (no gear above human x).

=> make PK very bare pure, focus more on tactics, players, builds, and less on armor and items!

 

If I'm right that the main problem of PK are the quoted parts, then I think it's important to focus on some guidelines to ensure those problems are solved / don't occur in a suggestion to revive PK.

 

If there are further reasons why you (everyone) don't like to PK, then please list them all here and we can gather them in order to have a TO-DO list to look through when making suggestions. :)

 

Thank you very much for your input vinoveritas , I think it was very valuable indeed.

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There have been several discussions regarding PK in the past. All the issues with it have been adressed in great detail.

See these threads for starters:

http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=56888

http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=56911

http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=56908

http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=56910

http://www.eternal-lands.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=56909

 

As you can see many suggestions were made. Very little has changed. It seems fixing PK is not a priority for radu.

 

It needs a lot more than just your shrine thingy to revive PK and make it fun for a greater number of players.

 

Regarding your idea: it's never a good idea to force people do to something they don't want to do. Many players that focus on the mixing skills aren't interested in PK, at all. This suggestion wouldn't make them enjoy it more. If this was implemented only the people that like PK anyways would enjoy it. Hence the reward should be tailored to benefit them and not cripple anyone else's gameplay.

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Hey Finja,

 

thanks for pointing me out to those various links. (So far I have only read into the first, tbh)

Let me quote from there:

 

And I personaly think if we can come up with some reasonable balances to pk and presented them as a community to Radu, he would take the ideas seriously. Saying PK sucks and is dead wont help. But if we worked together on a few good ideas, I am sure he would listen to us."

And also:

 

But nothing wrong with coming up with new ideas, revisiting old ideas,trying to fix or atleast better an aspect of the game. Statements like yours is why Radu said what he said, and why its not being fixed. Because ppl arent showing they care to actualy fix it. Instead every idea gets shot down, flamed, subject changed and the posts get burried being useless. ofc just my opinion.

Having seen that since 2012 the situation obvs. didn't improve, I think that we should take those two quotes to our hearts!

 

It needs a lot more than just your shrine thingy to revive PK and make it fun for a greater number of players.

I agree with you that the shrine thing alone wouldn't solve that issue, still I want to keep that idea of a competition in mind for later when PK is more balanced again.

 

Regarding your idea: it's never a good idea to force people do to something they don't want to do.

Agreed as well. It never was my intention to punish others, but rather i wanted to give a motivation (reward) for participating in PK. Having said that I do see now that I have overseen the bad side effect this would cause on all non-PKers mainly due to the reason as they can't compete! (imbalanced PK)

 

And this is the point I want to target now. Is everyone fine to have that in this thread of rather start a new one?

 

My suggestion is to create (theoretically) with a new discussion a new PK situation from scratch which resembles the initial PK time when EL was a young game.

 

Idea: Start with a trial of low player PK (so literally everyone can participate).

Set a cap of OA level to participate. Everyone has roughly same amount of PP to spend within that cap. Thus players can try different builds and will only face other players within same PP range.

 

As every skill contributes to OA, one really has to decide what skill to use and how far (what level) one goes within that skill.

 

Second: Limit gear to only human 0. This more or less gives everyone a similar situation. (Please input of those having experience with gear for different builds, if human 0 really would serve all "classes" as ranger, summoner, mage, tank, fighter, etc ...)

 

Third: Take out any overpowered items like rc mines etc.

 

To realize the OA cap, one can think of a similar scenario like invance, but instead of iscal maybe td or kf or any other interesting map which is all PK then and will spawn people randomly on that map (no camping at spawn)

 

I think for now this was all. If you agree with that concept to start make a fair balanced pk again and you think we should start a new thread for this particular topic, then please do it or tell me to do it ;)

 

Kind regards

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There are already capped a/d arenas where everyone WHO IS INTERESTED could fight with main or special created alts on a more level playing field. Practice is that these arenas aren't used. Even the new tailoring daily, which once again awards FIGHTING xp, has not changed much and people rarely do it.

If you want to revive pk, start with providing a benefit to the players interested in pk in the first place. This has been done by organizing pk events with rewards in terms of gear and gc, and these events have had decent participation. However, these events are not part of the game-mechanism but player-organised.

As a game mechanism to award pk we used to have pki, but this was abused and has become meaningless, even more so now, when you can kill your own alts to boost you main's pki.

Many years ago KF was made non-drop to encourage pk, today that is the only location that is even used for it, with the possible exception of guild maps on magic days. Obviously this hasn't helped in the long run either.

 

I think there are two issues why pk is dead:

- Lack of interest

- Lack of benefit

 

In order to revive pk there has to be a benefit to the risk of going into a pk area. If it is just for the fun, then only the few people who now already bother to go into KF will participate and nothing changes. For 99% of the current characters in game, there is no benefit, just irritation if they run into the few active pk chars.

 

To make more people/characters interested they need:

- A fair chance with whatever character they want to use, not just a special created alt, but their main.

- A benefit of interest to players who do not normally pk.

 

The first condition seems impossible with current game mechanisms, at 150-ies a/d but non-fighter build my char doesn't stand a chance in pk even against players with much lower a/d. Creating an alt to pk makes no sense to me. Why take the effort.

 

The second part is the tricky part, since anything of interest I can think of is also wide open for abuse. So my challenge is:

Show me a benefit to MY MAIN that would entice me to step into a pk area that is not deserted.

As an example, think about the mercury in Nordcarn arena. Another failed attempt at reviving pk? Why isn't it working?!

 

I think the instance/invance idea could work, but not with the existing chars.

How about:

- You need 4 or more people to start it

- Everyone pays an entrance fee

- You all spawn with new chars (named as the entering main char) without gear but some unalocated xp and thus pickpoints on a copy of a map like Theli or KF (including no drop)

- You have a short grace period in which you can allocate your pickpoints and xp. Amount of xp depends on entrance fee paid (fixed tiers).

- The map contains bags in random places with gear and supplies, throughout the event new bags keep spawning

- At death you get a penalty (lose some xp?) and respawn somewhere else on the map. You get a limited number of lives.

- After a fixed time (e.g. 1 hour) or when all have used up their lives, whichever is shorter, your main ends up in the battle hall tavern area and the score is given based on kills and xp earned.

- Part of the entrance fee is given as award to the winners (or top 3, like 120%, 80%, 40%).

The main char of your choice gets the glory and possibly some gc, but this way there is a true level playing field and skill (and some luck) are more important.

 

I realize this idea will probably never get implemented since it would require quite some coding, but would be interested in hearing from others if the idea has merit.

Edited by Maxine

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There are already capped a/d arenas where everyone WHO IS INTERESTED could fight with main or special created alts on a more level playing field. Practice is that these arenas aren't used.

So far what i understood from those caps is that a/d gets lowered to that cap and what I had in mind was to make it only accessable (walk into) for players with a/d <= that cap.

It makes a huge difference if a 150 oa goes into there with p/c/whatelse maxed and a/d reduced to cap or if only real a/d capped players go there.

As I have suggested about I even would put the cap on OA levels not on a/d.

 

If you want to revive pk, start with providing a benefit to the players interested in pk in the first place.

This was exactly my intention in my first thread. As it appears I have overseen that it means a huge draw back for the mixers. So I think we all agree on how to make PK interesting by some sort of competition over a reward. Yet as stated in my last post, the more critical problem is to balance pk first!

 

As a game mechanism to award pk we used to have pki, but this was abused and has become meaningless, even more so now, when you can kill your own alts to boost you main's pki.

I agree pki is just a number and thus not a good reward.

 

To make more people/characters interested they need:

- A fair chance with whatever character they want to use, not just a special created alt, but their main.

- A benefit of interest to players who do not normally pk.

I suggested the alt version exactly for that reason as it can be made fair more easily. Once that concept works and more people do enjoy PK again we can think of transferring it onto higher levels (mains)

 

The first condition seems impossible with current game mechanisms, at 150-ies a/d but non-fighter build my char doesn't stand a chance in pk even against players with much lower a/d. Creating an alt to pk makes no sense to me. Why take the effort.

Because it's not too much effort to create a low OA level alt for PK ;) And if PK is balanced it surely is more fun as then tactics and stuff like that plays a more important role again.

 

The second part is the tricky part, since anything of interest I can think of is also wide open for abuse.

Please let us know what you have in mind. And also list why/how it can be abused, maybe we can find a way to prevent that :)

 

As an example, think about the mercury in Nordcarn arena. Another failed attempt at reviving pk? Why isn't it working?!

For the pure reason we have all mentioned now multiple times, as NCA doesn't have any caps, so PK will be unbalanced as high OA players easily can kill lower players, so people just go in for mercury only and without any intention to PK, thus no gear.

 

Kind regards

 

PS: what is bad about having a place you can only enter up to a certain OA for pure PK (competition about a benefit)?

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Capped arenas started out as only accessible by people under the cap, then nobody used them. However, this was before rule 5 was revoked. People still could make special purpose alts, and some did. Still no use.

 

I have no interest in making (and leveling) an alt for pk. Leveling an alt takes effort away from my main without benefit. You might think it is "not too much effort", I disagree. I have very limited playing time which I want to use for fun activities (with my main), not grinding a new special purpose alt.

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Capped arenas started out as only accessible by people under the cap, then nobody used them. However, this was before rule 5 was revoked. People still could make special purpose alts, and some did. Still no use.

We talk about two separate conditions here. Having a balanced PK and having a motivation (competition for reward) for PK. As long either of the two isn't met, there will be no PK in my opinion. Your example satisfies the first condition but not the latter - no motivation was there, hence didn't get used.

 

I have no interest in making (and leveling) an alt for pk. Leveling an alt takes effort away from my main without benefit. You might think it is "not too much effort", I disagree. I have very limited playing time which I want to use for fun activities (with my main), not grinding a new special purpose alt.

Sorry to say so, but I think that in this case you are one of the few this applies to. Seeing that many people have harvesting alts by now I think people in general do invest time into a sole purpose alt: Harvesting requires harv level, and also some items require knowledge (gc spend on alt) and some people even have mixing alts for lower essences or alike: exp goes into alt and not main.

 

My suggestion doesn't force everyone to have an PK alt, but gives everyone the chance to have one fairly easy when they want to have one. If one doesn't want one, all stays the same and the player can continue doing with the main whatever wanted.

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Capped arenas started out as only accessible by people under the cap, then nobody used them. However, this was before rule 5 was revoked. People still could make special purpose alts, and some did. Still no use.

We talk about two separate conditions here. Having a balanced PK and having a motivation (competition for reward) for PK. As long either of the two isn't met, there will be no PK in my opinion. Your example satisfies the first condition but not the latter - no motivation was there, hence didn't get used.

 

I have no interest in making (and leveling) an alt for pk. Leveling an alt takes effort away from my main without benefit. You might think it is "not too much effort", I disagree. I have very limited playing time which I want to use for fun activities (with my main), not grinding a new special purpose alt.

Sorry to say so, but I think that in this case you are one of the few this applies to. Seeing that many people have harvesting alts by now I think people in general do invest time into a sole purpose alt: Harvesting requires harv level, and also some items require knowledge (gc spend on alt) and some people even have mixing alts for lower essences or alike: exp goes into alt and not main.

 

My suggestion doesn't force everyone to have an PK alt, but gives everyone the chance to have one fairly easy when they want to have one. If one doesn't want one, all stays the same and the player can continue doing with the main whatever wanted.

 

 

You are forgetting something here: in the case of a harvest alt, you spend some time training it, but that's once, and you get benefit out of it almost immediately. So the time that goes into the alt , and the experience it gains, isn't lost, and the amount of experience is relatively unimportant to the main.

 

With your system, those who are interested would have to spend effort (and gc) repeatedly to have an alt in the proper a/d range, and those alts would not give any benefit during their training (or very little), nor give much use once they leave the range (and they will occupy even more names, and leading to even more of the ridiculous names we see already way too often)

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I actually have three alts, initially created to hold my old guilds, so originally barely leveled. I have also trained up a few bots, which in a sense a special purpose alts as well. None of these characters were ever intended or are used for pk. As revi pointed out, such alts are a completely different case than the single purpose alts you are proposing.

It is the concept of having to put a lot of effort into an ALT for pk, while I have a perfectly nice MAIN, is what bothers me. I doubt very much that I am the only one not going to bother to create and TRAIN special pk alts, this is possible now and not done.

My modification (in post #19) of your idea for an invance does fulfill both conditions of

- Level playing field (all start out with the same conditions).

- Benefit (gc) to the character of choice.

An instance/invance along those lines is similar to an idea that we tried several years ago, but then with existing characters. Having one-time use disposable characters (with same name as the character of choice) removes the boring tedious part of training a pk char.

I am not a pk-er and know for certain that no char I would spend months on training would ever be a match for a char from e.g. newhope or other pk-pros. However, spending an hour or few hours with a char that I can shape to my own desires in minutes but have to discard at the end, does sound like fun and is in fact something I am doing in another game.

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With your system, those who are interested would have to spend effort (and gc) repeatedly to have an alt in the proper a/d range, and those alts would not give any benefit during their training (or very little), nor give much use once they leave the range (and they will occupy even more names, and leading to even more of the ridiculous names we see already way too often)

I am not sure if we talk about the same OA range here. I don't talk of OA 100 alts, rather way lower ones. And to be fair gaining OA 30-40 wouldn't take too long.

I can see where your "repeatedly" comes in mind. I didn't want to suggest to always have an alt to level up to range X overcapping throwing away that alt just to make a new one. Rather I would make this OA capped PK zone the way that you dont gain XP there! pure PK no leveling. That way everyone can decide when he/she wants to proceed to the next OA range. During the training time you have the same benefit as with a normal char. You can drop rare items from monsters, you will get drop gc, you can do dailies (leveling+gc) ...

 

I totally agree with you that some of the alt names already are ridiculous and don't fit an RPG at all ... but this is not a problem caused by my suggestion but a problem of players being uncreative!

 

 

I actually have three alts, initially created to hold my old guilds, so originally barely leveled. I have also trained up a few bots, which in a sense a special purpose alts as well. None of these characters were ever intended or are used for pk. As revi pointed out, such alts are a completely different case than the single purpose alts you are proposing.

Don't get me wrong, but isn't leveling up and alt for making a bot also just one SINGLE purpose? Maybe this purpose means more to you than PKing but that is up to everyone him/herself then what values more to them. And of course those alts are completely different as they follow a different purpose ;)

 

It is the concept of having to put a lot of effort into an ALT for pk, while I have a perfectly nice MAIN, is what bothers me. I doubt very much that I am the only one not going to bother to create and TRAIN special pk alts, this is possible now and not done.

I can understand that you prefer to also PK with your main char and I have never said that I only want to have lower chars to PK. I said I want to start with lower chars as there the condition of "balanced PK" is easier to make than for the high level ranges already. If this concept works I said that we can then try to transfer that onto higher level chars.

 

My modification (in post #19) of your idea for an invance does fulfill both conditions of

- Level playing field (all start out with the same conditions).

- Benefit (gc) to the character of choice.

An instance/invance along those lines is similar to an idea that we tried several years ago, but then with existing characters. Having one-time use disposable characters (with same name as the character of choice) removes the boring tedious part of training a pk char.

I am not a pk-er and know for certain that no char I would spend months on training would ever be a match for a char from e.g. newhope or other pk-pros. However, spending an hour or few hours with a char that I can shape to my own desires in minutes but have to discard at the end, does sound like fun and is in fact something I am doing in another game.

Sorry Maxine I have totally overseen that part of your post. (I hope it was edited in later, or else I really should get some glasses ;) ).

To be frank i quite much like your suggested idea there. The random spawning bags with gear made me smile and reminded me of the "hunger games" somehow. I would suggestion in addition to that to make this gear not too high (otherwise things could get imbalanced again too much).

 

What I don't like so much is that the amount of XP depends on your fee you pay. Again players with much money will pay themselves the best starting position which makes this unattractive for new players. Earn your benefits (e.g. find the gear in bags) and not buy yourself a better position with money from the begin with.

 

Your suggestion of the benefit (gc in this case) is nice, but I can imagine we would need maybe an even stronger motivation for people to take part.

 

How would you balance this system for e.g. rangers, mages, summoners? what about essences for HEs etc. Is it possible to bring in stuff or does all have to be earned in there?

 

One down side which you have already mentioned yourself is that it a bit to implement ;). The entrance of x players and teleporting to map Y including having a non drop map, I assume that this can be done more easily as similar functions already exist. The creation of an char somehow already exists too (initial char creation or ants).

So out of the blue I wouldn't think it's that much unreal to realize it, yet I don't know and would like to hear some opinion from Radu or Learner or who else is involved ;).

 

Generally I think we have distilled now those 2 conditions we need in order to create a PK everyone can have fun in. Now it is our task to come up with ideas, and describe them in much detail as possible. ( I really would like to make a separate thread for that only containing the description of the idea, nothing else and hold the discussion in here ).

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