"Games must kill their kings!" Raph Koster (UO lead Designer, SWG Art Director)

How many GMs do I have?
How many bug reports have I made?
What's my total contribution to this game?

You seem to have me confused with someone else.

The fact of the matter is, I want this game to be successful, and it's obviously not going to do that if we only have a few hundred people with 100's of GM"s running around.

EDIT:

I'm going to proof that this is ruining the game.

You have 194 GM's. Yet you claim that new people show up all the time and compete with you. Essentially you're saying that they can "catch up" and be competitive. Well, how about you put your money where your mouth is? Delete your account and start a new character. Show us how easy it is. Show us how non-important your 194 GM's are. Show us how you could take it or leave it, it doesn't matter to you.

I don't expect you to do this. But I do expect for other people reading this to understand that when someone with 194 GM's constantly shows up in any conversation about game balance solely to make the point that regardless of anything else no one can take away that power...perhaps we have a problem, and the problem is that if I was were just starting this game today and I knew that it required endless playing time for over a year to get 194 GM's, then I'd also know that I will NEVER catch up to the elite characters in this game.

That's why I'd never delete my account, but that's also why I'd never join the game in the condition it's in right now.

Something has to change. We need to develop a solution where 194 GM guy has less power, and is closer to the "norm". We need to find a way to restrict the impact of playing time.

Now this might be against the Portalarium business model in a number of ways, but as I see it until this happens we're not going to move this game forward. There's simply too much competition in the MMO space to believe that the WOW business model is going to work here. Even WOW is losing players because of all this competition.

So the idea that our little team of developers is going to be able to create endless content for people that are grinding out endless levels is fool hardy to say the least.

 

" I don't have a lot of empathy for people that have 100's of GM's. They've made this game worse."

Is this statement true? Hmmm, I have helped 59 people do the phoenix quest, I have answered TONS of questions people have asked me, I have given away free gear to many players, I have mentored many many people, I have leveled people up. I make bug reports, I have pointed things out to the devs, I have even answered many bug reports before the devs have about things that are not really a bug. For example, if you look about the sow seed skill, many people did not know its the seed you have to drag onto the skill bar and not the skill. I can test high level things that lower level people cannot and report the bugs. Pretty sure reporting bugs helps the game.

 

You're confusing what I was responding to by making a straw man you can attack. Please stop doing that.

The focus of this thread is about game design, not your or my personal impact on the game. The current game design encourages players to endlessly grind out levels by rewarding them with more and more power at the expense of new players. That turns off new players and either makes them quit or stops them from playing in the first place.

I literally want to stop playing this game because of this horrible conversation.

I have no empathy for players that have years of XP stored up, and would rather see the game tank than have their overall power reduced. That's what you're arguing against.

BTW, there used to be other players here that reached level 100+, helped people, did all kinds of positive things too. They got burnt out on the lack of content and quit, or now they play casually. But they created this situation using the same arguments you are. They were warned, they didn't get it, and here we are.

 

A mmo that expect people to grind and put in effort, wow totally new concept. I guess we should just start out pre leveled, and doing all content on day 1, yep, sounds like a way to make it better. I'm sure people will want to play something that offers 0 improvement of oneself for years and years.

 

okay, Mr 123 GM's Chiming in here, We have worked since persistence to get where We are, grinded countless hours because we are able to, Not because we exploit or have some kind of advantage over new players, New players coming in are always going to be behind in level thats just how it is. And your whole basis feels jaded anyway, i and Mac know a player who started in november and is Higher level Than me, Because they Grinded it out and didnt complain about how unfair it is because of how far behind they were. Like i have said countless times i am all for helping new people, And wanting a fair balanced game but why should our progress be belittled because a few people complain on the forums at how unfair it is to new players to be greeted with an insurmountable task of catching higher level people. Fact is if the only reason they are playing the game is to catch us ''so called elites'' then they shouldnt be playing at all. PvP is but one aspect of this game.

 

You guys are using alot of extremes to get your point across, it comes off kind of skewed. There is sure a middle road between "killing the kings" and punishing all effort, right ?

 

Speaking as someone who worked their rear off to get to lvl 94, its a tough grind, and yea I'm a bit behind some of my friends. But thats half the fun catching them. Both Mac and Alex and heck even Devil have taught me lots of things from how to set up my deck, to helping me with gear and other things to make me a better player. I have played MANY mmos, and I hate to say it most of them you have to WORK to get to the upper levels, and yes it is a grind. Face it you just wont get away from that. But the problem I see here is, people are compairing themselves to some who worked 100's of HOURS getting to where they are, complaining about them exploiting etc etc when I know for a FACT they have not. If yall just shut the hell up, stop trolling and whining and stick your nose to the grind you'd probably be up with them. Personally I know what I'm doing, yep you got it Decorating my house for Halloween, and killing stuff, lots of stuff. Oh right and planting lots of planting... I should also point out at no such time do I flag pvp, nor will I EVER flag pvp. I am a PVE player only and see the xp bonus for flagging pvp as an issue. YOU SHOULD NEVER GET XP for doing something PVE, but get a bonus doing it flagged.

 

Elitist don't help people, and I just get angry when someone says I'm ruining the game, or I should be brought down to their level. Are only they allowed to voice their opinion now, and mine don't matter?

 

Sorry I was logged into the wrong account but THIS is me just so ya know.
Nemesis (ingame)

 

I'm with
@Ahuaeynjgkxs
on this one.

You are talking extremes and the battle is lost or won in the middle ground.

This is because Ralf in the OP quote is making a generalisation and as such it is good advice but always wrong. This because context is king. Within context any generalisation falters and fails.

Slither.io is the perfect PvP game. In its context all the PvP tropes works. You die you lose all gains. The best way to gain is through taking the loot of a dead body. The only way to die is through PvP. The smallest can kill the largest but the largest has a clear advantage.
Etc.
but it is also an extremely simple game, meant for 10-20 min entertainment. Hence why it works.

But in a game with progression counting in hundreds of hours then "kill the king" is usually a terrible idea unless the "king" makes that choice.

just look at the mechanic we have in this game which is supposed to handle power creep - Decay - it is one of the most hated systems in the game. BUT it doesn't stop the power gamers at all.
Those hurt most are those in the middle as usual.

It is that context again.

 

I don't agree with the writer of the article. If you eradicate the progress you've made in a game continously, especially in a mmo game, then you take away the player's
motiviation to continue to play the game. It is in the nature of human's to keep what they have reached or achieved.

But there's a simple solution for the problem with the 24h/365 "Über-players". Build in hard cap's, or restrictions of how many GM's a character can have etc. but do not forget to
adress the ego of a player. Be aware that you might loose those hardcore players -you can probably adress the problem by giving them other rewards for the time they invest
into the game. Rewards that do not affect the balance and do not widen tha gap between them and the casual gamers.

Such rewards could be easy made in a game like SOTA. Thinking of unique items, housing stuff, titles, item-patterns things that make a avatar more individual and unique etc.

 

This is how wikipedia describes a "game"

Everyone in this game has a different version of each of those, which they have individually made up. Some people, myself included, lack a few or even all of them.

It's described as a sandbox, but really it's a beach. Sota is like the framework of a game, which you can use to play your very own make-believe game.

Competitiveness is completely forsaken, in pvp or pve because clever play is indistinguishable from brute forcing. The inherent imbalance from infinite progression will sabotage nearly any form of challenge the developers attempt to add to the game.

You can show me anecdotes of people who chose to brute force this game recently, for which I applaud them for achieving the only meaningful "goal" shared by the majority. But I caution that their existence has no bearing on whether your average gamer will want to buy/hype this game.

 

Reminds me of what just happen in Sept. on the Game: Eve. This Game does allow to destroy the wealthy.

"The total theft was in the neighborhood of 1.5 trillion ISK which translates to more than $20,000" in real money.

In this case 14 years of work as i understand of a Guild to build up an Empire is destroyed. https://www.techspot.com/news/71206-biggest-heist-eve-online-history-led-real-world.html

Opinions are very divided about this possibility. At the end i think it is again very close to the Full Loot Discussion we had. How much Freedom to you give a other player to interfere with other Gamers.


Well in this Case of my Example - One Player is banned, the one who lost his Empire as he then made real time world threats - but also a "Restart". Now new Gamers can build up again what is gone and become the strongest.

 

just to say:

i am in between Mac and BDF with my opinion - both are right in some way

and second: because of imbalance i cannot PvP, although i would like to.
But then it is maybe because i am not able or willing to seriously work on character development, but jost play casually.
I think even a serious casual gamer who played constantly for a year should be able to PvP.
If i watch my skills, i will not even in the next year be able to seriously PvP, because of what the measures are.

So maybe i'm then not seriously enough to PVP? Maybe, i just want to be able to defend me, i just want to explore and in the case of i want to defend me and don't have the situation i actually have. Encounter - 1shot - end.

to me this " But too much inequality leads to stagnation and centralism, to loss of freedom." is true.
It already leads to stagnation for me.

@Mac2 i dont want to offend you, that was never my intention, i know you are kind and help people, answer questions etc...

 

In UO there was a continual comming and going of Players. On the one hand there was a constant flow of new players, on the other hand Vets left the game. But there was a saying that "you never leave forever".

I think the main reason for that, was a very player skill orientated skill system, and a very clear crafting system. As a new player or a returning veteran, it was easy to catch up. There where players who developed from noob to a PvP master in 2-3 Month, and where able to kill old PvP veterans. (without 12h a day skill grinding)

This lead to a environment, where everything was constantly changing. There where situations when one guild was domionating the battlefield for weeks, got stomped in the ground within days by a completely new PvP guild.

So i totally agree to what the artikle is saying.

Further than that: Sota is an RPG. In my world, RPG's are the simulation of a fantasy world with in its world logic rules. I do not understand a 194gm char. What is he? Is he the Grand wizzard in the honored shool of all the magic, Headmaster of the "all the weapons" council, and leader of aunt marrys legendary cooking shool?

 

I wonder what the current measurments for PvP are, do you have any indications about that to share ?

 

For me personally SOTA should have a hard skill cap and multiple character slots so people can have alts with different skill sets, just like virtually every other game in the genre. Just don't get the "soft cap and everyone can do everything" model at all. Not only can it lead to huge imbalances in the population but am sure will adversely affect things like the player driven economy thats so touted in this game. If everyone can do everything and make everything where is the motivation to play collaboratively or trade ?

Really odd design choice imho.

 

only vague, but if i eamine some chars or read what they do and what they write about crits, i can say i have half the HP, and do 25% of their damage if i even damage them, ya i know about airshield and such...
My experience is, i am strong for my level, but i think i need to level a lot to be competetive. I'm willing to do so and i am patient - would be no Problem if it takes another year - but otherwise what sort of challenge i then have in the Ruins and Shardfalls?
What i dislike the most is, and what i neglect to do is skilling Trees only to be resistant. This Design let me completely refuse PvP.
I just dont want to skill things i dont want to use. I can life with the fact that i then cannot kill secific Mobs like Trolls, but to be then not competetive in PvP is bummer for me.