Why Full Looting Is Not Used Frequently.

Discussion in 'PvP Gameplay' started by G Din, Mar 9, 2014.

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  1. Kambrius

    Kambrius Avatar

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    I think the comparison of gear types are apples and oranges. From what I understand about UO (having not played it), it was largely a classless system (or at least archetypes from which classless play could proceed) whereas SWTOR, WoW, etc. were class-based system which coincides with your latter category of gear.

    Having a classless player use items that can be used by anyone probably warrants the type of stats associated with them since those can be enhanced by the investment of player skill which is what I am hoping for in SotA. The only difference that would cause variation is item quality based upon crafting quality (?). Thus, an emphasis on skill-based mechanics which to me sounds good. Understand that I do not like the concept of rare drops unless those rare drops are equivalent to something that is able to be crafted.

    Class-based play differentiates players mainly by level and therefore gear has to scale alongside it because the only progression that occurs is within that class category balanced against other classes and their respective gear. Thus you can't have a jedi using a blaster because that is not a possibility, so the only progression revolves around the gear type and level of the character. The only variation might be in similar items with different applications: offense vs. defense, PVE vs PVP. I think that's what invites the distinctions that UO and SotA wouldn't need because it goes a long way around to match up gear to skill by creating artificial categories (which is a problem due to skill tree mechanics as opposed to having a choice of learning or focusing on a skill from a trainer).

    It would be nice if gear was obtained mainly through crafting and dropped gear would be identical to crafted gear as if the mobs used the same rules as players in crafting/acquiring their items. Of course, folks would say, "Well people like shinies and need gear to set them apart from others." But if you have a population that is raiding a particular dungeon with a finite loot list, then a good percentage of that population will have the same item, so that would invalidate the "uniqueness" of gear.

    I would very much be interested in what makes a PVP enhancement or PVP enchantment that's being proposed and what necessitates it.

    Anyway you've probably read my proposal about having magic resources from PVP land make magic items as well as equal opportunity of partial loot with victor choice in both PVE and PVP so I won't go into that here and push that agenda.

    EDIT: man, I hope I presented that cogently.
     
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  2. G Din

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    Gear is Gear. Take away the classes in SWTOR and you then are reduced to increasing a skill to use a lightsaber (you can make it classless) Looking at the gear now in Ultima Online, it resembles what you would see in World of Warcraft. Multiple item properties and a greater gap in strength between an NPC weapons and one you loot off a dungeon boss.

    In SWTOR you level your character to Level 60 or whatever, unlocking abilities as u unlock levels.

    UO had skills and each skill could be raised from 0-100. You could think of it as level 0 to level 100 of that skill. Its all terminology. You aren't leveling a character, you are leveling a skill.

    So in essence, there is not much difference. Just in the way you term the development of the character.

    In SotA you will gain XP to earn skill pts to unlock levels within skills (leveling them) and unlocking abilities along the way.

    In SWTOR you use XP to Level, unlocking abilities along the way.

    Either way your are leveling something. Classes were made to just make it easier for players to follow a path in the development of their character.

    SWTOR you choose Jedi Knight and all your skills are predetermined for you.

    UO you had to choose your skills to make the class. I wanted a GM warrior. So I would have to have at least Swordsmanship, Tactics, Anatomy. You then had about 4 more skills to choose. Yes, you could make a hybrid easier, adding in magery or hiding etc. But the basis of the class skills for a melee warrior (swords,tactics,anatomy) had to be in there.

    The advantage of a classless system is the ability to spread skill pts around, therefore, you can have multiple variations develop using those skills.

    Having classes or not , has no impact on the gear. You will have skills and abilities to use in either system.
     
  3. G Din

    G Din Avatar

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    Right, you take away the carrot on the stick that so many veterans of MMO's are accustomed to and you risk people losing interest (if gear is their main reason for playing)

    Even the earliest RPG's (Bard's Tale, Wasteland etc) always had stronger weapons as you progressed. And you kept updated your gear to get further in those games. Its nothing new.

    However, UO was the first to make gameplay less dependent on gear. GW2 has also done this. The difference between its gear at the top is not a big deal. I've been playing GW2 on my warrior with the same gear I acquired 1 yr ago. I am still competitive and love the fact all I need to worry about are cometics or cool skins.

    In UO, I used GM gear for 2 yrs. Never stressing about gear grinding. If I picked Vanq sword, I'd use it (till it was looted lol), but it never bothered me if all my armor was just GM and not all Invulnerable.

    Get your gear, hit max level, and then just enjoy the content. Thats how it used to be in UO and how it is in GW2.
     
  4. Kambrius

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    Question: If the world map is not going to be split into level zones (as RG maintained), then what's the point of leveled gear for PVE? I mean, assuming that skill leveling is to occur instead of character leveling, doesn't that mean that anything that drops isn't going to be that overpowered that it can't afford to be looted especially if carrying such an item into a PVP zone? So what would be the big deal if there is full loot or partial loot? There would have to be something so exceptional of any PVE drop to warrant the excuse that it's off limits to be looted in PVP. So I still don't get it when looking at it from that angle.

    There was the point made where there would be some sort of token system to get cosmetic stuff in PVP but why not just make it that way for PVE drops as well? In fact, let that be the PVE drop -- separate color palettes or texture skins for PVE and PVP with all gear being more or less equal but weighted slightly differently. That way if I get killed in PVP land or PVE land, then the black armor set I was wearing gets looted which is no different than the default color armor set I bought easily from a player vendor. The only thing I lose is my favorite color or texture skin. Personally, I wouldn't be happy with that particular compromise, but anything to keep the PVE-PVP gap small is a step in the right direction.

    I will say if they do fall back to doing Level zones, I'll be highly disappointed since that's the game I do not want to play.
     
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  5. rune_74

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    As a purely PVP choice I can see why you would not want gear to decide a battle, but some fun in the actual adventuring comes in finding loot and new items. If all you can find is another iron sword at the bottom of the dungeon why bother with the dungeon?
     
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  6. Kambrius

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    To advance the story; discover clues/secrets/recipes/puzzle pieces; to get gold otherwise not made from crafting/trading? PVE can't be limited to getting weapons and armor drops especially for a story-centered game. There has to be substance in the form of content not loot lists. At least I'd expect that from an LB game that's supposed to be innovative.

    I'm not a pure PVP player. I fall under casual PVP or RP-PVP so I'm not averse to PVE at all. I just want it to be more meaningful than a item grab just as I want PVP to be meaningful and rewarding as well.
     
  7. Akeashar

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    From what I picked up on the 'Why Not Full Loot' post from Chris, the challenges on the PvE / Storyline side are going to increase. As you push further, you get pushed back, and you might need to pause to gear up some, and work on your skills before pushing forward again. I know the incremental increases in the mainline Ultima games made a lot of difference, going from leather to chain to plate to Mystic and I'd expect much the same from this as we get closer to the 'shadowy figure behind it all' (spoiler! Its Lord British's beard! It's teaming up with Iolo's beard, DarkStarr's Soul Patch and Tassilo's moustache to take over New Britannia!)
     
  8. Dadalama

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    a wound is a wound... some weapons generate more force and make wounds deeper but after a certain point it quits mattering. Usually what kills you is blood loss. Which you can die from blood loss with just a Glasgow smile, easily. So there's really no point in having huge divisions of damage between weapons in the first place. A good sword is a sword can cut and all that other jazz.

    What if the enchanted stuff was things like durability? or odd little effects? Otherwise the difference between a scimitar and an arming sword, is just reach is just reach and focus on the drawing cut vs the standard cut? You could have tons of weird and awesome equipment but it would all have it's uses weather you were "level 1 or 100".
     
  9. UnseenDragon

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    Well, a person did help and protect me for a bit, but then the minute he was gone I was killed again. I just found the whole experience unpleasant and found it odd that someone (it probably was one person) was getting so much fun out of ruining another person's experience. The fact that he could take everything I had (which was quickly very little) seemed to increase his incentive to kill me over and over.
    Even when I played WoW and was decent at PvP (I was on an open PvP server), I always felt guilty after killing someone out in the open. I thought about how much I disliked dying and how it must have made them feel. Hence, I just don't like the experience of random PvP.
    Their comments about how PvP may be wrapped into the story is interesting, and I'm curious where that goes. In the same way that city sieges and such might be fun to do.
     
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  10. PrimeRib

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    I was always amazed at how honorable people were in WoW. Especially after playing lineage2. High levels would often ignore me. I remember a high level knocking my off my horse to fight his friend around my level. After I kept beating his friend, he just let me go.
     
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  11. Betamox

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    My concern is that in the megapost, Chris talks about using gear to incentivize adventuring while also expanding the difference between junk and good gear. It might not be as bad as WoW, but gear will have a significant impact on combat.
     
  12. Owain

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    MAY have a significant effect, or it may be entirely negligible. It is too soon to say until we get our hands on it, and can test it.
     
  13. Orladin

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    I can agree with that. I was actually few and far between on WoW when I came across high levels that just wtf 1shot pwned low levels.
    I can actually count on 1 hand on my 2 mains being attacked by high levels through their 1-70 grind (71-79 didn't count cause 10 levels was negligible)
    Literally 1 hand and that would cover a Mage and a Warrior both Alli side so it was 10/1 odds in population.
     
  14. Akeashar

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    On the flip side, happened to me and the players that I levelled with a lot to the point where we quit the Oceania PvP server we'd been playing on and moved to the PvE one. Everyone knew that Stranglethorn was hell for ganking, but a few of the other zones that freshly capped BC players ganked lowbies in really surprised me that they'd take their time out to kill and corpse camp there.
     
  15. Arradin

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    I can count on one hand the amount of times i could finish ONE quest without being ganked by people who could ( and did ) kill me in less than 2 seconds, so please.

    Please consider this; in WoW you have NO looting, and peopel STILL grief , gank, Corpscamp etc.. even in the very early days when you would get Dishonorable kills, people STILL did it.
    Now IMAGINE how it would be with open loot and people acually would get something from it.

    Nah, it aint gonna work, thats how easy it is.
     
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  16. Acrylic 300

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    Unless NO looting was the cause (not saying it was). It's plausible though that if someone has to make an investment to win they may have second thoughts. Without an investment it is a simple choice for those annoying player types. A larger investment would also slow down the frequency of these encounters, unless a player is losing and returning unprepared for a repeated loss.

    The extra time it takes to prepare will also give the losing side a little time to cool off. It is my belief that at least a few people who have been repeatedly killed, allowed it to happen out of rage. Not always though, if you cant control where you spawn and it's being camped that is a faulty program design.
     
  17. Arradin

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    No.

    In a system like wow, where you are GUARANTEED to win based on levels, the investment needed to kill such players would make absolutely no impact on the decision to Grief/harrass/PK.

    But my theory is also the same in games like Ultima Online ( and therefor Sota, which isnt the same, but 'close enough' ). Here are some examples of Zero Risk/Guaranteed win vs preperation/investment:

    • Naked Thieves. Either you get something and run away and get caught, losing nothing, or you fail and die, losing nothing. Purely griefing, no Investment or Risk involved ( Solution: Make a permanent drawback to thievery , where you lose enough karma to the point where you are permanently criminal.
    • Naked Mages. You only need a couple of each reagent to go naked into a newbie heavy area to kill someone and get enough loot to cover whatever regs you carried and alot more.
    • Etc.
    In the online world, people are getting bored with doing the same thing over and over, and more and more people are becoming extreemely hostile against eachother online, which reaches far beyond Gaming ( harrassment on social media, stalking etc, you get my point ).

    I strongly believe that such behavior is getting worse by every year, and whilst it worked in UO in the early days of the internet gaming, i do not think it will work in todays society without some SERIOUS Drawbacks beyond what we ever saw in UO.

    Even UO went away from full loot pvp ( Opening trammel ) due to the large amount of people who were leaving the game. So many people want to claim trammel made people leave, but i belive that wasnt the case.

    I am not open to experiment with it on SOTA, because i really think it would kill the game fast, and i have put in way too much money into helping making this game great to just toss the dices like that.
    There are already several open loot games that FAILED or had to steer away from it, why dont all you pro-fullloot people realise those simple facts?

    UO Is alive after all this years, but both the American and the Japan version of the HARDCORE full loot servers have been completely dead for many years.
    IF it really was a winning and working concept, those servers would be FILLED, as so many pvpers here claim that it worked in UO. Well it doesnt. There is the proof.
     
  18. High Baron O`Sullivan

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    is everything.
    but guize, full loooooot
     
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  19. Acrylic 300

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    SotA is thinking of making a mandatory ransom loss. If I am naked, I still lose a set amount of gold to the winner.

    It sounds like the winner will always get something from the loser.

    My concern is allowing players with no funds to participate in any form of PvP. There should be no choice to win without a minimum investment.
     
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  20. monxter

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    This reminds me of a friend of mine, he played WoW since the beginning, and was the player with the highest amount of dishonorable kills at one point. I don't know if it was just server-wide or all EU servers combined, but he was grinding those dishonorable kills all day. I often used to watch him play. when he griefed the s*** out of lower level players... This one time he was soloing lowbies in Booty Bay for hours, until another lvl 60 came to rescue them... but he totally owned that guy. He was forced to retire from griefing for 15 mins when several 60's came around though, but he'd get back to business asap.
     
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