Q3 2015 Schedule Update

I have a question regarding roving encounters:

Will we also get ambient animals on the overland map like deer, rabbits, wisps (would be cool at night), birds flying by etc.? Or will we just see monsters and NPCs?

In some of the earlier videos there were also ambient animals walking around on the old overland maps and I think that this looked really great and added a lot to the atmosphere.

 

The new schedule looks great, thanks for the update Darkstarr!

 

Control points can be camped by pvp people by sitting in-scene and not capturing it, forcing others who may be pvp flagged to enter to capture it, while pve people can just fight the monsters and pass.

Thats the way it looks like its going to be, currently. Pvp vs pvp and pve vs pve. And im cool with whatever

 

So if PVP players control a scene, then non-pvp folks get a free pass through a control point. There are no PVE mobs to fight if it's controlled by PVP players.

 

At the risk of segregation, this is where instancing can perhaps be a solution. If you are flagged Open PvP, you only enter the PvP-only version of the CP. If not, you enter the regular instance of the CP. There are likely lots of complications around that, such as breaking up Parties, but they also haven't finalized party rules when there's a mix of Open PvP / non-PvP players.

 

I will be very interesting to see what they decide to do.

But if you have a control point that can be bypassed easily by being non-pvp, then it's not much of accomplishment to be pvp and take over a control point. This is the exact same reason that people that go into a shardfall have to accept pvp - because otherwise it's pointless.

 

Thanks Starr, I see this is the last chance to melt items.
"if you have been waiting to melt down add-ons, this is your chance to do so"

I know there was talk about the stretch goals and if the stretch goal wasn't met we could melt the items. Does this mean the stretch goals would be closing as well or that if we purchased them they are now locked to our account regardless?

I'm happy with the stretch goal items that I have though I would change the viking boat to the row boat given the opportunity.

 

It would be equally pointless if you can simply "walk around".

 

Yes, I agree. Control Points in general would require a meaningful and compelling reason to make players wish they could use the control points. So maybe there is a zombie invasion going on if you take "the long way" and you run the risk of getting caught up in that. Btw, random scenes are kind of pointless if you can just "run past everything in them and exit the scenes.

So yes, everything would have to have a reason for it to work the way it does - everything would have to work in concert to compel players to use or not use control points.

 

I don't think being unable to enter a scene would be the natural solution from a role-playing POV though. I'd support the ability for a guild that has taken a control point to charge a toll, or something like that. If the player doesn't want to pay a toll, he has to either fight his way through or go the long way around.

 

First of all, I never meant to suggest they couldn't enter the scene, I meant to suggest they should have to accept pvp if they do. But I LOVE your idea of allowing PVP players to tax players to cross through the scene, I think that's fantastic - especially if the players get to determine how much the tax is.

 

And then there's a motive for another guild to defeat them and take over the control point, if they think the tax is too high.

It also creates a motive for them to keep the tax affordable -- otherwise not many people would pay it, and they'd lose money. It could also theoretically be something other than gold. ("Get us some shrubberies!")

 

If you are not flagged Open PvP, you will enter the non-PvP version of the instance and have to take down the waves of mobs / siege. In both cases, PvP and PvE have to do this. PvP simply has an additional element of facing other potentially hostile PvP players who want control or want the siege to continue and thus block passage. They can balance mob number and difficulty accordingly in both modes.

As long as the toll is RP based and limited to a single instance, that should be fine. Putting a mechanism in place to enforce is going to be complex as there are may be many edge cases to cover because of instancing. Group A has a toll in Instance #1. Group B floods #1 causing instance #2 to be created, where there are no Group A members and thus no toll. And that's just a simple example. Then you get into other complex logic and edge cases if you now want control status to persist across instances.

 

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about once the scene is captured by PVP players, that scene should be flagged as pvp. If you want to take it back over and flag it as PVE again, you should have to fight in pvp OR wait for the mobs to show back up again and take it over themselves, thus re-flagging it as PVE.

The default for control points will obviously be PVE. But what's the point of taking over a control point if you like pvp? That's what I'm saying. What are going to do just sit around and watch PVE guys walk through the captured scene? Or worse, will the PVE guys just go into another scene that is not PVP? Because that's essentially bypassing the risk reward mechanics entirely. Again, what's the point of taking a control point if you're pvp? It just seems like pvp gets the shaft in every instance because the game is designed for PVE first and PVP is secondary.

 

That would be cool, although, to the extent that there are animals on the map, I'd think that players would want to be able to be drawn into an encounter with them also -- like, if there are deer, people would want to be able to hunt them. I don't know if you can call that ambient anymore.

 

You know this will never happen since you are now forcing the PvP playstyle on others, not by their choice. Unlike a Shardfall PvP scene where it is optional to enter, a CP is not optional if you want to pass through it. Forcing them to flag themselves PvP is a non-consensual act, and we've beaten that dead horse to oblivion.

You are too narrowly focused on forcing PvP on others. To answer your question "what's the point of taking over a control point if you like pvp?" Use your imagination and propose something else other than non-consensual PvP. PvP is not getting the shaft. You know very well I'm a huge proponent of it and want it to be as dangerous as possible in this game. But perhaps players aren't creative enough to suggest brand new ideas vs. treading over old ones (sheep to the wolves) that are *yawn* boring and discussed ad nauseam.

 

I didnt say they capture it, you can camp in a scene without capturing it. If PvE people capture it then they can pass through. If they arent flagged PvP they dotn have to worry about the PvP folk. If your flagged PvP, theny ou have to worry about other PvP folk camping the scene.

Theres a bit of a road up through veritas pass before actually arriving at the capture point, its plenty of room for PvP gangs to camp without having to deal with the primary PvE encounter

 

I'm not proposing non-consensual pvp. I'm not in favor of that.

I'm saying that if I made the game I'd make control points captureable for pvp and while pvp controlled it if you wanted to get through the control point you'd agree to pvp. If you didn't want to agree to pvp you'd have one of two options remaining. 1) Go around the control point taking the "long way" on the map. Yes this would require a retooling of some of the map. 2) Wait until the control point was no longer controlled by pvp players.

I don't understand why this is confusing to anyone. I also believe that the developers have hinted towards this very thing over the last two years. But we'll have to see what happens between now and launch.

 

It's not confusing to anyone. It's exactly as you described: forcing someone to engage in PvP to reach their destination as Control Points are the only way to get to the other side. There are very few exceptions to reach where you want to go by any other means. Hilt is likely the most critical CP as it essentially divides Novia in two.

The only other alternative is via Lunar Rifts and those are going to be very few and far between and there isn't a 1:1 correlation between Rift and Regions bounded by CPs. Also, they don't operate on-demand as you have to abide by its lunar cycles and again that's assuming you have a Rift on the other side of that CP which is not guaranteed.

Your suggestion to redesign the map to accommodate turning CPs into Forced PvP zones is essentially asking for a redesign of CPs. If CPs don't by their very definition maintain control...what use is it? And forcing players to wait until PvP players have left the CP? Seriously?

It's quite likely CPs will be under PvP control nearly constantly. If you've played Tabula Rasa, you'd know that CPs were under constant attack and had to be attended to nearly 24x7. You only had a 15 minute breather in between waves of attacks. I'm not sure why you're harping on CPs being Forced PvP scenes when you already have Shardfalls.

EDIT: In any case, thread thoroughly derailed (again). Perhaps a kind mod can move all these posts to the PvP thread